Monogatari Series - Volume 28 - Chapter 1.10

010

Considering the number of stops we were making along the way, it turned into quite a journey halfway around the world. The first stop was some uninhabited island in Okinawa, then various places on the Asian continent, then through the vicinity of Russia, and until we arrived in the range of Europe, Ononoki-chan continued to hop repeatedly—as someone whose excursions outside the prefecture were practically nonexistent, would it be good or bad to say that I’d experienced a lot of foreign countries all in one go?

No, of course it would be bad.

It would be too unreasonable to count this as overseas travel.

I hadn’t even experienced any of the culture, not to mention the fact that the world wasn’t exactly in a state to experience any cross-cultural exchange… Well, Ononoki-chan was not taking the shortest route but repeatedly hopping to perceptively choose the regions in which there were no infected people, but even so, there were no absolutes (not just in regards to this twin-demic, but in general, it was impossible to fully know whether or not there were cases of infection), so I couldn’t openly state that I’d really enjoyed overseas travel.

Rather than a business trip, it was more like a top-secret mission.

After going through strong turbulence and severe changes in atmospheric pressure without rest, I’d blacked out or entered into a trance-like state several times, but I’d managed to remain clinging to the tween girl’s back—it was such an intense airway that it would be no exaggeration to say that, if it weren’t the back of a tween girl, I wouldn’t have been able to keep clinging on.

Those ups and downs lasted for about two hours.

After repeating those roller-coaster jumps that made it impossible for me to not get nauseated—we finally managed to arrive right in the middle of Western Europe and Eastern Europe and Northern Europe and Southern Europe, reaching the Acerola Kingdom (temp.) situated right in the center.

Seeing as it had taken about a hundred pages to arrive, it really did feel like a “finally”, but it would be nice if you could understand that this was due to a thorough enforcement of the stay-at-home order.

“Hm… ‘Tis hard to say that this is a triumphant return, but ‘tis even harder to say that this feels like my dearly missed hometown… With the current state of things.”

The thirteen-year-old Shinobu, having crawled out from my shadow, was unsteady in her footing just like me—the physical ups and downs naturally did not have any effect within my shadow, but the link between us had been strengthened as much as our bodies, which meant that our senses were shared more than usual.

In other words, if Shinobu had planned on escaping motion sickness by lurking in my shadow, that plan would have failed—though there was a chance that her intense motion sickness instead came from crossing water (quite the number of times, at that) as a vampire.

However, when Shinobu said “the current state of things”, she was not referring to the condition of Shinobu and me, but the sight of her homeland she was seeing after hundreds of years.

The sight.

Or perhaps, the blight.78

How should I put it—of course, Ononoki-chan would have taken safety into account and landed in an appropriate region, or so I wanted to think, but even bearing that in mind, it felt too much like a ruined country.

It was a wasteland that sprawled forth in all directions, as though it had quite literally been untouched for hundreds of years—if there were no towns, there was not even any greenery, and if there were no people, there weren’t even any animals.      

Far from any man-made structures, there was no sign of nature, with what felt like the bare surface of the Earth spreading out endlessly—I might have even believed that, with the force of Ononoki-chan’s jump, we’d landed not in Europe but on the moon.

There was no hope of going sightseeing or partaking in the local cuisine.

It couldn’t even be called uncharted territory.

“I’ve never been there before, but if you flattened the Grand Canyon, it might end up looking something like this…”

If you wanted me to compare it to a place I had been to before, I would say that this felt more like hell than hell itself… Even if the country had fallen centuries ago, you would think that it would have been reclaimed by new life after so much time had passed.

It was as though the question of whether to classify viruses as living beings became irrelevant, because it seemed like not even those could survive here—it was so sterile in a negative sense that I was surprised I was still able to breathe.

With the country in this state, it felt like there was no need to worry about distancing… But this was in fact the epicenter of one half of the twin-demic, the anti-vampire virus, right?

“It seems my curse… That is, the curse of ‘Princess Beauty’ is still in effect. For it to be a wasteland where not a single insect can live, where not a single blade of grass can grow.”

A beauty that forced any form of life into killing itself.

A hellish sight that could not even be captured in a painting.

When I’d heard only half the story in the Mirror World, it sounded like an unbelievable “myth”, or even a “fairy tale”, but seeing it for myself had a different impact… It felt like I was being overpowered by the completely barren landscape.

It was an impactful, yet true, story.

Ononoki-chan, surely having visited this land plenty of times due to her work, did not appear to be experiencing the same emotions as me and Shinobu, instead sitting directly onto the blighted earth and starting to massage her legs.

As a corpse, she shouldn’t be feeling pain or tiredness, but with that many mighty leaps, it seemed one would start suffering from not metal fatigue, but corpse fatigue… It wasn’t really my place to say this as someone who’d been given a ride, but it was just that Kagenui-san’s usage of her was reckless—she was not originally an oddity suited for long-distance travel.

She might have even expended more energy in those moments than she would have if she traveled halfway around the world on foot.

I doubted that this empty landing place was meant to be our final destination, but I supposed she needed to rest for a bit—this was like a service area for drivers of long-distance buses.

Though it was more like a serviceless Area 51.

“But for such a large country like this, for such a large territory, isn’t it weird, historically, that it hasn’t been annexed into any of the neighboring countries? Is that also the curse of ‘Princess Beauty’, golden-haired maiden?”

“Golden-haired maiden sounds so normal, ‘tis a little boring.”

“Well, I’m not a fan of calling you a golden-haired young girl when you’re like this.”

“But I imagine it has little to do with the allure of ‘Princess Beauty’, and instead involves political circumstances… There is no way anyone would find this cursed, barren land to be desirable.”

I see.

In terms of colonization, it was a locale where not even planting trees was viable,79 and rather than growing anything, people would starve to death80—last year, when Hanekawa had briefly returned to Japan, I’d heard from her that countries often began falling to ruin as a result of expanding their territories to excess.

If anything, the Acerola Kingdom (temp.) falling due to beauty was an exception even among exceptions—and the result was the formation of a small neutral zone in Europe. A country of permanent neutrality, though in a different manner than Switzerland… Though it was not a country, but a ruined country.

“For the record, not everything you can see belongs to the Acerola Kingdom (temp.). The surrounding countries had also gotten wrapped up and fallen to ruin, as well.”

“I see… The allure of a beautiful woman knows no bounds, huh.”

This wasn’t just a nuisance to others.

An entire continent had gone atilt.

That in itself made for a dandy tale.81

But if this country had so thoroughly fallen to ruin, then was our doping not really all that necessary? Far from there being any people, there were not even any animals that could act as carriers, so there was no risk of being infected by the novel coronavirus… And if we wanted to be on guard against the anti-vampire virus, then it would have been more appropriate to raise our human natures.

Of course, without any boosting, we couldn’t have become platinum members of ONK Airlines, so some amount of bloodsucking was needed… Perhaps not at thirteen years old, but a ten-year-old Shinobu with bobbed hair would have been enough to withstand the atmospheric pressure changes.

Though it was easy to say anything after the fact.

Even now, there was already the fear that Shinobu and I had already been infected by the lethal anti-vampire virus—if the contagion emerged from this uninhabited wasteland, then there was a high chance it was not a virus spread via droplet transmission like the novel coronavirus, but via airborne or aerosol transmission.

At the moment, I wasn’t experiencing any discomfort or potential symptoms, but there would of course be an incubation period… I’d been thinking we had made this journey after careful consideration, but after actually setting foot on the land of a foreign country, of a ruined country, I couldn’t help but feel that we’d been a bit too reckless.

We’d made the assumption that, if we wanted a speedy resolution, that shortcut involved bringing the former King of Oddities and former princess directly on location, but how much of that was actually correct…? Eh, there was no use in regretting things now.

It might be easy to say anything after the fact, but no. I should just keep quiet.

That was just acting like a little goody two-shoes, though I was already twenty years old.

I could at least act like a good adult.

If I decided to do something, I just needed to see it through to the end.

“But I never thought a land could look this faded, just from there being no life… Compared to this, I get the feeling even a desert would look like it was teeming with life.”

With cacti and oases… And camels, and weren’t there those fox-like cats, too? Once again, sorry for my vague knowledge on the matter.

“If left untouched for a thousand years or so, I am sure this place will turn into a desert itself. Though I believe it depends on how many hours of daylight there are… Well, they say even the Tottori Sand Dunes will receive snowfall.”

For some reason, this thirteen-year-old was talking about Japanese tourist attractions after coming all this way… Like some tourist that was craving Japanese food after making their way overseas.

“Thanks for the wait. I’ve finished refueling. Now, if you’ve enjoyed your one-hour tour of your beloved birthplace, we can embark on our last flight to meet onee-chan.”

Ononoki-chan extended her legs for the last time to stand up—as expected, she had already taken off her mask by now. From this point on, there was no need for this corpse doll to worry about droplet transmission.

We were going to Kagenui-san, huh?

My body started to feel a tension that was different from what I was feeling before.

Plus, no matter what happened, I was sure to take some number of punches from her.

“It’s not like she’s actually in Romania, right? She’d said she was somewhere around Romania… And Bran Castle seemed to be pretty far off.”

Maybe it was something like how you could see Mount Fuji from anywhere in Japan?

“Yeah. That was her having gone there for the sake of getting reception for the video call. Originally it had been to get in contact with Gaen-san—but then we just happened to get a message from you, oni onii-chan.”

If so, then the timing was on the level of a miracle.

I’d been trying to avoid Gaen-san, but I’d ended up linking up with Kagenui-san, who’d been trying to contact Gaen-san—was my usual conduct really all that bad?

And I hated that it made too much sense.

“Our base is located in a different area. It’s not as barren as here, but there’s no mistake that it’s also a country that’s fallen to ruin.”

“Mm… So basically, it’s one of the neighboring countries that Shinobu mentioned had also fallen to the allure of ‘Princess Beauty’?”

“Nope. There’s another reason for the fall of this country—if I say that, then even thickheaded Shinobu-nee-chan should get an idea, right?”

“Who are you calling thickheaded?”

I am as sharp as the fangs of a vampire, said Shinobu in a display of displeasure—she was as weak to provocation as ever, but I wouldn’t expect any less from her. It was because of that sharp intuition that we’d come all this way to the other side of the Earth, after all.

“I am fully aware. I had an inkling even before you said as much. ‘Tis not Bran Castle in Romania, but the ‘Corpse Castle’ in the ‘Corpse Kingdom’, correct?”

“Corpse Kingdom”? “Corpse Castle”?

Yet again, some dangerous-sounding names had come up—those names made them sound like they were destined to fall to ruin, but the air was too serious for me to start making fun of them.

The seriousness of the situation was transmitted to me through the air.

Just like a contagion.

“‘Tis the former castle of my sworn friend, the death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster.”

In that accursed castle.

Was where I became Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.