Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita:Volume 1 Chapter 1

Credits and Translator's Notice:

This english translation is brought to you by Matcha. It was translated from Chinese from the manuscript hosted at www.wenku8.cn, which was scanned from the official Taiwanese publication by Ozzie and typed into simplified Chinese by 七夜 ("Seven Nights"). The Japanese raw was consulted for spacing the lines, sound effects, names, and resolving unclear text. All images are derived from the Japanese raw.

If you enjoyed this translation, please support the author by purchasing an official copy of the novel.

Anonymous contributors are welcome to edit this translation as they wish. I favor a localized and liberal translation philosophy. As such, I am more concerned about capturing the atmosphere, mood, personality, flow, and "meaning" of the novel. Mimicking the exact Japanese/Chinese sentence structure or terminology is less important to me. Feel free to rearrange, combine, break up, and rephrase sentences. Also feel free to substitute pronouns or use a thesaurus when appropriate. This novel has quite elegant prose, so if you are talented in the poetic writing department, your contributions are very much appreciated.

Please DO NOT merge/split entire paragraphs or translocate content across different paragraphs. Do not remove details, add details, or change the "meaning" of a paragraph unless you are qualified to do so. Use your best judgement to preserve aspects of mood and theme. Also, please do not repost this translation outside of the wiki without attribution to all involved parties. This translation is for personal, educational, and non-commercial uses only.

You may reach me at the following email address: matcha (dot) anko (at) gmail (dot) com.

Wscp's notes:

I've taken some liberties with respect to Matcha's translation.

All text is now in present continuous, unless Watashi is reminiscing about past events.

Some of the TL notes are fairly informal. Feel free to edit/remove them if you feel they are inappropriate. I would appreciate being intimated of such a change, however.

I also haven't placed images where they ought to be. This is mostly because the images uploaded here are from an older edition, with original illustrations. My translation uses a newer edition whose art style matches the anime.

There are likely a number of formatting errors I have introduced as well. If anyone can correct those, it would be much appreciated. Or I could end up doing it, I guess.

Please feel free to make edits to this translation if you feel there are any mistakes.

Finally, thank you for reading, and I hope to see you at the next chapter soon!

Chapter 1 - Planet of the Fairies

The vibration is horrible.

Paved many decades -- or rather, many centuries ago -- what may once have been a highway road is now nothing but a rocky path.

Its irregularity, the many weeds encroaching from its sides, and the vein-like roots spread over it. All of these add to the chaotic intensity of the rattling.

On this sorry excuse for a path is a flatbed truck, trundling along with an air of indifference.

The quality of the ride is the worst, in a word.

As the truck navigates each bump on the road, sharp jolts travel up to its bed... shaking both me and the wooden crates I am packed with.

I am very bitter at myself for foolishly expecting a ride on the back of a truck to be an elegant one.

Even though the view of the flowers bordering this meandering road is a sight to behold, the soreness of my bottom is such that I cannot enjoy any of it.

The situation feels quite similar to the song "Dona, Dona".

"If only I'd sat in the passenger seat from the start... but I'm past that."

I softly vocalize my revulsion to the idea. To sit in the passenger seat would mean I would eventually have to strike up a conversation with the caravan chief beside me in the driver's seat. For a person like me who loses her head and starts to blather when faced with strangers, it would have been a nerve-wracking experience.

Between my sanity and my bottom, I prefer to whittle down the latter.

But, as one would expect, I can't bear the pain any longer, so I face the truck's cabin and call out to the chief after taking a deep breath: "... How mush merr till we reach?"

I slurred my words a bit, but since the chief didn't really seem to notice, I shall refrain from repeating myself.

Ahh, I'm just awful at talking to strangers.

"Three, maybe four more hours, I'd say. That's if the weather stays fair, though."

Statuesque, the chief responds without so much as a glance towards me.

With a short thank-you, I ponder on the rugged solar panel module that is mounted above the truck's canopy like an umbrella.

While this truck appears to be a rare hybrid that can use both solar and fuel-cell-based power, only one of the two power sources seems to be in regular use.

As I ruminate on this, I grow restless.

Since I got a free ride, I can't really complain, though.

It's just that this behemoth of a truck is ambling on at all of 8 kmph.

"Four more hours of this..."

Presently, the chief begins humming.

It must be very comfortable to drive while basking in the sun.

Tiring of the pain in my bottom, I begin to raise my hips a little when the chief gives me a warning: "It's better not to stand up. There was once a person who did so; he ended up falling over the side. Oh, and then he died a slow death, tangled up in the tires."

That makes me sit right back down. I decide to distract myself from the implications of that anecdote by looking at the opposite edge of the road lined with wildflowers.

Most of my field of vision is filled with the yellow of rape blossoms.

What a handy plant rapeseed is; its seeds can be squeezed for oil and are also used in pickles.

However, I won't be caught making the mistakes of my childhood again; traipsing into these plants will only get me covered in a cloud of aphids.

My maiden heart is crumbling away, as is my patience for this ride on the truck's bed.

To keep my mind off the pain in my backside, I idly watch the scenery go by. Suddenly, I notice something popping its head out of the flowers.

...

Our eyes meet.

I would say the moment lasts for about a second?

As if to escape, the head rears back into the flowers.

"... Well."

I last saw one of those creatures as a child. This was a relatively short encounter, but my eyes weren't lying. Their kind leaves quite an impression even when seen just once, after all.

Forgetting even the persistent soreness of my bottom, I smile to myself.

"So they even live around here, huh?"

They are existences that live in any place inhabitable by people, but they are rarely ever seen by us. The unexpected encounter feels like a good omen to me.

I would be as friendly with them as possible. This is something of a duty I feel obligated to perform as one of 《School》's last graduates.

Leaning against the side of the truck with my cheek caressed by the gentle wind, I lose myself in my memories.

It has been two days since the graduation ceremony, which was held in an old and rotting lecture hall. You might think it remiss to hold a momentous ceremony like that in such a dangerous place, but rest assured, the hall was so old that it had neither a ceiling nor walls that could collapse on anyone.

When we entered the hall, whose floor was polished, leaving not a single pebble, we found a forest of twelve chairs in the middle. We stood around listlessly for a spell.

The sharp scent of the flower pinned to my lapel made the insides of my nose tingle. We all had the feeling that we would only be together until our flowers wilted. The only thing left for us to do after this would be to return to our hometowns, after all.

I had treated the notion lightly and had thought myself disinvested in the matter. However, as I entered the hall, my vision was clouded over, as if a mist had descended. It was a premonition that this ceremony wouldn't end so simply.

There were a number of attendees other than our professors in the hall as well.

Whoever it was, almost nobody in the room was a relative of us graduates. After all, we had left our homes far behind to stay in the school dorms. Most of the people present were school personnel.

There were more attendees in the hall than there were graduates, and the atmosphere was tense. We had all resolved among ourselves not to cry during the ceremony.

In the presence of so many guests, it would be embarrassing for us graduates, who were finally becoming adults, to cry. The expectation was that the ceremony would end quickly; there were only twelve of us graduates after all.

The professors lined up on the stage had other plans, though. They took their sweet time to call each graduate to the stage one by one. As they did so, they would all talk a little about that graduate while Chopin's Farewell waltz was played in the background. Just a few simple words from the professors were enough to have everyone crying by the end; it was unbelievable.

Let me summarize the themes of the professors' addresses for you. It was laden with word choices that were, on occasion, mean-spirited, with bold and colorful figures of speech as well as inversions of expression that successfully shook the hearts of all who listened. Where we expected cold realism, they employed lyrical sentences with personifications and vivid descriptions that evoked emphatic emotions. Such poetic gems were accentuated by expertly timed spells of silence, followed by more praise, in a constant cycle of adulation that culminated in a flood of tears in our eyes. They were definitely messing with us.

I became a wreck in less than a minute, but everyone else was pretty much the same in this regard.

Even my friend Y, who didn't usually show any emotion in front of others, had tears behind her glasses after she stepped down from the stage.

I have a feeling the professors were secretly taking revenge on us for all the trouble we gave them. That's definitely what they were doing. After this session of public humiliation ended, each of us held in our hands an unblemished, pristine white graduation certificate.

More than a decade had passed, and I had learned and personally experienced a multitude of things, all for the sake of receiving this thin sheet of paper. But, mimicking the feather-like weightlessness of the certificate, the end of our journey left us with an unsatisfactorily hollow feeling.

All of us put our now-drooping flower decorations into the photo albums we got as souvenirs to turn them into pressed flowers. Speaking of photographs, they were becoming quite a rarity in recent times. It used to be that one could look back on the past whenever they pleased by flipping through a photo album, but we could now only rely on our increasingly more ephemeral memories. The loneliness burst forth at the farewell party.

The indescribable chaos of it all and my inability as an observer to go against the flow means I can only give you a broad description of its elements. The farewell party proceeded as follows.

A feast full of dishes I had never seen before was brought in; fruit of all colors lay rolling on the floor; somebody set off some improvised firecrackers; champagne corks popped; there was an attempt at a piano performance; graduates shouting; graduates crying; graduates laughing; graduates who were dying of embarrassment after making fools of themselves (I was one of those); the red, puffy eyes of my friend Y returning from her roughly ten-minute session in the toilet; elderly guests sharing drinks; the younger graduate boys endlessly pouring each other drinks left and right; The scratchy tone of a jazz trumpet; Some random old lady holding my hand while crying; an off-tune chorus; a jumble of young graduates and old guests crying together, and the longer and shorter hands of the clock overlapping as the time passed midnight.

《School》 was humanity's last educational institution. Over a hundred years had passed since it came into existence as the agglomeration of the universities, cultural associations, and non-governmental organizations of the distant past.

The merger of all educational institutions was the natural conclusion of an accelerating decline in the human population. If the population decreased, so too would the number of children. The student population began to dwindle. In turn, the schools and universities merged, and the scope of individual educational districts increased... This became a dominant trend. It all went downhill from there. As early as fifty years ago, boarding schools became the norm for education around the world.

In the past, institutionalized education was a given. But now, since the twelve of us had graduated, even humanity's last bastion of education, 《School》, was set to be shut down. From now on, education would once again become something inherited from parent to child. And now, I, with an aching bottom, am on my way home.

A huge shadow looms over our path. It is a gigantic camphor tree. Its profile is burnt into my memories from my childhood. That tree would act as a landmark separating the village from the outside world.

In this region dotted by the ruined remains of houses in a sea of luscious wild grasses, it stood out prominently. For a child, it was a three-hour journey from the village to the camphor tree. It was a popular tourist destination for the children of the village.

This truck would probably cover that distance in about two hours. I rest my back on my luggage and relax. A new life is waiting for me in the village. Having decided to find a job in my hometown after graduating, I am determined to take the path less traveled.

I have spent about ten years studying at 《School》 and have gained knowledge in a variety of fields, including cultural anthropology and engineering. The time has come to put all that knowledge to use.

As a scholar, I am still green behind the ears. Undoubtedly, this arduous journey would require the strength of youth, a will that would not give in to compromise, concessions, complacency, or laziness, and a fastidious spirit of inquiry. There would be no hope of reaching the top without all these qualities. But I have in me a burning ambition to be recognized as a researcher. Being young is also a plus, and I have a chance to put my thoughts into action. There is nowhere else for me to go but forward. That isn't to say I would mind if I could take some shortcuts to achieve my goals, though.

As the truck turns into a side street, the vibration stops. It seems we have entered the village of Camphorwood proper. The road is now much flatter, as one would expect from a place inhabited by people. "Mhmmmmmm~" ... Even though my eyes are covered by a wet towel, and I am forced to sleep nestled between some wooden crates, the sharp decrease in vibration is all I need to understand where I am. The journey has sapped the strength out of me, and I can hardly gather the willpower to get up. I clumsily fumble over the truck's bed, looking for its raised edge. Having found it, I muster the energy I have in my arms to straighten myself up.

Contorting myself like an inchworm, I finally lean over the back of the truck's bed and breathe out a sigh. I can feel a constant sourness on the back of my throat, courtesy of my vibration-tortured stomach. In a maneuver reminiscent of a pull-up, I lift my face up to rest my chin on the truck's edge and open my eyes to take in the scenery.

The truck weaves about through the houses in the neighborhood. The fences surrounding them are close enough to reach out and touch with my hands. It seems even the main street of the village is too narrow for this kind of truck to pass through. Ahh, my reunion with sweet, stable land is drawing near. With my energy somewhat restored, I scan my surroundings. There are clusters of houses in good condition retrofitted with smoke-belching chimneys of tin. I suppose everyone is busy making dinner.

The houses inhabited by people are quite easy to spot owing to the bright pastel shades they are customarily painted with. But even if they are well-kept, these houses are most definitely decaying on the inside under the weight of centuries of history. Without a good coat of paint, a house may last only a few years, but the unpleasant effects of acid rain are apparent even on the more fortunate ones. Even so, these pastel houses are now an indelible scene of the modern person's culture.

My childhood memories are curiously juxtaposed with the scene in my eyes. The memory of that one cottage with a garish pink paint job comes to my mind. As does the memory of going to the village hall to read books or play games. There was also that lovely old lady in the cream-white house whose hobby was making a variety of sweets with whatever ingredients children brought her. The truck pushes on forward and presently approaches a plaza. This round plaza was created by flattening a few buildings that had once been there. I can see a crowd standing there, waiting for the truck to arrive.

"wah!" - I pull my head back in, suddenly overcome with embarrassment. A strange shyness besets me as I contemplate seeing again the people I once knew.

Even at the best of times, talking in front of a crowd is something I dread.

I would have preferred to greet and talk to everyone individually, but this lumbering giant that has just stopped in the center of the plaza -- with me in it -- is attracting all the crowd's attention.

I scramble into a gap between some boxes to keep myself out of the view of the rear of the truck, from where I assume things will be unloaded. Yes, this will be an excellent place to hide. If I sit on the floor and keep my head down, I won't be seen. I intend to stay here until the heat is off me.

However, the world isn't so kind as to let me off like that.

With an ominous metallic squeal, a crank is turned, dropping the side of the truck's bed. Of course, the side that opens up happens to be exactly the side I have chosen to hide in. In front of the crowd that has assembled to relieve the truck of its load, my crouching figure is revealed. One old man in the front row lets the pipe in his mouth drop to the ground as he watches on.

This truck is the type that could open up not only at the back but also at its sides, it seems. A middle-aged lady with a familiar face snorts quizzically. Just as I remember her, she remembers me - "wait, are you perhaps-"

I quietly rest my head on my knees. After being embarrassed to death by everyone at the plaza, I drag my worn body home and rest my hand on the door.

"I'm home... Grandfather?"

My Grandfather's figure -- which is exactly as I remember it -- appears from within the dim house, wearing a lab coat and holding a hunting rifle. Seeing his brisk swaggering gait, unbefitting of his age, fills me with a sense of relief.

"Oh, you're finally back, huh?"

Grandfather, who has a large build despite his seniority, places his hand on my head (I am pretty tall for a girl as well).

"Hmm, you've grown."

"It's been so long, after all."

By the way, I pretty much shot up like a [horsetail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equisetum_arvense) during my years at school. Any more growth after that will be rather troubling.

"Your skin's looking good... how do you feel about carrots?"

"...I still hate them."

Grandfather huffs like a spoilt child and says, "Looks like you haven't grown up at all on the inside."

"I have grown up... I think."

"Well, come on in. It's about time for dinner."

"Huh? Are we going to be hunting our dinner?"

I eye the rifle under his arm.

"There's no way we can hunt when it's this late. I was just remodeling this thing to increase its firepower a bit."

Grandfather has always been a gun nut.

"You came with the caravan, didn't you?"

"Yes."

I'm not going to mention the trouble that happened with the townspeople.

"Ah, by the way, Grandfather. I think you may have heard about it already, but I'm planning on becoming a mediator like you."

"There's some tasty watercress, you know. And this fried stuff will go well with bread as well."

My attempt to relay my plans to Grandfather goes in one ear and out the other.

Vegetable and jerky soup; fried fish, vegetables, pickles, and sliced round bread to turn those ingredients into sandwiches are lined up on the table.

Grandfather has prepared all this.

His culinary skills are honed from years of living alone.

He likes to cook whole roasts and smoked meat, but he sometimes also makes soups with delicate flavors. The smell fills me with nostalgia.

As I diligently make myself a sandwich with an extra helping of pickles the way I like it, I speak to Grandfather, who is sitting across the table.

"Ah, so School finally closed down, huh?"

"Yes, a lot of people related to School came to our farewell party... I was quite surprised."

"That's just how it is. The same thing happened back when I graduated too... Hey, now, you still haven't given up that habit of yours? Why don't you open a stall already?"

There are now five sandwiches lined up in front of me.

"It just doesn't feel right to make more at the same time as I eat them... Can't you cut me some slack?"

"Well, it doesn't really bother me."

I tend to get overly absorbed in my tasks and end up overdoing things.

Seeing my habit manifest, my friends would tease me about starting a cottage industry, while my family would suggest I open up a stall.

"Do you think you can eat all that?"

"Oh, definitely not. There's no way.", I replied, unabashed.

"Fool."

Grandfather's hands steal two of the sandwiches.

"You've grown taller, but you're still this frail, eh?"

"I prefer the term civilized."

"That's all in the past now, the past. The only things left of civilization now are its pieces."

"Speaking of which, that was the first time I rode on a solar-powered truck."

"Ah, that thing? If it were to break down and lose its power or speed, there'd be no way to fix it."

"Fortunately, it managed to get me home without that happening."

"The caravan people have some pretty interesting toys in their hands. I think it would be a good place for you to work, actually. You'd probably have fun there."

"Ah, but physical labor is rather tough for me, so I'd rather not."

Grandfather's expression changes as he remembers what I said earlier.

"Do you really want to take up mediation like me? You don't need to force yourself to do this, you know." "I do. I went to all this trouble to get myself certified, and the office is still around, isn't it? I would like to take up a position that's officially recognized."

"You've got some rather strange tastes, don't you. Why do you want to be a mediator, of all things?"

"I think it is work I am aligned towards."

"Oh, and why's that?"

"... Because working in the fields would be really tiresome."

My true intentions have explosively revealed themselves in the heat of the moment.

"... That's your excuse?" says Grandfather, exasperated.

I keep a straight face under his sharp gaze.

"Surely you remember how weak I am, don't you, Grandfather?"

"No, you pretty much admitted that you wanted to slack off just now."

Did I really?

"Ah, no, we did have to do a bunch of stuff related to agriculture and animal husbandry as a part of our curriculum; such things are a given in this age! It's just that it was really tough for me. But even an old person can do the work of a mediator; I wouldn't face any problems there because of my physique."

I can be quite free with my words in front of family.

"... You've brought some really strange traits back with you from school."

"mmwell..."

"your constitution isn't what's weak here; the problem is your lack of willpower."

"Hmm."

"If all you do is laze about, you'll be down a creek without a paddle once you're older."

"Mhm."

"Well, it would be quite impressive if you still thought this way after a month of this job."

"Is a mediator's job really that hard, though?"

Obviously, I did my homework on the particulars of it before I wrote the qualifying exam. The results of my investigation painted mediation in a very rosy light compared to the drudgery of farm work or manual labor, but what if I was mistaken?

Grandfather gives me a very short answer to my question:

"It depends on the person."

I tilt my head in confusion. The job description didn't really mention anything about harsh manual labor...

"Well, you dunce of a grandchild, let's see how much you get pushed around by them first, shall we?"

"What a nasty thing to say to a new hire!"

"You'll see soon enough. Come to the office tomorrow, and we'll get you set up."

And so the matter was settled.

It is already 8 when I wake up in my bed after what felt like a decade of sleep.

"I'm going to be late!"

It's nice to oversleep sometimes. I've built up so much fatigue from that ride home, after all. I mean, there's no way I wouldn't have, right?

In a tizzy, I bound out of my room to go survey the kitchen.

Grandfather is tackling his breakfast.

"What's with all this noise in the morning?"

"Ah...Good morning."

"Mhm, good morning," he replies calmly as he continues with his breakfast.

This feels weird. Something is definitely up. I stand stock still for a while, wondering if I am missing something.

"... What are you doing standing there?"

"Uh, well, you know..."

I, who lost both parents at a young age, grew up with my Grandfather. His educational policy was, in a word, spartan. Sleeping in and missing breakfast would usually earn me a knock on the head. That hasn't happened today... What could that possibly mean? Has Grandfather just forgotten to punish me? Whenever I violated my 6 PM curfew or forgot even a single one of my chores, I'd get a rap on the head. Did he really just forget?

"I'll be off soon, you know. What are you going to do today? Aren't you coming by the office to introduce yourself?"

"Ah, yeah... I'll be doing that."

Breakfast has already been set up at my chair for me. This, too, is a nostalgic scene... I should just accept things as they are and be thankful.

"So, what'll it be? Do you want to come with me, or will you take the day off?"

"Uhm, but would skipping out today be all right?"

Will Grandfather's spartan ways allow for that?

Grandfather makes a face as if I were stating the obvious.

"You don't need to force yourself to start work in a hurry when you've just come back, do you? And you're the one who told me you didn't want to work much yesterday. You aren't looking too good, either. Well, I suppose your body was bound to take a toll, seeing as you spent such a long time getting shaken up on the back of that truck. I heard you spent the whole time folded up into a triangle like some piece of luggage."

Aargh, I really want to deny that.

That's what you get with a place like Camphorwood that's out in the sticks and barely a part of the trade routes, I guess. Even in an age where one can't just make use of the communication devices of the past, information still manages to get around in an analog manner by word of mouth.

I stammer, "I-I-I'm p-p-perfectly healthy..." then, switching back to normal, I make a sing-song proclamation: "But I'm just a weak, sheltered, pitiable disappointment of a girl, so I'm going to be fashionably late to work today!"

Uh-oh, Grandfather is looking at me like I'm a charity case.

"Uh, is there a problem?" I ask.

"Nope. I'll see if I can at least give this weak, pitiable shut-in of a girl a job where she can sit at the window and count the leaves that fall by."

"Does a job like that really exist?"

"We might find such a job for you if we look," he replies.

"But, wouldn't I end up looking like somebody out of a sanatorium literature title if I did that?"

"Well, I suppose that's how it would look on the surface."

That really is how I would look.

As a recluse of the highest order, I am one who fills a particular niche in society. Since the children of this era are quite boisterous, my place in the ecosystem is pretty much unassailable.

But, due to my penchant for revealing my true nature to those close to me, people like my sharp-tongued friend Y rudely call me a walking swindle.

"Now, let's not think about all that," says Grandfather as he sips his tea. "I'm leaving now. You're welcome to come by if you feel up to it."

"Okay, I'll do that."

"Do you still remember where the office is?"

"Wasn't it at that building that looks like a stack of pancakes?"

"Yup. I'll only be around the office till noon today, so you'd do well to come before then. Put the cutlery in the sink before you leave, please."

He quickly pulls his lab coat on and hurries out.

Taken aback, I watch him go with a blank expression.

I guess corporeal punishment for sleeping in isn't going to be a thing anymore.

In my childhood, I was subject to a life of punishment for any misdemeanors, with no expectation of praise for my achievements. Grandfather suddenly not punishing me leaves me with an uncomfortable feeling.

Grandfather has always been merciless, after all.

It is a strange experience for me, this laxity.

Well, it's not like I want to be punished like that again... I eat my breakfast, feeling refreshed.

"Now, what shall I do..."

I'm not in a hurry to get to the office. Instead, I feel like doing something to take the edge off the gloom in my heart.

For now, I put the dishes in the sink and wander around the confines of the house.

This house is full of memories for me. It feels mostly the same, though some of the decor and the little nicks and dents on the wall are different.

Comparing the present with the past is a fun exercise. Soon, it becomes time to leave.

After a fifteen-minute walk along some rice fields, I reach a large, flat building resembling a Colosseum, known as the Camphorwood cultural center.

Within this building that looks like a big stack of pancakes, Grandfather devouts himself to his hobbies, his past-times, his interests, and his duties to the United Nations Mediation Council. The distribution of these activities is three, three, three, and one part, respectively.

Similar to the Colosseum that exists in a certain distant country, a part of this building is in ruins. And if you are worried about workplace safety, don't be; this building is one of the precious few large buildings still relatively undamaged.

This building has always been called the cultural center.

I suppose its initial purpose had been somewhat similar to a cultural museum, for the local populace to learn more about distant civilizations.

Because it had a great number of spacious rooms, it had in the past been converted into an office building. University labs, research organizations, religious organizations, businesses, warehouses, and many other entities had once taken up residence here. But, the age when this building had been so jam-packed is now fifty years in the past.

Nowadays, most of its rooms are empty and abandoned, and the children of the village have made the building their playground.

"

"Pardon the interruption," I say as I push open the shoddily patched-up remains of a glass door.

Inside is a gloomy, dusty hall that reeks of neglect; dust has settled everywhere. For some reason, there is a single shoe lying on its side, adding to the atmosphere of desolation.

Obviously, this place doesn't even have a receptionist.

I go up a spiral staircase that vaguely resembles one of those [wooden palm helicopters kids would play with to reach Grandfather's third-floor office.

Even though the employer is the UN, Grandfather has been its sole representative in the region until now.

If anything had happened to him before this, that would have been the end of the story for this particular branch of the UN. There is no end to the list of establishments that have befallen this fate in recent times.

That's the age of decline for you.

I haven't really studied the job description in detail, but I guess I'll manage.

"Ah, looks like this is it..."

I knock on a door with a board above it that reads: 《United Nations Mediation Council》.

-- There is no answer.

"Uhh, excuse me, is anyone there?"

I knock on the door again, but no dice.

Looks like nobody's there.

With a sigh, I proceed to softly turn the doorknob. I'm not really doing anything wrong, but my heart races a little, nonetheless.

"... Grandfather?" I begin before letting out a gasp in surprise as I enter.

"Woah..."

One of the chamber's walls is covered with an array of various firearMs

Evidently, Grandfather's private collection.

It's enough to make me feel like the entire room reeks of gunpowder. Of course, that probably isn't the case, but it definitely feels like it.

What is one to think?

In any case, if you were to look past this sea of threatening trinkets, you'd find a perfectly decent little office setup.

A dark grey floor with the linoleum peeling off, office desks placed appropriately in three cubicles off to one side, and a prim sofa set where guests would be received. Only one desk appears to be in regular use, burdened with a mountain of documents and a chaotic mess of cups, pen holders, and memos. That is probably Grandfather's desk. One other desk also seems to be in use upon further inspection. It is strangely uncluttered, with only a few paperbacks and some pens on top. Whoever sits there doesn't seem to be working much. Alternatively, perhaps Grandfather has monopolized the use of both of these desks.

The remaining desk seems to be brand-new, with no sign of use at all.

I assume this desk would become my domain.

"There's so much dust..."

Apparently, I will spend my first day cleaning my desk.

It isn't anywhere near as tedious as farm work, so I'm not complaining, no sir!

Oh, and the place where the sofas are, ostensibly used to receive guests, is currently being used to store oil lamps for use at night. It just goes to show how few guests would come by here.

I decide to sit down a little to strategize.

"Hmm, what shall I do, what shall I do indeed ..."

Now that I see it, there's another door in this room leading to another room. And just as I become aware of it, the door opens.

So Grandfather was in there, eh?

"Ah, you're here."

"Hello."

"This is your desk," he says, pointing his chin to the empty desk.

"Yes, I'm settling myself in."

"Congrats on getting the job!" says Grandfather with a laugh.

"Yes, thank you very much."

"Let's get a pot of tea going. By the way, this place does get water from the rainwater tank above sometimes, but it isn't potable. As a collectively agreed rule, we always make sure to bring some drinking water."

"You say it's something you've agreed on with others, but you're pretty much the only one around to follow it, aren't you, Grandfather?"

"You're here now, so that makes it the two of us," he concludes the conversation as he walks back into the other room. It seems like that room is some sort of office kitchenette.

"Here"

Accepting the cup from Grandfather, I say, "Thank you. Is it really only the two of us here?"

"Hmm? You didn't hear from Okugetsu?"

Okugetsu is a UN employee.

They were known by their initials, OG, at school. Unfortunately, I only ever interacted with them through letters, so I can't say I know them.

"What is it you're speaking of, then?"

"The assistant."

"Wait, this is my first day, and I get an assistant already?"

"Are you daft? I was talking about my assistant."

"Ah."

That was a rather scathing remark. Alt. Way to put me down, Grandfather.

"So there was a third person..."

There go my plans of passing off all the work.

"I thought you would have known, but you still haven't let go of your shyness, eh?"

"It's not that I'm shy... Oh, but let me ask you something. Is that assistant of yours an elderly lady?"

"Nope, he's a young one."

"Ah..."

The tone of my voice falls with the deluge of concentrated melancholy pouring over me.

"What are you so afraid of? Wasn't School a coeducational facility?"

"... Well, the birth rate is just so low, you know... And my batch was the last one at School too. There weren't many boys around, and even then, the ones closest to my age were four years younger than me. Though it still took me a long time to get used even to them."

"You don't need to worry then; he's a quiet lad who wouldn't hurt a fly."

"No, no, that's not really what I'm worried about."

"Since you're dreading the prospect that much, how about you work in a different room," he said, pointing to the side door. "It's a little cramped, but there's enough space for one person there."

"I couldn't ask you to do that!"

"You're a difficult grandchild to please, aren't you?"

"No, it's not that I'm horrible at talking to boys... It's just something I need to work on," I said with a sigh as I clapped my hands on my cheeks.

"All right, let's just treat this as the price for a good work environment and go with the sheltered girl strategy for me."

"What manner of strategy is that?"

"The kind of strategy where I don't talk to anyone and come to be perceived as a delicate and reserved person."

"Sounds boring."

"I'd be grateful if you could get off my back on that. In any case, is that assistant of yours not around?"

"Ah, there's a doctor who came with the caravan people today, so he's gone there for an appointment."

"Is he sick?"

"Indeed, he's the picture of ill health. Oh, by the way, the village hospital's furnace needs to run, so we're in the middle of a brown-out."

Electricity is not something just anybody can use nowadays.

"It'll take him a while to return since he'll be getting a checkup back at the hospital. Use the rest of the day to build a nest and break yourself in."

"You shouldn't treat humans like birds or animals..."

"I see. Are you okay with keeping the desks as they are, then? You'll be facing his desk, so you'll end up seeing him every day, you know."

No way. I frantically look for a better position for my desk.

Ideally, I would like to be out of anybody's line of sight while still being in a position to observe what is going on elsewhere. Back at School, I always preferred the back row because I could stay out of sight and use my height to my advantage.

'Ah, that place looks good,' I think as I eye the reception area.

"Grandfather, about that part of the room..."

"Nothing doing. That's the parlor, and we use it to receive guests every once in a while."

"But it's just being used as a place to put all those lamps, isn't it?"

"They get put away when somebody comes visiting. Just forget about it. Having a small, cozy place dedicated to receiving guests really brings out a certain quality in an old office like this one."

"You and your weird excuses..."

Grandfather is a man with very particular tastes.

"What about them? Just figure out where you want to put your desk for now. I'll start giving you some paperwork or something else to do after that."

"All right."

"Well, if you'd like, you could introduce yourself to them."

"Ah, I suppose this isn't something I can skip, is it?"

"Doesn't matter."

I widen my eyes in surprise.

"Why?"

"It's up to the one concerned here, and that person is you. If you don't feel the need to talk to them, you don't need to. Just do as you will."

Freedom!

Wait, but what am I supposed to be doing in this job, then?

Grandfather seems to have sensed that I have some questions and continues.

"We don't really have any restrictions on what we can do, but we mediators are, in essence, just paper pushers."

"Then, what will this job entail?"

"It has to do with them. There isn't a lot that needs doing here, to be honest. There was no end to the work back when this post first came into existence, but being a mediator is nothing more than a decoration nowadays."

"I see."

I idly process these words that have all the impact of a can of flat soda.

"You should be glad to have found a job as comfortable as this one."

"I think there's been a misunderstanding; I picked this job solely on the basis of my stamina, or lack thereof. I don't want to do things like farm work because I hate manual labor, I don't enjoy being in the sun, and I hate bugs."

"Anybody who hears you say that will just call you lazy. Though I do agree that farming is rather tedious."

"Yup, yup, isn't it just?"

He understands because he is rather lazy himself.

"I think we should hunt for lunch today."

His is the creed of the hunters and gatherers.

"I'm fine eating whatever comes to me at the table..."

"People like you are eating up what's left of civilization!" he berated me.

"If there was no other way to eat, I'd do anything I could, you know. But I don't need to since there are still jobs like this."

"I suppose that's true... Hmph," said Grandfather with a smirk as he fiddled with his mustache, "but no, I've changed my mind. A little hard work will do a world of good for young people like you. Go introduce yourself to them. This is an order from your boss."

"Well, I guess introductions are important."

The atmosphere of the office feels tenser now that I know I have to introduce myself to more people.

My motivation to do fieldwork is climbing.

"So, where is their village?"

"Ah, there."

A map of the village is on one wall.

I trace my finger over the minute details of the map. The limits of our village are highlighted in red, dangerous areas clearly marked, and, in one place alone, is a sticker that looks like a tricorn.

"Huh, what's this?"

"We call that place their village."

Let me clear this up for myself again.

"About this marker, isn't it in the wrong place? I saw one of these symbols on the way to the village... But that was quite far from where this is."

"I don't know what you're on about. How about you just go and have a look for yourself? It's about half an hour away. The terrain makes it a bit of a trek, so it'll be good exercise for you." says Grandfather with a grunt.

"All right, I shall go there."

"Here, lunch."

Is that Grandfather's afternoon snack? He takes a few buns out of his lab coat's pocket and gives them to me. I wish he could have at least wrapped them up...

"Do I need to bring any documents... or anything that requires a signature for the introduction?"

"No, you don't; why would you think that? Do you think we're drawing up a contract or something? Just go on, and say hello if you see one of 'em."

"If I find one of them?"

"They aren't all that rare... You should see one of them if we're lucky."

"I don't really get what's going on here, but I suppose I'll give it a shot."

"Here, water."

I accept the proffered water bottle.

"Is there anything I need to watch out for with my manners when we do the introduction?"

"Nope. Figure it out for yourself."

"I feel like all the investigation I did about this job means nothing now..."

"I'm guessing the materials you went over were probably something like correspondence manuals from back when this organization was first instituted. Times were tough back then, and we needed to be delicate with how we handled things, but all that is in the past now. Just come with me. Treat it all as experience points for your career."

"What's with that sketchy wording..."

---

After cresting a small hill and walking down the slope, I find myself in front of a place marked with a familiar tricorne symbol. This plot of land, which is apparently their village now, used to be a place where resource collectors would store their loot.

The resource collectors didn't bother to retrieve their loot, or should I say, junk, so it gradually grew into a large tower, something of an attraction in the village.

"That's really high..."

A doorless refrigerator; a washing machine that is cracked down the middle; broken loudspeakers; a guitar amplifier with its knobs taken off; flat tires; a stringless guitar; a microwave greasy with oil; a non-foldable bicycle that is crumpled up as if it could be folded...

These are just a few examples of the many things comprising this tower that reaches several times my height.

There is no way to use these things now; they can only be left here abandoned. There isn't any way to fix them either, and nobody can harvest any parts due to either rust and decay or because nobody has the technical knowledge.

But, the fence surrounding the scrapyard is still standing, with a gate secured by a chain.

I am stumped now.

I need to open this door to get in. As one would expect, though, I don't have its key.

Naturally, I am nothing but a weak young girl, quite dissociated from fantastic things such as tearing apart iron chains with super strength. I suppose there's no helping it; I'll have to go back...

"Eii."

The chains break apart quite easily when I pull at them.

Just so you know, these chains are really rusted up.

And with that, my fieldwork continues.

There is no groundskeeper guarding the place or anything; it is completely abandoned. Anyone would be free to waltz right in and do what they would.

First, I'll have to come a little closer to that precariously tall tower of junk.

I'm not about to get too close to it since I feel like it could collapse at any time. If I get caught under falling debris, that would be the end of me.

Dangerous as it is, they are partial to such places.

Somehow, there is something here that stimulates their childlike spirits. This is, after all, a spot that mischievous children would love.

Let's take a walk around the area.

I find myself in front of the place where the administration building might have been. However, The years and the elements don't appear to have been kind, and only its foundation remains.

"Hellooo...?"

I try calling out, but there's no response.

I'm quite sure this is the place indicated by the tricorne symbol, but I see no sign of them being here.

Maybe they're under the flagstones strewn around...

I turn one over, but all I see are some roly-polies and centipedes.

"That was extremely rude of me."

I softly put the stone back down.

After this, I try going around the trash heap the long way, but there is nothing new to see.

"Is nobody theeere?"

Not a peep. It seems like this place is well and truly deserted.

The people I'm supposed to mediate for aren't here for me to introduce myself to, so I'm left jobless.

I've done everything I can at this point.

"Down the hatch..."

Eating the buns I have in my pocket is all that's left to do here.

Having returned to the office, I report to Grandfather, who's busy aiming a gun at a distant house through the window.

"There was nobody at the junkyard, so I came back after I lunched on the buns and the water."

"Tell me, was it tasty?"

"It tasted like normal buns and normal water."

"Hmm, I suppose that's how it is."

"I experienced absolutely nothing there!"

"You got to enjoy a relaxing stroll at the very least, didn't you?"

"Tell me the truth, Grandfather; you knew there wouldn't be anyone there, didn't you?"

"Well yeah, there's nobody at that mountain of junk."

I breathe out a sigh at this.

"I only wasted time there."

"Can't you see that your Grandfather was just trying to get his weak-willed granddaughter to exercise a little?"

"I hate exercise."

Grandfather covers his eyes at this. He looks really exasperated. I feel like I'm about to get one of his signature knuckle sandwiches, but he instead just sighs - ~

"Ah, whatever."

Wow, I'm really sailing through today.

With disappointment in my heart, I verify my conclusions on all this.

"In short, it's all just a lie, and there's nothing but junk at the place marked with the tricorne?"

"That's not true. They prefer most places where the touch of human life still exists. It's quite likely there are a considerable number of them hiding around there."

I groan.

"Grandfather, I know part of a mediator's job is to monitor them..."

"No doubt, no doubt."

"But they hardly ever even show themselves, so are there even any details or accounts of interaction with them?"

"I suppose that's where every one of us gets stuck," says Grandfather as he sips his coffee.

"Even I had to get pretty creative with them."

"In that case, give me your know-how!"

"Nope, impossible."

"Am I being hazed here?"

They are beings that naturally flourish while hidden away from humanity.

For us humans who know nothing of reading the wind or hiding our presence, it is nigh impossible to find them, feral and isolated as they are.

"If you don't start thinking critically now, you'll never be able to handle this job. If you really want this job, you'd do well to consider this as good training."

I do have some motivation... It's just that I would want to pick up whatever I can from my seniors in the field as well first."

"And that's precisely what I'm asking you to figure out for yourself."

This riles me up a little. I just have to get some information out of him now.

"Well, since I'm so new to all this, I'd like you to show me how it's done, Grandfather."

"No way, I have better things to do. What do you think I hired an assistant for?"

"It's obvious that you'd have a million things to do. On the other hand, as a greenhorn in this field, I want to quickly and efficiently absorb the skills and techniques of the trade, then quickly mature by putting myself on the highway of wisdom; I need to quickly mature by putting myself on the highway of wisdom!"

"Y-you just... repeated yourself..."

Grandfather looks a little flustered now; I feel like I've gained some ground.

"I don't believe in wasting time."

"All right, I get it; that's enough out of you. So tiresome..."

Wisdom really does come with age, as evidenced by how quickly Grandfather regains his footing.

"I'll be frank; there's nothing I can teach you. This was never my job in the first place. I don't have much of that 'know-how' you're thirsting after, and there's nothing special that I've been involved in either."

"So you gave up your previous position and switched to this job?"

"Indeed."

He says this unabashedly.

"Well, I had to because my lab was being shut down. If I wanted to stay here, I had to take on the role of a mediator, even if only in name. I haven't ever accomplished anything as a mediator.

"A mediator only in name..."

"It's a very unassuming job. I probably shouldn't be saying this to you now, but... I don't think they need us mediators either."

"But, when we get down to brass tacks..."

"It's become a question of what to do with them. If we don't engage with them, they'll never reveal themselves to us. If there's no contact, there'll be no friction. It's a bit of a pompous philosophy, but I'd say doing nothing is the best way to go about this job."

"But that would mean a mediator's post has no meaning..."

"There just isn't any reason for it, hmm?"

"Ohhhhh..."

The shock of this realization makes me want to faint backward on my chair.

All I want is a comfortable and intellectually stimulating job. If you were to ask me if I wanted a position where I just sat around, my answer would be a resounding "NO"; I just want the wholesomeness of a proper, efficient life.

"All this time, I'd thought a mediator's role was important..."

"It probably was a century or two ago."

"Guhhh..."

"Well, it isn't as if a position like this has a place in these times where the entire currency system has collapsed and become one of payment in kind. It's just one of those things that people need to feel like they are helping. Such historical posts are kept up through the inertia of tradition, even if only in name. Oh, here. I've got your starting salary and your ration tickets."

He tosses a white envelope onto the table.

"W-wait, it isn't the end of the month yet..."

"The caravan with the rations is only going to be here at the end of the month anyway. Think of it as an advance."

"Th-then, it doesn't really hold much value, does it?"

"Not at first, is all."

With my heart having absorbed this damage, I am rendered speechless. Grandfather then continues to psychologically torture his defenseless granddaughter with more despair-inducing, bleak words.

"I think I'll hand over all the mediation work to you now. I know you don't know too much, but just puzzle it through. Ah, and if you really want to do something, you could submit a report or a presentation to me when you feel like it, I suppose."

Looks like Grandfather has stated his intention to retire from this job while sprinkling in a few irresponsible statements while he's at it.

"Hold on now, Grandfather. We can't possibly just end it like this. Think of your position as my boss... Oh, and could you please stop fiddling with your gun in the middle of the conversation?"

"I'm looking forward to the hunt next week."

Having pushed the polished muzzle of his rifle out of the window, he peers into its scope.

"... So these are the harmful effects of switching from government service to a private sector job..."

"This is the only thing I have to look forward to anymore. Must you so boorishly trample on this old man's dark pleasures like this?"

"So you admit that they're in bad taste?"

Grandfather is very steadfast in his beliefs.

"Well... That being the case, could you at least give me a few pointers, so I can take the job over quickly and smoothly?"

"That's the thing. I hadn't been at this job for too long... Hrmm, yes... No, wait."

He gets up and walks to one of the cabinets in the office, then reaches in and starts rifling through each and every file.

He rummages around noisily for a while before pulling out a thick file.

"Ah, found it. Come over here and look at this. It's a collection of records left behind by a senior of ours. Probably my predecessor's property, now that I think of it. It's been about thirty years now, I'd guess?"

"Whatever, so it's some kind of hint book then?"

"It would be nice if it is."

I accept the file and flip through it.

It appears to be a daily journal that holds material to be compiled into an actual report.

The file's contents seem to be nothing but the recorded struggles of a young mediator trying to establish a rapport with them (with a bit of wishful thinking mixed in).

With illustrations added where necessary, the file outlines the particulars of our predecessor's experiences in their company.

"This should be quite useful as a reference, I think. By the way, what is your senior doing now?"

"Nothing much; he's dead."

Death is the one constant in the cycle of life.

"He was quite reserved, so I can't tell you much about him. What did he die of... I can't remember now."

He stands around, lost in thought for a minute, but then says, "I'm hopping out for a little," and leaves with his lab coat.

Left alone, I busy myself with the contents of the file in my hands.

---

○ Month×Day

I'm a mediator as well now, starting today.

It's nothing more than a title now, but maybe there's something I can achieve with the strength of youth at my side.

I want to do my best here.

I've already said goodbye to my village as well.

It was a challenge, but I think I did well for myself, thanks to the tricks I learned from my professors.

It will be good if I can establish good relationships from now as well.

---

○ Month×Day

Having spent a few days on the job, I think I've got the hang of it.

I've already gotten a chance to see the wonders of their technology.

I'd heard the rumors, but it really exceeded my expectations...

I understand now how important this job is. Why this department is so understaffed is beyond me, however.

It would be nice if I had a camera...

I suppose I will make do with sketches instead.

(The rest of the page is missing)

---

○ Month×Day

A banquet was thrown for me today.

I was received warmly.

The food was first-class.

Wine, meat, and fish. Mountains of delicacies. Dishes that used a variety of fruits.

That was time truly well spent.

---

○ Month×Day

I was received warmly today, too.

There were many items on the menu with ingredients I had no knowledge of.

First off, I wonder where all this meat and fish came from...

I've never heard of them doing any kind of hunting.

I should make this a central theme in my investigation.

---

○ Month×Day

I'm given a passionate welcome whenever I come to visit.

Should I be happy about this, even though it hinders my investigation efforts?

I shouldn't meddle with their affairs, but I do want to appropriate some materials.

---

○ Month×Day

The investigation isn't progressing.

Nothing has changed. Another day, another feast.

---

○ Month×Day

Ahh, today they put out yet another feast with dubiously sourced ingredients...

All these dishes are just recreations of our cuisine.

This is the first time I've tried this thing known as beefsteak.

Now this is something you don't get to eat every day.

The flavor of this meaty creation is unforgettable.

---

○ Month×Day

The food today was especially extravagant!

It was one culinary marvel after another.

I was practically drowning in it.

I believe this food was Chinese court cuisine from the old days.

I want to take the investigation forward... But then again, I still have plenty of time. There's no rush.

---

○ Month×Day

I feel really spoilt by them.

All I can do is relish the special course meals they put out for me.

What else am I to do?

I now understand how varied the flavors of the world used to be.

I have also been served a variety of spirits. There's an alcohol-tasting session every day.

---

○ Month×Day

I had sushi today.

As usual, I haven't ever had much of it before, but it is truly delicious.

The crab soup was also amazing.

---

○ Month×Day

Today's fare was Turkish.

I don't like beans or eggplant much, but I never knew they could taste this good.

That milky-white regional spirit known as rakı was also lovely.

---

○ Month×Day

If they don't have bread, let them eat cake.

---

○ Month×Day

It was one beefsteak after another today.

One spirit after another.

Beefsteak, alcohol, beefsteak, alcohol...

---

○ Month×Day

Beef... Alcohol...

---

I close the file without a word.

The windows are wide open, and I have a clear view of the sky. It would feel really good to just huck this thing through the sill, wouldn't it?

This was supposed to be a valuable resource? This crummy thing?

The only thing it's good for is a proper scandal.

"How was it?"

Grandfather has returned.

"There was nothing but beef and booze."

"Good, good! You're on the right track."

I'm on the right track, he says.

The final entry of this thing says nothing but "I shall commence the attack on my dinner"!

"Honestly, I don't think this is of any use to me as a reference."

"At the least, you might have gotten a sense for how good the job is."

"Uhmm, I've been meaning to ask; regarding your predecessor's cause of death..."

"Ah, I remember now! It was cirrhosis."

I see. Just what I thought.

"He died a good death, didn't he, for this age."

"Take this as an example of what happens if you eat and drink too much."

"I've always been a light eater."

I want to just cradle my head in my hands.

"So, is this the only such file you have?"

"Well, why don't you take a look in the drawers over there? Maybe you'll find something useful."

"Ah, this huge thing... Where do I start..."

There's a huge office cabinet that takes up most of the wall on one side of the room. I wonder how long it would take to sift through all the things in it...

I absent-mindedly lose myself in my thoughts.

If I were to take my work seriously, my troubles would increase exponentially, but if I slacked off, I could lead a life of comfort... I do want to have it easy. It's true. But I have two conflicting desires within me; I want to do something useful, but I also want to take things easy.

"Speaking of which, Don't you have a file of your own, Grandfather?"

"Nope. I never made one, after all."

I thought as much, but...

"Did you really, truly not put anything down on paper?"

"I was, to the end, nothing but a figurehead."

"I see why I haven't gotten any good advice now."

"How rude... But I do have a tip for you. Hmm, yes... You want to be able to do your job as a mediator and talk to them, don't you? So you just need to get some of them together somewhere."

"Yeah, pretty much."

Grandfather's reluctant expression soon turns into a more thoughtful one. He then looks up at me and says, "How about something sweet?"

"Sweet? Like sugar?"

"No, I'm talking about sweet food. There are lots of different kinds, aren't there? Confectionaries and all that. They really like that stuff."

"Are you saying we should try baiting them out with sweets?"

"Yes... Back in the day, I'd use a strategy where I would bury a little jar in the ground, put some honey in it, and wait a little, to tremendous effect."

"We aren't catching rhino beetles here, though..."

"It's all the same when it comes to sweet things like honey. They're all slaves to their instincts."

"I've got some words to say about this, but let's leave that for later. Regarding this strategy of yours, won't it also attract other unwanted things?"

"You can just separate out the chaff by hand."

"That's just going to traumatize me!"

"You aren't going to be fit for any fieldwork with that attitude."

"Ahhh, I suppose that's true... All right, I'll do it. Thank you, Grandfather."

I leave the office with the envelope of ration tickets in hand.

By the time I make a trip to the plaza where the caravan is, hand over a ration ticket for luxury items, select a bottle of sorrel from the caravan's remaining stock, and get back home, it is almost 6 o'clock.

"I'm home!"

"Ah, welcome back."

I regretfully note that the clock reads a minute past six, meaning I've broken curfew. I suppose I'll just have to accept the consequences.

"Now, then."

I lower my head apologetically, waiting for Grandfather's fist to come down on it.

"...What are you doing?"

"Huh? No punishment?"

"What am I supposed to be punishing, I wonder?"

Hold on a minute, what's going on here?!

A nasty feeling is starting to swell up in me.

Not one to foolishly stir up trouble, I hurriedly withdraw into my room. I shouldn't jeopardize my lucky streak by investigating from whence it came.

The next day, I leave the house to reach the trash heap directly without saying a word to Grandfather.

The air is dead still as usual, with nary a sign of life, hidden or not.

Having found a suitable location, I set about digging a hole. It is only about ten centimeters deep, so I finish digging in an instant. I then place an old tin can inside the hole and tidy it all up. As for bugs and other unsavory intruders, the lip of the can is a little raised off the ground to hinder them.

The work is completed in just a few minutes.

If I pour some honey into this can, then leave it out overnight and visit it the next day, I would probably be treated to a wonderfully shocking display of the insect population in the area.

I'm not sure using a sweet liquid here is a good idea.

I wonder, as a layman, whether switching to a solid medium would reduce the potential targets this trap will attract...

And so I take a small jar of konpeito I had previously made and pour in enough to hide the bottom of the can. All that's left to do is wait.

---

"You also need to think about the fun factor of the place."

"fun factor."

What a suspicious pair of words.

After I returned to the office for the second time to beg for another piece of advice, these were what I got.

"When the fun factor of an area is low, they become less active. And if their population is too low, they won't stick around without some external factors."

"Fun... Like a festival?"

"Not just that. Games, sweets, dancing... There are so many things you could consider fun."

"You gave me yet another vague piece of advice..."

"Did you try the usual way first? What happened? Did you catch any beetles?"

"I went to check on the trap after about six hours, but all I saw was a conveyor belt of ants; no beetles had found it."

P.

Grandfather looked a little sad after he heard that.

"You can't catch them by just sitting around. You have to make the place more colorful."

"I wonder what I can do to increase the fun factor..."

"I think there are many ways to do this. For example, how about one of those flags that you see placed on top of rice in a kid's meal, those miniature flags?"

"It doesn't seem like it would leave much of an impression to me."

Perhaps Grandfather was referring to the universal menu commitments found in the restaurant industry, but that isn't something my generation is familiar with.

"I'm just giving you an example of an example, but imagine cutting vegetables into star shapes to get children to enjoy eating them."

"Ahh, so you're talking about that kind of gimmick. They used to do that to us all the time at School."

"Did that to you? What a weird way to put it."

"I wasn't one to take things lying down."

I recall my time at the dorms, where every meal served would become akin to a war zone.

The matron, who had taken up an unrealistic and deeply delusional mission to feed every child carrots by any means. And on the other side, my mortal coil, with a solemn determination towards avoiding the sweetness that would cause such a nauseating feeling to well up in my chest.

To make matters worse, I wasn't the only one who refused carrots.

It was just a coincidence that all my batch mates also hated that biennial member of the Umbellifer family, but the fact that nobody ate their carrots was due to a deliberate covenant between us all.

The progress and evolution of that struggle bore an eerie resemblance to that of one particular historical conflict.

At first, it was a very primitive exchange. Both sides were defenseless and had evolved in a closed environment with no natural predators. The situation bore a resemblance to those large herbivorous mammals of the past (Such species have long gone extinct). The carrots were served up in the open: roasted whole, or as salad sticks, or round slices roasted in butter or boiled... The carrots were seen as such on the table, guilelessly and with no attempts made to hide their origin.

But the matron soon started noticing something. Or rather, many things.

First off, the fact that the carrots were still there on the plates after meals. One couldn't help but notice something like that, though. The matron duly lodged her complaints with us, but as we kept up our firm stance of resistance against her words, she soon gave up on that front. She wisely realized the futility of persuasion through dialogue. Since intimidation through words didn't work, all that was left was the advancement of technology.

The culinary technique of carving the vegetable into star shapes was just the first step in the plan. And while this fruitless war escalated significantly through the introduction of the contaminant in small amounts within vegetable juice, the real battles were being waged through information warfare behind the scenes.

For example, a marking would indicate:

There's going to be a campaign against the stockists today.

There's a basket of that stuff hanging over there, or, I've found a case full of it in the corner of the kitchen. Such coded whispers would drift about.

"That stuff" being around in the kitchen meant we'd need to be wary of the food for the day.

When the matron caught wind of these foolish utterances, she attempted to manipulate us with her words. But if she carelessly said something like, "Rejoice, you lot, there are no carrots today," a task force composed of the younger kids would instantly form, steal into the kitchen and remove all those carrots that weren't supposed to be there as a blunt political tour de force.

I was only halfway through my story, but Grandfather waved me away, looking exhausted.

Story time was over.

"You're quite brazen for someone who's supposed to be shy, aren't you?"

I wanted to point out that this was a result of my personal growth.

"Getting back on topic, am I correct in my understanding that even just the use of a toy flag will increase the fun factor, then?"

"There's no chance it wouldn't."

"I see. I shall try this out."

A flag. That was something I could easily make.

After lunch, I selected a nice twig and some cloth to make a flag.

Regarding flag designs; I had a hard time choosing a country.

Some national flags could easily be hand-made, others couldn't.

I borrowed an encyclopedia from Grandfather and looked up flag designs. Indonesia and Libya looked easy. One of the Libyan flags, for example, was just a solid color.

It had that particular feeling to it; a wide, sprawling feeling.

---

And so, a day after, I leave for the junk mountain with the completed flag in hand.

The diligence of the ants can't be underestimated; the konpeito I had left yesterday has vanished without a trace. My trap is an utter failure.

Now then, all I need to do is set up shop over here again, but can I count on the social insects known as ants to forget that this used to be one of their feeding sites?

I change the hole's location and bury the can up again. I then complete the setup by sticking the flag on the side.

All right.

The round trip the first time was tiring enough, so I'm going to stick around and observe this time around. I have diligently gathered all the things I would need for this already.

I spread out a picnic mat a short distance from the trap.

I then take out the other things. A lunchbox, a flask, tea cakes with some reading material, a hat, a sketchbook with a pencil, and an old pair of binoculars.

The binoculars alone, I borrowed from Grandfather.

It isn't a bad idea to enjoy some fieldwork on a clear, cheery springtime day like this. A sketchbook and some novels are all I need to keep me occupied for half a day.

I clap my hands crisply, feeling motivated.

"Now."

I lie on my belly, propped up on my elbows, and look through the binoculars.

---

I wake up feeling comfy.

With the cloud-covered sun on my back, it looks like I'd fallen asleep.

"Darn it..."

My fieldwork-turned-picnic plans are starting to come apart.

A few hours have already passed. Time always flows gently and cruelly forth. The sun is still up, but since it is already past noon, it won't be long until the sky is dyed by the setting sun.

And now I find that my binoculars are gone. This has me quite disconcerted. I rummage through my belongings, swiveling about like a spider before sighing in relief, having found the binoculars near my ankles. Such intricate mechanical tools are hard to come by, and I would be hard-pressed to replace the binoculars if I lost them.

What of the trap, I wonder?

I peer through the binoculars and, with a light heart, find a group of them milling around the trap, engaged in friendly conversation.

I massage the corners of my eyes with my fingers once to confirm that I'm not imagining it.

I look through the binoculars once more.

There's no mistake. They are definitely there.

All of them are busy digging into the konpeito in their hands.

"Well, that was pretty easy."

Things have gone too smoothly, and I'm left wondering what to do next.

I want to say hi to them, but won't they all run away if they see me get up just like that?

How shall I call out to them?

I can't let go of this opportunity. I'm a mediator, and I can't do my job without staying in touch with them. I have set up that trap, made myself some lunch, and have been camping out in the wild for this, but I have completely forgotten about the problem of how to make first contact.

I reaffirm my priorities. Let's figure out how many of them are present in the crowd first.

.................

I've finished counting. There are about seventy-one of them.

Immediately after, I see another one aimlessly walking around, under the candy's spell. That makes seventy-two.

They all look similar.

Very short, clothed in thick overcoats fastened with a single human-sized button.

Big heads, wearing tricorns.

Tiny gloves and boots.

The attire resembles the clothing of a distant country.

Though they look mostly the same, they all wear different shades.

Red, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, and viridian.

Their accessories are variegated.

A curly diadem, a pen cap, an origami samurai helmet, a broken eggshell... Each of them wears something of their own, somewhat proudly.

Every one of them gives off the impression a naughty child would.

Their height is ten centimeters on average.

What are they, you ask?

Why~

These tiny creatures~

They are the new "mankind" who rule this earth nowadays.

It isn't known exactly when the fairies were first sighted.

They are reported to have been sighted many times by the middle of the twenty-first century, but unfortunately, all other information on them has vanished into the cyber-realm due to the decline of the electronic information networks of old.

But then again, nothing of much value was lost. Most of the news to be found in that digital age was unreliable. There were attempts to salvage information at one point, but it was so fruitless that it is a field in which barely anyone takes any interest nowadays. It's all lies in the end. And don't get me started on news-speak.

More important are the records of the time before the digital age. Those are of the most importance.

There had always been hints of the fairies' existence in old art and folktales, after all.

Ahh, the magnificence of print media. The humor is understandable, it's sincere, it's sensible, it isn't over-the-top, it is intellectual above all else, what more is there to say, now if only paper could last forever without deteriorating... These are the words of perhaps mankind's last scholar, my friend Y.

In any case, the fairies have gradually made their presence known, and many events have transpired, to the point where there are no records left of their origin; we only know that fairies exist.

And now, we humans have relinquished the seat of earth's dominant civilization and have surrendered that position to them, the fairies.

The United Nations Mediation Council was put in place to smooth out any friction between us retiring humans and the increasingly dominant fairy folk. In due course, the word mankind has now come to refer to the fairies.

I think it's safe to refer to ourselves as the "old mankind" or just "humans". Maybe even "Homo Sapiens".

Fairies are effectively disparate to us in terms of biological classification (We have not yet established if they are even living things), so the nomenclature we use for them needs to be unambiguous.

Specifically, the meaning of the word "mankind" alone has been shifted into its own special place, that of referring to the fairies. If one is cognizant of that fact, things become straightforward.

Meanwhile, over the past few centuries, humans as a species have steadily declined, and our population could sink to zero at any point now.

Most of our scientific knowledge is now lost.

Cities sit abandoned, and spheres of human life continue to shrink.

The world is now the fairies'.

They can thrive in even the most desolate environments. We haven't ever managed to figure out how they do that, though. Both sides can comprehend each other, but actual dialogue is rare. Perhaps something happened in the distant past which created this rift between us. At this point, we have no way to tell what that could have been.

As a mediator, I needed to form an intimate relationship with them.

We mediators act as liaisons between humans and fairies to solve problems between our races.

There is a need to establish close, regular dialogue with the local residents as well.

Such advanced preparation will ensure that your work will go smoothly in the future. That's the essence of a cool beauty, to accomplish her work skillfully and elegantly.

Maximum effect with the least hassle. The results will stand as a testament to one's competency, as something to be proud of. It's one of those things people do, you know?

No matter what, I have to build a close friendship with these creatures that come straight out of a fairy tale.

Feeling for the right moment, I trot closer in a crouch.

I'm suddenly struck with a bout of self-consciousness.

My anxiety reduces me to a quivering bundle of nerves.

There's this indescribable, weird feeling like the loss of control you feel when you try to suddenly get up from a sitting position. Yup, I'm falling over. My, my, the ground is rushing up towards me, ufufu. My dear body, I leave myself in your hands, as usual. Really, time and time again, I freeze up when it is my turn to make a move. The ground is still rapidly closing in.

Impact.

I hit the ground with force befitting my wastefully tall stature.

"Owwww..."

I have to weather the falls so that I can quickly lose my naivete and become a proper lady.

That aside, the fairies. I look up while holding my nose. Sure enough, they're all staring at me, with eyes wide as dinner plates.

"Ahh, hey, uh..."

The words just refuse to come out right.

Haste only invites bad judgment.

I stand back up as if nothing happened.

To the fairies, who are only 10 centimeters tall, my head, which is at a height that has long exceeded the usual limit for a girl, must look like some kind of tsunami approaching them.

They cry out in unison: "EEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeek!"

I am assaulted by a chorus of shrieks that could shatter glass.

Is this what they mean by the expression, "to scatter like baby spiders"? They proceed to run away in every direction.

Ah, they are truly fleet of foot.

As they cannot fly, fairies are considered closer to the Korpokkur than "fairies" as categorized in European folk tales. They do exhibit the characteristic agility, though, handily outrunning any human.

"Excuse me! Hey! Wait! Please!"

Even as I call out, I know. They will not wait. This is how it always is.

I don't think I would wait if I were in their position, after all.

"..."

I let my outstretched hand fall down.

I feel like I've aged a decade in a moment.

"Wow, with a start like this, I can tell it's only going to get harder from here on out... I guess I'll have to change locations and redo the trap."

"Well now."

I see them trying to hide.

Three of them.

I can feel myself giving in to temptation.

My eyes shine. With a violent passion.

In no time, there are three fairies atop the desk in my room.

They're all sitting in seiza for some reason.

They're also quivering in fear.

It's not like there's no reason for it, though.

The moment I saw them, I clapped the mouth of the can shut with my palm and scampered home with the can in my hands.

Yes, I allowed my desires to overtake me. Or perhaps I should say I committed a flawless kidnapping?

Is this going to become the flash point of a serious interspecies conflict?

As a rule, the mediation council's representatives have a policy of non-interference when it comes to the lives of the fairies.

I need to cover up any evidence of this... wait, no, I need to reach an appropriate settlement with them.

"Um, Mr. Fairy?"

At this, all three of them start shivering as if they have been served a death sentence.

They are completely dominated by fear. How pitiful.

Well, I'm the cause of their fear in the end.

In any case, what am I to do now?

I can't keep them under house arrest forever.

"I'm sorry, I didn't intend for this situation, but things ended up like this all the same."

Three pairs of eyes look up at me, brimming with tears.

Ahh! What tender and sweet eyes they have!

It is as if a switch has been thrown within me.

"Uhmm, would you like to have something to eat?" - I begin, aiming to soften the atmosphere with a witty joke - "or shall I gobble you three up?"

"...Ulp?!"

The three fairies proceed as one to wet themselves in fear.

"Sorry. I regretted my indiscretion the moment the words left my mouth... I'm very sorry. Come on, I already said I'm sorry. I definitely won't eat you. Please listen!"

I try to soothe the three, who are now curled up on the table in despair.

By the way, the fairies excrete practically pure water.

That said, I wouldn't go so far as to attempt to drink such water.

Going back to the drawing board, I switch approaches and attempt to coax them out of their shells with food.

The fairies are extremely fond of candy, after all.

I should have done this from the start.

"It's only leftovers, but would you like to have some?"

I proffer a piece of candy to them on my finger.

After the three glance at each other with faces on the verge of tears, a representative gets up and approaches my finger.

The fairy stops about twenty centimeters short, surveys the scene, and, having decided there is no hostility, accepts the offering.

Mission accomplished.

This piece I have just offered is only a morsel, but I hope it can become a significant morsel for both the old and the new "humanities".

"Please, try it."

The fairy eats, frightfully.

At first, it spends most of its faculties on vigilantly observing me, and cares little about the taste. However, as its flavor gauge gradually fills, the fairy grows more engrossed in the food.

By the time the representative finishes its first morsel, it has lost its wariness and looks to be more at ease.

"You fairies are really easy to feed, aren't you?"

Seeing these events unfold, the other two fairies start whispering amongst themselves. I roll two pieces of candy over to them as well.

They wolf the candy down in no time.

The three fairies are now restless and look at me expectantly.

They have a rather greedy gleam in their eyes.

The significance of this is not lost on me.

"Fine, then."

I shall set out a wonderful feast today.

I invert the candy jar on the tabletop, letting its contents spill everywhere.

"Come, eat as much as you'd like."

The three fairies grin ear to ear and dive into the mountain of candy.

And so, a frenzied feast begins.

Ten minutes later:

Kyai-kyai♪

They are now happily frolicking around, enjoying themselves with childlike innocence.

They like to play when they're full.

They amuse themselves with simple acts such as jumping into empty jars, crowding inside the jars, then jumping out. Very much like a bunch of kittens.

I silently sit on a stool and begin sketching their antics.

All the candy is gone before I have a chance to even try some of it myself. Well, since it all went towards bribing them, I'd say it is a low price to pay.

"I've really splurged on my inaugural bribe..."

Such are the actions of a competent mediator.

In any case, sketching the four fairies romping about is quite difficult, if only there had been just three of them-

...

"... They've multiplied, haven't they?"

The fairies stop what they're doing and stare at me.

One, two, three, and four. That's definitely four fairies.

I did only bring three with me, though...

As I sit there with a furrowed brow, one of the fairies walks up to me.

"Excuse me..." the fairy trills with a voice like a reed-pipe: "Are you god, Human? Are you?"

"...God?"

"God."

I don't recall ever achieving godhood, though.

Are we, the people of old humanity, seen as gods by the fairies?

"I am not god, you know?"

The four fairies gather in a circle when they hear this and start discussing the matter. Then, one of them breaks away and walks up to me:

"But, why are you so.... so big?"

"I suppose I do tower over you fairies... But no, I am not a god."

"But, Ms. Human, you are... Ms. Human, you're..." - The fairy appears to be tongue. It looks quite irritated that it can't find the right words. A sigh wells up within me - "Ahhhh!" How awfully cute these denizens of micro-mankind are!

"I think it will make things simpler if you see things this way: you fairies, the fairies who exist now, are the new humanity." Then, pointing to myself, I say, "And we humans are the old humanity."

"Old humanity..."

"We've retired from being the rulers of this planet. Big time. We used to do chic things like wage wars and stuff in the old times, but it's all really calm nowadays."

They huddle up into a circle again and resume their discussion. I ignore all that and address them anyway.

"I just want you all to know that you don't need to be afraid of me."

whisper-whisper-whisper

"What's the matter? Didn't I make myself clear?"

whisper-whisper-whisper-whisper-whisper-whisper

"Um... Excuse me..."

?

"Ms. Human!"

Their circle comes undone, and one fairy walks up and raises its hand.

"What is it?"

The representative silently extends a finger on its raised hand. Then, holding that pose, it scrunches its eyes shut.

It feels like the fairy is waiting for something to happen.

"Hmm?"

I have no idea what's going on right now.

Taking a shot in the dark, I decide to meet the fairy in the middle and stretch my finger out to touch the offered finger.

I recall seeing such a scene in an old movie.

I glance at the other fairies, wondering what they think of this; they are heaving great sighs of wonder and admiration.

"Waahhhhh!" "Oooohhhh!" "Mhmmmmm!" "Ahhhh!"

Is this their equivalent of a handshake? Not that I disapprove of it.

"Well, now that we've had our introductions, I suppose you wish to return to the trash mountain? From where you were so rudely abducted?"

"Trash mountain?"

"The place where I caught you all."

"The trash mountain; are we going back there?"

"Yes. Isn't it your home?"

The four fairies all tilt their heads at the same time, at the same angle. And with that same synchronization, they give me their reply:

"Chiiii...?"

"Do you not recall where you were born?"

"Boo...rn?"

The fairies form a circle again, some weird impulse having taken them over once more.

"Ms. Human, I have another question for you."

"Puh-please, ask away."

"When, when was I born?"

"I do not know."

"You don't?!"

May I know why you asked me that?"

"Chiii..?"

Looks like this isn't the best direction for this investigation.

"That aside, could everyone tell me their names?"

"........."

I am subjected to the silent treatment once more. Four blank stares drill into me.

"Your names, you know, the things you call yourselves by. I'd be thrilled if you could introduce yourselves to me."

"Na...mes....?"

"'Nombre', or 'namae'!"

"All those words mean 'name'!"

"Is a nickname good enough?"

"Of course!"

"..."

The representative ponders this for a while, then says, "We never thought up any."

"I know, right?"

They seem more comfortable speaking with me now.

"That's right, we have no names."

"Isn't it inconvenient?"

"mmmaybe."

"How would you usually call out to your friends?"

The four fairies digest the question, slack-jawed. They then perk up, having apparently settled on an answer.

"...With nuance."

"Is that so..."

Hooray for world peace.

"But, you know, it's pretty inconvenient to call out to you when none of you have names."

"Is it hard?" "Sorry about that." "Want to sleep?" "Would you like to eat us?"

"I wouldn't eat you."

"Aw, what?" "Is this what a close shave is?" "So I didn't need to steel my resolve for this?" "Are we going to be integrated into Ms. Human's family?"

"How many times do I need to tell you I won't eat you?"

Seeing the fairies form a circle again, a thought occurred to me.

Now that I'd gained their confidence, I needed a way to identify them. I decided to use a system similar to how they tag wild animals.

However, my decision to use any method can't be unilateral because they are as intelligent as us (or perhaps even more so). I can't treat them as test subjects, to be identified by only a name-tag.

There is, thus, only one reasonable approach I can take here.

"Everyone, may I have your attention?" I declare a muster. "I wish to be friends with every one of you. To that end, please allow me to name you all."

This causes the fairies to lose their composure.

"Are you for real?" "No way!" "Have we become winners?" "Kuh, just eat us!"

"All right, fine, I'll eat the lot of you."

"Eek?"

One of the fairies wets itself, and the other three duly follow its example as is characteristic of their race.

Are they part of some kind of hive mind?

"That was a lie."

"It was a lie!" "A lie it was!" "Ms. Human has us wrapped around her finger!"

"You fairies are so cute."

I decide to get on with naming them.

Although fairies are mostly identical in appearance, there are still some subtle differences to be seen among them.

"All right now: let's start with you."

I point at one of them.

"Please."

"Uhmm, you feel a bit like the leader to me, so your name shall be Cap."

"Cap!"

"You'll need to be super careful when you pick your next hat, won't you?"

"What an exciting proposition!"

"Now, you."

Fairy No. 2 is next.

"Yes."

"You give me a bit of a Japanese feeling, so you'll be Nakata-san."

"I see, it's finally my turn..."

"You must fight your daily battles in a suit, with a camera in hand, and your glasses on."

"That's anything but simple to do."

"Now, fairy No. 2 -"

Fairy No. 3 cuts in with a raised hand.

"Ms. Human, a suggestion."

Oho?

"Whatever could it be?"

"I want to choose my name myself."

"Oh, so you can name yourselves as well?"

The fairy starts its head off.

"Of course, you may! What would you like to name yourself?"

"Sir Christopher McFarlane."

"Wow, you even knighted yourself..."

"It suits me, it suits me!"

It suits you, does it? Does it really?

"I can't?"

"No, I don't mind at all. It's a wonderful name."

"I shall do my bestest!"

"Wh-what about me? When's my turn?" Fairy No. 4 is impatiently waiting with both hands raised.

"Then, you, my good sir, shall be..."

"What if I chose my own name?"

"You too, eh? Sure. What kind of name will you pick?"

"Fish-roll."

"You really want to get eaten, huh?"

"You're wrong, though?"

"But it does seem so to an extent..."

"In that case..."

Mr. Fish-roll (temporary name) glances at Sir McFarlane.

"Sir Fish-roll."

"Food can't be inducted into the aristocracy, you know."

"Say what?!"

Or maybe it can...

But I don't want to bring up sirloin now as that would just complicate things further, so I leave things at that.

And so, I've grown closer to these four fairies.

If I turn these four into my point of contact for the rest of their kind, I'm sure the costs of staying in touch will reduce.

Dare I say the beginning of my career as a mediator has been a pleasant one?

"Now, shall I return you four to the mountain?"

"Yes!" "Wes!" "Mes!" "Let's go home!"

"Now, what are you so flustered about all of a sudden?" asks Grandfather.

The evening, in my house, at the dining table.

I am in Grandfather's library. With a dictionary of famous personalities in one hand and a pen zooming over my sketchbook in the other, I reply to him.

"I gave the four fairies I met names, and we got along well, but..."

"I'm guessing they asked you to name the rest of the gang too, then?"

Grandfather has arrived at this conclusion having taken only a single short glance at the names written on my sketch-book.

"...Yes. They turned out to be a somewhat more friendly race than I had expected."

"They've always liked humans."

"Oh, I learned that first-hand."

"There's a lot of complexity to navigate around regarding that. But you should be able to figure out everything from those documents over there."

He points to the cabinet.

"I do have memories of casual contact with them as a child... But I never interacted with them like this."

"That's because children are the same as fairies. Their memories grow vague as they grow. As if the memories were made of a thin film. And beyond that veil, there lies a hidden world of magic. Quite a fantastic thought, eh?"

"Ahh, but Grandfather... Surely a distinguished professor of School such as yourself wouldn't subscribe to such delusions?"

"What, are you mocking me? The study of the occult may very well give us some answers to life's questions. It's been reinstated as a branch of study many times over the course of history. Besides, there's still the mystery of how fairies came to exist in the first place."

"For a second, I thought you'd gone senile."

"I'll probably outlive you even so."

"Well, I suppose it's good that you're going to live such a long life, but do your living in moderation, please."

"Feels to me like you're asking me to die."

"Ahh, I've finally reached fifty of them!"

Names are surprisingly tricky when you actually start thinking about them.

"Still, you got along with them quite easily; good job."

"I- I see."

I've decided to hold off on the allegations of illegal confinement I have leveled against Grandfather.

"In any case, the fairies have been gathering at that trash hill again, have they?"

"Looks to be so. I'm going to reconnoiter the place once more tomorrow."

"Mmmhmm. Just make sure you've prepared yourself."

My pen stops.

"... What do you mean by that?"

"There's surprisingly little we know about the fairies."

Grandfather's words have a sincere weight, as may be seen in the words of a philosopher.

"Where are they born, how do they lead their lives... It's mostly up in the air. To touch only on what is known - they are legion, with advanced intellects and technological prowess to match, needing no food to survive, and they share no similarity with any other existing species out there."

This sends me on a trip in the memory express to the time I had learned about fairies in my neo-anthropology course at school.

Neo-anthropology is the fairy version of anthropology. Put simply, a neo-anthropologist studies fairies.

The fairies certainly have many secrets.

One has to wonder, have none of those secrets been uncovered?

They say the answer to that question is still a resounding NO.

We have to have figured out something about them with how long they've been around, though, right?

Back when we old humans still ruled the world, back when science and wisdom permeated the cities, the schools, the books, and the internet, at the peak of the old human civilization, it would have been impossible to uncover these secrets.

Much knowledge has been lost in the time since.

Old humanity has suffered from information blackouts many times throughout history.

For example, we don't actually know why old humanity has resigned itself to its inevitable demise. We only know that the decision to do so was taken sometime in the distant past.

Maybe that information still exists, hidden away somewhere.

Unfortunately, we no longer have the passion to seek out that information, to examine it, and to make it known.

How do the fairies reproduce?

Why do they need no sustenance?

How come they can understand and converse in human languages?

How are they so technically advanced?

The truth of all these matters has been lost to the ravages of time, and we cannot expect the fairies -- who have never been in the habit of keeping records -- to remember the details.

We can only live on.

As if to say, "That'll do."

Grandfather's account soon begins to wax technical.

"... And, with regard to that point, there are some who believe that the fairies are, put simply, entities of the magical sort. Such theories are, at best, wilful fantasies, of course."

"It sounds to me like you're a little jaded about the whole thing."

"There's no helping it. Faced with an intelligent life form that could multiply through division, nobody could figure out how to scientifically investigate the phenomenon."

"Splitting..." - I understand completely.

"And there are even some who believe the fairies have no need for food."

"But they ate the konpeito I made, you know?"

"The fact that they do partake in social activities such as farming and hunting, albeit as recreation, is yet to be confirmed. In legends, the fairies were said to exist on only the essence of matter itself."

"The essence of matter..."

"That theory makes sense. Maybe we should consider the fairies as being a stage in the reproductive cycle? Sort of like how adult mayflies do not eat once they come out of their cocoons."

"Ah, I see what you're getting at."

It may explain their vast intelligence and vitality if they require no special effort to survive. It is the same for reproduction; they have effectively been freed of their limitations as living organisms. No matter how long we humans have been around as a civilization, we are unable match the fairies because they cannot even be classified as living organisms. Perhaps, due to the difference in the allocation of resources, that is to say, the differences in the possibilities afforded, the alternation of generations of today is prevalent.

"I see you've given this a lot of thought."

"This is not just idle thought. It's something more profound than that."

In terms of knowledge, I can't beat Grandfather.

As an educated person, I can't help but feel a little jealous, but I just shrug it off and get back to working on my list of names.

"You've got some pretty thick eyebrows though, huh?"

My pen's nib pierces the sketchbook.

"I'm not going to do your last rites."

"Even though I'll probably outlive you anyway?"

Grandfather is about to go back into the kitchen, when he turns his head and addresses me.

"Ah right, I forgot to tell you something."

"Yes?"

"fairies behave very differently when they are encountered individually versus when they are encountered as a group. When they gather together, they become a giant melting pot of cultural and scientific advancement. And all those ideas sublimate together at a moment's notice. New forms of culture propagate themselves in an instant. With an uncontrollable ferocity."

I stop writing and look up at Grandfather. He continues.

"Simply put, interesting things happen when fairies gather in large numbers. They can mobilize more intelligence, resourcefulness, efficiency, and passion than any group of humans ever could."

"Could you be more clear about what could happen?"

"No idea. Anything could happen. I have no idea what's trending amongst their kind these days. But seeing as you're a part of the mediation council now, how about you go take a look for yourself?"

"Grandfather, aren't you being a tad too irresponsible with your guidance, seeing as you're my predecessor?"

Grandfather ignores my complaints and proceeds to make a declaration.

"Oh, that's right. If you're planning to go there, take that dictionary with you."

"But it's so heavy..."

"You'll be well served if you did, I think."

Grandfather laughs with a knowing look on his face.

"I... see?"

The next day. I'm visiting the trash mountain again.

"...Huh?"

The trash mountain has ceased to exist.

A metropolis rises in front of my eyes.

And it's in a futuristic sci-fi style as well.

Well, there's also the fact that it's been scaled down to fairy size.

It's a miniature city, so it is only right that it has the dimensions to match.

The towering trash heap that used to be here has been replaced by a skyscraper with an identical shape to it.

All the high-rise buildings are built with a retrofuturistic design.

Numerous transparent tubes connect the buildings, and I can see futuristic cars whizzing by within them.

A large crowd of fairies is busily milling about on the streets and pavements below me.

At the center of the city is a towering building that is likely the city hall, and on top of that hall is some kinpira.

The handmade flag I used when setting my sugar trap is now fluttering proudly on top.

Grandfather was right.

The fairies do some amazing things when there are enough of them around.

"They've taken this way too far..."

It is said that with enough advancement, science could be confused for magic, but I've realized that such advancements may also become indistinguishable from jokes.

When you approach a miniature city like this, you must understand that from the perspective of its inhabitants, your footsteps would echo mightily, and you would tower over everything else like some kind of giant sea monster.

The fairies are made aware of my presence instantly.

An air raid siren is sounded and reverberates through the city.

"Oh my."

The movements of the fairies within the city are cast into disarray.

I'm not sure if they're frightened or just confused, though.

I advance until I reach a prim-looking plaza, where I stop.

"Now then..."

A biplane flies about 50 centimeters above my head.

For some reason, the biplane's silhouette doesn't resemble a real one as much as a toy. It is splattered messily with an infantile-looking mix of primary colors.

It isn't exactly trying to attack me, though. Instead, the biplane only single-mindedly spins circles around me.

As if it were the director of the mass panic in the ground below.

Crowds of fairies have begun to form a wide circle around me while I continue to stand stock-still.

They seem to be somewhat frightened of me, and none come close.

As a result, a circle of emptiness surrounds me, and a peculiar tension seems to flow through this supposedly empty space.

They may be tiny, but having this many eyes on me is wearing on my nerves a bit.

I know that the fairies are a terribly forgetful sort.

For example, they know their status as the rulers of all things.

Even so, they choose to hide from the public eye; they do not change their lifestyles. When, on occasion, they come into contact with a human, they are fearful and servile and even become attached to the human in a way similar to the relationship between a servant and their master.

"Excuse me... Good day."

chatter-chatter-chatter.

There is a response, but it is not in clearly intelligible language.

"Uhmmm, are the four fairies I brought back yesterday not here right now?"

I get a larger response this time, but we have yet to establish a dialogue.

chatter-chatter-chatter-chatter.

I haven't managed to shake off the awkward atmosphere at all. I suppose I will have to know them all individually to get along with them as a group.

"Umm..."

Just as I say this -

One face of the building to my left opens up from the center with a sliding motion.

A robot stands within the interior of the building.

???

The robot looks like something out of a children's anime.

It seems to have assumed a fighting pose, so I suppose it is one of the city's defense mechanisms?

And so, I stand here, caught in a confrontation.

Now that I take a closer look, I can see a single fairy within the semitransparent dome on top of the robot's head. The pilot?

I hear a crackly voice saying "Zeyahhh!" at me from a loudspeaker mounted on the robot.

... I am dumbstruck and cannot formulate a proper response.

The fairy tries again, with a slight nervousness in its intonation, likely intimidated by my lack of reply.

"Zeya?"

"May I ask you something?"

"....ru...?"

What curious creatures fairies are.

"By the way, how do you like our city?"

The pilot suddenly decides to address me with a friendly attitude.

"It is quite a splendid city."

"We were all together, so we thought we'd do something." So, that resulted in this city being built.

"But yeah, if I were to say one thing, it's that this place developed in a jiffy."

"...Huh?"

"It's right on the heels of yesterday too... You could have taken your time with it... you know."

"Ah...."

The fairy inside the cockpit is drooping its head as if it is nodding off.

"Ah no, that's not to say the city is bad as it is; it's excellent. But I thought it would have been nicer to have a more typical residential type structure instead of this make-believe city you have going on."

...

Ah, it's sad now.

"Buh- by the way, that enemy robot you made is superb."

The fairy's face snaps up, lit with joy.

"It moves with everyone's sincerity at heart."

"But, can this thing actually fight?"

"...Are you an enemy? It'll be a bit troublesome if you are..."

"Oh no, not at all."

"In that case, there's no issue."

A propeller rises out of the top of the cockpit.

As the rotor spins up, only the passenger section is detached from the head and slowly rises.

It turns out that the cockpit can become an independently operable helicopter.

"C-can it actually fly?"

"I'm confident that it can!"

The fairy gives me a less-than-picturesque reply and fwooshes off.

"So long, and goodbye!"

"Goodbye..."

With the helicopter having taken off, the building now closes.

It is as if there never was a door there.

"...Uhmmm..."

As I stand there, troubled, the crowd parts, and from within walks out a single fairy.

"Oh, if it isn't Nakata-san?"

It's the fairy of Japanese descent (?) who I had named yesterday.

I don't know where the inspiration came from, but Nakata-san stands before me in a grey suit with a camera hanging from the neck, wearing glasses.

"Hello. How are the other three of you doing?"

"I shall leave that for you to find out."

"...What?"

"chiiii....?"

What an unruly bunch they are.

Seeing the conversation between Mr. Nakata and myself has excited the crowd.

"He's talking to the human?" "And they're talking to each other freely?" "They're taking a lot?" "Ahh, they seem so far away, so far..." "Who gives a shit."

"Ah, right; I wanted to talk about that naming matter."

Mr. Nakata tilts his head.

"What do you mean by naming?"

"So you forgot, huh?"

I even went to the trouble of listing out seventy-five names for the fairies here.

"Hey, now, you were the one who asked me to give everyone else names when I was dropping you off yesterday, weren't you?"

"I spent a long time thinking of names to give your companions, but do you not remember?"

"Maybe I do, or maybe I don't remember."

"There definitely was such a memory."

"Maybe I don't, or maybe I do remember."

"I'm telling you, it definitely happened."

"I may remember; I just might."

"You all ought to remember to keep memos of things."

"It's like there's this shimmering veil between me and the memory."

I wish you would not allow that veil to shimmer.

"I understand. I'll stop here. Anyhow, I'll be giving everyone names, so if you could all stand in a line here..."

I realize it at this point.

Scanning the crowd reveals that both the plaza and its connected streets are now packed. No matter how I look at it, there are several thousands of fairies here.

"Oh?"

They're multiplying.

I only have seventy-five names on the list I made.

"Ahh, so fairies from all over the region have gathered here..."

"Mix it up" "What are we doing?" "Playing make-believe city" "There's a human!" "What's happening?" "Is something starting?" "Names!" "Names?"

And even now, they continue to multiply gradually.

"Hey, stop! Please don't line up! Stop, Stop!"

I can't handle this many fairies on my own.

I try to disperse the line by waving my hands about, but it is already too late.

The long, long line has already extended far beyond its starting point at the plaza.

There are already fairies wearing armbands that say "staff" standing here and there, guiding the line, distributing numbered tickets, making other fairies sit or stand, and doing other such splendid line management tasks.

"Oh my, oh my, oh my..."

This is weird. Something somewhere is not right.

What started as a minor attempt to establish contact with konpeito in a jar has turned into a situation of unthinkable proportions at an incredible rate.

I break into a sweat unlike any other, feeling like my stomach is churning, as a person who has just inconvenienced many people may. Ahh, I really shouldn't make rash promises like this...

If I were to escape now, I would lose my chance to build an amicable relationship with the fairies forever.

They may just end up forgetting about it, but choosing to betray the thousands of fairies here, even temporarily, would take an unimaginable amount of courage.

A jar of konpeito. One handful of laziness. One handful of ambition.

Spending only such a trifle, I have managed to bring forth an extraordinarily energetic wave of technological accomplishments.

I wonder how things would look after a day...

What if this wave spreads, profoundly impacting fairy society worldwide?

Not a very savory prospect.

While exuding sweat so greasy one could use it as a lubricant, I will my faculties of reason back from the flower fields (rumored to be very cozy) within my brain.

"This has never happened before..." "A name, huh..." "We'll get names?" "Come to think of it, having a name sounds really nice indeed." "Very convenient." "I wonder why we never had names until now." "Beats me..." "It's an unknown, isn't it?"

"Oi, Nakata, how much longer?"

"No idea."

The fairies are starting to agitate.

Mr. Nakata climbs onto my shoulder and addresses me.

"A name, Will you give one to everybody?"

After a long pause, I decide on one thing.

"Will you give us names?"

"Why yes, I will, that's the plan..."

I pray for forgiveness in my head. I may not have prayed enough though, so I hope you'll take installments if you're real, God.

I beckon to a staff fairy and ask it to push the line towards the plaza, not away from it.

"Hyup!"

The fairy obliges cheerfully.

Though they are usually an unruly bunch, they seem to be able to coordinate flawlessly when they put their minds to it.

In hardly three minutes, the fairies have arranged themselves into a spiral, and all of them are now crammed within the plaza.

All the fairies are now within my reach.

Now's my chance. The only one I'll get. If I want to pull my plan off flawlessly, this is it.

Indeed, even though the fairies are shrouded in mystery, I do know a few things about them.

I, in particular, had a certain thirst for knowledge. School had many more books than I could hope to read and even more meddlesome professors than students.

Poor at human relations as I was, I spent all my time hunting for more knowledge while all my professors had a morbid need to "teach me things".

Within this head of mine is a decade's worth of useless and miscellaneous knowledge, towering in its majesty.

As an example of a tidbit, fairies tend to fear loud noises.

With a wide, sweeping motion, I clap my hands together with vigor.

CLAP

The plaza turns absolutely silent.

All the fairies who were making noise have disappeared completely.

Have they escaped? No, they have not. They have not moved even a step. However, where there used to be a spiral line, there are now thousands of colorful balls rolling about.

It is all terribly surreal.

A grey ball rolls off my shoulder as well.

This phenomenon, known as "balling up" is one of the faerie's many peculiarities.

Fairies defend themselves by turning into balls when startled. And they don't just crouch and put their arms around their legs; they literally turn into spheres.

I'm not sure if they can properly defend themselves from dangerous creatures like this, but at least the present crisis is averted.

"I'm sorry, everyone. I can't keep my promise."

This is my chance to escape.

I pick up my bag. How profoundly heavy it is.

Wait, why is it heavy again?

Of course. I followed Grandfather's advice and brought along the biographical dictionary. That bizarrely thick tome that looked like a multi-tier lunch box, that thing fit to be a blunt trauma weapon.

I now begin to realize what Grandfather intended.

I pull the dictionary out with trembling hands. Lifted high into the sky, the dictionary seems to shine with a divine radiance.

The fairies have begun to unfurl from their balled-up state and are now absently sitting around the plaza. Some fairies are fast asleep, while some are yawning and rubbing their eyes.

They probably don't remember any of the fuss they made about the naming.

Mr. Nakata is walking around unsteadily.

"What is that?"

"It's a present."

"Oh?"

I see my figure holding the dictionary clearly reflected in Mr. Nakata's deep black eyes.

"You shall all choose names that please you from this biographical dictionary."

I solemnly inform the fairies who have gathered after emerging from their ball states of what is happening and set the dictionary down.

Sighs rise all around.

The fairies look towards me, eyes moist with pure emotion. Their expressions convey an almost religious fervor.

"Ms. Human, you really are a Goddess," Mr. Nakata murmurs with a quivering tone.

---

"So, how did it go?"

Grandfather asks me this as he leans over the dining table.

"I gave them the dictionary as a present, but..."

Grandfather seems to have expected this, and just nods his head with a soft "Is that so". He does not seem particularly disappointed.

"They had urbanized spectacularly, you know. Overnight, too."

"It's a kind of synergism brought forth by their multiplying numbers. As they multiply, the fun factor goes up, prompting them to multiply further. This cycle continues, faster and faster, until it snowballs."

I play with the potatoes floating in my soup bowl, leaving them uneaten.

"Don't like today's soup?"

"No, I'm just thinking about something."

"Well? Out with it."

"It's just something that's turning over in my head; I'm not sure how to describe it."

Just what is this weird anxiety, I wonder.

When I visit the metropolis again, I end up finding the source of my anxiety.

It looks the same as yesterday, with just one notable difference.

"Wha-!"

I couldn't have missed it if I tried.

The building with the robot inside has disappeared, and in its place stands a statue.

No, not just any statue, but an idol.

Yes, this is an idol of a goddess.

The goddess resembles me an awful lot.

"Hey, now!"

They've turned me into their symbol.

"I don't appreciate this!"

I, the goddess, am holding the dictionary up with both hands.

"Ahh, the Goddess!"

Mr. Nakata appears, and as if on cue, his companions pop up one by one.

"Goddess, Goddess!" "Mornin', Goddess!" "The goddess has come visiting again!" "Yaaay!"

I've been deified.

"Ahh, so that's what was bothering me..."

Fairies get pumped up easily and quickly get emotionally attached.

My casual actions, which were in a sense creative, have resulted in the establishment of the concept of worship in their society.

What if this trend snowballs and takes over the world?

I would reign as a goddess in fairy history.

"Arghhh..."

This is, put simply, a problem.

If this had happened on the scale of the world, it would have become a big problem.

I look down at Mr. Nakata, who is waving his hands at me. On a whim, I reach down and place my fingers on his smooth forehead.

"Hmm?"

"Tag! Now you're God."

"Huh?!"

Mr. Nakata has a very comical, astonished expression on his face.

"Huh? I, I'm God now?"

"That's right! I tagged you, after all."

"Wha!?"

"I am now one who used to be god."

"...Once removed?"

Mr. Nakata's glasses are clouding up.

He staggers, puts his hand on my toe, then looks up at me as if to ask, "How about that?".

"I'm sorry, but a person who has been God already can't become God again. So it's useless to tag me again."

"So it's out of your hands?"

"I can't do anything at all, not a thing. Come now, everyone. If you don't run away soon, you'll become God too!"

The fairies around us shudder.

"What will you do, Nakata-san? If you leave things like this, you'll end up being God, you know."

"I- uh... uhh..." - He looks around at his surroundings and yells - "I don't wanna be God!"

He runs over to his friends.

And so, in an instant, the idea of God has been perverted into something evil.

It's something that has come up in human mythology before, which may be quite interesting to study from an ethnohistorical perspective.

"Woah!" "God is here!" "God is coming!" "Let's run!" "God's moving towards us!" "This is terrible!" "Eeek!"

The fairies are running away, scattered.

"STOOOOOOOOP!"

Mr. Nakata is in hot pursuit.

A contest for giving away godhood has begun, disguised as a game of tag.

"They really are fast runners."

When fairies get serious, they can match even squirrels in a race.

The game of tag (or was it godhood?) is developing with such speed that I cannot follow it with my eyes.

Though they cannot fly, the fairies climb into the miniature buildings, dive into any holes they find, and are capable of complex three-dimensional movement in general, making it very difficult to catch them.

It is strange to see something known as "God" being avoided like this, but humans have done similar things in the past.

No, I'm not about to say everything's fine...

But with this, I can avoid becoming the core of any concept of religion they may have.

"Eek!" "Hyeee!" "Yaargh!" "Godddd!" "Diooos!" "Who's god now?!" "Tag! Tag!" "A hole! Where's the nearest hole?!"

It doesn't take long before all the fairies are gone.

And so, the city-state has reached its end and is dissolved.

At the same time, this means the scope of my duty as a mediator has been reset as well.

"Well... It's better than making a bad name for myself..."

Let me take another look at that idol.

"Ah, here you are."

"G-Grandfather?"

Startled by a sudden impact on my back, I let out a feeble gasp from my throat.

Grandfather is standing behind me with a sly grin on his face.

"I came here to see what was going on... But it looks like they've already left, and you're all alone here."

"They were all still here but a moment ago, just so you know."

Grandfather stands next to me and gives the idol an appraising gaze.

"It sort of resembles something out of the story of the ten commandments."

"From the bible?"

"Yup. Is this the scene where Moses breaks the tablet? Or is it the one where God gives it to him?"

"It's become something steeped in religion, huh?"

"They've grown quite attached to you, haven't they?"

I spread my hands out and reply sardonically - "But everyone's gone now."

"No, something like this would have happened no matter what you did."

"...Huh?"

"Aggregating, then dispersing is one of the things they are wont to do. When they gather, they can accomplish feats like this city overnight, but they scatter just as easily."

"Even when they've created all this?"

"They would consider this a mere trifle. Even something like this."

Grandfather chuckles.

"It's just how the new humanity rolls."

"It's fun, though, isn't it."

"Maybe it's because you're a person who can only do things that are neither great nor terrible. But indeed, you, my granddaughter, have returned as an interesting person in your own way. I thought you'd fail, but I'm re-evaluating my opinion of you."

So it's possible for a compliment to be unpleasant.

"First off, I told you to be prepared."

"You did say..."

"I mean, you need to be able to loosen up to deal with fairies."

I get another slap on the back, totter forward, then fall over the idol.

It slowly tips over and shatters quite easily.

Grandfather guffaws again when he sees this.

What is this old guy so happy about?

He's practically weak at the knees.

Ahh, if this is how it's going to be...

"I should have just reigned as a goddess to the end."

And so, my first assignment as a mediator draws to a close.

---

Fairy Memo: [Aggregation and Dispersion]

Fairies usually live in a dispersed state, but whenever there's enough of them around at one location, their population just explodes! But they also tend to disperse in an instant. This phenomenon is known as the fairy aggregation and dispersion property.

Author's Notes

Back to Illustrations

Return to Main Page

Forward to Chapter 2