"Boss."
Kanzaki Rei called out once.
No response.
He knocked on the door again. About thirty seconds later, it opened.
"What?" Ushiuma asked impatiently.
"Doesn't the restaurant provide transportation?" Rei asked.
"No," Ushiuma said, shaking its massive head. "We don't need that."
That was fair. Its lower body was a horse's. Judging by the length and muscle of those legs, its sprinting speed probably rivaled a real-world Akhal-Teke.
"What about the human employees?" Rei pressed.
"You should get moving. Any later and you really won't make it." Ushiuma slammed the door shut.
Rei clicked his tongue.
Looks like he couldn't squeeze any more benefits out of it.
He picked up the delivery bag and headed toward the delivery passage.
The passageway was pitch-black.
There was no light source at all.
Even the floor seemed to be made of some special material—he made no sound whatsoever as he walked.
In an environment like this, forget about determining direction. Staying mentally stable was already an achievement.
Rei cautiously raised his arms. His fingertips just barely brushed the walls on both sides.
The texture was strange—something like a slime stress toy, but much firmer.
If he wanted a psychological anchor, bracing himself against the walls while moving forward would've been a perfectly reasonable choice.
But he didn't do that.
Rei lowered his arms and allowed himself to be swallowed by the boundless darkness.
While learning about ALS, he'd also picked up a lot of other medical knowledge. One concept was called desensitization therapy.
Put simply: repeatedly expose an allergic patient to allergens in controlled doses until the body stops reacting.
Rei figured the same principle should apply to psychological responses to light and darkness.
Of course, if the system ever warned him that his Sanity was decreasing, he'd stop immediately.
Fortunately, his tolerance for pure darkness and silence turned out to be far higher than expected.
And the passageway wasn't completely silent.
Every so often, he couldn't suppress a cough or a wheezing breath.
At the same time, intense discomfort surged from his lungs and throat, loudly asserting their existence.
Physical illness became an anchor for his mind.
Dark humor, in the most literal sense.
After his seventh coughing fit, Rei finally walked out of the passage.
Sunlight—not particularly harsh—fell onto his eyes, giving him a disorienting, otherworldly sensation.
For a moment, he felt a bit of sympathy for his former coworkers.
He only had to endure three days.
They had to work for months. Or decades.
Though… they probably wouldn't live that long.
After observing a one-second silence for those human colleagues he'd never met, Kanzaki Rei set off on his delivery route.
Just like before, the streets were completely empty.
No pedestrians. No vehicles.
Not even traffic lights.
If he had an electric scooter right now, he didn't even want to imagine how good it would feel to ride it.
Unfortunately—no riding today.
"Heeheehee…"
A strange, eerie tune rang out.
Rei pulled out his phone.
Incoming call.
13871XXXXXX
Checked against his memory—no mistake. Ushiuma's number.
"Boss, what's up?" Rei asked as he accepted the call.
"I forgot to remind you of something," Ushiuma's booming voice came through."When you relieve yourself outside, you must do it next to plants. Preferably trees or landscaped greenery."
"…I thought only dogs did that," Rei muttered.
"They have their own regulations. They're only allowed to aim at cylindrical objects."
The call ended.
Wow. That stereotype was authentic.
Better not let dog lovers hear that, or they might piss on your leg in protest.
Rei chuckled and kept walking.
Honestly, Ushiuma didn't need to remind him so urgently. He hadn't eaten or drunk anything before entering the instance—his stomach was completely empty.
Even if his metabolism wanted to work, it—
…Huh?
That's weird.
Rei abruptly stopped and clenched.
It was actually happening.
"Seriously?" he muttered.
He looked around.
The instance world still had plenty of correspondences with reality. Even the roadside trees were familiar species—mostly camphor trees and London plane trees.
He even spotted a few Chinese photinias. Thankfully, it wasn't flowering season, or the entire street would've been filled with the scent of life.
Rei hurried over to a camphor tree and unzipped with one hand.
A faint yellow arc fell, splashing lightly against the bark.
"Running a bit hot lately, huh?"
"Yeah. Too much barbecue."
Rei answered casually—then froze.
He turned his head.
Not far away, a London plane tree was staring straight at him.
At him.
And at the instrument of the crime.
"Smells like alcohol too. Maotai?" the plane tree sniffed, flakes of bark falling as it did.
"Ascension Maotai. Fifty-three percent," Rei replied automatically, pulling his pants back up.
"Good stuff. Hurry up—pour it into my mouth."
The London plane tree opened its mouth eagerly.
"Answer me one question first," Rei said.
"Ask, ask!"
"What exactly are you?"
"Isn't it obvious?" the tree replied, looking at him strangely."I'm a tree."
Are humans really this stupid now?
"Then why can't it talk?" Rei asked, pointing at the camphor tree beside him.
"Because it's mentally disabled."
"…Disabled?"
"That's right. Every tree on this street is mentally disabled. I'm the only one who's a one-of-a-kind genius."
The London plane tree sounded extremely proud.
"Even if they're disabled," Rei pressed, "why don't they have faces?"
He'd found the critical flaw.
"Disabled things don't talk. Why would they need faces? Waste of nutrients."
The plane tree answered righteously.
…He had to admit, it made a disturbing amount of sense.
"Alright." Rei shrugged and turned, intending to find somewhere else.
"Hey! Didn't I tell you to pour it into my mouth?" the tree shouted.
"I don't have a fetish for that," Rei replied without turning back.
"I'm not human!"
"Still no."
"So troublesome," the London plane tree grumbled."Fine. What do you want, then, before you'll let me drink?"
"I want a vehicle," Rei said, stopping and testing the waters.
"No."
"An electric scooter?"
"No."
"A bicycle, then?"
"No, no. I'm a tree. A tree, got it?"
The plane tree shook its branches violently, leaves raining down.
"Then what can you give me?" Rei urged."Hurry up—I've got deliveries to make."
"I only have this."
A thick, long root burst out of the soil and tossed a white cane onto the ground.
Name: Human Bone CaneType: EquipmentQuality: ExcellentEffect: Increases movement speed by 10%Notes: Once there was a master con artist who loved selling canes to perfectly healthy people. Later, his legs were broken.Can be taken out of the instance: Yes
One piss in exchange for an item.
An extremely profitable deal.
But Rei didn't immediately step forward to pick it up.
Instead, he stared at the root that hadn't yet withdrawn back into the soil.
"…Let me ask one thing," he said carefully, his gaze flickering."You're not planning to eat me, are you?"
After all—
That human bone cane definitely hadn't grown out of the ground on its own.