The Outsider's Awakening
When I came to my senses, everything was already over. Even so, no matter how detached my mind had been, I couldn't completely erase the memory of that moment. The shopkeeper's smile had been all the more terrifying because her intentions were pure. And then there was the measuring tape in her hand, drawing closer and closer… measuring tape… measuring tape… A splitting headache crashed over me as the hazy memory resurfaced. My desperate desire to forget collided with the memory my instincts had branded into me.
After reliving the scene, I glanced at her with trembling eyes. I knew full well that none of her actions had been born from malice. She must have been exhausted after hunting the boss just moments ago, yet she had still rearranged her schedule to bring me to this massive shopping mall. If her only goal had been to change my clothes, there would have been no need to come to such an expensive place. Everything she did had probably been her own clumsy way of showing affection. If I had truly been an ordinary child my age, I might have even enjoyed shopping with her. The only flaw was that her affection had been far too excessive. There was truth in the saying that anything taken too far becomes poison. That was exactly the case here.
Facing the woman whose face was now filled with an affection that even frightened me, I bolted from the spot. I slipped behind the man who had just stepped out of the car and was looking around. She made a pitiful face, clearly shocked, but it couldn't be helped. Right after what had happened, simply meeting her eyes made the strange sensation wrapped around my chest feel vividly real again—the soft yet suffocating feeling I had never experienced in my entire life. Overwhelmed by that alien sensation and the self-loathing it brought, I buried my face against his leg without thinking.
The man, suddenly caught between the two of us, raised one eyebrow. But he soon seemed to grasp the indescribable atmosphere and smiled faintly.
“What on earth is so funny?! Hngh, I can’t believe I’m losing to that scary-looking uncle…”
She stomped her feet in genuine frustration. He stared at her ridiculous display with a blank face before slowly lowering his gaze. When he saw my terrified expression, he let out a small sigh.
“Well, I had a feeling this would happen… but it really did. This is all your own fault.”
“Huh? What do you mean…”
Having watched everything from the sidelines, he spoke with a calm expression.
“That’s always been your weakness. Think about it. Not every girl loves shopping. You dragged her around for hours without even asking. Of course she’d react like this.”
After hearing his composed explanation, she looked genuinely shocked, as if she had only just realized it. Meanwhile, I stared at him with sparkling eyes. He had scratched the itch I couldn’t reach, and it felt incredibly refreshing. It really was true that only someone who had suffered the same pain could truly understand it. Everything he said matched exactly what I had wanted to say during the entire shopping trip. Honestly, I had considered speaking up midway, but in the end I never managed to voice it. Partly because she had been so enthusiastic, but the real reason was different. I simply hadn’t wanted to disappoint someone who had shown me unconditional kindness after so long. If she had openly displayed malice, I could have handled it, but her overwhelming goodwill had left me with no way to respond. In that sense, I felt grateful to him for saying what I couldn’t.
“That doesn’t mean it was wrong, but… anything excessive isn’t good. Everyone has different hobbies. Isn’t your habit of obsessively targeting only the monster’s head the same kind of thing?”
“…Aaaah! Why would you say that here?!”
The woman, who had been listening in silence, let out a horrified shriek at his final remark. Her face flushed bright red—she clearly hadn’t expected him to bring that up at this exact moment. To think someone with such an innocent face had that kind of hobby. The mental image of my head exploding in her hands made every hair on my body stand on end. Even though physical attacks didn’t work on my slime body, the thought alone was dizzying. Imagining her smashing a monster’s skull only doubled the fear.
She must have noticed the shift in my gaze, because she kept protesting her innocence. Despite her reaction, he walked calmly toward the building’s main entrance. I stuck close to his side as we moved, leaving her standing alone. Realizing it too late, she hurried after us while trying to avoid the stares of passersby. The small commotion in front of the entrance was over for now.
-----
“Whoa…”
The moment I stepped inside behind him, an unconscious exclamation escaped me. It was a different kind of amazement from what I had felt outside. The unbelievable, almost unreal sight before my eyes made me stretch my cheeks with both hands. It didn’t hurt, of course, but the scene was so overwhelming that it felt like an entirely new world. The vast space defied imagination, packed wall-to-wall with people. Men and women in suits—probably Council staff—moved briskly alongside outsiders, their footsteps and voices blending together to fill the space with life. I stood there dazed for a while, unable to process the sheer scale. This must be what people meant when they said being swallowed by a crowd.
As I walked through the dense throng, I nearly lost sight of him several times. If he hadn’t been considerate enough to match my pace, I might have ended up lost at my age. Once I grew somewhat accustomed to the environment, I began noticing new details I hadn’t registered before. Objects about my height, rectangular in shape, zipped between the people. They were robots. Moving in orderly lines, they scattered in every direction to complete their tasks before regrouping just as quickly. Even more surprising was how the people inside treated the robots as nothing out of the ordinary.
When I looked up, I could see people resting on a terrace beyond the railing. The idea of a terrace inside a building would normally be unthinkable, but the interior was so enormous that it didn’t feel out of place at all.
“......”
Faced with a world I had never encountered before, I fell into deep thought. If an ordinary child had come here, they would have been filled with wonder at the massive scale and dreamed of the future. But I was different. The shadowed expression on my face reflected the emotions I couldn’t put into words. It wasn’t quite the same feeling as seeing the city for the first time after living in the countryside. This building wasn’t far from the place I used to live. I had heard enough about it to know it possessed facilities on an eye-watering level. But the reality was far beyond what I had imagined.
The gloomy neighborhood I had lived in until recently had been filled with crime and poverty. There had been no light in people’s eyes. Here, however, the eyes of those around me shone brilliantly. Their gazes held hope, their movements carried ease, and their voices carried happiness. It was heaven and hell. The highest sky and the deepest underground. The only difference between them and the people here was whether or not they had awakened. In short, whether they possessed power or not.
If I hadn’t gone through these unbelievable events, an ordinary person like me would never have set foot in this place. This was the world of the qualified “them.” Someone who had never possessed any qualifications from the start, I was nothing more than a stranger here. Of course, that didn’t mean the people here were bad. Thanks to their efforts, ordinary citizens had been freed from the fear of gates appearing at random. Even so, the light and shadow cast over society remained painfully clear.
I raised one hand to shield my eyes from the lights that brightly illuminated the surroundings even though the sun had not yet set. They were beautiful, but to someone who had lived in deep darkness for so long, they were simply too dazzling.
-----
Sitting in a chair far too large for me, I quietly looked around. Because the seat was positioned at the very end of the office, I could take in the entire interior at once. The scene included people seated at their desks, each focused on their work. A deep sigh escaped me amid the uncomfortable atmosphere that made me feel like I was wearing clothes that didn’t fit. Naturally, resentment toward the two people who had left me here and disappeared began to rise.
A few minutes ago, after entering deep into the building, we had taken the elevator straight up. This spacious, simply designed office was where we had arrived. Judging from the exterior, it seemed to be the office used by the investigation team he led. I had heard something about an inspection, so arriving at a place like this naturally raised questions. But without offering any detailed explanation, he had simply told me to wait here for a moment before leaving the office again. Though I couldn’t see clearly, the woman who had been following us in a hurry also seemed to have been dragged off somewhere by him.
Left alone, I sat in the seat he had given me and waited. Up to that point, there hadn’t been any real problem. But once five minutes passed, then ten, the situation changed. He had said it was just a small errand, so why was it taking this long? I was about to explode from waiting. If this place had felt familiar and comfortable, it might have been different, but being surrounded by complete strangers only made the discomfort worse. While I sat there with a scowl, a shadow fell over my head.