Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume5 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 7===

Kyousuke and Biondetta were both worn out.

No matter how well-supplied the Miniature Garden was, there was no escape from the ''dryness'' running rampant there.

There was only one of the Queen.

That was completely normal, but she was so very powerful that even that condition seemed unfair, unequal, unreasonable, and unacceptably absurd.

Why did she not appear to everyone the same?

And that was why Biondetta made a suggestion.

“I’ll take you to a secret place.”

“?”

His luck may have run out when he went with her.

Waitress Biondetta suddenly started toward the spider web’s Outer Circle and he felt a jolt run through his body when she removed a panel on the outermost wall.

(She knows what’s hidden behind those walls!?)

That revelation might turn Kyousuke and Biondetta against each other.

The truly powerful might order him to silence her.

But his fears proved groundless.

The removed panel did not lead to a room with flat-screen monitors lining the wall. It only led to a long, narrow smokestack-like hole with a metal ladder leading up it.

“Hurry up. They might seal this hole if they discover it.”

“What is this?”

“They probably made a mistake when installing the ducts. These kinds of mistakes are pretty common and I’ve even heard about a time an amusement park’s drinking water accidentally had industrial water hooked up instead.”

In other words, it was a secret route that did not exist on the blueprints.

Were the truly powerful unaware of this? Or did they know but had left it be?

After Biondetta ducked in, Kyousuke followed her into the smokestack-like space. The wall panel could apparently be closed up from the inside.

Biondetta stuck a pen light behind her ear with practiced hand and started climbing the ladder.

“Now, let’s get going.”

“Where to?”

“Up.”

After that one-word answer, the little demon smiled and chose another word.

“No, outside.”

It was a long journey from there.

The Miniature Garden was 500 meters straight down from the surface. That rivalled the height of a national broadcast tower. Climbing that height using a staircase would be an event in and of itself, but they were using a ladder. If their grip weakened or their hand slipped on their sweat, they would fall into the emptiness below.

“Biondetta, I’m going to be honest.”

“About what? Your surprise now that you know the secret to my health and beauty?”

“With you climbing first, I can see right up your skirt. Even your panties are striped white and pink?”

He received a serious heel kick in response.

However, they were already more than 100 meters up, so they could not swap positions now.

After some difficulty, they made it to the top.

Their ability to do so was more proof that the Miniature Garden’s children far surpassed the average both physically and mentally. Even if Biondetta was not working for the secret project behind the main project like Kyousuke was, she was still a monster.

She pushed up a square cover to reveal an orange light and a gust of wind.

The Miniature Garden was managed even more carefully than the natural world, but being outside still felt liberating.

Kyousuke followed Biondetta out and then stared at the twilit world for a while.

He saw a bumpy hill and tropical-looking trees approaching up to a short distance away.

The wind carried the salty scent of the ocean and a flock of birds flew away overhead.

Kyousuke said nothing unnecessary.

He simply stood there in front of that scenery.

And he spoke a single word with all the pretty fat carved away.

“…Wow.”

“Heh heh heh. That’s the best praise I could hope for! But not so fast. The view looking down from here is the best!!”

Waitress Biondetta pulled on his hand and walked toward the small hill.

The large forest of tropical nature was dyed in the colors of twilight.

No one would suspect that scene of isolated nature actually had an underground world hidden below. The ground was more damp white sand than dirt.

“The land is moving. It was a series of islands when I arrived.”

“It’s apparently called a wandering land.”

Kyousuke stood next to Biondetta and viewed the scenery from the top of the small hill.

The land below was changing form like an amoeba. The land was barely above sea level and there were probably undersea tunnels all over the place. Instead of sinking during high tide, it was impossible to tell where the land or sea would grow, so it seemed to move like a living creature.

“The fine sand carried here from the mouth of a mainland river apparently accumulated like this thanks to the ocean currents. The combination of the tides and the complex currents created by the countless undersea tunnels causes the land’s shape and location to endlessly change.”

When Kyousuke had been taken here, he had seen a string of small islands, but now the orange-dyed sand continued beyond the horizon and the ocean consumed it from within in places. This scene would not continue forever and he could guess it would separate out into a few islands eventually. It was possible the scenery never looked the same two days in a row. As the sea level rose from the tides, islands would respond by periodically sinking and surfacing, but there was no regularity to be found here.

The amoeba-like changes were seen in the shallow accumulation of sand only a dozen or so centimeters above sea level. The entrance to the Miniature Garden they had left through and the bridge spanning the dozen or so kilometers between the distant mainland and another large island were built on the more elevated areas, so they would not be swallowed up no matter how much the land changed.

It looked like land, but it was not land. It looked like an island, but it was not an island. It looked like the ocean, but it was not the ocean.

A single deep shaft opened deep underground in that fantastical place. That strange combination of the definite and the vague played a role of its own.

It felt like the entrance to another world.

It had the same mystical feeling as the rabbit hole that the eternal girl fell into. It was said she fell for so long she lost any sense of time and could grab a jar from a shelf on the wall.

“Well, it’s a lot like a knee-height shoal that continues as far as the eye can see, so it wouldn’t be very good for swimming. And just like a shoal, it’ll catch you by surprise when it suddenly gets really deep.”

“That’s not very nice of it.”

“I know.”

The long, long bridge had quite a few vehicles driving on it, but the trucks could not see the children. And the bridge was so long that it was a lot like a highway. There was no exit until the end, so none of the vehicles would stop on the island and yelling would not reach them. Even a professional opera singer could only project their voice 200 meters at best. And as summoners, normal people would forget they existed when not in the people’s field of vision. Whether or not their voices reached did not matter all that much.

But Waitress Biondetta did not seem to be hoping for that.

She was not hoping to be rescued.

For one thing, she had no guarantee there was a place for her in the outside world.

There was a reason each of the 15 had been chosen, even if it was not as important as Kyousuke’s reason.

She held her hair against the chilly wind and viewed the never-ending scenery.

“See? It was worth all that effort, wasn’t it?”

“…It was.”

He answered honestly, so Biondetta giggled while her short skirt fluttered in the wind.

“Given how deep underground we were, this is like climbing a small mountain, so we need a breathtaking view when we look down from the top like this.”

“Do you always do this, Biondetta?”

“Call me Detta. …And they’d notice if I did it all the time. But I end up coming here when I need to cheer myself up.”

That meant this was one such time.

She too must have been affected by the stifling atmosphere.

“Hey, Kyousuke.”

“What?”

“I realized something when I saw how Kyoumi was acting. Or rather, I finally had confirmation.”

She spoke honestly as if she were facing her own sins.

“''I hate you.''”

“…”

“You have all the power you could want and you could look down on everyone, but you’ve abandoned that card and you ''lower'' your gaze to our level. I hate you for that. You reject the image of big sister I had imagined and you kindly tore my ideal image of a big sister to pieces. I hate you so very much for that. But part of me doesn’t want it to end with hate. There’s a part of my heart that definitely wants to continue being your big sister.”

He was not trying to do that.

But he had no right to make that excuse.

After all, he held a secret even greater than the truth stabbing into Biondetta’s heart. This was all a farce meant to kill the Queen. He knew the project manipulating the 15’s lives had been utter nonsense from the beginning.

He had known that, but he had kept silent.

Because he knew they would have to be killed if they learned the truth.

So…

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Well.”

He thought she would tell him to stay away from her or to stop speaking with her.

But he was wrong.

Biondetta Shiroyama placed a hand on the center of her chest and made her announcement.

“If I do anything remotely suspicious, kill me right away. I don’t care how. You can hit me on the back of the head when I’m not looking or you can face me head-on and crush me with the White Queen. If you do that, I can remain your big sister to the very end.”

The supposedly perfect precision guided missile had no idea how to respond.

It was crumbling.

Everything was audibly falling apart.

What was power?

What did it meant to be the strongest?

He could not stop this horrifying trend that was neither good nor evil. He could only watch as everything was swept toward ruin. So could he really say he had all the power he could want?

“I…”

Just as he tried to open his mouth, something happened.

A nearby bush rustled.

“!”

Waitress Biondetta quickly stepped in front of Kyousuke. As always, she was a big sister through and through. Even if that role had been placed on her, she found meaning in fulfilling it.

Kyousuke bit his lip as she protected him.

A large man with long blond hair worn in a ponytail appeared before them. He gave off the conflicting impression of both a nobility enjoying tea in his palace and a pirate wreaking havoc on the seas in his ship.

There was no way they would run into someone with no connection to the Miniature Garden here.

Was he part of the official project, or was he part of the secret project to kill the Queen?

Biondetta glared up at him with a challenge in her eyes, but the blond man only scratched his head in annoyance.

He looked more to Kyousuke than Biondetta when he spoke.

“I’d really rather avoid any trouble, so I’ll pretend I didn’t see anything.”

That answered Kyousuke’s question.

He was from the secret project. Kyousuke had to be careful about what information Biondetta was given. His response here could put her life at risk, even if he himself would be spared.

This man acted like a regal predator.

He was like a lion.

Kyousuke guessed he was from the team meant to kill the Queen. After Kyousuke sewed their prey here, this man’s team would directly kill her. Those incarnations of violence could overturn the assumption that the battle was over as soon as the White Queen was summoned.

He had a different sort of strength from a scout and spy like Kyousuke.

“Get going already. And be more careful next time. There are some twisted people out there ''who actually get excited by trouble''.”

“…”

Kyousuke did not speak his mind.

Even a yes or a no would let Biondetta know he was on a similar level to this man. And that would be bad. Not for Kyousuke, though. It would be very, very bad for Biondetta.

He would not let her be silenced.

He would not accept any order to kill her.

He would protect her.

He would protect his family no matter what.

Was it wrong to feel that way? Would it be easier if he simply made an “adjustment” to match the situation?

He turned his back on that logic.

No. He did not want to get rid of that anguish.

He did not want to erase the part of him that worried for his family.

The blond man must have seen the iron will in Kyousuke’s eyes because he did not say anything more. He calmly walked past the two children and disappeared into a different part of the woods.

Kyousuke slowly exhaled.

But then some words stabbed right into his heart.

“…I’m just not cut out to be a big sister, am I?”