by Yusuke Kishi
Eventually, the ground flattened and started sloping gently downward.
“Let’s wait here for a bit.”
Once the nest filled with gas, all we could do was hope that it wouldn’t reach us. If the paths had been straight, it would have been a better idea to keep running, but the tunnels stretched out all around us like a web. The gas could travel around and come back to us, so in this case the best bet was to find higher ground.
We sat down in the darkness.
“Are you okay?”
A quiet “yeah,” was all I got from Satoru.
“I wonder how much the gas has dispersed.”
Even though I still couldn’t see him, I felt Satoru shake his head.
“It won’t.”
“But that’s impossible. It can’t stay in the tunnels forever, right?”
“That’s true, but it probably won’t disappear for a few days,” Satoru sighed heavily. “Before that, we’ll either run out of air, or the gas will make it up here.”
Bile rose in my mouth. Were we going to die where we stood?
“…then, what should we do?”
“No idea,” Satoru answered shortly.
“If the Robber Fly colony manages to win, they might dig us out. Even in that case, we still have to wait until the poison gas disperses.”
Despair drained us of all energy. We had been so desperate to find a safe place that it wasn’t until now that we noticed we had walked into our own graves.
Waiting helplessly for the end was tantamount to psychological torture. Compared to this, running from the poisonous gas could probably be considered fun.
“Hey. Even though we’re stuck in this situation…” the words came out naturally.
“Hm?”
“I’m glad I’m not alone.”
“Are you happy you can drag me down too?”
I smiled slightly.
“If I were alone, I wouldn’t be able to stand it. And I definitely wouldn’t have made it this far.”
We had tried our best, even if the final result was to be stuck at a dead end with no escape.
“Same here.”
I was relieved that Satoru seemed to have returned to his normal self. {Maybe those who were mentally disturbed were incapable of suffering.}
“I wonder if Maria and them got away okay.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“That’s good.”
That was the end of our conversation.
In the darkness, the only thing that moved was time.
Has it been a minute, five minutes, or half an hour? I jerked awake from a half-sleep.
“Satoru! Satoru!”
“…what?” he answered uneasily.
“It smells. Don’t you understand? The gas has reached us!”
The smell of rotten eggs, same as the one that had been at the exit.
“We can’t stay here anymore. Should we try going ahead?”
“No, this is the highest point we know of. If we go down, it’ll be suicide.” Satoru thought hard. “You have a better sense of smell than I do, which way is the gas coming from? The exit, or both sides?”
“I can’t figure out something like that.”
I could sometimes tell where sounds were coming from, but I didn’t think I could do the same for smells.
“No, wait.”
I walked a little toward the exit and sniffed the air, then did the same in the other direction. I was glad that Satoru couldn’t see me. I was sure I looked like a queerat twitching its nose.
“…I think it’s only coming from one direction. The place where the exit was.”
“Then we might be able to make it. Let’s try to block up the tunnel.”
“How?”
“By burying it.”
Satoru stuck the spear into the ceiling and started pulling it down. I couldn’t see him, but from the movement in the air and the chucks of dirt that hit me on the face, I could imagine the effort he was putting into it.
“Saki! Watch out!”
Satoru suddenly crashed into me. I flew backward into the tunnel with him on top of me.
I was just wondering what had happened when tons of soil started falling from the ceiling. Covering my face with my hands, I waited for the cave-in to stop. I couldn’t even open my mouth to scream. When it was finally over, I was covered with dirt, and my legs from the knee down were completely buried.
“Are you okay?” Satoru asked worriedly.
“Yeah.”
“That was dangerous. We were almost buried alive.”
Thinking logically, trying to bring down the ceiling of the room you were in was stupid, but our instinctive drive to survive caused us to act without thinking of the consequences. And in the end, it proved to be fortunate.
We extricated ourselves from the dirt and confirmed that the path was completely blocked. And just to make sure, we patted the mountain of dirt to make sure that it was solid enough that gas couldn’t pass through.
“Hey, look up. If you brought more dirt down, wouldn’t it go through to the outside?” I asked looking up at the gouged out ceiling (of course, I couldn’t actually see anything).
“You can’t hear anything coming from the outside though. There’s probably still more than three meters to go. It would be impossible to dig out from here. We’d be buried alive for real.”
In the end, we sat down on the dirt again.
In the commotion of blocking the path, I mistakenly believed that we were making progress. But now that I thought about it, our situation hadn’t changed a bit. Compared to earlier, we were in an even narrower space, and if the gas suddenly came from the open side of the path, it would be all over for us. If we collapsed the other side of the tunnel too, we’d soon run out of air and suffocate.
This time, we were doomed.
I didn’t want to die here. But there was nothing more we could do. As I waited for my life to end, I was surprised at how unemotional I was. But I was too tired to muster up the energy to feel anything.
I edged away from Satoru and sat hugging my knees. Hallucinations started appearing once again. The outside world was so infinite that most things pass unnoticed. This fact came easily as if a switch had been flipped. After wandering through the darkness for so long, our mental defenses were weakened, and the demons in the hidden corners of our mind were free to run rampant.
The first thing I saw was a minoshiro. Its semitransparent body ambled slowly in before me, right to left. It was incredibly realistic. The ends of the Y-shaped feelers on its head and the quills running down its back glowed white, red, orange, blue, and other bright colors.
Then, shining green threads of sticky mucus started dripping from the ceiling. In the blink of an eye, a glowworm galaxy appeared.
The minoshiro appeared to be stuck in the dripping mucus. It twisted itself free and continued walking, but in the end was still trapped. The threads swayed like a chandelier, gradually binding the minoshiro tighter and tighter.
Then, the minoshiro started autotomizing his trapped feelers and quills one by one.
The now bald minoshiro’s back started glowing vibrantly with all the colors of the rainbow. The colors mixed and overlapped, creating stripes and spirals in the air. The beauty of it made my mind go blank.
At some point it transformed into the false minoshiro, its colorful afterimage still lingering above its back, and started disappearing from my field of vision.
The residual light slowly faded away into darkness.
Was everything going to fade away as well? Just as I thought that, the scenery changed completely.
Suddenly, an orange light erupted right in front of me. A flame burning above an altar.
From underground comes the sound of chanting, interrupted by orange sparks.
It’s the scene from that day.
A praying monk threw some pills and poured fragrant oil into the fire, making it flare up dramatically.
The chanting sounded like a chorus of crick
ets reverberating in my ears.
That was the day of my initiation to receive my cantus.
Why is it that as my life neared its end, I don’t think about my family, or the happy times in my childhood, but of that scene.
Suddenly, a completely different memory surfaced.
“That’s against the rules. We can’t tell anyone what our mantra is,” Satoru said pertly.
Although he was usually up to no good, Satoru suddenly decided to put on the act of a model student.
“It’s fine. We’re friends, right? I won’t tell anyone,” I wheedled.
“Why do you want to know anyway?”
“I want to see what it’s like. Like how it’s different from mine, and such.”
“…then tell me yours,” Satoru said slyly.
He was provoking me. Fine. Two can play at that game.
“Okay. How about this? We’ll write it down, and show each other on the count of three.”
“…um. Actually, no. If we show it to someone else, it’ll lose its power.”
That’s not how it works, I wanted to say.
“So? It’s not like I’ll be looking at it long enough to remember it. Just flash it for a second.”
“Then what’s the point?” Satoru asked suspiciously.
“It shows that we’re friends. Also, we can get a general feel for how long it is and such.”
I managed to convince him, so we wrote out our mantras on sheets of straw paper.
“Ready? One, two, three,” we flipped our papers around and looked at each other’s mantra for a tenth of a second.
“Did you see it?” Satoru asked worriedly.
“Not at all. But I could tell how long it was. It’s not that long.”
“Yeah, yours too Saki. It’s about the same,” Satoru said looking relieved.
He crumpled up the paper and set it on fire. It was reduced to ashes in a matter of seconds.
“…but did you see even one word?” he seemed unusually anxious.
“Not a letter. Your writing is so awful I couldn’t read it at all.”
He was finally convinced and left the room. I went over and looked at the stack of papers he had written on. Satoru pressed down hard when he wrote, so it left a distinct impression. I shaded the paper lightly and the words appeared.
I looked it up in the library and found that it was the mantra of Akasagarbha.
It would probably go smoothly. I held my breath and focused on Satoru.
He was breathing quietly as if asleep, but once in a while murmured something unintelligible.
Right now, Satoru’s consciousness was at its lowest, almost like the state you’re in when you’re hypnotized. If you could bring out all the thoughts that are usually suppressed, like what happened to me earlier, then it wouldn’t be surprising if you could control someone through their hallucinations.
The hardest part about hypnosis was bringing down the subject’s level of consciousness. If you could do that, then the rest is easy. After all, I already knew the mantra buried deep inside Satoru’s mind.
Nonetheless, failure would be unforgivable. If I fail, we would both die here. I rehearsed my lines mentally over and over. I took deep breath and spoke in my strictest voice.
“Satoru Asahina.”
Since I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t tell if there was any response.
“Satoru Asahina. You have broken the rules and gone where you were not supposed to. Furthermore, you have allowed your mind to be poisoned by a demon. The real problem, however, lies much deeper.”
I felt him stir.
“You have violated the very foundations of the Code of Ethics, the last of the Ten Precepts, ‘Do not desecrate the Three Jewels’. You have fallen for the words of a demon and questioned the teachings of Buddha. Therefore I must seal your cantus immediately.”
Satoru gasped and started crying.
I felt terrible for him, but steeled myself and continued.
“Look at the flames.”
I didn’t hear a response.
“Look at the flames.”
Still nothing.
“Your cantus is sealed inside this emblem. Do you see it?”
A deep sigh, then, “Yes.”
“The emblem is cast into the fire. Everything has been burned away. All your worldly desires have been burned away. The ashes return to the vast, wild earth.”
I raised my voice, “Look. The emblem has been eradicated. Your cantus is now sealed!”
Satoru let out a painful wail.
“Cast aside your worldly desires. To reach nirvana, cast everything into the cleansing flame.”
I was getting closer and closer to the critical moment. I approached Satoru.
“Satoru Asahina. In your devotion to Buddha, you have abandoned your cantus,” I said as gently as I could, trying to penetrate deep into his consciousness, winding around his mind, binding him with my suggestion.
I wholeheartedly want to save Satoru. Although this is the fastest way, I apologize for making him suffer. I’m also thankful for his efforts to help me. All of my feelings swelled and threatened to drown me. My voice shook.
“Now, by the compassion of Buddha, you will receive a pure mantra, a new spirit, and your cantus will be returned to you.”
I hit him on the shoulders, bent down, and whispered in his ear, “Namo âkâúagarbhaya oṃ ârya kamari mauli svâhâ.”
For a moment, nothing happened.
But, slowly, light started spreading slowly around us.
“Satoru!” I shouted, crying.
The spear was glowing. The obsidian tip gave off a burning red light.
“Satoru, you’re doing this, right? You see? Your cantus is back!”
“Yeah…looks like it,” Satoru said, as if waking from a long dream.
“Hurry! Blow a hole in the ceiling! Get rid of all of this!”
“Okay.”
“Oh, wait. There might be poison gas outside too…”
“Don’t worry. I’ll blow it all away,” Satoru grinned reassuringly. “There might be a vacuum for a second. Cover your nose and ears.”
I managed to plug my nose and ears with my thumb and middle finger. Above me, the dirt started shaking and rumbling as if there were an earthquake.
The next second, there was a roar like a hurricane and the ceiling vanished.
Chapter 5
In order to quickly subdue the enemy, the Ground Spiders fumigate their enemy’s nest with poisonous gas.
There have also been cases where indigenous colonies will flood their enemies by drawing water from the rivers. But the objective of war is to capture and enslave the opposing colony, so tactics that would cause mass deaths are unsuitable. On the other hand, the wars on the mainland are mostly centered around acquiring and protecting limited resources, so killing the enemy might be more efficient in their case.
The gas that they used remains unidentified to this day. The remains of the gas dispersal equipment we found only tells us that the Ground Spiders built a furnace out of stones and mud upwind from the Robber Flies.
I guessed that the rotten-egg smell came from chunks of sulfur that they harvested from a volcano. When sulfur is burned, it creates hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide, which are both extremely poisonous and heavier than air so they would be able to penetrate deep into queerat nests. However, it’s hard to imagine those two things alone have the power to exterminate an entire colony.
Satoru was of the opinion that the Ground Spiders went digging through abandoned cities for plastics that contained chlorine. For example vinyl chloride burns to create hydrogen chloride gas, which is also very poisonous and heavier than air. There are a plethora of gases that are lethal, and even more things that can be combined and burned to create them. Or, most terrifying of all, it could be something new that we have yet to discover.
Purging the gas from the Robber Fly colony took some time.
Even using cantus to displace massive amounts of air was not
an easy thing. No matter where you tried to move the air, there would be a force pushing back on it. Creating a powerful whirlwind, Satoru churned up the polluted air closer to the ground and carried it far away, letting the clean air flow back in. The image he created for that must have been quite something.
After the gale subsided, I saw the tranquil blue sky above us. In dazzling morning light, we were like two moles that had accidentally burrowed aboveground, squinting our eyes and filling our lungs with fresh air. Goosebumps prickled my skin as I was exposed to cold air for the first time in a long while.
Once he was accustomed to the light, Satoru looked upward. The hole in the ceiling shimmered and grew larger. He created a gentle slope in front of us, and as if using a mold, shaped the dirt into a staircase. They felt as solid as if baked from terra cotta bricks.
“I’ll go first.”
“Wait,” I held him back. “I’ll go look first.”
“No, the Ground Spiders might shoot you from afar.”
“That’s exactly why I should go first. If something happens and you can’t use your cantus anymore, then we’re done for.”
I didn’t say anything more and started up the stairs. Before exiting, I listened closely for any movement, but all was silent. Nothing apart from bird cries.
Keeping my body low, I poked my head out.
The whirlwind had flattened out the grass, but I still couldn’t see anything. I crept out quietly on all fours and slowly stood up after checking that the surroundings were clear.
Everything swayed gently in the breeze. There were no corpses, no wreckage, nothing.
Satoru came up behind me. “How is it?”
“There’s nothing around.”
Looking farther, more than a hundred meters out, I saw what I thought were queerat corpses. Maybe from the whirlwind. From this distance, it’s hard to tell them apart from humans. A shiver ran up my spine.
“They’re definitely around here somewhere. The wind couldn’t have killed them all.”
We stood motionless, carefully observing our surroundings. Someone like Shisei Kaburagi could create a vacuum lens in midair (the opposite of a normal lens, it magnified things using a concave surface), but of course Satoru didn’t have the skill to do that.
