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

===Part 4===

I used the surviving police car to take Hishigami Ama away from the scene of confusion in order to protect the ambassador and my colleagues, but another problem soon showed itself.

“Whoa!?”

I slammed on the brakes.

The next intersection was filled with people. It was like accidentally driving toward a scramble crossing, but the light was green for cars. As I stared in confusion at the one or two hundred people crammed into the intersection, the “answer” slammed into the windshield.

It was not that the commotion we were leaving had caused a panic.

They were glittering gold…coins?

I had never seen coins that color or size.

“Those are Olympic gold medals. Each one is worth a little less than ten thousand yen. I believe they’re worth more than they should be for their gold content.”

Ama analyzed the golden hail and gave the horrifying answer from my lap.

When I looked out again, I could see them pouring down like a light rain. A single bolt could be deadly if it fell from a building rooftop, but everyone was spreading their arms to catch these. Passersby were fighting over the gold medals scattered across the ground.

And Hishigami Ama kept her lips moving as she sat in my lap.

“That means this must be ‘Rou who Destroys Finances’. Using a mere million yen to clog up one of Tokyo’s arteries and cause more than five billion yen in economic losses is exactly her way of doing things. …And I bet these are the ‘leaf coins’ that Tanuki and Foxes like so much. Truly awful.”

“Wait a second. Don’t tell me the other roads will be blocked too…”

“I see no reason why they wouldn’t be. It’s time to get out. If we stay here, Soviet-obsessed Yuu will start shooting at us again. Luckily, there’s a crowd we can slip into.”

I didn’t try to argue.

We opened the driver’s side door which we had never properly closed and rushed out. We weaved through the crowd and between the cars as we walked.

“What do we do now? If cars are out, then the train? Where’s the ZR!?”

“Wait. The platform area is pretty noisy.”

“What is it now!? There’s trouble there too!?”

“It sounds like that doping-lover Raku. ‘Raku who Destroys Health’. I don’t want to get anywhere near there. She tends to go a little nuts with the camellia that symbolizes both long life and approaching death. Who knows what she can cause just by placing a single meaningful flower on the platform.”

Ama’s annoyed voice did not stop there.

“By the way, Raku specializes in disguises and disturbance tactics, so be careful. …After all, she’s an indoor type who never really exercises, yet she has less than 3% body fat. Just by adding padding in her clothing, she can give herself whatever body type she wants.”

“Th-then what about the subway!?”

I quickly changed direction toward the stairway down from the sidewalk.

But a moment later, my sense of time was blown away.

Something waited for us below those stairs.

I felt like my entire soul would be taken away.

According to a semi-serious science paper, humans could not relax when faced with things on an unfamiliar scale. For example, people might want a dessert so large they could never eat it all or to watch a swimsuit model video on a gigantic home theater screen, but if they actually came across those things, their mind was unable to keep up and they felt fear.

It was like facing a giant swarm of wriggling insects or standing in front of a giant salivating mouth.

Some kind of sweet aroma wafted out from the giant maw that was the subway entrance.

But the quantity and density were simply too great.

''It’s…too much…!?

“Oooeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

I could not bear it.

I lowered my head, bent my body, and found myself vomiting on the sidewalk.

“Hm, hm, hm. Hm, hm, hm. Hm, hm, hm, hm, hm☆”

I heard an innocent girl’s voice.

But my vision was blurred by tears and I couldn’t see anything.

Who was it?

Who was there?

“ ‘Yume who Destroys Ethics.’ She’s probably used a Gaki or a Hidarugami to create a space of desire so thick it might as well be on the verge of a dust explosion. Drop a single bread crumb and people will start fighting over it. When a Gaki tries to eat something, it burns before their eyes and yet they continue to seek after more food. That means this is probably based on light, perhaps from the victims’ smartphone and cellphone screens. …''This time'', the intense desire she created is probably hunger. Anyway, their phones are flashing in a way that induces that desire. And she really plays dirty since she alone remains unharmed within that hellish scene.”

Ama rubbed my back as she explained.

Even that white witch said this was “playing dirty”.

“The subway is out too. C’mon, stand up. If you don’t, Yume will consume you.”

“Wait a second… Ugh. We can’t just leave those people down in the subway…”

“For the most part, Yume won’t kill. After all, death will free them from their desires. Although whether heaven or hell waits them in the afterlife is up to their own values. Of course, some of them will probably get carried away by the extreme situation and happily decide to fulfill all of their desires.”

She practically had to drag me away as we started running again.

How many more Hishigami Women were there around here?

I shook my confused head and asked a question while gasping for breath.

“Can we really…escape?”

“I can only think of one way.”

“?”

“We walk,” smoothly answered Hishigami Ama. “It sounds surprising, but it’s true. Tokyo is full of security cameras these days and they can apparently track their target from their walking pattern and the color palette of their face even if they can’t get a straight-on shot of the face, but that means you can trick them if you know what matters. Plus, Rou and Raku have created a flood of normal people to stop the cars and support the sniper. So we just need to focus on how we walk, keep our heads down to cast a shadow on them, and try not to stand out. Just stick with the fleeing crowd and we can escape this hell.”