There Was No Secret Organization to Fight with the World's Darkness so I Made One (In Exasperation) Chapter 20

Chapter 20 – Do ESP'ers Long for Fantasy?

Since the Super Water-Ball incident, the number of people in Tokyo had increased, Why? Easy. It was because the live broadcast of the battle between the Super Water-Ball and the mysterious people in black ignited a fire in the hearts of occult-maniacs all around the world. If I wasn't the one behind the match-pump1, I would probably be excited as well. I would've probably investigated it until my eyes became completely bloodshot. Haneda International Airport's flights are full all day long. The flights are not only completely booked, there's also a long waiting list and even additional flights have been added.

The increase in the number of foreigners in the city makes it seem as if the Olympics have started early. The hotels have no vacancies, police officers are busy with traffic control and preventing riots; everything is rather chaotic. Interpreters gather together in large groups, offering their services to the large amount of people going sightseeing in Tokyo, and the government has been raving about the sudden economic boom.

However. As one would expect, when the population increases, the amount of abandoned/deserted areas decreases. To be more specific, those who are investigating the Super Water-Ball incident and the mystery of the enormous black bird that took off from the warehouse district near Tokyo Bay coastal area seem to be searching for it in unpopulated areas. They're acting like searching for an ESP'er is like going on a hunt for a rare animal or something. For a while now, at night there's been the odd scene of groups of foreigners, including people with showy hairdos holding crystal canes and dark-skinned men with dubious tattoos, loitering around these areas.

I can't sacrifice Shoutkun and Toukchan to these hunters, but I do deliberately let them catch a glimpse of the world's darkness every now and then, just to keep the gossip going. I don't allow them to get any hard evidence, just enough to keep them interested. For instance, I'll make one appear at a corner, then disappear before they can get their cameras out. Or I make their camera break down or make it so that the image is too blurry to clearly see anything.This arouses curiosity more than providing hard evidence would. And at the same time, rumors are being spread of people being attacked and even eaten by a black water monster. In order to make sure that people don't find out the truth, I also post misleading things on the internet, like; “It's the world's darkness and is a collection of the evil thoughts of mankind”; or, “It 's actually made of oil and explodes when it gets too close to fire”; in this way it becomes difficult to separate fact from fiction.

It is true that the world's darkness has been witnessed.

It is a lie that people have been attacked by it.

However, the two rumors started at the same time, so people get mixed up, and both are misunderstood as true. Of the approximately 80,000 missing people in Japan every year, 1000 to 2000 end up never being discovered. Those are being claimed as victims of the world's darkness. Before long, the rumor that “The world's darkness has attacked people” spreads far and wide. And no matter how much people investigate, there's not a scrap of physical evidence. Even official police investigations turn up nothing. Therefore, eventually it'll be treated as nothing more than some sort of occult phenomenon. It was Kaburagi-san's idea to circulate rumors and create this sort of “urban legend”, and by hiring a trustworthy person to spread detailed rumors, we experienced a great success. This urban legend will be extremely helpful in creating “victims” of the world's darkness without their being any actual victims.

On the subject of the world's darkness, after the Super Water-Ball incident, it experienced a major upgrade. Specifically, it went from having an unfixed, irregular shape, to being a humanoid-like figure.

It was humans that beat the violent existence of the Super Water-Ball. As a result, an unconscious change of perception that man is more powerful than an unknown monster occured. As a result, the world's darkness, which was irregular, came to imitate the human form. Because it is a symbol of human violence.

…Well, that's the “official” reasoning anyway. The truth is, I did this to keep the battles from becoming stale. No creature fights as diversely as humans. There are many fighting methods. Therefore, the human type is more convenient for preparing various attack methods and battle situations. There is a risk that, once they get used to the existence of humanoids, they won't hesitate to attack humans themselves, and that their morals will be destroyed. However, after completing the World Graduation Exam, Shoutkun and Toukchan have grown spiritually, so I believe that having their targets resemble human beings won't cause a breakdown of their morals. Those two have a very strong will.

Unfortunately, willpower alone isn't enough to improve your academic ability. If you don't study, your knowledge won't increase. Shoutkun and Toukchan are now in their third year of middle school, and are diligently reviewing and prepping for lessons every day. Occasionally, Kaburagi-san will help them with things that they don't understand. It seems that Shoutkun is smarter than Toukchan. It's to the point where if he studies hard enough, he can understand the material without having to be taught by someone else. But, sometimes he pretends to not understand things so that they can ask Kaburagi-san for help. Kaburagi-san sees right through him though, and continues on teaching only Toukchan.

It seems like Shoutkun is sometimes alienated from the other two, so while they were chatting, I disguised an erotic magazine as a reference book and silently passed it to him. It had big breasts on it. He tried to keep it a secret from the girls, but Shoutkun could sense them silently staring at him. How do you do that, Kaburagi-san, Toukchan? You communicate with just one look!

With simple and heartwarming days like this, time flew by, and before we knew it, it was the third-year middle school students' summer vacation. Kaburagi-san set a goal for the summer break period: to use the Super Water-Ball incident to make connections in the government, police, and the media. Also, we decided that it was about time to induct a new member to our organization.

During the break, I also prepared the world's darkness, in order to refresh the two who were tired from their exams. Of course, I set it up in a place where it has been confirmed that there are no people in the vicinity and that no surveillance cameras are installed. Toukchan decided that it would be better for her to stay home and copy sutras than to participate in the mission, so Shoutkun ended up going by himself.

Shoutkun confronted two humanoid world darkness' in a bare concrete room that was covered in a blue tarp in a building that was slated to be demolished. He used the maximum stable temperature he was capable of (-200°C) to create two ice swords, and used a dual-wielding sword style to magnificently take them down. When the battle was over, he changed the temperature of the ice swords from -200°C to 0°C, then threw them on the ground, shattering them into pieces. After it was all over, Shoutkun was sweating, but he had a refreshing expression on his face. *Umu*. Until they enter high school, I will continue administering battles with the world's darkness in small amounts, in a moderate enough measure so that it continues to be a source of stress relief.

Was it because I was distracted by these random thoughts?

I didn't notice that, the whole time, a little girl was watching Shotkun's battle with her eyes wide open from behind the broken door of the abandoned building.

I was shocked. This was confusing. I had confirmed that there was no one in the abandoned building. I had even monitored the windows and doorways to prevent new people from entering. I also carefully checked places where people could hide. So why was a little girl standing there? Did she teleport in? That doesn't make sense. Did I just overlook her?

No way.
There's no way I just overlooked her.
Right?
There isn't, is there?
Isn't there?
I might have.
It's possible.

…I'm not confident.

The little girl rushed over to Shoutkun while excitedly shouting in an unknown language. She rapidly shook his hand, not taken aback at all by his delinquent-like red hair and jangling silver accessories. Her hair is braided and white… actually, looking closer at it, it may be silver? Well, either way, she has it in one long braid. She looks like she's around 9 or 10 years old. She's wearing a plain white dress, and has beautiful dark green eyes. She looks so mysterious, like she could be in a fantasy film or something. For some reason, she feels more elegant and beautiful instead of cute, like a girl her age should be. Maybe it's because of her ears?

Yes, the little girl had strange ears. Her ears were long and pointed, like an elf's.

“Rea yo au verbra? M'i te heequn f o Alvse, Lonalia Linalia VavNyan!”2

“Huh? What? Um, 'Ekkyuzu mi'? Um, young lady, uh, 'pulizu, spiku, japanizu?'”1

The language she's speaking sounds vaguely familiar. It's almost English, but not quite. Shoutkun, like most middle-school students, is suspicious of this strange foreigner who has suddenly run up to him and started talking. But where did this girl come from?

Well, I guess it's not that unusual these days for an elf-like child to be wandering around Tokyo. The day before yesterday, I saw on the news a shinigami-like2 man who was nothing but skin and bones. His name was Charles Smith, age 32, from Wisconsin, USA. He was wandering around an alley with a scythe in tattered black clothes, and was arrested by the police for violating the Swords and Firearms Control Law and the Narcotics Control Law. Due to the recent supernatural events, weirdos from all over the world are flocking to Tokyo en masse. Since there was someone who looked like a shinigami, why can't there be a kid who looks like an elf? That's not the problem. The problem is that she somehow slipped past my surveillance net.

But… hmmm. I'm quickly beginning to doubt my memory. I feel that, recently, I haven't been taking the unmanned surveillance seriously, and because she's a small child, it's possible that she just managed to slip through a narrow gap in my surveillance. And, when I tried touching her mind with my psychokinesis, I definitely didn't feel that she had an origin point for superpowers. I'm pretty sure it's not a sudden appearance of a random ESP'er. In that case, it just means that she somehow was hidden from my surveillance or something. I relaxed. Since I'm not a police officer or anything, it's not really a big deal. It helps that she's just a nice, foreign little girl that doesn't speak Japanese. At least, I think. And even if she does tell someone about how she saw an ice-user fighting with the world's darkness, people will think that it's nothing more than a child's delusion.

While I was trying to reassure myself, Shotkun, who was stuck with a little girl and was at a loss of what to do, had decided to take her back to Amanoiwato with him. She had seen him, after all, so he thought that he shouldn't just leave her with the police. In addition, the excited little girl had made a troubled expression and clung to him when he had said the word 'police'. And besides, Shoutkun himself had been recruited to Amaterasu after witnessing Toukchan and being brought to Amanoiwato.In light of his own experience, he thought that he should respond in the same way, even if she was just a little girl. Shoutkun continues to amaze me. He's able to learn and grow from his experiences. However, Shoutkun seems to have forgotten that in his case, Toukchan called Kaburagi-san before their actual arrival at Amanoiwato. It's fine to bring someone with you, but you really should let us know in advance. Shoutkun has become pretty reliable, but he still has a long way to go.

While Shoutkun took the girl's hand and led her to Amanoiwato, I called Kaburagi-san, who was in the middle of work. When I told her about the situation, she laughed and told me that she was going to Amanoiwato to see it for herself. She wanted to see this foreign “elf” girl, who could slip past my psychokinetic surveillance and seemed to be a ESP'er hunter – based on how excited she was when she witnessed Shoutkun's powers – with her own eyes. To Kaburagi-san, the little girl seemed competent, promising, and enthusiastic. If she clears the background check, she's more than qualified to become a member of Amaterasu.

But there's one thing. I am a little worried that the average age of Amaterasu would fall too much if this little girl joined it. Right now, the ages are: 24 (Kaburagi), 25 (Sago), 15 (Touka), 15 (Shouta), 10 (Ig), and 9 (little girl approx. age). Everyone is rather young. I can't help but feel like Amaterasu is becoming a youth group. It's a little early, but in addition to the little girl, let's find a candidate that's an old man who's quiet but impressive. It's likely that the battle against Kaburagi-san to determine to final candidate will start again.

Along the way to Amanoiwato, Shoutkun and the little girl are trying to overcome the language barrier and learn each other's names. Though, even with a language barrier, it's usually pretty easy to learn names. You just have to point to yourself and repeat your name, then get the other person to do the same.

The little girl learns quickly and before long was easily calling him “Shouta”. Shoutkun was struggling. He pointed at the little girl and repeatedly called her “Baba” 3.

Baba? Does Shoutkun even know Japanese? What sort of name is he giving her, “baba” means “old woman” in Japanese, you know? I guess it's fine. Neither of us can pronounce her real name correctly anyway.

Babchan (temporary name) was odd. As soon as we saw a tree, she indicated that she wanted a branch, so Shoutkun broke one off for her. Then, as we walked to Amanoiwato, each time we passed by a woman, her face would turn bright red for some reason. But we managed to safely arrive at Amanoiwato, with Kaburagi-san arriving right behind us. Feigning ignorance, Kaburagi-san inquired about the new person while enjoying her afternoon tea. Ig listened in to the conversation about Babchan from her perch on the top of my head.

“*Ara*, who's this cute little girl? What's going on?”

“Sorry, Kaburagi-san. She witnessed my battle with the world's darkness. I didn't know what to do, so I decided to bring her here.”

“Well, that's a good decision. But it would have been better if you contacted me in advance.”

“Oh, that's good. This is the girl.”

“Wos ih siht maown?” (Who is this woman?)

“I have no idea what she's saying.”

Shoutkun made a troubled expression and put her arm around Babchan's shoulder. Babchan said nothing, she just stared at Kaburagi-san with great interest while pulling on her sleeve. Kaburagi-san told them to leave it to her; she put down her teacup and crouched in front of Babchan, made eye contact while smiling gently, then slowly started to speak in many different languages. At first, Babchan was confused, but she immediately twitched her ears and began to listen intently (it seems she can independently move both ears). But, we soon realized it. Babchan had no reaction to anything at all.

Kaburagi-san talked for a while, then eventually stood up and made a helpless gesture. She had given up.

“This girl is probably speaking a pidgin/creole language.”4

“Huh?”

To Shoutkun, who looked at her as if she was speaking some alien language, Kaburagi-san raised an index finger and put her other hand on her waist. She started to explain while in this “onee-san” pose.

“Simply put, it's a minor hybrid language that doesn't appear in the dictionary. For example, when the United States and China trade, in a port city where that trade is thriving, a unique dialect language that's a mixture of English and Chinese may be born. This child language of English and Chinese is a pidgin language. When the pidgin language is established and used as a native language, it changes to a creole language. Together these are called pidgin/creole languages.”

“Oh, I see… that knowledge doesn't seem very useful.”

“It's useful right now, isn't it? I think this girl is speaking a pidgin/creole language that's a mix of several major and minor languages. I've learned greetings in about 800 languages, in descending order of speaker population. She didn't react to any of them, so that's probably the case.”

I see, as expected of a Tokyo University graduate. Her knowledge is quite extensive. I'm thoroughly convinced by her argument. In other words, this child came from some small, distant country. Since we don't understand each other's language, it'll be difficult to invite her into Amaterasu. Well, I hope Kaburagi-san can do something about it (I'm relying completely on her for this matter).

While looking at Baba who is hugging and playing with Ig at his feet, Shoutkun says timidly.

“Um, err… I, uh, I think this girl may be an elf. I mean, she has long, pointy ears, you know?”

Involuntarily, Kaburagi-san and I looked at each other and burst into laughter.

An elf.

An elf!

That's quite the dream he has there!

But unfortunately, there are no elves in this world.

In this shitty reality, things that seem to be straight from a fantasy novel are actually nothing but scams and lies. For example; most so called “ESP'ers” are usually nothing more than con-men; those who claim to be able to use magic are just attention-seeking bastards; and those who firmly believe that they are some sort of devil or something are just flat-out crazy. There's an endless amount of examples I could give. Kaburagi-san and I, while both being “self-proclaimed” ESP'ers, do have experience in trying to find the fantastic in real life. Each time we think, “This time it must be real”, and each time we are let down.

“How much fun it would be if elves were real,” I think to myself. But I don't to carelessly believe in it and end up getting hurt again. No matter how fantasy-like it may seem, I should suspect it to be fake until definitive evidence comes out. This is a trick to survive this fucking reality.

Babchan may look an awful lot like an elf, but all of that can be explained with logic and deductive reasoning.

Her speech is odd because she's speaking a relatively unknown language.
Her long ears are the result of having a variation of fukumimi1, or the result of getting plastic surgery, like Kaburagi-san.
Her being able to move her ears like that is just part of how her body works.
Her green eyes are just excessively pigmented.
Her silver hair is probably dyed.
The reason she put a branch in her hair is probably because she's copying some picture book or anime.
She was in the abandoned building because she ran away from her guardian to go on a “secret adventure” and got lost.

There's no part that can't be explained by something other than it being some sort of fantasy thing. Therefore, she's not a fantastical being. Elves don't exist.

“Fufu, if she was an elf, that would be amazing.”

“Um, you don't believe that she could be, Kaburagi-san? But things like superpowers and the world's darkness and secret organizations actually exist, right? So it wouldn't be that strange for elves to exist as well!”

It's odd, you know. Even though Kaburagi-san and I should know better by now, so long a there's a single ray of hope there, we still want to cling to it.

Kaburagi-san shook her head, then plucked a hair from Babchan's head. She then left the bar to head to the University of Tokyo and ask them to analyze its DNA. If Babchan is really an elf (laughs), the results should be different from humans. I we make the request for the analysis today, the results should be available within a week. For now, we'll just have to try not to get our hopes up while we wait.

Babchan was wearing simple clothes and shoes of an unfamiliar design, and they had no manufacturer logo on them. And since none of us understood her, it was impossible to ask things like where her house or guardian was. We showed her how to input a telephone number on a smartphone and even pulled up a map on it, but nothing worked. Her parents were probably looking for her by now, but we had no way to get her to them. Somehow, this little girl had become quite the problem.

Even if we eventually decide to reveal Amaterasu to her and extend her an invitation to become a member, what will we do with Babchan until then? I tried to take her to the police, since even if she does say something about superpowers, no one will understand her anyway, but she refused to cooperate. She just clung to Shoutkun's arm the entire time while fervently babbling in her strange language.The policemen were completely baffled, so it was decided that, with his parent's permission, that she would stay at Shoutkun's place for now. Once we finally got the police report filled out, we managed to contact Shoutkun's parents and get permission for her to stay

Looking after even one extra person is quite a burden, even if she's a little girl, but the Takahashi family is rather kind, so the mysterious, braided silver-haired, elf-eared Babchan was welcome to stay with them. With the way things naturally worked out, it's become a little bit like those light novels where the main character picks up a little girl who's a freeloader2, so that's an interesting development. Shoutkun's main character attribute seems to be alive and well. You go, Shoutkun! This ojisan wishes he had a little bit of that main character power when he was your age…

Then, during the week before the DNA analysis results came out, I searched with all my might to investigate Babchan's identity and background, but, surprisingly, I couldn't find any clues at all. Kaburagi-san also hired several private detectives to investigate her, but even though Babchan is quite conspicuous, there were no sightings of her before she met Shoutkun. It's a mystery. She's a mysterious little girl. That mystery leads me to have a small hope that she actually is an elf, and that she came here via transfer magic or something. “Stop it, stop it, stop it!” I tell myself. “Your heart's just going to get hurt again! Like that time with Mrs. Malik.”3

If I get my hopes up and, in the end, everything is a lie, I'm going to go crazy with rage. I'll probably end up going on a psychokinetic rampage. There's no way I'll be able to pretend I'm fine with it!

My hopes were stirred up not only by the circumstantial evidence, but also by Babchan's odd habits. When meals are served at the Takahashi's, Babchan only eats fruits and vegetables, though that could just be because she's a vegetarian. She also shows a lot of interest in the television and radio, but that's probably because she's from a developing country where such things aren't widespread. But what's completely unexplainable is Babchan's incredibly fast rate of learning.

Babchan was learning Japanese rapidly. She started with a children's book that she found in the back of a closet at the Takahashi's, then quickly moved on to learning from J-Pop and Japanese folk songs, and eventually, thanks to Toukchan, she learned the entire “Heart Sutra”. If that was all, she would simply be a genius child, but there's more than that. By moving her right and left eyes separately, Babchan is able to read two books at the same time. Also, because her ears move independently, she can listen to the TV and the radio at the same time as well. It's odd, to say the least. It definitely isn't human. Maybe she's not an elf, but the reincarnation of Prince Shoutoku4. Toukchan was excited by the possibility of Babchan being the reincarnation of someone from the great imperial family that introduced Buddhism to Japan.

Now, this is the day when the DNA analysis results come out. All of us gathered at Amanoiwato. There was coffee, tea, and fruit juice on the table, and while we waited for the results, we chatted about this and that.

“Come to think of it, Babchan, can you use 'magic', like Shoutkun?”

In answer to that sudden question, Babchan, who was awkwardly holding a glass in each hand and swinging her legs due to her feet not touching the floor, replied

“Magic, in this world, do not have. Power… run dry. Magic, no good.”

“I see. This world has no magic power, so magic can't be used, right?”

“Yes, that's right.”

Kaburagi-san had drawn a small, cute picture in the margins of a magazine with a ball-point pen to help illustrate her point. She showed it to Babchan, and she nodded happily. Are you kidding me, Babchan? So even if you learned some sort of amazing “magic”, because this world supposedly doesn't have any magical power, you can't use it? I've heard that line more times than I can count. What an uncreative and shitty lie she's spouting:

“That's right! There's no magic power here! But wait, are you saying you actually know magic?! Huh?! No way! So if this world did have magical power… but it doesn't.”

Let's not think too deeply about this. Everyone goes through a stage like this. I feel sorry for her though, since she already has chuunibyou at such a young age.

Shoutkun, who's a full-blown chuuni, nodded in agreement to Babchan's explanation, but was rather depressed about it. There's an awkward silence, which is then broken by the sound of Kaburagi-san's phone ringing. It's time to announce the results. All right. This isn't much of a party though, since no one brought any cake.

Kaburagi-san reviewed the text displayed on her smartphone five or six times, then said in a trembling voice.

“The results from the DNA analysis have arrived. Babchan's human DNA match rate is 0%.”

Everyone was speechless. Ze-zero? Not 100%, not even 10%, but zero? Even chimpanzees have a match rate of 90% or more, but zero? Then what? You're saying Babchan is a sea cucumber or something?

This was something completely unexpected. Therefore, even though I wanted to wait until we confirmed her identity to do this, I decided to test out transplanting Nenrikin to Babchan.5

The result is… a complete failure. It's like when I tried to transplant it into a stone; there's no response at all. This is impossible. It's impossible that transplanting Nenrikin into a human being would feel like this. So then… It's hard to believe, but all the clues point to just one thing.

Babchan, no, just Baba. Isn't a human at all?!

Chapter end