This is the Hifuu Detective Agency: Case 8 - Subterranean Animism

by That-which-isn't

The 8th book in the Hifuu Detective Agency series. Events have been set in motion that are slowly raising the pressure in Gensokyo. When a mastermind's scheme threatens to boil over to the surface, threatening to release a stream of vengeful spirits into Gensokyo, it falls to Renko and Merry to get to the literal bottom of things, as the Hifuu Club descends into Former Hell.

1. Translator's Notes

Hello once again. I'm That-Which-Isn't, and this is my translation of the eighth book of Asakihara Shinobu's こちら秘封探偵事務所 or 'This is the Hifuu Detective Agency.' The original series is available, with illustrations, at longnovel dot com /touhou. There you'll find several other stories along with this one (all in Japanese, mostly touhou related) as well as links to buy book format versions of these stories, and links to various promotional materials and other stories by authors in the circle.

This book contains the story of Touhou Chireiden ~ Subterranean Animism. It's mostly PG but does contain some slightly graphic depictions of anthropophagy, as well as some threatened (but not enacted) torture and general discussions of Hell, damnation and corpses.

This book also contains extensive references to the first three case files in this series and, eventually, spoilers for case 3, immaterial and missing power. If you haven't read those yet, consider yourself warned.

Finally, this book also contains some material that was cannon-compliant when it was written, but has since been contradicted by official works, in some cases as recently as last month with the release of Unfinished Dream of all Living Ghosts. None of it is anything too major, but you may find the geography of Old Hell and the origins and backstories of a few characters slightly different than you might expect. It's probably for the best, as if this story had been written now, I'm sure this book would have a half-dozen more characters and be double the length. Between former hell, actual hell and the animal realm, Hell's gotten to be a pretty busy place in Touhou.

As we get into the later books of this series, which focus on works that hadn't been as thoroughly explored at the time these stories were written, this will happen more often. Such is the nature of fanfic for a series still in production, I suppose. Any such divergences from established cannon should not be seen as clues to any mystery.

With those warnings in place, I will now step back and let the narrator guide you through the rest of our tale. I thank you for reading, and hope that you enjoy the story to come.