When Shin ran outside, the Firewall lowered to its hidden state again. The only sign of intrusion was the sight of a person running away down the street, and a paper envelope lying on the ground.
Instead of trying to chase the person and drawing the attention of every neighbor, Shin stared at the envelope. It looked entirely ordinary.
'Just a messenger?.. This can't be anything good. Could the envelope be trapped?'
'I don't smell anything weird, boss,' Tetsu said, peeking out from him. 'I will open it carefullyyyy…'
'Alright,' Shin said, stepping back from the suspicious letter. 'Don't bring it inside the house.'
'As you say, boss! I will be super careful!'
Following her words, Tetsu used several pieces of her armor to pick up and open the envelope instead of touching it with her own hands.
The precaution turned out to be unnecessary. Inside was only a small note, and even a close examination showed nothing suspicious about it—except from the fact that it was put together from cutouts from a newspaper.
It looked safe enough to bring it inside and read in the privacy of Shin's room.
[You proved yourself worthy; from now on, I will keep an eye on you. If you find yourself stumped on your current endeavor, visit this place: 35.07, 139.07.]
'Huh? Are those coordinates? Who sent that letter?' Shin wondered, examining the sheet of paper more carefully. There was no signature on it or on the envelope.
It was only when Shin thought to lift the letter to the light in search of watermarks, when he saw it.
An image of a stylized eye.
'That's the symbol of Thousand Eyes—the all-eyed demon who forced us out of the Court of Words last time,' Shin explained to Tetsu. 'It looks like it wants to play a game with us now.'
He went to his map and searched for the coordinates marked on the letter. They pointed to a cliff near the sea, a distance away from the town, but besides that.
'There's nothing there, boss!' Tetsu pointed out with a frown. 'Is that stuck-up demon trying to make a joke of you? Is he sending you out in the middle of nowhere?'
'A middle of nowhere? I don't think so, Tetsu,' Shin replied, moving his finger along the map. 'That cliff… There are several roads going around the shore, leading to smaller villages, but do you see this?'
'Another road! It goes right to the cliff, too… But it ends with nothing. That's not right, isn't it? All roads lead somewhere.'
'Exactly. A cliff on the edge of the sea, a road that leads nowhere, and a forest around this all… I know that place.'
With a small smile, Shin picked a large red pin and stuck it on the coordinates.
'This must be the abandoned lighthouse that was erased from maps by its current inhabitant. This person is a powerful warlock, and there's a rumor that he has a lot of treasures. More importantly, he has a lot of magic tools that will be extremely useful for creating an army of rat golems.'
"The Lighthouse of Doubt" was one of Shin's favorite written stories. It was a tale about four treasure hunters who ventured towards the lighthouse through the forest full of traps created by the mad warlock.
Everything could be a trap out there. Everything.
What Shin liked the most, though, was that traps weren't the worst part. It was the madness they gradually inflicted on the group. By the end of the journey, only the protagonist of the story survived enough to find and kill the warlock. But by then, he was so plagued by doubts and fears that he didn't dare to touch the treasure.
He became just as paranoid as the warlock, forever trapped in his doubts.
'That treasure hunter is probably a transmigrator, too,' Shin thought with a touch of bitterness. 'With a demon, he must have had a much easier time in the forest and didn't go mad. Or didn't go there in the first place… And now the story is completely different, I'm sure.'
It was so irrational, but Shin didn't like this. While he didn't care as much about other stories, this time he felt like reading a bad fanfiction about his favorite franchise.
'What are you talking about, my friend?' Tetsu asked. 'What are you angry with? If there's something or someone that bothers you, we will destroy it together!'
Shin caught himself. He didn't mean for Tetsu to hear his last thoughts.
'It doesn't matter. We don't need to go to this place, anyway. We can use the magic on our own.'
***
That evening, Shin held his first paper rat in his arms. Not a golem, but a shikigami—because finding paper was much easier than finding clay.
The demon stared back at Shin with black dots of eyes, sniffing the air.
"Sit here," Shin said, putting the rat on his deck.
The creature sat on its spot obediently while Shin leaned back in his chair and let out a weary sigh.
'This demon only has one Verse, but making it felt like making twenty squats. I think I can do… three more, at most, before I need some rest. What about you, Tetsu?'
'I'm good, boss! I can go as long as you can!'
Despite the demoness's words, Shin felt the same weariness in her.
"Damn," he swore aloud. "And we need at least a hundred, or several, to cover the entire town in reasonable time. Plus stronger golems to actually bring the transmigrators in… Using only simple paper and ink for spells is too ineffective. Even kids know you need special materials for magic."
Blood would be good—human blood, especially. But that would solve only a part of the problem.
'I suppose, Tetsu, we must pay a visit to the warlock, after all. The sooner we can get that power, the less time we will waste later. And who knows, maybe we will meet another transmigrator out there.'
'Right! Eating two birds in one bite, is that what humans say?'
Shin smiled.
'Almost.'