Chapter Fifty-Four: The Pilgrimage Assembly

“Huff… ha…”
She struggled to steady her breath, calming her nerves.
Mana Mizuhara felt as though she were trapped inside the maw of some colossal beast; in the depths of her mind, she sensed an unseen presence watching her.
Deprived of sight, her higher senses seemed strangely heightened, and with her imagination running wild, she felt beads of sweat seeping from her skin, while the floor beneath her feet, once solid, now seemed viscous and yielding, as if she were mired in mud, or standing upon the immense, sticky tongue of some monstrous creature.
“Stay calm, stay calm…”
Mana Mizuhara tried to reassure herself, turning to make sure the staircase she’d come up was still illuminated behind her. But at the very moment she looked back—
“Ah—”
Her eyes grew wide with shock.
No matter how she peered into the gloom, the stairs had vanished into the darkness; before her stretched only an endless, fathomless world as dark as the deep sea!
“No, no, no, no, no!”
Panic overtook her, and she stumbled across the second floor, crashing about in confusion.
She fell, as if tripped by a surge of black mire, but forced herself back up—only to fall again, and rise once more.
She had no idea what she was bumping into, no sense of where she was; the world before her was a formless void, or perhaps only the outline of a world, vast and desolate. Terror took hold of her, so immense and unfathomable that she felt she was struggling in the jaws of a beast.
At last, when fear was all that remained in her mind, her elbow struck a corner of the wall in her confusion, and a crisp sound rang out:
“Click.”
The lights came on.
Darkness was banished.
As the room filled with light, her terror seemed to recede with the shadows.
Before her was nothing but an ordinary second-floor room.
—White walls, a plain sofa, and nothing else.
Mana Mizuhara slumped against the corner of the wall, breathless and shaken, her sweat-soaked clothes clinging to her skin.
The room was so entirely mundane that it was almost hallucinatory, as if the thing that had filled her with such dread only moments ago had never been here at all.
Could it be that everything just now was only a figment of her mind?

The instant this weak thought surfaced, Mana Mizuhara crushed it.
—Impossible!
That overwhelming, inexplicable terror just now was not simply a matter of claustrophobia or anything so ordinary!
Mana Mizuhara clenched her teeth, feeling the casual malice of that great presence lurking behind it all.
She forced herself to stand, turned, and saw a large inscription hanging on the wall:
“Do you want… to know the meaning of life? Do you… want to truly live?”
“What does this mean?”
She read the words aloud, one by one, her confusion growing. When she lowered her gaze, she noticed a small map pasted on the wall beneath the inscription.
On the map, the area around Tokyo was drawn to scale, and at the center, a deliberately marked circle bore the name of a place:
“Arana Mountain.”
“Arana Mountain? Why does that name sound so familiar…”
Mana Mizuhara searched her memories, and after a moment, when a recollection from two days prior resurfaced, her expression twisted in bewildered shock, as if all the tangled fragments of the past had suddenly formed a single line—
So intense was her astonishment that, for a moment, she forgot the clammy sweat on her body and everything that had just happened; her thoughts were wholly consumed by memory.
“Arana Mountain—that’s the place everyone online has been talking about lately, where the hundred-meter-tall ‘Sacred Tree’ stands, isn’t it? They say the Sacred Tree is the incarnation of a god… And the pendant the manager gave me was carved from wood, too. Could it be…
“…the source of everything lies there!”

…

As the girl’s gaze, guided by someone’s twisted amusement, fixed upon Arana Mountain, deep within the mountain itself, the so-called “source” rested his chin in his hand, deep in thought.
“Hmm… just as I expected. As long as someone accepts my blood of evolution, even if its power is less than one percent, a ‘link’ is established. Through this connection, I can manipulate their senses and emotions—plunging them into an abyss, or lifting them to heaven in an instant.
“However, without the aid of a sensory pendant, the effect isn’t nearly as vivid. That’s another trait of the Sacred Tree’s avatars—the pendants made from its branches act like signal boosters, allowing me to shape perceptions at will…
“…Sight, hearing, touch, smell… all human perception of the world comes through the five senses and the sixth. The world their senses point to is, for them, the only reality. If I can so easily manipulate sensation… creating a ‘second world’ as real as the first for an ordinary person isn’t impossible.”
Shiguya pondered this, but a moment later shook his head.
“Still not enough. The current method is too crude, too unstable… it’s nowhere near enough to construct a truly complete ‘second world’…”
“…I’ll just have to keep observing…”

Shiguya’s research and contemplation continued.
Tokyo, Katsushika Ward.
One of the city’s poorest districts, its atmosphere was as bleak and desolate as Arakawa.
Even so, Katsushika boasted its share of high-rise buildings and stately residences, and at the end of a slate-gray street stood a striking red-and-white structure, freshly painted and immense enough to impress even from afar.
—This was the “Dharma Hall.” Decades ago, it had been the estate of a once-prominent family, but after their decline, it changed hands several times, ultimately becoming the headquarters of the religious corporation “Blissful King Society.” The cult’s leader and elders resided here, and the monthly “Pilgrimage Gathering” was held within these walls.
Today was the day of the “Pilgrimage Gathering.”
Inside, members in gray robes checked the visitor list, while the faithful, both humbly dressed commoners and lavishly attired elites, entered in turn. Regardless of their status, each respectfully wrote their name at the registration desk, then handed their offering—wrapped in oiled paper—to another attendant for safekeeping.
“Next.”
The staff member behind the desk didn’t look up as he called out, but just then, a gentle voice reached his ears.
“Excuse me, I don’t have an offering. May I still go in?”
The hand holding his pen froze, annoyance flaring at this breach of etiquette. But when he looked up and saw the speaker, he was stunned.
Not only he, but everyone nearby turned to stare—not for any other reason than the girl’s beauty.
“Of—of course!”
The attendant called out enthusiastically—
“I still have a spare entry for this month’s Pilgrimage Gathering. Please wait a moment, miss, and I’ll personally show you around!”
As the girl nodded in thanks, the envious looks from followers and staff alike made the attendant beam. He picked up his pen once more and asked,
“May I have your name?”
The girl’s smile was more radiant than cherry blossoms in bloom.
“Mio Ito.”