Kami-sama no Inai Nichiyoubi Volume 2 Chapter 1 Part 1

Chapter 1: The City and the Youth

Part 1

The car was just like a toy box, divided into three rows of seats and quite spacious on the inside. Ai found her right side seat quite comfortable: even if she were to stand up there would still be room to spare. There was a gap between the driver’s seat and the side seat wide enough to walk through to the back.

Yuri and Ai peeked their heads through this gap, fixed their eyes on the back seats, and stared.

The scene there looked rather complicated.

Cast your gaze into the inside of the car. See the ceiling with its electric lights and glow-painted star-shaped stickers; the seats, a light coffee brown, shining with the distinct glow exclusive to much-used leather; the interior damaged all over, with the scars of bumps or spilled liquids clearly visible.

And then the luggage, much of which was of inexplicable purpose. This here was probably a tent; that there was probably a sleeping bag. Pots, kettles, pans, rods, boots, dolls: it was all put together in a way that seemed to defy neatness, which is to say that there was absolutely no way an observer could tell how it was arranged. And yet, looking upon this sight awhile, you’d also find yourself, somehow, enjoying it.

It was surrounded by all these that Scar smiled a soft little smile across the whole of her face. She sat elegantly in the middle of the back seat and gazed down with gracious eyes at the object next to her.

Had Scar not called it a youth, Yuri and Ai would never have discovered it to be a human.

The object in question was a garbage bag, placed horizontally beside Scar. Made of ripped canvas, it had already lost its luster and was now stone-grey in color. If there was a person contained within it, he would find it most narrow and uncomfortable.

Ai moved to act.

She drew her shovel from her seat and poked lightly at the sack. While her expression was entirely serious, the movements of her hands were those of a prank-loving child.

The bag let out an ahhing sound and turned over.

Ai and Yuri looked, bemused, at one another.

“Y-Yuri-san, there’s someone on the car! W-What should we do? Could he be the owner of this car?”

“I’ve been far too careless…Ai, you’d better get ready to get off at any time.”

Saying this, Yuri pulled a revolver from his jacket.

“What are you pulling that gun out for?”

“We’ve never met before, so who knows what kind of person he is?”

Ai saw the meaning of his words and swiftly agreed.

“That’s true… then, the way you put it, meeting strangers for the first time is quite dangerous after all.”

“You get it now?”

“Yup! I mean, I’ve met quite a few people for the first time lately, and they all ended up pointing guns at me or taking me hostage.”

“… I was going to say ‘Of course!’ to that, but now it doesn’t sound like such a good idea…”

It got up.

The garbage bag slowly got up and fell away to reveal the object contained within.

Ai thought this youth from inside the bag was very pretty.

And then she realized that this was the first person she’d met from the outside world and panicked a little, unprepared as she was for this first meeting.

Yuri reacted completely as expected, and even Scar put on quite a serious expression.

But the youth seemed barely to notice the tense atmosphere that surrounded him, and his blank face exhibited only a state of ‘just having woken up’. His dark-eyed gaze wandered in the far-off distance, his light blue hair was a shock of messy tangles like freshly whipped cream, and his lower body was still in the bag, so that only the green sweater he wore was visible to his watchers.

The youth shook his head and looked in order at the gun, smile, and shovel before him.

“…”

Nobody said a word.

Ai looked around at her companions, casting at them expressions asking “What should we do?”, but it looked as if none of them had any idea as to what to do next.

“…Morning.”

The youth had suddenly dipped his head and greeted them. Ai couldn’t help but be a little stunned at this, but felt that it was only right to respond in kind.

“Good morning.”

The other two seemed to feel the same way, and so everyone, in varying pitches and tones, greeted him a good morning.

The youth then said:

“… In that case…”

In a caterpillar-like motion he twisted his body around and lay down, and pulled the bag back up to the top of his head.

“… Goodnight…”

And he slept.

“Hey, wait a minute! Don’t just go back to sleep like that!”

Ai gave a yell and jumped from her seat over to the youth, nimble as a cat.

“How could you do this?! How could you even dare try to go back to sleep at a time like this?

Without giving thought to courtesy or to the maxim of ‘thinking before acting’, she shook the garbage bag and the youth within it with all her strength.

“Hey!... But… I’m—already—very—sleepy…”

“You’re not allowed to sleep any more! Just look at how dirty this bag is! Hurry up and get out!”

As if faced with a child curled up under his blankets and unwilling to get out, Ai pulled the bag off him in one quick motion. The youth didn’t resist at all, and was rolled headlong beneath the seat, his clothes parting to reveal his stomach.

And then his hands, hitherto concealed behind his back.

Handcuffs.

Steel handcuffs had been clamped around the youth’s seedling-thin hands.

“So tired…”

And the youth, even in this condition, was woozy and half-asleep.

“…”

Silence returned to the car. Ai, hands still holding the garbage bag high, immediately sensed that something was wrong.

“W-What happened to you?! Are you alright?!”

“That’s not important right now… I’m tired…”

“How can it not be important? This is very important!”

“Ai, hold on a second. There’s something strange going on here.”

Yuri squeezed his large body into the first row of seats at the back: and a space which would have fit three people with ease immediately became very cramped.

“The way it looks… he must have been made to inhale a drug of some kind.”

As gently as if he were handling a newborn baby, Yuri secured the youth’s neck and head and carefully laid him down. He then observed his eyes, examined his hands, smelled the scent in his mouth.

“Looks like the buds of the harumodoki fruit…

“Huh? Is it that red fruit, the tasty one…?”

“It’s that fruit all right; but the buds, when dried, can be used as a psychoactive drug.”

Yuri lifted up the youth’s head and gave him plenty of water to drink. Scar had, in all this fuss, also changed seats and was now acting as his assistant.

“Those bastards…”

The rage emanating from Yuri sent chills up Ai’s spine.

“To use such a large dose on a kid like him… If they’d only slipped up there’d be after-effects for sure…”

With Yuri being so angry at the men who’d treated the youth thus, Ai was immediately infected with his sense of righteousness, and her breathing became a little deeper as well.

“I can only say that this has the air of a conspiracy!”

His attention divided, Yuri responded with a noncommittal “Completely” and continued to treat the youth. He undid the buttons on the youth’s shirt, loosened his belt, and put him in a lying position, carefully lest he vomit. Scar also helped him from the side.

Ai wanted to help too.

“… Is there anything that I can help with?”

“No.”

Yuri’s reply was quite cold.

“Really?... No?...”

Ai felt as though she were being ostracized, and went desolately to a corner.

“Ah… No, wait.”

“Okay! I’ll do anything!”

“No, I’m talking about this.”

Yuri clapped his hands together as if he’s just come up with a good idea.

“We’re not going to get a chance like this again, so we’d better try to find out anything he knows—hey, kid! Where’re you from? What’s your name? Why’re you in a place like this? Who was it who did this to you?”

“You villain—!”

Ai yelled out loud in the midst of this wilderness.

“It’s a villain! There’s a real, live, evil villain here!”

The lizards around turned their heads toward the commotion as if to ask, “Ah, is that so?”

“Hey! Don’t make it sound so bad!”

“But you really are a villain!”

Ai chased Yuri away to protect the youth.

“…Ah…I am a citizen of Ortus, and my name is…”

The youth replied the questions as though he was talking in his sleep.

“You don’t have to answer, you know.”

The youth ignored Ai and continued to speak.

“My name is… Kiriko… Pox… Rex… Diva… Oreus… Veruera… Ul… Helios… Melza…Gaug… Digg…”

The youth still hadn’t finished speaking his name.

“… Amita… Baaz… Geiauf… Elsespoff… Setzafuore…”

It didn’t matter how you look at it, this string of enchantment-like words just didn’t seem to be a person’s name.

Ai stood slack-jawed in bewilderment, so incomprehensible did she find those words.

“… Did you say Oreus?”

But that didn’t seem to be the case with Yuri.

“Yuri-san, is there something you know about this?”

“… No, nothing at all.”

From Yuri’s expression it was clear that he regretted his choice of words, but he persisted in barefacedly evading Ai’s questions.

Ai wanted to continue questioning him, but at this point the youth’s voice became thick as he struggled to speak.

“… I was… captured… by those men…”

“You don’t have to force yourself to speak, you know; and besides, we can’t understand a word you say.”

“Ha… You haven’t changed a bit… You’re still just the same as before…”

“He said I haven’t changed a bit, that I’m still just the same as before!”

“He probably mistook you for someone else, so just let it go.

“Ha… Ha ha ha…”

The youth suddenly began laughing as though impossibly happy. His smile was just like a child’s: completely genuine.

“Your Highness… You’re lively and well today, I see.”

Your Highness?

“Huh? Is he talking about me? No, don’t go calling me a Highness, I’d get embarrassed.”

“Don’t worry, he’s definitely not talking about you.”

“Besides… aren’t you a little short for my Princess?”

“Hmph. How rude.”

“Ha ha ha… I beg your pardon.”

This youth was probably fourteen, fifteen years old, and yet now seemed even younger than Ai as he laughed in the most innocent of manners.

“Even if he somehow regressed to being a child this doesn’t seem entirely right.”

“Yeah, it just doesn’t match how he’s so very childlike but his speech is so refined.”

“… Do you even have a right to say that?”

“Huh? Is there something wrong about it?”

Yuri very courteously shut his mouth and kept his silence.

“Ha ha ha, Your Highness.”

The youth continued to address Ai in a manner completely unbefitting her, so Ai could only reply:

“Okay, okay, I’m a princess, what is it?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“So why’d you call me?”

“I just suddenly wanted to.”

“Honestly… Your Princess-sama is going to get angry at you now.”

“Ah, scary…”

So the youth said; but the smile on his face didn’t seem frightened at all.

“But if Your Highness were to actually get angry… That would be difficult. It would be difficult for everyone, difficult and painful. Of course it’d be the same for me… This really would be quite difficult to deal with.

The youth smiled gently and continued to speak.

“So, my Princess, please do not be angry.”

“…… Honestly… I’m not angry any more, look.”

It was sighing that Ai said these words.

Hearing it, the youth smiled a child’s smile.

“Thank you very much, Your Highness………… Your Highness?”

His smile suddenly dimmed.

On his expression of innocence was tinged the color of consciousness, as on a canvas of pure white is streaked a brush of red.

“………… Who are you people?”

His black-colored eyes instantly recovered the sharpness they should have had at this their master’s age, and stared with complete poise at the row of people before them.

His expression had already lost its resemblance to a kitten fed full that only knows happiness; now, it was more akin to a cat injured and ready to spring at any and all.

“Ow!”

The youth had wanted to prop himself up, but at that the handcuffs on his wrists had dug into his flesh, hurting him so much that he’d fallen over on the spot.

“Hey, don’t move around so—

“Do not touch me!”

Even with his hands cuffed, even with his mind drugged, the youth hadn’t lost his fighting spirit and he shouted with all his might.

“Who are you people! Where did they go!”

“When you say ‘they’ who are you talking about?”

“Huh?... The people who rescued me, the owner of this car…”

“Oh… I think they probably died…”

“This I know! What I meant was what happened to them afterwards!”

Ai’s eyes widened in surprise, but she continued to answer his question.

“They… should be buried there…”

She slid the door open with a shaaang and pointed at the two graves some distance off.

“… Idiots… To be buried by Grave Keepers…”

The youth’s tone was tinged with regret, and he hung his head in sorrow.

Ai looked up at Yuri beside her.

“I just can’t make head nor tail of what’s going on.”

“Me neither.”

“Excuse me, could you explain it all more clearly to us?”

“… You… what kind of…”

“Ah, I never told you my name, did I? I’m Ai—Ai Astin.

Hearing this, the youth’s eyes immediately widened, and he wore again his previous expression of innocence.

“Kiriko Zubreska.

It wasn’t the same as the one he’d said before.

“I am a resident of Ortus, city of a million souls.”