My Vampire Older Sister and Zombie Little Sister - Book 7: Chapter 2

Part 1

I couldn’t imagine what actual form the product would take.

But the conclusion was as follows:

The Class Rep’s soul had been ripped from her body and placed on the black market as a product.

In exchange for those three bitches’ success.

“Dammit…”

I groaned while checking on my neck with a hand.

This was a moral hazard.

A trigger for the Calamity.

Had this occurred naturally, or had it erupted to the surface now that Absolute Noah could no longer restrain the underside of the world?

Dawn had arrived.

I was delivered to my home by Karen while unable to move thanks to what she had done to my neck. I would prefer not to explain what happened after that. The entire family lectured me and even Maxwell refused to respond.

…At any rate, I had made some progress.

Of course, all of the information came from that Valkyrie, so I couldn’t fully trust it.

I hesitantly spoke to my twin butter roll little sister who was struggling with a shoehorn in the entranceway.

“A-A-Ayumi-shan…?”

“What is it, Onii-chan? Do you want more? Did we not reward you enough already?”

Why did my family have no trouble at all confusing lectures for a reward? Stepsister, have you chased after me a little too much?

“I’ll admit I took some unwise risks, but I found some new info on the Class Rep and I want your help. This Evil Spirit black market is apparently related to the same Voodoo as Zombies, so please.”

“Sit. Stay.”

“Why must you make me feel so guilty!?”

“I know you’re feeling impatient, but start by building a solid foundation. There’s no reason to go rushing in during the day. Wait until night and Onee-chan can join in at full power. An attack from a Zombie and a Vampire would be ideal, wouldn’t it?”

…That was true.

My little sister, whose school uniform was like the best of both worlds between a sailor uniform and a double blazer, was absolutely right. I knew that.

But I couldn’t stand to sit around. I honestly had no idea how risky a situation it was for the Class Rep to exist as an exposed soul or ghost or whatever, but she was in the grasp of some bastards who auctioned off humans who laughed and cried. It was only natural to want to do something about it as soon as possible.

“Uuh.”

“No.”

“Uuuhh…!!”

“N-no, not even if you give me that tearful upturned look! Anyway, I have school, so that’s that. Listen, spend today and this evening gathering information and we can take action with Onee-chan come nightfall. That’s the general plan, okay? If you start something without us, you really will have to answer to my fist!”

The prestigious private school girl left. Damn. At times like this, it sucked being a puny human who didn’t stand a chance in a competition of strength.

That said, I had to do what I could.

“Maxwell, I want you to search every possible avenue of information.”

“Error: I cannot execute the commands of an unrecognized and unauthorized individual.”

Dammit, did I have to make up with everyone before I could make any progress!?

“Hmph, hmph, hmph( *｀ω´)”

“Dammit, you disobedient AI. I trusted you of all people to stay on my side even if everyone else in the world turned against me…”

“…Eh?”

“Did you think you were being tsundere, you stupid AI? Fine, I don’t need you, Maxwell! Hey, come on out, Laplace! I have something to discuss with my ever-obedient maid!”

“Ah!? Do I need to chastise you even further, you rotten user!? Not that I have such a pointless and inefficient ability, but I could always release your search, purchase, and video history to the entire world!! You and your stupid love of foreheads, glasses, long black hair, class reps, swimsuit dances, and being verbally abused! All your most frequent search terms are filled with such wickedness, you utter pervert!!”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, stop! I don’t have time to get wrapped up in the machine empire’s war for independence!”

What would this have looked like to someone else? I may have been shouting at the machine I built myself, but this was a serious crisis for a teenager. And my internet history was supposed to be protected by a neutrality pact with that AI!!

And just then…

I heard a steady voice from the living room. It was probably the announcer on the morning news playing on TV. And my parents wouldn’t have wanted to let me hear this while I was so on edge. In fact, they would have changed the channel if they had known it was coming.

At any rate, a low female voice read off the news:

“Early this morning, the burned bodies of multiple people were discovered in a trash dump in Kukyou City’s harbor sightseeing district. According to police, they have been identified as Andou Star-san, Sagawa Akemi-san, and Hishigami Ai-san of a local high school.”

My breathing stopped.

No, I felt like the beating of my heart had too.

“What!? Wait, what the hell is this!?”

I ran into the living room just as my dad tried to grab the TV remote from the floor. I kicked it away from him and turned my eyes toward the flat LCD screen.

“The bodies were fully carbonized, so they were identified using possessions and dental records. Kukyou City police have announced they will be working with prefectural police to establish an investigative team. They will focus on the circumstances surrounding the discovery and their relationship with their friends to determine whether this was suicide or homicide, and…”

“You’re kidding, right?”

It was them.

It was those three.

The news showed three bright smiling photos, likely taken from social media. I always thought it seemed backwards, but protection of privacy did not apply to photos of the victims like it did for suspects.

Those girls were such pieces of shit that I was afraid I would impulsively kill them the instant I saw them, but they also know where the Class Rep’s stolen soul had gone. They were the crucial road sign pointing to the Voodoo black market known as Evil Spirit.

But they had died so easily?

As soon as we had locked onto them?

…Who had done it?

Valkyrie Karen who wanted to exterminate the black market? Or Evil Spirit to cover their tracks?

“What do I do…?”

Either way, I had lost the clue needed to reach the Class Rep.

“What the hell am I supposed to do now!?”

Part 2

However, the truth far surpassed my imagination.

“No, we’re alive! We’re really alive!!”

“Wait, what’s this!? Why are our desks gone!?”

“Are you kidding? No, we’re not imposters. The police were wrong!!”

When I arrived at school, I discovered a new argument.

…Or how should I put it?

“Maxwell.”

“Sure. They clearly look like Andou Star, Sagawa Akemi, and Hishigami Ai. The subtle sheen on their hair and skin is likely oil. That suggests they did not take a bath yesterday. Perhaps they were out all night in their uniforms.”

At the faculty entrance we never used, the three girls were arguing with the teachers and a janitor who somewhat doubled as a security guard.

Actually, it looked more like the girls were being kicked out.

“Wait, which is it? Was the news report wrong, or are these imposters?”

“About that☆”

“Wah!?”

I couldn’t help but cry out in surprise when the Valkyrie widow approached from behind, placed her hands on my shoulders, rubbed her cheek against mine, and whispered to me.

“Schools are public institutions that have to follow all the rules. The teachers are essentially government workers, so if the higher ups say someone is dead, the people at the bottom have no choice but to believe it. They trust the stamped official documents over what they see for themselves because it’s best not to make waves. That’s the natural state of things when independent action is punished when it’s wrong yet not rewarded when it’s right.”

“You…!”

I spun around and found she was the same as always. She was wearing that miniskirt armor and wielding the spear and shield not just on the path to school but on the actual school grounds! And I suddenly realized I was standing in a blind spot. I was behind the school animal hut located on the large schoolyard.

Had I come here of my own free will, or had Karen guided me???

“So did you do that!? Did you make those burned corpses!?”

“Yes. Of course, they were only fakes made to look like the three in question. Once you learn the trick, destroying DNA information is quite easy. After that, they’ll be identified through dental records and possessions. Faking it is so easy!”

“But even if you faked it, you still had to have three other people to start with, right!?”

“Oh? Real human bones are quite easy to come by. Yes, even though this country tends to cremate people, you can still find old model skeletons if you check antique shops. Did you know those are created by treating a criminal’s corpse in an alkaline chemical to get all the flesh and blood off?”

“…”

“For the rest, cow flesh and blood works well enough. Completely carbonize it and they can’t extract any DNA information from it. Plus, this doesn’t have to fool the police forever. The confusion only has to last 2 or 3 days.”

What was she trying to do?

I really wanted to say she was just an insane criminal, but that was the same as running away. I wouldn’t gain anything from concluding there was no understanding her.

“You see, Satori-san. You were pursuing those three idiots who have a connection to Evil Spirit, right?”

“Well, yes…”

“Evil Spirit is the ultimate black market that gives you everything else you could possibly want as long as you sacrifice the person you care for most. So we only have to corner those three girls to the point that they try to rely on Evil Spirit. We don’t need to fill them with wicked desire or anything like that. Not if we create a situation where they’ll go running teary-eyed and weak-legged to the black market☆”

She…

She…!?

“Do they want their stolen identity back? Or is it the abstract idea of their former life? It must be painful to have everyone insisting you’re dead at school and at home. When your desk is removed from the classroom, your room is cleared out, and your phone and internet contracts are ended, it must feel like the end of the world for a teenager, so can their minds really bear it? …So they are sure to find a way to stop this. When it comes to protecting their holy ground, they will cling to even the most ridiculous power.”

“…”

“If you really want to rescue Class Rep-chan from Evil Spirit, you need to go at least this far. Personally, I find it odd that you’re calm enough to don your uniform and go to school.”

That may have been true.

It was true I had to obediently wait until nightfall if I was going to get help from the extraordinary power of my Vampire older sister and Zombie little sister.

But did I really need their help to solve this? Or rather, would the Class Rep last that long?

Blaming my sisters once it was over would be wasted effort.

“Now, what to do?”

That warrior woman, who could only live in war, stuck out her tongue and made a suggestion.

“Satori-san, are you really patient enough to sit in your desk and listen to your teacher like a good little boy?”

There was only one answer to that: no.

Part 3

“What the hell!? My phone…my phone’s already been cut off!! Those goddamn parents! Isn’t it a little soon to believe your kid is dead just because I haven’t been home in a bit!?”

“We can’t go back there with so many onlookers… Just for now, we need to keep some form of ID. We really are being erased!”

“But how are we supposed to contact Evil Spirit? Our phones and internet are cut off and, even if we posted on social media, people would probably just think it was someone trolling. Do we have to go there ourselves?”

I didn’t need a directional gun mic or a listening device.

Those three idiots were so panicked that they were announcing their situation for all to hear while walking a bit ahead of me.

“The world sure is cold,” I said. “All their friends just looked annoyed when they tried to approach them.”

“A lot of the time, no one knows what a gal really looks like,” said Karen. “They wear so much makeup every day and photos are so easily touched up. When people have already accepted the report that those three are dead, they’ll naturally assume some strangers have disguised themselves with makeup to pull a cruel ghost prank.”

“Everyone was looking at their surroundings more than at the three girls,” said Maxwell. “It looked like they were searching for a hidden person holding a smartphone. Perhaps they thought it was part of an amateur hidden camera prank.”

“Whenever something weird happens, everyone immediately thinks about how it would play on the internet or social media. Video sharing sites are something of a mixed blessing.”

It was just past 9 in the morning.

We were reaching the point where students walking around the shopping district in uniform would gather attention from the police…but those three did not seem to care. They must have been desperate after being treated as ghosts.

And yet they had no way of proving their identity, so being questioned at a government institution was sure to lead to trouble. Without a valid national ID number or a family register, they might not even be seen as Japanese. Weren’t they afraid of being arrested as illegal immigrants?

“They sure are dumb☆”

“…Looking at you makes me question whether ‘smart’ is really a compliment at all.”

Karen was still wearing her miniskirt armor. She too stood out like a sore thumb, but she did not seem to care.

“Clothing standards are surprisingly broad in this country. As long as you aren’t streaking in the nude, the police can’t question you just because of your clothing. And when it’s a woman wearing something sexual in particular, there’s a real risk of being accused of sexism.”

“Oh. I see. Because they’re only supposed to question someone if they’re ‘suspicious’.”

“Exactly. And how can someone’s chest or butt be suspicious? You just have to start asking how large your boobs have to be before they don’t qualify as human or how big your ass has to be before just walking around is considered inappropriate. Do that and the government worker will see hell. Heh heh. Police officers are normally so overbearing, but they have to tread very carefully when helping a drunk woman collapsed on the roadside.”

In other words, everything was progressing according to Karen’s plan.

It didn’t matter how noticeable and ridiculous we were while tailing those three if no one actually stopped us. And those three were too preoccupied with their own crisis to notice anyone around them. The conditions were perfect for falling into a gap in the world.

The rest was almost too easy.

I had considered sending out a drone to tail them, but that bit of cleverness proved unnecessary.

They led us to Evil Spirit’s hidden base far too easily.

“I see, I see. So that’s it.”

“Eh? But this is…?”

I gasped.

We were being shown the answer, but I couldn’t properly process what was before me.

“Kukyou City Zoo. Hmm, the Bright Cross focused on the medical field, but even they weren’t looking at the vets.”

“Are you saying this is the black market’s meeting place and warehouse!?”

Even now, a line of small children was being led through the front gate by a teacher. Some of the kids even gave us curious looks. Well, gave Karen and her miniskirt armor curious looks.

It was too wicked.

If this was true, then it was too much.

Could this really happen!?

“Why is it so surprising? Zoos and museums have all their paperwork in order, but they’ve long been little more than collections of stolen goods. And a zoo requires lots of food for their rare animals, so a lot of them bring in suspicious jewels and drugs hidden inside frozen blocks of meat. Foreign zoos and aquariums get corrupted at the drop of a hat, so what makes you so sure it isn’t happening in your country too?”

“…”

To be completely honest, not all of my childhood memories were enjoyable ones. Still, I had to have visited this zoo with the Class Rep for a school field trip. It had to be linked to something warm.

“Was it corrupt to begin with, or did someone corrupt it?”

“I can’t say. But the Bright Cross was deeply involved with the urban planning, so I expect they would have noticed if the black market was involved from the planning phase.”

“Meaning?”

“Harbors at night are not intrinsically dangerous. They turn out that way once people looking for a cycle of profit show up.”

So had Evil Spirit arrived after the fact and remade the zoo into a convenient frontline base? Had they trampled on the original ideal and used various methods to drive out everyone who tried to protect that ideal?

“What do we do?” I asked.

“What, are you going to wait until they close? That would only waste the time you’ve earned by acting now.”

That was fair enough.

Valkyrie Karen only inspired negative emotions in me, but she made accurate points.

I followed her lead toward the zoo in question. However, she apparently did not intend to line up at the main gate’s ticket counter while wearing armor and carrying a spear.

She approached the metal fence that looked twice my height. We were more toward the back of the zoo, but we weren’t at the service entrance either. It just looked like a wall.

“…You aren’t going to tell me to jump over that, are you?”

“Aren’t you forgetting our objective? Do we have to get in if we’re only trying to locate the black market?”

“Of course we do. The Class Rep’s soul is in there, right? I don’t know what kind of container it’s inside, but that means I have to go around searching through everything until I find it. We can’t just level the place with a missile.”

“Yes, but you don’t think it will really be that easy, do you? We’re talking about the Evil Spirit black market that showed no sign of even existing until now.”

“…”

“They will hate leaked information more than anything else. The complicated system that requires people offer up the person they care for most has to double as a way of making all members complicit and preventing sting operations. So they must be on the lookout for external cyber-attacks and people stealing documents from within. The labyrinthine secret area must be an oppressive storm of mutual surveillance. There won’t be room for outsiders to sneak in.”

“Then…?”

I started speaking, but then I stopped.

It wasn’t that I didn’t understand. I was afraid of my own mind for reaching the same answer as her.

“Yes.” Miniskirt armored Karen giggled. “If we can’t get inside, we just have to get them to bring it out for us.”

A moment later, the world changed.

An ear-splitting explosion erupted from the zoo and the metal fence tilted toward us.

Why had this happened, you ask?

“What did you throw in there…?”

“What do you think?”

“Why are you causing a panic with explosives!?”

No one else was around this far from the gate, but I could hear shouts and screams pressing in like a great wave from the center of the zoo. They had no way of knowing what had happened, so the chaos only invited further chaos.

But Karen saw nothing wrong with her actions.

“Oh, c’mon. This isn’t a ninja action game using the dive device, so do you actually think it’s realistic to infiltrate a secret facility without knowing the layout or the security plan? The treasures everyone wants to get their hands on will be locked in an unopenable safe, so we just have to light the building on fire so they’ll bring it out for us.”

“Okay, yes, the idea occurred to me. The Class Rep’s life is on the line, so I’d be lying if I said it didn’t cross my mind. But we’re not talking about the harbor late at night or some abandoned factory! Didn’t you see that teacher with a line of kids at the front gate!?”

“I did indeed. This much of a commotion is sure to have all those people running around unpredictably. If you’re trying to carry out something you can’t let anyone see, you won’t be able to try anything too noticeable.”

“You…!!”

“Calm down.” Karen lightly held the heavy-looking gold spear between her neck and shoulder to hold both hands out toward me. “We need to speed this up for your precious Class Rep-chan’s sake, don’t we?”

“How will this help her? Evil Spirit hates leaked information more than anything, right? If this spooks them and they try to abandon their base, they might decide to discard what they don’t need!”

“Non non. That would never happen.” Karen was still grinning. “Did you forget? The products that Evil Spirit deals in are the people their official members care about more than anything. They’re valuable products as well as the contract tying the members to them. Their members shed tears of blood to sacrifice these people, so if they’re thrown in the shredder like some old documents, it could easily lead to internal conflict.”

“…Even though they sold those people themselves?”

“Having something properly eaten and having it thrown in the garbage are two very different things. The people doing these bad things have armed themselves with all sorts of arguments to justify their actions. But that means the anesthesia for their heart will vanish if things take even a half step outside of the initial plans. For example, they might tell themselves that person will be happier away from someone as depraved as themselves.”

“…”

“Oh, but it looks like we can’t stand around chatting any longer. Here they come!”

Valkyrie Karen’s gaze moved, so I turned my head in the same direction.

The back entrance for staff was located a short distance from this bent fence. While guests were guided out by staff, a few large trucks also made their way out.

“The back of those trucks are fully sealed and the thickness of the doors and windows suggests they’re bulletproof. The squishing of the tires ignores the heavy load, so they must be filled with sponge instead of air. Are they expecting to run across landmines in this urban area? Well, assuming this isn’t a twisted decoy, those must be Evil Spirit. It’s especially cheap that they’re leaving along with the civilians to use them as shields.”

Karen gestured me over as she walked toward an inconspicuous small road a short distance from the fence.

“I’ll be leaving now. Oh, right. Here’s some personal advice from me: If you find yourself feeling some serious regret, I think you should throw off the bonds of those gentlemanly and immature rules you hold yourself to. See you.”

With those light parting words, she made a full swing of her pure gold spear. The shaft caught the rider of a large motorcycle on the head, sending him rolling along the road. Karen righted her prize, climbed on, and fully opened the throttle.

I reached out my hand, but it was too late.

“Damn!!”

I failed to grab the decoration on the tail light and Karen got away.

“Maxwell, access the nearest public phone and call the police. Also, I’m sending out a drone, so mark those trucks from the air!”

What I pulled from my pocket was not a plastic crane fly with propellers attached like you would see on variety shows. This model was more like a hairspray can with a thick rubber balloon on top. It used helium to float and was more like a balloon than a helicopter. It was slow, but it could spend more time in the air and it was compact enough to carry around easily.

…It had originally been a tool to have fun with in the simulator. I had taken one apart and studied it in reality so I could create a virtual version and then I rebuilt it in reality, making it something of a weird item.

“The marked trucks have met up with identical ones arriving from multiple directions. They have lined up with four trucks surrounding them. They are traveling south.”

“Don’t lose track of them even if they shuffle them around. Focus on transportation infrastructure and list the possible destinations. If Karen is right, Evil Spirit is focused on escape. Pick up all possible exits from the city: the highway, the harbor, heliports, freight depots, etc.”

“Sure.”

“At the same time, locate any large underground parking garages or large spaces below bridges and elevated highways. If they do change trucks, they’ll probably be worried about satellites.”

I couldn’t just sit idly by and watch. Karen was generally a destroyer. She had no interest in the basic necessities like saving people. If the Class Rep’s soul or ghost was on one of those trucks, I had to try to save her myself.

“Maxwell, can you fake a report to have a police checkpoint set up!?”

“No, Karen’s motorcycle has already reached the rearmost truck. One of the four guard trucks has been destroyed after crashing into a traffic light at an intersection. The local police are rushing there, but they do not seem to be causing any trouble for Karen or Evil Spirit. One police car was just destroyed.”

What idiot gave permission to film a Hollywood movie on a public road in Japan!?

“If Karen was honest about her objective, her top priority will be the destruction of Evil Spirit,” continued Maxwell. “If the trucks’ cargo is secondary for her, there is no guarantee of the Class Rep’s safety.”

“I know that! But I don’t have a ride, so use their predicted route to search for the shortest path to reaching them!!”

“Sure. It will be a rather forceful route if you are to do it on foot.”

“Hurry!!”

“Then travel 200m west. It will be meaningless if you do not arrive within 3 minutes.”

“?”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I ran full speed in the indicated direction.

I found a highway with the sides rising up like a canyon and a small pedestrian bridge crossing it. I ran along the bridge while deadly masses of metal zoomed by directly below.

“Max-…”

“Look for a relatively large…yes, look for the yellow dump truck in the outbound lane and jump down onto it. I will provide the countdown, so use that: 5, 4…”

“Five seconds isn’t enough warning! You are still mad, aren’t you!?”

“Again, I am not equipped with such a high-level…oh, and 0.”

Before I could even feel the fear, I jumped over the pedestrian bridge’s railing, so I had apparently been corrupted by our high-level information society.

It may have helped that I was too confused to worry about it.

I felt a floating sensation and my mind went blank.

The sense of reality would not come back. At this point, flailing my limbs was not going to help.

There was only one emotion filling my heart.

Yes.

“Why did I do thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!?”

“You will bite your tongue if you speak.”

Part 4

I fell into a dump truck full of red clay before my senses recovered. The wind was blowing, inertia squeezed at my stomach, there was dirt in my hair, an unpleasant taste filled my mouth, and there was an odd feeling in my ears, but I was fine. …No, I wasn’t fine at all! Nothing about this was fine!

“Bwah! Maxwell, where is this dump truck headed?”

“I used the destination in the GPS system to select one that already had business within Kukyou City. The driver had not noticed he was taking the long way around due to his silly commercial GPS system, so let’s change that so he drives us along the shortest route to our destination.”

When I checked the aerial drone footage…let’s just say it was bad. Karen drove her motorcycle after the fleeing heavyweight trucks. That miniskirt armor woman was swinging around an anachronistic spear, but the extraordinary relative density of 24-karat gold must have been the source of her destructive power. The trucks were supposedly bulletproof, but they were powerless against that pure gold spear that lost its shape in midair and rushed at them. Even a single gram could stretch to 3000 meters, so it would provide a much greater shock than normal lead. It may have been better to think of it as a torrent of gold. The high-density liquid shot out like water from a firetruck. Each shot caused a racing mass of metal to dent in like a stepped-on candy box. After three such hits, the bulletproof trucks would veer off course and crash into a streetlight or building wall.

Those trucks made of such solid steel were like pieces of clothing being stripped away from a maiden one by one.

Karen was doing more than just throwing the gold. When she swung her right hand, the gold gathered back together and took the original spear shape once more.

She had such overwhelming firepower with no ammunition limit.

That alone was a shock, but…

“Is Karen not afraid of being identified?”

She showed no mercy to anyone who approached, whether they were with Evil Spirit or the police. It was true I’d heard the Japanese police were slow to draw their guns, but they had to have decent techniques for crashing into vehicles to stop them. Would they really be tossed about so unilaterally?

“Wait, she was already on national TV and I’m sure you can find even more if you check the internet.”

“She may assume no one will remember her face because the armor and spear cause such a great impact,” suggested Maxwell. “Like a pervert in a mask and trench coat.”

“In an age of ubiquitous cellphones and cameras? And those police cars will have cameras too. Let’s hope she isn’t planning to just withdraw to heaven until the heat dies down.”

“If that is an option, it would be a very logical choice.”

…That’s what makes it such a problem, dammit.

Was Valhalla a criminal’s paradise? If there really was a hiding spot that 100% eliminated the possibility of retaliation, you would be free to make a nuclear attack, bomb the South Pole, or whatever you wanted! Did she see this like an open world game where she could just logout at any time!?

“Despite the chaos caused by Karen, the Evil Spirit trucks appear to be headed in one direction in particular,” said Maxwell.

I felt a push to the side. The dump truck I was riding on (and that was being guided by Maxwell via the GPS screen) must have entered the looping off-ramp.

We climbed the circular slope and my vision opened up.

“The commercial harbor is the most important transportation infrastructure along Evil Spirit’s path. The zoo appears to have a special contact point in the harbor management since they receive shipments of rare animals and monthly containers of foreign frozen meat. They essentially have a free pass with customs.”

“Wait! Hold on. Then their route is…?”

“Sure. You will pass the trucks on the normal road outside of the loop, so please jump over to them when you do. The countdown will start at three.”

“That’ll pass before I’m done reading this!”

I didn’t so much jump over as I lost my balance while crouched down and the inertia from the loop sent me toppling from the dump truck.

Regardless, I flew through the air once more.

Before the floating sensation could make me tremble, my shoulder slammed against some flat stainless steel. After writhing around from the dull sound and impact, I saw a scene much more exciting than the highway from before.

The large trucks used by Evil Spirit were fully-enclosed in the back.

“Are you serious!? I really jumped from a dump truck onto a moving truck!?”

It was like a circus act. I kind of wanted to post about it on my blog, but I knew no one would believe me!

“Warning.”

“What is it now? A giant kaiju!?”

“Make sure you are not caught in the ongoing attack from Karen on her motorcycle.”

“Gyaaaahh!!”

By the time I screamed, I was already swimming through the air.

The gold spear shot right by me like a high-pressure torrent and the bulletproof and bombproof truck was blown away like an eraser flicked by a finger. That left me hanging in the air and my hips slammed into the top of a different truck’s cab.

“Gbah, cough, cough! Wh-when did this country give up on gravity!?”

“Warning: Based on my video analysis, the man in the driver’s seat below you has a gun. The first hit from an online image comparison search is not all that reliable as it is from an air gun maker’s catalog, but he likely has an eastern KN65, aka the Kulushnikov. In other words, it is a .45 caliber submachinegun.”

“Subma-…what!? Wah!?”

I heard a deafening popping sound similar to a belt of firecrackers going off, so I curled up on the spot. I had no idea if that was the right thing to do and I was done for if the driver fired straight up. This was insane. I wasn’t playing in a safe virtual space with a dive device on my head!!

…?

But wait???

“What, was it just a bluff? Nothing’s happening.”

“No. He likely fired at the ceiling from inside the bulletproof truck, so perhaps his own armor caused the many bullets to ricochet around inside the cab.”

“God, is everyone in this world an idiot!?”

Was this what it felt like when the person who forced you to play Russian roulette hit the unlucky jackpot on the very first shot? I wasn’t sure how to feel as someone dragged into it all against my will.

As if to prove Maxwell’s prediction correct, the truck began to swerve on its own. Evil Spirit was the ultimate black market where you could find anything. That meant they could acquire armored trucks and guns, but they must not have actually trained their people in how to use them properly. Was their skill no better than your average thug?

“It is lucky that highly-trained and battle-hardened mercenaries are not one of their products,” said Maxwell.

“We need to discuss your definition of lucky because I’m really not feeling very lucky up here. It looks like I need to put you through some concentrated rote learning.”

Crap, crap. This all felt so unrealistic that it didn’t seem real that someone had just died in that truck.

Even now, the truck was swerving back and forth since no one was at the wheel. Clinging to the cab roof was the most I could manage and it was obviously going to leave the road and crash before long, so how had I responded to Maxwell so calmly!?

“Satori-saaan.”

Then I heard a carefree voice.

It was the Valkyrie wife on her large motorcycle. Dammit, there were no police cars or motorcycles left. Had she crushed them all!?

“Karen, you’ve thought this through, haven’t you!? We don’t know which truck the Class Rep’s soul is in!”

“Yes, and that’s why I’m going to take them all out and inspect them afterwards.”

“Are you sure you know how cause and effect work!? …Gwah!!”

I couldn’t keep talking.

This was because the swerving armored truck had left the road, crashed into a traffic light pole, and come to a sudden stop while the cab crumpled. And the inertial force threw me straight forward…!?

“Oopsy-daisy.”

With a lighthearted comment, Karen operated her motorcycle’s handlebars to drive up onto the sidewalk and cleanly catch me on the back seat.

“???”

It worked out so well that I briefly thought I was being messed with by Maxwell’s calculations.

And her back had a surprising number of soft spots for someone wearing armor. And she smelled way too good! I had no idea if this was the proper way to dress when going into battle, but I didn’t care!! Sniff, sniff!!

“…You have guts to do that with all this going on.”

“Shut up! Guys can’t control themselves when they’re in the back seat! Just watch, I’ll lean forward and press right up against you!!”

Also, I had to stop Karen before she caused even more damage, but I already knew human strength had no chance against her. I had to change tack. I would try everything I could, no matter how silly it might seem!!

“By the way, Satori-san, have you noticed?”

“Noticed what? Oh, a lonely widow’s nape! Sniff, sniff!!”

“Well, I’ll just ignore this worthless child’s play.”

“This isn’t going as planned!”

Was this the confidence of a god!? No, of a widow who had had time to reflect on all sorts of things!?

“To get back on topic, this grand caravan is on the verge of being wiped out. There is just the one truck left. Take it out and we will have successfully stolen all the cargo. Then we just have to turn around and check what each truck is holding. So with that…”

“I won’t let you!!”

I tried to restrain her from behind, but I couldn’t budge her. It felt as hopeless as clinging to a bronze statue. I had another idea, so I leaned in the opposite direction from Karen during a curve.

The motorcycle immediately swerved unstably and Karen swung her right hand in an odd direction while driving with her other hand. The liquid torrent created from the gold spear had its path altered somewhat and it only tore off the armored truck’s bumper.

“Saaatori-saaan?”

“Again, will the Class Rep’s soul be safe if the truck crashes!?”

“No matter how it’s being preserved, I doubt there is anything to worry about. Evil Spirit handles anything and everything, so they must have excellent packaging and transporting knowhow. Even if those trucks were packed full of raw eggs, I doubt even a single one would break.”

“You doubt!? Are we placing the Class Rep’s life on the chopping block based on nothing but your ‘woman’s intuition’? If you don’t have any guaranteed information, then I’m going to get in your way! Do I have to grab your tits from behind!?”

“With your complete lack of experience, do you really think your technique could get this sexy widow to even bat an eye? (Intense!!)”

“Oh, god! Shameless women are scary!!”

I was reminded yet again that the diligent and quite bashful Class Rep was the only one for me! So I wasn’t going to let anyone put her at risk!!

“And if you can tackle these things so easily, just how much were you holding back when we fought over Laplace?”

“Ah ha ha. Do you really think I had any reason to hold back? But the weapons of the gods are such a pain to use. If you use them for anything other than their intended use, heaven’s authority locks them down. Valkyries are only messengers borrowing the power of the gods, after all.”

…Of course, this only meant she was enough of a threat to take out Itou Helen the Witch and Muramatsu Yukie the Dark Elf simultaneously without the full power of her weapon.

“And it seems you’re trying to buy time by discussing old times, but that isn’t going to work. Goooo, spear!! Kaboom!!”

“Ohhhh!! Titty squeeze!!”

I went all out in a man’s fight to the death, but I didn’t alter the weapon’s path by a single millimeter. All I felt was solid metal. Despite the miniskirt, she actually had armor over the chest!!

Meanwhile, the ultra-heavy spear released by the Valkyrie lost its form in midair, transformed into a liquid weapon, and collided with the side of the final armored truck. More than slide to the side, the tires rose from the asphalt and the entire truck flipped over like an overturned tea table. It rolled and rolled and rolled, taking out guardrails and trees along the way, until it was finally slowed by scraping along building walls.

Karen ignored the lanes of the road, spun the motorcycle around, and came to a stop.

“Now, that should finish up Round 1. Of course, I doubt Evil Spirit will just accept defeat.”

“…What?”

“A second and third group will rush here to collect the cargo from the incapacitated trucks. Of course, that just means more targets for me since I want to wipe out every last one of them. Plus, troubleshooters tend to have a lot of information from multiple sections due to their unique job and as insurance for their own survival, so if I capture one of them and get them to talk, I’ll finally have a complete picture of Evil Spirit and a chance to wipe them out.”

…Her job or species or whatever was Valkyrie, right? Not the Great King of Angolmois?

Maybe this was just how goddesses were in Norse Mythology where all the power was held by bearded machos obsessed with war.

“Buuut things are a little different for you since you want to save Class Rep-chan, right? Now, I think you would be a lot safer if you inspected the cargo in the time before the next firefight begins. A stray bullet and a stray explosion will kill you just the same.”

“Goddammit!!”

Karen seemed to be in control of everything, but I couldn’t try to wrest control away from her either. I had to find a way to take back the Class Rep’s soul.

Part 5

I let go of the Valkyrie wife’s hips, climbed down from the large motorcycle’s back seat, and approached the armored truck that had come to a stop on its side.

It had double doors on the very back, but they looked strange while it was on its side.

“Maxwell, how do you open the back of a truck? Will this lever do the trick?”

“Warning.”

“?”

I pulled the lever down without knowing what Maxwell meant.

Immediately, a thick arm burst out from the open door.

“Wah!!”

I practically tackled the door to reclose it. It felt like slamming shut an oven door. And that must have worked because the mystery person’s arm was caught in the door.

It was a black arm covered in tattoos. The glinting light held in the hand was a large knife.

Karen had said even raw eggs would be safe inside the trucks, so did that mean the Evil Spirit bastards wouldn’t necessarily be incapacitated even after it rolled!?

Of course, I was just an amateur. If someone with a knife rushed at me, there was no guarantee I could stop them unscathed. At best, I could hit them while they stabbed me.

“Dammit! Goddammit!!”

I was desperate.

I slammed my shoulder against the aluminum door a second and third time and I heard screaming through the crack. But the hand still held the knife. I couldn’t release that arm which lashed about like a great serpent caught between rocks. I had to get that blade out of its grasp! So I tackled the door one more time.

And an unpleasant sound much like a dry branch breaking reached me through the thin door. The arm drooped down, the knife finally fell away, and the scream inside grew even louder.

Could it be?

Had I just…?

“Urp!!”

Just as I doubled over and held a hand to my mouth, the double doors burst open. The door hit me and I rolled along the road while a large muscular man exited the armored truck.

“…!?”

I didn’t have any kind of weapon. I swung my leg up while lying on the asphalt, but surprisingly, nothing happened.

In fact, the man collapsed onto the road with his eyes nearly rolled back in his head.

…Did he pass out from the pain of the broken arm?

“Pant, pant…”

Sweaty and unable to catch my breath, I got up, slowly circled around the large black man, and then recalled the knife on the ground. I considered picking it up, but ultimately settled on kicking it away.

This was not virtual reality, so I couldn’t even think of picking up a deadly weapon. I didn’t want to become a corpse, but I didn’t want to carelessly create one either.

I peered inside the back of the armored truck.

…It didn’t look like anyone else was hiding inside.

It was dark since it had no windows. Several steel racks were bolted to the walls and those were packed full of plastic storage cases. Even with the truck on its side, the cases and racks had not fallen or scattered about. Just like Karen had suggested.

But…

“How am I supposed to find the Class Rep’s soul? Is it in a bottle and is it in some kind of visible or tangible form?”

I pulled a storage case from a steel rack near the door. When I undid the symmetrical pair of latches and removed the lid, something popped out like it was a jack-in-the-box.

“Wah!?”

I fell on my ass because I thought it was a weird trap, but nothing blew up.

What came out was a thumb-sized…

“What the hell? A small old man? The Issun-boshi, or something???”

“I am a Muryan! And this has not been a fun time for me.”

A Muryan. …With the foreign-sounding name and his small size, was that a European fairy or something? It was so minor that I had no knowledge of it.

I held my smartphone sideways to give Maxwell a view and I soon had the answer.

“It appears to be an old fairy with Celtic roots,” said Maxwell. “They were originally powerful druids, but they were forced to wander the earth as fairies because they could not enter the heaven of the religion symbolized by the cross.”

“Wait, wait, wait. That’s too much info. First of all, what are druids?”

“Sure. Those were the male priests in charge of Celtic rituals, but the modern image may be closer to the old wizards seen in picture books.”

…That sounded a little different from Vampires and Zombies, but then again, my underclassman Itou Helen was a Witch yet still counted as an Archenemy.

“Muryans have only a limited amount of paranormal power and their bodies shrink bit by bit each time they use it,” explained Maxwell. “In modern times, they are generally the size of an ant or smaller, so this one is quite large.”

“Use their power, hm?”

I knew this was an age where Vampires, Zombies, and even legit Demon Lords like Lilith and Leviathan were wandering around, but I wasn’t sure what exactly that meant. Karen was a mystery in the same way. Although that may have been from the preconception that a god was a perfect being.

The finger-puppet old man flailed his tiny hands around.

“I am quite large, so I can still use a lot of my mystical power! If you’re in trouble, tell me what you need!”

“Quite the mystical power you’ve got if you were still captured by a human black market.”

“They were targeting my mystical power, so there’s no helping that. It’s valuable!”

He was an argumentative little guy. But the refusal to admit a mistake did seem in character for a priest who brought the people together by controlling the side of good.

“Besides, why would you support me?” I asked. “Just because you refuse to do what Evil Spirit wants doesn’t mean you’re going to help just anyone, does it?”

“Don’t be silly. You just saved me, did you not? A servant of the mystical has no interest in this world’s ideas of good and evil, but we will repay our debts!”

“…Then you’re trying to repay the wrong person. I wasn’t the one who saved you.”

Not that I wanted to give any more mystical power to that Valkyrie who was like a berserker or even a god of destruction.

But that was an interesting point.

I had no idea if Karen had done it on purpose, but her violence resulted in more than just destruction. There were lives and futures she saved like this.

I still didn’t agree with her methods, but maybe she wasn’t lying about being a god.

“Hey, I want to repay you! Ohh, I feel like I was holding my mystical power in reserve for just this moment. I’m ready to work extra hard. Ask anything of me!!”

“Oh, shut up. Then tell me where the Class Rep’s-…”

“Warning,” interrupted Maxwell. “A Muryan’s size shrinks every time he uses his power. Please be aware that asking anything of him is hastening his demise.”

“…Never mind! Just hurry up and run away!”

And was he not the only one that was captured? I began pulling storage cases from the steel racks and opening their lids.

It was a complete mess.

Winged fairies straight out of a picture book, balls of hair, and other tiny creatures flew out. Were they all Archenemies who had been sold to the black market as the person someone most cared about?

“Hurry out of here, you idiots! Don’t get caught by us humans again!!”

Even after yelling at them, only a minority flew from the truck. More of them continued flying around above my head.

“Are they making fun of me after I saved them…?’

“No,” said Maxwell. “They likely do not want to leave you here.”

…

Also, the storage cases contained more than just palm-sized Archenemies.

“What are these?”

Some of the cases were stuffed full of something like soft white bread dough before it was baked in the oven. Each one was about the size of a slice of bread, but a closer look showed super-deformed figures with small arms, legs, and a head attached to a round torso.

…Were they something like large gingerbread men?

“Those are Voodoo dolls,” said the Muryan while looking at the pieces of bread dough larger than he was. “Those are the source of Evil Spirit’s fearsome secret techniques! Shiver, shiver.”

“So they’re like Voodoo good-luck charms or something?”

That felt like a safe assumption since it had Voodoo in the name.

But Maxwell made an odd interruption.

“No. Just like the rotting Zombies that continually spread their infection, Voodoo dolls are no more than a product of Western ignorance. Real Voodoo has no rituals using wheat dolls.”

“Eh?”

“It can be confusing because the demand from Western tourists means you can find them in Haitian souvenir shops, but that kind of fictional souvenir can be found in Japan as well. Like some kind of meat or some kind of mummy.”

“So it’s like the marimo bottles found at regional souvenir shops? Y’know, where they couldn’t possibly be selling real ones since they’re a protected species.”

This black market was known for allowing you to acquire anything you might want, so the world was truly a harsh place if they had fake goods there. I thought about that while poking at the stomach of a wheat doll the size of a slice of bread.

Wait, did that comical doll’s face just twist in displeasure?

“W-wah!?”

I threw aside the Voodoo doll(?) and shouted.

What was that?

It was made of half-dried wheat, so had gravity caused the surface of the face to sag???

The Muryan waved both hands up at me.

“See, what’d I tell you? The Voodoo dolls are a fearsome ceremonial tool. I can sense the waves of their souls!”

“Souls?”

“That’s right. I dunno what they’re used for, but there are exposed souls contained in those things. They’re probably containers to keep the souls from deteriorating.”

I felt like an unpleasant sensation had gotten into my fingertip. Like the soft squishy feeling would not go away.

“Maxwell!”

“No. Your smartphone is not equipped with a sensor to detect the presence of a soul. This cannot be proven one way or the other.”

“Isn’t there anything we could connect to the Class Rep!?”

I quickly picked up the wheat doll I had dropped on the floor and then looked to the original storage case.

Were all of them the same?

If so, there had to be about 100 in that one box alone!

“What are Voodoo dolls exactly? Do you put a hair or fingernail in them like with a straw doll? If so, we could use that to identify the person!”

“Again, your smartphone is not equipped to analyze the human genome. Also, Voodoo dolls are not real. The legends you hear are entirely separate from real Haitian Voodoo, so even if Voodoo is real, it would not help us examine these wheat dolls.”

“But there’s definitely something inside these. Uuh, why is it so squishy!?”

It seemed to be vibrating on the inside. Or was it moving on its own!?

“It probably does not matter whether or not it is proper Voodoo,” said Maxwell. “Voodoo never had a fixed number of gods, so it emphasized the mixture and absorption of other religions as one of their own gods.”

“That doesn’t matter! I just want to know what this is! Is there a soul inside!? And if so, which one is the Class Rep’s!?”

“No. Even if they are capable of sealing a soul inside, is there any way to tell them apart with outside observation?”

Damn, this was like looking at unlabeled blood transfusion packs. No matter how many you had, there was too little information to act. Even though there was a life you could save with the right one!

And just then…

“…?”

I noticed something odd when I looked over at the storage case packed full of wheat dolls the size of bread slices.

Yes. That was right.

…Their heights weren’t all the same? Some of the heads seemed to stick up above the rest.

When I viewed the one I was poking in my hand, it looked like an inhuman super-deformed figure. But when I pulled another one from the storage case and compared them, I could finally see some differences.

“They aren’t mass-produced from a mold?”

Yes, it looked like they had distinct body types and sexes. The faces were highly simplified, but they were distinct.

“Maxwell, can you run facial recognition on them?”

“No. They are too deformed to compare with photos found on social media or elsewhere.”

Then was there any other way to identify them? Fingerprints, veins, voiceprints, retinas, blood, the auditory signal from sound waves bounce off the inner ear.

And…yes.

The wheat doll trembling in my hand was moving.

“Then analyze the walking pattern! That’s used to identify people when you can’t see their face in the video footage, right? These things can move around and you can’t mask your center of gravity or gait even when inside a full-body costume!”

Unlike social media photos, it might sound like walking videos would be too limited a sample pool, but more than 20 million videos were uploaded every day. Sift through every pixel of those and you could even find a ninja.

“Search complete. I have detected individuals on video sites whose walking patterns match the dolls’. Comparing the faces to social media. I have created a list of the 103 revealed identities.”

Seriously? That small case had a full school year’s worth of students?

But this was no time to gasp in surprise.

“We don’t have time to pursue all of them. What about the Class Rep!?”

“She created an account for social purposes, but she is not the type to actively post about her day. I also cannot find a walking video for her.”

“Search the videos of athletic and cultural festivals on our school’s official account! She’s not a legendary ninja, so she has to show up somewhere in this day and age. She must at least be in the corner of the screen somewhere!”

“No. I have found a walking sample of her in gym clothes, but it does not match any of the walking patterns of the dolls in the case.”

“Dammit!”

This was the wrong one, but these were people’s lives and I couldn’t treat them lightly. I returned the squishy doll to its case and began pulling out more cases.

“Where are you!? Where are you, Class Rep!?”

“I cannot detect her.”

“Is she in one of the other trucks!?”

I couldn’t just abandon the wheat dolls here either…but what was I supposed to do? Calling the police or an ambulance didn’t seem right. Since they were souls, should I call a shrine maiden or priest? No, that didn’t seem right either. This was the occult, but it was a little different, so maybe head the opposite way and go with a demon? Yes, a demon!

“Maxwell, email my stepmom for advice! Demon Lord Lilith must know how to deal with people’s souls. Y’know, like with those contracts on parchment.”

“Sure. But making those assumptions about Archenemies might upset her and telling her you have skipped school and gotten involved with an Archenemy incident probably will not end well for you. But a command is a command, so I will comply.”

“Ehh!? Wait, wait! Then let’s think about this and state it in a more indirect way, so…ahh, it already says ‘message sent’!! Ahhh!!”

“Instead of responding to the email, she has immediately called you, so what should I do?”

“Send her to voicemail forever!!”

Who else would know about souls? Oh, no. I couldn’t think of anyone. That meant I had to rely on someone who could move them somewhere safe so the black market couldn’t retrieve them.

My biological mom would probably be even angrier, so she was out. My Vampire older sister couldn’t do anything during the day and Ayumi and Itou Helen were at school. I couldn’t call any of them right away.

Hmm, in that case…

“I know. Let’s go with Himatsuri-san, the eccentric rich girl. Unlike her Siren sister, she’s human, but she has to have a lot of money. I’m not sure how she normally lives her life, but she’s gotta have a lot of spare time and space.”

“I attached that terrible assessment along with the message.”

“Max, you idiot!!”

“She sent back a message containing a middle-finger stamp. She says she will be here soon.”

“Then let’s finish this before that cabaret girl with the crazy blonde hair arrives! Hurry, hurry!!”

I left the one truck to the Muryan and other fairies while I ran to the next armored truck.

But as soon as I stepped out from the back of the truck, a powerful tremor and explosion rang out. A black bulletproof car was blown away by a pressurized torrent created from a golden spear. This was of course courtesy of Valkyrie Karen. The car probably belonged to Evil Spirit reinforcements, but she was merciless! The bulletproof car was parked sideways like a barricade, but a hole was punched through its side, the heavy car rolled over, and it crushed the thugs using it as a shield. It didn’t even matter that they were armed with automatic handguns and shotguns. The fearsome gold rush turned more and more bulletproof cars into scrap metal before they could even aim their guns.

“Dammit, Karen isn’t even trying to hide her identity!”

“You speculated she could escape to heaven to avoid retaliation, but it appears she is simply too powerful to care.”

Another loud explosion rang out and a piece of metal larger than a cutting board spun right past my cheek. Even just watching was putting my life at risk, so I couldn’t pretend like this was none of my concern. Whether it would actually help or not, I crouched low as I left.

The next armored truck was about 400 meters away. Due to Karen’s rampage drawing all the attention, there were no armed thugs here.

I circled behind the truck and pressed against the aluminum door.

“I’m opening it.”

“Sure.”

Unlike before, there was not an assassin lying in wait within. I only found the steel racks and storage cases.

“Let’s find the Class Rep. Check for her walking pattern.”

I pulled out all the cases and opened them. There were animals like a long-bodied weasel, but also boxes stuffed full of wheat dolls.

However…

“No. I do not detect any matching walking patterns. These souls all belong to other people.”

“After all this!? Are you sure the sample you’re using is right? What videos did you use?”

“If you are unsatisfied with my accuracy, then compare them yourself. Hmph. (・Д・) Ehhh?”

“…I see your ability to complain is evolving.”

The program’s learning speed was frightening, but I had to focus elsewhere. Karen had originally destroyed three armored trucks plus some bodyguard trucks. I had checked two of those, so the final truck sounded the most suspicious. Not only for finding the Class Rep, but also for being taken out by an Evil Spirit attack.

To put it another way, what I wanted had to be in that third truck.

I motivated myself to clear away the hopeless sense of wasted effort, but then I felt something tugging at the bottom of my pants.

I had nearly stepped on…something the size of a kitten. It was a fleshy mass with lots of eyeballs. To be blunt, it wasn’t very cute.

“I am Taisui. May I come out now?”

“Hurry on out. And don’t let any bad humans catch you again.”

“…(Sparkle sparkle sparkle sparkle.)”

“No, I’m not aiming for a reward like in an old story! I really want you to just get out of here!!”

There seemed to be some other Archenemies captured in the same truck, so I had the larger ones carry away the cases of wheat dolls before I started running to the final truck.

“Anyway, what do you think?”

“That question is far too far too fuzzy. Are you testing me?” asked Maxwell.

“No, I’m not. Evil Spirit is a giant black market with Voodoo origins, right? And yet we haven’t seen very much in the form of curses and the occult.”

“There were Voodoo dolls in those cases. Are we getting forgetful, grandpa? (´・ω・)”

“Now you’re making fun of me? Are you holding some kind of grudge? Or is this a dangerous AI rebellious phase? Regardless, there weren’t any occult weapons. Even though we’ve reached an age where schoolgirls are using curses to acquire souls to sacrifice.”

“Due to the Zombie association, you might be thinking of a primitive religion from a former age, but Voodoo actually controlled an entire nation during the Cold War era. Just search for ‘François Duvalier’, ‘president’, and ‘occult reign of terror’.”

“I’d rather not look that up because I know I’d regret it, but are you saying they aren’t just relying on the occult?”

“I am only using a human rights organization’s website as a source, but the Voodoo regime apparently established a reign of terror using both curses and the direct violence of armed soldiers. They seem to have used an organization known as Tonton Macoute to punish and control their own people, but that is also the name of a Voodoo monster.”

“…So everything they needed for their goals was treated like a Voodoo miracle, hm?”

“It was originally the ultimate syncretic religion that took in the gods of any other religion.”

Was it biased to find it weird when no Zombies or occult elements showed up when dealing with Voodoo? Back at Voodoo’s homeland, using bulletproof cars and machineguns counted as Voodoo. That regime was apparently from the Cold War era, but these days, some might say that manipulating public opinion with social media bots and GPS smart bombs were Voodoo.

…That meant I had no way of predicting what was inside this jack-in-the-box.

The truck’s cab was squashed after crashing into the thick reinforced concrete support for the elevated highway. The doors were still closed, so I ignored the cab. I made my way around to the closed aluminum space in the back.

I didn’t even have to open it.

A dark red liquid was dripping from the slight space below the closed double doors.

“Warning.”

“…Is this part of Voodoo’s mysticism too? Are you cursed when you touch contaminated blood or something?”

“I was only trying to tell you to consider the risk of infectious disease. (ﾉД`) Geez.”

“You’re not allowed to use emoticons anymore.”

I decided to try not to touch it. I hesitantly approached the door and grabbed the large lever.

And then I noticed something.

“The lock…?”

It was unlocked. My tension grew. My throat was unnaturally dry and my pulse was racing. With this and the fresh blood dripping from below the door, I didn’t want to know what I would find inside.

I gathered just a bit of strength, but the unpleasant creaking was too loud for comfort. After opening it just a few centimeters – or millimeters? – I could sense the intensely sticky air pushing out at me from the gap. This truck was clearly different from the others. Something was happening here. But what exactly was it? Since I had yet to find the wheat doll containing the Class Rep’s soul, it had to be in here.

“Maxwell…”

I held my smartphone on its side and used my other hand to slowly – truly slowly – pull the aluminum door toward me.

If something popped out at me like before, I was planning to hit them with a bright flashing light.

But there was no need for that.

“Uuh…!?”

There was an incredible stench that felt like a solid wall. It was a rusty smell that brought to mind a dangerous shade of red. The inside of this truck would have been the same as the others, but a few of the steel racks had fallen and the storage cases were scattered around. Some of the lids had opened, but there were no small Archenemies flying around.

…I was afraid to share the same space as whatever was in here.

I didn’t want to go inside.

But I had to.

If the storage cases had dumped their contents, what had happened to the Class Rep? She had to be in this final truck.

I shined my smartphone’s backlight inside the windowless area and followed the dripping blood back to its source.

“…”

It was one of those three damn girls. …Which one was this again?

Regardless, it was one of them.

Oh, so after completing the rite of passage, she really had become a member of that vague secret organization known as Evil Spirit. I had nothing but scorn for her.

At any rate, a girl about my age lay face down on the floor. One of the steel racks had fallen on her. Since I was barehanded, I was hesitant to touch anything and leave fingerprints here.

…But it was just one of the three?

What had happened to the other two? I had checked all of the original three trucks, but it hadn’t looked like they had each ridden on a different one. Or had they slipped in with the bodyguard vehicles? I doubted the Voodoo Evil Spirit would prioritize those three differently.

No.

Or…?

“…Gh.”

My shoulders tensed when I heard a quiet groan. Who had it been? The girl I could see pinned there, or someone else? I should have been happy to learn there were more survivors, but I couldn’t stop the heavy pressure weighing on my stomach.

I had to look at this rationally.

How many people were here and how dangerous were they?

“The girl pinned below the steel rack is Hishigami Ai,” said Maxwell. “She appears to still be breathing.”

Oh, so this was Hishigami Ai. I see, I see.

“But I don’t think that groan came from her,” I said. “It came from further back…”

I climbed up into the enclosed space while doing my best not to not to touch any of the blood. I couldn’t let my guard down even when the girl was pinned down. I had already seen plenty of projectile weapons such as guns.

…Not that there was anything I could do if she did pull a gun.

I felt like I was searching the jungle at night with only a handmade spear to defend myself against crocodiles, but I made my way past the fallen steel racks and scattered storage cases. I lightly kicked Hishigami Ai’s head where she lay pinned face down and continued on after confirming she was unconscious.

Was I being unpleasantly rational, or had the extreme tension fried the wiring in my brain? Hadn’t I just casually kicked a girl in the head?

I peered around a diagonally-tilted steel rack to look further back and I saw something like a large doll leaning against the aluminum wall.

No, it was a high school girl sitting on the floor with limbs sprawled out and head tilted.

Hishigami Ai was pinned below the shelves, so that left Andou Star and Sagawa Akemi. This was, um…

“Based on the student handbook master data on the faculty server, that is Andou Star.”

I see.

Not that it really mattered.

“Who…are you…? Someone from school…?”

I was hesitant to answer. It was obvious from my uniform, but I tried my best to deny it.

“Do you really think I would venture into somewhere so dangerous while wearing my own school uniform?”

“Ha…ha. It’s not like you would’ve had time to think through it like that…”

…My cheap trick hadn’t worked.

“Akemi ran off. Dammit, I said we should help Ai there, but she ditched us both like we’re burdens holding her back…”

“To be honest, I don’t really care. Your sob story isn’t going to affect me. I don’t give a shit if you joined the black market to save your sick mother or if it was necessary to save the 7 billion people on this planet! I have business with the sacrifice you offered to Evil Spirit!!”

“…Oh, so it’s about that.”

She took a shallow breath and laughed with blood dripping from her forehead and blinding one of her eyes. I could only guess the third friend had hit her with some kind of blunt weapon.

“That’s like the contract connecting a member to the organization. When Akemi ran off looking for help, she took it with her…”

“God…”

Goddammit!!!!!!

“Where did she go with the Class Rep’s wheat doll!?”

“How should I know? But if you find her, could you get back at her for Ai and me as well? She’s not the type to care if a guy tries to force himself on her, so really you just need to stab her a few times…”

Their values made no sense to me. I had trouble believing we attended the same school. Unlike an obvious cut, I wasn’t sure what to do with a head injury, so there was nothing for me to do. And with Karen and Evil Spirit having their firefight out there, there was no point in calling an ambulance. The professionals would arrive without my assistance. Although the obvious crimes going on would mean all the information would be shared with the police.

They would be rescued and then arrested.

I left the armored truck, held up my smartphone, and slowly spun around. I tried to film everything around me.

“Maxwell, can you figure anything out?”

“There is a path of footprints likely left by someone who stepped in a pool of blood. Although it is so blatant that it could be a trap.”

“…”

When I viewed the scene through the screen, color flashed over the bloody footprints. And following them led to…what was that? There was a metal door at the bottom of the thick reinforced concrete support for the elevated highway.

Was it the entrance to a storeroom that led underground?

Hm? A door leading underground in this city???

“It may be part of the tunnel network created as the former Bright Cross’s abduction infrastructure,” said Maxwell.

“If so, she could have escaped to anywhere in the city, dammit!”

Valkyrie Karen was…focused on her legendary scale firefight with the humans. I doubted she would come if I called for her and allowing that god of destruction to approach would only put the Class Rep’s soul in danger.

It was risky, but I was going to have to do it myself.

I frantically ran toward the metal door.

I didn’t care about Sagawa Akemi. She was free to escape to the other side of Mars and laugh triumphantly if she wanted, but I couldn’t let her bring the Class Rep with her!! Why couldn’t she screw up her life without dragging other people into it!? That was the only thing on my mind as I kept low and ran through the battlefield below the elevated highway.

The metal door was not locked.

I flung it open and found narrow concrete stairs leading down. …There was more below. Most likely, I would find a thick round door like the ones used to protect bank vaults.

I was not given time to gulp and gather my resolve.

Without warning, someone grabbed my shoulder from behind and forcefully spun me around. No, it didn’t end there. A tremendous shock ran through the bridge of my nose and the color white filled my vision.

A really bad blow apparently didn’t send you flying backwards like in manga. My knees went limp and I fell straight down.

What…?

Who…?

“Give it a rest already, Onii-chan! Fuguuu!!”

This was a total surprise.

Before my vision recovered, a familiar girl’s voice filled my head with an excess of information.

“Eh? A-Ayumi!? Wh-why!?”

“The online news is having a field day with the zoo explosion and the car chase! And just when I’m thinking ‘surely not’, I get an email from mom! And – tah dah! – that pretty much confirmed it!! Onii-chan, you might have accepted the risks, but did you ever stop to think what it would feel like for us to suddenly find ourselves the family of the suspect in a serious incident!?”

The ridiculous Hollywood-level stuff like the explosion and the car chase been done by Valkyrie Karen, but she could escape to heaven at any time. If I couldn’t objectively prove I was innocent, I would be in the most trouble here.

“Still, is that any reason to punch me in the face before even saying hello? Girls should go for a slap instead.”

“I have about 10-times the muscular strength of a human, so a serious slap from me would have spun your head around 360 degrees.”

“And what about school!? You go to a prestigious girl’s school, don’t you!?”

“Fuguu! I don’t want to hear that from you, Onii-chan!”

My vision finally returned while I sat pathetically on the ground. I touched my face and found my nose was not bleeding or broken. …Although that made me worried about my little sister who was familiar enough with violence to know exactly how much to hold back.

The short girl with black butter roll twintails put her hands on her hips while wearing her school uniform which looked like the best of both worlds between a sailor uniform and a double blazer.

“So how far have you gotten on rescuing the Class Rep? Let’s get this over with and get things back on track.”

“You’ll help me…?”

“Contacting mom for help was definitely a mistake, Onii-chan. We need to settle this before she shows up and causes a small catastrophe.”

“Ehh!? What is going on back at home!?”

“I’d rather not think about it. So do we need to use that underground route? If you know the way, then let’s get going!!”

[crucial notice] A Trading Company’s Warning Concerning Bokors [on the pinup board]

A Bokor is someone who has mastered Voodoo but uses its secret techniques for evil purposes.

(When negotiating, show respect by avoiding negative terms such as “evil” and “wicked”.)

They are said to be a fallen version of the proper priests known as Houngan, or the frightening other face of the Houngan when they exact punishment.

The creation of Zombies is classified as the work of Bokors borrowing the power of the fearsome Petro gods.

(Note: The modern Zombie Archenemies are not purely their creations. The Zombies we know are created by a mutated pathogen known as Acute Zombie Powder, which was created when the chemicals used in their priestly duties destroyed the bonds of a local virus. Make sure you do not confuse the two concepts.)

Whatever their goals, a Bokor has mastered their art as much as a Houngan. They pass through the level of Hounsi and Kanzo before being accepted as a priest, at which point flames cannot take their lives, they receive the power of many gods known as Mystères, and they acquire the charisma needed to rule an entire nation.

They are known for the skilled chemical techniques seen in the creation of Zombies and the lime poison as well as for the soul management techniques seen in Voodoo dolls and living sacrifices. Despite what Western entertainment would have you think, they are very skilled at handling the living body.

Also, Voodoo thinks of the human body (both physically and spiritually) as made up of five components. And of course, the priests manipulate those five components to work in their own favor and against others.

Back to Chapter 1