Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 9 Chapter 4 (section)

== 4.02 The Others ==

In the stillness of night, the only sound around came from the motor of Munakata’s wheelchair.

There were no manmade lights in the vast sea of asphalt. The electric lights and illumination equipment buried into the ground were all silent, waiting intently for the time their function would be activated.

The vast premises had towering buildings like massive tombstones.

There were buildings that were perfect cubes as well as those that curved into a sharp point at their zenith. The roads were lined with verdant trees, dividing the premises into several parts.

An empty space that was much too vast.

Munakata drove his wheelchair alone, stopping in front of a certain building.

Its height was probably about that of a building ten stories high. If described extremely, it looked like two rectangular sandwiches put together in the shape of a cross. It was reinforced concrete coated in stainless steel, reflecting the moonlight and emitting a divine glow.

Munakata was at a university facility that started its building project.

It was built as part of the education and welfare projects of the Akasegawa Foundation. In reality it was also meant for tax reduction, but until now other businesses also invested in it. From there the Foundation formed a corporation for management of the school, and it ended up being not just a university but affiliated elementary, middle and high schools in a huge campus. There were only few corporations managing educational institutes in this country right now, but the Mind of Cosmopolitan College—MOCC in short—was the largest among them.

It was planned to start holding examinations for staff members this summer. By fall the entry exams to all levels from university to elementary school would be set, and students would start to actually enroll starting next year. As one of the investors, Munakata too ended up joining this project.

“…”

Just by looking up the cross-shaped building, he couldn’t bear to step inside.

Right now he was in the university part of the campus. The building in front of him was a shrine meant for religious studies, and it alone was shared with the other school grades.

The place where students of all ages would assemble, meaning the center of MOCC.

“A good evening to you, Munakata-sama…”

Behind the silent Munakata came the familiar, servile voice. The man’s shoes dragged on the ground as he approached, but Munakata didn’t even turn around.

“What a marvelous view… How solemn and avant-garde… One can truly feel the new era…”

With a muffled laughter, a whisper that was currying favor echoed about.

The strange auctioneer called Sotheby.

Today was the night of Munakata’s payment.

“Will we not enter…?”

“I haven’t come here for any repentance. —You really are talkative tonight, Sotheby.”

Munakata controlled his wheelchair, turning his body toward Sotheby sneaking up from behind. With the cross-shaped shrine to his back, he watched the mysterious auctioneer.

“It looks like the other bidder made quite the high bid.”

“Pfft… hehe. As expected of you. You have a discerning mind…”

Sotheby nodded.

“A new bid has been announced by another bidder… the amount is—”

Hearing that sum, Munakata’s mouth twisted without thinking.

How foolish.

To think there was someone so stupid to think up a sum like that other than himself or Nanana… just thinking this, perhaps the world was not yet beyond salvation.

“—Enclosure, Bubble, Bursting of the Bubble… their course has brought happiness and pain, and those thrown into hell are needed to bring the shift change to the next era…”

He probably thought Munakata went silent because he hesitated about the amount. Sotheby kept speaking.

“Dejection and large losses brought down half of the Round Table of the time, involving the entire country in the chaos… some yelled in despair, some cried while unable to accept reality, other screamed without even understanding what happened… among these only a handful managed to obtain their next dreams and stand up again, winning the authority of what would become the new era… that was the turning point, called Paradigm Shift…”

“I already can more or less guess it all.”

Munakata did not simply sit and wait to win the auction.

He turned the small clues that appeared from time to time into hints and managed to reason out the current events.

“At the time this Paradigm Shift occurred—Mushi were created.”

Sotheby’s muffled laughter affirmed those words.

“And Alpha witnessed exactly what Mushi was and the moment it was born—“

The Round Table existed even at that stage.

They were witnesses to the moment the abnormal being called Mushi was born.

That fear and guilt probably made them isolate Alpha somewhere. They decided to never let that forbidden memory leak outside.

They sealed them like a Pandora’s box that contained all the unhappiness and disasters of the world.

In continued all this time—the Round Table’s taboo.

“And you are the same, right?”

Munakata glared at the other man.

None other than the powerful Round Table have decided to seal Alpha.

It should have never been revealed for all eternity. Actually, even the SEPB was probably unaware of Alpha’s existence.

Even so, the auctioneer right in front of his eyes knew about the existence of this Pandora’s box—

“Sotheby. You’re just a Mushitsuki.”

“…”

“And you were also someone related at the time—have you betrayed the Round Table, guardians of this secret, for money?”

“…”

“Or, if you weren’t someone related, then a victim… perhaps you were a member of the Round Table unable to overcome the Paradigm Shift.”

“…”

“You know Alpha’s location. Meaning—it was you, right? The place where the large membership fees of the Round Table were flowing to… it was you yourself that bore the duty of sealing Alpha.”

“…Bfft.”

For an instant, the frozen Sotheby shook his shoulders.

While Munakata was looking at him, the strange auctioneer kept sneering.

“Hehe… Hahaha… Bfft…”

That muffled laughter sounded as if was sneering at how ridiculous Munakata was—no, perhaps at Sotheby himself. On the other hand, it also sounded like someone glad to have been finally identified by someone. Or perhaps it sounded as if he was happy about the current situation, about it being the time for the world to change.

“I am an auctioneer…”

Sotheby wrung out a shaky voice.

“I am not a lookout at all… even so, to keep watching over that thing, I must be bound to it… I am a noble auctioneer… Not an unsightly guardian…”

“…”

Munakata wordlessly watched the Mushitsuki’s wretched form.

Perhaps coming back to his senses, Sotheby laughed again. “Bfft…” He was probably the only one who understood what was so funny.

“At the time I—along with Christy—was a mere bystander… Enclosure made our hearts flutter with anticipation, the Bubble induced ecstasy, and then we were caught up in the Paradigm Shift… That is all that happened… We truly had no way to know what would have happened back then…”

“…”

“Also—my Paradigm Shift is not yet over…”

The Mushitsuki wrapped in an atmosphere far removed from humans spoke with his greed exposed.

“Alpha… if I had the money to sell that item, I could make a comeback…”

Alpha knew everything.

Sotheby was saying that.

But was it actually so?

On one hand, according to what Sotheby himself said, he was only a bystander.

His current form—was of a loser unable to overcome the Paradigm Shift.

The curse that befell him due to being involved in the moment of birth of Mushi was binding him even now—

“—Why do it ‘now’?”

There was only one thing Munakata still couldn’t understand.

“Although unsatisfied, you have fulfilled your duty until now. Even so, for some reason you decided to betray the Round Table now? Since I sniffed out the roots of Mushi… no way that’s only it.”

“The payment… is pressing ever closer…”

Sotheby spoke in amusement. Munakata arched his eyebrows.

“The payment? Are you saying you yourself are in debt?”

“If I have a loan, it would be all of humanity… the day of the ‘liquidation’—the payment—of all sins and greed is approaching…”

“…?”

As if laughing at Munakata who was cocking his head, Sotheby’s shoulders shook again.

“The revolution took a world without Mushi and turned it to a new world with Mushi—“

The dark auctioneer’s voice echoed around MOCC.

“Our item is the one who knew about the great transformation—Paradigm Shift—Alpha…”

The form of Sotheby who lowered his head seemed to foretell the moment of conclusion.

Right, it would end with this.

He would no longer have any mercy or lower his guard.

“Will you bid or fold?”

It didn’t matter who the other bidder was.

Munakata was getting Alpha.

He was going to grasp the mystery of Mushi—the truth behind the thing that cornered his one and only comrade, the one and only person he loved.

Munakata was different from Sotheby.

Even if there would be another Paradigm Shift, he would gain Alpha—

“—Bid.”

The pandora’s box was sealed for more than a decade.

Munakata and Akasegawa Nanana, the Round Table, as well as Sotheby and Christy.

For the merchants of the past and present, the fight between those who wanted to conceal and those who wanted to reveal.

Settling the long-standing auction, the last bid was declared.