CGBTS Chapter 24

Chapter 24 – The Missing People

Novel Title: あの夏から戻れない (Can’t Go Back to That Summer)

Author：宮緒葵 (Miyao Aoi)

Illustrator：笠井あゆみ (Kasai Ayumi)

Translator: K (@kin0monogatari)

Protagonists: 櫛原夏生 (Kushihara Natsuo -MC) & 四辻柊 (Yotsutsuji Shuu -ML)

*Please read at knoxt.space, the original site of translation. TQ*

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“…Huh? Wait a second, Shuu.”

Natsuo suddenly remembered something.

“You said Yoshikawa-san was the only one, but there have been several other people who went missing on Mount Hinashi, haven’t there? What happened to those people? I picked up a flyer for someone who went missing on my way up the mountain, and that woman should have still been in her thirties when you arrived here. Wouldn’t that be far too young to have died of old age?”

“Even if you ask me, Yoshikawa-san was the only one I ever met. There was no reason for the villagers to hide other wanderers from me, either. …I think Odamaki-sama was being used.”

A trace of irony colored Shuu’s slightly chapped lips. Every time Natsuo saw him make an expression like that, one he had never made as a child, his heart gave a little pang. If he had grown up in the original world, Shuu surely would have become a young man who had a bright, cheerful smile.

“There were certainly other people like me and Yoshikawa-san who genuinely ended up here in the past because of Odamaki-sama. That’s why rumors began to spread that Mount Hinashi was a supernatural realm where people disappeared. And then people appeared who took advantage of that.”

“Um…so people who had become desperate with life and wanted to disappear climbed the mountain, and then simply went missing?”

“If that were the case, their bodies would be found. What I’m saying is that someone may have killed people for some reason and buried the bodies on Mount Hinashi. They wouldn’t even have to actually bury them there. It would be enough to fake evidence that they had entered the mountain. Because if someone entered that mountain, everyone would assume that was what had happened.”

‘That’s what he means――’ In other words, everyone would be convinced that since the person had gone so far as to enter another world of their own accord, they must have had a reason to want to die, and no one would find it suspicious. The moment Natsuo understood, a chill ran down his back.

“…Th-Then, that woman on the flyer……”

“She’s probably buried somewhere on Mount Hinashi, or somewhere else.”

The casual reply made Natsuo feel even colder. Perhaps humans were more frightening than Odamaki-sama. At the very least, Odamaki-sama would never kill people out of selfish greed. If Odamaki-sama had emotions like a human, perhaps it was furious at having been framed.

……No, this wasn’t the time to be thinking about that.

Natsuo shook his head and pointed at Yoshikawa’s photograph.

“This man…Yoshikawa-san, his body was found floating in that lake on Mount Hinashi. Someone who had gone missing thirteen years ago was found, and it caused a huge uproar in our world. That’s why I thought Shuu must be alive somewhere, too, and I went into Mount Hinashi.”

“So that’s what happened……”

“Could it be that Yoshikawa-san fell into Megumi Lake on the day he went missing here? Then he drowned, and only his body washed up in the original world. …Couldn’t that be what happened?”

Shuu put a hand to his lips and thought for a while. Eventually, he nodded.

“I think it’s possible… Once a week, the men of the village gather at the village chief’s mansion for a drinking party, and the day Yoshikawa-san disappeared was one of those drinking-party days.”

Yoshikawa, who loved drinking, apparently drank heavily and then left ahead of everyone else on his own, saying that his children were waiting for him at home. However, even after all the other participants had returned home, he never came back and remained missing even now…

“He got drunk on the way home, slipped, and fell into Megumi Lake…? But of course, they searched that lake too, didn’t they?”

After all, although Megumi Lake was a little way away, it was still located within the grounds of the village chief’s mansion. Surely anyone would have thought of the possibility that a drunken Yoshikawa might have wandered there on his way home and fallen in――or so Natsuo had assumed.

“Only the village chief and his family are allowed to approach Megumi Lake. The other villagers are afraid of Odamaki-sama’s divine punishment and never go near it. No matter how drunk they are. So no one…not even me…thought that Yoshikawa-san might have gone to Megumi Lake.”

“Then in the end, they never searched Megumi Lake…”

It was a mistake that seemed unlike Shuu, but Shuu had now spent more time in this world than he had in the original one. Perhaps it was only natural that he had become immersed in the way of thinking of Odamaki Village to that extent.

Besides, that wasn’t what mattered.

“…Shuu. We might be able to go home, you know?”

The hand holding the smartphone trembled slightly.

“If Yoshikawa-san was able to return to the original world through Megumi Lake, then maybe if we jump into the lake, we can too……Shuu?”

Natsuo noticed the sorrow gradually filling Shuu’s downcast eyes, and his heart gave a heavy thump. Why wasn’t Shuu happy? Why was he looking at him with such a……pitying expression?

“No, Natsuo. I told you, didn’t I? I tried every possible method to return to you.”

Shuu placed the watering can on the ground, then took the smartphone from Natsuo’s hand and slipped it into his sleeve. It was as though he already knew what was going to happen to Natsuo from this point onward.

“I already tried it. When I had just wandered in here, I secretly slipped away from the village chief and jumped into Megumi Lake again and again. I dove as deeply as I could by holding my breath, but……nothing happened. That’s why I’m still here like this.”

“No……that……can’t be true, right?”

This had been Natsuo’s last hope――and while he was devastated, there was also a part of him that muttered, ‘I knew it’. There was no way Shuu hadn’t thought of something that Natsuo could think of himself. Yes, he was just about to accept that.

“But……!”

Words of denial burst from his mouth.

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Next update: 2026.10.25

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