A Simple Survey - Volume 01 - A Simple Survey

by Kazuma Kamachi

  The world at large did not look on us kindly for cutting apart corpses, but it was our job. We had to take it apart to do a thorough investigation.

  However…

  We were not trying to find the troll’s weak points or vital points to inform the knights.

  With a wild beast population increasing at that rate, finding a way to defeat them one by one was not all that useful.

  It was the same reason that weeds and roaches did not go extinct.

  However, something had to be done about the exploding troll population.

  And it was our job to figure out what that was.

  “Trolls are generally considered to be completely useless. Their meat stinks and tastes horrible, and their bones grow brittle when dried out, so they cannot be used as weapons or for defense. There really is nothing beneficial about them.”

  “What about their skin?”

  “It grows mold easily, so it can’t be used either.”

  “So they can’t be eaten and they can’t be used for any kind of offensive or defensive tools. This is quite a difficult problem.”

  “There might be some special use we can make of them, but that won’t increase the amount of consumption. However, there is one thing that we know people will put in their mouths even if it is disgusting.”

  My assistant gave a level-headed response to that.

  She gave a bold smile while looking at the grotesque corpse.

  “You mean…”

  “That finding a piece of it that can function as a medicine will make an excellent shortcut, yes.”

  “Since this one died naturally and decay has set in, serious damage may have been done to the internal organs. Is there really anything worth looking into here?”

  “We have to at least try.”

  With a groan of effort, we “opened” the troll’s body using a psychedelic means that cannot be described in text. I am leaving out quite a bit of detail here, but you should really thank me for that. We then checked each individual piece inside.

  “If we can’t find anything to make medicine out of, we should probably just give up.”

  “If we find something that is bad for your health, that can be useful as well. In fact, substances in the natural world that cannot at all be used as either a poison or a medicine are quite rare.”

  We took each individual piece of the troll’s “contents”, crushed them into a paste, boiled them, roasted them, and otherwise processed them. The processes used were the same as in cooking, but this was hardly a scene you could happily bring a child to see. However, we did find something interesting.

  “I found a component in its liver that might work in a medicine meant to sober people up.”

  “Its stomach acid is quite powerful. If we could stabilize it, it could be useful.”

  “It doesn’t seem powerful enough to destroy an enemy’s equipment instantly, though.”

  “It can be used for other things. It could probably be used to easily get treasure by putting some in the keyhole of a treasure chest. The inner portion of the lock is delicate. It could also function as a trap killer.”

  “Could the stomach itself be used in some kind of medicine?”

  “If some time passes after the troll’s death, the defensive membrane is destroyed, so that could be difficult. See, this one’s is already beginning to be destroyed bit by bit.”

  Simply put, we were investigating to see if we could find any valid uses for a wild beast like the troll. It was the same as the ivory from elephants and the skins of tigers. As long as we found a use for them, they would no longer be considered mere wild beasts.

  My assistant quickly wrote on a piece of parchment using a quill to calculate out the equivalent market value of each substance we discovered. If the sum of those values crossed a certain line, this would be a success.

  “This looks like it will work out well. The total amount comes out to 10,000 platinum. The scale of risks and merits is clearly tilted in our direction.”

  “By the way, remind me what we came up with for the hellhounds from last month.”

  “Their skins and fangs. They are quite useful militarily, so they are quite popular with weapon shops and the knights.”

  “I see. That’s a relief. These uses won’t be competing with them.”

  Coming up with a use for Wild Beast A was difficult enough, but if it conflicted with the use for Wild Beast B, the future value of Wild Beast B would drop. Then the number of people attacking Wild Beast B would drop and Wild Beast B’s population would grow to dangerous levels again.

  Oh.

  I may have given the answer in that explanation.

  “…It’s the same as tigers and elephants. The one is one of the strongest carnivorous beasts. The other is an herbivorous animal large enough to be used as a tank. However, people look at them in a different light when it comes to their skins or the ivory from their tusks. That is why they have been hunted to near extinction,” said my assistant as she used the quill to brush dust off of her clothes. “There are a limited number of knights, so if they are charged with exterminating wild beasts, they cannot hold neighboring kingdoms in check as well. So basically we just need to create a reason for the seemingly infinite masses to fight them.”

  “It is us humans who are always throwing off the balance of the food chain.”

  “But if they have the strength to do that, why don’t they just exterminate them in the first place?”

  “That’s just how humans are. The way of the world is to pretend to be weak so you can enjoy receiving the services society provides. No one will ever think to risk their life when it doesn’t benefit them any. The people who do think that way are the ones who end up being knights or mercenaries.”

  All that was left for us to do was to use the lives of the greedy masses to drive the troll population to the brink of extermination.

  Whether the trolls actually went extinct or began being treated as “protected monsters” would be up to the king and the nobles. However, I doubted they would give them protected status. Mermaids and elves were one thing, but trolls were ugly.

  “Human desire is a frightening thing.”

  “But it is that desire that has allowed us to advance this far,” I said as I wrote our results in the form of an itemized list on a piece of parchment. “Plenty of other animals and monsters can speak and perform calculations. They can even be creative. I can think of only one reason why humans have risen so far above all those others.”

  “And what is that?”

  “The overwhelming variety of our desires. Compared to those others, ours are just off the charts.”

  I did not think it would be a pure hero who would defeat the demon king army in the end. No matter how high your fixed parameters were, a human without desires would have no ambition. Simply put, they would level up much too slowly.

  I found the masses who surrounded the hero and were always complaining and going along with each new fad to be much more frightening.

  I found them more frightening than the hero and maybe even more than the demon king.

  One month later, the court academic laboratory received an interim report.

  “Professor! The troll population is continuing to grow! Instead of poaching or excessively hunting the trolls, the stupid masses are scattering food for them!!”

  “Damn…”

  “They have found it to be more efficient to have the trolls vomit up stomach acid while alive than to kill them and take it from their corpse. Also, the trolls’ livers regenerate quickly, so they can cut out a portion and then let them loose once more. The trolls will regenerate the missing portion in a surprisingly short time!! Wh-what do we do, professor!? The troll population is growing like crazy!! Don’t they know what will happen to the fortress city if the population keeps growing!?”

  “Human desire really is the scariest thing of all.”

  After Finishing the Survey

  Okay, thank you.

  I will
now be taking up the surveys. Could you pass them up to the front?

  Oh, you want to know what purpose this had?

  Well, you can’t change your answers now, so I guess I can tell you.

  These short films featured many different characters. I think you have now ranked them according to their words and actions.

  Did you think of it as rating the characters as you went through?

  However…

  This survey had one other reason.

  Every one of you will have had felt different things about each character. That is clear just by looking at the numbers you have used to rank them on your surveys. A miraculous coincidence like ranking them in the exact same order as someone else is possible and it could also happen due to copying someone else’s answers, but if you answered honestly, you should all have very scattered results.

  But what do those scattered results mean?

  You know the answer to that, don’t you?

  This is not an issue of personal tastes or what rouses your interests. Those things are only what is on the surface. Bring to your mind the order you gave the films in your survey. What did you like? What did you not like? An image of the personality that made those decisions to classify the short films should appear from the string of numbers.

  That personality describes the character known as “you”.

  Now then.

  What kind of character is the “you” that “you” have brought to the surface? If it is the type of character that could have enjoyably and attractively taken part in these short films without driving down their quality, you will surely live an enjoyable life. In fact, you have constructed a character that brings an enjoyable life to him or herself.

  If not, well…don’t worry.

  These are merely the numbers “you” have given for the character known as “you”. Someone else is almost sure to rate “you” in a completely different way.

  Yes.

  Just like how everyone rates the short films of this survey differently.

  Introduction to the Participants

  “…up. Hey, wake up.”

  “Gh…?”

  A girl’s sweet (but somewhat accented) voice stabbed into Anzai Kyousuke’s ears, so he raised his head. He felt a dull pain in his forehead where it had been pressing against the table.

  (Where-…? Why am I in a university auditorium?)

  As his half-asleep head began functioning, his consciousness finally came into focus with reality.

  “Oh, right. I was taking some survey, and the professor went on talking too long…”

  “Don’t do that. You should listen to the very end.”

  “?”

  “It’s like meeting a small baby at the coin locker and falling asleep before you can be told ‘It’s you!’.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about…”

  Anzai looked around as he spoke.

  That strange professor was no longer on the auditorium’s large stage. In fact, most of the 20-30 people gathered for the survey were gone. It was just him, the girl who had woken him up, and three other girls gathered a bit away.

  Anzai guessed the girls had stayed behind talking after the survey had ended.

  “It must be dark outside by now,” said the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl who had woken him. “We’re about to leave, but what about you?”

  “…What about locking up the building?”

  “I don’t know. The professor who ran the survey would be in charge of that, right? He gave his speech and then left. Do you think we should speak with the old guy in the office?”

  “I guess you’re right.” Anzai stood up and yawned. He grabbed his small bag that had bare minimum of school supplies inside. “We can just leave that to the professor. I wonder if the coffee shop is still open.”

  “Oh, we were just talking about heading somewhere else.”

  Then the three girls who were likely with the blonde girl called over toward them. Naturally, they were calling to the girl, not to Anzai.

  The one who actually called out was a tall girl with long, glossy black hair. She was likely an upperclassman of Anzai’s as he had taken more than one year to get into the university.

  “Harumi, are you still doing that?”

  “Hotaru-san. He says he’ll go with us to the coffee shop.”

  (I never said I would go…)

  They were of course complete strangers, but Anzai had noticed that kind of spontaneous thing happening a lot more frequently once he entered the university. You would hang out with people out of the blue and just as quickly never see them again. In middle and high school, he had always eaten lunch with the same group.

  The mood and atmosphere had caused some kind of chemical change to the situation, but he still felt an odd pressure in being so casually thrown into a group of girls. It was different from meeting someone new one on one.

  A girl who looked more like a cabaret club girl than a college girl seemed to pick up on Anzai’s bewilderment and she smiled. When she spoke, her speech was more polite than her appearance would lead one to expect.

  “See, Harumi? You always get too close to people.”

  “Eh? What are you talking about, Aisu. I don’t have bad breath, so what is the problem?”

  “Sorry. Harumi has very few emotional boundaries. She has no grasp of what an appropriate emotional distance is. But do not think this means she has fallen for you. She is this way with everyone, so you will be in for a shock later if you get it in your head that she is treating you special.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “Just making sure. She managed to get four different stalkers during her middle and high school years. And one of those was her school’s head teacher. That is an amazing high score, don’t you think?”

  (Why do you have to compare me to some stalkers from her past…?)

  Anzai didn’t know what to think about that, but he was not a straightforward enough person to just say it out loud.

  He would not go so far as to say that the world was held together by lies, but he did view the truth as something like a bitter medicine. Those who did not wrap the truth in some sweetness would end up distanced from others due to that bitterness.

  “Why is Kozue hiding behind you, Hotaru-san?” asked the girl named Harumi.

  “She went to a girl’s school all through middle and high school, remember? She’s probably afraid of guys.”

  “Quite the opposite actually. Kozue is the type to attack and then run away when she sees something that scares her. Since she is creating a safe area and carefully watching him, I would say she is quite interested in him.”

  After having all that said about her, the girl named Kozue gave a short but distinct reply.

  “That is not true.”

  “You should be careful. Kozue is the opposite of Harumi. She is the type to start thinking someone is in love with her if he picks up an eraser she dropped.”

  “That is not true.”

  “In fact, even though we are all girls, she had quite an amazing misunderstanding during the first term.”

  “That is not true.”

  “Hey,” said Anzai to Kozue. “Why are you wearing those giant headphones? How can you hear us with those on?”

  “That is her style of fashion,” cut in the girl with the long black hair who seemed to be named Hotaru. “The cord isn’t connected to anything. The bandages wrapped around her wrists and the ripped stocking on her right leg are the same. They look like they have some kind of meaning, but thinking about it is just a waste of time.”

  “Hey, I told you she was dangerous! Look, she is looking over all wide-eyed because some stupid guy has taken an interest in her outfit!! If you do not run away too, Hotaru, you will fall victim to her razor as well!!”

  “Th-that is not true!!”

  “Hey, let’s go to the coffee shop already!”

  At the unreliable-looking Harumi’s insistence, they left the auditori
um. At some point, Anzai had become surrounded, so it was easier to just go along with them.

  It happened with a rather arbitrary feeling.

  It happened with a feeling of “Well, whatever”.

  Anzai reflected on the fact that he had rarely experienced that kind of feeling in middle or high school. Back then, he had thought having to repeat a year would put hundreds of cracks into his life, so this was quite a change.

  It was pitch black outside and the air was filled with a chilliness that had not been present at the time of the afternoon lectures.

  Outside lights were installed here and there, but there were not enough of them to help much. Despite being on the grounds of a national educational institution, the area had a fairly low crime rate.

  “What time is it?”

  “7:30. What happened to your cell phone, Harumi?”

  “The battery died.”

  “…The coffee shop should still be open if it’s before 8 right?”

  “It makes no sense. That chain has shops in 30 countries, so they must have standard operating hours. They should not be able to close up shop just because there is a temporary lull in customers after 8.”

  “This is a university campus, so they do not get customers from elsewhere. I think they were staying open for 5 more hours with no one coming by, so they have altered their hours to match the school events.”

  “What is it, boy? You have not said anything for a while.”

  Kozue’s oddly distinct voice turned the focus to Anzai, but he simply did not see anywhere to fit into the conversation. How was he supposed to enter into an already completed circle of friends?

  At a group party where half a circle met with another half a circle, he would at least have an opening.

  “I am glad you are here,” said the (tanned) cabaret club girl with the modern-sounding name of Aisu.

  “Why?” replied Anzai.

  “I want to ask your opinion about that strange survey. Speaking about it in just our group is fine, but people in the same group do not have much diversity in their ideas. I wanted to get the opinion of someone outside of our group.”