This Japanese Slice-of-Life Isn’t Lame - Chapter 45

Chapter 45: Kitagawa Tera Did Not Care

Kitagawa Tera only briefly thought about what this word meant and did not continue thinking deeper.

Yes, there’s no point in thinking about what the puppets said now. What is more crucial lies in front of me.

Kitagawa Tera raised his head, and there was a slight black flash in his eyes.

Chinatsu Chiyuki’s situation was slightly more serious than Kamiya Mirai’s, showing that the strange thing hiding in the abandoned Miki Puppet Factory was stronger than Hoshino Nana.

After all, the wraith being able to escape and infect another person was no longer the power an elementary wraith had.

The important difference between elementary and intermediate wraiths depended mostly on whether the ‘grudge’ could exist independently of its owner.

Although Hoshino Nana could attach the ‘grudge’ on Kamiya Mirai, it was impossible to use Kamiya Mirai as a springboard to infect others with the ‘grudge’. Being able to exist apart from its owner and rely on siphoning the energy from a body to grow the ‘grudge’ was an ability that intermediate wraiths had.

Every intermediate wraith brought with it good rewards and returns. In addition, the strengthening of Cadaveric Aura and his physique was significant, thus being attractive for Kitagawa Tera.

After all, intermediate wraiths were not easy to encounter.

In the past, Kitagawa Tera had exorcised seven or eight elementary wraiths of various stages. The strong ones were advanced-stage elementary wraiths, while the weak ones were elementary-stage elementary wraiths that were just born and only had a sliver of grudge.

But he knew that he still did not have a weapon that could kill spirits, and it was a little difficult to exorcise the intermediate wraith.

Hassan City… Kitagawa Tera muttered with a voice that only he could hear.

“Kitagawa-san?” Chinatsu Chiyuki’s voice sounded, pulling Kitagawa Tera out of his thoughts.

He came back to his senses, looked up at the black aura entwining around Chinatsu Chiyuki, and calmly said, “The abnormality on you isn’t much of a problem. I can exorcise it.”

“Really?” Chinatsu Chiyuki said in surprise.

“It is indeed a trivial matter.” Kitagawa Tera nodded.

“Then—” Chinatsu Chiyuki was just about to speak.

“Then, let’s talk about the issue of remuneration now,” Kitagawa Tera calmly said and drank the coffee.

In fact, he was not lacking money recently. After receiving the remuneration from that wealthy young lady Kamiya Mirai, he had enough money on hand for his expenses this month.

But it was already written in the email that Chinatsu Chiyuki would pay Kitagawa Tera for his help.

This was a rule, and nothing could be accomplished without norms and standards. Although Kitagawa Tera was the type who believed that ‘having enough money to spend is enough’, it was not worth it to tilt the balance in his heart for merely tens of thousands of yen.

Of course, what was most important to Kitagawa Tera was that it was a purely ‘transactional’ relationship between Chinatsu Chiyuki and him rather than a ‘friendship’ relationship.

If they were friends, Kitagawa Tera would certainly do his utmost to help and not even mention money.

Regretfully, Kitagawa Tera currently still did not have any friends. Asamiya Hitomi counted as half a friend, Arano Ryoko as half, and Kamiya Mirai was reluctantly also half a wallet… friend… As for Kitagawa Eri? She was a sister.

There was no place for Chinatsu Chiyuki among Kitagawa Tera’s friends for the time being, so it was normal to talk about money.

Besides, it was tiring to interact with these little girls. These days, he had had first-hand experience with Kamiya Mirai.

In particular, these Japanese female students would occasionally have some bizarre ideas that Kitagawa Tera simply could not comprehend.

Since it was like this, using the most primitive money-employment relationship was undoubtedly the most reliable.

But Chinatsu Chiyuki looked weird when she heard this. She looked at Kitagawa Tera and asked tentatively, “Umm… Excuse me for taking the liberty, but is Kitagawa-san’s family facing any difficulties?”

She had not reached the stage of investigating Kitagawa Tera’s family, but from his demeanor, did he not resemble someone with family difficulties?

Kitagawa Tera did not answer her boring question and only stared deeply at her.

Staring quietly…

His stare was not malicious and did not bring any kind of oppressive feelings, but it somehow made Chinatsu Chiyuki’s scalp numb.

After staring at Chinatsu Chiyuki silently for a while, Kitagawa Tera said, “The remuneration for exorcising your grudge is fifty thousand yen. With your friend, the total is one hundred thousand yen.”

This was a fair price.

Kitagawa Tera was a little satisfied and sighed that he was indeed a good person.

After all, how much Kamiya Mirai gave was how much Chinatsu Chiyuki and her friend would give. This was very reasonable.

Kitagawa Tera neither maliciously raised the price nor maliciously decreased the price, treating Chinatsu Chiyuki fairly.

But what Kitagawa Tera did not expect was that Chinatsu Chiyuki raised her voice and said in disbelief, “One hundred thousand yen?!”

Huh?

Kitagawa Tera was expressionless on the surface and only looked up at Chinatsu Chiyuki once more.

Seeing Kitagawa Tera’s gaze, Chinatsu Chiyuki waved her hands repeatedly, appearing a little flustered. “I don’t mean that, Kitagawa-san.”

She subconsciously touched the coffee cup with both hands, and meeting Kitagawa Tera’s gaze, she said weakly, “I meant to say… isn’t one hundred thousand yen a little too little?”

“…” Kitagawa Tera.

Chinatsu Chiyuki held up three fingers and said tentatively, “How about this, Kitagawa-san? I’ll pay two hundred and fifty thousand yen because Risa’s family also assisted me by giving me quite a bit of money to help them find a famous exorcist.”

In fact, Chinatsu Chiyuki still felt that it was too little. Those black-hearted exorcists on the market quoted as much as 500,000 yen without any guarantee of success. Chinatsu Chiyuki did not buy those exaggerated prices at all.

Two hundred and fifty thousand yen?

Kitagawa Tera could not help it looking at Chinatsu Chiyuki again while sighing silently.

Even though they have the help of adults, are Japanese high school students really so rich nowadays?

But he immediately shook his head and repeated with emphasis and calmness, “One hundred thousand yen.”

“But—” Chinatsu Chiyuki was stunned. There’s someone like Kitagawa Tera who would say no to money?

“One hundred thousand yen.” The sudden coldness in Kitagawa Tera’s voice blocked Chinatsu Chiyuki. After a while, she nodded stiffly.

Seeing her agree, Kitagawa Tera exhaled with a little bit of regret and looked elsewhere.

Regret was normal. Who would not regret giving up the opportunity to earn one hundred and fifty thousand yen for nothing?

But, as mentioned earlier, Kitagawa Tera was a person with a bottom line and principles.

What he said would be what he said.

In addition, temptation was a great enemy, and he was not going down this rabbit hole.

Moreover…

It’s only 150,000 yen. I actually don’t care at all…

Kitagawa Tera’s eyes subconsciously floated toward her pocket and lingered there as he murmured coldly under his breath, Yes, I don’t care… not even a single bit.