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ArabicAnime Crossover: Eating Evil in a Daily World — Chapter 42
Chapter 42: Signing the Contract
Hearing Hachishaku-sama’s desperate, pleading tone, Yui Yuigahama and Yotsuya Miko stood frozen in stunned silence.
What was going on?
The terrifying urban legend was actually begging Yozora to take her away?
What the hell kind of plot twist was this? How did a brutal interrogation suddenly pivot into a bizarre romance drama? Was this the legendary Stockholm Syndrome in action? Were they about to start reenacting that famous pottery scene from the movie Ghost?
As the person actually involved, Yozora’s expression remained perfectly placid. He did not even blink at Hachishaku-sama’s astonishing declaration, looking as though he had anticipated this exact outcome from the very beginning. He simply offered a faint smile.
“It seems you are quite clear-headed.”
The door was an anomaly that bridged two distinct worlds. To put it bluntly, it shattered the absolute boundary between life and death. Whether it was due to her own unique nature or sheer cosmic coincidence, Hachishaku-sama had successfully merged with this gateway. She was no longer just an ordinary evil spirit. She possessed the incredibly rare ability to traverse between the two realms, capable of dragging living humans straight into the Inner World of Kyoto.
In the eyes of the countless starving spirits trapped on the other side—monsters desperate to devour human souls but entirely unable to reach them—her ability was an very useful treasure.
Was Hachishaku-sama strong? Objectively, yes. She was a famous entity, and bolstered by her fusion with the door, average spirits were absolutely no match for her. But how many horrors were currently lurking in the depths of this Inner World? How many ancient, unfathomable entities were hiding within that suffocating black mist?
If she stayed here, she would face only one inevitable outcome: being torn apart and completely devoured by vastly superior entities who coveted her gateway.
Evil spirits feared death just as much as humans did. More, Hachishaku-sama had just personally experienced the agonizing torment of being eaten alive, bite by bite. She was utterly terrified of Yozora.
But by that exact same logic, if she feared him, the other entities in the Inner World would absolutely fear him too. As the old proverb went, a wise bird chooses a sturdy branch to perch on. Was it shameful to beg for her life? Not in the slightest.
“In that case…” Yozora let his smile fade, his tone turning strictly businesslike. “Let’s sign a contract.”
In Miko’s past experience, she had formed a pact with the shrine god. The terms of that deal required her to offer up everything she had just to secure three mere instances of divine intervention. It was a harsh reminder that in any supernatural bargain, the human was fundamentally the disadvantaged party.
But the current situation was the exact opposite.
Under the utterly shocked gazes of the two girls, Yozora laid out terms they could never have anticipated.
“The primary condition of this contract is that you will become my personal assistant.”
His first sentence sounded perfectly reasonable. Then, the capitalist nightmare began.
“You will work six days a week with one day off. I require a minimum of twelve hours of highly effective labor per day. If you fail to complete the tasks I assign within your stipulated shift, you will work overtime without pay, and your performance bonus will be heavily docked.”
He listed the terms without missing a beat.
“Any holidays will be compensated strictly with time off. You are permitted to take leave, but every single missed hour must be made up during your regular shifts., you are on-call during your non-working hours. The second I call your name, you must manifest immediately. Failure to do so will be recorded as an unexcused absence.”
He crossed his arms. “In return, your weekly salary will consist of the right to devour one evil spirit, alongside my personal protection.”
Yozora paused for a brief moment, adding a final, lethal clause. “Oh, and the final interpretation rights of this contract belong entirely to me. If you have no objections, then we have a consensus.”
Yui and Miko stood utterly dumbfounded.
Good heavens, he was actually exploiting an evil spirit? This guy needed to be strung up from the nearest streetlight!
Faced with such an outrageously unequal treaty, Hachishaku-sama had no choice but to nod, her face a mask of deep humiliation. She had no use. If she refused to sign it, someone else gladly would. If she rejected the assistant position, a horde of other spirits would violently compete for the job.
Seeing her nod in submission, Yozora felt a subtle, invisible connection snap into place between them. It was exactly as Old Deng had explained. The concept of a contract was an ancient, unbreakable law binding humans and spirits.
“Good job, Little Eight.” Yozora walked over, patted her towering shoulder, and graciously helped her up from the floor, nodding with deep satisfaction. “Stick with me, and you will have a boundless future. Work hard, put in the hours, and together we will scale new heights and achieve unmatched glory.”
He gestured grandly toward the dark horizon. “Those so-called Four Great Vengeful Spirits? Emperor Sutoku, Sugawara no Michizane, Shuten-doji, and Nurarihyon? We will shatter every single one of them eventually. You need to align your development with the company’s vision to truly realize your personal… I mean, your spiritual value. Do you understand?”
Miko rubbed her temples, letting out a long, exhausted sigh. How was he already feeding the ghost corporate propaganda?
To her absolute disbelief, Hachishaku-sama actually looked delighted by the empty promises, nodding with wide-eyed obedience. “Mm-hm! I will definitely work hard for you!”
Even though she was a terrifying entity, in her hundreds of years of existence, no one had ever painted such a rosy, motivational picture for her. Miko felt like she was watching a naive country girl fresh off the train being sweet-talked by a sleazy club owner into working as a hostess. The entire situation was too abstract to even process.
Having concluded his grand motivational speech, Yozora nodded in approval. Guided by their new employee, he led Miko, Yui, and Sable back through the door, stepping out of the nightmare and returning to the real-world Kyoto.
Hachishaku-sama, now fully integrated with the gateway, was the ultimate utility spirit he had always dreamed of.
To Miko, the Inner World of Kyoto was a perilous, monster-infested hellscape where survival was a statistical anomaly. But to Yozora? It was the world’s most exclusive, all-you-can-eat buffet.
Lately, as he consumed more and more entities, his nocturnal hunting trips had become increasingly frustrating. The difficulty did not lie in fighting the spirits; it was simply finding them. The moment the local ghosts caught even a faint whiff of his aura, they would scatter like terrified stray dogs, fleeing for their lives. Now, he had a direct, on-demand portal to an Inner World overflowing with high-quality meals. The timing could not have been better.
Naturally, there were limits. While Hachishaku-sama could theoretically open a door anywhere, she could only help passage during two specific twilight hours, and generating a brand-new gateway from scratch required a full seven-day cooldown.
Still, despite the minor hiccups, the trip was a massive success. Miko had awakened her Soul Manifestation, gained the ability to fight back, and learned the truth about the other side. Yozora was extremely satisfied with his haul.
“Phew, we are finally back.”
Stepping through the threshold, Yui blinked rapidly, looking as though she had just jolted awake from a deep sleep. She rubbed her eyes and pinched her own cheek hard. Seeing Miko and Yozora still standing right in front of her, her eyes widened in shock.
“Wait… so that wasn’t just a crazy dream?”
Yozora and Miko exchanged a deadpan stare. Good heavens, Yui’s mental processing speed was slow enough to stretch all the way from Kyoto to Okinawa.
Just as the silence settled, the master bedroom door clicked open.
“Hah…” Yui’s mother let out a soft yawn as she shuffled out into the hallway.
When her sleepy eyes finally focused on the living room, she froze. Standing right there in her home were three people—including Yozora, a strange boy she had never seen before in her life. She stared at them in utter bewilderment.
“What… are you kids doing?”
[Inorin’s Note: Yozora’s contract is a direct parody of the infamous ‘996’work culture prevalent in Asian tech companies (working 9 AM to 9 PM, 6 days a week), combined with the corporate tactic of’drawing a pie’—making grand, empty promises of future wealth to exploit naive employees.]