Tonight We Leave
One hour before sunset.
Near the house, Hina practiced driving. The look on her face as she gripped the wheel seemed ready to burst into tears at any moment.
From the passenger seat, Minel spoke in a gentle voice.
"You're doing well."
Even after the praise, Hina's expression did not improve in the slightest. She shook her head like a machine and answered stiffly.
"Not at all."
"You're really good at this."
"That's because there's nothing out here."
"You'd do fine even if there were."
"They're not just obstacles. They're monsters chasing us at full speed."
"I'll handle those."
"……."
"That's why I taught you to drive."
She had only been practicing for about half a day. Hina had no confidence. Minel, however, was thoroughly satisfied that her skill had improved far faster than expected.
"Am I… really doing well?"
"Have some confidence."
"……."
"We should head in."
Leaving a sighing Hina behind, Minel walked back toward the house. Inside, Chori sat slumped on a soft sofa, so drained and limp that it would not have looked strange if she had simply toppled over.
Minel quietly sat down beside her. At the sound of his presence, Chori turned her head and looked up at him.
"Are you really going?"
"Yeah."
"……."
"Have you made your decision?"
Chori's face crumpled into a tearful expression, though for a different reason than Hina's. In a voice thick with sobs, she asked,
"Can't we all just live here together?"
It was a question she had already asked several times. Each time Minel had answered with firm resolve, and this time was no different.
"We can't do that."
Words she had heard before. And each time they seemed to leave a fresh wound in Chori's heart. She hung her head again. Tears fell in steady drops. Minel said nothing. He simply waited beside her until she could settle her feelings.
"Mom said… that from now on the two of you would protect me. But she also said that once we reach the 7th Floor, I'd have to survive alone in the end. So she told me not to get attached—to just use you as much as I could."
The Backrooms was a place where a dying mother could not even leave warm words behind. Filling her final will with cold, hard advice had probably not been enough.
Minel spoke in the gentlest tone he could manage.
"You already know this, but Hina and I came from outside the Backrooms. Our goal is to return there. We heard from your mother that the method is on the 7th Floor. In exchange, we agreed to look after you until then."
"……."
"I will keep that promise. Hina will too, of course. So before we leave the Backrooms, we're going to help you enough that you can live on your own."
"……."
"But if you'd rather just live here on the 4th Floor, you can stay. As long as you don't go outside, there's nothing dangerous here. And for the rising Wildness, you can just drink the tea."
"……."
"You need to choose now. What will you do, Chori?"
Minel turned his head to look at her. Chori stared back at him with eyes full of disbelief.
"Whoa… I'm actually shocked."
"……."
"This is the first time I've ever heard Minel oppa talk this much."
She was so startled that even the tears had vanished. It felt almost as if she had just witnessed one of the Backrooms' great mysteries.
"That's how serious I am."
"Come on, don't lie. Hina unnie said Minel oppa barely talks at all unless he's lying to someone or putting on an act. That you keep dropping words so we have to solve a quiz every time."
"……."
"Just now was an act too, right? Right? Be honest."
Minel allowed a faint smile. Chori's lively expression and tone had a forced quality to them somewhere.
"It wasn't an act."
"Ehh… it totally was."
"If it had been an act, I would have been trying to take you with us."
Chori let out a short laugh, then narrowed her eyes and glared at him.
"Why? Am I a bother? Is that why you were going to leave me behind?"
"No. You're an enormous asset."
"……."
"Extremely useful."
Chori's non-combat skills were far beyond the word "useful." She could supply nearly unlimited food and water, and the taste alone was enough to wipe away stress in an instant. Being able to create a house that could be entered from anywhere in the Backrooms—and rest and sleep safely inside it—was an overwhelming advantage for survival. On top of that, she could generate dozens of house doors at will, producing something close to a teleportation effect. Calling her the strongest member of Minel's party would not have been an exaggeration.
Chori's forced smile gradually faded. She studied Minel with a strange look in her eyes.
"I was wrong. If it's Minel oppa, of course you'd want to take me along. Because I'm useful."
"That's right. You're not a bother to me."
In other words, Minel's offer to let her stay behind had not been a selfish attempt to lighten a troublesome burden. If he had been selfish, he would have found some way to drag Chori along and put her to use.
The misunderstanding was cleared. The gloomy weight that had filled Chori seemed to evaporate completely. And in its place, some unfamiliar emotion began to flood in—something that made laughter rise on its own simply because she felt good.
"Hehehe. So I'm really not a bother?"
"Of course not. If anything, we're the ones who should be asking you to come with us."
"Then I'll go with Minel oppa and Hina unnie!"
"Good. I'll explain the situation."
Minel went to the window, opened it, and looked up at the sky. High above—hundreds of meters up—Isil appeared as a tiny speck, practicing vertical flight while carrying heavy furniture.
"Isil! Come back!"
Isil arrived in front of Minel almost at once.
"Orders?"
"Protect Chori until I return. Steno and Riale might show up, so keep that in mind."
"Understood."
After finishing his explanation of the situation to Chori, Minel stepped outside. Hina was still wearing that tearful expression. Climbing into the passenger seat, Minel said,
"Chori said she'll come with us. Let's go."
"R-really? You didn't talk her into it for no reason, did you?"
"What do the two of you usually think of me?"
"A cold-blooded monster. Your blood is definitely blue."
He had no real rebuttal. If there was one, it was only that his blood was, in fact, red.
Minel gave a light chin-gesture toward the road ahead. Hina swallowed hard once, then turned the key. She could feel her palms growing slick with sweat. The fingertips gripping the wheel had gone white from how hard she was holding on.
The car lurched into motion and raced across the quiet hillside.
"It's okay. You're doing fine."
Minel's voice from the seat beside her was extremely calm—almost as languid as someone half-asleep.
"I-I almost hit a rock just now!"
Hina shouted with indignation. Minel merely glanced out the window and answered without interest.
"You avoided it, didn't you? Then it's fine."
Hina clenched her teeth, wearing an expression of pure disbelief. Every time she hit the brakes the chassis bucked hard; every time she pressed the accelerator the car leapt forward as if it might take off. Yet somehow, impossibly, the vehicle never strayed from the direction they needed to go and kept grinding stubbornly onward.
A few minutes later they arrived in front of their destination—Steno's house. Even after stopping the car, Hina sat there dazed for a long while, unable to peel her hands from the wheel. Her shoulders sagged like those of a warrior who had just survived a long battle.
"Stay in the car."
At Minel's short order, Hina nodded with a face full of relief.
In that same moment the front door opened and Steno came outside. At first her expression was glad—then she saw the state of the car and her face twisted.
Dents and scrapes. Dust and dirt of every kind plastered across the body. A missing car door and tattered windows.
"What… what the hell is this?! How did you drive my car?! Th-this is something you can't get anywhere else—!"
Under the barrage of criticism flying like arrows, Hina flinched and shrank into herself. Steno's voice was rising toward a full roar when Minel quietly cut her off.
"Tonight, we're leaving the 4th Floor."
At those resolute words the air froze solid. Steno's mouth locked shut. The anger vanished without a trace, replaced by a face full of pure confusion.
"Wh… what? T-tonight you're l-leaving?"
"……."
Minel only nodded in silence. Steno seemed unable to breathe, much less form words. Her gaze wandered through empty air as if she were falling into panic; then she finally forced out a voice.
"Is that true? Did you find the entrance to the 5th Floor?"
"……."
Minel's eyes were firm. That alone was the answer. After a long stretch of silence, Steno finally looked away and muttered,
"I… I need to talk this over with R-Riale first…"
"Once you've decided, come to our house."
"H-how long do we have?"
"Right away."
"……."
"If you're late, it's over."
Leaving only those words, Minel turned on his heel and climbed quickly back into the car. Steno was still staring at him with an expression of pure incredulity, but Minel paid it no mind and spoke to Hina.
"Go."
"……."
"Drive, Hina."
Hina let out a deep, heavy sigh and started the car once more. Once they had put some distance between themselves and Steno's house, she carefully asked,
"Is it really all right to bring those two along too?"
"I've already checked Isil's output."
"No, that's not what I mean. We might not make it there in time. We might not be able to outrun the monsters. And if I mess up the driving again…"
Minel spoke as if coaxing her.
"Hina. You're good at driving."
"……."
"I wouldn't have left it to you otherwise."
Hina exhaled another long sigh.
"All right. I don't trust myself, but I'll trust the Minel who trusts me."
"Yeah."
They drove on with the nearly lightless sun at their backs. After an hour of endless empty houses, a complete darkness that even the full moon's light could not reach began to press in.
Minel drew Silence. Beside him, Hina flinched in surprise where she held the wheel, but Minel said nothing as he pressed the tip of the blade against the foot switch and turned on the headlights.
White beams swept across the road, and in the darkness terrible shapes were revealed.
Grrrrrng!
Grrrrrng!
Hounds, their voices like metal scraping metal. In the pitch-black dark, countless yellow eyes burned like flames.
"Now."
Minel's short word was the signal.
"N-now?"
"Yeah. U-turn."
"U-uwaaaaaaaah!"
Hina let out a bizarre cry as she wrenched the wheel. Her foot trembled between the brake and the accelerator, but in the end she managed to stomp hard on the gas.
"Uwaaaaaaaaaah!"
The car screamed with an ear-splitting roar as it skidded sideways. In that instant a Hound's claws flashed as they lunged through the window.
Shrring!
Silence's blade sheared the claws clean off. The severed claws bounced across the hood with a hollow clatter and rolled away.
"Uwaaang! Uwaaang!"
Hina screamed through tears, yet her hands remained miraculously locked in place. Both hands shook violently and her eyes were half-shut, but the wheel was still turning in exactly the right direction.
Minel cut down another Hound that tried to force its way in from the side and spoke without expression.
"Turn harder."
"W-what?!"
"I said turn harder."
"Uuuuugh!!"
Hina screamed as if she might lose consciousness at any second and wrenched the wheel even farther. The tires skidded across the ground, carving a wide, deep drift into a great circle.
The yellow eyes of the Hounds all turned to follow the car. One pack, two packs, three packs. The charging Hounds began to trail after the vehicle as if drawn by its tail.
Hina sobbed and wailed,
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!!"
In complete contrast to the face streaming with tears and snot, the car's movements were growing bolder. Even on hillside ground that could barely be called a road, the tires gripped tightly through the sharp curves. The almost supernatural micro-adjustments she made every time they hit a rock were so fine that Minel himself thought he could not have done as well.
"You're doing really well. Right now!"
At Minel's signal Hina swallowed her tears, returned the wheel to center, and took her foot off the brake to press the accelerator harder.
"Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
The car that had been sliding in the drift regained traction and surged forward—and dead ahead floated the full moon.
A flawless, perfect U-turn.
"Just go straight from here."
"Hic… o-okay."
Minel stabbed Silence through the hinges and tore the passenger-side window clean off. Then he climbed up onto the seat on his knees and began to deal with the Hounds clinging to the car in earnest.
Shrring! Bang!
Shrring! Bang!
Unburdened by the need to drive, Minel used both hands freely to keep them from closing in. But the number of Hounds in the dark seemed to run past the hundreds and into the thousands.
"Grrrrrng!"
"Grrrrrng!"
The car raced at full speed, and the swarm of Hounds pursuing them began to form a fan shape. Minel kept flinging the endless tide of Hounds away until his stamina was scraping the bottom.
Then Hina suddenly shouted.
"M-Minel! Th-the full moon…!"
Minel barely managed to lift his head.
In the center of the night sky—the full moon. Across its face, black cracks began to spread as if being etched into the surface. They were not mere shadows.
Like skin tearing open, the surface of the moon split outward, and a great yellow light began to surge and writhe.