MLW – Chapter 53

Translator: Flowingcloud    Editor: Sage Yomeiri    Proofreader: N/A    TLC: N/A

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Ghost Extermination

Harukara managed to purchase some land in the outskirts of town, after negotiations with the realtor, and built a workshop there.
It was a workshop, just not in the sense like back in Japan with exhaust pipings and assembly line robots. It looked no different than a regular store. I did feel like it was an upgraded version of the cottage industry however, although the jars and the labels are done manually. [1]
The workshop was made quickly, thanks to Leica who called a dragon acquaintance to help. In five days, the building itself was near perfection.
Actually, according to Harukara: “The cost for construction was substantially decreased, so I’ll go and by some expensive alcohol.” I didn’t particularly mind about those things. However, if the profits go up, please treat me to something, ok?
Still, the workshop won’t start up just by making the building. Harukara was busy from dawn to midnight working out the system to transport the necessary materials and equipment preparations.
Leica even pitched in by transforming to her dragon form, making round trips to see the other dragons off. It is after all especially dangerous for Harukara’s willful body to travel at night, walking several kilometers after all.
“Umm, aren’t you working a bit too much? Don’t die from overwork now….”
“No, no, master. Even if I am tired, if I drink one bottle of ‘Nutritious Alcohol’, I can carry on for a while. Recently though, I seemed to have been drinking slightly more ‘Nutritional Alcohol’ each day compared to before….”
“Th-that’s obviously bad for you! From now on, make sure you absolutely come back home at eight in the evening!”
“U-umm…… In that case, the work will be delayed……”
“Then hire people and make them do something one way or another! You’ll really collapse into a heap if you keep doing the unreasonable and do everything by yourself! It’s fine if you just collapsed, but it’ll be all over if you died because of it!”
“Master…. You really are not going to give up on this….”
“Okay. You might become the president of a workshop in the future, but you are first and foremost my disciple in this house. Because of that, I will thoroughly be your supervisor. Overworking yourself is not acceptable, so with that being said, let’s go with this.”
And so I somewhat forcibly improved the labor practices and avoided the workshop becoming a black company. I thought there would be no problems later on with the operations, but…. [2]
“I can’t get employees….”
Harukara had an all-nighter kind of face since the morning.
“Why? Are you being that stingy with wages?”
“It’s not that master! Actually, I’m offering better pay compared to the town’s general job salary. It’s also not that I’m looking for people with technical knowledge. I’m thinking of having them work one one part of the process and then pass it on, like an assembly line. Anyone can do that if they properly learned.”
Then, there probably is another reason.
Something like keeping a distance from an unique occupation? If I had to say, the people around this people are conservative.
“They come out. It seems to be like a famous place..….”
“Come out? The spring water?”
“N-no master. Rather, if that doesn’t come out, I’d be troubled. It’s ghosts.”
Harukara said it with an eerie kind of voice.
“Ghosts… Are there really such things?”
Strictly speaking, I am skeptical about this.
“I also didn’t think they exist. However, I saw it yesterday. While I was working there, a 15 year old girl with short-bobbed hair….”
According to Harukara――
Several hundred years ago, it seemed a trader that failed in their business lived on that land. It seems like they sold their 15 year old daughter to a brothel for gold. She apparently was told a like that she was to be married off to a noble. On the day that she realized she was going to be sold to a brothel, she despaired and hung herself.
As a result, it seems like if a building was built there, the spirit of the dead girl will haunt the building, and that was a hindrance.
It sounded like there were a lot of ‘it seems’, but this kind of story doesn’t contain much accurate information, so it can’t be helped there.
It was just that it was a famous story in Nasukute Town, so because of it everyone doesn’t want to work at that building.
“I did think that land was a bit strange because of how strangely cheap it was….”
“You got your hands on property that has a variety of troubles.”
“In other words…if that ghost disappears, then everything would turn out fine!”
“It would come down to that in theory.”
“So, master? Can you help me?”
“Eh?”
I said with a reluctant kind of voice.
“I’m not good with that sort of thing…… Those cursed ones……”
“You’ll be fine master since you’re a witch! Besides, with master’s strength, even ghosts would run away! Please exorcise it master!”
Easy for you to say….
I don’t have any spells related to exorcism. Isn’t that the job of a clergyman?
Let’s ask someone more informed about this.
Thus, I asked Sharusha about what a ghost is.
“The technical term of a ghost is called ‘isolation spirit’. It can be said the generic name for a soul that had come out of the body.”
“It’s too technical for me; I couldn’t understand. Explain it more plainly.”
“There are two types of these isolation spirits. One can move, confined in approximately the place where they died themselves.”
This is some sort of ghost bound to a specific location.
“Then, the other one has relatively free movement, and can fly about various place according to their own will. This case was only witnessed in the place it died, so I think it is the former one.”
“In other words, this is the type that is bound to a specific location, right? Is there any method to deal with those?”
“Although it’s not impossible to forcibly exorcise them with a clerical item, since it doesn’t hold clear hostility towards the living, the clergymen won’t carry out these kinds of things. This can also be said to be a blasphemous deed to spirits.”
If that’s the case, only we can do something one way or another.
I turned around towards Harukara, and spoke.
“I understand. Let’s go see it at night.”
“Thank you very much, master!”
“However…… restricted to situations that a helper comes.”
“Helper?”
“Call Beelzebub.”
If you’re with a high level demon, a spirit probably wouldn’t be scary at all.

Footnotes:
1. Initially, we used the term ‘workshop’ in the initial chapters to suit the setting of the story, which is a medieval era world. The term “Koujyou” also can be used for refering to factories. Therefore, Azusa is comparing it to modern day factories. ↩
2. ED: The infamous term that sprung up in Japan at the early 2000s, mainly in the IT business. It those companies that hire a lot of young employees to work overtime for peanuts. Expect demoralizing conditions and power-tripping from your superiors. Oh you can quit, but they’ll exploit your reputation and dig up enough dirt to goad you to stay. ↩