He was suddenly pulled back to reality by a tug on his sleeve. The sound of the helicopter’s rotors returned to his ears.
“What’s wrong?” Enju asked. “What are you thinking about, Rentaro?”
“Nothing…,” he said.
Enju, bundled up in an extra layer of green flight jacket, was staring up at him. Her mouth had been clamped shut for a while as she fidgeted nervously.
“Now that I think about it, is it your first time going to the Unexplored Territory?” asked Rentaro.
Enju nodded. Rentaro understood. Things that one had to do outside the Monolith were definitely not something you thought about if you lived inside. He braced himself, thinking that he would have to provide her with the best support he could. “Is there anything you want to ask about before we start the operation?”
“What is this helicopter called?” Enju asked.
Rentaro looked around inside the aircraft. “It looks like parts of it have been upgraded, but it’s probably the Japanese version of a Black Hawk.”
“I know that name! It’s one of those weaklings from that retro movie I borrowed from Sumire where two of them crashed. Rentaro, is this going make a nosedive and fall headfirst, too?”
The pilot looked over at them with an unpleasant look on his face. “Hey, idiot! What are you saying?”
Rentaro apologized with a look, and was about to complain to Enju, but when he turned to her, she had such a dark look on her face that he couldn’t finish what he was about to say. She was probably trying to get rid of her nervousness in her own way. No matter how much her strength surpassed the human norm, she was still a ten-year-old child. Looking at Enju, sometimes he forgot that. Rentaro decided he would stay with her to the bitter end, and nodded slightly with resolve.
“Do you have any other…questions you want to ask?” said Rentaro.
“Then…what part of this helicopter is upgraded?” asked Enju.
“The helicopter again? You really like helicopters, don’t you? The rotor has probably been changed to a newer model that makes as little noise as possible.” The sound of the rotors interrupted every break in their conversation.
“It’s still really loud, Rentaro.”
“We’re pretty high up, so from the ground, it should be a lot quieter. Inside a helicopter, you’d normally have to talk a lot louder to hear each other.”
Enju looked like she still wasn’t satisfied with the answer and swung her legs. “Why do we need to be quiet?”
“So we don’t wake the Gastrea. There are some that wake up in the morning and sleep at night like us humans, but there are also nocturnal ones that are active at night. If we make too much noise, we won’t just catch the attention of the nocturnal Gastrea, but we’ll also wake up the ones that are sleeping right now, and it’ll be troublesome. I’ll teach you how later, but when we get to the ground, you need to make sure you move without making any loud noises. If not, terrible things will happen.”
Enju murmured, “I see,” and looked up at him. “What was the Stage Five you were talking about in the hospital room? I thought Gastrea only went up to Stage Four.”
“Oh, that?” Letting his eyes look out the window, he could see the ghost town of a city below. Suddenly, he saw a small shadow in the window of a residential house. That was probably some kind of animal, or a former human. Inwardly, he thought, She’s finally asked the question, huh?
Rentaro answered her. “Where should I start…? Normally, Gastrea start with Stage One, and then move on to Stage Two and Stage Three, growing bigger as they mature, with their skin growing harder, right? In that process, they take genes from various animals, so each one takes on a unique appearance as it matures. Because of that, there is no one way to deal with Gastrea.”
“Yeah, I already know all that,” said Enju.
“Yeah, I’m sure you do. You could say that the Stage Five is something outside of that general knowledge we have of Gastrea. Normal Gastrea go up to Stage Four—in other words, the complete form, where they are not supposed to grow anymore… But Stage Fives certainly exist. We confirmed their existence ten years ago, when Gastrea appeared repeatedly around the world at the same time. No one knows how they came to be, or where they came from, but anyway, they’re so gigantic that they make Stage Fours look like children. Besides that, in order to not be crushed by their own weight, their muscles, skin, bones, and even their organs have been reinforced and are hardened. Doc once said that the Gastrea virus is like a designer that designs creatures, but this is the idea to its extreme.”
“But since we have the Monoliths, no matter what Gastrea comes, none can come into Tokyo Area, right? It doesn’t matter how big they are, does it?”
“That’s a good point. That’s where the problem is. The long and short of it is that the magnetic field given off by Varanium doesn’t affect Stage Fives.”
Enju’s eyes widened. She was clever enough to have noticed right away. Mankind made Monoliths out of lumps of Varanium and holed up like badgers in winter, preserving this delicate peace for the past ten years. But there was the possibility that that peace could be shattered.
“That’s not all. The most frightening thing is if even one part of a Monolith gets destroyed by a Stage Five. If that happens, Stage One through Stage Four Gastrea will come flooding in through that broken line like an avalanche. If that happens…”
Enju held her breath as Rentaro trailed off, lost in his words. “Wh-what’ll happen?”
“We call cases like that Great Extinctions. In the past, it happened in the Middle East and Africa, but in a word, it’s hell.”
Enju’s face paled. In his head, Rentaro critically asked himself what he was trying to do, scaring her like that. After thinking about it for a while, Rentaro shook his head firmly. He couldn’t treat Enju like a child anymore. She had a right to know the full extent of the dangerous situation occurring right now.
“You understand, right, Enju? This is the critical moment that will decide whether or not Tokyo Area faces Great Extinction. Even I still have a hard time believing that there’s a way to summon a Stage Five to Tokyo Area, but with the government spearheading such a large-scale operation, it is probably possible. And its origin is that duralumin case that was stolen from us. That’s why we have to defeat Kagetane and his partner and stop it.”
“Are there a lot of Stage Fives?” Enju asked.
“There were eleven that were seen,” said Rentaro. “Miraculously, two were defeated. Generally, cells with the Gastrea virus automatically repair and regenerate their telomeres, so theoretically they won’t die of old age. The ultimate goal of the civil security agencies is to destroy the remaining nine Stage Fives. No—you could say that’s the wish of all mankind.”
Just then, the pilot’s voice said, “We’re here,” over Rentaro.
Rentaro stretched his hand out to Enju. “Now, let’s go, Enju. Let’s save Tokyo Area.”
Looking at the helicopter starting its way back after it dropped them off, Rentaro began feeling discouraged. The next time he would ride in a helicopter would either be when they successfully completed the operation, or when his corpse was carried out in a bag.
From here on out, they would need to clear the path themselves.
Rentaro and Enju had been dropped off in the middle of an extensive forest. The tall, dense evergreens grew thick, and the fact that it was nighttime contributed to the low visibility. Because of the torrential rains the other day, the whole forest was wet, and their nostrils were filled with the thick smell of humidity and the night.
In any case, they couldn’t keep standing there forever. Rentaro took the lead, and Enju followed him. Rentaro took the bush knife from his hip and cut away the branches that looked like they would get in Enju’s way as she followed after him. With Enju’s strong regenerative ability, a scratch caused by a branch on her arm would be healed in a second, but she still felt pain, so he never felt like it was acceptable for her to get hurt.
A canopy of tall trees about thirty meters high covered the moon, and the forest was extremely dark. Unexpectedly, the map he had received ahead of time was completely useless. The map was ten years old, so he had naturally expected there to be differences, but it wasn’t just a matter of vegetation—even detailed topography had changed.
Rentaro quickly surrendered and was forced to use the light he had brought. He had not wanted to use the light because it would reveal their position to the enemy Gastrea and to Kagetane, whose location they didn’t know, but he had no choice.
He twisted the bottom of the switch cover. The 180-lumen circle of light cut through the darkness and illuminated various things. Rentaro looked at the scene and was dumbfounded.
Even though it was chilly, ferns and shrubs that only grew in tropical rain forests stretched as far as the light shone. Among them, there was even a plant he had never seen before that twisted its trunk around the surrounding trees. It was like a strangler fig, but he had never seen one with a mottled black and red pattern.
The strangest part was the sound. At night in rain forests near the equator, it would be noisy with the chorus of bugs, birds, and frogs, but this fake forest was dead silent and seemed as if it had already died out.
“R-Rentaro…” Enju was spooked, too, and drew closer to Rentaro.
“This is my first time out this far away from Tokyo Area,” said Rentaro. “Isn’t this terrible?”
The distribution of plants and animals in an area taken over by Gastrea was always crazy, but this was the worst Rentaro had ever seen. Of course, there should have been living things that hadn’t been made into Gastrea, but perhaps they were in hiding. In any case, they were nowhere to be seen. “Enju, we’re gonna get out of here and head to a nearby town.”
“Weren’t we told to look in this area?” she asked.
Rentaro put his hand on his chin and thought a little. Currently, in the First District of Tokyo Area was the headquarters of this operation being spearheaded by the Seitenshi. Somehow, these government officials had decided that they would use a human wave attack to draw Kagetane out, and as Enju had said, Rentaro had been given instructions to search this area before they left. But, he thought as he shook his head. “No, let’s go to the town after all. No human in their right mind would want to stay in a place like this for long. I’m sure Kagetane and his partner are somewhere else.”
Enju didn’t object.
After a while, they found themselves on a forest path. Under their feet, the soft ground changed to paved asphalt. From both sides of the road, the forest looked like it was trying to cover the road. The asphalt was cracked and broken.
Enju started to jump on the road with a strange look on her face. “What lousy work. The Japan Highway Public Corporation is a tax thief.”
“Hey now,” said Rentaro. “After we humans leave, the roads are more fragile than you think. Weeds start growing soon after, and then cracks develop, and when water gets in there and freezes and melts, the cracks start getting bigger and bigger. It’s not necessarily cracked because the government wasn’t doing its job.”
“I see. Then, let me correct myself. The Japan Highway Public Corporation is a good tax thief.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rentaro smiled wryly and looked up at the sky. Because there was a lot of oxygen, at least the air was fresh. They followed the road. When they got out of the fake tropical rain forest, they finally saw more familiar trees like dawn redwoods and maples. However, even though it was spring, the maple had red leaves, and the undergrowth showed signs of root rot and was a dark reddish brown, giving off a rank smell. When mankind one day beat the Gastrea, would they be able to find a way to restore the environment that had been destroyed this thoroughly?
“Enju, someone in our line of work said they saw a quetzal in the Unexplored Territory before,” said Rentaro.
“A quetzal?” said Enju.
“Yeah, the bird Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix was modeled after, the legendary birds whose males are said to be the most beautiful birds in the world. Of course, there aren’t any in Japan, so I always thought he was lying, but with the ecosystem this messed up, I think it might actually be possible.”
“Rentaro, you really like animals, don’t you? Do you wish to see one?”
Rentaro pouted. “What, something wrong with that?”
“No, if you want to see one, then so do I. If they are so beautiful, then they will surely be delicious.”
“You want to eat one?! They’re legendary birds!”
Just then, there was a growl in the distance, and Rentaro reflexively turned off the light and crouched down. Removing the XD from his hip, he pulled out the one-touch mountable silencer, fixed it on the muzzle of the XD, and slowly approached the sound. He could hear the sound of a small stream in the distance. That sound grew louder as they approached. Moving forward silently for about a minute, they slowly pushed their way through the thicket.
It was closer than Rentaro had expected. He was paralyzed for a moment before he rushed back and crouched in the thicket.
The first thing he saw was the thin pupils in the glowing yellow eyes. Its long, narrow snout was crammed full of teeth. From its head to its long tail, it was covered with a hard armorlike skin that glittered slimily. Placed as it was with only half of its body out of the river and with its thick skin, it looked like a heavy tank.
“It’s a gator,” said Rentaro. “A gavial…I think? But…” Its long, thin snout was definitely different from that of an alligator or crocodile. But Rentaro still felt uncertain about that conclusion. It wasn’t even worth being surprised at the body enlarged by the Gastrea virus, but it had five legs, and there were four extra eyes in places eyes would not normally be.
The Gastrea virus was not perfect. There had probably been some sort of error after the body was designed when the cells were dividing that made it turn into that. Perhaps it could be called God’s aesthetics, but most living things were created with symmetry. When that symmetry was altered, it was hard not to be revolted. The long, thin snout of the gavial had evolved into a shape suitable for catching fish, but, it was hard to believe that it subsisted entirely on river fish given the size of its body.
The creature had also noticed Rentaro. It still didn’t seem like it was about to attack, but it stared at Rentaro sideways. Cold sweat broke out on his palms. What should I do? Fight it? Rentaro dropped his gaze to his gun.
Currently, in order to allow the silencer to work at maximum efficiency, his gun was loaded with what were called “weak charges,” subsonic Varanium bullets that used less gunpowder and dropped the initial velocity to below the speed of sound. Thinking about the naturally tough gator skin being reinforced by the Gastrea virus, he thought that he if he aimed at its head, the cranium would probably stop the bullet.
Enju pulled at his sleeve and shook her head slightly with uneasy eyes. He knew that she was telling him to ignore it. That was the last straw. Rentaro held out his gun and stepped back slowly so as not to provoke the creature. He didn’t know what the five-legged gavial was thinking, but it kept its eyes on him, watching his every move. As soon as he lost sight of it, he ran as fast as he could away from it. Once he got to a place he thought was safe, he let out a long breath. His heart was still hammering loudly in his chest. He suddenly felt cold and started shivering. He didn’t even have enough composure to laugh off his own cowardice.
“If I hadn’t stopped you, you would have started attacking, huh?” Enju said in an unhappy voice.
Rentaro couldn’t answer.
“Even though you are more fragile than I am, you desire too much to walk in front of me.”
Once he thought things through calmly, he realized that there were too many problems with his risk and ammunition management. Thinking about what might have happened if he had tried to defeat the creature like that made him shake his head. “Sorry. I’ll be more careful—”
However, before he could finish, the vibration of a low
explosion ripped through the air. Rentaro knew immediately what had caused it and clicked his tongue. “That idiot! Some civil officer pair used explosives in the forest… Why did they have to do that?”
At that moment, although it wasn’t clear where they had been hiding, from inside the forest, a cloud of bats flew out all at once, calling shrilly and flying above Rentaro’s head as if going mad.
Rentaro broke out in a cold sweat. This was the worst thing that could have happened. The forest was going to wake up. Calamity soon appeared. With a thud, a low sound different from before could be felt beneath their feet. It was the rumble of large bodies treading on the ground. It reverberated in all directions, and Rentaro couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
Next was a low growl that echoed in his stomach and made him look hurriedly around him. He thought it was the growl of the gavial from earlier, but it was something more twisted and sinister.
Suddenly, Enju’s face paled, and she stared at a single point. “Rentaro… What’s that?”
Even when he looked in the direction Enju was looking, all he could see was a large shadow. Rentaro turned on the light and then almost dropped it in shock.
From deep within the canopy, a pair of large eyes were fixed on them. Its body was over six meters long. It had the fierce face characteristic of reptiles, with a long neck and a flickering red tongue. Small warts covered its face like boils, and Rentaro and Enju could smell the stink of rotting flesh on its breath wafting downwind toward them. Its body was green, and the bones of its arms had evolved to form wings, so it went without saying that it had mixed with some sort of bird Gastrea.
It looked like a fairy-tale dragon.
There was no doubt that this was a Stage Four Gastrea. It probably had a number of different bird and lizard species mixed in, but with its evolution progressed this far into the stages, it was hard to pinpoint exactly what the original animal was.
Black Bullet, Vol. 1: Those Who Would Be Gods Page 15
