Even they"ve openly shown their distaste for "Black-Haired", the convicts still keep on talking to me non-stop.

Just like what my detention neighbour Hawkeye said, they seem to think I"m a man who originally meant to escape from prison, but ended up bravely protecting a little boy. On the other hand, I"m really curious as to how he managed to earn these convicts" trust.

As the other convicts are hotly debating a topic about guards getting married, I quietly ask Hawkeye just that. I ask him, "how did he get these men to believe him?" As a result, he narrows his sharp eyes and smiles, the crow"s feet around his eyes deepening.

"There is only one trick to it."

"A trick to make them believe you?"

"That"s right, and that is to believe it yourself."

But the one you"re trying to convince is the other guy, not yourself, right?

"No, before you convince the other guy, you must first convince yourself. If you yourself are feeling lost, you will definitely fail. That"s why you must believe that you will get hit a bullseye."

"Bullseye?"

"That"s an archery term, I"m sorry I can"t think of a better metaphor. But this isn"t my theory, it"s His Excellency Gwendal"s."

"It"s Gwen..."

Before, he was still adamantly refusing to call himself a mazoku, but it seems he has now given up on hiding his ident.i.ty. According to what Ijust said, doesn"t that mean he doesn"t believe himself, and that"s why he can"t pull the wool over my eyes either?

No matter what, I can be sure that the neighbour I just met is a mazoku, and also a soldier who worked under Lord von Voltaire for quite some time in the past.

"His Excellency never changes, and he would never act without confidence in front of his subordinates. That"s exactly why everyone believes him, and obeys him. It"s the same with my bow and arrow. I believe I will hit a bullseye, without any suspicion. Because suspicion leads to confusion. Just as a wavering general would cause unease among his men. If I feel uneasy, the arrow I release will also be uncertain in its path. That"s why..."

Hawkeye rubs his palms on his skinny knees,

"You must believe, you must make yourself believe."

"In other words, I must do more than talk about it, and act?"

"That"s right, after all, a battle isn"t a gamble."

So he"s saying I can"t just try my luck, huh?

In any case, those men acknowledge me as a villain with a heart of gold, so we start chatting without any reservations. Although someone suggested discussing what kind of lives we wanted after leaving prison, I pretended not to hear that. If I heard about the lives of these serious criminals, I"d probably be too scared to even sit at a table with them.

And besides, what I really want to know about isn"t their histories of crime, but the representative of the "Until That Day Comes Cult" that would even dye their hair black for the sake of a Box that randomly appeared - I want to know about the warden, Ranatan.

If what Turtle says is true, then the cult leader who likes to put on a show by hiding their ident.i.ty, is actually the warden who we see every day.

Since Warden Ranatan is always pacing up and down the prison on the grounds of patrolling, there"s no way to avoid meeting her as long as you"re on any corridor. And as soon as she sees you, she will immediately ask you how your three meals were, whether your blankets and sheets were warm enough, whether there were any conflicts among the convicts, etcetera.

"What, wouldn"t I have recognised her immediately then, if I met her?"

"Not for sure."

When White Shark smiles, his thin teeth are more like a whale"s than a shark"s,

"She is very careful about disguising herself, covering her face, changing her voice, and even modifying that annoying way she talks. That"s why it"s hard to imagine that she"s actually the warden."

"Eh—But what about those people who are wors.h.i.+pping a disguised warden as a G.o.d, what are they praying for? World peace, or the happiness of humanity?"

Turtle looks at me with an expression of surprise, looking more like a snapper turtle than a human.

"Robinson, you idiot! Why would those guys pray for the happiness of humanity? Those guys are that, I mean, aaahh..."

"Lethargy?"

Hawkeye, who had always been smiling from just now, suddenly interrupts. I don"t know how he can stay so relaxed among the serious criminal offenders, but he seems to be very happy to join this gathering.

"That"s right, lethargy! Those guys firmly believe that Darco is going to sink into the ocean soon, but they don"t do a thing to stop it. But umm... I don"t know what to do either. It"s just that, I feel, um! "Darco can"t just sink like that! It"s been on this sea like this for a few centuries! I"ve even been here for over fourteen years, it can"t suddenly sink, right!? Right, Hawkeye, how many years have you been here, and has it ever sunk in that time?"

He touches his bristly chin, saying,

"I"ve been here over twenty years, and it hasn"t sunk even once."

"Exactly, right?"

"Twenty years?"

I can"t help but make a noise of defeat. The soldiers here do keep a sharp eye on the convicts, but this is such a nice man, what kind of dastardly crime could he have committed to have him sent to this prison? And it isn"t the paradise-like place either, why on earth would he be sent to those detention rooms where the conditions are so harsh and you end up so alone that you want to draw on the walls even while in total darkness?

"What was your crime?"

Perhaps the suddenness of the question took him by surprise. My neighbour, at a loss for a reaction, remains silent for five seconds. I repeat the same question, and he finally realises I"m asking him.

"Murder. Otherwise I wouldn"t end up in this sort of place."

"Murder? Really? Who did you kill? Sorry, I don"t think you"re the sort of person who would do that kind of thing."

"A child."

Now it"s my turn to be rendered speechless, because no matter how I look at it, I don"t think he would have killed a child. Since he said it"s been over twenty years since then, maybe it was some accident during the war.

Hawkeye looks at me, still wordless, and murmurs with surprise,

"Oh my, it"s not just your hair, even your eyes are black..."

But he doesn"t complete the sentence, and it seems like he"s holding his breath.

The other convicts don"t notice what"s happening over on our side, and start discussing the sinking of Darco instead.

"It"s true that the sea level has risen some. The guards even said that the roads are flooded, what a pain."

"That"s right, I heard from the wheat seller last year too. Apparently his home floods once every three days."

"The sea level has risen, does that mean that this city really will sink?"

"Mgh! How could it possibly sink!"

"Otherwise, why would the sea level rise?"

"Who knows! It"s been slowly rising for more than ten years now, but Darco won"t sink, and it will never sink!"

There are many reasons for the sea level rising. Something like global warming melting the polar ice caps, or a seismic movement of volcanoes or tectonic plates that lead to a swelling of the seabed. Since those are natural phenomena, anything could happen.

If this was Earth.

"Why are all these unbelievable things happening?"

Grizzly, who had been quiet this whole time, looks up as he speaks. His voice is high and gentle, completely contrasting his appearance of a man-eating bear. It"s the kind of voice you would continue to listen to if you picked up the phone at home, only to find that it"s a telemarketer trying to sell you things.

"Don"t you guys think so? That Box suddenly showed up in a room with a roof and a floor. That was an underground room with nothing but a seawater tunnel, it was a room where they beat the wheat with running water."

"That"s true, aye."

"It was only after that old wooden box showed up in that waterway all of a sudden, that the city centre started to flood, and people started yapping about sea levels slowly rising."

"Eh, no way? In that case, that Box... has something to do with the dangers of Darco sinking? But why would they be related? Don"t tell me it has an automatic dowsing ability, and can dig up underground hot springs?"

"It"s leaking."

Grizzly (named by me) yawns as he replies.

"What"s up with the construction of that Box? It actually leaks water."

"Leaking water? Not spraying water?"

All four of them shake their head at my question. Perhaps all of them have seen it before.

"It flows gentler than that—"

"...flows gently,"

"That"s right, it flows as gently as an old man taking a p.i.s.s. But it should be that kind of thing, right, something like a water filter. You put muddy water in it to make drinking water, right? Like a wooden bucket that"s convenient to use in a swamp—could it be, it"s something like that?"

"I know, you"re talking about a wooden bucket filled with sand and small stones, right? What"s the matter, isn"t such a mysterious box a box of convenience?"

"Well, since it just randomly showed up, how could it not be at least somewhat convenient—"

I try to imagine a filter installed on the waterway I"d seen earlier. I even use my internal brain hologram as though creating CG, trying to change the water filters I"d seen before into a Forbidden Box.

Suddenly, an ominous image appears in my head.

Even if it was a mysterious object that showed up randomly, there"s no guarantee that it is a Forbidden Box. There should be other, even more mysterious series of objects in this world. For all I know, Darco could have an inventor like Anissina, who secretly installs her precious inventions in the middle of the night.

That"s right, just like using ma-power to purify the water.

In that case, there should be a poor soul somewhere being used to provide maryoku. Wait a sec, Darco is human land, so it"s not maryoku, but houryoku.

I forget that I"m surrounded by group of felons, putting my arms on the table and leaning my chin on the backs of my hands as I muse.

A mysterious box, Warden Ranatan disguised as a cult leader, rising water levels, the sinking risks, the strange smell...

"Hm?"

The last item on that list appears in my head, pulling me back from my reverie.

"Don"t you think, there"s some strange smell?"

"Smell?"

I desperately twitch my nose, trying to make the most of my sense of smell, and detect a very evident odor. It smells like something charred, or something being burned.

"It"s the smell of something getting charred... Ah!"

My sense of smell is perfectly normal, because there"s smoke getting in from the corners of the room. As the many guards here panic, the large room starts to fill up with smoke. The people who managed to stay calm quickly get down onto the floor, breathing in the clean air near the ground.

"The source, where"s the source of the fire!?"

"It should probably be the kitchen, diagonally up from here."

"Be careful not to breathe in the thick smoke! Take your s.h.i.+rt or your trousers, whatever, just remember to close your nose and mouth and keep your body low. In any case, we need to get out of here quick, or we"ll be knocked out by the carbon monoxide."

And so all of us sprawl and crawl on the ground, finally making it to the metal grille at the entrance. Then, we plead with the guards standing there to quickly let us free.

But the guards remain standing at their stations outside the grille, ignoring us altogether. They even insist that this is an emergency situation, so there"s no way they can let us leave.

"What are you talking about? You should let us out precisely because it"s an emergency situation! Otherwise how else can we get out from here!? What do you mean, you won"t let us out! If we keep staying here, all of us will be steamed to death!?"

Like steamed turtle, steamed shark, and steamed crocodile. I kick the metal grate furiously.

"Even the prisons during the Edo period would temporarily release the prisoners during fires! They"d promise to come back of their own accord after the fire is put out, that would be the most humane way of dealing with it, right?"

"Without the warden"s permission, we can"t let you out."

"Then go and get the warden"s permission now! If this continues on, we"ll all die, y"know!? You guys will face the same fate! If you continue dragging your feet here, be it the guards or the prisoners, we"ll all burn to death!?"

The guards react really quickly to my words. But instead, they abandon their duties and run away. Faced with an enemy as dangerous as a fire, they ended up leaving their companions for dead, and ran from their stations, leaving behind a locked metal grate and about ten felons. Perhaps, to them, the convicts were never companions of any kind.

"c.r.a.p, this is bad... Although this room has all stone walls, and the fire might not reach this place, the thick smoke here means that it"s connected to the corridor, right?"

In that case, poisonous gases will reach here from the tunnels.

"Everyone, no matter what you do, don"t breathe in the thick smoke! Use your clothes or rags or whatever works, quick, cover your nose and mouth with cloth! Somebody, quick—some—bo—dy! There"s a fire! There"s a fire, open this metal gate for us!"

I grab the gate without guards with both hands and shake it desperately. The metal is still cold.

"d.a.m.n it!"

A convict who prides himself on his strength yells at me to stand aside.

I sense someone patting my shoulder from behind me, it seems I"ve been considered as one of the main members here. Right now, these felons are my companions. Forget three people, if I could just gather these twelve, we should be able to come up with a decent attack plan, right? Even if I don"t count myself or Hawkeye, the other convicts here seem to have come up with some bright ideas.

"Hey, listen up, Robinson. In a while, we"ll all work together to bend that metal gate there."

"Wow, you guys are amazing!"

"Amazing, right? Then you go ahead and escape from any opening that"s wide enough."

"That"s great... Eh?"

I almost ask, "Why would you do something like that for me?" But Turtle bares his teeth, and says with his eyes staring wide at me,

"Look at the width of that gate, no matter how hard we pull it, there"s no way we can get through! Only you or Hawkeye, who"s pretty skinny, can get past it. That"s why we decided to let you and Hawkeye get out of here before we all faint from the smoke!"

"But if we"re the only ones escaping..."

"Hey hey hey, don"t get too optimistic there. How could we just let you off like that? Of course you"ll have to, um, catch the warden and nick the key from her, or put out the fire in the kitchen, and save all of us!"

"Ahh, I see."

The others use all their strength trying to peel open the metal gate. Thanks to them using all the power in their thick arms and entirebodies, they finally pulled the gate at the entrance open by a bit.

"Mn, I see. You guys are right, I understand now. I"ll find the warden, take the key from her, and then put out the fire. I got it, leave it to me!"

I don"t think I can find Warden Ranatan that easily in this large "Who Is It Summoning h.e.l.l 1-Chome, Ah, Errand-Running 3-Chome Prison". I also don"t think that with my power alone, I can put out a fire so big that the smoke is reaching underground. But I have to try.

In any case, there"s already someone putting out the fire in the kitchen. As for where Warden Ranatan is, I already have some clue in my head. Although I don"t think I can complete the mission, I don"t think I can"t do it, either.

Just as Turtle said, the only people who can force their ways through the pulled-apart gate are me and Hawkeye. We keep our bodies low as we avoid the smoke, running down the corridor without guards.

I don"t see a single soul anywhere, there"s probably only those few felons left in the underground bas.e.m.e.nt, together with the guards on duty. As for the convicts who can move freely in this paradise prison, they"re all above here.

We finally make it to the first floor, to the first floor of this place that would be considered paradise as compared to the bas.e.m.e.nt that it"s connected to. Just then, my companion stops.

"Hawkeye."

"I"m not going up."

I had taken three steps up, and thinking that I"d misheard him, I start to turn around. But he immediately pushes my waist with his left hand,

"You go. Alone."

"What are you talking about? Now isn"t the time to joke around!"

Hawkeye shakes his head lightly, his expression between that of a smile and a sob,

"I"m being serious, I can"t continue walking upwards."

"Why!? Didn"t you promise everyone that you"d go outside, bring the keys back, and put out the fire in the kitchen!?"

"No, I can"t leave this place."

"That"s why I"m asking you, why!?"

"...Because I"m a man of unforgivable sins."

I almost yell out, "It"s not just you, all convicts have unforgivable sins!" Although those words never left my mouth, he seems to read my thoughts anyway, continuing with his excuses,

"No, I"m not like those people who were accused of stealing bread or fish, I"m a man of unforgivable sins. To a sinner like that, this is the only place to be."

"What are you talking about!? That was a war, of course you would kill a lot of soldiers in the war, right!? Even children would get caught in the crossfire. Although that shadow may haunt you for the rest of your life, and it may never be redeemed, and I... I can"t simply say I understand how you feel, but..."

Because a lot of the people around me have gotten hurt before too. Since I was always living a stable life in a peaceful world, I just can"t say something like "I feel the same way".

"But there are a lot of people out there with the same thoughts, and they still manage to live on outside. You"re the only one who can"t step outside, isn"t that too strange?"

"They just think that the children were unfortunate to get involved, or died accidentally. It"s not the same in my case."

He takes one step back.

"Not the same."

Keeping his head low, he steps back towards the stairs leading to the bas.e.m.e.nt slightly,

"...I don"t look at the target"s face when I shoot my arrows, otherwise I"d realise they"re living people too. Because if I look too closely, even if they"re an enemy, I wouldn"t be able to shoot. So when I"m sniping enemies on the battlefield, I just look at the places I can pierce through, pretending as though they"re the bullseye. When you"re shooting from a distance, you would aim for the stomach or the chest, and hit them straight-on. Likewise, I don"t look at the enemy"s faces. As soon as I see the chest of a s.h.i.+maron uniform, I"ll just start shooting like a puppet. If the enemy was a puppet, I too would be nothing more than a puppet with a bow and arrow."

"I said, it"s the war, even if you took a life, that"s still..."

"Listen to me! Back then, in order to stop the rapidly advancing s.h.i.+maron armies, we were shooting non-stop from the fort. We had no time for emotions. We"d put an arrow on the bow and let it loose, then put on another arrow, repeating the movement continuously. When I raised my head suddenly, I saw an enemy sniper on the tree in front of me, so I shot my arrow unhesitatingly. Just as before, I aimed for the chest of the s.h.i.+maron uniform, and just as before, I shot through that chest. But..."

He raises his thin right hand, covering his face with the well-defined joints. There are fading callouses between his fingers. The positions of those callouses are different from those of Conrad"s, Gwen"s, and Wolfram"s.

"He was a child. About your age... or younger than you. The second when he fell from the tree, our eyes met. He was obviously not a soldier, but someone brought there from a village, probably a hunter with good archery skills or something. But he was a child, according to human years, probably a child of about twelve years old."

"A child..."

"He fell from the tree, and I don"t know what happened to him after that, but I shot him. I have no doubts about my own skills, I only release an arrow when I"m sure of hitting bullseye. If he wasn"t wearing those clothes, if that child wasn"t wearing the s.h.i.+maron uniform, there"s no way I would have killed him! If he wasn"t wearing an adult"s army uniform, if he wasn"t aiming an arrow at us, I wouldn"t have shot him either! But the reality remains, and it can"t be changed... I did kill a child who wasn"t a soldier!"

Those words hurt me deeply inside my heart, a pain as though I was burnt in an instant. Because I had an experience like that, in which I nearly lost someone important to me just because he was wearing someone else"s clothes.

"Go."

The neighbour I just met says to me weakly,

"Go now, forget about those people you just met underground. You have to get out of here and save yourself."

"What the heck are you talking about! Not only do I want to get the key, I"m going to put the fire out too! Otherwise everyone will burn to death."

"Don"t worry, they"re all irredeemable sinners. Those who live underground are sc.u.m who gather together, they do not deserve to be rescued, and they all knew that a long time ago. The truth is, they don"t want you to endanger yourself just to save them."

"How could it be..."

"And this fire might be put out anyway."

Hawkeye chuckles.

"The metal gate was cool, so there should be some other way."

"Don"t say that!"

I can"t help but reach out my right hand to grab his arm,

"Don"t force yourself, don"t tell me to go ahead by myself!"

"It"s okay, Robinson. Forget about us, just go!"

Hawkeye pulls my hand away gently, and I shake my head with despair,

"No."

I haven"t told this person my name.

"My name is Yuuri, Hawkeye."

"Yuuri...?"

My neighbour murmurs, "You have the same name as the king." And in that moment, his gaze looks into the distance.

He must be searching for his faraway homeland.