"Ehhh, good work, everyone.

I know it's hot, but please do your best.

If you catch anybody illegally dumping, please contact someone immediately.

We'll act quickly."

"Thank you for your cooperation, Ooishi-san.

...Please."

A gap wide enough for a single car was opened up in the barricade.

Ooishi, showing his gratitude-- or perhaps a threatening attitude-- with a short beep on the horn, rolled the car forward through the checkpoint.

This time, my appearance was the very embodiment of the word 'suspicious.'

A baseball cap, mask, and sunglasses.

On top of that even though it was sweltering, I was wearing a hoodie. Any respectable police officer would be loathe to not stop me for questioning.

I had meant to be overcautious knowing full well that my face was known...

...But it might have already been too late for that to have any use.

Using that as an excuse, I doffed the unbearably hot hoodie and windbreaker, ripped off the mask and hat and threw them in the seat behind me.

"...Oh my.

Is that okay?"

"With a cheap little disguise like this,

they probably figured it out anyways."

"Na ha ha ha.

That just might be the case."

Ooishi, probably thinking that my unexpected behavior was funny, continued to laugh.

The beautiful and pristine scenery of Hinamizawa spread out before me.

...The village itself would have been quite beautiful if it weren't for the complicated circumstances surrounding it at the moment.

...I would absolutely love to take Yukie here for a drive one day.

...Come to think of it, I didn't get a chance to call her last night...

...I played around with the idea in my head.

But in reality, this village wasn't all sunshine and rainbows.

I had heard everything at the prefectural headquarters.

At the heart of this village, the intelligence network that the Three Families wielded was, due to blood ties and regional relationships, unbelievably well organized.

Their net spread not just around Hinamizawa itself, but encapsulated the entirety of the city of Shishibone as well.

When I first heard that, somewhere in the recesses of my mind I didn't take it completely seriously.

How could a local organization out in the boonies here have something so grandiose?

...I couldn't deny that somewhere in the back of my mind I had ridiculed the thought.

But, not only were they really threatening the Minister, but they had demonstrated they had a complete grasp on our movements, which were supposed to be top secret.

...They were almost like the secret police that controlled a small Eastern-European country like in some spy novel.

The villagers here wouldn't bat an eye at getting their hands dirty if it meant fighting the dam project.

I also heard something like that at the prefectural headquarters.

Ah... now that you mention it, when I first arrived here, Ooishi also said that this place was a warzone, didn't he?

The residents of this village were at the same time freedom fighters.

Although by definition they were no different than guerillas or a militia.

They weren't protected by the Geneva Convention, but they also didn't have to adhere to those rules either.

This place was more of a quagmire than any legitimate battlefield. A secret war was unfolding...

I could drive along because Ooishi was with me...

...but if I was to leave this car for even something as trivial as looking for a vending machine... there was a chance I wouldn't return.

Even though a single shot hadn't been fired... this was a battlefield.

No... the reason why bullets weren't flying was simply because it was hard for a civilian to obtain a gun in Japan.

So they were probably just equipped with weapons other than guns that were easier to obtain.

That was why Ooishi was wearing that stab-proof vest, wasn't it?

"..."

"Akasaka-san, are you nervous?

Nfu fu fu!"

The fact that I was apprehensive was, of course, picked up on by Ooishi.

If he already figured it out, there was no point in trying to deny or hide it.

"...Of course I am.

We're headed into the heart of enemy territory alone, aren't we?

I'm worried about if something unlikely happens with just the two of us."

"Something unlikely?

Na ha ha ha ha ha!

It'll be all right."

"Isn't everybody in this village our enemy?

If everybody gets their stories straight, they could murder someone in broad daylight and there wouldn't be a shred of evidence.

I'm asking about something like that."

This was what the ironclad rule of not barging into a yakuza office alone was about.

If there wasn't a neutral party involved, that area wasn't bound by the laws of common sense.

If something happened, you wouldn't be able to prove it, and there wasn't anybody who would take your side.

It was pretty much the definition of poking the bear.

"I've left word that we're headed towards the Hinamizawa area.

And in the worst case, we've also got a radio.

I know you're scared, Akasaka-san, but it's not that easy to pull off the perfect crime.

...Well, of course that doesn't mean we can let our guard down, either."

"..."

"Akasaka-san, you're too worked up over this.

You were more relaxed the last time we came up here together, weren't you?

Na ha ha ha ha..."

Laughing it off, Ooishi thumped his chest and grinned, as if to say I could depend on him.

"Well, if it gets really iffy, nahahaha!

This comes with having the badge."

Ooishi made a motion by sticking out his index finger.

...It was undoubtedly the image of a gun.

"...Will it be of any use?"

"If you're not afraid of dealing with the aftermath after you shoot, it's actually very reassuring."

An officer's gun was only for show.

If you really wanted to fire it, there were quite a number of stipulations, and you had to be prepared for the long probationary period afterwards.

That definitely wasn't worth it, so even if an officer did unholster his gun, there wasn't one who actually wanted to pull the trigger.

"Akasaka-san, are you carrying one?

One of these."

"...Well, yeah."

"You ever fired it?"

"I have.

...For training, though."

"Well I guess that'd be true.

Nfu fu fu...!"

"Well then, have you, Ooishi-san?"

"Me?

Naahahahaha!

Nawww, there's no way."

What was this? I thought he was laughing at me because he had experience!

The two of us laughed together.

"I've also never pointed the barrel at anybody.

I've looked down the barrel of a gun a few times though.

...Just being made to look down the barrel like that is enough to shorten your lifespan by about three years."

Even if he had never fired a gun before,

you couldn't even begin to compare the amount of experience Ooishi had over me.

...At a time like this, I could only marvel again at how reliable Ooishi seemed.

"...Come to think of it, I didn't want to come this way in the middle of the day.

But there's no way for a car to get through other than here.

...Akasaka-san, just in case, put on the mask again to hide your face, please."

"...What's the matter?"

"Can you not hear it because the air conditioning is too loud?

I'll turn it off.

Try opening the window."

When I opened the window, a blast of hot air blew inside.

And then... I could hear angry yelling coming from far away.

At that moment, the forest gave way on either side of us, and our view expanded suddenly.

...And there could be seen the Hinamizawa Dam Construction Grounds.

...The very front line for Hinamizawa Village.

"""We're absolutely opposed to the construction of the Hinamizawa Dam!!"""

The crackling blare of someone's voice sounded over an enormous loudspeaker.

The roar of angry voices continued to rumble.

The incredible volume had become a veritable sound cannon, spewing out its ammunition.

The prefabricated site office was surrounded by two sets of high fences laced with barbed wire.

Lined up in front of those fences were riot police and their vehicles.

And surrounding it all were the villagers.

They howled out their protests against the dam as a single entity.

"Oh... there's not too many of them today.

We're in luck."

"...That's not too many?"

"Yeah, when there's a lot of them, the crowd reaches as far as the road.

You wouldn't even be able to inch forward in a car."

At first, due to their overwhelming intensity, it looked to me like there was more people than there actually was, but upon closer inspection there were at most 50 to 70 of them.

But the six or seven propaganda trucks lined up that looked like they belonged to a band of thugs were a strange enough sight.

The villagers were also wearing helmets and bandanas, as well as covering their faces with masks, adding to the oddity of it all.

The propaganda trucks, after braying their chorus, had their volume turned up even higher and began to flood the area with sutras.

To say that the noise was downright violent wouldn't be an understatement.

From this distance it was still this loud... the glass in the office was probably rattling from the noise.

"They can't do anything there but take it.

Those riot squad guys, every one of them is wearing earplugs, but they're still having their hearing damaged.

Poor sobs."

"Can't you do something about it with noise ordinance laws?"

"Hmmm... our prefecture doesn't have any laws regarding noise ordinance.

Also, those are sutras, right?

We can't regulate religious activities.

Those guys are pretty smart.

Na ha ha ha..."

Is what I think Ooishi said.

Actually, no matter how tightly the window was shut, the booming sound of the sutras still filled the car.

I couldn't even hear what Ooishi, who was sitting right next to me, was saying.

As the car approached the line of propaganda trucks, the blare became difficult to bear.

...It wasn't enough to just plug my ears with my fingers, I had to hold my head to keep my skull from splitting apart...

If I had seen this terrifying energy sooner, I would have probably understood what Hinamizawa Village was much quicker.

Now I knew. They wouldn't blink an eye at sacrificing themselves in order to protect their home town.

Ahhh,

so goddamn noisy...

shut up shut up shut up...!!!

My head throbbed and felt like it was going to split apart, my eardrums crackled, and on top of it all, I felt like I was going to throw up.

With the road crowded with the throng of squatters, the propaganda trucks, and the riot police's vehicles, it was in no way easy to get by.

Even if you tried to shoo the squatters with the car horn,

they were also wearing earplugs, oblivious to noises from the outside world, and wouldn't easily move. The car could only inch forward at a snail's pace.

...Even then, the car eventually got through, starting to leave the tumultuous noise behind.

"...Hey, the old guy that was playing mahjong with us last night?

Remember him?"

I remembered that there was an older person who didn't exactly mince words.

The guy that Ooishi called "ol' man."

"There was someone like that."

"You see, he's the foreman of the main construction site.

He's probably holed up in that prefab building, trying to work while irritated out of his mind.

...Poor fella."

"...You wouldn't be able to stand it if it's like that every day."

"Yeah.

There's no end to the number of people who can't handle it and quit.

But every time that happens, their wages go up, so I won't say it's in vain.

Nfu fu fu...!"

Even having to deal with all that noise and hostility, they still made a wage that Ooishi found enviable.

"Dammit, these guys...

Can they hear or can't they?"

A group of squatters were in the way of the car.

Ooishi, sufficiently annoyed, laid into the horn. But there was no indication that they were moving any time soon.

In this din, could they not even hear a car horn?

Or did they hear it, and were being malicious?

If there were any riot police nearby, they would have made people move, but it just so happened there weren't any around here.

"....Ah~~~ geez.

Wait just a minute."

Ooishi opened up the door.

The hot air and even more heated roar of the crowd spilled into the car.

"...!!! ...!"

Ooishi said something as he grinned widely, but I couldn't hear what it was.

He was getting them to move.

...Something like that?

Ooishi stepped out of the car and closed the door.

The din faded slightly.

I stared blankly as Ooishi headed towards the group and started some sort of conversation.

...Maybe we'd find the minister's grandson at Takatsudo.

At the very least, I wanted to find him there.

Find him, and slip the cursed bonds of this incomprehensible village.

I could only pray.

At that moment, a shadow was suddenly cast over me.

Somebody was standing right outside the passenger-side window, blocking the sunlight.

I spun around...

looked up...

and realized who the backlit figure was.

"...huh."

It was... a girl.

It was Rika Furude.

The girl stared down at me with a bored look in her eyes.

I didn't have any justification for it, but I felt like I had been found by somebody I shouldn't be found by.

...To fill the silence, I raised my hand as I mouthed a meek greeting.

Of course, there was no way she heard my small voice in this clamor.

But even then, she should have seen me wave my hand in greeting.

In spite of that...

She simply stared down at me with a cold look on her face.

At that moment, the noise and heat spread throughout the car once again.

Ooishi had returned to the driver's seat.

Taking a look, the group that were blocking the road had started to move aside while glaring our way.

"Sorry to keep you waiting.

Shall we go?

...Hm?"

Ooishi registered the figure of the girl behind me.

One of the villagers came over and picked her up.

In a manner of 'It's dangerous, so get away.'

It was then that she whispered one or two words--however, I couldn't hear any of it.

"Well then, let's go.

I'm going to gun it, okay?

But of course, still within the speed limit."

As if to shake off the still-audible angry voices, Ooishi floored the gas.

Along with the roar and the din and the shouting, the villagers and the girl quickly disappeared behind us.

"As soon as we're through here, we're in Takatsudo.

Are you okay if we end up getting into a firefight?

Don't be fumbling with the safety at the last moment, you hear?

Nfu fu fu!"

Ooishi laughed mockingly again.

...I was more concerned with what the girl had said, however, as I was vaguely bothered by it.

...What was she trying to say with that apathetic and candid expression?

"..."

"Suppose it's normal if you're nervous from here on out.

But if you don't deal with it, there's a chance you might do something rash."

...But there was no longer a way to confirm what the girl had tried to tell me.

It might have been that the girl who warned me to go back to Tokyo again, or else...

Was saying to me who was here now, ignoring that warning...

"...Even though I warned you.

...What a fool."

I had the feeling she said something like that.