Chapter 61

**Chapter 61** is the sixty-first chapter of the *Dead Mount Death Play* manga.

## Official Blurb

As mysteries only grow, new alliances are forged...

## Synopsis

In a flashback to the Other World, Easlies Swordfrail—regarding the corpse of Urdwigia—complains to Corpse God that he has forced her into an "awfully bad bargain": in order to form a 200-year contract with Urdwigia's soul, they must buy the lightning dragon's remains back from the guild.

Urdwigia, in soul form, explains he prefers his body not be left to the whims of people with weak bonds. This is why forging a bond with the "beloved pupil" of Easlies—the one who killed him—will be more than sufficient. Although Corpse God is confused, Urdiwigia reiterates that they will be able to use his corporeal body to their benefit, whether to fashion it into armor, reanimate it, use it for medicinal purposes, or even "use it to form a new bond with someone"—as Corpse God has now done with Xiaoyu Lei.

In the Torture Building, Sayo Shinoyama rambles to Takumi Kuruya about her view that adventure guilds in fiction are comparable to shark movies: though all function similarly, each has some original element that makes them unique. Her point, when she finally arrives at it, is that they ought to identify what exactly is unique about Misaki Sakimiya's brand of vampirehood compared to vampire stereotypes; Misaki, who has been spinning in a chair, stops to participate in the conversation.

Takumi, finding Sayo's actual point sensible, begins his and Sayo's inquiry into Misaki's abilities. Misaki confirms that she finds it far easier to transform into bats at nighttime, but sunlight—aside from seeming a tad brighter—has no discernable negative affects. She also has not imbibed blood; here, Sayo says Corpse God told her that Other World vampiries only drink blood as a "pick-me-up," usually in a "do-or-die" situation. Too much blood is undesirable; moreover, turning a human requires the vampire to transfer large quantities of their own blood over the course of years, making it a significant decision. Sayo additionally reminds them that Misaki became a vampire through an atypical process, meaning Corpse God can use magic to artificially evolve her.

Takumi supposes that, since the Other World has all manner of creatures like dragons, it would "make sense" for such a world to have something like cyborgs to "round it out."

Meanwhile, Polka Shinoyama is thrilled at how cyborg-like Xiaoyu is, whereas Xiaoyu is still somewhat out of sorts. Corpse God apologizes to Xiaoyu for having "bound him to a dragon's fate" and involving him for selfish reasons; however, bestowing Urdwigia's arm was the greatest possible demonstration of trust he could offer, and so he swears on the arm and Rozan Shinoyama—still present via video call—that he trusts Xiaoyu. Thus, he once more asks Xiaoyu to form a pact with him.

Recalling Rozan's "heart-to-heart" suggestion, Xiaoyu hesitates and says trust will be difficult—but his consideration of the arm indicates trust will not be impossible. Corpse God advises him to avoid touching electronics with his new hand until he adapts to the new limb, for eventually he will be able to control electricity with it. In the meantime, the arm's "vestiges of soul" ought to "fill [Xiaoyu] in."

Xiaoyu glances at the excitedly wriggling shark plush beside him—Polka's day thorough made by Xiaoyu's co-existing "mecha arm and dragon arm"—and questions its existence. At Corpse God's blunt, "That's the real Polka," Rozan explains Polka is cheerfully possessing the toy and seems to desire eventually having a robot body rather than his original one. Corpse God relays Polka's anticipatory "I look forward to getting along with you" to Xiaoyu, who picks up Polka and replies with a foreboding "best regards going forward." That his antagonism toward Polka is greater to his antagonism toward Corpse God does not go unnoticed by the latter.

Corpse God informs Xiaoyu that they are being targeted, so they must extensively prepare for whatever may come with the Byandy sigil-related organization.

Elsewhere, while Tena Sorimura takes a photograph of Kuon Higuro bound to a chair, one of the onlooking Fire-breathing Bugs acknowledges Bugs such as they—who can only set things ablaze—require Solitaire's moth-like ability to lure out "those they require." This partnership will be to his benefit, they say, as Solitaire craves the preter- and supernatural. The Bug elaborates that their enemy's 'ancestor' is a 'bastard child' from the other side of the sky that has been "eating away at this world." Solitaire immediately wonders *what* the 'other side' is—aliens?—but Fire-breathing Bug neither knows nor cares. All the Bug knows is that they are "one step closer."

Solitaire asks for "anything else [he] can go on," but soon recognizes it was his own 'aerial show' that set everything into motion. Everything is "tied together somewhere," is Bug's point, he surmises—everything including Fire-Breathing bug.

At Shinjuku Police Station, Aikawa returns to a meeting room where Tsubaki Iwanome, Kōzaburō Arase, and Kayakusa are poring over documents at a center table. Iwanome explains they are reorganizing 'data', i.e. old cases that, as Arase clarifies, were never finished being digitalized. Rather than looking for information on Solitaire, their primary case, they are currently digging for information on Fire-breathing Bug, since the Bug stood in clear opposition to Habaki. Iwanome continues that this fact alone may be enough cause for them to have to rethink everything they know about Bug; at Kayakusa's interjection that Bug and Solitaire are connected, Iwanome tells Aikawa that a firefighter saw Solitaire escaping from a likely Bug-caused arson scene wherein a small-time yakuza office, gang leader, and five members died.

Still, Aikawa questions why much of the materials on the table are older than Fire-breathing Bug has been active—which has only been for the past few years, as far as she knows. Iwanome acknowledges that Bug was only given a name by the media a few years ago, but he shows her an old photograph of Bug's catchphrase *in kana* burned into wood; apparently, Bug only recently began writing his calling card in English...meaning Bug has existed since far before Iwanome joined Materials Compiling Group No.3.

In a dilapidated wooden building, an umbrella-carrying Bug wanders its halls while muttering about their past: despite the Bug having continually 'burned' for one hundred years, those "despicable...visitors...that cling...to this world" refuse to go away.

Back in the Torture Building, Misaki—dressed in her fortunetelling garb—greets the Fortunetelling Shop's newest client and asks for his name and divination desire. The lightning sorcerer, flanked by Lulu and Soara Habaki, suggests "Civil" for his name, and for what he desires divined, "a fate that spans a hundred years" and "new encounters."

## Trivia

### Referbacks

* To Chapter 23, when Solitaire and Bug infiltrated the yakuza office.
* To the 'aerial show' in Chapter 25.