Vol 9 Chapter 42 (1/2)
This is continued fro to Nezumi, the Forest People are those who have made the forest their home Since ancient times, they've lived in harmony with the wind, the earth, lakes and rivers, and the sky
To borrow Rou's words, the forest is a place both of their birth and upbringing They nurtured, respected, and continued to protect the forest They lived peacefully within the bounds of nature without desiring prosperity or development Even those who lived in the Town of Roses had no idea about their existence
Elyurias' poasn't what allowed the abundant forest to survive on this land It was because the Forest People protected it Through the long, perpetual flow of time, they continued to protect the forest
Nezumi is a descendant of those Forest People
Inukashi+ shi+fted
Rikiga let his empty juice bottle roll across the floor It continued to roll until it hit the doctor's arm, and stopped
Nezumi is a descendant of the Forest People He's also a descendant of the ”Singers”
”Singers?”
”Yes, Singers―those who had the power to appease Elyurias and converse with her There were always a nu the Forest People”
Neither Elyurias nor nature were eenerosity On the contrary, they could easily turn terrifying The Forest People knew this
Both nature and Elyurias could bare their fangs and attack suddenly at any time Their poas absolute―no human could compare That made them all the more dreadful
Yes, the Forest People knew fear They kne to fear as well as revere Singers could appease Elyurias' wrath with their voices, and were able to exchange words with her They had the ability to mediate between humans and nature Nezumi had this ability, and so did his mother
Rou ventured deep into the forest, met Elyurias and the Forest People, and reported their existence to No 6 He had no idea that this had planted the seed for the Mao Massacre
”The Mao Massacre?” Creases appeared between Rikiga's eyebrows
”Yes 'Mao' apparently refers to the area near the lakeshore where the Forest People lived They had a settlement there It's where the airport is now Apparently the lake was drained to build the airport I had no idea”
”I didn't know, either,” Rikiga said ”I was already kicked out when they started building it A massacre, huh which means No 6 must have invaded the Mao area and tried to wipe out its residents?”
”Yes”
”What for? Did they need land for the airport?”
”No What they really wanted was Elyurias”
”What for?”
What for Rikiga kept repeating the same question
What for, what for Really, as this for? What made people this brutal, this ruthless?
shi+on looked down at the doctor's body It had lost all its human warmth and was now a cold corpse The nurse lay beyond it, and beyond her lay an unna the lives of others so easily?
In the short instant that he closed his eyes, he could see the Hunt unfold again behind his eyelids He could hear the groans of the people loaded onto the truck's cargo bed In his ears rang the screams of the people who had died, piled on top of each other in the basement of the Correctional Facility
What for?
Perplexity―not anger―snagged shi+on and would not release hiures of No 6? Hadn't Rou said so hi; everyone had hopes to build a utopian city
It had taken mere decades for these hopes and ideals to mutate Mere decades shi+on sed his breath
What kind of person will I be in a few decades? Would I still be able to hold the sae sixteen? Would I be connected in any forh to make him shi+ver
What did they want Elyurias for? Her special powers
”Special powers?” Inukashi+'s mouth fell open as he stared at shi+on
”Yeah Elyurias es that fly around flowers and stuff?”
”Those would be honeybees Elyurias is a parasitic wasp She lays eggs in her hosts”
Inukashi+'s s hatch inside the host's body They groithout the host's knowledge, becoh the host's body to escape, leaving hi to No 6 right now
Elyurias' children are all beginning to hatch They're children who fed off No 6 citizens in order to grow
I told you earlier that Elyurias looks like a wasp But she isn't one No one knoho or what she really is Rou has recorded that he thinks she ht be between a hus, I'll call her a 'she', but I don't think there'sher sex Maybe she's taken the forgs inside the hosts Maybe she only appears as a wasp to human eyes
She has an enormous intellect―and intellect that far surpasses that of humankind And she had the power to exert perfect control over the hosts
Because of that power, the hosts were programmed to take actions that were favourable to the children of Elyurias, oblivious to the fact that they were being leeched froer were honed, and they becaly sensitive to their nutrition They were controlled to take every effort to entle; they began to avoid disputes It ets Think about how malnourished the West Block people are, coupled with their substandard environment as hosts, they were out of the question Nezuourht
”Ironic, ain't it,” Inukashi+ muttered ”We starved, we froze, we didn't knoe would die but because of that, we West Block residents were spared”
”These were the absolutely necessary conditions for the eggs: the host needed to be alive when they hatched, and the host needed to be healthy Even Elyurias couldn't turn the West Block into a paradise But she didn't need to”
”You've already got the best hosts you could ask for in No 6”
”That's right”
”The wasps controlled the hua who opened his edly
”Yes They canto their every whianisms A certain schisotome blindfolds the human immune system and makes it think that it's harmless A species of parasitic wasp injects its DNA into the caterpillar that it chooses as its host, and disables the caterpillar's immune system cohly-functional parasitic organism like Elyurias, who chooses humans as her host and controls thee”
”And No 6 wanted that power―the power to coa made a choked noise in his throat It was a dry, brittle sound, siid winter wind
No 6 had tried to attain Elyurias' power
They caative reports, and tried to use it in building their government
Elyurias' characteristics reht of her as a mere insect, ahalfway between man and God, like Rou did Not one of thebut a queen bee with an unusually large intellect It would be no large task training her and controlling her according to their needs―that hat they believed
An investigative squad was formed for the capture of Elyurias, and they set foot into the forest There, they met adamant resistance by the Forest People
Elyurias did not constantly reside in the forest She appeared once every few years, or once every few decades―always unexpectedly Everything about her―what the necessary conditions were for her appearance, when she laid eggs, and how long she lived afterwards―was a s, Elyurias always disappeared She withdrew fros she laid It was never clear whether that was going to be a few years or decades later
No one has seen Elyurias' body From the time this forest appeared on this land, Elyurias had been repeating the sale person had ever seen her corpse
A the Forest People, it was said that Elyurias was immortal, that she revived endless times―that her corpse decayed somewhere where no eye could see, and became the forest itself
When Elyurias appeared, the Forest People appeased her with song They prayed and pleaded with her that they would not become hosts They carried out rituals, and offered a Godly Bed The Godly Bed was a type offor is there After the eggs were laid, the Godly Bed never seemed to rot or dry out; instead, it maintained an adequate level of ence of the adult wasp
Yes, it was the saed and died within the blink of an eye ied
The Forest People protected the Godly Bed with their bodies and souls It was part of their proes As long as the Forest People continued to protect the Godly Bed, Elyurias did not inflict any harm on them She not only protected the people, but the forest and its land
That was the rule
No 6 had burst onto the scene and wrenched everything from them They had burned down the settlement of the Forest People when they resisted; they had massacred women, children, and the elderly indiscriminately They had taken the Godly Bed back to No 6
The Mao Massacre―the demise of the Forest People
This incident took place just twelve years ago
shi+on sucked in a huge breath, and exhaled He felt like there was no other way to let the air reach every corner of his body
”Frouesswork, not Rou's records I'a leaned forward as if to encourage hirimaced as if he had smelled some unbearable stench
”The upper echelons of No 6 probably attes artificially in the Godly Bed that they'd brought back, and failed They had no Singers, and therefore couldn't maintain the Godly Bed Nonetheless, they refused to acknowledge anything other than scientific proof But through their countless failures, one thing they realized was that the roas inside the hurabbed his head
”Yes Not a cow's, pig's, or s hatched if they used a human brain, and that one of them would be born the queen bee, as another Elyurias”
”And then, what?”
”They is inside a number of citizens secretly―just like a ould use its ovipositer to lay eggs inside its host It was easy enough to give a needle during scheduled check-ups, saying it was only part of the procedure They chose sae, build, and environment I was one of them Rou was also chosen as a host, but it seems Elyurias' will had some influence in this case Both of us survived because the parasite's developes successfully That s were effective also as assassination weapons The upper echelons would do anything to have Elyurias in their power They were desperate to have her under control Maybe they already had a faint premonition that cracks would start to form in No 6 Maybe they knew that their selective and exclusive government would soed That hy they wanted definite control over others They wished to be the queen bee, and to reign as the absolute, sole ruler”
”Were front-line research facilities set up in the Correctional Facility to, uure out what kind of conditions Elyurias required to ee as an adult I think any human effort would have been fruitless―it would always be a mystery But they built a research facility anyway, to unravel a mystery that couldn't be unravelled In it there were rows of countless brains, contained in special cases I's were planted in every one”
It came back to him
The rows of brains trapped in cylindrical cases; Safu, trapped in its innera stroked his chin ”In the Correctional Facility, you could have as many brains as you wanted Couldn't ask for a better place”
”Makes me sick” Inukashi+ clutched his chest He looked truly nauseous: all the colour had receded from his face He tossed his piece of bread aside
”I've been starved enough to eat grass and caterpillars off the ground, but I've never felt this sick before I don't see whatever it is you're seeing So―was this Hunt a massive harvest of human brains?”
”Yes They probably wanted to experiment on human brains that have survived harsh conditions They wanted brains affected by various things, like large amounts of stress, or the will to live, or fear, or excite to be sick” A dog nuzzled up to Inukashi+ He buried his face in its coat and sniffed
”These guys are are a hundred times, a thousand tilad I've got dogs on my teaht, Inukashi+ Dogs are a hundred times, a thousand times, ten thousand times better than humans I can see why you'd feel that way
Inukashi+ sneezed softly He sniffled
”So, what, Nezu descendant of the Forest People or whatever?”
Nezumi raised his face The colour had returned to his cheeks, perhaps thanks to Aria's care Itrather than a beautiful doll
”Yes”