Chapter 13: Clearing the Instance

"What... What is going on here?" The first Yotsuya Miko to appear looked at the disheveled version of herself in front of her, face filled with disbelief as she took a few steps back. "You should know that better than anyone." The second Yotsuya Miko sneered coldly, though she stayed on alert and didn't approach Hikigaya Hachiman. Hearing the exchange between the two, Hikigaya Hachiman immediately felt a headache coming on. Both voices sounded perfectly normal, though the first one sounded slightly more delicate than the second. However, he didn't know Yotsuya Miko that well. In their time together, she had shown both a strong and a vulnerable side, so he couldn't tell who was the real Miko and who was the vengeful spirit. "This is going to be a pain..." Looking at the two maintaining distance from each other, Hachiman sighed and prepared to use the classic method of asking questions to distinguish the real from the fake. It was a cliché approach, but it usually worked. "One question each. No interrupting!" First, he had both Mikos maintain a distance of five meters from him. That way, when the real one was identified, he could immediately rush to her side to protect her. Then he explained the rules and began the questioning. "Where did we meet for the first time?" While asking, he looked at the first Yotsuya Miko. "In the classroom!" She answered instantly, without hesitation. "Was there anyone else in the classroom?" Hachiman turned to the second Yotsuya Miko. "Yukinoshita was also in the classroom." The second Miko also answered without pause. "After that, when Miko and I hid in the classroom, was the person standing outside the door male or female?" "Female!" Again, the first Miko answered without hesitation. Though she hadn't seen the person's face at the time, the voice was unmistakably female. "How many vengeful spirits did we encounter the first time we entered this space?" "Four." The second Miko answered but then complained impatiently: "Can't you ask something more specific?" "Uh... okay..." Scratching his head awkwardly, Hachiman struggled to come up with a more detailed question. Finally, with a bit of embarrassment on his face, he asked: "When we were inside the spider's belly, where did I accidentally touch?" "Pervert!" Almost the moment Hachiman asked, the second Miko took off her shoe and threw it at him. But Hachiman ignored her and turned back to the first Miko. "T-The top..." Embarrassed to find him looking at her, the first Miko lowered her head and stammered out a reply. "Yep, you're the real one." Nodding, Hachiman determined that the Miko in front of him was real, and the one behind was the vengeful spirit. "Why?! She's the fake one!" The second Miko grew agitated and took a few steps toward him. However, without hesitation, Hachiman raised the demon-slaying sword in his hand and slashed at the one he believed to be the spirit. The second Miko bent backward at an unnatural angle, dodging the strike, then retreated and fled down another corridor. "Thank you..." As the spirit fled, the real Yotsuya Miko walked up, arms crossed, and softly thanked him. "No need to thank me. It's what I should do." Hachiman shook his head, implying it wasn't a big deal. "But how did you know I was the real one?" Miko looked curiously at him. After all, the imposter's reaction just now had been more typical of a woman's. Why did Hachiman believe that one was the fake? Shrugging helplessly, Hachiman explained: "Based on how the vengeful spirit would act, if I had accidentally touched you back then, you would've slapped me twice in the face. But you didn't." "Is that so?" Miko lowered her head and said no more. Likewise, thinking back on his own explanation, Hachiman felt deeply embarrassed. "...Let's just pretend that never happened." It was Miko who finally broke the silence. "No problem at all!" Hachiman agreed instantly, without hesitation. Afterward, the two began searching the school building for the final intermediate-level vengeful spirit. In order to leave before sunrise, Hachiman had to eliminate all the spirits. Perhaps because all of its skill points had been invested in disguise, the last vengeful spirit was actually weaker than a typical low-level one. Cornered by Hachiman in a bathroom, it had no choice but to grudgingly hand over 200 spirit coins before turning into a wisp of black smoke and vanishing before his eyes. With the final vengeful spirit eliminated— Hachiman suddenly heard the sound of shattering glass in his ears. Then, the world before him began to collapse rapidly. In a blink, when he came back to his senses, he and Yotsuya Miko were once again in the hallway of the school building. Moonlight streamed through the window. "We're back?" Glancing around the familiar corridor, Hachiman confirmed that they had exited that otherworldly space. "Who's there?" Before they could celebrate, a beam of light shone from a distance, and a security guard appeared before Hachiman. "Come with me..." Seeing the guard, Miko snapped out of her relief at having escaped the vengeful spirit. Grabbing the dazed Hachiman, she sprinted off. "Stop right there! What class are you from?!" Seeing the two flee, the guard chased after them. But Miko seemed to know the school building like the back of her hand. Hachiman felt like he was being dragged through endless twists and turns. After several loops, they managed to lose the guard. Then Miko led him through a supposedly broken emergency exit and out of the school building. From there, they crawled through a gap in the fence behind the gymnasium and escaped the school grounds. . . . Watching Miko pull off this smooth and practiced escape, Hachiman couldn't help but believe that she was often chased by spirits at school. But why did the spirits always pursue her in school? Just as Hachiman was about to ask, Miko took out her phone, glanced at the time, and said, "Sorry, it's getting late. Let's meet again tomorrow." With that, she waved goodbye and hurried off. "Ah... the time..." Waving politely at her retreating figure, Hachiman finally looked at his own phone. The screen displayed: 21:37. Utter despair swept over him.