The House in Which Nightmares Dwell 5.4

[touchturnfly]

4

Bewildered at a Mai who sat down as if she couldn't stand up, Lin called Naru. Sitting in the dining, he soon came with Hirota to the base.

"-- What's a kosori?" Naru asked, but Mai only shook her head.

"I don't know. Because I just thought like that just then."

Naru frowned. Hirota let out a deep sigh.

"Are you trying to make me believe there are spirits here? -- I thought Taniyama-san would be a better kid though."

Mai scowled at Hirota.

"What are you saying."

"You just woke up. Weren't you simply half-asleep?"

"I'm not skillful at being half-asleep to the point of standing up."

"I wonder."

Hirota sighed disappointedly when Mai glared right at him.

"Hear me out. Even if I were half-asleep, there's still a different cause between my being half-asleep and Hirota-san's."

"Ooh."

It was obvious by the look on Hirota's face that he was teasing her.

"You call the state of consciousness of being half-awake ASC, right. That's what we call an Altered State of Consciousness. It's abbreviation of that phrase. According to scholars, a severed altered consciousness is d-ASC, which means discrete Altered States."

Hirota blinked his eyes.

"-- Huh?"

"At the time of an altered state of consciousness, your psychic ability and spiritual ability becomes sensitive. As you can see I'm just a common girl, right? When my consciousness is altered, I'm no long normal."

Hirota's legs almost gave in.

"... ... I see."

"When I'm half-asleep I'm a woman with a sixth sense. If you want to blame it on being half-asleep, isn't that just fine? Say it after you have given it some thought."

"-- Mai." Naru's quiet voice interrupted. "You're saying that by yourself, did your feelings just go away?"

"... ...They did."

Having truly said it without any feelings, Mai frowned.

"Um, anyhow. I'm incompetent when I'm awake. It can't be helped I guess. It's because of my physical constitution."

"Incidentally I want to ask, what we call an altered state of consciousness is also shown in the consciousness of one who is hypnotized. How would you make the distinction between the spiritual senses by means of half-awake consciousness and hallucinations by means of a hypnotized state?"

"Uhm... ..."

Naru expressed a cynical smile.

"If you can, I wouldn't want to say things like a superficial second-hand opinion to an amateur?"

"... ...I'll reflect on it."

Naru gazed at Mai hung her head and then moved his gaze to Hirota.

"Please ignore the words of this stupid person."

"... ...Uhm... ..."

"While you're at it, please feel free to ignore Mai's strange utterances. She can merely express herself by saying how she's feeling. Whether there is any meaning to it or whether it doesn't go any further than just a joke is something you will understand as we go further into the investigation."

"Of course it is... ..."

... ...A joke, he was about to say, but got interrupted.

"By the way, what I heard from her in detail is that in the past her jokes have many times actually resulted not to be merely jokes. -- However, this gain has nothing to do with you, it would be great if you could ignore it."

"Ah, yeah."

While nodding, Hirota for some reason felt the biting words and not satisfied with his explanation.

"After that, Hirota-san," Naru said with a suspicious looking smile on his face. "Three cups of tea. At once."

His blood was about to boil to his head, but his chance was taken away before he could yell at him.

"I treat my workers very roughly."

"... ...Understood."

Mai grinned at Hirota who secretly clenched his fist.

"Cocoa for me. Do the milk properly okay? And just one cube of sugar."

Firmly suppressing the additional anger, Hirota nodded. He once again heard Mai's voice behind his back after leaving the room.

"Midori's mother is tired, so don't bother her."

His anger reached a limit and exhausted a downcast Hirota.

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