episode_0100

The first sight that revealed itself as he was carried by a tiered transport device was a blue sky and a vast garden spreading out to the left and right, and straight ahead, paper doors were located at the end of a wooden floor.

Slide.

As if they had been waiting, the paper doors slid open to the left and right, revealing the way.

Behind them, a neat room with tatami mats was visible, and then the paper doors opened again, revealing the next room.

This sight repeated itself several times.

Without a single servant, dozens of rooms with no apparent purpose lined up, in place of a corridor.

“You certainly live in a luxurious place, don’t you?”

“Is that so? Are you perhaps drawn to it?”

“Well… how many people down there have actually seen even the patches of grass scattered here?”

Even a single tile of that fresh green grass, how many credits would it cost, I wonder?

Honestly, in this era where even growing plants is a luxury, it would be a waste of time for someone like me, a mere salaryman, to look into it in detail. From what I’ve vaguely heard, they say that with the meager wages from a black company, if you buy even supplements and whatnot, you’ll go bankrupt in no time.

If there’s a problem, it might be that even being a salaryman is considered a relatively decent income profession in the lower city.

“That’s enough. What’s the point of saying all this? I should just meet the Chairman quickly and go back.”

“The Chairman?”

“Yeah, what else would be the reason I was dragged all the way here? Considering that monster, the ‘Enforcer’ or whatever, kept saying his master was calling for me or something, it must obviously be the Chairman who called. Weren’t you aware of that when you brought me here?”

“Hmm…”

At my words, Hiko looked at me with strange eyes.

A look that seemed to say, ‘That’s not it…’

“What is it? If you have something to say, say it.”

“It’s nothing. More importantly, let’s go quickly.”

As Hiko tugged at his sleeve, urging him on, he moved his feet as if being dragged.

She’s stronger than I thought?

I heard that executives’ families in megacorps, even if they have no particular connection to combat or have escorts, get chrome implants or modifications for self-protection. It seemed Hiko had also undergone such procedures.

As expected of Ayakashi, even that was considerably high-powered.

It’s hard to gauge since she’s not pulling with full force, but wouldn’t it be top-tier even for military use?

“I’ll go on my own, so stop pulling.”

He felt that Hiko, who had suddenly started to look amused, was up to something, but there was no option to go back anyway.

‘When will she answer again?’

He had called out to Martina several times on the way, but still, there was no sign of a response.

Thus, after a long time, he was completely alone again. How many times did they pass through the rooms with opening paper doors?

Hiko and I stopped abruptly at a certain spot.

The 49th room.

In the center of that room, someone sat like a sentinel, guarding the room.

It was an old man, with deep wrinkles and hair completely white, and liver spots blooming on his skin. He appeared to have lived a considerable amount of time.

Hiss.

He was laden with expensive life support devices such as an oxygen supply system, blood circulation auxiliary, atrial compressor, cardiac arrest prevention spark gun, blood waste filter, and so on. He looked like an invalid on the verge of death.

His eyes, sunken and shadowed, were not visible, yet a chilling, sharp gleam flickered from them in the darkness. Though he instinctively knew the old man wouldn’t be able to rise from his seated position, he exuded a terrifying aura that made one feel a sudden chill.

“…Ayakashi Nojaburo.”

Hooosh—

That burning gaze fixed directly on me.

Hostility and murderous intent, clearly felt, along with all sorts of negative emotions.

Right. His identity was Ayakashi Nojaburo.

The current Chairman of Ayakashi, the master of Ayakashi, as the Enforcer had said, and the very person who ‘invited’ me unharmed and intact to Ayakashi.

At the hostility emanating from the master of this colossal megacorp that dominated the world, I awkwardly but fiercely pulled up the corners of my mouth…

“Come on, it’s a waste of time to dawdle, so let’s pass through quickly.”

Hiko, regardless, even though I had met Nojaburo, the reason I came here, grabbed my sleeve and swept past Nojaburo.

“Uh, uh…”

“…”

At the rudeness Hiko, who was at most a relative of an executive, showed Nojaburo, I blinked my eyes.

“What is this? Is he letting it slide because she’s his beloved granddaughter?”

The iron-blooded Chairman of Ayakashi, who was called ‘that goddamn bastard’ instead of his name in the public eye, was actually a doting fool?

While he was still unable to grasp the unfolding situation, Hiko swept past Nojaburo’s side.

“Please… spend your time comfortably…”

The iron-blooded Chairman, Ayakashi Nojaburo, as if suppressing something within him, muttered in a bizarre voice like boiling iron, and touched his forehead to the floor.

For a moment, he refused to understand and process that scene in his mind.

‘A bow? Was that a bow?’

As he blinked frantically, trying to make his brain work at 120% to understand, his body had already passed the room where Ayakashi Nojaburo was, and the paper doors closed, his figure no longer visible.

Trickle-clack.

“Goodness gracious, you truly are a terribly jealous child still.”

The end of the rooms Hiko had brought him through.

The 50th room connected to a veranda, and unlike the barren patches of grass that were separated to the left and right of the rooms, a garden cultivated with bonsai, a pond where water trickled in, and a shishi-odoshi was visible.

“What do you think? It’s embarrassing, but tending to this place is my hobby. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“…Just now, you ignored the Ayakashi Chairman, didn’t you? Showing me that and then asking for my thoughts on the garden, isn’t that a bit too far removed from common sense?”

“Hmph~”

Regardless, Hiko continued to gaze proudly at the garden she had shown him, and spoke on, without erasing the strange smile from her face.

“Whether you’re doing it on purpose or genuinely don’t know… Haven’t you already secretly realized it?”

The princess’s hair swayed.

“Oh, new Zashiki-warashi.”

* * *

Ayakashi, now a world-leading megacorp, is hard to imagine, but just two centuries ago, it was merely an obscure family business known to very few.

Furthermore, the head of the family, who could be called the owner, was not very skillful in business, so in just a few years, it was on the verge of being swallowed up by nearby merchants and disappearing.

The eldest son, who didn’t trust such a head of the family, to restore the declining family fortunes, traveled the country seeking advice from monks said to be spiritual, or collecting strange artifacts.

But could anything possibly be achieved through such superstitions?

No miracles happened, and many family members eventually starved, and the business effectively became as good as dead.

Even at that point, the eldest son remained engrossed in superstitions.

To the eldest son, who was half-mad and had brought in many things called cursed objects or dangerous items and placed them in the house, a foreigner is said to have visited.

The man, who introduced himself as being from America, showed the eldest son a strange object.

A small, squat statue.

Though it was unclear what it depicted, it was an idol with a bizarre appearance, crudely resembling a human.

“Keep this in your house and never lose it.”

After the foreigner delivered these words, he vanished without a trace.

The crazed eldest son cherished that which a normal person would have thrown away in disgust as if it were a treasure… and from that day on, he met a girl he had never seen before in his house.

Strangely, the family fortunes recovered and began to flourish year after year, achieving the feat of dominating the region in just 10 years.

People said that a Zashiki-warashi had settled in the house.

“…What in the.”

To hear a story straight out of a folktale or ghost story, in an era that would soon be the 22nd century.

As if reading my expression, a grinning Hiko sat down on a cushion.

“Whether that being truly is a Zashiki-warashi is unknown. However, they decided to believe that being was a Zashiki-warashi, and I, too, am living up to that expectation. So what does it matter?”

“…”

“There’s a sequel to this story. The eldest son fell in love with the Zashiki-warashi who had revived his family business, and they married. The eldest son, already middle-aged at the time, returned to dust 10 years later, and the Zashiki-warashi who married the eldest son also vanished without a trace and never reappeared.”

He simply decided to listen to the story, however absurd it sounded.

The secret origin story of Ayakashi, no less!

Although it’s called a free world, in reality, the net is a place where information is buried under the control of megacorps and waves of malicious advertisements. Someone wouldn’t allow something like that to become known.

“Perhaps it’s fortunate. The eldest son had a few children, who inherited the blood of the unidentified Zashiki-warashi, a being whose very existence was uncertain…”

Hiko seemed to decide to skip a few stories, and continued with a brief silence.

About a minute, perhaps.

She began to speak with words that seemed to indicate a considerable amount of time had passed.

“Sadly, that bloodline was on the verge of dying out. Though there’s no way to prove if it had any meaning or not, to Ayakashi, which had dragged countless lives beneath the surface and become a collection of water ghosts [a metaphor for an entity that has destroyed many lives to climb to power], that didn’t matter. Dojun, if you were told that a liquor existed whose chemical structure was perfectly replicated by technology, like brandy made by fermenting fruit, distilling it, and then aging it for a long time in wooden barrels, a liquor that contained no fruit, let alone distillation or fermentation, but was perfectly identical to the real thing, would you consider it brandy?”

“…”

If it could be made perfectly identical to the real thing through chemical processes, should it be considered real? Or is it still fake?

It seemed like a considerably difficult question.

“…If what you’re trying to express is brandy, then assuming it’s truly perfectly identical, can’t it be considered real? What’s the meaning of distinguishing it in the first place…”

At his answer, Hiko’s gentle yet eerie red eyes sparkled, and she smiled faintly.

“Indeed. To introduce myself once more, my name is Ayakashi Hiko, and my position is Zabutong. As the master of Ayakashi, I am simply pleased. You, who share the same blood as I.”

This girl in front of him was just like him.