Seeing that he was still capable of arrogance gave Isuzu a measure of relief. “Your self-confidence is the one thing I’ve always admired about you.”
“Hmph.” Seiya let out a snort, and gazed out the train window unhappily. “But, it’s too bad...”
“...?” she waited for him to finish his statement.
“Self-confidence isn’t worth a damn,” he finally said.
The train kept on moving. The houses visible outside the windows grew sparser and sparser, and mountains stretched out as far as the eye could see. Western Tokyo was a mountainous region, so this was to be expected.
Handa-san from Kagaya Real Estate met them right outside the JR Sanami Lake Station ticket gate. She was a flashy dresser. She was in her 40s, as expected, but her skirt was very short. She was very tanned and her exposed legs were clearly well-muscled. Her short brown hair seemed bleached by the sun.
“Do you do triathlons in your spare time?” Seiya asked after a brief greeting, and Handa-san’s eyes lit up.
“How’d you know? Have we crossed paths at a meet somewhere?” she boomed. When Isuzu had first spoken to her, she’d assumed the loudness of her voice was an issue of phone volume. Apparently, she’d been wrong.
“No, I don’t really play sports...” Seiya admitted.
“You don’t?! Then how did you know?! What a mystery! Ah ha ha! My son’s friends all say the same thing! It’s a mystery! It’s a mystery, all right!” The area around the station was quiet, and they could probably hear her from over 100 meters away. “Now, let’s hit the property! My car is parked right over there! Look, there! There!” Handa-san strode off.
“She’s like a gym teacher... and she seems a little crazy...”
“She’s very unreserved, though. I rather like her.”
While Isuzu and Seiya whispered to each other, Handa-san opened the door of a Daihatsu kei-car parked on the shoulder, and waved them over with a shout. “Hey! Come on, come on! Don’t wait too long, or we’ll lose the light! Ahaha! Ahaha!”
What does this old woman think is so funny? Is she on drugs? Seiya suddenly felt reluctant to get into any car she was driving.
“Pretty small car, right? Ahaha! Go on, get in!” she urged. “You know where the seatbelts are?!”
“Ah, yes...”
“I’ve got travel sickness medicine! You need some? You want some?”
“Ah, no thank you...”
“You might regret it later! Go on, just take some! I won’t hold it against you!”
“No, I really... don’t need it.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, if you insist! Let me know if you start feeling nauseous! Don’t be a hero, okay? Okay?! Ahaha!”
“Ahh... is the property very far?” he wanted to know.
“Noooope! Just twenty minutes by car! Ahaha!”
“I... I see...” Then don’t try to push travel sickness medicine on me... it makes no sense.
Handa-san kept driving, unaware of how annoyed Seiya was feeling.
The city around Sanami Lake was quiet. The weather was clear today, and the September weather was still hot and muggy. They could see the large lake spanning their right, where blinding sunlight glinted off the water.
They were going down a highway along the slope of the mountain, so now and then, they could hear the roar of another engine. They also saw large signs proclaim things like “Sanami Lake Camping Land: 3 km” and such.
Sanami Lake Camping Land was the only noteworthy amusement park near Sanami Lake City, an outdoor-style resort facility that shared funds with Highlander Fujimi, the more hardcore amusement park further west at the foot of Mt. Fuji.
“Are you worried about Camping Land?! Ahaha!” Handa-san said. “It’s been doing very well lately! Ahaha! Not many people there today, but it’s usually brimming over with guests!”
“Yes. I do hear that Camping Land does very well...” Seiya responded, forcing himself to sound indifferent. It would be a lie to say he wasn’t concerned about Camping Land. They were heading to a 33-hectare plot several mountains away from it, which hosted the ruins of another amusement park that had closed a long time ago. It was close enough that the rivalry might prove troublesome if AmaBri moved here.
“The property we’re going to see... there was talk about turning it into a golf course! But the buyers just never seem to bite! Ahaha!” Handa-san said, as if she found it very funny. Seiya and Isuzu had no idea what was so funny about a golf course not finding a buyer.
There was already an amusement park with a well-established customer base nearby. Would moving AmaBri here cause friction? Seiya didn’t agree; it was the opposite. Sanami Lake was quite a ways away from Tokyo, so having another amusement park here would be huge.
It was a synergy thing: if customers were coming for an overnight stay, most didn’t want to spend their second day at the same park. It would be more fun to go to places with different concepts on different days. That’s what he was banking on, but... It looks pretty rusty... Seiya thought. It was his impression, not of Camping Land, but of the region as a whole.
They’d caught sight of two abandoned structures on the way here:
One was a closed-down bowling alley; the windows were all broken, and there was graffiti on the walls. It was right next to the main road, yet it looked like it had been abandoned for years.
The other was a closed love hotel. It was a beautiful building, ten stories tall, that looked out on the lakefront, but it also seemed to have been neglected for a long time. With its castle-like outer appearance, it now resembled a sort of haunted house. It was probably an exciting location for urban explorers, at least.
There’d been something off about the station they’d come out of, too. There were just a few souvenir shops and eateries around the small taxi roundabout, and he wasn’t even sure if they were in business or not. Lots of storefronts with closed shutters. The public park in front of the station (called “Excitement Park”) was empty. Unshapely fish statues sat in a fountain dirty with limescale, from which water came out in fits and starts. There was no energy here, no passion. Sanami Lake hung heavy with that distinct smell of “obsolete tourist trap” that you found here and there around Japan.
“What do you think, Seiya-kun?” Isuzu must have been feeling the same thing. He wasn’t going to say it in front of Handa-san, but she had probably read it off his expression.
“Hmm... well. I think it’s all right.” That wasn’t how Seiya felt at all, but he still said it.
The prefectural road continued to snake through the mountain. It was so narrow that a large bus coming the other way might result in a standstill. “Are you certain there’s an appropriate property in the area?” Isuzu asked nervously.
“Yeah! We’re almost there! Ahaha! ...Look, there it is!” Visible across the upcoming T-intersection, obscured by trees, they could see a sign covered in ivy. “That’s the property I want to show you! The former Sanami Amusement Park!”
All Seiya could make out on the grimy sign was ‘Welcome to Sanami Amusement Park.’ “It’s been closed... twenty years now, right? Has it been abandoned this whole time?”
“Yes!” Handa-san told them cheerily. “Why do you ask?!”
“Well... if the old facilities are still around, it will cost money to have them removed. We might need to do a geotechnical investigation, too,” Seiya pointed out. “Is that something we can negotiate?”
“You bet it is! Okay, going in!”
Does she really know that, though? Seiya wondered, growing more and more nervous. This appeared to be a private road, but they eventually arrived at a rusty gate.
“Hang on just a minute!” said Handa-san, getting out of the car and going to open the gate.
“Sanami Amusement Park... I’ve never heard of it,” Isuzu said.
“It closed a long time ago,” Seiya told her. “Its active period was before the Internet took off, too, so you’d be unlikely to find it just with an online search. It’s really only known among urban explorers.” The former Sanami Amusement Park was full of creepy things like the sign they’d seen earlier, this gate, and the statues of various mascots left to the elements along the road on the way in. It would be a great place for a test of courage.
Isuzu was a little nervous, too. Like Seiya, she didn’t have much spiritual sensitivity (despite being a native of a magical realm), but still, she felt an unsettling air hanging over this place. “Are you certain this is all right?” she questioned.
“That’s what we came to find out,” he told her. “If it’s not, we’ll find another site.”
“So you haven’t made up your mind yet?”
“I’m enthusiastic, but I haven’t decided.”
“......” Isuzu had nothing to say to that statement.
Handa-san didn’t come back immediately. She dithered around in front of the gate, looking thoughtful. Just as Seiya and Isuzu began to wonder what was going on, she opened just one half of the gate, then returned to the car.
“What’s the matter?” Seiya asked.
“Nothing! It was already unlocked, that’s all!”
“What?”
“Oh, you see this a lot!” she said reassuringly. “Some local kids or urban explorers just barge on in! The nerve of those people, I tell you!”
“Is someone in there now?” Seiya was a little unsettled, but Handa-san just waved at him in an exaggerated fashion.
“No, no! I’m sure it’s fine! The people who own it send someone through once a month. I’m sure they came in a few weeks ago and forgot to lock up after, that’s all!”
“Ah-hah...” It seemed plausible enough, but... Seiya didn’t want to stumble upon the body of someone who had infiltrated the park on a lark and fallen to their deaths. The weather was still warm; any corpse left to rot would probably be pretty rank right now.
“If anything happens, just leave it to me! I’m a really fast runner!” Handa-san boasted. “I’ll dash off at top speed to call for help! Ahaha!”
In other words, you’re going to run away? he thought pointedly.