Nurarihyon smiled faintly and pointed at the group.
"Let me introduce them. These people are members of the Supernatural Disaster Countermeasures Division: Yomi Isayama, Kagura Tsuchimiya, and Noriyuki Iizuna."
"The Supernatural Disaster Countermeasures Division? What's that?" Natsume asked curiously.
Yomi Isayama put down her teacup and calmly said, "To be precise, we are members of the Ministry of the Environment's Natural Environment Bureau, Supernatural Disaster Countermeasures Division."
Natsume commented, "That name is way too long."
Yomi Isayama said, "That's why we generally call it the Supernatural Disaster Countermeasures Division, or simply the Countermeasures Division. I'm Yomi Isayama, a member of the division."
"I'm Kagura Tsuchimiya."
"Noriyuki Iizuna. Nice to meet you."
Natsume quickly said, "I'm Natsume Takashi."
He had always been a polite young man.
Nyanko-sensei reacted and asked, "You people work for the government, right?"
The government?
After Nyanko-sensei's reminder, Natsume realized it too. The name "Ministry of the Environment, Natural Environment Bureau, Supernatural Disaster Countermeasures Division" sounded extremely official. No one would believe them if they claimed not to be government agents.
"That's right. Although our existence is not officially acknowledged, we are indeed part of the government," Yomi Isayama said calmly.
"Not acknowledged? Why?" Natsume did not understand.
Nyanko-sensei leapt up and delivered a flying kick to Natsume.
"Idiot! Do you want everyone to know that things like yokai truly exist? We wouldn't mind, but humans would never publicly acknowledge it."
Natsume was knocked to the ground, his face swelling.
"That hurts, Nyanko-sensei."
Nyanko-sensei snorted and ignored him.
Yomi Isayama could tell that Natsume did not understand much about the world of yokai, so she took the initiative to explain.
"That cat is correct. Humanity can never publicly acknowledge the existence of yokai."
"Even though we are a government organization, the government will never officially recognize us."
"Huh?"
Natsume still did not quite understand.
Noriyuki Iizuna tapped the table and took over the explanation.
"Do you know how yokai are born?"
Natsume froze. Although he had been able to see yokai since childhood, he had never really considered how they came into existence.
In his world, yokai had simply existed from the moment he was born, just like humans.
Noriyuki explained, "There are several ways yokai can be born. Some arise naturally from heaven and earth, such as animals that gain spiritual awareness. Others are humans who absorb enough resentment and fall into becoming yokai, such as Gyūki and Kubinashi."
"However, both of those types are relatively rare, and as time passes, yokai like them are becoming even less common."
"But there is another kind of yokai—those born from human fear and various supernatural tales."
"These have now become the most common type of yokai."
Hearing this, Natsume felt as though his horizons had broadened.
Good grief. So there was that much complexity behind the birth of yokai.
But speaking of which, how had Nyanko-sensei been born?
He could not help wondering, and his gaze involuntarily fell on Nyanko-sensei.
Nyanko-sensei sensed Natsume's gaze and knew what he was thinking.
"I was born naturally from heaven and earth—a yokai that emerged from nature itself."
His birth was no secret, so there was no harm in telling Natsume.
Natsume suddenly understood, but another question remained in his heart.
Why were humans unwilling to acknowledge the existence of yokai?
Yomi Isayama said, "Most yokai can absorb human fear and become incomparably powerful."
"If the existence of yokai were made public, it would cause massive panic throughout society. Yokai would become more powerful than ever before, and large numbers of new yokai would also be born from humanity's fear."
"The balance between humans and yokai would be completely shattered. We might even return to conditions like the Sengoku period, when yokai ran rampant and ordinary people suffered terribly."
"Therefore, the existence of yokai must never be made public."
"This is a taboo. Anyone who breaks it will be hunted down by us with everything we have."
As Yomi spoke, her gaze became more severe than ever.
It was as if, should anyone truly dare to do such a thing, she would draw her sword without hesitation and cut them down.
At the same time, her gaze swept over Natsume like a blade, making his hair stand on end.
At that moment, Nyanko-sensei suddenly blocked Yomi Isayama's line of sight and said unhappily, "Don't act too presumptuously, young lady. This isn't the Countermeasures Division."
Yomi Isayama glanced at Nyanko-sensei and slowly withdrew her gaze.
"My apologies."
Natsume did not mind Yomi Isayama's offense. It was unavoidable for government personnel to be cautious toward a human like him who mingled with yokai.
Nevertheless, Natsume assured her that he would never do such a thing.
Yomi Isayama neither confirmed nor denied whether she believed him.
"Um, I have another question. If humans learning about yokai would cause mass panic and greatly increase the strength of yokai, wouldn't some yokai deliberately try to make that happen?"
Natsume asked with a worried expression.
"That's a good question."
Noriyuki Iizuna took over with a smile, quietly easing the tense atmosphere from moments earlier.
"In reality, most yokai don't have the ability to accomplish that."
"You should know that ordinary humans cannot see yokai."
Natsume nodded. He had profound personal experience with that fact.
As a child, because he could see yokai that no one else could, he had suffered greatly. Many people treated him like a freak, and he was passed around among relatives like a ball no one wanted.
Later, Uncle Fujiwara and Aunt Tōko took him in, allowing him to experience the warmth of a home.
But he would never forget what those earlier years had felt like.
Noriyuki continued, "Ordinary humans cannot see yokai, but weak yokai also lack the ability to reveal themselves before humans. That is why the balance between humans and yokai remains intact."
"Only high-level yokai can freely appear before humans and cause disturbances."
"But those yokai are closely monitored by us. The instant we discover any risk of exposure, we will hunt them down with everything we have."
"This era belongs to humanity. Any yokai who seeks to change that, no matter who they are, will be mercilessly eliminated by us."
Natsume was somewhat surprised, and his gaze involuntarily turned toward the Supreme Commander of the Nura Clan.
Those words made his blood boil. After all, he was human too.
The problem was that this was the Nura Clan's headquarters. Saying something like that here did not seem very appropriate.
It almost sounded like a direct provocation toward yokai.
Wasn't that far too audacious?
Noticing Natsume's gaze, Nurarihyon took a puff of his pipe and said irritably, "Why are you looking at this old man? I have no objection to what he said."
"Huh?"
Natsume found this very strange.
After all, Nurarihyon was the Lord of Pandemonium.
In other words, he was essentially the leader of the yokai, yet he agreed with those words.
Noriyuki chuckled.
"It's fine, it's fine. The Supreme Commander is a yokai who stands on humanity's side."
Uh…
Natsume's gaze became even stranger.
Nurarihyon calmly said, "You just learned the three ways yokai can be born. Now, guess what type of yokai this old man is."
Natsume knew that Nurarihyon was a nurarihyon. Nyanko-sensei had mentioned that before.
The image of the nurarihyon first appeared in the Edo-period yokai artwork of Toriyama Sekien, where it was depicted with a palanquin to symbolize a shameless freeloader.
According to legend, a nurarihyon would secretly enter someone's home while the owner was absent and help itself to food and drink.
"So the Supreme Commander is a yokai born from supernatural tales?"
Nurarihyon nodded approvingly.
"Correct. This old man truly is a yokai born from supernatural tales. Unlike that naturally born cat of yours, my existence depends upon humanity."
"If the day comes when humans forget my existence, then no matter how powerful I may be, I will gradually fade away with the passage of time."
"Most yokai born from supernatural tales and fear are the same."
"We are born because of humanity, and once humanity forgets us, we disappear."
"That means we are naturally inseparable from humans."
"Humanity's existence is necessary to us."
"When humans are weak, we rule them. When humans are strong, we attach ourselves to them."
"It is that simple."
"The present era belongs to humanity. Human footprints cover every inch of this country, while yokai forces have become weaker than ever."
"If yokai like us wish to avoid extermination, naturally we must reach agreements with humans."
Otherwise, the Nura Clan could never have occupied such a large tract of land in Ukiyoe Town as its headquarters.
For the first time, Natsume understood that the relationship between humans and yokai was so complicated.
Noriyuki smiled and said, "By the way, I heard you mention that you encountered Tsuchigumo today. Could you tell us what happened?"
Natsume was just about to speak when Nyanko-sensei interrupted first.
"It was nothing important. We happened to run into Tsuchigumo on the street. We had an old grudge, so we deliberately fought."
Yomi Isayama asked, "Where?"
Nyanko-sensei glanced sideways at her.
"Why are you asking?"
Yomi Isayama said, "Today, we detected a great yokai fighting in Tokyo. We thought a yokai might be causing trouble, so we went there to stop it. However, by the time we arrived, the battle had already ended."
"We came too late."
"Nothing remained at the scene except a destroyed street and lingering yokai aura."
"We came to the Nura Clan because we wanted to ask the Supreme Commander whether he knew anything about what happened."
Nurarihyon nodded.
"That's right. They did come here to ask about that. But this old man doesn't know what happened either. The battlefield was too far from the Nura Clan, so I didn't sense anything."
Noriyuki took out his phone, opened a photograph, and handed it over.
"Was your battle with Tsuchigumo at this location?"