The place where Styx Headquarters stood was on a stretch of land that jutted out like a lump in the river dividing the North District and the South District, land that looked like an island but was not one.
A place that became an island when the river overflowed in the rainy season and reattached to the land when it dried up in the dry season.
Entering the place, called Styx Island for convenience, was possible only by way of the bridges connecting it to the North District and the South District respectively.
Coming in was as you pleased, but going out was not allowed, wasn't that how it went?
Watching them weigh procedures and screen the people coming and going, it seemed the place was treated almost like a small country.
The Protagonist, too, had tossed out that same impression when he first entered Styx Island.
That it felt like being made to stand naked at an immigration checkpoint, and that it was deeply unpleasant.
Well, all of that was material from The Original Work.
As a reader who had enjoyed it in his own way, I wasn't without anticipation for that atmosphere.
And just as a reader's fan spirit was being suitably stirred.
The freight train we were escorting came to a stop at the only station on Styx Island.
'Hmm. This is grim.'
Since I had come the whole way lying on top of the container watching the scenery, I was able to notice that the mood inside the station was strange.
The stiff wariness of people visible here and there, the very few people despite this being Styx Island's only station, the trembling of partner-shop employees working with their eyes on the floor, unable to shake off their unease, and so on.
It was strict at the best of times, but right now it was on an entirely different track.
Because it was close to a state in which nearly every civilian apart from personnel had been cleared out.
"Is this scenery your doing, Ichi?"
"It does feel a bit excessive."
It was the result of measures taken by Styx Company, which had been contacted in advance.
It was no different from what Ichi had said.
Control of the surroundings for the sake of perfect destruction of evidence, doubling as the securing of evidence to use later.
Presumably they would bring it out at the right moment to match the balance when a similar weight tipped toward the Resistance Army.
'Still, isn't this being treated like a sucker, with nothing in it for the Ability Office...... is what I'd say.'
Well, getting involved any further would only raise the risk of my information leaking to the government's side, so here I'd keep my mouth shut.
"Good work getting here."
Before I could even jump down from the container, a man wearing a blunt expression received us.
I couldn't hide my sour face, and Ichi let out a laugh at the sight of me.
"Head Charon, do smooth out your face. You have frightened our youngest."
"What am I supposed to do about the face I was born with?"
"How about a business smile? I say this because if you crumple it any further, he really will run away."
"If he wants to go, let him go."
It was a scene of the two of them, in perfect rhythm, making fun of me.
In other words, the comedy routine between the bastard who planted the spy and the spy himself continued after that.
Half of that routine was catch-up chatter at my expense, so I plugged my ears.
Instead I climbed down from the container and scanned the surroundings.
Perhaps because of information control, only a small number of personnel were handling it, but with their practiced skill the scene was being cleaned up quickly.
The way they stuffed the corpses into bags in perfect order and quickly washed away even the congealed blood with chemicals, this was not something they had done once or twice.
Then again, technicians like that were high-grade manpower in a world like this.
"There is nothing wrong with the goods. Your clean handling is as reliable as ever, Ichi."
Is it all right to simplify that as clean?
"The preservation state is top-grade, so the payment will come to more than what was written in the contract."
More than that?
The amount written in at the time of the contract was already roughly enough to build or buy a house.
At this rate, if I just induced Other Sides to burst open and swept it all up, I'd be rich in no.......
"Hmm, it was Do Hae, wasn't it."
Charon, who had finished signing the final receipt confirmation, stared straight at me.
That gaze was so galling that it yanked my mind, which had been escaping reality through idle thoughts, straight back down.
"I didn't expect you to come along. Are you less perceptive than I thought?"
Why...... is he picking a fight?
The job was handled well, the goods are prime, delivering them in person wasn't even in the contract, and I'm turning a blind eye to you people's spy games.
So why the hostility?
Charon's square glasses glinted in the sunlight.
The glasses, which hid not only his scar but also his sinister inner thoughts, were angular enough that they only made him look harder.
If he's the second-in-command who rushed out because Ichi was coming, then let the two of them do their trading. Why scratch at me too?
The first impression had been poor from the start.
Back then he had openly threatened me while appealing that he had no choice, and apparently the sight of me stuck to the Ability Office bothered him no small amount.
So what—.
"The Captain has summoned us. Both of us."
Just as I was about to say a word, Ichi drew the line before I could.
Because of that, Charon was even more displeased with me.
Hiding behind someone and nibbling away, that is exactly his expression right now.
'Filthy. Filthy. Utterly filthy.'
In any case, Ichi's mediation smoothed it over, so I softened my expression and kept my distance.
On the surface, a piping-hot new hire, the youngest employee, is not in a position to do anything but obey, is he?
"Are you going to Styx Headquarters? I'll show you the way."
"No. Thank you, but we have other plans."
Did we have plans?
"Our youngest is here on his first visit, so we will pay a formal visit next time."
At Ichi's soft refusal, Charon glared at me once again.
He was going to kill me with his eyes.
Having just stood there and been battered to tatters, I meekly rode along on Ichi's goodwill.
Even if that goodwill came from the worry that his own identity might come out if I stayed tangled up with Charon.
"So did we have separate plans? I didn't hear about any."
I followed Ichi out of the station building and enjoyed some serious sightseeing.
This place, where classical architectural styles and futuristic buildings were all mixed together, made for an especially dizzying view.
It bore heavy traces of that influence, being a place that professed thorough neutrality and where Styx's power reached directly.
Meaning various factions had put up buildings however they liked.
"You can't actually intend to just show me around, so what is it?"
Having even been treated to skewered food sold on the street, I finally asked first, since Ichi only kept smiling vacantly.
Even at my question, Ichi took on a troubled look and dodged an answer.
This is a little......, strange.
"Am I being sold off? Is someone paying a high price for me?"
"......."
It was suspicious, just as I thought.
Even granting that he had cleared away that time bomb Charon out of fear his own spying would be exposed, there was no reason for us to be tearing into grilled skewers here right now.
I spotted a small park nearby and dragged Ichi toward it.
The midwinter park was quiet and dreary.
"All right. Out with it."
"Haha....... What is making you so uneasy that you fret like that?"
With that kind of attitude, do I look like someone who wouldn't be uneasy?
When I hardened my expression, Ichi laughed awkwardly and quietly brought out the main point.
"Shall we start by hearing how far your thinking has gone, Do Hae?"
How far my thinking had gone.
How far.
Haha.
"Earlier......."
"......?"
"When Head Charon said he would show us the way and you refused."
"Ah, yes."
"Wasn't the Captain at Styx Headquarters?"
Surely that was where it started.
Taking part in transporting the monster corpse wasn't the main assignment.
We had taken it on incidentally, on the way to greet the Captain.
Ichi was the one who hounded me about getting there as fast as possible, and now that we had arrived, he turned down that route for pointless sightseeing?
"Won't the Captain be waiting? I'm not sure we should be doing this......."
So my question was reasonable.
Ichi gazed at the landscape, left with nothing but skeletal branches in the biting midwinter wind, then lightly opened his mouth.
"You know that the Captain had a separate commission from Styx and was carrying it out."
"I also know it's because of me."
"Correct. As a condition for taking you into the Ability Office, the Captain did some unpaid work."
"Are you saying that so I will feel bad......?"
Styx must have held a grudge over the business of losing the Laboratory Director and, with him, the research data the Director was holding.
And they would have started investigating me, the one who slapdash grabbed that Laboratory Director's seat.
Reaching a suitable conclusion and slotting me in as a full-time Ability Office employee would also be Styx's influence.
Since they got to work the Captain, high-grade manpower, along the way, it wasn't a losing business for Styx Company.
Hadn't the matter been settled at that?
"The commission the Captain received was, precisely, a case the government commissioned to Styx and which was passed down. Styx was merely the bridge."
Cold sweat ran down my spine.
It's midwinter, and yet the day is awfully hot.
A commission from the government, at this point of all times.
As I rolled my eyes about, Ichi continued in a laughter-tinged tone.
"Aren't you curious?"
I was curious.
As to what he intended by bringing that talk up now, after spinning me around sightseeing until my stamina was drained.
If I, who came out of the government and the research institute, had to hear it now.
"Does that commission have something to do with the research institute?"
Am I really wanted with a bounty and being sold off to the government?
"Ah, the research institute....... Come to think of it, you still haven't heard news of the colleagues you worked with, have you?"
"Well......, I did see it in the newspaper. The bomb, BOOM, the whole thing blowing up."
"And you are one of those survivors."
"......."
Ah, have I actually been hooked here?
Flap, flap, is it?
Had I really bitten the bait myself?
Had they obtained more than simply the information that I might be connected to the Laboratory Director's murder?
If the Captain was investigating that business, then was calling me here now meant as a confirming kill?
Was that why Ichi had been keeping watch on me at all times, so I couldn't bolt somewhere else?
"What is the Captain......, what exactly is the commission?"
I forced my palely trembling eyelids shut and open again, then demanded the answer.
Weren't they taking me in as family?
Or had I just gotten excited on my own?
"Hear it directly from the Captain. You will be given the explanation gladly. Hmm......, let us go along now. It is about time."
Time for what.
If you mean the time for my neck to be sliced off, I would rather not go.
My soundless outcry stayed buried as it was, and I had no choice but to be dragged along by Ichi's will.
***
For all the atmosphere of terror he had built up, the place Ichi took me to was a restaurant near Styx Headquarters said to be famous for its food.
He must have made a reservation, because we passed the long line entirely and were shown to a room in the back.
There, I couldn't have been happier to see a face I hadn't seen in a while.
"You're here. Bit late, aren't you?"
Seo Mok, whose shabby appearance didn't match the restaurant's atmosphere, greeted us with a light wave.
I heard he had left to carry out his original mission after the Room 404 Other Side, and to think I'd see him here.
At least Seo Mok seemed likely to take my side, so a slight relief came over me.
"Why are you here? Is eating together part of our schedule too?"
"He didn't tell you? Hey, if we're messing with him we do it together. Bet you had all the fun to yourself?"
"Haha, messing with him? I was enjoying myself."
Ichi, those are the same thing.
I wanted to cover Ichi's mouth as he shared the dark history I'd racked up on the way, but I let it go.
Because after being tense all by myself the whole way here, a bit of limpness had followed.
"Ah, right. I hear you two already had a whole scuffle?"
He meant the train attack.
If word had already spread I thought there was no point in hiding it, but the source of the information was Felix.
A member of the Ability Office I had never once met.
"Felix has returned?"
"Not long ago. More to the point, why are you ignoring calls? I took all of Sophia's nagging."
"Did something blow up? Nothing was wrong as of this morning."
That's exactly it. Barely half a day had passed, so what rough business had gone down in the meantime?
"Was the timing good or was it bad? Word is the government assholes barged in."
Into where?
Into the Ability Office?
Who did?
The government's people?
Dizziness spun through my head.