As we stood there, unable to take a single step after witnessing that horrific scene, Ms. Ishmael opened her mouth... No. Better stop her there.
"Manager, those things... Mmph?! What are you doing?!"
"You looked like you were about to say something unnecessary, so I just pulled your mouth a little."
"Ha, wasting time in a place like this is..."
"Spending a little time here won't change anything. Try showing some patience. Or at least add something logical before you start sneering. Why do you insist on saying things in a way that just invites anger?"
"....."
Ms. Ishmael let out a single sigh, then began to explain.
"No matter how you look around, there won't be anything here. That's all I was trying to say: don't waste time searching, just move forward."
"But there is something here!"
"Those are just things pretending to be alive."
"Then..."
"No matter how you look at it, this is that thing. And there's no way a normal person would be left behind where it passed. It can swallow everything in an instant, but it can also spit it back out. And what it vomits back up can never be in a whole shape..."
"All right, all right. That's enough. You still beat around the bush, but at least this is listenable."
"Don't cut me off. I still have more to..."
"It'd just be the obvious story anyway. An emotional rant. And a little sneering. Nothing nutritious. I know you want to talk about that whale you met, but could you hold yourself back a little?"
"Ha. Yes, you're right. Must be nice, knowing so much."
"Yes. It's never a bad thing to know a lot."
"....."
You're still a long way from beating me in a war of words, lady.
"So this building right now... you're saying that whale you met swallowed it and moved on?"
"...Yes."
"How can you be sure?"
"Every path that whale passed through was... covered in this white appearance, just like now."
At that moment, a presence stirred from the other side.
"...!"
"Ree... li... ga... in... na... nu..."
"Hostile presence detected."
Whatever it was, appearing at a time like this... how very convenient.
"Could it be an Abnormality? Since this is a Lobotomy Corporation branch..."
"Y-yeah. It'd be better to assume it's an Abnormality and just cut everything down."
As Sinclair and Ms. Rodion raised their weapons, Ms. Ishmael, seeing the approaching shape, gasped and stepped in front of them.
"Wait, wait a second. It could be a survivor!"
"What? You said there couldn't possibly be any humans left in here."
"That's why it's even more surprising..."
"Hey!"
"I-Ishmael! If you rush in like that..."
Damn it. I'd better follow. I hope nothing happens.
"Could Ms. Ishmael have been affected by some Abnormality-like mental phenomenon?!"
"There were no such signs. That person's gaze is exactly as usual."
"Huh... I see."
It was a human shape. More specifically, it was wearing the uniform of an LCCB member.
Unclear words, not quite language, were spilling from its mouth. At a glance, it might even have seemed human...
But the closer Ms. Ishmael approached, the more its appearance turned white. At this rate, it was unlikely to be human.
"... ... ... ... ..."
"No way. It was definitely... speaking human language just a moment ago."
"...Ishmael..."
"You saw it, it definitely..."
"Ishmael! Don't get too far..."
"This can't be happening... I, if what I know turns out to be wrong, then in this lake..."
"Emotional agitation has occurred."
"Oh, for..."
With one hand, I naturally pulled Ms. Ishmael into my shoulder and put distance between her and the enemy.
Then, immediately after, I dropped the spear and charged the enemy. It was probably moving on instinct in that condition. If I gave it just a little feint...
"Hup!"
I seized its arm and pinned it to the floor with a clean joint lock.
...Tch, it's a little stronger than I'd like.
"Now, this... let's call it an entity. You want to identify the reason for the anomaly appearing in this entity, right? Then let's subdue it first and proceed. Mr. Meursault!"
"Understood."
"Ah..."
With Mr. Meursault joining in and cleanly restraining the enemy, only then did Dante slowly approach from this side.
Then something bizarre happened. The white mucous membrane covering his entire body... peeled away and vanished.
Coincidentally, Dante was the only one who moved at that moment. Which meant there was only one reason that membrane could have peeled away.
"It came back...? When the Manager got close... it disappeared. This... damned white shell..."
After observing that, Faust gave a clear answer.
"It appears to be a neutralizing effect caused by the Golden Bough. The fragment of the Golden Bough inside Dante's head... seems to have a slight neutralizing effect on this whitening phenomenon."
That's a plausible explanation. No, maybe I should say it's a strong one.
Rather than Dante himself having something that reversed this... whitening phenomenon, the hypothesis that the Golden Bough, a mass of enormous energy, caused it is far more convincing.
"Neutralizing? Then... if there's a Golden Bough... can the merfolk, haha. Right now... can they turn back into people? Is that what you're saying? Did I understand that correctly, Faust? Ms. Faust?"
"...It has not been sufficiently verified, but..."
"A possibility! ...Please, just give me the possibility."
Though she didn't add the word please, Ms. Ishmael's voice sounded more desperate than ever.
"...Yes. At the very least, the merfolk of the whale that we assume passed through here... can be returned."
"Ha... ha ha..."
With this much information, even an idiot could infer the rest.
Ms. Ishmael's former comrades were probably eaten by the whale that passed through here.
She didn't seem to have joined the company to save them, but she clearly valued them all the same.
And in that situation, what Dante had just shown her... must have been profoundly shocking.
"Manager... Dante... sir. What kind of person are you, really... The memories of that day, when I tried so hard to shove it all in... the thought that there might have been a way to solve it... keeps forming in front of my eyes. Those people, swallowed and spat out by that whale, sinking or floating out there..."
Ms. Ishmael looked straight at Dante.
"You can hear it, can't you... The sound of the waves from that day..."
Ah. This is that thing. The resonance between a Sinner's memories and Dante's Golden Bough.
At that moment, my eyes trembled. Was I resonating with the Golden Bough?
Before I knew it, waves began rolling across my vision.
"...I was a navigator. A Fixer too, and a sailor. That sort of half-baked thing, we called a whale hunter. Do you know? No... can you see it? The faces of people who have everything on the line... or have nothing left to bet. A whale-hunting ship is what carries those people and cuts through the waves."
My vision showed an old ship pushing through rough seas.
"Then... have you seen it yourself? The whale that swallowed this place?"
"The whales we've met so far... if they swallow a person, they completely reconstruct themselves and change. But that whale was different. Those swallowed by that pale whale were all left in their original shape, merely wrapped in a white membrane. Ha, though calling that original shape is a bit much."
The ship in my vision rocked violently. Was it sailing through dangerous waters?
"There were times when we steered toward the outskirts. Then those... ships pretending to be intact would be floating on the water. Ships whose entire hull had turned white. Among whale hunters, it's passed down like a legend that if you ever encounter such a ship, you must avoid it no matter how much you have to circle the lake. That ship. Because the habits and abilities the original crew possessed don't change... it just wanders around, with nothing but the purpose of attacking other things roaming the lake."
When that section of the story ended, the ship became a little clearer. Its name was... the Pequod?
"There was someone who had been the captain of our ship... the Pequod. His goal was exactly that: to hunt that pale whale with his own hands. While we lived aboard it, he kept preaching about how valuable and magnificent it would be to catch that whale. It was ear-splitting, and it was obvious the man wasn't sane, but..."
Ms. Ishmael, still speaking, paused for a moment to think.
"No. Maybe he knew exactly how to drive us insane. Before we knew it, the only salvation and destiny in our lives became catching that pale whale. He drove everyone on that ship mad."
The scenery in front of me shifted again. This time... to the pale whale itself.
"In the end, we came face to face with that whale said to spew out hatred and all evil... and everything... was horribly broken and swallowed whole. Only when I came to my senses in the cold water, clutching a piece of driftwood, did I realize there was nothing left in front of me... nothing. Only after I realized that what I'd been holding... wasn't just driftwood. That's why I can't forgive it..."
At some point, Ms. Ishmael's words slipped beyond the bounds of conversation.
They were just aimless muttering now, circling themselves like a whirlpool churning beneath the sea.
By now, it was clear who her hatred and fixation were directed at.
The captain of the Pequod. The man who drove everyone to ruin.
"I have to... kill him... with my own hands."
There was no room for any rational thought or process in between.
It had simply become a single, massive conviction: blind hatred toward someone.
Maybe that was why.
Maybe the reason Ms. Ishmael's eyes had been trembling ever so slightly whenever she looked at me was because I had shaken that conviction.
I'm certain of it. She and I had grown attached to each other in some way.
Just like the crew of the Pequod, who had been with her on that ship.
...That's only my guess, though. If I asked her directly, she'd probably deny it.
"But Ishmael... it's not even clear whether that captain is still alive."
"When I survived by clutching the coffin of the comrade I had shared everything with... that bastard, all the way to the end, fought that thing alone inside the ship as it was being eaten... and he was smiling. The sailors who had devoted their lives to following him were floating over the sea and the outskirts, being swallowed, and he didn't care at all."
After finishing her brief recollection, Ms. Ishmael looked straight at Dante... no, at her own obsession, and said,
"That man is alive. He has to be alive. He must be alive. So... I have to find him... We... until we kill that captain... never..."
We... we. Who was she talking about? The Sinners? The crew of the Pequod? Or... both?
I had that question, but neither I nor Dante could bring ourselves to ask her.
When only heavy silence drifted through the place, a very light... tiny breeze slipped in there.