Editing A Simple Survey:Volume2 Reaper05 (section)

===Part 6===

The room was dimly lit.

But compared to that the complete darkness from before, this was quite a bit more light.

The small square room was about the size of a school classroom. About 50 folding chairs were lined up evenly within. A film projector was located against the right wall and a pure white screen hung down on the left wall. The room’s light came from the film being shown.

The screen showed Higashikawa, Hiyama, and the others.

A compilation of footage from their struggles in the Hell Hospital was being carelessly shown.

About 30 of the 50 folding chairs were filled. The people sitting in them were mostly middle-aged or elderly and did not look like they had struggled a day in their lives. They did not even turn in Higashikawa’s direction when he suddenly entered the room. He could see the sides of their faces dimly illuminated by the light of the projector. They were all smiling. That unity lacked any humanity. Higashikawa could feel a sense of revulsion run from his fingertips and across his body like when seeing a swarm of insects.

Higashikawa felt an uncontrollable heat in his head when he spotted the bunny girl among them.

“You bitch!!” he shouted and ran over to grab her shoulder.

But then…

Amid all of the unmoving people, the bunny girl alone turned just her head in Higashikawa’s direction.

Yes, just her head.

There was nothing but her shapely face and spine.

Her smile bloomed on her face like she was some horrifying flower in a vase.

“…Eh?”

Higashikawa’s vision grew psychedelically distorted.

His brain refused to comprehend what he was seeing.

From her neck up, her bright skin and wonderful complexion remained unchanged, but below her neck was nothing but a white backbone. And some sticky, flesh-colored liquid had spread out across the folding chair and the floor around it. That was all. What looked to be her clothes had fallen away with the liquid.

That was truly all.

She could not be alive any longer.

Even if she could change her expression and carry a conversation, something about her was definitively different from a living human. She had become something on the level of a character from a story where a head blinked after being removed by a guillotine.

“What…?”

His question was simply about what had happened to the bunny girl.

But…

Could it be?

He turned toward the middle-age and elderly people who were not moving no matter what.

''Were they the same?

“Our…”

The bunny girl’s coquettishly glittering lips moved.

Given the state she was in, it seemed horribly wrong for the bunny girl to still be alive and still smiling as always.

“Our objective was to capture the absurd. We were to call in Objective Alice who symbolizes the absurd and capture her.”

“What…?”

“The gambling storyline as well as the Unbeatable Emperor and Ever-Victorious Challenger characters gained from it were nothing more than side effects. We had no interest in the gambling story itself. Our objective was to capture the special girl who can be called the guide for all storylines, be they horror, gambling, love comedy, suspense, action, battle, sports, science fiction, or fantasy. Of all the countless storylines derived from the guide, the gambling one was the easiest to use. We tried to work our way back from there to approach Alice, the guide. …''That'' is what this story really is.”

At first, it seemed she was explaining it to him, but she was not checking to see if he understood. It was as if she was a digital recorder spouting back predetermined information.

“You may not believe it, but we are an ideological association that stands on the side of justice. To be blunt, this is a great problem that cannot be resolved by any honest means, so we have been constantly working towards resolving it all at once using dishonest means.”

The absurd.

Objective Alice.

Higashikawa had no idea what those terms referred to, so he had no way of understanding what the rest of the explanation meant. However, the bunny girl omitted any explanations regarding them to an unnatural extent.

It was as if someone had edited out the information he must not hear.

“The absurd is an existence that disturbs the proper parameters of things. If used well, we thought it could lead us to the answers to all sorts of problems without having to find a real solution. We thought it could be used like a book of prophecy.”

The bunny girl gave an oddly vivid smile.

Higashikawa could not tell what emotion was contained within it.

He was not even sure if anything remained of the bunny girl’s will.

“But when we attempted it, this is what happened. It seems we angered Alice in the process of our emulation. She used her full ability to protect you or someone in your group.”

The cause of this insane phenomenon.

An existence that had so easily wiped out the organizers of those attractions.

An overwhelming character that held far greater power than Higashikawa’s unnatural ability to call in success.

The strange guide who smiled as she tied together the stories of an omnibus horror movie and stood above the evil spirits and monsters that did as they pleased in the stories.

“But this is a new discovery.” The bunny girl’s expression was one of true joy. “After all, we now know Objective Alice can feel honest anger based in an honest moral framework. That means provoking her that way could eliminate the need for an emulation based in detailed formulas and-…”

The bunny girl’s words suddenly came to an end.

Her beautiful eyes rotated to an odd angle.

Higashikawa heard a splashing noise.

That single flower that had just barely remained intact had finally turned to a flesh-colored liquid and splattered to the floor.

At the same moment, all of the middle-aged and elderly people left in the other chairs melted to the floor as well. It sounded like bucket after bucket of water was being poured to the ground.

It was like a switch had been thrown.

It looked as if a lawnmower had made its way through that creepy flower garden.

They had been absurdly left alive until then just to tell Higashikawa those words.

“…”

Higashikawa felt confused that he was still breathing.

That was how removed from reality it all felt.

He audibly gulped and finally truly felt that he was still alive. He finally came to a conclusion.

(The organizers are gone. We should be safe for now.)

But as soon as he thought that, he heard a small noise.

He had not noticed it before and it seemed strange that he had not, but the room had another door. The lock clicked open and the door cracked open on its own.

He could not see anything through the gap.

It was possible something was peering out at him.

But the organizers were gone.

Higashikawa had concluded that.

In that case…

Who was beyond that door?

Who was left?

“…You’re kidding.”

If what the bunny girl – or whoever had been making her speak – was right, Objective Alice had given this cruel punishment to the organizers in order to save Higashikawa and the others.

And now something else was inviting him into that extraordinarily deep darkness.

Were they trying to save him? Or did they have some other objective?

None of it fit together and everyone’s intentions seemed scattered everywhere. 

It brought a certain word to Higashikawa’s mind:

Absurd.

“…”

If he turned back toward the staircase to the surface, he could likely ignorantly meet up with the other nine and safely return home.

But if he headed further into the darkness, he could arrive at the truth in exchange for a fair amount of risk. But this risk would surely be more than he could handle with a puny absurdity like the Ever-Victorious Challenger.

Sweat poured from Higashikawa’s brow and he felt it drip down along his nose.

Which path should he choose?

And finally…

He chose.

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