Pig Hunting (1)
When a person is shocked — truly, truly shocked to their core — there is only one thing they can manage to say.
"...Is this even possible?"
My brain refused to process it. I had seen it with my own two eyes and heard it with my own two ears not a moment ago, and yet there was no way I could believe it.
I've had plenty of shocking things happen lately, but nothing on this level.
What on earth was this situation? What language had just come out of my mouth? Had I been drinking today?
Wondering whether I was trapped in a dream, I slowly turned my gaze to my hand — the one that had been petting the pig just moments before.
- Sizzle.
A fading golden energy still lingered at my fingertips. It was holy power. I was certain of it. It was exactly the same aura I'd seen shimmering behind the Saintess when I laid eyes on her four days ago — the power that only a person beloved by God could ever wield.
A power only humans can use, and holy power so potent it's visible to the naked eye.
And on top of that, the pig's oinking that had just come spilling out of my own mouth.
In that instant, a wildly, wildly irreverent hypothesis flashed through my mind.
An extremely, extremely blasphemous hypothesis.
"No way."
I looked at the pig again. A reasonably cute little piglet, covered in wounds, with big round eyes. Small enough to make a perfect pet.
"No, seriously — no way."
- Oink oink oink oink!
The piglet nodded its head like a maniac. As if it actually understood what I was saying.
Once more, I gathered my full concentration and listened closely to its cry. And then —
- Central Officer! It's me, Saintess Erzena! It's me!
I heard a human voice. The voice of the Saintess of the Holy Church herself.
"Good heavens."
Every hair on my body stood on end. One single truth slammed into my skull.
"The Saintess has become a sow—"
The instant I was about to blurt out words that, if spoken outdoors, would get me buried alive,
- Grab.
Someone seized me by the scruff of the neck.
"Huh?"
It was the country boy, Sota. His violet eyes — exposed now that he'd thrown off his straw hat — were trembling helplessly with shock and alarm.
"Sota?"
"Who are you?"
A woman's voice flowed out of the boy, a voice that fit his body not at all. Before I could even react to the wrongness of it, he hurled me backward.
- CRASH!
"Gah!"
How was a kid this strong? I went rolling across the floor of the inspection booth in an instant.
The boy muttered, unable to hide his bewilderment. "How did you figure it out? What are you?"
"S-Sota, what is going on...?"
"Damn it — are you one of the Church's people? Have they already swallowed the border?"
Those were not the words of an ordinary country boy. Church's people? A boy his age wouldn't even know vocabulary like that.
Which means Sota is not simply an ordinary boy.
The moment that thought landed, I knew my hunch was real. That pig was the Saintess. Erzena Selaph, the hellion Saintess I knew personally.
The Saintess, turned into a pig.
What kind of absurd situation was this? But even as my brain rejected the understanding, my instincts as an examiner were kicking into overdrive.
The Saintess has been transformed into a pig and is being held captive?
And that wasn't all. The Sota standing before me was just as strange. A boy's body with a woman's voice, and strength greater than a grown man's.
Something disguised as a boy has imprisoned the Saintess-turned-pig and is trying to cross the border...
A tangle of words too heavy to fit in a single sentence — and the picture they painted was dangerous beyond imagination.
"...Kidnapping."
My instinct spoke. It told me this was a five-alarm emergency.
I drew in the deepest breath I could and shouted with everything I had — loudly enough for the entire Immigration Office to hear.
"A state of emergency has—"
- WHAM!
At the same moment, Sota's — no, some woman's — boot smashed into my jaw.
****
"Central Officer? Central Officer?"
Someone was shaking me awake.
"Snap out of it, sir! Central Officer!"
"Ugh... I-I'm all right..."
Only when I managed a reply did the hands shaking me mercifully stop.
"He's awake! Taste Officer, get a cloth, quick!"
"H-here!"
Along with familiar voices, someone pressed a cloth to my face. I opened my eyes slowly. I was lying flat in the middle of the wide-open examiner's yard, and around me, the Five Senses Officers and the attendants had gathered in a circle, peering down at me with worried eyes.
"Good heavens, sir, what happened to you!? Where did you fall?"
"I'm sorry? What does that mean? No, more importantly... hgngh!"
My head throbbed. A violent headache surged through me, as though I'd smashed into something at full speed.
"Why... ngh — weren't you all back at the office?"
At my question, the Smell Officer drew several sharp breaths before answering. "We smelled your blood, sir, and came running immediately. But what in the world happened? Why are you lying unconscious out here?"
"I was... unconscious?"
And in that instant, I remembered what had happened just before.
- Central Officer! It's me, Saintess Erzena! It's me!
I shot up from the ground and shouted. "That carriage just now!"
"Ahhh, sir, you mustn't get up so fast!"
"This is no time for that! The carriage — where is the carriage I was inspecting!?"
I looked around frantically, but all I could see was the empty inspection yard and the Five Senses Officers. How much time had passed?
"How long was I lying here?"
"A-about three minutes, I'd say. We came running the moment we caught the smell..."
Three minutes. Thank goodness. I wasn't too late.
I shoved the Smell Officer aside and spoke. "Everyone, listen to me! We have a five-alarm emergency! Right now the Saintess is— khh!"
I coughed, and a mouthful of blood spattered out. After I spat it onto the ground, a tooth clattered loose with it. That damned girl — how hard had she kicked me in the jaw?
At the sight of me, the Taste Officer went into convulsions. "AAAAH, Central Officer! Blood, you're bleeding blood! I'm begging you, please just sit down!"
"That is not what matters right now!"
"Fine, fine, just calm—"
I shook off the hands trying to settle me, and then shouted so that every single one of them could hear it clearly.
"The Saintess has been turned into a sow!"
Silence.
"..."
"..."
"..."
My voice echoed across the wide-open yard. - A sow...... a sow......
For the first time ever, contempt, shock, and bewilderment bloomed across the faces of the Five Senses Officers all at once. Expressions they had never once shown me — every one of them now turned my way.
After a long silence, it was the Smell Officer who spoke first. "...Hey, Taste Officer. Go to the meeting room and lay out a blanket. The Central Officer needs his rest. He's raving."
With that opening, every manner of remark came pouring down on me.
"He must be in a great deal of pain."
"He has been under a lot of stress lately, hasn't he."
"Poor Central Officer..."
Sympathetic voices, one and all — murmuring to each other as if handling someone who wasn't quite right in the head. Panicked, I cried out.
"No, I'm serious! I swear it! Erzena — that woman — turned into an oinking pig!?"
"If you say things like that in this day and age, you'll get arrested even as a joke, sir."
"Is this workplace harassment? Is that what this is? Am I being harassed right now?"
"Wow... and here I thought I'd seen everything from you."
Now it was contempt and disappointment. Nobody believed me. Frustrated beyond endurance, I screamed.
"You bastards, it's TRUE!!!"
Even I could hardly believe it — but it was true.
And then it happened.
"Hm? Hold on."
Suddenly the Smell Officer lifted his head and began sniffing the air a few times. "This... this is a smell I know."
He then came around behind me and inhaled deeply near my nape. Tilting his head with a puzzled look, he said, "William Kafka?"
A name I had never heard before. "Who is that?"
"A man we processed for departure yesterday. Did you happen to meet him?"
"No. What did he look like?"
The Smell Officer searched his memory and answered. "A well-dressed old man in a fine jacket, carrying a short sword. He was a retired mercenary, and he looked..."
Then he mentioned the thing that had struck him most. "He had violet eyes."
The moment I heard that, I thought of Sota. Violet eyes were rare — you'd be lucky to see them once in a lifetime. A color that hardly ever occurs naturally.
There's no way two people with those eyes passed through the Southern Border within a single day.
And Sota hadn't been a real boy at all. He'd had a woman's voice, and unnatural superhuman strength besides. The puzzle was fitting itself together, piece by piece.
A bodily transformation close to shape-shifting, a Saintess mutated into an animal, and of all times — the period when the Immigration Office is at its busiest...
This was no coincidence. And it was no ordinary kidnapping for ransom, either. If that were the goal, they'd normally surrender the moment they were caught — they wouldn't have timed it to hit exactly when we were swamped.
There was something bigger behind this. Something far, far bigger.
With conviction in my voice, I addressed the Five Senses Officers. "Everyone. The Saintess has, it seems... been abducted by an unknown faction."
I laid out everything that had just happened — the chained pig and the holy power, all the way down to the violet-eyed boy. When my subordinates had heard the whole story, they gasped in horror.
"Damn it all. Is this real? Then that man Kafka—!"
"The Saintess, really..."
"Is this even possible? A pig Saintess?"
They were finally starting to believe me. When have I ever lied to you, you wretches?
At that moment, the Touch Officer raised a hand. "But — why should we help her?"
"I'm sorry?"
"The Saintess is the woman who tried to bury the Central Officer in the first place, isn't she? Why should we lift a finger for a woman that insolent?"
A pointed reaction. Hostility toward the Holy Church had evidently grown far larger than I'd realized — not a single person contradicted her.
"I think we should just report it to the border garrison and our superiors, and put our strength into trial preparation instead."
"Heartless words, to be sure, but we simply don't have the capacity to spare for all that, sir."
The Smell Officer chimed in as well. I was grateful they were this angry on my behalf — but now was not the time for it.
I shook my head. "As you all know very well, the depositions alone in the [Evidence Vault] can't guarantee us a victory at trial."
"..."
"The people on the other side are armed with authority and power. Without a truly powerful card to play, we will almost certainly be steamrolled."
No answer. They knew I was right; troubled expressions appeared all around.
"But just now, I believe I found it. The single strongest card I can play."
The Five Senses Officers caught on immediately. Every one of them stared at me as if I had gone mad.
"Sir. Y-you don't mean..."
The Touch Officer's voice trembled at the outrageous idea. "Yes. That's exactly right."
Correct answer. I nodded as I replied.
"We rescue the Saintess — and in return, we make her our witness."
My father used to say something like this often: a merchant knows no crisis. There are only safe opportunities, and opportunities worth gambling on.
And what I faced right now was closer to a gamble — a gamble that could turn the entire board properly, thoroughly on its head. Anxious glances flickered back and forth among my direct subordinates. But at the same time, a faint hope sparkled. A quiet expectation — what if?
I seized that moment and spoke. "As of this hour, all activities of the Immigration Office are suspended. A state of emergency is hereby declared, and from this moment, every examiner and attendant moves under my direct command."
I put force into my voice. If there was hope — if there was a chance —
"A kidnapping has occurred at the border, and an examiner who discovered it has been assaulted. I hereby rule that this falls within the jurisdiction of the Immigration Office, and we will proceed with an arrest operation."
The one law that must never be let slip.
"Its name — Operation—"
"Pig Hunting."
Sitting still would lose us the trial; failing would lose us the trial either way. But if we succeeded, we won, no question. The moment the Saintess came over to our side, trial or no trial, we won everything.
It was a gamble worth taking.