#hmm those people in that one panel look very familiar 👀

[entertext]

HGSN 24-2

Chapter (Japanese)

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Rough translation by me

P1

Yoshiki: It's pitch black, I can't see a thing

Yoshiki: 'Hikaru', the flashlight

Hikaru: Oh, yeah

(sfx: light turns on)

P2

Yoshiki: Uwah!

Yoshiki: What the...! Human heads!?

P3

Hikaru: No...If you look closer, these are carved out of wood.

Yoshiki: You're t-touching-?!

(sfx: smooth and dry)

Hikaru: Why...is something like this...

Hikaru: Ngh...it...

Hikaru: hurts...

(sfx: ears ringing)

Hikaru: Pa, what're these faces?

Hikaru: There's so many of them

P4

Kouhei: Scared?

Hikaru: Naw, I'm not scared at all. I'm already in the upper years* at elementary school!

Kouhei: They're all "heads" that have been offered up to Unuki-sama.

Kouhei: From a long time ago, this land has often suffered from misfortune

Kouhei: 'cause of that, life here has been especially poor and difficult

* refers to 5th to 6th grade at elementary school. So this flashback would probably be a year or less before Kouhei dies.

P5

Kouhei: So we have offered heads to Unuki-sama and asked for many different things

Kouhei: For an abundant harvest or for an end to a plague...

Kouhei: The offered head disappears on the spot

Kouhei: That's why we have carved replacement heads in order to hold funeral services for them in this hall

Hikaru: Then all of these heads are dead people?

Kouhei: That's right

Kouhei: We're the family that's managed this "hall" (dou) for generations so that's why we're the "Indou" family

Hikaru: Huh...

P6

Kouhei: The other parts of the body have to be buried as far away as possible

Kouhei: In order to do that more easily, the village was split into five parts.

Kouhei: 'cause of that, it just so happens to look like a human

Kouhei: Weird, right?

Hikaru:  Why? That's creepy...

Kouhei: Beats me...in the first place, why the parts needed to be buried so far away

Kouhei: isn't something well understood nowadays

P7

Hikaru: So whose heads are those heads anyway?

Kouhei: ...

Kouhei: Many of them were...people like the terminally ill and the elderly...who volunteered to become heads themselves...

Kouhei: But...

Kouhei: There's a small hokora at the outskirts of the village right?

Kouhei: When a traveling monk was forcibly made into a head, it was built out of fear that the monk would curse us in revenge

P8

Hikaru: ...So you mean they've been murdering people

Kouhei: ...that's right. It wasn't only that monk. Many others were killed and made into heads. Innocent people, when they wouldn't be noticed

Kouhei: Hikaru, this is the karma of this village

Kouhei: It must never be forgotten...

Kouhei: And the sin of the Indou family too...

P9

Hikaru: ...

(sfx: step)

Hikaru: As I thought, it's not here...

Hikaru: This is where "Hichi-san" was.

Yoshiki: ...Did you...

Yoshiki: remember something?

Hikaru: ...yeah.

==

Next chapter: 2024/02/06

Twitter Extra (link):

Hikaru's Father

Indou Kouhei

Yoshiki took to him more than his own father

He was the type to thoroughly join in on the kids playing tag, and if you were caught by him, he would stick his boogers on you, so Yoshiki and Hikaru ran away desperately.

==

T/N: the meaning of Indou

忌 - to abhor, taboo, but can also refer to mourning or death

堂 - hall (as in a building where lots of people gather) or temple/shrine (as in a building where a deity is worshipped)