Chapter 28: Human Evil is Detestable
A Ghost Servant.
Since this was the Wedding Dress Tree's Domain, the appearance of a Ghost Servant was not strange at all. If anything, the real cause for alarm would have been the opposite.
"Gingrao Lake, Mingao Village... so it really is this place. There were things I should have connected much sooner."
Standing inside the dilapidated wooden house, Gin Tsumugi looked out into the pitch black world beyond the window. After stepping into this Ghost Domain, many of the doubts that had been circling in his mind had finally begun to settle into place.
Ogiso Setsuna noticed the change in his expression at once. The confusion on her beautiful face deepened.
Gin glanced at her, then turned his gaze back toward the darkness outside. There was not a single trace of light anywhere in the village. The night here was so complete that it felt less like ordinary darkness and more like a heavy cloth thrown over the world.
"I know now why the Onmyo Bureau's earlier investigation was filled with loopholes," Gin said quietly. "And I know even more clearly what the Wedding Dress Tree is, and what kind of place Mingao Village really is."
Setsuna's eyes widened slightly.
The scattered clues that had once seemed disconnected had now linked together in Gin's mind.
Why had the Wedding Dress Tree mysteriously vanished after being uprooted and sealed by the Onmyo Agency?
Why did the records describe it as some kind of sudden "supernatural revival"?
Why had the water of Bing Lake decayed into foul, lifeless stagnation for no apparent reason?
And why did the atmosphere here carry not just the yin energy of Yokai, but also traces of old Onmyodo?
The answer to all of it pointed in the same direction.
"I've seen the name Mingao Village before," Gin said. "I just did not connect it to this case until now."
Setsuna blinked.
"In the Onmyo Agency archives?"
"Not exactly." Gin shook his head. "It was in the supernatural archives of the Onmyoryo."
"Onmyoryo?"
She had heard of the Onmyo Agency, the Onmyo Alliance, and the Onmyo Academy, of course. But this was the first time she had heard that name.
Gin explained, his voice calm and steady.
"A thousand years ago, during the Heian Period, the Onmyoryo was the official organization of onmyoji attached to the imperial court and the aristocracy. The present day Onmyo Bureau, Onmyo Alliance, and even the Onmyo Academy all inherited parts of its authority in one form or another."
He paused for a moment.
"And in the old records of the Onmyoryo, Mingao Village appeared in a file concerning a supernatural incident."
Setsuna's breathing unconsciously grew quieter.
These were not facts she would ever have learned in ordinary life. Even now, hearing them inside this dead village gave her a deeply unsettling feeling.
Gin continued.
"According to the records, more than a thousand years ago, in the far north, far from Kyoto, there was once a prosperous village. It was remote, wealthy, and strangely peaceful. For decades, it was never attacked by Yokai. That anomaly eventually drew the attention of the Onmyoryo."
Setsuna frowned in confusion.
If the village was peaceful, did that not sound like a good thing?
Gin saw the question on her face and answered it before she could ask.
"You need to understand what the Heian Period really was."
His eyes grew slightly distant, as though he were looking not at the broken village before him, but at an age buried in the past.
"The era we live in now is only the beginning of spiritual recovery. A chaotic opening, nothing more. But the Heian Period was the true peak of the supernatural age, when demons, specters, curses, and Yokai ran rampant across the land. In that era, ordinary humans were little more than blood and flesh to be harvested at will."
His voice did not rise, yet each word landed heavily.
"When people say that Yokai ruled the night, that was not a metaphor. It was the truth."
Setsuna's face slowly paled.
"Even Kyoto, protected by the strongest onmyoji of that age, could not completely avoid Yokai attacks. So tell me, in a world like that, would it not be strange for some remote little village to remain untouched for decades?"
Only then did it click.
A chill ran through Setsuna's body.
Yes.
If even Kyoto could not guarantee safety, then a village in the far north remaining utterly peaceful was not natural at all. It was abnormal in the extreme.
Gin went on.
"The Onmyoryo investigated, and what they found was an ugly custom practiced by the villagers. Every year, they dressed dead unmarried girls in bridal robes and offered them to a large pagoda tree in the village as sacrifices."
Setsuna stared at him, unable to speak.
"The villagers believed that this 'divine tree' protected them. They also believed those girls, once offered, would fuse with the tree, remain with it forever, and in doing so continue protecting the village for eternity."
Gin's gaze lowered slightly.
"To outsiders, perhaps it might have sounded like nothing more than a twisted funerary custom. Disturbing, yes, but not enough to be called true evil."
He gave a faint, cold smile.
"But a village of at most a thousand people, counting men, women, children, and the elderly, how could there have been so many dead unmarried girls to offer year after year?"
The answer struck Setsuna like a hammer.
Her face went white.
"They... were sacrificing living girls."
It was framed as a question, but her tone held no uncertainty.
Gin nodded once.
"Yes."
Setsuna covered her mouth instinctively.
Looking out at the dark village, she suddenly felt a different kind of fear than before. The terror that had seized her earlier had been fear of Yokai, of curses, of the supernatural.
This was different.
This was fear of people.
"The custom eventually rotted into something worse," Gin said. "The pagoda tree, which had begun as nothing more than a symbol of spiritual dependence, became greedy. It wanted more sacrifices. And the villagers, under all sorts of excuses and disguises, began to provide them."
He spoke each word clearly.
"They lured girls in. They bought them. They kidnapped them. Then they dressed them in bridal robes and offered them to the tree."
Setsuna felt sick.
She could not even begin to imagine it. That kind of cruelty did not belong to Yokai alone. It had been born from ordinary human hands.
Gin's voice turned colder.
"It continued until the matter finally reached the Onmyoryo and onmyoji were dispatched to investigate."
He looked beyond the window again, toward the unseen lake outside.
"But by the time they arrived, Mingao Village had already vanished. The entire village had sunk and become a lake. Not a trace of its former life remained."
Only its consequences were left behind.
"The lakebed was full of bones," Gin said. "Thousands upon thousands of them. More than anyone could properly count. Human remains deposited in layers beneath the water."
Setsuna's whole body tensed.
The scene alone was enough to make her scalp go numb.
"And according to the records," Gin continued, "the most likely explanation is that a powerful passing onmyoji intervened. Either the thing was destroyed, or it was sealed. Judging from the current state of things..."
He let the sentence trail for a breath.
"It was most likely sealed."
At this point, the structure of the incident before them had become brutally clear.
The ancient evil of Mingao Village had not truly died.
It had only remained dormant.
Something had reawakened it.
The hairpin.
Kuda Mai.
The Wedding Dress Tree.
Everything now formed a single line.
Setsuna stood frozen, unable to speak for a long moment.
The silence in the house deepened.
At last, she forced out a whisper.
"So this village... all of this... it was created by humans?"
Gin did not answer immediately.
Then he said quietly, "Yokai are frightening. Curses are frightening. But sometimes, human malice is far more disgusting."
He remembered the final note left in that old Onmyoryo file.
Only four characters.
Simple. Severe. Unforgettable.
Human Evil is Detestable.
.....
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