Volume 3, ?: Welcome to Zenmetsu Village(6/13)
“What...? And what do you mean by ‘certain circumstances’?”
The village’s living standards seemed oddly low. It had no asphalt roads, no plumbing, and not even a well. No sign of any public services could be seen.
Even if satellites had not been used for standard public services thirty years before, there had to have been some major “circumstances” for them to not have their name on the map.
Yokoeda remained silent.
It seemed he did not want to talk about that.
When he did speak, it was to forcibly change the subject.
“Despite supposedly destroying the village, one of the villagers is still alive. They would be in trouble if some unwanted information got out. That is why the Kuroyama Electronics Group is even now desperately searching for me. And I have made sure they are. That is why they have set up countless cameras and sensors across the area. They claim it is to ensure the water resources of their private property, though.”
Eh?
Kuroyama Electronics Group’s private property?
Cameras and sensors?
I could only frown at those terms he so readily used.
This area feels like a monstrous forest that’s either rotting or soggy. Does it really have a security network like that in it?
“(Shinobu-kun. I can’t tell if this is some great secret or a simple conspiracy theory,)” said Madoka in secretive mode.
I know you need to whisper right now, but don’t carelessly approach me, you damn beauty!!
“So I bring in from outside what I need to live and move between the small villages at irregular intervals. If I was only living as a fugitive, I could have gone overseas, but there has to be meaning in my staying here. The only remnants of that incident are here.”
...Is that really true?
If this really was the vast private property bought up by a single corporation, they would likely destroy everything that was a nuisance or inconvenient to them. If they crushed the village down to an empty lot, there would be no evidence left and no further investigation could be made. However, they had left the buildings intact with the bloodstains still inside. Was that a sign of their confidence? Were they saying no investigation could find anything?
If Yokoeda’s story was true, Kuroyama Electronics Group might have been intentionally leaving some hope for him.
They were giving him a reason to remain fixated on this location. That way he would remain instead of fleeing overseas. They could then secretly capture him and eliminate him.
The worst part was that they did not even need to capture him.
Yokoeda held the only key yet he was wasting his time investigating in the wrong place and growing weaker all the while.
I could not decide whether I should point that out or not.
But then I heard the sound of the dead grass being trod on beyond the fog.
“...”
Madoka, Yokoeda Tadashi, and I all turned silently toward the sound.
The pure white veil cut off our vision as usual, so we could not see what was there.
“Hey, Madoka. Do you think it’s the Love King or Nagisa?”
“Don’t look for knowledge about our classmates from the lone beauty Madoka-chan.”
Despite asking that, I also doubted this was anyone safe.
I gulped and spoke to Yokoeda Tadashi.
“Hey. Is there anyone here besides you?”
I had not turned toward the man as I asked, so I could only hear him gulp and then reply.
“No. There was no one...no one other than me. No, wait. It can’t be!!”
We heard the sound again.
It was not coming from just one spot. As if someone was slowly approaching in a line, the sound of the dead grass filled one entire direction.
Was it a group?
“I-it’s Kuroyama,” said Yokoeda in a trembling voice. “Their troops are here!! I calculated my movements to slip through the gaps in their surveillance network, but what about you two? You two must have left a trail that led them to me!!”
“Hey, wait!!”
I did not have time to call out and stop him.
Yokoeda stood up with his back still pressed against the wall and then ran away. Madoka and I exchanged a glance. Her eyes were of course widened in surprise at this sudden occurrence
All the while, the noise drew closer.
“Wh-what should we do, Shinobu-kun!?”
“...”
Should we run? Where to? Should we oppose them? Oppose who?
Before I could gather my thoughts, the situation progressed.
I ignored Madoka as she tugged on the sleeve of my short sleeve shirt and looked blankly into the fog.
The source of the noise was approaching.
Something was coming this way.
Part 17 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)
“Uuhh...”
I woke up to the sound of myself groaning and found myself in the rental car. For an instant, I thought the attack from before had been a dream, but it seemed reality was not that convenient.
I grimaced when I saw the memo sitting on the dashboard.
It said, “Kuroyama Electronics Group is the wrong direction and you need to look into Youkai if you want to find Hasebe.” I was not a handwriting fetishist who could tell who wrote it just by looking at the writing, but I could make a good guess from the note in the corner saying, “If you don’t burn this in the ashtray after reading it, I’ll punish you☆” I could only think of one person who lived in that old spy movie world.
That was when the mystery freak woke up in the passenger seat.
“Ah!? H-huh? You woke up before me, detective? That means you did all sorts of things to me in my sleep, doesn’t it!? But don’t worry! I made sure to bring a pregnancy test with me!”
She seemed to still be half asleep, so I held out the memo to wake her up.
Enbi grimaced when she saw the short text left by her sister.
“Wow, so she’s involved in this. Does that mean this is bad enough that she’s needed to resolve it?”
“This is clearly a sign telling us to quietly leave.”
I gave an annoyed sigh before pulling out the car’s ashtray as instructed. I balled up the memo and pressed the tip of the cigar lighter against it to light it.
“But she doesn’t understand at all. Leaving this note behind is all the more reason we can’t just leave!!”
“It’s possible she planned for this reaction, but knowing my sister, she wasn’t thinking at all.”
And so we began discussing the message Mai had left in the parked rental car.
“She said Hasebe’s disappearance was related to a Youkai.”
“So the people vanishing from the prisoner transport vehicle and police cars was related to a Youkai instead of any humans such as the regional police or Kuroyama Electronics Group? Was it a criminal Package?”
“But would that really be necessary? The police officers were transporting him and Kuroyama owns all this land, so they wouldn’t need help from a Youkai. They could have abducted Hasebe on their own.”
“Then it was someone other than them?”
“Someone other than...?”
I trailed off and fell silent.
There was only one possibility.
“Hasebe Michio himself?”
“Well, he was handcuffed, chained to his seat, and being watched. If he was going to escape, it would have been difficult using any normal method.”
“But he had no reason to escape. If he had obeyed his instructions, the request for a retrial would have gone through and he would have likely been found not guilty.”
“Maybe he suspected an assassin from the regional police or Kuroyama was coming, so he panicked and ran off. Maybe he decided he would not survive until his retrial.”
“Packages use the skills of hundreds of people to draw out the power of a Youkai in a useful way. Hasebe couldn’t have used one on his own and especially not without planning.”
“Then again,” the mystery freak raised her index finger, “We keep talking about Youkai, but we don’t even know what kind of Youkai was used. This area has more nature than anyone could ever want, but there’s no sense of any Youkai around.”
“I don’t like Youkai, so I’m thankful for that.”
The smell of smoke from burning the memo stung at my nose, so I used the air conditioning vent to drive it away.
“But it is odd that no Youkai has tried anything in a forest this big. Given the way Youkai react to me, I would have expected a transformed Kitsune or Tanuki to approach me.”
“Are there really no Youkai here?”
“Or,” I cut in. “Has the terrain of the Four Mountains area been modified to increase the influence of a single type of Youkai. That way only the Youkai someone wanted to build into their Package would be able to fully manifest its power.”
That was possible in this area.
Kuroyama Electronics Group possessed a vast amount of private property.
But if that was the case...
“This is bad... I thought this case was centered on Hasebe Michio, but the actual structure may be different.”
“Are you saying this was not an attempt to abduct Hasebe Michio? Are you saying a Package with some special effect just so happened to affect Hasebe?”
I turned the key in the rental car.
The engine turned on, I moved the shift lever, and stepped on the accelerator.
“We will never find an answer at this rate. Let’s leave Four Mountains for the moment. We need to pass through the tunnel and stop at a service area where we can use our phones.”
“Detective, are you going to pass that cable model number to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department?”
“That’s part of it, but I also want to know what kinds of Youkai live in the Four Mountains area. This Package is using some part of a Youkai’s nature. If we know what kind of Youkai that is, we might be able to determine how Hasebe disappeared and where he might be.”
Part 18 (Hishigami Mai)
Now then. Time to check on the semiconductor factory.
On the jailer side, the only people left other than me were two guards each from the main entrance and the materials shipment entrance as well as the elderly supervisor. That was a total of five.
On the prisoner side, only a teenage girl and an older woman who looked like she was being forced to perform hard labor in her fifties. That was a total of two.
With so few people, it was unbelievable that there had originally been 8000.
It was even more surprising that the factory continued to run without slowing.
The vast semiconductor factory known as a corporate prison was divided into a factory block and a dorm block. The dorm block was a complete decoy. The prisoners were actually contained in the prison block which was fully contained underground.
The supervisor named Itou gestured down the hallway with his chin.
“Do you want to take a peek?”
“Later, if I have a chance,” I said, gently turning down his offer.
There was something I had to do before going along with their cruelty.
Itou must have been more nervous than he let on because he sounded irritated as he continued speaking.
“I cannot believe you actually brought that Youkai here.”
The Sunekosuri jumped in fright, but I did not mind.
“The police use dogs in airports. Creatures that look at the world from a different viewpoint can be convenient. Youkai testimony may not be valid evidence in a trial, but that does not matter in this business.”
“Hmph. I do not like irregularities like that. And it seems a Youkai is involved in this incident as well.”
As the supervisor of 8000 people using a sturdy plan and security system, he would naturally dislike Youkai that could be like loopholes in a treasure chest. Not that I cared what he thought.
“If you insist, I can leave him outside, but it might make it take longer to resolve this. Do you have the time for that?”
“...Do as you wish,” spat out Itou in true annoyance.
I leaned up against the wall in the smoking space of the factory grounds and mentioned what we had to do first.
“What matters most are the people. We need to gather everyone in one place.”
“What are you saying? Do you want us to release the remaining prisoners? They are negative existences to Kuroyama.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t think that matters anymore.”
“?”
“We were thinking about the basic structure of this all wrong.” I poked at the Sunekosuri’s sulking cheek with my boot because he had stopped wagging his tail. “I have a question for you. Which would be easier: causing over 8000 jailers and prisoners to disappear without a trace or to deceive just the few of us?”
“You can’t mean...”
“I do. It is easier to assume we are the ones trapped by whatever is going on. I couldn’t tell you if this is a dream, an illusion, the past, the future, a parallel world, or a miniature world, though.”
Whatever the trick was, if the person in control of this “place” was in here with us, it would be best for everyone to monitor everyone else to keep them from taking action.
It was possible the culprit was someone else and therefore outside of this “place”, but if so, we would need to prove it and determine who it was we had to fight.
Itou lightly clicked his tongue.
“A Youkai, hm?”
“Any ideas what kind it might be?”
“This corporate prison is not a health resort that makes use of nature. We camouflaged it as a high tech semiconductor factory to repel any interference of that sort. But it seems someone bypassed that in some way.”
Itou’s gaze turned toward the Sunekosuri.
It seemed he really did not like that canine Youkai’s presence.
“Understood. We will search for the person behind this. If your theory is correct, this is a very serious problem.”
Itou turned around and disappeared down the hallway with a regulated pace.
Finally, the Sunekosuri spoke up.
“C-can we really allow this!? This goes beyond a violation of human rights. They’re forcibly locking up whistleblowers, the losers of conflicts between factions, and consumer groups!!”
“Why are you getting so worked up, Sunekosuri-chan? This is a large scale factory with a dorm intended to support low income workers. That’s what the official documents say. Even if you photographed the prison block with a net-connected camera, it’s possible no one would be caught.”
The system behind it had originally been created to prevent the country’s deindustrialization, but it had more recently been used to provide jobs to the rapidly-increasing numbers of domestic hikikomori to counteract the rise of labor costs in emerging nations. Many had hoped it would help decrease the amount of money spent on welfare, but as you can see, it ended up being completely misused.
“Humans are made so they cannot withstand truly doing nothing. But the general public is not aware of this fact. They will think those people ‘have it easy’ or are ‘lazy’.”
The harshest treatment in a prison was solitary confinement.
At first glance, a private room one did not have to share with a fellow prisoner might sound convenient, but after spending five to ten days doing nothing, having no one to speak to, and sitting in a small, dark room, the human mind would easily raise the white flag.
Prison sentences could come with hard labor requirements or not, but most of those without the requirement would be unable to withstand doing nothing and request work of their own free will.
Then again, this was all something you could never truly understand until you had been locked up yourself. That was why it could pass without suspicion on paper.
“According to the prison block’s secret manual, the prisoners are usually locked in their private cells and not allowed to do anything. Only the most well behaved of the prisoners are allowed to clean the facility or are given free time in the decoy dorm block. This is done as camouflage so dust does not pile up in the rooms and they look lived in. ...If you get down to it, that’s all this place is. This is not a gloomy facility where prisoners are tortured or executed. It is maintained so that everyone has clothing, food, and shelter, they are given opportunities to work and earn money, and an effort is made to keep their ties to society from being severed.”
While they were all paid salaries in the official data, the prisoners never had a chance to spend that money and none of them even knew the bank account number it was transferred into.
If the prisoners who did not have to do anything and therefore “had it easy” felt cornered by the situation and committed suicide, the corporation was not responsible in the slightest. They had built up a foundation that allowed that excuse to be made. It was quite well constructed.
“How can you say that about a horrible facility with a suicide rate of over 85%!?”
“But the rest of the world does nothing about it. They just sigh and wonder how entitled these people must have been to give up when they were supported so comfortably with the people’s tax money and were allowed to laze around in an air conditioned room all day.”
“That may be the false impression being given to the general public, but isn’t that why we were sent here!?”
“Come on now. Hyakki Yakou asked me to investigate the situation in Four Mountains’ semiconductor factory. If necessary, someone will make a decision once they receive my report. ...But this corporate prison is being run by human hands alone, so it might not be in Hyakki Yakou’s jurisdiction.”
“How can you say that when you are an embodiment of unrestrained violence? With your skill, you could easily crush these villains.”
“But it is you and the rest of Hyakki Yakou who prevent the occult from being used so chaotically. Don’t forget that.”
My radio then emitted an electronic tone.
It was from Itou, the supervisor from before. It seemed he had succeeded in gathering all the members who were left in the corporate prison...or more accurately, who had been taken from the real corporate prison.
I walked to the indicated location along with the Sunekosuri.
It seemed to be an employee cafeteria primarily meant for the jailers. Some beckoning cat bottle cap dolls were located here as well.
Who’s the one who collects those?
The space contained a few long tables and folding chairs. At one end, a few men and women wearing identical workwear were gathered.
Itou Takeru: age 65, male, jailer, and the head jailer who supervised the prison block.
Yamada Ken: age 35, male, jailer, and guard for the materials shipment gate.
Sakai Haruka: age 33, female, jailer, and guard for the main gate.
Kurumaya Nozomi: age 24, female, jailer, and guard for the outdoor factory areas plus head of hard labor management.
Tanishita Hajime: age 41, male, jailer, and monitor room worker sent from the Royal Security Company.
Suzukawa Izumi: age 17, female, prisoner #0899, and sentenced to a 202 year imprisonment.
Gogan Sakura: age 50, female, prisoner #1807, and sentenced to a 150 year imprisonment.
Every single one of them was wearing the unfashionable factory work uniform, so they showed no real individuality. Then again, I was wearing the same thing.
I did think something was wrong when the Sunekosuri stood out the most, though.
Unsurprisingly, we could not hold a friendly conversation.
Suzukawa and Gogan, the two prisoners, were glancing over toward the employee cafeteria’s exit.
“You should probably give up that idea,” I pointed out in order to nip that problem in the bud. “Most likely, the ones trapped by some technique are us and not the other 8000. If you escape outside the facility right now, what do you plan to do next? That would be like returning to your normal life with some strange hypnotism in your head. You would have no idea what might cause your destruction.”
“But this is the perfect chance for them if they were the ones behind this.”
The one who said that was Yamada, a coward desperate to look intimidating so his opponent would not try to pick a fight with him. Not that that mattered.
Yamada-chi glared back and forth between the two prisoners Suzukawa Izumi and Gogan Sakura.
“They trapped us in whatever this is so they can get outside while the security network isn’t functioning! That makes this simple. If we kill the source, we’ll be sent back to where we came from!!”
“What if we need a cancellation key only the person who did this knows? We might be stuck living out the rest of our life spans in this empty world devoid of any other human life.”
“Gh,” groaned the cowardly Yamada Ken before falling silent.
Kurumaya Nozomi, another of the jailers, looked over at me nervously.
“I-I think there is someone...even more suspicious than the prisoners. In fact, I don’t see how...how the prisoners could assemble a Youkai’s power into a Package while being so strictly monitored.”
“Who do you think is suspicious?” urged Itou the supervisor.
Kurumaya’s shoulders jumped slightly and her wandering gaze turned back toward me.
Sakai Haruka, a female jailer with heavy makeup, held her hands together and raised her index finger.
“Hah hahn. That’s a good point. This bizarre phenomenon occurred once you two arrived. I suppose the outsiders would be the most suspicious.”
“We do agree you should suspect us as much as anyone,” I said gently before continuing in a sharp tone. “But if I did this, would I really suggest having everyone gather here? If I had the prisoners left in solitary confinement and another bizarre phenomenon occurred during our strategy meeting, don’t you think suspicion would turn toward the prisoners?”
“You intentionally didn’t do that so you could use that fact to turn suspicion away from you!!”
“An excellent point!!”
Sakai had tried to use that to press me even further, but my sudden announcement left her confused.
I ignored that woman in her thirties with gaudy makeup and quickly continued speaking.
“Whoever is behind this large scale plan will be after something more than causing a small panic. There has to be something else coming that they are truly after. With that in mind, why were we chosen? Can you think of any common factors between us?”
“Now that you mention it,” said the male jailor Tanishita Hajime as he nervously toyed with his glasses. “It would have been simpler if it was almost entirely jailers or prisoners, but there are a few of each. And our posts and positions are all different. I can’t think of any common factor.”
“Yes, yes. And to drive that home, the Sunekosuri and I are outsiders.”
There was also the fact that my sister and the detective were here too, but that was a secret.
To be honest, there was a possibility the core of this phenomenon was outside the corporate prison, but it would be best to search through the strictly guarded prison while my guest ID was valid.
“...”
Naturally, the jailer group controlled the conversation and Suzukawa Izumi and Gogan Sakura of the prisoner group both remained silent. They were drinking cold water from a water server in one corner of the employee cafeteria. It was one of those things with an upside down tank about the size of a daruma doll and a faucet attached. It had an incredibly vague label saying “Clean Water from Near Kyushu”.
Hm?
But why is there a water server here in Four Mountains?
It bothered me a bit, but I had to focus on the conversation.
“It is unclear who the culprit was trying to make vanish. It’s possible they wanted to make themselves vanish. However, they included people clearly unrelated to their ultimate goal. Why is that?”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Itou with a frown.
The nervous-looking jailer Kurumaya Nozomi continued by saying, “Wh-what if the people near the target happened to be swallowed up as well?”
“Even though the jailers here are from different posts and positions and the prisoners can’t leave their cells? Even though this group would never have gathered in one place like this otherwise?” I shrugged. “In fact, if you could freely choose any target, why not make only yourself disappear? That would give you the freedom to move wherever you wanted in the factory or even outside it. But the culprit didn’t do that. They involved others. Why?”
This was not simply a prisoner’s jailbreak plan.
The jailers had no reason to mess with the security of the corporate prison. Any prison held the risk of the workers being killed in a riot.
Unless of course, a jailer wanted to kill another jailer or a jailer wanted to elope with a prisoner they had fallen in love with.
“The culprit needed to include some kind of target in this as well as themselves. Normally, just involving themselves and the target would be the simplest method. However, that would give away who caused it right away. In that case, they would need to mix in a few outsiders to hide themselves.”
“Is that why it’s a mix of jailers and prisoners and why we’re all from different posts?”
I nodded toward the cowardly Yamada-kun.
We were the padding characters in a mystery novel. With the Sunekosuri and me, there were nine people. That was just about the perfect number. Everyone looked suspicious and the number was low enough that you could recall all of the characters’ faces without going over a list.
“With a Youkai Package, hundreds of people work together to assemble a single criminal system. However, both the jailers and prisoners had enough people to pull that off. The preparations could have been made here in this semiconductor factory...in this corporate prison.” I spread my arms. “But as an outsider, I do not have detailed information on the inside of the prison and I would not notice any small changes. For example, I do not know what kinds of Youkai exist in this area. How about we discuss that sort of thing in search of a clue? C’mon, even simple rumors are enough.”
Itou Takeru, Yamada Ken, Sakai Haruka, Kurumaya Nozomi, Tanishita Hajime, Suzukawa Izumi, and Gogan Sakura exchanged glances. However, there was no trust in their eyes. They were staring at each other with suspicion deep in their hearts.
“I don’t know anything about Youkai. Are you sure it wasn’t something brought in from somewhere else?”
“I-I’ve never looked in the forest, though.”
The jailers cautiously spoke up, but the prisoners remained silent. That was not surprising. The ones who did not want to draw closer to everyone else were the prisoners who had been oppressed before. Plus, I was continuing to play the role of a jailer. They did not want to do what I said.
But that was a problem.
“What about you two?”
“What? Do you two know something?”
“I...”
It happened just as the high school aged girl prisoner began speaking.
With no warning, the sole of Yamada Ken’s shoe suddenly jammed directly into the girl’s-->>