Outbreak Company: Volume 5

by Ichiro Sakaki

  Maybe this is actually okay?

  As my mind started to wander off in the most perverse of directions, Amatena brought the eyebrow up one more time, this time in annoyance.

  “Then why?”

  Why? She wanted to know why?

  Well, then I would tell her.

  I would speak my truth.

  “Yes! Lolita!” I cried, holding my right arm at an angle as if to say Na** science is the best in the woooooooorlllld! “NOOOOO TOUCH!”

  Phew. I did it.

  That was perfect. Flawless.

  I looked at Amatena with a relieved smile, but she looked back at me with deep suspicion and no sign of being convinced.

  Um...

  “Did Clara not invite you?” Her tone was ice-cold.

  So this was how it felt to put your heart and soul into something and have it fall flat. I was not liking it.

  “U-Uh, well, yes...”

  She had definitely “invited” me, but... well, you don’t look a honey badger... I mean, a honey trap in the eye and say yes.

  You know what I mean by honey trap, right? I read somewhere once that there are basically two tricks that have been used everywhere throughout human history to cause the betrayal of groups and countries: money and women.

  So a spy organization sends a beautiful female agent to some man to pillow-talk him out of crucial information he has. Or maybe they send a handsome guy to the wife of someone in a high position, then kidnap her and get the information that way. This stuff really happens. Although I don’t know if it’s a good idea, given how often it ends up in gunfights... at least in Hollywood movies.

  And that was what had happened here: Amatena thought she had set a trap for me in the form of Clara. She assumed that over the course of ten days together, we would naturally end up in a certain sort of relationship, and she was trying to threaten me on that basis. She probably should have checked with Clara on that. But then, maybe Clara really believed I had some disease that would kill me if I got intimate with a girl, and was under the impression that she had gotten “close” to me with all the other ways she had found to help me.

  “Clara was a plant. You wanted her close to me so that I would do what you said.”

  “She’s my subordinate. I knew I could trust her.”

  “I should have figured.” I heaved a sigh.

  I hadn’t laid a finger on Clara, but I admit it had made me sort of happy the way she tried so hard to do things for me. Finding out definitively that that was just another part of the trap was a little disappointing. Of course, Clara’s tail had already given away that she was a lot closer to Amatena than she was to me.

  “But why Clara?”

  “What do you mean, why?”

  “It’s just... You know. She’s so... young.”

  Wouldn’t you normally pick a luscious older woman to try to seduce someone? Of course, I did have a major soft spot for those sort of did-they-have-a-chest-or-didn’t-they lolita types.

  “Is that not the type you prefer?”

  “Me? Uh, well, y’know...”

  “I’d heard you were one of the concubines of the Eldant Empress.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The Eldant Empress, Petralka. Are you not her lover?”

  “One of her—whaaaat?!”

  We were pretty good friends, sure! But definitely, definitely not anything that sounded so, you know... So sordid! Even though yes, I did kind of dig her!

  “I’m telling you, that’s not the way it is between us.”

  “Oh no? I suppose some spies give better information than others.”

  I guess so, when you consider someone like Elvia a spy. Anyway, rumors and hearsay are bound to get mixed up in whatever an intelligence agent reports.

  “So you’re with some intelligence agency, right, Amatena? Trying to find out what’s going on in enemy countries and all? Can I assume Clara is part of the same group?”

  “You can,” Amatena said, though she seemed to wonder why I was asking about this now.

  “Well, look, I know it’s her job, but sending kids like Clara to have r... relations? With people they don’t even care about? I don’t think that’s a good thing.”

  “In the prosecution of one’s duty there is neither good nor bad,” Amatena said.

  We were talking about a country where having your partner for life picked out by the “father-ruler” was considered perfectly normal, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised if they had different ideas about chastity, too. One thing was for sure, though: I didn’t think I was ever going to quite feel at home in Bahairam.

  “Anyway.” I decided to push my advantage. “Clara’s useless as leverage. We haven’t done anything together, so I don’t have any special feelings for her. Threaten to kill her—I don’t care. You guys can do what you like. If you don’t think I’m telling the truth, just ask her.”

  On one level, these words sounded impossibly cruel; my better nature made my heart ache as I spoke them. But at the same time, if I hesitated now, there was no question: I would be made head of the Father-Ruler Promotion Bureau, over my objections.

  Just stay cool. I have to pretend my conscience isn’t my guide, here.

  When they realized Clara served no purpose as a hostage, they would see there was no need to kill her, right?

  That, at least, was what I was telling myself as Amatena remained eerily silent.

  She was obviously thinking hard, her brow furrowing deeply. Finally she said, “I see,” and nodded.

  Oh! So she sees!

  Maybe I could even capitalize on this momentum to negotiate my release, or—

  “You leave me no choice, then. This is the one thing I didn’t want to do, but...”

  “Uh...?”

  She was practically expressionless. I reflexively took a step back, but found a wall immediately behind me.

  Elvia had already proved that I was powerless against a werewolf girl on a mission—although I assumed Amatena had something other than seduction in mind at this point.

  “This is the one thing I didn’t want to do...”

  What could she possibly describe like that?

  “Um... Uh... Amatena...-san?”

  But of course, she didn’t answer.

  I could only watch helplessly as she got closer and closer. I felt things spiraling out of control in the worst way possible.

  Amatena brought me to a grey building on the edge of town.

  The building stood smack in the middle of a forest, as if hiding from prying eyes. It was immense, probably bigger than some castles. Certainly several times the size of the hall where I had seen the mass wedding.

  I noticed something else, too: the walls had gentle undulations to them. From above, maybe the place looked like a domed baseball stadium or horse racing track.

  The one thing I didn’t understand was what on earth it was for.

  There were what seemed to be guards by the entrance, so this was probably some sort of military installation. But other than the people posted by the door, I didn’t see anyone who looked like a soldier anywhere. Don’t most military installations have, like, attached training grounds, and aren’t they usually crawling with soldiers?

  “Where are we?” I asked. “What is this place?” But Amatena, who was walking a little ahead of me, gave no answer. She didn’t even look back. Maybe she was angry?

  If she wasn’t even going to look in my direction, I briefly considered taking advantage of the fact to run away, but I soon gave up on the idea. I suspected Amatena was a much faster runner than I was, and even if I managed to get a head start without being noticed, there were soldiers right there at the door.

  And so my only choice was to follow Amatena obediently.

  The hallway inside was dim and totally spartan. The walls and floor were all made of either stone or brick, with no decorations anywhere. The sturdy but bleak appearance of the place suggested a prison. Were they just going to throw me in jail for not listening to
them? Was I going to go from a cute little one-story flat with a cute little roommate to a prison cell? I guess that’s what happens when you defy the state in a dictatorship...

  “Are you planning to put me in prison?” I asked, but Amatena, of course, didn’t answer.

  She did, however, glance back at me over her shoulder, never slackening her pace.

  “Huh? Wh—Wha?”

  Was I seeing things? Or was that pity in the look she gave me?

  So... not jail? Did they have something even worse in mind?

  Surely not... execution?!

  Guillotine. Hanging. Firing squad. Well, this world didn’t have guns, so probably not firing squad. Boiling alive, maybe. Buried up to my neck in the ground, after which they would saw off my head. Tied to a team of horses that would tear me apart—I’d read about that somewhere, hadn’t I? No, no, no, stop.

  I reviled my own imagination, which kept conjuring the worst possible fates for me.

  As all these visions swirled in my brain, we went down a flight of stairs, and then down another hallway, until...

  “Now, look,” Amatena said, coming to a stop.

  We were at a balcony—or rather, sort of a catwalk, which jutted out from the wall two stories up. Below was a five-meter drop... down to a massive round pit that had to be at least fifty meters in diameter.

  This, too, was made of stone—or maybe, like Eldant Castle, it had been hollowed out from a giant piece of rock, because just like that building, I saw no seams anywhere. Here and there I saw steel tablets engraved with lettering that looked a lot like the characters on my magic ring. They were some kind of magic device, but what?

  No—the details didn’t matter here. What was really important was the thing sitting in the middle of the pit.

  No again—not thing. That was...

  “A puppet drake...!”

  It was a dragon with a magical spike driven into its forehead, just like the one we had seen on the set of our movie not so long ago. It seemed to be unconscious or something, because it was lying placidly on the floor, not so much as twitching. The gentle rising and falling of its back, though, made it obvious that the dragon wasn’t dead. It was breathing. It was alive.

  “So you recognize it,” Amatena said.

  “Er... Yeah. There was one that got into Eldant a while ago...”

  Garius had speculated that maybe it was some new magical weapon Bahairam had developed, and it looked like he was right.

  “This is where our military does its research,” Amatena said. “And what we’ve chiefly been researching lately is puppetry technology.”

  “So you can control dragons with spikes like that?”

  “Not just dragons,” she replied. “Dragons are quasi-sprite beings, so magic has a minimal effect on them. That’s what necessitates such a large control device. The technology isn’t perfect yet, but its practicality has been amply demonstrated. A less massive life form might require only a spike small enough to hold in the palm of the hand.”

  “A less massive life form...”

  I didn’t like where this was going.

  Pretty much any life form would be “less massive” compared to that dragon. Say, for example...

  “A human,” Amatena said.

  “Wait... Y-You can’t mean...” My eyes went wide. “You’d put a spike like that in a human’s head?”

  “Indeed. As we will in yours.”

  That caught me completely off guard; I could only swallow heavily.

  Okay, maybe not completely off guard. I might have had an inkling. After all, it only made sense that technology like this would get smaller and smaller, until the point when it could be used on a person—and then it would practically be a cliché to use it on the protagonist’s friends or family and turn them into his enemies and oh no, what is he going to do?!

  Right. Maybe not the time to be worrying about tropes.

  “Wh-What the hell?! No way, quit it!”

  “This decision comes from my superiors.”

  “Superiors?! I thought everyone lower than the father-ruler was supposed to be equal!”

  Calm down, self! This wasn’t the moment for smart remarks.

  But calming down was a lot easier said than done.

  “You’ve brought this on your own disgusting self by refusing to accede to our demands,” Amatena said. “But I couldn’t bring myself to make you a puppet while you were ignorant. I brought you here so you would understand.”

  “I think your kindness is little misplaced!” I shot back, but Amatena’s expression still didn’t shift.

  Argh... I didn’t know how big a spike for human use was, but if they were going to be pounding it into my head, I figured any size was too big. Presumably, being made a puppet meant I wouldn’t be able to move my own body anymore, but what would happen to my consciousness? Would I disappear while they controlled me like a machine, or a zombie?

  Heck, that pretty much meant I was going to die!

  ............

  ............Hey.

  Hang on a second.

  “If—If you spike me, how can I make your story or myth or whatever? My consciousness is going to disappear, right? A doll can’t come up with a story!”

  “I’m afraid that’s no longer the issue,” Amatena said. “We’ve given up on that.”

  “What, already?!”

  “However, we did invest a certain amount of time and resources in bringing you here. We can’t simply write that off. We need some kind of return on our investment.”

  “B-But I—”

  “From what I hear,” Amatena said, narrowing her eyes at me, “you come from another world. You got to Eldant through some sort of ‘hole.’”

  “.........Uh, well...”

  So what?!

  Wait, hold on. Did Bahairam even know about that?!

  I guess it wasn’t exactly top-secret information, but still...

  “Consider this a test of whether our puppetry magic is effective on offworlders. It will be good to know in the long run. Because after we conquer the Eldant Empire, Kanou Shinichi, I have to assume that our next target will be through that portal.”

  “Wha—?!”

  They had territorial ambitions that would have made Toyotomi Hideyoshi blush!

  As I stood there in shock, two soldiers came up beside me and took my arms.

  “Take him away.”

  “Ma’am!”

  The soldiers began to drag me off.

  Whoa, wait! You’re gonna do it right now?!

  “Take him to Solitary Seven in the second tower. Kanou Shinichi, when a date is set for your conversion, I’ll let you know. Until then, make yourself ready.”

  “Oh, so, not right now. Phew. That’s a relief. ...Wait, no it’s not!” I flailed about as best I could, given that my arms were pinned. “I give, I’ll do it! I’ll write your story or your myth or your epic poem or whatever you want!”

  I wasn’t proud of myself, but sometimes life doesn’t leave you with any choices. I was just desperate not to die. And also not to have a magical spike pounded into my skull that would turn me into an unconscious doll, which was as good as dying.

  Amatena glanced at me as I struggled. Had my pathetic begging worked?

  “What has been decided cannot be revoked.”

  “Oh, shi—!”

  I tried to resist with all my might, but all the might of a former home security guard isn’t much compared to two professional soldiers. I kicked my legs like a tantruming child as the soldiers marched me down the hallway.

  As she watched me go, I heard Amatena murmur, “I wanted to avoid this outcome.”

  “Well, you still can! Do something!”

  But she only looked at the ground.

  Dammit, why did she have to be so quick to give up on everything?!

  “Nooo! I don’t want any surgery! Just five minutes with a laser scalpel! Actually, that would be pretty awful, too!”

  I had stopped making sense even to
myself. For some reason, “Dona Dona” started running unbidden through my mind as the soldiers dragged me helplessly down the long corridor.

  Elvia-san led us to a place called Borfoi, the “eastern city.” We arrived about when sunset was turning everything red.

  In the Holy Eldant Empire, the streets would be busy this time of day with people coming back from their jobs and merchants trying to make one last sale for the day. Smoke and friendly aromas would be billowing from the stoves of all the houses where people were making dinner.

  But in Borfoi, none of that was happening.

  Yes, we saw people, and we did smell dinner cooking. But it was all... almost frighteningly homogenous. The people all wore identical clothes and walked in straight, silent lines, going back to houses that all looked the same. Smoke rose from every house, but instead of all the different smells of different dishes mingling together, a single simple, spicy aroma prickled our noses, as if every house was making the exact same meal.

  There was no question the city was attractive and orderly. But it was... a little too orderly.

  And...

  “So,” Minori-sama said.

  Elvia-san was guiding us through a series of back streets where we wouldn’t have to worry who might see us. She said she had lived in Borfoi for a while and knew the place pretty well.

  “You think this is the city, Elvia?”

  “Yeah,” she nodded. “The younger of my older sisters lives here. She’s with the military, and she’s doing pretty well for her age. I bet she might know something about Shinichi-sama.”

  “The older sister is a soldier, and the younger a spy,” Minori-sama said. “Is your whole family military?”

  “Well, yeah, kind of.” Elvia-san scratched her cheek as if embarrassed. “My father and mother are both soldiers, too. And my sisters. Pretty important ones. I’m... kind of the only one who hasn’t made anything of herself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m just not that interested in fame or martial arts or anything. If I can draw my pictures, then I’m happy.”

  But, it seemed, artistic pursuits were deemed to have no practical value in Bahairam, and therefore to be worthless.

  “No matter how good I get at my art,” Elvia-san said, “it won’t feed me or my family.”