怪獣の放出 / Kaijuu no Houshutsu / Unleashed Beasts

第２章 (Chapter 2)

She had a lantern with her so she could illuminate the room, and she looked around. There wasn't a lot of stuff here. There was a bookshelf, and there were even more books to Kirai's surprise. Whoever lived here before had a very large amount of books. She went to look at them. The majority of the books were about religion and historical medical phenomena. By "phenomena", it meant strange, unbelievable, and nearly paranormal events in medical history. Why did this person research paranormal-level medical events?

The bottom half of the bookshelf surprised Kirai even more. They were all written in other languages. Kirai could recognize some of them, and even read a little bit of them, but she couldn't truly understand what they meant. The languages there that she knew the names of were Chinese, Korean, Hindi, Arabic, English, German, French, Spanish, and many others that she didn't know the names of.

There was one book on the very bottom shelf that was different though. Kirai recognized the symbols of that strange language. From what she could tell, the symbols were arranged top-down and left-to-right, just like traditional Japanese. 

Kirai took the book off the shelf to bring it back to her bedroom, as it seemed it could turn out useful at some point, and when she took it, books around it fell inward due to the absence of structure with that one book. The books moving revealed something behind the shelf, like there would be a cliché secret entrance behind the bookshelf, but there was not such. There was a gap in the wall, and in it there was a large case or chest of some sort. Curious, Kirai began to neatly remove the fallen books from the shelf.

She pulled the large chest from behind the bookshelf and looked over it. It was made of leather, and was neatly polished to a nearly smooth finish. It felt like the leather covered a frame made of wood, and it was very sturdy. It was hollow, but moving it around, it sounded like there were some objects in there. On the side of the chest was a keyhole. Kirai thought that perhaps the key she had could open it. Before trying, however, she decided to take a look at the strange book she had originally taken from the shelf first.

On the first page, there was a katakana reading. It was the only association Kirai saw with this language and ordinary languages. The katakana read as 「シレイル・ヘイン」. In Kirai's native Japanese, it was pronounced "Shireiru Hein". Kirai looked a little closer at the page and found Roman letters too. The Romanized phrase read "Shler'heihn". Although she couldn't pronounce English letters well, she knew what letters they were and how one was supposed to sound those letters, because she had taken English classes in school. 

Kirai could not comprehend what was going on at all in the book, regardless. Flipping through the pages, there was no more writing of any language besides that one strange one. There were also very dark and disturbing illustrations of eldritch and otherworldly creatures. It was extremely mysterious. 

She set the book to the side and began returning the fallen books to their places. After she was done, she pulled the chest beside the bookshelf. The lantern was a small distance away, so she went to retrieve it to light the contents.

Kirai took out the rusty key from her pocket and looked it over carefully. Then she went to put it in the keyhole of the chest, and it did indeed fit. She tried giving it a turn.

Click!

The chest popped open, and a mysterious rush of smoke rose out of the chest. Kirai was startled by the smoke, and staggered backward, her hands supporting her body on the floor as she looked at the box.

The box was giving more than just ordinary smoke from an old, hollow, and dusty artifact. It was as if there was the collective rise of steam from many gallons of boiling water, emitting such a dense and abundant amount of steam.

Kira came closer to the smoking box and waved her hand through the smoke. Like it wasn't a powerful smoke at all, the steam dissipated into the air as startlingly as it had burst. Shrugging that surprise aside, Kirai opened the lid of the chest. Its contents would not be unseen simply due to a startling and harmless encounter.

Inside was yet another book, some dramatically elegant writing utensils, strange sculpted figures, and a kunai, a small dagger used as a projectile in battle. The objects and their purpose were unclear to Kirai. However, the book was of great interest.

This time, it was labeled in Japanese on the cover. Although, to Kirai, it looked archaic. It was written in the script that existed in the Edo period, and was in traditional Japanese top-down and right-to-left. In other words, it was, while a lot more stylistic and pleasing to the eye, a bit harder to read simply due to the script.

Many of the Kanji used in the book were no longer used in the Japanese language. Kirai could make out some of them by clues with their similarities to Kanji she knew, but a lot of them were still a mystery to her.  Despite being difficult to understand, she could understand the message of some of it.

From what Kirai could tell, there were lots of psychological research in the book. Mostly about the subconscious mind, and it recited quotes and results from Sigmund Freud and his research of psychology. However, it felt less like research material and more like documentation for something more chilling and dark.

- - -

After reading for a few minutes, Kirai realized her eyelids were getting heavy, and she kept nodding her head in drowsiness. Turning the corner of the room to check the time, she found that it was around 9 PM. She usually went to bed 30 minutes prior, so she found it obvious why she was feeling so sleepy.

Gathering all the materials she had collected, she set them all neatly into the chest and dragged that chest to her room. Thankfully, the chest was not heavy, so she didn't have to take too much effort to bring it with her.

When she got to her room, she checked to make sure all the strange artifacts she had collected were still in her room. The mystical language book, check. The mysterious psychology book, check. The amulet, check. The Calling notebook. The other contents of the chest, check. Was she missing something?

Then she took out the key. But it was no longer of use, was it? The object that it opens has been opened, so did she really have to have it? Regardless, she left the key on the chest anyway, just in case.

Realizing she was drifting off to half-wakefulness more and more, she decided to just get in bed and call it in for the night.

Kirai changed from her daily casual attire to her night clothes, a usual dark gray or black yukata. It was very comfortable. She lied down in her bed, a traditional Japanese futon, covered herself in her warm blankets, and thought for a few minutes.

Kira wondered what the artifacts meant. Who really were the previous owners of this home, and why did this party or individual have so many books on psychology and mystical things? Not to mention, the utterly bizarre "Shireru hein" book, and the papers in the storage room with all the strange symbols... And the amulet, the sculptures, and the pens looked pretty elegant too...

And with that, Kirai winked out of wakefulness and fell asleep.

What Kirai didn't know, however, and couldn't possibly know or even remotely sense at the moment, was that something was watching her... Not planning or having any kind of intentions of interfering with her. It just saw Kirai and she briefly caught its attention.