Kino no Tabi:Volume11 Chapter1

Connected Land -Stand Alone-

Through the winter raced a motorad (note: a two-wheeled vehicle, meaning it doesn't fly).

It was a vast expanse of clustered rocky mountains, with not a blade of grass. The road weaved its way through these mountains and gently sloped down the hills, meandering to who-knows-where.

The motorad sped down the road, so packed as if it were frozen. Boxes lay on both sides of its back wheel, and on top, a bag. And strapped on top of that, a sleeping bag, water, and fuel cans.

The sky was a clear blue. The round sun faintly glimmered at a low point in the north. It was the afternoon, drawing near to evening. The air everywhere was chilly, everywhere dry.

“Man, it’s cold…”

The motorad’s driver complained.

The driver was wearing thick, green clothes from head to foot in order to keep out the cold, and near the stomach, in its holster, was a revolver-type Hand Persuader. (Note: a Persuader is a gun; in this case, it is a pistol.)

She wore a furred cap that covered her head and ears, goggles with yellow-tinted lens that covered her eyes, and a cloth wrapped many times around her face. One wouldn’t be able to guess her expression at all. A weak light shone on the driver and motorad’s left.

“The road’s snapped down in steepness compared to noon. Should I read off the temperature to you, Kino?”

So asked the motorad to its driver.

“No, that’s fine. I can tell it’s pretty cold.”

So the driver named Kino promptly replied. The voice came out rather muffled from beneath the cloth.

“Anyway, I think we’re about to hit our ‘destination’ pretty soon. Although…still can’t see it either, Hermes?”

While Kino spoke, she dropped her speed as she rounded about a tight curve. The back wheel skidded to the side and threw up some dust.

After which,

“Still a ways off.”

Just like the motorad Hermes said, straight ahead was only the same curves as before. Kino accelerated again.

“The country we’re heading for now—”

Hermes stopped midway; then,

“Well, it’s not really a ‘country’ anymore, is it?”

So it corrected itself.

“Technically, the ‘remains of a country.’ But that’s a mouthful, so you can keep it to ‘country.’ —it’s been cleared out four years ago and no one’s there. Someone who used to live there told me that, so it can’t be wrong.”

“That part, I haven’t heard, Kino. Why was it abandoned?”

“Right. I asked him about that, too, but…it was a weird story.”

“What was it?”

“Bad luck, he said.”

“Pardon me?”

“The people lived there for a long time. But one day, a ‘traveling fortune-teller’ came and told their fortune. She said, ‘The buildings and the way the roads are arranged are bad luck. The citizens will meet with misfortune. Someday, everyone will fall through the earth! Everyone will fall to Hell!’”

“So? Just because of that?”

Hermes asked with an expression of surprise, and Kino nodded. Then,

“He said the people were extremely grieved. Rather than rebuild it all over again, immigrating would be faster, so everyone moved to all sorts of different countries. Being scientifically advanced, they were welcomed and readily accepted. And so they lived happily ever after.”

“Uh-huh… There are all kinds of people, aren’t there? People who say right off the bat everyone’s going to be unhappy, people who abandon their country without a second thought, people who detour and think cold thoughts and visit these countries.” So said Hermes, who was either amazed or profoundly moved.

“Well, I guess that’s true. Although, as long as they’re happy—that is, as long as they’re able to acknowledge they’re happy—then that’s fine.”

So returned Kino.

Driving through another curve, the mountain passed by from view.

And beyond this steep hill lay those country’s remains.

Founded on the basin between the mountains, it was broadly encircled by a stone wall. A country great in size, indeed. Within those high walls, various houses of earthy color dotted the inside as if fine details of a particular pattern.

“We’re coming in.”

So saying, Kino slowly drove Hermes in through the open gate. A great door occupied that wide space in the city walls, whittled and crafted from a large piece of stone. It was ajar and covered in sand.

Kino and Hermes drove into the city now dimly lit by the evening. Crossing the city square laid before the gate, a wide road brought them to its heart.

The buildings by either side were entirely of stone, some as high as five stories. The windows were boarded up, but otherwise, the buildings were intact.

Kino and Hermes proceeded slowly on the lonely road. The sound of Hermes’s engine reverberated upon the buildings and then died in the air.

“Quite fine, this city. ‘course, we haven’t visited very many ruins, though.”

So said Hermes, to whom Kino assented. The road was unlittered, so neat that it easily felt it was only abandoned yesterday.

“Ah…thanks to that.”

So said Kino, stopping Hermes at an intersection. A dull sound resounded in the intersected streets and a small truck passed by. Upon closer inspection, its tires were fitted with sweeping brushes and water was sprayed from the back. No one was in the driver’s seat. The round handle moved automatically in small movements.

“Oh, my.”

So said a slightly surprised Hermes.

“Look, Kino. It’s unmanned. This city’s as advanced as they said.”

“I heard they left the country without switching off the city management devices.”

So returned Kino, who then sped off with Hermes.

“Why?”

“So that if someone felt like living here, it would look hospitable.”

“How polite of them. —oh! The lights are on.”

In the middle of Hermes’s words, city lights situated between the sidewalk and the edges of the road lit up one by one. As if racing with them on the streets, the lights completely overtook Kino and Hermes.

“So, the city still works. I was told that if I liked, I could live here. —given I wasn’t afraid of Hell.”

“So what’ll you do? You’re not afraid of ‘going to Hell’ all of a sudden, are you?”

Kino replied to the teasing Hermes,

“Lemme think…that’s a good idea. If I leave you upturned over, label you as a neglected vehicle and take one of those cleaning ones with me instead—”

“You shouldn’t. A great person said that those who don’t treat their motorads nicely go to Hell.”

“Oh, that’s frightening. I guess I’ll stop. —let’s find a proper resting place and call it a day. We’ll take a look around tomorrow and then leave the day after.”

Kino picked a particularly large building along the road and investigated inside. Very much like a department store, Kino dragged out a bed from the warehouse and laid it on the empty floor.

After finishing her portable food,

“It’s pretty different from when the wind and the chilly ground are the only things protecting you. —good night, Hermes.”

Still in her thick clothes, revolver beneath her pillow, she curled up in her winter sleeping bag.

In the still, cold thoroughfare, only the systematically lined street lights glowed.

Above, the stars in their brilliant sky glittered briskly.

The next day, Kino awoke with the dawn.

The sky was clear. In the unrelenting cold, Kino lightly wrapped her face in the soaked cloth. Then she conducted her exercises, not so intensive that she would sweat.

Then burned fuel to boil some water. After adding some sugar, she drank her tea. The moment she gingerly finished her portable food, Hermes woke up.

Kino was surprised, and upon Hermes’s saying that it had moments like these, asked,

“So, Kino. What’s the plan for today?”

“Go for some sightseeing, and—”

“Sightseeing and?”

“Scavenging for useful things.”

So replied Kino. After a few seconds, Hermes spoke again.

“So was that the reason for coming here?”

“Yeah, that too.”

“Destined to poverty. Or stingy, I should say. Can’t think of any other words.”

“I don’t object to those.”

So replied Kino.

With all the luggage strapped, Kino and Hermes explored the empty city.

Other than the occasional cleaning truck, no other animated object was there. Not a cloud hung in the sky, and neither was there a living thing in this cold world.

In the heart of the city was a man-made lake. Beside the utterly frozen ice was a large park, containing the last stone monument the city ever made.

The reason for their abandonment was thoroughly explained and properly carved upon it. On the back was written, “It’s no good, I can’t understand this mess at all. From a traveler,” scribbled in paint.

A bit before noon, Kino found a still steam-spewing facility just outside the country’s northern border, and by Hermes’s request inspected its workings. It was a power plant, run on nuclear power and still very much active. Kino went ahead and used the still-operational bathtub, and on occasion,

“Are you still there, Kino?”

“I got to one hundred, Kino.”

“Don’t drown, okay, Kino?”

“If you’re in there too long, you’ll get pruny, Kino.”

She used it for quite a while.

Afterwards, she found a food storehouse and peered inside, finding a great load of preserved grain that was not taken during the immigration.

“Alright!”

“You thief!”

Kino lifted up one of the great, heavy sacks, asked Hermes if it was okay to strap it on, and once it replied yes as long as you don’t mind lots of tire punctures, she put it back.

Just a bit before evening, Kino found an oil-mining purification plant.

“Got it!”

“Take it!”

She replenished enough fuel for Hermes’s tank and the cans she possessed.

When evening arrived, music played in the city deserted but for Kino and Hermes. A gentle melody flowed from the speakers on the street corners, and then twice, it said, “It’s time to return. Be good, everyone, and let’s go home.”

Kino chose a ground floor apartment on a residential for that night’s shelter. She stored Hermes in the empty living room. She broke a number of lightly dusted chairs and used that for wood, starting a fire in a fireplace that had not a speck of ash. Then she tested the switch in the hallway, happily finding that the lights worked, along with the heating system.

Kino tinkered with a television whose monitor was buried in a wooden frame as well, but after two seconds of static, it went dead.

“Oh, well. Let’s go to sleep.”

Using the big sofa for her bed, she curled up in her sleeping bag, more lightly dressed since the room was warm.

“Mm, that was pretty fun.”

“That was. It’s been a while since an empty country, though.”

“We’re leaving tomorrow. Good night, Hermes.”

“Good night, Kino.”

The next morning.

Before departure, Kino was looking for sellable goods, as well as useful items.

“Robbing again, huh, Kino?”

After looking through the apartment,

“Hm…….?”

She found a hung corpse.

The body was in the room adjacent to where she slept, specifically in the small closet. The rope was slack and the feet touched the floor, such that one would think he were looking down, or even standing. Apparently a middle-aged man, still in full dress, the atmosphere did not allow him to rot but rather mummified him.

On the wall was the suicide’s last message.

Hermes interrogated Kino upon return, to whom she replied,

“It said, ‘I don’t want to leave my country. But I don’t want to go to Hell, either. By my own wish, I will take flight to Heaven myself. I have no regrets.’”

“Hm. I wonder if he made it?”

“Who knows. But—”

“But?”

“He left this. It was near the body.”

From her pocket, she drew out a folding device about as large as a book. Kino sat beside Hermes and inspected it. The device was black. When it was opened, there was a monitor screen on the lid, and before it a keyboard.

“What do you think it is?”

“There’s something like an antenna on it. Must be a portable computer terminal. It should be able to display textual data on the screen.”

So replied Hermes. Kino asked if you handled it badly would it explode, and Hermes replied probably not. Kino pushed the on button, and hit random keys on the keyboard. The screen lit on and displayed numbers that looked like the date, then stopped.

“Whatever I press now doesn’t work. Do you know how to use it, Hermes?”

“Surprisingly, no. —not that there’s anyone to ask.”

“Oh, well.”

Kino switched it off. She folded it, wrapped it in cloth, and placed it in her bag.

“What’re you going to do with that?”

“Take it.”

“Thought so.”

Kino drove Hermes to the western gate.

Like when she first came, Kino wore her thick winter clothes, her yellow goggles, and the cloth around her face.

Along the dimly lit road, they periodically passed by the ever-so-diligent sweeping truck.

At length, the apartments on either side disappeared, replaced by a large city block lined with buildings the size of schools or hospitals. Ahead on the wide road, they began to catch sight of the tall city walls. When Kino opened the accelerator to greatly increase her speed,

“Something weird’s off to the left.”

So Hermes suddenly said. Kino closed the accelerator, but did not brake. After letting Hermes move by its own momentum, it stopped.

While turning to behold a large white building, Kino asked Hermes,

“What do you mean by ‘weird’?”

“I wonder. It’s not anything I’ve seen before. It’s kind of like a half-buried egg, a low dome made out of concrete. It’s a strange building. I saw it for an instant from the space there.”

“Then I’ll take a look, too.”

Kino slowly turned Hermes around and then sped to the site. They passed by what seemed like a parking lot and cut past the building,

“See, that.”

Just as Hermes said, they arrived in front of a dome-like bulge. A dome that could house a cemetary or a monument was built in the center of the courtyard. A ramp one car width across was built as the entrance, at the end of which stood a steel door.

Pulling her goggles up and lowering the cloth from her face, Kino’s breath came out in white puffs as she said,

“What is it……? A cemetary? Let’s look at the front.”

Kino drove Hermes slowly down the ramp. As soon as they stopped before the door,

“Welcome.”

A woman’s sedated voice spoke from a speaker by the side. Stunned for a moment, Kino soon replied,

“Ah, hello. What would this—”

Be? Kino was cut off before she finished speaking, and the voice continued on its own.

“In the case that you desire an acquaintance with the master, please wait. In the case you have no business, please depart.”

“What’s that?”

“Who knows?”

Kino and Hermes exchanged their doubts, though when they didn’t move for some time,

“It seems the master will meet with you. Welcome.”

Soon after the voice finished, the metal door slid aside without a sound. What lay ahead was a four-cornered space resembling an elevator. A space large enough to fit a car in.

“What to do, Kino?”

“Dunno……I don’t quite understand.”

“If there’s a master, then that means someone’s there, right?”

“But this country—”

Should’ve been empty. The moment Kino tried to say that,

“Ah, welcome, welcome! Please come in. Welcome, traveler! The motorad, too!”

A startlingly different voice than before could be heard, belonging to a young man.

“…….”

Kino drove Hermes slowly forward. Once inside the four-cornered space, she cut off the engine. Behind her, the doors began to close

“Are you sure, Kino? It could be a trap.”

“Curiosity got the better of me.”

The doors shut and the box began to move down. So smoothly and without sudden jerks.

After some ten seconds, the elevator was still descending.

“Wow, it’s deep.”

So said an honest Hermes.

It finally stopped, and white doors opposite the ones they came through began to open.

Just after the doors opened, they saw a room. There was a space where a human would live.

Chairs, a table, a chest of drawers—furniture of that sort were arranged in the room. On the walls hung paintings.

In a corner of the room, a large television was mounted on a platform. Brightly lit lamps dangled from the high ceiling. The size and appearance was much like a normal living room. Only there was no window. The walls, of course, thought nothing of it and simply stretched on and on.

“Welcome, traveler.”

There in the center stood a young man.

Slender, he looked to be in his early twenties, dressed in long trousers and a white shirt whose cuffs dangled off his form. His face, too, was thin, beneath short but ruffled ashen hair. His pallor was not unlike a patient in a hospital, but his manner, on the contrary, was very bright, and broke in a short run to approach Kino.

“Umm, good morning. I’m Kino. This here is Hermes.”

After greeting and introducing themselves,

“You must have been the voice earlier.”

“And you’re quite right. –come in, come in. I’ll bring out some tea.”

Kino did as he directed, pushing Hermes into the room. The white walls that opened from the elevator looked like a normal wall of a house from inside. They closed silently.

Kino stood Hermes by the side of a small round table and removed her thick layer of clothes. The room was quite warm, so she shed her jacket as well and sat in a chair with just her shirt. The holster hung on her belt.

The room was adjacent to the kitchen, beyond which seemed like a bedroom. Together, they comprised a space quite like a single-floored house buried underground.

The man prepared the tea in the kitchen and brought the pot out. He set a mug for his personal use and a much newer one for his guest’s use on the table.

As he served tea, the man inquired,

“I wonder, were you about to leave from the western gate? I apologize if I’ve perhaps hindered you.”

Kino followed an affirmative with a negative, answering that as long as they left within the day, time was of no concern.

“Oh, thank goodness!”

He offered tea to Kino. She then said,

“It smells interesting. What kind of tea is this?”

She observed his response. He merely said it was ordinary tea and drank it, after which Kino followed likewise. She said it was delicious.

“Ahh, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a guest. It’s great.”

After the man made his statement, Kino said,

“I’d like to know about a few things…”

“Well, of course. Why I’m living underground, alone, right? Of course I’ll tell you! It’s fun! Telling it, that is. Yep!”

So said the man in a child-like manner with a child-like smile.

“So, why I’m here living alone—”

“Yes.”

“Can’t be helped. I’m sick.”

“A disease, is it?”

“Yep. And there was a high risk of it being contagious.”

“Then, quinidine?”

Neither made a response to Hermes’s question.

After a time, Kino said,

“…quarantine?”

“Yeah, that!

Then Hermes went quiet.

The man nodded several times before fiercely shaking his head.

“Oh, but you’re fine, Kino! Since you’re not from this country. —it doesn’t infect foreigners. The only people who can meet me are foreigners.”

“What kind of disease is this?”

Hermes asked directly. The man replied happily.

“If I’m out in the sun even a little bit, my body becomes a real mess. That’s why I’m here underground. Have you ever heard of something like this during your travels?”

Kino furrowed her eyebrows.

“I have. Only—I never heard that it was contagious.”

“That might be so in other countries, but here, it’s contagious. Only amongst the people in this country. And the reason for that would be—”

“Would be?”

“Of course, because of the legend! Long, long ago, when our ancestors suffered in the sun’s rays, the chieftain at the time fervently prayed for rain, even if it would mean they would never see the sun ever again. It came true and it did rain, but then the chieftain suddenly couldn’t live when he was in the sunlight. It spread to his family, so they all lived where the sun couldn’t reach them. When they had children, they couldn’t go outside, so they died. The chieftain cried hard. But since then, the sun’s rays no longer harmed them. —That’s the legend handed down in this country! Just like it says, people like me come out from time to time, so they have to quarantine me! You got it now, right?!”

Kino stared at the man, so proud of himself.

“Ahh, I see…”

So she muttered.

“Now we know about the legend, and Kino won’t get infected—”

But Hermes got cut off.

“So that’s that! I’ve been living here for the past eight years, now!”

He announced, eyes sparkling.

“It was hard at first, but it’s no sweat now! Of course, I get my food and drink shipped through the elevator! And they’re all things I like! Oh, there are also stuff I didn’t like at first but I can stand, now! Like raisins! It’s cold up there year-round, but it’s warm in here! The word ‘comfortable’ exists just to describe this place! There’s not a single day that’s boring! I’ll tell you about that later, though!”

Being so happy from talking that he’d be ready to bust at the seams, the man jabbered on and on.

“None of your people come…so why not talk to them by phone?”

“Nope! Wouldn’t want to infect them!”

“…”

A silent Kino stole a glance at Hermes.

“Go on.”

So it replied curtly.

Kino turned back to the man, and proceeded with a hint of a shadow in her face.

“May I ask you a question?”

“Of course! Anything!”

“Then I’ll ask.”

After the man finished his tea with delight and set the mug on the table, Kino asked,

“Are you aware that in this country, no one but you remains?”

After two seconds, the man sputtered, and for twenty seconds, he laughed and laughed.

“Ahahahaha! —that again! That’s so funny! All travelers are so funny!”

Clutching his belly, he proceeded thus for another twenty seconds.

“…….”

Kino watched the scene, silent.

When the laughter subsided,

“All travelers come tell me this. Is there some sort of plot against me? Ahh, that’s just too funny!”

Wiping the tears from his eyes, the man spoke.

“Sorry, but that's a secret, y'know.”

Hermes replied in the same tone, and the man smiled with an "exactly, exactly."

“I remember, ever since four years back when I invited travelers in here, they all started saying that! Like, ‘No one’s in this place anymore,’ or, ‘Do you see? You’ve been left behind.’ They’re so dead-pan, too, so I explode every time.”

Kino remained silent and,

“Well? Well?”

Hermes happily chimed in.

“Well, if you’re trying to fool me, I’m not falling for it. Though it’s very funny. —well, I tell them I don’t believe it, so most give up, but there were some who were really mad, too. And some who said ridiculous things like, ‘Then I’ll show you the truth, come out with me.’ That one’s being pushy. But those people gave up, too. Eventually.” Kino opened her mouth.

“It doesn’t seem like you believe that ‘no one is in this country anymore’—”

“Ahaha! Of course! There’s no way I’d believe that!”

“And why is that? If you can, please tell me.”

“So that too, huh? —of course, it’s very easy!”

So saying, the man stood up. He walked to the television, picked up the remote that lay on top of it, and pressed a button.

For an instant, the screen flickered to reveal grounds full of young men and women, then an old man before a chalkboard.

“If you apply the proper formula to these numbers—”

“I hate studying.”

So said the man, rapidly switching channels. The screen completely changed to that of a concert hall, where a lady in an elegant dress was performing on a piano.

“……”

Silent, Kino kept her eye on his movements. He flipped through the channel over ten times, all displaying different images. A sport where people were kicking a ball, a cooking channel, a movie in black and white.

In the end, he settled on the piano performance. A brilliant one, of which he commented,

“I bet it’d be great if I could do as much as her.”

So he muttered to himself. Then he turned to Kino and Hermes and smiled.

“Well? These television broadcasts have never stopped in all these years.”

Kino asked, were there any live news broadcasts running, to which he replied,

“Nah. This country never had one to begin with. Everything on this is pre-recorded.”

“Then aren’t these just recorded shows played over and over and over again? It’s not really proof that people are still here.”

So said Hermes. The man happily responded,

“I knew you’d come up with that! Truth is, the traveler before you said the same. —but, oh, once that traveler saw this, he shut up and backed off, though.”

The man stood and then disappeared into a room opposite the kitchen, holding a folding device the size of a book.

It was a pale blue. On the lid was a screen and before it a beyboard.

“Ah, I’ve seen that before.”

So said Hermes. Kino extracted exactly the same device and set it atop the table.

“Oh? This is the first time I’ve ever seen a traveler have one! What a great day! So Kino, how’d you get a hold of one? It’s our country’s equivalent of an ID, so it’s not really possible for you to have one.”

“It fell beside a corpse and I picked it up.”

Upon Kino’s reply, the man broke out in laughter again, holding it for ten seconds.

“You really are much more interesting than these other travelers! People who can tell jokes with such a straight face really are rare!”

“So, what does it do?” Hermes asked the question. The man eventually regained himself and opened his light blue device. At that moment, the piano concert disappeared and was nearly buried beneath the sudden block of text.

Kino watched the television screen, then inquired,

“What is that?”

“I wonder what?”

So the man replied jokingly, though the one who replied was Hermes.

“That’s the screen for information transfer, isn’t it? That you can operate with that device.”

“Absolutely correct! Amazing! That’ll save me a lot of time. This here’s an outstanding communication device developed in this country. Through it, you can carry out ‘exchanges’ with people in the form of textual data. Television, you just take in the information, but this is different. It’s two-way correspondence.”

“Hmm. Kino, are you following this?”

“Somewhat.”

“You can display it on the device’s screen, but on television, the words are larger and easier to read. —can you two see? I’ll get it closer.”

He pushed the platform towards them. As it was fitted with wheels, it approached the front of the round table while making noises from the motor, then stopped.

“I’ll raise it, now.”

With clicks and clatters, the man operated the keyboard. The box atop the platform rose without a sound to a comfortable eye level. Kino and Hermes watched the screen. There it said,

<Welcome> and <Please choose a genre> in huge letters.

“This is what I want you to see. You pick a genre and you join in the conversation.” Below it was a list of some hundred of those genres. It was incredibly diverse, from broad ones like <Concerning the Country’s Politics>, <Talking About Life>, and <Counseling> to specific ones like <Mayonaise on Boiled Vegetables> and <My belt’s been getting tight recently>.

“So you’re saying that right now, you can have exchanges with ‘people’ at the other end of the device?”

So asked Kino, answered with an of course by the man.

“Doing it’s very fast. I’ll go to <Bored Gathering> and start up a topic about a traveler. You can choose to go under your real name or a pseudonym. If people found out I was the guy who was sick, they’d probably freak out, so pseudonym for me. You can also look for topics, too.”

So saying, he hammered away at the keyboard, so fast that the sounds simply fused together. It was as if he had thirty fingers.

“You can play piano, after all.”

So muttered Hermes.

Characters ran violently across the screen.

<There’s a young traveler on a motorad who just dropped by and is sitting in my room right now. Anyone interested in this?>

The words jumped to the top of the screen. Ten seconds did not pass when it was met with,

<Yeah, I am!>

<Called me?>

<Man, that’s nice. Wonder if he/she might come over?>

<Bring it on!>

<If that’s true, that’s amazing.>

<What kind of person?>

<If this’s some cheap gimmick to waste my time, I’m gonna get pissed off! Although I’m bored.>

<Whatever, just get on with it.>

<ENVY!>

<More info, please.>

<It is a she? She pretty?>

All at once. The words from the bottom washed out the ones at top.

“Amazing, isn’t it? These are all the bored people in this country with nothing to do! Every response represents one person’s opinion. Even now, this moment, all these people and I are connected!”

As the youth happily said this, he composed a response with speed beyond visual perception.

<I’m about to explain it right now, so just sit tight, everybody!>

Large characters torrented across the screen, all of which the man interpreted in an instant and replied to.

Once he finished talking about Kino and Hermes from beginning to end,

“Well, let’s try it, then.”

So saying in a slightly mischievous manner, he typed that Kino, like all the other travelers, told him the same lie that “no one other than you is here anymore.”

Various responses came.

<My God, that’s real hilarious! So what are we, then?>

<Dead, of course! Haha!>

<I know! Travelers have this knack of trying to scare people with lies!>

<Though, I wonder what’s the motive for telling such a flimsy lie?>

<You with the traveler: you live down in a village or something? Is there nobody around? That sort of situation for the lie is too crazy.>

<Maybe he’s shut up in a house all by himself and the traveler dropped by. Then you ought to open the curtains every once in a while, dude. It’s good for you.>

<Man, you guys must be so bored.>

<Hey, you are, too.>

<Come now, don’t fight.>

<As I recall, today’s not a holiday. Is everyone off work or something?>

<Shh, not that.>

<I’m playing hookey!>

<Hey, never underestimate your wife.>

The man thanked the participators of the conversation for the moment.

<Well, I’ll go back to talking with the traveler, now. Talk to you later. I’ll tell you more when I come back!>

After sending this message off, he turned off the power. The numerous characters disappeared off the screen. The television automatically returned to its normal position.

He turned back to Kino, who was sipping tea that had long gone cold, and said,

“See? Well? You think you can fool me when I’m connected to all these people?”

Seeing his brilliant smile,

“…no.”

So Kino replied, and just when you thought he could smile no more, he did.

“Right?! And—”

“And?”

So asked Hermes. The man replied.

“Now you know why I’m never bored! While I’m here, I’m connected to everybody. We fight sometimes, but we still live together! There’s no way I can be lonely!”

“By the way, would you like more tea?”

Kino and Hermes were both silent, so he asked them this.

Kino refused, explaining they had to leave soon. Then she held out the device she picked up and inquired,

“Would it be possible for me to use this, too?”

“Sure. Hold on a sec.”

He connected it to his own device via some sort of cable, switching between the two countless times. Some ten seconds later,

“Done. I’ve configured it so that anyone can use it. So now it’s yours. If you follow the instructions on the screen afterwards, then you can participate in conversations like I just did.” Kino received the device back.

“Thank you. I’ll try it later on.”

So she said, placing it in the box on Hermes’s back wheel.

“May I ask you something?”

So asked Kino, to which the man readily consented, saying, “Anything, anything.”

“Then, first of all—would I be able to have these exchanges with people from outside the country?”

“No, it’s impossible. Just with the people here.”

“I see.”

Kino nodded once, then said,

“Since when were you able to carry out these exchanges with these people in this country?”

“Strangely, ever since the travelers started lying to me—”

The man smiled.

“Four years ago.”

Kino drove Hermes through the frigid air, reaching the front of the western gate. The space before it was a square after all, with cleanly swept benches lined up, and a perpetually silent fountain and a pond drained of water long ago.

Kino braked Hermes and stopped the engine.

“What’s the matter?”

As Hermes asked this, Kino let down the kickstand and got off. She took out the device from the box and removed her gloves, turning the switch on.

While the device launched,

“See, about that…”

Hermes murmured.

“There’s the manufacturing date on the bottom. Looks like it was made six years ago.”

“Which means…”

“That the exchanges could have begun at any time then.”

“…… I see. I got it.”

After the characters appeared on the small screen, Kino searched for the subject the man started up.

There was the man’s ceaseless continuation on the traveler, something along the line of she came and lied to him that no one was there, but he didn’t fall for it.

“………”

After observing this for some time, Kino began typing clumsily.

“What are you going to do, Kino?”

“I think it’s fine to let it be.”

So Kino murmured, and in time, she composed a new message.

<Just now, I saw the traveler leave through the western gate. Probably the same one you’re talking about. She seemed pretty down that you didn’t fall for the lie.>

There was no one by the device.

The device was left alone in the square, atop an empty bench.

The screen on the opened lid, displaying Kino’s response toward the man, was soon met with a reply.

<See!>

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