I feel like I’ve come in pretty deep.
It was so dark I even wondered whether the lights were on at all.
It was a space where the fear brought on by the darkness and the bizarre sounds that rang out now and then seemed to intertwine, creating a terror that could drive one mad.
If I’d visited this place back when I was human, I probably would have pissed myself.
In the body of a scrap metal doll, though, it just felt like walking down a street where the light didn’t reach very well.
When you think about it, I’m a monster too, so I don’t really feel much fear.
‘Just what are they quarantining here for it to be this dark?’
It couldn’t be for some absurd reason like not having enough budget, making the lights weak.
To begin with, if they were going to use the budget as an excuse, they would have slapped the pretext of supplies onto every little thing and taken whatever they could get.
Then there was only one presumed reason left.
Deliberately.
Back when I was human, I’d heard that there were entities whose influence on humans was so great in ordinary environments that their surroundings were intentionally adjusted for containment.
Whether they were weakened by the environment, or whether something else was intended, I didn’t know.
I listened closely to the sounds around me, but at the very least, I heard no human voices.
I slowly descended from the ceiling and began walking on two feet.
As I walked along the path, a warning notice caught my eye.
“Caution, the above entity is in a state of perfect containment. Approach is prohibited for safety?”
Oh.
So there was an entity that had been perfectly contained.
As expected, the agents of Area 469 really were different somehow, weren’t they?
No matter how I looked at them, they’d only seemed like humans with a screw loose.
In any case, this was truly something hard to see.
Even in the area where I’d worked, there hadn’t been a single entity that was perfectly contained.
Attached to the warning notice was a rough drawing of the contained entity.
[Entity Name: Unpleasant Gaze.]
[The above entity has been perfectly contained. Unlocking the containment chamber is prohibited under any circumstances.
The information written below was obtained at the cost of the lives of agents belonging to this area.]
[Unpleasant Gaze is an entity drawn on a mural. It stares at nearby living beings with three vertically opened eyes, causing them to feel discomfort.]
[Simply viewing a photograph of this entity causes discomfort, and may also induce mental abnormalities, vomiting, and hemoptysis.
In severe cases, it may lead to death. Therefore, no photograph of the entity is provided.
Please refer to the representational drawing of the entity included in this warning notice.]
[If you make eye contact with Unpleasant Gaze, you will immediately feel discomfort. Leave the area at once.
The standard for “leaving” here means moving to a place where the entity’s gaze cannot reach.]
[If, after feeling discomfort, you display hostility toward Unpleasant Gaze, Unpleasant Gaze will activate.
Once activated, Unpleasant Gaze will immediately kill you by any means possible.]
[The generally known methods of killing include inducing conflict between allies and suicide caused by mental abnormalities.
It mainly uses methods such as death by excessive bleeding from hemoptysis or death from an unknown illness.]
[Warning: Humans not killed by the above methods will be immediately executed by Unpleasant Gaze. If touched by an unidentified violet beam,
the human body cannot withstand it and will die instantly. If you have survived, never touch the beam.
You may become the first survivor of an activated Unpleasant Gaze.]
[Attempts were made to induce communication through continuous contact with the entity, but it is firmly refusing.
The entity cannot escape on its own, but some information has been exposed since the incident in which an armed organization attempted to seize Unpleasant Gaze.
The likelihood of civilians knowing the above facts is extremely low. In the event of an attack, absolute defense is the principle.]
[Experiments on and communication with the above entity are currently prohibited. If experimentation on the above entity is necessary,
permission from Headquarters and at least three Security Disposal Teams is required. (Correction: Experiments on the above entity
also require permission from Director Chester and the additional submission of an accident response plan.)]
What.
It was a thing that couldn’t even move, yet it was unbelievably vicious.
Taking a quick look, the excessive number of chains and locks wrapped and tangled around the containment chamber door once again showed just how dangerous the entity was.
Was it because I was conscious of it? I felt like something inside was staring at me with an incredibly unpleasant gaze.
Wait. If the containment chamber door was locked like this and I showed hostility?
Surely something wouldn’t burst out through the containment chamber door, would it?
The part about there being no survivors bothered me.
There was a high chance they had implicitly conducted entity-versus-entity experiments, and yet the name of the entity that survived wasn’t written anywhere.
It might be a threatening existence even to most Unknowns.
From the looks of it, they’d written it as though they would test a killing method if one came up. But in reality, it didn’t seem like permission would ever be granted.
At least three disposal teams meant, even at the lowest estimate, over a hundred combat personnel.
The security team in the area where I worked had been about that size, so just what kind of battles had the agents of Area 469 been fighting?
Looking at it this way, having a screw loose could really be considered a decent condition.
Even one or two insane entities like this would be enough to drive anyone mad. But there were more than that.
The rumors about agents of Area 469 constantly dying.
If anything, they must have been downplayed, not exaggerated.
Just as I was about to quicken my pace, the discomfort washed over me once again.
I even felt as if bizarre sounds were ringing out, trying somehow to draw my attention.
I wanted to see what kind of thing it was for myself, but I decided to leave it for later.
The fact that the information was written in such detail meant just as many agents’ graves had increased.
Only a very small number of people knew I had escaped right now.
There was no need to rashly fight an Unknown when I didn’t even know what my chances of winning were.
I did want to give it the middle finger and land a blow that way, but the standard for hostility wasn’t clearly written.
There was no need to go poking a hornet’s nest for no reason.
‘It’ll be troublesome if I stay out too long, so should I pick up the pace of the exploration a bit?’
I trusted Hugmon to handle things, but maybe it was because I felt bad about leaving too much to it.
Passing by the containment chamber door of Unpleasant Gaze, I moved farther inward.
+++
“My side feels cold today.”
“Director, are you building up to that story again?”
“Adjutant, that’s harsh. I can still vividly remember you clinging to me and sobbing back then.”
“Fuck, just thinking about that time still makes my blood boil.”
The adjutant glanced at Chester’s expression for a moment, then lowered his tail.
“I apologize. The anger just surged up from my chest.”
“Don’t worry about it. They came prepared. It would’ve been the same no matter what facility it was.”
Chester lit his pipe and thought back to that day.
“I should’ve rounded up every last one of those bastards and wrecked them. I seriously agonized over it.
To the point where I considered quitting this job and going around hunting those sons of bitches down.”
“They were quite meticulous for amateurs, as if they’d been planning it for a long time.”
“No way. Their movements alone were veteran-level. At the very least, they were the kind of guys who could work on a security team at any half-decent facility.”
“Do you think information leaked from somewhere? For Headquarters to make a mistake like that with civilians… No,
I can’t say it’s impossible, but still.”
“What about the possibility that they were dismissed personnel?”
The adjutant felt as though he had been struck in the back of the head.
Dismissed personnel.
Humans who had received notice of dismissal from Headquarters for one reason or another.
The reasons varied. Causing a disturbance by using weapons without permission, inadequate initial response during an Unknown escape, murdering another employee, and so on.
The work was so grueling that they wouldn’t try to throw away talent just because they committed a forbidden act once or twice.
Headquarters was extremely sensitive to the loss of talent.
To put it another way, if Headquarters, which was so sensitive to talent loss, dismissed an agent,
then there was no need to waste breath explaining just how vicious what they’d done must have been.
Among civilians, only a very small number knew about Unknowns like this.
In such a situation, they were assuming that dismissed personnel had gathered and created an armed organization. However,
Headquarters had collected the bodies of those killed, so the only one that knew the answer was Headquarters.
No answer came back from Headquarters.
In the end, it remained nothing more than conjecture.
“But Headquarters didn’t say anything, did it?”
“Is that anything new? Headquarters moving and acting however the hell they want. Whether it’s true or not,
we’re in a situation where we can only assume that’s the case.”
“Thinking about it again, they really have been doing nothing but making themselves thoroughly unlikeable.”
“Tell me about it. There’s a reason it’s hard to find bastards in this field who aren’t insane.”
“Still, hasn’t the atmosphere gotten much better than before? Up until the year before last, at least.”
“Don’t even bring it up. Just hearing about it pisses me off.”
Chester, who had been leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, seemed to recall something and called to the adjutant.
“How’s the Scrap Metal Doll doing?”
“Well, as you expected, it’s quiet. The Wandering Swordsman only goes out now and then, saying he’s going for a walk.”
“Hah, should I really report this rare sight to Headquarters? It feels like such a waste.”
“It certainly is a truly rare scene.”
“After testing it a little more, how about letting it meet those guys?”
The adjutant violently waved his hands and grimaced.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. There’s no need to bother guys who are already well contained.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that they’re guys we’ll have to dispose of someday.”
The adjutant could not bring himself to continue.
Because he knew how many agents Chester had lost, and what those agents had meant to the director.