Part 2 - The Victim

We got to the ground floor. "There."

Kuroneko pointed at the man sitting on the couch at the center of the main lobby. He sat there,

disciplined, but he looks traumatized.

We approached the guy and sat on the couch across him.

"Hello, my name is Thanatos. I am the manager of this hotel, and this is Kazu, a human employee of the hotel."

"I- I-" He gulped. This yokai really traumatized him, huh? "Taki. The name's Taki."

"Okay, Mr. Taki, this is hotel Asphodel, a place where ghosts can stay until they ascend or descend. I'll explain to you everything later, but right now, we need to ask you what happened in the elementary school?"

He seems to shiver at the thought of it. This piece of toilet paper really did a number on him.

Thanatos sat upright. "We understand what you just went through, but we need you to tell us what happened so that we can prevent it from happening to the others too."

He gulped. "I was walking down the street after my date. Suddenly, something grabbed me from my leg. I can't see what it was, so I was blindly trying to take off something that I can't see. The next thing I know, I was being dragged throughout the patches of grass and tossed me everywhere. As that was happening, I keep hearing a faint ominous laugh."

Jeez, this toilet paper is crazy! I know that some yokai can be playful to their victims, but holy shit.

"Once that thing was done playing with me, it wrapped itself around me and strangled me to death."

The ghost held Thanatos tightly in his shoulders. "Please, Mr. Manager. I don't want others to suffer the same way I did. Please stop that creature. Please." It seemed that he's crying.

Thanatos closed his eyes and smiled. "Mr. Taki. I promise you, no more lives will be taken away because of that thing."

"Oh thank you, thank you so much!" He hugged Thanatos.

Taki began to glow. It looks like this is what's preventing him from ascending. He wants to be sure that the Ittan-Momen's trouble to be stopped.

Mr. Taki, I promise you, I'll stop that toilet paper.

"Kazu, we'll discuss this tomorrow. You still have classes, so you can go home now."

I bowed. "Okay!"

Thanatos spreads his wings and began to ascend, taking Mr. Taki with him.

As I was about to leave, a female ghost approached me, with a dread look in her eyes. "Hey, you're the new guy, right?"

"Yes," I replied. "Kazu Shinozaki. How can I help you?"

"Uhmm, is there any way that you can find a good cook out there?"

"Hmm? Why? Is there a problem with our cooks?"

Here, we have two cooks. Tiny twin ogres named Shi and Chi. They are friendly ogres that were recently recruited to be cooks here. Ghosts don't need to eat, but sometimes, waiting makes them crave for food like when they were alive.

"Uhmm, how do I put this…" Her pointer fingers touched together. "They're bad at cooking."

I see, the dread that I can see from her is the disgust she feels toward the cooking of the twin ogres.

"Their dishes are either undercooked or overcooked and sometimes burned. Most of the time, they get their portions and measuring wrong, so sometimes it's overwhelming with flavor, in a bad way, and sometimes underwhelming. And I know that we're ghosts, we don't need to eat if we don't want to, but we're spending the last days in this world, so might as well enjoy it, right?"

I get what she is trying to say. I held her hands. "Miss, I'll try to find us a good cook, I promise that."

"Thank you very much!"

"Miss, I'm done with dessert!" The ogre peeked at the door from the dining room.

She looked at me, the dread remains. "I have to go now."

I said my farewell (and condolences) before I left the hotel.