Monogatari Series - Volume 22 - Chapter 1.03

003

Strictly speaking, I was someone who wasn’t even able to become a vampire.

In normal mode, I wasn’t immortal in the way Suou-san was. I was neither human nor oddity, just something half-baked.

But if I told her that, I’m sure she’d respond with something self-deprecating like, “Well, I’m just a half-baked half-fish person,” so I kept my mouth shut.

It wasn’t like anything would come from the two of us sitting around half-baked and staring at the river forever.

Because it was the off-season, it was only me and Suou-san at the riverbank, but it was better to finish our investigation before anybody noticed. And as Suou-san couldn’t enter the water, it was up to me to carry out the survey of the site.

Using the shadow of a tree as cover, I changed into a swimsuit.

To think that my first job as a police officer would be to go swimming—not to mention that flowing water was supposed to be bad for vampires, although it was something I could endure.

The whole job was about endurance.

“Wow. You really work out, don’t you, Araragi-kun. No wonder you’re so eager to strip.”

“I don’t work out. It’s just my constitution.”

And I wasn’t eager to do anything.

“Mhm. Can I take a picture?”

“Of course not,” I said as I took a step into the river. If a pro of it being the off-season was that there was nobody around, then a con would be how freezing cold the water was, which I came to be keenly aware of.

It was basically an ablution.

It would be a huge letdown to hear that a vampire who was brought in as an assistant inspector for training died of a heart attack—and even though it would be a great pleasure to besmirch Gaen-san’s name, I didn’t exactly want to die to accomplish that.

As I had learned in my swimming lessons in the past, I splashed handfuls of water onto my body as I stepped deeper into the water.

Uh-oh, it was really deep.

For someone like myself who wasn’t exactly a giant (I hadn’t grown any taller in college), this was quite a cruel task.

As such, I decided to give up early on and put on my goggles, allowing myself to sink beneath the water without putting up much resistance. Somehow, it felt like I was making up for all that time I didn’t spend playing when I was a kid.

By myself.

“Are you all right, Araragi-kun? If you absolutely need it, should I come help?”

…Although, it seemed that, from Suou-san’s point of view, I looked like some guy who was nearly drowning.

I gave her a thumbs-up (though it probably seemed more like my arms were flailing up) in order to make it seem like I was having absolutely no problem. Disregarding the fact that my swimming had the elegance of a rock, I managed to make it to the centerline of the river and daringly dive to the bottom without any problems.

Because I had gotten used to how cold the water was, and because I could see fairly well due to the relative clearness of the water, I could even say I felt some entertainment value in having this spot as somewhere to hide, even if the flow of the water wasn’t necessarily calm.

It was the random thrills that you could only get from natural phenomena.

Maybe it was like one of those endless pools. Or was that backwards? Was it endless pools that were based on rivers?

Naturally, because I could be thrown off by the strength of the water if I let my guard down, and because I could slip on the mossy rocks at any minute, there was a world of difference between this and an endless pool…

But even as an amateur, I felt that having as many as five drowning accidents occur in this river felt like it was a little too much. If you told me that there was some other factor, it would be hard to deny—but, unlike my high school days, I couldn’t simply go with an amateur opinion.

Since I was no longer an amateur.

Unlike Oshino or Ononoki-chan, I was now a professional police officer and had to lay down a proper judgment—as a member of the Rumors Squad, even if it was only for a four-month training period.

…Ononoki-chan, huh?

Thinking about that girl made me nostalgic.

And from there, I figured out one thing I wanted to confirm.

“Suou-san. You said they were children, but around what age were they specifically? If they were elementary school kids, I feel like it would have been hard for their feet to touch the ground, even in the shallow parts…”

“The oldest was fifteen years old, and the youngest was seven. Without being biased, I can say it does feel like the range is pretty wide. Incidentally, I believe the oldest one was taller than you, Araragi-kun. He said his feet touched the ground at the very deepest part.”

“Is that so?”

Then I couldn’t say anything about that.

It wasn’t something I could use.

I went to a point where my feet could touch the ground and said, “If we turn that around, it means that no one over sixteen was a victim,” putting the obvious into words.

It was hard to judge if I should interpret it as adults being less likely to drown when playing in the water, or if I should interpret it as the trend of younger people being more likely to encounter oddities.

It turned out that meeting a vampire when I was almost a high school third-year was on the rare side of things—even Suou-san was only 15 or so when she ate the “mermaid flesh”.

The results of the inspection turned out to be “we couldn’t say either way”, but really, the only one who would be satisfied with such neutralism would be Oshino Meme.

In this case, a neutral conclusion was no different from substantiating the rumor.

Our job was to “smash it up” before the rumor became an oddity story, so going “we couldn’t say either way” basically meant we weren’t doing our job.

That would just be stealing my salary. Even though I was a police officer.

“I suppose we don’t have a choice. I’m going to call Shinobu,” I said as I pulled myself out of the water.

“Eh? Already? Aren’t you being a little hasty?” asked Suou-san, astonished. “I thought you’d try a little harder on your own,” she said as she passed me a towel (extending her arm as far as possible so she herself wouldn’t get wet).

Did I disappoint her? Although I had no intention of trying to show off.

“Trying to do everything on my own by any means possible and making a mess out of things was what I did in my teens, after all. I’ve learned a little since then.”

“I see. But hold off on calling that vampire for a bit. Don’t bring her out when I’m here. I don’t want to be eaten.”

Ah, that’s right.

I’d been very firmly warned about that by the chief.

Because Suou-san was a mermaid, that in other words meant that her body was “mermaid flesh” in itself—and even before all that miraculousness about how it could completely cure an unconscious patient, that flesh was a delicacy.

Like me, Shinobu could no longer be called a vampire, but even if she didn’t drink blood, her nature as a consumer of oddities still remained—and while that nature made her an excellent way of getting an “expert’s opinion” on whether or not there were any oddities in this river, having such delicious meat right next to her would surely throw off that judgment.

For the chief and Suou-san, who hadn’t spent over five years together with her, it was natural to be wary that Shinobu would indiscriminately make a beeline for the “mermaid flesh” that was my senpai.

That wasn’t something you could compromise on.

Compared to the fundamentally harmless image of the mermaid, both Shinobu and I were such beings that it was almost bizarre that we were still allowed to live.

“Well, I’m gonna dash off back to the office ahead of you, then. If you figure something out, just text me, okay?”

“Is texting okay? What about keeping things confidential?”

“It’s our role to get rid of things that should be kept confidential, isn’t it? If you want, feel free to just livestream the whole thing. You’ve managed to become so muscular, Araragi-kun, so it would be a waste if you didn’t show it off.”

I couldn’t care less about my muscles, but in any case, Suou-san soon departed from the riverbank—just to make sure, I gave her about five minutes to get some distance before crouching and knocking on my shadow.

As one would expect, a vampire who led a certain lifestyle for almost six centuries wouldn’t be able to so easily change it in just a few years. But even though Shinobu remained nocturnal to this day, she would still respond when called on, as long as she wasn’t in a bad mood.

It seemed that on this day, she was actually in an extremely good mood, as it only took one knock before that blonde young girl came out of my shadow with a “nyuu~” sound. And as I, the master, was clad in beachwear (or since I wore it to swim in a river, should I call it riverwear?), Shinobu was also wearing a swimsuit.

It was a one-piece bathing suit that almost made it seem like she just came to play in the river.

“Ka ka!” laughed Shinobu, baring her fangs. “‘Mermaid flesh’, is it? Certainly, not even I have had the pleasure of eating such a thing. I wonder what flavor it could possibly have?”

“Give me a break. Please don’t eat my colleague.”

“I shan’t, I shan’t. I have no intention of laying waste to my master’s place of work—not when it directly concerns my own lifestyle. In turn, please work as hard as you can to support me.”

“I didn’t think I was working to support you, though…”

That wasn’t the case, was it?

Or rather, perhaps that was exactly the case.

Me being alive meant that Shinobu stayed alive as well, and it was because Shinobu was alive that I was able to keep on living—“If you want to die tomorrow, I’m ready for my life to end tomorrow.”

That immature line that I had spouted off as a high schooler still remained valid even now.

That was Araragi Koyomi’s top-priority stipulation.

“Nevertheless, I’m going to need you to work a little, too. What do you think, Shinobu? I’d be fine with kappa or mermaids, or even that dear old omoshi-kani, if you’d like.”

“Dear old, you say? Well, I suppose it has been a while since we have been in this town in itself—it seems that that Mayoi girl has been doing a good job of keeping things suppressed. I have to say, it feels exceedingly stable from a spiritual standpoint, to the point of irritating me. Or at least making me hungry.”

“Is that so? Hmm… Then, does that mean the five drowning accidents that occurred here were really just accidents?”

“Nay. That is not the case,” said Shinobu, shaking her head.

It was a motion that was extremely theatrical for no reason.

Or was there a reason?

“From my diagnosis, out of the five cases, four of them were not accidents, but incidents. And if we leave it alone, it is sure to create even more victims.”