As the helicopter touched down, the sound of its rotors gradually subsided.
At their feet spread a landing platform built from a combination of metal and syntax formulas.
A faint resonant hum trembled up through the soles of their feet, announcing that they had arrived in a place clearly different from the outside world.
“Phew… the wind stopped.”
“In this place, even the wind can’t pass through without permission.”
Senano said it jokingly as she stepped out of the helicopter first.
Following after her, Ei carefully placed one foot forward at a time.
Kaien City.
It was a place cut off from the world, built for the sake of accepting things that lay outside the logic of humanity.
What stood before them was one of the Geien Gates that connected to the middle-tier urban district, a dedicated route for passing through the syntax barrier.
On both sides of the gate stood expressionless guards in a row.
Senano already knew they were the sort of people who never cared much for idle chatter, but even so, the air felt strangely tense.
She could sense that their gazes were not fixed on her, but on the one beside her.
That was only natural. The being standing beside Senano right now had been specially transported here as a calamity-lord-class pseudo-medium.
“Don’t stand there spacing out. Come on already, Ei.”
“Ah, yes!”
She called out to Ei, who was staring up at the gate with his mouth hanging open, then moved forward as if ignoring the stares.
As for Ei, he looked around curiously and passed through the gate like a child who had come sightseeing.
“Amazing… this whole place is hidden from the sky, isn’t it?”
In this place, where something like a deep mist covered the heavens, not even a fragment of blue sky could be seen.
Even so, it was still bright enough to recognize that it was daytime.
“That’s right. It’s a city ordinary people can’t see. It doesn’t exist on any map, either.”
Beyond the gate, a white-paved lane stretched gently onward.
Very few people knew that it was not merely painted white, but functioned as syntax itself.
Ahead of them lay an uncanny cityscape, with unmanned transport vehicles, flowerbeds enclosed by syntax barriers, ritual towers and prayer devices, and syntax pillars arranged at equal intervals, not surveillance cameras, but emotion-detecting ones.
This was a place where only special people lived.
It was the chosen dwelling place of those who lived between bonds.
“…Somehow, the air feels heavy. But I don’t hate it.”
“Really? Once you get used to it, it’s surprisingly comfortable. Though there’s nothing but weirdos here.”
A smile rose to Senano’s lips, but for just an instant, her eyes lifted toward the city’s upper levels.
Some of the observation towers were surely already under the watch of the Upper-Level Surveillance Bureau.
There was no way they would overlook Ei’s arrival.
“The room I’m taking you to from here was prepared just for you. It’s probably bigger than my old room was. And sturdier, too.”
“Senano-san is going to live there with me too, right? I always dreamed of having a sleepover with a friend.”
Ei clapped his hands happily, then shyly covered his mouth.
“Ah, I’m so sorry. I got a little too excited… ehehe, this is embarrassing.”
“…If I were a man, that would’ve been dangerous. …Hm? Or is it the other way around?”
Blushing red with embarrassment, Ei casually reached out and pinched the sleeve of Senano’s clothes.
Feeling something strangely soft in that gesture, Senano pressed a hand to her head, as if she were about to become even more confused.
(He really does look like a girl, no matter how you look at him! No, but I saw it earlier… I’ve got to get used to this already…)
Ei was a man.
Whenever she tried to consciously recognize that fact, her brain became confused as though it had been struck by an attack from an Aberrant Entity.
(His sense of distance is a problem too. And besides, he smells really good, like nothing I’ve ever smelled before.)
That calming scent she had noticed from the moment she first met Ei, something like flowers and also very much like incense, had by now become so closely linked in her mind that simply smelling it was enough to connect it directly to Ei.
“Anyway, just don’t get separated and make sure you stay with me. If you get lost, that won’t be a joke.”
“Yes!”
Ei answered energetically, like a child heading off on a field trip.
Then he suddenly turned around, looked up as if gazing at the sky, and murmured this.
“…I can still see it from here after all. Osora-sama looks happy.”
A chilly breeze ran down Senano’s spine.
Was he saying that the sky was smiling above this city?
“…I see. Then I’m sure today will be a good day.”
She answered quietly, and this time Senano lightly tugged on Ei’s sleeve.
So that he would not look up at the sky any longer.
Welcome, calamity-lord-class.
Welcome to the city of calamity and Enri.
And so, with the unknown key called Ei in tow, the balance of Kaien City began to tilt ever so slightly.
■
So this is Kaien City, huh. This is getting me fired up!
『Welcome. I don’t come here very often myself, but well, it’s a nice place. When I see fragile humans trying their very best to resist us, they’re so adorable it makes me want to Ten’i them!』
Sora had been by my side the whole time.
Naturally, even when I got on the helicopter.
But this one told me to look at the blue sky outside the window, so I obediently did something completely pointless.
『Please absolutely don’t. I’d really hate to get a bad ending the moment I arrive.』
Run, Kaien City.
The final-boss-looking thing just walked right into your headquarters.
And it’s striding right down the middle of the road!
『Ah, look! Those syntax pillars lined up over there. They’re designed so that if an Aberrant Entity escapes, it’ll be detected right away.』
In the direction Sora pointed, strange objects like mechanical sotoba stood at even intervals like streetlights.
(TL Note: a sotoba is a wooden tablet placed near graves. Check it out in google images.)
『Doesn’t that react to us?』
『I have always been there. So there is nothing for it to react to. For that thing, the normal state is that I am present.』
『I see…』
No good. She’s looking at this place completely like it’s some kind of playground.
I was hoping maybe I’d get saved somehow, but there’s no way I’m getting saved at this rate.
When I first saw this city, I was deeply moved.
This bizarre city, where machinery and the supernatural were all mixed together, fulfilled every condition of the kind of fictional city I’d dreamed about over and over.
I wish I’d been born in a fantasy city with this kind of cluttered structure from the start…
“You don’t have to look around that much. You’ll be able to see as much of it as you want from now on.”
“That’s true… ah, if it’s alright, would you go for a walk around the city with me later?”
“I don’t mind.”
In front of Senano-chan, I’m acting like an innocent, pure, beautiful girl♂.
That’s only because I’ve got acting direction coming from behind me.
『Ei, that was excellent. Right now, Ei is exactly a heroine. You’re so cute it makes me want to Ten’i you this instant!』
If I obey, I die. If I resist, I die.
What the hell am I supposed to do here?
“…Also, you’d better not talk to the other people too much. There are some weird ones among them. At the very least, if you’re going to talk to anyone, do it when I’m with you. Otherwise I won’t be able to protect you.”
“You’ll protect me?”
“Of course I will.”
Senano-chan…
Then save me right now…
Or better yet, give me the strongest NARROW that can punish Sora…
『Yes, yes, making this human the protagonist-position really was the correct choice after all.』
Even though she’s showing this much interest, the fact that this higher being still keeps calling me by my species name is terrifying.
More than that, what even am I, the one getting called Ei?
Being treated specially is terrifying too.
『Ei, just because your appearance resembles a manga heroine, that doesn’t mean you should casually be made into one, alright? Content is something to be enjoyed by role, not by appearance, like this.』
『Yessir.』
『By protecting Ei, this human acquires value. Let us raise that value together, shall we?』
Maybe the scariest part is that the reason I’m still alive is because I’m content.
Right now, the only thing I could do was pray that Sora wouldn’t end up liking the kind of story where every single character dies.