WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 3: Holy Oil

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Were ghosts really something you could run into this often?

There were this many ghosts in the world?

What kind of world were we living in?

"Whew..."

A skinny ghost about a meter tall was sitting on a passenger's shoulder.

If a person had been sitting like that, their weight would show. Since it was a ghost, it must have been light.

Did ghosts like sitting on people?

Why were they all perched on people's shoulders?

"Do I... fight it?"

No, I didn't necessarily have to fight.

It smelled awful, but I could quietly let it pass...

Ah, damn it. We made eye contact.

【......】

Did it see?

Did it realize I was looking at it?

No, I was just looking straight ahead.

I can't see ghosts. I can't see them.

I tried my best to pretend I didn't know it was there, but then the ghost suddenly started walking toward me.

Did it notice? No, maybe it was just coming this way.

I swallowed hard and tried to stay calm, when I suddenly remembered Gari clicking behind me.

If I could see it, then the ghost could see Gari too.

【Kyaaaaaah!】

"Gari, bite it!"

At that moment, Gari opened its mouth wide and chomped down on the charging ghost.

Crunch! Crack! Crunch!

The vicious sound of something being ground up and chewed filled the bus.

That had been close.

"I made it..."

As I breathed a sigh of relief, everyone's eyes on the bus turned toward me.

Of course they did. I'd suddenly shouted in the middle of the bus.

"Sorry..."

The person beside me quietly scooted away.

That stung.

Soon, people stopped staring. I also realized the foul odor that had been stabbing at my nose was gone.

Did the smell disappear because Gari ate it?

It looked like the smell I'd caught had definitely been the ghost's smell.

Did it really digest ghosts?

It was just a floating mouth with no throat or stomach. Where could anything possibly go after it was eaten?

Before long, I arrived at the stop near my house.

I'd been worried I might run into another ghost, but since I couldn't smell anything, there shouldn't have been any nearby...

"No, there's another one..."

A sharp, piercing smell reached me.

Again.

The smell of a ghost.

Wait, there were ghosts even when I was just taking a stroll around my neighborhood?

It was beyond ridiculous, but the moment I became aware of the ghost, I raised my guard.

Where was it?

I'd encountered ghosts twice in such a short time.

What I had learned from meeting them was that their aggression went beyond anything I'd imagined.

If they saw someone who could see them, they charged in without caring about anything else.

Maybe people who could see ghosts were some kind of rare delicacy to them.

If I ran into one, I had to strike first.

Luckily, I had Garigari Agari.

I walked slowly, keeping watch all around me. The ghost's smell only grew stronger, but I couldn't see its form.

It couldn't be that I suddenly couldn't see ghosts anymore. It had to be hiding somewhere...

Where are you?

Where are you hiding?

Come out already. You stink.

Still, I couldn't find the ghost until I was almost home.

The problem was that the smell had gotten stronger.

That meant the ghost was close.

"Gari... you're sure there's a ghost nearby, right?"

Click?

Gari seemed to tilt its head.

Could it be that Gari couldn't smell what I smelled?

Ah. It had no nose, so maybe it couldn't smell at all.

"Gari, do you want to go outside and catch the ghost? Can you do that?"

Click!

Gari shook its head. I had hoped it could hunt automatically, but apparently not.

To sum it up, Gari couldn't detect ghosts the way I could.

Still, if a ghost was close enough, it seemed able to spot it and stay on guard.

It didn't have eyes either, so it looked like I had to give it instructions for it to act properly...

In other words, I couldn't relax just because I had Gari with me.

Keeping watch for ghosts, I entered my home in the villa neighborhood.

I hadn't encountered one on the way here, but the smell of rotting food had followed me the whole time.

This wasn't going to turn out to be the smell of my neighbor taking out food waste, right?

Once I got inside, I relaxed after realizing there wasn't a ghost in my home.

The problem was that I had no idea when a ghost might attack me.

The convenience store ghost had come in even though the door was locked. It seemed ghosts could pass through physical walls.

I wanted to sleep as I was, but I couldn't.

I was too nervous.

"What would you do if something attacked while I was asleep... Gari, can you keep watch?"

Click?

Did Gari even need sleep?

I didn't think I'd ever heard of angels sleeping.

Gari was a reliable fighting force, but I couldn't just leave everything to it.

"Can't you put up some kind of barrier? People with spiritual powers always did that in comics."

Click!

That was when Gari reacted.

As if it had a way.

"Gari, do you know how to make a barrier?"

Click!

"Then make one!"

At my words, Gari suddenly looked around and began rummaging through the drawer in the TV stand.

It struggled to open the drawer with its teeth, so I opened it for it. Inside was a Bible.

"A Bible?"

Click!

Gari carefully bit down on the Bible, then somehow started turning the pages with its tongue.

Exodus.

The pages covered chapters twenty-nine through thirty-one.

"There's a way in here?"

Click!

Let's see.

Gari was pointing quite precisely with its tongue at Exodus chapter thirty.

Exodus was the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt toward the land of milk and honey promised by God.

Chapter thirty explained burning incense in the Tabernacle for prayer, taking a census, and the procedure for washing one's hands. But the following section caught my attention.

It discussed how to make holy oil.

"Holy oil? You want me to make this?"

Click!

It really did seem like that was what Gari wanted.

"You are to take the finest spices: five hundred shekels of pure myrrh, two hundred and fifty shekels of fragrant cassia, two hundred and fifty shekels of fragrant calamus, five hundred shekels of cinnamon, and one hin of olive oil, then mix them?"

The Bible said this was holy oil, and that it should be used to consecrate things.

First, I searched up those biblical units, shekels and hins, and found modern equivalents.

The ingredients were myrrh, cassia, calamus, cinnamon, and olive oil. When I looked them up, they were more familiar than I expected.

Myrrh was tree resin, cassia was the inner bark of a cinnamon tree, calamus was a reed-like plant, and olive oil was, well, olive oil.

I already had olive oil at home, along with cinnamon powder.

The problem was the myrrh, cassia, and calamus...

"A herbal medicine shop!"

I rushed out and headed for a nearby herbal medicine shop.

There was an oriental medicine clinic frequented by elderly people in the neighborhood. They also sold herbal remedies, so I barely made it there before they closed.

"Myrrh and calamus? Why would someone your age need those?"

"I... have a use for them."

I managed to get crushed myrrh powder and dried calamus. So that was what they looked like.

"Um... do you have cassia? The inner bark of a cinnamon tree."

"Ah... we're out. We won't get more until next week."

Damn. I needed it right away, but it was already late.

"Is there anywhere else I could get it?"

"If you really need it, why not try a supermarket?"

"A supermarket?"

"Yes. They sell plenty of cinnamon sticks. Those are cinnamon bark too."

"Ah!"

Come to think of it, I'd seen cinnamon sticks sold separately.

I ran to a nearby supermarket and managed to get some.

I bought the ingredients, then cut, ground, and mixed them as written in the Bible. What I ended up with was something like a lump of dough.

"Uh..."

This was supposed to be holy oil, right?

It didn't look like it.

No matter how I thought about it, this did not have the appearance of holy oil, so I checked the Bible again.

"Make it as a perfumer would make incense..."

I'd forgotten that line.

But what did it mean to make it like incense?

Did it just mean to make it smell good?

I took out all the olive oil in the house, poured it into a basin, and tore the completed lump of dough into little pieces before throwing them in.

The smell was intense, but could I call this finished?

I divided some of it up and sprinkled it around the house as if I were anointing every corner.

The smell was so overwhelming my nose was about to clog, but at least I felt a little safer.

Judging by the fact that Gari hadn't objected, maybe I'd made it properly enough.

Then, as I fell asleep in a house reeking of holy oil...

"Ah. My nose is clogged."

When I opened my eyes, pitch-black darkness had settled around me.

I glanced at the smartphone beside my bed. Three in the morning.

Holding my clogged nose, I went to the kitchen for water.

Trickle, trickle!

While waiting for five hundred milliliters of cold water to come out of the purifier, I looked toward the moonlit living room...

"..."

There it was.

Another one.

【.................】

Beyond the living room window.

A ghost with a pale face was glaring at me with wide-open eyes.

This was the third floor.

"It... can't come in?"

Looking closer, the ghost was only hanging from the window. It couldn't get inside.

The holy oil I'd made with ingredients from the neighborhood herbal medicine shop and supermarket was actually working.

"Gari?"

Click?

Gari floated over weakly, as if it had just woken up.

You sleep too?

I guess I couldn't have Gari keep watch twenty-four hours a day.

With Gari covering me, I approached the window.

The ghost went wild, pounding on it as if it wanted to smash the glass.

It seemed furious that it wanted to get inside and eat me, but couldn't because of the holy oil.

The ghost took that anger out on the innocent window.

Just as I thought the glass might break...

Click!

Gari suddenly shot forward, smashed through the window, and lunged at the ghost!

No, my window!

The window shattered with a crash, and the ghost's face was bitten before it could react to the surprise attack.

The ghost flailed with Gari still clamped onto its face, then fell straight down from the third floor.

Thud!

Huh? Did the ground just cave in?

Was that my imagination?

"Gari!"

I leaned my head out the window, trying to see how Gari's fight with the ghost was going.

Then...

【────!!】

The ghost threw Gari off and sprang at me.

I stumbled backward in shock, but the ghost's sharp nails couldn't reach me. The moment it crossed the window...

Whoosh!

The ghost's hand suddenly burst into flames.

【Kyaaaaaaaaaaak!】

Its hand on fire, the ghost screamed in agony.

Gari, chasing after it, opened its huge mouth wide...

Chomp!

Chew, chew!

Gulp!

The ghost was swallowed.

"..."

Click!

...Holy oil was ridiculously effective.

Footnotes:

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