Outbreak Company: Volume 13 Read online

  Prologue

  The whole place was bathed in sunset light, a stark red glow nearly the color of blood.

  It was a color that spoke to a certain kind of ending. A liminal moment in which the day, full of brightness and the clamor of life, withered and gave way to night, with its consuming darkness and the silence of the grave. Many people found themselves all but paralyzed by the onset of those hours of darkness, which they viewed as fit only for sleep, that distant simulacrum of death.

  But at this moment...

  “Urgh.........”

  It wasn’t yet full dark, but there was no sign of people anywhere. The languid light of sunset typically saw at least a few figures scurrying home amidst the lengthening shadows, but tonight, there was no one. No one walking, anyway.

  “Hrrgh......”

  Instead, the path was full of people collapsed.

  “Ahh... Oh...”

  The brutal red glare shone on them as they grunted and groaned, sounds of agony from someplace beyond words. A traveler passing through would have wondered at the sight. It wasn’t famine, or plague; that much was obvious. The people weren’t emaciated enough for that, and anyway, such things wouldn’t have drawn—or driven—them outdoors.

  Bandits, then, or perhaps a military attack? But the town was not burning, nor was there any sign of looting. There were some indications of struggle here and there in the earth and on the walls of the buildings, but no evidence that any outside interlopers had broken into the houses or the storage areas.

  “Grrr... hrrgh...”

  One man braced himself against a wall with his left arm, pulling himself to his feet. He seemed to be in excellent physical shape; maybe that was why he had recovered sooner than the others. But his right arm hung at an unnatural angle, and his face and limbs were covered with bruises and scrapes. He even had what appeared to be burns. It was a terrible sight. If he had internal injuries, then it would be critical that he be treated immediately. But this man seemed to feel there was something more urgent than his wounds.

  “It must... be sealed...” he gasped. A look of terror was on his face. “The cursed... a-armor... It turns humans into b-beasts... The horror! The horror... It’s hardly... armor at all... What is it...?” But there was no one to answer his desperate question, and his words melted away in the scarlet light.

  The man leaned against the side of the building as he took in the awful scene before him, and then he began to walk, almost dragging himself along.

  “There...”

  Ahead of him, far down the path, the town gate still stood open, yawning beneath the hateful twilight. Several dark figures stood there, the sun at their backs. They seemed almost human—but not. They each had a head, a body, and four limbs. But this basic humanoid shape only made the deviations all the more obvious, and all the more unsettling.

  “Damnable... monsters... They must be sealed away...” And then, out of strength, the man slumped to the ground beside the wall. The awful forms before his eyes did not mock him, nor did they approach to strike a killing blow. There, awash in that light of all ending, the inhuman human forms labored away. To the man and his gasping breaths they paid no attention at all.

  Chapter One: Look Who’s Mr. Popular

  “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home”—those words are a complete fantasy. At least in my opinion.

  And how often have people said “money makes the world go round”? There’s even an expression, “poverty dulls the wit.” Being poor isn’t something to be ashamed of, but it’s not a mark of honor, either. Since the moment the money-based economy came into being, there’s probably been some standard below which a person is considered to be “poor.” And being poor leaves them with fewer freedoms and fewer choices. Who wouldn’t feel bleak in that situation? People are products of their environment. Its influence can’t be ignored. That’s just the way it is. So—

  “Shinichi...sama...”

  A girl in an apron called hesitantly to me from the kitchen.

  Myusel Fourant. The most immediately striking thing about her used to be the maid uniform she wore, but these days it was much more common to see her in a patched-up old apron. She had sold her maid outfit ages ago.

  “Dinner’s ready...”

  I thought she looked a little gaunt compared to when I’d first met her. She’d always had a slim build, but now she looked emaciated. She was a top-notch cook, but she never ate the best ingredients herself; she always gave them to me instead. Or at least, so I suspected, and that wouldn’t be helping her physical state any. I knew I should be thankful for such a show of consideration, endlessly grateful in fact, but at the moment I just didn’t have the wherewithal. In fact, coming from Myusel with her haggard look, I felt it almost as a rebuke to me, with my meager earnings. I was always afraid the unspoken message was, If you weren’t so worthless, I wouldn’t have to work so hard.

  I glanced at the food on the plate Myusel held out to me and pulled a face. “Blech. Vegetable stir-fry again?”

  There wasn’t even any meat in it.

  “Y-Yes, sir, I’m very s-sorr—”

  “Meat, goddammit, meat! Even some eggs! Can’t you scare something up somehow?”

  “I’m very s—”

  “Sorry! Yes, very sorry! You’re always very sorry! What are you, a broken record?” Overcome with frustration, I gave our cheap tea table a kick. Too light to withstand the blow, it flipped over, sending everything on top of it—the chopstick holders, spices, and teacups—scattering all over the unpleasantly fuzzy tatami mats. Myusel flinched at the crash of breaking ceramic, then her shoulders sagged.

  “I’m very—”

  “Ahh, forget it. Just get outta here, I’m sick of looking at you!”

  “Y-Yes... sir...” Myusel, her shoulders hunched, set the plate on the floor, then retreated to the kitchen. In our situation, “get out of here” was a figurative expression; we only had one room, so when I yelled at her, Myusel would just go to the farthest corner of the kitchen and sit down, hugging her knees.

  It was disgusting. Pathetic. Wretched. I reached for a bottle of cheap wine by the wall. The drinking was all that kept me going these days. Everything pissed me off. Everything sucked. Even the winter wind that worked its way through the crack in the wall sounded like it was laughing at me.

  When I picked up the bottle, though, it felt light. It was already empty. That’s right. I’d drunk the whole thing the night before.

  “Feh!” I grunted.

  Our rickety door opened and in walked a small, silver-haired woman. “We are home!”

  Petralka an Eldant III—a big, fancy name for someone who was now just Petralka. The whole “Empress” thing? Someone else took over the gig ages ago. Petralka had gone from absolute ruler of a nation to the cleaning lady at some dive bar. Even the tiara that used to sparkle in her hair, we’d had to hock long ago; now she had a cheap plastic hairband.

  “Ah, Shinichi, Myusel, you needn’t wait. Go ahead and eat di—”

  “The hell’s this, Petralka? Empty-handed?”

  “Er?”

  “Did I tell y’ to get some more damn alcohol or didn’t I?”

  “Ah—” She put a hand to her mouth. Guess she’d forgotten. ’Course, I’d forgotten I even asked her, myself, until just that moment. “Y-Yes, but Shinichi...”

  “Don’t you but me! When I tell you to buy some alcohol, you go and buy it!”

  “But our money...”

  “What’re y’ workin’ for if you ain’t making money?! Get an advance or something!”

  “We... We have already borrowed through next month’s salary...”

  “I don’t care if you have to borrow through next ye
ar!” I shouted. “Think what a man wants!”

  Petralka looked at me fearfully. She used to be all high and mighty, but since she’d eloped with me, I hadn’t hesitated to use my fists to keep her in line when I had to, so she’d become a lot more willing to listen. And still there were times like this when she acted like a complete idiot. It must have been that cushy upbringing as a princess.

  An imperial ruler and a commoner? Nobody would approve of a match like that. Especially not if they knew that the commoner was keeping his ex-maid lover around. Then it would go from opposition to “we’ve got to keep these two apart.” We knew that. That’s why we’d run away.

  Yeah, we’d run. And run. Farther and farther north, until our pursuers finally gave up. We wound up in a little town in a far northern country, where Petralka and Myusel and I settled down; but of course, we were never going to have a normal life. We stumbled along, no jobs, my resentment building day by day. Eventually I started to speak harshly to Myusel and Petralka, then grew physically abusive with them.

  Why didn’t they leave me? Maybe because even if they left, they no longer had anywhere to go. The fact that our pursuers had stopped chasing us was itself proof that everyone had finally given up on Petralka. As far as everyone who knew her was concerned, she—and probably I—were as good as dead.

  So, nowhere to go. Nothing to do but stay here and wither.

  With that vision haunting me, I’d started to drink, and to needle Petralka and Myusel. It was the only way I knew to help my miserable life go by.

  I was the very image of the make-inu, the “defeated dog,” the L-O-S-E-R.

  Where? Where had I gone so wrong?

  “Shinichi. W-We wish to speak with you about something...” Petralka said hesitantly.

  “Yeah, what?”

  “As... As it so happens, we are expecting...”

  “Expecting what? A new Pachinko place by the station?”

  “No, not that. Shinichi, you and we are going to have... are going to be...” Petralka looked at the ground. She was sitting formally in seiza, with her hands on her knees. “So we... we doubt how much longer we will be able to work...”

  “You’ve got to be joking! We can’t afford to feed a kid!”

  “B-But don’t you remember? We were unable to conceive for so long that we had given up... Surely this child is a gift from heaven, we must care for it.”

  “Gift, my ass!” I bellowed. “I don’t need that kinda gift! I can barely afford to feed myself, and you come in here saying you’re freaking pregnant?! Forget about this damn kid and go buy my alcohol!”

  “Shinichi...!”

  “You say that kid’s gonna keep you from working? The hell he is! Do your damn job!”

  “But if we w-work too hard, the child might—”

  “Yeah? Let’s hope so, maybe it’ll save us the trouble.”

  “Shinichi!”

  “Hell, I’ll fix it right now. One good punch to the gut—” I stood up, but then it happened. “One good... Huh?”

  I felt a supreme sense of dislocation. What was the handle of that knife doing, growing from my belly?

  “Huh? Ah—ahh? Hagh...” I was too shaken to form words.

  All Petralka could manage for her part was my name. “Shinichi...!”

  Geez. What... What’s with the face? You’re the one who stabbed me. What the hell gives you the right to stab—

  “Shinichi-sama...” No sooner had the words registered than I felt a piercing pain in my back.

  Myusel. You too? But why...

  “I can’t do it... I can’t stand it anymore. So... together, let’s—”

  “W... Wai—”

  “I’ll follow you... anywhere.”

  I somehow swung around in time to see Myusel, an unusually warm and gentle smile on her face. She pulled the knife out of me—then raised it over her head.

  “Shinichi-sama...”

  “Myus—”

  The last thing I saw was the rusty blade heading for a point between my eyes.

  “Geez, what is this, some kind of bad TV drama?!” I quipped with all my might as I woke up. I was drenched in sweat, and my heart was going a mile a minute.

  I had never asked for such a realistic dream, but there it was. I even thought I could feel the tip of the knife between my eyebrows. At the same time, I didn’t feel any particular pain despite having been stabbed—I guess that’s dreaming for you.

  “Urgh...” I hauled myself into a sitting position and let out a breath. That was the worst dream. It had practically been a stereotype of the dysfunctional family, yet the details were weirdly specific to my life. Even on television, you pretty much never saw a short tea table like that except on old slice-of-life shows like Sa**e-san. And the thing where a couple (okay, in my case, a trio, but never mind that) elopes and runs off to the far north, and one of them is a worthless lout who waves a bottle around and shouts a lot? It’s such a bunch of hoary clichés that it could practically be considered certified cultural heritage by now.

  But then on the other hand, Myusel and Petralka had been there, and everything about them—the way they looked, sounded, and acted—was eerily true to life. So much so that I found myself thinking that if one of them really stabbed me, that’s probably how it would feel.

  Believe me, it wasn’t pleasant. In particular, I really hated how disgustingly pathetic I had been in that dream. I mean, a guy like that was hardly even human anymore.

  Or so it was easy to think, but I couldn’t guarantee that if I was driven out of my own life, I wouldn’t become like that. I didn’t have the confidence in myself to say for sure it would never happen.

  “Is everything all right, Shinichi-sama?”

  “Yeah, I’m f—” I froze as I looked up: Myusel was standing there with a cleaver in one hand.

  “Shinichi-sama?”

  “Eeeeyaaagghhh!”

  What—what the hell? Was I still dreaming?! Was this the bad ending, the one where I woke up from a nightmare only to discover I was in another nightmare, forever and ever?!

  “What are you going to do with that? Are you going to stab me?! They’re going to be out there going, ‘We think the motive was an affair gone wrong,’ even though I’m still a virgin! That’s so wrong!”

  “Er...?” Myusel blinked a few times. “Oh!” She noticed the knife in her hand and quickly hid it behind her back. “P-Pardon me. I heard you shouting, Shinichi-sama, so I came running—but I was right in the middle of making breakfast...”

  So she had brought the knife with her. Unfortunately, knowing that didn’t do much to slow my pounding heart. After a dream like that, I would have to be crazy not to freak out a little when I saw Myusel with a knife.

  “If, ahem, if I may ask... are you okay?”

  “Uh-huh, yeah, fine, I’m just fine. Doing great,” I said, nodding vigorously. “Don’t worry, Myusel, just... you can go back to your cooking...”

  “Mm...” Myusel nodded, looking a little unsure, and then left the room. As I heard her footsteps recede from my bedroom door, I let out a sigh.

  This seemed like all kinds of bad. I had an inkling of why I’d had that nightmare. The reason was happening at that very moment. Or rather, not happening. I had only just realized it, and things weren’t moving forward. Things weren’t getting resolved.

  And what things were those? Well...

  “Um...” The girl stood there holding a boxed lunch. “I, uh, made this for you... You can eat it. I mean, if you want.”

  The twin-tailed girl blushed and hid her eyes. Her eyebrows drooped timidly, yet the flush in her cheeks expressed her hope, her expectation. The impression of innocence was complete, the knowledge that she had poured her heart and soul into this lunch inescapable. No man alive could have said no to her.

  Or anyway, couldn’t have, if she had been the only one standing there.

  “Choose my lunch!” said a long-haired girl standing beside her. She squeezed forward, a bit aggressively, offerin
g up a lunchbox. She seemed so confident that it was her creation that would be picked, it almost made her look somehow taller than the other girl. Yet there was just that hint of doubt, that lingering question, “But what if he doesn’t choose me...?” behind her confidence, and that was sweet in its own way.

  Aargh, they’re both so cute!

  How could I pick just one of them?! It was impossible!

  ““Which will you choose?!”” the girls chorused when they saw that I wasn’t immediately making a decision.

  What to do, what to do? Think of it like a multiple-choice question. The answers:

  A. Eat Miu’s lunchbox

  B. Eat Ruka’s lunchbox

  ..............................

  “Ummm...”

  As I hesitated, the girls’ voices came flying at me:

  “Sensei, you have to pick Miu!”

  “No, pick Ruka!”

  “Miu’s so devoted! You have to respond to her love!”

  “The very thought that Ruka overcame her own clumsiness to make that lunch for you should set your heart on fire!”

  “Miu is the MC’s oldest friend—she’s gone through everything with him, remember?! They share more memories than anyone!”

  “But the MC is the first person who ever saw Ruka as just a girl! He’s the only one for her!”

  In the swarm of students surrounding me—well, what they were really surrounding was the laptop computer sitting in front of me—two in particular argued with special vehemence. One of them was standing to either side of me, and I felt very literally caught in the middle of their argument.

  Standing to one side and leading the charge for the “pure-hearted best friend” Miu was a dwarf girl. She was, let’s say, vertically challenged, in the way these earth-and-metal-loving faerie-like people usually were, making her look young and sweet—but she was actually in her late teens, a forceful character who served as a sort of spokesperson for the other dwarf students. Her name was Romilda Guld.

  On my other side, championing the “tsundere sweetheart” Ruka, was a slim elf boy. These wind-and-tree-loving faerie-like people of the forest were often tall and finely featured. It almost made him look like a girl sometimes—but he was in fact the son of a notable elvish household: a point of pride for him, and of course, something that made him an authority among the other elf students. His name was Loek Slayson.