SSS-Class Suicide Hunter Chapter 135

Chapter 135. < ■■. (3) >

Translator: thursdays Editor: Yahiko PR: LightBrin

3.

Little by little, the world shrank.

First was beyond city limits. Then the downtown area.

[The degree of the trauma's implementation is decreasing.]

[The data cannot be recovered.]

From the outskirts of the city, erosive darkness encroached the streets. Writhing. Slinking. The darkness was like a tentacle, alive and moving. I decided to call that ominous, dark fog the Void.

“…I'm going to school a bit early today.”

Many things became unseeable. I could no longer see people's faces. I couldn't see the church's steeple. I couldn't see the signs plastered on the walls of the shopping mall like bark on a tree.

The world was marked by the Void.

“I have to go to the farm and feed the rabbits.”

However, there were things that I could finally see now.

“The farm?”

“Yeah. Behind the school… Well.”

The Constellation Killer sighed.

“There's no way someone like you would know. Anyway, there's a place where we raise rabbits and chickens. I have to feed them.”

'Was there such a place?'

Thinking back, the orphanage had an area to raise animals, too, although it soon disappeared. In the past, did middle and high schools have animal farms?

“Why do you have to feed them? Shouldn't there be someone else in charge?”

“…There used to be a club for animal care. But last year, a foreign woman broke into the school at night and jumped off the roof with a newborn baby. Don't you remember? The baby fell into the farm. Since then, applications to the club completely stopped.”

It was the first I was hearing about it. However, the Constellation Killer's tone implied he was talking about a very infamous incident. It seemed a bunch of things had happened at this school.

“Why did a foreign lady come to a school in a whole different country with a kid…?”

“A teacher here apparently fathered the kid by accident while on a business trip abroad.”

“It was a middle school teacher, not a high school one,” muttered the Constellation Killer.

“Anyway, we don't have an animal caretaking club anymore. The middle school class presidents are supposed to take turns feeding the animals, but… There's no way middle schoolers are going to stick to it, you know? So the security guard, me, and some middle school kid take care of feeding the animals between the three of us.”

That was…

A corner of the world that I never knew of.

The animal farm.

There, we imprisoned rabbits and chickens in cramped cages, making that small space their whole world.

Was it not being properly managed? The smell of chicken and rabbit urine was effusive. The feed, which had carelessly been poured in great quantities at once, was repeatedly soaked by rain and dried again, making it reek.

“Ah, seriously. Someone just pretended to do the work and left again.”

The Constellation Killer frowned.

“If they were gonna do this, they should have just skipped out instead. It's worse than if they didn't do it.”

“Should I help?”

“It's fine. I have to take care of it anyway.”

The Constellation Killer rolled up his sleeves.

“Just stand there. Or go to class first.”

The Constellation Killer took out the rotten heap of fuzz. He threw away the straw in a large sack. Then, he took out a broom and a rake from storage and cleaned up the hutch.

He seemed well-versed with the task.

The Constellation Killer picked up a rubber hose and sprinkled water over the farm.

Shaaaa—

In a world where most things could not be seen, a world corroded by the Void, a high school student sprayed water at 6:40 a.m. behind Shinseo Middle and High School. It was tranquil. The water reflected the color of the dawn.

I was peeping between the cracks that had opened up in the world.

[How filthy.]

[How can you be even dirtier than the math teacher?]

[You smell really bad.]

The world.

It was shrinking.

“Do you have something to say to me?”

Chapter end