Mitsuhiro Matsunaga is an investor relations manager at a large development firm that’s currently constructing a new high-rise building. After claims surface online of fires, illness, and even human bones at the site, he ventures there himself to find out whether there’s any truth to the rumors. During his search, the eerily dry air underground smells of cremated flesh and bone— of ash. Eventually, Mitsuhiro stumbles across a mysterious ritual space with a huge hole not on any blueprints and, inside it, a man in chains. He flees aboveground in a panic, only to quickly learn that this is but a taste of the terror that has begun to plague him and his family… Each grievance may be as small as a mote of dust, but a mass of them can defile the gods and spirits, and even turn a ritual hall into a house of curses. TOW UBUKATA Born in 1977 in Gifu Prefecture. Debuted with The Black Season, winner of the Sneaker Award Gold Prize in 1996. His novel series Mardock Scramble won the 24th Nihon SF Taisho Award in 2003. Tenchi Meisatsu (2009) won the 31st Yoshikawa Eiji Literary Prize, the 7th Bookstore Prize, the 2011 University Readers Prize, the 7th Tohoku Literature Prize, and the 4th Seiichi Funahashi Prize. Mitsukuni-den (2012) won the 3rd Futaro Yamada Prize. Recent works include Ikusa no Kuni, Harai, Kirinji, Mardock Anonymous, Activator, Tsuki to Hi no Kisaki, and the Kenjusho series.