Anime Crossover: Eating Evil in a Daily World — Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Yozora’s Exorcism DiaryYou're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

“Br-bread?”

Yotsuya Miko’s expression twisted into a complicated knot. For a long moment, her brain simply refused to supply a response.

She genuinely did not remember how many slices of bread she had eaten in her life. But the more pressing issue was the comparison itself. Were grotesque, horrifying evil spirits really on the same level as baked goods? Did Yozora mean that, in his eyes, these terrifying anomalies were nothing more than casual snacks? That keeping a running tally of his consumption was as pointless as counting breakfast toast?

Before Miko could reboot her stalled thought process, Yozora reached into his pocket. He pulled out the familiar black notebook she had spotted earlier that morning and casually tossed it into her hands.

“Everything you want to know is probably scribbled in here. I can’t be bothered to explain it all from scratch. Read it yourself.”

Staring down at the unassuming black cover, Miko bit her lower lip. Her golden eyes wavered with heavy hesitation.

A deep, unsettling dread pooled in her stomach. According to Yozora, he had only awakened his ability to see these anomalies about half a month ago. Yet, the reality was glaringly obvious. His understanding of the supernatural ecosystem was leagues beyond hers, even though she had been cursed with the Sight for years.

If she opened this notebook right now and touched the absolute truth of their twisted reality, would she ever be able to turn back? Could she still pretend to be a normal high school girl?

After a long, agonizing silence, Miko reached out. Her pale, slender fingers brushed against the worn cover of the black notebook. She took a deep breath, forcing her racing heart to steady, and slowly flipped to the first page.

The very first line nearly gave her whiplash.

[March 20th, Weather: Cloudy.]

[Today, I awakened the ability to see evil spirits and ghosts.]

[Damn it, waking up first thing in the morning and opening my eyes to see a distorted monster standing by my bed really scared the hell out of me.]

Reading that opening complaint, Miko let out a long, involuntary sigh.

She could only offer her deepest sympathies. Even now, after years of practice, occasionally opening her eyes to find a mangled, bleeding apparition hovering inches from her face still left her drenched in cold sweat.

At the same time, the heavy tension in her chest loosened just a fraction. She peeked up at Yozora, who was currently leaning against the rusted rooftop railing, casually watching the distant cityscape. Despite his current unshakable demeanor, he had been just as terrified as she was on day one. Experiencing fear meant he was still fundamentally human.

A faint, relieved smile touched Miko’s lips.

Then her eyes dropped to the next paragraph, and her smile instantly shattered.

[Finished eating.]

[Unexpectedly, the taste of evil spirits isn’t bad. How should I describe it?]

[The texture is a bit like spicy latiao, except the outer shell is crispy.]

[As any veteran evil spirit eater knows, swallowing is the easy part. The prep work is a nightmare.]

[I tried deep-frying it, but it doesn’t seem to register as a physical ingredient. It can only be eaten raw.]

[Whatever, eating it raw is fine. It has a primitive flavor of nature.]

Miko’s brain completely crashed. She could not even process the sheer insanity of a culinary review for a ghost. Operating purely on autopilot, her numb fingers turned the page.

[March 26th, Weather: Sunny.]

[After these past few days of constantly devouring evil spirits, I have a deeper understanding of my abilities.]

[It’s not just the Sight.]

[After devouring them, my physical fitness receives a slight permanent buff. The exact scaling seems to depend on the strength of the target.]

[, post-consumption, random memory fragments that don’t belong to me flash through my mind. I speculate these are residual experiences from the evil spirit’s past life.]

[In these memory fragments, I only play the role of a third-party spectator with a god’s-eye view. I don’t experience their emotions personally, so there is zero psychological backlash.]

[April 2nd, Weather: A cloudless, sunny day.]

[How many evil spirits have I devoured during this timeframe? I didn’t bother keeping track.]

[About two or three hundred? Maybe four or five hundred. The spawn rate of these things is just too high.]

[As my kill count increases, I’ve noticed a shift in the local ecosystem. Ordinary evil spirits and ghosts, likely acting on pure survival instinct against a natural predator, no longer dare to approach me.]and support the real translator.Read at elysianreads.com This is a stolen translation. You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

[In fact, the moment I enter an area, they immediately scatter and flee.]

Reading this particular entry, Miko’s eyebrows twitched violently.

From March 20th to April 2nd. That was a grand total of thirteen days.

Yozora had actually devoured hundreds of evil spirits in less than two weeks? That averaged out to him hunting down and eating at least twenty to thirty anomalies every single day.

Although the notebook maintained a casual, observational tone, Miko knew the reality of the streets. Based on her own miserable daily routine, unless she actively ventured into abandoned buildings or dark, cursed alleys, the number of anomalies she naturally encountered in a day was usually around four or five.

What did this math imply?

It meant that from the very second Yozora awakened his Sight, he had never once tried to hide or avoid the supernatural. Instead, he was treating the city like an all-you-can-eat buffet, actively stalking the streets every single day to hunt them down.

Was this the behavior of a sane human being?!

The contents of the next entry, however, shifted from terrifying to utterly confusing.

[April 4th, Weather: Rainy.]

[Found another ‘door’.]

[Just as I suspected, in areas where this phenomenon exists, the evil spirits and ghosts within a radius of several kilometers become highly agitated and active.]

[If left unchecked, Kyoto is going to turn into a literal Hyakki Yagyō in less than two months.]

[However, if the lore settings for these anomalies are the same as in Yotsuya Miko’s world, I recall there being so-called deities capable of eradicating them.]

[Maybe I just haven’t looked in the right shrines.]

[Or perhaps these deities do exist, but they simply refuse to grant me their protection.]

[Either way, it doesn’t matter anymore.]

[Tomorrow is the start of the semester at Sobu High School. After making contact with Yotsuya Miko, I’ll figure out the next phase of the plan.]

The daily journal entries abruptly ended there.

Flipping to the very back of the notebook, Miko found a carefully compiled spreadsheet. It detailed the exact damage reactions of evil spirits when struck by weapons crafted from various mundane materials.

Staring at the data tables, Miko finally understood his bizarre behavior in the classroom that morning. He hadn’t been swinging that weapon around for fun, nor was he just acting out some chuunibyou fantasy.

He was conducting live field experiments. He wanted empirical data on which material inflicted the highest DPS on an ethereal target.

Now that was professional. A completely deranged, scientific approach to exorcism.

Yet, amidst all the madness, one glaring detail refused to make sense. Miko closed the black notebook and looked up at Yozora, her golden eyes filled with deep confusion.

“What do you mean by ‘my world’in this entry? Have you been watching me before today? And what exactly is this so-called’door’?”

“Hmm… How should I put it.”

Yozora turned away from the skyline, shrugging his shoulders with a nonchalant, easygoing smile.

“You can just interpret it as this: even though we’ve never officially crossed paths until today, I know your situation very, very well.”

He pushed off the rusted railing, taking a slow step toward her.

“As for the door…” Yozora tilted his head, his dark eyes glinting with a hint of amusement. “If you don’t have any club activities after school today, I can take you to see it with your own eyes. Once you see it, you’ll understand exactly how this city works.”

[Inorin’s Note:

– Latiao: A popular, cheap Chinese street snack made from extruded wheat flour and spicy oil, known for its chewy, slightly crispy texture and intense savory flavor.

– Hyakki Yagyō: The “Night Parade of One Hundred Demons,” a concept in Japanese folklore where supernatural creatures and yokai march through the streets in a massive, chaotic procession.]You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.