After breaking up, my ex asked me to win her back

"Go back?"

Ayakoji Chiyoko said in surprise, "You want to go back to that x cult's nest?"

Kagura Hikaru, with Komori Ai who was dozing off on his back, signaled with a wave and then headed up the mountain.

Ayakoji Chiyoko followed without hesitation.

The three quietly distanced themselves from the search team. Stay updated via My Virtual Library Empire

After a while, Kagura Hikaru finally explained, "The sect's shrine maiden has been taken by us. They must be desperate by now, sending everyone out to search the mountain. At this time, their base is probably where the fewest people are."

"I see," Ayakoji Chiyoko nodded in agreement. "But after we get there, how are we going to escape?"

"That depends on whether the tactic of luring the tiger away from the mountain is successful."

"?"

Half an hour later, they dodged the watchful eyes and infiltrated the Happiness Cult's base once again.

As expected, there were very few people on the mountain. Almost everyone had gone out to search, with probably less than one twentieth of the original number left to guard.

Kagura Hikaru and his group easily dealt with the obstacles, achieved their goal, and then left from the other side of the mountain.

By the time they had traveled far from the base, they could already see the fire in the distance.

Yes, Kagura Hikaru had set a fire.

He set the Happiness Cult's honey factory ablaze.

He had this idea during the previous visit, and now he just took the opportunity to make it happen.

The harmful honey and the blood of Komori Ai all went up in flames there.

Only the factory was burning, unlikely to cause a forest fire, yet sure to attract all the cult's followers.

They surely wouldn't insist on searching the mountain while the base was on fire; the number of interceptors would definitely decrease significantly.

By this time, Kagura Hikaru and his group were already making their way down from another part of the mountain, taking a different route than before, almost certain to be safe.

Kagura Hikaru led Ayakoji Chiyoko and Komori Ai down the mountain.

Though this place was in the outskirts, it wasn't completely isolated from the city. Finding a spot with a good view, they could easily see the lights of the city in the distance; the direction was very clear.

As long as they didn't encounter a strange confusing array like they did during their last camping trip to Sendai and with Kagura Hikaru's confidence in his various wilderness survival skills, he was sure they could make it out in the dark of night.

Moreover, tonight the moonlight was very bright, and the sky was clear and cloudless, making it an even better night to escape.

By this point, they could basically confirm they were safe.

Their descent was mostly straight, and they didn't encounter a single Happiness Cult follower. It was predictable that they wouldn't meet any going forward.

The strategy of luring the tiger away from the mountain was perfectly executed.

Kagura Hikaru checked for mobile phone signals every once in a while as they walked.

Once he reached an area with a signal, he planned to call Inspector Yamazaki.

The police certainly wouldn't just let him go undercover into the Happiness Cult alone while comfortably sleeping in Tokyo City. Backup was already waiting for them at the bottom of the mountain, ready to help Kagura Hikaru make his getaway.

It was uncertain what their reaction would be to the unexpected addition of two more people.

"Kagura,"

As they walked on, Ayakoji Chiyoko suddenly spoke from behind. "It's about time you told me what the deal is with that little girl... How do you know her? Who exactly is she?"

Finally, she asked.

Kagura Hikaru was not surprised by her question.

It was more surprising that Ayakoji Chiyoko had followed him through all this chaos and only now asked.

Komori Ai seemed to be awakened by her voice, turning her head on Kagura Hikaru's back, rubbing her cheek against the back of his head, and then continued to sleep.

Ayakoji Chiyoko watched with a twitch of her eyelid, her gaze growing a bit darker.

"I met her last year," Kagura Hikaru said, looking forward, and without turning his head continued, "I didn't have a good impression the first time we met, but after more interaction, I just thought she was a kid."

"..."

"Unexpectedly, when I saw her half a year later, I found her captured by the x cult, turned into some kind of shrine maiden."

"So you entered this kind of place just for her?"

"Is there a problem?"

"...No."

Ayakoji Chiyoko's face was dark.

She knew that this matter was far from as simple as Kagura Hikaru had described.

Was it really just because she couldn't ignore seeing a girl she knew being controlled by a cult, that she dared to take on the entire cult head-on?

Kagura Hikaru might indeed be considered helpful, but she felt that even he wouldn't do so much for a girl he was not particularly close to.

The connection between the two of them was definitely much tighter than he had let on.

Especially that girl, who had no sense of personal space at all, rubbing up against him without even knowing if Kagura Hikaru agreed!

Crack.

Suddenly, she stepped on something that made a crisp sound underfoot.

Ayakoji Chiyoko could tell it wasn't a branch because it felt very hard.

She instinctively looked down and, with the help of the moonlight, she vaguely saw... a hand.

To be precise, it was a skeletal hand.

Following the bones upwards, as expected, she found an entire human skeleton.

For the first time in her life, Ayakoji Chiyoko came face to face with a human skeleton in reality, and the fact that she merely froze instead of screaming out loud was proof that she was braver than 99.9% of the girls in this world.

"Wow! A corpse!"

Komori Ai seemed to have woken up and exclaimed excitedly.

Kagura Hikaru, "Do you know who this is?"

Komori Ai, "I have no idea!"

Kagura Hikaru turned around, illuminated the area with his phone, and bent down with a grave face to observe.

There was no doubt that this was a human skeleton, it wasn't fake, nor was it a mistake.

From the looks of it, it had been dead for at least three years.

There were marks of blunt force trauma on the skull, probably the victim had been struck on the head before the body was dumped here.

"Ka-Kagura... what on earth..." Ayakoji Chiyoko asked, somewhat stuttering, pointing at the skeletal remains.

"Hmm, it might be the doing of the Happiness Cult," Kagura Hikaru said as he took photos of the body, planning to give them to Inspector Yamazaki later, possibly as evidence of the cult's criminal activities.

At the very least, it could become a legitimate reason for the police to search their premises.

In modern society, a dead body is much more serious than a cult.

Komori Ai, seeing their serious expressions, pouted and indifferently kicked her foot out, "There's a lot of this stuff around here, you can come back and look some other time if you want."

Why talk about a corpse as if it's a scenic spot right outside your house.

And what does "a lot around here" mean...

Kagura Hikaru and Ayakoji Chiyoko exchanged glances, turned on the flashlight function of their phones, and illuminated the surrounding area.

As a result, just within the visible range, there were four skeletons, and there might be more further away.

Finding a body here was no accident, this place had been used as a dumping ground!

Ayakoji Chiyoko clasped her hands over her mouth to stop herself from making any noise and her face turned deathly pale.

Even for Ayakoji Chiyoko, seeing so many corpses in one day, especially at night, was a bit too much to handle.

"Ayakoji, we're heading down the mountain."

Kagura Hikaru felt a sense of urgency and dared not dally any longer.

The ones capable of discarding bodies in such large numbers could be none other than the Happiness Cult.

His initial suspicion about the Happiness Cult was correct; it was an incredibly dangerous organization.

If they got caught, they might end up just like the skeletons beneath their feet!

Kagura Hikaru quickly took several photos, marked the GPS coordinates of the location, and then pulled Ayakoji Chiyoko along as they hurried away.

Before long, they successfully descended the mountain and met up with Inspector Yamazaki on the road.