Ma En stepped out of the apartment building. Bright sunlight fell across his body and he narrowed his eyes slightly. Ahead, the street and its buildings — wood, iron, concrete — glowed in the warmth. Vivid color, flowing traffic, crowds moving in all directions: the gloom and strangeness the Room 3 neighbor had brought into the world vanished in an instant, as though sealed behind the apartment's front door. Inside, the building had been growing hollow, emptied out by the ghost story. Out here, the city was full and real, and bore no trace of anything dark or corroded.

Ma En stood on the street for several seconds, then set off walking. His steps were firm. Upheaval on the scale of 100,000 people — whether or not the bizarre was involved — would destroy this scene completely.

The world wars had ended barely fifty years ago. People had lived through wound after wound; economies and livelihoods were either still rebuilding or had only just begun to taste recovery. At the postal service, Ma En had witnessed countless events with the potential to destabilize societies. That experience had made him understand, more than most, how rare and valuable a period of general stability was.

In this country and in the homeland alike, what most people wanted was largely the same.

Ma En couldn't claim he had no issues of his own. But on the matter of the Room 4 Ghost Story, his mind was made up.

Whatever the enemy was, once events escalated to the level of 100,000-person social upheaval — no. Before that happened, the fuse had to be cut. And if it came to the worst, Ma En was prepared to sacrifice himself.

In truth, regardless of how the Room 3 neighbor categorized those 100,000 people, regardless of whether calling them "monsters" was accurate, Ma En didn't particularly care.

Look at the people around him. Children, adults, men and women of every age, workers from every sector — teachers, professors, civil servants, police. Whether or not they were monsters, they were undeniably part of this city's fabric, its core. Whether or not they were human, they belonged to this country; they were the substance of the peace and prosperity he was looking at right now.

Whatever they were, whatever their nature, whatever the justification — before someone incited them to riot, every one of these 100,000 people was living their life with energy and commitment. Whether for the sake of this scene in front of him or for the millions beyond Bunkyo District, these 100,000 could not be allowed to become pawns moved by a single leader's command.

This country had its share of problems, but Ma En was certain of one thing: the working people did not want to see their city turned into a place that could take their lives at any moment. He wasn't viewing this from the perspective of the inhuman — he didn't presume to understand what real monsters thought. He simply believed: if the 100,000 were human, this was what they'd want. And if the 100,000 truly weren't human, then at the very least, everyone outside that number would want it.

His responsibility was clear. Not to kill 100,000 monsters. Not to determine whether they were still human. Not even to establish the precise size of the group organized around the Room 4 Ghost Story.

The saying went that treating symptoms without addressing the cause only invited recurrence. But surveying the whole of human history — in the long arc of social development — when had humanity ever eliminated the root contradictions between people, between humans and other life, between humans and their environment?

Never. Not once. Greater men than he had failed to do it. Ma En didn't imagine he could either.

But — as with the work he'd done at the postal service — all he needed to do was remove the surface factors that would directly trigger upheaval. That was enough.

He believed he still had a chance to defuse this particular surface contradiction. Human societies always found ways to ease tensions and maintain equilibrium for a while, because that was what humans were inherently good at.

The 100,000 the Room 3 neighbor described, human or not, lived alongside everyone else. Their friction with the rest of the population was simply one more contradiction among the many that human societies had always contained. Animals and humans had contradictions. Nature and humans had contradictions. Group against group. The people involved in the Room 4 Ghost Story, whatever they were, had a conflict with the other residents — and that conflict didn't break the mold.

The unresolved contradictions of human society had produced no shortage of suffering and bitter memory. The world wars were still fresh, just fifty years past. Ma En understood very well how important it was not to reopen those wounds.

The Room 4 Ghost Story always peaked in August. The buildup of tension likely crested at that time. But if he found the person behind it before then, he'd have to move carefully — one wrong step and the enemy would lash out in desperation, detonating the whole thing early.

The postal service's work had always cycled between creating contradictions and resolving them, and he'd dealt with more than a few fuses connected to powder kegs. For Ma En, this first assignment after leaving the service carried a familiar scent.

Matsuzaemon.

The name was too familiar to have been heard only once. The déjà vu was stronger than before — strong enough that Ma En was now certain: someone other than the Room 3 neighbor had mentioned this name to him, and he'd lost it. Perhaps he really had lost his memory. Situations that seemed strange but also oddly unsurprising had been piling up around him.

Even if that were true, it wasn't cause for shock. An ordinary person might consider amnesia miraculous, a freak occurrence. But manufacturing hallucinations, steering thought patterns, inducing memory loss — these techniques had been in operational use by the end of the world wars. Fifty years of Cold War between rival blocs had refined them enormously.

The principle was straightforward: apply the right stimulus in the right way, and the human body responds accordingly. It was that simple. The sophistication lay in the precision — and decades of uninterrupted wartime and Cold War practice had generated enough data to make the work extraordinarily fine-grained.

Ordinary people didn't know about this, and that was because they didn't need to return to any battlefield. A good thing. Everyone had only twenty-four hours in a day, barely enough for work and life. If they learned about these techniques, they'd live in fear — and they simply didn't have the time or energy, on top of their daily labor, to study and understand them.

Ma En didn't produce material goods. He was well aware that his knowledge of these things, his work in this domain, didn't make him superior to or more important than working people. It was simply a different division of labor. Precisely because working people lacked the time and energy to deal with these problems, someone else had to — even at the risk of his life. That was the responsibility that came with his role.

The Room 3 neighbor might attribute the memory loss to the monsters. But if the monsters' arsenal consisted only of this, Ma En didn't find them particularly strange. What truly worried him was the certainty that the enemy had more in reserve. Beyond amnesia, there were unknown capabilities — and those unknowns were far more dangerous.

He sat rigidly upright in the taxi, staring straight ahead. He was reviewing and reorganizing his memories, increasingly certain that what had happened to him went beyond simple memory loss. Parts of his thinking, parts of his logic, had likely been altered.

Kamishima Kousuke must have mentioned relevant intelligence.

No — if the situation truly involves 100,000 people, it inevitably touches the highest levels of politics. His position means he'd avoid political tripwires. Even if he'd told me something, it would have been through implication. He's been unreachable for a month now, but that actually confirms the theory. His political status is complicated. Even if he's not a senior official, he has significant social weight.

So — enough people already know that Matsuzaemon has "at least 100,000" behind him? Everyone who knows is trying to prevent the worst case? And in that context, I was selected. Is that it?

The logic was connecting pieces he'd been inexplicably ignoring. Obvious things, staring him in the face, that he'd somehow never thought to examine. He was more certain than ever: the enemy had tampered with his reasoning itself.

By feel — Kamishima Kousuke and the Room 3 man both probably mentioned "Matsuzaemon" to me some time ago. Did I go looking for this man? Probably not. It's not just missing memory — his position and role in events clearly carry significant weight. Going in unprepared would only end badly.

I lost my memory before I could prepare my position and my leverage? Perhaps the enemy launched some kind of preemptive attack — sudden, subtle.

If I really was hit without warning — how long ago? How fast did the enemy move? What form did the attack take?

Can't determine that.

He was still turning this over when he spoke aloud to the driver: "Excuse me — do you happen to know someone called Matsuzaemon?"

"Huh?" The driver clearly hadn't expected the question. He glanced at the rearview mirror before answering. "No."

Ma En studied the driver's eyes in the mirror and smiled. A small nod.

"No problem. Sorry to bother you." Then, checking his watch — at this speed, he'd arrive well before the work day started — he added: "Could you slow down a little, please?"

He did intend to go to the school. But not merely to request leave. To test his theory, arriving late was preferable.

He knew his colleagues well enough: an unannounced late arrival followed by a three-day absence request would provoke emotional reactions. If any of them had a problem, heightened emotion was when it was likeliest to show. He couldn't generate genuine excitement or joy on short notice, so provoking the opposite would have to do.

The damage to his professional reputation was a cost. Against what was escalating around the ghost story, it was an acceptable one.

Let's see how far Matsuzaemon's reach extends.

He had the driver circle the school for half an hour. Through the window he tracked the surrounding environment: traffic signals cycling, pedestrians, vehicles in every direction. He was looking for patterns — any regularity that orbited his taxi specifically.

Choosing a car instead of walking was deliberate. What you observed on foot and what you observed from a vehicle were different. How watchers treated a walking target versus a driving one was different. A car's routes, speed, and range of movement didn't overlap with a pedestrian's. To maintain full-spectrum surveillance of a person across an entire city, you couldn't rely solely on traffic cameras. And there was a further distinction: if a tail was watching with their own eyes rather than analyzing feeds from an office, they'd notice "this taxi has been circling the school for thirty minutes past the start of work" at a different point, and react differently.

He wasn't expecting to observe the full picture directly. Beyond observation, he was broadcasting — sending deliberate signals of abnormality.

Not concealing it. Displaying it.

He wanted any potential surveillance and its handlers to register his unusual behavior — and his stated intention to leave Bunkyo District. If the enemy cared, they would act. If they didn't react at all, that too would tell him something.

When the timing felt right, the taxi finally stopped at the school gate. Ma En paid, took his briefcase, and walked to the gatehouse, making a point of greeting the guard. Then, instead of taking his usual route, he deliberately wandered through places he had no reason to visit: the athletic field, the sealed gymnasium, the restrooms, the tree-shaded rest area, the auditorium, every teaching building.

He observed every student, teacher, and maintenance worker he passed. He engaged them — sometimes abruptly, sometimes casually — varying his manner and his questions, mentioning to each that he'd be traveling out of the district. He made no effort to conceal his tardiness. A late teacher wandering the campus was conspicuous regardless of the excuse.

The situation was reported to the school's personnel office promptly, and he was dressed down by his supervisor. Because Director Katsura Masakazu happened to be on-site, Ma En was sent directly to the Director's office.

"Ma En-san, what exactly has gotten into you today?" Katsura Masakazu — normally measured and even-tempered — asked with open bewilderment.

Ma En saw nothing in the man's eyes but genuine confusion. He knew perfectly well that his own usual conduct was nothing like today's, and that Katsura-sensei — partly due to Kamishima Kousuke's introduction, partly due to Ma En's own demonstrated ability — had extended considerable trust. Today's behavior was a betrayal of that trust.

He couldn't give the real reason. Instead he asked: "Director — are you familiar with a man named Matsuzaemon?"

"Hm?" Katsura Masakazu's expression sharpened slightly. "You know this person?" But before Ma En could respond, something seemed to click, and Katsura continued: "Ah — Kamishima Kousuke mentioned him to you, didn't he? This school owes its existence in no small part to Matsuzaemon's efforts behind the scenes. He's a man with genuine passion for education, though he holds certain biases when it comes to practical pedagogy." Katsura's tone shifted to caution. "But what does this have to do with you, Ma En-san? If I may be frank — you'd do well to keep your distance. He's an activist in Japan's international affairs, and his attitude toward foreigners has long been criticized by your own Party colleagues."

"From what you're describing, Matsuzaemon sounds like a man of considerable influence and ambition. Is he based in Bunkyo District?"

Katsura Masakazu's gaze turned sharp. He hadn't intended to discuss this person at any length, and the meeting was supposed to address Ma En's behavior — not be redirected into questions about political figures. The fact that Ma En knew Kamishima Kousuke, combined with his character, his background, his Party affiliation, and the timing of his arrival — Katsura hadn't finished vetting all of it, but weeks of working alongside the young man had made one thing clear: Ma En was not someone to be underestimated.

Although he stood outside the factions, it was precisely that distance that gave him a clearer view. He knew something of the inside picture: right now, Matsuzaemon was caught in some kind of abnormal political whirlpool. His placement in Bunkyo District was not merely ordinary partisan infighting — the water there ran deep. Katsura had no idea what the specific reasons were, and he had no desire to find out. But the young man in front of him appeared to be wading straight into the center of it.

This was dangerous. Katsura felt it as a bad signal — for this young man, for himself, and for the school.

He'd accepted him partly as a favor, partly because the young man's talent was undeniable. He hadn't expected trouble this soon.

"Ma En-san, do you understand your current position?" Katsura stressed. "You are a teacher. Whatever you did before, your job now is education." His voice softened. "Leave that man alone. At his level, he can't possibly have a reason to target you specifically. You're a young man who's just arrived in Japan — what would he gain? You may be trying to repay a debt to Kamishima Kousuke, but that man is too shrewd. If you push too far, the cost will exceed any favor owed."

"I understand. But some things have to be done." Ma En held the Director's gaze, reading the man's thoughtful expression, the candor of his warning. He decided to offer a fragment of the truth: "I've recently received intelligence suggesting Matsuzaemon may be planning something significant in Bunkyo District. Our school is located in Bunkyo District. We can't avoid being affected. If nothing else — for the students' sake — this isn't something I can ignore."

"Something significant? Absurd! What kind of significant?" Katsura frowned, his voice rising to a rebuke. "He's only a Superintendent — there are people above him in the department. What significant thing could he possibly do? Young man, don't believe every rumor you hear. Don't overthink this. And don't be an alarmist!"

"You know Kamishima Kousuke. May I ask — how long has it been since you were last able to reach him?"

Katsura Masakazu felt a pressure he couldn't quite name emanating from the young man in front of him. Not entirely unfamiliar — but difficult to reconcile with the person he thought he knew. That this kind of force could come from someone called Ma En, who had been, until today, a quiet and diligent teacher —

"A... about a month."

Timeline confirmed.

Ma En registered the answer with an inward chill. One month — almost exactly when he'd arrived in Japan. Which meant he'd been hit within two or three days of setting foot in the country.