After the giant crab was driven off, there was a brief lull.
Everyone needed time to settle their shock and introduce the new faces that had appeared.
In other words, we needed a little time to communicate.
During that short interval, I naturally realized that the woman in the diving suit who had briefly appeared atop the crab with a file-bunker-type harpoon was apparently named Olga.
Her hair was a dull blond, cut short. Good, entered into memory.
It was easier to remember things if I logged each feature one by one like this.
Otherwise, I'd get them mixed up in no time.
So how much time passed...? After the situation had more or less been sorted out, we gathered at the workshop again and held another round of introductions.
"Including Ms. Olga, let me introduce everyone properly. These are the folks from a workshop called Molar Boat Center, who'll be helping with this round of modifications to [Mephistopheles]."
"Wow... so there are days when I get introduced like this too~ Kind of embarrassing."
"Big sis, even so, we've got important customers here, so please mind your conduct..."
"Aww~ What exactly did I do wrong? I haven't done anything yet."
"Haa... that 'yet' is the problem. We've barely even opened, so there's no reason not to be careful."
Hmm. The head of Molar Boat Center. Ms. Olga really did seem like a free spirit in every sense.
The person called Mika didn't look especially calm either, so that other one, Rain, must be the one who was breaking himself over it.
He's got it rough... ah, maybe not something to say on this bus.
As the two unfamiliar groups slowly got used to each other's faces, Mr. Vergilius casually struck up a conversation with Ms. Olga, as if he knew her.
"...It couldn't have been easy to suddenly change professions. Was it manageable, Grade 5 Fixer Olga?"
"Well~"
...Wait, Fixer?
"A Fixer?!"
"W-what?"
"You were a Fixer?! I thought you had an air of nobility about you! Why did you end up doing different work? Was the life of a Fixer that grueling? Where did you mainly operate?! Which Association did you take your exam with, and how did you make it to Grade 5? Was it a workshop exam at the Tres Association after all? Hm?"
...I'm losing my mind. Just how much of a Fixer fanatic do you have to be for the mere fact that someone worked in workshop operations to trigger that many questions at once?
Ms. Olga's expression was quickly painted with no small amount of bewilderment by Don Quixote's rampage as an incurable Fixer otaku.
Haa... if Don Quixote had asked those questions after this conversation ended, maybe the mood could have been a little better... but.
Right now, Mr. Vergilius was in the middle of talking with Ms. Olga. Which meant that if she interrupted...
"......"
"Understood, I understand...!"
She'd inevitably get Mr. Vergilius's sharp glare. Of course.
"My apologies, Ms. Olga. The noisy one will quiet down now."
"Red Gaze... Thank yo... you? Ahem, it's been so long since I've had to speak so formally..."
"Ah, let's stop there."
Mr. Vergilius lightly cut off whatever else Ms. Olga had been about to do.
Then he moved the documents in his hand out of sight at a casual angle...
and, as if he intended to get straight to the point, his expression hardened completely.
"It seems that after the incident at the 'Library,' one by one, you've all returned from the books. How was it for you?"
"We weren't much different, really~ I thought, huh, did I die? and then when I opened my eyes, I was somewhere around here. Mika wasn't there, Rain wasn't there either... and I was hungry right away, so I figured I'd better eat something~"
As Ms. Olga continued speaking, her expression gradually turned more and more bewildered.
"...How did it go again? Hmm~"
"You said giant crabs popped out, you picked up whatever was around to make weapons, then smashed them to pieces and grilled them to eat."
"Right~ Tasted like absolute shit, though."
"After that, you started trading scrap metal for the refuse attached to the crabs."
"Ha~ Okay, Rain. You'd better do the explaining."
...Could that woman really be trusted? She seemed pretty hopeless.
"Hmm~ That Olga person seems like the type who does everything half-assed?"
"Yes, Rodion. She does seem similar to someone."
"Oh my? I have no idea who you're talking about~"
There were two hopeless people here. Is this really okay?
Ugh...
Then, when Ms. Olga saw Rodion talking with Dante, her face showed clear surprise.
"Oh? And what's this now? That head... is it a prosthetic?"
"Big sis, if you keep that up, the conversation will never end..."
"Tch, fine. Fine."
Yeah, this was seriously hopeless. She was on par with Rodion, if not worse...!
Anyway, Rain lightly brushed Olga aside and stepped forward first, and from his mouth, the story of what had happened at the Library began to spill out.
To summarize it...
While working as Fixers with Olga and Mika, they entered the Library and ended up doing something called hospitality. They thought they had died just like that, but at some point they opened their eyes, wandered aimlessly, found Olga... and while gathering scrap together, Mika eventually joined them too, and they ended up setting up a workshop that was similar to their old office, but a little different!
That seems to be the gist of it.
...What exactly was the Library? Why did it go out of its way to release people made into books?
Hmm...
As a faint question rose in my mind, Mr. Vergilius, who had been quietly listening to all this, muttered, "...Hmph. There doesn't seem to be any fixed order to returning from the books, such as the order in which one died. ...The pattern is still unclear."
When he finished speaking, Mr. Vergilius slowly turned his head toward Ms. Faust.
"......"
Ms. Faust gave a light nod.
Hmm... the Library. The Library, huh... From what I'd heard, it was a mysterious building erected on top of L Corp's former headquarters after the company collapsed... and then it vanished at some point.
Something, something feels familiar. The Library. L Corp. Light. And... and... souls...?
Faint but tangible thoughts began to tangle together in my head.
If I just remembered a little more, I felt like I'd be able to understand something intuitively...
...Ah.
As always, the moment my thoughts tried to sink deeper, the ticking of a clock dragged them back to the surface.
"D-Dante. Come to think of it, you were here too, right? You seemed to recognize that crab shell earlier as well."
"...Yes. Is there a problem?"
"Huh? N-no... not really. It looks like you can even eat that stuff... so I was wondering if you'd tasted it."
"I can see plainly what meaningless question you're suddenly trying to ask for no reason, but... if I answer you anyway, then yes. I've eaten quite a lot of it as crab chowder. I had to forcibly suppress my nausea, but if you don't spit it out, I suppose it's something you can digest. Is that answer sufficient?"
"Uh... y-yes. Th-thanks?"
...Ah. I shouldn't have drifted off into other thoughts again.
The problems right in front of us were serious enough, and yet I'd gone and gotten absorbed in some meaningless line of thought again.
Having Dante manage a transformed Ishmael all by himself must be... rough.
As I shook my head back and forth to wake myself up, Sinclair, whose face had gone blue, spoke up anxiously from beside me.
"B-but... it's edible, that thing...? I-it looks like an Abnormality or a Distortion..."
"No, that... doesn't seem to be an Abnormality or a Distortion."
"Huh? Then..."
He was probably about to ask, "Then what is it?"
To that obvious follow-up, the bus's foremost expert on Abnormalities and Distortions, Ms. Faust, answered first.
"Dante, who can distinguish Abnormalities from Distortions, would have understood without explanation. That is a living creature. One could even call it a mutant. Therefore, in theory, there should be no problem with consuming it."
"My grandmother used to collect a lot of mutant animals as well. I've never seen a creature like that before either, though. What a rare sight~"
What kind of people are Hong Lu's family, exactly?
It's normal for rich families to have weird household stories, but... isn't this going a little too far?
This wasn't the first or second time I'd heard some bizarre tale like that, either...
As I was struck by that fresh question, Mika came walking over inside the bus with a spanner in hand and an unreadable expression, then picked up where Hong Lu had left off.
"Yes. Thanks to that, we can eat and do repair work."
Oh... so their staple food is those crab shells. Horrifying.
But why that unreadable expression? Did something happen?
"My father, who worked at a workshop, used to say it all the time. 'We need to tear everything apart and fix it from the ground up.'"
"What, like you need to pull the engine out completely or something?"
"No, we don't need to touch that part. ...We wouldn't dare. I took a quick look inside the bus, and... I came away thinking there's such a thing as too much complexity. But... everything else is fair game. There's no buoyancy device, no propeller, and no steering mechanism either."
At Mika's bizarre answer following Heathcliff's question, Dante looked troubled... but.
"Then... what are we supposed to do?"
"I expected that. Please propose a solution."
He was lightly ignored by Ms. Faust.
Honestly... no, I felt a little sorry for him, so I patted his shoulder.
"I think that manager just said something a moment ago... though it was just ticking, I guess... well, it doesn't matter. We have the method. If we have the materials, we can make it happen somehow."
At the word "materials," did something click for Gregor? He wore a subtle, hard-to-describe expression as he voiced his question.
"If you mean materials for modifying a machine... what, are we supposed to go scrounge up scrap metal or something?"
"You know your stuff. And I think you'll be good at it too. Just from what I saw earlier... you looked like you'd be good at it."
As she said that, Mika pointed far off toward where the crab shells had been.
"If we take care of the crabs, we should be able to gather plenty of scrap."
"...How many?"
"Hmm... a lot?"
Ah.
At Mika's answer, Gregor, who had asked the question, made a face of clear disgust. The target of that disgust was... naturally, Mr. Vergilius.
"Haa... of course. So that's why we came here. Right?"
"Correct. At this stop, you'll gather the parts needed to modify the bus. Easier and more convenient than finding a Golden Bough."
It's infuriating that I can't even argue with that. If I think about what happened last time, then ugh...
...Still, that doesn't make this any less of a pain.
Feeling a little dissatisfied myself, I looked toward Mr. Vergilius, and he was staring back at us with a thoroughly sour expression.
"Now then... I'll be having a little chat with these partner-company folks, so everyone else, to the sea."
"That isn't the sea..."
"...No, it is. That sight is also part of the Great Lake... one form that can be called the sea."
...Did you really need to correct it that way, Ishmael?
The words I'd been swallowing down because of the gloomy atmosphere flashed through my mind.
Haa...
And so, in this bleak atmosphere... the time came for us to begin that bizarre cycle of labor.
Ah... I really hate this.