In a dark corner, the Hannya-masked person slammed his fist against a wall.
"Damn it! Damn bastard! Is there anyone else besides that Ultraman who can stop me?!"
"I even pushed back the timeline by a week and created this lifelike puppet to avoid being detected by Ultraman!"
The Hannya-masked person turned to look at the motionless puppet standing behind him.
The puppet had the exact same build as he did. The only difference was that its jacket was a bit tattered from Mordred's attacks.
He had originally planned to launch this project a week ago, but the recent appearance of a monster and Ultraman disrupted his plans. The images of the Ultra Brothers he had watched as a child flashed one after another in his mind. His weak plan could not withstand Ultraman's greatness and the monster's violence. So he spent another week strengthening his methods and completely covering his tracks. He knew that as long as he could stay hidden for more than three minutes after Ultraman's appearance, he would be victorious. At the same time, he spent a lot of effort creating a decoy puppet to give himself a chance to feign death and escape when faced with a desperate situation.
But that heavy-armored person, a spiritual being transformed into a physical body with terrifying power, became a new variable. This could cause him to face a second, desperate situation even after faking his death and escaping. He had reason to believe that the Ultraman had already taken on a human form and was investigating his plan. But now the plan had been activated, and he didn't have time to create a new puppet to replace himself.
"Although it might create new loopholes, there's not much time left." The Hannya-masked person quickly performed hand seals, and a shimmering light flickered between his fingertips.
"As fast as the law!"
As the last hand seal was completed, the Hannya-masked person collapsed to the ground as if exhausted.
"Good. Soon my backup hidden energy will increase from a hundred thousand to several million. Hehehehe—go on! Cause as much trouble as you want, you otherworldly visitors!"
"You are the best chess pieces I have to hold off that giant!"
...
"Oh my, you two are so slow."
When Taichi arrived at X's designated location on his bicycle, a petite girl was already sitting on a clean single sofa, twirling her hair out of boredom. Surrounding the sofa were monsters of various sizes and species... Yokai.
Taichi and Akane looked at the girl with ill-fitting clothes, an eye patch over one eye, and missing a leg. They looked at each other and shared a knowing glance.
'You recognize her too, right?' Akane thought she was conveying.
'You must have watched this anime, right? It came out the year you transmigrated.' That's what Taichi was conveying.
"Crossing the boundary between life and death and even having the means to destroy those guys without knowing their origins." The girl, holding a cane, stood up from the sofa with the support of the Yokai. "You're truly the best laborers right now."
"At least much better than that somewhat extreme middle-aged man's spirit."
"Oh, I haven't introduced myself yet, have I?" The girl spun around on one leg, then held up her skirt with both hands and bowed slightly. "My name is Kotoko Iwanaga, the Goddess of Wisdom for the Yokai. I've been entrusted by some incredible people in this country to come and resolve this disaster."
"Well, I don't have the same powers as you, and because of my physical disabilities, you can also see me as a weak and powerless high school girl, anonymous sir."
The Goddess of Wisdom, surrounded by Yokai, and at the same time, their puppet. She did her best to prevent the human world and the Yokai world from intersecting, balancing the scales between them. Although he didn't know what methods she used, there were rumors of her among the upper echelons of humanity, but no one had ever tried to harm her... or rather, they had tried, but failed before they could even act?
"Taichi Naruto, a freelancer with a slightly different-than-normal experience." Taichi felt that he would soon be able to leave his part-time job, so he slightly changed his profession. If he remembered correctly, Kotoko Iwanaga's family wasn't high society, but they had a considerable commercial influence. If they became friends during this incident... selling the gold he had would be no problem at all! He would soon become a millionaire! A millionaire in Japanese yen, that is.
"Akane Shinjo, a young, beautiful girl who just left her high school life and is currently worried about which path to choose in life."
In this situation, only Kotoko chose to be honest. The others were still suspicious. Kotoko realized this, and with her childlike nature, she puffed out her cheeks to show her displeasure.
"You're not being honest enough, so I won't share all the information from now on," Kotoko said, shaking her cane in a complaint. "The currently available information is that the spirits who lost their bodies are not truly dead. As long as their spirits are collected and sent to the outside world, they can regain their bodies."
"Isn't it just a possibility?" Taichi asked.
"Before you arrived, I had a Yokai test it out," Kotoko replied, shrugging her shoulders. "The Metropolitan Police Department has successfully received that naked man."
"The devices for collecting spirits are called 'katashiro' and are placed on the offering platforms of 'shrines'. One 'katashiro' can hold a few hundred spirits," Kotoko said, looking up at Taichi and continuing, "When a katashiro is full, it can be handed over to my Yokai, who will take them to the outside world."
"After all, although the barrier can prevent humans from entering or exiting, it doesn't affect Yokai. I was able to get in thanks to them."
"...Is that why your clothes don't fit?" Akane couldn't help but ask.
The girl visibly gulped. Not just her clothes, but her special prosthetic eye and leg also vanished the moment she entered the barrier.
"That's not important..."
Just as the girl was about to get back to the main topic, several pillars of light suddenly shot up from some of the high-rise buildings and converged in the sky.
"What is that?" Taichi looked up in astonishment.
"So bright..." Akane shielded her eyes with her arm, trying to look through the gap.
"This is not good..." Even Kotoko muttered with a grim expression.
"Taichi! The barrier has disappeared... No, it hasn't disappeared! It's been re-established elsewhere! This time, the new barrier encompasses... all of Tokyo!"