“—Ah—…? …————…”
The girl hadn’t used her voice in over half a year. She realized that she could not speak properly.
No matter how much she tried, she could not produce a voice.
But the woman seemed to understand, constantly speaking to her.
She kept a voice playing in the darkness that was the girl’s world.
“I hope you’ll be free in our stead,” said the helper, gently taking her hand.
She probably didn’t peel off the talismans because she knew that sudden exposure to light might damage the girl’s eyesight.
“I have a daughter around your age, a little younger than you.”
With her hand around the girl’s, the woman led her somewhere.
“I watched over you because I at least wanted to free my little girl, but those people never intended to let either of us go in the first place. But you’re different…if you could meet Master Lihuang…be free…free…we’re, done, but, yes. Adorable children should be happy. But, you’re adorable, but my daughter too. Yes. If an adorable girl like you is happy, my daughter will too…”
The woman mumbled almost maniacally as she led the girl outside.
The confused girl, meanwhile, wracked her brains in the darkness.
She had almost given up on conversation by then.
But she now had hope for seeing the outside world again.
She even began to fantasize that her mother was still alive.
The girl’s mind—sharpened to the point of utter clarity—and her honed hearing clung to each and every word out of the woman’s mouth. As though desperately craving information, the girl carved the words into her mind and desperately tried to decipher them.
But she was too young.
Before the girl could even determine if the woman was in her right mind, the flow of information came to a sudden halt.
The second the girl thought of her mother and reached out for the light of hope, the minutes-long escape was stopped in its tracks.
There was a noise, followed by a splatter.
“Agh.”
The woman’s voice.
It sounded more like an airy gasp than a word.
Something warm splashed onto the girl’s face. She smelled metal.
“She must have lost her mind. Can’t believe she’d try to escape with her.”
“This is getting ridiculous. Should we just get rid of the girl? We have no idea if we’ll ever get to use her.”
“No. Taifei suspects something. If he’s gotten wind of this, she could be a valuable card. We can’t dispose of her now.”
“We’ll just have to hope her sister dies of illness. It all depends on her.”
The girl could hear the men.
The voices of the men who had sealed her eyes a year earlier.
She still did not understand them.
The men patted her on the head and whispered—gently but threateningly.
“You were just having a bad dream. Now, go back to sleep.”
Nine years later. Somewhere on the island.
It had been a week since I came to the island.
Frankly, I was impressed I managed to get this far.
I was held up when I didn’t have a single coin on me. I almost got seduced out of whatever I had left. I was inspected by some volunteer police force. I could say with confidence that I knew the true definition of misery.
The volunteer police were apparently on edge because there had been some murders and disappearances recently. Was that supposed to be news here? I thought murder was commonplace on this island.
Meanwhile, I slowly figured out how to get by and managed to secure myself some time.
At first I’d worried about how I would get food. But I soon found out that I could buy that stuff at the restaurants and stores in the Western District underground, provided I had money.
I wondered how they got a hold of fresh pork, ham and things like that. It turned out there were middlemen who regularly shipped foodstuffs to the island every day.
It was tax evasion and a lot of other illegal things in one bundle, but it was not necessarily cross-border smuggling so they were probably not going to get arrested. The middlemen probably had it rough already, competing for those lucrative jobs.
I was left broke on day one, but I helped carry some of those smuggled goods at the docks and got some pay.
It was less than minimum wage by mainland standards—not even pocket money—but it felt for all the world like a pile of treasure to me. Which was natural, as it was enough to fill my belly on the island.
I always assumed the island would be a lawless stone-age world where the strongest preyed on the weak, but apparently there was some semblance of society here.
…
Society.
At that point, I remembered my past.
How had I come all this way?
I was just trying to abide by the rules of society.
I wasn’t trying to become a paragon of justice or anything.
I just wanted to be someone who could hold his head high.
That was how I ended up here.
I believed I did the right thing.
By the rules of society, what I did was right.
But apparently that went against the customs of the company I worked at.
There were countless awful injustices surrounding the company.
It was one of the country’s top corporations. And one filled to the brim with corruption.
I expected I’d be ostracized at work.
I expected I’d be despised.
But what I did was right. What was there to fear?
All I did was throw a stone.
I believed that throwing one stone into a pond would naturally create ripples that spread into its every corner.
The courage to act first is very important.
That was what I thought. So what was I doing here on this island?
Thanks to pressure from a politician, the press never publicized the article.
If I’d known that would happen, I’d have just posted it on the internet. At the time I didn’t trust the net, so I had used it as little as necessary. I sent the evidence by email to the police, but I was worried that the evidence might be swept under the rug if I released it publicly.
When I realized that something powerful was at work, I began to wonder if I should post the evidence on the internet after all. But the company was quick. The moment the police launched an investigation, they concealed the evidence completely and even had me framed for embezzlement and got me arrested.
The company crashed over me like a fearsome wave.
I was taken by surprise. I had to do everything in my power to protect myself. And while I was called to the police station, a burglar snuck into my house and swiped my computer and all the evidence I had collected. Although the evidence wouldn’t have changed a thing anyway.
In the end, the stone I threw never got to create ripples in the pond—it was destroyed before it hit the water.
In the span of two weeks, I understood—to my horror—that in this world existed things that no one person could resist.
Soon, I was fired—
“Hey, Mister. Never seen you around before.”
The children’s voices quickly dragged me into reality.
‘Iizuka’s Restaurant’ was written in marker on the wall. In front of me was the cheapest item on the menu, tsukudani rice topped with dried seaweed. I must have zoned out for a while.
All kinds of businesses lined the so-called Western District underground.
From unlicensed doctors to restaurants like this one, general stores, and barbershops, it was a small shopping mall and a food vendor alley mixed into one.
After my first payday, I began to frequent this restaurant—the cheapest in the area. Although it mostly served snack items, like yakisoba and okonomiyaki. The employee cafeteria back at
the company was much better—
No. I refused to think about the company anymore.
The restaurant was brimming with energy in spite of the drab interior. And I was surrounded by walking bundles of energy—the children of the owner.
“It’s good, right?”
“We added a bunch of stuff, you know!”
“Our special ingredients!”
“Like turmeric!”
“And vitamin supplements!”
“Lots of supplements!”
“So if we sold this at regular price, we would never break even!”
“So could you spare us poor kids a tip— Ow!” “Oh!” “Gah!” “Urgh!” “Wah!” “…”
The owner—the woman who seemed to be the half-dozen children’s mother—brought the handle of her kitchen knife down on their heads, one after another. The children screamed in time like a piece of music.
“Rip off the customers all you want, but do not lie about the food here!”
“Hey! You’re supposed to believe in your kids, Ma!”
“How could you doubt your own children?”
“Don’t ignore us just because of our age!”
“Yeah!” “We’re not lying! We really do add supplements when you’re not—”
But the last child was cut off by a glint in the woman’s eye.
“…If you did, next time I won’t be using the blunt end.”
The children went silent. They averted their gazes and began whistling innocently.
The woman sighed and marched back into the kitchen.
The children reminded me of the girl I’d seen last week.
It seemed like these kids had been born and raised on the island.
They didn’t seem to be as bad as the ones who took my phone. If those kids were raised and influenced by the seedier part of the island, these kids here were probably influenced by the more benign part. If there was anything benign on this island to begin with, anyway.
But the girl seemed to have been influenced by neither.
Or maybe she was raised on something pure—however little of that was left on the island.
…
…?
Why was I thinking about her again?
I’d never even spoken to her. I just looked at her.
So why wouldn’t she leave my mind?
It would be a crime, no two ways about it, if a man my age were to lay a hand on her.
But something was bugging me.
This really didn’t seem to be romantic love. And it was not sexual attraction.
Why was her face etched into my memories?
I…I might have seen her before somewhere.
But I didn’t remember when.
It might not have been her, specifically. But she still looked familiar.
Before I knew it, I was speaking to the children around me.
“Kids. Have any of you seen a girl with white flowers in her hair? She’s a little older than you.”
The kids exchanged glances.
“White flowers, huh.”
“You think it’s her?”
“Mister, you mean the Chinese girl with shadows under her eyes?”
“Oh yeah, she always looks so sleepy.”
“She’s got big boobies.”
The children haphazardly listed off a series of features. I remembered the girl’s appearance and noted that they seemed to match, so I nodded.
The children made strange faces and looked at me.
“You should stay away from her, Mister.”
“N-no, that’s not—”
I thought they had the wrong idea about me, so I tried to deny it.
But the children seemed to be thinking of something else.
“You’ll die.”
“…What?”
“She’s really nice to us. She does stuff for us…like hot stuff.”
“But she’s gonna say you’re not adorable. She won’t even look at you.”
“You’ll end up a stain on a lead pipe if you tried to touch her.”
Lead pipe. Way to take the conversation to a whole new level of terror.
“And she’s someone important in the Western District.”
“She’s the former boss’s lovechild.”
I wasn’t expecting a word like that.
“I guess she is from a whole other world.”
The oldest of the children smirked, checked to see that his mother was in the kitchen, and whispered into my ear.
“But…I just might know where you could find her.”
“…”
“But you’re gonna have to perform a magic ritual to get the answer. All you have to do is make an offering of 500 yen to my wallet!”
The boy grinned greedily. And I was once again reminded:
I would never come to like this island.
The children led me to one of the many abandoned buildings on the island.
‘Abandoned’ was a misnomer in a way, since apparently it was never used. It wasn’t furnished at all. The building was a pile of concrete walls and pillars home to mounds of junk.
I had been surprised to see how clean the island was.
When I asked around, I was told that each district was governed by an organization of sorts that took care of their respective areas. They had people clean communal bathrooms or collect food waste.
Apparently the most stable job on the island was running a bath business out of a hotel suite. But most people in that business were affiliated with the organizations controlling the island.
That aside, when I tried to step into the building—
—the children tugged at my clothes and shook their heads condescendingly.
“She’s not in here, Mister. She’s on the roof.”
“?”
She took naps on the rooftop, they’d said.
So didn’t that necessitate going into the building?
“This building’s full of junk, Mister. You’re not gonna get through,” explained one of the boys.
“Then how do I get up there? Is there a ladder I can use?”
I glanced at the gap between this building and the next, slowly raising my head—
—and I spotted something red and white fluttering against the backdrop of the sky.
“…?”
For a moment, I thought it was her.
But I quickly realized my mistake.
The figure was a long-haired person, although their gender was unclear from this distance.
The figure seemed to be rhythmically spinning and twirling down—so quickly that I could not believe my eyes.
I would never be able to do something like that, even under the threat of death.
Acrophobia wasn’t the issue. Just the thought of crossing from the rooftop to the scaffolding sent a chill down my spine.
As I shivered, the red-and-white figure descended low and made landing with ease.
“Ah! It’s Yakumo!”
The children shrieked and bolted in every direction.
“H-hey!”
“Bye, Mister! Just keep waiting there and you’ll see her eventually!”
“Try not to die!”
“Wh-what?! Hey! Hold it!”
I tried to stop them, but the children took off like frightened puppies and disappeared into the alleyways.
What the hell.
I had to know what I’d gotten myself into now. I turned to the figure.
And I found myself face-to-face with a young man.
“AGH!”
He wasn’t standing up close, but he was still within an arm’s reach.
I stepped back without thinking and scrutinized the man.
He dressed like what you’d get if you dumped a bucket of white paint on a rocker, but there was something eerie in his eyes.
It occurred to me that he was not normal.
So I decided to play nice.
“E-excuse me. Do you have some business with me?”
“That’s my line,” he said mechanically, “those are the Iizuka kids. Less than a hundred people here can match my face to my name, and those kids are part of that chosen hundred. Although I’m not the one who did the choosing.”
What was he talking about?
He seemed to mumble to himself before he looked me in the eye and asked,
“So what do you want with me? If you want to die, I’d prefer if you just killed yourself instead of bothering me.”
That was a bad joke…or at least, it would have been if not for the gravity in his eyes.
And the red stain along the bottom of his clothes didn’t help matters. It looked like blood. I wanted to believe it was just a fashion statement, but I felt an instinctive surge of fear and felt my mouth go dry.
“N-not at all. This is a misunderstanding. I…umm…was curious about the girl here. The, uh…the one with the white flowers in her hair.”
“…Aha. Lilei.”
His eyes softened in an instant and he languidly stepped back.
“Li-Lilei?”
“You didn’t even know her name? Are you another pervert drawn by her sickly babyface? I’m not obliged to kill you so I’m going to warn you. I’m warning you to give up. Even if you’re going to just hit on her, I can’t recommend it. The tattooed warrior boss and the witch of the Western District both adore her. So if you tried anything, you’ll end up getting your hand dissolved in diluted sulfuric acid over the course of several days.”
Before I could say anything, the man spun and danced oddly.
There was a disturbing number of distressing words in his advice, but I tried my best to ignore them.
The man ignored my fears and continued his rant.
“Dissolving. That can only be excruciating. Being drenched in sulfuric acid is one thing, but we’re talking about having your hand dissolved over days in solution diluted to its limit. At first your fear’s the only thing eating away at you, but that slowly shifts to the reality of a tingling sense of pain. Your blood vessels finally come to the surface. The membranes tear, and the sulfuric acid finally mingles with your blood… That’s pretty sickening, now that I think about it. Which is natural, since I’m talking about something very sick. Anyone would be sickened by this. It’s only natural. You think so too, right?”
5656!_Knights' Strange Night Page 4