At dusk, there was a knock on the hotel room door.
"Thump, thump, thump!"
Kazuma, who had slept soundly all afternoon, groggily woke up and saw the proprietress, Mieko, talking to Keli.
"This is dinner. Our hotel includes breakfast and dinner. If you feel there isn't enough food, you can order separately. We also have some homemade Japanese confections."
"Okay, thank you."
As soon as he saw food, Kazuma sat up. The hotel room wasn't large, basically just one room. When not sleeping, the futons could be put into the closet and a small table brought out for activities. When sleeping, the small table was moved aside, and the futons were taken out.
Taking the wooden tray the other party brought and placing it on the small table, Keli closed the door.
"Sorry, sorry, I overslept. Did you see that group of people?"
Kazuma asked Keli if he had seen the people who had been tracking them during the day.
"No, although the car is parked here, I heard someone come downstairs and open the door to check twice this afternoon, and it was always that pink-haired family."
Keli and Sato Kazuma's room was right at the stair landing. With the soundproofing of this type of Japanese house, Keli could easily hear if anyone came downstairs just by sitting near the door.
"Could there be surveillance in the room? Did they notice your actions?"
"Who knows, but I think they might have pulled an all-nighter doing something and are now catching up on sleep."
"I see. So, what are your plans next?" Kazuma crawled over and sat by the table.
"Oh! Curry, the free meal at this place is quite substantial, even better than lunch."
Keli, who had originally planned to eat something, frowned upon hearing Kazuma's words and put down his chopsticks.
Kazuma was surprised to see Keli's actions.
"You suspect they'll drug us? But we weren't... Right, there were other people at noon."
Kazuma then remembered that there were many unusual things about this village, so he swallowed and also put his food aside.
It could only be said that Kazuma's mind was sharp, saving Keli a lot of explanations.
Time passed little by little, and Kazuma was so bored he started counting his fingers.
It was completely dark now, and during this time, the proprietress also delivered meals to the Goto family next door.
Then, the family of four in the next room seemed to have gone to sleep, as no one came out to use the restroom.
Just as Keli was about to try a different method and search upstairs and downstairs, Keli and Sato Kazuma both widened their eyes.
"A scent...?"
Kazuma felt it, that familiar sensation, just like the scent when the Human-Faced Dog was around.
Keli nodded; he also smelled it, but it was very faint.
Keli thought for a moment, turned off the lights in the room, unplugged his fully charged phone, and set the brightness to the lowest so they could see at night.
Then, he gently turned the doorknob, allowing the door to open a narrow crack. Since the lights were off, there was no obvious light in the hallway, and for some reason, the hallway lights were already out at 7 PM that night.
It grew stronger! The sensation of that scent became intense, and that guiding feeling was telling them that the food was downstairs.
"Did some ghost or monster break in?" Kazuma leaned close to Keli and whispered.
"Not sure, let's go check first."
So Keli simply stood up and spoke in a louder voice.
"Ah! So sleepy! Let's go! Let's use the restroom and then sleep!"
Kazuma also responded in a louder voice. "Okay! Seriously, I'm exhausted today!"
The two pretended to pass by the stairwell and walked towards the restroom at the end of the hallway, but their eyes remained fixed on the first floor.
The first-floor lobby was lit, and a man was standing at the counter, greeting the proprietress.
"Junji, I haven't been back in days, get me a bottle of shochu!"
The moment they saw the man, both of them confirmed one thing: that man was the source of the scent.
"Mieko, you must be tired. Here, I've heated the water for you. You can take a bath in the wooden tub later."
Keli and Kazuma walked past.
The two soon walked back and returned to their room.
After closing the door, Kazuma deliberately twisted the doorknob to make a locking sound, then looked at Keli.
"What's going on? That's a living person, right? We..."
Kazuma was a bit distraught. Although they weren't being asked to eat people, did this scent mean they would have to kill people when they were hungry?
Keli shook his head.
"Don't rush. Why didn't we react to so many people in Tokyo, but we did to the people here? There must be something special."
Then Keli looked at the room's window.
Kazuma was startled, then a little nervous.
"Wait, what are you going to do?"
"I don't feel right. We'd best not go out the door," Keli said, quietly pushing open the window.
"Hey, hey, even if the floor isn't that high, it's at least three meters down to the windowsill!" Kazuma looked at Keli with a hint of disbelief.
"It's fine, I can go alone. You pretend there's still someone in the room." Keli didn't ask Kazuma to join him. Mentally prepared, he put on his Batman cowl and leaped from the windowsill.
"Thud!" Even with a force-absorbing roll, a dull thud was unavoidable.
Keli felt his foot and wrist were sprained, and the skin on his hands was broken, but he didn't care. Instead, he endured the sharp pain, keeping silent as he darted into the shadows.
Although he said he was looking for the whereabouts of those people, Keli had no direction, just walked towards the village.
He had only taken a few steps when Keli realized something was wrong.
Damn it!
It smells good! Very good!
Keli, who had circled from behind the inn to a dark corner, had a very strange feeling.
It was like he had run into a buffet, and it was full of all the dishes he wanted to eat.
Moreover, it was a little too lively.
In the village at night, human voices and dog barks resounded, but strangely, looking from afar towards the noisy area, there was no light, only the residential houses were still lit.
Keli closed his eyes, carefully sensing that positioning-like feeling. There seemed to be at least 50 'edible' individuals moving in the village.
Some were entering houses, some were gathered together. If those things were spirits, it truly was a night parade of a hundred demons.
Keli wanted to get closer to observe, but he was afraid of being discovered, so he searched for the scent and began to walk around the places with those smells.
As he walked around, Keli came to a temple.
There seemed to have been a few targets here before, but now the scents had all left and were heading towards the center of the village.
Keli looked left and right, then tiptoed into the temple.
But just as Keli was about to lie down by the temple door to look out, he heard human voices.
No scent, so they should be ordinary people. Keli looked around, originally wanting to go outside, but another scent came from outside, seeming to approach from afar.
Helpless, Keli had no choice but to enter the main hall, circling once before looking at the Shakyamuni statue in the center. There was a gap behind the statue and the wall. Keli hid behind the statue, where it was also relatively clean, as if someone regularly cleaned it.
Only...
Keli stared blankly behind the statue, where a pink-haired figure sat on the ground, her face full of fear, looking at him.
Keli: ?
What is this? Dio turning over a manhole cover—this place is full, right?
The other party seemed about to scream when she saw Keli. Keli stepped forward and clapped his hand over her mouth.
Keli didn't care about anything else and directly retreated into the shadows behind the Buddha statue.
Just as Keli hid, two people dressed as monks entered the main hall with lanterns and closed the hall door.
Keli heard some rustling, as if the two had sat down on the prayer mats in front of the Buddha, only a Buddha statue's distance from him.
Then the two spoke.
"Master Jingxin, really, why doesn't he even listen to the chairman's opinion?"
"You still call him Master! Have you forgotten, your old man had a hand in catching him back then."
The two's conversation drifted over.