Torchlight’s operators spent the rest of the afternoon training in the Cattle Barn. We intermittently heard BBs hitting the plywood walls. Freed from our responsibilities, we returned to our tent, and got ready to camp out.
That said, I hadn’t brought any heavy-duty equipment, so it was just a matter of getting the fold-out chairs out of the luggage we’d tossed into the tent, and then pulling out a table, the camp stove, and some tableware. Toriko, meanwhile, had gone all out, and was pulling one unfamiliar tool out of her bag after another. Apparently she’d been shopping while I was busy with my exams and supplementary lectures.
“When did you buy that frying pan?” I asked.
“It’s a skillet,” she replied.
“Ohh, there were a whole bunch of them in the camping magazines. So, what’s the difference?”
“A skillet’s what they call a small, cast-iron frying pan.”
“So, it is a frying pan!”
“Yeah, but still!”
Runa and Tsuji came over to look at us setting up shop.
“You two look like you’re having fun,” said Runa.
“How’s the nosebleed?” I asked.
“It’s fine now.”
“This is really something,” said Tsuji. “We didn’t bring any camping gear at all.”
“If they’re loaning out the basics, you’re fine turning up empty-handed.”
The fact was, as long as we could eat and sleep, that was enough to meet the bare minimum. We could do what we liked for anything beyond that. For me, exploring the Otherside was my main goal, so if I was left to my own devices on this side, I’d probably end up having a dry and boring camping experience. Toriko wasn’t like that. She was the type to find every possible way of enjoying herself, even on an occasion like this.
“To tell you the truth, we’re not exactly coming to you empty-handed.”
Tsuji’s comment got Toriko to raise her head. “What’d you bring?”
“Tea, wine, and so on. Oh, and some light snacks.”
“Oh... Nice.”
“If you don’t mind, we’ll join you.”
“Really? Thanks.”
It looked like Toriko intended to talk with Tsuji, so that was a bit of a relief. If she retreated into shy mode, and just spent the whole time smiling, I’d have had to do my best to keep a conversation going. I was used to it now, but having to deal with both Runa and Tsuji all by myself would still have been exhausting.
“Sorawo, what do you want to do for a campfire?”
“Isn’t it too hot to be lighting a fire?”
“Wah, but I even went to the trouble of bringing firewood.”
While Toriko was sounding disappointed, Runa interjected. “I think it’ll get chilly.”
“Oh, yeah?” Toriko replied.
“It’s still hot because it’s daytime, but it cools down real fast here once the sun sets.”
“Hrmm. Well, sounds like it’s fine to light a fire, then.”
Wow... Toriko was talking to Runa too. Still a bit awkwardly, sure, but she was managing to be civil.
Who did I think I was, acting all impressed? I wasn’t in any position to comment on other people’s communication skills.
Even as I was privately poking fun at myself, I thought about it again, and I think that Toriko was doing her best to talk with Runa as part of the effort to reform her, which was something that Toriko was on board with as well. I wasn’t going to go out of my way to ask if that was what she was doing, but Toriko had that sort of sincere side to her.
“Maybe here’s good.” Toriko began digging up the ground using the shovel she pulled out of her luggage.
“What’re you doing?” I asked.
“Preparing to light a campfire. We can light it directly on the ground here, right?”
There were many campsites which prohibited lighting your campfire on the ground, and required you to use a fire-resistant sheet, but this wasn’t a campsite, and I was the facility’s manager.
“Seems fine to me...” I said.
“Well, I’m gonna go ahead, then.”
Tsuji said she would make tea, so we boiled water over a single burner. Once she poured the fresh-made tea over some ice from the cooler, we had iced herb tea.
The three of us sat in outdoor chairs, sipping our iced tea as we watched Toriko hunched over, digging a mystery tunnel. Toriko turned to us to complain.
“Hey! I thought it was quiet, but what are you all doing?”
“You were so focused, we thought it’d be wrong to disturb you,” I replied.
“Something smells nice... Is that tea? No fair! I want some too!”
I’d been thinking she was like a kid so focused on playing in the sand that they’d lost sight of everything else around them, but now that she was actually sounding like a child I laughed.
“There’s enough left for you, Toriko, so don’t worry. But you have to wash your hands first.”
As the sun started to go down, the heat rapidly abated like Runa had said it would. A cool wind blew in from the forests around the Farm. This is the perfect temperature, I thought, but it didn’t stay that way long, as the cool air started to feel chilly.
“Isn’t it kinda cold?” I griped.
“I warned you it would be,” said Runa, who had put on a cardigan at some point. We both hurried to get coats out of our luggage.
The training in the Cattle Barn seemed to have wrapped up, as the operators filed out into the yard. They were all carrying rugged-looking firearms, even if they were airsoft guns, so the scene looked really intimidating.
It looked like Migiwa had joined in the training, since he was dressed in some borrowed kit. He’d mentioned he’d gotten up to some mischief in Central America when he was younger, and it showed in how bizarrely well he fit in here. Migiwa went to return his equipment to the canopy tent in the middle, then he came over to us. He was dripping with sweat.
“I am sorry to have kept you waiting. The training has concluded for today.”
“It looks like everyone worked really hard. I see you got in on the action yourself too, Migiwa-san,” I pointed out.
“Yes, I am embarrassed to admit. They offered to lend me the equipment, and I couldn’t help but get in the mood. Although, I was no match for the professionals. They really put me through the ringer, and at my age too.”
His manner of speech wasn’t much different from usual, but I could tell he was pumped up. Before our departure, he’d said he might head back early because he had paperwork to do... It looked like he’d forgotten all about that. Maybe Migiwa was enjoying this camp in his own way.
“What’ll they be doing after this today?” I asked.
“After this, they will just eat and then sleep. It would appear that Torchlight’s preparations for a barbecue are proceeding apace, so it could get a little noisy.”
A group of Torchlight operators whose work clothes were opened to expose their chests shouted to Migiwa as they were headed towards the Factory. Migiwa waved in response, then turned back to us.
“Pardon me, I am going to go take a shower. I will see you later.”
Yeah, the Farm had a large shower room. That was one of the reasons holding this camp here had been viable. With a large number of people like this, going without anywhere for them to wash up in the middle of summer would have been way too tough. According to Runa, she’d simply preserved the preexisting facilities that were in the Factory. Despite being a cult princess, with her lair in an abandoned building, she hadn’t been able to stomach any lack of cleanliness in her believers.
After Migiwa went, Sasazuka, Michelle, and a couple other female operators came over. Looking down at the hole Toriko had dug in the ground, with a hint of amusement, Sasazuka asked, “Was this...Nishina-san?”
“Yeah.”
“Nice, you’re really getting into it... Ohh, and Urumi-san, thank you again. We had a really good training session.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Was what I did really useful?”
“Yes, very.”
“Um, I know you said you’d be repeating the training over and over. How did that go? Did it get less scary over time?” I asked out of curiosity.
“It’s strange,” Sasazuka replied, shaking her head, “no matter how many times we repeated the same course, there was always a certain level of fear. I thought we’d get used to it a little, so it’s an unexpected result.”
That was fascinating. There were ghost stories like that sometimes too. Bizarrely frightening tales, which set my spine tingling no matter how often I read them. Perhaps, for us humans, the fear that such stories bring is like hot or cold, a change in the environment which we have no way to resist. Maybe the interstitial space was the same way... Or was that too much of a leap?
“That being the case, it looks like we won’t need Urumi-san to constantly maintain things. If we can make regular use of the chimera house, it will be incredibly helpful.”
“Chimera house?” I repeated.
“Ah, pardon me. I don’t know who started it, but we all started calling the kill house the chimera house...”
“What does that mean?” I asked, but Runa just gave me a look of exasperation.
“You don’t know, Kamikoshi-san? It’s an urban legend from the US.”
“Huh? It is?”
“It is, yeah. The legend goes that there are these big buildings, packed full of every horror imaginable, called chimera houses, and no one who enters them ever comes out. Isn’t that right, Sasazuka-san?”
“So I’m told. I hadn’t heard of it before either,” Sasazuka replied with an awkward smile. Runa took her chance to try and lord it over me.
“Why don’t you know about it, Kamikoshi-san?”
“Urban legends aren’t my area of expertise!”
“Wha? What a shame. I’ve lost faith in you,” Runa said.
The hell?
The chimera house—like I’d just said to Runa, I had no interest in urban legends, so it was the first time that I was hearing the name, but for the word “chimera” to come up now...it unsettled me as one half of the Nue. Was it a coincidence, or...
“This kind of thing is the hardest to deal with,” I murmured as we watched Sasazuka and the others go off to shower.