Seus, the Environment
The moment they stepped into the broad, comfortable living room, tea and a modest spread of sweets were already laid out on the table.
"I'm truly glad you came by. Come in. This place is always ready to receive a guest."
Seus poured the tea himself as he continued.
"Lately no one seems to need me at all, so it's hard even to see a face. I rarely get the chance to brew tea and serve it myself. It's a real blessing that a young man like you has reached the top."
Minel accepted the cup with a smile.
His smile gave away not a single trace of suspicion.
"Before we start looking for the entrance to the fifth floor in earnest, I thought it would help to learn more about that man. Could you tell me?"
He brought the cup to his lips, pretended to drink, and set it down again. Seus's smile brightened by a subtle degree.
As if he had been preparing for a long time, he began to speak in a calm, measured voice.
"It was quite a while ago, so I don't remember everything precisely. He had a car as well, and claimed he'd driven in a single direction for three months. Of course, that was only his claim, so I can't be certain."
"Are you certain he was the original owner of the car?"
Seus regarded Minel for a moment, then spoke in a low voice.
"So Steno told you everything."
"She lent me the car. I even came here in it."
At that, the mayor's face stiffened for the briefest instant before smoothing out again.
It lasted only a fraction of a second, but Minel did not miss the change.
The mayor put on his warm smile once more and said,
"He didn't trust me, so he never even told me his name—but I remember his face clearly. Dark skin, eyes a vivid yellow. I told him to drink the tea. He wouldn't listen."
He glanced at the cup in front of Minel, then took a sip of his own tea before going on.
"His travelogue was fascinating. He fell for countless fake doorways and lures, but he said he eventually drew near the entrance to the fifth floor. There he found a valley without light. Inside, he claimed, was a darkness that never ended, and as he passed through it he even saw monsters. He wouldn't say more than that. His mind wasn't sound, so how much of it was true, I couldn't say."
Seus's words sounded plain and sincere, and his manner was gentle.
Minel nodded and listened quietly. Inside, though, he was already fitting the pieces together like a puzzle.
"Has anyone else ever come from another city? Someone who traveled here the way that man did over three months?"
The mayor folded his arms and rolled his eyes upward.
He thought for a long while, then answered in a quiet tone.
"I can recall one or two. But people like that are rare. Almost none."
"Did they leave any particular words behind?"
Seus shook his head.
Then he smiled, as if at something empty.
"I don't really know. They all rambled. Half-mad, just like the man who said he'd traveled for three months. Probably because they couldn't accept the reality that this place is the top."
"……."
"Isn't that so? Futile desire drives a person mad. If you go from city to city hunting for a fifth-floor entrance that doesn't exist, staring at the same scenery over and over, anyone would eventually lose their mind."
Seus finished with a faint smile, packing the unspoken warning into the words: do not do anything vain and dangerous.
"Thank you for telling me."
"Surely you're not leaving already?"
"Yes. Is there anything else you wanted to say?"
Seus stared at Minel as if he couldn't understand him.
"I thought you would have more questions."
"Then I'll ask just one more."
"Of course. Ask."
Minel wiped the smile from his face and asked,
"If traveling inevitably drives a person mad—how did that man make it back to this city?"
Mayor Seus's face stiffened the way it had before.
This time, though, he did not smooth it away.
"I never heard anything about that."
"Is that so? The tea was excellent. I'll be going."
Minel left city hall.
Seus came out to see him off, but Minel did not even glance at him. He got into the car and drove away.
Once he had put a good distance between them, Minel looked at Seus through the rearview mirror.
Seus's expression was endlessly cold, and his eyes were sharp as blades.
Minel flicked his index finger and brought up the Backrooms Almanac.
Mayor Seus. Works at city hall and distributes daily necessities to the people around him. As needed, he also supplies tea leaves that suppress wildness.
"Just as I thought……."
After about ten minutes of driving, he arrived at Hina's house.
Off to one side, Isil floated in midair, holding Chori by both arms and swinging her like a hanging trapeze.
Unlike an ordinary aerial swing, Isil flew in broad U-shaped arcs across the sky, repeatedly climbing and dropping nearly a hundred meters at a time.
"Those two are having fun."
"I know. They don't even seem dizzy."
"How long since I left?"
"About half a day…… Wait—hold on. What happened to the car?"
Minel explained everything he had been through to Hina.
She listened calmly, then asked, unable to make sense of it.
"So…… it isn't that you go to another city. This same city just keeps repeating?"
"Right. I drove straight in one direction the whole way."
Hina's gaze swept over the wreck of a car.
"And in the places the sunlight doesn't reach, countless Hounds were lurking in darkness so thick you couldn't see an inch ahead."
"I only survived because I had the car."
"Then… was Steno the one who lied?"
"More likely Mayor Seus."
Hina's eyes went wide.
What Steno and Riale had said was only what they had heard from Mayor Seus; they had never seen it for themselves. When they had tried to find the exit, they hadn't had a car, and once they got one they had sworn never to search again—so they would never have seen the dark regions where the monsters nested.
Once she understood everything, Hina spoke quietly, sorting her thoughts aloud.
"Mayor Seus talked as if there were a great many other cities, and as if each of them had a mayor just like him. As if some vast system were running across the entire fourth floor."
"That's why it didn't seem strange."
"Exactly. The fact that he lives right under the sun at the center of the village, the way he hands out supplies, the way he explains the fourth floor and issues ID cards—all of it started to feel ordinary. But if this is the only city……"
"Then there's nothing more unusual than him."
Hina's mind raced.
She still couldn't say what Mayor Seus truly was, but she could grasp his purpose with perfect clarity.
"Mayor Seus wants to keep people trapped on the fourth floor. If they learned the floor's secrets, they wouldn't want to stay. So he invented that lie. It hides how special he is, and it also makes people endure and settle down."
Believing there is only one city, or believing there are countless cities.
Depending on which is true, the mindset of everyone who has settled here would change completely.
"Why do you think he's doing it?"
Minel's gaze had gone low and heavy.
Seeing that look, Hina realized he already had an answer of his own—but she still turned it over carefully for a long time.
In the end, she couldn't find one.
"If you think about the third floor, they were trying to make a puppet by having people worship. If you hadn't seen that secret for yourself, Minel, we never would have known the reason."
"The Backrooms transcend common sense."
Hina nodded twice.
Who could possibly imagine that a false worship was meant to harvest people's souls and forge them into a puppet?
"In the same way, Mayor Seus probably has some special reason we couldn't invent from ordinary thinking. What did you decide that reason was, Minel?"
Minel thought in silence.
Hina waited quietly, and at last he spoke.
"He showed up in the Backrooms Almanac."
It was a simple remark, but Hina understood at once what he meant.
"H-he's not human? Don't tell me the Almanac listed Mayor Seus as a monster?"
"No."
"Then what?"
"If he's neither human nor monster, there's only one thing left."
The dangers of the Backrooms fall into three categories.
People.
Monsters.
And the environment.
Hina clapped both hands over her mouth as it fell open on its own.
"S-so the existence called Mayor Seus is itself the Backrooms'… e-environment, meant to stop anyone from climbing higher?"
"That would solve everything."
Without meaning to, Hina cast a wide look across the whole of the fourth floor.
The faint unease and fear she had felt from every direction since the moment they first arrived seemed to rush back over her.
"No wonder the rationing felt a little off…… Then the entire fourth floor is…… a trap……."
"It might not even be limited to the fourth floor."
Hearing that, Hina no longer wanted to stay here a second longer.
But apart from deducing the fourth floor's secret, they still had not learned a single thing about how to escape.
No—if anything, it was more hopeless than before.
"If this is the only city on the fourth floor, shouldn't that make the exit easier to find? People before us said they'd found the way out. If the cities don't stretch on forever, someone should have found it long ago."
"Ever heard the saying that the darkest place is right under the lamp?"
Minel lifted a finger and pointed at the sun.
Hina looked up at it, then muttered,
"Because Mayor Seus stays under the sun? So the exit is… isn't that a bit of a stretch?"
"Riale said she got a headache, remember?"
"Yes."
"What if that was the pain of looking at a Mystery?"
Hina didn't know exactly what a Mystery was, but one thing she knew for certain.
When they had climbed the stairs, only Minel—who had experienced so many Mysteries—had been able to see the environmental hazards.
"The full moon itself is…… the Backrooms' environment, hiding the real exit? That's why…… even you saw the full moon as strange……."
Minel gave a firm nod.
"That's as far as my guess goes."
The full moon is the entrance to the fifth floor, and Mayor Seus is the Backrooms' environment guarding that exit?
Hina no longer trusted herself to tell truth from falsehood.
"Then… do we have to kill Mayor Seus?"
Minel shook his head without hesitation.
"No. It could make things worse."
"Why? He's blocking the path to the exit. If we kill him, maybe the way to the full moon opens, or something……."
"The difference between an NPC and a monster is clear. You can't just kill one carelessly."
Merchants. Blacksmiths.
They are part of the Backrooms' environment, yet under the right circumstances they offer help.
Every possibility is open.
In the worst case, the path itself could close.
Hina asked at once,
"Then how do we get to the full moon?"
"We've got Isil."
Minel jerked his chin. Hina turned to look.
There, Chori clung to Isil's arms, still enjoying her aerial swing.
But a problem remained.
"Would Mayor Seus just stand there and watch Isil carry us up? If he's the Backrooms' environment hiding the entrance, wouldn't he try to stop us somehow?"
"He couldn't stop Steno from getting a car."
"……."
"Because he's the environment. He couldn't interfere directly—he could only talk."
How could anyone even think like this?
No matter how creative a person was, was this kind of open thinking really possible?
Hina struggled to ground Minel's reasoning in something practical, and thanks to that effort she managed to find one blind spot.
"What about the full moon swallowing monsters? Isn't that a huge problem too? What if it suddenly tries to swallow us the moment we approach?"
"Then we feed it a monster first."
"What?"
"We already know where they are."
Minel offered Hina a slight smile and started walking toward Isil and Chori.
Hina stared blankly at his back, then belatedly realized what he was thinking.
"Y-you can't mean…… No way. W-wait…… huh?"
She chased after him with a look of pure disbelief, still asking questions.
Minel only wore that faint, quiet smile.