Chapter 4

****Chapter 4**** is the fourth chapter of the *Dead Mount Death Play* manga.

## Synopsis

The day after the fire at the Shakuzawa Building, Misaki Sakimiya watches on-scene footage of apparent skeletons standing by one of the fiery windows. Meanwhile, the Corpse God—or, "Polka Shinoyama"—directs two skeletons on the placement of furniture and books.

Takumi Kuruya asks Misaki if she is truly 'okay' with living with her killer (the Corpse God), and is forced to bemusedly accept that she does not mind in the slightest. The Corpse God tells Takumi he appreciates his assistance, admitting that he knows nothing about 'this world', but Takumi is more preoccupied with the idea that the Corpse God is seemingly all right with living in the 'torture building'.

When Takumi points out that the real Polka Shinoyama (whose body the Corpse God is possessing) must have family waiting for him, the Corpse God divulges his current plan: to claim that "Polka Shinoyama" is spending his summer vacation on a journey of self-discovery and to send the Shinoyamas postcards. Takumi acknowledges that interacting the real Polka's family could prove dangerous for the Corpse God, a presumption further supported by the fact that the Corpse God currently knows nothing about Polka's family beyond their names.

Misaki asks why, and "Polka" explains that while language is easy to extract, specialized, subject-specific memories take longer to retrieve—not to mention, the older a memory is, the more difficult it is to recall. Takumi, reminded by the Corpse God's inhumanity, muses that he has no choice but to believe that the Corpse God really is from another world.

At this, the Corpse God says he originally theorized he had been transported one thousand years into the future - however, he now thinks that his world and Takumi's world used to be "one world that got divided." For instance, this world's creatures known as 'whales' were mythical beasts in his world; most significant, as far as the Corpse God concerned, is that the religious cult Geldwood is nowhere to be found. Geldwood, he says, constantly obstructed him because he was a "giant skeleton monster" known as the 'Corpse God'.

If Geldwood is irrelevant here, then the matter of whoever wants Polka dead seems to be Corpse God's main obstacle in his quest for a peaceful existence. Takumi insists that neither he nor Misaki know the client's identity, which was Clarissa Kuraki's main condition in exchange for the rent on the torture building. "Polka" replies that he intends to investigate the client on his own and that extorting the information from Clarissa will be a last resort, considering that she has agreed not to accept any more hits on the real Polka.

Takumi warns him that Clarissa is not the only one out there who works with killers, though he then admits that few killers could or would take on an exceptional case like Polka's—such as Lemmings. He dismisses away Lemmings as an urban legend before asking "Polka" if *he* is truly 'okay' with living with his killer (Misaki), to which "Polka" replies that Misaki did not *truly* kill him. Unconvinced, Takumi reminds him that he resurrected a dangerous professional killer—only for the Corpse God to reply that he 'forgave' Misaki at the real Polka's request.

Takumi, momentarily stunned, asks if the Corpse God genuinely spoke with the real Polka Shinoyama's spirit. The Corpse God points to Takumi's hovering drone—the same one that Takumi could not control the day before—and says the real Polka's soul is possessing the drone for the time being. His comparison of human lives to 'toys' leaves Takumi unsettled.

The Corpse God switches his attention away from the real Polka's problems to his own: how to make money in service of his peaceful life. He rejects Misaki's unsavory ideas of assassination and theft, at which point Takumi brings up a video feed of the front entrance and says they have—or more probably, Misaki has—a guest. Misaki exits the building to talk with the male visitor while Takumi, watching with Corpse God from an upstairs window, guesses the visitor intends to ask her to kill the yakuza pursuing him.

Down below, in response to the man's pleas, Misaki asks how he knew her whereabouts. He cites Clarissa, but Misaki still hesitates to accept the job outright. However, the Corpse God—abruptly crouched by her side, staring fixedly at nothing in particular—accepts the job in her stead. Misaki immediately agrees to do the job after all.

That night, the man leads Misaki to a factory where—according to an informant—the yakuza assassin is purportedly sleeping. Misaki finds this careless, at which the man hastily assures her that the assassin is 'nuts' and that he was friends with the encampment she cleared the other day—an encampment full of crazed killers who would even wipe out their target's families, something that reminds Misaki of her parents' murderer. The man's claim the encampment has grown into an organization of pickpockets and hoodlums seems to plausibly explain why the group has ceased listening to Clarissa.

As soon as Misaki enters the building, two men attempt to strike her with blunt weapons. She dodges both attacks, mockingly calling them 'weak' for hired killers, only for the man who hired her to shoot her in the torso.

Keeping his smoking gun trained on her, the man says they are weak *because* they are not, in fact, hired killers—they had no choice but to act in the wake of their boss' death if they did not want to lose face. Looking back at his comrades, he orders them to finish Misaki off—and is chilled at the sight of "Polka" behind them, muttering to the thin air.

The man points his gun at Corpse God once the latter announces he will "also accept your request," only to look behind him at the sound of scream; Misaki has crushed one of his comrade's ankles despite being sprawled on the ground. "Polka" remarks that Misaki has become more resilient and practically death-proof now that she is a Zombie, leaving her to fight the armed man while he speaks to Takumi via his earpiece. Takumi wonders why "Polka" accepted the job if he knew it was a trap, and Polka counters that whether it was a trap or not was irrelevant. The job he accepted was not the man's, but that of the *children haunting him*: to punish those responsible for hurting their parents.

The ground rumbles underneath Misaki and the men. Two large, skeletal hands burst out of the soil, scooping up Misaki, the men, and an enormous quantity of dirt; as Misaki hops out of the way, the hands compact the dirt and men into a sphere. "Polka" assures the children's spirits that the men will do no harm from now on, but considers the mass of tangled limbs and dirt before him and then apologizes: he ended up venting his anger rather than achieving proper salvation. As such, he will refuse compensation.

Once Corpse God and Misaki return home, Misaki lifts up her shirt and finds no evidence of the bullet wound from earlier. Takumi compliments "Polka's" good work, but wonders why "Polka" accepted the deceased children's job if he considers human lives his playthings. The Corpse God reaffirms that human lives are just toys to him—but continues that he likes toys because they make children smile, and will thus treat them as precious.

Takumi concludes that the fundamental difference between him and the Corpse God is how they value 'toys', not 'life', and that the Corpse God is dangerous in that he is neither a hero or villain. When "Polka" apologizes for not choosing his words more carefully, Takumi grins and says someone older than him has no reason to be so formal.

Later on, Takumi reports the incident to Clarissa and inquires into Polka's murder target situation. Clarissa promises that she has 'washed her hands' of any hits on Polka, claiming that there was a mistake in the information she received—though she admits she never liked the way the organization looked down on them. She further doubts that they will have any problems with the incident's survivors,as they seem to have made a few too many enemies for their own good.

Two such survivors meanwhile hurry for their weapons shed, cursing the 'monster' who attacked them all the while—only to find the shed all but empty and blood streaked across its floor. When the front-most man looks behind him, he finds his companion gone. The sounds of crunching and the word 'Lemmings' pierce the darkness—and so does a bandaged, bloodstained hand, which seizes the second man.

Back in the abandoned building, the Corpse God reads about mummies and vampires in a book of legends. He remarks that vampires exist in his world and that, with enough magic, he could turn Misaki into such a being. Takumi eavesdrops on the Corpse God and Misaki's living room chat from his workstation, courtesy of live audiovisual feed playing in a window on one of his monitors; though he still has his doubts as to how long a 'monster' and a 'zombie' can continue playing house, he has decided that he does not mind playing along with them for a little while longer.

Partially visible behind the window with the audiovisual feed is either a document or a web page that Takumi came across during his research: a document or web page that identifies Polka and Gaku Shinoyama as heirs to the Shinoyama Financial Group.