44 A glimpse of luck on a rainy day

The rain rapidly grew in strength. Soon, water was falling in sheets, making it hard to see farther than a few meters ahead and giving Shin an unprompted shower. This was a kind of rain one could wash their hair in.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and lightning flashed between the clouds. Wind threw water into Shin's eyes, until he grew a metal visor over them, leaving only tiny holes to see.

Shin had to slow down to avoid slipping on mud. Even so, he ran the entire distance to where he parked his car in only fifteen minutes.

He was so eager to finally get under a roof, any roof, and turn on the car's heater. Shin wasn't in danger of becoming ill, but the cold still brought him discomfort.

Thunder rumbled again, closer this time, as Shin walked towards his car. Something dangerous settled in the air, making Shin's hackles rise. A feeling of danger, of a sword about to descend on his neck, forced him to stop mid-step and look around wildly.

A bolt of lightning struck Shin's car. The blinding flash filled Shin's vision with white, and a deafening boom of thunder followed a split second after. Another boom echoed as something inside the car exploded, throwing pieces of metal and burned plastic in all directions.

Shin ducked, protecting himself from stray shrapnel with armor. The force of lightning electrified his body even from a distance of several meters, putting him on edge.

He blinked several times and stared at the charred, smoking remains of his car in silent shock.

"What the fuck?!" he shouted a moment later, clenching his fists. "WHAT THE FUCK, WORLD?! What the hell do you think you are doing?! You think you can mess with me?! Curse me with your bad fucking luck? I'm going to destroy you! I'm going to rip you into pieces! Just you watch! I will download every fucking story I wrote on a flash drive, delete them from the Internet, then piss on that flash drive and wash it down a toilet! You will SUFFER!"

Another lightning struck a tree a few dozen meters from Shin. He jerked from the flash and the sound, and sneered at the sky, panting with fury.

Normally, he'd already split himself to calm down, but this time, he couldn't afford it. Instead, he had to swallow that simmering rage at the world that dared to mess with him. Even if his car was busted, he had to keep running. There were other cars, after all.

First, Shin ran to the car left by the trio of treasure hunters, only to find that he didn't have the ignition key. Since he had no idea how to hotwire cars, he had to abandon the idea and just run down the street to the highway that led to the town.

The rain weakened down by the time Shin stopped at the crossroads. He spent another half an hour running there, and now wondered if it would be faster to catch a car driving by or just run the rest of the way.

As if answering his question, a small truck made a turn at the moment. It was heading toward the town, and at its sight, Shin hurriedly split himself from Tetsu and waved it to pull over.

It did. The middle-aged truck driver looked at Shin with shock and concern, before opening the door.

"Merciful Heavens, kid, what are you doing out there in this rain? Get inside! You need to get to the town, right?"

Shin quickly accepted the invitation, studying the truck driver's features. With his luck, the man was likely a secret murderer or a pedophile—but as long as he got Shin to the town, it didn't matter.

He didn't know how to drive trucks, though, so he chose to not kill him unless the driver gave Shin a reason to.

"Right," Shin said, sitting next to the driver. "I got lost on a school trip."

There was some instrumental music playing on the car radio. Shin frowned at it.

"A school trip to THAT cursed forest?" The truck driver raised his eyebrows skeptically, but started driving again. "As if I'd believe that, kiddo. But… Well, if you don't want to share your actual story, you don't have to. Heaven knows, so many strange things have happened in our town lately…"

Shin nodded absentmindedly, before reaching into his backpack for a map. The entire thing was drenched in water, but Shin wisely put everything that could be destroyed by it in water-proof packets, so his atlas was dry.

He ignored the driver's curious glances and searched the map. There couldn't be that many radio stations in the town…

After a few minutes, Shin's eyes lit up. He smiled with a new hope.

There was a single main radio broadcasting tower, and all the radio studios were working from it. It didn't matter which one Koto chose to send his message, or if he picked several—Shin only had to break that tower. That would at least give him a sizable amount of time to root out everyone who knew Aratanawaru's name.

"We are getting close to the town. I can drop you there… or you want to get somewhere specific?" the truck driver asked. "If that's on the way, I can bring you there."

"Thank you. I need to go to the radio broadcasting tower," Shin said, poking the map.

"Lucky you, that's just on the way to my stop! I will let you jump off there."

"Thank you, mister."

'After the way luck has treated me lately, this feels too good to be true,' Shin added to himself and Tetsu.

'That's not luck. That's just the universe finally understanding who it should bow to!' Tetsu replied with a snarl. She was still pissed at it. 'Some people understand only threats. It doesn't matter if I want to be nice—they don't deserve it. I thought the world is the same, but maybe it learned its lesson.'

'I don't think that's how it works…'