The sun slowly began to hide itself from view.
The temperature around us started dropping sharply.
“…I-is this some, some kind of anomaly’s doing too!?”
“No, it’s just because it’s raining. And it’s autumn.”
Saying that, Senior held out a raincoat to me.
Since we had to move around to set up camp now, she urged me to hurry up and put it on.
“Put it on already. We have to camp and move, so we don’t have time to stroll around leisurely like during the investigation.”
“What about an umbrella……”
“…Do you want to die? You’re going to run away holding that? You come back to life… or whatever, don’t you.”
Senior looked at me with a cold expression as she said that.
I shook my head and said no, then obediently put on the raincoat.
The vinyl trapped the heat, making me feel a little warmer.
Of course, once the rain hit it, I’d get cold again in no time.
I put away the umbrella and, holding the waterproof tent, headed toward a spot that looked good for pitching it.
* * *
—Shwaaaaaaaaaa
A pitch-black, rainy night.
In the middle of that night, Senior and I were in the forest, hammering stakes into the ground and pitching the tent.
We were soaked to the bone from the rain, and our body temperatures had dropped as far as they could go.
It hurt, but maybe because I was starting to get used to my body, the thought crossed my mind that if I died, wouldn’t that be the end of it?
What worried me was Senior.
Since she had a human body, it would be hard for her to endure this cold.
So I turned my head and asked her.
“Se, nior… aren’t you cold?”
“I’m not cold.”
Senior answered far too calmly.
Her lips were blue, but perhaps she was used to this sort of thing, because she told me to stop talking nonsense and hammer the stakes properly.
Then, a short while later.
“…It’s done.”
“Let’s go in.”
Looking at the completed tent, I felt proud.
Senior brushed past me and entered the tent first.
I followed her inside.
Senior took out the food and drinking water we’d brought from the house to get by.
Sitting beside her, I stared blankly at her, and Senior asked if I had my phone.
“Do you have your phone?”
“Ah… um… I left it behind. The battery was dead in the first place.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes……”
“We’ll have to record with mine, then.”
Saying that, Senior took out her phone and opened the camera app.
As I watched blankly, Senior framed both herself and me on the screen and began recording in a serious voice.
“Aah… current time, 9 p.m. Outside, it is raining heavily, and the temperature is… 16.2 degrees. A little chilly. Anomalous Phenomenon 1: discovered the corpse of an owl.”
After saying that, Senior gestured to me.
I handed her the owl corpse I had put in a plastic bag.
“Discovered an owl corpse matching the report from Action Division 3.”
“…It was under, a tree.”
When I said that, Senior looked at me for a moment, then nodded.
“That concludes the first record.”
When Senior pressed the stop recording button, the video ended.
“Wh, what was that?”
“We leave records like this during operations.”
“You didn’t do that at school……”
“That time, we were only going to go in and come right back out, so we didn’t need a record.”
Senior said that this time, we had to stay here for days on end and keep records.
In the end, it meant that the two of us had to deal with the anomaly, so I just nodded blankly.
“…I want to go back alive.”
“Even if you go back dead, you’ll come back to life.”
“……”
“The Bureau will try to recover you. Same for me.”
Saying that, Senior took out a pot.
I stared blankly at her, then asked.
“…Recover?”
“Yeah. We have to recover the bodies. Do you know how much merit I’ve earned?”
Senior laughed hollowly.
I wondered if she wasn’t afraid of dying, but when I saw her hand trembling slightly, I swallowed my words.
‘Let’s not bring it up.’
The night slowly deepened.
There was nothing particularly strange, only the sound of the rain, so it was almost amazing that an anomaly was supposed to appear here.
In the midst of that, a faintly appetizing smell began spreading through the tent.
“Here, yours.”
“…?”
Saying that, Senior handed me a cup of instant noodles.
When I stared at it blankly, Senior tilted her head, told me not to eat it yet, and set the noodles down on the floor.
“We have to warm ourselves up. And eat.”
“Ah……”
“It’s not like you don’t know how to eat, right?”
“No… I can eat.”
Wondering if this person really saw me as nothing more than an anomaly, I shrank back once again.
Senior looked at me blankly, then brought up the operation.
“…1 a.m. We have to get up then.”
“……”
The time when the sound of owls echoed through the entire mountain.
It wasn’t the owl we were familiar with, but the time when the anomaly “Owl” appeared.
It gave me chills, but I nodded for now.
“Yes……”
“After that, you go out first and check the situation.”
“Yes…?”
When I asked in surprise, Senior asked what I was so surprised about and said that no matter what happened, she would recover my body.
“I’ll revive you.”
“……”
“…It can’t be helped. It’s in the contract. It’s also Bureau protocol.”
Anomalies were to be sacrificed before humans.
It was a protocol set by the Bureau.
From the Bureau’s standpoint, it would be better to send anomalies into dangerous situations.
And besides, they could make anomalies—who were already difficult to deal with—fight each other and destroy themselves.
“You want to remain human?”
“…Yes.”
“Then prove it. Prove that you’re human.”
Saying that, Senior flicked me on the forehead.
It hurt so much that tears sprang to my eyes. Senior smiled as she looked at me.
“Don’t cry, dumbass.”
“…B-but it hurts.”
“Roll around like crazy. That’s how you prove it. First, try proving it to me.”
“……”
After saying that, Senior set a three-minute timer.
As I stared at it blankly, I wiped away the tears that had slipped out and thought.
‘Senior… must be a good person at heart too.’
I was sure of it. She had to be a good person.
She had simply become a little rough and curt from fighting anomalies.
Deciding to think of it that way, I closed my eyes.
* * *
After eating, we immediately tried to sleep.
The current time was 9:30.
“Sleep.”
“A-already?”
“Yeah. We have to wake up at midnight, record a video and send it, then observe what happens when the sound starts at one.”
Since we had to get up before dawn, we needed to sleep early.
I nodded, lay down beside Senior, turned off the light, and listened blankly to the sound of rain as I thought.
‘If the anomaly appears……’
What would happen?
The fact that I had to go outside first felt a little frightening.
“…When you wake up… you’ll have to move right away… so sleep.”
“Ah… yes.”
“If you’re too exhausted to run… that… won’t do……”
Her words gradually slowed, and then Senior fell fast asleep just like that.
The way she slipped into sleep as if she had undergone some separate training to do so felt fascinating.
I also slowly calmed myself down to fall asleep and closed my eyes.
* * *
About two hours after I fell asleep.
“…Hey, wake up.”
“Hieek!”
I woke up in fright at Senior’s voice, and saw her roughly fixing her tousled hair with her hand.
“Did you have a nightmare or something…? Why are you so startled?”
“N-no… it’s, it’s just that you’re scary, Senior.”
When I said that while gauging her reaction, Senior turned on her phone without a word and recorded the video so that I was in the frame too, just like before.
“Aah… current time, uh… 11:54 p.m… nothing abnormal. The rain has stopped, and the temperature… has dropped another 12 degrees.”
“……”
“…You say something too.”
“Ah…! Uh, um… nothing abnormal.”
When I said that in a fluster while breaking out in a cold sweat, Senior nodded and ended the recording.
Then she immediately sent the video to the Bureau server.
“…Done. Take the radio.”
Saying that, Senior tossed me a radio.
“Uh… if, if we have this, couldn’t we just report by radio?”
When I asked that, Senior let out a sigh and continued.
“What if an anomaly kills us and uses the radio to make a false report?”
“…!!”
“I don’t know if it can imitate a person’s appearance, but it can definitely imitate voices. It seems intelligent too. That’s why we don’t use it.”
After saying that, Senior chopped the top of my head with the edge of her hand.
Then she adjusted the radio’s channel and gestured for me to go.
“You don’t have a phone… so this is the only communication device we’ve got for you. For now, go search outside a bit.”
“Ah… yes.”
“I’ll look for something proper before you come back… There should be a camera that connects to my phone.”
When I nodded, Senior told me to go.
I wondered if the illusions created by anomalies didn’t show up on camera, but I thought I’d get scolded if I asked, so I hurriedly opened the tent door.
“…!!”
“Ugh… cold.”
When I opened the tent, the cold air outside rushed in all at once, instantly turning the inside of the tent as cold as ice.
As I trembled uncontrollably, Senior tossed me her outerwear as well and gestured for me to go.
“The rain stopped. Go on for now. It should still be safe.”
“Ah… yes……”
“Found a cam. Attach it to your head.”
Saying that, Senior connected the feed to her phone.
“Now I can see too. The sound doesn’t transmit, so don’t turn off the radio.”
“Ah… yes…!”
The fact that Senior would at least be sharing my field of vision was a small comfort.
‘Is the Watcher… asleep?’
I thought the Watcher could just help with communications.
But knowing their personality, they would definitely say it was too much trouble, so I let out a sigh.
Pitch-black darkness lay before my eyes.
I had no choice but to walk into it.
Even though I knew there was a monster inside.
—Click!
“Hieek?!”
“…That was the sound of me turning off the lamp. Hurry up and go, stop dawdling.”
Senior urged me on as she said that.
Pushed forward by her words, I walked into the darkness, trembling.
I was so incredibly scared.