The Breathing Moon
“Why aren’t you asleep again?”
Hina’s voice came from behind him.
But Minel could not answer her.
He barely managed to lift a finger and point at the moon.
“The moon is alive.”
“What?”
“I said the moon is alive.”
Hina turned at his words and looked up at the moon. A brilliantly full moon was washing the world in a soft silver light.
“What do you mean, alive?”
“It’s breathing.”
“Breathing?”
“Yeah. Just watch.”
Minel was not the sort to joke, nor the sort to spout nonsense. Hina focused as hard as she could and stared at the moon until her eyes ached.
But all she saw was an ordinary moon.
“It does look a little crude, I’ll give you that. Like someone stuck a floodlight on top of a mountain. But alive? Breathing? I don’t see any of that at all.”
“…….”
Minel turned his head and looked at her. His expression was thick with disbelief—as if he truly could not understand how she saw nothing.
Hina only grew more worried for him, and after a moment she spoke again.
“Isn’t it because you haven’t been sleeping? Sleep really matters. You have to get proper rest.”
“No. You really can’t see it?”
It was not a hallucination. Even now, in Minel’s eyes, the moon was breathing. It rose and fell in a steady rhythm, like the belly of a sleeping infant. Even the patterns on its surface looked like a human face, quietly looking down on the world with two eyes.
“I can’t. To me it’s just the moon. I honestly have no idea what you mean by breathing. It isn’t moving at all.”
Hina had exceptional instincts. She always noticed things Minel himself failed to see, and she did it easily. Of course, the moon’s breathing was such a minute vibration that you would never catch it without looking carefully. But Hina’s marksmanship was better than Minel’s. There was no way she would have missed it.
Which left only one possibility.
It was not that she could not see it. It was that it was not visible to her.
“…….”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Let’s just go inside.”
“That’s a good idea. I’ve been worried lately—you’ve been pushing yourself too hard. For tonight, at least, sleep as much as you can. Sleep until you literally can’t sleep anymore.”
Hina had always insisted that waking at the same time was just as important as going to bed at the same time. For her to say it was all right to sleep in meant she was truly worried about him. Knowing that, Minel simply nodded.
Making her fret any further would only unsettle her more, and if Hina lost her center, the whole party would grow that much more precarious.
Minel let her lead him into the house. Even as they went inside, he looked back at the moon several times. Each time, it was still breathing. More than that—it almost seemed to be watching him.
He went into his room alone. That was Hina’s consideration, so he could sleep deeply. But for a long while he could not sleep at all. Beyond the window, the breathing moon kept pricking at his nerves.
In the end, he overslept.
He woke around the time they should have been eating lunch and barely managed to drag his heavy body upright. Sleeping too much had left him even more tired. Hina’s advice about rising at a proper hour rang uselessly in his ears.
“You’re finally up? Look. When I went out, these were sitting in front of the house.”
In front of Hina sat a box containing the water, food, and tea leaves they had requested as rations.
“Where’s Chori?”
“She said she wanted to stay outside. Looking at the sky seems to make her happy.”
“Yeah. It would.”
Minel went to the sofa and dropped into it. Sleep still clung to him so stubbornly that he simply sat there, until Hina held out a plate of food.
It was a steak dish, nestled in a glossy, rich sauce.
“Chori made it.”
He had assumed it was from the ration box. Chori had never been able to cook anything this refined.
“How does Chori know how to make steak?”
“I was surprised too, so I asked. She said she held the glass marble, thought of you, and just… made it.”
“…….”
“Stress must have a huge effect on her. Maybe it’s because she’s truly happy right now.”
More than stress, Minel suspected the glass marble catalyst that strengthened non-combat skills had done the work. She had probably fiddled with it and stumbled onto the result by accident.
He took a bite of the steak, and at once the drowsiness fled from him completely.
“Better than anything I ever ate in the real world.”
“The food she made for me was the same way. It settled my mind a lot.”
“Ah. So it was different from this?”
“Yes. It was even something I used to eat often back home.”
Different food for different people—the enhancement effect must have been considerable. With his tongue so thoroughly pleased, his grinding thoughts began to turn smooth and clear.
Which was probably why the next thing he needed to do came to him at once.
“Give me the tea leaves.”
“Here.”
Hina handed him a pouch stuffed full of tea leaves. Minel opened his inventory and read the description from the Backrooms Almanac.
Those who drink tea brewed from these leaves gain a sense of calm in body and mind, and suppress their Wildness.
That was the entire description. There was nothing particularly suspicious about it.
“It says they suppress Wildness.”
“And?”
“That’s all.”
Hina tilted her head at his words.
“Then they aren’t dangerous at all.”
“They’re actually a good thing.”
“Then why…….”
In that same instant, both Minel’s and Hina’s eyes went wide. They had realized the same thing at the same time.
“That means everyone has been suppressing Wildness every single moment, doesn’t it?”
“Exactly.”
“Which also means Wildness is constantly rising inside them. B-but is there any reason for Wildness to rise on the 4th Floor?”
Wildness was tied to instinct. Whether for survival or anything else, the more a person acted on instinct like a beast, the more Wildness accumulated, until eventually they became a monster. On the 4th Floor—where there was no need to watch for people, monsters, or the environment itself—there should have been nothing to suppress in the first place.
“There’s definitely something going on.”
Hina furrowed her brow and stared quietly at the pouch of tea leaves. But her focus seemed to be fixed somewhere far beyond the pouch itself.
“If we find out why Wildness needs to be suppressed here, we can unlock the secret of the 4th Floor. Then we can properly weigh whether living on the 4th Floor is really best for Chori.”
They finally had a clear task. Minel stood up at once.
“Let’s go borrow a car.”
“Ah—yes. All right.”
Minel and Hina stepped outside together. Chori was soaring through the sky, her hand held by Isil, who had somehow been taken out of inventory at some point. Wasting power like that seemed questionable, but Chori was having far too much fun.
“Ahahahaha! Ahahahaha!”
“…….”
“…….”
Chori laughed without pause, like a child at an amusement park. Then she spotted Minel and Hina and flew over. When Isil landed and spread its arms, Chori hopped down and clasped both of their hands tightly.
“Isn’t this place amazing? I’m so happy!”
She looked back and forth between Minel and Hina with eyes that desperately wanted them to agree. Hina was about to give her the answer she wanted, but Minel spoke first.
“We still don’t know for sure.”
Giving her false hope would only be crueler in the end. Hina understood his intent and, holding back as much pity as she could, spoke gently.
“We’re going to see Steno for a bit. Stay with Isil, all right?”
“You’ll be back soon, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
Whatever had her so excited, Chori ran straight back toward Isil. If anything went wrong, Isil would be able to protect her well enough.
Minel and Hina walked to Steno’s house. After about twenty minutes on foot, they came face-to-face with Steno, who happened to be standing outside. The moment she saw Minel, her eyelids drooped halfway shut, and her whole face darkened. She gestured for Riale—who had just followed her out—to go back inside, then stood with her arms crossed and watched Minel approach in silence.
Once he had closed to a reasonable distance, Minel spoke.
“I came to borrow a car.”
“And saying it like that makes you think I’ll just hand one over?”
“If I find the entrance to the 5th Floor, I’ll share it with you.”
“No one’s ever found it. You know this already—the farther you get from the sun, the wider the area becomes. Eventually it takes days just to go all the way around once.”
“That’s why I need a car.”
Faced with Minel’s unchanging attitude, Steno let out a long sigh.
“You clearly didn’t understand a word I said, so listen carefully. Every method you could possibly think of has already been tried by countless people. You think this place even has a boundary? Someone loaded a car full of water and food and drove in one direction for three months straight. Passed hundreds of cities just like ours. Still never found anything like an entrance. Said it was a miracle they even made it back—same scenery looping forever.”
“…….”
“Just give up. There’s no entrance to the 5th Floor. No matter how hard you look, it doesn’t exist. And even if it did, so what? The 5th Floor is crawling with monsters and people who might as well be monsters. Better to live somewhere peaceful like this than rot down there.”
“But you still want to leave.”
Minel’s words were short, but they drove into Steno’s heart like a sharp dagger. Her lips moved several times before a resigned voice finally slipped out.
“That was just me talking nonsense…….”
“The mayor stopped you from speaking, didn’t he?”
“…….”
“Why?”
She glanced around for a moment. On the 4th Floor, where houses stood hundreds of meters apart, there was of course no one nearby to overhear. The fact that she was still checking meant she was about to say something serious. Minel sharpened his senses and waited for her answer.
“I’m bored…….”
Steno spoke in a dull, heavy voice, as if she were forcing out a bitterness that had risen from deep inside her.
“Bored…… you said?”
Steno nodded. Then she clenched both fists and said it again.
“I’m so bored I could die…….”
Even her irises shifted in an instant to a deep, vivid yellow—almost the same level of Wildness that rose when someone committed indiscriminate murder. A murderous glint began to gather in her eyes, and her hand started drifting toward the shotgun propped against the house wall.
Minel’s eyes went wide.
“So that was it…….”
He, too, shifted his hand toward Noise, preparing for the worst. Just then the front door burst open and Riale appeared, a teacup in her hands. She ran so hard that more than half of it spilled, and thrust it at Steno.
“Unnie! Drink it, hurry!”
Steno glared at Minel with cold eyes, then took the cup from Riale and began to drink. She gulped down the hot tea in rough swallows, and with every movement of her throat the yellow light in her eyes faded at an exponential rate.
“Feeling better?”
“Yeah. Hoo…… thanks.”
Riale turned a sharp look on Minel.
“If you have nothing else to say, go home. If you keep standing off like this, it really will get more dangerous.”
Hina took hold of Minel’s wrist. But Minel did not move an inch, rooted like an old tree. His gaze was sharp, and a faint smile had risen at the corner of his mouth—as if he had just found the answer.
“You’re going to have to lend me that car.”
At those words, the yellow light began to coil through Steno’s eyes again. It was denser than it had been before she drank the tea.
“You want to try me? Is that it?”
“Yeah.”
Minel lunged at once. Hina could not understand his actions at all. What good could come from stoking Wildness further in a situation like this?
“Minel!”
Even Hina’s cry did not stop him. Seeing that, Steno shoved Riale hard to the side, snatched up the shotgun, and aimed it at Minel.
Shiiing—!
Silence split the shotgun cleanly in two. Having already closed the entire distance, Minel carried that momentum straight into his attack on Steno.