The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village:Volume5 Side B

Status: Incomplete

9/22 parts completed

   

Jinnai Shinobu's Apocalypse — Side B — OP_code"Rail_song_jail".

Part ? (3rd person — Day ??/?? ??:?? - ??:??)

“Lost baggage? …What? You mean, um, wait. So it was lost!? But that ‘item’ was top secret!!”

“It’s already gone, so there’s no use complaining about it. Or do you think that’s going to magically make it appear?”

“If it was that important, why didn’t you keep it with your carry-on baggage? I’m going to officially report this!!”

“I didn’t want something that dangerous on me! I know plenty of people who assumed a domestic flight was safe and came to regret it!!”

“Okay, understood. Everyone, we need to calm down. The carrier decided to transport the ‘item’ by hiding it in a civilian travel bag, but that travel bag has gone missing as lost baggage. Is that clear?”

“Can’t we track the bag?”

“If we’d attached a transmitter, the signal would have been intercepted. It would be like telling the entire world to come take it from us.”

“You mean…”

“No one knows what airport it ended up at.”

“The airline isn’t stupid. They’ll find it before long and contact the civilian student. There’s nothing we can do until that student picks up his travel bag.”

“Could someone fake their identity so we can collect the bag ourselves?”

“Do you want to stand out? That would increase the risk of revealing the ‘item’s’ existence, you know?”

“…Dammit.”

“Now you’re catching on. Unfortunately, all we can do now is pray.”

Part 2 (Jinnai Shinobu — Day 10/03 20:30 - 20:40)

“………………………………………………………………………………………What the…hell is this?” I muttered while staring at my cellphone’s small screen.

What I had read was so insane that I may have briefly passed out at points.

It had all started as I tried to kill some time waiting in the lobby of the island’s floating airport in the hopes of my lost baggage showing up.

I had used Singer Song Liar.

It was one of the many free net services flooding the market and it was best described as “strange songwriting software”.

If you entered lyrics and music, it would automatically create a story to go along with it. It had an easy mode that allowed you to paste in countless pre-recorded samples and gave you help with what to write next using something similar to a predictive search. That allowed users to casually create a song in as little as ten minutes. (Of course, I’d heard all the songs made with easy mode sounded a lot alike.)

I didn’t know exactly how the story creation worked, but it apparently took the genre (classic, jazz, techno, rock, etc.), the type of melody (ballad, blues, pop, etc.), commonly-used phrases, the rhythm, and the terms and names used in the lyrics to arrange hundreds of thousands of phrases to form the best story. Or something like that.

It had gotten famous when the big message boards started asking why they would let people use such a convenient and high-level service for free and then I had heard it got pretty overloaded during the weekends and late night.

Since I was bored, I had spent about twenty minutes making a song just to try it out, but…

“Wait, wait, wait. That is a lot of text.”

According to the message boards, the shorter ones were only a few pages long and the longer ones were a full thirty-page short story, but it looked like I had a full novel.

And then there was the content.

“Wow.”

This says the Japanese archipelago was entirely sealed off, I became a world-famous robot scientist to take Japan back, I made a contract with the Succubus and made full use of her, I made a contract with a Seven Deadly Sins class demon to power up an unmanned robot – oh, wow – I one-shotted Hishigami Mai, I was some sexy mad scientist, I fulfilled my promise with the Zashiki Warashi a decade later while wearing a spacesuit, “Once it’s all over, let’s begin it all anew…Yukari. (Trying to sound classy)” Oh, wow. Using her name? What!? Was she my wife or something? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

“Why do I feel like I was just presented with some embarrassing old notebook I don’t remember writing!? I didn’t do anything, so why am I stuck here writhing in embarrassment!? Besides, my name was the only one in the lyrics, so where did all the rest of this come from? It’s strange but really embarrassing!! I’m curious, but I want nothing to do with this!!”

N-not to mention that it said I took on a legit con artist in a casino, that I survived a direct hit from a car bomb, that we tried to rescue the kidnapped Zashiki Warashi on our own, and that we dragged twenty-four corpses into one spot! That should have been enough to think this was unrealistic! I never knew how scary it was that machines have no sense of shame! I’m not my uncle, the living police drama who dreamed of being a police officer and actually got into Investigation Department 1, and I’m not Hishigami Mai, who can singlehandedly fight a war and head home with a smile! What is this? If the song I made without really thinking produced this, then is my mind still filled with embarrassing teenage delusions!? That’s depressing! And why the hell would you omit the part where I misused the Succubus’s power to make out with Madoka!? That’s the most important part! I can’t believe this! This damn digital program doesn’t get it at all! You stupid, stupid, stupid thing!!!!!

“…I want to die.”

It made sense that my mind had gone blank and that I had lost track of time. It was only once I muttered those four words that I noticed a soft sensation leaning against my upper arm.

My right temple itched. It was true I had been holding the Zashiki Warashi in my arms in Singer Song Liar, so I looked over.

It was Hafuri.

The young leader of the brutal and villainous organization named Hyakki Yakou was sleeping there in a kimono.

“H-…”

My throat immediately went dry and I screamed before my brain could catch up.

“Hyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”

I impulsively tried to escape, but this time I felt something heavy resting on my opposite shoulder.

What is it now? A Konaki-Jijii?I thought as I looked over.

“Y-you’re kidding.”

It was Hishigami Mai.

The assassin in a tank top and hot pants was sleeping with her head on my shoulder.

No, a closer look showed her eyes were ever-so-slightly opened like thin blades.

“What’s wrong with you? Don’t wake the young lady when she’s so sleeping so comfortably.”

She’s awake!?

Does that mean I can’t sneak away!?

Being with my parents is a negative, but I still hoped to meet a bunch of girls on this casino island and make some wonderful memories. But does this that dream has been destroyed before I even leave the airport!?

A small canine Youkai was rubbing his head against Hishigami Mai’s boots. I remembered it was a Sunekosuri.

“I can understand reacting that way to Mai-san, but isn’t it rude to include kind Hafuri-sama in that?”

“It’s not her I’m afraid of. It’s all the people around her!!”

She must have been a little tired from the trip because the girl with a bob cut showed no sign of waking despite all my shouting.

“A-anyway, I’m waiting for my lost suitcase. The Zashiki Warashi was with me, so do you know where she got off to?”

“As soon as she caught sight of Hafuri-sama and Mai-san, she left as quickly as she could.”

“…”

Of course she did.

My right temple itched. In Singer Song Liar, she had shielded me from bombs and bullets and gone on a rampage like a murder machine, but reality was a different story.

“Why are you all here?”

“Wait until the young lady has gotten some rest.”

“To be honest, I have to pee so bad I’m about to wet myself! If you make me wait here any longer, it’s going to end badly for everyone involved!!”

“We’re here for you.” Hishigami Mai rubbed her own face. “A special Package using an Amanojaku has been constructed on Goldmine Island. People like us normally don’t head out to deal with some criminals trying to make a little money, but this Amanojaku Package is pretty bad. They want it dealt with quickly even if they have to pay a steeeeeep price for it.”

“An Amanojaku?”

“Right. We don’t know the details of the Package, but we can see its effects popping up here and there. How should I explain it? People’s actions are supposed to be based on ideas inside them, but we’ve noticed a lot of people such as corporate bigshots and national bureaucrats doing weird things that completely ignore those ideas. It’s like they’re being pulled by a magnet and the higher ups of our world don’t like the looks of it. They want someone – anyone – to take care of it and fast.”

I remembered that the Amanojaku was said to be a mischievous Youkai or one that answers any question with the opposite answer. There were apparently a number of theories saying it was originally an oni or a god. If you checked through the stories, it would sometimes capture people, eat them, skin them, wear the skin, and pretend to be them. That put it squarely in the “deadly” category.

“Um, I’m not going to be seen as an accomplice because you told me that, am I?”

“Either way, this is never going to be public knowledge.”

“That just scares me more!!”

I turned to the Sunekosuri, hoping for help, but the canine Youkai was focused on rubbing up against the woman’s boots.

You stupid perverted dog! You’re completely useless!!

“Wait, so what does that have to do with me!? If you underworld people are going to fight to the death, do it somewhere away from me!!”

“We need to know what you created.”

Uh, oh!!!

“I-I-I-I-I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You can’t fool me. I know you’re hooked on Singer Song Liar. Didn’t you know it’s made to steal your personal information?”

C’moooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!! You mean I can’t ignore this? And how did that thing turn into all this!?

“We still haven’t located the core of the Package, but we can guess it brings a manmade world into reality. They probably polished up the ‘answering with a lie’ trait and remade it into ‘turning a lie into the answer’.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

No, no.

Wait. No, no, no, no!?

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! What would that mean? Will that embarrassingly delusional automatically-created story actually happen!? The poker game against a con artist, the car bombing, the kidnapping, the slaughter of the villains, the Zashiki Warashi’s rampage, the theft of the country, and the elimination of Japan will all come true!? No, wait! Just remembering it is making my temple itch like hell!!!!!

“Why? Why was I of all people dragged into this Amanojaku Package!?”

“Who knows. I said we haven’t located the core, remember? More importantly, let me see that phone you’ve been so focused on. What it says will let us know how to deal with what’s coming.”

“…………………………………………………………………………..Do I have to tell you?”

“What? Is it some adolescent wet dream?”

I covered my face in a hand and confessed.

“In a way, it’s worse.”

Part 3 (Uchimaku Hayabusa — Day 10/03 20:30 - 20:43)

I descended the stairs that rolled up to the airplane and set foot on the national airport’s runway. A detective usually wore a cheap suit year-round, but it was feeling a little too hot for that now. It made me wonder if it really was October.

“Ahh. So we’re finally at the casino island!! Was it called Goldmine Island? I’m glad to see you’re so excited.”

My general grumpiness was contrasted by the grinning National Police Agency VIP next to me.

He was Chief Superintendent Mishima.

If you wanted to know just how much of a VIP he was, there were only two or three more ranks above him. No matter how perfectly you went about getting promotions, that wasn’t a position someone in their late thirties should have.

“Why am I on a Kyushu resort island?” I asked without thinking.

Chief Superintendent Mishima must not have had anything to do because he actually answered me.

“For some observation and a study meeting. With thirty million people crammed in together, Tokyo keeps ending up in the red with its social security and infrastructure maintenance, so they’re looking for a new source of income. They’ve been talking about building a casino in the city for a while now. It would be centered on the Izu Islands and far away from the city center.”

“Yes, I’d heard all that, but still.”

“As the police, we’d like to know the positive and negative sides of a casino before laying the groundwork for a new system. We especially need to know how it affects the criminal map. As you can see, there’s nothing strange about Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department taking a trip to Kyushu’s Goldmine Island. Even if the trip is paid by the city residents’ tax money.”

Incidentally, I belonged to the Metropolitan Police Department which guarded the peace of Tokyo while Mishima belonged to the National Police Agency which supervised all of Japan’s police. That made everything from Hokkaido on down to Okinawa his territory. It didn’t matter to him how fiercely the ombudsmen or civil groups complained about how we used the taxes.

“You’ve heard about Kobe’s failure, right? It got so surrounded by famous hotels, casinos, shopping malls, and leisure facilities that the sightseers never set foot outside those places and nothing went back to the locals. There are even groups online demanding they drive out the ‘shut-in resorts’. We want to avoid that kind of trouble when we’re making plans for the city, so this is an important job.”

“But isn’t this a job for the uniformed officers way, way, wayyyy higher up than me!?”

“Yes? Why do you think I’m here?”

Chief Superintendent Mishima glanced around the runway as he spoke.

There were quite a few people in the area who seemed out of place. Beyond the normal workers running around refueling planes or guiding flights in, I noticed some people guarding our surroundings. And they were all dressed in the gaudy miniskirts of the female police officers you would see on the cover of an American pin-up magazine.

Needless to say, no Japanese police organization used that kind of uniform.

Chief Superintendent Mishima (appeared to) casually observe them while speaking.

“We don’t want an influx of armed guards into Tokyo. Did you know these guards actually get pharmacist licenses so they can carry around a compressed-gas tranquilizer gun? I wonder who would win if one of them got in a fight with one of our officers.”

The thick belts around their waists contained several leather cases and I could see a gun-like silhouette along with the baton and handcuffs.

“I hear they’ve formed a high-level and large-scale organization here. I just hope they don’t start taking bribes and turn into a new gang.”

“That isn’t what I meant. Why did you have to drag someone with a dead-end police sergeant job out here!?”

“You can never get the whole picture just by looking down on things from above, so I want to know how things look to someone who investigates crimes on the ground. And when I told your department chief, he immediately suggested you.”

Damn him!! Is he shoving all the pain-in-the-ass work onto me!?

I turned around just as several people from the police rushed noisily down from the plane. There were a lot from both the Metropolitan Police Department and the National Police Agency. While they were uniformed police officers, these were not the people out on the streets. They were all distinguished enough it wouldn’t have surprised me to see medals on their chests.

Overall, this didn’t feel at all like a fun trip to a tropical island, so I wished they could feel even a fraction of the pressure weighing down on my stomach.

I felt like I was only receiving half the oxygen I breathed in as we rode the shuttle bus to the airport terminal. Lately, security had gotten stricter even for domestic flights, but all of them were let right through the gate. Not only did security not X-ray their suitcases, but security didn’t even check what they were carrying with them. Of course, none of them seemed to have any intention of carrying their own bags.

And if the higher ups had it easy, those at the bottom had it tough.

I dragged Chief Superintendent Mishima’s suitcase around as I exited the airport building with all those important people.

They immediately began boarding black luxury cars that were clearly not normal taxis. There were five or six of them in a row with police cars in between and two police motorcycles at the very center. The National Police Agency probably saw this as being self-sufficient, but normal society would want to ask if they thought they were royalty.

After I shoved someone’s suitcase in the unlocked trunk, the smoked window lowered and the career policeman addressed me.

“Okay, Uchimaku-kun, just follow the time schedule from here on. We’ll be having a secret strategy meeting on a luxury cruise ship, but be honest. You don’t want to join us, do you?”

This was obviously an order, so I had no choice but to answer with a huge smile.

“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot at all.”

“To be honest, I don’t either. I don’t want to meet with people so old they can’t taste the drinks and only focus on the price tag. …Do you think there’s a good Chinese dumpling place around here? I feel like showing up with terrible garlic breath just to mess with them. See you later.”

He waved his hand and the parade left the roundabout. Only the others as young as me were left behind. As soon as the cars vanished, we all let out heavy sighs but immediately exchanged a glance and cleared our throats. We couldn’t have anyone informing the higher ups of that. There was no chance of us getting along, so we all walked off in different directions.

“Now, then. What to do?”

My official duties were clear. My immediate objective was to find some dinner, but I grimaced as soon as I saw a vending machine. The drinks were all over a thousand yen each, so the casino city would be hopeless. I would be better off spending the night holding my stomach. So what else was there to do? A police officer in a suit couldn’t exactly go gambling on his own. Besides, my repeated pay cuts had left me with nothing to gamble with. However, I didn’t want to head straight to the inn and go to sleep either. I just knew I would wake up at some weird time like three or four in the morning.

I had nothing to do.

I was on a resort island, and yet I was about ready to lean in over my cellphone and download a mystery-solving app or something.

But then a familiar voice reached me from the side.

“Detective☆”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Hishi…gami…Enbi.

Well, to be honest, something had smelled fishy from the moment I was asked to go on this irregular trip. You know what I mean? It felt just like one of those moments you invariably run across if you live long enough. Like when a landslide blocks the road and you go to a creepy mansion to get out of the rain, when you board a sleeper train after waiting for someone to cancel and run into a man in a mask, or when you win a ticket in a shopping center lottery and it turns out to be for the detached room at an inn where people kept suspiciously killing themselves ten years ago. It felt just like that!! Like when there’s some ancient bloody ritual or a gloomy counting song that ends with not just the secret basement but the entire inn making a complete 180!! Just like that!! So I had expected this much! I wasn’t crying yet!!!!!

It was Hishigami Enbi.

That mystery freak had a way of popping up at the scenes of disturbing murders. It was to the point that I wondered if that indiscrete twintailed middle school girl had the Grim Reaper walking around with her.

However, my shock this time wasn’t over her showing up without warning on Goldmine Island.

It was over how she was dressed.

Simply put…

“What in the world are you wearing?”

“You don’t know what a bunny suit is? This is a casino city, so what else am I supposed to wear if I want to blend into the background without standing out?”

“You look like you’re illegally working in the red-light district!! You’re nothing but trouble to all the law-abiding businesses around you!!”

“Heh heh heh. There may not be much space, but I do have a lighter in my cleavage just like the real deal.”

“Did you know that carrying flammable material around in public without any obvious purpose is against the law?”

When I sighed and confiscated the lighter, Bunny Enbi got mad.

“How can you stick your hand in there so casually!?”

“Because it’s part of my job.”

“Yeah, but you’re supposed to blush and fidget a bit first! You’re doing a terrible job!!”

I felt like the voices of the surrounding crowd were changing a bit.

Oh, this ain’t good. A grown adult in a suit with a middle school bunny girl is definitely going to give people the wrong idea!

The (female, of course) armed guards in miniskirts who looked like something from an American pin-up magazine were slowly approaching and I felt the hair all over my body stand on end.

It was true a legit police officer wasn’t about to lose an argument with a civilian guard, but there was no way I was going to use my full intellect to argue about something like this at my age!

“Why are you here!? Why in the world are you here to ruin my social standing!?”

“Huh? You mean you aren’t here because you’re pursuing that incident?”

…

I want nothing to do with this, I thought while covering my face and curling up, but that wasn’t enough to stop the Mystery Bunny.

“Y’know, the one with all the rumors online.”

“You mean the Samejima Incident?”

“It’s a little more credible than that online urban legend.”

I could clearly picture the grin on her lips as she continued.

“You mean you haven’t heard of the Urashima Incident?”

Part 4 (Hishigami Mai — Day 10/03 20:45 - 20:55)

“Dwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”

I had Jinnai Shinobu tell me the Singer Song Liar story at the center of the Amanojaku incident, but…

I-I can’t… I can’t stop laughing! Hee!!

“W-well, I’m sure whoever it was chose a song that fit their goals, but still. Japan was sold off? What a ridiculous story. Ah ha ha ha!!”

“Stop! Just stop!!”

Unsurprisingly, the blond high school boy blushed red and sobbed.

“Besides, a Singer Song Liar story is normally only two or three pages and twenty to thirty at the most. Hm, so did someone set this up? Or was Producer Jinnai’s wonderful song just that exceptional!?”

“How many times do I have to tell you to stop rubbing salt in my wounded heart!?”

Drawn by my uproarious laughter, the young lady of Hyakki Yakou finally woke.

“Mumble… What is going on? Oh, is Target A up?”

“Now I can’t escape!!”

Jinnai Shinobu shouted as he was held from both sides.

C’mon, you’re sandwiched between an innocent little girl and a glamorous young woman, so why not look a little happier with your life?

Meanwhile, the young lady rubbed her eyes.

“How is Target A progressing? Have you figured out anything about the symbol of the lie? In the story of the Amanojaku skinning the princess and wearing her skin, it began attacking the humans once its identity was revealed. Similarly, revealing the great lie should be the best way to damage the enemy in this case.”

“Let’s see. (Grin, grin) What should I do here? (Hee hee) Should I tear open his wounded heart any further? (Heh heh heh)”

“I’ll give you up to three thousand yen!! Either don’t say anything or do it where I can’t see you!!”

The boy was truly in tears, but I ignored him and shared the necessary information with the young lady.

It looked like his temperature rose by another half a degree.

The ten year old with a bob cut brought a hand to her mouth.

“The national suicide Package using an Usuhiki Warashi, a subspecies of the Zashiki Warashi? Yes, it looks like the Amanojaku system is strongly affecting Jinnai Shinobu’s words and actions. Otherwise, a mere high school boy could never arrive at something hidden so deep inside Japan.”

“It’s real? Are you saying that national suicide thing is for real!? That isn’t some embarrassing story a computer made up on its own!? What is wrong with Japan!?”

“But I’m surprised to see that old abandoned thing showing up again. How did the information get out?”

“The casino city has to have a bunch of ridiculously huge financial servers to deal with the black cards, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to access the ‘core’ of that old thing remotely. Maybe this island has something like a backdoor terminal.”

“I’m curious about the gray-haired man that appeared at the end of the Goldmine Island part. He was an elderly white man with an Ikiryou assassination Package that used a Kechibi and he also had the superhuman Obou-Jikara gained through the trial of an Ubume’s baby. And his goal was to buy Japan.”

“It was probably Sid Clouds. He’s an occult expert who specializes in weaponizing the local oddities of wherever he’s infiltrating. Plus, a thorough shift toward offense is totally his style and I could definitely see him showing up at the very end to take all the credit.”

“Isn’t he with the CIA?”

“The top secret national suicide system was leaked, so wouldn’t the possibility of someone here letting it slip be more likely than an external cyberattack? And using some random criminals for the dirty work and letting the official agents stay hidden is their specialty.”

“If you’re right about it being Sid Clouds that means America is behind this.”

“What proof do we have that America is always going to be an ally? With their domestic economic issues coinciding with the commotion of withdrawing from their foreign military bases, the influence of the ‘world police’ is being shaken from the inside and the outside. It doesn’t seem that odd for them to consider taking control of this country’s financial foundation before their sources of money dry up. And I bet those macho-men in tights think they’re wisely protecting their ally from its incompetent administration, so they don’t even realize they’re making an invasion.”

“Either way, we need to put an end to the sale of Japan while also dealing with the Amanojaku that is making that false information a reality. I do think it’s too soon to decide Sid Clouds really is behind this, though.”

“Fine, fine. I have two or three things to get back at him for, so I have reason enough to kill him even if he’s completely innocent on this one. So look at it this way: I’ll ask him about this while I kill him. So can I get going?”

“Hyakki Yakou does not condone revenge.”

“That’s why a freelance agent like me does the dirty work. Do you get what our different roles are now?”

“I…”

“You will not be going with me. If someone in as important a position as you walked the back alleys on your own, it would throw everything out of balance. I’ll leave your protection to those official members sending all sorts of murderous stares our way from behind the pillars, okay?”

The Sunekosuri must have sensed something dangerous because he tried to sneak away, but I snatched him up and stood from the bench.

“Well, I’ll be doing what I can while assuming what Jinnai Shinobu said is correct.”

She must not have fully woken yet because the young lady was still leaning against Jinnai Shinobu.

“Do you know where Sid Clouds is?” she asked.

“One of the moored cruise ships.”

“Based on what?”

“Mostly based on my knowledge of his taste and methods, but fine. To explain it logically, he can’t sleep without a bed, can’t use chopsticks, won’t eat raw fish, doesn’t call something a meal unless it has more than 250g of red meat, and doesn’t like sharing open air baths with others. That means there’s no way he would be using one of Goldmine Island’s Japanese-style inns.”

“Do you have any more tactical reasons?”

“The cruise ship has a heliport he can use. He can bring all sorts of tools to the island while ignoring harbor and airport security, so it’s convenient for building multiple Packages like the Kechibi and Ubume ones.”

That meant I had to sneak onto that cruise ship.

Now, what method should I use?

Part 5 (Uchimaku Hayabusa — Day 10/03 20:45 - 21:05)

Cosplay is my hobby, so don’t worry☆

“Hey, detectiiive, why do I have to walk around with this sign?”

“Because you’re scaring all the businesses around you a lot more than you think. They’ve put in a lot of hard work, so don’t ruin it all for a joke!!”

“Okay, I get it. If it’s that big a deal, I’ll take it off right here.”

“Try that and I really will handcuff you.”

A drink can cost more than a thousand yen on this crazy casino island, but there were apparently areas with cheaper prices if you looked.

We arrived at one such area while walking around looking at the red or yellow maple and gingko trees mixed in with the pineapple-like tropical trees lining the roads.

“It’s called Harbor Alley,” simply explained Bunny Enbi.

Instead of restaurants on a normal street, each small shop was located on cruisers or boats packing the harbor. They felt something like food carts with a roof and walls.

“The casino city is generally made so only the winners can enjoy it, but it would be a problem if the losers went on a rampage. That’s why they intentionally added in these areas for them to let off some steam. The service here prevents incidents before they happen, so it’s a way of protecting the peace that the police can’t do.”

“The best option is an inn using the ultra-high quality brands of an Intellectual Village, the second best option is a luxury cruise ship, but the worst option is life on a cruiser? Honestly, this island really is crazy.”

I was clearly fed up with it all.

“Ohh? Detective, are you nervous?”

“I just don’t want any more unnecessary work.”

The boats didn’t seem to be made of metal. They were more like plastic or an extremely hard polyurethane. Basically, it was something like a life preserver, but harder and cheaper.

Making the boat entirely out of plastic probably gave them a lot more freedom than pressing metal, cutting it apart, and assembling the pieces.

We eventually chose a random cruiser restaurant from among those plastic boats. Only after sitting at the table in the cabin did I realize it was a Chinese restaurant.

“Why doesn’t this Chinese restaurant have normal ramen?”

“Detective, you’ve never travelled overseas, have you? Most of what the Japanese think of as ‘Chinese food’ has been customized for us. There is no miso ramen in China. Got it?”

I ordered the salmon and cabbage fried rice (half size) because it was cheapest and Enbi started with the appetizers by ordering the century egg, bird’s nest soup, shark fin soup, abalone in cream, seafood ankake okoge…and at that point I confiscated her menu.

“Are you trying to eat yourself to death?”

“I’ll only eat a bite of each and give the rest to you. I have a guy with me, so I have to enjoy myself! And what better way than with a bunch of indirect kisses!!”

The Mystery Freak pouted her lips and complained, but I still opened the menu to the main dish page and held it out to her. Finally, she reluctantly chose just the dandan noodles.

There was no reason for us to wait for the food.

“So what all is going on here? What’s this Urashima Incident?”

“The horror stories about Goldmine Island are a pretty hot topic right now☆”

Enbi took a gulp of chilled water from her glass, set it on the table, and for some reason tried to swap it with my glass, so I slapped the back of her hand.

Undeterred, she continued speaking.

“It began with a single phone call between some stupid rich couple. The girlfriend had a new cruiser she wanted to show off, but the boyfriend didn’t like being outdone. He secretly bought an even more luxurious boat to surprise the girlfriend. He asked the girlfriend where she was on her boat and planned to show up on his new boat to surprise her.”

“I see.”

“But when he went to where she said she was, neither of them could see the other’s boat. And that was even when they were speaking on the phone at the time. The boyfriend thought it was a bad joke at first, but it gradually started to creep him out.”

“Oh, the dandan noodles were hers. I had the fried rice. Yes, thank you.”

“In the end, they exchanged data between their phones’ GPSs and their navigation devices, so they knew neither of them was lying. Nevertheless, they couldn’t seem to find each other despite supposedly looking at the same area. Eventually, their phone batteries died and they never did find each other. …Now, was one of them simply lying in some clever way or is there some ‘demonic sea’ around Goldmine Island that briefly sent them into the past or future yet still let those lovers talk over the phone? It’s up to the beautiful middle school girl and the sexy detective to reveal the truth!! That’s what’s going on here. …Are you even listening, detective? Stop focusing so much on your fried rice!!”

Munch, munch, munch, munch, munch.

Damn, this is good! I shouldn’t have cheaped out with the half size. This cruiser restaurant needs to come to Tokyo Bay!!

“There are other similar stories here and there, too. Like a helicopter camera crew trying to get a shot of a yacht for a TV show, but never being able to find the yacht. Or a boat of people coming to cheer on a macho man trying for a long-distance swimming record, but they not finding the man despite his course being a straight line. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

“What is all that? Did you find it on some message board? All of it? Are you sure some freelance writer didn’t make it all up for fun?”

“Let’s investigate it with that possibility in mind.”

“I thought you loved murder cases. It isn’t like you to get so excited about a trick or chasing down a criminal. And is this even a criminal incident? Are you sure those aren’t just accidents?”

“My Enbi-chan sensor is beeping like crazy.”

After trying to show off, she took a bite of her red dandan noodles. The middle school girl immediately turned her head to the side and choked quite spectacularly.

“And what part of those doubtful rumors does your sensor think is suspicious?”

“Cough, cough!! W-well, you see…”

She pulled a handkerchief from the slight cleavage of her bunny suit, covered her mouth, and replied with tears in her eyes.

“All three freelance writers who covered these rumors died suspicious deaths.”

There was no sound.

Rather than feeling the atmosphere freeze over, I felt like all of my senses vanished. All information was taken from me and the world became flat and flavorless.

But Enbi continued as if she were only getting started.

“Specifically, it was freelance writer Hashiba Tooru, occult site administrator Ishida Megumi, and infamous self-proclaimed screenwriter Mouri Yajiri. They all focused on gathering rumors from the internet to write their works or articles.”

“What were these suspicious deaths?”

“They’re probably registered separately in the police database. Hashiba took an eight-story dive from a parking deck after the auto-brake system of his new car malfunctioned, Ishida’s cellphone battery exploded when she had it up to her ear, and Mouri’s hot water heater broke, quickly transforming his bathroom into a gas chamber. In all three cases, it was treated as an accident due to improper contact inside the electronics.”

“They certainly do sound like they could have been unfortunate accidents.”

“But what if there was a system that let someone intentionally cause electronic circuits and semiconductors to lose contact?”

I placed my Chinese spoon on the edge of my plate.

At first glance, it looked like trivial rumors spread on the internet, but the people who had dug a little deeper kept ending up dead.

“Hm? What is it, detective?”

“…Nothing.”

She knew she fit those criteria since she was in the process of gathering information on it, didn’t she?

She blinked her perfectly proportioned eyes and continued.

“Also, the online stories themselves are strange. As far as I can tell, the story is just about the ‘demonic sea’ that prevents two people from meeting each other. That’s all.”

“And?”

“Of course it doesn’t end with that. What happens afterwards? This is a big casino island, remember? The people working here are going to seem sketchy no matter how seriously they take their work. Stories of people disappearing on trips worry people enough, so what if a lover disappeared on this island of money and desire? It would cause a commotion far greater than from female customers vanishing from boutique dressing rooms. When someone disappears at sea, you normally report it to the lifesavers or the fire department, right? But I can’t find any data on that kind of thing in the official records I can reach.”

“Could it all be nothing but rumors and nothing actually happened?”

I grabbed the Chinese spoon again and brought some fried rice to my mouth, but it tasted nothing like it had before. It felt like eating 3D polygons.

Enbi, on the other hand, recklessly attempted to eat the red dandan noodles again and started choking for her trouble.

“Ugh. It’s so spicy it’s stinging my nose. …Well, that would be the most boring ending, but I do think it’s possible. But what if the ‘demonic sea’ and the island at its center had a system to suppress any complaints or objections? That would require the same kind of infrastructure needed to make female customers vanish from boutique dressing rooms without word getting out. And just as you would expect, several people investigating the truth of the rumors have ended up dead. …With all this lined up, wouldn’t it be weird not to find this topic interesting?”

There’s no hope for her when this actually makes her grin.

I thought while soaking the rice-covered Chinese spoon in the (small) chicken soup that had come with my fried rice.

“Some of that does bother me, but my policy hasn’t changed. I work for the Tokyo Municipal Police Department, so there’s nothing I can do on a small Kyushu island.”

“Oh? While the rumors happened here, the freelance writers who actually died were allll from Tokyo. And they died in Tokyo, too. Now, whose jurisdiction would that fall under?”

“Son of a bitch!!”

I swore without thinking, but there was no stopping Enbi once she was grinning like this.

She repeatedly blew on the red noodles that she couldn’t seem to conquer.

“And after coming this far, you can’t exactly say it has nothing to do with you.”

“After coming this far? All I’ve done is hear the rumors.”

“No, no, no, no, no. A few of the cruisers and yachts that vanished in the ‘demonic sea’ left this very harbor. They were right here in Harbor Alley. That means you’ve already set foot in one of the related areas. Do you understand?”

The minor in need of protection seemed to be having trouble eating her dandan noodles, so I kindly helped by shoving them into her mouth.

Part 6 (Jinnai Shinobu — Day 10/03 20:55 - 21:04)

I took off running while Hishigami Mai and Hafuri were whispering to each other (but they probably let me escape).

I found the Zashiki Warashi elegantly enjoying some milk tea at an airport café, so I grabbed the back of her neck.

“You traitor! You filthy traitor!!”

“Stop it, Shinobu. If you keep doing these embarrassing things in public, people might think we know each other. That would be a huge loss for me.”

“You can run if you want, but at least clue me in!! Why would you escape on your own!? You left me all alone in the middle of Hyakki Yakou! That’s scarier than going to a hot spring and finding tattoos everywhere you look!! Do you have any idea the kind of fear I was feeling!?”

“You’re a human, so you’re fine. It’s the Youkai like me that have to worry about that organization.”

The Indoor Youkai turned her face to the side to show off a melancholic look in profile, but I asked about something that was bothering me.

“By the way, how were you planning to pay for this? Youkai can’t take part in economic activity and a single drink costs a thousand yen on this casino island.”

“Smartphones sure are convenient. You can hold one up the register to pay for things.”

“And whose smartphone did you use!?”

“Mine, registered under your name.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Looks like I need to give her a serious talking to.

Ahem.

“Then I’ll be taking back what you ‘borrowed’ once we get home. Oh, but don’t bother saying you have no money. I can just take a few of the video games from your shelf and sell them. You’ll be fine as long as I leave just one FPS game, right? I’ll take care of the rest.”

“No! Even you know it takes a monster to mess with someone’s collection, don’t you!? I need them all! I can’t lose even one of them!! You can’t do thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttttttttt!”

“Don’t cling to me with tears and snot all over your face!! Everyone’s watching and it’s embarrassing!!”

I used both hands to peel away the Zashiki Warashi who was clinging to me without worrying what it did the collar and hem of her kimono.

Of course, my lost baggage left me with almost nothing in my wallet, so I was forced to pay with the smartphone regardless.

“The milk tea is three thousand yen and the table charge brings it up to four thousand five hundred♪”

“I so want to throw this Good-for-Nothing Youkai in the kitchen to wash dishes…”

With an electronic jingle, I paid for the tea at a price that would normally buy an entire can of tea leaves and then left the café with the Zashiki Warashi.

“Shinobu, what did you do to bring Hyakki Yakou here?”

“I don’t really know either, but it seems I was caught in the middle of an Amanojaku Package.”

“I see Youkai love you as much as ever.”

“But it seems the contents of a delusional story I had a program automatically create are going to be real. It sounds like we need to stop it before that happens.”

The Zashiki Warashi immediately began covering her chest with her hands.

“What…are you doing?”

“Your delusions…will become real? I-I can see it now!! School uniforms will be school swimsuits with bunny ears and every girl as far as the eye can see will have been impregnated!!”

“It was made by a shameless machine! It’s not my fault!!”

My angry shouting caught the attention of airport security, so we meaninglessly fled. We decided to hold a quick strategy meeting on our way to the building’s exit.

“But Singer Song Liar? Can a story made by a machine really encroach on the outside world?”

“Hyakki Yakou is the leader in that kind of thing and they said so.”

“Personally, I’d rather think we can’t believe it because Hyakki Yakou said it.”

“Then let’s test it out.”

We left the airport and found the taxi roundabout in front of us.

My right temple throbbed.

I snapped my fingers.

“Let’s use the white limousine taxi closest to us.”

“What are you going to do?”

I approached the middle-aged driver leaning against the side of the vehicle and I whispered so only the Zashiki Warashi could hear.

“(The first thing he says will be, “Welcome to Japan’s Vegas! This is the special casino district of Goldmine Island!!”)

“?”

The Zashiki Warashi in a red yukata frowned.

“Welcome to Japan’s Vegas! This is the special casino district of Goldmine Island!!”

The Indoor Youkai then looked back and forth between the driver and me.

It felt like cold fingertips were running along my spine.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised too.

But I could say even more if Singer Song Liar’s story was true. I just had to follow the text automatically created by the songwriting software.

“The license plate is ‘NAGASAKI X0X IS 37-XX’, the first ride is eight hundred yen, it’s one hundred twenty yen per three hundred meters after that, the driver’s seat and the back seats can be separated by smoked glass so lovers can make out in privacy, there are fifteen seats inside, and there’s a mini-fridge. The mini-fridge wasn’t opened, so I don’t know what’s inside it, though.”

“What’s this, what’s this? Are you using me for a magic trick? You’re gonna have to pay a fee for my consent, dammit.”

The driver sounded confused, but the Zashiki Warashi ignored him to check on the license plate below the bumper and to peer inside the black window.

But I was already convinced.

“The temperature is twenty-eight degrees and there are two crows flying in the night sky.”

I looked up.

“Five fireworks will go off with three seconds in between: red, red, yellow, blue, green.”

The drum-like blasts reverberated in my gut.

“The newspaper headline reads ‘Value of Aquaculture Eels Finally Outperforms Natural Ones’.”

It was now clear I could accurately predict even the text on the scraps of paper blowing in the wind.

There was no freedom of choice. This was not an open world.

It was like a linear RPG.

I was painfully aware of being on some great rails.

If I took it easy without thinking about this, we would be carried to that conclusion I had already seen.

The sense of danger had finally been properly installed.

“Let’s get going, Zashiki Warashi.”

“Get going where?” asked the Indoor Youkai.

“In the Singer Song Liar story, I rode that limousine taxi to the inn and then walked back to the casino city.”

I had to be careful.

Each and every decision could influence this one shot at reality.

“So let’s try something different this time. At the very least, we can’t follow these rails to the end.”

Part 7 (Hishigami Mai — Day 10/03 21:10 - 21:20)

“That’s the luxury cruise liner Yakata-II, constructed by Nagasaki Sakimori Heavy Industries, owned by Seven Oceans Sightseeing Corporation, registered with Panama, holds 1700, maximum displacement of 80,000 tons, and powered by three diesel turbines and a towing kite.”

After parting ways with the young lady, the Sunekosuri and I observed the enemy.

Most likely to divide up their interests, the airport was in the casino city and the port was by the inns.

That made it easy to observe. Unlike the casino and all its bright lights, there was a lot of darkness here. There were also plenty of small hills or mountains that had not been fully developed, so it was perfect for the likes of me to lie on the ground with binoculars in hand.

I hid among the pineapple-like tropical trees and checked on the port through the gaps in the few remaining maple and gingko trees. It was probably meant as a way to expand the port, but the floating portions made it even easier to observe. Those flat areas were perfect for peering down on from above.

The Sunekosuri scratched his ears with his back leg.

“What is a towing kite?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. It’s a giant kite attached to the bow with a wire to pull the ship with the power of the wind. It’s only a secondary means of propulsion, but German tankers have already adopted it as a way of cutting down on carbon dioxide emissions.”

“B-but…”

I didn’t know how this dark night looked to Youkai eyes, but the canine Youkai was nervously glancing around.

“How are you going to sneak into somewhere so strictly guarded? You have to do that first if you want to reach…Sid Clouds, was it? But can you?”

“Wait, wait. …Okay, there we go,” I said while looking at a thin LCD panel.

There was no easy way to hack into the systems used by Sid and the CIA, but the cruise ship belonged to a civilian sightseeing company. There defenses were full of holes.

“Tonight, the Yakata-II is holding a dinner show with a female singer, a gathering of National Police Agency members and local politicians, and a seasonal stage musical. …None of them have been canceled due to unforeseen trouble, so the ship won’t be completely closed off. They’re even accepting guests from the island, so it looks like I won’t have to swim through the dark sea with an oxygen tank and suction cups.”

“Eh? Eh!? It’s that easy!?”

“All I need is a showy dress, a color copy of a fake ticket, and a bit of acting. Okay, let’s go.”

No one else was watching and I didn’t care if the Sunekosuri saw, so I pulled a dress from my bag, stripped naked in the darkness, and finished changing.

I walked down the hill holding the Sunekosuri and hailed a taxi. From there, it was a straight shot to the floating port connected to the island. The taxi was an unnecessary expense, but it would have stood out too much if I arrived at the luxury cruise ship on foot.

The giant ship was moored alongside the land and a young man was checking a list of names and people’s tickets at the bottom of the gangway for normal guests.

“(Th-they’re going to notice!! It may be dark, but they’re going to find something wrong with that quick color copy. Besides, your name isn’t on their list!)”

“(Don’t worry. The ticket is just for him to see, not to give to him.)”

“(?)”

I ended my conversation with the Sunekosuri and smiled toward the young worker.

“Excuse me, but I need to check your ticket before you board.”

“Yes, yes. Um, I believe it was this- ah!!”

I pulled the color copy from my cleavage and intentionally let go of it just before handing it to the young man. The wind carried the counterfeit ticket away and I gave an adorable scream.

“Ah…ah…aaaaahhhhhhhhh!!”

“N-no, that’s fine. I can check the computer, so we won’t turn you away. So please calm down.”

“Um, uh…”

I fidgeted.

“The reservation wasn’t made under my name, so I don’t think you’ll find it if you search my name.”

“Oh, um, and what name is it under?”

“(His.)”

I leaned in so my wonderful breasts were at the perfect point on the verge of touching him and I whispered to him from close enough that he could feel my breath on his ear.

Of course, I had never met the middle-aged man I pointed at. I could guess what kind of person he was based on his posture and gait, though.

“(He wanted to enjoy himself in the nicest bed he could during his business trip, so he called me out without telling his wife. If you turn me away here, he might just go on a rampage like a wild animal.)”

“Eek!? Y-you mean, um, well, you’re his mistre-…”

“(We would prefer it if you didn’t use that term.)”

I continued my whispered slander.

“(After all, he’s with the police. In fact, he’s with the National Police Agency at the top of all the police in Japan. Even if it isn’t illegal, it would be a professional ethics problem if it got out.)”

“Ah, ah, ah.”

“(So. It would be a lot of help if you let me through without bothering to search the list. Even if you haven’t done anything wrong, it probably wouldn’t be fun to live your life under the eye of the head of the police.)”

“G-go right on in! If you know the police, I’m sure you won’t cause any problems!”

The young man quickly moved out of my way.

Even if the CIA were using it as a mobile base and even if Sid Clouds was using it for his own purposes, the ship itself was innocent and the people working there had no ill will. That was exactly why it was good camouflage, but the security was still full of holes.

But…

“Um, then why are you carrying a Youkai? Even if it looks like a small dog.”

The Sunekosuri clearly gave a start in my arms, but it did not matter.

Once I had started with a bluff, seeing it through to the end was the only option.

“(Oh, are you curious about that man’s ‘proclivities’? I wonder what he would do if he thought you were trying to find material to stir up a scandal. Do people do that on the internet and SNSs these days? Well, everyone has a way of getting information out, so he can’t let his guard down even with an amateur.)”

“I-I didn’t ask anything!! Please just hurry past!!”

“(Make sure to keep this a secret.)”

I waved a hand, boldly walked up the gangway, and boarded the cruise ship.

The Sunekosuri yelled a challenge at me while being squeezed into my breasts.

“What do you mean ‘proclivities’!? Just how were you thinking of using me? That’s disgusting!!”

“Oh, you want to go through it, step by step? How about I demonstrate while we’re at it?”

A lot of idiots judged people by their family, appearance, aura, or brand, but I used their posture and gait. It was suspicious for a nurse to walk around with their sensitive medical equipment clattering around and, if a police officer pressed your door’s intercom while slouching and mumbling, you should check their ID before undoing the door’s chain lock.

Similarly, people with holes in the knees of their pants, leaves in their hair, or other slight issues with their clothing were often accepted without issue as long as the person inside acted naturally.

When infiltrating enemy territory, you had to act like the people there.

I had to fit in with the ladies and gentlemen with money, time, and libido to spare (although they would never admit it), so I focused on changing how I controlled the axis running through the center of my body. I accurately took the “actions” that would match the dress that showed off every line of my body and the obviously impractical stiletto heels. I moved like the 3D polygon dolls that performed graphic dances based on motion capture data.

“We’re only in the passageway and there’s already a mini-skirt maid, so what are things like inside? Are the police holding a Black Mass or something?”

“Is she like a waitress?” asked the Sunekosuri.

“They really need to stop making this kind of mistake!! A maid and a waitress are completely different things!! A maid is supposed to wear a long skirt and an apron dress! Don’t give them a corset and a skirt with suspenders that accentuates the breasts! That’s just indecent!! The point of a maid is to have beauty too great to be fully hidden by the plain and conservative outfit! Hmph!!”

“I have no idea what has you so mad.”

As I walked past, I grabbed a cocktail glass from the tray the mini-skirt maid held in one hand. I couldn’t tell what the clear liquid was until I tasted it, but it turned out to be a martini. To be honest, that wasn’t my kind of drink. It was more for a police detective who thought he was hardboiled. Y’know, something that’s more about the atmosphere than the drink. Like black coffee.

“B-but what do we do now? We got on the ship, but it’s pretty big.”

“Yeah, there are one thousand seven hundred beds, so it would take us all night to check each room individually. But the biggest merit of the ship was the heliport to sneak things onto the island, remember? That means Sid Clouds will only be in the areas where he can control the heliport.”

“M-meaning?”

It’s a straight shot from the heliport to the ship’s cargo area. With normal guests and the National Police Agency here, he’s going to hide anything he doesn’t want seen somewhere safe. Reality isn’t as fascinating as a story. Let’s reliably search him out and reliably take him out.”

If we directly ran across him, that would work. But even if we didn’t, we could destroy his equipment or set off a bomb to gather the police’s attention.

At that point, I heard footsteps and saw a group walking boldly down the center of the corridor. They were clearly police bureaucrats, but there was no reason to panic. They would pass right by people like me if we smiled and moved out of the way.

As I did so, I spotted someone pretty famous in the group: Mishima Jun.

Based on his rank insignia, he seemed to be chief superintendent.

“Hm.”

I moved past them without paying too much attention and casually muttered to myself.

“So he’s still alive.”

Part 8 (Jinnai Shinobu — Day 10/03 21:10 - 21:20)

Just as the Zashiki Warashi and I were about to head into the casino city, we were caught by Hyakki Yakou’s young leader. It seemed she could see through everything we were doing.

Walking through the neon-filled streets at night with a girl of around ten seemed like too high a hurdle for me, but for the time being, no righteous heroes showed up. Also, I couldn’t even imagine how many bodyguards or other Hyakki Yakou members were hidden in our surroundings.

“It would help if you told me what you intend to do now. Or rather, tell me the specifics of the Singer Song Liar story. I only know the overall outline.”

I answered all her questions while my right temple twitched.

“I’m going to defeat a con artist making a ton of money at the casino. His name is Kodama Ryou. It’s settled with a single round of poker, so it won’t take much time.”

“Is that really necessary to destroy the Amanojaku Package sending lies into realty or to deal with the sale of Japan that is occurring alongside that?”

“We can’t move on until my lost suitcase arrives at the airport, so everything until tomorrow morning is just the lead-up. Give me this much.”

“But…”

“I’ll get it over with quickly. I can’t ignore this one.”

A casino door was thrown open and what looked like three stuffed animals were chucked out.

It was a fox, a tanuki, and a badger.

I caught them all in midair like magic, leaving the Youkai dizzy and confused.

“Wh-what!? Who are you!?”

“That is no way to speak to the kind person who caught us!”

“Mh. I feel a chill running down my spine. Is my natural enemy somewhere nearby?”

Honestly, these things are just as noisy in reality as in the Singer Song Liar story.

Still holding them, I spoke casually.

“Hey, we don’t have all the time in the world, so let’s hurry up and defeat Kodama Ryou to win back the money he stole from the old lady. It’s going to cost a lot to heal the kid suffering from some kind of artificial illness, right?”

This time, the three of them fell silent and looked up at me and the Zashiki Warashi spoke to me from the side.

“Shinobu, you’re talking about finishing him off in a poker game, but a big game in a casino is going to take quite a lot of money. Where are you going to get enough for your initial bet?”

“That’s the thing.”

My temple twitched.

In the Singer Song Liar story, I had brought some fake Jinnai Brewery junmai daiginjo under the assumption Kodama Ryou would notice (although it was really just a way of putting the Zashiki Warashi at ease so I could set her up as the prize), but would that actually work?

Even if reality was following the Singer Song Liar story, there had to be a limit. When I didn’t know how strong the rails were, I couldn’t risk everything on this. The mere fact that I was walking through the casino at this time was a divergence from the original story.

That meant there was a risk of failure.

When the rails led to the sale of Japan, some freedom was certainly desirable, but it brought a dull pressure to my stomach here.

“In other words, if you fail here, you’ll have a few of your organs taken? This is just like a drama.”

“Huh? Ow, ow, ow, ow. Talking about that makes my side prickle, so could you stop it?”

“That didn’t actually happen, so there’s nothing to worry about. Of course, it was overwritten so many times that it would be hard to return history to normal at this point.”

“If we’re talking about ways to settle a debt at a casino, wouldn’t putting a collar on a glamorous symbol of good fortune and selling her at a secret auction house be more appropriate?”

“Ow, ow, ow, ow. Shinobu, talking about that makes my head prickle, so could you stop it?”

“What in the world happened to you before you ended up at our house?”

At that point, the Hyakki Yakou girl reached into her kimono’s sleeve and spoke.

“I’ll settle this.”

“What is that?”

“I can get you up to one billion right away. Just write the amount you need on this check.”

“Wow. I’ve never actually seen someone pull a bunch of money out of their sleeve before. Do you think you’re eccentric beauty Madoka-chan or something!? I’ll have you know that’s a very bourgeois way of having fun!!”

“This is not for fun.” The bob cut girl gave me a composed look. “If you know for certain you will win and you have a means of winning, then isn’t it a safe investment to pile on as much as you can? And any amount of Japanese yen will be meaningless if Japan itself collapses, so hurry up and finish this so we can deal with the real issue.”

I had no choice but to accept her offer.

It didn’t really know how to use it, but I took the first check I had ever been given.

“But we’ve already done a few things different from the Singer Song Liar story, so it seems like there’s a possibility I could lose horribly. No complaining if that happens, okay?”

Hyakki Yakou’s leader started hopping up and down trying to take back the check, but I straightened my back and stretched my arm upwards to keep it out of reach.

Youkai weren’t allowed in the casino and I needed them to set up the magnet trick on the switchboard behind the casino, so only the kimono-wearing girl and I entered the casino.

We walked through the front door.

“Please win!! You decided to do this, so please make sure you win!!”

Surprisingly, the bob cut girl had some tears in her eyes as she waved at me.

As I made my way around the casino, I found the place was filled with familiar scenery even though I had never actually been here before.

I walked down the hall and called a classmate with my cellphone.

“Madoka-chaaan. I’m about to make a ton of money at a casino, so can you contact an accountant and tax advisor for me? I want someone to manage the bank account.”

“Eh? What? I can do that, but can you explain to me how you’re in this situation?”

“Today or tomorrow, something I do might cause a chain reaction in Japan’s exported financial systems which will destroy the world economy and make you really, really mad, but don’t worry. I’m working at keeping that from happening.”

“Shinobu-kun, what hell did you just say?”

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to explain.

I sat at the same table as the snakeskin man named Kodama Ryou, slammed the check down on the table, and made an announcement to the little con artist.

“Let’s play a game, man-eating snake. I’ll take you out in one go.”

Now.

He was 100% cheating and I already knew I couldn’t win by playing normally, so it was time to see how much I could do in reality when faced with the Usuhiki Warashi Package that swapped out the cards.

Part 9 (Uchimaku Hayabusa — Day 10/03 21:05 - 21:20)

In Harbor Alley, the Mystery Freak (dressed as a bunny) returned to land from the restaurant cruiser that was crammed in with all the others.

There were trivial rumors of boats, helicopters, or long distance swimmers trying to meet up in the “demonic sea”, yet never finding the other person, and three Tokyo residents who had investigated the rumors out of pure curiosity had ended up dead.

Most of the small ships that had left for the “demonic sea” were stored in, serviced at, and left from Harbor Alley.

“What? I guess not all of them are restaurants or food stands.”

As we wandered around, we found something else mixed in among the filthy cruisers. Instead of the aroma of cooking meet or boiling stews, I found one boat that smelled more like solder. In fact, there were a lot like that.

Thinking they all served food had brought a heavy sensation to my stomach, but it looked like that wasn’t the case.

These shops had nothing to do with food.

“This boat is filled with bare speakers, this one is packed full of capacitors and transistors, and this one has…what? Those aren’t lightbulbs. Are they vacuum tubes?”

“Looks like a small electronics marketplace. They’re probably stripping them from somewhere.”

A lot of boxes had “defective” written across them in permanent marker.

It made me want to ask the owner if any of the products weren’t defective.

“Why does this shop have dozens of similarly-shaped massagers shoved inside umbrella stands?”

“Eh!? W-well, you know, detective. The women might be too embarrassed to bring those ‘specialized goods’ to the register, so this gives them an excuse that hides their true reasons.”

“?”

“Oh, c’mon! It’s a device that vibrates when you switch it on! Try to imagine why someone would buy that!! Japan doesn’t that have that many people with stiff shoulders!!”

For some reason Enbi’s face was beet red.

Hmm. This middle school girl has no problem walking around at night in a bunny suit, so why did this produce such an extreme reaction?

Confused, I looked back at the Mystery Freak, but she did her best to not look me in the eye and used her small hand to frantically fan her heated cheeks.

When she spoke, her voice was more high pitched than usual as if trying to hide something.

“O-ohh, I see. They secretly gather up any defective products before they’re disposed of at the factory. Mass production ensures that there will always be a certain number of these.”

“Hm? How do you know?”

“I-isn’t it obvious!? A completed product has a number printed on it to indicate which factory it was made in. That means it’s a proper piece of electronics. But that part comes last because they don’t want to print the number on defective products they’re only going to reject.”

“And they still work?”

“This is why they’re labelled ‘defective’.”

We looked around a few of the cruisers but didn’t find any useful information.

What were we even supposed to ask about? I couldn’t exactly pull out my police badge to question them about the truth of some rumors and there wasn’t a clear target like Hanako-san or a Kuchisake-Onna. It was nothing more than boats and helicopters not being able to find each other in the nearby ocean. Other than those who actually went out into the sea, the people on the island wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary.

“Detective, don’t tell you’ve decided this is hopeless and are considering leaving.”

“If you can read my mind that well, I’d prefer you made the much kinder choice of not getting me involved in the first place.”

“You can’t do that!! If you don’t take the investigation part seriously, you’ll pay for it later! You’ll be hit by a metal bat from behind or stabbed in the gut by a fruit knife and realize you’d seen something after all as your consciousness fades away!!”

“This isn’t a mansion mystery where the mountain road is blocked by a landslide, so nothing that harsh is going to happen!!”

“Detective, have you forgotten we’re on a desert island isolated out in the middle of the ocean!?”

“It isn’t a desert island and it isn’t isolated. This is a tourist destination with proper infrastructure!!”

“Not to mention that a genius beautiful mystery-solver and a foolish policeman have come to that island with a meaningful lead-in!! Something’s bound to happen, right!?”

“I’m not even going to bother getting after you for the ‘foolish’ part. I’ll just get right to the point: get away from me! Now that you mention it, you look a lot like the Grim Reaper!!”

The police may be the home of scientific investigation, but even we could be superstitious.

For some reason, the Mystery Freak started trying to hug me, so I grabbed her face and tried to pull her way.

Suddenly, something heavy grazed my nose and made a large dent in the side of the cruiser next to us.

“!?”

Something had flown our way.

I reflexively turned toward the loud noise and saw something fall into the ocean between the boat and the wharf. I only caught a glimpse, but it was about the size of a softball. However, it wasn’t actually one. Even when thrown at 160 kph by a pitching machine, a softball wouldn’t have the destructive power to dent a ship’s hull that was built to withstand collisions with other ships or running aground.

The dent in the cruiser’s hull was the size of a fist, so that was how large the blunt weapon had been.

I guessed it had been a stone.

I couldn’t take this lightly. I seriously doubted it had simply been thrown by hand, so some kind of device had to have been used to throw it. And with that weight and speed, even a fully equipped riot squad would have their helmet and skull split open by a hit to the head or have their ribs utterly crushed through their bulletproof vest by a hit to the chest. In a way, this weapon was more dangerous than a handgun.

“How did they pull that off!?”

“Where are you looking, detective? Don’t look where it hit. You need to look where it was fired from!!”

The Mystery Freak grabbed my shoulders and turned me around.

Harbor Alley had several cruisers placed atop some flat concrete ground in addition to those moored along the wharf. Rather than just having the engine die, those worn-out boats probably couldn’t even float in the water anymore, so they were being used in place of tents.

I spotted a small figure darting behind one of the cruisers packed in like it was a full parking lot.

Was that a child?

And what was that in their hand?

It had looked like a bow gun. It was seventy to eighty centimeters long. It looked quite large, but part of that would be due to comparing it to the small figure holding it. However, the bow portion was strange. It was not curved like a crescent moon. Like the letter M, a fork-like metal part extended from each side to join with the string.

“We can think about it later! They’ll get away, detective!!”

“Idiot! Don’t run after someone when you don’t know what they’re armed with!!”

I remembered words would never stop her, so I grabbed the Mystery Freak’s arm as she tried to run up ahead and I lightly threw her. I supported her body just before her back hit the concrete ground and I gently lowered her.

“I’ll give chase! You lie here!!”

I began running before she could complain.

Why had this person targeted us so suddenly? Why at that moment? Had they been targeting me or the Mystery Freak? Who even were they? Several questions spiraled through my mind, but I would never answer them if I lost sight of this person.

Despite all the cruisers packed together, there were still narrow pathways like the lines on a Go board. There were a lot of things to hide behind, so it would be easy to lose track of them even at close range, but I was most worried about a surprise attack. To make matters worse, I didn’t have my gun. Unlike in police dramas, detectives didn’t wear a revolver on their hip every day.

I passed by a few cruisers and caught sight of the small back.

Their white shirt stood out in the darkness.

Just when I thought I was going to catch up, the figure turned back toward me.

They accurately aimed the strangely-shaped stone-throwing bow gun and I saw a small flash of red light in the darkness.

A laser pointer!?

“Dammit!!”

As soon as I ducked behind a cruiser, I heard a spectacular dull sound like a frying pan being crushed by an elephant’s foot. The hull of this cruiser had been dented, too. If that had hit me, it would have smashed the bones wherever it had hit.

The plastic hull really scared me. It was probably no weaker than metal, but I had a lot more trouble trusting it.

I guessed they were using stones instead of arrows because of the Minor Offenses Act. Even if they don’t violate the Swords and Firearms Control Law, electric drills and spare razor blades technically violated the law if you carried them around “for anything other than their intended purpose”, but no one was going to stop someone from picking rocks up off the ground.

And unfortunately, bows did not violate the Swords and Firearms Control Law. No registration was needed to purchase one and no one would get after a kid for making their own arrows by whittling down bamboo with a knife.

But all of that brought a question to mind.

Then what crime am I supposed to accuse them of when I catch up?

I changed my line of thinking when I heard a spine-chilling sound greater than a full swing of a metal bat.

Attempted murder will do nicely!!

Two fist-sized stones had flown my way in quick succession. That meant their plan was not to shoot and run. They may have decided to take me out to make sure they could escape safely and they may have changed their mind after I didn’t fire any warning shots with a gun. Perhaps I should have shouted “stop or I’ll shoot” even though I didn’t have my gun.

“This isn’t good…”

A third sound of impact shook my surroundings.

When I instinctually stepped back, I realized the chased and the chaser had swapped positions and a boiling heat filled the bottom of my stomach.

And at that point, I finally noticed something.

My surroundings were very quiet. Too quiet. Even if the cruiser in front of me was a piece of junk, I still would have thought its owners would come running when it was being damaged. Either when eating at the Chinese restaurant or when going around the electronics shops, someone must have informed them that the police were here. Everyone had long since evacuated and then lured me into these hunting grounds.

“But why?”

What was this person so afraid of? Why were they willing to kill me just because I was with the police? Was the Mystery Freak right and Harbor Alley had some great secret? Were the rumors true? Was something more lurking here? Question after question raced through my mind, but one especially large sentence pushed all the others out of the way: then what do I do?

The straining sound of a tightening string hurt my ears.

Most likely, this person was pulling back the string of their special bow gun.

What do I do!? Run? Hide? How far will either of those get me against someone who can fling stones with enough force to smash human bones!?

The straining sound of the string continued.

However, it did not stop. I didn’t hear the string catching on the notch from the trigger. Confused, I hesitantly poked my head out to check and I found an odd sight indeed.

First of all, the attacker was a girl with short hair who was about the Mystery Freak’s age or possibly even younger. She wore what was not quite a school uniform. The outfit was made up of a sailor shirt and shorts. It looked more like an actual sailor suit than a school’s sailor uniform.

“Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!”

The girl had the front of the stone-throwing bow gun pressed against the ground, her feet held a metal ring-like part down, and she was using both hands to pull on the string. Or at least I thought that’s what she was trying to do. Really, she was just crouched down and trembling while red in the face.

She must have been really focused on the work because she showed no sign of noticing my movement. She hadn’t even noticed that crouching down like that just about gave me a view of her modest chest through the collar of her sailor suit.

Oh, that’s right.

When I thought about it, I remembered this was a giant bow gun that fired fist-sized stones with enough force to dent a ship’s hull. It would use thick leaf springs and other things to thoroughly strengthen the string and it had no special mechanisms like pulleys or a hand crank, so it seemed unlikely she could pull the string back so many times in a row with those skinny arms.

But…

Um…

Then…

What does this mean?

Can I really walk right up and take that dangerous toy from her?

…No, no.

That can’t be it. No, no, no, no, no!! She might finish setting the string and stone the instant I run out and then smash my skull from head-on. Just because she’s stupidly crouching over, sticking her shorts-wearing butt backwards, and groaning in an oddly suggestive way doesn’t mean I can do anything so reckless! Don’t forget that you’re in the middle of a life-and-death exchange with a fleeing suspect!! Don’t laugh, Hayabusa, you need to keep a straight face!!

I decided to take a more careful route.

I filled my lungs with air and formed a megaphone with my hands.

And then I gave a shout.

“Boo!!!!!”

I immediately saw a sight that was rare even in my life as a detective.

A girl in a short-sleeved sailor suit and shorts had a stone-throwing bow gun pressed against the ground and was holding a metal ring-like part down with her feet while she used both hands to forcibly pull the string upwards.

My shout had caused her shoulders to jump and she hopped up a bit herself.

Her hands were still holding the straining string and she removed her legs from the bow gun itself.

What would happen then?

This was nothing as simple as a “twang”.

It was more of a series of crashes.

The force of the string sent the back end of the bow gun straight up into the girl’s jaw as a powerful uppercut. The bow gun itself may have been five or ten kilograms, so it was a weighty blunt weapon of steel and wood.

Her small form collapsed backwards like a toppled mannequin and her legs spread open in an M-shape. The ridiculous pose placed quite a burden on her shorts, but as she didn’t look embarrassed or try to squirm, I could only assume she had completely lost consciousness.

All I could do was bring a hand to my forehead.

Part 22

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