18 An Imposter or A Master

"Since we've already confirmed our target, Takai-san, please wait for me here. I'll be right back."

Baishi Shū's level of confidence soared after he confirmed what he was dealing with. The Hare-no-yurei was clearly not a powerful existence, considering the fact that it was oblivious to his presence this whole time. He had been dealing with evil spirits of this level all the while and exorcised a dozen of them in a year, so he was not scared. 

"Please be careful, Baishi-san." 

Marie Takai was still very calm. There was a deadpan expression on her face, and with her cascading jet-black hair and delicate facial features, she emanated a unique aura, not like her usual self. After losing her wild thoughts, she did not ask to follow him anymore. 

As a normal human, she could not offer much help facing an evil spirit and would just drag him down. On second thought, Baishi Shū's legs were strong and muscular. He wondered if she would be able to cling on to them or not. 

Using his Divine Eye to observe the Hare-no-yurei, Baishi Shū walked into the girls' dormitory. The very moment he set foot over the entrance, the sharp, hysterical cry of a child immediately echoed through the building. 

"Another monk? How dare you come again?!" 

Holding the beads in her hand, the little girl stood up and brought her tiny face into the light. Unlike what Marie Takai had told him, the girl was not cute at all. Her facial features were those of a malevolent spirit that would make a child cry and be riddled with nightmares all night long. She had a pair of unsettling dark eyes without any whites, and a mouthful of dangerous, sharp fangs. 

However, Baishi Shū was unperturbed. Evil spirits were the personification of deep resentment and unfounded grudge, so it was normal for them to have gruesome faces. Besides that, he had already gotten used to it. 

As the Hare-no-yurei let out a shriek, layers upon layers of scary illusions appeared and consumed Baishi Shū whole. 

It was afternoon and the sun was high in the sky, yet it felt like midnight inside the girls' dormitory. Right now, as he walked in a dark forest, he was surrounded by an ululation of wild shrieks and howls. One after another, spirits were coming out from the dark. They stared at him with lambent eyes, rubbing their claws and flapping their tails uneasily as they could not wait to tear him into countless pieces and drag him down into the endless pits of hell. 

They were just illusions. 

In Baishi Shū's Divine Eye, he was still walking inside the girls' dormitory whilst the warm sunlight filtered through the doorway. Nonetheless, the illusion created by the Hare-no-yurei did not cause Baishi Shū any trouble because he could see through all of them clearly. 

Sensing that its attempt to trap the intruder with illusions had failed, the Hare-no-yurei could not stay put anymore. From above, it rushed all the way down at top speed. Then, artfully picking an angle that was hard to defend against, it stretched its sharp claws out and lunged toward the back of Baishi Shū's head. 

Just when its claw was about to reach Baishi Shū's head, he turned around and gave it a warm smile.

"It is time to hit the road, kid." 

With those words, Baishi Shū stretched his palm forward and activated the Buddha Blessing Palm. The light emitted was so bright that it put the sunlight in shade. Almost in an instant, the Hare-no-yurei dissipated. The beads that it carried around fell to the ground and shattered. There seemed to be some murmur coming out of them, but that did not last long either and soon disappeared. 

The evil spirit was gone. 

Baishi Shū put his palms together and began chanting the Rebirth Mantra. He wanted both the unfortunate little girl, who got turned into an evil spirit at a young age, and the innocent souls of the victims to find peace. 

After he finished everything, he then exited the building. When Marie Takai saw him, she almost broke the Meditation Spell as a surprised expression filled her face. 

"Is it done? It's just been a few minutes!"

She had seen Baishi Shū walk into the girls' dormitory with her own eyes. About ten or so seconds after he ventured into the building, he turned around and struck something with his palm. Then, he lowered his head and began chanting the Rebirth Mantra. Putting aside the time he used to chant the sutra, he took merely about ten seconds to get rid of the evil spirit! 

'Is it that easy to exorcise an evil spirit?'

If she did not have the chance to participate in an exorcism—a real exorcism—and see the evil spirit disintegrate under that fair-skinned palm with her own eyes, she might have thought that he was an imposter. 

Marie Takai felt that she had fallen even more for Baishi Shū, and she believed that he was the strongest monk she had ever seen. 

"Well, the evil spirit has quite some fate with Buddha. It couldn't wait to return to Buddha's side any longer," Baishi Shū said with a smile. 

He was just stating the truth. Perhaps the evil spirit had suffered a great loss at the hand of the previous monk, so when it picked up the familiar sensation from Baishi Shū, it immediately rushed over to get its revenge. Then, it was hit by his Buddha Blessing Palm. 

Fate was really such a wonderful thing that no word could describe.

Speaking of which, regardless of whether it was the Buddha Blessing Palm or his other skills, Baishi Shū had not yet seen an evil spirit that did not return to Buddha right away after receiving his blow. 

'Could all the evil spirits in this world be gifted? Where are those Demon Kings or Spirit Kings by the way?' he thought inwardly. 

He soon found a reason. Maybe it was because his level was too low and Reimei Temple also did not have much of a reputation, so those were still out of his reach. However, it was gratifying to note that Reimei Temple's growth was visible. Besides, it would soon welcome its second living quarter, and it was all because of the sponsorship from Kondo Private Junior High School and the Hare-no-yurei.

...

An apple would not fall far from its tree. Both the daughter and the father had the same reaction. When they told Headmaster Takai that the evil spirit had been contained, his eyes bulged in disbelief as he said, "You've settled the evil spirit?" 

He could not believe that Baishi Shū and his daughter had already gotten rid of the evil spirit even though they just told him that they were only going to check the surroundings. He remembered that the monk from Honmon-ji had spent an entire afternoon setting up the ritual only to say that he could not detect anything.

'How come the difference between them is so huge?!'

Nevertheless, Headmaster Takai remained skeptical. Even after Baishi Shū explained to him that the evil spirit was a Hare-no-yurei, the pen fairy that had appeared in the incident three years ago, and the students were just frightened since the evil spirit was in no shape to harm them, he still did not quite believe him. 

After all, he was not Marie Takai, and he had not been at the scene when Baishi Shū had eliminated the evil spirit. On top of that, the surveillance cameras in the girls' dormitory could not record the exorcism process as well, as they were not blessed like the camera Senna had. 

That being said, Headmaster Takai still kept his word and gave the million yen to Baishi Shū as his remuneration. It was easy to verify whether the exorcism process was a success or not. As long as there were no paranormal events, it meant that the exorcism process was a success and that Baishi Shū really was a holy monk with great power. 

'Why does this sound so familiar?'

Headmaster Takai began to recall his memory. According to the report, almost every one of his clients had said that Baishi Shū was an imposter since he got rid of the evil spirit almost instantly every time. Some of them even refused to pay him. Be that as it may, he did not get angry at them and just waited for several days. 

After two days, when all the clients found out that the evil spirit that had been bugging him had indeed been eliminated and that they had come across a holy monk, they all returned to Baishi Shū and gave him back the remuneration he deserved. 

When Headmaster Takai thought about those people, he could not help but laugh. He felt he was just like them. 'If he really solved the demonic occurrence without shedding a sweat, then he must be a real holy monk.' 

Baishi Shū did not know about the headmaster's thoughts. After all, he had not activated his telepathy skill yet, and even if he did, he would never use it to look into other's hearts or minds. 

After a short bout of hesitation, Baishi Shū decided to speak out what was on his mind, "Headmaster Takai, I heard that your elder daughter, sister of Takai-san, Mayuko Takai is the survivor of the incident three years ago. I also heard that she's been suffering from depression since then, and has been living in regret." 

Headmaster Takai was slightly stunned, as he did not expect Baishi Shū to bring this matter up. He glanced at his daughter before nodding heavily. "Yes, all of us are disheartened by what happened three years ago."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not trying to stick my nose into your family affair," Baishi Shū said as he waved his hand. He took a jade Buddha amulet from his neck. The jade Buddha amulet was one of his experiments when he was learning how to use his spiritual power to consecrate an object. It had an effect of calming him and warding evil away. Besides, most importantly, the jade Buddha amulet only cost him 20,000 yen. 

He put the amulet on the table. 

"I have consecrated the amulet. It can calm one's mind. If you don't mind, you can give it to your daughter, though I cannot guarantee that it will have any effect." 

"Thank you very much!" Headmaster Takai took the jade Buddha amulet and gave Baishi Shū a bow. 

Even though he spent a mint to get many consecrated or blessed objects for his daughter and none of them had any actual effect, he still felt warm and thankful for Baishi Shū. 

'Perhaps this is what they usually call them: a real holy monk,' he thought.