In Hentai World as Mira Tsubakihara's Relative

Just as Hikari was thinking about whether to come back and check again tomorrow morning, the last room he pushed open suddenly caught his attention.

It wasn't a large room, but it wasn't small either. Compared to the empty rooms before, this one was clearly different. It was filled with quite a few things.

Even though there were many items, there actually weren't many kinds. In the end, there was only one type.

Books. Aside from the wall with the window, the other three walls of the room were lined with bookshelves packed full of books.

Other than the bookshelves, there was only a desk and a chair in the room. No extra decorations.

Clearly, this was a study.

And judging by the faint layer of dust, it was likely a study that hadn't been used for a long time.

Based on the general categories of books in the room, along with the men's hat and coat hanging on the rack,

Hikari guessed that this room was most likely left behind by Nakoto's father.

Compared to the other empty rooms, this place clearly had a higher chance of holding clues about the lock on Nakoto.

And Hikari had a feeling that there had to be clues here related to Nakoto and Madam Rurie.

He glanced at the small silver key that Madam Munataka Rurie had given him earlier, a delicate thing that looked like it belonged to a private diary.

Hikari began searching through the bookshelves.

The shelves in this study not only covered three entire walls, but also stretched all the way up to the ceiling.

So the collection here was extremely rich.

Trying to find a specific book among so many, for someone who hadn't arranged them personally, would be like looking for a needle in the ocean.

But Hikari's memory and observation were far sharper than an ordinary person's.

And he wasn't completely without clues.

Glancing at the small key in his hand, his eyes moved quickly across the shelves, focusing on books that looked like diaries.

He started with the very top shelf.

But after scanning from left to right, he didn't notice anything unusual.

Next, he looked at the second-to-last shelf, then all the way down to the bottom shelf touching the floor, yet he still found no clues.

"Something… feels off…", Hikari muttered, frowning.

After scanning the shelves once, Hikari still hadn't found anything.

But he didn't rush. He quickly calmed himself, focused, and started again from the very top shelf, carefully examining everything.

On this second pass, he really did notice something.

He spotted that on the leftmost bookshelf, slightly to the right of the center, there was one book sticking out just a little.

Such a tiny detail would be almost impossible for an ordinary person to notice.

And even if Hikari had seen it, he might not have thought much of it, since it wasn't an obvious issue.

But after having already scanned the entire bookshelf once, he felt something was off.

Because from his first pass, he had already noticed that the books here were arranged with unusual neatness.

Every single book was placed upright, aligned evenly on the shelves.

From top to bottom, from left to right, nearly all the books were of similar size and arranged in an orderly fashion.

This level of uniformity couldn't happen by accident.

And it went beyond simple tidiness. It felt more like obsessive behavior.

From what he had seen earlier, the maid, Takahara Ren, who handled the house's cleaning and organization, was indeed methodical, but not to this extreme level of neatness.

The books in Madam Munataka Rurie's bedroom also weren't arranged this precisely, so it wasn't her habit either.

As for Nakoto, her room was fairly tidy, but compared to this study, it still fell short.

So, most likely, the books here had been arranged by Nakoto's father himself, and he had a compulsive need to keep things perfectly aligned.

Yet someone like that, who kept nearly every shelf in perfect order, had left one book slightly out of place.

It was hard to believe that wasn't intentional.

Of course, the detail was incredibly subtle, almost impossible to notice with the naked eye. And it was on the very top shelf, which required a ladder to reach.

An ordinary person would never discover it. Even with Hikari's sharp perception, it took him two passes to notice.

Combining that with how the rest of the books were arranged, Hikari suspected this had been deliberately left behind by Nakoto's father.

Holding onto that hope, Hikari lightly jumped up and pulled the suspicious book from the shelf.

In his hands was a red-brown notebook.

On its side hung a delicate, small silver lock.

No wonder it had stuck out slightly.

Hikari understood.

Without hesitation, he took out the small old key that Madam Munataka Rurie had given him and inserted it into the lock.

There was no resistance. The key slid straight in, reaching the deepest part of the keyhole.

Hikari gave it a gentle twist.

Click!

The locked notebook opened.

He flipped open the red-brown cover.

On the clean white title page, there were several neatly written paragraphs, but they were covered with thick black scribbles.

Because of the smudging, the writing looked like chaotic scrawls, making it hard to read clearly.

But after looking carefully a few times, Hikari quickly picked out several key words.

"Munataka Rurie," "Nakoto," "evil god," "shrine maiden," "living sacrifice"

An ordinary person would probably think this was just a delusional journal.

But Hikari, who already knew something was wrong with the Munataka residence, didn't think so.

He reached out, flipped to the next page, and continued reading.

Just as Hikari turned the pages, thin strands of black mist suddenly began seeping down from the ceiling, wrapping toward the notebook.

At the same time, the writing in the notebook started to blur, as if it might disappear at any moment.

"Hmph!"

Hikari let out a soft snort. Power circulated within him as he activated the Vajra Demon-Subduing Force, which specialized in suppressing evil.

Golden light intertwined with faint arcs of lightning burst from his palm, covering the notebook in advance.

When the eerie black mist touched the golden light, it melted rapidly like snow meeting scorching iron, releasing wisps of black smoke before completely dissipating.

Hikari raised his head and glanced at the ceiling, which was still emitting dense black energy.

"So you sensed that what's written in this notebook might interfere with your descent?"

Seeing the strange force suddenly act, trying to conceal or destroy the notebook, Hikari thought it over.

'This so-called evil god really does seem capable of influencing the Munataka residence.'

'But the influence doesn't seem that strong. Otherwise, it wouldn't need a follower like Madam Rurie to carry out the summoning ritual.'

And although it had reacted just now, Hikari felt it wasn't truly conscious or fully manifested.

It was more like an instinct for self-preservation, similar to how a baby instinctively breathes and feeds. But its instinctive power was far stronger than that of a human infant.

He didn't dwell on it further.

Hikari continued reading the notebook.

As expected, as he went on, he saw that the author of this notebook was none other than Munataka Rurie's late husband, Nakoto's father, the former master of the Munataka residence.

After a brief self-introduction, Nakoto's father began to get to the point.

First, he described in general terms the suspicious behavior of Munataka Rurie, who seemed to worship an evil god.

Then he explained that he had already uncovered her terrifying secret plan.

In order to summon the legendary evil god into this world, Munataka Rurie intended to offer her own daughter, Nakoto, as a living sacrifice.

Only by destroying her plan could the descent of the evil god be stopped.

At the end, the handwriting suddenly grew larger.

[Whoever finds this diary, please save my daughter, save Nakoto!]

After finishing the notebook, Hikari gently closed it.

He let out a quiet breath, his brows slightly furrowed.

Combining everything he had seen before, the contents of this diary left by Nakoto's father were likely all true.

Which meant, Munataka Rurie really was a cultist who worshipped an evil god.

And not only that, she was mad enough to offer her own daughter as a vessel for the evil god's descent.

Despite her appearance, beautiful, charming, graceful, and gentle, this noble lady was actually so ruthless.

However, although Rurie had become extremely cold-hearted due to her faith, the one who died before might not actually have been killed by her. According to the diary, Nakoto's father had been frail since birth, always sickly.

After the main branch of the Munataka family died out, he, as a member of a branch family, inherited the estate and moved into the residence, but his condition worsened.

By the time he married Rurie, he was already confined to a wheelchair.

Having lost normal bodily function, he had to spend a large sum of money to seek top medical institutions and use external methods to conceive a child.

Even so, he cared deeply for Nakoto and loved her very much.

After discovering Rurie's plan, he was furious.

Although he wanted to personally protect Nakoto, by that time he was already at death's door.

So he could only hastily leave behind several records and protective measures before passing away.

According to him, the Munataka residence seemed to be cursed.

The once-thriving main family had, from a certain point onward, begun to suffer a series of sudden deaths.

And after he moved in, his already poor health deteriorated even further.

Combined with Rurie's sudden devotion to an evil god, he suspected that something related to that entity truly existed within the residence.

Recalling the contents of the diary, Hikari raised his head and used his aura-sensing technique to stare at the ceiling.

The black energy there, without him noticing, had grown even denser than when he first entered the Munataka residence.

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