||You ain't even the first Ren we scammed this week.||
Ren stared. Ren blinked. Ren.exe wasn't responding.
"...........S-Suruuue."
Nurarihyon laughed and smacked Ren at the back of his head.
||Don't tell me you actually forgot about your mission right? Cuz twenty-eight days remaining. ||
Ren's brain lagged before auto-generating a response.
"Error 404: Mission Not Found."
Nurarihyon wheezed.
SMACK.
~~~
Fr tho, Ren actually checked that doomed scroll again.
Nothing changed.
[MISSION: Retrieve the Five Wigs of the Trans-Yokai.
REWARD: Temporary Extension of Soul Collection Deadline.
ON FAILURE: Immediate Termination of the Contract, leading to the Contractee's Death.]
Ren sighed.
Then he asked the yokai staring at him:
"Any ideas? Like how to proceed, for example?"
Suddenly, the mood in the room brightened.
Jorogumo stopped spinning webs for a whole damn second (gasp) and said:
||Well, well, looks like our contractee's not a TOTAL buffon; lemme just change that to 'PARTIAL' real quick. ||
Ignoring the cursed hybrid beauty, Ren turned to Karasujin.
"Plans?"
Karasujin was probably waiting for this moment since he was born— or formed?
||Indeed, Ren-san is decisive! I'll explain it all to you. ||
For the first time since his life got REKT by these scammers, Ren felt pure bliss at hearing one speak sensibly.
"Go on, then."
~~~
Five minutes later, Ren was seriously thinking if he was just a collection of bad decisions held together by mild anxiety.
So the plan was as follows:
He had to go from Tsuyama-shi— where he lived and where Karasujin was based — to Iwate-ken—specific location undisclosed.
By train.
Oh, and by the way, Bank account: 0.00(quite literally).
Which, for context, was like trying to cross half the country —while being broke enough to make a college student look rich.
By train.
No fancy shinkansen, no tohoku-nonsense.
Just. Train—
||Renny, didn't you pack your bags yet?||
Ren turned at Nurarihyon, who was busy trying to pack a vending-machine in a rucksack.
He laughed:
"Bag? Packing? Never heard of 'em"
Aka Manto just.......droned on:
||Red paper or blue paper||
Jorogumo, excited af for no damn reason, chimed:
||Aight, we done? Lezgooo....||
And thus began Ren's 'WORST JOURNEY EVER™'.
Bank account: 0.00.
Spirit morale: Also 0.00.
Hope: Negative.
Ren sat at Tsuyama Station, staring at the train schedules like they held the secrets to life itself. In a way, they did—because somehow, he had to get from Tsuyama to Iwate with exactly zero yen, zero cents, and zero dignity.
Karasujin, the smug crow-faced yokai sitting next to him, whispered:
||Just get a train ticket||
Ren deadpanned, rubbing his face.
"Gosh, wow, why didn't I think of that?"
Silence.(internal laughing)
"Oh right—because I'm broke."
A woman on the bench next to him inched away. To her, he was just some high schooler talking to himself. Which, fair.
||What if|| Jorogumo mused, ||you steal a ticket?||
Ren inhaled sharply.
"Because I'd rather not get arrested before I even get to Iwate?"
Nurarihyon sighed pitifully.
||Lame.||
After an intense 20 minutes of contemplating life choices, Ren settled on his best—read: least illegal— option.
The Seishun 18 Kippu. A five-day unlimited local train pass for ¥12,050.
Great deal...
....if you actually had ¥12,050.
So he did what any self-respecting person would do.
He sold his dignity.
Step 1: Find a part-time job.
Step 2: Endure soul-crushing labor.
Step 3: Profit.
...Except finding a job in less than an hour was impossible. Nobody wanted to hire a teenager with zero experience who looked like he hadn't slept in weeks.
Aka Manto suggested:
||You should dance on the street for tips,||
Ren, who'd given up on questioning life by now, shook his head:
"I'd rather die."
||You might. That old lady at the store looked like she was about to hit you with her umbrella.||
And that was how Ren found himself standing outside a 7-Eleven, bowing deeply, and asking people for spare change.
It was the lowest point of his life.
It got lower when an old man muttered,
"What a shame. Youth these days..."
...and handed him a single yen coin.
~~~
After failing to make enough money (he earned ¥340, which bought him half a rice ball and an existential crisis), Ren moved on to Plan B: hitchhiking.
Spoiler: People over there don't trust hitchhikers.
After two hours of standing by the road with a sign that read "Headed North, Not a Serial Killer (Probably)", he was starting to think he just gave passing cars psychic damage.
Karasujin suggested.
||Maybe Ren-san should smile more||
Ren tried.
A car immediately sped up as it passed him, exploding in the distance.
Nurarihyon sighed wistfully.
||Damn. Never do that again.||
~~~
With hitchhiking failing miserably, Ren moved to Plan C: Be a little criminal.
He boarded a crowded train, shuffled into a corner, and pretended to belong there.
It worked perfectly...
...for exactly one stop.
"Tickets, please!" called the conductor.
Ren pulled a classic: Bathroom Hide-and-Seek.
He rushed into the train's tiny bathroom, locked the door, and stared at himself in the mirror.
"I hate everything."
Outside, he heard the conductor knock on the door.
"Sir? We're checking tickets."
Ren held his breath.
"Sir? Are you okay?"
Karasujin appeared beside him, floating.
|| I could possess him. You could run. ||
Ren stared.
"That's not how this works."
||It might.||
"I hate you."
Things went from bad to worse when a vengeful spirit decided now was the time to haunt him.
She showed up inside the bathroom, pale and furious.
|| You! ||
Ren screamed.
"WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?!"
She shrieked
|| I DIED IN A TRAIN BATHROOM BECAUSE OF A MAN LIKE YOU! ||
Ren glitched
"I'M SORRY—"
||REPENT!||
The train conductor banged on the door.
"Sir, you need to step out now!"
Inside, Ren was getting exorcised in reverse as the spirit tried to choke him out.
Karasujin was no help, laughing his beak off.
By the time he got thrown off the train (mid-exorcism, mid-humiliation, mid-existential crisis), he was starting to accept that maybe, just maybe, he should've stayed home.
~~~
A few (eternal) days later....
Bank account: Still 0.00.
Dignity: Long gone.
Progress to Iwate: 5%.
Sanity: Questionable.
Ren groaned and lay on the station bench, staring at the sky.
Jorogumo landed beside him, smug as ever.
||So. What's next?||
"I don't know," Ren muttered. "Maybe I'll just walk."
||...You realize that would take weeks, right?||
"Yeah."
He closed his eyes.
"Maybe I'll get lucky."
Somewhere in the distance, a thundercloud rumbled.
Lucky? Yeah, right.
Because the universe didn't hand out luck. It handed out problems. And Ren had just been assigned another one.