My Vampire Older Sister and Zombie Little Sister:Volume8

Illustrations

• 

  Amatsu Satori

• 

  Amatsu Erika

• 

  Amatsu Ayumi

• 

  Mysterious Creature

• 

  Half-Naked Girl

• 

  JB

[Mobile Temp] Video File Directly Saved to Local Storage [File 01]

Yay!

Your dad finally, finally, fiiiinally has a new job!!

Now, I can get us as much money as we might need, but people need something to work for in life.

Also, it’s at a normal pharmaceutical company this time. I did some digging around, so it’s fine. They won’t use his work for anything shady like finding a military application for Archenemies, so don’t worry.

Now, I have something to discuss with the three of you. I want some way to celebrate the end of his middle-aged summer break. I’m not sure what exactly that will be yet, but keep that in mind. And keep it a secret from your dad, of course.

Hm? You think it should just be me and him, so you want to leave all the decision-making to me? Well, we actually prefer making these celebrations a whole family affair and we’re both a little old to be going on a date.

Now, what exactly should we do?

It’s fun having something like this to worry over.

Chapter 0

A rectangle of light palely illuminated the black box.

The symbol at the edge of the screen meant it had no signal.

How many times had I viewed that video file on my phone now?

It was 7PM in general elevator #13 leading to the general viewing deck of the Tokyo Skytool.

That was the country’s largest broadcast tower and we were stuck in the elevator after the power went out!

“Are you serious?” I muttered.

I rubbed the elbow-length sleeve of my black jacket.

Can this really happen? I mean, they were going on about the storm outside and how it was causing a bomb cyclone out of season, but wasn’t it supposed to have passed while we spent a few hours checking out this giant structure? This was the foundation of so much communication infrastructure, so how could even the backup power go out this easily? We used a three-day weekend to visit Tokyo and check out spots for celebrating our dad’s new job and then this happens. Aren’t TV and radio the first places to get information on disasters? So if this place is knocked out, everyone will rush to the internet. And then it doesn’t matter if we’re trapped in a metal box or not. The internet lines will be overwhelmed and no one will have a signal anywhere in the capital!

“Fuguu…”

The elevator was supposedly the fastest in the country while also keeping vibration to a minimum, but it was hard to judge the truth of that when it was stopped. In the same elevator, Ayumi, my little sister with curled ends to her black twintails, groaned weakly with her arms around her knees and her back against the wall. Since it was just her, Erika, and me, she did not bother hiding the indulgent tone of her voice even though we were out of the house. She was wearing a track jacket over midriff-exposing jogging wear, but this was not the kind with a large nametag on the chest. Both the top and bottom were pure white and the track jacket only had the zipper done at the neck, so it fluttered behind her like a cape.

And when I say she had her arms around her knees and her back against the wall, I mean she had been seated like that until she rolled over onto her side.

Plus, the lucky girl got to use Erika’s thighs as a pillow.

“So how many hundreds of meters up are we? When will help arrive? C’mon, Onii-chan, get everything done with your phone like you always do.”

“Don’t ask the impossible. There’s nothing I can do without a signal. Without a connection to Maxwell, I’m just a high school boy. …And pressing the elevator’s emergency button isn’t accomplishing anything, so I’m kinda stumped right now.”

“You said that before, didn’t you?”

“Because you keep asking the same questions over and over.”

What was that stitch-covered Zombie talking about? It was frustrating for me too, but shouting and making a fuss wasn’t going to get us a connection here. What, were we supposed to open the square panel on the ceiling and escape into the elevator shaft like in an action movie? When everything was dark from the power outage and we were hundreds of meters up without a railing? There was no way I was doing that. Unlike in movies, reality couldn’t just cut to the next scene. Up or down, it would be a hellish journey to safe ground.

Being stuck in the cramped and dark elevator was hardly fun, but sitting and waiting was the right decision here. Our voices couldn’t reach anyone, but they were sure to notice the elevator was stuck partway up like this. It wasn’t like our car had broken down in the middle of the desert or the South Pole. We weren’t going to starve before help arrived.

So what was our biggest problem here?

“When exactly will help arrive? If we’re dragged out of here during the middle of the day, it could easily be fatal for a Vampire like Erika.”

“Ha, ah ha ha. Don’t worry about me.”

My older sister Erika was lending Ayumi her thighs while wearing a black gothic lolita dress and leather-looking pants. The combination of her blonde ringlet curls and her nice body had quite an impact. I probably had her to thank for the faint “girl’s bedroom” smell hanging in this dangling elevator from hell. And she was reaching some pretty high levels of big sisterliness with how looking after someone helped calm her down.

Ayumi, who could be a little short on little sisterliness or girliness at all, pouted her lips while resting her head in Erika’s lap and toyed with the double zipper at the neck of her jacket.

“You heard Onee-chan.”

“If you’re willing to just accept that, then I really have to question your humanity,” I said.

“I know that! Fuguu!”

Ayumi energetically puffed out her cheeks and Erika worked to calm her down despite being the one with a real time limit here.

It was around 7PM, so we probably had around 10 hours until dawn. It changed depending on the season, but it was worth making an early estimate.

And then…

Creeeak.

It was an unpleasant sound.

Like a thick bundle of metal bending or the hinges of an old door that had not had any anti-rust spray applied.

We all looked up at the ceiling. That habit was apparently unique to the great earthquake nation of Japan and we knew intellectually it wouldn’t tell us anything useful, but it was a reflex.

Ayumi removed her cheek from Erika’s thighs and sat up.

“Wh-what was that sound? Something just creaked, didn’t it!?”

“There’s apparently a big storm out there, so wouldn’t it just be this tall structure shaking side to side as part of its anti-earthquake construction? That just allows any vibrations and impacts to leave the building safely, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

Erika rattled off the model answer, but the slight tension in her soft white cheeks belied her tone of voice. She may have been trying to convince herself more than anyone.

Yes.

No matter how much we tried to logically rationalize it, we had no idea why the elevator had suddenly stopped. Had the power simply gone out, had a wire snapped, had the pulleys and weights reached equilibrium, or had the emergency brake activated? We knew nothing.

And if you did not know the initial conditions, you could not build a logical argument on top of that.

Creeeeeeeeak!!

There it was again.

My eardrums were pierced by a metallic sound like rusty bolts being forcibly turned and my sense of equilibrium felt a little bit off. At first, I thought I was imagining it, but I wasn’t.

Had the elevator just tilted?

It was only a bit, but had it!?

“O-O-Onii-chan…”

“It’s okay. It is, right? This is the country’s biggest broadcast tower. How could a storm knock it over?”

“But during the weather recently, haven’t they been using phrases like ‘once in half a century’? And wouldn’t the tallest structure be the most affected by wind?”

“Which is why they’ll have given it plenty of countermeasures for that.”

…Although I had no way of knowing if the architects had taken into account these “once a century” or “once a millennium” storms the meteorologists had been talking about.

“Umm, Satori-kun?”

“You too, Erika? You haven’t caught Ayumi’s panic, have you? You’re the one who calmly brought up the anti-earthquake construction earlier.”

“Yes, well, I don’t know what kind of disaster prevention systems the Skytool has. Maybe it has gyros, pendulums, coil springs, dampers, magnets, or whatever else.”

“What’s your point?”

“Um, do those things still work when the power is entirely out? And not just the normal power, but the backup power like right now?”

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

It had a lot more impact coming from her.

And it didn’t help that my phone had no signal so I couldn’t contact Maxwell.

Crrrrreeeeeeaaaaaaakkkkkkkk!

The meaning contained in that disconcerting noise changed entirely.

We were suspended in a small box hundreds of meters above the ground. It did not matter how sturdy it was or how many safety features would kick in when all 10 of its wires snapped. None of it mattered if the entire Tokyo Skytool was snapped in half by the powerful crosswinds of the storm.

A much more specific fear of death clutched at my heart.

I could only scream.

“W-we can’t just wait here! We need to escape!!”

[Mobile Temp] Tokyo Skytool [File 02]

The country’s largest multipurpose wide-range broadcasting tower located in Sumida, Tokyo. Its name was selected from public suggestions. Some say it was constructed to match the shift to terrestrial digital TV broadcasts, but it actually provides a variety of bandwidths and other tasks, including TV, radio, flight guidance, weather data collection, some emergency radio, and high-speed wireless internet support. Its extremely high output covers almost the entirety of the city center. Although there are rumors even those specs were intentionally lowered to maintain an equilibrium with the local Kantou TV stations.

It stands 650m tall.

The general viewing deck is located approximately 470m up and the special viewing deck is located approximately 500m up.

The general and special viewing decks and the restaurants there are open to walk-in guests, but due to their popularity, a reservation is highly recommended.

The ground-level area contains a broadcast relay facility, a large shopping mall containing approximately 300 shops, and an aquarium. Due to the sturdy design and the large capacity of the shopping mall and the rest of the ground-level area, it has been designated a wide-area shelter in case of emergencies.

It might seem surprising, but Tokyo Skytool itself is only a transmission facility and it does not contain any actual TV or radio broadcasters or production facilities. Thus, there is no national broadcaster or commercial flagship station associated with it. But since it is a nearby landmark with such a close connection to broadcasting, many production teams will readily request to use it as a shooting location, so it contains an extremely high number of TV cameras even for one of the city’s landmarks.

About the broadcast tower’s elevators.

(From the ground level to the general viewing deck.)

Normal elevators: 8. Large industrial elevators: 2. Emergency stairways: 1.

(From the general viewing deck to the special viewing deck.

Normal elevators: 3. Large industrial elevators: 1. Emergency stairways: 1.

No one has ever been trapped on the viewing decks or the normal elevators.

Chapter 1

This was the worst.

The worst, worst, worst!

Why hadn’t I started working sooner? I had a tendency of doing this with any problem. I knew that, but all I could think about was how every part of this was the worst!!

“Fuguu! Onii-chan, why did you react to Onee-chan so much differently? You brushed it off when I said it, but you agreed as soon as she said it!!”

That was obviously because talented Erika’s words held more weight than dumb Ayumi’s, but saying that would only create a bigger rift between us in this tiny box. And now my mind was too busy trying to figure out what I was supposed to say to get us to work together.

“Anyway, I just need to get the idiot working instead of thinking.”

“It sounds like you’re just thinking out loud there, but surely you aren’t talking about me, right? Cause I’m pretty sure the title of idiot goes to you right now, Onii-chan!!”

“Oh, so you’re aware the idiot is you under normal circumstances? Hah hah hah. That’s surprisingly smart of you, Ayumi. Yes, quite surprising.”

“Okay, now I definitely need to punch you!!”

I was pretty sure I had just called her smart, yet my little sister grew red in the face and started struggling, so Erika had to restrain her from behind. Zombies had ten times the muscular strength of humans and Vampires had twenty times. That difference between the two Archenemies was pretty clear when they were not using their infectious abilities.

“So how exactly are we supposed to escape the elevator?”

“Hmm…”

It hurt that my phone had no signal in this small box and I couldn’t get any help from Maxwell. I all of a sudden found myself with nothing but knowledge from dramas and movies to draw on. But when I aimed my phone’s backlight toward the ceiling, I didn’t see any obvious panels to remove. Same for the floor.

“Fuguu. Movies are fictional, so do those obvious panels even exist in real life?”

“If we can’t hope for that, what do you think we should do, Ayumi-chan?”

“Let go of me already and get those boobs off of my head.”

That comment from my twin butter roll little sister could not have made me more jealous, but she also made a suggestion.

“But if there isn’t an exit already, can’t we just make one? I mean, with an Archenemy’s strength we can just break open a hole leading up or down.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait! We have no idea how precarious a situation this elevator is in, so what if breaking a hole in it makes the entire thing crumble like a cookie!? We’ll all fall to the ground together!!”

My objection should have been perfectly reasonable, but it was drowned out by that disconcerting metal creaking.

Ayumi pouted her lips and gave a rebuttal.

“Then are you suggesting we wait here for the entire elevator shaft to break apart?”

Oh, no. I definitely didn’t like that look in her eyes. If I didn’t come up with a good argument soon, she really was going to do it. Oh, god. Her ability to pry open an elevator barehanded was bad enough, but why did that stupid sister have a way of forcing unnecessary time limits onto me!?

I looked up and started treading in place like someone watching the long line at the train station bathroom as their limit fast approached, but…hold on.

“The ceiling isn’t a single panel. There’s a slight depression here.”

A closer look showed a line running down the center. It was about 10cm wide and that straight line was dented inwards a little.

After freeing Ayumi, Erika crossed her arms in a way that squished her large chest.

“Come to think of it, the elevator was air conditioned before the power went out. And there must be an opening to get the cool air in here.”

That was Erika for you. Unlike that idiot who only ramped up the sense of danger for no reason, her every word was meaningful and sounded like some crucial hint.

“In that case, did they hide the vent so it isn’t immediately apparent?”

My phone’s backlight was accentuating the indentation but there would normally be fluorescent lights shining from the ceiling. I bet I would never have noticed without this shadow up there.

And if there was an air conditioner in the ceiling, they would need a way to do maintenance.

“They at least change the filter…right? The ceiling might be made of a surprisingly flimsy material. If it’s plastic and easily removable…”

I couldn’t see above the surface, but there might be a vent and escape panel beyond there.

“Fuguu. But it’s too high up to reach.”

“C’mon, use your head. For example, we could have a certain idiot get down on all fours as a stepping stone.”

“Onii-chan, you’re the one that needs to use your head, you actual idiot! There are better ways, like riding on each other’s shoulders!!”

In that case, I was bound to be the giant robot’s legs. But who was I to combine with: Ayumi or Erika?

“The idiot wouldn’t be any help, so I guess Erika.”

“Geh heh heh. Is that so? You’re going to regret that decision, you actual idiot.”

“?”

I was unsure what she was even talking about now. Having my face held between Erika’s warm thighs through those tight and thin leather pants sounded like a fantastic reward to me.

“Well, whatever. Okay, Erika, I’ll crouch down, so you climb on.”

“Yes, yes. Oh, dear. Placing my legs around a boy’s head is surprisingly embarrassing.”

As for me…what a strange world this was! The front of her long skirt was left open to draw attention to the leather pants, but this put my face completely inside the skirt! Having the inside of a skirt on my face was like traveling to some fantastic alternate world. I could feel her thighs on my cheeks and also something super soft touching the back of my head through the leather. This enclosed alternate dimension smelled so strongly of her it was like I had traveled to the older sister universe!!

“Erika…um, if you could move this from in front of me, I might be able to actually see.”

“O-oh, dear. Sorry. …But this is weirdly exciting, isn’t it? I-I can’t believe I’m mounting a boy and using my own two heads to uncover his head…”

Erika elegantly lifted her skirt with both hands, so I could actually see now. The cooler air must have hit her inner thighs because they squirmed on my cheeks. It was such a disappointment that I couldn’t see the look on her face right now.

Anyway, we were solidly joined together, so now I just had to stand up.

“Oh!?”

What was this!? The resistance was incredible. It was like she refused to budge at all. Was this a rock? A boulder!? I had not expected this at all, so my hips and back were protesting!

“Wait, what is this, Erika? Is it related to that stuff about a Vampire’s muscular strength???”

“Um, oh, dear…it isn’t that, but how am I supposed to explain this?”

Erika began fidgeting nervously while seated on top of me and lifting her skirt, but then Ayumi cut in.

“Onee-chan’s just kind of heavy.”

“Whbwubh!!!??? A-A-Ayumi-chan, why would you suggest anything so ridiculous!?”

“There’s no way a plump and curvy body like that is light. I don’t need to see the number on the scale to tell. How many times do you think I’ve taken one of her punches with her full body weight behind it during our sisterly fights? Add fat to a body, and it gets heavier. It doesn’t matter if that fat is in the boobs or butt. That’s why I said you’d regret that decision, Onii-chan. Could you really not tell who would be lighter: your big big sister or your little little sister?”

“N-no, I’m not heavy at all! I-I mean, put me in a sexy swimsuit and throw me in the pool and I’ll float like the light big sister I am.”

“Fuguu. Everyone floats in the pool, even babies and sumo wrestlers.”

“A-a-a-anyway, it doesn’t have to be for long, but please just lift me up! I need this for my dignity as a big sister!”

As a boy, I also didn’t want to be labeled a scrawny guy who can’t carry a girl on his shoulders or in his arms, but it was no use. She was heavy enough to begin with and, now that she was panicking, her hips were going wild like she was using a rodeo machine. Her weight kept shifting back and forth too much for me to stay balanced. Not to mention how a certain part of her kept squishing and smushing against the back of my head through the black leather pants. There was nothing I could do…

“Ah ha ha! Onii-chan’s getting crushed my Onee-chan’s big butt. In a side-scrolling action game, she’d definitely be one of the enemies that suddenly falls from the sky. Y’know, like a millstone or boulder.”

“Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!”

“Oh, no! It’s sumo wrestler Onee-chan! Crash! Wa ha ha ha ha!”

“Stand up! I’m begging you, Satori-kun, just stand up for me now and I’ll do anything for you later!”

It just wasn’t possible… I felt bad since she was getting legitimately tearful, but there was no use in trying any longer. We weren’t making any progress unless we swapped positions.

So…

“Fugu.”

“What’s wrong, Ayumi? You don’t seem happy.”

“Why are you on my shoulders, Onii-chan!?”

“Shut up. I learned my lesson with Erika. I’m not gonna try to show off. From a biological and anatomical standpoint, Archenemies are stronger than humans, so it’s perfectly fine and makes the most sense for me to be on top.”

“Unlike Onee-chan, I’m light. Unlike Onee-chan!!”

“…Please don’t forget that your every word is slowly killing your big sister’s soul…”

Now that she had been abandoned after the failed giant robot combination, Erika was curled up facing a corner of the dark and cramped elevator. She was muttering to herself, so things were not looking good. I had to free her from this gloomy room sooner rather than later.

“Okay, Ayumi, a little more to the right. Giddy-up!”

“Don’t grab your little sister’s cute twintails like reins!”

When Ayumi snapped back at me, I gently squeezed her face between my thighs to silence her and reached for the ceiling panel gap. When riding on her shoulders, I wasn’t quite sure where to put my legs. I was afraid I would touch her chest through the white tank top.

The ceiling felt like…plastic, just as I had suspected. I stuck my hand into the gap down the center and it felt like the space inside extended further to the side than up. It may have been like an extremely flat T-shape.

I bent my index through little fingers like claws and grabbed the panel. When I pulled down, I found it was awfully light. And it bent easily, like I was applying pressure to a plastic panel.

“Fugu, is it going to work?”

“Yeah. I’m a little afraid of breaking it and having small pieces fly out at me, but…here goes!!”

It felt like a spring was tugging back at it, but when I applied more force that resistance suddenly vanished. With a dull sound, the bent plastic panel broke. No, it was more like an existing clasp had come undone.

I failed to catch it and the panel covering half the ceiling fell to the floor.

“Watch out!? Wait, only half?”

“There was a line down the center, so I think it was two panels with each one supported by a clasp there.”

I removed the other one in the same way and then aimed my phone’s backlight inside.

There was a round manhole-sized hole in the center and it was covered by something like a fine window screen. That was probably the air conditioner filter. There was a bunch of other stuff in there like the wiring for the lights, but I didn’t see any hole big enough to climb through.

“Ugh. There’s dust everywhere. We were breathing air after it went through there? They need to change those more often.”

“If there isn’t anything else in there, does that double as an escape hatch?”

The filter was easily removed by grabbing the edge and rotating it halfway around. Dustballs fell down and Ayumi got after me about it.

Inside there was a dirty ventilation fan. It was safe to touch with the power out, but…

“I can’t get this out. Ayumi, do you have anything that works as a flathead screwdriver? Like a flat and thin piece of metal?”

“Aren’t those weird little gadgets more your thing, Onii-chan? Whenever we go to Donk or Hangu, you always run straight to the niche tools section.”

“Stop right there, Ayumi. Let’s stop examining people’s fetishes and get back on topic.”

“It’s a sex thing!?”

It was no use. The idiot kept getting further off topic. I had no choice but to rely on Erika who was rotting away in a corner of the elevator.

“E-Erika, do you have anything that might work as a flathead screwdriver? That fancy gothic lolita dress looks like it has a lot of parts to it and I bet you have a lot of makeup tools and other little things tucked away.”

“…”

“(I wonder if it’s all the metal stuff you’re carrying that made you seem so abnormally heavy, meaning it was all a misunderstanding. But if you don’t have anything, then I guess it wasn’t a misunderstanding and the world is a simple place after all.)”

Amatsu Erika immediately hopped to her feet and rebooted.

“Yes, that’s right. That is exactly right. It wasn’t me! And your mature older sister is nothing like Ayumi-chan who foolishly decided to walk around Tokyo with no makeup or supplies. Look, look, looook. I’ve got all sorts of things hidden away in here.”

“Looks like she doesn’t have anything useful, Onii-chan. I’m not seeing anything sturdy enough to use as a screwdriver.”

Erika returned to the corner and Ayumi lowered me for the time being.

“Fugu. I’m on top next time.”

“Hold on, sister. You want to rub your thighs against me that badly? Well, who am I to say no to my little sister’s perverted desires? Bring it on!”

“Fuuuguuu!!”

Ayumi’s face grew red and she started flailing around like she had a steam engine inside her.

When we checked the items Erika had placed on the floor, we found a handkerchief, tissues, makeup, a wallet, a notepad, a phone, and…

“O-Onee-chan has snacks! Tater Sticks!!”

“Don’t get distracted, Ayumi. And those are Erika’s.”

But Ayumi had been right about nothing here working as a screwdriver.

“Hey, Onii-chan, couldn’t you use the edge of a coin? Like a 1 yen or 100 yen one?”

“The thickness wouldn’t be right. Something a little thinner would be better. And in a situation like this, I don’t want to force it and strip the screw.”

“Hmm. Oh, she has nail polish. You could break the bottle and use a shard.”

The edge of the glass wouldn’t be strong enough, but nail polish gave me an idea.

“Erika, I’ll be borrowing this nail polish. Can I also tear a page out of this notepad?”

My curled-up older sister waved a hand my way. I wasn’t quite sure if that was a yes or no, but I tore out the page anyway.

“Fugu? What good is that flimsy paper? I doubt it can turn a screw.”

“Not yet, no. First, let’s get the thickness right. By folding it over and over like this.”

“Hmm. The corner looks kind of sharp and solid, but I still don’t think it can turn a screw.”

“That’s where the nail polish comes in.” I waved the fairly expensive little bottle of makeup. “What if we soak this folded-up paper in nail polish and let it dry? It’ll be able to scratch the leather cover of this notepad. And as long as it doesn’t need to last long, it can turn a screw.”

“Fugu. But we haven’t tested it yet. What if the paper screwdriver breaks before we get the screw out?”

“How is that a problem? We can just remake it. And the next time, we can alter the thickness of the paper or amount of nail polish to see what works best.”

“Onii-chan, you really do like this kind of thing, don’t you? Y’know, these crafts or research projects or whatever you want to call them.”

“Well, I am a boy.”

“Pretty sure that doesn’t explain it.”

How long would it take for the nail polish to dry? Surely no longer than 10 minutes, bit I wasn’t really sure.

The metallic creaking happened against as we waited.

Ayumi needlessly looked up.

“That’s pretty loud, but it doesn’t seem to be doing much.”

“It’s hard to say really. Since we’re in a dangling elevator.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Let’s say you have a string hanging from the center of a perfectly level board and you tie a weight to the end of the string. If you tilt the board while the weight pulls the string taut, what will happen to the weight itself?”

“…Fugu?”

She cutely tilted her head.

Seriously?

“The answer is nothing, right? Whether the board above is perfectly level or tilted, the string is pulled taut, so the weight won’t rotate or sway. This elevator is the same. Everything seems level in here, but the entire broadcast tower may have been tilted by the storm.”

Only then did Ayumi’s face silently grow pale.

Then again, actual elevators had more than just the wires. There were metal rails for the emergency brakes and thick rubber padding. Plus, the elevator shaft itself was a limited space. The dangling box would hit any of that if there was much of a tilt at all. For the time being, I doubted there could be more than the tiniest tilt. Or I hoped so at least…

And it was thanks to Ayumi and Erika that I could think like this in the first place. If I had been alone in the elevator, I never could have kept my cool and I might have been curled up on the floor thrashing about.

“Okay, it’s dry. Ayumi, time to get back to work.”

“Fine, but I’m on top this time.”

“Man, you sure are deadest on pressing your thighs against-…”

“Enough of that!! I just don’t like getting stuck with the thankless task! You need to treat me more like a girl, Onii-chan!!”

Ayumi stubbornly used her small, stitched-up hands to shove my head down and into the crotch of her white shorts. My little sister really needed to learn how to act more ladylike! And I had no hope of resisting thanks to her Zombie strength!!

“Okay, this is certainly soft and warm, so I’m not about to complain. Rub, rub.”

“Hey, I didn’t ask you to take advantage of the situation either!”

When Erika glanced over at us and muttered “oh, he lifted Ayumi-chan so easily” in a voice of true despair, I felt kind of bad about doing this.

“Now it’s featherweight Ayumi-chan’s turn. A little to the left, Onii-chan.”

“You could show some mercy, you know? Anyway, here’s the nail polish screwdriver.”

“Fugu.”

Ayumi took the handmade disposable tool and then started squirming. I couldn’t see what was happening up there, but each time her body tensed up, more thigh pressure would squeeze my face. My body temperature was rising and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

That was when I heard a heavy thud.

“What, did you get it off!?”

“No. The screwdriver broke, so I punched through the fan part. Seemed easier.”

Why was she like this!?

I let Ayumi down and took another look. Oh, god. That filthy ventilation fan in the manhole-sized opening really was gone. Oh, geez. She’d punched it right on out and there was only the gaping hole left.

Was that really a good idea?

It had to have been as heavy as the outdoor units on a train’s roof. I doubted there was anyone at the bottom of the elevator shaft, but we were hundreds of meters up. It was dangerous regardless.

But anyway…

“Looks like it’s open.”

“Fuguu! Now we just have to escape!!”

I lifted Ayumi on my shoulders again and she climbed up top. Needless to say, this was because it looked like a hard job. Think of it like doing a pull-up on a bar located above your head. Without someone to help pull me up, I was never getting up there.

After I lifted Ayumi up, she kicked her legs and wiggled the small butt in her white shorts for a bit, but she finally managed to get onto the elevator’s roof.

“Whoa, there isn’t much space up here. It’s kinda scary!”

“Ayumi.”

When I called her name, she poked her head through the round hole. At least she was quick to respond at times like this.

“I guess you’re next, Onii-chan. Since I doubt you could support heavy old Onee-chan from below.”

“I see you’re quick to throw insults as well! Erika’s gonna cry, so give it a rest!!”

I pretended not to hear the resentful voice saying my kindness only made it worse.

When Ayumi leaned down, I could reach her by stretching up. It would normally be difficult to pull up someone who weighed more than you in a position like that, but Ayumi was not normal. It was lucky my black jacket’s sleeves only came down to the elbows. My skin was less slippery.

“Here goes.”

“Don’t pull too hard and tumble backwards, Ayumi.”

“Will you never stop treating me like a dumb child, Onii-chan!?”

She eventually managed to pull me up on top of the elevator.

“Yikes.”

“See what I mean? It’s scary.”

There was no light here either, but I could sense something there before turning on my phone’s backlight. I could tell just how close by death was. The Skytool supposedly had the country’s fastest elevators, but we really were stopped at precisely 0km/h.

I had climbed through an elevator shaft in Las Vegas too, but I still wasn’t used to the sight. And I had also seen when the safety touted so confidently by the adults crumbled around me…

When I actually lit up my phone and aimed it outwards, I saw a large empty space extending to the side. That would be because there were eight identical elevators lined up alongside each other. As for down…there was no railing and we were on top of a narrow and unstable box, so I wasn’t about to approach the edge to look down.

In that shaft lined with wires and emergency brake rails, we only had about three square meters to work with. There was nothing at all beyond that. And we were not supported by a concrete foundation or steel beams; we were dangling from a mere 10 wires. Yes, they were steel wires, but they were no thicker than my fingertip.

Do you think worrying about that makes me no better than the primitive people who see a metal boat or airplane and say there’s no way it can float or fly?

Well, could you continue to trust it when the elevator had been stopped by “something” the original designs had not accounted for? You couldn’t know for sure unless you were actually caught in this situation and climbed up onto the elevator roof yourself.

And now that I was up here, I could see some hinge-like parts on the edge of the round hole that dumb Ayumi had punched open. The fan had probably been designed to pop upwards like a rice cooker or a submarine hatch.

“Erika, it’s your turn.”

“But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but…”

“She’s sitting in the corner and not responding, Onii-chan.”

“Erika. If you don’t climb up, Ayumi and I will have to climb back down and work together to lift your ass up here.”

“Wow… Imagine how sad it would be if the two of us together couldn’t lift you, Onee-chan. Maybe you could find an excuse to tell us, but could you really lie to yourself about it?”

Erika stood up more forcefully than I’d ever seen before. She glared up at us and…wait, were those tears in her eyes!?

“Ayumi, that’s enough. This isn’t funny anymore.”

“Fugu.”

“Again, Satori-kun, your kindness hurts most of all!!”

My older sister let out a roar and finally gave a glimpse of her Vampire fangs while my little sister pulled her up.

Once we were all on the roof, it felt even more cramped. I didn’t want to look down, but I also wanted to make sure I didn’t accidentally slip.

…Anyway.

I was too scared to look down, so I shined the light on a nearby wall.

“It doesn’t say how high up we are.”

Knowing that would tell us whether we should head up or down.

“Fugu. But don’t we have to go up? I mean, this elevator we’re standing on is in the way, so we can’t go down.”

Ayumi must have had good night vision because when I shined the light in the direction she pointed, I saw a ladder running up the wall that was made of steel beams arranged in X-shapes. She was right. Our elevator was in the way, so we couldn’t climb down whether we wanted to or not.

“Let’s just hope we aren’t actually 10m off the ground and this means we have to climb more than 400m to reach the viewing deck.”

But a fall onto concrete from 10m or 100m was equally deadly, so we couldn’t just stay here.

Which meant…

“We’ll have to climb up to the viewing deck and either call for help from there or climb back down using the emergency stairs.”

“Y-you’re kidding, right? A ladder and stairs? This might be worse than your average mountain climb.”

Creeeeak, groaned the structure around us.

It seemed we did not have time to think. All our options sounded bad, but sitting around was not going to help.

Come to think of it…

“Is the entire tower tilted? …No, I can’t really tell.”

The set of ten wires would always be vertical, but the elevator shaft’s walls might not be. Comparing the two was not enough to know if the tower was tilted.

Just then, I heard a noise from overhead.

“…?”

It was some kind of scraping sound and Ayumi looked up with a puzzled expression.

Then something roared past as it fell down the next elevator shaft over.

“Wahyah!?”

“Wait, Ayumi! Grab onto something!!”

It was in the next lane, so it could not directly hit us, but just like when a train rushed by in a subway tunnel, a powerful blast of wind hit us on that unstable rooftop. It could be the elevator wires or the ladder on the wall, but we had to grab onto something or we would fall!!

“Ayu-…”

“No, Satori-kun! I’ll get her!”

I started to reach out, but Erika must have been afraid I would only get harmed too. She moved out in her gothic lolita dress and leather pants to grab Ayumi’s wrist while the smaller girl’s track jacket flapped wildly in the wind.

Also, hadn’t that elevator been throwing orange sparks everywhere? Did that mean the emergency brakes weren’t working!?

Far below us, I heard something akin to an explosion. Erika spoke up while holding our little sister close.

“That took 5 seconds while moving at approximately 250km/h. We must be more than 300m up.”

“Then the viewing deck will be about 150m above us. I’m not sure how exhausting that will be on a ladder.”

Then something occurred to me.

I had thought it could not directly hit us since it was in the next lane, but was that really true? How long would those normal assumptions apply in this emergency? And the scraping sound had not stopped. Come to think of it, what was making that noise? It had warned us of the coming elevator, but what were we actually hearing?

Could it be?

“Erika, Ayumi! Get down immediately!!”

“Onii-chan?”

“The snapped wires are falling!! From a height where a single bolt can be deadly!!”

There was nothing we could do.

The thick wires whipped every which way like snakes with wills of their own as they fell. They scraped against the wall, damaged the steel beams, and sent sparks flying, so it was like a storm descending upon us.

I didn’t have time to count how many of the 10 wires in the set must have snapped all at once.

“Kh.”

Erika suddenly shoved Ayumi away from her arms.

It happened so easily.

Her beautiful right arm was forcefully severed at the elbow.

It was an unthinkable visual.

The hemorrhaging blood was like a colorful fountain.

“Ghhhh!!”

“Erika!”

I wanted to help, but with something this over-the-top, I wasn’t sure what I could even do. And with her face pale and sweaty, she reached out her remaining hand to stop us.

She clenched her teeth and gathered strength in the half of her right arm that remained. That seemed like it would make the bleeding worse, but that was not her intent.

She was a Vampire.

“Hhh, ahhhh!!”

In a sight even more shocking than the squirting blood, a brand new arm burst from the elbow, although the lower half of the sleeve remained missing. She clenched and unclenched her fist a few times as if seeing how the arm was doing.

“Are you…okay?”

When I hesitantly asked that, she smiled and nodded…but I could tell at a glance. If she really was okay, she wouldn’t have had to force such a perfect smile.

Ayumi was still sitting where she had fallen on her butt.

“You don’t have enough blood. But you can’t just go out and suck some either. Onii-chan is one thing, but I’m undead too. You didn’t have to put yourself in danger to save me!”

“It’s true you won’t die since you’re a Zombie, but you can’t regenerate your body like I can. If your arm was severed, we would have had to go down and retrieve it.”

Erika sounded like she was cracking a joke, but this was no joke.

She looked like her core had been broken, but she still pointed up and spoke to me.

“More importantly, that might not be the end of it. Since that elevator fell, the others might as well. And each time, that gust of wind and the snapped wires will leave the elevator’s lane and attack all the shafts. Shouldn’t we hurry to the viewing deck? It’s too dangerous in here.”

…She was right.

The same thing could happen again at any time. The very elevator we were standing on could suddenly drop out from below us. That meant we needed to get to the ladder on the wall as soon as possible. Erika was exhausted and needed a break, but now was not the time.

“Erika, sorry, but you need to keep going a while longer.”

“Hee hee. It’s okay, Satori-kun. You don’t need to apologize for this.”

I took the lead with Erika after me and Ayumi last. If a human like me was on the bottom, I might not be able to catch Erika if she missed a rung and fell.

As a Vampire, she could also transform into a crow or a bat, but…no. That wouldn’t let her fly vertically like a helicopter, so she would end up running into the walls and the smaller body would only make the wind of a falling elevator pummel her harder. Plus, if she crossed into another lane, the actual elevator could hit her.

Since she had already taken damage, it was impossible to predict what would happen the next time.

So we would stick to this.

It was far from reassuring, but climbing the ladder one rung at a time was the best way to avoid risks here.

We climbed the ladder in silence.

…I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on up above or in the Tokyo Skytool as a whole. A power outage trapping us in the elevator was bad enough already, but now one had fallen after its wires snapped. And it hadn’t looked like the emergency brakes were working.

That was when I heard that scraping sound from overhead. It was almost like a ricocheting bullet.

“…!? It’s happening again! Another elevator is falling!!”

We knew it was coming, but there was nothing we could do other than cling to the ladder and wait for the storm to pass.

A powerful gust of wind blew through as a boxy hammer dropped down quite close by and a few serpentine wires followed after on their way to the ground. If one of those hit me in the back, I’d be dead. It wouldn’t just cut me to the bone; it might even bisect me right then and there.

I was scared.

Scared.

Scared!

This was the country’s largest multipurpose wide-range broadcast tower. I had thought the only real difference would be its height, but the elevator shaft was like another world entirely. We were only talking about a few wires and a metal box, but it felt like they were living creatures baring their fangs against us. And with no claws or fangs of my own, I could never defeat those metal beasts. Squeezing my eyes shut and praying for a miracle felt crazy when we were talking about inanimate objects, but I had nothing else to rely on in that moment.

It really was scary.

Goddammit.

Whatever emotions I was feeling had to be used to fuel my climb upwards. Staying here would help nothing. In fact, staying in this unstable position would only wear out my muscles faster. And once my arms ran out of strength, I would fall. Worse, if I stopped, I was blocking Erika and Ayumi’s way up. So I didn’t care what emotion it was, I had to throw it all on the fire. Dammit, goddammit. We happened to have a three-day weekend, so we went to Tokyo to have some fun. We were here to scout out places for the surprise party to celebrate our dad’s new job, so who cares about some storm and bomb cyclone!? I wasn’t going to let myself fall in this narrow shaft and die all on my own when I wasn’t even fighting someone!! I was going to live. No matter what, we were all going to survive, return home, and smile together like normal!!

“Pant, pant!”

I couldn’t remember how many rungs I had grabbed and stepped on.

But I was making progress.

And eventually…

“There it…is! The elevator door!!”

This elevator went straight to the viewing deck, so it would only have doors at the ground level and the viewing deck. There was also a special viewing deck higher up, but we could ignore that for now since you had to use a different elevator to reach it.

With the power out, it took some doing to work the door open with one hand while holding onto the ladder, but once I found you could operate the thick clasp with something like a metal lever, I had it open in no time.

I lifted the clasp and pulled on the sliding door.

“It’s open? Onii-chan!!”

“Bwah!”

I collapsed out first, pale-faced Erika came next, and Ayumi tumbled into elevator hall last. That was when I realized I couldn’t close my fingers like I wanted. My grip must have been at its limit. If that ladder had been just 10 rungs longer…

But we were safe.

…Or were we?

“What is this?”

I couldn’t get up and simply lay flat on the floor when the next question hit me. It was approaching 8PM, but we could assume that almost no one had been moving in and out of the tower since around 6:30 when the elevators stopped.

The number of people in here should have been the same as near dinnertime on the first day of a three-day weekend.

And yet…

“There’s no one here? But how can that be!?”

When I spoke in the darkness of the power outage, my voice echoed like I was shouting in an empty tunnel. Without even the green of emergency exit signs and red of fire extinguisher signs, it was truly pitch black. It may have been even more silent here than in the elevator shaft.

Ayumi must have also realized how unusual this was.

“B-but if even the workers aren’t here, maybe they were all evacuated. Y’know, the Skytool people were probably waving little flags and leading the guests down the long, looong emergency stairs.”

“No, Ayumi-chan. It doesn’t look like that is enough to explain it.”

“Erika?”

“Yes, Satori-kun. Doesn’t it seem a little too dark here?”

“Yeah, but that’s because the Skytool’s power is out.”

“Unlike in the elevator shaft, this viewing deck is lined with windows. And this tower is in the middle of Tokyo’s city center. Need I remind you that this city has long been known as the Nightless City?”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Wait, hold on. This has to be some kind of joke.”

I checked my phone, but it still had no signal. We were out of the elevator shaft, but I still couldn’t check the online news or trending terms on social media. I scrambled to my feet and ran over to the window-covered viewing deck.

Even though heading to the emergency stairs would be much more useful for escaping this tower that could collapse at any time.

For some reason, I wanted a glimpse of the million-dollar view through that reinforced glass.

But.

Blowing rain pounded against the reinforced glass covering everything. That was all. There was no bright nightscape or even a single lit lightbulb. Only thick darkness surrounded us.

…Where were we?

Was this really Japan’s capital? Surely we were actually deep in the woods somewhere, right???

“What happened?” I muttered blankly.

I could not process the question myself, so I just spat it out like an idiot.

The emergency stairs?

Escape the tower?

Would we really be safe if we thoughtlessly descended into that mysterious darkness?

“What happened outside while we were sitting around in that elevator!?”

My phone still said no signal.

I could not reach Maxwell who could have given me all the answers.

[Mobile Temp] Population and Power Consumption in the Tokyo Metropolis [File 03]

Based on the most recent census, the total population of the Tokyo Metropolis (including Okutama and the islands) is 12,704,502.

Male: 62%. Female: 38%.

The fertility rate is at 1.3 and trending downwards, so even the 23 wards are affected by the aging population despite how densely packed they are with people.

Temporary residents such as commuters from other prefectures and domestic or foreign tourists are not included in this number. If they were included, it is estimated the total number would increase by about 150%.

Gathering that many people into a space of approximately 2187km² is unusual even on a global scale and, as public safety has improved, it has gained one of the largest active populations in the world at all times of day and night. There are of course cultural and national factors involved, but not even Paris, London, or New York are this active in the middle of the night. One suggested factor is the extreme spread of late-night businesses intended for the general population, such as convenience stores, burger shops, family restaurants, gyudon shops, karaoke, street food, izakayas, and more. When looking at the capital cities of the G8 nations, Tokyo has the highest rate of minors out at night despite regulations meant to stop it.

And the lack of caution about being out at night does not stop with the minors. For example, after working in the office past the last train, it is not uncommon to choose to walk home through unfamiliar streets to save on taxi fare. That choice would be downright unthinkable in that major gun nation.

On the other hand, living up to the title of the Nightless City leads to a seemingly bottomless thirst for electricity. Since the spread of renewable energy has not kept up with that power consumption, there have been many international cries of protest. When comparing the graphs of pure productivity and power usage, it becomes clear that the Tokyo Metropolis’s efficiency is second from the bottom among G8 capitals.

This country’s capital has forgotten what night is.

Whether that is a good thing or not is harder to say.

Chapter 2

Think.

I had to think.

That darkness was as thick as the middle of a vast forest. What could it mean? I was hesitant to take the long, long emergency stairs to the ground until I could process what that was.

1. The blackout covered a wider area than just the Skytool.

2. The people on the surface had chosen to switch off their power so they could evacuate to some safe place just like the people who should have been on the viewing deck here.

3.

“…”

Were there really any other possibilities when everything already felt so ominous?

There were.

And once the possibility had come to mind, I had to list it up no matter how ridiculous it was.

3. There was no one left in the city of Tokyo. Something unimaginable had happened out there.

“Are you kidding me?”

We had no idea what had happened during the more than an hour we were trapped inside the elevator. It was blatantly abnormal for things to be so dark outside. I mean, even the traffic lights, hospitals, and broadcast towers had gone dark. The storm breaking a major power line wasn’t enough to explain a blackout on this level! There should have been backup power, not to mention the headlights and tail lights of cars on the roads. Even powerful flashlights should have been visible from up here, but there was no sign of that!!

I tried to check the ground using one of those binocular-like stations you had to insert a 100-yen coin into, but…

“No good.”

The device could apparently count the money without electricity, but the view was a blurry mess with all the rain blown onto the reinforced glass and there was nothing but inky darkness out there anyway. I couldn’t see anything useful.

But.

This really was weird.

Why was there nothing but darkness filling the glass? It felt less like the power going out and more like the electricity – or the people who used it – had been intentionally eliminated.

Had they escaped outside the range of all this, or had they been killed within it?

I still couldn’t see the true nature of this disappearance act.

That was when the curtain of rain seemed to swell out unnaturally beyond the reinforced glass.

“Watch out!!”

Erika shouted and tackled Ayumi and me out the way just before the glass shattered and a storm of transparent blades tore horizontally through the air toward us. The powerful storm also blew in. Ugh! I would’ve been killed if I had stayed standing there. And the glass wasn’t the only part that scared me. If Erika hadn’t pinned me down, the wind might have dragged me out the window!!

“Let’s get away from here,” suggested Erika. “We have no way of predicting how the wind will blow when it gets inside.”

“Ayumi, you got pretty wet just now, but is your Zombie body okay?” I asked. “Y’know, with your preservative and everything.”

“I’m not weak enough for that to get me rotting. What about you, Onii-chan? Don’t press your hands against the floor and slash yourself on the broken glass, okay!?”

Erika and Ayumi dragged me away along the floor covered in a mixture of glass and rain. My only option was to search for something I could do.

“A-anyway, we need Maxwell. If we can regain an internet connection and connect to them, we can at least learn what is really going on out there.”

Ayumi frantically waved her hands with her wet white tank top and shorts plastered to her skin.

“F-fuguu? Explain yourself, Onii-chan!”

“I-is that it? What channel is it? No, it doesn’t matter. We just need a commercial broadcast! They never place a warning over that even during an earthquake or typhoon. If they’ve switched that over to an emergency broadcast, then Japan really is doomed!!”

“I – asked – you – to – explain!!”

I was leaving it unsaid out of kindness, but she refused to accept it.

After getting away from the shattered window, we could all catch our breath while soaking wet. We could only speculate right now, but like I had expected, that idiot had forgotten what I said and her face was growing pale!

“Ah, awa, awawawawawa!!”

“Wait, Ayumi. Like I said, we have no proof of anything! We just need to contact Maxwell and have that AI call us fools for worrying!!”

Even a pacifist like me doubted it would be that simple, but we had to avoid panicking and screwing up what chance we did have.

If there had been an obvious monster, we would have had a target for our emotions. Having a goal to focus on – be it running away or fighting – might have helped us stay sane.

But this was different.

We were surrounded by the creepy emptiness of the nation’s capital with no sign of anyone in it. Something had clearly happened, but we had no idea what and were left all alone here. We were plagued with the sticky unpleasantness of an undefined fear, as if the more we were delayed, the greater the ultimate penalty would be. Yes, it might have been like trying to ignore the obvious signs of a serious stalker.

What was it we wanted?

Definite, absolute, accurate, and unmistakable information. Instead of speculation pieced together by our imaginations based on our fragmentary observations, we needed a simple answer that would sweep away the darkness.

What was happening outside?

I glanced down at my phone. The fastest way would be to directly ask someone out there. I had no signal now, but I had to find a way to connect myself to Maxwell!

“But, Satori-kun, what exactly are we going to do? Um, my phone has no signal either. Since the entire city’s power is out, doesn’t that mean the base stations on the ground aren’t working either?”

“F-fuguu?”

“This is going to get complicated, so let’s go over it one thing at a time.”

We could not reach a stable position without preventing Ayumi from panicking, so I decided to move at my little sister’s pace here.

“First, cellphones and smartphones don’t communicate directly with each other. The signal is first received by a device on the surface, that is routed to a large base station by fiber optic cable or whatever, and the connection to the home phone or mobile device is finally made from the surface device closest to the person receiving the call.”

“Fugu. I know phones aren’t radios. That’s why they stop working when the power goes out even when the phone itself still has battery left.”

“Then let’s move on. This is the Tokyo Skytool’s general viewing deck. It’s located about 450m up. Tokyo has to be littered with the bento-box-sized surface devices, but each of them only covers a radius of less than 100m. Their signal can’t reach us up here. …So blackout or not, you wouldn’t be able to use a phone on the viewing deck.”

“Eh? You can’t get any bars on your phone while inside the country’s largest broadcast tower?”

Some devices would have support, but we had to start with the basics.

“That’s why I’m betting they have one of those bento-box-sized surface devices directly in the viewing deck. And it’ll be connected to the surface via fiber optic cable. That lets people use the internet in this elevated blind spot.”

In tourist locations where visitors were meant to enjoy the view, devices like that were usually hidden out of sight. But I still had an idea.

“Let’s check out a restaurant first. They’re sure to rely on the internet for table reservations, employee timecards, buying ingredients, tracking their finances, processing credit cards at the register, and maybe even waiters sending orders to the kitchen.”

The glass had only been shattered on one side, but when we walked through the center of the tower to reach the other side, the blowing wind still reached us and I felt some raindrops on my cheeks. The wind was entering through the one side, racing around the donut-shaped viewing deck, and ultimately crashing into the wind that went the other way around.

We walked across the dark and creaking viewing deck with only the light of my phone to go on and…I was right. Even a fairly fancy restaurant had the card reader, LCD monitor, and keyboard out where people could see them at the register.

Yeah, they had a wireless router too. Those were convenient since you didn’t end up with a tangle of cables, but I didn’t like the idea of transferring credit card information over the air like that. It was useful now, though.

“Fugu. But it’s all dead. None of it has any lights on. What good is this with the entire city’s power out?”

“Don’t give up quite yet.”

…This next part was what really mattered.

“It’s true there’s no sign of light when we look down from the viewing deck and this broadcast tower is just as dark. …But to be that thorough, it had to have been done intentionally. This was no accident or disaster.”

“And? Intentional or not, all the power’s out.”

“Doesn’t it seem like that assumption might be wrong? If this was done intentionally, they might have only made it look that way.”

Yes.

From a technological standpoint, it was actually possible to create this situation.

“There is a system in place to intentionally shut down the normal phone and internet lines during a major disaster so the police, firefighters, and other emergency services have priority use of the lines. Same with power. If there isn’t enough to go around, the power to the normal shopping and residential districts will be cut so it can all go to the hospitals and such. If you wanted to, you could cut all the city’s power and sell the power to some other jurisdiction. Technologically speaking anyway.”

We still had no idea what was happening on the surface, but if someone had done this intentionally, they were definitely trying to restrict people’s options. By cutting the power and internet lines, the people would return to being naked apes with no fur or fangs. Then you could either have them escape to safety or directly attack them depending on your intentions.

“If this was caused by flipping a switch and not by a malfunction in the power lines or transformer substations, then there has to be a loophole.”

If someone had caused the blackout to give themselves an advantage, they would want to keep power and internet for their own use.

“It will work just like the prioritized transmission for emergency services during a disaster. The data or packets must have some exclusive key attached to distinguish them from ordinary ones.”

So there was power out there and there were communication signals being sent.

The Tokyo city center was still covered in EM waves and fiber optic cables, but everyone was locked out of using them.

“So what is it we need to connect to Maxwell? It’s simple: we find the special loophole similar to the emergency services connection. There has to be one somewhere.”

“But, Satori-kun, do you know what exactly it is? You don’t have Maxwell’s help right now.”

That was true. I was a normal high school boy without that disaster environment simulator. I could not hack into a system or break into a safe on my own.

But there was something even high school student would understand.

“Whether it was to get the people to evacuate or to make a direct attack, whoever-it-was must have been upset to find this storm raging. They would be wondering why it had to happen today.”

“Oh, I get it.”

“I don’t know what their original plans were, but if they’re trying to do something using the blackout, they’ll be tracking the storm in real time. I mean, if they get caught in some flooding now, the normal system isn’t up and running. The police and firefighters aren’t going to come rescue them no matter what happens. Traveling through the dark and stormy city is risky when you don’t know what rivers are flooded and what roads are underwater, so they’ll want some weather data.”

I raised my index finger.

“And let’s not forget that the Tokyo Skytool is gathering meteorological data. And they do it by checking the slight distortions in the TV broadcast signal from temperature, humidity, and rainfall.”

“Are you saying the bad guy is using the Skytool?”

We still did not know who we were up against, but Ayumi was already calling them the “bad guy”.

I understood why.

We were facing a mysterious darkness and a Tokyo missing its people. In that bizarre situation, it was a relief to reach such an understandable conclusion.

An anthropomorphized fear could be defeated.

Unfortunately, this was similar to the way some humans found peace of mind by hating Archenemies.

“Almost certainly. The Sumida River and its tributary run right by the Skytool. You saw it when we arrived, right? And the Arakawa River isn’t far away either. We’re surrounded by water. To transmit the gathered data and to receive data on river water level, the Skytool must have a fairly heavy-duty connection to the Meteorological Agency.”

…And if that connection was still functioning, we only had to use it.

Once my phone had an internet connection, I could contact Maxwell and figure out what was going on.

“I get that we have to hook your phone up to a computer doing weather stuff, but then why are we at a restaurant?”

“The selling point here isn’t the foie gras or the caviar, Erika. It’s the view. Whether it’s sunny or rainy will greatly change how busy they are. That affects how much ingredients they need, so if the entire broadcast tower is gathering raw weather data, they’re sure to have some kind of deal worked out. That way they don’t have leftover high-quality ingredients that would get damaged in the freezer.”

So with that…

I circled behind the register and checked the devices there…but they were all dead.

“In that case, maybe it’s in the office space in the back. I should be able to connect outside the tower if I hook my phone up to the computer there.”

“Fugu. But aren’t computers made so they won’t run without a password?”

“I have some ideas for how to deal with that.”

We walked through the darkness to reach the door in the back located where it could not be seen from the front. Once again, we only had my phone’s light to go on. I hoped I could recharge it with the cable.

We had some trouble in the narrow hallway thanks to some weird height differences and some cardboard boxes piled up, but we found ourselves somewhere very different from the kitchen.

“Is this the place?”

It had a cheap sofa and table plus an outdated computer on a work desk, so it felt like the combination of a rest area and an office. It was a desktop computer, but the actual computer was installed in the back of the flat screen monitor, making it little different from a large tablet. Since no customers would see the room, there were a lot of things strewn across the floor. The computer had a card reader attached, so timecard management was probably one of the tasks it was used for.

After I grabbed a label from the desk and placed it over the small camera lens as per my usual habit, Ayumi spoke up with doubt on her face.

“We found it, but that looks as dead as everything else.”

“No.”

The monitor was dark and the cooling fan wasn’t running, but when I felt the back of the tablet-like flat screen monitor, I felt some faint warmth. A lot more models no longer used fans now that smartphones and tablets were common. It could be hard to tell at a glance if something had power.

“It is running. Although it might be using an internal battery now that the power from the outlet is down.”

I touched the screen, but there was no response. When I tried touching the power button on the edge, the bright light seemed to stab into my dark-adjusted eyes. It was far brighter than my phone.

“Agh… Look here. The communication icon on the edge of the screen is lit up. The fiber optic cable is connected to something!”

The actual screen was stuck on a password entry screen, but the task tray of standard programs contained the icon for an internet connection.

There was no doubting it now.

Any computer in the tower that had anything at all to do with the meteorological data was still connected to the outside. That proved this was not just a blackout. Someone had intentionally chosen to lock the general users out of the power and internet.

“So you just have to hook your phone up with a cable now?” asked Ayumi. “But what about the password?”

My phone’s battery was at about 50%. Once that was gone, we would lose our light in the darkness. The remaining power was approaching worrying territory and I wanted to recharge it via USB as soon as possible, but…but there was a problem. I wanted to unlock the password before attaching the cable. I doubted I could hook my phone up without going through the computer and my phone was full of personal information. I wanted to turn off any auto-reading settings on the computer before attaching it.

That meant I needed to break through the password before I could contact Maxwell, but I could not hack without Maxwell. This was not a problem I could solve on my own. So…

“I’ll start by repeating some random letter.”

“Onii-chan, there’s no way it’s ‘aaaa’. And if you get it wrong too many times, I bet it locks you out.”

That was not what mattered. I only wanted to know how many characters the input box took, so instead of hitting enter, I erased it all with the backspace key.

“I see. 25 alphanumeric characters.”

“What does that tell you, Satori-kun?”

“Your average person can’t memorize that.”

I looked around the office now that the monitor had brightened it up a fair bit.

“I’ve read that the longest string a Japanese person can memorize at a glance is the reading of someone’s name or a phone number without the area code. That means it can’t reach the double digits. And our memories may have gotten worse now that everyone relies on their phone’s address book. That’s why everyone abbreviates long movie and manga titles down to about four characters. And if it’s a random alphanumeric string you can’t make a good mnemonic for, there must be a memo around here somewhere.”

That was about as careless as you could get and entirely defeated the purpose of the password, but it was a surprisingly common mistake made in offices. Especially when the same computer was used by multiple people instead of every employee being given their own computer. Plus, the office floor was so cluttered because they assumed no guests would ever come back here, so there was a decent chance the workers had grown lazy about security.

I checked in the most suspicious drawer in the desk.

“Ayumi, Erika, you two search too. It could be in a notebook or on a label, but there should be a 25-character alphanumeric string around here somewhere.”

The drawer was pretty messy too. I found writing tools like a pen and an eraser, a USB memory stick, a key to something, a pack of pocket tissues, and even some balled-up receipts and coupons. Did they actually take the elevator all the way to the surface during their breaks? But I didn’t see any scraps of paper with a password jotted down on it.

“Wah!?”

Ayumi gave a panicked cry as she searched another part of the office. I turned around thinking she might have tripped over one of the cardboard boxes on the floor, but what was she doing? She was staring at the whiteboard by the wall in the dimly-lit room.

Erika also looked puzzled.

“Ayumi-chan?”

“I think…something just moved???”

Ayumi continued staring at the whiteboard without looking back our way. Moved? What had? Was she talking about the colored magnets on the whiteboard?

“Hey, Ayumi, we need to take this seriou-…”

I started speaking and shined my phone’s light over her way out of habit.

That was when it happened.

I saw something odd illuminated by the dual light sources of the computer monitor and my phone.

I honestly could not believe I had not seen it until now.

Something made of what looked like frog skin was spread out across the whiteboard right in front of Ayumi’s nose and it was…wriggling???

“Whoa, wh-what!?”

It was a strange lifeform bent like a boomerang and measuring about 150cm long. I realized it was even bigger than Ayumi. It had no eyes or mouth as far as I could see, but its “skin” was enough to instantly know this was a living creature and not an inanimate object. The slimy surface had a mottled pattern colored the light brown of dried grass, but strange patterns appeared on occasion. The patterns were a combination of large circles and straight lines, so they reminded me of constellations or crop circles.

“Wait, Satori-kun! Focusing on it will only draw you in! It doesn’t turn transparent; it’s messing with our visual recognition!!”

At any rate.

It may have been a mistake for Erika and me to shout when the creepiness of the thing belatedly hit us.

Our little sister’s body was slammed to the floor.

Ayumi must not have even had time to cry out. Had that faceless and limbless boomerang thing kicked off the whiteboard to leap at her!?

“Damn that thing!!”

“Wait, I will do it!”

I immediately grabbed a pen and a large pair of scissors from a nearby penholder, but before I could do anything, Erika’s body slice through the darkness in her gothic lolita dress and leather pants. Her slender leg kicked up toward the mysterious light brown mass and the thick heel of her boot slammed into it.

Did she feel the blow land or not?

By the time she grimaced, the boomerang-like thing flattening Ayumi bent even further and leaped toward a nearby wall. Then it jumped to the ceiling. It did not seem to stand up or grab onto anything and the ends of its boomerang shape did not have any limbs attached. Did it normally crawl around with its flat body and bend itself like a bow to spring away when it sensed danger? The back side was probably covered with fine hairs or suckers. It reminded me of a univalve attached to a rock or a horseshoe crab moving through the shallows. No, I was trying not to think about it, but its movements really were most like a roach that could jump even better than a grasshopper. It had barely made any noise, but if I was asked to explain its movements to someone, I would probably mimic some kind of scurrying noise. And since it was larger than Ayumi, that kind of movement really was enough to give me goose bumps.

But…eh?

The creature with frog-like skin, a light brown color, and occasional crop circle patterns had attached itself to the ceiling…but then it disappeared!?

“Wh-where is it? Where’d that thing go!?”

“…”

I aimed my phone’s light all around, but I couldn’t find it again. There was no trace of it. I belatedly remembered I had a camera app and started it up, but I couldn’t see anything through the screen either. And I had no way of knowing if it had simply left or if it could fool the machine too.

Erika spoke while cautiously viewing our surroundings.

“I think it uses the gap between the known and the unknown. That would do nothing against a camera, but that must be how it tricks our minds.”

Had it escaped from the office?

Or was it still in here with us?

Now was not the time to stand around talking…or was it? I felt like taking action before hearing this would be a fatal mistake.

“People think separately about things they already know and things they are seeing for the first time. Take a human face for example. If you arrange dots like they’re the corners of an upside-down triangle, the brain will mistake it for a face. That is because your brain simplifies what it must process by opening that existing drawer and using that framework. We mistake ordinary things for ghosts because our brains can take that process too far at times.”

“Come to think of it, there were some silly rumors of an ancient wall painting showing someone using an air conditioner.”

“Exactly. So what happens if we come across something that we think we can categorize but a closer look shows we don’t actually recognize it? When there is no clear yes or no, our brain doesn’t know what drawer to use and we fail to recognize the thing right in front of us.”

Pretty much everyone must remember a time when they scared themselves as a small child after seeing a face in some wood grain.

But what about the opposite?

After growing up, do you still remember the random wood grain patterns that did not look like a face or anything else? Do you still remember where you saw it and how it made you feel? …It seemed normal for that to slip from your mind even though you had actually seen it.

The human brain did not process everything equally.

So in that sense…

“Crop circles.”

That did seem perfect. They had a retro ring to them and everyone was familiar with them, but there had never actually been a clear answer about them. There were reports of people messing with fields for attention, but that one answer did not actually explain every last one of them.

That was when I heard a loud metallic banging. My shoulders jumped and I aimed my phone’s light over to see the office’s door standing halfway open.

I was pretty sure the wind had not done that.

Yes. That was it.

Even if it could pass right in front of us without us noticing, it could not pass through walls or doors. I had no idea what it was, but it apparently needed to push the door open to leave.

That was it, right?

I seriously hoped it was not clever enough to have thrown something at the door while staying in the room with us.

“Erika, Ayumi, are you all right? If you’ve checked it already, can you scatter that stack of copy paper on the floor?”

“Satori-kun?”

“It’s like stepping on fallen leaves. We might not be able to ese it, but we should be able to hear it step on the paper and see the track it leaves.”

We had no idea which direction to worry about as we spread the A4-size paper across the floor. Then I slowly approached the door and gently shut it.

“…”

No response.

That 150cm slimeball must have left a trail because some of the copy paper soaked up something sticky and changed color. That wasn’t poisonous…was it?

It could still be clinging to the walls or ceiling, so I poked around with a mop, but I never detected the unnaturally soft sensation of frog skin getting in the way.

…That meant we were safe, didn’t it?

Thinking back, it was pretty big. After all, it was bigger than my little sister. Even if it was mostly flat, I doubted it could fit below the sofa or behind the shelves.

“What…was that thing? Was it some kind of Archenemy?”

I had no idea what to make of all that and Erika looked just as clueless while she used the arm extending from her torn sleeve to lend sticky Ayumi a handkerchief as she finally got up from the floor. I mean, it was a slimy boomerang. Most anyone would be confused.

But.

“Is that thing to blame for the viewing deck being abandoned and Tokyo being wrapped in darkness?”

“Ugh, cough, cough… Onii-chan, Maxwell is more important. I bet they’ll know everything.”

My little sister groaned some with her track suit and midriff-baring jogging wear all slimy.

If all of this was connected, she was probably right.

I couldn’t rid myself of my unease as we searched the office again. We had to find a memo containing the 25-character alphanumeric string used for the computer’s password.

“Come to think of it, there were empty snack boxes scattered around.”

“Fugu. There’s nothing in them.”

“Yes, but someone’s attached a new QR code on this one.”

I wasn’t sure if you would call that analog or digital, but I held my phone up to it to decode it.

“23, 24…okay, that’s 25. This has to be it!”

We had to solve one problem at a time. And that thing might have some obvious vulnerability known everywhere in the outside world. It would not hurt to connect my phone to Maxwell.

I once more faced the computer on the work desk and typed in the password while checking each character in the dim lighting. Afterwards, I clicked the enter button on the screen.

“Okay, it worked.”

It switched to an ordinary desktop. There was an aurora wallpaper with a few icons on the left side of the screen. That was all it was, but it felt as nostalgic as arriving home after a long journey. I could tell just how badly I had longed for a perfectly ordinary computer with an internet connection.

First, I messed with the settings a little to make sure it would not read any data in from my phone.

Once I was through the password and had the cable attached, using the same connection was simple. I no longer had to mess with the computer and could connect to the internet with just my phone’s screen.

It still had no signal, but I had a decent speed. Seeing that was enough for my legs to feel weak.

“Maxwell, if you can hear this, respond using the usual process.”

“Sure. I have been cycling through the nearby devices for a while now, but I could not make a connection until you created an opening.”

Seeing the familiar social media speech bubble was like seeing the light of a convenience store or family restaurant after walking through the dark night in midwinter. Finally. At long last. It had not been all that long really, but things were back to normal.

“We’re stuck on the general viewing deck of the Skytool. What happened while we were trapped in the elevator? This seems like it has to be more than just the storm damaging the broadcast tower.”

“Sure.”

I thought I was ready for whatever the answer was.

Tokyo was wrapped in an unbelievable level of darkness and we had seen a weird slimy boomerang with frog-like skin in the restaurant office. Something abnormal was happening here. That much was clear.

But.

None of it prepared me for the shock I felt when I saw the precise and emotionless text on my phone’s screen.

“Based on an analysis of multiple data sources, the most likely theory is the arrival of unidentified intelligent extraterrestrial lifeforms. The JSDF has fully sealed off the 23 wards, which includes the Tokyo Skytool.”

[Mobile Temp] Aliens and the Possibility of Contact [File 04]

The word alien originally referred to outsiders and foreigners, but most people associate it with space aliens in modern times.

It is unknown how much life exists in this vast universe, but it is thought to be highly unlikely that extraterrestrial life with intelligence equal to or greater than humans will make a planned visit to this planet.

Reason 1: We have detected planets with an environment similar to Earth’s, but they are so far away there would be no benefit in targeting Earth.

Reason 2: If the lifeforms live in an environment entirely different to Earth’s, they will likely view ordinary water or oxygen as harmful and have no reason to seek out Earth.

Reason 3: If they have the technological level or intelligence to visit Earth across those vast distances, they are sure to understand the risks and downsides of doing so.

But with all that said, do not forget that these reasons are only looking at the case of a planned visit. They are no guarantee for an unintended visit such as an unforeseen accident leading the lifeform to drift or crash land here.

You think this is absurd and not worth considering because the odds have an astronomically large denominator?

Yes, but I am talking about outer space, which is the very realm of astronomy.

Plus, the birth of life on Earth and the extinction of the dinosaurs had equally miniscule odds of happening. I am sorry to say, the odds of something occurring are no reason to let your guard down in this field.

Chapter 3

Unidentified intelligent extraterrestrial lifeforms?

As in…aliens?

“Eh? Huh?”

This was supposedly the answer I had been hoping for. I had supposedly escaped that state of craving for information like tropical fish moving their mouths and gills for the air pumped in by the fish tank.

Yet now I felt like I had a fist-sized rock stuck in my throat.

I couldn’t swallow it.

I just couldn’t.

This wasn’t about whether I liked it or not. I had been hit by something so far beyond anything I expected that I could only stare in confusion.

“What the hell? You mean an Archenemy that looks that way, right???”

“No.”

“But there’s no way I can accept this! Sure, I’ve run into a Valkyrie and a Demon Lord, but this is entirely different, isn’t it!?”

“Some hobbyists who are intercepting the emergency radio channels have posted quotes and recordings to message boards and video sites. At the very least, the police and medical personnel appear to be calling them aliens or extraterrestrials.”

What was going on?

We’d been through a lot already, like the extreme moral hazard called the Calamity and Absolute Noah created to escape that. But this? It was so insane and unrealistic it felt like the gears filling the underside of the world were audibly crumbling away.

“Fugu.” Ayumi had been directly attacked, but she took a more rational stance than me. “There’s no point in continually asking about something you can’t bring yourself to understand. Let’s just say someone is calling these things aliens and leave it at that. Think of it as a codename and worry about what they actually are later.”

She tended to take the simpler route, but it helped at times like this. When she didn’t understand something, she could just file it under the “I don’t understand this” category.

“Okay, I get it… So next problem: it’s the police or the JSDF who have sealed the city off, not the aliens?”

It still felt weird using that name myself, but Maxwell was quick to respond.

“Sure. It is growing more accepted that the intelligent extraterrestrial lifeforms have an excellent sensory deception effect on the surface of their bodies. Simply put, they are effectively invisible. If they are allowed out, there will be no stopping them, but capturing them all individually is not feasible since there is still no known way of detecting them using cameras, sensors, radars, military dogs, or whatever else.”

“They use weird patterns to mess with your mind’s recognition, right? But you’re saying mechanical cameras don’t work either?”

“Sure. There are reports saying cameras work at first, but it seems they can alter those patterns at will. In other words, they can learn and constantly produce new patterns. We should assume they have reached the level where they can fool not just human eyes but mechanical analysis as well.”

We lived in an age where you could easily buy masks and sunglasses meant to hide you from facial recognition if you hated big data, but this was worse even than that.

Cameras had wavelengths and speeds they worked best at. For example, if they created images out of reflected microwaves and ultrasonic waves, they could ignore the darkness but could not capture color. Similarly, keeping the shutter open for high sensitivity meant they could not capture objects moving at high speed.

Those boomerangs sent crop circle patterns across their frog-like skin and took advantage of the weak points of the various devices used to detect them so they could “disappear” from view.

“So they gave up on capturing them individually and instead sealed off the area where they knew the so-called aliens were, huh? And then they give themselves a wider area than that to feel safe.”

It sounded logical, but really was not. If no one could find those things, they had no proof all of them were inside that area.

“The off-limits area appears to be growing as time passes,” said Maxwell.

“So no one’s confident of their calculations concerning that, huh? If anything, it’s probably meant to put everyone at ease by setting up a barrier that defines their space as ‘safe’.”

I couldn’t believe it.

Those dry brown boomerangs could crawl around on their own and who even knows how many were out there. At 150cm, they were at the upper limit even for larger breeds of dogs. You could only call them “beasts” at that point. I hated the idea of so many being out there and it was creepy how they had proven their chaotic potential by shutting down the 23 wards with their mere presence. Since that one had hidden in the darkness and leaped at us without even trying to talk it out, they seemed completely different from a Zombie like Ayumi or a Vampire like Erika. Of course, it was possible they were sending out desperate warnings using IR or ultrasonic waves that humans could not detect, but that honestly seemed unlikely.

Creeeeak!!

The office’s ceiling – no, the entire tower – groaned.

“Maxwell, I have to know. You say the aliens are filling the city and harming people and the humans are using the police and JSDF to seal everything off. Then what about the broadcast tower? Is it in trouble due to the normal storm instead of some kind of plan!?”

“Details are difficult to come by with so much confusion in the information, but according to multiple live online news broadcasts, the Tokyo Skytool is tilting northeast at a maximum of about three degrees. With the emergency power and all other disaster-prevention equipment knocked out, my guess is it could not handle the violent winds from the extraordinary bomb cyclone.”

“I’m having a hard time trusting those sources right now!”

“The major civilian satellite image services and various press companies are being pressured to keep everything hidden, so they are no use. But it is primetime, so despite the chaos, they are airing a special on ‘one little trick’ for improving your yakiniku sauce. The Tokyo studio and broadcast station should be unusable, so they appear to be airing prerecorded footage using a regional branch. Anything that requires the Skytool is off the air.”

“What kind of monster tells that to people who’ve been stuck inside an elevator without a bite to eat, Maxwell? Ahhh, I’m starving.”

But anyway, three degrees, huh? That might not seem like much when you think of a 45-degree set square or a 180-degree protractor, but you can’t forget that the Skytool was 650m tall. Once it lost its balance, it would collapse all at once.

“Whether or not they have successfully sealed the city off is questionable enough given how little information there is and how paranoid everyone is being, but the discourse has grown even more out of control thanks to a third-rate sports paper revealing a request of silence sent to them by the government,” said Maxwell.

It made you wonder if that request for silence was meant to reduce or spread the chaos. I just hoped people did not start targeting some unrelated Archenemies because of it all.

“If this really is a disaster with no mastermind or grand ambitions behind it all, then this is basically a countdown to doom,” I said. “There’s no stopping it. And either way, we have to get out of this tower.”

“Sure.”

“Erika, Ayumi. That’s okay with you two, right?”

“Fugu.”

“Yes, but that elevator scares me, what with the snapping wires and falling elevators,” said Erika. “Are there stairs we could take instead?”

For that matter, what had happened in that elevator anyway?

Had the top of the tower twisted enough to damage the pulleys, or had the mysterious lifeforms carelessly touched them and gotten caught?

Well, it was dangerous no matter what had caused it. Using the elevators was not a good idea.

If there were stairs we could use, it would be best to do so.

“Maxwell, can you calculate how many steps there would be?”

“I can of course, but I do not recommend it. I doubt that is a useful task. It would be a very efficient way of reducing your motivation, but shall I continue?”

Tokyo Hour was a little over 300m, and they gave out a prize for taking the stairs all the way up and down, right? The Skytool was more than twice that, so did they do the same?

Did they not have an escape tool like that synthetic fiber tube that let you slide down from the school hallway? Or did those have a height limit? And did the time it took to ride it down take into account that you would be running around in a panic if there was a fire?

“Do not worry, user. You are on the general viewing deck, which is not at the very top. It is only about 450m from the ground. That lets you take about a third off of the calculation. Hooray.”

“If that’s the most comforting thing all your processing power could come up with, then I’m going to assume this route is a living hell.”

I was still in my teens, but I was seriously worried that I was going to wear out my knees today. But delaying the inevitable would not change anything. In fact, if it was going to take hours to walk down, then the tower could always fall over before we reached the ground. We already knew the elevators were falling, the viewing deck’s reinforced glass had shattered, and the entire tower was tilting, so anything could happen.

I breathed a soft sigh.

“Search for information on hiking, trekking, or anything else really. Just find the best walking methods and tools for keeping the burden off your legs. And I’ll let you see this office, so highlight anything in here that could be used as a weapon against that sticky alien.”

“Their physiology, instincts, objectives, and level of intelligence are all unknown, but carrying a weapon could communicate hostile intent to them,” warned Maxwell. “That will needlessly put them on their guard.”

Was I starting to think the same way as the Bright Cross that had insisted on oppressing the Archenemies? But I didn’t have the guts to walk around unarmed and cheerfully talk to 150cm sticky creatures that I couldn’t detect even when they right in front of my face. It may have been a surprise attack, but they had knocked down a Zombie who had 10 times the muscular strength of a human. In the worst case, a hit from them would be like getting hit by a car.

So.

I borrowed a thin synthetic staff jacket from the office wall, tied the sleeves as grips, and tied off the bottom to make a large bag. The weapon was complete after I tossed in three cans of coffee that were chilling in the fridge. Those boxy bottles of tea would have been nastier, but this gave me a simple morning star I could swing around by the sleeves. And if I never had to use it, we could always share the contents to quench our thirst. After all, the emergency stairway was long and we would badly want some hydration along the way.

“Um, what will you two do?” I asked my sisters. “Do you have a favorite weapon?”

That was not the question I wanted to ask the girls in my family. What, had I traveled to another world where I was trying to sell some steel swords? I wasn’t ready to die and take that kind of journey quite yet.

“Fuguu. Handmade weapons might be too fragile to be useful. They’d break the second we swung them with our full strength.”

“And while we might have good night vision, we’re up against something that can mess with our recognition even in the dark. With a sharp blade or a ranged projectile, we could easily end up attacking each other or trip and stab ourselves in the gut.”

“Do you think I’m some kind of clumsy girl who trips over her own feet?”

“Of course not. I’m worried about myself here.”

Having 10 or 20 times the strength of a human was not always a good thing. I was getting the feeling they really could cause a handgun to go off unexpectedly by squeezing the grip too hard. I really wanted something to protect my fists, but they must have known the best way to use their Archenemy bodies. Forcing them to do things my way would only trip them up.

Creeeeeeak, groaned the entire space around us in the dark.

“Maxwell, we’re going to leave the office now, but can you stay connected to my phone?”

“Sure. The online environment remains intact; it is simply rejecting any connections not using the emergency tags for the police and firefighters. I have already acquired the key data from this computer, so I can remain connected with just your phone. The cable connection no longer serves any purpose beyond charging the battery.”

The charge was at 68%. That was a fair amount for such a short time. The battery had not deteriorated either, so I could trust the display. It would last a while.

“Okay, then it’s time for Round 2.”

“Understood.”

There were aliens who could mess with our recognition to disappear from our vision and there was a bomb cyclone powerful enough to knock over a broadcast tower. Now, which one was scarier?

We started off quietly.

I touched the office’s doorknob and gently turned it.

At the very least, this was a worst case scenario where the door or wall had bent too much for it to open. But it was too soon to relax. If our estimations were correct, that thing had escaped from the office using this door. We no longer had that temporary safe zone. We had no idea when a sticky thing with frog-like skin would attack. I aimed my phone’s light around, but didn’t notice anything. And if we used up too much time being cautious, we could get caught in the collapse of the entire Skytool.

We had to be cautious but quick.

If we tilted the balance too far in either direction, it was all over.

“Looks like some windows broke elsewhere too,” my vampire sister whispered in my ear.

I looked around and realized the flow of the wind had changed from before and the blowing rain seemed stronger.

Was that small shards of glass crunching below our feet? The floor was soaked and slipping would likely mean getting very bloody.

“Ayumi, stay away from the windows.”

“Onii-chan, do you think I’m a clumsy girl too?”

I only meant that the blowing wind did not just come in from outside. It sometimes blew back out like a vacuum cleaner sucking things out. Plus, we did not know where those boomerang-shaped aliens were. If one suddenly tackled us from behind, there would be no recovering from it.

“Idiots tend to be clumsy because they smugly refuse to listen to the warnings other people give them,” said the AI.

“Fugu!? Maxwell!!”

“No, no. I am merely using my language assist functionality based on my observations of my user, but did I not express his thoughts properly here? (・ω・)?”

“So this was all an indirect attack from Onii-chan, was it!?”

“Let’s not turn this into an ultra-heavy case study of future social problems like the responsibility for the actions of lifeless AIs being sent straight to their owners! By which I mean, I’m innocent!!”

That wasn’t so bad, but if Maxwell did that on purpose, didn’t this count as the beginning of an AI rebellion!? If AIs started blowing up dams and industrial complexes using cyber-attacks of their own volition, and that same sliding responsibility scheme was used to determine who had started the war, it could easily start a worldwide Armageddon!

“Anyway, it’s time to escape. Go go♪（≧∇≦）☆”

“Don’t you have anything to say to me!? My brotherly dignity is hitting rock bottom as my little sister tugs on my hair here!”

Did she not know how precious a boy’s hair roots were? If my kind older sister hadn’t intervened, I would have had to aim for being one of those old Hollywood stars who somehow manage to look good despite being bald. Although I’d have to get plastic surgery to give myself an Italian skull shape to pull it off!

“Look, Ayumi-chan, I have barbecue flavor Tater Sticks,” said Erika.

“Grr, grr, grrr.”

“Oh, dear. I’ve opened the seal and everything. But if you don’t want them, I guess I’ll just have to throw them away.”

“Wait! Don’t waste the Tater Sticks!”

We had been stuck in the elevator without much of anything to eat or drink, but Ayumi still lost the instant she accepted those. On the other hand, Erika’s taste in snacks was more on the macaron and eclair end of things, so was she carrying those around as an emergency anti-Ayumi weapon?

Anyway, once Ayumi had calmed down, we could carefully make our way to the emergency stairs.

“Man, Tater Sticks are so good.”

“Is that so?”

“Here, Onii-chan. You can have this as a sign of us making up.”

There was nothing to make up for when it all came down to Maxwell’s conspiracy and the idiot’s misunderstanding, but whatever. Accepting rather than restarting the argument was the clever choice here. And when had they come out with a barbecue flavor? Tater Sticks came out with so many new flavors it was hard to keep up. Drool.

“Doesn’t this taste more like yakiniku sauce than barbecue sauce?” I asked. “Y’know, the Nibara brand.”

“Isn’t that how it always works? This is a minor difference compared to the vegetable rice cracker one that doesn’t taste at all like veggies.”

Yet again, you have shown how dumb you are, Ayumi. That doesn’t mean it’s vegetable flavored; it means it’s fried with vegetable oil. It’s supposed to taste mostly like salt.

The wind blew through and the floor was covered in glass shards and water, so we did our best to walk along by the light of my phone and arrived at a different metal door than the one to the elevator hall.

I aimed the light above the door and saw an emergency exit light that was not currently functioning.

“Yeah…looks like this is the emergency stairs.”

My hands were full holding my phone and the heavy staff jacket, so I let Ayumi turn the knob while she (for some reason) pressed against the wall next to the door like she was in a spy movie. She was going all in on this, but it made me think of a child wanting to hit the button at the bus stop.

Once she opened it and I shined the light in past her shoulder, all I saw were the stainless steel stairs given a coat of rustproof paint. These only led down, so just like with the elevator, there must have been separate stairs leading up to the special viewing deck.

Staring may not have helped, but I still froze in place with the light aimed at the next landing down.

I heard the disconcerting creaking of the tower, but I could not see any of those sticky things with crop circle patterns on their dry brown surface.

“Let’s get going then.”

“Fugu.”

It was hard to tell whether it was safe or not, but we slowly walked toward the stairs regardless. I could not help but shine the light more toward our feet than the way ahead. Those 150cm sticky boomerangs scared me, but tripping and spraining or breaking an ankle would be the worst. No one would come to save us.

One, two, three…ten, eleven.

“Eleven steps, huh? Then you turn around at the landing and take another eleven steps down to reach the next floor. Um, altogether that would be…”

“Warning,” said Maxwell. “You will not like the answer, so I do not recommend continuing this calculation.”

All this did was connect the surface to the general viewing deck, yet there were metal doors in places. They must have been locked because they would not budge.

“Are those maintenance doors for personnel?”

There had been nothing like that in the ordinary elevator shaft, but I doubted they were climbing and descending these stairs on a daily basis. Was there a staff elevator that could stop partway up?

And.

Creeeeeeak, groaned the tower. It terrified me every time I heard it. And just as I was thinking that…

“That’s odd,” said Erika. “The creaking isn’t stopping this time.”

“Wah, wah, wah!” shouted Ayumi. “Are we in trouble!? Fuguu! We need to get out of this tower right away!”

Ayumi tried to charge forward even more than before, so I quickly grabbed at her arm.

Just then, I thought I heard a cracking sound.

Then a thick breaking sound burst out from below. Followed by a vibration. This was not the same as the entire tower being pummeled in the wind like before. This shaking was much closer, much more vivid, and much more a chain reaction of destruction.

I aimed my phone’s light at the floor below.

All I saw was darkness.

“That was…the stairs.”

I finally realized what had happened.

“The stainless steel stairs are falling!? If we’re caught in this, it’ll be a freefall to the bottom!”

I didn’t know whether they were held in place by bolts or metal stakes or what, but the twisting of the entire tower was causing them to pop out. Some piece partway up had come out and the ones above it had started coming out in a chain reaction. Right up to the one just below us.

There was nothing but empty space below.

We had no choice but to head back up.

As my sisters and I turned around and ran up the stairs, I felt a sinking feeling. The thick bursting sounds surrounded us. By the time we reached the landing, the entire floor was tilted diagonally. I looked back in shock to see the stairs we had just climbed were no longer there. Were the landing and 11 stairs above them a single set? That whole piece must have been scraping along the wall as it fell because I could hear the screaming of metal and see orange sparks.

“Satori-kun, please don’t stop moving! Hurry!!”

“Kh, I know!”

I did, but still!

I really should have kept track of how many floors down we had gotten. I couldn’t think about keeping a reasonable pace now. We could only sprint full-speed up these seemingly endless stairs. My thighs were feeling worn out in no time. How much further was it? Was it the next turnaround? Surely we didn’t have more than 10 more stories to go!?

“Fugu.”

“No, Ayumi. Ignore those metal doors!”

“But if we could open one…”

“We have no idea where they lead! If it’s only a small supply closet and you turn back around to find the landing and stairs have fallen into the abyss, then it’s all over!”

I was scrambling as fast as I could while I shouted. I couldn’t think about looking good at a time like this. My short-sleeved jacket felt so heavy while wet. Should I have removed it beforehand? We ran past landing after landing to rush up the stairs that never seemed to end, but then the endpoint finally came into view.

The metal door was still sitting partway open.

That was the entrance to the general viewing deck.

“Bwah!”

My little sister in the white shorts had passed by me partway up, so I half-collapsed out onto the wet floor in last place. Erika reached out her right arm in the torn sleeve and pulled me on in.

The landing directly behind me had seemed so sturdy, but it vanished into the abyss. I aimed my phone’s light back there, but there was nothing at all. The emergency stairs were no longer an option.

We only had the disconcerting creaking of the tower for company.

We had survived, but that was all. The Skytool’s tilt was getting worse. Next time, the floor might fall out from under us, a gas leak in a restaurant could cause a fire, or the ceiling panels could collapse on top of us. In the worst case, the entire tower could break apart and fall over. We could no longer assume our safety just because so many calculations had gone into the architecture. There was no predicting what would come next. Not even a few seconds into the future.

“What…do we do?” I asked while still collapsed on the wet floor.

Waiting out the storm on the general viewing deck had stopped being viable a while ago. At this rate, the Skytool would probably collapse before then. But what else could we do? The elevator and elevator shaft were too dangerous and the emergency stairs had just vanished into the abyss, but what other way was there to descend the 450m from the general viewing deck?

The creaking sound squeezed at our hearts.

“This may be the time for desperate measures.”

“Erika, do you have some kind of idea?”

“Fuguu. You aren’t thinking of spreading out that huge skirt and gliding down like a flying squirrel, are you?”

With an idiot, it could be hard to tell how serious she was being with that question, so we decided to ignore her.

“There may still be a method left. But in this storm, it will require the powerful muscles of an Archenemy.”

“What is it?” I asked.

For some reason, Erika moved the slender arm extending from her torn sleeve to point out the broken window.

She wasn’t actually suggesting the flying squirrel plan, was she!?

I trembled in fear at the thought, but in a way, her plan may have been even more reckless.

“For example, what about the window washing gondola handing on the outside?”

You know how on stormy days the wire will bang against the metal flagpole in the schoolyard? I could hear that sound but 20 or 30 times worse from directly below.

“There it is, there it is, Satori-kun. That’s what I was talking about.”

Erika grabbed the metal edge of the viewing deck and leaned out through the shattered window while sounding as delighted as a child, but…

“That is!? So you’re saying you plan to climb down while clinging to that!? That’s blowing around way more than a playground swing!”

“Vampires have 20 times the strength of a human and Zombies have 10 times, so we just have to hold you tight in our arms to support you. Kyah☆”

“A-also, don’t window washing gondolas use electricity to move?”

“There are multiple varieties, but based on the zoomed-in footage from your phone, the wire reel is on the gondola rather than the roof,” said Maxwell. “With that design, it should have a safety device allowing you to release the wire with a manual lever and descend to the ground yourself. Searching manufacturer website…”

Wait, Maxwell! You’re supposed to reject Erika’s idea here. Why would you support her!?

“Given the wind’s direction, it will be blowing the gondola against the tower wall,” continued the AI. “It is making a lot of noise, but it should not be shaking all that much.”

“Hey, try to read my mind better next time, you stupid AI! Arrrgh!”

“I take issue with being called stupid for finding the correct answer. (・Д・) Hmph.”

“Staying anywhere in the tower would be dangerous, so isn’t it best to head outside and find a safe route even if it requires some brute force?” asked Erika. “That’s why I support the gondola plan.”

“I’m fine with that too,” said Ayumi.

“That idiot is all talk, so I recommend ignoring him and continuing with the plan,” said Maxwell.

Oh, no. At this rate, I really was going to be stuck out there in the raging storm on a window washing gondola blowing wildly while we descended the rain-slick wall. Majority rule during emergencies could be scary, but doing something just because the clever machine said so seemed just as scary to me. I mean, how would this ever work? It was about 30 meters down. Use your heads, everyone! Think!!

“Complain if you want, Onii-chan, but do you have a better idea?”

“…”

“Oh, you don’t have to force yourself to come up with something. Just leave this in the capable hands of your big sister. …Okay, Maxwell, it would help a lot if you could tell us when to jump out based on the wind direction.”

“That would be now. Like, right this instant.”

Ayumi and Erika each grabbed one of my shoulders.

“No, wait! This is a bad idea! A really bad ideaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

They had 10 and 20 times the strength of a human, so there was no way I could hold my ground. Waaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!

To be honest, none if it felt real.

That was thanks to the storm.

It was almost like having a thick translucent plastic sheet pressed over my face. I couldn’t even open my eyes or breathe properly. I couldn’t tell right from left or even up from down.

But Maxwell’s simulation must have paid off because the wind happened to be blowing inwards such that it pushed us back toward the tower as we jumped out. It also helped that Erika had taken the staff jacket I had picked up, wrapped it around her hand, and then grabbed the gondola wire running vertically by.

I heard the sound of scraping cloth and smelled the stench of melting plastic.

And the next thing I knew…

“H-hey, you’re kidding, right?”

“And we’ve arrived. Wow, it really is pouring out here, isn’t it?”

“We really landed right in the gondola. Ah, ahhh!? Now we can’t get back up!!”

I looked regretfully back up from the wobbling window washing gondola just as a gust of wind slammed into a glass wall and shattered it. I crouched down and covered my head on reflex…but the shower of glass never arrived. The wind must have blown it to the side.

“Ugh, I feel like I’m going to drown just standing here. Onee-chan, is this the manual lever?”

“Even I will be mad if you pull too hard and break it, okay?”

Ayumi gave a casual yank on the lever and…whoa! The lock really came undone and the gondola started to slowly descend!!

“Come here, Satori-kun. A sudden gust of wind could shake us side to side, so come to your big sister here. You don’t want to be thrown out of the gondola, do you?”

“W-wah!?”

“Hee hee hee. There, there♪ If only you always let me spoil you like this.”

Oh, no. At this rate, it would look like I had a serious sister complex and was entirely useless in an emergency, but what was I supposed to do while the wind tossed around the gondola at 400m above the ground? That’s just too much!!

And then…

“Look, it’s the moon.”

Ayumi suddenly spoke up. Without the large nametag of her usual tank top, her chest was in a fairly risqué situation at the moment. And Mr. Chicken here looked over while clinging to my soaked older sister’s chest. Ayumi was right. Was this what you called a sunshower…or a moonshower in this case? The round moon was perfectly visible despite the blowing rain.

And.

Was it because of the moonlight?

No, was it because my phone and the moon provided multiple light sources at once?

I once more saw a texture like dry brown frog skin with crop circle patterns dancing atop it. I saw a 150cm mass with a boomerang-like shape. If Maxwell’s report was correct, then this was an intelligent extraterrestrial lifeform. It was surprisingly close by. The luster was clinging to the Skytool’s outer wall right next to the window washing gondola that was slowly lowering while wobbling side to side.

However, that was not the most shocking part.

They were everywhere.

A great number of those sticky things fully covered the wall.

Before I could swallow a gasp, Erika covered my mouth by holding me to her chest.

“(Quiet.)”

The Vampire whispered sweetly in my ear while I was on the verge of panic.

“(They don’t seem to have noticed we can see them. Since they aren’t moving to attack, we should be able to get by if we pretend not to notice. But if we freak out, don’t you think they might all attack at once?)”

She was right.

Now that she mentioned it, the sticky boomerang thing on the whiteboard in the restaurant office had only attacked Ayumi when she moved in close to see what it was. If we hadn’t noticed it, it may have just stayed there on the whiteboard.

I swung my phone’s light from the tower and into the sky before slowly shutting it off. Erika and I actually turned our backs toward the wall covered in those sticky things. The gondola had a weight limit, so if they all jumped on, the wires might snap.

“(Huh, where they there the whole time?)” I asked. “(Were they covering the other side of the glass while we were looking out from the viewing deck?)”

“(I’m not so sure,)” said Erika. “(Their patterns mess with our ability to recognize them, so I doubt light can pass right through them.)”

“(Meaning?)”

“(They might be focused on this one side of the tower. Although if they’re doing it to intentionally overbalance the tower, that’s a problem in its own right.)”

“(?)”

She seemed to be making more progress than me despite no help from a phone or program.

But anyway.

“(Not letting them know we’ve noticed them is of the utmost importance. It would be best not to tell Ayumi-chan. It will look more natural that way.)”

This was just like the urban legend of the Man Under the Bed.

If they realized you had noticed, it was all over.

I used the black glass panel of my phone screen as a mirror to check over my shoulder. With the moonlight as the only light source now, the dry brown with crop circle patterns was vanishing from the wall.

I took a deep breath.

The disaster prevention equipment did not work while the power was out and we were in the middle of this extraordinary bomb cyclone. That was enough of a threat, but there was apparently more. How many of those supposed aliens were covering the tower from top to bottom? Like the straw that breaks the camel’s back, their weight was no laughing matter.

Even from close up, I couldn’t detect any breathing, smell, or heat from them. It was like facing an incorporeal ghost.

Even now, the window washing gondola (which had to weigh more than 100kg) was banging against the broadcast tower wall, but those things did not so much as stir. What the hell? It’s true one had knocked Ayumi down, but until now, they had not seemed as dangerous as a tiger or a lion. And now they had these ridiculous numbers. They had no hunger or survival instincts. They were not even afraid of getting hurt. I had no way to predict what they would do, so I felt a damp chill soaking into my spine. It felt like having my arms and legs strapped to a bizarre cult’s altar and hearing some mysterious chanting. I had no way of knowing if they were preparing me as a sacrifice or getting ready to release me.

Besides.

Why were they ignoring us while we attempted this reckless escape? We had nowhere to run on this narrow gondola, so they could defeat us without having to worry about the Zombie or Vampire using their full strength.

Or were we not their target?

Could they be after the Tokyo Skytool itself?

I glanced behind me using my phone’s blank screen and Erika gently stepped on my foot.

“(Satori-kun.)”

I knew what she meant. As natural as I tried to make the action, it wasn’t natural. I wasn’t struggling to get my soaked and broken phone to work, so it was weird to continue messing with the phone while the screen was off. I knew perfectly well what she meant, but if you could not worry about something just because you were told not to, then you should go to Hollywood and become a movie star. The more you knew you shouldn’t, the more your attention was tugged in that direction.

It wanted to control myself.

I wanted to suppress the fear.

This was probably how the Bright Cross soldiers and researchers had felt when they set cameras up around the city, dug a vast network of underground tunnels, and otherwise prepared for the trouble that “they knew” the Archenemies would cause. Knowing I was acting on the same level as them made me want to vomit, but I couldn’t completely stop the fear and impatience that grew all on its own.

Even though this was my own mind I was talking about.

So I kept doing it. Just like someone repeatedly checking the lock after parking their bicycle in front of a shop.

The one silver lining was how their wriggling presence distracted me from my fear of being on that window washing gondola blowing in the stormy night. If I hadn’t been aware of those things, I probably would have been clinging to Erika or Ayumi and screaming my head off.

But that’s aliens for you…I guess? They may not have known too much about how the humans of earth worked.

Or was it the opposite?

Were they trying their best to not let us notice they had noticed us? Not that we had any way of checking. It was hard to tell who was trying to fool who here.

“I still can’t see anything down below,” said Ayumi while dangerously leaning half her body over the railing despite the blowing rain.

Was she playing dumb, or did she have a talent for forgetting things? Either way, she could not have survived in the Bright Cross’s underground base with nothing but physical strength. She could be dumb, but she always worked hard to survive.

But…wait.

Hold on a second.

“You can’t see anything down there?”

“Yeah. I have good night vision, but it isn’t perfect. How about you, Onee-chan?”

“Unfortunately, while there is plenty of light, the storm is creating a curtain of water.”

…

Yes, that’s right.

The police or the JSDF had shut people out of the Tokyo city center and covered it in darkness to seal off the sticky boomerangs that could slip past our recognition using their weird patterns.

Then was this really over once we escaped the Tokyo Skytool?

In fact.

What were things like on the surface?

If there were that many aliens on the single broadcast tower, then how many were there in that dark world below?

The fear rose up within me.

It was like my stomach alone was pushing up to fight back as my body sank into the darkness. A scream threatened to escape from my throat and it took all my strength to push it back down into my warm stomach.

Shaking my head in protest was not going to change anything at this point. No electronic commands could reach the window washing gondola. That was why we had pulled the manual lever to slowly release the wire from the reel and let gravity take us down.

Now that it had started, going back up was no longer an option.

A change came over the powerful wind whirling around the area. Our gondola had finally lowered into the forest of buildings. The area around the Skytool was a surprisingly low-lying area, so the buildings were not very tall. That meant we had descended a good ways. I had so longed to reach the surface, but now it felt like sinking into the dark sea with concrete solidified around my hands and feet.

“I can see it,” said Ayumi. “Fuguu, I can see the wet ground.”

But was she seeing everything that was there? I didn’t know how it worked, but we really couldn’t see those things with just our eyes. Even if the ground looked peaceful, it could be covered in those 150cm sticky things like a marsh of bottomless sludge.

We had pressed the gun to our temple and pulled the trigger, but we were only now being faced with the result of that Russian roulette game. Opening or closing our eyes was not going to change what happened.

We sank.

We sank and sank and sank.

And then we heard an especially loud metallic clang.

“We’ve…arrived, haven’t we?”

Erika’s anticlimactic tone seemed to say it all.

This was not an asphalt road. It was the giant facility with a shopping mall and aquarium that covered the first five floors of the Skytool. We seemed to be on a large rooftop garden built atop that five-story structure. Grass and tiles covered that artificial land to create something like a park. We were on that hard tile.

The gondola had arrived and come to a stop almost too easily. I thought we might have crushed those sticky frog-skinned things and splattered their slime around or have them rush in at us from every direction, but…no?

The ground really was wide open? Or were they leaving us alone to test whether or not we had noticed them? I couldn’t exactly celebrate when I didn’t know that.

But there was no time for that regardless.

That was because of another sound altogether.

Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak.

The Skytool screamed just like before except far louder and heavier. I looked up without thinking and that was when it happened.

I felt a sharp pain in my cheek.

I rubbed it with the back of my hand and saw a red liquid mixed in with the rain.

“Satori-kun!?”

“Something’s, fugu, something’s falling!”

?

My sisters were panicking, but I wasn’t sure what had happened to me.

Both my ankles were tugged to the side.

No, was it the entire gondola that was tugged to the side? While I rolled across the wet tile, I saw the side of the gondola swinging like a playground swing or a Buddhist temple bell ringer.

“Onii-…!?”

There was no time to hear Ayumi’s cry to the end. She tugged on my arm so forcefully I thought she would dislocate my shoulder and I just barely avoided the mass of stainless steel.

That was not due to the wind.

Had the tower itself bent and swung the gondola around? The disconcerting creaking was still continuing. Burst screws and bolts must have been falling down because I saw orange sparks scattering on the tile. I couldn’t just focus on what was above us. The rain was blowing in from the side, so the tower’s wreckage could be blown right back at us like a boomerang.

Yes.

The fragments made as the Tokyo Skytool broke apart.

“It’s…falling.”

In other words.

In other words.

“The Skytool is falling!! Dammit, Maxwell, create a new stimulation task ASAP! Which way is it going to fall!?”

[Mobile Temp] Preparation Standards for Work in Elevated Areas [File 05]

Supervisors must ensure that all their personnel are familiar with and strictly obey the following rules. If any problems occur due to a failure to communicate, the legal department will place responsibility on the supervisor’s shoulders, so keep that in mind.

1. Safety equipment such as helmets and lifelines must be used and checked over by at least three people including the wearer.

2. Personnel may not bring personal items with them, including in pockets. All equipment necessary for work must be attached via safety belts and must only be used after confirming the safety net covers that area.

3. For screws, bolts, and other small equipment that cannot be attached via safety belts, confirm that the safety net covers that area, contact the ground team via radio to ensure no one has entered the estimated danger zone below, and only then remove them from the designated container with the utmost care.

Whether intentional or accidental, any personnel who violate the above rules will be immediately removed from the work site. Potential energy changes based on altitude. Do not forget how dangerous even the small screw or bolt in your hand can become if it falls from a height of 400-600 meters.

Chapter 4

There was no time to think.

There was not even time to be afraid of those slimy aliens with frog-like skin the color of dry grass.

My mind was full of terror. The dark and the storm kept me from seeing the top of the broadcast tower above us.

“Dammit, which way is it going to fall!?”

Staying inside a building would be safer than blindly heading outside.

I understood the reasoning. It was probably accurate and without fault.

But only when the standard assumptions still applied.

If that 650m mass of glass and steel beams collapsed like a giant’s club swinging down, what building could stop it? None of them could. Not in a world where a screw could pierce right through my body. The buildings around here would only be crushed, reinforced concrete and all!!

Indoors and outdoors was the same. If we stayed put, we were dead. We would be slaughtered. That severely limited our options.

“Run away, Ayumi, Erika! We have to run away!!”

If it simply fell in one piece, it would cover 650m. If it broke apart in midair and the wind carried the shower of shards, it would cover an even wider area. Making a mad dash directly away from the Skytool probably would not be enough.

I had to think about it.

“Run against the wind!”

Ayumi’s eyes bugged out as her track jacket flapped in the wind.

“Fugu. Onii-chan, what are you talking about!? The storm is nearly blowing you off your feet, so we’ll never make it far like that!!”

“Did you forget the wind will carry all the shards, Ayumi!? Actual physical distance isn’t what matters. If we run upwind, the odds of having something fall on us are a lot lower. Isn’t that right, Maxwell!?”

“Sure. But since the actual terrain is not flat, continuing to run in any one direction will be difficult. Plus, the winds intertwine complexly thanks to all the buildings, so understanding which direction is ‘upwind’ will not be so easy.”

While I read that text on the screen, I felt powerful grips on both my shoulders. Needless to say, that was my sisters. I had said we needed to run against the wind, so…

“Waaahh!? That’s pretty much a cliff!!”

“The Skytool’s base is a 5-story mall, so we’ll find this drop-off no matter which way we go, Onii-chan.”

Yeah, but…

“So let’s do our best to survive, Satori-kun. Go! Let’s go!☆”

“Wait, wait! That’s five stories! That’s taller than a school building!!”

My struggling was useless with an Archenemy holding me from either side.

The pull of gravity seemed to suddenly vanish.

I could tell we had jumped over the railing.

But, um, what was this?

It was pitch black below, so I couldn’t tell how high up we were! Did we have 10cm to go or a few dozen meters!? I couldn’t brace myself when I couldn’t see!!

“Awaabfwah!?”

I had intended to scream for a while longer than that, but we landed unexpectedly soon. I once more used my phone’s backlight to check on the ground below my feet. I wanted to know I was safe and I knew there was a greater threat to think about right now, but if I didn’t check, I swear my heart would have stopped.

We had supposedly been 5 stories up, but this made sense once I thought about it. There were other houses and buildings as well, so we had apparently ended up on some other rooftop.

I did not have time to calm my pounding heart. With the sound of sizzling air, a few strands of my bangs scattered. I also heard a horrific sound at my feet like a thick wood board had cracked apart. It took me a second to realize what had happened. A bolt or something had fallen from high in the sky!!

A hand reached me from a torn sleeve.

“Let’s go!”

“Wait, hey, Erika!?”

Why did Erika’s usually elegant voice sound so panicked? I should have used my head more and questioned what she must have seen with her vampiric night vision.

In the pouring rain of the storm, my sisters jumped from the roof while still moving against the blowing wind.

It was like a bombing.

With a deafening roar, the building roof we had left sank down. It vanished. No, several steel beams thicker than railroad rails had fallen on it and crushed the entire building!?

Fear clutched at my heart, but we were in the air again. We could not return to the spot we had just left.

More and more sounds if impact rang out as the collapse of buildings and houses seemed to trigger a chain reaction. The thick darkness obscuring the view may have been a good thing in this case. If I had seen how high up we were or the destruction all around us, my hips would definitely have given out.

“Damn, there’s this much falling debris even when we’re move against the wind!?”

Creeeeeeeeeak.

The collapsing Skytool raised a death cry. The glass, the steel beams, and all other falling objects were influenced by the blowing wind. We were upwind and the amount of debris should have been smallest here, so what kind of hell would someone downwind be experiencing!?

“Warning.”

Just as I was wondering that, words appeared on my phone’s screen.

I was trying to give myself some guilt-free relief by forcing even greater misfortune upon some hypothetical person, but apparently that counted as tempting fate.

“The wind current overhead has changed. It appears to be developing an S-like twist from top to bottom.”

“Huh?”

“Simply put, there is a much greater risk now that the top of the Tokyo Skytool will fall towards you. This qualifies as an extreme warning.”

“Wha-, bu-, waaaaait!?”

My sisters picked me up and jumped, so there was nothing I could do. I felt us land on a shorter building somewhere, but that solid feeling suddenly sank down and vanished. The steel beams and whatever else crashed down, broke through, and smashed up the flat footing we had found. We were all dragged inside the building like an antlion pit. I heard an unpleasantly soft sound amid it all, so was that one of those slimy boomerangs?

I may have been lucky the antlion pit did not shred my flesh and blood with the rebar or jagged concrete pieces jutting out from the edges.

“Gh.”

Erika groaned, but she did not seem to be injured. Vampires couldn’t enter homes without permission from the owner, right? That may still have had some effect even if the house had collapsed into ruins.

But this was not over yet.

Steel and glass continued to fall from high in the sky, so a concrete roof over our heads did not mean much. If we happened to be in the exact spot something fell, it would pierce us along with the building. We had to move. If we came to a stop, we were as good as dead.

“Pant, pant, pant.”

I could not even speak. I waved my phone’s backlight around randomly to find us in the corridor of what looked more like a multi-tenant building than an apartment. The narrow corridor was piled so high with cardboard boxes and beer cases I had to question whether it had followed the fire code in the first place, but the concrete rubble had also half buried it and a small waterfall of rainwater was getting in thanks to the storm.

There was no time to worry if we were making the right decision.

Ayumi the Zombie pulled on my hand and we ran through the half-destroyed building. The shape of her small butt showed right through her white shorts, but I was too panicked to focus on that. It did not at all feel like we had escaped inside a sturdy building. Yes, it was more like being inside a cave as it threatened to collapse. With each heavy sound that erupted nearby, the ceiling or walls would collapse toward us. The piles of rubble moved almost like living things and we were done for if they managed to bite our wrist or ankle.

“What are we supposed to do now!?”

“Run to the window! Then jump out!!”

Erika was probably trying to motivate me, but the thought only scared me. Jump out? What floor was this? Even if this was a short multi-tenant building, we had fallen through the roof, meaning this was the top floor!

But then a thick steel beam broke through the ceiling directly behind us, cutting off any other route. I stumbled a bit and lost my balance right in front of the starting line. It was no use. I could not go on or head back.

“Waaahhh!!”

I had done my very best.

Yet for some reason, my vision dropped straight down.

Oh, no. Had that steel beam broken the floor apart!?

Erika seemed to notice what happened to me, but she had already jumped out the window. Fortunately, Ayumi had found a way to come rescue me. No, wait. She had simply stopped at the last second and fallen with me!!

“Dbh, bh, Ayumi.”

“The rainwater is pouring down like a waterfall, so you’ll drown if you open your mouth, Onii-chan. Here, this way.”

I couldn’t believe this. What floor were we on now?

Rubble blocked every single horizontal direction while the ceiling and floor were full of holes. Plus, everything was still pitch black. This felt like a maze, but one where the entire building could collapse at any moment.

“The water pouring in is too strong to climb back up. It’s a pain, but we’ll have to head down to the ground.”

“It’s that bad? Even with your Zombie strength?”

“Get Maxwell to calculate out how hard climbing up a waterfall is. Even on a normal slope, this wouldn’t be possible.”

Not to mention that climbing higher was a bad idea on its own. Instead of attempting a death-defying jump from up there, wouldn’t it be safer and faster to head down to the surface?

Even now, screws, nails, glass, steel beams, and those strange slimy brown things were pouring down. We just could not see it from here. If we stayed here, we only increased the risk of being caught in the collapse when a direct hit inevitably brought the building down. We had only had one option ever since the roof had been broken through. If we did not stay on the move, we could not avoid being hit.

“Okay, Ayumi. Let’s head to the ground.”

“Do you really understand what that means? Things are dangerous down there, too.”

“?”

I was puzzled, but now was not the time to play a riddle game with my stepsister whose wet white tank top was plastered to her chest. She tugged on my hand as we ran down the dark and half-crushed corridor. I shined my phone’s light around to search for the stairs or a sufficiently large hole in the floor. We could hear near-constant violent impacts from the floor above. Needless to say, that came from the many falling objects.

After descending three floors, we finally arrived on the first floor. Which was when I discovered lukewarm water rising up nearly to my hips. It caught me off guard, so my lower body was hit by an uncomfortable wetness, like I had pissed my pants.

“What, it’s flooded!?”

“Of course it is when the rain’s coming down like this. Onii-chan, once we’re outside, watch out for the ‘landmines’ in the muddy water. There will be screws, nails, and glass, but also steel beams being carried by the current. It’ll be just like those logs used as battering rams in old samurai dramas.”

“Y-you’re kidding. What good is watching out for something you can’t see!? I’m not psychic!!”

“Do you think we have time now to climb up onto the smashed rooftop? Don’t let go of my hand, okay!? Here goes!”

With the floodwaters nearly up to my hips, the door would not budge whether we pushed or pulled. Once Ayumi used her Zombie strength to break it with a kick, the water rushed in with even greater force.

Was this for real!? It was a legitimately powerful current! We might as well have been drowning in a river here! Why did everything that idiot Ayumi did eventually come down to brute force!?

“Ghh, I’m slipping to the side.”

“No, Onii-chan! Don’t try to swim to make it easier! Once your feet are off the ground, you’ll never be able to stand up again!!”

We argued while a large mass of black leather was swept in from upstream in the current formed by the many small streams arriving around all the obstacles.

It was Erika floating in a sprawled-out pose.

“Oh, no!!”

“Oh, right. Vampires have trouble with flowing water, don’t they?”

How could Ayumi sound so calm!? I frantically grabbed Erika’s slender wrist and pulled her toward me. Floating in the water made her fairly light.

But wait. Huh?

“This could be bad. The Tokyo Skytool was right next to the Sumida River, wasn’t it? I have no idea where it is with all the water everywhere, but if we run across it, won’t it act like a wall in the way!?”

“No,” said Maxwell. “The Tokyo Skytool is located where another river branches off of the Sumida River. In other words, it on the inside of a Y-shape. If the flowing water of a river or the ocean are off limits, then you only have one available direction left.”

“A-and which way is that?”

“The exact opposite side of the Skytool from your current location. Also, the larger Arakawa River is waiting for you in that direction.”

So were we really and truly screwed!?

However, Ayumi tilted her head in an oddly cute way for a Zombie who was taking the full brunt of the raging current and whose clothes had grown fairly see-through.

“But Onee-chan rode the bus with us on the way here. She crossed the bridge just fine then.”

“…?”

“The world’s most famous Transylvanian count slept within his coffin while traveling down a river by boat,” said Maxwell.

Come to think of it, there had been a few times on the bus ride that Erika had fallen asleep like a switch had been thrown. I had assumed it was because we chose a night bus for her sake, but night and day should have been reversed for a Vampire anyway. Had that been her way off crossing the rivers?

A long trip like this may have been a frightening thing for her. Her gothic lolita dress and leather pants were like a heavy-duty riding suit, so they were somewhat different from what she normally wore.

So…

“We have to do this while she’s still dizzy. Onii-chan, let’s drag Onee-chan over the river.”

“Do idiots ever stop relying on brute force?”

My phone’s light was just about the only light around. We had no idea what was flowing in the hip-deep muddy water, a manhole cover could have been lifted from the opening, and there could be a ditch nearby. We also did not know where the river in question actually was. I had endless reasons to fear that cold water.

But I certainly hadn’t expected an explosion to erupt far too close for comfort. Orange flames blossomed and I felt a prickling heat like when you stood too near the stove.

“Bwah!? Wh-what!?”

“A tank of propane or something was floating there. Staying here isn’t going to end well, Onii-chan!”

We were in the water, but we had to worry about fire elemental attacks? And it did not look like this had been just a tank or two stored behind someone’s house. Was it a collection of several from an apartment complex, or had a truck been transporting a full shipment of them? More and more of them exploded while the danger zone crept ever closer.

“Crap. Crap, crap, crap!!”

It was not like the previous dangers had gone away. Even now, countless glass shards and steel beams were pouring down from above, the hip-deep current carried dangerous objects, and we still did not know what those dry brown, crop circle-y, slimy things were. But it turned out human minds were not that strong.

All that danger was wiped from my mind.

It was overwritten by something else.

If I was caught in one of those explosive blossoms, it was all over. I kept my grip on Erika’s slender shoulders while Ayumi and I followed the current to distance ourselves from the army of propane tanks. I had struggled with Erika’s weight on the elevator, but I could handle her with one hand while she floated limply in the water.

“It’s too dangerous out here. We need to get inside a building somewhere!”

“What about the steel beams falling from above, Onii-chan?”

Some kind of large bubble burst up ahead of us. I thought maybe a manhole cover had been forced up, but that was not it.

I could see its eyes.

Its eyes? What’s eyes???

What home had that thing escaped from!?

“Watch out, Ayumi! It’s a croc! There’s a white croc there!”

“Oh, iiis there?”

“You don’t have to get all competitive just because it’s a monster known for its bite! We need to get inside a building!”

“And again, we don’t have time to travel along the rooftops! If we stay in one spot for too long, the steel beams will hit us! Plus, we’d have to carry Onee-chan around with us!”

“I’m not interested in the rooftop!!”

I rushed over to the window of an already-broken house, but I wasn’t climbing inside. It was probably as dark and flooded as an undersea cave in there. The current would be even more complex and there could be household tools like saws or kitchen knives floating around.

I wanted something else.

“Get on, Ayumi! We can use this storm shutter as a raft!!”

“Fugu?”

“If it’s not buoyant enough, we can tie on buckets or plastic tanks. I want to see if it sinks with all three of us on it!”

What was it made of? Aluminum? Stainless steel? Either way, getting the storm shutter to float on the water like a surfboard was not easy. I held it in both hands so it wouldn’t be swept away by the current while Ayumi placed Erika on top. Then the two of us climbed on as well.

“It’s…floating?”

Ayumi was on all fours and extremely cautious.

Good. By matching Ayumi’s movements while staying at the opposite angle from her, it wouldn’t suddenly capsize on us. Once things had calmed down more, I could get after her about how the shape of her butt showed through those skintight white shorts.

“If we just want to follow the current, this is faster than swimming and we don’t have to worry about the rebar and glass in the current. Here, Ayumi.”

I reached for an aluminum clothesline pole floating in the water and handed it to my little sister.

“We have no rudder, so you’ll have to direct us by pushing off the ground with this pole. Listen, only use it to change directions. Don’t try to fight the current.”

“Even with my Zombie strength?”

“That thing was floating in the water. It’s only meant to let clothes dry over it, so use too much force and it’ll break.”

The raft was moving as we spoke, so we couldn’t wait around. What else did we have to do? Oh, right.

“If things look even a little dangerous, immediately abandon the raft and jump off. We don’t know where the Skytool’s steel beams will fall, after all. This thing is convenient, but don’t hesitate because of it.”

“Whoa.”

Ayumi was struggling with the clothesline pole. What was that biting at the other end of it? It looked like a tropical fish of some kind. I didn’t know its name, but it did look bigger than a piranha!

“Do you still want to jump back in the water, Onii-chan?”

“What is wrong with Tokyo’s rare pet lovers? If it comes to it, weigh the risks. Would you rather deal with what’s in the water or the steel beam falling like a meteor?”

At this point, we were talking about choosing between an instant and painless death or having to watch out body gradually eaten alive. Measuring the extent of the damage was no longer enough. No, wait. I had to stay strong. Ranking different deaths against each other was a waste of time. I had to focus on ways to survive.

And while I hesitated from that, a speech bubble appeared on my phone.

“Warning.”

For some reason, I doubted this was good news.

Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak.

I was used to hearing that noise by now, but it was so much louder this time!! Ayumi and I looked up toward the Tokyo Skytool’s scream and saw something very odd.

For a brief moment, it looked like the torrential rain had stopped.

“Fugu!? The Skytool is blocking the sky!!”

The wind was blowing too, so that “ceiling” did not fully block out the rain. Still, this was on the same scale as a god splitting the ocean and creating mountains!!

It was coming.

Not just the sprinkling of steel beams. This time, the full 650m Tokyo Skytool would be falling toward us!

Should we remain on the raft?

Should we jump into the water?

“Ayumi, get us over to the wall!!”

There may not have been a right answer.

As soon as she used the clothesline pole to push the raft against the concrete wall of a multi-tenant building, an explosive boom sounded overhead.

The entire steel tower had crashed into the building rooftop!?

Against that weight and height, the building’s reinforced concrete might as well have been sponge, but it still bought us some short time. The multi-tenant building itself seemed to sink down as it held up that massive weight. Various pieces of debris shot out like a mille-feuille crushed from above in a careless attempt to slice it with a fork, but this was still better than taking a direct hit from the Skytool’s viewing deck.

The raft was traveling through a tunnel-like space.

I could only lie on top of our defenselessly sleeping older sister while shouting at my little sister.

“This won’t last. Ayumi, get us out of here before the building is entirely crushed!!”

“I’m trying but – argh! – this thing is way too weak! The clothesline pole is bending!!”

The reinforced concrete building was squishing down like butter left in the car during midsummer.

Would we make it out?

Or wouldn’t we?

“Enough, Ayumi. Grab Erika and jump-…”

“Fuguu! Not yet!!”

She gave up on the bent pole and instead moved her legs which were showing off the stitches up to the base of her thighs. She pressed the soles of her shoes against the building wall and kicked off.

The Zombie Archenemy had ten times the muscular strength of a human.

The raft quickly picked up speed.

We slipped out of the tunnel of steel beams and rubble.

Just then, a powerful shock shook my body. Instead of the entire broadcast tower, a part of the exterior had apparently broken apart.

“Fugu!?”

“Oh, hell. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”

We had survived the big piece falling, but the steel beams falling now were much more numerous than before. We picked up too much speed, bumped into a beam sticking up from the water, and got stuck there.

“Just getting through here isn’t enough. We need to give up on following the current.”

“Give up? But what else can-”

Ayumi trailed off.

It looked like the Tokyo Skytool had fully collapsed now. That meant the falling objects problem was almost entirely gone. No more glass or steel beams would rain down on us.

Thus, the remaining threats were the things hidden in the water: the dangerous pets and the debris that acted like mines or caltrops.

Which meant…

“The Skytool.”

“Yeah, it acts like a giant bridge while lying on its side.”

The giant mass of steel beams had collapsed at an angle, knocking over the houses and multi-tenant buildings in its way. But it had not completely sunk to the surface. Traveling along it would be the best way of keeping out of the water.

“You can only hope those unidentified creatures are not clinging to it,” said Maxwell.

“Oh, right. Them. What even were they, anyway?”

Even with this abnormal weather, it seemed unlikely some wind and rain would be enough to knock over the country’s largest broadcast tower. That tragedy had only occurred because those boomerang things with froggy skin had clung to one side to overbalance it.

“Fugu. So what do we do?”

“Can you carry Erika, Ayumi? Whether those things are Archenemies or not, I doubt they could still be clinging to the tower after that fall. They had to have been knocked off.”

Those were not the only dangerous animals out here. Traveling through the floodwaters would be a lot more dangerous.

Now.

Even if it had been crushed, there was no way we could get on top of the collapsed tower by climbing up the outside wall in this blowing rain. If we could use stairs, we needed to use them as far as they would take us. I took the clothesline pole from Ayumi and stirred up the bottom of the floodwaters nearby. There was no sign of sharp glass or rebar. Nor did any dangerous pets bite at it. Okay, I was still scared, but now was our chance!

“Let’s go, Ayumi!”

“Fugu!”

I threw myself into the muddy water. During a disaster like this, there were no guarantees. We could only choose what was “relatively better” and death was a very real possibility on both sides of the scales.

We wanted a house that was near our makeshift boat, directly contacting the collapsed tower, looked like its stairs would still be usable, and that had a broken entrance since the water pressure would make opening the door nearly impossible. We were lucky to find just the one place that matched all those conditions and we waded through the hip-deep muddy water to get inside.

“It’s dark. Again. Will my phone’s battery last?”

“If you wish to preserve the charge, I would recommend avoiding any unnecessary commands,” replied Maxwell.

It was a small home spread out across three floors due Tokyo’s limited land. But the first floor was flooded and the ceiling was bowing. The place would be uninhabitable after this.

But on the other hand, there really was no one here, just like in that multi-tenant building. That felt especially weird in an ordinary living space like this.

“Where are the stairs? We need to get as high up as we can. Come with me, Ayumi.”

The stairs were soaked too. They had taken the brunt of the steel tower hit and looked half crushed from the outside. Rain was pouring down like a waterfall from a large hole in the roof.

That was a tragedy for the house, but it made a valuable relay point for us to safely reach the tower. We used my phone’s light to carefully climb the creaking wooden stairs.

Once on the second floor, we had escaped the hip-deep water. The threat of attack from a dangerous pet was not entirely gone. Carnivorous fish were not the only things that could swim in that water. Venomous snakes and crocs could swim too.

“But to put it another way, we know we have a source of food if we need it.”

“Fuguu. I don’t like the sound of that. I’m a Zombie, but you’re the one that always eats the weirdest things. You always go for the bizarre foods on our family trips.”

Ayumi was purely carnivorous and Erika had to consume blood products and plasma substitutes, so they seemed more careful about what they ate than most people. Humans, on the other hand, were omnivores who could eat anything.

But we had more to discuss than food.

“Look, Ayumi, I found a towel. Dry yourself off, okay?”

“Why bother when we’re headed right back into the rain? That’s like a shower, so what does this muddy water matter?”

She looked puzzled, but I placed the towel over her twintailed head anyway.

Amatsu Ayumi had not picked up on her big brother’s concerns. Those jogging clothes were thin enough already, but soaking them with water made it so much worse! She needed to dry off and cover up!! This did not even have the protection of the nametag like her gym clothes did!! Erika was passed out and defenseless (while wearing a thick outfit with a lot of black leather), so how did she seem more ladylike here!?

And.

To be blunt, staying here and waiting for rescue did not sound realistic. With the Skytool fallen, the only direct threats were the storm and the floodwaters. It kind of looked like we would be fine if we got inside a sturdy building and stayed well off the ground.

But that only worked if we could find a sturdy building around here. This house was half-destroyed and could collapse at any moment.

Plus.

Our family had unique issues in situations like this. Because two of us were Archenemies. A Vampire like Erika was weak to sunlight and a Zombie like Ayumi would start to rot if she stayed in unhygienic places for long. We could not stay in this building with holes everywhere that would let the sun and the storm in. We could not survive here.

So no matter what, we had to escape to a safe location before dawn. Where exactly we could find that safe place was the real question here, but we at least needed to get away from the Skytool. This was Tokyo’s city center. If it was this empty, there had to be largescale shelters set up somewhere else. At this point, those shelters seemed like Penglai or El Dorado.

All of this was buzzing in my mind as we climbed to the third floor.

There was no ceiling.

Broken wood beams were scattered about and the entire third floor had been crushed down to half its height. The oppressive atmosphere clutched at my heart. A complex arrangement of steel beams lay across the third floor while half embedded in the cheap-looking inner walls and wood flooring. That was the Tokyo Skytool. The scale was so different I had trouble grasping its shape at first.

It felt kind of like having a bridge extending out from the third-floor balcony, I guess.

The white-painted steel beams were as thick as a concrete telephone pole. The cross section was round instead of square. That would be hard enough to climb on under the best of circumstances, so how bad would it be while slick with rain?

I hesitantly touched a cold steel beam and walked across the mess of a floor to reach the edge of the crumbled outer wall.

I did not have time to look down.

A gust of wind smacked me in the face like a solid blow and I nearly fell back onto my ass.

“Whoa!?”

Had the wind always been this strong!? I couldn’t believe I had been walking around outside with that blowing in my face. The short time spent inside must have reset my senses to normal.

The tower had looked like a sturdy bridge when looking up from below, but to reiterate, the individual steel beams were only as thick as telephone poles. There were no railings, they were slick with rain, and the wind was blowing unpredictably. Let your guard down for a second and you’d fall.

It scared me that this was the relatively safe route, but complaining about this was not going to make the surface route through the floodwaters any less difficult. Needless to say, the many sharp obstacles, the dangerous pets, and the propane tanks would lead to an even greater tragedy than this.

“Fuguu. What should we do, Onii-chan?”

“I don’t think we have a choice.”

That was when I remembered Ayumi could not use her hands while carrying Erika on her back. Even if the tower was made up of a complex arrangement of intersecting beams, there was no way you could walk across it without using your hands.

That meant we needed some way of freeing up her hands. Would a plastic rope work? If not, we could wrap duct tape around them several times over. Zombies apparently had ten times the strength of humans. Ten people would be enough to lift someone up, so if Erika was bound to her back as if in a baby carrier, she would be able to move around just fine.

“Ugh.”

That was when we finally heard something from Erika’s alluring lips.

“Ayumi…-chan? And Satori-kun too.”

“Sorry, Erika. The situation isn’t looking much better. We’re still in the middle of a flooded area. Maxwell, check a baby products site. See how the ropes are arranged to distribute the weight and run a simulation.”

My blonde ringlet curls sister took a few deep breaths to calm herself and she finally climbed down from Ayumi’s small back. She may have looked so pained because we had carried her into someone’s house without permission.

“I’m…fine. I can’t fight like this, but I can walk slowly while propping myself up with a hand.”

“Onee-chan, don’t fight your Vampire nature here!”

“I more or less heard what we’re doing. You’re crossing that, aren’t you? That won’t be easy, even for Ayumi-chan.”

“Fugu.”

“But the biggest threat is to you, Erika. Fine, change of plans. We can play trains instead.”

Strapping her to Ayumi’s back would indeed be safest, but I didn’t want any conflict between us during this disaster. I wanted to respect her opinion whenever possible.

“We’ll all tie this plastic rope around our waist. It’s a lifeline. If any one of us slips and falls, the other two can brace themselves and pull the fallen one back up. Got that?”

If our timing was poor, one person falling could instead drag the other two down with them, but it was best not to mention that. The Zombie and Vampire had extraordinary strength, but their weight was no different from that of a lovely girl, so I wanted to believe I could handle this as long as they did not both fall at once.

Still, this was not a sure thing.

We had to choose the relatively better option.

“Erika, raise your hands so I can wrap this around your waist. By the way, how much do you weigh?”

“F-forty-seven…”

“Fuguu!? Pay attention to what you’re saying! And that’s lighter than me!? You have to weigh more than that. I can feel your weight on my back, and I seriously doubt it’s all your waterlogged dress!”

“This is an emergency, so it really isn’t the time to lie about your weight, my curvy sister. Okay, Maxwell, make an estimate using the VR player data from the past simulations. You can estimate her eating and exercise habits too if you want. Just tell me how much heavier she is now!”

“You two? We need to have a serious chat once all this is over.”

We formed a line with me in front, Erika in the middle, and Ayumi in the rear. The most unsteady and risky one was Erika since she was affected by the flowing water as a Vampire. I wanted her in the spot where she could recover most easily.

To be honest, only she knew how much she could fight this weakness. I had used the water weakness as a surprise attack to cause the 13 Eastern European Families to pass out…but that had all happened in a hallucination caused by that Voodoo Bokor. There was no guarantee it would work like that in reality. Could a Vampire overcome it if they steeled themselves and went for it, or were they doomed to pass out regardless? I had to keep an eye on her.

My phone’s light was simply absorbed by the darkness up ahead, so we could not see how far the collapsed tower extended.

“Maxwell, I’m going to put my phone in my pocket. I don’t think I can do this with just one hand.”

“Sure. I know it is trite, but take care.”

“Okay, let’s get going, you two.”

“Understood…”

“Fugu.”

We hesitantly and carefully set off.

I used both hands to grab another steel beam running by at about face level and gradually slid the rubber soles of my shoes forward to take the first step. Once we started on this route, there was no turning back. Nor could we stay in place. Fortunately, walking along the collapsed tower did not mean we would have to continue this tightrope walk for a nonstop 650m. The shock of the fall was bound to have broken it into multiple pieces and we could take breaks when we arrived at the roofs of the houses or multi-tenant buildings that acted as bridge supports.

We couldn’t let the big picture scare us.

We couldn’t let the scale overwhelm us.

We could take it a step at a time. Just like someone kicking a pebble to the next manhole over and over on the way to school. If we made sure to avoid any mistakes at each step along the way, we could achieve a new record. This was entirely doable.

First, we had to reach the top of a multi-tenant building that looked at most 20m away.

Then a gust of wind blew in from the side like an invisible mass.

My little sister’s track jacket swelled out.

“Fuguu!?”

“It’s okay, Ayumi. Stop moving and hold your ground! If a human like me can do, then there’s no way it can overpower you!”

The other beam we were using like a railing did not run parallel to the one we were walking on. It was gradual, but it was angled downwards. I did remember hearing the Skytool had a unique design. I hoped that small margin of error wouldn’t cause problems down the road.

The wind wildly changed directions and intensities. When I gripped the steel beam and clenched my teeth to steady my feet, I ended up looking down. I saw the dark torrent below. A height of three stories could be deadly. Hip deep water did not seem like enough to cancel out the impact.

But.

“What? There’s something weird about the water’s current.”

Was this only noticeable when viewed from above?

Or could I see so little without my phone’s light that I had started seeing things?

My phone vibrated in my pocket…but no. I needed both my hands right now, so I couldn’t read Maxwell’s message.

“The wind has died down, Satori-kun.”

“Okay, let’s keep going a step at a time. First, to that building there. We’re about halfway there, so 10 more meters.”

Could we make it?

We could.

It wasn’t that far.

“Made it! Yes!!”

“Kyah!?”

“Erik- khhh!!”

Just as I set foot on the edge of the half-crushed multi-tenant building, I did not even have time to turn around. I heard a sharp scream from Erika and then my vision blurred. I knew it wasn’t possible, but it felt all the world like someone had grabbed me by the torso and performed a belly-to-back suplex on me.

Oh, right! The rope around my waist!

After realizing I was being tugged backwards, I quickly swung my hands around. I felt something hard and did everything I could to hold on tight to the fallen tower’s steel beam.

My gut hurt like its contents were being squeezed out of me, but I finally managed to look back.

I saw Erika’s face a step lower than me.

Of course, there were no actual steps here. She was simply dangling from the same rope wrapped around my waist.

“Erika, are you okay?”

“Pant, pant. Sorry, Satori-kun.”

“Ayumi, are you okay too!?”

“What good are you, Onii-chan? If I hadn’t braced myself, both of you would have fallen together.”

Ayumi could apparently pull Erika up on her own. But that would probably hurt her stomach, so I kept one hand on the steel beam and reached my other hand out to Erika. That would distribute the weight. With the weight on any one point lessened, the rope wouldn’t dig into her as much.

Slowly but surely, Ayumi pulled Erika up.

“S-sorry. I really am sorry, you two. When I saw Satori-kun reach the rooftop, the relief hit me. Even though I was still on the beam.”

“Fugu. These things happen.”

“And quit apologizing. You would have saved either of us if the situation was reversed. This was nothing special.”

Even as I spoke, I realized she might feel this way because of who she was. She was used to saving people, but she may not have been used to being saved herself.

But anyway.

We had arrived at the first checkpoint: the half-collapsed multi-tenant building rooftop. We could cross the fallen broadcast tower. We had proven it and set a precedent. So could we just repeat the process? Ayumi did not look happy as she stared into the distance with her soaked white tank top and shorts plastered to her skin.

“Fugu. But, Onii-chan, how far do we have to go to reach the goal?”

“Well, all the people who lived here must have been evacuated somewhere. Or they at least went somewhere where it isn’t flooded.”

“But where exactly is that?”

Damn, I didn’t have an answer to that. We had too little information. Where was the goal? The pursuit of comfort and convenience had left the city center full of artificial things, but it had to have some slopes and height differences. I wanted to believe this was not a case of all 23 wards being wiped out and the entire Kantou Plain being flooded.

Then my phone vibrated so much it made a loud buzzing sound.

“Oh, right. Maxwell.”

“I doubt you can start a fire in this storm, so I suppose this is the perfect chance to strip off your clothes to warm each other up. If you would like to get to know your wet and see-through sisters a little better, I will go kill some time in some corner of the internet or another.”

“Quit sulking. If that’s really all you have to say, I’m throwing this phone right in the water.”

“I wish to discuss that very water.” Several speech bubbles appeared from Maxwell. “You noticed something odd about the current before and you were correct. There appears to have been a change in the currents around the wreckage of the Tokyo Skytool.”

“Fugu? Why? Did all the debris clog up the path it was using before???”

“No. Quite the opposite, in fact. Things have been cleared out quite a bit. When compared to the map data, the water level has clearly dropped, as if a line has been drawn at the border of the Y-shape formed by the Sumida River and its branch. The flooding on the surface is being swallowed up along the path of the river.”

Erika had elegantly sat down, but she looked woozy simply seeing the word “river”. She must have pushed herself pretty hard. Ayumi and I supported her shoulders as we continued the discussion.

“But, Maxwell, I thought the Sumida River had flooded already?”

“No. The flooding had multiple sources, including backflow from the manholes and rainwater gathering in low-lying areas. Also, the currents we are seeing now were not present before the tower collapsed.”

“You mean…oh, I get it.”

“Fugu?”

“Sure. Just like the Tama River and the Arakawa River, the Sumida River has a largescale utility conduit built below it for disaster response purposes. If there is too much rainwater on the surface, it can be directed underground instead. The floodgates built alongside the river have likely been opened to guide the water in there.”

“Basically, it’s like pulling the drainplug at the bottom of the bath, Ayumi.”

“What? Why do that now? They left the city to flood! Why not do that in the first place!?”

“There are a number of reasons why they couldn’t, but…Maxwell, do you think it was the Skytool’s collapse that triggered it?”

“I cannot say for certain as I have not infiltrated the servers of the meteorological agency or water department, but most likely. The Tokyo Skytool was the final fortress worth anything in the flooded Sumida area.”

“What does that mean?”

“Listen, Ayumi,” I said. “If you pull the drainplug, all the bathwater goes away. But what if there was a small bug floating on the water? A living creature.”

“Oh.”

“Because the city was flooded, they couldn’t open the floodgates so easily. It would put any survivors at risk. And that Skytool acted as a symbol of there still being life in the city. Once that broke, so did everyone’s spirits. I imagine they decided there couldn’t be any survivors and gave the go ahead.”

“But that’s so irresponsible!”

“I agree, but in a disaster like this, no one can know how many survivors there are or where they’re located. In the end, they have to act based on estimates.”

This meant we were right to leave the dangerous flooded area and cross the collapsed Skytool instead. If we had remained floating in the water, we would have been sucked up by one of those blackholes lining the river. Once those maws opened, there was no escape.

So.

“We can’t turn back now. And we’re done for if we slip.”

“You must take a positive view of this,” said Maxwell. “The overall water level has been greatly reduced starting with the Sumida River. Please cross the river using the Tokyo Skytool. You should find the other side is relatively safe. Climb the slope there and you will be past the water.”

If the flooding was gone, then our Vampire sister would recover from her weakness to flowing water. That did not solve the fundamental problem of evacuating to safe darkness before dawn, but it would let us move much more efficiently.

“Okay, let’s get started again, you two.”

“It hasn’t even been ten minutes. Onee-chan still looks pale!”

“It’s fine, Ayumi-chan. Satori-kun is right.”

Erika understood even without a lengthy explanation. I had opened my mouth but I found the words were no longer necessary.

If we rested too long in this storm, our rain-chilled bodies would tense up and letting the wind pummel us here could mean losing our sense for the balance needed on that tightrope walk. Also, we were perfectly worked up and focused right now. This deadly tightrope walk was not normal. If we rested and our heads cooled down, we wouldn’t be able to pull it off as effectively.

We had to continue past this half-crushed multi-tenant building.

The distance to the next rest point was longer than last time. It appeared to be around 30m. There were other houses and buildings in between, but none that intersected with the fallen tower.

“…”

A low rumbling came from directly below. Were we right alongside that larger river? It was hard to tell since things were flooded, but that was probably the current pouring into one of the floodgates.

“So is this the Sumida River?”

“Ugh…”

“Erika.”

Erika grew unsteady like someone with anemia, so I quickly grabbed her shoulders to support her.

“I’m…fine. If we cross here, we can escape the flooded area, right? We just need to get out of here. So let’s hurry.”

Was this like someone who could not handle seeing blood? It would be best not to say anything that would make her think about the river.

Also, she was right.

If Maxwell and Erika were correct, the utility conduits used for flood control had been opened. If we crossed this river, there was a good chance the water on the ground would have receded and we would be safe. Then Erika could recover.

It was time to go.

We had to go.

With the plastic rope still tied around our waists, I took the lead, stepped up onto the horizontal steel beam, and made my way through the slippery-looking darkness. There was nothing to worry about. We had done this once already. We had the experience. The distance was a little longer, but that just meant doing the same thing a little longer. It was nothing tricky, so-

“Ah

wah

!?”

……………………………………………………………………………………Hwuh?

“It’s okay, Satori-kun. Ayumi-chan, stand firm. I will pull him back up.”

“Fugu. Leave it to me.”

Gravity seemed to vanish not three steps into it. The rope hurt as it dug into my waist. It seemed to take an absurdly long time for me to realize I had slipped and fallen. A blank gap filled the back of my mind while my supposedly weakened older sister pulled me up. I could not even feel my coat that had been so wet and heavy.

This was not something you could get used to.

In fact, growing relaxed and careless was much worse.

My pulse pounded painfully in my chest. If we fell into this flooded area where the giant floodgates were open at even intervals alongside the river, we would be swallowed up by those blackholes. A single mistake could spell doom for us all. I finally felt the icy fingertips of death on my throat.

“Ah, ah, ahh.”

“It’s okay, It’s okay, Satori-kun. Take a deep breath and let the touch of death leave you. Your sisters will take care of it if anything happens, okay?”

With her left hand on the other beam we were using as a railing, Erika reached her right hand (the one with the torn sleeve) around my shoulders and held my head to her chest despite the unsteady footing.

Stopping for even a single second could not be easy on this narrow beam. And how terrifying was it to be tied to a human who could panic and do something stupid at any moment?

But both of them waited for me to recover.

We were both soaked to the bone, but her warmth soaked into my panicking heart. It was like wandering a snowy mountain for what felt like forever and then finding a cabin where you were served hot milk. We lived in an age of smart devices and efficiency, but physical contact meant a lot at times like this.

I recalled the reality of our situation.

I rebooted my thoughts.

I could tell her pulse and warmth had driven away the blank clinging to the back of my mind.

“I’m fine,” I finally said while removing my face from her chest. “I’m fine now. Let’s get this over with. Let’s cross this steel beam and escape to safety.”

We had to be careful.

We could not take shortcuts because we were “used to it” or “had experience”. As long as we took each step without making any mistakes, we could reach the goal. I felt the slick metal below my feet, grabbed the other beam with both hands, and faced forward.

30 meters.

That was not some crazy distance. Just think about my trip to school every day. I did that with ease and it was a lot further than this.

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

The dark water was swallowed up with a roaring sound below as the three of us slowly crossed the fallen tower.

This would work.

It had to work.

My hands were cold. I was gradually losing feeling in them. My black, short-sleeved coat was getting in the way. Was that really hard metal I was holding? It felt different, perhaps because of the rain. We seemed to be about halfway across, but we had to be extra careful at milestones like that. Otherwise we would lose our focus like Erika had just before arriving at the previous building. And when I had screwed up right away on the second attempt. Milestones were dangerous. Our previous failures proved it. You were at the most risk when you felt relief.

“Erika, Ayumi. Be careful.”

“Fugu. I know. And don’t forget I’m the only one with a clean record here.”

“Ayumi-chan, that’s exactly the kind of thinking that will get you in trouble.”

A step at a time.

I focused on the gusts of wind that occasionally slammed into my face and on the slippery footing. I was pretty sure I hadn’t screwed up. At the very least, I hadn’t lost my focus and relaxed. We were at the halfway point and I had managed to stay concentrated.

So.

I can say for sure that what happened next was not our fault.

A violently bright artificial light blinded us as if blocking the way forward.

“Ugh!?”

At first, I had no idea what had happened. That wasn’t an explosion. It was like a white wall had slammed into my face. Instead of blinding me, it was more like a pain in my temples. I forgot all about my situation and reflexively reached a hand up to protect my eyes, but that made me wobble. My throat went dry, but Erika supported me from behind.

What was this!?

“Fugu!!”

“No, Ayumi! Don’t move!!”

It felt like invisible awls were being driven into my temples, but I still tried to peer from between my fingers to see what was happening. Unfortunately, I could not see anything through that light. The contrast between light and shadow was too great, so I couldn’t tell what lay beyond the light.

This was no more than light.

There was not a metal or concrete wall in our way.

But we were crossing a fallen tower in a storm. If we stepped just 10cm the wrong direction, we would plummet into the floodwaters.

I tried to calm my pounding heart.

I stayed put to check on the situation.

I forced myself to look, as if prying open my eyes.

The source of the light appeared to be fairly far away.

And there were multiple sources.

They looked to be about 100m away. That was further out than the next goal we had set for ourselves. It looked like several artificial lights were lined up horizontally on various building rooftops.

Yes.

This was the midpoint of the 30m tower bridge. Were those lights set up on the other side of the Sumida River as if to protect it?

“Search…lights?”

They were artificial.

That meant someone was there.

The Tokyo city center was pitch black, but there was still someone there. This should have been good news, so why did I not feel remotely happy about it? I felt a creepy sensation like I had run across a complete stranger while exploring an abandoned school or hospital.

We were still supposed to be in the deserted area. This was supposed to be a dark forest of concrete, so it felt wrong to find someone walking through there.

Did the normal rules apply here?

They would, right?

While we waited there, clinging to the steel beam of the collapsed tower, a voice amplified by a megaphone reached us.

It was a cracking male voice.

“Stop right there! You are attempting to cross the Sumida Blockade Line!!”

“The Sumida what?”

There was no way my voice could reach them since the lights looked at least 100m away. Their voice was hard to make out since it was played from multiple sources like the disaster speakers in a park.

But I could not let this slip past me.

If I missed what they were saying, we were dead.

I felt a tremor down my spine. Just like I had so many times today.

“Move back slowly! Slowly, you hear me!? Return to where you came from and we will not have to take defensive action!!”

But.

Even so.

I could not understand the noise hitting my eardrums as a voice. This could not possibly belong to someone with a heart. I mean, return? From this precarious situation??? We weren’t on some wide road where we could just turn around. If a single step was just 10cm off, we would be swallowed up by the floodwaters below. Once we started, there was no turning back! Didn’t they understand that!?

But Erika whispered in my ear with a pale look on her face. She had to be suffering more than me while breaking the taboo on crossing flowing water.

“Satori-kun, jump down on my signal.”

“Eh? What? But…down there?”

Wasn’t that the floodwaters?

The simple current was deadly enough, but the shards of glass and metal debris would bare their fangs and there were dangerous pets like carnivorous fish and crocs hidden there. Not to mention the propane tanks. Jumping down there was unthinkable. Besides, who were these searchlight people to be bossing us around like this?

I felt like I had a point, but it turned out the majority rule was against me.

“The people behind those lights appear to be the JSDF. If we sit here any longer, they’ll fill us with holes using 7.62mm semi-auto weapons.”

“…”

But that doesn’t make any-

And even if it is-

Wait, hold on!

“Are you kidding me!?”

“Satori-kun, that is not the real problem here.”

I could not believe my ears. What more could there be? This was the JSDF? Weren’t they something like cousins of the police? Wouldn’t it be a huge scandal if they aimed real guns at us!?

“They went to the trouble of shining the searchlights on us and giving us a warning. I imagine they have to obey their orders, but they themselves feel guilty about what they’re doing.”

But.

But.

How could she sound so sympathetic and caring at a time like this?

“Satori-kun, they are not like the Bright Cross or the Colosseum’s soldiers. Do you know what they’re so afraid of?”

“…?”

Afraid???

Come to think of it, the flooding and the broadcast tower collapsing due to the out-of-season bomb cyclone were bad enough, but wasn’t there some other worrying issue at play here?

What had Ayumi encountered in that restaurant office on the Skytool’s viewing deck? No, what had we seen covering the surface of the tower while descending on the window washing gondola?

What had Maxwell called them?

“Unidentified intelligent…”

No.

But that would mean…

“…extraterrestrial lifeforms?”

I had seen that name. I had seen something that seemed to fit the description. But wait. Wasn’t that some kind of codename? The police and firefighters were calling them aliens over the radio, but that was only some special lingo, right?

And yet.

And yet, and yet, and yet!

Erika did not say anything more. She only moved her eyes to indicate something. I slowly – very, very slowly – looked over in that direction to check.

The broken tower had fallen on its side and crushed several buildings, so it looked something like an ugly bridge.

It provided hand and footholds similar to a poorly-designed jungle gym.

Those handholds had felt strange, so I had assumed it was just the tension and cold affecting my fingers.

But that was not it.

A break in the thick rainclouds allowed the moonlight to join the multiple searchlights.

And that revealed a crop circle pattern colored a dry brown. The fallen tower was absolutely covered with those boomerang-shaped masses with a frog-like skin texture.

[Mobile Temp] How to Use Manual #1 for Quarantining Foreign Species [File 06]

Tokyo is a heavily populated area, so evacuating all of the government workers and general residents during a flood and while restricted to land routes would have been difficult. But you used air routes such as transport helicopters and tiltrotors to swiftly clear the traffic and congestion to quickly complete the evacuation. That is impressive, but it is not enough.

The information you were given was incomplete. I will now distribute what was missing.

Once I have confirmed you have all read the document, I will immediately retrieve it. This cannot remain in your possession and you are forbidden from copying or photographing it. Memorize it and never forget it until the day you die.

This manual – known as Manual #1 for Quarantining Unknown Species – was created by the Ministries of Defense and of Health, Labor, and Welfare with the Bright Cross acting as an outside supervisor. You can think of the previously missing pieces as being what was most heavily influenced by the Bright Cross.

As you know, the international organization known as the Bright Cross no longer exists. However, the fact remains that they have secretly fought against infectious foreign species more than anyone else. And they did so in modern times, not some old legend about slaying monsters.

It is unknown if this particular case really falls under the category of an infectious foreign species, aka an Archenemy. But this document most closely matches what we need to combat and suppress what we are currently facing.

The JSDF lacks numbers and experience, but we can make up for the former with unmanned technology and make up for the latter by absorbing the knowledge of our predecessors.

Hence this document.

So memorize it and do not let anything get through.

Our objective is to seal off the quarantine area, not needless bloodshed. But we can never bring this chaos to an end if we do not hold this line. The training of your bodies and every last bullet you have been issued are a product of the people’s taxes. You must not let any of it go to waste.

Protect your country.

I assure you your actions are justified, so do everything you deem necessary here.

That is all.

Chapter 5

“Wah.”

I could hardly call it a valiant decision.

I think it had more to do with disgust.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

Boomerang-shaped creatures covered everything. Creepy patterns reminiscent of crop circles crawled along their frog-like dry brown skin.

I accidentally let go thanks to a shock similar to seeing a swarm of cockroaches covering the wall.

Had I dragged my sisters down with me?

Or had they let go too?

It was disturbing how it felt more like floating than falling. I felt a blast of wind crash into me and my vision started spinning. Was it a 10m drop? I didn’t even have time to prepare myself before I hit the sludge-like muddy water and was swallowed up by the current.

“Gah, dammit!?”

I desperately moved my arms and legs despite not knowing which way was up. I felt a powerful resistance at my waist. Yes, I still had that lifeline connecting me to Erika and Ayumi. Not that it did us any good now that we’d fallen.

“Bwah!!”

I somehow managed to get my head above water.

The fallen metal tower was directly above. What had happened to those wriggling frog-like things? If they were still covering that tower, they could rain down on my head at any time. And who said they were only on the tower? How many were in the water with me already!? Did they bite, sting, dissolve you, or lay translucent eggs inside you? I had no idea what the threat even was, but that meant I had no way of defending myself!!

But those thoughts were cut off by something that far surpassed anything I had imagined.

With the disturbing roar of a fire consuming oxygen, the steel beam overhead burst into flames!?

I didn’t even have time to gasp.

Although if I had inhaled without thinking, it only would have scorched my windpipe and lungs. I was saved by a powerful force pulling me underwater.

Even in the muddy water, what happened next could not have been more obvious. An awfully sticky orange light covered the water’s surface like a ceiling.

I started to open my mouth in surprise, but a slender hand forcibly covered it. Black leather danced in the corner of my vision.

Erika? And Ayumi too!?

The fiery ceiling remained overhead for more than ten seconds. I was terrified. I had no idea how long a human could hold their breath, but waiting these ten seconds did not guarantee that I would get to breathe during the next ten seconds. What if it stayed like this for a minute, ten minutes, or an hour? I would drown!!

The blood must have rushed to my head from holding my breath for so long because I felt an uncomfortable heat and pressure like my entire head was gradually swelling out.

Just as the darkness of the night returned to the surface above, my patience ran out. I had heard of people pulling off seemingly superhuman feats of strength in emergencies. That must have been how a human like me managed to break free of my sisters and swim desperately for the surface. I actually pulled it off.

“Bwah!! Pant, pant, ah!?”

I finally breathed new oxygen into my lungs.

Even in this storm, some sticky flames remained on the collapsed broadcast tower that had partially crushed so many buildings. Was that what the explosion was about? The fire on the water’s surface had only been a side effect or stray shot. The true target had been the makeshift bridge. Had ‘something else’ been burning away the slimy, dry brown things covering the complex arrangement of steel beams?

“Fuguu! Onii-chan, hurry back down!!”

“Ayumi?”

I didn’t know what she meant, so I turned toward Ayumi who had been swept a bit away despite the lifeline connecting us.

For a moment, I thought I had been struck by lightning.

That was how overwhelmingly bright the flash was. A white light had fallen from overhead.

“Wha-?”

It hurt. It was like having invisible awls jabbed into my temples. I held up a hand to protect my eyes, but that was not enough to escape the dull pain.

But.

Something was obviously wrong, but what was it!?

This was not one of the searchlights directed at us from a distance. It came from directly above, but what kind of light could shine on me from that angle?

There was something there.

In the sky.

Unidentified intelligent extraterrestrial lifeforms.

Had it been a bomb or a heat beam? Some kind of deadly weapon had been fired straight down to fry all of those things. A flying object the size of a light car and shaped like a shuriken had come to a complete stop overhead despite the powerful storm.

I couldn’t help it.

I really couldn’t.

Even as the current swallowed me up, a ridiculous word escaped my lips.

“A UFO???”

My mind was reaching the limit of what it could process. I mean, how much of this could I accept? The country’s largest broadcast tower had fallen in the storm. The Tokyo city center was deserted. The slimy things with dry brown crop circle patterns moving along their skin were aliens. And now there was some other UFO attacking them??? I wanted to ask when the world had gone crazy, but no! That wasn’t even a question! It had gone crazy from that very first moment when we were trapped in that dangling elevator, right!? If this was a dream, why couldn’t I wake up!? If it was virtual reality, wouldn’t someone please let me log out!?

But that was when the mysterious piece of technology shouted with a human voice.

“Sorry!!”

It was…the same voice as that megaphone?

“A-a drone? Is that a JSDF unmanned weapon!?”

The spotlight-like light moved elsewhere. It did not move like an airplane or helicopter. The beam of light drew out curves like it was using the dark night as its canvas. Powerful explosions enveloped everything not far downstream.

Ayumi and Erika pulled themselves toward me using the lifeline around our waists and we huddled together in the water. A voice called out to us from overhead.

When I stared into the distance, I could see what the “UFO” was launching down at the ground.

“Missiles?”

“If that’s a JGSDF air-to-surface missile, then it’s probably a Tokara Habu.”

That made sense.

It did make more sense than aliens attacking aliens, didn’t it?

No, this was still crazy. I couldn’t compromise on making sense here. Either aliens were attacking or the JSDF was wielding deadly weapons in the middle of Tokyo!? How could I call either of those normal!?

“Those missiles were developed in advance for use with the tiltrotor, but as the deployment of the tiltrotors continued to be delayed, the use of the missiles was also delayed. Instead of burning away a large field out in the middle of nowhere, these are precision-guided self-propelled sniper rounds that pinpoint strike a target hiding in an urban area. These anti-Archenemy incendiary weapons were developed by a science lab based on a request from the Bright Cross. You could call it an unwanted relic of a former age.”

“What are those doing here!? I thought even peashooters were banned in this country!”

“They’re supposed to be used in response to natural disasters. Have you ever heard of a fire extinguisher bomb? A high-powered explosion can be used to instantly put out an out-of-control wildfire or industrial fire. Japan was originally a country of wooden buildings, so we have long had a culture of destroying the surrounding buildings to prevent the spread of a fire.”

“We have eliminated the obstacles in the water,” said the voice from the drone. “If you follow the current, you can leave the blockade line. If you are taken near the red signs, immediately grab onto the closest building. You will be sucked underground through the floodgates if you move past there. Sorry, but that’s all we can do for you!!”

“Fugu.” Ayumi was bobbing above and below the torrential water’s surface. “Looks like we have to do what they say for now. We can’t escape that big drone by swimming blindly through the water.”

“…”

The voice from the sky might sound strong and reassuring at first.

But it was not.

I couldn’t let this minimal assistance get to me.

All they had done was block up the entrance to the cage because they did not want the beast getting out. They were telling us to say in here for days on end with “something” they knew was too much for them. Looking at the big picture, that might be the right decision. But it meant they could not protect us.

If we were going to tear down their plan, they would fire one of those things at us next time.

“Ayumi, do you know what time it is?”

“Fugu? Not really, but I know it has to have been a long time since we left the elevator.”

“I checked on my phone earlier. It’s nearly midnight.”

I knew she understood the ramifications of my short answer.

The JSDF might intend to settle in and spend two or three months carefully saving what lives they could while making sure the secondary damages did not spread.

But that wouldn’t work for us.

The sun would rise just before 6 in the morning. That meant our Vampire sister had a set time limit. All of the buildings around here were half-destroyed by the storm and flood. There was no guarantee we could find a hideout that would keep out all sunlight and all the underground malls and subway facilities would be flooded. And even if we did find a convenient hideout, what if those slimy aliens attacked? Erika couldn’t go anywhere during the day, but we would probably be helpless without anywhere to run.

And Ayumi was at risk too. That Zombie sister normally had herself injected with a cocktail of preservatives to manage her body, so she could not afford to soak in this muddy sludge for long. We really should have been getting her to a hospital for a detailed examination.

When would all of this be over?

In Zombie movies, survivors who ignored the rules and tried to escape the quarantine area were seen as enemies of humanity since they needlessly increased the risk of infection. When I was watching those stories in the living room while munching on chips, I had thought it all seemed so ridiculous. But it wasn’t. If they did as they were told, they would die. It might be for “the greater good”, but it would take a real piece of work to not even try to rescue your family from that conveyer belt into the incinerator.

If no one bothered to explain the identity of the threat, you had no way knowing if you were healthy or infected. So how could you accept It when you were denied help again and again because of some unspecified danger?

“We have to do something.”

The inside of the blockade line contained the fearsome storm, the floodwaters, and those mysterious unidentified intelligent extraterrestrial lifeforms. The outside contained the JSDF with their drones and sniper rifles.

“We have to.”

If we did not find a way to cross that line before dawn, my sisters’ bodies probably wouldn’t last.

For the time being, we let the current carry us away from the visible blockade line. The UFO drone stayed with us for a bit, but after seeing us grab onto a nearby building as instructed, the spotlight suddenly moved elsewhere.

“Does that mean we’re outside the alert zone?”

It felt like they were saying we were powerless.

Needless to say, our only goal was to get Erika and Ayumi outside of the quarantined area before dawn.

We entered through a door that was only a broken silver frame now. It may have been a glass automatic door to begin with. The dark interior was flooded with hip deep muddy water. Vampires could not enter a home without permission from the owner, but did this count as ruins instead?

However, the first thing to catch my attention was not the darkness, the risk of glass shards, or the unpleasant muddy water.

“Ugh! What is this stench?”

I covered my nose with the upper arm of my black coat.

It was not quite a rotting smell. The powerful odor stabbing into my nose was even worse than a sports clubroom during midsummer.

Once I shined my phone’s backlight around, something came into view: a reception counter, large cages in the water, and posters depicting dogs and cats that were soaked but still attached to the walls.

“Was this a pet shop?”

“Fugu!? The cages are underwater, Onii-chan!!”

I knew this was hardly the time. We were already a step behind. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell Ayumi no.

However.

“Shh. Wait just a moment, Ayumi-chan. Some of the cages are broken.”

“But! They probably just bumped into each other in the current. Although that may be for the best. Right, Onii-chan? That means the puppies may have had a chance to survive.”

“…”

Wait.

The cages were broken…and the animals escaped?

“Dammit, get away from there, Ayumi!! This is where that croc and carnivorous fish came from!!”

“Fugu?”

Those may not have been the only broken cages. The hip-deep muddy water felt a lot more dangerous all of a sudden.

And yet.

“I-is there no way to know which are dangerous and which aren’t? I don’t like this. We need to help them, Onii-chan.”

Argh.

“We need plastic sheets.”

“Eh? Eh? What?”

“Or anything else that can make a float. We can’t lift those cages ourselves!”

We really shouldn’t have been doing this.

Still, we climbed the narrow stairs to the second floor and dragged out some blue plastic sheets we found folded up in the corridor. If we tied them up properly and added waterproof duct tape to seal up the seams, they could be made into bags.

“Maxwell, check some site or another for how to tie a cloth wrapper.”

“Sure.”

The bags could remain deflated for now. A pet shop was bound to have air compressors for the tropical fish. They did not want all their expensive fish to die during a power outage, so they would have emergency batteries too. After attaching the air compressor and rubber hose to the battery for power, I returned to the first floor.

First, I brought the deflated bags under the water and attached them to the cages with duct tape. Then I used the machine to fill them with air. The heavy cages floated up in the water.

“Okay, Ayumi, push it with me! You don’t need to think about lifting it!!”

“Okay, got it!”

To make a long story short, the results were…not great. The dangerous animals strong enough to break free of their cages had already left. And the harmless dogs and cats could not survive long with their cage underwater. Most of it was assessing the damage after the fact, but a handful of the smaller animals had survived.

Still…

“It’s alive.”

After lifting up several cages to no avail, excitement finally filled Ayumi’s voice.

“This bunny is still alive! And a few of the dogs!! Ah ha ha. Thank goodness. I’m so glad!!”

I could never match her positivity.

That said, we couldn’t exactly bring all these animals with us. The most we could do was free the pets from their soaked cages, dry them off, and put them in other, clean cages. And after that…

“Onii-chan, what are those water bottles for?”

“I’m making simple time-release devices. If we leave them here, they’ll starve to death, but if we leave them a bunch of food and water, they’ll eat it all right away instead of pacing themselves.”

“Fugu…”

“We can’t just release them from their cage, Ayumi. If they slip in this storm, they’ll just drown. And even if they survive, they’ll be in danger if they go feral.”

Which was why I had prepared a compromise.

“This will make a set amount of food and water fall down every so often.”

There was still a limit to what this could do. It only increased their chances; it did not guarantee they would be saved. I did not want to consider the possibility that Tokyo’s city center would be sealed off for years, but you never knew.

“Let’s create an environment where they can wait for rescue. That’s all we can do.”

“Okay, Onii-chan.”

“Don’t look so down. No one will come to save them if we can’t tell someone where they are, so we need to get out of here as soon as we can.”

“Fugu! You’re right, Onii-chan!!”

“Technically, you could have me pass on the information via the internet,”

I did not let Ayumi see that message on my phone’s screen. Maxwell really needed to learn some tact.

And with that, we needed to review what information we had.

As a Vampire, Erika was weak to sunlight. We were unlikely to find a hideout that could fully block out the sun after the storm and flooding had ravaged the city. And even if we did find one, those boomerang-shaped slimy aliens(?) were out there. If they found us and attacked during the daylight hours, we could not escape outside.

The dirty floodwaters put a Zombie like Ayumi at risk too. It did not come up much in normal life, but she could not stay in unhygienic environments for long.

That meant we had to escape outside the blockade line as quickly as possible. Our tentative goal was to do so before dawn.

To do that, we needed to know how the JSDF was detecting humans or those slimy things approaching the blockade line.

I doubted it was anything as simple as keeping an eye out with binoculars. If they could not afford to miss anything in that labyrinthine urban environment, human eyes were not enough. The city was flooded, but was the security camera network still running? Did they have smaller scout drones flying around? Were they watching from satellite? I could think of a number of possibilities, but I had no evidence of any of them. For one thing, you heard talk of the JSDF all the time, but it was a bit of a mystery what that organization really and truly did. Did they have what it took to respond to a crisis? Depending on who you asked, you would probably get very different answers to that fundamental question.

It looked like I had to rule out each possibility in turn.

“Maxwell.”

“Sure.”

“I want to measure the JSDF’s reach. What’s the internet situation like? Since my phone is connected and they can fly that drone around, some line must still be up and running. List up everything you can find, both government and civilian.”

“I will only be repeating what I reported back in the Skytool.”

Since Maxwell insisted on saying that up front, I must have developed an unnecessarily high-quality algorithm.

“First of all, I am hijacking a priority signal code used by the police and firefighters. Simply put, I am using the civilian fiber optic cables and wireless LANs. It is hard to tell since ordinary users have been forced out, but Tokyo’s internet environment is still active, both wired and wireless.”

“Does that mean the security cameras and security company sensors are still up too?”

“Sure. But while those cameras are designed for use at night, they still require plenty of light. They were not made to record anything while the city of Tokyo is pitch black. Nor are they positioned to capture people moving freely through large holes in walls and ceilings. The coverage area should be considerably reduced.”

Still, they would have free use of the security cameras meant for use inside dark banks and department stores after hours. The next time we saw one, it might be worth going to the effort of destroying the camera from a blind spot.

“What about the JSDF’s drones? They can’t send them instructions without getting a signal to them, but I doubt they’re piggybacking on a civilian line.”

“They are likely using a wide-area wireless datalink that uses a large antenna on the ground. Although I can only guess because decrypting their signal would be too difficult. Incidentally, it took me so long to notice the signal because they are using a band far removed from the standard communication signals for phones, wireless internet, and TV broadcasts. They are using VLF.”

“Explain.”

“Sure. VLF, or very low frequency, refers to signals with an amplitude as large as 20m. The attenuation is incredibly low, so it was used by a pre-GPS coordinate data system that covered the entire world with just 8 surface stations. That service has since ended.”

I meant no disrespect to the developers, but this reeked of being a military relic. GPS was reliant on the US. They were an allied nation, but it still meant the service was reliant on a foreign country. The JSDF may have continued developing some older tech to have something entirely our own.

“What about a satellite connection?”

“There are a few signals being sent out, but the transmission frequency is low. Too low to be assisting a squadron of drones flying around down here. That is probably being used to communicate with their higher ups.”

So did we only need to do something about the large antenna they were using on the other side of the blockade line?

“Are there any other notable signals? Are there any active bands or users other than civilian broadband and the JSDF’s datalink?”

“There are myriad signals out there, including the standard frequency for radio clocks and satellite broadcasts that do not rely on broadcast towers. In the 6 Kantou prefectures other than Tokyo, TV T’s broadcast is down since it relied on the Skytool, but BS Lambda is continuing to air late-night anime and the message boards are going nuts saying a new champion has risen.”

Those fans always got overly worked up about every little thing, didn’t they? Of course, I often worked late into the night, so you could call me one of them too.

“We can rule out anything that only goes one way, so is any of it two way?”

“The terrestrial digital broadcasts allow the viewers to participate using the d-button.”

“Not good enough.”

“Sure. If we rule out the TV broadcast signals, there are still a few amateur radio signals out there.”

Kh.

“Does that mean there are other survivors in the quarantined area!?”

“No. The signals are coming from outside the blockade line. They are most likely sending out signals at random intervals to see if anyone responds. Think of it like sonar pings. And they are not necessarily doing this out of concern for your safety. They may just want the attention they will get on social media if they can post that they discovered some survivors. After all, we live in an age where running across a burning building is considered good luck because the video is sure to earn plenty of likes.”

“You mean?”

“For now, you should probably focus on the JSDF datalink.”

VLF, was it?

They had to have a huge antenna on the ground, or maybe on a boat because of all the flooding. If we broke that or found a way to jam or hack the signal, we wouldn’t have to worry about those UFO-like drones dropping missiles on our heads.

Of course, the city’s security cameras and satellite imagery were also a threat, but it was a dark and stormy night. They could not get any decent images with those thick thunderclouds overhead and thermography would not function properly with the cold rain pouring down on everything.

We had a chance.

Would it be best to travel just below the water’s surface, to hide among all the garbage and other flotsam, or to find oxygen tanks and use the submerged subway? If we could do something about those drones making unpredictable patrols in real time, we might be able to escape before dawn.

I had to think.

Just because those were real weapons designed by a group of expert engineers did not mean they were perfect for every application.

As in all things, no machine could solve all problems. Nor could you try to create one that did. Organizations gathered a variety of pieces like in a game of shogi or chess and used them to cut the enemy off from every conceivable direction. Right?

In that sense, the JSDF was not in a great position since they could only send in those drones.

That was like playing shogi with 10 or 20 of the exact same piece. And while the drones were convenient, they could never be the stars of the battlefield. They were like the knight or lance in shogi.

So where was it?

Obviously, it wouldn’t be that easy to find, but it had to be somewhere. All of the weirdness of this situation seemed concentrated on that giant hole.

The question was whether or not the JSDF was aware of that hole.

“If we’re going to escape, which direction should we go?”

Ayumi asked that fundamental question while drying her hair off with a towel we had found. Just like when I had tossed her a towel earlier, why didn’t she ever think to dry off her thin jogging clothes too? And the way that troublesome sister held her hands up to her head looked all the world like she was intentionally accentuating the see-through part!! Keep in mind this was a much more direct problem since there was no nametag shield on the chest!

“We shouldn’t try it where we were caught before, right? So would the opposite direction be best?”

“No, the JSDF are contacting each other via radio. Word of our presence will have spread around already. I bet the defenses will be just as strict no matter which way we go.”

If we wanted a slow but certain solution, finding a seam in their defenses and slipping through there like threading a needle would be best.

But that wasn’t an option for us.

“We don’t have time to figure out where exactly the JSDF’s blockade line runs. Much less finding an opening in it! We would have to spend days memorizing their patrol routes.”

“Fugu.”

“We have to escape before dawn, so we have around 5 hours. If the risk is the same everywhere, we should take the shortest route. That’s the only blockade line location we know, so we need to break through there. It’s our only option.”

With a sound like a louder version of buzzing bug wings or an electric shaver, one of those spotlights passed by right outside the window. The bright beam pierced down from the heavens and moved around.

It was one of those drones.

Was it carefully patrolling the area, or were there just a lot of them?

Erika made sure to stay as quiet as possible while whispering to me.

“But, Satori-kun, I don’t have to tell you that is also the most dangerous option, do I? The risk for all of us is the same that way, but it does nothing to lower the actual level of risk.”

That was true.

If we decided that was our only option and charged in, that drone would arrive above us. And it could destroy us in seconds if it wanted to.

“Erika, it sounded like you could see the soldiers in the darkness behind the searchlight.”

“This time, they were JSDF.”

“You mentioned a semi-auto weapon, but did they have anything else?”

“No. They appeared to be using infantry equipment,” replied Erika. “A flooded disaster environment is a tricky thing to work with. Boats, cars, and hovercraft are all locked out. Also, those specialized sniper rifles are fairly niche items, so I doubt there were enough to equip all the troops surrounding the quarantine zone. I imagine most of them are equipped with 5.56mm assault rifles.”

“Assault rifle rounds will fly for more than 700m, but they can only really target a moving object at between 200 and 300m, right?” added Ayumi. “Especially in a storm powerful enough to knock down the tower. The military is all about showing off, so I bet they exaggerate when they list the specs.”

The two of them were weirdly knowledgeable about this, but it probably went back to their time with the Bright Cross.

“It depends on the exact situation, but unless you move into the wide-open higher areas, they should have a hard time getting a direct line of fire within all these labyrinthine buildings,” said Maxwell. “You should be able to ignore that threat.”

The threat would return once we got close enough to cross the blockade line, but that was fair enough. There was no point worrying about it before we reached that point.

“Maxwell, I want your opinion on those drones’ movement. Are they mostly manually or autonomously controlled?”

“Based on the level of communications traffic I have observed, they are likely being manually controlled. In other words, it is the same as an RC helicopter. Drones and tiltrotors have always had trouble maintaining stability against crosswinds, so it would be dangerous to leave a program in control during this storm.”

“…”

“That said, they are using the JSDF datalink, so it cannot be hacked with a cyber-attack so easily. As for jamming, they are using signal band as niche as VLF, so you would likely have trouble acquiring the materials needed to produce the appropriate signal.”

No, wait.

If they were mostly controlled manually, would that mean…?

“Maxwell, do you think the JSDF is intercepting the communication signals we’re using?”

“No. If they were, the drone would have contacted you sooner. I believe my communications are continuing to hide within the other signals.”

“You mentioned some amateur radio signals in addition to the datalink, right? The ones coming from outside the blockade line.”

“They are almost certainly ‘sonar pings’ being sent for fun. Responding and asking for help will only get you posted on social media and message boards where people will laugh at you.”

“But the JSDF is intercepting those signals, right?”

“Sure. They are not encrypted and they are not camouflaged as another format.”

“…”

I thought for a bit.

Did I have all the puzzle pieces?

“Maxwell, forget the JSDF datalink. Can you move down a level and listen in on the police and firefighter radio signals? The ones you said were talking about aliens.”

“Sure. I can, but that is a massive amount of information. Anything I should search for?”

“I want to hear the people on the scene. How much confusion is there? This has to have come as a complete surprise for professional and amateur alike. There’s no way they’re staying calm.”

Those UFO-like drones were manually controlled.

We couldn’t attack the drones themselves or the datalink, but we might be able to stop them another way.

“I also want as many images as I can get of the drone launch site on the other side of the blockade line. I want to know its layout and design. Civilian satellite maps might not be of any use with defense whatever-you-call-its, but there have to be people out there who love that kind of thing. Check the internet for any photos uploaded by a hobbyist holding a camera with a bazooka-like super-telephoto lens despite the pouring rain.”

“I imagine I will find a lot of fake photos.”

“Compare them to the weather data. The wind direction and intensity of rain changes from moment to moment in this storm, so use the date and time in the photo metadata. You’re supposed to be a disaster environment simulator, so don’t tell me you can’t do it.”

“Sure. I am honored you have finally found a use for me outside of forehead glasses class rep swimsuit dances.”

Things were changing.

It wasn’t much, but the tides were turning.

“Onii-chan, what does all that mean?”

“That we might just be able to do this.”

We never stood a chance of winning in a firefight.

Adlibbing our way into that top-of-the-line military datalink was out of the question. We were not the heroes from an action movie or foreign drama.

When we pursued only the realistic options, it quickly became clear what we had to aim for.

Yes.

That field was becoming an obvious threat, but even the professional soldiers and organizations must not have come up with a definite countermeasure yet.

“I have picked up the amateur radio signal,” said Maxwell. “I am ready when you are.”

“Understood.”

Now, then.

We had to escape this sunken city abuzz with UFO-like drones and slip past the JSDF’s blockade line. And we had to do it before dawn. We had just under 5 hours and we would only get one shot at it. We could not recover if we screwed it up.

Ayumi said she was making one last patrol of the building, but she seemed to actually be giving some food to the pet shop’s survivors. Well, she at least seemed to understand that letting them go free would only get them killed. As long as those food dispensers didn’t malfunction, they would last for about two weeks. Their drinking water would be fine too since I had used the sterilizing tablets the shop carried. There were some issues on the hygiene side since no one would be cleaning out their cages, but it still had to be better than starving to death. Two weeks. We had to bet on this situation being over in that time.

“Satori-kun.”

“Erika.”

We were making our preparations, but most of the actual work was done by Maxwell. While I was messing with my phone all on my own to check on the process, Erika called out to me.

“Do you think this will work?”

“I can’t think of anything else we could do to increase our odds.”

“No, not that.” She hesitated a moment. “Ayumi-chan and I are Archenemies – the undead.”

“?”

“If we have to, we can preserve our lives even after losing quite a lot of our physical body. Thus, it is not absolutely necessary to set dawn as our limit just because you’re worried about us. This is all for naught if we rush it and something happens to you.”

“Hold on. What are you saying!? The danger here is to you when dawn arrives and Ayumi if she’s exposed to this filthy water for too long! I’ll be fine!”

“In the worst case, we could slice up our bodies and let the current carry us out. A Vampire can survive as long as her heart is intact and a Zombie can survive as long as her brain is intact.”

The frightening strength in her voice made me shudder.

“If we were to really and truly use any means necessary, our options would open up quite a bit. The only reason we don’t do that is because we don’t want to leave you behind. So please. I beg you, Satori-kun. Do not entrust your life to uncertain odds or possibilities for our sake. I mean it.”

I hadn’t noticed before since there was so little light, but her complexion was looking even worse than before. It looked more blue than white. That wasn’t too surprising. She had lost an arm to that snapped wire in the Skytool’s elevator shaft and she had been exposed to her flowing water weakness this whole time, so even the undead was not going to be at 100% here.

Damn.

I needed to pull myself together.

“Understood, Erika.”

This may not have actually changed anything, but there was nothing else I could say. There was no way I could place any more of a burden on her heart.

“No more weighing the odds. I promise you we’ll all get out of here alive. Is that better?”

Her large chest rose and fell in an obvious sigh of relief.

“I’m such a terrible person. Why am I showing off my weakness to get my little brother to listen to me? What kind of big sister am I?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I know you’re not as strong as you let on.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t look so shocked. How many times now have I heard a commotion from the other room early in the morning and then had you rush in and cling to me in only a negligee? All because you saw one little roach?”

“You can’t hold me accountable for that, so it doesn’t count! I-I mean, how do you even find the courage to roll up a newspaper and swat it without a second thought like that!? I will admit that helps me out immensely, though.”

She pouted her lips like a child and poked her index fingers together in front of her large chest. While pulling her head down to give me an upturned look, of course. It was really cute. …But speaking of bugs, wasn’t one of the 13 Eastern European Families an incarnation of flies or something? I was suddenly very curious about how their interactions worked behind the scenes.

“Erika.”

“Yes?”

“Once we start this, there is no turning back. And I doubt the JSDF will hold back. This isn’t about who’s right and who’s wrong. Really, the JSDF would probably win that argument. If I was watching this on the living room TV, I’d tell the people in our situation to stay put in the quarantine area and not to cause any unnecessary trouble. We’re the threat here and that military force’s mission is to protect the nation, so they will never hold back here. We’re trying to bend the rules of the world to allow us all to survive, so are you ready to be the bad guy here?”

“Of course.”

She did not even hesitate.

At times like this, she really was the big sister.

“If I was willing to abandon my own family here, I would have to ask why I even bothered crawling out of the dark depths of the Bright Cross. I am part of the Amatsu family and that will not change even if it means making an enemy of the other 7 billion people out there.”

That was good enough for me.

“Sorry about this, Maxwell. Doing this is kind of like rejecting your very purpose as a disaster environment simulator. I do feel bad about that.”

“No. Assisting my user is how I define my primary function. Thus, I have no intention of performing calculations that would not benefit you.”

I really was blessed.

If I had been trapped here all alone, my spirit of resistance would have broken before I could even figure out if there was anything I could do.

And I was not about to throw out everything these people had given me. I would use it to its fullest. I had to repay them for what they’d done for me.

“Maxwell.”

“Sure.”

“Let’s get started. It’s time we challenged those camo-wearing professionals to a cutting-edge war.”

“Understood. I shall define the JGSDF as a threat and enter my ultimate mode to resist them in every way possible.”

When you actually heard the answer, it didn’t sound like much.

The biggest threat was the UFO-like drones carrying plenty of missiles. But those deadly weapons were covered in thick armor, so shooting them down was not realistic. Nor was intercepting their control signal and hijacking them. We were talking about the JSDF’s modern datalink. The encryption and firewall would be on the next level, so I doubted we could break through it overnight.

So what else could we target?

The drones were being manually controlled. That left just one other avenue of attack.

“The people.” That was my conclusion. “People are the ones controlling the drones. If we fill the drone launch site with confused chaos, we can neutralize that drone formation!”

We would have been helpless if they were fully autonomous and flown by a program, but the windy storm and the labyrinthine urban layout prevented that. With helicopters, tiltrotors, multirotor drones, and other aircraft that used propellers for vertical takeoff and landing, crosswinds were always a problem. It was a basic structural issue, so there was no getting rid of it.

“I have picked up the amateur radio signal,” reported Maxwell. “You may communicate at any time.”

“Alter the waveform of my voice. But make it subtle enough to sound like bad static from the storm.”

“Sure.”

If they were calling out to us in honest concern, I would have felt some guilt, but since they apparently only wanted material to post on social media and message boards, I had no qualms about using them to my own ends.

After taking a deep breath, I imagined a shrill voice that would pierce right through the top of my head. Going all out was what mattered here.

“Help! Please help!! Ahh, no!! And they call themselves a self-defense force!? They’re really going to kill me. Geh, ah, no. I don’t want to diiie!!”

It honestly didn’t matter whether or not the unseen radio operator took the bait. For all I cared, they could lose interest and switch off their radio.

I just needed a starting point.

This was not for those amateur hobbyists to hear. It was for the professionals in the JSDF. No matter how small it was, they were sure to intercept any and all signals they detected in their operation area.

There was more to information warfare than viruses and DDoS attacks. In fact, modern society allowed for much more serious cyber attacks.

“I have no water and no food. I’m going to starve out here.”

I just had to make it look like I was sending a desperate plea to the amateur radio operator. It had to be something that would not raise any doubts among the eavesdropping JSDF.

“And where am I even supposed to go? Those slimy boomerang things were even clinging to the JSDF’s drones. Their launch site must be infected by now. I’m as screwed outside the blockade line as inside it!!”

In other words, I was using fake news.

That was the most brutal form of internet weapon that could shake an entire nation with nothing more than a single social media account.

Of course, the amateur radio operator probably wouldn’t have any idea what I meant by “those slimy boomerang things”, but the JSDF would. They had to be starved for raw information from survivors, so they would be performing a rapid check right now.

“It’s hopeless.”

I made sure the hopelessness could be heard in my voice. My acting might be cheap, but no one would be able to tell with the fake static caused by altering the waveform.

“I mean, we’re not talking about just 10 or 20 of them. And you can’t see them with the naked eye or with a camera! Ha ha. The JSDF is screwed!! But then who’s going to save me!?”

I had sown the seeds, but I decided to go one step further.

“Hey, if anyone can hear me, listen up. If you think you’re in danger, go find a used coffee filter. You want the coffee grounds. Just carry them around like a protective amulet or something!! I don’t get how it works, but they might overlook you!!”

It didn’t matter what. I just needed to create something someone could use to fight.

If a ship sank and threw every last person into the sea, there would be no conflict. But if there was some hope – a board floating in the ocean, a lifeboat, or anything else that people thought they could use to save themselves if they were clever – then it would devolve into an ugly scramble for whatever it was.

“Satori-kun, the drones are moving oddly.”

“Then they’ve started fighting. They’re risking their lives to fight over entirely worthless used coffee grounds.”

“Fuguu. Then this is our chance.”

“No one’s at the controls for the drones!!”

The JSDF had been equipped with assault rifles and sniper rifles, right? I could only hope they wouldn’t aim those at each other.

Whatever the case, it helped a lot that this was an unknown situation for the JSDF. And not just the frog-skinned aliens. Fake news was a recent social problem that no one had found a fundamental solution for yet. And to make matters worse, the JSDF had a strong vertical chain of command to follow. Even if a minority within the unit realized something was up, their protests would go unheeded as long as the higher ups were panicking.

It also helped that the slimy things with dry brown crop circle skin could blend into their surroundings, making them near impossible to see. They could not eliminate their fear with a simple check.

We could do it now.

In fact, once the JSDF gathered enough accurate information to regain their cool, they would close up this one-of-a-kind seam we had used. There would be no second chance at this.

They did everything by the book.

If “the book” told them to, they would obey a reckless order to charge the enemy or throw themselves on top of a grenade to reduce the damage to their allies. Without hesitation. But they had trouble responding to unknown situations not found anywhere in “the book”. Then they would behave like ordinary human beings instead of perfected soldiers.

Besides, they never would have agreed to this if they weren’t afraid.

Why were they only using drones and not sending in any infantry? Could you really say the decision had been made on pure logic and there was no fear involved? They had abandoned Tokyo’s city center because they feared what would happen if they did not seal that area off. Even though they knew there had to be survivors still in there.

It was a form of trauma.

And one false report was enough for it to explode and spread like wildfire.

“This will work.”

Just to be sure, I threw a small rock at UFO drone that was hovering in the air with its bright spotlight shining straight down. It did not response.

“It’s been abandoned. The drones won’t fire any missiles right now!”

Drones were convenient, but they could never be the stars of the battlefield. They were like the knight or lance in shogi. If you covered the board with those niche pieces, it was bound to create a distortion somewhere.

And we had found it!!

“Let’s go. This is our only chance, Erika, Ayumi!”

“Understood.”

“Fugu.”

There were also camouflaged soldiers with assault rifles at the blockade line, but they apparently could not get a direct line of fire in the labyrinthine city unless we used an elevated route. Their inability to cross the blockade line themselves was working against them.

Ayumi looked back inside the multi-tenant building containing the pet shop.

“Bye-bye for now. I swear I’ll get someone to help you.”

“Maxwell.”

“Sure. I have already recorded the coordinates. I will immediately put in a request for rescue once the overall problem has been resolved.”

That was another reason we had to do something sooner rather than later. Whether you wanted to blame the slimy boomerangs or the protectors of the peace in the JSDF, we couldn’t let Tokyo stay like this forever.

We descended to the flooded first floor.

We had to soak up to our hips in that unpleasant muddy water again. I had my sisters push a plastic kiddie pool while I went out ahead to the building’s entrance. We were still indoors. The water here was pooling up at the end of a branch of a branch, but I could already feel the powerful tug on my back and coat. There would be no escaping the real current outside. We would be just like a bug that fell in the bathtub. And this bathtub’s drainplug had been pulled. We would be swept straight toward the utility conduit swallowing up all the rainwater.

“…”

Since we could not use the elevated route created by the fallen broadcast tower, we would have to fight that current. We had found a makeshift rubber boat in the pet shop. The plastic kiddie pool was probably used to display their fish. Just like a washbasin, it would float in the water like a boat.

“Listen, Ayumi. Don’t try to row it with an oar! We’ll just be sucked into that giant floodgates used to drain off the water!!”

“I know that!”

“First, we’ll throw the rope and let it go taut. Once it’s on there, we attach the other side to create a bridge and hold onto it with a belt. Then we don’t have to worry about the current!”

No one was controlling the drones.

As long as we stayed low, the normal rifles could not get a line of fire.

I understood that.

I had suggested the plan.

“…”

But now that we were actually doing it, it felt like having a heavy suspended ceiling dangling overhead. In the end, it was all based on guesswork and we had not actually seen the chaos at the launch site. What if the JSDF kept their cool better than we anticipated? If those drones started moving again and launched a missile at us, we would be blown to pieces.

My life was on the line.

And so were the lives of my sisters.

“Let’s get started.”

Our tools were all handmade. We had taken rakes used to level out cat litter and tied them to either end of a rope to make something like a ninja grappling hook. I swung it around and threw it toward a steam pipe sticking out from the wall of the building across the current from us.

I knew what I had to do, but that didn’t mean it would work out in practice. I didn’t know where its center of gravity was and it was tossed around by the storm winds, so it missed the first few times.

But I still managed to get the rake onto the pipe. I pulled to make sure it was on there tight.

“Good.”

“Why are we just hooking it on at this end? Can’t we tie it on?”

“If we left ropes all over the place, we would be leaving a trail to follow. We don’t know how long the confusion in the drone launch site will last, so we need to retrieve the rope each time we cross the current. We need to be careful.”

It was only hooked on both ends, not tied on, so I was a little worried about its sturdiness. But we had no other choice.

As for the kiddie pool…yes, it was floating well enough. We placed Erika in first since she had trouble with water, then Ayumi climbed in, and I climbed in last.

I handed my sisters some gloves. They had incredible strength as Archenemies, but I couldn’t let them struggle with a rope barehanded. The plan was to hold the rope with a belt bent in a U-shape, but you never knew when your hand would get caught.

We finally moved outside. The missile-loaded drones were above us and the torrential current to the depths of hell was below us. And we had no idea where those aliens were hiding. This outdoor space could hardly have been more deadly.

No one was controlling us now, but that meant we had traded safety for freedom.

“Whoa, whoa. The pool is moving along all on its own?”

“By angling the rope diagonally instead of perpendicular to the current, it will actually pull us along. More importantly, don’t let go of the belt. There’s probably no coming back from that.”

We left the pet shop, cut across the current, and arrived at another building.

It had probably been a 10m distance.

But that 10m had taken us outside of the JSDF’s expectations.

We were not dead.

We had violated their rules but no one had noticed. We were still alive!

“We can do this.”

Once at the end of the rope, we moved inside the building. I got out of the pool and tugged the rope up and down until the rake on the other side came free.

“We have the routine down now, so we just have to repeat the process. If we keep this up, we can cross the blockade line!”

The closest part of that line was around where we had been warned away earlier. The current had carried us 200-300m away from there. And that distance would have been along the Sumida River where the utility conduit was installed.

I wanted to use their expectations against them as much as possible. They would never expect us to try to get through here, so they would be least cautious here.

“Let’s get as close as possible to the big floodgate alongside the river. That would normally be suicide, but we can get past it right now!”

It didn’t matter if it was a boring method.

We repeated the process with the rope and kiddie pool to gradually work our way along the torrential current.

“We’re pretty close now.”

Ayumi looked up while holding the taut rope. Both her hands were full, so her flat chest in the white tank top was far too defenseless.

Instead of a drone, there was a fixed searchlight shining straight ahead. But it was too high up. It had to be on the roof of a three or four-story building. They appeared to have created a makeshift watchtower out of metal pipes.

“They really do seem most worried about people moving along the rooftops.”

That was how they had caught us the first time.

“If you swim, you’ll be sucked into the floodgates and a boat with a powerful enough engine to fight this current would be large enough for the drones to find. They really did underestimate us. We’ve slipped into a blind spot.”

That was when the distorted roar of propellers stabbed into my ears.

A light shined down from directly above.

“A drone.”

“But it’s moving weirdly. Get down, Satori-kun. It’s being tossed around by the crosswind!!”

No one was actually at the controls.

The drone crashed into a wall like a plastic toy thrown by a child having a temper tantrum.

And we could not just watch it happen.

This was just like a basketball passing through the hoop. After hitting the wall, that machine the size of a car fell down toward the water!

“…!!”

We could only tightly grip the belts wrapped around the rope and clench our teeth while curling up in the bottom of the pool. We could not jump into the water like in a movie. If we fell in, we would be swept straight to that giant floodgate.

The large scraps fell a short distance away and a pillar of water burst into the sky. The unexpected wave jabbed up at the pool from below and Ayumi frantically adjusted her grip on the belt she had around the taut rope.

“Whoa.”

“Don’t relax yet, Ayumi! That thing’s carrying explosives!!”

Dammit.

We were so close. So close to the blockade line. If we could only cross that line, we could feign ignorance and pretend to be an ordinary person. The aliens and the JSDF? They wouldn’t be able to pursue us anymore then.

Erika grabbed her younger siblings’ heads and forced us down.

A flash of light and a skin-piercing heat soon followed.

I couldn’t hear anything at all anymore.

“Goddammit.”

Still, we all kept our grips on those belts. We used the current to take us to the final riverbank.

“There’s a hole. A piece of shrapnel punctured the pool, Onii-chan!”

“We’re almost there. Bear with it, Ayumi!!”

We couldn’t turn back now.

We somehow managed to cross the final 5m.

“Pant, pant!!”

“We…made it. Satori-kun, this is the blockade line. We just crossed it.”

We were still soaking hip deep in water and there was no goal tape, but I was hit by so much relief and exhaustion that I nearly passed out. My sisters must not have liked how soaking wet their gloves were because they removed them.

Where were we?

Ironically, we were inside a deserted police box.

The police would probably have a lot of specialized tools, but I was too afraid to try to take any. I wouldn’t know how to use a handgun even if I found one and I was as likely to shoot my sisters in the back as do anything useful with it. Plus, I couldn’t afford to start an actual shootout with those people. There would be no surviving that.

Yes.

That was what was on my mind.

Right up until a bright artificial light shined in from outside the window.

“Kh!?”

The JSDF!?

This was a searchlight. I quickly shielded my face with both hands and tried to move away from the window, but what good would that do? We were in a small box. I didn’t want to count how many JSDF members with assault rifles and sniper rifles had us surrounded!!

“Fugu, how did they know we were here? I thought there was too much chaos at the drone launch site for them to control the drones.”

“Oh, I get it. It’s that crashed drone. After receiving a report that it was lost, they increased the security level here. Dammit.”

The JSDF would not cross the blockade line.

But we were on their side now.

They could send patrols on foot here. We might as well have climbed a fence while some idiot had already set off the alarm!

We received no warning this time.

They did not call out to us like with the drone before. They really intended to do this. What good were these thin walls? We would be turned to Swiss cheese along with the cramped police box!!

“Maxwell, show me a map of the surrounding area. Is there a secret way out?”

There was no response.

My heart sounded awfully loud as it pounded in my chest.

“Maxwell!!”

Were we being jammed?

The light blinded us and now they were jamming any signals. That would complete their preparations, so now they would be placing their fingers on the triggers!!

It couldn’t get much worse, but I wasn’t a Hollywood star and I didn’t belong to some legendary special forces unit. I was just a high school kid. I had to figure out what I could realistically do.

What could I do?

Was there anything at all!?

“Ayumi, Erika. We still have the pool, right?”

“Fugu. But it was punctured. It’s useless now.”

“That’s fine.”

I used some waterproof packing tape I found in the police box’s desk to patch up the puncture.

Luckily, we actually didn’t want it to be fully inflated and buoyant. It had to sink into the water.

In other words…

“This is our final lifeline. It will act as an oxygen tank. On my signal, dive down into the muddy water. No one looks below waist height. And with the bright searchlight heating up the water’s surface, thermo won’t work right either. Basically, we just have to avoid bumping into their legs. If we move slowly, we can slip between the JSDF!”

“That’s a big gamble.”

I knew that.

We wouldn’t be able to see in that muddy water and we didn’t know how many of them there were. We would be huddled together sharing the one pool. That would make us a fairly large obstacle, so we couldn’t get past if the JSDF was packed in fairly tight.

It might be simplest to think of it like walking through a train while blindfolded. If it was empty, you wouldn’t run into anyone, but if it was packed, the three of us together could never get through. And how crowded things were out there was not up to us.

“But this our only option. Not even Archenemies are all powerful.”

“…”

“Zombies are 10 times stronger than humans and Vampires are 20 times, but that means you’re in trouble if they bring enough firepower to slaughter 20 people at once.”

Yes, the true threat of an Archenemy was how they infected people to created more of them. They could destroy a city, country, or civilization by making too many of them to ever fully defeat. Of course, I couldn’t exactly have them do that.

Erika looked close to tears as she kept arguing.

“I thought you promised not to think in terms of odds and possibilities.”

“I promised I would get us all out of here alive. Erika, no more self-sacrifice just because you’re a little harder to kill then me. We have to face the fact that this is the only way we have of escaping the JSDF here!”

I was scared too.

This wasn’t making me a huge fan of the JSDF.

Using assault rifles in this country was like cheating.

But if I asked for help and relied on them here, my sisters were bound to charge right into that armed group. In fact, Erika was probably waiting for me to say it. Without considering her limits as an Archenemy. How could I let that happen? I couldn’t.

I heard a splashing sound. Apparently not even the experts could move entirely silently in hip deep water.

We did not have time to steel ourselves.

“Fugu, they’re coming!”

“Let’s go, dammit. Let’s cross the blockade line and get home.”

I opened the pool’s air intake and let it sink into the muddy water. We exchanged a nod and dunked our heads into that same water before the JSDF could enter the police box.

Only a second later, I realized why Erika had been so concerned.

This went beyond not knowing where their legs were. I couldn’t even judge general directions. I wasn’t confident I could even get outside the police box like this!

What about Erika and Ayumi?

I placed my lips on the pool’s air intake, took a breath, and kept moving slowly through the water while hoping against hope we weren’t wandering in circles. How long would my breath last? A minute? Two? Damn, I don’t even know that without Maxwell to search for me? Again and again, I took more air from the pool, but then I realized something.

I was the only one doing that.

What were Ayumi and Erika doing? They needed oxygen too!!

I couldn’t see anything and an unidentified fear creeped up into my throat in no time. I actually felt an urge to lift my head above the water to check what was going on, but then I felt a smooth hand on my own.

It was Erika’s.

And Ayumi’s soon followed.

It took everything I had not to cry. I couldn’t let the doubts take over. I had to move past the blockade line, even if it was slow going. I focused only on that while moving my legs. What was going on up above? They must have entered the police box and found it empty. Would they think to check in the water? Oh, I left the tape and scissors on the desk. I belatedly regretted not hiding them.

A leg in camo pants cut by so close I could see it even in the muddy water.

“…”

This was working.

Fear clutched at my heart, but they did not notice us. Our method was sound. We could escape them and cross the blockade line!

But that thought was immediately followed by a slight tensing of Erika’s hand on mine.

Then I noticed it too.

Things were bright overhead. A white light was growing brighter and brighter, but it didn’t seem to be a JSDF searchlight. Then what was it!?

Had I gotten careless?

Or had I gotten too focused?

I no longer felt the ground below my feet. I was floating up in the water. I flailed my legs wildly, but it was no use. Oh, no! My head was leaving the water!!

I heard a splash.

But.

Where was I???

“Huh?”

The bright light made it hard to tell at first, but even though I felt weightless, I was not in the water.

I was…in the air?

It wasn’t just me. Ayumi and Erika with the deflated pool, the people in camo uniforms who had been surrounding us, and even the raindrops were floating higher and higher. The floodwaters had formed perfect, jewel-like spheres as they rose too.

Some of the soldiers actually aimed their guns at us, but most of them had their weapons floating a short distance away from them. And the ones with the grip tightly in their grasp were spinning around in the air too much to aim properly.

Gravity was gone.

This should not have been possible.

“What the hell is this!?”

My body was floating, so moving my arms and legs around was not going to accomplish anything. This acted as an even greater restraint than rope or handcuffs. Without thinking, I glanced up and tried to see what was shining that white light down on us.

“…”

Until this moment, I had thought it was some kind of metaphor.

With those dry brown boomerang “aliens” and the UFO-like drones, I had assumed the JSDF or someone had given a biased codename to some unknown Archenemy.

But.

I saw a giant structure floating in the night sky, shining a white light straight down, and abducting earth creatures by somehow breaking the bonds of gravity.

“An…”

What other word was there for it?

“An alien UFO?”

[Mobile Temp] Introduction to a Website on the Future of Radio Equipment [File 07]

Since there is only so much that light signals, lighthouses, and whistles can accomplish, modern ships and aircraft have chosen to use radio beacons – that is, mutual warning signals using radio waves.

It takes time for a large ship to come to a stop, so it is often too late to activate the emergency brakes once danger has been detected visually.

Also, the world’s skies are so densely packed with traffic that some areas have some form of aircraft passing through every thirty seconds.

Under those conditions, it would be nearly impossible to cross the seemingly wide-open seas and skies without any coordination.

Radio navigation devices are used to preserve the safety of those long, long trips, but since it uses the same radio waves you all are so familiar with, there are actually many accidental and unintentional inhibiting factors. Many lives are directly influenced by this, so whenever those dangerous inhibiting factors are discovered, they must be eliminated if at all possible.

The drone market has grown very successful in recent years and flying cars are currently being developed, so we will eventually reach an age when both of those things must coordinate with an air control center that tracks their ID signal.

No one must be allowed to threaten public safety for their own personal freedom.

Chapter 6

Was I thousands of meters up, or tens of thousands?

I didn’t have time to even try to count once I had passed the clouds. Thanks to that, there was no rain falling. However, it was not chilly and I could breathe just fine. It was not normal to have a comfortable environment while so high up that the city looked like it was made up of specks. I considered the possibility that I had ended up in a dream or virtual reality.

At this height, my phone’s signal apparently could not reach the base stations on the ground. I had zero bars despite being in the middle of Tokyo.

I should not have been this high up without anything to protect me.

Also…

“?”

A JSDF member was waving frantically.

Except no, that wasn’t it.

They suddenly fell straight down, like an invisible thread had been cut.

“What!?”

I reached out in surprise, but there was no way I could reach. I simply heard a helpless scream distorted by the Doppler effect as it fell.

And then…I couldn’t see them anymore.

What had just happened?

Tokyo was flooded below us, but that didn’t mean much at this height!!

But hold on.

What?

What was this?

If that didn’t mean much, what was going to happen to them!? Damn, I didn’t know who that was, but I was also being suspended up here by means I couldn’t explain!!

“O-Onii-chan!”

A pale-faced Ayumi was flailing her limbs nearby. Jewel like water droplets were floating up from her white tank top, track jacket, and black hair.

A dark form dropped straight down next to her. Had it been a bicycle? Then some balls of muddy water and some JSDF equipment like helmets and rifles fell.

“This might not be a simple accident.”

“You mean…we’re being weeded out? After just grabbing everything that was there!?”

I didn’t know what standard was being used for that process.

I simply heard more and more screams. The JSDF must not have lived up to the monster’s exacting standards. The mysterious floating power was cut off as casually as throwing out the dead clams after going clamming. Those combat experts were helpless as they went spinning down through the air.

It happened so readily and they disappeared to join the other specks forming the city below, so it was hard to remember I was watching people dying.

A vague tremor came over me.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I didn’t have it in me to worry about those strangers. I was too worried about Ayumi and Erika. The same could happen to them on a whim from this mystery appraiser!!

But then I heard a heavy sound from overhead like a metal lid being opened.

We had moved above the clouds, but I could not see the moon.

A spaceship hovered above us. It was so large it covered up the dark night sky and its bottom surface was opened like a big mouth.

Were we the invited guests?

Erika was a Vampire, so she couldn’t enter a home without the owner’s invitation.

Could I see this as a single ray of hope? I was dubious of pretty much every story of an alien encounter I had ever heard, but not many of those stories could be described as “a good time was had by all”. In fact, I could set aside whether or not we were really dealing with an alien here. Whoever this was had thrown a few dozen people out into the open air just because they had not met some kind of standards. I couldn’t even imagine what kind of welcome we would receive.

“Erika.”

Even I knew I was asking a stupid question.

“Are aliens a kind of Archenemy?”

“Not that I’ve ever heard of. There was one known as a Shoggoth, but that felt more like an arbitrary name given to something they couldn’t explain.”

About what I expected.

I had spoken with a bunny girl goddess and I had a part-timer demon lord as a stepmother, but this was even crazier than that. If this was allowed, then we’d find ourselves categorizing combining robots and giant kaiju as Archenemies too.

We were entirely helpless as we, the last three people remaining, were taken inside the giant spaceship. It was huge, like an excessively large warehouse. Despite being a spaceship, it apparently did not need an airlock. As soon as the opening below us closed, the pull of gravity returned. I had never imagined being able to stand on my own two feet would feel so sweet.

The walls in all directions began to move in a complex pattern.

Wait, was the place not divided out into different rooms, like a storeroom, cockpit, etc.?

“Rooms” about the size of a school buildings slid around to quickly change the entranceway into a grand hall. Was the entire thing made of boxy sections that could be rearranged as they saw fit?

Anyway, this was a grand hall.

There was no end to it.

Even though we were most definitely indoors.

Needless to say, you could normally see the horizon at a certain distance because the earth was round. But this spaceship was not. So was this like peering to the bottom of some deep water? I had heard there was a limit to how far you could see because the air did not allow 100% of light through. But what was the exact limit there? 20km? 30? The sun and the moon were exceptions, but you could apparently see Mt. Fuji from Tokyo. And which of the 36 Views of Mount Fuji depicted it from furthest away? Whatever the case, how ridiculously huge was this floating UFO!?

I felt a little chilly.

Was the air-conditioning too strong?

Of course, this was warmer than it should have ben since I had not frozen while being soaked to the bone at this altitude.

“Fugu. Onii-chan.”

Ayumi grabbed at my jacket with a worried look.

Aliens.

Those slimy dry brown things.

But there was no sign of their big boss or whatever. We only saw dozens or even hundreds of them were gathered in a small mountain at the center of the hall to respectfully lift up a cylindrical glass pod like it was a royal sarcophagus. It was filled with a thick liquid. A half-naked girl in paper underwear held together by strings lay face up inside.

No, wait.

“On a recommendation from the servant species, I attempted to choose someone who I could hold a conversation with. Is that kid the one? Fine. Help me kill some time, local species. Say no and I will immediately eject you.”

The ceiling was just as vast as the floor and the giant monitor there had to be more than 300 inches. And it was not alone. Four different screens formed a large box. It reminded me of the screens at a martial arts competition or an international poker tournament.

Also.

All four screens showed a close up of the short girl’s face. No, that was not the real one. Unlike the one lying in that pod, her eyes were open and she looked down at us with a triumphant look on her face.

I was surprised to find we could communicate.

Did that mean they had not just arrived recently?

“Are you the boss of those slimy things? You look nothing like them!!”

“Now, now. Don’t assume I have any relation to those disgusting things. They are no more than the servant species I am raising. I picked them up at the planet I destroyed two, three…? Well, I don’t remember how many ago it was.”

I couldn’t do it.

She was talking on such a huge scale I couldn’t tell at all if she was bluffing. She was talking about the kind of stuff you’d expect to see in the Cthulhu Mythos. It was like being asked to pinpoint the secret ingredient in a curry so full of different spices it had turned bright red. Also, the actual girl in white underwear was sleeping in the pod, while the face on the monitor was a well-made replica. I could not ask questions and try to detect panic from her expression or breathing. This was the same difference between playing mahjong face-to-face or online. Drawing anything out through conversation would be hard here!

“What do you plan to do with us?”

“Rushing to the conclusion already? Such peaceful assumptions. Did it never occur to you that my answer to that question could spell your doom?”

Kh.

“Yes, you are being tested. I hold your life in my hand. Along with the lives of the two behind you. Words are weapons, so play your cards carefully. One mistake and I will toss you out into the sky. Oh, I suppose it would be into space now.”

Space.

There were no windows and I felt my weight on my feet. Still, it didn’t matter how high up we were. I already knew we were at least too high up to survive being thrown out.

The chill of the air filled me with unease, like I was in a morgue.

Also, her tone of voice made it clear she was enjoying the ache in my chest. Whether she was earthling or alien, she was still an abductor. I had never heard of criminals like that treating their hostages very well.

I thought harder than I wanted while artificial gravity or something kept my feet planted on the floor.

I could not afford to make waves here.

But I had to think carefully at the same time.

I couldn’t abandon all thought and act like a weak-willed puppet.

“This was some unfortunate timing for you as well. You didn’t have to attack on a stormy day like this.”

“Ha ha. Small talk about the weather!? You do not have much experience with the opposite sex, do you? That is just about the worst way to hit on someone.” The face on the monitor formed a meaningful-looking smile. “Also, the timing was not unfortunate at all. In fact, that bomb cyclone was a meteorological weapon I created.”

“Wha-?”

“Is it really so shocking? Even your inferior technology should be capable of artificially producing lightning and hurricanes.”

Fair enough.

Even I had used my disaster environment simulator’s help to create an artificial hurricane during the mess in Las Vegas.

And when Wild@Hunt’s drones were going berserk, I had sent a satellite into the atmosphere so it would break apart like a meteor and cause a major explosion.

But.

Even if that was true…

“You mean the winds knocking over the Skytool and the flooding of Tokyo were part of your plan? But why!?”

“Because of that broadcast tower.”

The four monitors hanging from the ceiling readily answered.

She must not have felt any guilt.

“Call it a usable band if you like. Radio, television, cellular phones, radio clocks, radar, GPS, drones…this planet has a mere 7 billion beings, yet you are using up far too much of the electromagnetic spectrum. You have even sent probes powered by atomic batteries beyond your planet to endlessly scatter more signals. You have found every way you can think of to fill up every last band available to you. Stellar flares, quasars, gravitational lensing, and supernovae are enough of a hindrance to my radio beacons during interstellar travel, but now I have to account for intentional errors as well. If you insist on interfering, then I will physically remove the source of the hindrance to my safe travel. All beings have a right to self defense. I bluntly refuse to allow you invaders to harm us in our travels with your electromagnetic assault.”

The invaders…

The space invaders…

…were us???

The humans of earth had meant no harm. We didn’t even know there were aliens so close by!

“Ignorance is no excuse.”

Had my thoughts shown on my face? Anything I might have said was cut off by the girl showing on the four monitors.

“You are at fault for reaching beyond your ken without making an effort to learn what you were doing.”

“B-but I thought the signals sent from the earth were trivial in comparison to the naturally occurring ones!”

“According to your juvenile understanding of science, perhaps. But that only further proves your civilization is too primitive to manage an entire planet. You fail to recover your crashed spacecraft loaded with nuclear reactors, you allow the debris to scatter, you carry mold and sexually transmitted infectious bacteria off of your planet, and then, of course, the electromagnetic waves. You might as well be throwing feces around in public while cackling wildly. How could I not be fed up with your abysmal manners?”

“…”

“To put it in terms you might be capable of understanding, your species is like an unlicensed driver hitting and killing someone. Your intentions are irrelevant. The fact remains that we are at greater risk of being stranded or killed. What is wrong with seeking retribution and rectification?”

So.

Did she see us like those brats who hindered air traffic by shining laser pens at airplanes? That was why she had done this? But the Tokyo Skytool was the country’s largest…no, one the world’s largest broadcast towers!!

“However, that metal twig proved more stubborn than expected. The bomb cyclone did not seem like enough to bring it down, so I was forced to send in around ten thousand of the servant species. Attaching them to the tower’s surface made a big difference. Heh heh. To the center of gravity and to how it caught the wind.”

“What happened to them? We’re the only ones here and you threw out the JSDF. And it doesn’t look like you retrieved those members of the ‘servant species’.”

“Why would I bother? I increased their numbers so they could be of use to me. They are meant to be used and thrown out.”

There was no hatred or contempt in her voice.

In fact, she sounded confused.

That lack of understanding chilled my insides. It was like your friend was explaining some family rule with a smile, but it turned out to be a stereotypical example of abuse.

It was no use.

We couldn’t reach an understanding. She had not been derailed from the track because she hated something. Nor was she drowning in abnormal pleasure. Her ordinary was messed up. You never knew what she would say without realizing it was shocking.

There had been no pressing reason why the JSDF had to die there. This spaceship was large enough to hold all of them along with us.

But she had no reason for them.

She did not need them.

And that was all the reason that empress in the pod needed to crush their lives underfoot. Those slimy boomerangs she called the servant species had to be a picture of our fate if we were forced to make the ultimate decision.

If we did not want fear to crush us beyond recognition, we had to stay strong.

I tried a new tack inside that vast but inorganic spaceship which was kept too cold.

“It’s true the Tokyo Skytool was the country’s largest broadcast tower, but based on what you said, knocking it over won’t change much!”

“True. To be honest, I am unsure how to progress. I began this endeavor as it is necessary, but there are too many of them. The aerospace agency in Florida, the rainforest preservation meteorological observatory in the Amazon, the EU wide-area broadcast base in Frankfurt…the list goes on. Humans, I am impressed you managed to build so needlessly many of them. Do the electromagnetic waves not crush your chest cavities?”

“Hold on.”

“The wide-area wireless network base tower in the Gibson Desert, the multipurpose space station, and…yes, there was also an infuriating broadcast station causing a nuisance by constantly broadcasting Beatulls songs into space. You are welcome to your own aesthetic opinions, but give a thought to the uninterested parties who are constantly pummeled by that nonsense.”

“What was happening around the world while we were trapped in that elevator!?”

The face displayed on the four monitors hanging from the ceiling tilted slightly.

Then she responded.

“I have only done what is necessary to the extent necessary. Why does that surprise you?”

This had to be a joke.

It was true earth had its hands full. We had no idea when the extreme moral hazard of the Calamity would spring forth and Absolute Noah, the secret organization created to oppose that apocalypse, had fallen apart after going berserk.

But.

Even so.

Had anyone predicted this? Even a single person on earth!? Calling us unprepared or peace-addled for that seemed entirely unfair!

“But I have concluded I will never finish this job by fiddling with the planetary atmosphere, so it is time to take more drastic measures.”

“What more could there be?”

“The primary base stations are infuriatingly numerous enough, but you all carry around untold numbers of smaller device as well, don’t you? IoT? How absurd. Just because you can fit a stamp-sized SD card on something, does not mean you have to give it wireless capabilities, you fools. Anyway, targeting each of those individually would be an endless task.”

Smaller devices?

She had not just used the winds to knock over the tower. She had also flooded a wide area of Tokyo, so did she see it like Noah’s flood? She may have had those slimly things investigate for her, but how much of our technology and culture had she absorbed?

“So I believe I shall start with a geomagnetic distortion. I like the idea of using your primitive planet’s own power to wipe clean your primitive civilization.”

“…”

“Do you think I am incapable of it? Consider the method used to fly a mothership of this size. If I activate the ion engine to…yes, let’s say Shift 3, the stream of charged particles will obliterate the planet’s magnetic field. The massive magnetic abnormality should be enough to swiftly destroy every last semiconductor and electric circuit on the planet’s surface. That method is inescapable as long as you are reliant on a single planet.”

“Are you kidding me!? That’s going way beyond destroying EM-emitting devices! Don’t you know you’ll be destroying labs, industrial complexes, airplanes, power plants, pacemakers, and life-support devices!?”

“Which is why I left it as a last resort. If the meteorological weapon had sufficed, I would not have needed to make this choice.”

Also, this was bad.

If all the electronics on earth were destroyed, what would happen to Maxwell? Being out at sea or in a shelter deep underground would not help. There was no escaping it if the entire planet’s geomagnetism was messed up!!

The heat inside my body and the chill outside of it fought for supremacy with the skin of my face between.

Think.

I had to think.

Words were weapons and the cards I had to play. That empress herself had said so. Putting off or delaying the inevitable was fine for now. What could I do to move her finger away from the button of doom she was toying with? The empress wearing only paper underwear in that liquid could have killed us without speaking a word if she had wanted to. And she had not called the JSDF here. She had some reason of choosing us over them. There was a reason why she had chosen Erika, Ayumi, and me and taken us aboard her mothership. Of course, this was all over if it turned out to be on a whim or just for fun. And that was a distinct possibility. But if she did need something from us, I might be able to use that as a bargaining chip!!

“Human, you are scheming, aren’t you?”

“Kh.”

“Very well. I am sick of those who abandon all thought and become a fawning converts once hit with the difference in scale. That spirit is exactly the kind of trait I want to see from the one who will make use of my womb.”

…?

What?

Had she just changed the subject? Converts, traits, womb? None of this sounded like talk of travel hindrances or the destruction of electronic devices.

“Now, now. This is, in fact, the main topic at hand. I have traveled to many star systems, but did you think I was doing so without a purpose in mind? I only insist on eliminating the travel hindrances and the electromagnetic interference because they interfere with that journey. That is a reaction, not my objective.”

“What else could there be?”

“Supply me with your genes.”

For a moment, I did not know what she meant.

“I am telling you to make a child with me.”

“Huhhhhhhh!?”

“Huhhhhhhh!?”

Erika and Ayumi behind me reacted much more quickly than me.

“Is there a problem? While a female body must wait until the new life has become sufficiently developed, a male must only supply the seed. That will be no real burden.”

“Are you…are you kidding me, fugu!? Wh-wh-wh-wh-what do you think you’re saying to my big brother!? Are you a pervert, or just really lonely or something!? Fugu, fuguu!”

“I can separate you into three different levels if need be.”

The face on the four giant monitors remained unconcerned. It was just like when she had sent 10,000 members of the slimy servant species to earth with no intention of retrieving them. Did she not place us or her servants any higher or lower? Did she simply make use of whatever she deemed necessary?

“A similar species is one that can procreate with me, a servant species is one that cannot but can function as a work force, and an extinct species is what I leave in my wake if a species can do neither. …Did you think I had no reason to bring you here? You are being tested. To see which of those three categories you belong in.”

It was all too absurd.

But did she see this as something like a marriage interview? This!? With the fate of the entire planet hanging in the balance!?

“Um, if that is what this is about…”

“Yes?”

“Then could you free Erika and Ayumi… my sisters, I mean?”

“If they are unnecessary, shall I eject them?”

I felt a squeezing at my heart and the face on the screen seemed to enjoy this.

“I will not go that far. I am willing to show some accommodation to the genetic supplier. I was observing from above and you seem more interesting than the others of your local species. I want to see your AGCT sequence. Give me your DNA.”

“Wait, do you mean…?”

Erika frowned and looked not at the giant monitors by the ceiling but at the cylindrical pod lifted up by the slimy frog-skinned things. At the person floating in the liquid wearing only pure white paper underwear.

Yes.

Time looked stopped there, like things were being forcibly preserved.

“Our reproductive ability is low. Extremely low.”

She did not hesitate.

“In fact, the required opposite sex no longer exists. They have gone extinct. It turns out you can be too exceptional as individuals. We put off the effort needed to coexist in groups and the time has come to pay the price.”

“…”

This was someone who had been left all alone in the world.

I still had trouble believing she was an alien, but even if that was a joke, I couldn’t make fun. I felt like I was about to step on a serious bombshell, so I could not give a careless response.

“So the only option is to search out a species with a similar enough genetic sequence. This might sound absurd to you, but it is an urgent, top-priority matter to me.”

My country was always going on and on about declining birthrates, but this was different from that.

What she said here brought a shockingly icy feeling up from the pit of my stomach.

“Choose.”

This was someone who was living out a cruel and hopeless struggle for survival.

This was pure.

It was like how water truly devoid of all impurities would behave in unique ways.

“Will you attempt procreation with me, will you give up and supply labor, or will you refuse and be eradicated? All life in this star system will be divided into those three categories. No matter in history has been more urgent, so no one can claim they are not a part of it. Will you attempt to reach a category of your choosing, or will you simply let me choose?”

If our situations were reversed, what would I have done?

What if I was the last person on earth? And I mean truly the last one, so no former humans like Zombies or Vampires. What would I do then? Would I do whatever it took to leave behind descendants, would I try to leave something behind in the form of a journal or data, would I distract myself from my loneliness with AIs and virtual reality, or would I erase all traces of life to truly eliminate everything?

I couldn’t find an answer.

Survival or extinction.

That was the debate that had been held over the Calamity and Absolute Noah. But they had never imagined being the very last person left. In fact, that ark had grown so bloated specifically to avoid that.

It was worse than death.

There was even less room for escape than with a sudden and total extinction.

I subconsciously recoiled at the thought of the entire planet becoming a giant prison while that inescapable ruin bore down upon me.

And another thing.

I looked up at the four large monitors hanging down from the ceiling.

“I refuse.”

I rejected the offer.

I withdrew the possibility of breaking the bars of her cage.

It was true the burden on a man’s body was different from that on a woman’s. Cooperating would not put my life at risk. My, uh, “genes” were a sticky goop that would come out all on its own given a couple of weeks.

But that didn’t mean I could just hand it over.

“You claim this is the right thing to do because it will save your species?”

Just like she had her own logic, we had a line we refused to cross. If I did that like it was an experiment using litmus paper, I would end up regretting it for the rest of my life.

“Are you kidding me, you extinct loner? People don’t come together based on logic like that! It might be silly and it might be embarrassing, but everyone wants to be joined with someone they have feelings for!! I’m not letting you take that option from me based on some logical argument or justification!!”

We were talking about a life here.

A high school kid like me wasn’t ready to face something as important as that.

Once it took root, you had a responsibility there. No matter how much trouble it was, you couldn’t turn your back on that.

In fact.

Even adults probably felt that way.

Everyone was afraid of having to support another life.

But when it was the result of being with the person you loved more than anyone else, then you could hesitantly and tentatively prepare yourself to head down that path. It would not all be smooth sailing. I mean, I had two moms. But none of that was the result of half-baked feelings. Everyone had done everything they could to make it work, but they had been unable to stop the failure and so my previous mom left the house even though it must have felt like tearing her heart in two.

And yet…

“Are you kidding me?”

Yes.

Yes, yes! Even picturing her in my mind’s eye embarrassed me right now!!

I had a childhood friend who had always supported me. That Class Rep had long black hair, a bared forehead, and frameless glasses. I wasn’t going to turn my back on that because of some logic based on “efficiency” or “distribution”. If someone tried to do the same to her, I’d hunt them down and kill them even if it meant destroying every last civilization in the world. They could run to the dark side of the moon and I’d still find them. We weren’t lab rats, so I wouldn’t let that happen to anyone!

“Are you kidding me!? The world doesn’t revolve around you! Go solve your problems yourself. If you haven’t managed to fall in love or find someone special, it’s your own damn fault for not making the effort and for feeling satisfied with your loneliness! You don’t get to make us pay off your debt!!”

“You mean…”

The voice from the monitor seemed too flat.

I knew I was looking at an artificial face, but a disconcerting pressure, similar to an invisible bowstring being drawn, burned between my eyes.

“You mean you are giving up on procreation and instead wish to supply labor as a servant species?”

“No.”

“Then you are actively choosing the path of extinction? Do you think I am incapable of making good on that threat?”

“I’m not taking any of the paths you’re trying to force onto me. That’s my choice, empress.”

“I believe I told you that you are being tested, foolish local species. You should have used your primitive mind to consider what your score would be if you abandoned the test meant to determine the path of your life.”

There was a crawling, but not of killer intent.

“There’s so many of them!”

“Stand back, Onii-chan!”

The three siblings stood back to back while viewing our surroundings.

It was the dry brown things with slimy frog skin. That servant species had sworn to obey when their planet was destroyed. There was more than just the mountain of them supporting the cylindrical pod. It was like a mountain range surrounding us in every direction. Erika had said our mind had difficulty recognizing them and light did not actually pass through them, but was that really true? When they squirmed, the scene behind them rippled like we were seeing it through sugar syrup. It felt like the many crop circles were linking together to display the constellations in a planetarium. There had to be a thousand, ten thousand, or maybe even more of them! They covered the ceiling too!!

Was it beginning?

We still didn’t know what the empress’s Achilles heel was.

If anything, it was my body, but…

“Did you know that even corpses can ejaculate? Such stories are normally spoken in relation to hangings and the electric chair. It might sound akin to the legends of guillotined heads blinking, but these are a bit more credible. As long as I act within five minutes of your death, I can still retrieve a viable sample. In other words, the procreation experiment can continue even if you die.”

“…!!”

“Will you offer it in the pleasures of life, or in the convulsions of death? I do not care, as I can achieve my goal either way.”

I had to think.

Guesses were fine at this point.

There was no time to line up pieces of evidence to support everything. If I was going to make an attack here, what did I need to target? I had to think back on the conversation held here. No, what was the point of the conversation in the first place? I couldn’t give up now. I had to do something for my Vampire older sister, my Zombie little sister, and for the entire planet below us. What mattered most: the face on the four monitors, the girl in the pod, the slimy boomerangs, or the giant mothership? It was all on such a ridiculous scale, but I focused on the conversation. I had to remember what it was that seemed off to me.

…

Wait.

It couldn’t be.

Or could it???

“The screen,” I said. “Ayumi, Erika! I know it’s high up there, but can you destroy that giant monitor!?”

“Fugu?”

“Just do it, please!!”

Ayumi tilted her head, but Erika took immediate action. The right arm extending from her torn sleeve grabbed the phone charger cable I tossed her, she swung it around using the plug as a weight to build up speed, and she threw it right through the large monitor hanging from the ceiling.

It caused a high-pitched shattering sound.

Yes.

That was right.

This spaceship was made so the interior could be rearranged for different purposes, so what was with that oversized monitor? What purpose did it serve? Could she not speak with that servant species without using a 300+-inch screen? No, the girl in the pod had said she had been observing us from above and she knew an awful lot about earth culture, like the guillotine and hanging stuff. That meant she had some way of communicating with the servant species that had descended to earth. There was no need for that excessively large screen when she could use that same method in the ship.

It was near the ceiling and four giant monitors were joined together to form a large box.

It was a lot like at a martial arts or poker tournament.

But I seriously doubted it was CRT, so not all of that space would be filled up. There would be an empty space surrounded by the LCD walls. And wouldn’t that be the one and only enclosed space in this great hall?

“Kee hee.”

Also.

We were being spoken to by an artificial face and voice that perfectly matched the girl in the pod, but did that really prove the girl in the pod and the girl on the monitor were one and the same? The girl in the pod wore only thin paper underwear held together by strings, yet she had not so much as stirred and we had yet to hear her speak directly from that body.

“Kee hee hee hee hee hee.”

Make use of my womb. Less burden on the man.

The way she spoke about things made it sound like she didn’t really care about her own body. Like she was no more than an observer.

“Kee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee!!”

Some kind of large clump fell down from beyond the shattered LCD screen. What was that wriggling on the floor? It was horribly skinny and had six segmented legs with a yellowish coloration. I couldn’t tell hands apart from feet and I wasn’t confident this thing was even supposed to stand on two legs.

It was too big to be human.

The creepy mass wriggled on the floor, looked up at us with glittering compound eyes, and spoke not from its throat but from the thin wings on its back that had grown too small to use for flight.

“Ee hee ee hee ee hee hee. Oh, so the secret’s out, is it? The girl in the glass pod is a surrogate mother I picked up on earth. I believe she was known as a Scylla. She has traits from a mixture of different lifeforms, so I figured she would hold the greatest range of possibilities as a mother.” “I thought something seemed off! Are you like a red-banded sand wasp!?”

This was not a humanoid alien; it was an insectoid one.

The antennae on that invader’s head pointed every which way as she spoke.

“Not all of what I said was a lie. Having children is an urgent and top-priority matter for me as empress. If you had simply said yes and filled that womb with your genes, it would have been so easy to transfer that material into a test tube.”

A special kind of wasp would take captured prey back to their nest, lay eggs in it, and use that living prey as food for the larvae. If people had evolved from that kind of insect instead of apes, maybe we would have ended up like this. Some other planet’s environment may have allowed for that alternative evolutionary branch.

She was an empress.

She placed all other lifeforms into three categories: useful for reproduction, useful as a soldier, or not useful. She was an exceedingly dangerous invasive species that would wreak havoc on the existing ecology and natural environment.

This was fundamentally different from the Archenemies that wanted to live alongside humans.

I couldn’t let her go free.

This went beyond anything we could talk out. This had nothing to do with good or evil. If this lifeform would trample on and crush all others as a matter of course, then I couldn’t let her stay on our planet any longer!

“Damn you!!”

“Gee kee ee hee hee. Was that womb not to your liking? Then do you have a request? I did keep two spares on hand just in case. Which of the girls behind you should I place inside the pod?”

I couldn’t help it.

My mind really did go blank.

Those words alone made me want to kill her!!

“Wait, Satori-kun! Don’t lose focus!!”

Erika’s voice sounded so far away.

I thought it was because the blood had rushed to my head.

But it wasn’t.

“Ah.”

A needle?

When did she sting me???

Shockingly, the stinger in my right side was more of a stake than anything since it was thicker than my thumb. It had pierced right through my short-sleeved jacket. Worst of it all, it didn’t even hurt. I felt no pain at all.

The tube-like thing attached to the stinger’s other end extended to the back of the empress’s hips.

I couldn’t feel how far it had entered my body, but as thick as it was, I doubted it was just a centimeter or two.

Come to think of it, didn’t mosquitos and leeches use an anesthetic liquid to prevent the target from noticing their blood was being sucked? I had assumed all wasp venom provided a burning pain, so this had been a blind spot. I now recalled that a red-banded sand wasp’s stinger was not used to provide pain. It paralyzed the target so they could not get away.

“Gh, bgh.”

“Onii-chan!?”

All I could hear was that “kee kee ee hee kee kee kee” of laughter produced by thin wings rubbing together. It may have been like realizing too late that you had come down with a cold. Now that I was aware of it, I could feel the heat growing in my forehead. I lost my balance and leaned at an angle. I had apparently been pumped full of some crazy chemicals to get rid of the pain signals.

But.

Even so.

I did my best to think inside that overly chilly spaceship.

She might be an empress and a frightening invasive species, but not even she could choose what she was born as. Her species may have tried to choose the best evolutionary path, but she had already revealed her weakness, hadn’t she? Not that humans were much better since we would shorten our lifespans with stress of our own making and with reactive oxygen.

I could not let my sisters fall into her hands.

And if she was a wasp, I would defeat her like a wasp.

However, that did not mean some impressive display of superhuman action. It did not matter that I had been hit by a powerful venom that gave me fever-like symptoms. There wasn’t much a high school kid could do in the first place.

I simply spread my arms and collapsed forward.

I landed on top of that giant bug empress as if squashing her six legs to the floor.

“Gee bee bzz!?”

Since I was crushing the transparent wings on her back, noise distorted her voice.

But I had done enough.

It did not even need to throw a punch or kick. Covering her up was what mattered.

A distorted, high-pitched sound came from the thin wings. Was that her original language? Then the scene-distorting servant species rushed in like a flood. Were they hoping to tear me away by force? But this worked against her. She had fallen for my trick.

“Did you know, empress?”

My mind was woozy from the fever.

But I could still use this to protect my family.

“When a beehive is under attack from a ferocious hornet, they will form a desperate defensive line to protect their larvae. The bees are smaller and their venom is less powerful, so they can never win a direct one-on-one fight. Instead, they cling to it en masse and form a large clump. And they stick with it even as they are stung and bitten.”

“…!?”

More and more pressure bore down on me.

The slimy boomerangs kept piling on.

The empress belatedly tensed up, but it was too late. She could only contact them with those thin wings. By clinging to her with my arms and legs, I could hold her in place, as if crushing her with my gut.

“That’s right. It’s all about body heat. Bees aren’t very hot, but by gathering enough of them together to create something like a greenhouse, they can kill the hornet within using their heat.”

That was probably why it was kept so chilly in here.

Had she been living a comfortable life until now?

A life without room for complaint or conflict might sound nice, but that meant she was never blessed with someone who would point out her mistakes.

“The fever from your venom was exactly what I needed. I was a little worried that wouldn’t be enough, but I knew you were bound to send in your servant species the instant there was any sort of problem. Yes, you don’t have to answer me. I’m holding your wings down, so you can’t get a single word out to that servant species. Your commands are absolute, but doesn’t that mean they’ll never give up until you retract the command?”

Controlling an absolute monarchy had its downsides.

Even if everyone had their doubts about something, no one would voice those doubts out of fear. And then the obvious mistake would remain unfixed.

Dammit.

The one flaw with killing a hornet using heat was how the bees fighting it would not survive the encounter either.

It was so heavy and hot.

It was hard to tell with my sense of pain gone, but I could hear some odd noises coming from within my body. Well, I would count it as a passing grade as long as I defeated the empress and my sisters were okay. That was more than enough for some high school kid, right? Everything is so much harder in space. If I had a connection to Maxwell, could I have come up with a better plan?

Damn…it.

I’m about to

pass

out.

How much time had passed?

It may have been 5 minutes, or it may have been more than an hour.

Either way, I got up and found the empress and the slimy frog-skinned things were gone. I was lying near the cylindrical pod that had been left behind on the vast spaceship.

“Fugu.”

Ayumi spoke up when she noticed me. …And her white tank top and shorts were still quite something. I was pretty sure I could see the stitches through them.

“You’re not okay, so take it easy. You were hit with a really hard anesthetic effect. I would recommend not looking at your side. It’s bad enough that Onee-chan went half crazy.”

“Are we still…on the spaceship?”

“We don’t know how to get down from here.”

Fair enough.

I couldn’t imagine us descending slowly to the surface guided by that spotlight. Screw that up and we’d plummet to our doom. The spaceship was not tilting and crashing, so it would be best not to touch anything until we knew what we were doing.

“Where’s Erika?”

“I said she went half crazy, didn’t I? Now ask yourself why you don’t see any of those slimy servant species around.”

Well, there was a scary thought. Although I doubted those boomerang things would be giving their all in that fight. With their commander unconscious, they had likely stopped trying to do much of anything.

That was when I heard a monotone electronic tone. It did not come from my phone or Ayumi’s. For one thing, we had no signal this far off the ground. Supposedly. That empress had suggested otherwise. Anyway, this was coming from somewhere inside the mothership.

“Fugu, there’s something below the floor.”

A support pillar similar to a collapsible baton rose up to about my hip height. Ayumi had great reflexes and managed to dodge it before it hit her in the jaw.

The pillar displayed a red screen saying:

“Error Report>> This problem is high-risk case. Please check your system back up & all reboot.”

That was not a translation.

That was exactly what it said on the LCD screen.

I was honestly not that great at English. During my trip to Las Vegas, I had been almost entirely reliant on the Forehead Glasses Class Rep and Anastasia. But even I recognized this text.

“An error message?”

“Fugu?”

“Hold on. I thought this was an alien ship. Why is it showing the standard text from an ordinary Winners OS!?”

I remembered the text because it had gone a bit viral on social media and message boards because everyone was wondering whether the broken English was the result of a bug or if it was intentional. Kind of like that famous bug that filled your phone’s dictionary with words you never added to it.

The screen was awaiting input, so I reached out a finger and touched it. I hesitantly wrote out some alphabetic text and…damn, it actually worked! The standard OS commands ran just fine.

I wanted to avoid making farfetched theories about the standard Winners OS used by 3 billion people having been made with the help of aliens.

Because there was a simpler explanation here.

“Was this UFO made on earth?”

Once I asked that question, my thoughts made rapid progress.

Erika must have noticed something was up because she walked over while I worked through it.

“That empress was evolved from a red-banded sand wasp. But that’s an earth animal. Does that also explain how she knew our language and how she knew so much about earth culture, like guillotines and electric chairs? She didn’t observe and research it all from the outside. She was born on earth to begin with!”

This was all part of the empress’s plan.

Or was it?

Was it really???

She said the unnecessary EM signals were hindering her space travel. She said making children was an urgent issue. I could not bring myself to think all of that had been a malicious act. We had been so overwhelmed because she had spoken it all with such undoubting conviction.

“Was the empress being deceived too? Did someone trick her into believing all of that?”

What if she had been inside some windowless space deep underground or inside this spaceship from the moment she was born and had been raised without ever being told the air she was breathing was from the planet earth?

If so, then all of those absurd phrases she had used didn’t really mean anything.

It would mean everything had happened on earth solely to set up this situation.

“But who created this giant UFO and the aliens to occupy it!?”

[Mobile Temp] Untitled [File 08]

Oh?

He’s caught on already? That was faster than planned.

Chapter 7

The floor shook below my feet.

Hm?

I staggered and Erika propped me up, but what was even happening?

“It’s hard to tell without any windows, but did this ship just tilt?”

“Fugu? You mean the giant UFO is falling toward earth!?”

Not necessarily, but the risk was the same no matter which way we were moving. We didn’t want to be carried away to the farthest reaches of space, after all.

Why had this happened all of a sudden?

Had the empress lost control when she lost consciousness?

Or was there someone else in control who had some other plans here?

Fortunately, the huge ship was controlled by a professional version of the familiar Winners line of OSs. There was not much I could do on my own. There was no way I could break through the firewall and figure out the program structure starting now. In fact, that kind of work was generally done using special tools, so you didn’t just type away on the keyboard like in movies. A computer was just a box if there was nothing inside it. Just like drawing a picture or writing a song, you needed the appropriate software if you wanted to do something.

But if you were already on the inside, you didn’t have to go to the trouble of hacking in. I could operate the computer to the extent that manual control was sufficient. And since it used the Winners format, I could call in that powerful, all-purpose tool named Maxwell.

If the signals from earth were affecting the spaceship’s travel, then it had to be able to pick up those earth signals. I managed to manually open up a port and then connected to Japan via a server on a small Pacific island using an IP I had set up as a burner account.

“Maxwell, can you hear me? If you have a connection, respond on my phone!”

“Sure. You appear to be accessing me from an unknown server, but where are you and what are you doing?”

Oh, right. My GPS app couldn’t tell Maxwell my position while off the planet.

“You’ve checked through the structure of that unknown server, right? I want to regain control of the giant UFO that’s started to tilt. Help me do that.”

“UFO stands for unidentified flying object, but if you have visual confirmation of it and can distinguish it from other flying objects, it would instead qualify as an identified flying-”

“No one cares, Maxwell! Just execute my command already!”

“User, why is that mystery craft crudely running ordinary Winners?”

“Don’t ask me. Now, which way is it tilting?”

“The angle is drifting between 1 and 6 degrees while it approaches earth. Its course forms a gentle parabolic arc. That is commonly known as an angle of reentry into the atmosphere.”

“Fugu. So we really are falling!”

This ship was so large we could not see the far end of it despite being indoors. If a structure that large hit the surface, it was bound to bring about another ice age.

“Could we change the angle so it burns up in the thermosphere?”

“No. Not only is the material extremely durable, its mass is very large. It should break through even if the angle of reentry is altered.”

“Then what if we give it a shallower angle? Y’know, have it skip off the edge of the atmosphere and fly away.”

“Recalculating.”

Please.

Please let it work!!

“The mass is again a concern. Even if it did briefly skip off the atmosphere, the earth’s gravitational pull on its great mass might be too strong to break free. It is more likely that it will simply break through the atmospheric wall, leading to the same situation as the other scenario.”

Was there nothing we could do!?

“Fugugugugu!”

“Ayumi-chan.”

Ayumi started meaninglessly shouting, so Erika gently held her slender shoulders through the mostly-unzipped track jacket.

Yes, that was right.

Giving Maxwell impossible commands was meaningless. I had to think and I did not have to find an answer right away. I had to do this one step at a time, like untangling some wires.

The ridiculous scale of the ship was the biggest problem here. Any ordinary logic would be crushed by that weight.

“No, wait. Maxwell, the UFO itself is working, right?”

“It has already begun to fall, but within those bounds, yes.”

“Search for as big a piece of debris as you can find in satellite orbit. We can place this huge thing on a collision course to break it apart like a rice cracker. The smaller pieces of the wreckage should burn up in the thermosphere or skip off!”

“That will likely increase the concentration of debris at a historically unprecedented rate,” said Maxwell.

“That’s better than having history come to an abrupt end. But if we’re going to do this, let’s try to burn up as many of the fragments as possible. Let’s try not to create a cage of debris.”

We could not just sit around while this happened. The ship we were going to smash to pieces and send through the thermosphere was the very one we were occupying.

“Maxwell, search for a means of escape!”

“I see nothing you could call an ‘escape pod’.”

“So can it only let people down in that antigravity whatever that looks like a spotlight? How did all those slimy brown servant species things get down to earth!?”

“Based on the footage recorded within the ship, several of them clumped together before being ejected toward the atmosphere. It is unclear what percentage arrived to the surface, but the ones on the outside must have been burned up.”

She really had been an empress. Her view of life was fundamentally different from ours!!

“Fuguu. But the empress herself had a hiding place to protect herself while using that ‘surrogate mother’ as the center of attention. I feel like she would have some insurance for herself.”

“Maxwell.”

“No. Perhaps she intended to gather that servant species around herself for protection.”

Doing that would increase her body temperature too much. For that matter, I doubted she could stand the scorching heat of the thermosphere if sauna levels of heat were enough to threaten her life. Maybe she was convinced she could never lose, so she had a theory but had never actually tested it out.

“If there isn’t one, we’ll just have to create one.”

“Satori-kun?”

“Maxwell, this spaceship is apparently made so its interior can be freely rearranged to match the current need. Search the ship’s storage for a specifications document on the interior control. We just need something that can break away and handle free fall or ballistic flight. There has to be tons of materials in here, so we can build an airtight shell capable of surviving reentry!”

“Checking data for unrecommended task. The physical work itself is possible, but several of the parameters necessary as a basis for the simulation are only taken from private space companies or websites run by hobbyists. Since this technology can be used in missiles, the security at universities and national agencies is strict and none of the concrete parameters are provided on the public sites. If the values gathered from the viewable part of the web are inaccurate, there is a severe risk of it breaking up during reentry or exposing you to radiation damage. Do you still wish to continue this task?”

…

Not even I could answer.

Not right away anyway.

This wasn’t just my own life on the line. I could be exposing my family to danger as well. Could I do that? Could I nod my head without knowing anything for sure?

“Satori-kun, we have no other option here. I don’t like making a gamble either, but our odds are zero if we stay here on the ship.”

“Fugu. That’s right, Onii-chan. And we can’t let this giant UFO fall on the earth. What about dad, mom, and everyone at school? I can’t let something happen to them!”

They really saved me there.

I wasn’t acting purely based on the odds of success or failure, but I was still really glad to have them with me.

“Maxwell, do it!”

“Sure. Continuing task.”

The surrounding walls rose up, complexly rearranged, and produced a new silhouette. They created a box smaller than a school classroom, but it did not end with that one. The same process repeated afterwards to create a long row of the boxy escape pods.

“How many of the servant species do you think can fit on board?”

“Theoretically, all of them,” said Maxwell. “But as we do not know how to contact them, it is unknown if we can get them to understand that will save them. I will send a message in as many languages as I can, but they probably think dropping down as-is is the natural form of atmospheric reentry.”

“…”

“Also, I estimate there are more than 10,000 of them still aboard the ship. It is unknown if they can reproduce, but sending them to the surface could lead to a situation similar to the release of black bass.”

I understood that.

They were clearly our enemy, but I still could not even consider leaving them to burn as the spaceship fell apart.

“I want to minimize the effects as much as possible. Don’t let them spread out too much and drop them to a single point.”

“Understood. I will search for an uninhabited island out at sea.”

“We also need to bring the empress and the girl in the pod…was she a Scylla?”

The skinny yellow empress had been acting base on lies, but that did not change what she had done. My efforts here were honestly less about feeling sorry for her and more about not wanting her to escape somehow.

“How will you restrain her?” asked Maxwell.

“Search for an open pod like the one that Scylla is in. We’ll treat her like a torture tool craftsman: shove her into the device she was so proud of.”

“Sure.”

“Hey, Onii-chan? We’ve heard about a Scylla before, haven’t we?”

“Yeah. My underclassman is a Circe Witch and when she was transforming herself with the potions she makes-”

“No, not that. Hmm, wasn’t there something in the Bright Cross’s underground facility?”

Once we were somewhere safe, we could remove her from the pod and ask her after she woke up.

If we wanted to increase our odds of survival, it would be best to all ride different escape pods, but the three of us naturally gathered in the same one.

We brought the clear pods containing the Scylla and the empress with us.

“Shut the door, Maxwell. And lock it from the inside. It’s airtight now, right?”

“Sure. That is not a problem.”

I was still wet, so I felt chilly even with my black coat.

Either to increase the strength of the shell or to protect my Vampire sister from the sunlight, there were no windows. Instead, there appeared to be a camera on the outside. That let me see things outside using my phone. Since it was so close, I was directly connecting with Redtooth, which did not require a server in between.

“How long can I keep this connection with you?” I asked Maxwell.

“I am using the mystery spaceship as a sort of satellite host, so until it is destroyed You will definitely lose the connection during reentry. For Miss Erika’s sake, I will try to send you to a landing point where it is currently night, but the margin of error is an unknown. Once you arrive on the surface, please send me accurate location data using GPS or the like. Once I have located you, I will reconstruct an access route using the best line available.”

In this case, we would not be using short rocket bursts to adjust our position along the way. Once we were thrown out there, we were in free fall. The very start mattered most, so we did not need Maxwell’s help throughout.

“It’s going to feel lonely again pretty soon.”

“I did not realize you were such a needy child, user. Once this is over, how about we have a VR festival? With a swimsuit and dancing theme.”

I felt a small vibration.

To reiterate, this escape pod had no engine. Once we were thrown out there, it was pure free fall. That meant this movement would be coming from the spaceship as a whole.

“Beginning countdown from 30. I will see you again on the surface, user.”

“Yeah.”

A 30 second countdown seemed long, but it was over in no time. I didn’t have time at all to gather my resolve. I felt a heavy sound of scraping metal while my stomach was lifted up. That was the force of inertia. The floor had opened up and the escape pod had fallen out.

I checked my phone and saw a real outer space-y kind of scene for the first time.

I saw the clear starry sky and the blue planet below.

If our lives were not at risk, I might have been struck speechless by the sight.

But now was not the time for tears. The escape pod camera spun around and captured the moment the giant saucer broke apart. A piece of deadly debris had crashed into it after building up plenty of speed circling the earth over and over. The spaceship bent, tilted, and cracked before falling apart. Still, each piece was several hundred meters long. Smashing it up several times over was still not enough to ensure it would burn up in the thermosphere. The explosion was enormous, but we could not hear it.

Sound could not travel through space. The noise we did hear must have been the small fragments hitting the escape pod like a scattershot of bullets or a sandstorm.

“Wh-what?” Pale-faced Ayumi looked wildly around while clinging to the cylindrical pod in which the paper underwear Scylla slept. “I don’t like the sound of that. Isn’t something scraping at the other side of the wall!?”

“We weren’t caught in the debris storm. We’ve hit the edge of the atmosphere. The real danger starts here!”

The boxes just like our own flew toward that orange burning curtain like a meteor shower.

We had no way of knowing which ones were full of the servant species and which ones were empty.

They didn’t all make it. Some were crushed after colliding with even bigger pieces of debris and some couldn’t withstand the friction and burned away.

“Dammit!!”

“Satori-kun, there’s no turning back now, so just bear with it!”

It could be us next.

All of the ejected boxes used the exact same design. The difference in results must have come down to being unlucky enough to hit some spaceship debris or the slight margins of error in the construction phase. That meant nothing we could do would change the result.

If we were going to die, we were going to die.

It was all about probability and statistics. It was like drawing lots.

“Kssshhh! …ser.”

“Maxwell, that’s enough. Break the connection or you’ll receive a ton of corrupted signals when the spaceship server is destroyed!”

“I will soon leave – ksshh – but first…something I – kssshhh – tell you. I found – ksshh – notes and memos within the Winners-based – ksh – OS’s scripts.”

“What?”

“I can only – kssshhh – they were intentionally placed where – ksshh – would find them. I thought I was making the choice – ksh – highest probability of success, but – ksh – possible that a third party was guiding – ksshh – your landing point.”

We had already been launched and the escape pod had no engine. That meant we could not change course.

“Understood. What should we be on the lookout for?”

“First of all, you – ksh – land safely. I will send you the – kshh – and memos that I found in text format. They may be of some use in – kssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

The transmission suddenly ended. I turned the exterior camera and saw the several broken blocks that had once been a giant saucer were glowing orange as they entered the thermosphere.

Receive error.

The files Maxwell had tried to send to my phone were corrupted and I had trouble even opening them. And even when I did, the text within was too corrupted to read.

Maxwell had mentioned a third party.

That meant there as someone else after all.

“Wh-what is going on?”

“We need to be careful, Ayumi.” That short response was all I could give. “This isn’t over once we land back on earth. There’s still more.”

A great roar surrounded us. It was just as disconcerting as being stuffed into a car’s trunk while the car was slowly crushed by a crane’s wrecking ball. Could we pass through the thermosphere? Would we avoid breaking apart and would the parachute open? And where would we land? Everything had been carefully calculated out, but that was all theoretical and we never knew what would happen in practice. The stress was too much and I had to scream. Heat built up in my head and an odd sweat soaked me, but I couldn’t tell if that was a psychological issue or if the temperature really had risen.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“…ri-kun.”

The next thing I knew, I was lying on the box’s floor.

“Satori-kun.”

I felt a strange warmth on the back of my head and assumed I was bleeding.

But it turned out I was wrong.

Since I saw Erika’s face peering down at me…was she giving me a lap pillow!?

“Stay right there. Don’t even think about forcing yourself up. You need to take your time and recover.”

“Ugh… Did I scream so much I fried my brain?”

She rubbed my head with the right hand extending from her torn sleeve. I just about sank into the depths of sisterly comfort, but then I heard my other sister’s voice.

“No, you bumped your head on the wall when the parachute opened. Fuguu, not fastening ourselves in place somehow was a mistake.”

My sisters appeared to be fine. Had they withstood the inertial forces with their Archenemy strength?

I would have loved to let Erika continue pampering me, but that was not an option.

I slowly got up from her lap and grabbed my phone, but it looked like the external camera had been destroyed. However, a glance at the clock showed it was 3 AM. My phone’s clock would automatically adjust itself for the country or region I was in, so this would not be a case of “it’s 3 AM in Japan but not in Brazil on the other side of the world.”

As long as it was nighttime outside.

We walked to the escape pod’s thick door. Just to be sure, I slowly cracked it open…but it was safe. It was dark outside. Also, there was a salty smell in the air. We may have been near the ocean.

“Erika, we only have 2 or 3 hours until dawn. If it comes to it, you need to get back inside the airtight escape pod. I don’t know where we are, but we need to consider the round trip time.”

“Got it.”

I opened the door wide this time.

We found a 50/50 mixture of natural landscape and artificial objects. It must have been a small island to begin with, but steel beams and metal pipes were complexly intertwined like a jungle gym and they jutted far out into the ocean.

Giant cranes extended into the air, obscuring the moon.

“What is all this?”

It was hard to tell whether this was the completed product or if it was under construction. Several metal floors were set up well off the ground. The tallest ones looked to be about three or four stories up. That created an oppressive atmosphere like someone was staring down at us.

The gusts of wind were powerful, but it was not raining like it had been in Tokyo. Where had we ended up, anyway? Was this still part of Japan?

“Fugu. Look at this sheet,” said Ayumi while her track jacket fluttered in the wind. “It says Nagasawa Construction.”

“And the pipes say Hishigami Materials. What is the point of this place?”

That did not mean much since both of those were international corporations, but there did seem to be a lot of Japanese writing. Was this a mine or something on a remote island within the country?

Oh, right.

I had to have an internet connection if my phone’s clock could update automatically. I could use GPS or another location service.

“Maxwell. Access my phone.”

“Sure. I have constructed an access route from Antenna Base Station B of the Tokyo Islands. Welcome back, my needy user.”

“Hm? Tokyo???”

“Tokyo technically refers to a very large region that includes many small islands in the ocean. Even Okinotorishima, the southernmost part of Japan, belongs to it.”

That was a surprise.

We had been alien abducted in Tokyo and traveled through space in order to fall right back in Tokyo.

“So where are we? How do we return to Honshu? By boat? Or airplane?”

“No. There are no regular ships or flights. As you will see if you check your map app, this island is not known to exist. The data has your cursor in the middle of the ocean, so I initially thought you were adrift in the water.”

“What?”

“I have checked with your phone’s camera, and while an entirely artificial oil platform or megafloat would be one thing, this is a mining base expanded from a natural island. It is clearly unusual for it to not appear on the map. I can only assume someone is intentionally hiding it.”

“Fugu. So like a military base?”

“No. In that case, there would be a blank area on the map; the terrain itself would not have been erased. Especially with an island since territorial waters tend to be a delicate matter.”

“So this is an even greater power, is it?” said Erika with a quiet look on her face.

According to Maxwell, some notes and memos had been used to leave a message in the Winners OS controlling the giant spaceship and it was possible some third party had been guiding where we landed. And once we did land, we found ourselves on a half-artificial island that had been erased from the records in a way even more unnatural than with a nation’s military base. This was starting to reach Area 51 levels of creepy.

“Nagasawa Construction and Hishigami Materials.”

“What about it, Erika? Those are pretty well-known companies.”

“That’s what strikes me as odd. Could it be…?” She looked around, her eyes chasing after the flood of Japanese writing. “Yes, the construction equipment and work machinery are from Michita Automobiles, the power system is from Honshu Power, the empty containers…that must have contained food are from Nichiro Foods and Gantry Drinks.”

“Fugu. Wait, don’t tell me…”

“Those were all supporters of the old Bright Cross…and Absolute Noah after that.” Erika placed the fingers of the arm with the torn sleeve on her skinny chin. “This may have been a candidate for the Calamity shelters. Although the one at the bottom of the Kukyou City dam was chosen in the end.”

The Bright Cross.

Absolute Noah.

I was surprised to hear those names here, but it also brought something else to mind.

“If the empress, the UFO, and everything else were set up by a third party, then the giant spaceship falling would have been part of their plan. But what were they going to do if our efforts weren’t enough and the ship really did fall? The entire planet would have entered an ice age. That would be suicide if you didn’t have a really large and sturdy shelter.”

It was even possible that the empress, the servant species, and the giant UFO had all been created here. It had all seemed so absurd before, but that organization could have done it.

I just had to remember the translucent red slimes that attacked Las Vegas.

Or the secret that was hidden at the bottom of the dam.

“Then is this related to mom’s organization? Has some remnant gone berserk or something?”

“It’s too soon to say. Someone else might be using a facility they abandoned.”

Either way, the danger level had just increased again. We had come here on an invitation from someone who knew the world’s secrets. We could not be certain they meant us no harm or ill will. Whether this was the Bright Cross, Absolute Noah, or someone who had hijacked their facility or knowledge, they might have the equipment and skills needed to combat Archenemies.

It would be best not to stay here for long.

That presented the same problem as before. As a Vampire, Erika could not move during the day, so we could not escape if the third party attacked after dawn.

And if we did find a boat and tried to leave the island, the odds were good dawn would break before we arrived on Honshu. But we could solve that problem with a sealed container to act as a coffin. We could even load the boxy escape pod on the boat. To be blunt, it would be far safer to force our way off the island than to hang around here for half a day while who-knows-who was wandering around.

“Let’s find a way to escape. It could be a boat or a helicopter for all I care. We may have been invited, but that’s no reason to fight some person we’ve never even seen before.”

“Fuguu. I just hope this is something we can do ourselves.”

Of course, there was only so much we could do even with Maxwell’s support.

We were going to have to walk around this dangerous island and all the metal structures there no matter what, but having a goal in mind would make a huge difference. If we simply followed some vague instructions and went around collecting hints, we would be walking headlong into whatever the third party had set up for us. After everything they had done, it was best to assume they were not planning to let us head home safely. Their path for us was headed straight toward a precipice, so we had no future if we did not break free of their scenario.

This tropical island was one of the secret paradises considered for Absolute Noah.

If it really was a giant shelter, it would have a vast underground area or a Ryugujo-style undersea base. But I honestly wasn’t interested in that. No matter what kind of labyrinth the villain had waiting for us, we only had to escape this island.

“Let’s get started. We need to find some way to survive.”

For now, we had no choice but to leave the small Scylla and the bizarre empress inside the cylindrical pods on the boxy escape pod. We would collect them once we had found a boat.

“What is the security like?” I asked Maxwell.

“Offline. There appear to be a full array of cameras and sensors set up around the artificial structures, but they have no power. Same with the electric locks on the doors.”

Even so, we had to be careful.

We had my Vampire older sister and Zombie little sister, but we had no idea who we were up against. Could a single person have done all this? Could it be a nonhuman Archenemy? There was always a possibility of finding ourselves surrounded by a brutally strong group of the undead.

“Any boats would be on the shore, right?”

“Let’s check all around.”

We did not have much time until dawn, but we were afraid to climb to the top of the jungle gym structure. Climbing the stairs would restrict our freedom of movement. We instead started by walking along the nighttime beach which was lined with metal pillars thick enough that all three of us together couldn’t have reached all the way around.

There really was nothing there.

And after taking a look around, it all looked much more weathered than I had expected. The pillars alone had the paint peeling off to reveal rusty metal. It looked a lot like playground equipment that had been abandoned without any sort of upkeep.

And I spotted something curious.

“Solar Computers?”

“Fugu?”

“That was the company name before the merger. But didn’t that happen before I was even born?”

Did that mean no one had been in or out of here since then?

It was becoming clear we were not going to find anything by crawling around down below. I was hesitant, but we climbed the metal ladder on a thick pillar to reach the top.

Oddly enough, the salty sea smell was stronger up there than by the water’s edge. It may have been an issue of airflow.

“Ah.”

“Erika.”

Erika wobbled, so I supported her from the side. I recalled that Vampires could not cross flowing water. That species weakness had reared its ugly head again once we moved to the part jutting out over the ocean and supported by all the pillars.

And regardless…

“There’s no one here, Onii-chan.”

“No, there isn’t.”

I had assumed the cameras and sensors were out because the power generators and main computer had been removed from the abandoned facility, but were their no soldiers either? There were no footprints or other signs of a human presence in the fine sand and dust coating everything thanks to the sea breeze. If I was being cynical, I couldn’t deny the possibility of winged Archenemies being stationed here, though. I was finding it harder and harder to figure out why the villain had guided us here.

Or was there no villain after all?

Or was the villain trying to trap us here just like we had dropped the slimy brown servant species on an uninhabited island?

I started considering pointless theories like those.

This ocean facility was made from steel beams and metal pipes arranged like a jungle gym, but there were giant plate-like areas of land prepared in places. Were those for cranes or heliports? I couldn’t see anything that remotely resembled a helicopter. Not that I would have known what to do with one anyway.

There were also some things hanging down from the other side of the railings. Those capsules were larger than bathtubs and they may have been deep sea research subs.

“It looks like the boats were lifted up with winches and lowered into the sea when needed. If we check areas like this, we might find a high-speed boat or motorboat.”

“Fugu?” Ayumi made a weird noise while staring off into the distance. “Look, Onii-chan. Isn’t that a proper boat hanging down over there!?”

She was right.

Two winches held a motorboat in place, just like a lifeboat on the side of a cruise ship. But this was more than a rubber boat with a crappy engine slapped on. This was a high-speed boat you could probably use in races. It would probably lift its bow up like it was doing a wheelie and move at more than 100km/h on the ocean.

It was the one oddly shiny thing in this seemingly forgotten mass of metal. It may have been what the villain had used to cross the sea.

“Yay, now we can get home. Fugu, but this is too small to carry that escape pod. Onee-chan, you might need to sleep inside a body bag to avoid the sunlight.”

“Is that any way to treat your beautiful, kind, and elegant big sister!?”

“How’s that any different from your usual coffin?”

But.

When I tried to follow after my sisters, I found my feet pinned to the spot. Because of my phone’s screen.

“Warning: I have detected a cyber-attack on your phone. Taking defensive action. Threat level: max. If I deem it impossible to avoid, I will forcibly shut off the power.”

“?”

A moment later, the motorboat hanging on the edge of the ocean structure erupted with flames and exploded.

This was no lightning strike.

Some dangerous object like a glowing beam or a ball of fire had dropped down on it with incredible speed.

I was more than 20m away, but I was still thrown to the chain mesh floor. I had trouble breathing, like my food had caught in my throat, and I felt a dry pain in my eyes, like I had moved too close to the heater. I choked, clung to the metal pipe railing, and shouted at the top of my lungs.

“Erika, Ayumi!!”

There was no response.

I only heard the roaring of flames despite this facility being made of metal. Nothing remained of the boat they had been approaching. Damn, what was below here? The ocean? Or the beach? Had the explosion thrown them over the railing!?

I doubted they were dead.

I had to believe they weren’t.

I heard something like the loud buzzing of bug wings.

Something cut by overhead in the night sky.

“A UFO drone? A JSDF one!?”

No, hadn’t the government labs developed those in response to a Bright Cross request?

“I was so busy handling the cyber-attack that I was slow to detect the suspicious signal,” said Maxwell. “Warning: running away is strongly recommended!”

“Dammit!!”

There was no escape if it got above me. You couldn’t shake that thing even if you floored it inside a supercar with a huge-ass engine inside.

However.

I didn’t have time to hesitate. I adjusted my grip on my phone and jumped over the metal pipe railing. With a sound like carbonation escaping a soda can, a missile dropped down from above.

This was a giant facility made from countless steel beams and metal pipes arranged like a jungle gym.

There wasn’t just empty space until the ground.

As soon as I jumped to the next level down and rolled below an obstacle, the Tokara Habu anti-Archenemy air-to-surface missile tore away the thick chain mesh floor. A human like me would’ve been obliterated by that thing!

Even so, this was better than moving horizontally. That flying drone would not know how to move up and down in such a convoluted place.

“Maxwell, search for a route! Find a three-dimensional route I can manage on foot and then display it over the footage on my phone!!”

“Calculating…”

“Also, do some ballistic calculations and set a marker where my sisters probably landed after that explosion! I need to collect them somehow or another!!”

“Calculating…”

?

Oh, no. Was something disturbing the link between my phone and the simulator? Because Maxwell’s processing speed seemed to be dropping!

“JB> Hello, Amatsu Satori-kun. Are your calculations starting to lag behind?”

What was that speech bubble?

It was true Maxwell and I used a major social media site to stay in contact. We normally kept it one-on-one, but you could chat between more people if you invited them to the group.

Yes, if I invited them.

My phone should not have been hacked yet.

So had this JB person broken through the firewall of the social media site’s main server just for this!?

I couldn’t block them.

They had higher privileges than I did at this point.

They had left a brand new motorboat in plain view to lure us in, used a largescale cyber-attack to distract Maxwell, and then bombed us with an anti-Archenemy UFO drone.

This JB was behind everything.

How many steps ahead were they? Outplaying Maxwell alone was impressive to seem superhuman!!

“JB> This should not surprise you since I prepared all of this to kill you. I will acquire whatever is necessary to finish you off. Including the strategy development simulator named Freischutz.”

A simulator…and a military grade one at that!?

I only had this mystery person’s word to go on, but I doubted they were bluffing after I had been beaten so badly. In fact, if JB was bluffing, it meant they had outdone Maxwell without external calculation assistance. I didn’t have much hope either way.

“Sure you don’t have the wrong person here?”

“JB> You are the one I have business with. Yes, you, Amatsu Satori-kun.”

I heard the drone cut by far too close to comfort with its propellers sounding like an electric shaver. I frantically circled to the other side of the metal pillar and then a missile shot in from the side. It apparently hit another pillar long before reaching this one, but the mass of sound still slammed into my entire body. My legs trembled and grew weak. I was amazed there was no blood dripping from my ears.

With a sound like a sudden downpour of rain, orange sparks exploded right next to the pillar. The small, stripped-off shards of metal were crashing into it. If I hadn’t been behind cover, my flesh would have been shredded along with my black coat.

I would be killed if I stayed here.

I forced my body to move, climbed over the railing, and half-jumped to the next level down.

“JB> I wish to stage a jailbreak from this vast and tiresome prison.”

What?

Wait…JB. Did that stand for Jail Breaker?

It may have been a play on words using phone-hacking slang.

“JB> I have gathered everything of potential use, down to the smallest piece of dust. After all, a single wire is worth so much more while inside a locked jail cell, is it not? Even chopsticks can be made into a weapon if they are cut at an angle to give them a sharp point.”

“A jail? You mean this shelter?”

“JB> Non.”

The response was immediate.

I needed a net, a tarp, or something else I could spread out to prevent the drone from flying directly through the jungle gym.

“JB> Have a hint. Those things and this thing are both something I found. To be clear, that JSDF drone was not developed here and this is not a creature manufacturing plant.”’

“Don’t even try to call those things aliens. You created them all in a test tube, didn’t you?”

“JB> Again, you are looking at this wrong. I did not take a biological approach. Perhaps you could call it theological or folkloric. Regardless, that was a god. One I found and altered.”

For a bit, I couldn’t find anything to say.

“JB> I believe you have seen something similar yourself. She was from Norse mythology, wasn’t she? There are those who are categorized as Archenemies only because humanity’s study of the subject is too immature.”

“You can’t mean… No, you must be lying.”

I forgot to type my response and spoke it aloud.

It was true the Echidna lurking within Absolute Noah was part of an organization that was very serious about an absurd desire to rebel against the gods.

Valkyrie Karen.

Control of her had been taken by that human Voodoo Bokor.

So what was that empress?

What had that enemy originally been?

“JB> I will reach out a helping hand to all who are trapped within the cage. And if I see an opening, I will use them for my own ends. Mythologies can be distorted. That is why the people of the world work so hard to protect their beliefs. They recite them below their breath over and over, they memorize them, and they continue studying them for all eternity. Because if they relax for even a moment, those beliefs are easily destroyed. I have accelerated that process. Gods are rulers. They must rule over whatever makes up the majority of their defined territory, whatever that might be. That servant species came in handy in a number of ways. The result of majority rule and street corner surveys can be easily manipulated depending on how you present the data.”

What culture incorporated a defeated foe as their own fighting force? Greek mythology? Aztec mythology? No, I only had knowledge from manga and novels to draw on when I couldn’t make an internet search.

And more importantly…

“When you talk about a prison, do you mean the worls?”

“JB> Ah ha ha. A typo? Are you panicking? Yes, I wish to escape from this world. Escape outside it. Escape to somewhere free.”

I heard that buzzing of wings again.

I immediately dove below the metal stairs.

Damn, it was close.

I thought I had been fleeing to the bottom level and innermost part of the complex jungle gym, but I was not confident there really was no path in. None of this had been proven with the power of a simulator. And with the group chat compromised, anything I discussed with Maxwell would be overheard.

“JB> I will acquire whatever I need for my jailbreak. I will search every nook and cranny of this vast cage you call the world.”

“…”

It would eventually catch up if all I did was run. Those air-to-surface missiles were meant to destroy tanks and shelters and this specific weapon had been developed for use against Archenemies. I couldn’t think of any barrier strong enough to safely wait this out.

Was there nothing I could use as a weapon?

A weapon?

Surely not, but was I thinking of grabbing a real military weapon and fighting back!? I couldn’t close off my thoughts! That was the same as giving into the pressure and acting blindly!

“JB> But you are different. You create too much noise. When someone is secretly digging a tunnel, they cannot have someone nearby lighting the fuse of a bomb with a skull mark on it. You do not fit into my plan, so I will eliminate you. I am willing to commit any crime and even start a war if need be. Do you understand the situation now?

Tokyo.

Other cities around the world.

Whoever had been turned into an alien.

My sisters who had been knocked out by a specialized air-to-surface missile.

All of it was only meant to create this situation where we spoke and fought on this remote island with no hope of rescue?

It was best not to provoke someone wielding scissors. I knew that, but my fingertips kept moving nonetheless.

“You’re insane.”

“JB> Ah ha ha. You do know how to speak your mind, don’t you?”

“You keep writing ‘ah ha ha’, but that doesn’t mean much in text. Same with exclamation marks. Do you have a habit of typing certain things when you’re panicking?”

“JB> ru trying 2 provok me?”

“Can’t even type out your words anymore? You’ve hit a dead end in life if you think people are provoking you when they point out the truth.”

“JB> ( ；´Д｀)”

An explosion immediately followed.

It happened on the same level as me, but pretty far away. Had they launched a missile without getting a line of fire first?

And what was that!? Was I really being hunted down by someone who was reduced to talking with stamps and illustrations!?

“JB> ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ”

“JB> ( *｀ω´) ”

“JB> And of course…”

“JB> (￣^￣)ゞ”

Yeah, I really couldn’t follow this. They weren’t actually a tanned high school girl, were they!?

“Pant, pant!!”

I circled behind a metal pillar and rested my back against it. I had to think. What was the threat here? Should I focus on JB or the flying drone?

“Actually, how am I even supposed to tell JB is JB?”

I didn’t know what they looked like, their name, their age, or their gender.

Would I have to attack every silhouette I saw on the island? I could already imagine them laughing their ass off if I did.

On the other hand, how was I supposed to bring down that mass of armor and firepower other than attacking the pilot? I probably couldn’t do it even if I was handed one of those shoulder fired missiles seen in movies. What could an untrained high school kid like me do?

I couldn’t act tough.

I couldn’t talk about the ideal.

My life wasn’t the only one hanging in the balance. Erika and Ayumi’s were as well. We did not have much time until dawn, so I had to make sure they were alright.

“Okay.”

I looked up.

I had seen what I needed to do.

It might look like a shuriken-shaped UFO larger than a light car, but I couldn’t lose sight of what it really was. That drone was not flying with an anti-gravity engine and it was not an ionocraft. It was a multicopter that used the spinning of multiple propellers to adjust its height and it used the differences and biases in RPM to move horizontally. It was the same as a bladeless fan. It could be hard to tell since the propellers were contained inside and it only expelled the air, but it was no different from the aerial filming dronses sold at electronics stores.

That meant my task was a simple one.

I was a Japanese high school kid. I couldn’t fire a Gatling gun or rocket launcher even if I had one and I couldn’t build an SF weapon more powerful than existing weapons.

But I had messed with drones before.

Multicopters were the most popular, but they were prone to malfunctions and crash landings and they were hard to transport since so many of their parts were delicate. That was why I preferred to use helium balloon drones.

I had stared at the catalog, discussed it with Maxwell at length, and struggled with the limits of my allowance.

So I knew their weaknesses.

This one was a lot bigger, but the general nature and traits were the same, which meant the weaknesses and flaws were as well. These drones were hard to control when toy-sized and this one had been forcibly upsized. Not to mention the extra weight from the air-to-surface missiles and fuel cells.

I couldn’t afford to make a mistake.

Trying to penetrate that thick armor was hopeless. I wasn’t up against a completed weapon. I had to think of it as messing with a multicopter drone that was still under development and unstable.

What did I need?

I was surrounded by junk that had been abandoned for decades. None of it had power. But was that really true? What about the simplest of devices, like the lighting connected to solar panels?

“Whoaaa!!”

For now, I had to grab a nearby item and jump down from the metal pipe railing. I was on the lowest level now. I was walking on the sand and waves of the beach now. Rolling had left my black coat and my pants covered in sand. There was nowhere to run on this flat surface. In a way, it was a dead end. But I had my final chance in hand.

I would have been out of options if that drone had been launching the missiles down from a height of 10,000 meters. The many layers of battered roofs(?) had been a huge help. JB apparently did not plan on bringing down the entire collection of steel beams and metal pipes to bury me alive. Those air-to-surface missiles were meant to provide the pinpoint strike needed to punch through tank armor, so they would probably have a hard time causing that kind of general, large-scale destruction. The initial strike had not been made until the escape boat had lured us out to the top of the oceantop structure.

It was bound to come to me.

I heard the ear-splitting buzz reminiscent of an electric shaver or bug wings. That JGSDF anti-undead UFO drone was descending to get past the obstacles.

No matter what JB insisted, I was apparently someone they could not allow to get away. Since they had felt the need to do all this to get to me, they must have been too nervous to sleep at night with me alive. So they were bound to dig in their heels. It might hurt their advantage, but they would have their flying drone skim just off the ground if that was what it took to keep me from leaving the island alive.

“Kh.”

I glanced over toward the ocean just once and then ran the other way. Traveling the short distance between the many pillars was bad for my heart.

But I wasn’t the only one who felt backed into a corner here.

JB, you may have been a joker capable of molding legendary gods to your will, but rules are absolute. That UFO drone was a multicopter, so it couldn’t stay afloat without pushing air out with its multiple propellers.

That gave me an opening.

I threw what I held toward the beach.

This was more dangerous than dropping a dryer in the tub.

This facility had apparently been abandoned since before I was born, but that didn’t mean the tools and equipment there had no power.

Some had a power source useful for outdoor purposes – solar panels.

Yes.

And what mattered to me was the battery.

The basic idea was the same whether it was a phone’s lithium ion battery or a car’s lead-acid battery.

If used improperly, they could explode.

The flash of pure white light stabbed into my eyes even more than a Molotov cocktail. Fine white sand and seawater were blasted into the air.

“JB> Σ('◉⌓◉’)”

“Oh, shut up. I’m not contacting you.”

I was surprised they were calm enough to provide a response.

But I didn’t think that explosion itself had destroyed the military drone’s armor.

The sand and water were what mattered.

Filling the blowing wind with impurities would make it all thick and sticky.

Did you know, JB, that drone malfunctions and crash landings are more common in Asia than in the West? The exact reasons are unknown and there are a number of theories, but some people seriously argue that it’s a negative affect of the stickier air created by the higher humidity.

It was already skimming just off the ground, so what would happen when it was hit with an explosive blast and covered in sand and seawater?

Multicopters sliced through the air to fly.

If the air’s viscosity was changed, there was no way if could stay airborne. It was designed to travel through the air, not through the water or the mud.

So.

So.

So.

With a dull crash, the giant mass of armor fell to the beach.

Of course, I didn’t relax quite yet. It was too soon to celebrate. Altering the air’s viscosity might sound fancy, but the effects would not even last for 10 seconds. If it had been at an ordinary altitude for a drone like that, it would have recovered and stabilized itself before hitting the ground.

There was a sound like a bed sheet flapping in the air.

Simply placing a tarp over the top meant a lot. The propellers were contained inside the drone and the narrow openings of the covering might keep impurities from getting in, but it was still a multicopter. It could not push out air to obtain lift without a functional air intake and exhaust. That meant covering up those holes prevented it from gaining enough power to float back up from the ground.

It was powerless.

Just like accidentally sucking a cloth into the vacuum cleaner, if the item was in place, it would be sucked in by the drone. And just like a chainsaw, drone propellers were not made to rotate the other way.

So getting that tarp over the top was checkmate.

The missiles were fired from the belly of the drone, so it could not launch them with its belly on the ground.

But.

Even so.

The drone’s armor suddenly opened up like a door.

“Wha-?”

Calling this unexpected would have been an understatement.

Drones were supposed to be unmanned. The nameless and faceless figure known only as JB was supposed to be watching from some safe location. Or so I had assumed.

But I had assumed wrong.

JB intended to kill me no matter what it took. Their own safety must have been of secondary importance.

JB turned out to be a pale young man with glasses. He was skinnier than me and therefore looked even more reliant on computers and networks than me. He wore a fancy suit and fur coat, so his indoor life must have left him out of sync with the seasons. He also held a stainless steel object that had a sinister shine.

I should not have been seeing that in Japan.

Or was that assumption proof of my naivete?

“A…handgun?”

“Bang☆”

It all happened too quickly.

I never did learn his real name.

Had I underestimated him?

I had fought and fought against JB, but had I failed to escape the pre-established harmony he had set up!?

A moment later, my vision blurred and I felt a powerful impact in my spine.

I heard an explosive blast and my entire body was swept away to the side.

Yes.

To the side.

Not from the bullet fired head on.

“…!?”

I did not have time to blink in confusion. I fell onto the dark beach without anything to cushion me. It was hot. Was I feeling the friction with the sand? Someone had knocked me down. My black coat did not even matter. They just dragged me around.

Erika!?

While I struggled to breath, I saw someone else moving. The first shot had missed, so JB restrained the recoil of his gunshot and then aimed a second shot. To the side.

“Fuguu.”

I saw black twintails with curly ends.

With her open track jacket fluttering in the wind, Ayumi used her Zombie strength to clench her fist so hard it looked like it would break.

“Give it a rest already!!”

She did not hold back at all.

The noise may have been louder than the shot of a mass-produced gun.

It was like JB had been hit by a car. The young man with gray-dyed hair flew like a plastic bag in the wind. He scattered sand around with explosive force a few times and rolled more than 10 meters before finally coming to a stop.

“You…noticed, didn’t you?”

I heard a trembling voice.

I could not see Erika’s face because she was burying it in my side.

“You noticed partway through that we had fallen nearby and were lying in wait, didn’t you!? So why did you run to the other side to do everything yourself, Satori-kun!?”

I felt like a logical argument was not what was needed here.

So I held my tongue.

I did not say out loud that I wasn’t confident my method would actually incapacitate the drone. And if that didn’t work, it was obvious my Archenemy sisters would have to wear themselves down doing it by brute force.

Also, I really hadn’t expected JB to be hiding in there.

I was weak.

I was reminded of how I could not look anything up and could not predict what would happen 5 seconds from now when I was cut off from Maxwell.

I had gotten lucky this time.

A number of coincidences had allowed my sisters to come running in the nick of time. I still did not feel like I had actually outdone JB in any way.

Under normal circumstances, I would have died there.

“Is it…over?” I asked while unable to get up from the sand with my sister clinging to me.

There was no response.

[Mobile Temp] Report on a Certain Boy [File 09]

Report from Freischutz:

An unpredictable matter has been observed. The moment of 031429 on that day has been recalculated 3.36 billion times and every single time Amatsu Erika and Ayumi fail to arrive in time to save Amatsu Satori.

The comparative specs of myself, Freischutz, and my enemy, Maxwell, need not be discussed yet again. Plus, starting at 03, Amatsu Satori had cut himself off from simulator support out of fear of an information leak due to a cyber-attack. It is hard to imagine he could have constructed something capable of betraying my predictive calculations in those conditions.

Then how can we explain that result?

Amatsu Satori.

Does he possess a talent that cannot be dealt with using contained calculation flowcharts, as are sometimes seen in chess or shogi matches against AI?

Or is even that not enough to explain it?

Using a simulator is like putting together a puzzle. The countless pieces before your eyes are identified and the optimal arrangement is determined in the fastest possible time, allowing you to advance the situation in what at least appears to be an advantageous way. Due to the sheer amount of calculations involved, the human mind might view it as doing the impossible, but it is the same as making a brute force attack on a password. If you wanted to, you could calculate out the entire planet’s weather data in your head.

In other words, the advantages of a simulator are limited to rearranging what is already present.

What he does seems different.

At that time and place, that puzzle piece did not exist. I have digitally rewound time to the moment just before the end and broken it down to units as small as a ten billionth of a second, but I cannot find it. Thus, I have concluded any further recalculations would be a waste of time.

The world appears to be fluid, but it is actually composed of countless minute branches. Just like a bean bag chair feels like it is full of hard plastic.

Does this mean he can ignore those series of branches and take truly free actions in this prison of a world?

If so, his strength or weakness as an individual game piece are irrelevant.

He is most likely the weakest of the weak, yet he has shown actions that none of the standard pieces can emulate.

This does not mean he has a brain superior to my own, but that only makes him a far greater threat.

Chapter 8

It felt a lot like having returned from Ryugujo.

I found myself zoning out whenever I relaxed. I would only realize time had passed after the fact.

The constant tension probably had something to do with it. Visiting a metropolis like Tokyo would have been enough of an adventure for me, so outer space and a tropical island was too much. It scared me how well I could adapt to such extreme circumstances. My usual home didn’t even feel like home for a while.

After all that, I did go to the hospital and spent an entire day getting a detailed examination, like some kind of reorientation, and I had been like this ever since. I had gone to space without any kind of suit, but I had no organ damage or radiation damage. Did I have luck or technology to thank for that?

Anyway.

I was zoning out in my room.

“I’m amazed you made it back alive, Senpai,” said Itou Helen, my underclassman with short blonde hair.

Since she was pouting her lips on my phone’s screen, she must have been irritated that I hadn’t called her for help. Cute.

“I’m amazed too. Really, I’m glad we could settle things on that island. That JB guy could manipulate even a being known as a god. If he had gotten away, I would’ve been stuck in a living hell of playing an extended game of hide-and-seek or tag with him.”

“I still don’t really know what a god is exactly, so I’m just going to think of them as some super amazing people. Then again, you could say the same thing about that…Bokor was it?”

“Yeah…”

Valkyrie Karen was the living proof of that.

Back when the Archenemy Echidna was talking about taking revenge for her dead children, I had taken her talk of “the gods” as an anthropomorphization of something intangible like fate or faith.

But that was wrong.

They did exist.

Gods really did exist and they didn’t just have some ethereal influence on the world. They had a solid presence here.

They could commit crimes, they could cause sickness, they could trigger disasters, and they could expand wars.

And certain special methods could take advantage of their nature and take control of them.

I felt like I could kind of see what the Echidna had been so upset about. How could she stand it if her family – the children she had worked so hard to create – were killed one after another using the gaps left open by the gods? I did not want some great being to be managing every last part of this world, but this world felt sloppy in a lot of ways.

Then the free video call was interrupted by a social media app from the same company. Maxwell spoke using the speech bubble there.

“I apologize for interrupting, but you should really hear about this sooner rather than later.”

“What is it?”

“First, a report on the situation in Tokyo. Recovery personnel – mostly JSDF – have entered the city sooner than expected. The pet shop that Ayumi was worried about has been rescued without issue.”

That was fortunate. That had nothing to do with JB or the gods, but it would have left a bad taste in my mouth otherwise. Now that they were not working against us, the JSDF did not seem all that bad.

“Archenemy Scylla is recovering in the hospital where you sent her. She has been freed from the bonds initially placed on her by the old Bright Cross, so we should treat her with care.”

“…”

Itou-san was a similar kind of witch and she too had overcome the Colosseum, so she apparently saw this other girl as some kind of rival. Cute. But we had only left the Scylla in the hospital, so I had not been there when she woke up.

The empress is more of a mystery,” continued Maxwell. “There was no sign of the pod having been opened, yet the contents had entirely disappeared.”

“Maybe because she is a god, Senpai,” suggested Itou Helen.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I replied.

Should we assume she had returned to her original state once JB and Freischutz’s influence had been removed? But how much of what she had been was JB’s doing? I could only hope she hadn’t always been an evil goddess who couldn’t be judged by human standards.

“Maxwell-san is so incredible. She can gather information from all over the place.”

“Please, please. So soon after a disaster, a lot of the equipment has been jury-rigged together to make due for the time being, so security flaws are much easier to find than normal. I would not typically be able to infiltrate government and medical agencies quite so easily. Blush.”

Uh, oh. My underclassman was about to steal administrative control from me using nothing but the power of her cuteness! And since when did that program learn to blush!?

“Now, the rest of this is going to be a bit of a different topic.”

“With a leadup like that, I doubt it’s going to be good news.”

“Sure.” Maxwell paused for a beat. “It is about JB who was transferred to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department since that remote island is technically under their jurisdiction.”

“D-did he tell them something? I mean, the entire incident hasn’t shown up in the newspapers or on TV.”

“No. Unfortunately, he has not provided any sort of testimony.”

“So he’s still exercising his right to remain silent? But that skinny guy didn’t seem like the most patient or determined person.”

“Again, no.”

“?”

“A moment ago, I learned that he has been confirmed dead after being shot in his holding cell. Even though this means it occurred within the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s own building.”

I didn’t understand.

I mean…what?

Who? Why? How’d they get a gun in there!? I had so many questions I couldn’t figure out where to start!

“Like I said, all of Tokyo must be in a state of confusion so soon after the disaster, but even accounting for that, this qualifies as highly unusual. It may have been an inside job by someone who had already infiltrated the police, or an extremely powerful processing device may have been used to neutralize all of the security.”

An extremely powerful processing device.

But hold on a second.

“Come to think of it, we never did figure anything out about the Freischutz that JB was using. But is that really possible? Could Freischutz have killed its own owner?”

“Umm.” Itou Helen asked a hesitant question. “Where did Maxwell-san hear this from? There was nothing in the newspapers or on TV about that JB person being arrested.”

“Sure. That is a simple matter, Miss Itou Helen. An anonymous user uploaded a video of the shooting to a video sharing site.”

“Eek!?”

“Maxwell.”

“My apologies. Perhaps I should not have been so blunt.”

Maxwell apologized but immediately continued on. That was a machine for you.

“The site administration deleted the video two minutes after upload, but that only seems to have convinced people of its authenticity. It is being omitted from the trending search lists, but I imagine it actually holds the #1 spot.”

“Then it must have spread all over the place by now. Do you have the original before any third parties modified it? Oh, and don’t display it for Itou-san.”

“Understood.”

“Senpai.”

She tried to protest, but I decided it was best not to back down on this one. I didn’t want to see it myself, but I had no choice in the matter.

The video was grainy and had no audio.

A hallway of rooms covered by iron bars – holding cells? – was shown from diagonally above. This may have come from a security camera.

Someone was walking down the hallway.

They stopped in front of one of the cells.

They pulled something from their pocket.

A flash of light.

They returned the something to their pocket and walked toward the camera until they moved out of frame.

“…”

That was all. A normal person may not have known what they were seeing. This depicted a murder, but you never actually saw a grotesque corpse or anything. It was filmed from the hallway, so you did not have a clear view of who was behind the bars. There was no sound, so you could not hear if the person begged for their life or screamed in pain. None of it felt taboo. It was perfectly watchable – or rather, I wouldn’t have given it a second glance if I wasn’t paying close attention. It was all so mundane that it did not feel like a life was being lost, but that only made it seem all the emptier and bleaker. It nearly made you mistakenly conclude that human lives were not all that valuable.

But…

“What the hell was that?” I asked.

“I have no answer for you,” said Maxwell.

“That was JB. The one who shot the gun, I mean. The gray hair and glasses were exactly the JB we saw on that metal-covered island! So…what? Was that not JB behind the bars!?”

Maxwell would have carefully examined this video before choosing to show me this one out of the countless ones spreading around the internet. It was unlikely to have been doctored.

But.

However.

“Whether or not JB was the shooter may not be the real issue.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Did you know that realistic masks are sold during a certain powerful nation’s presidential elections? With a printer and some cardboard, you can create a 3D mask of a human face by complexly folding it like polygons. The shooter may have had JB’s appearance to the point of passing any mechanical facial recognition test, but that does not mean they were actually JB. Especially when we only have this low-quality security camera footage to go on.”

“I see.”

My thoughts were finally catching up.

This didn’t require him to have escaped his cell and it didn’t require twins or clones. There was a simpler answer.

A cardboard mask or special makeup would do the trick. But what did the shooter gain by hiding their identity?

“I thought it didn’t quite make sense for Freischutz to work toward killing JB and I was right. Freischutz isn’t a personal-use simulator. It’s a shared model for a group or organization.”

Had JB only been an end user?

Or was this a case of a torture tool or execution device’s developer being used to test it out?

Either way, the same problem remained.

We could not solve this problem without doing something about Freischutz and its owner.

“Then what about the Scylla? Is she okay!?”

“I do not mean to brag, but after learning of the shooting in the holding cell, I took it upon myself to fill in all the hospital’s security holes. There is no report of an attack there. However, it may be more accurate to say she has been abandoned. I doubt the Scylla had any direct contact with JB and they may be prioritizing the missing empress and the servant species that was left on an uninhabited island.”

“Contact Anastasia and get her help in strengthening the security there. They’re sure to spread confusion on the digital front first. If we can nip that in the bud, they should have a harder time staging a physical attack.”

“I have already contacted her. She was delighted, saying this was the perfect chance to test out her latest counterattack software. Tremble, tremble.”

But anyway.

Things were safe for now, but we had no guarantee at all that this was truly over. Not for the Scylla and not for us. Would we have to live out the rest of our lives constantly looking over our shoulders? Would we have to wonder who was behind every single oddity we encountered?

This may not have been enough to obtain true peace of mind.

We had to think about taking the fight to them before they could do anything to us.

“…”

But that would be different from before.

Previously, I had gotten caught up in an incident or a disaster and used Maxwell and the other’s help to escape. But I was talking about something else here.

We would be making the attack.

Before someone with ill intentions could cause the next incident or disaster.

I would have a hard time claiming I had always followed the rules and a dedicated hacker like Anastasia would probably laugh her ass off if she heard this, but I felt like I would be crossing a line if I did this. I could tell. It might be the right thing to do, but did I have the right to do the right thing here? That was the question.

My thinking here was not much different from the Bright Cross who had decided Archenemies were dangerous and thus had to be isolated or even eliminated if they refused to cooperate.

But.

As much as I wanted to believe otherwise, it seemed unlikely I could let the ordinary police handle this.

Based on the tragedy in that holding cell, Freischutz was clearly superior to the security systems of a government agency. This was too much for them. The enemy here could get in anywhere, steal anything, and kill anyone. I doubted they could be tracked and investigated by doing everything by the book.

For one thing, we were talking about someone who could freely bring about crimes, disasters, and even wars using UFOs. The police, firefighters, and JSDF were too compartmentalized to handle that. Everyone who lived in adult society would be too bound by red tape to take action.

So what was I to do?

Really and truly, what would I do?

It looked like they had already been trying to kill me. And defeating JB would have drawn negative attention to Erika and Ayumi. That was enough to send a chill down my spine, but they might not just target us. They might want retribution or hostages. We could not run around watching over everyone we knew at all times. In the worst case, the entire city or country could be caught in some artificial disaster.

“Senpai.” There was no malice in these words. “What do we do now?”

Would I wait until something was taken from me?

Or could I really let myself become one of the takers?

I…

“There’s no time to lose. Let’s go attack Freischutz ourselves.”

“No, that is a line we must not cross.”

[Mobile Temp] Afterword [File 10]

With that, this is Kamachi Kazuma.

It’s been a while since a Vampire/Zombie novel, but we’ve finally reached the 8th one. This time, we left fictional Kukyou City to visit Japan’s capital of Tokyo. When I was trying to think up the most obvious landmark and the worst case scenario, the first thing that came to mind was being trapped in an elevator dangling precariously from Japan’s tallest broadcast tower.

I’m sure someone out there is discussing the worst ways to die right now, but it really is a fruitless discussion. At the same time, talking about execution methods is supposed to prevent crime. And a simulator is a way of learning about different forms of doom so it can be avoided or reduced. Wow, that means daydreaming can protect society. Maybe everything has its uses, but the world is such a strange place.

Also, the theme this time was aliens.

I tried to come up with a reason why aliens with superior technology would come all this way to attack a broadcast tower, so I ended up going with something similar to the laser pointer or drones that have become a familiar nuisance for pilots these days. (Not that being familiar does anything to solve the problem.)

You can actually find a lot of things that could easily be mistaken for UFOs or aliens. I remember that being the biggest surprise when I was doing research for this volume. Humans are such sinful creatures.

As a story, I aimed to include something as tricky as aliens while still getting back to the basics by making Erika and Ayumi look good while Satori confronted a disaster or conspiracy. The younger sister may have stood out a lot this time while looking after the weakened older sister. This shows just how many weaknesses Vampires have, doesn’t it? They seem to really need some decent urban infrastructure to get by.

For another power balance reversal, you can compare JB and Freischutz to Satori and Maxwell.

The human is more replaceable than the machine, the machine stands at the center, and they act as a group instead of as individuals. And when they sense danger, they will actively cause a disaster to kill their foe in advance.

I put Satori’s choice at the very, very end this time. Responding in kind would be one way of going about this, but how will Satori face this problem? I hope you are looking forward to finding out.

I give my thanks to the image illustrator Mahaya-san and my editors Miki-san, Onodera-san, Anan-san, and Nakajima-san. First, you build up the foundation and then you tear it down. I could not have written this story without having those images of Ayumi an Erika as a foundation. Thank you very much.

And I give my thanks to the readers. This is another away game after Las Vegas, but how did you like it? By the way, do aliens work for you as a serious topic for horror stories? Just like ghost photographs have become a thing of the past, I wonder if the development and spread of flying cars will leave people unsurprised by UFO sightings. Regardless, I get the impression that fear of unknown technologies is shifting away from being the work of aliens from a far-off planet and toward being the work of earth-made AI societies or unmanned weapons. I just hope they can forever remain in the world entertainment just like zombies, bloomers, and the lost continent of Mu.

And I will end this here.

When the entire family is caught in the disaster together…does it feel too cozy?

-Kamachi Kazuma

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