Editing The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village:Bonus4 (section)

===Part 9===

Something wasn’t right.

I started to think that when the truck below our feet left the main road and drove toward the entrance to the highway.

“Hey, are we going to stick around for a long distance drive? The driver might be listening to the late night radio enka as he heads as far north as Hokkaido or as far south as Okinawa.”

“That’s a good point. How about we jump off when it briefly stops at the intercha-…kyah!?”

I heard the unmanned ETC gate break. Hakama-wearing Kuji cowered down and the truck arrived on the highway. In fact, the engine was revving up even higher. The dark night was more rapidly interrupted by the evenly-spaced streetlights.

Ama clicked her tongue as her white hair fluttered in the violent wind.

“This truck is bad news.”

“In what way!?”

“It wasn’t coincidentally driving by at just the right time. The Hishigami Women timed it to catch us!”

It was likely driving at more than 120 kph. Even the highway felt dangerous at this speed. The truck was a moving cage now. As long as it maintained this speed, we could not jump off to escape.

“Do the civilian driving recorders and speed violation checkers not matter? Have they never heard of being careful?”

“I want to believe that Arawa is helping out with her cyber war skills. …If they really are doing nothing, I’ll skin them and make a rug out of them.”

I heard a creaking sound.

It came from the driver’s compartment. Like a monster from a horror movie, someone crawled out of the window and onto the roof where they hung on with both hands and feet.

“Yume…”

“Hee hee.”

“Yume who Destroys Ethics…!!”

“Ee hee hee. Hee hee hee hee. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”

It was a girl of about ten. This meant she had been the one driving the truck all this time and it meant the driver had let go of the steering wheel to climb onto the roof. The extreme moral hazard made me feel faint, but I could not just give up on reality.

That monster had locked onto us.

What happened to the truck was only the beginning. The climax of our lives was about to start.

“You’re so mean, Ama-chan, Kuji-chan. Why are you making us go to all this trouble?”

She pulled out a…smartphone selfie stick? No, it was so heavy it was more like a special police baton.

Her small hands attached a mass of metal to the joint at the end.

It was now more or less a construction site sledgehammer.

“But it’s over now. You two will at least let me have the time of my life first, won’t you?”

Hishigami Ama responded by reaching for her own head. She pulled out a single long white hair.

She had said before that a single hair was enough to kill a tiger.

“I won’t let this go your way,” she announced. “I am Ama who Destroys Hope. Anyone who thinks they’re nice and safe in a sanctuary or safe zone is within range for me.”

“And another thing.” The small girl glanced over at hakama-wearing Kuji. “Ama-chan is one thing, but why you too, Kuji-chan?”

The answer came with a gentle smile.

And with a shake of her unnaturally heavy sleeves.

“I am Kuji who Destroys Trust.”

“Ohhh, I see.”

“And we aren’t actually at the kind of disadvantage you seem to think we are. Yume, you’re more suited to working in groups than alone. Are you mocking us by trying to take us on two against one?”

“Who ever said I was doing this alone?”

For an instant, I thought some other Hishigami Women were hiding in the truck’s container.

But I was wrong.

The threat came from outside the trailer.

It was shaped something like a “V” or a boomerang.

It was tiny and lightweight military aircraft that removed all the safety features from the manned variety.

My eyes widened in shock.

“A UAV!? What air base did you take that from!?”

“Nee hee hee. You can thank Arawa-chan’s cyber war skills for this one. According to her, these military variants have grown in number ever since crop management drones became plentiful in Intellectual Villages.”

I didn’t know the details, but it was definitely loaded with missiles meant for ground attacks.

And there was more than one.

Since this was not a human opponent, I pulled out my handgun without thinking, but then I froze up.

More than ten of the UAVs gathered around from various directions.

If they all attacked at once, there was no escape.

And they were not just leaving this to the machines. The phantasmagoric Hishigami Woman named Hishigami Yume had announced she would weave through the gaps in the downpour of bombs to attack!

“You have to be kidding… And you’ll be caught in the blast too!”

I spoke up in a daze, but Yume only gave a “nee hee☆” of laughter and pointed at her own flat chest.

“I’m Yume who Destroys Ethics. When you’re all comfortably protected by your myth of safety, you’re actually allllll on my field.”

''Damn, is she the type that delights in being attacked!? Happily offering yourself up as the detonator for a moral hazard is not normal!

“That does not change what we must do.” Hishigami Ama thinly smiled with the long hair in hand. “We have already reached checkmate. Don’t think you can overturn that now.”

“That’s my line. The most troublesome turn of events for us was you getting captured by the JSDF and being secured below Ichigaya. Don’t forget that you were playing into our hands from the moment you continued running around out here.”

No signal was needed.

That also meant there was no time to stop them.

Hishigami Ama and Hishigami Kuji.

Hishigami Yume and Hishigami Arawa’s UAVs.

The two sides were going to clash with overwhelming force!!