Outbreak Company: Volume 5

by Ichiro Sakaki

  Amatena was silent for a moment, thinking about something. Then she said bluntly, “So you know?”

  “I can guess... More or less.”

  So Amatena proceeded to fill me in. This is what she said:

  Bahairam was not an especially bountiful country, in the beginning. In fact, the land didn’t yield much, so for the most part people migrated from area to area like birds, chasing scarce water and food. When one place dried up, they would move along to another until the first place naturally regained its abundance. This was the way the people had always lived. The king’s travels from city to city were also, I gathered, a relic of this time.

  Starting several kings back, though, there had been a major change in national policy. The long-standing solidarity of the people was what caused them to embrace this new policy, which aimed at a bountiful nation and a strong army. Bahairam attacked neighboring countries, absorbing their territory along with rich water resources, versatile land, and secure sources of food. The population increased.

  This all meant that the people of Bahairam no longer had to wander from place to place; they could settle in just one spot, and many did. The abandonment of their nomadic lifestyle further increased the population, and they found themselves with the spare resources to improve the land and do other, similar tasks. Almost before anybody knew what was happening (including Bahairam), the country was almost as big and as strong as the Eldant Empire.

  That king from several generations ago was, therefore, revered as a hero in Bahairam.

  However, when lifestyle changes, so too does culture. Banding together to make the nation more powerful became the most prized principle in the land, while individual inequalities and grievances were suppressed as “threatening harmony.” Old customs and rituals were quickly abandoned—or rather, cast aside because they were seen as getting in the way.

  The result of all this was the Bahairam I saw now.

  “You’re really something, Amatena,” I said when she was finished talking.

  “Hm?” she said.

  “It’s like, you know how sometimes it’s hardest to know your own self? A lot of times people who live somewhere aren’t able to take an objective view of that place. But you seem like you can.”

  For one thing, it could be hard to personally get a handle on changes that had happened over such a long period of time. It can be hard to grasp the big picture when you’re in the picture. There were probably a lot of Bahairamanians who didn’t have the knowledge or the comprehension to explain why the country was the way it was.

  But to me, Amatena’s voice as she described the history of her nation sounded almost objective. Like a third party talking.

  “On account of my work,” Amatena said after a moment, “I often have occasion to travel outside my country.” What I thought might be a wry smile played across her face for a second. “If anything, I frequently see this nation from a place rather unlike one of its subjects. It’s not a good habit. All I can say is that perhaps I’ve been poisoned by the twisted thinking of other countries.”

  I didn’t say anything. But I wondered, was that really true? In the end, who was it that was really twisted?

  It had been about half a day since we’d emerged from the forest.

  We worked our way across a wasteland of sand and rocks until we arrived at a road, then followed it toward the closest town. Once in a while, we might see inhabitants of Bahairam, or sometimes what looked to be traveling merchants coming or going from some other country, but for the most part the road seemed deserted. It was almost hard to believe that it was leading to a town or city.

  “I’m almost certain the... the ‘eastern city’ or something is supposed to be this way.” Minori-sama pulled an item out of her bag, something called a ‘sumart fone’ or something. Shinichi-sama had had one, too, although his was a different color.

  “According to the Eldant Empire’s information, it’s not the capital, but it’s a pretty big town. Maybe the size of Nagoya or Osaka, in Japanese terms. I’m not exactly sure how likely it is they took Shinichi there, but...”

  If there was one word to describe Bahairam, it was big. We assumed they wouldn’t have taken Shinichi-sama to some little farming village, so it made sense to try for a bigger city where there might be a military or government installation. But there were several of those in Bahairam, and strangers like us wouldn’t know much about them.

  “What do you think?”

  “I... I don’t really know either...”

  Despite my eagerness to go and rescue Shinichi-sama all by myself, I didn’t actually have any good way of finding him.

  “I figured. I guess we’ve got no choice but to ask a local.” Minori-sama turned to Elvia-san. “Elvia. Where do you think Shinichi-kun is?”

  Elvia-san, though, kept silent. She just stared vacantly into the distance, across the street.

  She was, incidentally, carrying almost twice as much baggage as either me or Minori-sama, so she was quite a sight to see. It didn’t look so much like she was walking as like the cargo was stumbling along, and she happened to be stuck to it. But the arrangement didn’t seem to tire her out. She looked more... unenthusiastic.

  Minori-sama and I shared a glance.

  It seemed less like Elvia-san was ignoring us and more like she had something on her mind and wasn’t paying attention. She didn’t look like her usual, bright self; ever since we had arrived in the Kingdom of Bahairam, she had seemed under a cloud.

  “Elvia?” Minori-sama got right up close to her.

  That seemed to bring her back. She blinked and looked at Minori-sama. “.........Uh, oh, yeah? What is it?”

  “We were just discussing where Shinichi-kun might be.”

  “Wh-Why’re you asking me?”

  “Well, you’re a spy from this country, aren’t you, Elvia?” Minori-sama said with a grin. “I have to figure that whoever you were working for, it was probably special ops from that group that kidnapped Shinichi-kun. I somehow doubt a place at this cultural level has a bunch of competing spy organizations. I’m betting you’ve got a sense of where they would take a hostage. I just wondered if there might be a place like that in this ‘eastern city’ we’re getting to.”

  After a very long pause, Elvia-san answered, “I... I don’t really know.” Then she looked away from Minori-sama and went quiet again. She didn’t look very happy. Was I right? Was it because she didn’t want to betray her home country by helping us? I had to say, I could sympathize with that feeling.

  “Me,” she whispered, “I’m not... I’m not like my big sisters Jiji and Ama. I’m not as... good as them.”

  Jiji? Ama? She called them her sisters. They must have been part of her family.

  “I’m always just the gofer.”

  Maybe she was trying to explain that because she wasn’t “good,” she’d had to accept the lowest assignment: spy.

  “So I really don’t think you’re gonna find I’m much help...” She looked sadly at Minori-sama, who let out a breath that suggested how much all of this disturbed her.

  “Um, Elvia-san,” I said. There was something I wanted to know, and know now. “Do you love Shinichi-sama?”

  “Huh? Come again?!” She sounded shocked. Maybe she hadn’t expected the question to come from me.

  I ignored her and went on, “Or do you hate him?”

  “Th-That’s not—” She waved her hands frantically and shook her head. “I mean, I sure don’t! How could I?! I owe my life to Shinichi-sama! And he lets me do my drawings, and has me draw all these interesting things, and—”

  There she paused and looked at the ground for a moment.

  “A-And... he said he was ‘moe’ for me, y’see...” She was practically whispering. “My ears and my tail... He said they didn’t bother him.”

  This word Shinichi-sama used, moe. It generally meant “cute” or “lovable”—and those were not things that human men usually said about demi-humans. Everyone—not just in the Holy Eldan
t Empire, but everyone everywhere—knew that humans were the most beautiful and the most desirable, and demi-humans would never be on their level.

  That was why Shinichi-sama’s words were so surprising. Not just to Elvia-san, but to me.

  “I feel the same,” I said, putting a hand to my chest. “I’m a half-elf and a maid, but Shinichi-sama never let there be a distance between us. He acted toward me just like he acted toward everyone. He even taught me how to read and write Ja-panese. He took my side when Her Majesty was angry at me. And he’s so kind to Brooke-san and Cerise-san as well...”

  I was very happy, and very proud, to be with such a man. Since meeting Shinichi-sama, my way of life—indeed, my very life itself—had changed. If I had never met him, I would have gone along hating myself for what I was, cursing my mother and father for bringing me into the world. It would have been a sad way to live.

  “It has to be Shinichi-sama. No one else,” I said, my hand clenching in front of my chest. “If I can’t be at Shinichi-sama’s side, that will be it for me.”

  “Myusel...” Elvia-san was looking at me, taken aback.

  “I’m going to help Shinichi-sama, no matter what it takes. No matter what I have to do. I know what we’re asking of you isn’t fair. I know it’s like betraying your country, and I don’t blame you for not wanting to do that. But for me, asking you to do this unfair, impossible thing... Right now, it’s my only choice.”

  Elvia-san looked awfully distraught, but she didn’t say a word.

  It was Minori-sama who spoke instead. “I want to help Shinichi-kun, too. Partly, it’s true that I do bear some of the responsibility for his disappearance. But even if I didn’t, I’d like to think I still would have come here to save him.”

  “Minori-sama...”

  “The first time we met, I wasn’t sure we were going to survive each other,” she said with a grin. “He was immediately all about my chest. It was... kinda harassment-y. But I’ve gotten fond of him, and I don’t just mean because it’s my job to look after him. I know how he can come across, but he’s actually got a strong heart. He’s an otaku, but a surprisingly together one.”

  Minori-sama glanced up at the far-away sky for a second as she said, “Kindness alone doesn’t do that for a person. They have to do it for themselves.”

  I was dumbfounded.

  Shinichi-sama said that Minori-sama was an “otaku,” too. Unlike me, she had been born and raised in the same world as him, spoke the same language, and was also an otaku. So maybe she could see things about him that I couldn’t see.

  To be perfectly honest, the thought made me a little envious. Jealous.

  “I do feel bad for threatening you into coming along. Let me ask you again. Elvia, if you don’t hate Shinichi-kun, like you say, then help us to help him. If we end up having to fight other Bahairamanians, then Myusel and I will stand and you can run away. But please at least stick with us until we find Shinichi-kun.”

  Elvia-san stared silently at the ground for a while. Her tail drooped weakly.

  “You’re a cheater,” she said softly. “That’s not a fair way of asking...”

  Her head hung for a few minutes. Then suddenly—

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh! Hell!”

  She turned toward the sky and nearly howled.

  “Fine! I’ve come too far to turn back, anyway. Might as well do everything I can where I am!” Her tail sprang up again. It was that tail, more than her words or even her face, that spoke to her true feelings. Maybe she had finally resolved herself.

  “When I said I don’t know where they took Shinichi-sama, that was the truth. Garden-variety spies like me aren’t in the loop on what the brass is doing. But I think I know someone who might know what happened to him.”

  “Oh?” Minori-sama said, leaning forward.

  Elvia-san nodded. “It’s a bit of a walk, but just follow me!”

  “Huh? W-Wait, where are we—?”

  “Hey! Hold on, Elvia!”

  Elvia-san set off so quickly it was as if she didn’t even notice the bags she was carrying. Minori-sama and I hurried to catch up.

  You can pick your words as carefully as you like, control your expression as carefully as you’re able. But sometimes—sometimes, you still can’t keep your true feelings from showing through.

  It was just sort of an intuition, but I somehow got the sense that Amatena didn’t actually believe that things in Bahairam were fine the way they were. When she talked to me about the country’s past and present, I could sometimes detect a hint of hesitation.

  But Amatena belonged to the Bahairamanian military. And not as a “farmer-militiaman,” but a proper professional soldier. She had an official position to consider, and that meant keeping her mouth shut even if things didn’t quite feel right to her, or if she had some sort of issue. All the more so if the country was in transition like this one was—any kind of mutterings then could be considered rebellion or treason.

  And so...

  “Anyway,” Amatena said, “I think that should give you a general understanding of our country. I want you to finish your job as quickly as possible, you piece of filth.”

  I didn’t have much to say to that.

  My job.

  In other words, produce some kind of work that would increase solidarity among the people and make them ever more loyal to the king. Think of a myth that would praise the King of Bahairam to the high heavens. It didn’t have to be plausible. It didn’t even have to be coherent. It just had to do the job.

  I sat in silence. I didn’t like this any better now than I had earlier.

  Even setting aside my insistence on individualism, helping to create an obviously flawed story went against my dignity as an otaku. There was only one thing to do.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I couldn’t even meet Amatena’s eyes; I looked at the ground instead. “I don’t want to do it.”

  Yes! I said it!

  I was a little embarrassed by the tremor in my voice, but I had managed a clear and direct refusal. Yes, this was a real sign of how much Kanou Shinichi had grown. I’d become “The Kanou Shinichi Who Can Say NO”!

  And Amatena? She simply nodded.

  “I see.”

  Huh?

  “In that case, there’s nothing to be done.”

  “What...?”

  I was thrown off by how... ready she seemed to be for this.

  I had been set for a fight, and now I felt foolish. Maybe Bahairam was a more generous place than it looked. Maybe if you just explained things logically, they were willing to accept them. But then... why would a country like that engage in kidnapping?

  I was mulling over all this when Amatena said, “You have a choice to make.”

  She was expressionless. Well, she was usually expressionless, but somehow it was scarier than usual.

  “Help with the myth,” she said. “Or refuse, and kill Clara.”

  “...............Huh?”

  For a second, I was totally lost as to what she was saying. Clara? How did she fit into this?

  “What are you—”

  “If your disgusting self will not do as you’re told, we will have no choice but to find alternative means of persuasion.”

  “No, wait, hold on. I mean, what’s Clara got to do with anything? Let alone killing her?”

  Amatena’s expression (or lack of one) didn’t change. I had thought Clara was absent to give me some time to think. But maybe she was being held somewhere as a hostage.

  But again: why her? I guess obviously I would feel guilty if someone were killed on my account. But the whole point of a hostage is to threaten someone your target feels close to.

  Sure, living together for ten days had caused me to feel a certain affection for her. But Clara was Bahairamanian. I was closer to the Eldant Empire, so if anything, she was effectively my enemy.

  So here was Amatena, threatening to kill Clara. But from my perspective, it was basically an enemy soldier with a knife to the neck of
her own comrade. It just seemed sort of... pointless. Why was she telling me this?

  “Look, I just don’t understand...”

  “Are you telling me you can simply ignore the death of a woman to whom you’ve made love?”

  “...Huh?”

  “...Hm?”

  The two of us shared a profoundly odd moment.

  “Still not getting it.”

  “I’m asking, will you abandon someone with whom you’ve had relations?”

  “Do all beast people use that word so casually?!” I exclaimed.

  Wait! Not the time for a vocabulary lesson!

  “R-Relations? Listen, we... We haven’t, you know... had relations.”

  “What?” Amatena asked, shocked. Well, her expression (or lack of one) still didn’t change, but that made the disturbed raising of her eyebrow all the more expressive. “You haven’t? After ten days living with her, you haven’t had relations? Not even once?”

  “For the love of God, what is it with you guys and your relations?!”

  Hearing that word so many times from so many girls was going to shatter all my dreams! She could at least find a nice euphemism. To do it or to do that or something. Or maybe she could blush a little as she said it—that was an important point! Very important, in my opinion! That’s Kanou Shinichi’s argument!

  ......Okay, sorry, forget about it.

  “Whatever word you use, no, we haven’t done it!”

  “No relations at all...?” Amatena said. There went the eyebrow again.

  “Nope.”

  “Are you not... interested in women?”

  “Wrong-o!”

  “Don’t tell me some illness prevents you from achieve an erec—”

  “Working fine, thanks!”

  I’m begging you! Stop! I don’t want to hear words like that from someone with Elvia’s face!

  Even though her absolute coolness makes her, like, way totally different from Elvia, and.................................... huh?