ASSOCIATE PROF AKIRA TAKATSUKIS CONJECTURE NOVEL SC (2025)

Naoya Fukamachi is a university student whose ability to infallibly detect lies has left him friendless and isolated. But when he writes a paper about a strange festival he wandered into as a child, he catches the fancy of his folklore studies professor Akira Takatsuki, a handsome and eccentric man with a passion for all things mysterious. Soon, Naoya finds himself working as Akira's assistant, helping him to interpret an array of unexplainable phenomena, from haunted objects and cursed effigies to urban legends. As this odd couple continues their investigations, however, Naoya realizes that his professor has had a few bizarre childhood experiences of his own...

Naoya, a university student who can infallibly detect lies, embarks on another investigation into mysterious phenomena with his eccentric professor, Akira Takatsuki. Their latest client claims that they've contacted the spirit of a missing classmate while playing the Kokkuri fortune-telling game. Afterwards, a famous actress comes to Naoya looking for advice about ghosts, and more of Takatsuki's enigmatic past comes to light!

"The difference between damnation and celebration is paper-thin.   At the same time, Takatsuki and Naoya learn of the urban legend about ""Library Marie"". Apparently if you solve a hidden cipher in the library collection, you'll be cursed. ""The unlucky letter and cursed cipher."" Upon investigating the legend of a demon god in a village, in a grotto they find a skull with a hole in it. Soon after, Takatsuki is plagued by unexpected suffering. How will Naoya help him out of this one?!"

It's spring, and Naoki is now a second-year college student. As usual, he's working as Professor Takatsuki's assistant. One day, Takatsuki receives a request from a woman working in an architectural firm. What's the truth behind the creepy things happening in the office related to the number four? In June, a weekly magazine publishes an article about the appearance of a mermaid, causing quite the stir. The fervor about mermaids heats up even in Takatsuki's lecture. On such a day, a dapper British gentleman wanders onto campus-and he's Takatsuki's uncle?! Unexpectedly, the man tells Naoki about Takatski's sorrowful past. Then on a day off, they go investigate the area where the mermaid appeared. There, they meet a boy who tells them that his mother turned into a mermaid.

"During the summer of his second year of university, to find out the truth behind his uncanny ability to detect lies and the "Festival of the Dead," Naoya decides to head out towards the old village of Koyama in Nagano with Takatsuki and Sasakura. It was a village he visited many times as a child, the village where his beloved grandparents lived. But now, it's no better than a ghost town. Reconnecting with his cousin, Naoya then hears of the ominous saying his late grandmother whispered until the day she died: "Naoya was taken by the mountain gods." Arriving at the village where, according to the rumors "the dead walk," the group begins their investigation.   But suddenly, Naoya and Takatsuki are once again invited back to that midnight festival where it all began..."

Takatsuki's estranged cousin Hiroto reaches out to him. Apparently, a growth has appeared on his fiance's shoulder-and it's taking the shape of a face! But the moment they meet her, she yells 'Master Tengu' and runs over...! Then, on the website they use to collect stories, they receive a request from someone who lives in a traditional Japanese inn. The client is a 19 year old girl, and she claims that when she was a child, her mother was sucked into a mirror... Will wonders never cease?