Volume 3, Chapter??: Welcome to Zenmetsu Village

Part 1 (Jinnai Shinobu)

“Uuh...myuh...”

I felt a slight shaking and awoke. Only once I awoke did I realize I had been asleep. I was on a tour bus and most of those on board were my classmates and my homeroom teacher. The only exceptions were the bus guide and the driver.

The tour bus was driving along an elevated highway, but the outside scenery was almost entirely cut off by the tall soundproof panels covering the sides of the road. The bus was driving so smoothly I would never have guessed it was keeping steady at 80 kph.

Oh, that’s right.

We had a school trip at the start of September...

“Hey, hey, Shinobu-kun.”

The eccentric beauty Madoka-chan was saying something from her seat next to me.

This was not a case of a lovey-dovey space developing. As usual, she did not fit in with the rest of the class, so she had been forced to sit next to me, the class president.

“Shinobu-kun, why do you cling to the girl next to you while you nap?”

“Hagwah!?”

I frantically moved away from Madoka.

I-I have my reasons, Madoka-san! In fact, I think most personal mannerisms are deeply related to one’s household environment.

However, Madoka did not seem to mind.

“What a pain. They call this a trip, but we’re only headed to an Intellectual Village. Is this a way of exchanging technology?”

“Well, it’s a school event, so all of the events were decided on by some stuffy teacher. I do agree we need to make sure a school trip doesn’t involve a trip to a love hotel, though.”

Also, three days and two nights was much too short. I had the feeling we would spend more time travelling between locations than staying put anywhere.

And then...

The head of a classmate (a guy) stuck up from the seat in front of me. It was as if he was peering over a fence. He was the guy known in our class as the Love King.

“Jinnai, we’re almost to a zone simply filled with noteworthy things.”

“What? We’re on the highway. Are you the hopeless kind of student that buys a pile of souvenirs at the service area?”

“We’re almost at Four Mountains. The scenery will change once we leave the tunnel,” said the Love King while lightly waving around an expensive-looking mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera. “I hear there’s a huge junction there and it’s popular with people who like buildings and factories.”

“...That’s targeted toward an incredibly niche audience.”

“No, don’t make fun of it. Even sports stars have this hobby. It’s widely recognized.”

I wanted to argue that it didn’t matter if famous people did it too, but I decided against it since that would just lead to a long, drawn-out debate.

“It’s actually really large-scale and quite rare. As the name suggests, the junction is surrounded by mountains and tunnels on all four sides and it leads the cars into the tunnels. Well, it also seems the base of the junction is a highway exit and rumor has it the junction was created for the sake of a gigantic semiconductor factory. Is that really true, though?”

“...”

As the Love King continued speaking, Madoka looked out the window disinterestedly next to me. This was unsurprising since the Love King had been speaking only to me.

The atmosphere was a bit strained.

However, Madoka must have been used to this because she showed no sign of being hurt. Even now, she was using her cell phone to photograph a piece of chocolate shaped like an animal. It seemed she was trying to collect all of them, but...

What animals does she still need? I know the bottle cap doll’s beckoning cat series had a total of 20 different kinds.

I could only come up with that completely unrelated data.

And as I thought, the tour bus entered the tunnel.

Was this tunnel through Suzaku Mountain?

For a highway tunnel, it was quite small. It did not even have the standard orange lights. As soon as the bus entered the tunnel, it was pitch black. The noise of the engine must have been echoing against the wall because we were wrapped in an odd distorted noise.

It was not a very long tunnel.

After only a few minutes, the white light of the exit came into view.

“It doesn’t really matter, but will you even be able to photograph the scenery with the soundproof panels along the road?”

I received no response.

It was possible there was simply too much noise for him to hear.

It did not bother me much, so I gave a small yawn as the tour bus left the tunnel.

For an instant, the bright light of the sun blinded me.

But I would quickly adapt to it.

While I felt the thick moisture of fog on my cheek as I stood there, I raised a hand over my face to protect my eyes from the bright light.

And then I realized something odd.

“Huh?”

Why was I “standing”. Just a moment before, I had been sitting in a seat on a tour bus that was full to capacity.

And...

Where am I?

Why am I standing in the middle of a dense and dark forest?

I felt a pressure coming from all sides. It was as if invisible walls were pressing in against me.

The area spreading out around me was not a carefully maintained Intellectual Village plantation. Nor was it a walking path surrounded by negative ion oxygen. It was the type of place you felt like you would run into a group burying a corpse if you arrived at night with a flashlight in hand. Branches and leaves covered the sky. The sunlight was cut off, so the trees had to compete for the nutrients of the soil. Trees would kill off other trees and nature would rot nature. It was a truly “untouched” place. Thanks to the undergrowth that reached over a meter high and the great amount of ivy growing from branch to branch, many areas had almost developed into green walls.

I heard a solid clunking sound.

While still confused, I turned in the direction of the sound. I found a giant concrete pillar that seemed to stab through the green as it rose up.

“That’s part of the elevated highway... Then this must be...”

The surface of the concrete had the words Four Mountains printed on it. I realized I must have been in the area that stretched out below the highway. This was the basin surrounded by the mountains. According to the Love King, each of the four mountains had a tunnel and the Four Mountains Junction connected those tunnels in a cross shape. That meant this area was only a highway trip away from many different areas.

Is there any kind of village in this basin?

“I don’t see any houses...”

Then again, if I made my way through this deep forest and sought help at a home, I would probably be mistaken for a Yamanba.

In every direction I only found forest, forest, and more forest.

To put it bluntly, the conditions on the surface of Four Mountains was just about as bad as it could get.

You could be as ecological as you want, but too much nature was harmful.

But where did Madoka, the Love King, and my other classmates go?

Had they been “thrown from” the bus just like I had?

Or had I been the only one to disappear and the bus had continued along the highway without any trouble?

In other words...

“You have got to be kidding me... Don’t tell me I’ve been left behind.”

Part 2 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)

People seem to do it a lot, so I hope you are not confusing the National Police Agency with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. The latter is the organization that upholds the public order of Tokyo. And so its Investigation Department 1 normally only handled incidents that occurred within the jurisdiction of Tokyo.

However, there were exceptions.

“Uchimaku, head out to Kinki right away.”

“...What?”

The department chief had a grim look when he arrived and that was the very first thing out of his mouth. I could not help but open my eyes wide.

He continued nevertheless.

“I assume you have heard Hasebe Michio is being transported.”

“Yes. Isn’t that unkillable death row inmate being transferred here from his previous regional location?”

I called him unkillable, but not because he was some ridiculous monster.

He had been sentenced to death in a murder case over twenty years prior, but the odds of it being a false accusation had been quite high from the beginning. After much heated debate, this prisoner’s execution had been pushed further and further back. That was why he was called “unkillable”. We were on the verge of finding out if a request for a retrial would be accepted or not, so the higher ups of the National Police Agency had called him in to Tokyo for a more detailed investigation.

The department chief continued speaking in a disinterested voice.

“His prison vehicle disappeared from Four Mountains Junction. It disappeared while on the highway. Both the policeman and the prisoner aboard may or may not still be alive. The prison vehicle has not even been found yet. Even its GPS signal vanished. To put it bluntly, we have no idea what to do.”

“...Seriously?”

“Normally, the search would be left to the local police, but this is no ordinary prisoner. I cannot deny the possibility of individuals or factions within the prosecutors and police who would find it troublesome for Hasebe to have a retrial. The organization’s reputation is on the line once again.”

Hasebe Michio had been in the process of being transferred from the regional police to the Tokyo police, so we did have an official reason for the two police departments to cooperate in this search.

“Are you saying it’s possible someone might try to protect the police’s reputation by making it look like Hasebe killed himself? That way the suspect dies before the retrial can take place.”

“I do not know if anything that blatant will happen, but if the physical evidence is hidden, this could easily be treated as if Hasebe escaped of his own free will. Someone could be trying to crush any chance of a retrial by framing an innocent man of an arbitrary crime.”

“...”

“At any rate, even if this is a joint operation, the local police will still do most of the work. We can only send someone to keep an eye on things. Uchimaku, I am sending you. Someone with no inconvenient titles will have the easiest time moving around. Carry out the role of a small fry like the small fry you are.”

I did not like the reason I had been chosen, but I could not ignore an official order.

This is the painful part of being a police sergeant!

As the department chief handed me a ticket for a cheap seat on a domestic flight, I asked him something that had suddenly caught my attention.

“By the way, do you really think Hasebe was wrongfully accused?”

“I have no idea. I was not in charge of that case.”

Part 3 (Jinnai Shinobu)

I stood still for so long I lost track of time.

I had been inside that tour bus, but had suddenly found myself standing in this forest upon exiting the tunnel.

It seemed I was in the untouched nature spreading out directly below the junction.

It was unclear what had happened to Madoka, the Love King, Nagisa, or my other classmates.

Incidentally, I had no food or water, so I really did not want to walk endlessly through the forest.

“...No good.”

I had pulled out the cell phone in my pocket, but had groaned at the “no signal” indicator.

What hurt the most was how little about the situation I knew. If my other classmates were lost in this barricade-like forest as well, it might have been best to search through it as much as I could on my own. But it was possible I alone had been trapped in this strange situation. If that was the case, searching would be completely wasted effort. Walking through a deep forest while possibly stranded would only increase the risk of death. Doing that for an illusion that might not even be there was no laughing matter. ...It may sound as if I am exaggerating, but being so lost you lose all sense of direction is no joke.

If I was to call for rescue or contact my classmates to see if they were okay, I needed my cell phone.

Not being able to use it was a serious issue when it came to deciding what to do next.

“That means...”

I looked over at the giant pillar towering up in front of me. It seemed to stab through that eerie nature that looked like new trees had grown on top of old rotting ones.

The rectangular pillar had a long narrow metal staircase leading up it while reversing back and forth countless times.

What is that staircase for?

Whatever the answer to that question, I would likely be able to make my way up onto the elevated highway using it.

If I walked along the shoulder of the highway, I could avoid being stranded in the forest. Emergency landline phones were set at fixed intervals in case of an accident, so I would be able to call for help as well.

However, there was one problem.

“This fog...”

The fog was so thick I was not sure I could see even a few meters ahead. With that fog enveloping everything, I was worried about my safety while walking along the highway, even if I was on the shoulder. The drivers might cautiously slow down a bit, but they would not be thinking about the possibility of pedestrians. If a car hit me, I would be sent straight to heaven.

Should I continue through the forest with the very real possibility of becoming stranded?

Or should I climb up onto the highway with masses of steel shooting by at high speed?

“What am I supposed to do...?”

Part 4 (Hishigami Enbi)

Tah dah!

I had made my way to Kansai Ocean Airport.

Unfortunately, it seemed less lively than Tokyo’s Bay Coast International Airport. For one thing, it was not used much by sightseers or business travelers. Instead, it mainly shipped products of the western Intellectual Villages to various places.

Regional airports had their own difficulties.

And the focus on shipping allowed them to cut back on the service industry personnel costs for hotels or duty free shops.

“Wait a second, Enbi. What are you doing here on a weekday at the beginning of September? What happened to your required education?”

“Oh, detective. Just so you know, this really is a complete coincidence this time. ...Of course, since we’re here for the same reason, it’s only natural we would eventually end up in the same place.”

“You’re the type of mystery freak that truly runs across incidents by coincidence, so running into you here is a very bad sign.”

This removed any worries of wearing out a taxi driver from having him drive me around too much.

Instead, I could have my beloved detective drive me around in a rental car.

“Let me be very clear, mystery freak. I am here for work. I am being paid with the people’s tax money, so I don’t have time to deal with you.”

“C’mon, c’mon. Let’s go search for Hasebe Michio who disappeared from the highway at Four Mountains Junction!”

“You already know all that!? Where did you get that information from!?”

“What good would it do you to know that? What matters is that you will go through all the proper procedures to request cooperation from the regional police, but they will refuse to speak with you or even share any information with you. This will leave you with no choice but to come crying to Enbi-chan, the master of love and justice.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Reality is not some travel mystery solved by a popular newspaper reporter and idiot policeman!!”

Fine, fine. Then just go ahead and try.

To make a long story short, the detective tried to call someone with his cell phone, searched the airport to see if anyone was waiting for him, and tried some other things.

It was the same as the opening scene of a 2-hour mystery with a black silhouette muttering to itself. Describing it all in detail would be a waste of time.

“D-did I do something horrible in a past life...?”

“The problem is that Hasebe is a troublesome prisoner due to the possibility of a false accusation. The old members of the regional police, the prosecutors, the judge, and everyone else with influence are extremely worried about this. Even the inside of their station is in complete disarray, so they don’t have time to handle someone sent in from Tokyo. Now just go get us a rental car.”

“Wait a second. I am a police officer of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. My jurisdiction does not leave the Tokyo metropolitan area. If the regional police refuse to cooperate, I have no authority here. I will be treated just like a normal person.”

“Do you think your boss in Department 1 will accept that excuse?”

To make a long story short, we made it to stage 2.

Hmm, not bad. He has the cell phone’s volume turned down yet I can still hear the yelling. ...They don’t really serve katsudon when questioning you in Department 1, do they?

As expected, the detective was in tears.

“How does that damn chief think I can handle this with nothing but the standard right to apprehend someone caught in the act of a crime!? And he told me not to come back until I had some results, but the lodging fees are going to come out of my pay, aren’t they!?”

“C’mon, let’s go. There are tons of people who would find it troublesome if Hasebe was found innocent and now he suddenly disappeared when he might finally get a retrial. We have no time to waste.”

While half in desperation, the detective borrowed a rental car. I sat down in the passenger seat and fastened the seatbelt.

“Riding in a car alone with you is quite stimulating.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“Does it remind you of the Shokei Island Serial Murders Case?”

“Don’t bring up anything that ominous!!”

Part 5 (Jinnai Shinobu)

To be honest, I had not yet decided what to do at that time. After all, both options were too dangerous. On one hand, I had a deep forest I could easily end up stranded in if I casually decided to take a stroll through it. On the other hand, I had a foggy highway on which cars could come flying toward me at high speed at any moment. Both options put my life at risk.

But the situation refused to wait for me.

It began with a noise.

It was an awfully metallic noise coming from directly above me. I looked up and realized it was the sound of someone walking on the narrow staircase installed along the pillar of the elevated highway.

For an instant, truly just an instant, I rejoiced.

To be honest, I had been horribly nervous up until this moment. I was surrounded by a rotting forest in every direction. If I had taken a photo, every single person I showed it to would probably have given it the title “stranded”. When I sensed another person’s presence a warm feeling filled my chest. It was as if I had been wandering through a blizzard on a snowy mountain and had spotted a cabin.

But...

Once I thought about it carefully, I realized this person was walking down into the thick forest from the elevated highway. The action itself was simple enough, but I could think of no reason for anyone to do that. After all, this was a thick forest. Unlike an Intellectual Village farm where a bunch of grapes was worth 30 thousand yen, there was no obvious reason to come here.

And...

I had been suddenly sent into this forest from a tour bus driving down that highway above. When something unexplainable happened, it was normal to first suspect a Youkai. However, there was one question I could not find an answer to.

What type of Youkai put into what kind of system could do this?

I had too few hints.

It was possible that metallic footstep was another hint. And of course, that hint would come with plenty of danger.

The footsteps continued.

What if someone had intentionally built a Youkai’s power into their system to use it as a criminal Package and I alone had been taken from that tour bus?

Why then would this person be walking down the stairs toward the forest?

What if someone had created a situation with zero witnesses and was now descending the stairs to meet me?

“Dammit...”

I began digging through my pants pocket without even realizing it.

I knew there was nothing inside but my cell phone, but I still searched through it again and again.

“Dammit!!”

I was surrounded by the thick forest. I frantically grabbed a thick branch that had broken off a tree and begun to fuse with the greenery. I thought this would put me at ease, but the branch must have rotted all the way through because the middle crumbled as I picked it up.

Meanwhile, the footsteps showed no sign of stopping.

The noise grew louder.

The person was approaching the ground.

If this was truly the criminal (?), then they were using some Youkai’s power. Wielding a tree branch might not be much help, but facing them unarmed would be too reckless.

But despite thinking that, I was unable to do anything.

If I had instead run off into the forest, the result might have changed.

The footsteps stopped.

The person had arrived at the final step.

They would now step onto the ground.

And this person was...

“...Madoka?”

Part 6 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)

I borrowed the cheapest, smallest, and least powerful rental car at the shop and headed out onto the highway. I was on my way to Four Mountains Junction where Hasebe Michio had disappeared while being transported. From my direction, I would travel through the Byakko Mountain tunnel. The western mountain was named Byakko and the southern one Suzaku, so it was an incredibly simple naming scheme.

The mystery freak was sitting in the passenger seat. (If I had not let her, I would be given the stigma of being a police officer who left a minor in a distant city.)

“Now then, detective. How much do you know about Hasebe?”

“You’re the amateur and I’m the professional, so shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“Don’t call yourself a professional. You have no authority here.”

“Do you want me to open the door and shove you out?”

To relieve my annoyance, I chewed some xylitol gum.

The highway was not a lot of fun. The structures at set intervals with reflective panels, an emergency phone, and a small door must have been high-speed bus stops. It was tedious and I felt like I was going to fall asleep at a moment’s notice.

Meanwhile, Enbi seemed completely carefree in the passenger seat.

Despite most of the information being confidential, the mystery freak quickly began speaking on about it.

“It was 25 years ago on November 9. Someone broke into the house of the president of Kuroyama Electronics Group, a large Osaka precision equipment maker. They support the high-tech infrastructure of Intellectual Villages, so at the time, there was a lot of talk of it being related to a large criminal organization, political terrorism from those opposed to Intellectual Villages, or a foreign spy trying to steal their tech. But a major development came to light in January of the following year.”

As she spoke, the mystery freak used her index finger to operate her usual smartphone with the leather memo pad cover.

“The local police used footprints left at the crime scene to determine the maker and sales situation of the shoes. They used that to identify Hasebe Michio. In addition, the security camera from a store near the president’s house showed a figure that very closely resembled him. The police boldly arrested Hasebe Michio at the end of January.”

Afterwards, Hasebe had remained firmly silent in the interrogation room.

Hasebe had worked at a small factory in Osaka that had a contract with the Kuroyama Electronics Group. He had been highly skilled but had barely scraped by financially. At the time, the police had seen a motive there...but Hasebe had not actually done any better after the incident.

Due to my job, I could not speak easily about any of this, so Enbi continued speaking as if giving a one-man performance.

“At the trial, Hasebe finally began speaking and insisted he was innocent. He testified that he had been treated violently in the interrogation room. None of that was recognized, though. The local police had built up a large amount of small evidence and the media thoroughly manipulated the image of him they represented to turn him into a complete villain.”

Incidentally, that “large amount of small evidence” was all vague witness testimony that amounted to nothing more than circumstantial evidence and rumors.

Even their most conclusive evidence, the footprints, was not a proper form of biometrics like a fingerprint. Anyone could have made a copy of Hasebe’s shoe by buying the same size of shoe from the same maker, taking dirt from the small factory he worked at and around his home, and pressing it against the bottom of the shoe.

Even the figure that “closely resembled” him on the nearby security camera was from the grainy resolution of that time. Its credibility was only about 50/50. If someone who knew Hasebe Michio had chosen the exact same clothes he wore and worn them in the exact same way, they could likely have produced a figure that “closely resembled” him.

“The real problem are those that were involved in the investigation of Hasebe Michio back then,” I finally said in order to turn the conversation away from the case itself. Then again, this topic might actually be even more dangerous. “The department chief who gave the okay to arrest Hasebe received an irregular promotion to the Ministry of Justice, the judge from his trial is going through a national review to see if he will remain on the Supreme Court, and I heard one of the prosecutors is even sharpening his claws as the top aide to a member of the Lower House. In other words, all of them have a reason to not want Hasebe to get a retrial and be found innocent. It would affect their brand image.”

“So they want to ensure Hasebe is guilty no matter what. And if they can’t do that...?”

“Don’t just say things like that without any evidence.”

However, it seemed Hasebe had almost certainly been wrongfully accused. And it was true that I could not think of anyone else who might be glad to see him disappear from the highway while being transported.

When the odds were good he would be found not guilty, Hasebe himself had no reason to make himself vanish.

“Now then, detective. Once we leave the Byakko Mountain tunnel, we will be at the Four Mountains Junction. I happen to have heard some interesting rumors about that place.”

“What?”

“You could say it is like holy ground to someone with my interests,” said the mystery freak while looking like she was about to start drooling.

Given what interested her and pulled at her heartstrings, this was obviously not going to be something I wanted to hear.

“So, detective, have you ever heard of Zenmetsu Village?”

Part 7 (Jinnai Shinobu)

<-->>

next page