NOVEL NEXT WORLD Side Story 1
Side Story 1. Request
This is one of my past stories. A story from Amano Sakimori’s past.
A dull, commonplace tale in the abandoned town. Just one of many stories buried in the corners of my memory, never told to anyone.
It was a story from just before the rainy season, around the time when what was once called Golden Week—a time when even working adults could take a proper break—had just ended.
In the abandoned town, if you bring up such topics, the elderly will sadly lower their faces, while the young will curiously ask, “What’s a holiday?” As for us middle-aged folks, we work to survive in this world where the concept of holidays has vanished, all while reminiscing about the peaceful lives we once knew.
Amano Sakimori. It’s been over a decade since I abandoned my old name and took on this new one. This is the story of me, who has long been called the strongest in the abandoned town.
It was just before the rainy season, and as I thought about how the rain would soon limit our movements, I was working in a ruined building at the time. Among the surrounding abandoned town, this one had a bit more rubble than the others.
Exposed to the elements, the windows were blackened and blended into the walls. The reception lobby was buried under rubble, with the second floor partially collapsed. The hallway was barricaded with fire shutters closed, and lockers and office desks were piled up.
The elevator doors were broken and left open, the elevator itself having fallen to the basement. Only the severed wires swayed sadly in the elevator shaft.
In this ruined building, filled with obstacles and poor visibility, I was setting up piano wires in the hallway. I gripped the wire tightly with my gloves, hooked it onto a nail driven into the wall, and secured it. I scattered rubble across the hallway to make it difficult to run through, and in between, I hid boards with upside-down nails attached to them.
As I wiped the sweat from my forehead, I let out a bitter smile. My right heel throbbed with pain whenever I put too much pressure on it, causing me to grimace slightly. Lately, my old wounds have been acting up. Maybe it’s just age, I thought with a wry smile as I finished setting up and leaned against the wall, adjusting the mask I made from shadows and exhaling.
“Good work, Sakimori.”
As I was catching my breath, a teasing voice came from the depths of the dimly lit hallway, where even the sunlight struggled to penetrate through the grimy windows.
“I need to make some preparations. Preparations named ‘love and courage.'”
“That’s quite the dangerous ‘love and courage’-nya.”
Emerging from the dim hallway was Karin, an informant I had recently met. Her face still held a hint of innocence, but rumors had it that if you were fooled by her smile, you’d be in for a world of hurt.
A young woman running an informant business in the lawless abandoned town, living a normal life without being preyed upon—it was clear that this girl was no ordinary person.
Dressed in a mix of a hooded robe and a kimono, unique to the abandoned town, she nimbly avoided the rubble and my traps as she approached.
Her tail swayed behind her, and her cat ears twitched as she happily made her way over. I narrowed my eyes slightly and pointed to the ground as a warning.
“Make sure you avoid all the traps. I don’t plan on redoing them.”
I had been working on these traps for the past few days. I’d hate for all that effort to go to waste. It was a pain just to gather the rocks. I thought I might throw out my back.
Karin, the girl with cat ears and a tail. A new race created in the dungeon that hadn’t existed before. Possessing the physical abilities of a cat and the intelligence of a human.
The girl with the [Cat Transformation] skill shrugged her shoulders and let out a small laugh, revealing her tiny fangs.
“I won’t make such a stupid mistake-nya. But what are you doing holed up in a place like this?”
With the agility of a cat, Karin fluttered her stylish, Japanese-themed clothes as she walked down the hallway without a care.
“An informant like you asking that? There’s a goblin nest nearby. It’s a request from a group that controls the area. They want me to take care of it because it’s dangerous.”
“Ah, even without hobgoblins, it’s an unusually strong group-nya. Did you take that on solo-nya? I heard it’s a small nest, but most of the people who went to exterminate it ended up dead-nya?”
Karin looked at me with a disbelieving expression, her eyes narrowing. She was right, of course. In fact, she probably already knew I had taken the request.
But seeing the slight concern in her eyes, I gave her a faint, gentle smile. Informants who aren’t cool and businesslike tend to die young. That’s what I’ve learned from seeing the fates of other informants.
Karin is still young, and sometimes she shows vulnerabilities that could be exploited. But the fact that she’s still alive proves how strong she is. She even managed to climb the walls of my heavily guarded home.
“Don’t show too much on your face, Karin. And you’re right, that’s why I’m preparing. Goblins are smart enough to fall for traps. They think before they act, so it’s easy to lead them.”
Fishing line attached to a crossbow. The preparations for the festival are coming along nicely. Now, I wonder which thread the goblins will pull. I’m looking forward to it.
“Hmm, there are about 20 of them, so Sakimori should be able to handle it-nya.”
Despite her hesitation, the cat girl made a calm judgment. The fact that she didn’t try to persuade me to stop because it was dangerous is one of Karin’s good points. For people like me, dangerous jobs are the profitable ones. Living is tough, after all.
“So? What did you come here for?”
As I rubbed the dirt off my gloves, I asked Karin. Our footprints were scattered in the dust along the hallway.
“Well, since I came here, you can probably guess-nya. It’s an easier job than this one.”
“You’re going to tell me how much the fee is, right?”
“That’s a maiden’s secret-nya.”
With a wink and a wave of her hand like a beckoning cat, Karin smiled. I wondered what kind of easy job she was talking about.
“Saito? Ah, the Oil Sellers group.”
I still hadn’t finished preparing to exterminate the goblin nest, and there was still plenty of time left in the contract. I decided to hear Karin out, thinking it wouldn’t hurt to take on another job.
As we left the trap-filled ruin and made our way to the client, I listened to Karin’s story and found it surprisingly interesting.
“Those guys were wandering around here?”
“You knew about them-nya?”
“Yeah, the Oil Sellers are a rare group around here.”
I sent my familiar, a black cat, ahead to check for monsters as we moved through the abandoned town. We avoided a rusted car, now just a chassis, and passed by a burnt-down house.
“Their boss, Kaicho, made the request-nya. She wants to hire someone really skilled-nya.”
With her hands behind her head, the cat girl kicked a pebble as she skipped along, talking to me. The pebble hit a wall, startling a rat that scurried away.
“Hmm… That’s strange, Karin. Because those guys are from the [Outer District], right?”
I frowned, puzzled.
Oil Sellers. That’s what the group is called, and anyone with sharp ears in the abandoned town has heard of them. They don’t have a base in the abandoned town; they just wander around.
The group consists of about 20 people. Not too many, not too few. A difficult number to attack. The Oil Sellers have been wandering the abandoned town with that number.
The reason they don’t have a base is simple: they’re not residents of the abandoned town.
[Outer District]
A relatively safe place to live. Surrounded by walls that protect them from monsters, with police maintaining order—a place where people can live like humans.
People who never visit the dangerous abandoned town. People who shouldn’t be here in the first place.
“Those guys are different from us in the abandoned town. They have proper equipment. Military surplus combat uniforms, plenty of crossbows. If they’re from the Outer District, they wouldn’t need to hire me. In fact, they’d be afraid of getting in their way, right?”
“The Oil Sellers sell oil and get treasures-nya. You’re right-nya. There’s no reason for them to hire shady people from the abandoned town-nya.”
Karin bent her fingers and playfully mimicked a beckoning cat. She must have felt something off about this too. She knew, yet she brought it to me. That’s so like Karin.
“The Oil Sellers are called modern-day grave robbers, targeting precious metals and art buried in the abandoned town-nya. They’re an elite group, so they wouldn’t need to hire Sakimori-nya.”
“Wasn’t the condition that they wanted someone really skilled? Ah, at that point, it’s practically a direct request, isn’t it?”
A solo contractor working in the abandoned town. Around here, there’s no one else but me.
“Your mind is as sharp as ever-nya. That’s right, I received the request from the [Oil Sellers’] boss, Kaicho-nya.”
“Can you tell me what the job is?”
“You’ll have to ask her yourself-nya. Here we are~”
Karin stopped and spun around, letting out a small laugh. She raised her hand and pointed to an elementary school. A building that had once been used as a shelter but had long since been abandoned.
I vaguely remember that it was built during the time dungeons started appearing. Under the Personal Information Protection Act at the time, it was constructed as a state-of-the-art facility to protect children.
Surrounded by walls three meters high, the windows were adorned with iron bars designed to look like beautiful patterns. The inner walls were made of thick concrete, and a metal gate was installed to protect the facility.
As I looked around upon arrival, I saw people in military surplus combat uniforms, armed with crossbows, standing guard.
Their clothing and build were different from the thin, hungry residents of the abandoned town in their tattered clothes.
“I hope this isn’t a request to use me as a disposable pawn?”
I implied that if it were such a request, I’d make them regret it.
“Isn’t that what Sakimori’s ‘love and courage’ are for-nya?”
“Love and courage are said to solve everything, after all.”
Karin responded with a mischievous smile, so I shrugged with a wry grin and called out to the man on guard.
Well, I hope this turns out to be an interesting story.