by Nisioisin
“Even then─that would not be a problem on its own. In reality, I would have been able to handle the situation had it arisen. Were I at my zenith, I could have dealt with this town’s hangout with ease, no matter how it grew.
“It only became a problem because I lost my powers after attracting it here─and because that Hawaiian-shirted boy had me under observation.
“As a bug zapper, I was at least able to handle whatever I attracted─that said, I’d be no match for them if I allowed so many to gather that they were out of control, and so I moved as appropriate.
“Dost thou understand now?
“Why I could not stay forever as a god─’twould become a crucible of aberrations had I continued to be there. Heaven to me, ’twould be hell to anyone else.
“Hedonist though I may be, I am no decadent.
“’Tis not my desire.
“And so I thought─perhaps I should cease this vacationer’s life at an appropriate time.
“But I had been careless here because I’d previously been at the South Pole, a land where neither humans nor aberrations exist.
“It had caused my senses to go awry─I had not noticed one bit that despite my presence in that village, those ‘bad things’ were not gathering at all.
“’Twas hard to notice, as local yokai appeared from time to time. Even I would have surely felt that something was off had not a one appeared.
“They’re taking awfully long to gather this time.
“So perhaps I could stay here for a little longer.
“I suppose I can let them treat me as a god.
“The food is good, and I can sleep as much as I wish.
“Ah, what joy… That is how I felt.
“Oh, do not call it self-indulgence. ’Twas not as if I traveled because I wanted to, so of course I’d want to sit down and rest from time to time─their treatment of me as a god aside.
“So I made an exception and put off leaving again and again, staying there for one long year.
“’Tis still okay, ’tis still okay, ’tis still okay─I thought.
“But each seemingly peaceful day that passed was another lost opportunity to avert a tragedy.
“It all happened─nay, ’twas noticed to be happening not by me or that group of experts, not by Aberration Slayer I, but by the residents of the area.
“Aye, that bunch living around me.
“You see, aberrations spread by word of mouth─by the time they imbue the common populace and make it to the ‘top,’ ’tis already too late. There is not a thing that can be done then─though this was not an aberration, of course.
“This was their story.
“People are disappearing, they said.
“People are going away, they said.
“People are vanishing, they said.
“They leave and never come back, they said.
“That on its own sounds like a case of humans being ‘spirited away.’ But ’twas hard to explain it all as such, for I was there, a god living in a readily found location, which was an ironclad alibi after a fashion.
“If they thought it a case of me ‘spiriting away’ men and women, they would only have to come to my shrine and search it from corner to corner to find them─though none did so in reality.
“I suppose my daily good behavior was enough to convince them─laugh not, I truly did act in a benevolent way then.
“Though ’tis awfully ironic that ’twas my acting like a god that cleared any suspicions that I had spirited anyone away like some god.
“But it seemed this truly was occurring when I looked into it a bit myself─at the very least, it was no simple case of runaways, kidnappings, or murders─
“’Twas a linked series of aberrational phenomena.
“Nay─as I said, ’twould be hard to call it such.
“I did think, Ah, so ’tis here at last─that staying in a place for so long had caused a chain reaction of negative energy, but something still felt off.
“Namely, there was a lack of eyewitness testimonies.
“’Twas as if I was only learning of the results of a phenomenon, not about the phenomenon itself─not one who either witnessed or experienced this ‘spiriting away’ came forth.
“Humans were simply disappearing.
“That was all.
“These kinds of phenomena, which is to say these kinds of ghost stories, normally involve someone alongside the human who disappeared who sees it all happen─such people should have existed, or if not, someone who had disappeared needed to return, even if their memories were not intact.
“There were none.
“They disappear, they go away, they vanish.
“And they don’t come back.
“If they had someone accompanying them, that person did not return either.
“That was all─’twas self-contained.
“So much so that there was nothing we could do about it─I tried speaking to Aberration Slayer I, and we investigated it together, but ultimately we never found any evidence. Our conclusion was that perhaps these were crimes committed by a human.
“For while there may be no such thing as a perfect crime for aberrations, perfect crimes by humans do exist.
“This was not our job─that was the conclusion we came to, that ’twas not a job for either a god or an expert. ’Twas a job for the police.
“Well, in those days, the job of the temple schools…nay, what was it again? The doshin, or something like their kind?
“In any case, it fell upon another type of expert─while I would make it rain as a god, I was not getting involved in any opaque strife amongst humans.
“Though this was a dreadful shirking of responsibility in hindsight. I ought to have wondered why that aura of negative energy had yet to arrive this one time alone─aye, I ought to have wondered.
“About how just in the way the humans disappeared.
“So had the negative aura.
“I ought to have wondered about that.
“But in reality, I nearly failed to notice the mere fact they had never come. Why would I be bothered by them not arriving? Meanwhile, I would have no choice but to notice, had a mass of them come creeping and crawling, and I surely would have considered their cause. But humans, and vampires for that matter, cannot take seriously those dangers that are not pressing.
“I regret it, but I doubt my lesson will ever be of use.
“In brief, I did nothing.
“I lived as I had.
“And as I did they disappeared─the residents of the lands around me continued to go missing.
“Until no one was left.
“It kept continuing.”
015
My first thought was that I misheard her. Or that she misspoke─
Until no one was left?
Not one?
“What’s that supposed to mean? Until no one was left… So, until all fifty of Aberration Slayer I’s group of experts was gone?”
“Why would that be the case? I suggested nothing of the sort. Ye need to learn to piece together the logical progression of a story.”
“Your stories don’t have a logical progression to them… Your memories are so worn away that the details are completely fuzzy… I don’t know if I should say this, but you’re even worse at telling stories than me.”
She wasn’t a poor talker, she was a poor storyteller.
I was truly relieved that, per Hachikuji, there was a rule saying that aberrations couldn’t be the narrator.
“Hmph. Ye’ve got some nerve. But apparently, that monkey girl is being called the best storyteller up until now, which is unexpected. Looks like ye’ve been overshadowed.”
“No, I think people only said good things about Kanbaru because her narration wasn’t nearly the mess they thought it’d be… In other words, couldn’t you say she let them down?”
And hold on, can you stop talking about future events like it’s nothing?
We needed to hurry up and get
rid of the rule saying that aberrations are allowed to give meta-commentary… Of course, you could also say it’s beyond too late for that.
There’s only one book left, after all.
“By the way, I understand the last book will be narrated by that tsundere girl.”
“What, really? Not me?”
That was kind of a shock.
Did that mean I was done after this?
That easily? That unceremoniously?
They wouldn’t really do that, would they?
“I simply can’t wait to hear how that tsundere girl truly feels,” Shinobu said. “I wonder what kind of verbal abuse we’ll get from her.”
“Verbal abuse? Like, about me? No, she doesn’t badmouth me. She’s reformed now. She’s become a clean-hearted Hitagi Senjogahara.”
“No, no, oh no. We have no idea how a woman truly feels. In my estimation, that woman is surely thinking about how to break up with thee.”
“Why are you acting like you’re so knowledgeable about human psychology? You were just talking about how you got into a huge mess because you didn’t understand it.”
“She’s holding back out of sympathy, as ’twould surely affect thy entrance exams if she discussed breaking up with thee right now.”
“You do hear that one a lot!”
Umm…
Yikes, hearing that really makes me think…
She might be reformed and a lot more expressive now, but I still can’t quite tell what she’s thinking.
Even at that moment, I couldn’t begin to imagine what she might be doing… Though the most likely option did seem to be that she was thinking about how to criticize me for skipping the start-of-school ceremony.
“Enough about next volume,” I said. “We don’t even know if there’s going to be a next volume at this rate, and it almost seems like this flashback of yours could take up the entire story this time.”
She needed to realize that everyone’s getting worried.
Worried about this surprisingly long story about her past.
“What’s the matter,” she retorted, “flashbacks are the cornerstone of any popular manga.”
“As a reader, I’d be more inclined to call them a bad practice than a cornerstone…”
“Flashbacks are a part of this, but wouldn’t thou say that the more popular a manga, the slower the progression of its story?”
“Do we really have to talk about this now?”
Weren’t we at an important part of your own story?
Even the most important part.
“A deliberate pace might be vexing to readers, but it must be vexing to the creator as well,” she forged ahead. “’Tis not blood flow restriction training. Writing that slowly must make even the creator lose the thread.”
“Well, if I stepped back from looking at it as a reader and looked at it as a fan, what’s really going on is that the title’s getting dragged out at the publisher’s request.”
“Hm. But I don’t think a publisher would ask a creator to go slowly…”
“Sure, they probably don’t want them to go slowly. They’d want them to speed ahead if possible, but one person only has so much talent. The only way you can stretch a title out is by watering it down to some degree.”
“Ah, I see. While I understand thy logic, would an author so popular that the publisher asks for his work to be stretched out need to listen to what the publisher says? Could he not simply put an end to a story he wishes to finish?”
“Part of a publisher’s job is to control its authors, so they probably get talked into stretching the title out without even realizing they’re being controlled.”
“So at the end of the day, even creators are in the palm of capital’s hands!”
“On whose behalf are you getting mad here…”
It wasn’t the position of a reader or fan.
And given Shinobu’s lifespan, it shouldn’t matter how long any popular manga gets stretched out… Not that I know Shinobu’s exact lifespan as she is now.
I had to admit, though. Those are a rare sight these days.
Final chapters of popular manga series.
“So, Shinobu. Now that we’ve reached a conclusion on that topic, can we get back to our main plot?”
“Hmph. I’ve yet to be convinced, but very well.”
“I’m going to send you flying if this story ends up having nothing to do with the Darkness, you know. I’m gonna grope your breasts until they double in size.”
“To me, a chest groping is nothing more than proof of loyalty from a slave.”
“Oh, right.”
I guess some such thing was established at some point.
Her initial character traits had grown pretty vague, but it seemed like that one was still alive and well.
“Okay, then. If your story ends up having nothing to do with the Darkness, I’m gonna grope Hachikuji’s breasts until they double in size.”
“Very well. I’ve already told thee this much, so I’m willing to take that risk.”
We’d just made an unthinkable deal that ignored the human rights of a girl who was still passed out right beside us.
“So, no one was left─what do you mean by that? You can tell me to attend to the logical progression as much as you want…but the way you talk and your delivery makes it sound like every person who lived around you disappeared.”
“That’s correct,” Shinobu blithely confirmed. “So thou dost understand. I see that my abilities as a storyteller are superb after all. In fact, I think we may change plans for the next volume and, in a twist, make its narrator none other than me.”
“That’s too much of a twist, and disrespectful to Senjogahara. And wait─everyone disappeared? And then there were none? This isn’t an Agatha Christie novel we’re talking about here.”
“Hmph. But that told the events on an uninhabited island. This was far worse, as an entire village turned uninhabited.”
“…”
The scale was so big─too big.
It was hard to comprehend when she put it in roundabout ways, like the village disappearing or the town vanishing, but…
How many people disappeared, exactly?
Fifty─was just the start of it.
I shouldn’t be sure since I didn’t know the population at that time, or the area’s population density, but it felt like it’d have to be more than a couple hundred people…
They’d been “spirited away” on that big of a scale?
“Hold on a sec… So unlike the time you made the lake disappear, these people disappeared not all at once but gradually, right? Little by little, they vanished─so you should have been able to notice before it got that bad. What in the world were you doing before you realized, ‘Then there were none’? Sleeping?”
“If ye wish to put it that way, then aye, I was sleeping,” Shinobu responded to my line of questioning, tinged with criticism, without a shred of discomfort─but while she didn’t seem uncomfortable, there was a bit of awkwardness in her words. “I lazed around the entire time─but really, isn’t it all the same?”
“Hm?”
“Had they all disappeared at once, there would have been nothing I could do about it─in any case, the community was doomed from the moment I made no active effort to prevent that from happening.”
“Well, true…”
Logically speaking, there was no difference between them disappearing all at once or disappearing gradually if they all disappeared by the end─but I didn’t want to speak logically here.
“Thou must have had the experience of feeling as though ye had a great deal of money, then using it gradually, until suddenly thy wallet is empty. ’Tis the same.”
“I don’t know about that comparison, either. At the same time, I guess it was actually harder to realize what was happening if they got thinned out over time instead of disappearing all at once… It might have been hard to recognize the gravity of the case. You did fail to notice what was happening during your i
nitial investigation, after all…”
Had hundreds of villagers suddenly gone missing, even Shinobu─and Aberration Slayer I would have done something.