Otherside Picnic: Volume 9 Part 1 by Iori Miyazawa

Author:Iori Miyazawa
Language: eng
Format: epub

2

Heading out the Mayoiga’s gate, there was an empty lot paved with gravel. The hill road in question was on the other side. Verdant branches reached out from either side to cover the road, keeping the slope dark even in the middle of the day. I’d have been hesitant to go down a road like this even in the surface world.

“How’s it look?” asked Toriko.

“I looked with my right eye, and there doesn’t seem to be anything.”

“Okay. In that case...” Toriko said with an expression that was anything but okay, then flicked on the light that was attached to her AK. I did the same. Two powerful beams cut through the darkness...and were swallowed up by it.

It was dark even when we shone a flashlight into it? It was like we were dealing with some horror game lighting here. I almost said as much, but thought better of it. There was no need to go out of my way to make Toriko more uneasy.

We steeled ourselves, then stepped onto the hill.

Gravel crunched under our feet. Even if we turned our lights off, our presence would be blatantly obvious. The incline was a gentle one, but the poor visibility and footing made it feel much steeper. If we slipped, there was no telling how far we might tumble down.

The canopy of branches overhead rustled in the wind. We used our lights to alternately check the ground at our feet and the area around us as we descended into the darkness. Occasionally, I would get the feeling I’d seen something in the trees. But when I looked again, there was nothing there. I wasn’t picking anything up with my right eye either. Had it been a trick of the light, or had I spotted the shadows of animals that had adapted to the Otherside using my peripheral vision? We continued on without me figuring out the answer.

Toriko stopped suddenly. “You hear that?” she whispered. I stopped to listen as well.

“Water...?” I suggested.

“Right?” she agreed.

We could hear water, but we didn’t know where. When we went deer hunting with Todate, we’d seen a small river near here, so that wasn’t surprising. But the sounds that we were hearing now weren’t like the smooth flow of a river, but more rhythmic, like waves.

Waves? Here? As I was thinking how weird that was, the slope leveled out. The trees thinned, and our field of vision opened up. But despite that, it was still dark around us. It felt like a little sunshine wouldn’t be out of place here, and yet when we looked up towards the sky it was completely dark.

“It’s night already...?” Toriko wondered.

“That can’t be right. I mean...”

The hands on my wristwatch still said it was noon. We’d set out with time to spare, assuming it would take a while to find Todate and Hana, so I knew there ought to be plenty of time still before sundown.

“Couldn’t it actually be midnight instead?” Toriko expressed her concerns as she peered at my watch.

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