Miyazawa Otherside Picnic: Volume 6

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7183-6008-2
Verlag: J-Novel Club
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, Band 6, 250 Seiten

Reihe: Otherside Picnic

My name is Sorawo Kamikoshi. I'm just your everyday, plain-as-can-be student attending university in Saitama.

One day, some blonde I've never met shows up and tells me I have amnesia. Before I have time to be confused, I'm whisked away to a mysterious facility in a car driven by a member of the yakuza. What's gonna happen to me?!

T the Templeborn, the net lore that seals all memories of the world that exists alongside our own--the Otherside--attacks Sorawo and her companions!

The tale of two girls' bizarre foray into a world exploration and survival continues with an extra-long story in Volume 6!

Autoren/Hrsg.

Miyazawa, Iori

Weitere Mitwirkende

Shirakaba

Mccann, Sean

Leseproben

“They don’t? They’re pretty bad scars.”

and, were my two impressions.

Then, with exaggerated upturned eyes, she showed Toriko the tablet.

“...”

She was as cheeky as ever. Even though it was Toriko she was trying to rile up, I was the one getting mad.

If they were going to let her use the internet, they’d better not just not let her record—they needed to prevent her from posting too.

“You really feel that way? After watching your own mother die?” Toriko asked, her tone inscrutable.

Runa looked down to start writing again.

The hand holding the stylus ran back and forth across the screen. We couldn’t see what she was writing from here. It was taking her a while, so I expected a lengthy response, but her gestures seemed a little rough for that. Large movements that it was hard to imagine were for writing anything, like she was just running the stylus back and forth...

Finally, Runa looked up. The text on the tablet was surprisingly simple.

She’d erased whatever it was she wrote and rewrote that instead. Before Toriko could respond, she wrote her next message.

“There’s no way she’s going in there,” I interjected from behind Toriko, and Runa finally looked at me.

I glared at Runa.

Runa’s eyes sparkled with delight.

I put that dangerous thought out of my head. If I started doing things like that, I’d be as bad as she was.

When we didn’t respond, Runa started writing another message impatiently.

“Who would...?” Kozakura muttered, shaking her head.

Runa pulled a black face mask out of the container on top of her desk. It wasn’t an ordinary mask, but a thick one made of leather or rubber, and instead of strings it was strapped on with belts and metal fasteners. It had a large U-shaped mouthpiece in it. I’d never seen anything like it before, but I could imagine what it was used for. It was a gag to keep her from speaking. They probably made her wear it when someone other than the deaf nurse needed to enter her room.

“I think we’re done here...don’t you, Toriko?” I asked, and Toriko let out a small sigh.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Migiwa reached for the panel and cut the mic.

We turned around, and headed back down the hall. When I turned to look back one last time, Runa was pressed against the glass watching us go. Because of the scars on her face, it looked like she was smirking.

6

“Leave it to me! I’d do anything for you, Senpai!”

The day after we came back from DS Research, I went to Akari to ask for a little help with something, and I got the same response, word for word, that I had expected. It felt like déjà vu or something.

“I-I was hoping you’d say that.”

“And I did! What can I help you with?”

“Well, calm down. I’ll tell you...”

I stopped Akari as she was leaning into this way too hard. Literally. We were in the university cafeteria, at a shady seat in the back. I’d chosen this spot in the interest of not being overheard by others, but if Akari was going to keep raising her voice like that it defeated the purpose. Come to think of it, there was a karaoke place near the university, and any number of other places we could have had this conversation. What was I thinking?

On the table in front of us, we’d ordered the cake set with drinks. Black tea with apple pie for me, and coffee with no-bake cheesecake for Akari. This might be the first time I was getting together like this with someone other than Toriko. When I realized that, it made me feel kind of restless.

“Sorry about before. I’d lost my memory.”

“I knew that was it. Did you get a concussion or something?”

“Uh, yeah, probably something like that.”

“And is your eye still...?” Akari asked, trailing off, as she looked at the eye patch over my right eye.

“A little, yeah. But it’s okay. It’s getting better.”

“Don’t strain yourself, okay? I’ve had a concussion before... If it affected your vision, you must’ve really gotten hit good, huh, Senpai?”

“Yeah. I even got a proper brain scan done. They say there’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Thank goodness.”

The total relief on Akari’s face made me feel guilty, even if I wasn’t lying to her because I wanted to.

I was keeping the eye patch on because I couldn’t predict how T-san was going to react. What would he do when he found out that my right eye had recovered? Was T-san a Fourth Kind contactee, or a “phenomenon” from the Otherside that had appeared in a form that mimicked net lore? Whichever he was, I probably had to be careful about how I made contact with him. I wanted to pretend I still had amnesia like at the previous seminar, and act like I hadn’t noticed anything for now.

I had already ruled out the possibility that he was just an unrelated third party who happened to have been born at a temple. It was impossible for anything involving us and the Otherside to happen by sheer coincidence.

Probably...

When I thought about it, doubt began to creep in. Or suspicion, rather. When you dig through true ghost stories, there’s no shortage of unbelievable synchronicity. Coincidences that seem to make no sense happen, and then end without ever making any sense. Things that are pure chance if you ignore them, but seem like ominous signs that you can read anything into once you let them bother you...

Well, if it was a coincidence, that was fine. If it was, I could think about the cause of my loss of memory and vision as a separate issue from T-san.

“This is going to be kind of a weird request, but there’s a guy at the university I want you to dig into,” I said, focusing back on the matter at hand.

“What kind of guy?”

“A third-year in the same seminar as me. He’s, uh, tall, and has short hair.”

As I was giving her an explanation that seemed vague even to me, Akari got impatient. “What’s his name?”

“Dunno.”

“Huh? Even though he’s in the same seminar?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I don’t know his name, but I’ll point him out for you.”

“Um, I can ask my friends about him, if you want.”

“No, I don’t want you to talk to anyone about this.”

When I said that, Akari’s eyes lit up. “It’s a secret, huh! Gotcha.”

For all that she tended to stick her head in others’ business, the girl was tight-lipped, which really helped.

is

The conversation with Michiko Abarato flitted through my mind, and I suddenly felt uneasy.

“What’s wrong? You’ve got this weird look on your face all of a sudden.”

“I just wanted to be sure, but have you ever referred someone to me, saying I could help them find a missing person?”

Akari got a troubled look on her face and shook her head. “What’s that about?”

“Nah, sounds like it doesn’t have anything to do with you. Forget about it.”

“If...