After pretending to be blind in front of the cursed king and being exposed

In late autumn and October, the Summer Shrine is shrouded in dim yellow leaves.

Dressed in scarlet scarlet hakama and pure and beautiful white clothes, the shrine maiden, holding a long broom, cleaned the dead leaves along the stairs in front of the torii gate.

At this time, two guests who had finished paying homage to the shrine passed by, and the maiden held her broom upside down, and bowed politely to each other in peace with the guests.

The red rope that simply bound her hair slid to the front of her body as the girl bent down.

The shrine under the autumn sun is warm and beautiful, if you don’t consider this untimely scene - two strange insects, bypassing the red pillars of the torii, flapping the translucent membranous insect wings behind them, leisurely bypassing the oncoming The two guests of the shrine finally stopped slowly on the long broom erected by the priestess.

These two worms have fat bodies, bulging eyes, and a small light bulb hanging from the tentacles at the top. They are any kind of worms that have never been seen in this natural world.

But the departing guests remained as usual, as if they hadn't noticed anything, and even the witch, who was only a dozen centimeters away from the broom, seemed unaware that there were two strange creatures on the cleaning tools she used every day.

After the guests left, the witch stretched out her hand, ready to pick up the broom again.

The position where she stretched her hand was facing one of the weird bugs.

Seeing the girl's fingers approaching, the worm didn't fly away, but opened its mouthparts at an unbelievable angle, ready to go.A mouth that resembles human teeth but is more densely exposed.There is no doubt that as long as it moves forward a few centimeters, the girl's fingers will be directly bitten off by the bug.

The moment her fingers touched the monster, the slender fingers suddenly bent, and the girl seemed to have remembered something, and then retracted her entire right hand.

"I have such a good memory, I forgot to fetch water again today." The crisp and transparent voice was like water dripping from the bamboo in the courtyard.

The young priestess patted her scarlet scarf slowly and softly, and turned to the nearest worship hall, leaving her long broom in place.

Strange Bug No. 1:? ? ?I am delicious?

Seeing that the deliciousness in the hand disappeared, the weird flying insect had to close its mouthparts, flap its thin wings again, and wanted to fly deeper into the shrine.

As soon as I flapped my wings twice, the two meat worms seemed to be blown away by a gust of airflow, and one hit the column of the torii directly, bidding farewell to this autumn day.

And the other one, as if it had discovered something terrible, turned its head and fled.

Within 2 minutes, the previous witch came out from behind the wall of the worship hall. She didn't hold any bucket in her hand, but looked in the direction where the strange insect left just now.

There seem to be more monsters this year than in previous years, and it is true that the realm of the gods is relatively safe.

Summer Shrine is not a big shrine, but it is also the only shrine in this village.

Rina Enokido and her grandfather are priests of Natsuhi Shrine.Rina is a full-time priestess well known to the residents, and her grandfather is the head priest of this shrine, and is respected by everyone.

The shrine is not big, and there are not many priests needed. In the spare time after finishing her studies, Rina will do some cleaning.

As if nothing had happened, she went back to the half-cleaned stone steps, and after cleaning up the remaining fallen leaves, Rina went up the steps, crossed the access road all the way, and faced the temple.

At dusk, there were no guests in the temple. It was solemn and clean, except for the other side of the worship hall not far away. The autumn wind brushed the hemp rope and pulled the wind chimes above it, making a crisp sound of collision from time to time.

An old man with a strange appearance was sitting on the porch in front of the hall.

He is short and small, with his legs curled up and sitting on a tortoise shell with strange patterns painted on the side of the motionless shell. The old man's forehead is protruding, forming a bulge, and only one of his face, which is as rigid as hard wood, occupies almost three One-third of the eyes of the face, and the corner of the mouth is not a white beard but a dark green grass.

Apart from his appearance, his behavior is the same as other normal old people sitting in the courtyard of their home, holding a cup of tea in his small and haggard hands, and pouring it leisurely into his mouth.

"There have been a lot of worms recently, it seems that it will be troublesome." The one-eyed old man spoke out.

Rina didn't respond as if she didn't see him, and cleaned the front steps of the shrine on her own.

"Won't the little girl come and have a cup of tea with me?" The old man said again, and he was speaking to Linai.

Hearing the girl's small voice, the huge eyes on the old man's face blinked, and he turned his head steadily and slowly.

However, the witch didn't look at her, but stretched out her hand to support the ears covered by black hair, and the wireless earphones were exposed and quickly covered.

There was a low tone in her mouth, which was humming softly with the voice in the earphones.

"..." The one-eyed old man was silent for a while, then looked away, and returned to the state of drinking tea peacefully, "It seems that we really can't see us."

Rina silently took off the headphones from her ears, but there was no music playing in them.

No curse could threaten her as long as she acted like one.

"Thanks for your hard work, Linai." The old man in light blue priestly long attire walked around from the courtyard behind the temple, and saw Linai cleaning at a glance.

"Grandpa, good evening," Rina replied this time, greeting the old man, the shrine's judge, her grandfather.

The old man approached, took the long broom in Linai's hand, and continued Linai's work.

"Rina, do whatever you want to do, you don't need to be restricted here."

"..."

This sentence is like a repeater, Linai has heard it thousands of times.

Her grandfather always blamed himself for restraining his granddaughter because of his status as a priest.

In fact, this is not the case, Linai has her own reasons.

"Grandpa, as I said, I would like to work at the shrine, and my classmates are very envious of me." Rina took back the broom from her grandfather.

"The shrine enshrines the gods, and the gods are attached to people's beliefs." The priest who has lived in this shrine all his life also knelt on the mahogany wooden porch, only one step away from the one-eyed old man who didn't know how deep he was. He expressed his regret, "In recent years, the shrine has become a holy place for tourists. There are fewer and fewer young people who truly believe in the gods and visit the shrines. What's more, people are beginning to fear the gods and nature. It will turn into an unexpected curse and disaster..."

Rina looked at her grandfather, and glanced at the one-eyed old man out of the corner of her eye.

I don’t know if grandpa can see it, and if he still has the courage to sigh here...

Grandpa also said that in the old days, their family was conjurers who conquered curses, and they could see unnatural monsters called "curse spirits".

Later, I don’t know when, their ancestors could not see those monsters. It is said that the ancient and evil magic spirits are the product of human ignorance. Later, with the efforts of new magicians and the guidance of science to eliminate ignorance , the curse spirits were all eliminated.

Can't see?eliminated?

The one-eyed old man at the other end sipped tea contentedly.

Rina: "..."

Grandpa, who obviously couldn't see anything, continued:

"You should learn from the old man's granddaughter at Higurashi Shrine. It's a good thing you like this job, but I don't want you to stay alone in the shrine all the time."

That's right, Rina, the granddaughter of the old god of Higurashi Shrine, always hears about it from her grandfather.

The "granddaughter" who has never been seen before was also a witch, and later met her ideal in a distant foreign land, and finally left the shrine to live with her ideal.

Grandpa always mentions that joke-loving Kamiji Higurashi, who always said that his granddaughter went to another era and lived with a big monster.

Before that, Rina only thought that Grandpa was joking.

Another era?Big monster?

Until recently, she also experienced another era and youkai.

In that era, monsters were more accurately called curse spirits, and there were also magic masters in the grandfather's mouth, but another name was more popular there-onmyoji.

There, she became an onmyoji who exorcises demons, and also met Qingming, a great onmyoji.In that era, normal people couldn't see youkai, but Rina could.

In other words, Rina has always been fine.

"... Linai, if one day you suddenly change your mind and want to do other things, grandpa will support you." The old man finished his speech today and slowly got up.

"Understood Grandpa." Linai also faded from the memory.

"Oh, by the way, Rina, have you seen my ceramic teacup." The old god who had just got up and walked two steps stopped.

From the corner of her eye, Linai slid over the teacup in the hand of the one-eyed old man, her tone was smooth and natural, "There is no grandpa, I will help you find it later."

"Oh, please."

The one-eyed old man should have heard it too. He paused, put down the teacup with a guilty conscience, and pushed it to the side again.

Rina who witnessed everything: "..."

Her grandpa is invisible.

And she can't see it either.

After finishing the sundries, Rina washed her hands with the water from the hand water house, and then went back to the shrine to insert coins, ring the bell, and pay homage.

Linai has been able to see monsters that ordinary people cannot see since she was very young, and then she began to guess that these are the "curse spirits" that grandpa said.

She never told anyone about it, because in her memory, someone told her when she was very young:

"There's no need to tell anyone, you just have to pretend they don't exist, and the shrine will protect you."

She didn't remember who told her, but she only knew that since she lived with the grandfather of the shrine, she had rarely seen those creepy monsters.

Some of the ones I saw were also wandering around the edge of the shrine, and almost no one was close to the temple.

Those who approached were all killed by unknown forces, just like today's meat worms.

Except for the one-eyed old man, who sat there day after day, night after night, watching every worshiper who came and went.

Every day, I talk to myself and say some unpredictable words.

It was not the first time that she was tempted like today, but Linai never paid attention to her.

She believes that as long as she pretends not to see, she can escape the harm of these monsters.

At night, the clean and pure full moon climbed into the sky, covering the entire shrine in moonlight.

An ominous premonition struck Rina, who was about to fall asleep. In front of the worship hall not far from her residence, the bell rang and then drifted away with the wind.

"Is Miko-sama alright?"

"Is Miko-sama awake?"

"Please wake up Miko-sama, our lord has something urgent to do."

"My lord is sick, please wait a little longer, my lord.

"Miko-sama! Miko-sama!"

Rina seemed to wake up from a quiet darkness, surrounded by two or three women in kimonos.

"Master Miko, you are finally fine." The woman closest to her seemed relieved.

There was no sense of panic or loss, and she was the same way last time the moon was full.

After waking up, she was not in the residence of the shrine family, but appeared in another time and space with a body and character that did not belong to her.

But, what the hell is this monster as thick as a tree trunk, occupying the entire ceiling and staring at her?