“This is the Ark’s control room.”
Manato finally found out how Haru had been opening the doors in the corridors. There was nothing to it, really. He pressed an unobtrusive button next to the doors which caused them to open. That was all.
The door was smoothly sucked into the right side of the doorframe. Yori and Riyo watched it closely as it moved, seemingly fascinated. Manato had seen machines that ran on electricity in Japan, though, so a mechanism like that wasn’t particularly strange to him, but it must have been far more unusual to the two of them.
To Manato, the “control” room Haru had led them to felt like a place that one would be more likely to find in Japan than in Grimgar. In Tsunomiya, and Mebashi, and Kariza, there had always been places that only the yakuza had been allowed to enter, full of impressive-looking buildings, and with vehicles other than flatbed minitrucks driving around on the roads. If the yakuza had found him in those places, they might have killed him. But even though he’d known it was dangerous, he’d snuck into them a few times to look around. He hadn’t gone inside any of the buildings, obviously, but there had been glass walls on some of them that he had been able to see through, or he’d peered through the windows, so he had some idea what they were like inside.
“But, nah, this is totally different...”
It wasn’t as large inside as the warehouse had been. The ceiling wasn’t very high, and the lights set in it only emitted a dim light. There were neat rows of desks, or tables, or something of the sort, and chairs to go with them. The control room was divided into levels too. They had entered at the highest level, and the levels descended the farther you went into the room. There were stairs too, and also sloped paths like what one might see on the side of a hill.
Haru headed down the stairs. It seemed like Yori and Riyo weren’t sure what to do, but Manato decided to follow him.
“Hey, Haru. What’s a control room?”
“It has control over all of the Ark’s functions...though, I only understand a small subset of them.”
“Hmm. Its functions, huh? That sure means a lot of nothing to me!”
“The only thing I know about the Ark for certain is that it isn’t from Grimgar. It crossed over from some other world, and either fell here, or landed. In all likelihood, beings different from us came here aboard the Ark.”
“Oh, so is that why you call it the Ark? Because it’s a ship? It doesn’t look much like a ship, though.”
“It can alter its exterior. And that’s not all. You can manipulate the interior too.”
“Like how the corridor used to be a spiral staircase, huh?”
“And the Ark isn’t the only interesting thing around here. This mask is another one.”
Haru was wearing that thing again. There wasn’t any real reason he needed to hide his face at this point, but he’d apparently been wearing it for ages and didn’t feel right without it on.
“There are many things in Grimgar that came from other worlds. It may be that this place draws such things to it,” he continued.
“Other worlds... You mean like Japan? Is Japan one of the other worlds?”
“I think so.”
Once Haru had fully descended the stairs, he came to a stop in front of a long table. It wasn’t just any old table, though. It had things sticking out of it, and lots of shapes drawn on it too.
Yori and Riyo came down the stairs as well.
“Never would’ve thought the tower was like this on the inside,” Yori said as she glanced around anxiously, a sharp look in her eyes. She seemed pretty wary.
Riyo followed Yori without betraying any emotion. Manato found it impossible to tell what she was thinking, or how she felt.
Though Riyo had been knocked out when she’d lost to Haru, she’d quickly regained consciousness. From the look of it, she hadn’t taken any lasting damage. Haru’s neck had been broken, and his face had been smashed, but he’d barely hurt Riyo at all. He must have deliberately chosen to win that way.
“I don’t blame you for being bewildered,” Haru said, removing his right glove and touching one of the drawings on the table. The skin on his hand was as excessively pale as his face had been.
“Control, I’m requesting authentication.”
When Haru said this, lights turned on all over the room.
“Whoa!” Manato cried out in surprise.
Yori didn’t let out a cry, but she did jump a bit, and Riyo’s eyes were wide open.
The drawing Haru was resting his right hand on glowed with a pale light.
“Authenticated. Control activating.”
“Who...?” Manato cocked his head to the side. That voice hadn’t belonged to Haru, or Yori, or Riyo.
White text lit up in a spot elsewhere in the room, not right in front of Haru. Though Manato had learned to read, he didn’t recognize this script at all. Based on the way Yori and Riyo had fallen silent, scrutinizing the suspicious letters, they apparently couldn’t read what it said either.
“Code: spare room A and code: spare room B, change camouflage,” Haru said.
“Request to change camouflage accepted,” the same voice as before responded.
“Let’s see... Size: 3, style: modern, type: one-room living space. A single bed for spare room A, and twin beds for spare room B.”
“Accepted. Do you wish to proceed with the requested camouflage change?”
“Proceed.”
“Accepted. Camouflage will complete in 180 seconds.”
“No need for a countdown.”
“Accepted. Countdown aborted.”
“Haru?” Manato tugged lightly on Haru’s cloak. “Who’ve you been talking to all this time?”
“Control,” Haru said. Then he pulled his hand away, and the light of the shape went out. “Or rather, to no one,” he corrected himself. “One function of the Ark’s control system is that you can manipulate the Ark by talking to it like that.”
“If the company knew about this...” Yori said, furrowing her brow and frowning, “it’d cause all sorts of problems. They’d come with everything they have to seize it. Those people are maniacs for crazy stuff like this.”
“I don’t know what this company you’re talking about is, but seizing the Ark wouldn’t be easy. They’d have to get authenticated to use the control system,” Haru explained.
“And you’re the only one who can do this ‘authentication,’ Haruhiro?”
“Yeah. Basically.”
“Maybe this warning will fall on deaf ears, Haruhiro, but you blab too much. What would you do if Yori was affiliated with the company?”
“You may think this is illogical, but I refuse to harbor doubts about Yume and Ranta’s great-grandchildren,” Haru said, putting his glove back on. “Especially not you and Riyo, whom I’ve met personally. I don’t quite know how to explain it, but I can sense Yume in you. You’ve inherited something from her—probably something incredibly important.”
“It’s not fair to bring up great-grandma.”
“Sorry. I’m not a fair guy. That’s why I’m still alive,” Haru stated before moving away from the table. “Come with me. I’ve set up some rooms for you.”
†
Heading back down the corridor, Haru opened a different door. Beyond it, there was an ordinary room. It was a bit like the rooms in the house that Manato and the Canaries had found deep in Kariza. It was fairly spacious, and the ceiling was high enough that he would have needed to jump to touch it. There were two beds, a bookshelf, a table, and two chairs. There were other doors in the room aside from the entrance too. According to Haru, they led to a small room called a changing room for getting undressed, a bathroom where the girls could wash themselves, and even a separate toilet.
“If you choose to stay here, Yori and Riyo, you can use this room together. If there’s anything else you need, let me know. As long as it isn’t anything too special, I should be able to get it for you,” Haru explained, with the two of them behind him. Then he turned to face them. “Or maybe you would have preferred two rooms, not a shared one?”
“Hrmm...” Yori crossed her arms and groaned.
Riyo instantly replied, “Together is better.”
Haru had also prepared another room. It was the same size as Yori and Riyo’s, but there was only a single bed in it. He said it was Manato’s room.
“A room all to myself? Ooh. This might be a first for me.”
“I have food stored in my room. I may not need it myself, but you’re all pretty young, so I imagine you probably eat a lot. Depending on how long you stay, I’ll have to think about how to get more. I don’t know if my garden in Alterna’s still usable.”
Manato had Haru explain how to use the bathroom, then took a shower. All he had to do was twist the tap, and an endless supply of warm water came out. He’d heard of facilities like this in Japan, but never imagined he’d be able to use one himself.
“Showering feels so good.”
He stood under the warm water for almost too long, then rubbed himself down with a fluffy piece of cloth that was sitting in the changing room. The changing room also contained a large mirror that reflected the top half of his body. He twisted around to check his back, and found nothing left of the wound but a swollen scar, which would likely be completely gone the next day.
“Man, my hair’s gotten so long.”
There wasn’t much point in just wandering around the room naked, with nothing but a towel hanging from his neck, so he sat down on the bed. He balled up the clothes he’d taken off and dropped them in a random corner of the room. Haru had gone to the trouble of picking them out for him, and now they already had a tear in the back.