Outbreak Company: Volume 11 Read online

  Prologue

  It seems I had spent more time than I thought on the creation of my report. I looked out the window to find I could already see the crimson of twilight. Soon it would be full dark. It was the new moon today—a portable lamp would be necessary to get around outside. Although I enjoyed a modicum of night vision, absolute darkness would still make it all too easy to trip and fall, especially on a cloudy, starless night like this.

  “About time to go, I’d say.”

  We had agreed to leave after the sun had completely set—but going at twilight would be better. Walking around at night inherently made you conspicuous. When we got back, it would be the middle of the night: fewer people awake, less chance that we would be spotted and questioned.

  I slipped out of my military uniform and into civilian clothes, then grabbed a jacket hanging on the wall. This region was given to large swings in temperature, nights often turning cold without warning. What was more, the jacket would help hide me. It was long enough to keep my tail out of view, and if I pulled up the hood, it would cover my ears as well, to say nothing of my face. Nobody would know who or what I was.

  “All right.” I tapped the lamp gently to wake up the sprites inside. They began to produce a soft, white glow, when suddenly—

  “Hm?”

  I turned at the sound of knocking on the door. It wasn’t loud, but it was rapid, no pause between one knock and the next. The note of panic was obvious; it was the sound of someone desperate to avoid being seen.

  “Who’s there?” I growled, moving toward the door. I kept my voice low, as if I were shoving the question at the person on the other side.

  “It’s Clara. Big sister...!”

  “Clara?”

  I narrowed my eyes. Not because I didn’t remember her, of course. Clara was my military subordinate. Practically my right hand. She had such respect for me that we often shared meals and spent time talking together even when we weren’t on duty.

  And today, tonight, we planned to go to our meeting together.

  The plan, though, had been for us to rendezvous only outside of town. So why had she come to my house? Clara was young, but she was an excellent soldier. She wouldn’t have gone against our agreement without good reason. Which meant...

  “What’s going on?” Something must have happened. Something so significant it had driven Clara to come here instead of waiting for me outside the city.

  The moment I cracked the door, Clara all but spilled through the gap, as though she couldn’t even wait for me to open it all the way.

  “The military police are on their way here!”

  “The MPs?”

  “Yes.”

  Clara rarely betrayed much emotion in her face or voice, but paying close attention to her ears and tail often gave away how she was feeling. The fur on the thin, graceful tail characteristic of weretigers was standing straight up, and her ears were twitching restlessly.

  Urgency, fear. That’s what it looked like to me.

  “I don’t know much about it. All I know is that when I was at the guardhouse to return my equipment, I heard one of the MPs talking about how they were going to arrest you...”

  Clara glanced back through the still half-open door, back the way she must have come. The road was nearly empty; all I could see was quiet, Bahairamanian-style residential houses. At least for the moment, there was no sign of any oncoming officers.

  But Clara wasn’t the type to make such things up.

  “No... Have we been discovered?”

  I knew in my bones that I had done nothing in my duties to warrant arrest by the military police. Something outside of my duties, then?

  It was true that at that moment, I was about to engage in something that could very well be taken as treason, depending on how you looked at it. I didn’t feel as if I was betraying the Kingdom of Bahairam—in fact, I felt I was acting with its future in mind—but routinely sending and receiving letters and goods to someone in another country without telling my superiors could understandably invite suspicion.

  Suspicion that Amatena Harneiman was a tool of cultural invasion.

  “Big sister—we have to run.” Clara took my arm. She must have imagined there was no way we could defend ourselves against such a charge, and I agreed. If the military police were going to all the effort of coming here, then they had no doubt already searched my house from top to bottom. And if so, then they would have found the letters from that man—the strange outworlder who seemed to have the royal love of the Eldant Empress—along with the “samples” he had sent me.

  More than proof enough of my traitorous intentions toward this nation. I doubted there was time to dispose of everything.

  “We have to go, quickly.” Clara kept glancing back toward the street. She seemed to feel the MPs might come bursting onto the scene at any moment. If we saw them, it would be too late. Escape would be impossible. If they had determined to capture a beast person, they would compensate for the target’s superb physical abilities by including beast people among the officers, along with magic users.

  “I understand. Let’s go.” I left the house with Clara, then we set off running for the edge of town. “But...” As strange as it sounds under the circumstances, a wry smile crossed my face. “How convenient that the police should come today, at this very moment.”

  “Big sister—!” Clara blinked at me. How could I say such a thing at a moment of crisis like this?

  “To have a guide who knows the geography so well, just when I’m trying to flee—how reassuring,” I said.

  “Ah...” She finally seemed to understand what I was implying.

  Yes. Very convenient.

  To escape the military police, our only choice would be to go where they had no authority.

  To the Eldant Empire, for example.

  We had been into their territory on several small expeditions in the past, but when one was planning to go to ground for a long time, it would be invaluable to have someone who knew the lay of the land. And today just happened to be the day when the “delivery person” from Eldant would be here.

  I had my doubts about this delivery person as a co-conspirator—I questioned their personality and their physical abilities. But I was a beggar now, and couldn’t be choosy.

  “I say we make a push to get out of the city, then hide in the usual place until the sun goes down.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Clara nodded. Then she and I ran full tilt through the twilit town, toward our meeting with the delivery person.

  Chapter One: Give a Shout when You Shoot

  “Shinichi-sensei!”

  When the voice called out to me, I reflexively turned.

  The classroom looked like it always did. There was the lectern. The blackboard. The lockers. The cleaning implements. And there were the desks and chairs, about forty of them.

  Each of them was filled with a student. Humans like me made up about half the number, but there were also pointy-eared pupils: elves and dwarves. There used to be a lot of fighting between students of different races, but recently such discriminatory disputes had dropped off. Then again, they had been replaced by arguments about which were the proper ships and what one should get moe over.

  You may have gathered by now: this was another world. There were elves, dwarves, and even beast people here, not to mention dragons, which were as common as daisies. You could even use magic—it was a fantasy world straight out of To*kien.

  One day, completely out of the blue, Japan stumbled on a “hole”—really a hyperspace wormhole—connecting the country to this other world, the Holy Eldant Empire. It was a completely different place from Earth: different resources, different culture, different people. Convinced that the
re was serious profit to be had from commerce with this new world, the Japanese government proceeded to open diplomatic relations with Eldant in utmost secrecy, trying everything they could to bring the two countries closer.

  In the end, to everyone’s surprise, the thing that got the best reaction from the residents of this other world was Japan’s prized otaku culture—manga, anime, games, and so on. In a world roughly on the cultural level of Middle Ages Europe, the development of entertainment had lagged behind, and Japan’s extensive assortment of otaku cultural goods was immensely exciting to the people here.

  And so, Japan established the general entertainment company Amutech, an interdimensional first. And I, Kanou Shinichi, was appointed its general manager. (It’s a long story.)

  My mission, as you might have guessed, was to help spread and popularize otaku culture here in this new world. This school was built as part of that mission. The students were kids eager to learn about this cutting-edge new culture. Of course, as a minor myself, even though many of them were younger than me, maybe it was a little strange for me to be calling them “kids.” But anyway.

  When I heard my name, I stopped writing on the blackboard and turned around...

  ...and found that the bland, familiar scene of the classroom had suddenly morphed into something I didn’t recognize.

  Everyone was sitting at their desks, as usual. But I couldn’t see their faces.

  No, that’s not quite right. My view of their faces was blocked by something they were all holding up. Not their entire faces, just the upper half, especially their eyes.

  So what was this thing that each of them was holding?

  “Whoa, wait, hold on a second—”

  But there was no time to stop them.

  Ka-click! It was a distinctly mechanical sound. No sooner had the first click finished than dozens more followed it from every direction. It was like a spreading wave, a light but sharp noise. It went on until it filled the classroom.

  Ka-click. Ka-click. Ka-clickka-clickka-click.

  “Ahh...” I smiled weakly and sighed.

  The source of the sounds was the objects in the students’ hands—the portable game machines they were holding up.

  3TSes. We had initially brought them to the Holy Eldant Empire as prizes in a soccer tournament we held. They had actually gone to the lizardmen, who had taken second, but they didn’t really “get” portable video games. Instead, they were able to sell the systems to the nobility at a pretty hefty sum, and so the systems came to be in the hands of my students.

  Plenty of the kids had been carrying them around ever since, but just recently, the most popular thing about them hadn’t been the games.

  It was the photos.

  The 3TS includes a camera function. Some games use it as a part of gameplay, but you could also just use it like a regular camera. And when the students discovered that, they immediately became fascinated by taking pictures.

  “Hee hee!” A dwarf girl sitting in the front row of seats laughed, satisfied.

  This was Romilda Guld. She was the daughter of the boss of Guld Workshop, a dwarven foundry that served the Imperial will in Eldant. She was in her late teens—a lot like me—but her characteristically small body and that giant smile (which looked good on her) conspired to make her as adorable as an elementary-schooler. To be fair, the somewhat loli look wasn’t unique to her; it was something she shared with all dwarves.

  “Score one surprised Shinichi-sensei!” Romilda announced. The other students also lowered their 3TSes, looking at the screens. Each one probably showed my dumb look of surprise. Personally, I didn’t think that was a very interesting thing to take a picture of.

  “Gosh, you guys are really into this...”

  “Uh-huh!” Romilda nodded happily, her short, red twintails bobbing. Then she turned the 3TS on me again and pressed the button. “You just press a button and the screen records everything around you immediately—it’s amazing!” She smiled again as if she were proud of the fact.

  Seeing her like that, I remembered my little sister Shizuki back when she had gotten her first cell phone, taking pictures of everyone and everything in sight. She seemed to enjoy the simple fact that she could take the photos, no matter what was in them. I understood how she and Romilda felt. I had gone through that phase myself.

  Of course, I had quickly tired of taking quite so many pictures, but even then, when I saw something new or interesting, I would snap a photo just to help me remember. I still did. And if someone as accustomed to taking pictures as I was still went out of my way to do it, how much more the students in this world where the concept of photographs hadn’t even existed before? Where you normally needed magic to record images of scenery or people? Of course they were nuts for it. The camera was like magic, but you didn’t have to chant any spells or prepare yourself spiritually. You didn’t even have to practice. When it came to sheer convenience, magic had nothing on this.

  The upshot was that the minute we were on break, the students would pull out their game systems and start photographing everything they could get their hands on.

  In any event, the actual popularity of photographs was fine. The problem was that right now, I was trying to have class. I was just gathering myself to give the students a talking-to when Romilda exclaimed, “Look at this, Sensei!” and started showing me all the pictures she’d taken on her 3TS.

  She just looked so happy, and so cute, and she was just so completely innocent, that I found it extremely hard to scold her. It was like a cat proudly showing you a rat it had caught.

  Still, I knew I had to say something. “Uhhh... Listen, Romilda.”

  “Ha ha ha ha!” An even prouder voice came our way—one with an unmistakable element of scorn. Romilda frowned and closed her 3TS before turning toward the back of the classroom. “Are you still taking pictures with that thing?” the new voice said. “Get with the times!”

  Excuse me, but just how far behind “the times” are you? The snarky quip almost made it to my mouth, but I just managed to swallow it. The speaker wasn’t teasing me, but Romilda. I didn’t have anything to gain by getting involved.

  “Oh, what, Loek?” Romilda pouted.

  The speaker was a slim, tall elf: Loek Slayson.

  Like Romilda, he was a student here. His dad was part of the Eldant administration, unusual for an elf. Loek himself was, if I may say so, sort of the spoiled-young-lordling type. With his long hair and fine features, he was actually pretty good-looking, but the barbs he aimed at Romilda could be surprisingly childish.

  Like now, for instance.

  He had his left hand on his hip, and his right hand behind his back, as if he was hiding something.

  Well, not as if. He obviously was hiding something.

  With a self-satisfied smile, he exclaimed, “Behold!” Then he pulled his hand from behind his back.

  An excited murmur spread through the classroom.

  The item he had produced was neither especially surprising nor especially unusual—to me. But it was a veritable anachronism in the Holy Eldant Empire.

  A digital camera. Specifically, a digital single-lens reflex camera, or DSLR. Unlike a 3TS, this thing really said machine! Even students who didn’t know much about it could tell that it was professional equipment.

  “Is that... Wait... Loek, where did you get that?” Romilda asked, giving voice to the question of the entire student body.

  “Satou-san sold it to me!” he said triumphantly.

  “Satou-san?” I asked. “You mean, like, the JSDF Satou-san?”

  “Uh-huh!”

  Ahh. So that was it. I had to admit, even I was a little taken aback to see Loek with a DSLR. I hadn’t brought anything like that to this school—or even to this world. Most of the digital devices that existed in the Eldant Empire were here because I had judged them necessary for our otaku-culture work, and asked the Japanese government to import them. I wasn’t thrilled to see the students with digital equipment that hadn’t com
e through me.

  “So that was his camera,” I mused.

  Besides Amutech, there was one other way for things from Japan to get into this world—via the Japan Self-Defense Force. There was a garrison unit here in Eldant to protect Amutech by the orders of the Japanese government. They received regular shipments of personal supplies, separate from the things I used for business. The soldiers would often get Japanese food or magazines, or other things to fuel their hobbies.

  Satou-san’s hobby was photography; I knew he had had at least one digital camera brought in for his personal use. I knew he also took photos of the JSDF’s activities in Eldant in an official capacity, for their records. That must have been what tipped Loek off that a DSLR was also a kind of camera.

  Come to think of it, I wondered how the JSDF unit stationed here supported themselves from day-to-day. Even with the Japanese and Eldant government providing most of their basic needs, keep a garrison long enough and people will eventually want to go shopping. I assumed that would mean they needed some local currency.

  Given that this other world was a matter of utmost secrecy, soldiers stationed at the Eldant garrison couldn’t readily go back to Japan. They even took their paid time off here. That meant they had to have Eldant money, right? Maybe they were getting some support from the government here, but when that wasn’t enough, they would have to scare up extra cash on their own.

  By selling some of their stuff to the locals, for example.

  “Behold!” Loek exclaimed again, fiddling with the digital camera. He flipped it around and showed us—mostly meaning Romilda—the small LCD screen on the back. Naturally, it displayed a photo the camera had taken. It showed the same thing as Romilda’s shots, which was to say, nothing very interesting. But the more expensive equipment did give the photo a bit of extra color and verve, making it a cut above the one taken by the 3TS.

  I guess that’s what more megapixels gets you...

  “This thing...” Romilda had walked over to Loek and was looking at the screen, as was pretty much the entire class; everyone was wearing expressions of shock.