Regarding the desecrated pilgrimage

Author Sesuji · Publisher Banta · Published 2025-12-03 · ISBN 9791194979708

About the Book

"It was a night like this. The night you killed me..."
The fear escalates to an extreme as an old ghost story becomes unfamiliar.

Abandoned buildings and derelict places, left untouched for extended periods and separated from human habitation, create a dystopian atmosphere. Simultaneously, such locations hold the potential for misuse by those seeking to avoid social contact or conceal something. The three characters in "On the Pilgrimage to the Defiled Holy Land" investigate abandoned spaces called 'Pervert's Hut,' 'Heaven Hospital,' and 'Reincarnation Love Hotel.' 'Pervert's Hut' functions as a source of curses due to grudges born from infidelity, 'Heaven Hospital' due to unspoken ill wishes, and 'Reincarnation Love Hotel' due to unfounded ominous rumors.
At the root of the hypothesis that spaces contaminated by human greed and malice, and the layers of curses and karma accumulated there, cycle endlessly, lies the Japanese 'Rokubu Murder' story. This story is so universal that a similar folk tale exists in Korea (the enemy born as a son—the story of a perpetrator's child being reborn to confront past karma and exact revenge through death). The cyclical structure of 'Rokubu Murder,' where the victim is reincarnated as the perpetrator's child to return retribution, naturally connects with the rumors surrounding the abandoned spaces explored by the three characters in the work. The author takes the old folk tale, where karma created by human desires like money, success, family, and talent endlessly returns to the perpetrator through reincarnation, and reinterprets it by transforming the past destinations of Rokubu into modern ruins, or defiled holy lands. This solidly and persuasively recreates a familiar fear for us.

Savor the essence of Sesuji's meticulously crafted horror, like enjoying the scenery that unfolds as you slowly climb a mountain.

Ikeda, a YouTuber who doesn't believe in ghosts; Hojo, a woman who sees ghosts; and Kobayashi, an editor who sees ghosts as mere money-making opportunities—these three exploit ghosts for profit. They adapt rumors surrounding abandoned places to mislead readers and fabricate non-existent ghost stories as if they were real. Meanwhile, there are also scenes where ghosts are used to satisfy curiosity. The 'Kokkuri-san' game mentioned in the work is similar to Korea's "Bunshinsaba," where one summons a ghost to ask questions. As bizarre phenomena occur to these individuals—who analyze psychic hotspots as business targets, produce content from rumors surrounding them, and disrespectfully play with ghosts—as if in consequence of their actions, a fear of psychic phenomena and ghosts, which they had dismissed as delusion, unconsciousness, or coincidence, slowly begins to sprout.
The protagonist trio each has a past of cursing or causing the death of others and conceals their true intentions in investigating psychic hotspots. While they can only grasp the situation through information exchanged in first-person perspectives, readers, through an omniscient viewpoint, can comprehensively understand the episodes related to psychic hotspots, as well as the dark intentions hidden by the three characters and the terrible actions they commit based on them. As the story approaches its climax, the author's direction, which maximizes this difference in perspective, explosively heightens the reader's sense of fear.
In an interview, the author revealed that unlike "Regarding a Place in the Kinki Region," which was serialized online, "On the Pilgrimage to the Defiled Holy Land" was written with a single volume publication in mind, allowing for a longer narrative breath. As the author states, "This work is calmly directed, like savoring the landscape that slowly unfolds as you climb a mountain." The enjoyment of this new kind of horror, which gradually intensifies, will fully satisfy the expectations genre readers have for author Sesuji.

Table of Contents

Chapter 0
Chapter 1
Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Translator's Postscript

Balloon 015
Pervert's Hut 023
Heaven Hospital 091
The Three Fools 153 Reincarnation Love Hotel 203
Uncertain Oddities 243
Just a Family Restaurant 255
Just an Old Story 267
Fabricated Ghost Story 275
297