My response got a look of amusement from Tsuji. “You’ve had all these paranormal experiences, but you don’t believe in ghosts?”
“It’s not even a matter of believing or not. They don’t interest me.”
“Oh, is that right? Can I ask why?”
“At the end of the day, ghosts are human, right? There’s only so much a human is going to do once they turn into a ghost. It’s boring.”
“Ohh, I get it. You sure are pretty hardcore, huh, Kamikoshi-kun.”
After expressing how impressed she was, Tsuji moved the conversation along.
“Listen, in our industry, what people feel and see can vary a whole lot. Even with the people who claim to have spirit sense, or spiritual abilities, it’s normal for them to be saying completely different things from one another once they get talking. But I think for all of those people, if you bring them to a strange place, they’ll feel something is funny about it with their own senses. So, though they each express it differently, they do know that something’s off.”
“Uh-huh. And how about this place?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I feel like there’s something very...weird about it. But it’s just that, a feeling. Ever since we got to the Farm, I’ve felt like I’ve come to the wrong place, but have no idea what exactly is off about it.”
Tsuji was silent for a brief moment, then with a half smile said, “There’s another thing they say in our industry. The scariest things are the ones you can’t see. Where you’ve got the sense for spirits, and ought to be able to see something, but you can’t. There’s just this presence, or premonition rather. You don’t see anything. That’s the kind of pattern that’s seriously bad news.”
Tsuji grinned as she added, “And, yeah. That’s the kind of seriously bad pattern I feel like we’re looking at here.”
“Yikes...” I exchanged glances with Toriko, and shook my head at her unspoken, “You see anything?”
“So...how is it bad news?”
“There are limits to the information our eyes and ears can tell us. They have set wavelengths they can perceive, and there are upper and lower bounds to that. If there are similar thresholds for the senses for spirits, then we can’t perceive information that goes outside of that.”
“So what you’re saying is...”
“Yeah, no matter what horrifying thing is happening here, if it’s outside of my threshold, I have no way of knowing about it. You know, there are people who let their guards down because they have spirit sense, and die as a result. I’ll bet that’s probably why.”
Tsuji looked unflinchingly into my eyes as she continued.
“I thought you might be able to see something, Kamikoshi-kun. But you don’t really?”
“That’s right. I don’t see anything special... But we’ve been here several times, and we’re more or less fine, you know?”
“Oh, yeah? Well, it’s fine then!”
Tsuji let out a hollow laugh.
“I may just have been imagining it,” she continued. “It’s also very possible that even if something is going on outside of our thresholds, it won’t have any effect on us.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Okay, okay. Well, guess I better cheer up then!”
Tsuji got back to her usual self, and called after Runa who was walking deeper into the Factory.
“What do you think, Sorawo?” Toriko asked in a quiet voice.
“Hrmm. I can’t say one way or the other. I don’t really sense anything abnormal.”
“Do you think she really has those sorts of spiritual abilities? I know she said she’s a magician or whatever.”
“I dunno how far to take her seriously, but she was able to endure my eye.”
“Huh?”
“I looked at her with the intent to drive her crazy, but she was unaffected. According to her, she can use her own evil eye.”
“Why did you do that? And when?” Toriko asked with a tone of exasperation.
“It just sort of happened... She started it, okay?” I couldn’t help but sound like I was making excuses.
“But setting that aside,” I continued, “you don’t sense anything out of the ordinary either, right, Toriko?”
“It’s not like I don’t feel anything weird.”
“Huh? For real? In what way?” I was surprised at her unexpected response. Toriko had a bewildered look on her face as she continued talking.
“It’s nothing to do with this place... I felt it back at DS Research too. Whenever I’m near that Tsuji person, I occasionally get a feeling like something’s brushed up against my left hand.”
“What is it?”
“Dunno. There are times when it feels like paper or cloth, and times when it’s like a person passing by. But it’s super faint, and only lasts a moment, so I could be imagining it.”
“Hmm...” I murmured thoughtfully.
From the back of the factory, Tsuji let out a startled cry. “Huh?! There’s water here?!”
“Yeah, there’s water, big deal. Don’t underestimate me. It’s even properly drinkable.” For some reason, Runa sounded proud of herself.
It’s not like you made the water come out.
I walked in the direction of the voices. The two of them were in a room with a simple sink. Maybe it was a break room or something when the Factory was still running. Runa and her cult had apparently used this as a living area. There were still long tables and pipe chairs sitting out, while plastic bottles and empty containers from premade meals littered the room.
“Kamikoshi-kun, this building has running water, huh?”
“It sure does. The electricity and gas are still running too.”
It was originally a ruin, so most of the facilities were broken, but we could get the bare minimum of usage out of them we needed for our life necessities. After confiscating the building from Runa and her cult, we’d decided to maintain the facilities as they were. For the construction we had planned, we were at least going to need the electricity, and for the convenience of the construction crews we were going to want the gas and water too. DS Research was paying the bills for us now.
“I thought the place was a ruin, but you could live here. That surprised me.”
“I did my best to make it comfortable.”
“The people who really did their best were the ones you brainwashed.”
We hadn’t been coming to this building, so it had hardly changed since our last visit. In other words, since the time when we came with Migiwa and Torchlight to check on the facilities after Kozakura and I were kidnapped. It had been months since then, yet the mess in here made it look like everyone had just left moments ago, and it was creepy. Even if it was cool in here, and the electricity, gas, and water all worked, this was not an atmosphere I wanted to stay in for long.
This was Runa’s first time back on the Farm since the incident. I looked at her, thinking that she had to be feeling something.
“What?”
“Nothing...”
Runa only looked back at me dubiously. I was unable to figure out what she was thinking. That might just have been my lack of people observing skills, though.
“Hey, Urumi-kun. Why’d you try to create a place like this?” asked Tsuji.
“Who can say?” Runa replied curtly. “Before I knew it, I was already working on it. I thought I’d need this kind of place to call Satsuki-sama.”
I noticed Toriko tense up for a moment at the mention of “Satsuki-sama.”
“Hmm. And where did you get that idea?” Tsuji continued questioning.
“Where? What do you mean by that?”
“Did you think of it yourself? Or did someone else tell you?”
“Well... Um... I wonder...”
Her tone was hazy. I looked at her face and was shocked. Her eyes were out of focus. She had a glazed over expression, like she wasn’t looking at anything.
“Runa?”
“Yes?” Runa blinked repeatedly, then cocked her head to the side with a dubious look. “Huh? I can’t remember. I wonder why...”
Even if she’d started it herself, it was possible she wouldn’t remember the impetus. But her expression just now was strange. Thinking about it again, even if she had a group of brainwashed followers she could use, securing a large building out in the mountains, and using it to recreate the situations from ghost stories seemed like too big of an idea for a mere high school student.
Uh, not that I’d know that. It might just be that I wasn’t able to come up with it because I wasn’t of Runa’s caliber. But even so, it felt a little strange.