In a Seriously Scary World, a Boy Scatters Salt CH1
I. Pale as Corpse Wax
In the playground swallowed up by the red sunset, for instance.
In the shadows of buildings that are cast by the afternoon sun.
On the ceiling of your own room, when you wake.
On the back of a person staring at their smartphone.
There are things lurking in the cracks of everyday life.
Ghosts - The manifestation of the wandering spirits of the deceased.
The Yokai - Phenomena that emerge from beyond this realm.
Aberrations - Things that float like bubbles from the void, eating reality.
Demons - Unwanted beings born from the desires of the living.
Identity unknown.
Cause unknown.
Those who ought to be whispered as 'whom?'
Chaotic and disorderly as their presence may be, there is one thing - only one thing - that all of them have in common.
Mystery ...No.
Danger level ...no.
Their possibility- ...absolutely not.
Ghosts, the Yokai, Aberrations, Demons, Shapeshifters, and Evil Spirits of every twisted kind.
What all of these have in common is this--
"-- THEY’RE SO TERRIFYING I COULD DIIIIIIIE!, THAT'S WHAAAAAAAT I MEEEAAAAAN, AAAAAAAHHH!--!"
In D Town, S City - a provincial city gradually devoured by the falling birthrate and aging population, yet still just barely retaining the appearance of a city - a boy in a school uniform, Mamiya Nigou was sprinting through the woods on its outskirts.
The sun already vanished beyond the horizon, and in this forest with no streetlights, the only source of light was an eerie, copper-red moon hanging in the sky.
Even though one must watch each step carefully to avoid tripping over the tree roots snaking along the ground, Nigou shows no sign of slowing his pace as he runs.
Sweating like a waterfall and gasping for breath, he didn't even have the moment of caring that his slicked-back black hair became an unsightly mess. Aside from the dark circles beneath his eyes, his features might otherwise have been described as intelligent - was now twisted with fear, and yet he pushed himself to run even faster.
He was in a state of sheer madness. To any onlooker, it would have seemed like a reckless dash... but Nigou had two reasons that left him no choice but to act this way.
One is the presence of something Nigou was carrying on his back. It has a head, a torso, arms and legs - in other words, it was a human being.
Female - young enough to still be called a girl.
The girl's black hair fell to the middle of her back, and combined with the black sailor uniform she wore, gave the impression that she might dissolve into the darkness of night at any moment. In contrast, her skin had the fragile, pale look of corpse wax.
Opinions on her looks might differ, but in ordinary times, she was a girl most would call beautiful. However, there wasn't a single person who would look at her and call her beautiful.
Because right now, the girl is missing her right eye.
Half of her face was stained with fresh blood flowing from her empty eye socket.
Fortunately, the girl wasn't dead. Although she had lost consciousness, her ragged breathing and the sweat pouring off her were proof she was still alive. Yet, if she went untreated like this, she wouldn't last long.
"Gah- cough! - Damn it! Shit, shit, shit! God damn it! Hey! Don't you die on me!? You'd better not die, you hear me!? I'm gonna get you away from 『this thing』 no matter what it takes!!"
His throat had long since gone bone-dry from carrying the girl on his back and running at full speed, and he kept coughing up blood. Still, Nigou didn't stop running - he couldn't stop running - and even as he called out words of encouragement to the girl on his back, his gaze was fixed on something beyond her.
And there, just as expected... and most regrettably...
There was a second reason behind Nigou’s reckless dash.
『Gu ho a ne po tata ? Ura H m』
There was a【Face】.
A 【Face】that floated in the darkness of the night.
A human-like pair of eyes, a human-like nose, and a human-like mouth.
But there was no skin.
Each facial feature - each one as large as Nigou was tall - floated in the void as if 'darkness itself was its skin', gliding through the air in pursuit of Nigou and the girl.
The massive mouth, wet with saliva, kept muttering something in an unintelligible language, and the nose, oily at the pores, gave off an uncanny, raw vividness.
The pupils, set within whites stained a pale yellow, keep staring intently at Nigou and the girl - like a predator that has locked onto its prey, refusing to let go.
"Gehah... hehk... ugh... goddammit, you're kidding me. You have any idea how hard I'm running here, you monster!? Yeah, it's shit, god damn it!!"
Even though his body temperature kept rising from the continuous running, a chill shot through Nigo's entire body - as if he had been pierced by icicles - the moment his gaze met that【Face】
Trying to mask the chills with loud shouts and bravado, Nigou continued running, even as he sensed he was nearing his limit.
Because he understands it well - if that 【Face】catches up to them, both he and the girl on her back would meet their end.
He pushes his hand against the trunk of a nearby tree, using it to pick up a bit of speed.
Kicking off a small oak root forced his body to correct course.
He kicked up a stone lying on the ground and sent it flying straight at 【Face】.
Nigou had taken every possible means of escape... and every single one of them had been a waste.
No matter how much he accelerated or tried to shake it off, the 【Face】 never drifted beyond a certain distance from Nigou. Stones he kicked up passed right through the【Face】, as if he had hurled them into the mist.
Nigou was left with no choice but to keep running - yet, those very steps would soon come to a halt. Beyond the forest, within the landscape that opened up before him, stood a sheer cliff.
「"Ge gubebeh--?!」
Nigou tried to force himself to stop, but with his legs already worn out from exhaustion, there was no way he could fight against his own momentum. He stumbled and fell. Twisting himself forward so the girl on his back wouldn't get hurt, Nigou ended up scraping the entire front of his body against the sand and gravel, leaving it covered in cuts and scratches.
It was an injury that would have made even a grown man scream, but Nigou wasn't even given the chance to scream.
His 【Face】 was right there in front of me.
"...You're... serious? ...Damn it."
『Gu a e i vu wa』
『Ra tadz koka yv』
A face wearing a sly, knowing grin filled Nigou's entire field of vision.
Slowly... almost as if to torment him, 【Face】 opened its massive mouth. Strands of glistening, mud-colored saliva stretched out, and breath reeking like the rotting corpse of a fish brushes against Nigou's cheek.
“Ah…”
With a wet, squelching sound.
The instant Nigou shoved the girl on his back off to his right, 【Face】 effortlessly devoured him. A cracking sound, like something hard being crunched to pieces, echoed through the dark night.
Then, after swallowing what was in its mouth,【Face】 turned its gaze toward its next offering - the one-eyed girl.
...
Unfortunately - whether due to the impact of being shoved by Nigou, or the ghastly aura radiating from that 【Face】- the girl's consciousness flickered back to life at the very moment death was closing in on her.
“……Uh… ah…”
The girl, whose consciousness was hazy due to severe pain and blood loss from her right eye, was unable to run or even utter a single word.
With the only person who could have helped her now gone, the girl had no way left to escape【Face】. All that's left for her is to simply come to understand that a hopeless death awaited her.
Her fate was sealed.
The girl was to be devoured without mercy, becoming a sacrifice to the 【Face】 amidst her terror - or so, should have happened.
『……!? Yu, yui is gu? Gi, ga! Go, e!?』
Suddenly, 【Face】's expression changed.
If one had to put that surging emotion into human terms... it would probably be called anguish.
Its bloodshot eyes rolled wildly, Its breathing grew heavily, retching again and again, as if trying to spew something out.
And then, after coughing yet again...
A massive amount of mucus emerged from the【Face】's mouth, along with 'it'.
Mamiya Nigou - the boy who should have been devoured and killed - was spat back out.
Although his school uniform was in tatters, and while abrasions and gruesome marks of having been bitten and chewed on by 【Face】 were clearly visible, remarkably, there was not one single fatal wound.
He got right back up, slowly rising to his feet after being spat out.
"...Whoa, that was close... I thought I was gonna die. That was way too close... seriously, that one almost got me..."
『 Ha yu Hio oo pa be ru a』
The【Face】 showed clear confusion, as if unable to comprehend what had just happened - it was certain it had bitten down and devoured this ‘thing’. But immediately after, unable to bear the fresh wave of nausea, it vomited violently.
The mouth of the【Face】, which had just spat out Nigou, now vomited out something else along with more mucus - another mass of white crystals, easily equal in volume to several human bodies. The【Face】kept spewing them out, over and over again.
"Heh...heheheh... Hey, hey, hey! What's the matter!? You can't be picky about your food, oh great【Morigami-sama】 ! If you don't eat it all, you won't be able to dodge the draft because of a sodium overload!"
That's right. Just as Nigou had said, what the 【Face】 spewed out was a massive amount of "salt."
The salt glowed faintly in the darkness, and each time the 【Face】 writhed in agony and spat it out, black smoke billowed up from its massive facial features, its huge body shrinking little by little.
"-- It had been made to swallow some kind of 'poison,' or so it must have assumed. The【Face】known as 【Morigami-sama】glared at Nigou, but an instant later its eyes widened in shock - it realized that Nigou was somehow now holding a lump of rock salt in his palm - a chunk that faintly glowed , just like the substance he had vomited up.
『 Hi o geho ja o-te』
“【MORIGAMI-SAMAAA! 】You’re widely mistaken as the god of calamity that went on a rampage after the village that sealed you was abandoned! But in reality, you’re an unidentified Aberration that appeared for no apparent reason! The visible face is just an illusion, like a reflection on the water's surface - your true body is inside the mouth! -- And that concludes this explanation, as shown in the bonus commentary section at the end of Volume 2!"
Nigou's expression shifted abruptly, a sly grin spreading across his face as he walked slowly toward the 【Morigami-sama】, now shrunk down to the size of an ordinary person - at last, he stood directly in front of it.
"I don’t give a damn what you really are. You hurt a girl right in front of me, made me run myself ragged, put me through all that pain. And on top of that, I nearly got eaten. After being treated this "hospitably," I'd better give something proper in return, don't you think!?"
At this point, Morigami-sama finally realized that the boy before him was no fragile sacrifice meant for its taking, and it began to retreat, trying to flee Nigou, even as salt still spewed from its mouth... but that decision came far too late.
『 Ji guji e jya ga kka』
"Ah?! If you wanna make excuses, then speak in a language I can understand!! If you can't... then it's time for your spanking--!"
『 G giii geh !』
The instant 【Morigami-sama】 retreated a single step, Nigou slammed the rock salt straight into its mouth. The chunk of salt, hard enough to be likened to actual stone, snapped the shrunken 【Morigami-sama】's teeth like they were spun sugar, ramming deep into its throat.
【Morigami-sama】's eyes rolled back until only white showed... and the very next instant, accompanied by the sound of searing flesh, a massive plume of black smoke- far thicker than anything before - came billowing up from its mouth.
...Since ancient times, salt has been believed to possess the power to ward off evil.
Even convenience store salt offers protection roughly akin to a charm, but salt that's been properly purified at a shrine is potent poison to demons and spirits.
Since the salt Nigou used was "special-grade" stuff. Even an enigmatic entity like【Morigami-sama】could not withstand having such a massive quantity forced into its body.
『 Ge ga ge hi a a !』
A grating death cry rang out, followed by a sound like a water balloon slamming against the ground.
And in an instant, the facial features that made up 【Morigami-sama】 melted into a viscous sludge... eventually turning into black soot that piled up atop the glowing salt.
"...D-did I get him?"
Nigou muttered the ominous words and waited a moment, but no voice answered him, and nothing seemed to happen.
"...Heh, heh heh... I did it, I actually did it! I freakin' did it! Take that, you absurd piece of crap!! Fuh-heh-heh-heh... Alright, now then--"
Confirming that the threat had been dealt with, Nigou, still catching his breath, approached the black soot that was all that remained of the 【Morigami-sama】 and began sifting through it with his hands.
"Alright! Just as I thought, the【Calamity Stone】is here!"
And there, amidst the soot, what Nigou dug up was a translucent sphere about the size of a golf ball.
At first glance, it looked like nothing more than a pale purple glass orb - but the way red light scattered chaotically within, tracing endless geometric patterns, made it clear this was no ordinary object. Nigou picked up the sphere without hesitation and was about to put it into his pocket when-
"..."
"Wh—?! You're awake?! ...Hey, can you hear me?! Can you talk?!"
"...ngh..."
Hearing the girl moan, Nigou rushed over - and it was only then that he realized she was awake. Flustered, he called out to her.
But he quickly realized the girl had no strength left even to nod, so he looked up at the sky, ran his hands roughly through his hair, and let out a heavy sigh.
Nigou crouched down right in front of the girl, supporting her face with his right hand, and spoke to her while looking into her remaining left eye.
"...Ah, damn it! Guess there's no helping it now... Hey, you. Can you understand me?"
I don't know if you can understand me, but I'll apologize in advance. I'm about to do something awful to you - the kind of pain and suffering that'll make you wish you were dead.
Nigou continued, his face twisting into a grimace as if imagining what he was about to carry out.
"But I promise you this - I'm going to save you. I won't let you die, and I'll get you home safe. So just hang in there for me, okay?"
In response to his words, the girl's left eye seemed to signal affirmation - or so Nigou chose to believe, if only to justify what he was about to do. Still holding her, he turned her onto her back with his right hand and brought the purple orb he'd picked up earlier to hover directly above her right eye socket, now hollow and still bleeding. And then--
"Ngh--!?"
He clenched his left hand and crushed the sphere.
It was a sudden, bizarre act. The fragments of the orb poured into the girl's empty eye socket, and the overwhelming pain sent her body jerking in violent spasms.
It was a cruel thing to do to someone already gravely wounded, but even this wasn't the end of it.
"---"
Nigou's left palm should have been empty, having poured every last fragment of the sphere into the girl's eye sockets. And yet, when Nigou muttered a few words... a white object appeared where nothing should have remained.
That object was none other than - glowing salt.
"...It's really going to hurt, so hang in there."
Then Nigou produced a volume of salt equal to that of the sphere he'd just crushed, and after the briefest hesitation... he began pouring it into the girl's empty eye sockets.
To an outside observer, it was an act of madness. As he felt salt forming in his palm and the sensation of it trickling down like sand into the girl's eyes, Mamiya Nigou uttered the words.
As if wishing for it to reach someone. Turning his back on the eerie crimson moon hanging in the sky.
"I've reached my limit as a background character... So hurry up and show yourself - the real hero.""
This is the story of a certain man.
A story of a foolish man who fell into a story.
Message from Translator:
I have decided to pick up this light novel. If you are interested in it, and want to stay updated, please join the discord! I just created the server :]
https://discord.gg/bXkFpD8guH
Fun Fact: The phrase “evil spirits of every twisted kind” was translated from the Japanese expression 魑魅魍魎（ちみもうりょう）.
It is literally defined as “evil spirits of rivers and mountains” (Jitendex.org), but may be used as a collective term for all sorts of evil spirits, monsters, and what not. This expression is rarely encountered in everyday Japanese, so even native speakers may find its kanji difficult to read or write!
Thank you for reading.