Chapter 87 On the Road ②
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
When we passed through the door, we found a modern city.
There were concrete blocks, street trees, mixed-use buildings, twisted guardrails, and sunken asphalt. Broken glass lay everywhere.
The street seemed to sink in dark red paint. I could not feel any people here at all, yet many buildings stood close together like a big city.
”Is this real Japan… no, maybe another country?” I said.
Red-brown towers stood like nails pulled from old floorboards. The tall buildings were pale, with many cracks in the glass and concrete. Even so, the steel frames still held strong, like wedges pushed into the earth to stop them from falling.
After many long years, this empty city looked faded, like an old photo seen through tired eyes.
In a hole in the main road, I saw the sewer water running like a small red river. The moving red water looked like blood from a dead city.
No one lived here anymore. The life of the people who once stayed here had ended. No voices, no busy crowds, no cars. Under the bright blue sky, the remains of humanity lay open to the air.
This was a quiet ruined street.
Our group reached a wide crossroad like the scramble crossing in Shibuya or Times Square in New York.
From here, we could see many parts of the city. It was not a simple modern town. In some places, old-style streets still remained. A marble aqueduct and a stone church with rose carvings cut a piece of wide sky between the tall buildings. It felt like modern Rome, where new streets and old history lived together.
There was a church with higher class than the one on the first floor of the dungeon. Its stained glass was dull red after years in what looked like blood mist, but the golden bell on the roof still shined.
The people who lived here—maybe millions—must have had pride in their hometown. It might have been a famous place for visitors, like Kyoto.
”So this is the second floor of the uncanny valley. It’s so different from before. The sky is really blue,” someone in the group said.
The sky was bright and clear, almost too perfect. The broken clouds were pale, and below them the red city hurt my eyes.
The clean two-color world pulled my gaze up and down. It was scary, yet also beautiful in a strange way.
”It’s creepy, but it also touches my heart,” another person said. “What could change a city this big into this?”
It looked like Earth after a terrible disaster or a sickness no one could stop. Not even monsters were here. I felt no life anywhere.
”…Even the plants are dead. Not even moss grows,” someone said.
Even the green that should live from before humans to after them was gone. In the cracks of the asphalt, only thin black hair-like things grew.
What in the world happened here?
Or maybe this was simply how this dungeon floor was made.
The only thing I knew was that everything had already ended here.
”What a strong building. I’ve never seen such high towers outside. It’s a mystery how they don’t fall.”
As I watched the scene in silence, a black figure walked toward us.
Himawari had just finished guiding the townspeople to the second floor. Trash-san and Flatty-chan watched her with care. I did not feel danger from her, so I looked up at the tall buildings and responded.
”Steel pillars reach under the ground. At this height, maybe thirty ken of piles stop them from falling,” I said.
”Thirty ken? That’s taller than the Ryounkaku in the Imperial Capital! Wow, it’s amazing to hide something that big under the ground,” she said.
Himawari also looked up with me.
Very tall buildings are built by driving piles into hard ground. If you push them more than fifty meters in, you can build almost anything. For people from the surface where buildings are still under one hundred meters, this must look strange.
”But how do you know that?” she asked.
”I studied. I felt scared if I didn’t learn things about society,” I said.
”You’re very good. Still, how did the people here live in such tall places? Maybe they had wings,” she said with a small laugh.
”That’s a fun idea,” I said.
If you do not know what an elevator is, tall buildings do look strange.
Tall buildings show a high level of life. In my last life, tall buildings began less than ten years after the Second World War, and in under twenty years, their height became three times more. The ground here was full of cracks, not only from age. Tall buildings are very heavy. Even now, Manhattan sinks about two millimeters a year.
I looked at the sleeve of Himawari’s kimono. She had hidden my hair there. I needed to get it back.
Putting my hand into a demon woman’s sleeve was like asking to die. She would choke me at once. But maybe I could make her lose focus with conversation, or even suddenly kiss her to shock her and grab it.
My eyes went to her dark lips.
Himawari noticed my strange look.
”What is it? Do I have something on my face?” she asked.
”Horns,” I said.
”…What?” she stared.
Even if a woman has different ideas about love, she can still sense inappropriate intentions. I had been glancing at her sleeve repeatedly, and she already knew my aim.
”You know this without me saying it,” she said. “It’s no use to run. It’s dangerous if you get lost, so don’t try. I’m saying this because I care.”
”I know. But what was that call machine from before?” I asked.
”…Well, who knows,” she said with a secret smile.
Her red mouth on her dark face made her look like a demon, but also a bit suspicious.
”You don’t know either?” I asked.
Someone who did not know elevators could not know a small speaker.
”It’s… fine, okay? I found it in a shopping mall,” she said.
So she found it on this floor.
They should not keep something dangerous in a shopping mall. I would never give a store permission to open if they did. But since it’s a mystical object, we do not know how it even came to be.
”I won’t go anywhere, so give my hair back. I hate that thing.”
I tried a bold approach. Strong words often work, so saying them was worth a try.
If that mystical object stayed with her, the rescue team could not move. No one knew who held the main object, and even if we broke it, there might be more. It seemed safer to get my hair back.
”Sorry, not yet,” she said.
”Why not?” I asked.
”Because I need it. Even if you don’t plan to run, those two might.”
Her dark eyes turned to my Imperial Guards.
Trash-san gave her a cold look without a word. Flatty-chan stepped forward and spoke with a clear, proud voice.
”Please return it. We will follow the Young Master, as he said we will not run,” she said.
”You want me to trust that?” Himawari asked.
Flatty-chan met her stare without fear.
There was no guilt at all. I felt a bit of her pride as an Imperial Guard.
”I hate you enough to want to kill you, but a promise made by the Young Master is still a promise. We have never broken a promise with him,” she said.
Flatty-chan was exaggerating.
They had broken my promises a few times. Do nothing dangerous. Do not make me worry. No rude touches. Take care of yourself first. And return alive with Kaede-san and the others.
”And I won’t let us break this one either. I can bet my mother’s and family’s lives on it,” she said.
”Oh? You say it like that,” Himawari said.
”Yes. I swear. You care about your own people, so you understand how heavy these words are,” Flatty-chan said.
Flatty-chan was a found child. She had no family at all.
I did not know how much Himawari believed this big lie from little Miss Despair, but she looked a bit impressed. Respecting your master’s wish was a sign of true loyalty for an Imperial Guard.
Just then, a sound of gears echoed from above.
”What…?” I said.
We all looked up. Among the modern buildings stood a tall brown clock tower. It was thin like a pencil beside the skyscrapers, so it looked a bit short.
The old-style clock face was maybe five meters wide. A long black hand moved slowly across the round numbers.
It looked stylish in a way. As I lowered my eyes again…
…?
I was standing on the sidewalk.
Wait… wasn’t I already on the sidewalk?
I had followed the clock with my eyes, felt the cracked tiles under my feet, watched the long hand move, and then…
What happened after that?
It felt like I had seen a very long dream. Like I walked a road so long I could live hundreds of lives on it, all while standing here.
And now, I had forgotten all of it.
”Did something strange just happen?” I asked.
I checked around.
Nothing had changed.
Himawari stood in front of me with her arms crossed. On each side, the two Imperial Guards stood ready to shield me. Near us, noble ladies from Isumi and townspeople waited in small groups.
”Trash-san, is this…?” I said.
”Yes. I felt it too, Young Master. Was this the effect of that tower’s mystical object?” she said.
She stared up at the clock with a shocked face.
The clock hand had stopped.
We were standing on a wide national road with tall buildings on both sides, yet the tower was silent now.
”Oh, it happens sometimes,” Himawari said.
Since she was used to this place, she did not seem moved at all. It looked like she knew this strange trick.
”There’s nothing. Nothing happens, but it feels like something did. That Western clock moves maybe once a month. Today is rare,” she said.
”I don’t get it. What do you mean?” I asked.
”It means nothing. Nothing changed. It’s just annoying. If the hand moves during a fight, it gets in the way a bit though,” she said.
Himawari explained the same thing again.
”Just ignore it. Really, nothing happened. This ruined city is full of things like that. You’ll get used to it,” she said.
I did not understand at all.
It felt like someone pulled the ground from under me. Only confusion and a small bad feeling stayed inside.
”…I really don’t get it,” I said.
I felt a strange loss, like I lived a long time and then lost the memory. Yet it seemed nothing had happened.
It felt like I had stepped into a world I did not know. It sat between strange and scary.
That forest with the horned owl also had a strange effect over a whole floor, like weaker gravity in some places. It seemed this floor had its own wide-ranged effect too.
Himawari looked at our three faces.
”Fine. I don’t want you to get any funny ideas, so I’ll explain this place first. You three will find many chances to run in this city. It’s easy to hide or slip out of the line in these messy streets,” she said.
She was right. We were not tied up. With two people who could use psionic power, we could jump into a building or hide in the ruins at the right time.
”But the traps are worse than the monsters that come from the red mist. We leave soon, so stay right behind me,” she said.
Himawari began to walk, leading us with the crowd.
Around three hundred people walked together on a raised sidewalk without any guardrail.
Before the shock of the clock’s effect faded, something that felt strange to the local women but familiar to me appeared.
A yellow sign stood by the road: “Watch your step.”
It was English. This was the first time I clearly saw it in this life.
I could read the letters. On the sign, a stick figure slipped and fell like a warning at a work site.
We passed by it without stopping.
Before I noticed, red marks followed where we walked. At first, I thought we had stepped in a puddle, but our soles and the ground were dry.
”No, these aren’t footprints. They’re handprints. And a lot of them. It feels bad,” I said.
We were walking with our feet, yet hands marked the tiles. Red stains like sumo wrestlers’ handprints spread across the sidewalk.
It looked like those cement tiles in front of American theaters with actors’ handprints and footprints.
When I turned around, small child-sized red hands trailed behind me, as if something crawled after us.
Fear stopped me for a moment, but no one else cared except the three of us. Some townspeople who were not used to the dungeon looked confused too.
”The traps near the edge of the ruined city are harmless. Don’t mind it,” Himawari said.
She hummed and walked at the front.
I followed her back and tried not to look down until the marks stopped.
After about ten minutes, we reached a tall traffic light at a wide road with three lanes on each side.
The group stopped before a traffic light that looked like the ones I knew. Town officials spoke to the poor townspeople and guided them. In groups of around ten, they crossed the road.
The traffic light shone a yellow like amber from overseas. The right-turn arrow painted on the road was opposite to Japan. I had not seen such things for a while, and it felt a little nostalgic.
The three lights blinked. Yellow and red flashed together, then blue lit up. It was a set of lights for cars, three in a row across the road.
”The way it lights up is random,” I said.
Was it broken? It was strange that this lonely place still had power.
The officials watched the light carefully while the townspeople crossed fast. There were no cars at all, so I did not get why they followed the light. Even if it was red, it should not matter.
Himawari pointed at the light.
”When the light is purple, never cross. When it turns striped, cross fast. Ignore the other colors,” she said.
That was completely different from what I expected. Purple? I had never heard of that.
”Sorry, what? Please say it again,” I said.
”Purple means stop. Striped means cross fast,” she said.
”Traffic lights don’t have those colors,” I said.
”Traffic light? Do you know what this is?” she asked, puzzled.
Right. Maybe traffic lights were not common here.
Thinking back, I had never seen one on the surface. Even the most modern town, Ichihara, had none.
”Never mind. I knew something else, so forget it,” I said.
In this time, crossroads were controlled by people with flags. Even the newest traffic lights in the Imperial Capital only had boards that flipped between ‘stop’ and ‘go’. Horse carts and charcoal cars passed there.
Electric three-color lights never spread, so it was normal for Himawari, who lived far in the south, not to know.
”I see. If you don’t follow these rules, it becomes trouble. You should stay in the carriage,” she said.
She was thinking of me. It was a normal kindness for a woman toward a man.
”I only want those two to see the traps. You don’t need to come. There is a place ready for you to rest inside,” she said.
No need to scare a man with dungeon sights. She wanted to show me a fun floor later, not the road here. She feared I might cry from something dangerous.
It felt like someone saying, ‘Princess, please rest in the carriage until arrival.’
”I’ll send my psionic power users with you. We’ll call you when we get there, so relax,” she said.
”I’m fine. I want to stay with them,” I said.
”I see. You are very close… how sweet,” she said.
I held Trash-san’s sleeve.
I did think it would be safe with the people of Isumi, but I did not want to be apart from the two, and being inside the carriage would make rescue harder. I wanted to stay outside.
As we spoke, the lights changed all at once.
Purple shone. It glowed like a neon sign, bright and city-like.
The light began to flash fast—on and off dozens of times in a second.
”Right on time,” she said.
The flashes moved like an old hand-crank film, and a shadow fell across the crosswalk as if showing a scene from the past.
”A child…?” I said.
Thanks to the purple light, I saw someone left in the center of the crossing.
A small dark shape sat and cried. Maybe the child fell because the ground was cracked.
Worry filled me. Staying under a dungeon’s traffic light like this would end badly. It felt like a dangerous event. If we did not help fast, the child might die.
To be stuck there during the purple light—such bad luck.
A child would not have psionic power. That kid was just a townsperson and could not protect herself.
”Is that child okay? We must help! Someone needs to pick her up,” I said.
Maybe it was nosy and I could not go myself, but I did not think there was time to wait.
”It’s dangerous, so stay here with your Imperial Guard. Ah, those fools… what are they doing!?” Himawari said.
She ran toward the center of the crossing.
Adults rushed to help the crying child.
”Move! Get back! Go now!” Himawari shouted.
She blew fire from her mouth and drove them away. Afraid of burns, they ran from the crossing.
In the middle of the road, a small half-clear child remained, still crying. It looked like a shadow crying.
”A doll…?” I said.
Strange as she looked, I could tell she was a human child. Oddly, she wore a Western-style skirt and held a worn teddy bear.
She hugged it tight like a best friend.
Suddenly, I heard brakes screech. A loud horn sounded like an elephant’s cry. My mind went blank for a heartbeat, and the scene slowed.
Himawari reached the half-clear child and tried to lift her.
At the same moment, a large dark shape hit her.
”Ah!”
For a brief moment, sharp screams rose from the crowd.
But strangely, the voices did not belong to anyone here. They were not from us or from the townspeople around us. The sound felt hysterical and far away, as if from someone watching this scene from another place.
A strange thought crossed my mind. Even if people saw that child in danger, did no one try to help?
”It hurts…!” Himawari cried.
Metal crashed with a loud smash. A black vehicle left dark marks on the road, flipped over, then faded away at the roadside.
”Really, be careful! Every single time!” she snapped.
The speeding vehicle had not killed her. Anyone else would have died on the spot, but she was not normal. Among psionic power users, she was one of the toughest.
She stayed on her feet, though she bled a little from her forehead.
The child on the road was not saved. She lay by the crossing, no longer crying.
Then she faded like a ghost. Only a small lump of meat stayed behind, like the worm-like chunks we saw often on the first floor.
Himawari burned it with her breath, then came back.
”That shocked me. What was that?” I asked.
”A dungeon trap. No matter how fast you try to help, that strange black box hits you. It’s a nasty scheme,” she said.
She let out small flames as she spoke, annoyed.
”But if no one tries to help that shadow child, it gets worse. Once the trap starts, someone has to ‘save’ her—or rather, trigger the trap—or the crashes get bigger without end,” she said.
”So it’s a kind of monster?” I asked.
”Who knows. But she dies every time, no matter how you do it. It’s not worth it,” she said.
Maybe something touched my mind again, or maybe I only thought I saw a child because it was far. Still, a picture formed in my head.
Maybe the girl dropped her teddy bear and ran back to pick it up. Then the light turned red and a car came.
People around whispered that it was dangerous, but no one moved to help.
Maybe such an accident really happened once.
It was just my own idea.
”What a strange trap. It feels like a ghost story made to catch people,” I said.
Seeing things like this made me think about the meaning of dungeons.
Why did this kind of malice exist? Where did it come from? Was there any point in the way we divided things into ‘dungeon’, ‘monster’, and so on?
What exactly was a dungeon?
”No point thinking about it. It’s just a trap. And from here, the traps get worse,” she said.
”Is that why we can’t run?” I asked.
”Yes. A first-time visitor can’t avoid them. If you get lost, even a psionic power user won’t be safe,” she said.
Only locals knew how to move here. We had almost no knowledge about this uncanny valley. A small country dungeon like this was rarely written about.
There was no profit here, so no one studied it. Outsiders only knew basic facts.
”If you get scared, you can go back to the carriage. How about it?” she said.
”I’m fine. How’s your head?” I asked.
”…Eh? Oh, this? Thanks. It’s nothing,” she said.
When I spoke to her, she smiled a little.
If that crash hit me, I would have been a stain on the road.
Something in that trap pulled at people’s hearts. But in the end, it was just like a pitfall with spikes—instant death if you didn’t know.
Still, the fact you could easily lose at least one person made it nasty.
”What if we break the traffic light? Or… what if we kill the shadow girl first, before the car comes?” I said.
If helping was impossible, maybe removing the target would stop the car.
”Hey! Don’t say scary things! I’ve never tried that!” she said.
She looked at me like I was a psycho.
I didn’t enjoy saying it. I just wanted any hint to escape. If I learned how the trap worked, the rescue team could use it.
But she scolded me.
”Don’t do extra things here. If you stay outside the carriage, then listen. It’s really dangerous,” she said.
”Okay. I’ll behave,” I said.
”Honestly… if you take the wrong turn, there are traps even I don’t know,” she sighed.
Trash-san and Flatty-chan got the blame from her look, like, ‘What kind of education does he have?’
For some reason, Flatty-chan puffed up proudly, as if saying, ‘Yes, this is my Master.’ It felt like a subtle show of loyalty.
While I, a man who should act like a scared noble lady, was instead scaring Himawari, the townspeople began crossing again.
If this world was strange to me, it must have felt impossible for people who had only seen brick houses before. The paved road alone was new to them.
If people like them had to explore this place, how terrified would they be? They would fear even their own shadow.
The uncanny valley had both monsters and traps. What a harsh dungeon.
With Himawari watching, the townspeople crossed more calmly. She kept her eyes on the light and spoke in a blunt tone.
”People from other towns don’t get it, but I care about my own people. I want to bring as many as I can to a new land, give them a better life, and make them happy. That’s my duty as the next town mayor,” she said.
She looked proud.
So she warned us to avoid trouble and avoid deaths along the way.
With someone like Himawari, who could die many times, we could cross this floor more safely.
Notes:
• Himawari – Young oni/aberration-type psionic; town leader/face; asks for promotion help; apologizes for killings; sets 2‑day deadline.
• Kaede – A female psionic explorer known as Necksplitter, is a veteran assassin and messenger of Lord Ichimatsu. Her appearance is both young and old, with gray hair streaked through black and vibrant, unlined skin. She is graceful yet carries the fatigue of a long life in war, resembling an old hunting dog. Her psionic ability is mysterious and potentially dangerous.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
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