Marie Takai should be telling the truth.
There was no need for her to come up with stories such as the headmaster of Kondo Private Junior High School being her father and the demonic occurrence that happened recently if she just wanted to talk to him. It would be a stupid act as those lies could be easily dispelled.
As for why Marie Takai trusted Baishi Shū so much? Naturally, it was not because he had a good-looking face. About a year ago, before Baishi Shū began to actively partake in exorcism, a strange incident happened in Hibiya High School. Many people were affected, and Marie Takai was one of them.
After Baishi Shū stepped up and resolved the incident, it left a huge impression on the teacher and students. From then on, Baishi Shū's image changed from a nerdy egghead into everybody's favorite curve wrecker.
Therefore, unsurprisingly, Baishi Shū was the first to pop up in Marie Takai's mind when she came across a paranormal event once again.
Be that as it may, even though he promised to help Marie Takai, he could not guarantee that he could solve this incident.
According to Marie Takai, her father had found an expert to look into this incident, but to their chagrin, they could not find anything.
To Baishi Shū, he was just an ordinary monk, not to mention that he was still a novitiate. The only person weaker than him that he could think of was probably that fledging miko from the Yotsuya Suga Shrine. Under such circumstances, he did not think that he was a pro that could settle something even an expert could not.
Most importantly, because he did not have a system to assist him, he had no reason to be arrogant. Perhaps Marie Takai or even her father had more faith in him than he did in himself.
When the class was over, Marie Takai hurried to her community club and took leave. After that, she led Baishi Shū to Kondo Private Junior High School.
On the way to their destination, Baishi Shū sent a message to the old abbot.
Speaking of the abbot, this world had a rather comprehensive pension system. The government would provide monetary assistance to the elderly over 65 years old on a regular basis. Besides that, if the person was in a special industry such as the old abbot, who was a monk and the abbot of a temple, the amount would be even higher. Therefore, the old abbot's daily needs had been covered by the government, so Baishi Shū just needed to earn his own living expenses.
The students in Kondo Private Junior High School were still in their class. When Baishi Shū and Marie Takai arrived, everyone stared at them strangely as they wondered why the students from Hibiya High School would come to their school.
After all, with his shaved head, if Baishi Shū held a cigarette in his mouth, he really would look like a delinquent looking for trouble.
Following Marie Takai, who wound through the corridor with ease, Baishi Shū soon arrived at the headmaster's office and saw her father. He was a stoic-looking middle-aged man in a suit. His brows seemed to be locked in a perpetual frown, and it was only when he smiled and his eyes slightly curved down that the seriousness on his face was relieved.
"Dad! I've brought Baishi-san here!" Marie Takai immediately introduced Baishi Shū to her father who smiled and reached out to him with good graces.
He grabbed his hand and firmly shook it as he said, "Nice to meet you, Baishi-san. I am Hirokazu Takai, Marie Takai's father, and also the current headmaster of Kondo Private Junior High School."
"Nice to meet you too, Mr. Takai." Baishi Shū returned his grip politely and then together, they went into the room.
Both of them walked to the couch while Marie Takai went to fetch them tea. After that, the three of them sat down and began filling Baishi Shū in with the recent paranormal event.
Headmaster Takai spilled everything he knew without any reserve. "It happened several days ago. It was Friday. That night, a student of ours named Sachiko Nagakawa suddenly shouted in the girls' dormitory and said that she heard somebody playing the pen fairy game in the room.
"Since the room she referred to was refitted into a storeroom after the incident that happened three years ago, we didn't ignore it and quickly asked for help from Honmon-ji. However, the monk from Honmon-ji said that there's nothing unusual about the storeroom or even the entire dormitory building. We went back to Sachiko and she said that she might have been hallucinating since she was reading some ghost stories that night before she went to bed, so we thought nothing actually happened. Then, within the next two days, we received reports from a couple of students saying that they heard strange noises every night. Like a bomb that exploded, fear quickly spread through the entire school. Quite a number of students haven't been coming to school since then, and the girls' dormitory has been empty," Headmaster Takai said resignedly and shook his head.
Apparently, the school authorities were quite helpless about this kind of situation. They allowed their students to take leave since they could not risk the students' safety by letting them stay in a quasi-haunted dormitory.
Headmaster Takai had been looking for monks or priests from other temples or shrines. When her daughter told him about Baishi Shū, he did not have high hopes for him.
The Japanese held experience high above everything. Headmaster Takai reckoned that Baishi Shū did not possess any spiritual power given that he was merely a novitiate that was not even a formal monk. Therefore, what qualification did he have to solve a spiritual incident in which even the monk from Honmon-ji could not solve?
However, after his daughter's repeated request, Headmaster Takai then made some inquiries about Baishi Shū and was stunned to the core. He had never seen such a powerful monk in his life before! He could even describe Baishi Shū as the strongest monk ever!
From the information he received, Baishi Shū had single-handedly solved the paranormal incident that happened in Hibiya High School a year and a half ago. The following year, he began accepting all sorts of quests to combat demonic appearances. In total, to date, he had accepted 81 quests and completed them all.
Every one of his clients praised him for his excellent performance and even helped him to spread the word about his service. In other words, throughout the entire year, every four or five days, Baishi Shū would exorcise an evil spirit and send it to seek repentance in front of Buddha in the Western Paradise.
Those successful cases were not enough to convince him yet. It was when his daughter shared a video with him that he truly believed that Baishi Shū was an eminent monk with great power. It was the video showcasing the exorcism by a miko from the Yotsuya Suga Shrine. In the video, the miko utilized countless flashy moves, yet all of them were useless against the runaway spirit.
In the end, it was after she shouted, "Baishi-san, save me!" that a monk who looked like Baishi Shū rushed out from behind the camera and exterminated the spirit in one blow.
Following several bouts of consideration, Headmaster Takai finally gave in and agreed to his daughter's somewhat ridiculous proposal. He asked her to invite Baishi Shū to come to Kondo Private Junior High School and solve the problem.
To show his sincerity, Headmaster Takai took out several banknotes and placed them in front of Baishi Shū.
"Here's 50,000 yen as a small token of appreciation for you to come all the way here. If you can solve this problem, I'll give you another million yen as your remuneration."
"It's okay. You can keep that." Baishi Shū shook his head.
A gentleman had his way of attaining his monetary aspiration. This was not the same as the remuneration Asada Senna had given him. In Asada Senna's case, Baishi Shū had worked for it, so it was perfectly justifiable for him to get his share.
However, in this case, if nothing was resolved in the end and he took the 50,000 yen, he would feel like he was taking advantage of Headmaster Takai, and that was not something he wanted.
Needless to say, he would give it his all to get the million yen remuneration. After all, with the money, he could build a new room behind the temple. Then, he would have a room for himself as well as an indoor kitchen!