Listening to the old man's narration, Keli's interest was immediately piqued.
Good, good, good! What a trigger mission, I just love it when things come looking for me!
Keli nodded, signaling him to hurry up and tell him!
"Before I was arrested, I wandered around Tokyo for a while. I heard that Kishimoto and a few other old guys had a good place to go at night. They wouldn't just tell anyone about it; only close people like me knew."
But seeing Keli nod, the old homeless man still kept him in suspense.
Keli reluctantly played the role of the lonely old man's straight man.
"What place?"
"The sewers," the old man said, pointing underground, enunciating each word. Keli frowned.
"Are you thinking of the drainage shrine built by the Tokyo Sewerage Bureau? That place is almost a tourist attraction now, and it's not even in central Tokyo. I'm talking about our local Tokyo sewers.
They supposedly found a small room in there and told me it was a storage point left by the US military back then. There were even bunk beds and some canned meat. They lived in there daily."
When he reached the exciting part, the old homeless man gesticulated wildly, but then he looked a little disappointed.
"But after I got out, I never saw those old guys again. At first, I thought they had been caught by the police, but then I heard from others that they suddenly disappeared one day.
And it was very sudden. The day before, they had even arranged to chat with some old men from the community there the next day.
But they just vanished like that. All we could do was help report it to the police. They all said they might have been bitten by snakes, because who knows what's in the sewers? These days, many young people like to get exotic pets from abroad, and when they don't want to keep them anymore, they just throw them away. I heard those discarded animals live in the sewers and have become incredibly huge because the sewer environment is warm and humid."
It was clear that the old man was trying his best to convey the feeling of a horror story.
After describing the incident, he even spun a wave of urban legends for Keli that sounded plausible at first but a bit abstract upon reflection, whether true or false.
However, this clearly had no frightening effect on Keli.
Keli just frowned.
"Sewers, huh...?"
Seeing Keli's reaction, the old man drained the last of his beer.
Keli asked a few more related questions, such as where the old homeless man encountered those people most often, and other information.
Keli felt that being a homeless person in this world was truly more dangerous than being a magical girl in Gen Urobuchi's works.
He had just dealt with the ghoul mess, and now there was new trouble.
"Alright, it's almost time for those restaurants to throw things out, so I'll be going now."
After one bottle of beer, the old man seemed a bit tipsy. He patted his pants, stood up, and waved.
Keli didn't try to keep him, instead, he thought about the sewers as he wandered back to the street where the house was located.
Unexpectedly, he saw a very abstract scene: a girl with hair like new green leaves or the heart of a sliced cucumber was standing somewhat blankly at the entrance of the small two-story building next door, while the girl he had met earlier, who called herself Toyokawa, was speaking to her with some anger. She seemed to notice Keli's gaze and, annoyed, pulled the girl away into the distance.
Keli looked up at the third-floor rooftop, where Kazuma was genuinely looking at the scene with great interest. Kazuma also noticed Keli and waved to him.
Keli returned to the house, and Kazuma ran downstairs with a "thump, thump, thump!"
"Keli, did you hear what those two girls downstairs were saying just now?"
"No."
Hearing that Keli hadn't heard, Kazuma shook his head regretfully.
"I think I've seen that girl on TV before! She's the daughter of the talk show artist Wakaba."
"You actually care about those 3D idols?" Keli asked, looking at Kazuma with some surprise. Kirito also turned his head, casting a scrutinizing gaze like he was looking at a traitor.
"I said 'before,' 'before'! When I occasionally watched TV back then.
Now, I'm not interested in such boring shows.
That blue-haired one seems to live next door. You're saying if her mother is a big star, and she lives in that kind of apartment, yet she still gets angry at her? Wakaba also seems to be a 'let it be' type. Sigh, if I had a friend like that, I'd definitely try to get closer to them."
"Maybe that's what a soulmate is," Keli said, shaking his head, not interested in the topic.
"Soulmate? What kind of relationship is that? A term from your circle?" Kazuma, on the other hand, seemed quite concerned.
"By the way, I heard there are missing homeless people in our vicinity." Keli forcibly steered the conversation to what he wanted to talk about.
"Huh? Homeless people again?" Hearing this, Kazuma immediately remembered the previous incident in New Township, which also started with homeless people and almost led to setting the mountain on fire. He instantly became very wary.
"In this area?" Kirito, upon hearing this, tapped on his computer, trying to search for related information, but it was clear he wouldn't find anything.
"Yes. But this time, the problem seems to be in the sewers. How we get in is the question."
"Hey! You're already thinking about how to get in?" Kazuma was a bit overwhelmed by Keli's decisiveness.
"And do we really have to go? It'll smell horrible in there, won't it?"
Many people who have been to Japan or learned about it might have seen a famous area in Japan where the drainage ditches can raise koi, leading them to believe that Japanese sewers are clean.
But that's purely an exaggeration; drainage ditches used for daily life wouldn't change because of some technology.
Those that can raise ornamental fish are because there are underground springs nearby, connected to the sewers, and they are deliberately isolated.
Normal sewers don't have ornamental fish; there are many snails, crawfish, and other scavengers.
Facing Kazuma's questioning, Keli smiled slightly.
"It's alright, we can get something traditional."
...Late at night, the three, who had gone to Setagaya Ward, changed their attire.
Black waterproof long coats, black rain boots, practical work clothes, and black gloves.
Of course, there was also the most important thing.
Kirigaya Kazuto looked at the bird-beak masks, one in each person's hand, with a difficult expression, unsure of what to say.
Medieval plague doctors stuffed herbs into the bird-beak part to isolate the Virus, which is why they made them look like bird beaks; it wasn't to intentionally scare people.
"I say, can't we just buy some normal gas masks?"
Kirito clutched his face in some pain; he should have voiced his opinion when Keli suggested going shopping.
Helpless, he sprinkled lavender essential oil into the padding in front of the bird beak, put on the headpiece, and tightened the straps.
"You wouldn't understand this hunter-like feeling, you normie!"
Kazuma glanced at Kirito with disdain while twisting open a bottle he had bought from a certain shop, labeled [Simulated Beautiful Girl Body Scent Essential Oil], and pouring it into the dried flowers and cotton padding inside his bird beak.
"Sigh…"
Lamenting his companion's perversion, Keli put away the [Beautiful Girl Foot Odor] essential oil he had bought out of curiosity, then took out a bottle of normal rose essential oil and poured it in.
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