kscans

Chapter 82 - What Washed Ashore

Well, I've received birthday presents from various people, but there's still one person left. One person who hasn't given me anything yet. Who? Me, that's who. I give myself the luxury of a birthday present too. A luxury excused by my birthday. What should I get this year? I kept thinking about it even during the fun party, and yes, I've decided.

That's right, I'll buy a house.

I remembered that topic coming up when I was drinking with Highbridge and Belltree before. No, it's not that I'm dissatisfied with my current place. In fact, I plan to keep this as my official address going forward. I've lived here quite a while and get along well with the neighbors, and most importantly, I'm attached to this room. Since I'd hate to abandon this place, I thought I'd buy a detached house more like a vacation home, or rather, a secret base. A detached house sounds great. It gets me as excited as being handed a blank white canvas and crayons. I can make everything exactly how I want it.

However, since I'm planning to tinker with various occult-related things, I don't want people from the surface world to know about it. I don't intend to do anything dangerous, but you never know what might happen. As much as it pains me, I don't plan to tell the company president or my subordinates either. But that means I can't buy it through normal channels. So I asked the Mutual Aid Society to handle various arrangements through the supernatural world, and that was two days ago, during my birthday party. Then this morning, I received word from the chairman that there was good, reasonably priced land available. I immediately decided to pick up Takahashi and Suzuki after work and go take a look.

"So why do we have to come along..."

"I'm making rooms for you guys too, so you better stick with me from start to finish."

"Eh, not just a kitchen but rooms too? I-is that really okay?"

"Good or bad, it's going to become our hangout spot anyway."

I don't want to keep letting them sleep in my room every single time. Especially Takahashi, who has a history of throwing up in his sleep. It's faster to just make rooms from the start.

"I-I see... that's right, yeah! Fine then. I guess I'll keep you company."

"Yeah."

"So where's this land?"

"Who knows? The chairman said he'd guide us there directly. Since it was my birthday recently, I guess it's supposed to be a surprise."

I'm looking forward to it. We waited in the lounge chatting, and after about five minutes, the chairman arrived.

"Sorry to keep you waiting."

"No, no, you're right on time. More importantly, let's go quickly! I can't contain my excitement!"

"Understood. Then I'll transport everyone by teleportation."

"By teleportation? Is it somewhere with a portal set up?"

I use teleportation casually, but it's actually quite advanced technology. Only a handful of people can jump anywhere as long as they know the location. The standard method is to teleport to places where marker spell formulas have been carved. However, those marker spell formulas are quite sophisticated, and maintaining them is extremely difficult. So most people who try to master teleportation-related techniques stumble at that point. That said, jumping to markers isn't that difficult, so members can use the markers set up by the Mutual Aid Society if they pay the registration fee. The chairman is quite skilled, but not particularly in teleportation, so if he's taking us, it must be somewhere in a major city.

"Well, that'll be part of the surprise when we arrive."

The chairman activated the teleportation, and for a moment, my vision turned white. I closed my eyes against the brightness, and when the light faded and I opened them...

"Where are we?!"

Well, anyone who plays games would understand this. You know how RPGs have ruined cities? Places where when you enter, there's nobody around and everything's falling apart. Dead towns. Yeah, exactly that. The sky was covered with thick black clouds, tears of rain were falling, and the broken buildings exuded an indescribable melancholy.

"This is clearly not Japan!"

"A foreign country? We were brought to a foreign country?!"

"No, it seems the situation isn't that simple."

We all turned our gazes to the chairman simultaneously. The chairman smiled sweetly and announced:

"Welcome to Okutama Island."

"..."

We looked at each other and nodded. We stomped on the ground, formed a cross, and crucified the chairman on it. Then I handed the other two lit torches.

"Never heard that name before."

"Okutama is a mountain."

"I don't see any peaceful nature anywhere."

"Stop... stop it! Don't bring the fire closer! Hot! It's really hot!"

We prompted him to explain while slapping him with the torches.

"You know the day when aliens attacked, right?"

"Yeah."

"Actually, after Satou-san left that day, we detected signs of large-scale spatial anomalies in Okutama."

Since it was after dealing with an extinction-level threat, and they didn't yet have evidence that the Mutual Aid Society couldn't handle it alone, they decided not to inform me. Well, it would be problematic to rely on me for everything, so that judgment wasn't wrong.

"We put everyone under suggestion and evacuated people from the area where anomalies were detected, but..."

"But?"

"After about an hour, this suddenly happened."

"Okutama was... overwritten?"

"Y-yes."

From the feel of what's clinging here, the world this came from has probably been destroyed. Maybe a world collapsed somewhere far away, shattered into countless fragments, and one of those fragments washed up here? The fact that they didn't bring this to me until now suggests that no dangerous enemies were swept along with it.

"We tried to restore it, but the strength was too different and we couldn't do anything..."

"So you carved out the overwritten area and moved it to the sea."

"Yes. Currently, it's floating in the ocean several dozen kilometers from Tokyo with concealment measures applied."

"What happened to the original Okutama?"

"We borrowed the help of renowned practitioners and gods to somehow restore it to something as close to its original state as possible."

They must have forcibly created a new framework by referencing residents' memories and such. Well, that's all they could do. You can't cover up the entire Okutama being gouged out as a natural disaster.

"So how about it? This vast land is now available for 498 yen! 498 yen and it's yours!"

"Don't mess with me!"

"W-why not?! You can buy Okutama for less than 500 yen!"

"It's been overwritten, so it's not Okutama anymore! Besides, you're just trying to dump the cleanup on me!"

You guys should be paying me instead!

"We'll pay! We'll pay, so please do something about this!"

"Geez... you should have just made a proper request instead of setting up this stupid surprise..."

Even though it's small-scale, a different world is stuck here. To blow it away would require considerable power. Doing it without precautions could disrupt Earth's environment.

"After setting up strict barriers and blowing it away, maintaining the barriers until the effects disappear..."

"Eh, you're going to blow it away?"

"Huh? Of course."

"Isn't that wasteful? If we restore this, we could get all of Okutama, right?"

"Right, right. If we restore it, being able to do whatever we want with a town and rich nature sounds interesting."

That's certainly true. I wouldn't want to live in such a gloomy place, but if we restore it first... It would be like getting a life-sized diorama. Living there would involve infrastructure development and such, but it's definitely worth the effort.

"It really becomes mine, right?"

"Y-yes... though you'll have to handle the concealment measures yourself..."

"Alright, understood. I don't need payment for the job, so handle the troublesome procedures and contractor selection for me."

Okutama Island... I'm getting excited!