Monogatari Series - Volume 28 - Chapter 1.02

002

“Shinobu. Sorry, but could you say that one more time? I couldn’t hear you very well because of the delay.”

“We are talking with our faces only a few centimeters apart, so what kind of delay are you talking about? Goodness, you don’t have to be so shameless just because you want to talk a bit longer with me.”

It was true that I was somewhat starved for conversation, but that wasn’t the reason I was asking her to repeat her words. It wasn’t because there had been a delay, but because I thought I’d misheard her.

Incidentally, Shinobu was bound to my shadow, so as long as it wasn’t around sunset, there was no way we could practice social distancing.

Our distance could only be zero.

It was a distance of decadence.

Well, a few centimeters or a distance of zero may be an exaggeration, but we had no choice but to converse so intimately… Even if that Hawaiian-shirt specialist acted as though he saw through everything, there was no way he sealed Shinobu in my shadow predicting a situation like this.

Even though being intimate with a young girl should have had a good meaning.

“There is no way being intimate with a young girl could ever have a good meaning. But fine, listen well. I shall say it a second time, but there won’t be a third, my master. I said, ‘I was thinking of taking a trip to Europe now, so how about you come along with me?’”

“So I didn’t mishear you…”

My shoulders drooped.

Rather than a third time, it felt like I was facing death.18

How disappointing… I’d felt nothing but admiration towards Shinobu, who was my senior in a lifestyle of self-restraint, so I never expected that she would say something so lacking in awareness.

There was nothing more deplorable.

Not just going outside, but going overseas?

What brought this on?

Well, let’s not get too discouraged.

This sort of friction had to be occurring all over Japan. I couldn’t possibly be the sole exception.

All humans made mistakes, even if they weren’t human.

And if we corrected those mistakes, they’d stop being mistakes.

“Shinobu, listen well. It’s true that you and I might have the least amount of risk in this pandemic, but that’s simply the risk of exhibiting symptoms or having our conditions worsen. It’s not the risk of spreading the virus to others, you know?”

It was like, if we assumed the optimistic stance that Japanese people were less likely to show symptoms because of some unknown factor, we’d be shunned by the world at large.

Even if things were fine for us, it wasn’t fine for everyone else.

Shinobu looked like a young girl, so her risk might comparatively be even lower, but the sample size was so small that there was probably no pandemic research institute that could make that judgment. That is, the risk of a former vampire young girl spreading a disease…

But if we thoughtlessly included her as a sample, it might skew the results entirely.

“Hmph. How foolish. If that Hawaiian-shirt brat can call himself an authority on monstrous apparitions, then as the king of vampires, I’m practically a specialist of pandemics. I can hold my head high.”

“Is that so?”

Had she been invited to be a member of something? Was she providing comments on an acrylic board for some infotainment program?

But, thinking about it, the origin of vampires as an oddity wasn’t entirely unrelated to the spread of a pandemic… Like vampires using bats that spread diseases as their thralls, or transforming into bats themselves, and the like.

And even if not for that, Shinobu was six hundred years old.

In terms of her experiences, she should know about the Spanish flu and the black plague—she was much more of an authority, compared to me, who only had knowledge of the novel coronavirus from what he’d seen on the news.

Even if she hadn’t been infected herself, she should have been present for countless pandemics.

“If that’s the case, then there’s even less reason for you to say something like that. I thought you’d been acting pretty meek for a while, but now you’re throwing out something completely nonsensical—Europe? Only Aikawa Jun would depart for Europe under circumstances like these.”

After all, that red woman had been traveling in Venice when the state of emergency had been declared… We were really in different worlds, but she was truly an outrageous person.

As expected of humanity’s strongest contractor.

Even when I was a full vampire, I would have no hope of beating her.

“Speaking of Venice, I recently got to read Manzoni’s The Betrothed that people have been talking about. It was a historical masterpiece that I would never have gotten to read if it weren’t for this opportunity, and because of that, I was thinking about how I could cultivate myself even in this period of self-restraint.”

“Ah. I’ve read the first edition of that book.”

Really? You’re not just trying to one-up me?

It was like she was saying she read it before it was cool… But it was hard to imagine that this young girl, currently hooked on Japanese manga, had read that book before…

I couldn’t help but look at her with doubt.

“It made me think about a lot of things. I used to be secretly worried about if we chatted too much about things unrelated to the main plot, but after reading The Betrothed or Les Misérables, I realized that what we were doing wasn’t nearly enough.”

“What the heck are you thinking about!?”

I was hit with a retort.

From the rascal that was trying to embark on a journey.

“Recall that those books are out of print in Japan. I may have read Les Mis the day it was released, but nowadays, you can only read the abridged version, right? If you’re going to learn from something, learn from that.”

That was quite a decent lecture…

Indeed, when I tried reading the unabridged translation of Les Misérables on Hitagi’s recommendation, I’d become discouraged partway through, thinking, “When is Jean Valjean going to show up!?”

It was impressive that they managed to adapt such a long story into a musical only a few hours long—well, I suppose our anime adaptations were the same sort of media mix.

I had better learn from it. Though I was done with entrance exams.

“But you know, I can’t deny that it’s gotten harder to have those developments where I would randomly encounter one of the heroines on the side of the road and we would have a meaningless yet long-winded exchange.”

“Indeed. With things as they are now, I’ve started to savor that meaningless chatter. So, no more grumbling. Let’s go to Europe!”

Despite that savoring, we really weren’t meshing together, my partner and I.19

If we were simply taking a short walk outside, then we would at least be protected by the god of walks within this town, so I didn’t need to be all that finicky about that, but when it came to overseas travel, how would I need to explain border control measures in a way this former noble would understand?—I was already at my limit acting as guardian for my two high schooler sisters, but if I had to look after a young girl on top of that…

Rather than being a guardian, it was more like day care.20

Because of the pandemic, day care centers and elementary schools were all closed, so it must be pretty hard for households with children always at home, but I never thought I’d be the one to experience that…

What to do?

Really, what to do?

Would she forget about it if I gave her some tasty donuts, was the sudden and impulsive idea I had… Before, I’d been able to shut her up with a kiss, but that was harder to do these days with close contact being forbidden. Er, even if it weren’t for the pandemic, that method shouldn’t be used on a young girl by a university student that had reached his twenties.

That was also something to learn from.

Mm, I guess I had no choice.

For now, she could say everything she had to say.

When two value systems clashed like this, rejecting the other party outright without even hearing them out would just lead to quarreling. I had to make sure this didn’t lead to an argument.

Avoiding arguments, and blocking off counterarguments.

After all, there was no way she was suggesting going to Europe for a reason like, “Because there’ll be less people at tourist attractions right now”—though I’ve heard that the canals of Venice had become much clearer because the number of tourists had decreased.

Thanks to the pandemic, stock prices had even risen because there was less to spend on otherwise. It was a new normal where not just the theoretical, but even the unimaginable was made possible. Anything could happen.

Even the supernatural was now natural.

So, with what reasoning was this supernatural golden-haired young girl trying to lure me, her master, into going on a trip?

“Well, ‘just because’, really. A flash of inspiration. It should be fine, right? I’m sure nothing bad will happen. Probably.”

“You’re crazy.”

To think that I’d been in a team with such a crazy girl for over fifteen years… Was it like when people invite you to a meal that you can’t refuse, which I’d heard about every so often?

It’s like, yikes.

Oh yeah, right, it was with this lighthearted mood that this girl lured me into a time slip… And there’d been a time when, instead of hell, she’d sent me off to heaven.

Rather than The Betrothed or Les Misérables, it was more like the Divine Comedy or Faust, now.

In that case, I’d like it if we could make it to The Decameron.

“What’s with The Decameron? Don’t start acting like a scholar after reading a couple books. Even though you would say something like, ‘The class rep’s breasts are deca-melons!’ when you were in high school.”21

“Was I really that vulgar?”

Don’t try to fabricate my character.

Or lack of character.22

Considering that Hanekawa’s whereabouts were unknown and she was completely out of contact, that wasn’t just unrestrained. It was something she should restrain herself from saying.

Well, perhaps I’d said something similar, but I wasn’t a high schooler anymore. As for whether or not I was currently a university student, I was kind of walking a fine line, but either way, I would no longer make breast-related jokes about Hanekawa.

Breast-related.

I could probably fill about thirty pages with such heart-throbbing words, but I’ll ignore that urge.

“It was after Isaac Newton had to stay at home due to a pandemic that he witnessed an apple falling from a tree and discovered the law of universal gravitation. I’d like to be the same as him, so don’t try to tempt me.”

“That Newton was a famous European, was he not? If you want to be the same as him, you’d better travel there!”

“How tempting. As tempting as apple-like breasts.”

“Who are you saying has apple-like breasts!? You couldn’t ignore your breast-related urges at all, could you?”

She glared at me.

However, the episode about discovering the law of universal gravitation by watching an apple fall was more of a tall tale, so it was hard to judge how much of that anecdote to believe.

“Though, even if they’re apples, they would just be crabapples.”

“You’d probably win even if you were sued in a seventeenth-century court.”

“Or maybe they’re plums. The plum pickers plucked the plump plums.23”

“Do you want me to plunge you into the sea? Do you want me to plump plum plunge you?24 Into the Caspian Sea.”

I wasn’t just joking around here. For some time now, I’d been trying to change the subject by weaving in the meaningless chatter that I’d learned from The Betrothed, but it wasn’t going too well—with her bringing up the Caspian Sea, it seemed this young girl had a strong attachment to Europe.

Not that I was able to intuitively remember if the Caspian Sea was in Europe, since it had been a while since I’d needed to study geography—but, intuition.

Inspiration…

I’d found myself not taking her as seriously after she’d given the reason of “just because”, but if it really was a flash of inspiration for her, then the circumstances were slightly different.

Because it wasn’t the inspiration of just anyone.

It was the inspiration of the former King of Oddities.

A sixth sense, or a supernatural sense—if an oddity spoke of it, then it held meaning beyond just simply sounding dubious.

“For one thing, ‘tis simply unbearable to have to see my master yield to peer pressure in such a way. It really puts a damper on my mood. Being thrown this way and that by a high-pressure system makes my temper into a low-pressure system. Since when did you become such a slave-like character?”

“Wouldn’t it be when you made me into your slave? If I really did become one.”

Besides, what was so different between yielding to peer pressure and yielding to the pressure you’re putting on me?—as I thought that, I carefully began to dig deeper. Since she herself offered up the keyword of “inspiration”, she probably wasn’t going to be a golden-haired loli slave that was up front with her responses.

I’d have to come at her from behind.

“Even if you mention Europe, there are lots of countries there. Countries not a part of the European Union, and countries that haven’t signed the Schengen Agreement. You’d be making a huge mistake if you assume that Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, and Northern Europe are all part of the same cultural sphere.”

I was recycling knowledge that I’d heard from Hanekawa once in the past.

Though it wasn’t exactly knowledge for entrance exams.

However, especially now that we’d lost contact with Hanekawa, it was evident that disease control measures were all over the place for each country, Japan included—globalism was pretty difficult.

You could even call it global distancing.

By the time this novel gets published, what might have happened to the Olympics and the Paralympics?—I really wanted to ask for the opinion of our own athlete, Kanbaru.

“If there are countries that are under lockdown, then there are countries just trying to achieve herd immunity without any strong countermeasures, so it’s not exactly impossible if you want to go to one of the latter countries—”

Or, was it?

As a university student that had rarely even left the prefecture, I had no idea what it was like to try and fly overseas in a situation like this, so I didn’t know the specifics of the inspections and quarantines that took place during immigration and emigration.

The fact that they could ignore information irrelevant to them in a situation like this really showed that humans were selfish creatures. It made me doubt if humans really were meant to be social creatures.

They were a far cry from bees or ants.

Even if we managed to leave, if we weren’t allowed to return, then that wasn’t traveling but being exiled—perhaps I hadn’t lived my life in the most ethical way, but I hadn’t exactly done anything bad enough to deserve exile. Assuming I hadn’t done something so terrible that I’d lost my memory afterwards.

“—Shinobu-san. What part of Europe do you want to go to?”

“Greenland.”

“Greenland!?”

Was that country in Europe?

Right, it was… It was a territory of Denmark.

“No, just kidding. A bit of humor to lighten the mood.”

So in her own way, Shinobu was keeping an eye out to prevent these stressful times from becoming even more tense… Weaving in laughter at every turn.

Even if it wasn’t funny.

Speaking of which, this vampire had even spent some time at the South Pole, hadn’t she—and maybe they’d just been empty words, but she’d said, on that spring break two years ago, that she’d come to Japan for some sightseeing.

Considering what happened to her afterwards, though, it was more like she’d barely survived with a life of exile.25

As for me, I hadn’t barely survived, but had become a corpse-like empty shell.26

“Apparently, there were confirmed cases of the coronavirus even at the South Pole, and the theory that oddities don’t exist on that continent is now a thing of the past. In the end, it’s still unclear whether or not outbreaks are more likely to occur in colder places.”

In the summer, people are more active, so infections spread more easily, right? At least, according to my current understanding.

“If you think about it on a global scale, it’s always summer somewhere and winter somewhere else.”

As expected, the point of view of a six-hundred-year-old was immense.

That could be why she didn’t really understand the severity of this disease… Even though, for us, this was a historic event that would happen only once in a century, for her, perhaps this was nothing more than “the usual”.

Things ended up working out in the previous case, the case before the previous case, and the case even before that, so it’ll be all right this time, was maybe how she saw it?

In that case, it was unreasonable to criticize her for it, but I couldn’t turn a blind eye to it, either—so all I did was ask her again. “So, where do you really want to go?”

Well, I’d arrogantly cited one of Hanekawa’s statements, but it had been a while since I’d finished my entrance exams, so I didn’t even know how many countries were in the European Union after the United Kingdom withdrew (over twenty, I think—). But even before that, I wasn’t sure if I could even name all the countries of Europe.

I was secretly tensing up out of fear that she’d bring up a country I barely remembered and expose my ignorance, but Shinobu said,

“As for its location, in terms of the Western, Eastern, Southern, and Northern Europe that you mentioned, it’s right in the middle of them,”

being rather vague in her description.

Central Europe?

Was that even a real term?

“Shinobu, I’m asking you for a specific name.”

“There’s no point in asking. It’s a country that fell to ruin a long time ago,”

said Shinobu, indifferently.

Indifferently, and uninterestedly.

“It’s not even left in history books. Even I’ve completely forgotten, so there’s probably no one that remembers the name of that country now—I’ve carefully forgotten it all.27”

"............?”

With her blending in a homophone at the end, it ended up stirring my thoughts a bit, but what, fell to ruin? Not an exile from the country, but a ruined country?

Well, it wasn’t like I was expecting her to be planning a “Paris–San Sebastian Round Trip Foodie Tour”... Not to mention, the idea that France and Spain weren’t the only countries in Europe was precisely the point I’d been trying to make, but still, a ruined country was pretty shocking… Wasn’t it too high-level of a destination for a shadow shut-in to suddenly visit?

“So far from quarantines or isolation periods, we won’t even need passports. If it’s too hard to be careful with no country name, then for the timing, let us call it the Acerola Kingdom.”

Shinobu seemed weirdly attached to the pun of “country name” and “careful”, but putting that aside, the Acerola Kingdom.

That made it sound like a kingdom that was under your rule, former Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, speaking like Ononoki-chan—hm?

Acerola?

Princess Acerola?

“Besides, my master. We’re only forbidden from leaving home for non-essential and non-urgent reasons.”

Shinobu shrugged her shoulders.

I expected that the natural extension to that statement would be, “It’s fine to leave for essential or urgent reasons,” but as expected of a former noble, the former princess’s words were different.

“If it’s not leaving home, but returning home, then I’m sure it’s fine.”