Outbreak Company: Volume 14

by Ichiro Sakaki

  I jumped up from my chair and headed straight for the door. I already had a hand on it when I froze.

  The whole reason I was still healthy was because I hadn’t taken a single step outside my room. So if I went through this door, what then? Whatever this bug was, it was so infectious that everyone else in the house had caught it. I might catch it, too. From a safety standpoint, maybe it was best for me to stay shut up in here.

  “But...”

  Could I really live with myself if I didn’t do anything? If I just abandoned everybody? Maybe they were all down with fevers. Maybe they were in pain. Maybe they were suffering.

  Myusel. Petralka. Elvia. Minori-san. Hikaru-san.

  Out of concern for me, locked away in my room, they had tried everything to get me outside—holding a barbecue, even setting up a special MMO just for us. Myusel had dutifully brought me my meals every day, even though I never opened the door. Petralka could be prickly sometimes, but she could also be as innocent and lovely as a child. And Elvia—she could go a little over-the-top sometimes, but I found her generous spirit really comforting.

  There was Minori-san, who, at the end of the day, was dedicated to keeping me safe. And I couldn’t forget...

  “..................”

  Uhhh.

  Well.

  I liked Hikaru-san’s.......... I liked Hikaru-san. Pretty much. I guess.

  In any event, images of each of their smiling faces flashed through my mind (yes, including Hikaru-san’s taunting grin). It tore me up inside to think they might be suffering. It hurt so bad.

  “Brace yourself, Kanou Shinichi,” I told myself, and clenched my fists. You’re the only one who can help them. The only one who can save them. If you abandon them to this plague, you’ll be forever doomed to know you’re a coward, a weakling, a yellow-bellied, lily-livered scaredy-cat!

  ............

  “Pfft, yeah, right,” I mumbled, even as I put my hand on the doorknob. The whole fired-up-hero thing didn’t really work for me. “If nothing else... I can stay in here, but I guess Myusel won’t be around to bring me my food. I’d just starve to death.”

  So I could come out now, or I could come out days from now. And if I waited until I was weak with hunger, it would be too late. I had to move while I still had the energy and the stamina. If I acted now, there might be something I could do for the girls (plus Hikaru-san).

  I steeled myself, opened the door, and walked out into the hallway.

  Outside my room, it was dead silent.

  Our mansion was a pretty big place. So big that even with all of us in there, there were still plenty of rooms we didn’t use. My family’s house in Japan was a four-bedroom home, and it probably would have fit in here several times over.

  As big as this place was, though, it never felt oppressively quiet. There were always people around, and if you listened closely enough, you could almost always hear someone in another room. It felt very lived-in. Even when I snuck to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I knew there were people there.

  But now... Now, I couldn’t sense anyone at all from the hallway. It was like walking through an abandoned building. It wasn’t dark—there were electric lights and a few lamps for good measure—but it was unnaturally quiet, and I thought I felt a chill.

  I’d never been in a house quite like this before. I swallowed in spite of myself. Come to think of it, it had been quite a while since I’d left my room for anything except a midnight bath.

  Look to the right. Look to the left. Then I closed the door behind me, deciding to go to Hikaru-san’s room. He was the first to drop out of contact, and his room was right next to mine—both good reasons to start there, but the truth is, I really picked it because Myusel was there.

  Myusel carried the spare keys for each of our rooms. As long as Hikaru-san hadn’t locked his door from the inside (like I had done while I was being a shut-in), Myusel wouldn’t have had any trouble getting in. If they’d both collapsed from illness, at least his door ought to be open. And if I could actually join forces with Myusel, we would be able to get into the other rooms.

  The thoughts raced through my head. For some reason, it scared me not to have sound logic for whatever I was doing. Otherwise, I was afraid I would make a wrong move, and end up looking back and wishing I had done something differently. Of course, if I was so worried about regret, I suppose one could suggest that I shouldn’t have shut myself up in my room to begin with.

  But anyway...

  As I walked along, I found myself trying not to breathe. In this too-quiet house, the sound of my own breath seemed weirdly loud. And if there were an airborne pathogen hanging around, it might be best not to breathe too deep, or anyway, so I thought.

  Just to be safe, I held a tissue that I had grabbed from my room over my mouth. I seemed to remember that tissues had first been mass-produced during World War I, to be used as filters in gas masks, but that after the war they were turned into a general consumer item. I also seemed to recall, though, that it was questionable how much they actually kept viruses or bacteria from getting into your mouth.

  Before long, I was standing in front of Hikaru-san’s room. The door was open, sure enough, but only slightly ajar. It wasn’t locked.

  I decided to see if anyone was in there before I burst in. “Myusel? Hikaru-san?” But there was no response.

  I got up my nerve and put a hand on the door. That hesitation I felt must have come from the fear. What if I opened the door and discovered the worst? But when I really thought about it, I wasn’t even sure what “the worst” would be. If Myusel and Hikaru-san really were out cold in there, I would be glad I had found them sooner rather than later. But they wouldn’t have both just dropped dead... I didn’t think.

  Right?

  After a lengthy pause, I nudged open the door and peeked inside.

  “Wha...?”

  The room was... empty.

  Not empty of stuff, I mean. The closet was still full, and the sewing machine, bed, and desk were all still there. Hikaru-san’s laptop, which had put itself into sleep mode, was open on the desk, and a half-drunk cup of tea sat beside it, but Hikaru-san himself was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Myusel, who had supposedly come in here.

  Had Hikaru-san had to leave his room urgently for some reason? And then maybe Myusel had shown up, discovered he wasn’t there, and went off looking for him?

  “But what on earth could have...?” I mumbled, scanning the room once more, just to be extra sure Hikaru-san and Myusel weren’t hiding in the wardrobe or under the desk or something. Then I went back to the hall.

  Next up, Myusel’s room. That was downstairs. The creaking of the staircase didn’t usually bother me, but now it seemed portentous and eerie, and once I was downstairs I hurried to Myusel’s room as quickly as I could. Maybe she had brought Hikaru-san there to give him first aid. And then maybe she had started to feel ill herself and collapsed.

  When I got to Myusel’s door, it was the same thing: cracked open, a little space between the door and the wall.

  “Myusel!” Gripped by a wave of foreboding, I bounded into Myusel’s room without a second thought. But...

  “Huh?”

  There was nobody there. Again.

  On the desk, there were two laptops, power still on.

  Huh? Two laptops? Why two of them?

  Then it hit me: the other one was for Petralka to use. A glance at the screens confirmed my suspicions. The computer on the left showed a window centered on the avatar GalGaiGar, while the computer on the right was centered on Miyuu.

  Petralka didn’t have a room of her own in our mansion. She must have settled in her friend Myusel’s room to play the game. But... that meant Petralka was gone, too. In fact, I didn’t even see any trace of the royal guards, who were supposed to stay close to her at all times. They weren’t usually in the same room, but they would always be somewhere they could show up in an instant—like the hallway outside, say.

  “What’s goin
g on...?”

  Seriously, what was this?

  I could feel my mind starting to go to some dark places. “Stay calm, Kanou Shinichi!” I urged myself before the gloom could get a grip on me, and headed for the next room. That would be Elvia’s. I went down the hallway, up the stairs, and arrived at her room, running all the way. There was no time for a nice, calm walk anymore.

  “Elvia! Are you there?!” I shouted, even as I pushed on the door. But this room was still locked, and the door didn’t budge. I pounded on it, but there was no answer from inside. I pressed my ear to the door, straining to hear even the smallest sound, but there was nothing. I didn’t even get the sense that there was anyone in there. “Elvia...”

  The last message she had sent flashed through my mind.

  Elvia: “Itchy. Tasty.”

  No. It couldn’t be.

  The mysterious words. The meaningless adjectives.

  It was almost like she had lost her mind. Like her rational faculties had abandoned her. It was eerily similar—in fact identical—to a diary entry from a certain horror game, an entry penned by someone writing his last words as a terrifying virus turned him into a slavering monster.

  An illness of unknown origin. Here in another world. Meaning...

  “Grr...!”

  With the door locked, I had no way to see what was inside. I wouldn’t learn anything new just standing here. I turned to strike out for the last room—Minori-san’s. Immediately after which...

  “Eeyikes?!”

  Everything around me went dark, and I stumbled to the ground in a heap. Luckily, I was able to curl up so I didn’t hit anything too vulnerable too hard, but with no light to see by, I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t injured. There were still lamps burning in the hallway, but they didn’t give nearly enough light to chase away the darkness that had settled over the mansion.

  Electricity for the house was provided by the solar- and wind-power generators over by the school, along with a large battery. Did that mean the power line from there to here had been cut? But why so suddenly? And would it really be so easy to cut a power line that only went directly from point A to point B?

  “Hrk...” I stood up, feeling a dull pain in a few places around my body. In Japan, street lamps and twenty-four-hour convenience stores gave most places a healthy glow even in the middle of the night, but here in Eldant, the night darkness was of a different magnitude. The light of the lamps was just a flicker against it, not even enough to tell exactly what was going on around you. Although it would at least enable you to walk once your eyes adjusted.

  I reached into my pocket, thinking I could use the flashlight on my phone. But I guess in my rush, I had left my phone in my room. No choice. I would just have to walk very carefully.

  I was still completely befuddled about what could be happening. I decided to start by trying to get to the storage shed where we kept the emergency lights and flashlights. Even if I went to Minori-san’s room right now, I wouldn’t be able to see anything.

  The human body is a mysterious thing: when you no longer have your vision to rely on, your hearing becomes startlingly acute. I could hear my own breathing, my footsteps, my clothing rustling as I walked. Every sound seemed inordinately loud to me. Maybe it was the fear that made my mouth feel so dry with every breath. I found myself panting, like an animal. My heart seemed to be going way faster than necessary, and I wished it would slow down.

  “Wait...”

  I detected a noise, but I wasn’t the one who had made it. I stopped and listened. It sounded like... footsteps. But it wasn’t. It was just a scraping, like the sound of a hard-soled shoe against wooden floorboards. It was accompanied by a creaking noise, and even what sounded like something soft being dragged along.

  What was this?

  What was this what was this what was this?!

  My bad feeling got a lot worse. The sound rounded the corner of the hallway and started coming toward me. Something was approaching in the dark. A shape so huge it nearly filled the hallway, shambling slowly toward me.

  “Heeek...?!”

  I have to run.

  I had the thought, but my body was rooted to the spot and refused to move.

  Everyone was gone. The lights were out. And a dark shadow was dragging something toward me through the murk.

  What is going on in this mansion?

  What had happened out here while I was shut away in my room? Was this really all because of that epidemic? Or... was this the true face of the illness? This was an entirely separate world. A fantasy land of magic and elves and dragons. Why should I expect a sickness here to look anything like anything I was used to in Japan? Diseases here might be completely different.

  They might turn you into a monster, for example. Or they might cause your desiccated corpse to wander around after you were gone.

  “Oh... God...”

  Magic, I thought desperately. I raised my right hand, but I was shaking so hard I could barely say the words. It was probably for the best. I was trapped in an enclosed space; busting out Tifu Murottsu here would probably take me down along with whatever that thing was.

  At last the dark shape emerged into the lamplight, revealing itself. It had to be less than three meters away...!

  “Yaaaaaargh!” Instead of a spell, I let out a scream.

  Crap, I’m gonna die!

  “Oh, hullo, Master. Come out of your room?”

  “Aaaaahh—huh?”

  I blinked at the familiar voice. Then I took another, closer look at what was standing there in the hazy light of the lamp. It was a bipedal creature covered in scales. To a modern Japanese, it—no, he—probably looked like the very picture of an inhuman monster, but he could use tools and even speak. He was very much considered a person in this world. He was a lizardman.

  “Brooke...?”

  “Yessir.”

  “And Cerise-san...”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Standing in front of me were the lizardman couple that lived in this house: Brooke, the gardener, and his wife Cerise-san, who was now one of our maids. I knew them perfectly well, but when they walked together, their shadows melded into each other and looked like some other, even bigger and more terrifying beast.

  “G-Geez, wow...” I felt myself go weak, and finally just sat down right there on the floor.

  That’s right. There were two residents of this mansion I hadn’t been accounting for. Our lizardmen didn’t live in the main house—it was more convenient for them to stay in a separate building—so I very rarely saw them around the mansion after dinner, let alone in the middle of the night. And they didn’t use computers, so I hadn’t spoken a word to them for two entire weeks. I had practically forgotten about them.

  “Are you all right, sir?” Cerise-san said, reaching out to help me up.

  “Thanks...” I took her hand and stood unsteadily. That was when I spotted Cerise-san’s tail, a distinctive feature of lizardman physiology, behind her. That would explain the dragging noise I’d heard. Plus, the two normally went around barefoot, which was why I hadn’t heard any shoes.

  I tried to consciously slow my heart, still pounding with the lingering adrenaline, but I had never been so relieved to run into some friendly faces.

  “W-Wait,” I said, “you two are okay?!”

  “Sir...?” Cerise-san said.

  “Shouldn’t we be?” Brooke asked.

  The two of them weren’t very expressive, but by the tone of their voices and the way their tongues slid in and out of their mouths, I could take a good guess at how they were feeling. Right now, they seemed to be surprised.

  “I mean... the sickness... Everyone else...”

  They had all collapsed and disappeared. I thought...

  “Sickness, sir?” Brooke said. He looked at his wife.

  “You know, I did hear something about an outbreak in the vicinity of the castle,” she said. Apparently they were both feeling perfectly normal. I guess whatever this thing was, it didn’t affect
lizardmen. Or maybe...

  “Hang on... Wait a second,” I said, almost to myself.

  Had everyone really collapsed from illness? Even if they had all been infected, would they really all succumb at the same time, in the same way, in less than an hour? And with no warning at all?

  Obviously, I had only seen Myusel and the others online, via their avatars, so it was always possible the illness had been steadily progressing as we played. But... would they really be playing a video game if they felt that bad? My head was spinning.

  That was when Brooke said: “By the by, Master, all the others seem to be gathered in the yard. Is something the matter?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Ex-cuse me?

  “Yard” is such a small word, but the one at our mansion was pretty darn big. Just about anything a building wasn’t actively standing on could be considered a yard, so by sheer land area, there was more “yard” than house around here. Some parts of it had neat, geometrical arrangements of flower plots or fountain ponds, but get far enough out and it became hard to tell the so-called yard from the forest beyond. Thanks to Brooke’s consistent hard work, at least it never got to looking like an abandoned lot or anything.

  Now I was behind the house, on the other side from the main gate and entryway. There was a bush, about waist-high... and from behind it came the faint glow of an electric light.

  I got a little closer: it was the monitor of a laptop computer. A tarp had been laid on the ground, under the computer; and I could see several shadows surrounding the machine. It was Myusel, Petralka, Elvia, Minori-san, and Hikaru-san. Not far off, I spotted the royal guard, too.

  And...

  “See, Shinichi-kun went to your room first, right, Hikaru-kun?”

  Minori-san pressed a button on the laptop. Just like she said, the screen showed me leaving my room and heading for Hikaru-san’s. She was obviously playing back a recording from one of the mansion’s cameras.

  “So this indicates that Shinichi considers Hikaru most important of all to him...?”

  “I don’t think so,” Minori-san said with a smile. “He was going to where Myusel was. He knew she’d gone to Hikaru-kun’s room. If he’d thought she was in her own room, I guarantee he would’ve gone there first.”