The mysterious man, Rim, left, and what welcomed us back were the merfolk that had returned.
"I surmise the merfolk did not attack because of the author's influence."
"Why would that be...?"
To the question Ms. Rodion asked, Ms. Faust answered.
"The only inference I can make is that even if reason has evaporated, an instinct toward the flow of some form of energy may remain."
"Sinner, on that man's forehead as well..."
"...Yes."
At Dante's words, the face of the man Dante had mentioned also surfaced in my mind.
Sinclair's past connection. Was his name Damian?
Some time ago, when we were fighting Kromer... I had seen him beyond the realm of possibility through the eye.
He had been drifting freely through the sky, moving his hand lightly as he split Kromer clean in half.
I remembered it now. The unidentified mark carved into that man's forehead.
The mark that had briefly appeared on Rim's head... or rather, in the middle of his head? In the place that looked like a brain, it had the exact same shape.
He had a similar air about him, too. A color scheme that gave off an overall blue impression, and that arrogant tone, as if he knew everything.
It reminds me of my previous job. Most of it is locked away in memory, so all that comes back are hazy fragments.
Though, strictly speaking, even hazy fragments shouldn't be possible.
"··· ···. ··· ···"
Ah. The merfolk are coming.
"Everyone, prepare for battle! Form up!"
At Ms. Otis's bark, my body reacted on its own. We needed to finish this quickly and get out. If there was no Golden Bough here, we'd be living on the bus again for a while.
It didn't seem like this would end here, either... but let's set that minor unease aside.
It would only interfere with the battle in front of us.
Multiple eyes, a massive mouth, and a long body dragged along behind it. Merfolk of the pale whale.
People wearing human skin... no, covering themselves with people? Hmm... let's define them as having a human shape.
I'd thought only merfolk with human forms existed, but apparently there were inhuman shapes like this too.
That said, the method of dealing with them didn't change much. Observe, evade, and stab with a near-cheating level of force.
If it turned into a contest of raw strength, I'd be at a disadvantage, but there was no reason to let it come to that.
As we advanced, how much time had passed? We searched for quite a while, but we couldn't find a single clue about the Golden Bough.
With Dante, our Golden Bough compass, in hand, this was the result... was what that human Rim said earlier true?
"As that man named Rim said, it doesn't look like there's a Golden Bough here. I didn't feel any sense of the Bough from my side, either."
Moreover, if even Ms. Ishmael, who was supposed to resonate with this Golden Bough, said so, then it must be true.
As a result, we were now in the position of having lost the purpose of coming to this branch. The prisoners looked to Dante, the highest authority in the current party.
"What... will you do now?"
"It seems everyone remaining in the branch besides us has been contaminated."
That meant, in the end, we had no choice but to follow Rim's intentions.
Perhaps because the thought of being toyed with in someone else's hands left a bitter taste, Ms. Rodion voiced a trace of unease.
"That guy Rim... if he has that mark... then he's like that blue brat we met last time... Is that really okay?"
"Indeed... in the end, he did help us. Though he approached us in a very quiet manner."
At Mr. Hong Lu's words, Ms. Ryoshu sneered.
"Hah. What could we even do?"
"That's true. There was nothing we could do. But... Damian didn't seem to bear any malice toward us."
"Well, maybe not toward you in particular."
Right. Damian had approached Sinclair with apparent goodwill.
At the very least, there was no doubt he was friendlier to Sinclair than to the rest of us.
Which also meant it was difficult for us to trust Rim's words completely.
"Manager. There is no evidence that he is someone we can trust. In the end, he fled without clearly stating what his purpose was, was he not?"
As a result, there was no sense of incongruity at all in hearing Ms. Otis say something like that.
In this frustrating situation, Mr. Heathcliff tapped Mr. Yi Sang, who knew Rim, and asked, "Hey, you at least know his face. Don't you know anything? Anything at all?"
"He has changed so much from the man I knew that... I cannot make sense of him."
"First... let us get out of here. It seems certain that there is no Golden Bough here..."
Hmm. So that was the decision to withdraw. Reasonable. There wasn't much else to choose from anyway.
It couldn't be helped, but Ms. Don Quixote's expression darkened slightly at those words.
"...What of those who remain?"
"We cannot do anything for them."
"I know that, but..."
"...I think I roughly know what you're trying to say, but give up on what you have to give up on. There are things that are already too late. I know that from experience."
"...Understood."
At the persuasion of Mr. Meursault and Mr. Heathcliff, Ms. Don Quixote backed down.
For some reason... I felt even more uneasy. I probably wouldn't have thought much of it normally, but with someone so blindly kind standing beside me, maybe it had rubbed off on me.
Still, Mr. Heathcliff. Unexpected. A man who never cared what others thought and did whatever he pleased was the one doing the comforting.
"What's this? You can even comfort people now?"
"...Tch. Better to die than suffer."
"You're kinder than I expected. Is this what they call it? A beastly man who's sweet only to his own people?"
"Shut up. Do you want to die?"
"I feel bad for the woman called Catherine. Someone like Mr. Heathcliff is actually pretty decent, you know. He's easy on the eyes, kinder than he looks, and surprisingly delicate, too, isn't he? Right, Ms. Rodion?"
"Exactly, exactly. Our Heath is so dependable, isn't he? He's the perfect husband material. Women just go crazy for that bad-boy type who only has eyes for them~"
"Ahem... c-cut it out..."
That was easy. Maybe I should use this more often. If I praise that Catherine woman and soothe him a little, he'll probably melt right away.
"Hey! Stop flirting and come on. We're withdrawing!"
"Eek, Otis is going to get mad. I'll go on ahead!"
I should probably head out too.
...For some reason, my instincts had been sounding an alarm for a while now, but... what was it? There was no obvious threat right in front of us. No sign of merfolk surging in like a wave, either.
Was I missing something?
"······."
"Hm? Sara, aren't you coming?"
"Ah, sorry. I'll be right there!"
The eye, which had begun operating for a moment, swept across the possibilities in the air. But... nothing unusual appeared.
Was there information I was overlooking? Under the conditions I could currently assume, nothing should happen.
One of the newly added functions of the eye from last time. Among the things classified as powers that filter possibilities, there was nothing especially remarkable.
From the conditions inferred from the information I currently had, there were only two possibilities that could make us feel threatened.
The wave, and the merfolk inside.
The former was impossible unless Ms. Faust was being abnormal, and the latter was impossible to see as a real threat.
...What I was missing...
"Ah, seriously. Are you going to be left behind?!"
"I'm coming now!"
I moved my feet, unable to shake off the ominous feeling.
...I should have realized there was a variable there.
As we walked and walked, we were soon near the entrance. We were only a few steps away from leaving this Lobotomy Corporation branch.
"In the end, there was neither a Golden Bough nor any survivors..."
"Hah. Well, it wasn't bad, since we got the chance to see a work from a new perspective. Hmph."
"Hmm~ Isn't it fine? Usually, when you get stripped this badly, it's a sign you'll hit the jackpot next time~"
"It seems like if we want to find that Bough, we'll have to rummage around in the middle of the lake... Grr. Should I have learned how to swim...?"
Amid the stream of nonsense from each of them, Ms. Ishmael brought up a serious point.
"If what that man said is true, then the Golden Bough was swallowed and taken away by the pale whale."
"Are you really going after it? That windmill-sized... no, house-sized... no...? Fortress-sized pale whale?"
"And even if we catch it... how are we supposed to get the Golden Bough? Make it spit it back up? Going back would be..."
Going back. At those words, Ms. Ishmael reacted intensely. Literally intensely.
"Going back? And then what are you going to do? Oh, just give up on the Golden Bough? Just brush it off like nothing happened and move on to the next operation?"
"······."
"I don't know if this group even allows giving up the Golden Bough like that... But whatever the case, I'm not going back. Do you know how I've held on until now? The reason I entered this damned company and kept enduring all this time has always been one thing. Faust, you know, don't you?"
"······."
For the record, both of those silences came from Ms. Faust. She was probably thinking something after hearing Ms. Ishmael's words.
Then the answer that followed was likely her response to that.
"As Ms. Ishmael says, abandoning the restoration of the Golden Bough at a time like this is not permissible. However... we will not be able to move anywhere for the time being. I think it would be appropriate to rendezvous with Mr. Vergilius and discuss what comes next."
"Ha, is that it? Is it because of that shitty lake rule again?"
"Yes, that is correct. About two hours remain."
"Well done, Mr. Heathcliff."
"This is..."
Wow, Mr. Hong Lu. His talent for needling people is top-tier... ngh!
- KREEEEEEEEEEK────!!!!
Suddenly, a massive impact slammed into the interior. What was that? An attack? At this timing? Here?
The ominous premonition from earlier flashed through my mind all at once. And even farther back, the unease that had brushed past me when we got information on the Bluefin Harbor ship.
Don't tell me...
"F-for now, get outside!"
At Dante's command, the prisoners fled out through the entrance all at once.
And what appeared there was...
"Wh... what... what is that?!"
"I observed several vessels beyond the fog. However, their silhouettes are not Mephistopheles."
Several ships. And clearly heading this way.
At the overwhelming sense of crisis screaming through my instincts, I fully activated the eye's ability. My gaze landed on the ship in the center... Ah.
"W-what... Was there some kind of misfire?"
"N-no, wait! Is that really what you're worried about? The water wasn't this high here before!!"
Mr. Heathcliff shouted something. He was probably talking about how the water level, which had been far below us until just now, had risen to nearly the same height as the branch platform we were standing on.
It was an important matter, an important matter, but... I couldn't hear it.
Of course not. Who could focus on something like that when obvious death was materializing and coming straight at us?
"It's high tide. It seems this lake has a phenomenon where the water level rises and falls dramatically as time passes."
- BOOM!!!
"Something was fired."
"Brace for impact! It's coming again!"
- KANG!! KANG!!
Harpoons fired from the ship far away flew in an instant and slammed into the floor.
What do we do? How do we escape from here? Could we somehow board the boat below the platform and flee? Could we make it in time...
"It wasn't... a misfire...?"
My head generated countless plans, then erased them. Yet even through that process of refinement, no clear path to survival appeared.
Even so, my body kept moving faithfully, batting away the harpoon flying toward Dante.
"Those... double-hook bastards... I really do respect how persistent they are."
"Manager, those are probably the scraps that man you insisted on keeping alive called in."
"······."
"No."
I cut off Ms. Ishmael's sneer in one stroke. What was coming now had nothing to do with that sort of thing.
"I wish it were the Double-Hook Pirate Crew behind this... but this time, it doesn't seem to have much to do with Dante."
"Then is there anything else that could be chasing us? Other than those scraps..."
"I'm the one who's going crazy because I can't figure out the reason, so shut up for a second. Haa..."
"What do you mean by that..."
Why, why on earth was that huge group suddenly making a move? The Double-Hook Pirate Crew might have some muscle in the backstreets, but they'd still be a powerless subcontractor. Wasn't it far too economically irrational for someone of that caliber to show up just because we interfered with their business once?
There was an obvious variable. Otherwise, it couldn't be explained.
"Wait! Why are you all so serious? Think about it for a second and you'll get it. If we're bound to the lake, then those guys must be bound to the lake too, right? Well, even if they stick in a bunch of harpoons, they can't drag the ship all the way over here themselves... so in the meantime... what was it."
"No. Usually... when pirates fire harpoons, it isn't for that kind of purpose."
"······."
- KREEEERRRRRKKK...!!
The sound of metal grinding against metal rang in my ears.
The Double-Hook Pirate Crew's underlings hooked their own harpoons onto the lines connected to the harpoons embedded in the branch, and began sliding down them as they were.
"So that was an option..."
"Haha, we put hooks on for momentum like this!"
"Anyone want to ride a harpoon? Me! Me!"
Ah, damn it. Too late. We should have done something in the meantime.
Predestined death was beginning to close in. A massive force we could not resist in our current state.
There were only two possibilities for survival.
One: somehow keep Dante adrift on the lake, even if it meant becoming a lost soul in it.
Two: have Vergilius arrive in time.
Light began to return to my eye little by little.
Somehow, I would turn that threadbare possibility into reality.
I raised my spear.
There was still something I had to do.