As soon as I made that announcement, the unmanned weapons that looked like motocross bikes with attack helicopter wings began to move. My vampire older sister and zombie little sister stood on either side of me to face them.

"Ayuuumi-chan?"

"Uuh… S-sorry, okay? Fuguu. But you really were keeping his Cla.s.s Rep to yourself, Onee-chan! And you turned her into a Dhampir!!"

"Only because a completed anti-Archenemy theory is what the Ghost wants more than anything and it wasn't clear where Satori-kun had gone. Why wouldn't I want a bargaining chip in case my cute little brother was taken hostage?"

Wait. What? Huh?

"I'm really confused, but what is the Ghost!?"

"As you can see, it's the system agent in charge of this abandoned hospital. Even after everyone left, it continued searching for a completed theory, just as it was programmed to. It would be a tear-jerker in an SF story, but it's only a nuisance in real life."

"Then what was that about you two bringing in a diesel generator to power the place?"

"Have you found any reason at all to trust what it's telling you?"

"Wh-what about the Cla.s.s Rep becoming a Dhampir!?"

"That part's true. A high-quality artificial hunter is exactly what the Ghost would want, so it wouldn't want to let that get away, right? But at the same time, this is no more than a coincidental success. It would probably want to chop her up and thoroughly investigate this success to find a way to ma.s.s-produce them."

Kh…

I felt dizzy. Was I really in reality here? I felt like I was wandering through endless game worlds set up like opposing mirrors.

Meanwhile, my smartphone did not receive even a word from Maxwell…no, from the Ghost pretending to be him. Was that because I had revealed its ident.i.ty or because the act was no longer necessary now that its hostage (me) had reached my sisters.

A storm of destruction swept across the roof.

On one hand, the Horse Knight unmanned motorcycle weapons used their machineguns and gas-operated pile drivers to push back the highly-infectious Archenemies.

On the other hand, the vampire and zombie stars could spread their infection across continents if they tried.

As the steel vanguards approached from every direction, the Archenemies stood back-to-back with me at the center and they danced. They danced with a crazed beauty. Each time their shoulders and hips turned or their arms or legs twisted, the precise industrial products built to military standards were split, crushed, or smashed.

…Had my sisters always been this strong?

Strong enough to overwhelm the enemy while also protecting a frail human like me from the many machineguns surrounding us?

At that point, I brought a hand to my forehead.

Don't let it overwhelm you. Trust them. Don't reject reality just because it doesn't seem to fit your a.s.sumptions. This isn't a virtual reality.

I crouched down and operated my smartphone while my sisters fought. But I wasn't just swiping with my index finger like normal. I opened a system developer mode and checked the background information.

…Where had Maxwell been replaced?

It was obvious once I checked. Maxwell was a handmade system filling up a container in Kukyou City, but all I had was a commercial smartphone. Someone had intercepted the signal from the container to the smartphone and overpowered it with a signal of their own.

It was like crossed signals on a TV or radio. They hadn't actually broken into the system and given Maxwell a virus.

I set up a random change to the frequency band and for the time being used pi for the random pattern. If Maxwell was using every single frequency to break through, I was sure to catch his sample signal.

"Maxwell! What's my fetis.h.!.+?"

"Sure. A dancing swimsuit forehead gla.s.ses childhood friend cla.s.smate cla.s.s rep. You pervert."

Good. It seemed I had connected to the usual Maxwell. The abandoned hospital's Ghost would be working to drown him out again, but it was too late. While it was scanning for the band being used, we would be continually jumping to the next candidate band out of a hundred or even two hundred options. The Ghost could never interfere unless it could predict the random pattern we were using.

"Use encryption sync Dr09. Cut off all other signals."

"Sure."

Even if there was some crossed signals, this would help distinguish between them to an extent. But most of the commercial apps wouldn't work in this handmade mode, so the increased security had its downside. Even the SNS I was using only barely worked.

"Maxwell, my recent memories are a mess thanks to the abandoned hospital's Ghost continually overwriting my short-term memories. I need your support. Does it look like you can win a cyber-battle?"

"If you mean taking control of the entire system, then no. But if you mean a less permanent solution, then yes."

"What exactly do you mean?"

"Sure. Based on what I can see through the smartphone camera, Miss Erika and Miss Ayumi are going a little nuts trying to show off to you, but I could interfere with the signal controlling the unmanned weapons and cause them to stop moving."

"Do it."

The result was as dramatic as sticking a thick wire along a fish's backbone. The deadly motocross bikes gave an unnatural jerk, lost their balance, and collapsed one after another.

"Huh?"

"Ow, ow, ow, ow… Onii-chan, did you do something?"

My sisters brushed back their hair or let their hands dangle down as they viewed Maxwell's shockingly perfect handiwork.

The current threat was gone.

I felt like I had greatly simplified the information and situation.

In other words…

"So we have to fight the abandoned hospital's system over the Dhampir-ized Cla.s.s Rep, huh?"

We had to explore the eerie abandoned hospital, rescue the captured Cla.s.s Rep, and remove the curse placed on that princess.

It felt like the plot of a video game. Was that because the mastermind who had set it up was a program?

"Erika, where is the Cla.s.s Rep?"

I had found a secret room in the virtual reality, but that had been for hiding the Polish Vampire Princess's cursed coffin.

And since the Peace Committee Convalescent Hospital's Ghost had plenty of those Automatic Hyahah! Bikes (as I feel like calling them), there was most likely a much larger hidden area.

"On the top floor."

"Hm? That's a pretty conspicuous location…"

"Oh, is it really? Satori-kun, do you know how many floors this convalescent hospital has?"

Huh?

Now that you mention it…

"Isn't it four or five floors?"

"But no one knows exactly. No one really cares even if the elevator never stops there. They're satisfied just speculating that it's the director's office or VIP rooms, so the hospital can easily set up another world so close by but so far away."

We had been guided there by the Ghost, so we had not made any detours on the way to the rooftop. We hadn't paid any attention to the top floor and we wouldn't have thought it odd if it had been closed off by a fire door.

We all left the roof and descended a floor to the abandoned hospital's top floor. My sisters could see in the dark, so only I was reliant on my smartphone's backlight. They got to work on the fire door blocked by a pile of trash. There was apparently a trick to the spring holding the door in place, so Erika reached up and messed with the gearbox that had an arm attached to the top of the metal door. Then I heard the small metallic click of something unlocking. …The structure of the lock and the material of the door were different from a normal fire door, so this had apparently not been installed in case of a fire.

I s.h.i.+ned my smartphone's light inside and found an awfully clean hall.

There was no avoiding the normal deterioration that came with time, but that was all. There was no trash lying around and there was no dust. Almost like someone had been cleaning it over and over like a machine.

There was something like a blue will-o'-the-wisp at my feet.

I quickly aimed my smartphone down and saw what looked like a thicker frisbee crawling along the floor like a bug.

"Onee-chan, are there cleaning robots in here?"

"Seems that way. Although there are a lot that died after failing to reach the charging boxes."

It reminded me of a mall coldly playing its welcoming announcements even after the destruction of the human race.

"Hm? Didn't the hospital only have power because someone from outside - in other words, one of you two - brought in a small generator?"

"Are you still believing anything the Ghost said after all the lies it told you, Onii-chan?"

"You lied to him too, Ayumi-chan. But to get back on topic, the hospital seems to have a few power generation systems: things like solar, hydro, and wind power. Those facilities exist here and there where the forest has been unnaturally cleared. I couldn't track down exactly how many there are, though."

I wanted to ask what those were for, but the answer was obvious enough when I thought about it.

…To keep it off any official records. Even if you made a few secret rooms or underground chambers, you couldn't hide them if the water and power usage were recorded. There was no hiding that data when reliant on the city government and facilities, but the only alternative was to set up some self-defense against the data.

"But this feels a lot different from the Bright Cross. They were a lot more blatant in what they did."

Erika and Ayumi must not have liked to hear me mention the Bright Cross because they both sighed.

"Fuguu. Well, that's obvious enough from the fact that this place isn't connected to the underground tunnels and that it's way out in the forest leaving it barely even inside Kukyou City. My guess is it was a frontline data-collection base for a rival company of the Bright Cross."

"It means the anti-Archenemy industry isn't a monolith. That said, it feels like the Bright Cross had the upper hand when it came to actual and effective methods of killing Archenemies. This place seems more like it was reliant on a weird mixture of technology and talismans."

Yes.

Even if all the people were gone, this was an anti-Archenemy research inst.i.tution. And yet my sisters were calmly walking through it. The unmanned deadly motocross weapons may have been a step in the right direction since machines weren't infected when bitten, but they were no use in actual combat. The flesh-and-blood Bright Cross combat members they had fought in virtual reality had been stronger. At the very least, both Erika and Ayumi had been hit by them.

…We might just be fine here.

Unlike those dark tunnels, I didn't sense that sticky darkness that threatened to drown you if you peered too deeply into it. Unlike the Colosseum, I couldn't spot that human ugliness that swallowed up common sense and encouraged crazed pa.s.sion and excitement while watching immortals fight to the death.

I had a vampire and zombie who had been too much for the Bright Cross. If this convalescent hospital was on a smaller scale than the Bright Cross, it was possible the Ghost would be entirely helpless. In fact, it might have been that helplessness in a direct battle that had led it to confuse things by impersonating Maxwell.

"Oh, right, right." Erika clapped her hands together in front of her large chest and sounded like she had just remembered something. "As I said, I think Cla.s.s Rep-chan is on this floor, but, um, be careful, okay?"

At first, I had no idea what she meant.

But…

"Cla.s.s Rep-chan is on a bit of a rampage right now. Enough so that she can probably break free and escape even with her arms and legs chained to the bed."

A loud sound of destruction came from the side. I s.h.i.+ned my smartphone's light that way in surprise and saw something charging my way. It was a red ma.s.s with an oppressively powerful rosy smell and wearing a b.l.o.o.d.y dress. No, no, wait! This is…!?

"Cla.s.s Rep!!"

It was surprisingly hard to tell when every last centimeter of the thing was soaked red. Something seemed off compared to what I had seen in the virtual reality, but then it hit me: the skirt was a lot shorter. And that led to the realization that what looked like a red dress was actually a girl's school uniform. And that led to further realizations: her hair wasn't silver and she was wearing gla.s.ses.

And as the forehead gla.s.ses Cla.s.s Rep from next door charged at me with enough force to not just bite me with her fangs but tear the flesh and bone from my throat, my sisters took an extremely simple action.

They kicked her.

They moved simultaneously as if kicking down a door.

The tremendously deep noise was a lot like the beat of a drum larger than I was tall. The Cla.s.s Rep's small body doubled over as she flew backwards. She rolled backwards and even destroyed a counter sectioned off by a transparent acrylic panel, making it look more like something from a dangerous country's bank than a nurse station.

"C-Cla.s.s Reeeep!?"

I shouted without thinking, but there was no human response. Also, her skirt fluttered up as she flew, revealing her panties quite spectacularly, but she showed no sign of caring. …Hmm, but what color were they? They were soaked with red, but I doubt that was the original color. This feels like scoring a goal in soccer but having the ref say it didn't count. I can see her panties, but it just isn't the same…

But this told me something.

In the virtual reality, the Cla.s.s Rep and the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl had been separate people. Since the Ghost that ran the Peace Committee Convalescent Hospital had repeatedly overwritten my short-term memory with false information, it must have wanted to hide this fact. That way, it could keep the Dhampir Cla.s.s Rep as the fruits of its research and dissect her to find a way to ma.s.s-produce her.

"Oh, my, my. Was the abandoned hospital's incomplete data not enough to make a proper hunter?"

"E-Erika, can the Cla.s.s Rep, um, return to normal? How do we make her human again!?"

"Cla.s.s Rep-chan was born a 100% pure human. The only reason she's being treated like a half-vampire is because of an artificially-altered curse. That means we only need to shut off the source of that curse."

"Oh," I almost said

Wasn't this something Erika herself had told me about?

"The Polish Vampire Princess… Is the cursed coffin the source!?"

That virtual reality had been partially used to repeatedly overwrite my memories and trick me into thinking the Dhampir Cla.s.s Rep and the b.l.o.o.d.y dress vampire were different people. The convalescent hospital's Ghost must have decided that cutting and pasting pieces of the existing material would confuse me a lot more than just inputting more and more nonsense data.

…The virtual reality had included a photo of a specimen girl among the director's possessions, but was that someone who had touched the coffin before today or had it been entirely fictional data? I had no way of investigating that now.

Red darkness squirmed beyond the thick but broken acrylic panel and behind the disordered counter. There was no time. The Cla.s.s Rep was about to get back up.

"Wh-wh-wh-wh-what do we do, Erika? We have to save her! Even if we know about the coffin, we have to keep her from moving! I can see her panties and every last bit of them is soaked red!"

"Satori-kun? It sounds to me like a few different desires are mixing together there."

"Fuguu. And why are you only relying on Onee-chan!? I'm here, too…"

"Tremble, tremble. But it's the Cla.s.s Rep's panties! And, Ayumi, are you good at anything other than eating and sleeping? A wa, a wa wa!"

"That's not an answer."

"That's not an answer."

Our conversation was cut off by a thick sound much like a musty futon being struck with a stick. The gla.s.ses forehead Cla.s.s Rep had leaped over the counter like a wild animal crossing a hurdle and she was charging at us head-first!

My sisters exchanged a glance and Ayumi grabbed my hand and fell back. Meanwhile, Erika took a step forward.

The Cla.s.s Rep and Erika clashed head-on.

It was hard to believe the sound it produced could come from blood or flesh colliding and it even shook the walls.

The Cla.s.s Rep approached in a straight line like an animal, but Erika moved around in a circle. Her gothic lolita skirt and gorgeous blonde ringlet curls spread out around her like a large flower as she faced the Cla.s.s Rep like a matador.

To be honest, I couldn't at all follow what was going on even from so close.

Maxwell used the smartphone data to calculate out what happened while those rapid blows and deafening noises occurred right in front of me, so he provided that information after the fact. It was like listening to a local reporter with a bad connection describe a foreign sports broadcast. If I had tried to fight, I probably would have had my face or torso pierced several times over before I could even move.

…Had I really returned to reality? Was this really not another virtual reality???

I adjusted my grip on the hairband-like dive device.

"M-M-Maxwell. I'm only a burden here and I can't bear much more if this. Please just let me pa.s.s the time in the Cla.s.s Rep Swimsuit Dance Paradise…"

"Hey! Scrawny Onii-chan!! Don't you dare run away now!! I'm confiscating that!!"

"Stop! You don't know your own strength and the dive device is sensitive and expensive! Let go! Give it back!!"

"Fuguu!"

"Ah!?"

While my little sister and I got in a fight on an entirely different level from Erika and the Cla.s.s Rep, the crucial high-tech hairband slipped from stupid Ayumi's hand and flew through the air.

Erika's slender hand grabbed the spinning device.

She then faced the Cla.s.s Rep who was charging toward her like a wild animal.

"Special Attack!! Double Hairband!!"

It fit perfectly on the Cla.s.s Rep's head. This was the heretical act of placing a hairband on a girl who was already wearing one. It bothered me as much as having a gla.s.ses girl wearing an extra pair of sungla.s.ses on her forehead. And when I glanced at my smartphone, I saw the text indicating the simulation had begun.

With her mind dragged into virtual reality, the Cla.s.s Rep collapsed to the floor.

She was entirely motionless.

Not an arm, a leg, or even a finger moved.

"…Did we just discover the ultimate restraint for Archenemies?"

"Hmm. It wouldn't work against any that don't have brains or that attack on a subconscious level, so you can't let your guard down."

"And, Onii-chan, this means the Cla.s.s Rep is in that simulation eternally watching herself dance around in a swimsuit, doesn't it? Will she be okay? I just hope it doesn't trigger some kind of Gestaltzerfall."

That was a shock.

"M-M-Mwaxwell-shan!?"

"No. To preserve the privacy of those partic.i.p.ating in my simulations, I cannot tell you what is happening inside. …But when I supplied the curled-up Cla.s.s Rep with an NPC based on your physical data, the situation took a turn that I would have difficulty describing…"

"Wahhhhhhhn!?"

Screaming wasn't going to solve anything. The only way to switch to a different simulation set was to log the Cla.s.s Rep out and wait for it to be set up again, but that would release the wild Cla.s.s Rep once more. Unfortunately, she was going to have to face herself (dancing in a swimsuit) for a while longer.

"Hey, Erika. The Cla.s.s Rep was turned into a Dhampir by weakening the curse of the Polish Vampire Princess's coffin, right?"

"What about it, Perverted Satori-kun?"

"I'm getting attacked here too!? B-but anyway, have you checked in the bas.e.m.e.nt? In the radiology department's…um, temporary storeroom for something-or-other, there just might be a steep staircase leading further underground."

"Hm." Erika placed a hand on her slender chin. "But wouldn't you have a hard time getting there, Satori-kun? An abandoned hospital's radiology department seems like it would contain some preeeetty dangerous chemical substances."

"Uuh!?"

I suddenly realized that I had been a giant garlic in the virtual reality that the abandoned hospital's Ghost had shown me. I wasn't that way anymore and I didn't have a protective suit. …And even if I found one on a hanger here, I couldn't exactly trust it.

"And, Onii-chan, we checked around and there are a lot of thick locked doors that we couldn't destroy. And the bas.e.m.e.nt floor was the biggest example. We couldn't open most of the doors down there."

…I see. Even if I know where the door is, I don't have the key now.

"Um, was the director collapsed in the pediatric department or rehabilitation room? It would be great if he had his half-opened briefcase with a key ring and ID card inside."

I hesitantly asked my question, but Erika and Ayumi only exchanged a glance and shrugged. It seemed real life did not match the virtual reality to that extent.

"Anyway, it does sound like the bas.e.m.e.nt floor is most suspect since we haven't searched very much of it."

"Fuguu. So we have to do it by force in the end? But unlike Onee-chan, I can't regenerate my body. We'll have to pick up 'something like a crowbar'."

…Apparently Archenemies did not consider the option of "search for the key". Of course, we were in the middle of a dangerous area, so we couldn't just decide to "put it off until we found the key" or "try something else since we didn't know the code".

"You wait here, Onii-chan. The dive device restraining the Cla.s.s Rep's mind is connected to your smartphone via Redtooth, right? If you leave, the connection will be broken and she'll wake up."

"W-wait, Ayumi. But…"

"Don't worry, Satori-kun. I'd really rather not bring up that time of our lives, but we were the fierce fighters who survived the fearsome Bright Cross's Colosseum. Searching around a bit will be easy for us."

"Um, what about the key?"

"Think about it rationally: If this is using the cursed coffin, the Cla.s.s Rep has to return there periodically to recharge her power."

"That means it would be over already if it was locked up tight, keeping Cla.s.s Rep-chan out. But that hasn't happened. There must be an open path to the coffin; we just haven't found it yet."

With that, I smiled at them and they left.

Would they be fine? Of course they would be. In fact, if a full-power zombie and vampire weren't enough to handle whatever it was, a human like me wouldn't stand a chance. I would only be a burden for them.

Sometimes the difference in power was too great to make up for with ingenuity. Even if you had polished your swords and spears, pored over the map, and carefully come up with a plan for a 100-against-100 battle, you would still be helpless if it was 100 man-eating tigers that approached your 100 warriors. That was what it meant to face an Archenemy in a serious battle.

"That aside, the Cla.s.s Rep sure is cute while she's asleep. And knowing that nothing I do will wake her up right now feels so immoral. Maybe I should wipe off all this mystery blood soaking her body. Eh heh heh."

I held my head in my hands next to the sleeping Cla.s.s Rep.

Erika and Ayumi said they would be back right away, but they shtill haven't come byack.

"Dammit…"

Was it not that simple? If there was some cruel trap in the real radiology department, they might have been caught while investigating it based on the virtual reality information.

But.

What if it wasn't a trap?

There weren't many other things that could do serious damage to a vampire or zombie. Normal troops probably couldn't do it and even a group of those killer motocross bikes wouldn't be able to take them out.

I glanced toward the window which was covered by a thick curtain. It was night. Late at night. No matter how much the lights of civilization covered the planet, that was still a dangerous time that brought you closer to death.

An eye for an eye.

A snake best knows how to catch a snake.

…I didn't want to consider it, but could there be another unknown Archenemy lurking here?

Either way, I couldn't just ignore my sisters' long absence. I also wanted Maxwell's backup, but if my smartphone moved away from the headband-style dive device on the Cla.s.s Rep's head, her mind would be freed from its virtual reality cage.

Which meant…

"I'll just have to carry the Cla.s.s Rep with me. And if I rub against her along the way, it's not my fault!!"

"User, why is it you seem unable to stop smiling?"

Maxwell: What appears to be a commercial light off-road motorcycle was equipped with a variety of communication and electronic control equipment. The gyros attached to the front wheel keep it balanced and the adjustable wings attached to the seat have various weapons installed to make it an anti-Archenemy unmanned weapon. The levers, pedals, and gauges for a manned motorcycle all remain, but that may be just for fun.

A focus on quant.i.ty over quality shows this weapon likely came from the concept of letting one's industrial strength do the talking. Its actual suppression ability is not actually all that great, but it is the perfect weapon when looking at the personnel loss ratio.

When making curves, the wings can fold upwards to allow the actual motorcycle to skim just off the ground. That and the jumps it makes using its suspension make it surprisingly nimble, so watch out for surprise attacks.

Maxwell: A commercial VR device with discretionary pricing, but its average market value is just under 30,000 yen. The processing s.p.a.ce that the human brain uses for dreaming is utilized to show the user a vision in reality. Thus, playing late at night is strictly forbidden.

It is a receiver that uses short-range wireless communications and the processing is done by a mobile device or game system, so the dive device itself has a very simple design. That may be to keep the device light enough to reduce muscle exhaustion while wearing on the head. …But then why is the price so high?

Depending on how it is used, it can be switched on to forcibly "knock out" an opponent, so it has excellent specs as anti-Archenemy "handcuffs".

It was never a normal facility, but there have recently been even more strange guests that usual. No, I should call them creepy.

There was a general contractor with eyes like a hitman who was carrying a bunch of cement and there were those young women with their faces entirely hidden by robes. They looked like fortunetellers, but they weren't. They're called "wors.h.i.+pers" and they're hired to do jobs in the underworld. I'd really rather not look them in the eye.

The other guards even claim the researchers who collapse from exhaustion are buried behind the walls underground. Given the sharp-eyed contractor with cement and the strange wors.h.i.+pers, it certainly sounds plausible, but I don't think it's that simple.

Calling it a "seal" would be more accurate. I mean, they aren't going to be placing normal corpses behind the walls. After all, this is an anti-Archenemy research facility. No one here would be surprised to have a corpse get up and walk around, so I can only think they've opened the gates to h.e.l.l or something.

…Come to think of it, I haven't seen her in a while.

She showed up partway through and received such a warm welcome, but…no, it couldn't be.