Monogatari Series - Volume 29 - Chapter 1.21

021

The resort hotel that Araundo Uroko-san had made her stronghold was even more of a resort hotel than I had imagined. It easily surpassed my level of imagination, as well as my resolve. Not to mention, it wasn’t a high-rise building you’d find in a big city, but more like an entire wealthy neighborhood, where each guest could stay in their own cottage-like boathouse—from swimming in the ocean to barbecues, scuba diving to riding water buffaloes, and even flyboarding, all of it could be done within hotel grounds, like one massive amusement park.

“Wh-while I was sleeping in the sand on the back side of this island, there was such a fancy resort in the front…”

I couldn’t keep my body from trembling, even more so than when I’d been suffering from the habu venom. What had it all been for, that endless pitching practice for the sake of setting off a single spark… Even though there was a baseball field right here.

I could throw as much as I wanted.

“No need to coil yourself up in so much resentment, when you’re going to sell a million copies in the future. Regardless, once you start earning tons of money in the future, the manga you draw will end up becoming less convincing.”

“You’re already disparaging me about what’ll happen after I start selling…”

“Or maybe you might actually become more convincing. By earning a ton of money, you might get a real understanding of the idea that not everything revolves around money.”

“I don’t need to earn a ton of money to really understand what that means.”

I absolutely wanted to hear Kaiki-san’s opinion, as someone who valued money over everything, who boasted about how much he loved money, but it was only the two of us, Ononoki-chan and me, who had arrived at this hotel.

The two of us, who had lived through that survival experience.

“All right, let’s get going. I thought we left with plenty of time to spare, but it looks like we’re going to be late for our appointment.”

“You scheduled an appointment? For our showdown against the last boss?”

“Yep. She told us to let her know when we were getting close.”

Wasn’t that exactly why our plane had ended up crashing? But Ononoki-chan had in fact been sending out a message with her kids’ phone once we’d reached a zone where she was getting reception… So that was what it was for.

Was there something like a gentleman’s agreement between specialists?

Or, a ritual.

In the past, I’d performed a kind of ritual in a school swimsuit…

“This hotel has a spa, doesn’t it? Would it be a bad idea if we went and took a bath before the meeting?”

“Oh my. That’s something Shizuka-chan would say.”135

“It’s not just for the sake of etiquette. I may have taken sand baths and dove into cold water, but unfortunately, my body’s been stained with the two-week pseudo-uninhabited-island lifestyle to the level that the hotel might prevent me from entering.”

“What, you think they’ll say something like, ‘This hotel is not open to the general public’?”

Was this place that high of a hotel?

High in both class and in price.

Incidentally, my empty stomach, which had only been appeased with small fish, had been making me suffer almost as much as the venom had, but as we were crossing the mountains, Ononoki-chan had me eat some sata andagi as provisions.

I was very grateful, but that had to mean that, before she came to save me, she’d dropped by somewhere to buy those.

“Just ask Araundo if you can use her shower.”

“Is there anyone that would ask the last boss to use their shower?”

“She has a pretty good room, so there’s probably even a nice bathtub with a jacuzzi. I’ve heard if you get the suite, it even comes with a small island.”

“A small island?”

Rather than having a spa.

This hotel was just super.136

“It’s like an uninhabited island, which you love so much. The private beach is popular with celebrities, apparently. And popular with snake charmers, too.”

“It really isn’t very convincing to hear that someone living at this beach resort was scattering such gloomy and malicious curses everywhere…”

Not that I was saying she should be living in a tree hollow.

Instead of “gap moe”, it was like “gap wilting”, instead.137

“She’s just some pampered princess. But oh well, we may as well go off of Uchinaa time.138 They probably won’t let you use the spa, but if you ask the front desk, they might allow you to use the showers by the pool, even if you’re not a guest—at least for this year.”

Again and again, she kept hinting at something from Volume 1.

Realistically, with my current fragrance, it wouldn’t be weird if a hotel with minus three stars turned me away at the door (may as well bottle it up and sell it as perfume), but perhaps there had been some benefit in wearing my middle school uniform, or perhaps hospitality was the standard in this first-class hotel, for they readily allowed me to use one of their shower rooms.

In the meantime, Ononoki-chan bought me a change of clothes at the gift shop—I could have easily produced a second outfit using my “Skill of Snake Legs”, but it seemed she wanted to contribute to local businesses.

Right, it would feel bad if I ended things just by putting a burden on the environment through my survival life—I staked my life to do whatever I could to survive, like catching fish or breaking rocks or starting an open-air fire, because I thought it was an uninhabited island, but if that was deemed the same as tourists destroying nature for their own commemorative photos, I would not be able to refute it.

You couldn’t really blame a middle school girl too much for breaking rocks while on the verge of death, but no matter what, I was glad I didn’t do any harm to the coral reef…

What Ononoki-chan bought for me was a kariyushi shirt.

I was fulfilling one of the plans I had made on the plane—though I would’ve liked to see Kaiki-san in a kariyushi, too. For our meeting with the last boss, my school uniform probably would have been stronger as combat gear, but if it was possible to resolve things just by talking it out, then it was probably better to change clothes into the local style, in the spirit of reconciliation. Well, it was at least better than being stark naked.

Ononoki-chan also changed into her own kariyushi.

It was impressive that she had even crossed the mountain in that frilly layered skirt.

Interspersing a shower and a change of clothes, two fanservice scenes that couldn’t even really be called fanservice at this point, we finally marched into Araundo Uroko’s stronghold—the resort hotel’s suite, the boathouse with its own island.

Sure enough.

“Heya, you’ve really kept me waiting, Nadeko-chan—I’ve been up to my neck in anticipation for this meeting.139 Although, I’m a snake, so it’s like my entire body is a neck—ahaha,”

she said.

We were greeted by Araundo Uroko—ah, of course.

It all made sense.

So that’s how it was.

It would have been meaningless to try to hide it, I thought to myself, in full understanding.

Rather, if he hadn’t led with that revelation from the very beginning, it might have made me panic even more… I’d stubbornly clung to the possibility that it had been one of Kaiki-san’s vicious lies—if anything, I’d rated that possibility as far more likely—but that hadn’t been the case at all.

If he hadn’t given us that preface, I probably wouldn’t have known what to think about this girl before my eyes, who I could even describe as being Gaen-san herself.

They were alike, to a terrifying degree.

They were almost exactly the same.

I even wondered if they were doppelgangers—and yet, unlike the alter egos that had been born from me, unlike Gentle Nadeko and Anti-Nadeko and Divine Nadeko, it was different from that sort of resemblance. It really did feel like the resemblance between parent and child, and there was no way I could mistake one for the other.

It was impossible to suspect that there had been some replacement trick, or the same person playing both roles.

I felt the same uncomfortable feeling as I’d felt on parents’ day at school, in this luxurious and open area in the southern lands—the same uncomfortable feeling as when I greeted the family of my friend when I went to play at my friend’s house.

Of course, this experience was referring to when I went to play at Tsukihi-chan’s house—when I went to play at Tsukihi-chan’s house, and I met Tsukihi-chan’s mother and sister—and her brother.

That sort of unpleasant feeling.

She had a character design that made me think that Gaen Izuko-san probably looked like this when she was fifteen—I couldn’t help but gulp.

However, just as there had been with the family of my friend, I couldn’t deny the overwhelming differences.

First, as mentioned before, their ages were different.

No matter how young Gaen-san looked, looking at her daughter like this made me realize that that person really was a proper adult—the Araundo-san in front of me, reclining deeply into a woven rattan chair, was certainly a fifteen-year-old girl, from the same generation as me.

And, her four limbs.

Extending from a thin nightgown that really gave off the impression of a resort hotel, her four limbs—were completely covered with scales.

Like a snake.

Her legs, which could be called snake legs, were covered in scales.

Araundo—Uroko.140

“And you are the doll created by my mama, right? How cute.”

Araundo-san had spoken to the kariyushi-clad Ononoki-chan by my side—no, she had taken a step in front of me, and I could tell in spite of her blank expression that she was prepared for battle.

Gaen-san had always used the same tone of voice when speaking to Ononoki-chan.

“Speaking of which, have you ever thought about why Mama decided to create you?”

“What a coincidence. I was actually thinking about it just now.”

Ononoki-chan responded in a calm monotone—just as she would have, if Gaen-san had been the one to pose that question.

“I’m a doll bomb that was prepared as an assassin to take care of you today, on this very day.”

Ononoki-chan did not bring up the theory that she was meant as a substitute for Gaen-san’s daughter—and Araundo-san said, “What a shrewd way to view things. Could you perhaps be in your rebellious phase?” and continued to grin.

Rather than just showing off how calm she was, it was as though the shape of her face was always like that.

“Even though it’s an extremely common thing, in any culture across the world, for a mother to give their cute daughter a cute little doll as a gift.”

“............”

Ononoki-chan was silent.

Not even I had thought of something like that—even though I myself had received tons of stuffed toys as gifts by my overprotective parents.

Because I myself had basically been one of my parents’ stuffed toys.

“Well, as a wicked snake, it’s not like I haven’t thought of the possibility that she intentionally committed a taboo to obtain the curse of omniscience—in other words, the possibility that she committed the sin with the goal of receiving the punishment. If so, it wouldn’t be an impossible crime, but her succeeding in the perfect crime. Now, Nadeko-chan. Is it okay if I call you Nadeko-chan?”

“...Yes, if you’d like.”

It wasn’t particularly pleasant for her to act so over-familiar with me, but I couldn’t find a reason to refuse—I was pretty weak against people who came on strong. Like Gaen-san, like Nakuna-chan, like Tsukihi-chan—thinking about it, I was basically surrounded by that type of person, wasn’t I?

It was the terrifying situation in which, after constantly running away from those I could run away from, the only ones left around me were the strong enemies I could not run away from.

“Unlike Yotsugi-chan, I suppose I shouldn’t call you cute, even as lip service. I mean, with the way you two are standing in front of me, I really do think of you as cute, not just out of politeness… But it seems you would hate to hear that. Besides, right now, you are more than just cute—you’re very strong-willed.”

Seems like you’ve gotten to enjoy the attractions I prepared for you—said Araundo-san.

“Of course, any shut-in would be forced to become strong-willed if they were placed in a two-week survival situation… But, as expected, me becoming a castaway—my ordeals—they were all planned by you, weren’t they?”

“Even though it took such great pains for us to meet, you don’t need to be so distant with me. Call me Uroko-chan.”

Araundo-san winked, as if feigning ignorance.

She seemed rather good-natured, to the degree that I couldn’t think of her as a wicked snake.

But, since she was a girl from the same generation as me, it was hard for me to know how I should behave—I was bad with girls from my generation. In the first place, I was never all that sociable to begin with. I couldn’t possibly show poise in a first meeting like this.

Also, I couldn’t keep my eyes from being drawn to Araundo-san’s arms and legs, which made it hard to focus on the conversation—her arms and legs covered with scales.

When I’d been cursed by a snake, its scale marks had been left pressed into my body—but in Araundo-san’s case, it was clear that they weren’t just marks. The scales were actually “growing” from her body.

“Ah, these? Don’t worry about these. It’s basically the result of the phrase, ‘If you curse someone, dig two graves’. These are just the retaliation from repeatedly cursing complete strangers for fifteen years.”

If so, I suppose I could think of her as the same as the hospitalized Nakuna-chan, whose body had become riddled with holes, thus suffering more than me—of course, the reason for Nakuna-chan’s suffering was Araundo-san herself.

The origin of the curse.

The waterfall lake of the charms.

“Putting that aside, congratulations. This marks the completion of your training, Nadeko-chan. Managing to arrive to my location means that you are now a fully-fledged specialist.”

“...Are you trying to say that that mistaken survival experience was actually meant to be the final exam in my training?”

Perhaps my irritation had come out in my words—as long as my Anti-Nadeko personality didn’t come out to the forefront, I had considered myself to be not so hot-tempered, but it seemed I couldn’t hold that part of me back.

It would be pretty malicious if she was making fun of me, but it would be even more malicious if it was true.

I would probably feel better if I’d fallen victim to a scam.

I was even hit with the impulse to move out of the apartment that Gaen-san had introduced me to, settling for a sand futon as a bed—no, it would be impossible to use a sand futon for the rest of my life.

But—that was just training?

“No need to make such a fuss. If you’re wondering if Mama and I colluded behind the scenes to ensure your rapid growth, Nadeko-chan, then that’s certainly not the case—there’d be no need to meet beforehand, after all.”

“............?”

“Right, if we’re talking about behind the scenes, then there certainly was a back side. If this Iriomote Island survival life was training for Nadeko-chan, then the back side would be that this was karma for Mama.”

Karma?

I glanced in Ononoki-chan’s direction—in the same way she’d known that Kaiki-san had reserved the entire plane, I was asking with my eyes if this corpse doll had any knowledge of what Araundo-san was talking about right now.

Of course, I only got a blank expression in response.

However, from that blank expression, Ononoki-chan eloquently said, “I dunno anything about that”—so I was going to believe her.

“...Can you explain a little more? Araundo-san—”

“I’d like it if you called me Uroko-chan,”

said the last boss.

I had once been referred to as the last boss behind the scenes, but in the end, a real last boss’s personality was different—it would be a trivial matter to refer to Araundo-san as Uroko-chan instead, but that triviality was what was so hard to accept in this situation.

I’d learned from my survival life—what Araundo-san referred to as training—that anything accomplished trivially could amount to nothing more than trivial accomplishments. Putting in the effort for something that was still unattainable—now that was a true accomplishment, and the correct answer.141

Even though setting off the smallest spark of a fire required labor on the level of destroying my shoulder, it was hard for me to so trivially enter into the parent-child relationship between Gaen-san and Araundo-san.

Because an inexperienced person like me boarded the first class of a plane paid for by a con man, that plane ended up falling into the ocean—as Oshino-san would put it, it was an appropriate compensation.

Oddities.

Had their own appropriate reasons.

However, that didn’t mean I had any information to offer for an equivalent exchange. Information, money, resources, I had none of those—no, there was something.

There was something I did have—the snake legs, that only I was capable of.

My own bit of self-sufficiency.

“...Ah, I see. So that’s it.”

At that moment, I suddenly realized.

The reason I’d come to Iriomote Island—Kaiki-san said that Gaen-san had dispatched the three of us to figure out why Araundo Uroko had made this island her base, and I had simply taken that as fact.

At the very least, it made perfect sense to me that she wouldn’t expect a team of outlaws, consisting of a con man and a trainee and a person facing discipline, to overthrow the enemy boss.

However—perhaps that hadn’t been it at all.

Like how Kaiki-san and Ononoki-chan had things that only they could do—I had something that only I could do, didn’t I? Something that only Sengoku Nadeko could do.

In that case.

“...I understand, Uroko-chan,”

I said.

If it was like this, then there was nothing hard about referring to Araundo-san as Uroko-chan—I could treat the “chan” suffix as a consumption tax for my living necessities.

“In exchange, I’d like it if you could prepare some things for me, Uroko-chan. Is that all right?”

“Of course. I’ve inherited Mama’s stance that I should always listen to a request from a friend. What should I get ready for you—a talisman for a curse?”

“Paper and pen.”

I responded without hesitation—that one set, which I would unwaveringly choose if I could bring only one thing with me to an uninhabited island.

It could just as easily be a stick in the sand, or water on a boulder, but ultimately, paper and pen was what I was most comfortable with—even more so if it was manuscript paper and a spoon nib pen.

“? It’s true that this might be a pretty long talk, but it’s not so difficult that you’ll need to take notes, you know?”

Uroko-chan tilted her head to the side in confusion—rather, she raised her head.

Needless to say, in the way a snake would.