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Chapter 68 – Apparently, the Youngest Sister is Prone to Causing Trouble
by im here to enjoy“Shall we start seriously exchanging information now…”
My words finally prompted us to begin discussing the cause of this situation. We’ve been taking this abnormal situation, where everyone but us is in a sleepwalking state, quite leisurely, I think to myself… Kagura-san made a somewhat ominous comment like, “Well, I guess I’ll take my time getting the additional information out of them later,” but I decided to ignore it for now.
“Konoha-chan, you mentioned something about an explosive power late at night… what kind of thing was that?”
That’s the first thing we don’t understand. After all, the only one here who perceived it is the Inari god, Konoha-chan. Kagura-san, who was protected by her when it happened, remains sane but apparently didn’t perceive this “explosive power.” It’s like how someone without spiritual sensitivity can’t perceive ghosts… or so the saying goes. Konoha-chan looked up at us while munching on the fried tofu pouch placed on her small plate.
“…It was a very strong power. But it wasn’t an easily understandable power like fire or water. It felt more like… similar to the power used by certain gods.” (Konoha)
“Certain… Does that mean your mother, Sakaki-san, can also do something like this?”
When I casually asked, Konoha-chan gave a small shake of her head.
“Even among gods, there are many different types. There’s a difference in what they can interfere with. For example, Mother is a god originating from the Shirasagi family who protects the mountain, and I am currently a guardian deity dispatched to protect the Kagura family, so we specialize in protection, but don’t have much offensive power…” (Konoha)
“Ah~ I see…”
So, it’s not that they can’t use it, but rather they have no need to… Konoha-chan and her mother are truly guardian deities, just as the term implies.
“Does that mean, Konoha-chan, that the one who did this is a god, or possesses power comparable to a god?”
A chill ran down my spine at the words Amane inadvertently spoke. Power comparable to a god… It sounds like something out of a manga, and while it also sounds rather chuunibyou when heard aloud, looking at the sleepwalking people around us… it’s not funny at all.
『Mother said that enveloping the entire city requires considerable power. There’s no doubt that whoever created this state possesses immense divine power…』 (Konoha)
“Divine power… Having ‘god’ in the name sounds cool, but in this situation, it only makes me tense.” (Kagura)
Kagura-san said with a wry smile, and Konoha-chan added a supplement.
『There are various ways to say it. It’s simply a power used by one’s will to affect the natural world, so I call it divine power (Jinzūriki) because I’m familiar with it, but depending on the person, it might be called spiritual power (Reiryoku), ki power (Kiryoku), dharma power (Hōriki), spirit power (Seireiryoku), or even magical power (Maryoku)…』 (Konoha)
“Magical power…………” (Amane)
Something seemed to catch Amane’s attention, as she murmured at Konoha-chan’s explanation, but Konoha-chan continued without seeming to notice.
『However, Mother mentioned that despite using such immense power, the purpose is completely unclear.』 (Konoha)
“Purpose? Isn’t creating this situation the purpose? The city-wide sleepwalking state, despite such an abnormal situation occurring, that’s not the purpose?”
Plunging many people into sleep and carrying out some evil deed in the meantime… That was the cliché scenario I had assumed from this situation…
『The people who fell into the sleepwalking state are all maintaining their “daily lives” even while asleep. There’s been no sign of causing chaos by confining this phenomenon solely to the city, even after a full day.』 (Konoha)
“Huh? Confining it only to the city??”
As I struggled to understand, Kagura-san took a sheet of loose-leaf paper from her bag and drew a large circle.
“Inside this circle is the city, and this circle has a radius of about 10 kilometers. To put it simply, this is the ‘Barrier of Sleep’… but strangely, this boundary allows completely free entry and exit, and the sleepwalking state seems to lift once you cross it.” (Kagura)
Kagura-san tapped the circumference of the circle with her mechanical pencil.
“Seriously? I totally thought entry and exit were impossible at this border…”
“Yeah, I tried taking a train outside the city… The moment we crossed the border, the sleepwalking state of the people inside the train lifted all at once, and they all started talking simultaneously. Conversely, coming back into the city, the moment we crossed the border, they closed their eyes and fell silent all at once… It was so creepy I couldn’t help but laugh.” (Kagura)
She gave a wry smile, saying it felt like encountering a flash mob, but I didn’t think the situation was that amusing. So, whoever caused this situation is maintaining this ‘Barrier of Sleep’ using immense power while being careful not to cause social chaos… That’s why people outside the city can’t notice this situation either. After all, the moment they step into the city, they fall asleep. Doing something so large-scale, yet seemingly having no intention to disrupt human society… It gives a very contradictory impression… What on earth was the purpose of creating such a situation… making the entire city sleepwalk…?
“The purpose… Is there maybe a hint in the contents of the dream we were seeing?” (Amane)
“A hint in the dream’s content………… No way…”
At that moment, a strange idea, perhaps a reversal of thinking, popped into my head. Thinking, ‘No way, that can’t be right~,’ I voiced the thought…
“No way… what?” (Amane)
“Could it be that the main objective is the ‘dream’ itself, and the sleepwalking state is just a ‘bonus’?”
“Eh!?” (Amane)
Amane’s eyes widened at my outlandish shift in perspective. But for some reason, the moment I shifted my thinking like that, my thoughts seemed to get a boost, and my ideas about the future world dream I had been seeing until just now started to come together. …Trying my best not to recall the mushy stuff between Amane and me, I focused on the other parts of the dream. Doing so… yes… The setting based on a ‘future world,’ a ‘lunar city,’ and a ‘war that developed from differences in robot ideology’… At this point, I finally understood the outline of that dream.
“…Why is it that in dreams, no matter how absurd the situation, we just accept it and fail to notice anything beyond that?”
“…Did you figure something out?” (Amane)
Perhaps because I’d only been having ‘lucid dreams’ where I could be aware within the dream lately, I had forgotten that feeling, but originally, dreams are like movies that just play out automatically. Even if the world setting is inexplicably ‘the world of this season’s mass-produced robot anime,’ you can’t even point it out, and you won’t notice during the dream! And then, when you wake up, you think, “I had a dream about XX”…
“Don’t you get it? A story that starts with a doctor, who established a third, hybrid theory to end the war stemming from two major robot theories on a future lunar base, getting caught in a terrorist attack. The robot anime from this season that Kudo and the others were fiercely debating the other day…” (Yumeji)
“Eh? You mean that dream was…” (Amane)
“The heroine doctor coming to the university as a special lecturer, being attacked by terrorists causing an explosion, and the protagonist saving her and getting into the heroine’s robot—that’s exactly the flow of the first episode… Damn it, no wonder I could sense the explosion coming…” (Yumeji)
When I instinctively saved Amane in the dream, I was spouting embarrassing things about a sixth sense, but I should have known. After all, I’ve been watching that anime this season without missing a single episode since the first one… So, that dream was a ‘rip-off of the currently airing robot anime.’
“Ah… I see. I actually missed the beginning of that anime… So it starts from a lunar city~ That……………” (Amane)
Amane spoke up to that point… then her expression went blank. Apparently… if that dream was someone’s dream faithfully recreating ‘that anime,’ then the question becomes whose dream it is. Because, that means… it would be the culprit, or someone equivalent. Amane, who hadn’t watched from the beginning, naturally didn’t know the ‘lunar city’ part. Dreams seem to be constructed from one’s own memories, so to perform a faithful reproduction, one would need to have watched that anime thoroughly from the first episode. Furthermore… if that world is someone’s dream, there’s no reason that someone wouldn’t want to be a main character. I know that feeling all too well from having played around extensively in lucid dreams. A main character, involved right from the first episode… In that dream, the person who fits that description… among us, was wearing glasses and smiling smugly.
“The doctor of the third robot theory… was it? Kamui Alice-san…” (Yumeji)
“Technically Kamui Airi, though, Kamu-chan…………” (Amane)
“Ah~~… If it’s her… she might just do it…” (Kagura)
My words seemed to make them grasp various things, as not only Amane but also Kagura-san sighed and held their heads. Among the three of them, she seemed the quietest and more inclined towards literature, but… apparently, it’s different for her best friends…