KKM Novel 7, Chapter 9

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    DUN DUN DUN DUN!!  Finished it!  YES!  It was hard going for a while.  My cat knocked a bit of water onto my laptop and brought the grand total of non-functioning keys to 5.  Also, sometimes I need to hit the u/j/m key 3 or 4 times before it actually types the letter (note: some words might be randomly missing u''s j''s and/or m''s XD).  My poor laptop.  She''s so old :(

    Anyway, enough of that!  On to the chapter!

    Chapter 9

    “Huge ditch straight ahead!  Evasive maneuvers to the right!”

    “Roger!”

    “A small herd of nocturnal animals closing in from the north!  Reduce our velocity and pass through them!”

    The super-compact, magic-powered telescope – most likely invented by Miss Anissina – was very effective for travelling at night.  I was sitting next to Josak in the driver’s seat functioning as the rallying navigator.  If we avoid the bumps and ditches in the road, that will reduce the risk of one of our wheels flying off.  Even if we’re only temporarily gaining ground, it’s an effective way of driving.

    “Get close to the center of those lined up rocks and pass through them with a hard left… The snow’s started to pile up for real, huh?  If it keeps going like this, the wheels might get pulled off and we won’t be able to move.  We did pass that one carriage getting repaired back there… ah!”

    “What’s wrong?”

    I reflexively take my eye away from the telescope.  I saw something I should not have seen.

    “I, I saw it.”

    “Yeah, what?  Desert turtles mating and giving birth?  If you see something like that during puberty then you’d toss and turn in your sleep, huh?”

    No.  It wasn’t some secret of the wild like that.  What I saw was something that would be a jump scare in a TV show about ghosts: a clear image of an occult girl.

    A girl with a white face, white clothes, and white hair was standing all alone in the still-gloomy early morning hours.  On top of that, there was bright red blood flowing from her forehead and she was giving me a resentful stare I could see even through the lens.

    “Whoah, there must have been an accident or something!  What do we do?  What do we do if we end up cursed for the rest of our lives?  Please go and pass on peacefully into your next life!” (1)

    “Shibuya, this isn’t a Buddhist country.”

    For someone who moved the planchette on the Ouija board all on their own, I’m someone who is incredibly weak against ghosts.  Just the other day I went through a horrible experience at the summer training camp for my grass-lot baseball team when I heard rumors that a ghost comes out at the lodging house we were staying at.  A stain on the wall looked like the face on BOSS coffee cans and red, metallic-smelling water came out of the faucets… and there was no water in the toilet.

    “Oh, it looks like she’s still there.”

    “What!?  You can see her too, Murata!?”

    “Anyone can see her.  And anyway, that girl isn’t a ghost.”