Chapter 31 - Mysterious Sense of Discomfort
“Aarrghh!!!”
Daiki forced the manhole open while raising his voice.
The manhole moved with a grating sound, and Daiki looked inside.
“Huh… It seems like it’ll work.”
“OK. As expected of Daiki.”
After opening the manhole of this school, Daiki entered it and tried opening it from the inside.
At this rate, it would be enough to be able to open the manhole to the shopping district.
If they were connected, that was.
“But… is it big enough for people to go through?”
“Yeah, since I heard that the water supply is big around here, it’s big enough for you to go through. There’s an air valve too, so we don’t have to worry about breathing.”
“Hmmm. Well, I’ll be going.”
Daiki had put on a flashlight to his baseball helmet with packing tape, so he once again went inside the manhole.
He had his phone in a plastic bag in his hand.
He used the map on his phone as guidance when he moved, so as long as the waterway continued, he should be able to go there.
Immediately following, he heard a voice coming from the bottom of the manhole.
“Tooru! Tooru!”
“What happened, Daiki?”
Peering into the manhole, he saw Daiki waving his hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Bingo! It’s pretty big!”
That was a relief.
Apparently, it was according to his memory, it wasn’t the sort that only had a few centimeters of space for inspection.
“Ugh! The air is bad down here!”
It’s underground, and that was to be expected, but he felt like he was lacking a bit of tension.
Takumi sighed, went inside the manhole, and slapped Daiki on his head.
“Hey! That hurts! I’ll die!”
Hearing the satisfying sound of the slap and Daiki’s weird shout, he understood that the punishment was completed.
Well, then, they needed to carry out the preparation here too…
Turning the key, the engine started with a slightly high sound.
White smoke rose from the muffler, and the massive trunk started vibrating.
“OK, it seems like the engine is running.”
The minibus for club activities should have an engine with horsepower suitable for putting on armor.
However, they had to dismantle the things they didn’t want, or the possibility of the armor being too heavy for the minibus to move was high.
“First off, we’ll remove all of the seats… Oh, no, let’s leave a number of seats. After that, Senior Honma and Honda, and Rei, go and get the armor. I think there is raw material in the storehouse. Senior Shouda1 please take care of the things that need to be weld. It’s best to weld now when the electricity is still on, so please hurry. Ryou and I will destroy the seats.”
After each of them had assumed their jobs, Ryou brought a hammer and saw, and sulfric acid they found in the science lab as well various other things he found, and left them on the floor of the minibus.
“Then, which will we try?”
“F-first off, the hammer, I think…”
Raising the hammer in his hand, he slammed it with all his strength.
However, it didn’t make much damage.
“Hmm… This feels like it’ll take longer time than I expected.”
“First, let’s use the saw to detatch the covering. Then, we can destroy the frame.”
“I agree!”
Ryou started wielding the saw as if he’d gone mad.
It wasn’t like he couldn’t understand his excitement.
Now, they could freely do the things they weren’t allowed to before, and no one could critizice them.
He really couldn’t get into it.
Seiji thought that over and over.
It was something he was always entangled in recently.
It was from when they had closed the gates, but he wondered why he accepted the job the didn’t want to do just after being asked to do it by Tsubasa.
He felt like he couldn’t refuse him for some reason.
However, was that possible?
His position was supposed be higher, and if he was a king, then Tsubasa was a beggar.
Still, it was like his instinct had been cut up into pieces…
“Seiji, what happend?”
Tsubasa turned and asked him.
What was this uncomfortable feeling…
He felt like he had watched this scene from somewhere.
It might be some kind of dejavu.
However, those eyes buttering up to him jolted a memory deep inside him.
It was weird, something was weird.
Unparalelled anxiety rushed around inside him.
“Tsubaki, you’re hiding something.”
“Me? I’m not really hiding…”
Tsubaki tilted his head as he pondered.
In the past, he might have hit him without hesitation, but the him now didn’t feel like doing it.
Because each of his gestures seemed like transparent acting.
He didn’t understand why.
It was only that all of Tsubaki’s words and actions so far seemed like acting.
Suddenly, an extremely cold wave rushed over him, and Seiji froze.
If he thought of everything Tsubaki had done as acting, why was Tsubaki continuing to do it?
Even if he kept being beaten, why did he stay with him?
What was his goal…?
“No, it’s nothing. Forget it.”
Saying that, the legs approaching him trembled a little.
He walked forward being careful of not arousing suspicion.
A/N:
It seems like there aren’t many sewers that people can pass through, and most of them are only in small-scale for inspection (their depth being several centimeters).
Also, it is impossible for an ordinary person to move inside a manhole.
It is just part of fiction, so please don’t imitate it. (There probably isn’t any either)
- For those who don’t remember, it’s Shinji Shouda, the student council president. ↑