Volume 5, PACKAGE_Console_System_Ver.010.56.(1/7)
Part? (3rd person — Day??/????:?? -??:??)
“Lost baggage? ...What? You mean, um, wait. So it was lost!? But that ‘item’ was top secret!!”
“It’s already gone, so there’s no use complaining about it. Or do you think that’s going to magically make it appear?”
“If it was that important, why didn’t you keep it with your carry-on baggage? I’m going to officially report this!!”
“I didn’t want something that dangerous on me! I know plenty of people who assumed a domestic flight was safe and came to regret it!!”
“Okay, understood. Everyone, we need to calm down. The carrier decided to transport the ‘item’ by hiding it in a civilian travel bag, but that travel bag has gone missing as lost baggage. Is that clear?”
“Can’t we track the bag?”
“If we’d attached a transmitter, the signal would have been intercepted. It would be like telling the entire world to come take it from us.”
“You mean...”
“No one knows what airport it ended up at.”
“The airline isn’t stupid. They’ll find it before long and contact the civilian student. There’s nothing we can do until that student picks up his travel bag.”
“Could someone fake their identity so we can collect the bag ourselves?”
“Do you want to stand out? That would increase the risk of revealing the ‘item’s’ existence, you know?”
“...Dammit.”
“Now you’re catching on. Unfortunately, all we can do now is pray.”
Part 2 (Jinnai Shinobu — Day 10/03 20:30 - 20:40)
“...................................................................................................What the...hell is this?” I muttered while staring at my cellphone’s small screen.
What I had read was so insane that I may have briefly passed out at points.
It had all started as I tried to kill some time waiting in the lobby of the island’s floating airport in the hopes of my lost baggage showing up.
I had used Singer Song Liar.
It was one of the many free net services flooding the market and it was best described as “strange songwriting software”.
If you entered lyrics and music, it would automatically create a story to go along with it. It had an easy mode that allowed you to paste in countless pre-recorded samples and gave you help with what to write next using something similar to a predictive search. That allowed users to casually create a song in as little as ten minutes. (Of course, I’d heard all the songs made with easy mode sounded a lot alike.)
I didn’t know exactly how the story creation worked, but it apparently took the genre (classic, jazz, techno, rock, etc.), the type of melody (ballad, blues, pop, etc.), commonly-used phrases, the rhythm, and the terms and names used in the lyrics to arrange hundreds of thousands of phrases to form the best story. Or something like that.
It had gotten famous when the big message boards started asking why they would let people use such a convenient and high-level service for free and then I had heard it got pretty overloaded during the weekends and late night.
Since I was bored, I had spent about twenty minutes making a song just to try it out, but...
“Wait, wait, wait. That is a lot of text.”
According to the message boards, the shorter ones were only a few pages long and the longer ones were a full thirty-page short story, but it looked like I had a full novel.
And then there was the content.
“Wow.”
This says the Japanese archipelago was entirely sealed off, I became a world-famous robot scientist to take Japan back, I made a contract with the Succubus and made full use of her, I made a contract with a Seven Deadly Sins class demon to power up an unmanned robot – oh, wow – I one-shotted Hishigami Mai, I was some sexy mad scientist, I fulfilled my promise with the Zashiki Warashi a decade later while wearing a spacesuit, “Once it’s all over, let’s begin it all anew...Yukari. (Trying to sound classy)” Oh, wow. Using her name? What!? Was she my wife or something? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!
“Why do I feel like I was just presented with some embarrassing old notebook I don’t remember writing!? I didn’t do anything, so why am I stuck here writhing in embarrassment!? Besides, my name was the only one in the lyrics, so where did all the rest of this come from? It’s strange but really embarrassing!! I’m curious, but I want nothing to do with this!!”
N-not to mention that it said I took on a legit con artist in a casino, that I survived a direct hit from a car bomb, that we tried to rescue the kidnapped Zashiki Warashi on our own, and that we dragged twenty-four corpses into one spot! That should have been enough to think this was unrealistic! I never knew how scary it was that machines have no sense of shame! I’m not my uncle, the living police drama who dreamed of being a police officer and actually got into Investigation Department 1, and I’m not Hishigami Mai, who can singlehandedly fight a war and head home with a smile! What is this? If the song I made without really thinking produced this, then is my mind still filled with embarrassing teenage delusions!? That’s depressing! And why the hell would you omit the part where I misused the Succubus’s power to make out with Madoka!? That’s the most important part! I can’t believe this! This damn digital program doesn’t get it at all! You stupid, stupid, stupid thing!!!!!
“...I want to die.”
It made sense that my mind had gone blank and that I had lost track of time. It was only once I muttered those four words that I noticed a soft sensation leaning against my upper arm.
My right temple itched. It was true I had been holding the Zashiki Warashi in my arms in Singer Song Liar, so I looked over.
It was Hafuri.
The young leader of the brutal and villainous organization named Hyakki Yakou was sleeping there in a kimono.
“H-...”
My throat immediately went dry and I screamed before my brain could catch up.
“Hyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”
I impulsively tried to escape, but this time I felt something heavy resting on my opposite shoulder.
What is it now? A Konaki-Jijii?I thought as I looked over.
“Y-you’re kidding.”
It was Hishigami Mai.
The assassin in a tank top and hot pants was sleeping with her head on my shoulder.
No, a closer look showed her eyes were ever-so-slightly opened like thin blades.
“What’s wrong with you? Don’t wake the young lady when she’s so sleeping so comfortably.”
She’s awake!?
Does that mean I can’t sneak away!?
Being with my parents is a negative, but I still hoped to meet a bunch of girls on this casino island and make some wonderful memories. But does this that dream has been destroyed before I even leave the airport!?
A small canine Youkai was rubbing his head against Hishigami Mai’s boots. I remembered it was a Sunekosuri.
“I can understand reacting that way to Mai-san, but isn’t it rude to include kind Hafuri-sama in that?”
“It’s not her I’m afraid of. It’s all the people around her!!”
She must have been a little tired from the trip because the girl with a bob cut showed no sign of waking despite all my shouting.
“A-anyway, I’m waiting for my lost suitcase. The Zashiki Warashi was with me, so do you know where she got off to?”
“As soon as she caught sight of Hafuri-sama and Mai-san, she left as quickly as she could.”
“...”
Of course she did.
My right temple itched. In Singer Song Liar, she had shielded me from bombs and bullets and gone on a rampage like a murder machine, but reality was a different story.
“Why are you all here?”
“Wait until the young lady has gotten some rest.”
“To be honest, I have to pee so bad I’m about to wet myself! If you make me wait here any longer, it’s going to end badly for everyone involved!!”
“We’re here for you.” Hishigami Mai rubbed her own face. “A special Package using an Amanojaku has been constructed on Goldmine Island. People like us normally don’t head out to deal with some criminals trying to make a little money, but this Amanojaku Package is pretty bad. They want it dealt with quickly even if they have to pay a steeeeeep price for it.”
“An Amanojaku?”
“Right. We don’t know the details of the Package, but we can see its effects popping up here and there. How should I explain it? People’s actions are supposed to be based on ideas inside them, but we’ve noticed a lot of people such as corporate bigshots and national bureaucrats doing weird things that completely ignore those ideas. It’s like they’re being pulled by a magnet and the higher ups of our world don’t like the looks of it. They want someone – anyone – to take care of it and fast.”
I remembered that the Amanojaku was said to be a mischievous Youkai or one that answers any question with the opposite answer. There were apparently a number of theories saying it was originally an oni or a god. If you checked through the stories, it would sometimes capture people, eat them, skin them, wear the skin, and pretend to be them. That put it squarely in the “deadly” category.
“Um, I’m not going to be seen as an accomplice because you told me that, am I?”
“Either way, this is never going to be public knowledge.”
“That just scares me more!!”
I turned to the Sunekosuri, hoping for help, but the canine Youkai was focused on rubbing up against the woman’s boots.
You stupid perverted dog! You’re completely useless!!
“Wait, so what does that have to do with me!? If you underworld people are going to fight to the death, do it somewhere away from me!!”
“We need to know what you created.”
Uh, oh!!!
“I-I-I-I-I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You can’t fool me. I know you’re hooked on Singer Song Liar. Didn’t you know it’s made to steal your personal information?”
C’moooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!! You mean I can’t ignore this? And how did that thing turn into all this!?
“We still haven’t located the core of the Package, but we can guess it brings a manmade world into reality. They probably polished up the ‘answering with a lie’ trait and remade it into ‘turning a lie into the answer’.”
“............................................................................................................................................................”
No, no.
Wait. No, no, no, no!?
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! What would that mean? Will that embarrassingly delusional automatically-created story actually happen!? The poker game against a con artist, the car bombing, the kidnapping, the slaughter of the villains, the Zashiki Warashi’s rampage, the theft of the country, and the elimination of Japan will all come true!? No, wait! Just remembering it is making my temple itch like hell!!!!!
“Why? Why was I of all people dragged into this Amanojaku Package!?”
“Who knows. I said we haven’t located the core, remember? More importantly, let me see that phone you’ve been so focused on. What it says will let us know how to deal with what’s coming.”
“......................................................................................Do I have to tell you?”
“What? Is it some adolescent wet dream?”
I covered my face in a hand and confessed.
“In a way, it’s worse.”
Part 3 (Uchimaku Hayabusa — Day 10/03 20:30 - 20:43)
I descended the stairs that rolled up to the airplane and set foot on the national airport’s runway. A detective usually wore a cheap suit year-round, but it was feeling a little too hot for that now. It made me wonder if it really was October.
“Ahh. So we’re finally at the casino island!! Was it called Goldmine Island? I’m glad to see you’re so excited.”
My general grumpiness was contrasted by the grinning National Police Agency VIP next to me.
He was Chief Superintendent Mishima.
If you wanted to know just how much of a VIP he was, there were only two or three more ranks above him. No matter how perfectly you went about getting promotions, that wasn’t a position someone in their late thirties should have.
“Why am I on a Kyushu resort island?” I asked without thinking.
Chief Superintendent Mishima must not have had anything to do because he actually answered me.
“For some observation and a study meeting. With thirty million people crammed in together, Tokyo keeps ending up in the red with its social security and infrastructure maintenance, so they’re looking for a new source of income. They’ve been talking about building a casino in the city for a while now. It would be centered on the Izu Islands and far away from the city center.”
“Yes, I’d heard all that, but still.”
“As the police, we’d like to know the positive and negative sides of a casino before laying the groundwork for a new system. We especially need to know how it affects the criminal map. As you can see, there’s nothing strange about Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department taking a trip to Kyushu’s Goldmine Island. Even if the trip is paid by the city residents’ tax money.”
Incidentally, I belonged to the Metropolitan Police Department which guarded the peace of Tokyo while Mishima belonged to the National Police Agency which supervised all of Japan’s police. That made everything from Hokkaido on down to Okinawa his territory. It didn’t matter to him how fiercely the ombudsmen or civil groups complained about how we used the taxes.
“You’ve heard about Kobe’s failure, right? It got so surrounded by famous hotels, casinos, shopping malls, and leisure facilities that the sightseers never set foot outside those places and nothing went back to the locals. There are even groups online demanding they drive out the ‘shut-in resorts’. We want to avoid that kind of trouble when we’re making plans for the city, so this is an important job.”
“But isn’t this a job for the uniformed officers way, way, wayyyy higher up than me!?”
“Yes? Why do you think I’m here?”
Chief Superintendent Mishima glanced around the runway as he spoke.
There were quite a few people in the area who seemed out of place. Beyond the normal workers running around refueling planes or guiding flights in, I noticed some people guarding our surroundings. And they were all dressed in the gaudy miniskirts of the female police officers you would see on the cover of an American pin-up magazine.
Needless to say, no Japanese police organization used that kind of uniform.
Chief Superintendent Mishima (appeared to) casually observe them while speaking.
“We don’t want an influx of armed guards into Tokyo. Did you know these guards actually get pharmacist licenses so they can carry around a compressed-gas tranquilizer gun? I wonder who would win if one of them got in a fight with one of our officers.”
The thick belts around their waists contained several leather cases and I could see a gun-like silhouette along with the baton and handcuffs.
“I hear they’ve formed a high-level and large-scale organization here. I just hope they don’t start taking bribes and turn into a new gang.”
“That isn’t what I meant. Why did you have to drag someone with a dead-end police sergeant job out here!?”
“You can never get the whole picture just by looking down on things from above, so I want to know how things look to someone who investigates crimes on the ground. And when I told your department chief, he immediately suggested you.”
Damn him!! Is he shoving all the pain-in-the-ass work onto me!?
I turned around just as several people from the police rushed noisily down from the plane. There were a lot from both the Metropolitan Police Department and the National Police Agency. While they were uniformed police officers, these were not the people out on the streets. They were all distinguished enough it wouldn’t have surprised me to see medals on their chests.
Overall, this didn’t feel at all like a fun trip to a tropical island, so I wished they could feel even a fraction of the pressure weighing down on my stomach.
I felt like I was only receiving half the oxygen I breathed in as we rode the shuttle bus to the airport terminal. Lately, security had gotten stricter even for domestic flights, but all of them were let right through the gate. Not only did security not X-ray their suitcases, but security didn’t even check what they were carrying with them. Of course, none of them seemed to have any intention of carrying their own bags.
And if the higher ups had it easy, those at the bottom had it tough.
I dragged Chief Superintendent Mishima’s suitcase around as I exited the airport building with all those important people.
They immediately began boarding black luxury cars that were clearly not normal taxis. There were five or six of them in a row with police cars in between and two police motorcycles at the very center. The National Police Agency probably saw this as being self-sufficient, but normal society would want to ask if they thought they were royalty.
After I shoved someone’s suitcase in the unlocked trunk, the smoked window lowered and the career policeman addressed me.
“Okay, Uchimaku-kun, just follow the time schedule from here on. We’ll be having a secret strategy meeting on a luxury cruise ship, but be honest. You don’t want to join us, do you?”
This was obviously an order, so I had no choice but to answer with a huge smile.
“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot at all.”
“To be honest, I don’t either. I don’t want to meet with people so old they can’t taste the drinks and only focus on the price tag. ...Do you think there’s a good Chinese dumpling place around here? I feel like showing up with terrible garlic breath just to mess with them. See you later.”
He waved his hand and the parade left the roundabout. Only the others as young as me were left behind. As soon as the cars vanished, we all let out heavy sighs but immediately exchanged a glance and cleared our throats. We couldn’t have anyone informing the higher ups of that. There was no chance of us getting along, so we all walked off in different directions.
“Now, then. What to do?”
My official duties were clear. My immediate objective was to find some dinner, but I grimaced as soon as I saw a vending machine. The drinks were all over a thousand yen each, so the casino city would be hopeless. I would be better off spending the night holding my stomach. So what else was there to do? A police officer in a suit couldn’t exactly go gambling on his own. Besides, my repeated pay cuts had left me with nothing to gamble with. However, I didn’t want to head straight to the inn and go to sleep either. I just knew I would wake up at some weird time like three or four in the morning.
I had nothing to do.
I was on a resort island, and yet I was about ready to lean in over my cellphone and download a mystery-solving app or something.
But then a familiar voice reached me from the side.
“Detective☆”
......................................................................................................................................Hishi...gami...Enbi.
Well, to be honest, something had smelled fishy from the moment I was asked to go on this irregular trip. You know what I mean? It felt just like one of those moments you invariably run across if you live long enough. Like when a landslide blocks the road and you go to a creepy mansion to get out of the rain, when you board a sleeper train after waiting for someone to cancel and run into a man in a mask, or when you win a ticket in a shopping center lottery and it turns out to be for the detached room at an inn where people kept suspiciously killing themselves ten years ago. It felt just like that!! Like when there’s some ancient bloody ritual or a gloomy counting song that ends with not just the secret basement but the entire inn making a complete 180!! Just like that!! So I had expected this much! I wasn’t crying yet!!!!!
It was Hishigami Enbi.
That mystery freak had a way of popping up at the scenes of disturbing murders. It was to the point that I wondered if that indiscrete twintailed middle school girl had the Grim Reaper walking around with her.
However, my shock this time wasn’t over her showing up without warning on Goldmine Island.
It was over how she was dressed.
Simply put...
“What in the world are you wearing?”
“You don’t know what a bunny suit is? This is a casino city, so what else am I supposed to wear if I want to blend into the background without standing out?”
“You look like you’re illegally working in the red-light district!! You’re nothing but trouble to all the law-abiding businesses around you!!”
“Heh heh heh. There may not be much space, but I do have a lighter in my cleavage just like the real deal.”
“Did you know that carrying flammable material around in public without any obvious purpose is against the law?”
When I sighed and confiscated the lighter, Bunny Enbi got mad.
“How can you stick your hand in there so casually!?”
“Because it’s part of my job.”
“Yeah, but you’re supposed to blush and fidget a bit first! You’re doing a terrible job!!”
I felt like the voices of the surrounding crowd were changing a bit.
Oh, this ain’t good. A grown adult in a suit with a middle school bunny girl is definitely going to give people the wrong idea!
The (female, of course) armed guards in miniskirts who looked like something from an American pin-up magazine were slowly approaching and I felt the hair all over my body stand on end.
It was true a legit police officer wasn’t about to lose an argument with a civilian guard, but there was no way I was going to use my full intellect to argue about something like this at my age!
“Why are you here!? Why in the world are you here to ruin my social standing!?”
“Huh? You mean you aren’t here because you’re pursuing that incident?”
...
I want nothing to do with this, I thought while covering my face and curling up, but that wasn’t enough to stop the Mystery Bunny.
“Y’know, the one with all the rumors online.”
“You mean the Samejima Incident?”
“It’s a little more credible than that online urban legend.”
I could clearly picture the grin on her lips as she continued.
“You mean you haven’t heard of the Urashima Incident?”
Part 4 (Hishigami Mai — Day 10/03 20:45 - 20:55)
“Dwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”
I had Jinnai Shinobu tell me the Singer Song Liar story at the center of the Amanojaku incident, but...
I-I can’t... I can’t stop laughing! Hee!!
“W-well, I’m sure whoever it was chose a song that fit their goals, but still. Japan was sold off? What a ridiculous story. Ah ha ha ha!!”
“Stop! Just stop!!”
Unsurprisingly, the blond high school boy blushed red and sobbed.
“Besides, a Singer Song Liar story is normally only two or three pages and twenty to thirty at the most. Hm, so did someone set this up? Or was Producer Jinnai’s wonderful song just that exceptional!?”
“How many times do I have to tell you to stop rubbing salt in my wounded heart!?”
Drawn by my uproarious laughter, the young lady of Hyakki Yakou finally woke.
“Mumble... What is going on? Oh, is Target A up?”
“Now I can’t escape!!”
Jinnai Shinobu shouted as he was held from both sides.
C’mon, you’re sandwiched between an innocent little girl and a glamorous young woman, so why not look a little happier with your life?
Meanwhile, the young lady rubbed her eyes.
“How is Target A progressing? Have you figured out anything about the symbol of the lie? In the story of the Amanojaku skinning the princess and wearing her skin, it began attacking the humans once its identity was revealed. Similarly, revealing the great lie should be the best way to damage the enemy in this case.”
“Let’s see. (Grin, grin) What should I do here? (Hee hee) Should I tear open his wounded heart any further? (Heh heh heh)”
“I’ll give you up to three thousand yen!! Either don’t say anything or do it where I can’t see you!!”
The boy was truly in tears, but I ignored him and shared the necessary information with the young lady.
It looked like his temperature rose by another half a degree.
The ten year old with a bob cut brought a hand to her mouth.
“The national suicide Package using an Usuhiki Warashi, a subspecies of the Zashiki Warashi? Yes, it looks like the Amanojaku system is strongly affecting Jinnai Shinobu’s words and actions. Otherwise, a mere high school boy could never arrive at something hidden so deep inside Japan.”
“It’s real? Are you saying that national suicide thing is for real!? That isn’t some embarrassing story a computer made up on its own!? What is wrong with Japan!?”
“But I’m surprised to see that old abandoned thing showing up again. How did the information get out?”
“The casino city has to have a bunch of ridiculously huge financial servers to deal with the black cards, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to access the ‘core’ of that old thing remotely. Maybe this island has something like a backdoor terminal.”
“I’m curious about the gray-haired man that appeared at the end of the Goldmine Island part. He was an elderly white man with an Ikiryou assassination Package that used a Kechibi and he also had the superhuman Obou-Jikara gained through the trial of an Ubume’s baby. And his goal was to buy Japan.”
“It was probably Sid Clouds. He’s an occult expert who specializes in weaponizing the local oddities of wherever he’s infiltrating. Plus, a thorough shift toward offense is totally his style and I could definitely see him showing up at the very end to take all the credit.”
“Isn’t he with the CIA?”
“The top secret national suicide system was leaked, so wouldn’t the possibility of someone here letting it slip be more likely than an external cyberattack? And using some random criminals for the dirty work and letting the official agents stay hidden is their specialty.”
“If you’re right about it being Sid Clouds that means America is behind this.”
“What proof do we have that America is always going to be an ally? With their domestic economic issues coinciding with the commotion of withdrawing from their foreign military bases, the influence of the ‘world police’ is being shaken from the inside and the outside. It doesn’t seem that odd for them to consider taking control of this country’s financial foundation before their sources of money dry up. And I bet those macho-men in tights think they’re wisely protecting their ally from its incompetent administration, so they don’t even realize they’re making an invasion.”
“Either way, we need to put an end to the sale of Japan while also dealing with the Amanojaku that is making that false information a reality. I do think it’s too soon to decide Sid Clouds really is behind this, though.”
“Fine, fine. I have two or three things to get back at him for, so I have reason enough to kill him even if he’s completely in-->>