Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 8 Chapter 3 Part 2

I drove up an unpaved mountain path, the car rattling until I stopped near our destination. This countryside location outside of the city was where the man known as N, the rude individual who hacked my mouth, instructed us to go.
The evergreen broadleaf trees such as stone oaks formed a natural roof over our heads. It had been raining just before we arrived, so the bumpy ground was drenched in mud. There was no sign of any humans in the area, but my scanner found countless insects staring at us.
I picked up a berry from the ground, wiped it off, then consumed it in one bite. It was delicious.
“Ew…,” Master Chuuya grumbled in disgust as he watched.
Shirase, who was walking slightly behind us, suddenly spoke up. “I don’t think we should do it. This is a bad idea. Let’s just go home. There’s not gonna be anything good here; I guarantee it.”
I looked back at him after hearing him say that for what felt like the thousandth time.
“My legs are killin’ me. I’m sick of this. I don’t wanna walk anymore. Hey, mechanical English gentleman. Think you could carry me on your back?”
Master Chuuya and I exchanged glances. “You’re free to go home, Shirase,” he taunted.
“Me? Go home? No way! It’s your job to protect me, y’know! I’m not leavin’ your side no matter what!”
Master Chuuya faced forward once more, then scratched his head, an exhausted expression on his face.
“Sigh… Somebody call a wahmbulance for this guy, seriously.”
“Excuse me? Hey, Chuuya! Do you really think you should be talkin’ to me like that? Do you know who I am? I’m the generous soul who saved your life when you had nowhere to go and no memories of your past,” Shirase boasted with a waggle of his eyebrows.
It was hard to describe Master Chuuya’s expression then with only a single word. To be specific, he looked like he wanted to smack Shirase in the head with a hammer, but he didn’t have a hammer on him, and he didn’t want to have to use his bare hands, either. It was a fantastic expression, so I took a picture and saved it in the folder titled FAVORITES in my storage.
Master Chuuya sighed. “Fine. You can come with us, so ya think you can be a little quieter?”
“See? You can’t beat me in an argument, Chuuya. That’s why I’m the king!”
I heard Master Chuuya mutter, “I’m this close to punching him in the face right now,” under his breath.
If anything, I was extremely intrigued by how a talented high-level member of a criminal organization decided to speak so softly that the person he was talking about could not hear him. We continued our exchange until we arrived in front of our destination.
“This is it.” It was a barn.

The wooden building was meant for storing hunting and farming tools in the mountains. It was debatable whether this could be called a building, however.
The rotted wooden walls were halfway peeling off the structure, exposing the interior to the elements. Years of rain and wind damage meant hardly any of the thatched roof was left except for the bare framework. The blackened posts supporting the barn were so decayed that they looked like they dated back to the Stone Age. They were full of holes left by insects.
Inside the barn was a wheelbarrow missing a wheel, a torn sieve, and ripped bags of fertilizer with their contents scattered about.
“What the hell is this place?” Shirase sounded disappointed. “It’s just an abandoned old shack.”
“This is the place.”
I grabbed a hatchet hanging on the wall. The grip was rotting and bent halfway down. After scanning the barn’s interior, I inserted the hatchet into an opening in the floorboards, then gently pushed it forward until I heard a metallic click. The floor instantly began descending at an angle.
“Whoa?!”
The floorboards slid downward from the barn’s exterior walls, and the mountainside scenery slowly disappeared into the sky. In its place, black concrete walls with a metal railing came into view.
The barn’s floor was an elevator that was taking us underground. The inside was lit up by red guide lights fixed to the walls, their crimson glow rhythmically illuminating our faces.
“Nice,” said Shirase. A childlike grin slowly spread across his surprised face. “It’s finally startin’ to feel like an adventure.”
Interesting. So this was an adventure. Adventure was a classic theme in film. I’d heard that everyone got a thrill out of adventures.
“Yeehaw!” I shouted while jumping into the air and pumping my fist.
Perhaps I was gradually becoming more humanlike by the day.
Master Chuuya rolled his eyes.

After the large motor stopped running, we got off the elevator and found ourselves in a dim corridor. The gray walls were painted with black-and- yellow hazard stripes. We followed the path straight ahead as if it were inviting us into the darkness of the abyss.
The courtesy lights on the floor faintly illuminated our faces. I sent a ping signal up ahead and received a response from the facility’s system a few seconds later. There was no doubting it. We were going the right way.
After taking a right at the end of the corridor, we advanced even farther into the abyss until we passed through a double fireproof wall and found ourselves in a spacious underground depot. At the back of the tennis court- size area was a colossal fireproof partition wall with a small security station in front of it. All four guards stationed there—two inside, two outside— were armed and looking in our direction.
Their eyes were empty. They took nothing about us into consideration, not our facial expressions nor who we were as people. All they saw were three suspicious individuals.
“Halt,” the closest guard instructed in a firm, mechanical voice. Master Chuuya stopped in front of the muzzle of the man’s gun.
“We have an appointment. Let us through,” he demanded calmly, as if the gun did not even exist. When the guard looked back, another guard faintly nodded to him.
“We heard. But this is a top secret facility. We’ll need to examine your belongings and perform a blood test before letting you through.”
“A blood test?” Master Chuuya raised an eyebrow. “What for?”
“You three don’t even know what kind of facility this is?” The guard sighed with contempt. “How pathetic.”
“The hell did you just say, you punk?! Do you even know who I—?
Mmm!”
“I am sure everyone knows who you are, so I believe keeping silent would be your best option.”
I covered Shirase’s mouth before he started a fight.
We ended up having our belongings inspected and our blood collected. The guard pressed a box-shaped blood-drawing device against Master
Chuuya’s wrist. He said nothing as they took his blood. When I heard the sound of air being released, I knew it was over. His expression still had not changed one bit.
Shirase also had blood drawn from his wrist.

“Ouch! Whoa! Hey?! That hurts, damn it! Ow! You shoulda said it hurt before you pricked me, you jerk!” He flailed his free arm as if this was the most pain he had ever felt in his life.
I was next. The sound of air pressure being released was followed by the needle breaking.
“…”
The guards and I made eye contact. I didn’t say a word. Nor did the guard who was holding the kit for drawing blood. He used a spare kit on my legs, neck, lower back, and every other place he could stab, but each needle broke. Before long, there was a commotion in front of the station.
“Bring me a knife!”
“Where was that saw again?!”
More guards gradually arrived until the entire security team tried to draw blood from me. All their attempts ended in failure.
After exhausting their resources, the guards stared at me and panted heavily, out of breath. I stood there with a blank expression and waited for them to draw my blood. A mysterious silence followed.
I extended my neck until the inner joints were visible, then began to bob my head while I walked.
“Look. I’m a pigeon.”
“Ahhh?!” The guards fell backward.
“Quit messin’ with them!” Master Chuuya smacked the back of my head.
The guards eventually called headquarters and had me exempted from the blood test.
The security guard guided us to the facility’s innermost depths. The interior was surprisingly not worth mentioning. There was nothing more than a white corridor with six doors on each side, none of which were numbered.
Turning at the end of that corridor brought us to another corridor with six doors on each side. That was not surprising in the least; this facility was purposely designed this way to make it difficult for intruders to find what they were looking for. The reason why there were many turns was to prevent any gunfire from traveling long distances.
In other words, there was something top secret here that they did not want stolen under any circumstances.
The security guard typed something into the terminal at the end of the corridor and opened what appeared to be an ordinary wall that led farther into the facility. (My scanner had already discovered there was an area even farther back.)
The back room was the research department, which was relatively spacious and full of people.
Researchers wearing white lab coats bustled through the corridors. One was debating something with a colleague. Another was rubbing his eyes as if he had just awoken. Yet another researcher was frantically trying to wash a coffee stain out of her lab coat. There was even a man who clearly had not slept for three or so days.
Militaries, police forces, and criminal organizations have their own distinct features throughout the world, but researchers are the same wherever you go. Even the ones in Great Britain hardly differed from the people here. They had a very laid-back demeanor no matter what they were studying, which was perhaps due to the fact that most of them lived here in the facility.
We took in the sights until the guard behind us urged us to keep moving forward with the tip of his gun.
“Don’t stop and don’t look. Anyone interested in the research we’re doing here doesn’t get invited.”
“Uh-huh. Neat. You cocky little…,” Shirase began muttering to himself. I carefully collected various data until a few things became clear. This appeared to be a military research division that had been studying special powers since before the war. That much became evident as I analyzed the conversations of the researchers we passed by. I would have loved to gather more detailed information, but this was a secret military facility. All electronic devices were protected from hacking and rejected any external connections. It would most likely take a lot of time and resources to bypass
them.
However, that information alone was enough for now. After pondering for a few moments, I spoke up.
“I was thinking, Master Chuuya…,” I whispered at his side. “The reason why N is Verlaine’s next target… Perhaps he has evidence that you’re human.”
“Huh?” Master Chuuya looked back in surprise. “Where’d that come from?”
I viewed my data logs while continuing, “We do not know whether you are human or merely an artificial equation. Verlaine claimed you were an equation, but he did not offer any evidence to back up his claim. His word alone is all we have to go on, and that is exactly why he wants to dispose of those who know the truth—the truth that you are human. Because you would not need to go with Verlaine if you knew the truth. That is why Verlaine decided to target N. Everything would make sense if this was the case. Would it not?”
“But why would Verlaine even lie?”
“Because he could not convince you to come with him otherwise.” I was confident this was the truth. “He needs you for some reason, perhaps because like him, you can manipulate gravity, and you received said powers at a military facility. However, simply telling you to abandon the Mafia and join him would not work.”
“So the fact that he’s trying to kill N is proof that I’m human?” “Precisely.”
Master Chuuya appeared to be racking his brain over the subject. He faced the wall, scratched his forehead, scratched his nose, and crossed his arms. He then covered his face and hid his expression. I could hear him exhaling in short bursts. And then there was laughter.
“Pfft. Ha-ha-ha… You’re such an idiot.” He let out a brief, exasperated chuckle. “So I am human, after all. I feel stupid letting something like this bother me in the first place…”
I smiled as well because it felt like this was the first time I had seen him smile in a very long time.
“The hell are you lookin’ at?” Master Chuuya glared over his shoulder at me while keeping his face hidden. “What are you grinning about? I’m not happy about the news. I’m indifferent.”
“So am I.”
As an extraordinary piece of machinery, I am able to lie with a straight face.
“Then how do ya explain those eyes?!”

“My eyes? I use them to see.”
“I’m startin’ to figure you out.” Master Chuuya pouted as he glared at me. “You’re playing dumb on purpose, aren’t ya?”
He saw right through me. After turning around and stretching in a forced manner, he began briskly walking ahead.
“Anyway, let’s hurry up and get this over with! Looks like we’ve got an easy job to do today!” he shouted to no one in particular.
My lips could not help but automatically curl into a smile as I watched Master Chuuya walk with a spring in his step.