In response to that suggestion, the shadow thought for a little while…then murmured in a vaguely resigned voice:
“I’m sure I wouldn’t have that kind of leeway.”
“I brought a light from the car.”
“You’re late. What are you loitering for…? You stink of oil.”
“Well, I didn’t know where in the car it was.”
When they reached the library that held the entrance to the castle’s secret passage, Elmer and Nile were immediately startled to find the room in a shambles.
Almost all the bookshelves had toppled, as if a tornado had blown through.
“Fil!”
One of the Fils lay in the corner of the room. She seemed to be merely unconscious, and her life was in no danger. When they shook her, her eyes opened almost immediately, and she began to tell them about the devastation in detail.
“A strange monster suddenly appeared—it grabbed Mistress Sylvie—it threw me, along with the bookshelves…”
As Elmer and Nile gulped at the sight of the wreckage, they switched the light on, then stepped onto the staircase that led underground. They’d said they’d leave Fil behind, but in the end, because it was what she wanted and because it was probably dangerous for her to be alone, they took her with them.
Then, as they made their way through the tunnel to the graveyard…Nile muttered, sounding mystified, “…This passage used to have dirt walls partway through…”
In the light of the lamp, the tunnel walls were stone from start to finish. There wasn’t a trace of the red clay Nile and Maiza had seen earlier.
When Nile pushed the gravestone up, he was confronted by the sight of Sylvie bound to a tree.
“Oh, it’s you. So the tiresome one showed up.”
From behind him, he heard a young man’s voice.
Nile turned, his body language tense. The individual who stood there was a perfect stranger to him.
Next, Elmer poked his head out and saw the figure’s face.
“Huh…? Aren’t you—?”
Behind the puzzled Elmer, Fil appeared and screamed the man’s name.
“Master Feldt!”
She cried out, startled, and at the sight of the boy’s face under the moonlight, her eyes swam distractedly. She couldn’t get her head around the circumstances, and she seemed to have been thrown into mild shock.
“Good day. Mr. Nile, wasn’t it? …This is the first time I’ve met you as Feldt Nibiru.”
He greeted him, playing the courteous boy—then, still in the boy’s voice, he shifted into a disagreeably arrogant tone and continued his self-introduction.
“And, as Dez Nibiru, it’s been a while, masked demon!”
For a moment, the three of them froze. Before long, though, Elmer seemed to realize something and muttered:
“Headman… Don’t tell me… You gave that ‘water’ to your own son—?”
In a way, what Elmer had said would have been the worst possible outcome, but the boy quietly shook his head.
“Unfortunately, you’re wrong… My son died fifteen years ago. Soon after he was born, just as if he’d gone to sleep.”
Seating himself on one of the tombstones, Feldt began to talk, as if giving them a souvenir from the afterlife.
“I didn’t know what illness it was, but he really did look like he was only sleeping. I’d married the daughter of the village headman, and it happened just when I thought I was set for life.”
He’d nearly risen to the top of his world—this village—and right after he’d been promised the position of future headman, he’d lost his child. In order to hide the fact from his wife, he’d infiltrated the laboratory. He’d lied to his wife, telling her he was going to have the traders take a look at their sick child, and had injected the ‘water’ into a tank used to cultivate his own body. The fetus had grown up well… And from that point on, until his wife died of an illness, and even afterward, he’d used one mind to act separate roles for “Dez” and “Feldt,” deceiving everyone around him.
In order to make Feldt, who acted the part of the son, appear especially capable, he’d made the father, Dez, come off as selfish and demanding. Even when Elmer had come to the village, this hadn’t changed…but something in his heart had begun to waver.
Outside. Now that his wife was gone and he had no one to tie him to this place, would it be possible for him to get into the outside world from that laboratory? Although the thought was faint, deep in his heart, he’d begun to think it.
Then, the other day, he’d heard about “outside” from Sylvie, and the idea had become his reason for living.
“Listening to those stories about the outside was like hearing about a dream, and it made me think.”
Sitting on the tombstone, the boy looked up at the night sky rather sadly, and the hatred in his voice grew.
“…If this village hadn’t been so isolated—if I’d taken them to a proper doctor in the outside world, my son, and my wife… Maybe they wouldn’t have had to die!”
At that point, seemingly overcome with emotion, he got up from the gravestone and spread his arms wide in an exaggerated gesture.
“I’ve always hated it! This village, created just for an experiment, and those girls, and myself! So I made up my mind, long ago! When I left this village…”
Reflecting the faint moonlight, the boy’s golden eyes glittered madly.
Fixing that gaze on the girl beside Elmer, he wrapped up his tale.
“…I would destroy the entire thing.”
In response, Elmer seemed to brood over something for a little while, while Fil was petrified with shock. Sylvie was silent, clearly thinking. Only one of them—Nile—spoke, radiating dignity.
“Hmm. I understand your story very well. In that case, I may slaughter you now, correct?”
“Good grief. You’re an impatient one, aren’t you?”
“Let me just say this: Shut up. The outside world holds ten billion people less fortunate than you. I have no sympathy whatsoever for those who use their unhappiness to fuel unjustified resentment.”
Tossing those words off bluntly, Nile took a step forward, ready to break the kid’s neck, but—
“Ah, Nile, hang on a minute.”
Elmer raised his voice in an attempt to stop him, but—
Before he could, something coiled around Nile’s feet.
“Nn?”
In the next instant, his body was hanging upside down, high in the air. Then it was slammed to the ground.
“Gwah!”
Nile had hit his back hard and was looking up at the sky. Something huge loomed over him.
“Remember what I told you? I dumped the ‘water’ into the tank! Even the lump of meat that was slated to turn into me reacted to it! That’s what it looks like now! In this state, life span and growth don’t mean a thing! I may actually be an immortal!”
The thing was an enormous, dark red clump of meat. It was what might have resulted if rotten meat had been forced through a grinder, and it squirmed like a slime monster from a video game, radiating an unpleasant humidity. There was no telling what its actual volume was, but it seemed big enough for two whole cows.
“Go on, take a good, long look! Then pity it, laugh at it, fear it—this is the me that failed to become me! Ha-ha! Ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha—”
The homunculus in the shape of a boy.
Feldt’s laugh was filled with insanity, and as he listened to it, Elmer murmured.
The soft whisper didn’t reach anyone’s ears and vainly disappeared into the cold air.
“Stop it… Don’t fake laughter…”
When Maiza and the others heard the story from Fil and came running, they saw a sight that could only be described as bizarre. An enormous red mass of meat scraps had enfolded Elmer and Nile and was slamming them both against the ground by turns.
“Well, well. Has the cavalry arrived?”
At Feldt’s remark, Maiza cursed under his bre
ath.
“All right,” Feldt continued. “Should I take this opportunity to negotiate with you?”
Expression brimming with sarcasm, the boy made Maiza an offer.
“Negotiate?” Maiza wondered just what sort of negotiations he meant, but the next words explained that quite succinctly.
“I think I’m going to have somebody drink my ‘water’ and attempt to take over their mind. Why don’t I let you choose who it will be?”
“How long?”
When he’d been slammed down about twenty times, Nile muttered:
“Huh?”
“A moment ago, you said, ‘Hang on a minute.’ How long must I wait?”
At that, Elmer remembered what he’d said to Nile a short while ago.
“Let me just say this: I will wait one minute more. If you fail to do something—then I will counterattack in earnest. I will kill this meat, and that idiot, and everyone in the village. If you do not want that, then do something about this.”
After he’d thought about Nile’s proposal for about three seconds, Elmer muttered back, “You sounded pretty cool there, but… Don’t tell me you don’t have any ideas, and you’re trying to cover up the fact that you’re counting on me?”
“That ill-advised remark of yours just decreased the time to thirty seconds.”
“W-wait, wait! …All right.”
With an expression that seemed to say there was no help for it, still hanging upside down…Elmer brought up the contents of his stomach. The liquid that spurted from his mouth splashed all over the meat fragments Feldt was controlling.
Simultaneously, a pungent, acrid odor spread through the area. The smell that had been hanging around Elmer for the past few minutes was now several times stronger, and it enveloped their surroundings.
Oil?! No, that’s not it—what is this stuff?!
Noticing the sudden stench, Feldt hastily turned around, flustered.
“Fil, run! Maiza— Don’t let him get away!”
Maiza, who’d realized what the smell was immediately, had begun to move even before the words reached him.
Seizing his chance when Feldt was distracted, he put him in a headlock. The boy wasn’t strong enough to shake Maiza off, and Maiza turned him to face the clump of meat.
“It sounds as though you heard about all sorts of ‘outside’ things from Sylvie, but… You don’t yet know how dangerous gasoline is, do you?”
Then, in the next instant—he took the flashlight he was holding and dashed it, still lit, against a tombstone.
Something like sparks scattered from the broken lightbulb, and—
A red flash enveloped a portion of the night’s darkness.
“Well, there was a monster on the loose, and I couldn’t go in completely unprepared, so…”
“…Still. To think you’d drink gasoline…”
Nile spoke as if he was disgusted, but Elmer only cackled away with his usual smile. “Startled you, didn’t I? Smile… Yech, I still feel nasty. Gasoline really isn’t meant to be drunk. If I weren’t immortal, I’d be dead.”
The scale of the explosion hadn’t been big. After all, the capacity of human stomachs wasn’t much. However, the sudden blast had scattered Feldt’s meat fragments. When they caught fire, they writhed in pain, and then nature took its course and they burned away. Of course Nile and Elmer hadn’t escaped unscathed either, but the supernatural had also taken its course, and they’d regenerated.
A smell like barbecued meat mingled with the odor of gasoline to create a nauseating stench.
As for the key figure, Feldt—
“Ahh…ah… AaAAaaaAAh…”
“Hmm. Well, that is only natural.”
The boy lay faceup, hollow-eyed. His entire body was twitching.
“He felt himself burn, after all. Not only that, but over a much wider area than any human.”
“Immolation is rough, you know, even if it isn’t your first time.”
As Maiza spoke of experiences only an immortal could have, Elmer took the fallen Feldt in his arms and tried to help him sit up.
“Hey.”
Even though he knew it was no good, Nile tried to stop him, but Elmer answered with his usual smile.
“I did something about it in a minute, as promised. I’ll be taking this guy.”
“Elmer, you say ‘taking,’ but—”
In the instant Maiza spoke with some dismay—
Feldt’s stomach split, and meat fragments burst out from inside.
“Wha…?!”
“Elmer!”
By the time they’d noticed, it was already too late. The meat fragments, holding something that looked like a small bottle, had leaped into Elmer’s mouth.
“Muh-gwuh-gah-gah!”
Defying the will of his esophagus, the little bottle and the meat fragments descended into Elmer’s stomach. At the same time, the boy, who was bleeding heavily from his abdomen, laughed as if victory was his.
“Ha-ha…ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. You fell for it, monster… Did you seriously think I’d keep all the meat fragments in one place? …What you just swallowed is the bottle with the ‘water.’”
“You wretch…!”
When Nile grabbed the scruff of his neck and hauled him up, Feldt spat out blood with a wet, choking sound. “When I break—that bottle—you and I will start trying to take over each other’s will… I—bet my life on it. If I—fail here—I’ll die. I’ll disappear from the face of the Earth—I can’t die. I’m going to see the outside world! As far as strength of will is concerned, we’re equal now, or rather, I’m stronger!”
The spiritual theory he’d set forth was ludicrous, but as Feldt lay dying, his gaze held a firmer resolve than it ever had before.
In spite of themselves, Maiza and the others were terrified. Only Elmer was still smiling, just like always.
Apparently Feldt really didn’t like that; he glared at Elmer with hate-filled eyes.
“Why…are you smiling…? Aren’t you…afraid to die…?”
“Yep. But I’m the one who’s going to win this match. Count on it.”
At those abrupt words, which had been delivered without a shred of apprehension, Feldt’s gaze clouded.
“What…kind of…nonsense…”
“Before you break it, let me give you one warning. Your actions will be absolutely pointless.”
What Elmer did next really made Maiza’s blood run cold.
Everyone in the area gulped. If Czes had been there, he probably would have been the only one to stay calm as events unfolded.
Elmer took Maiza’s right hand and placed it on his own forehead.
That was all he’d done.
“If I lose, Maiza will eat me on the spot. —You can’t survive this.”
Elmer was smiling brightly. In response, greasy sweat from something other than pain began to trickle down Feldt’s face.
“No… You wouldn’t…”
For a moment, despair came into his face, but soon he regained his composure, and the light returned to his eyes.
“You…fool. You…think…that…would…be…”
“You just thought of using my memories and pretending to be me, didn’t you.”
“!”
“Okay, then let’s do this. Maiza, if that bottle breaks, eat me right then.”
“Understood.”
! Impossible! He’s lying! He could never do it!
Feldt’s mind had begun to cloud over; he twisted to face Maiza.
However…although the man’s eyes had been smiling a moment ago, they were now ice-cold, as if he could kill a baby without the slightest compunction.
“This guy’s with the mafia, see. He can make himself do what has to be done in situations like this right away.”
“It isn’t the mafia. It’s the Camorra.”
Maiza dispassionately pointed out the mistake. There was no uncertainty in his eyes.
Which is it? Which?! Is it an act, or is it—?
At that point,
Feldt hesitated for a few seconds.
—Not realizing that as far as he was concerned, the pause would be fatal.
“It’s done.”
Abruptly, the tension in Maiza’s face dissolved—and Feldt sensed that something was wrong with his meat fragments.
It felt as if they were being compressed from all sides… The moment he thought that, Maiza thrust his left hand out at the boy on the ground.
At that point, finally, Feldt realized that he’d lost. This time, despair shrouded his heart.
After all, Maiza’s left hand gripped the clump of meat that should have been in Elmer’s stomach…and the bottle of “water” was in Elmer’s right hand.
“Surprised?”
Ignoring Elmer, who was grinning with great amusement, Maiza heaved a massive sigh, breaking out in a cold sweat.
To think that while he was on his feet, negotiating with me…he’d cut open his stomach…
By grabbing Maiza’s right hand, Elmer had created a blind spot for Feldt, and in its shadow, Maiza had used his knife to slit Elmer’s belly. From where the boy lay, facing up, he wouldn’t be able to see the blood dripping to the ground behind Maiza’s long coat, and— And they’d pulled all that off without discussing it beforehand.
“I haven’t lived this long for nothing. You give it your best shot, too.”
As Elmer spoke, he examined the wound in Feldt’s own stomach.
The gash he found there was far bigger than what he’d anticipated.
“Uh…Maiza? What do you think?”
Maiza took a close look at the wound. Then he sighed and shook his head.
“Not a chance.”
At that… For the first time, Elmer looked sad.
“I wanted to save you, but…”
“Hunh… So I…guess…things…didn’t go…your, way… Serves…you right…”
Feldt spoke as if he’d summoned up the last of his strength to do it. In response, Elmer made a quiet “pronouncement”:
“Once you’re dead, I’ll smile.”
“…?”
“I don’t let dead people bother me. If someone’s died a meaningful death, I’ll applaud them, and I don’t mind smiling for them, but if you die, that fact will be the only thing left. And so…I won’t give any more thought to you. We’ll all just say, ‘The bad guy’s dead, woohoo!’ and laugh. That’s it.”
2001 The Children of Bottle Page 18
