東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Preface/Prologue: Mountain of Faith

𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒓'𝒔 𝑭𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅:
Hello again all. I go by That-Which-Isn't and what follows is my translation of the sixth book of Asagihara Shinobu's こちら秘封探偵事務所 or "Welcome to the Hifuu Detective Agency." If you’ve been following the stories thus far why not poke around the rest of this site? There’s a theme song for these works by Akatsuki records to be found along with other stories and links to merch. Even if you don’t read Japanese, most of the site works well through automatic translation.

This book comprises the Mountain of Faith arc and is again free of much in the way of objectionable content, although it does deal extensively with the death of a character's parents as a major plot element.

As far as translation caveats there are a few this time. This book spends a lot of time going into Shinto mythology and while it doesn't go particularly deep it is going to bring up a few words over and over again. I've listed a few of the mythological figures and events who will be important below for easy reference:

The Transfer of the Lands (国譲り) was an important event in Japan’s mytho-historical ancient past in which the rulership of all lands passed from the earthly divine spirits or 𝑘𝑎𝑚𝑖 to the heavenly gods or 𝑎𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑠𝑢𝑘𝑎𝑚𝑖. This event, described in the 𝐾𝑜𝑗𝑖𝑘𝑖, is the basis of Japan’s imperial family’s claim to power.

Takeminakata: An earthly god of wind, water, agriculture, hunting and warfare. The main inspiration for Kanako's character. Historically, he opposed the takeover of the earthly realm by the heavenly gods and challenged Takemikazuchi to a contest of strength. He then proceeded to lose so badly he had to flee to the land of Suwa and beg for his life. This clash of deities was the mythical origin of sumo wrestling

Takemikazuchi: A heavenly thunder and sword god tasked with conquering the earthly realms. Does not appear in this story but was supposedly able to humiliate Takeminakata and crush his arm with ease.

Yasakatome: Takeminakata's wife and one of the deities venerated at the Suwa Grand Shrine, which is a real place. There is almost no surviving information about her, sadly. She is thought to have probably been one of native gods of the Suwa region.

Mishaguji: The Mishaguji were ancient gods or nature spirits worshiped in the Suwa region prior even to the mythological origins of Shinto. Sources disagree as to their exact nature. They may have been gods with individual personalities, they may have been personifications of nature, they may have been unseen monsters thought to be responsible for diseases and earthquakes, or they may have been non-personified collections of spiritual power similar in concept to the idea of mana. They may have been different things at different times or in different places. For the purposes of this story they are usually depicted as nature spirits if you can trust the words of the people talking about them.

Finally one last word regarding the word 'shrine.' There are a lot of things in Shintoism that get translated as shrines in English. A ℎ𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑛 or main hall is the main building of a shrine wherein the divinity is housed. That gets called a shrine in English. The ℎ𝑎𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛 or worship hall is where ceremonies, oration and offerings are made. It's usually smaller and right in front of the ℎ𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑛, but sometimes it's a separate building. It gets called a shrine a lot too. Sometimes you'll have an altar inside a shrine which houses the object to which a kami is bound. If this altar has doors on it, it will tend to get called a shrine too. Finally the whole collection of buildings put together is often collectively referred to as a shrine. This means you can have a shrine in a shrine next to a shrine at the shrine. I've tried to write the story in such a way that it's clear what's being talked about, but prepare to see the word 'shrine' come up a lot.

With that warning in place, I will now step back and let the narrator guide you through the rest of the story. I thank you for reading, and hope that you enjoy the story to come.

𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒖𝒆
A day in Gensokyo is shorter than the days we had been used to in the Scientific Century.

A day here begins when the sun rises and ends when it sets. Back in Kyoto, bathed in the glow of electric lights, the border between night and day was much weaker. Many businesses operated 24 hours a day and those that didn't were mostly the sort that operated only at night, enabling a nocturnal lifestyle. Here in Gensokyo, just as the lands outside of the village were the domain of youkai, so too was the night the time of youkai, when only the most powerful or eccentric humans would dare to be out and about.

Gensokyo has lights of its own that shine in the night, of course, but they wouldn't have held a candle to the blinding illumination of Kyoto. Back in the Scientific Century, the night had been illuminated to the point that it no longer held any terror. Here, although the moon seemed brighter and shone with a light that would have been impossible for the empirical minds of the world I had come from to categorize, there was a long history of darkness being something people had feared. Actually being here and seeing the depths of Gensokyo’s mysterious and foreboding night was a far different experience than reading about such things in history books.

In other words, the advancement of scientific civilization in the time Renko and I had come from had operated toward the goal of prolonging the day, to the point where night was nearly non-existent. One ongoing, eternal now of commerce and industry. Thinking back on that world from our perspective here in Gensokyo, it almost seems like the past two decades of my life had been lived as one continuous, restless day. When one slept in the Scientific Century, they did so thinking of all of the things they had not yet done and all the things left for them to do tomorrow. The continuous workday of the eternal now was never-ending.

I mention all of this to make just one point: It may seem like it has been a long time since I last wrote one of these records. Indeed, looking at the calendar I see that it had been over two years since the last incident, the Sixty Year Cycle Great Barrier Incident, making this Gensokyo's 122nd season.

You may ask how I could have let these records sit for this long without addendum. The answer to that question has two parts. The first is that days are short in Gensokyo, as I mentioned above, and the two years that had passed us by since that incident sped by in a blur. The second is that it had been an extremely peaceful two years, a period of calm and prosperity that seemed remarkable even to the people of this world. After all the commotion of our first two years here, the next two passed without anyone trying to perform any radically disruptive nonsense. Gensokyo's 119th season, which saw three separate incidents over its course, seemed to have been a major anomaly.

That is, of course, not to say that nothing happened at all in those two years. There were various small happenings, some of which even involved the Hifuu Detective Agency in that period, but they were brief excitements, unworthy of their own record. Perhaps someday I'll tell you about them. For now though I would like to tell you about something bigger. I would like to relate the story of the events that took place in the autumn of Gensokyo's 122nd year.

—

I should mention right off of the bat that this will not be the record of an incident. This is the story of how a new power appeared in Gensokyo, and the impact that their presence had on the world. In some respects it is similar to the Night Parade of One Hundred Oni Every Three Days or even the Eternal Night Incident in that this new power established their existence and declared their presence with a disruptive action that compelled the realm's incident-resolvers to confront them, but unlike those cases, this time the newcomers did so merely by the consequence of their existence, not through any intentional action to either make waves or change the nature of the world.

So you may ask then, what exactly did these newcomers, the priestess and goddesses of the Moriya Shrine do to cause such disruption?

To put it simply, they invaded. This is the story of Gensokyo's first religious war, a contest for dominance between two shrines. Of course, this is also a story of the great detective, Usami Renko and of the secrets she uncovered.

In the autumn of Gensokyo's 122nd year, a shrine and a lake appeared without warning on the slopes of Youkai Mountain. With it came Kochiya Sanae, the priestess of the shrine and Yasaka Kanako and Moriya Suwako, the two goddesses enshrined there. In this record I will relate the story of how our Hifuu Detective Agency came to meet these women, to understand the mysteries surrounding them and to invent once more the sorts of grandiose delusions my partner has become known for concerning them.

Why did the Moriya shrine abandon the Outside world and force its way into Gensokyo?

Just who is Kochiya Sanae, and what are the intentions of the gods she brought to this world?

And what is it they came to Gensokyo in search of?

Let us begin the sixth casefile of the Hifuu Detective Agency, and in so doing unravel the tale of a girl who works miracles, standing atop of Youkai Mountain as it was enrobed in the glory of autumn leaves.