Chapter 35

**Chapter 35** is the thirty-fifth chapter of the *Dead Mount Death Play* manga.

## Official Blurb

The rooftop incident makes major news! But while the general public tries to make sense of what they saw, a select few have their hands full with other mysteries...

## Summary

Around three in the morning, 'Cosplay-Tuber' Proppen livestreams herself wandering around Shinjuku in search of crows to befriend. Upon stumbling across the abandoned building, she excitedly points her camera at what appear to be large hands rising from a plume of smoke on the building's rooftop. Takumi Kuruya, who has been watching the livestream, spits out his drink.

The next day, Tsubaki Iwanome pushes through a crowd of rubberneckers taking photos of the building and greets Kōzaburō Arase, Danjō Tozawa and an exhausted-looking Ranmaru Yatsu, to whom he points out that he asked them to catch and arrest Tena Sorimura. Tozawa points out they cannot blockade the building without a warrant or permission of the landlord. The landlord, as Arase and Iwanome are well aware, is Lisa Kuraki.

At Youtoukorou, Clarissa asks the two snipers from the dirigible incident who directed them to her bar. The boy answers "Mister Daren," which satisfies her, and adds that he and his sister came because Clarissa has a good reputation for a mediator. Such praise from the likes of 'ace siblings'Hīro and Rinne Horojima is an honor, Clarissa replies, at which Hīro says neither he nor his sister gave out their real names even when working in Shibuya.

Clarissa claims the information was so easy to find she assumed they could not be trying to hide it and, after giving them a warning, says she is always ready to have newcomers take on work for her—but especially now, as it seems the mediators will be busy soon.

Over at the Corpse God's residence, an aggrieved Takumi shows Corpse God a news headline about the "midnight flock of hands" and asks for an explanation; the Corpse God weakly replies he had not expected Sorimura to produce so much smoke. Takumi tells him he is personally uncomfortable with being the center of so much attention—clearly referring to the large crowd of rubberneckers on the street below.

Sayo Shinoyama, who had been looking down at the crowd and Iwanome's group from the window, comes over to ask if the Corpse God was the one controlling all the hands in the news article's photograph. The Corpse God explains he gave the spirits the ability to touch and manipulate physical objects, but he agrees with Takumi that there are likely people who believe the phenomenon was more than one of Sorimura's mere 'tricks;' Sorimura and Lemmings he names as two people who may have likely realized, but he is less certain as to what Xiaoyu Lei thinks.

Meanwhile, on a balcony, Xiaoyu places a call to his master.

With the rubbernecking crowd showing no signs of dissipating, Tozawa asks Iwanome what they should do next. Iwanome supposes Arase and himself should "go in again," but Yatsu makes a face and vetoes the idea: he has just noticed a "pain-in-the-ass-journalist" among the rubberneckers.

Back in the Corpse God's living room, the Corpse God affirms to Takumi that he believes Sorimura is the man who asked him about the symbol during a recent reading. As for the high school girl who did the same thing, she has exhibited no unusual signs to the maid spirit watching her and appears to truly believe her dog Toyomaru ran away from home—despite the dog being home the entire night. Furthermore, the man who she claimed was her father (and who claimed to be her father) was not her real father at all—and split away from her during the walk home.

Privately, Takumi muses Sorimura must have been targeting the Corpse God and his group from the start and decides he will need to report this to Clarissa. Out loud, he points out that Fire-breathing Bug likely wrote the words burned into the living room wall and asks what the Bug meant by 'bastard child of Sabaramond.' The Corpse God says he has no idea, but Takumi guesses Sabarmond must mean something in the other world if the name was enough to make Corpse God "fly off the handle and cast a huge spell;" at this, the Corpse God admits that Lord Arius Sabaramond was the head court sorcerer to Byandy Empire—a country in which he and his master lived one hundred years ago.

In an underground room, an unidentified individual tells someone over the phone that he and others will take the same precautions as they did five years ago with Miyabi Hosorogi. He then reports that the (Horojima) snipers have "skipped town," though he does not see this as cause for particular concern—for there is only an opening for one sniper within the Agakura.

## Trivia

* The cosplayer Proppen is cosplaying as Kirawell/Killer Whale from the in-universe fictional series \*Sharkborg from Hell\*. The rival was first drawn in a one-panel insert between Chapter 15 and Chapter 16 in Volume 2, and the \*Sharkborg from Hell\* series first referenced in Chapter 14.
* The 'Agakura' name has only been invoked once before: in Chapter 22, where—in a flashback—one learns that Xiaoyu lost his limbs due to a run-in with "Agakura" on his first job.

### Referbacks

* To the debut of the Horojima snipers in Chapter 26, in which the Horojimas—unnamed at the time—unsuccessfully tried to snipe Sorimura and thereupon decided to go to Shinjuku for better jobs.
* To Sorimura and the high school girl's fortune readings in Chapter 29.