There was a reason I set the meeting place for Shinjuku at noon.
Now that Lord <Storm Coffin> was missing, I wanted to get a look at the situation in western Tokyo.
And honestly, there were more dangerous-looking people around than before. The obvious ones were the Heroes walking around with swords hanging from their belts. Their eyes were savage, and they all had this vaguely gloomy presence about them.
Then there were the Demon King servants.
Those people always moved in groups of about five, huddled together as if they were afraid of something. They were probably carrying handguns for self-defense at least. With Lord <Storm Coffin> gone, the area around the station had become a power vacuum, and some kind of conflict was breaking out every day. Even while I was watching, servants of what were probably two different Demon Kings glared each other down and nearly turned it into a brawl.
The police did not get involved in trouble like this.
It was outside their jurisdiction.
Trouble involving Demon Kings and Heroes was supposedly handled by the Japanese Ministry of Education. They were the people raising Heroes at the <Academy> in cooperation with the <Round Table Foundation>. They were also the agency that had secured the rights and legal control over <E3> faster than anyone else.
At the moment, they had branches—or really, local outposts—all over Japan, except in certain regions that were in a state of civil war, and they deployed civilian Heroes there. Those Heroes were apparently named <Unranked Sword Officers>, after a Meiji-era post, and were paid reasonably well.
That said, they were lagging badly when it came to securing personnel, and they did not have the resources to patrol and guard an area that had become this much of a battlefield. As a result, the only things they could crack down on were daytime skirmishes like this.
That day, in front of Shinjuku Station on the main street, Heroes dressed in stupid-looking green uniforms yelled at the Demon King servants who had nearly started a fight and scattered them. I watched it through the window of the family restaurant where we were meeting, half asleep.
That was when Yukine Indo arrived.
“Katsudon.”
She mercilessly declared her order to the menu.
“And chicken pilaf and Japanese-style hamburger steak. Prosciutto salad. Cheesecake. And the self-serve drink bar.”
After reciting that much without the slightest hesitation, Indo finally confirmed her order.
I regretted everything. Apparently, I had underestimated Indo.
This is a necessary expense, I told myself. Today I had made Indo skip school and called her out here. She arrived wearing a white coat over her school uniform, carrying a schoolbag that looked weirdly heavy, and fired off rapid declarations that she was hungry and that her appetite wanted everything it wanted.
About fifteen minutes passed after that.
While Indo ate with single-minded focus, I did not even have an opening to get to the point.
“It took a little work to slip out of school,” she claimed.
“The <Academy> has been strict lately.”
“They had a suspicious person break in very recently.”
That part, at least, made sense to me.
“And things have been dangerous lately.”
“Yeah.”
Indo gave a tiny nod and opened her mouth wide. I had no idea where that small body kept that kind of storage capacity, but she buried the cheesecake in one strike. What the hell kind of stomach and chewing power was that?
“Seems like a lot is happening. Is there going to be a war?”
“Wouldn’t be strange if there was. Some people are happy about it. They say it’s time to make money.”
When I answered, Indo looked at my face for just an instant. But she said nothing and drained her oolong tea.
“Thank you for the meal.”
“Was it good?”
“It was all right—oh, no.”
Indo’s expression did not move. Still, it looked as if she lowered her head slightly. Or maybe she had just tilted it.
“It was very good.”
“Good for you. Shit.”
I had only ordered the drink bar. One way or another, I needed to recover information equal to this expense. Information about what Yukine Indo knew. I had no time to waste.
“So. You ate. Now you answer. I’m going straight to the point.”
I looked straight at Indo’s expressionless face.
“You came from the military, didn’t you?”
I had expected that much. Indo’s combat technique and behavioral principles felt like they were built on military training. One of the people who came and went from Ed Silas’s bar had been in special forces, so I had some idea. He had been a knife expert too.
“Yeah.”
Indo confirmed my guess without resistance.
“I was with Northern Bonfire.”
“That. What exactly is it?”
I had looked into that term a little. The truth was, I had learned nothing. Even Ed Silas had only tilted his head. Which meant it was probably not some ordinary underworld term, but something more military and classified.
That was my theory.
“The unit you belonged to, or something?”
“Mmm.”
Indo hummed faintly.
“I’m not sure.”
“Are you screwing with me?”
“I think so. Probably. Everyone was brothers and sisters. Because none of us had any other family. They picked me up there.”
Indo’s voice dropped by the faintest degree.
“Our job was to travel around, light bonfires, and watch the north.”
With that, I mostly understood.
The far north. That was what she meant.
They called it the <Black Territory>.
As things stood, the Japanese government could not exactly claim to have sufficient control over the excessive number of Demon Kings inside the country. In particular, around the northern half of Hokkaido, there were even districts where powerful Demon Kings had gone and declared “independent cities” or “states” on their own.
There were mercenaries who saw defending Japanese citizens from those people—not that “defending citizens” was really the point—as a business opportunity. Hero mercenaries who used <E3>. Their number was not small. They received money from Hokkaido municipalities and the Japanese government, then patrolled and watched the northern <Black Territory>.
If they called themselves <Northern Bonfire>, that made sense. And according to rumors, the mercenaries in the north sometimes picked up and raised war orphans.
So that was Indo.
But there were odd points too. Why was Indo the only one from that unit here? Would a war orphan raised by a mercenary unit go out of her way to leave the group where she had grown up? Especially a girl with Indo’s personality?
When I thought that far, something suddenly occurred to me.
“Nephilim.”
I repeated the word. Indo’s brow moved just slightly.
Bull’s-eye.
“You called that monster by that name.”
“Yeah. Because they’re enemies.”
Indo’s answer was so clear and concise that it was very hard to understand. Which still made her several levels better than Shirogamine, but I had to wait for her explanation.
“Sometimes we ran into monsters like that. I thought they were like bears. They almost never came close to human settlements.”
“Did you fight them?”
“The adult teams did. Sometimes. I only saw the corpses.”
The adults.
Indo had probably been a real child back then. She had received combat training, but she had not been old enough to be counted as a proper member.
“Then one day, that thing—those things came. Our unit fought. But they were strong, and back then, I was still weak. I wasn’t supposed to fight.”
Indo’s explanation grew halting. Even so, she looked straight at me. It seemed like there was something she wanted to tell me, but since I could not read other people’s minds, I had no way to know.
“My role was to take the little ones and run.”
“That’s an important role.”
“Yeah.”
I could see Indo bite her lip. She almost looked away from me, but in the end, she kept her gaze fixed straight ahead and continued. It looked less like she was seeing me than some point behind me.
“I failed.” You are reading on g.com, the official source.
“Hey.”
“It was the other way around. I got protected.”
“Wait.”
“When they caught up to us, I couldn’t move. I was scared. Haru protected me. Reinforcements came just a little—just really a little too late. While they saved me, I couldn’t move at all. I was weak.”
“Stop.”
I was in trouble.
“Don’t cry.”
Now I understood why Indo had shown something close to terror whenever I protected her before. When I sighed, Indo’s face twisted hard.
“I want to be strong.”
At that moment, I decided I would at least not look away from Indo. I could have soothed her with sarcasm, or dodged the whole thing. I could have said things like, “Do you think the dead will be happy if you become a Hero?” or “You think that’s going to make your weakness disappear?”
But I had always thought lines like that were meaningless. Indo had chosen Indo’s way, and she was living inside it.
I had my own way too. One I had chosen.
“Fine.”
I nodded firmly, or at least made it look firm.
“We know where to investigate, and who to investigate. North. Hokkaido. Something’s there.”
“Can you investigate it?”
“I don’t know which piece of shit is making those shitty monsters, or where.”
I put a five-thousand-yen bill on the table and stood.
“But I’m going to make them settle the account. So, Indo, I’ll make you strong.”
“Mm.”
Indo stood up quickly.
“Really?”
“Really. I need every stray cat’s paw I can get.”
If Indo’s story was true, the enemy seemed to be a fairly large organization. If they were able to operate in the northern <Black Territory>, then either they were receiving support from multiple large Demon Kings, or they were the ones backing those Demon Kings.
“Starting now?”
Indo moved around in front of me.
“Are we training now? Where are we going?”
“Don’t you need to go back to school? I haven’t even thought of a special training drill.”
“It’s fine. Instructor, training.”
What exactly was fine about that, I wondered.
“There’s a problem. Today, I was planning to drink, play games, and get ready for tomorrow’s investigation.”
“Training.”
“No—wait.”
Then, just as Indo tried to hang off my arm, I finally noticed.
Apparently, my attention had been shot to hell. What a complete idiot. There were people peering in at us, practically plastered against the window glass. Two of them. I recognized them.
“Hey.”
I looked at Indo.
“You were followed.”
“Security was strict.”
Indo looked off in a completely wrong direction and hung off my arm. I nearly lost my balance and fell.
Shirogamine had her face pressed to the glass like a gargoyle, while Sera stood one step behind her with the eyes of a street punk who had just been handed her first handgun.
Unable to endure the attention of the other customers inside the restaurant, I had to settle the bill fast.