電車の中でも寝る前のベッドの中でもサクサク快適に。
もっと読みたい！がどんどんみつかる。
「読んで」「書いて」毎日が楽しくなる小説アプリをダウンロードしよう。
タイトル、作家名、タグで検索
ストーリーを書く
タイトル、作家名、タグで検索
ストーリーを書く
電車の中でも寝る前のベッドの中でもサクサク快適に。
もっと読みたい！がどんどんみつかる。
「読んで」「書いて」毎日が楽しくなる小説アプリをダウンロードしよう。
テラーノベル
アプリでサクサク楽しめる
Mamoru held his shotgun at the ready, pressing his back against a massive cedar tree and holding his breath.
He had become separated from the senior members of the local hunters’ association in the woods; with the sun already setting and darkness creeping in among the trees, his only prayer was that he wouldn’t run into a bear.
“What the hell is going on? A bear coming this close to residentail areas…”
At just twenty-one, he was still considered a rookie in the association, but being called out for nuisance animal control was simply the fate of living in a rural town.
The town office had received an urgent report of a bear appearing in a field not far from the town center, prompting a summons for every member of the local hunters’ association.
Although the muggy summer heat had eased somewhat now that the sun had gone down, Mamoru pulled a plastic bottle from the holster at his waist and took a long, thirsty gulp.
Just then, the sound of rustling grass broke the silence nearby.
Startled, Mamoru turned toward the noise and dropped his bottle.
There was no mistaking it — that was the bear he had been tracking.
It seemed the bear had also just realized Mamoru was there. It was a chance encounter — the worst possible scenario when dealing with a bear.
Growling fiercely, the bear charged straight at him. Mamoru pressed the shotgun stock against his shoulder and tried to take aim, but since this was his first time hunting a bear, his hands trembled, making it impossible to steady the barrel.
The bear closed the distance with a speed unimaginable for such a massive creature. “It’s over — I’m done for!” Just as Mamoru braced himself for the end, something swung down from the air above and slightly behind him.
He saw a row of unnaturally long claws at the end of it. That massive, arm-like limb slammed into the bear — which had been about to pounce on him — and sent its huge body flying several meters backward.
Letting out a short, pained shriek, the bear fled in the opposite direction.
When Mamoru turned around, he saw a massive, short hind leg. Covered in thick, dark brown fur, it was clearly not a bear’s leg.
To see its head, Mamoru had to tilt his neck back about forty-five degrees. What he saw was a massive face, narrower than a bear’s, jutting out toward the front.
The massive creature was standing on its hind legs right behind Mamoru. Mamoru collapsed to the ground, his legs giving way beneath him. From the ground to the creature’s head, it stood a full six meters tall.
Still sitting on the ground, Mamoru frantically pulled out his smartphone, activated the camera, and snapped a picture of the giant beast.
Startled by the shutter sound, the massive animal dropped to all fours and vanished into the darkness between the trees.
Mamoru gazed at the photo on his phone — blurry because his hands were trembling—and muttered:
“That was … it couldn’t be.”
Beams of flashlight light flickered in the distance. Hearing his fellow hunters calling his name over and over, Mamoru let out a sigh of relief.
No sooner had Associate Professor Toyama of Teito University of Science returned to his lab after finishing his lecture for the day than his smartphone began to ring.
When he answered, he found it was a senior professor from the same university.
“Hello, this is Toyama. It’s rare to hear from you, Prof. Watari. Is there something you need?”
Prof. Watari, a researcher in seismology and geology, replied in a sour tone.
“I wouldn’t want anything to do with you if I didn’t have to! Do you know a female student named Eri Kodama? She’s a second-year biology major taking your course on the history of paleontology.”
“Oh, yes — her report from the first semester caused quite a stir in the department, so I know the name. What about her?”
“Did you see the news about that giant creature in a town up in Tohoku — the one that sent a bear flying?”
“Yeah, it’s all over the internet. At ten meters long, it’s basically a kaiju.”
“That town happens to be where Kodama is from. She’s currently taking my class, and she asked me to introduce her to you because she wants to pick your brain.”
“I see … well, I don’t mind meeting her. All right, how about tomorrow at 5 p.m.? We can meet right there.”
The following evening, the three of them gathered at a table in the corner of the university cafeteria’s café area, bathed in the light of the setting sun.
Eri was a bright-looking student with fair skin and a tall stature for a woman. As Toyama approached the table, she immediately stood up and bowed deeply.
“You must be Dr. Toyama. I’m so sorry to take up your valuable time.”
Toyama, delighted to find that Eri was a beauty, smiled and said:
“Not at all. My special summer lectures are over, and I’m always happy to help a promising student like you.”
Prof. Watari, who was already seated at the table, interjected with a heavily sarcastic tone.
“Don’t you mean ‘if a beautiful female student asks?’ Ms. Kodama, there’s no need to be so considerate. After all, he’s the sort of frivolous academic who’d jump at a chance like that in a heartbeat.”
“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think, Prof. Watari? By the way, you’re aiming for a career in paleontology — so why are you taking Prof. Watari’s class?”
Eri glanced at Watari, who was stroking his beard, and replied.
“Fossils are shaped by volcanic activity and geological forces. I felt that kind of knowledge was necessary, so I signed up for Prof. Watari’s course as an elective.”
The three of them sat at the table, and Eri displayed a photo on her tablet.
“Dr. Toyama, what do you think this creature is?”
The photo showed a massive, blurry creature. Toyama crossed his arms as he studied the claws at the ends of its forelimbs — claws that were disproportionately long and large compared to the rest of its body.
“Among living species, it reminds me of a sloth. But even the largest sloths only reach a total length of about sixty centimeters. I’ve never heard of a ten-meter sloth.”
Watari spoke up while looking at the photo.
“A sloth? You mean those things that hang from tree branches all day? They’re incredibly slow-moving animals, aren’t they? They certainly couldn’t move fast enough to send a bear flying.”
Eri steeled herself and began to explain.
“Um, actually … we once secretly kept a sloth. There were four of us — myself included — back in elementary school. The member of the local hunters’ association who took this photo happens to be one of those four.”
“Huh?”
Coincidentally, Watari and Toyama uttered the exact same word at the same time. Watari spoke first.
“You kept a sloth? Those are creatures from Central and South America. How did an animal like that end up in Japan?”
Eri answered.
“We found a strange box dropped in the woods near our elementary school. It was inside. Of course, back then, it was small enough for us kids to hold in our arms.”
Toyama clutched his head and asked Eri, “Are you saying that this monster-like creature is a giant version of that sloth from back then?”
“I can’t say for certain. But a young member of the local hunters’ association — his name is Mamoru — contacted me. He said the scar was in the exact same spot.”
Watari and Toyama exchanged glances. Watari spoke while restlessly stroking his beard.
“If it grew to that size due to some kind of mutation, that would certainly fall within your bailiwick as a biologist, Toyama. But is such a thing even possible?”
Toyama took a sip of his iced tea, which had gone completely lukewarm, and said, “Even if that were the case, its ecology shouldn’t have changed. Ms. Kodama, I’d like to go to the site and investigate. Could you show me the way?”
Eri placed both hands on the table and bowed her head.
“Of course. I was actually planning to ask you to do just that.”
Watari stood up and said, “Just to be safe, I’ll contact Ms. Miyashita as well.”
Toyama asked with a puzzled look, “Who was that again?”
“An assistant inspector from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Public Security Mobile Investigation Unit — someone we helped out in the past. There’s a chance an animal smuggling case might be involved, after all.”
A few days later, Watari, Toyama, and Eri visited a town nestled in the mountains of the Tohoku region.
It was a textbook example of a depopulated town; once prosperous due to the forestry industry, it was now plagued by a rapidly aging population, with multi-generational farming families barely scraping by growing fruit and the like.
Eri led the two of them to the grounds of an elementary school that had since closed down. Behind the school building, where the mountain slope loomed close, lay a clearing enclosed by trees.
“We secretly hid the sloth here and took care of it — the four of us.”
Eri spoke as she gazed around the space with a look of nostalgia. Toyama asked:
“Did the teachers ever find out?”
Eri smiled as she replied:
“This town was already depopulated back then, so the elementary school only had about thirty students across all grades. We could count the number of teachers on one hand.”
Watari squatted down and stared at the ground.
“So, that was ten years ago. I suppose there wouldn’t be any traces left from that time. Ms. Kodama, how did you manage the sloth’s food?”
“Luckily, it was a herbivore, so it started eating leaves from the trees in the mountains on its own. Right after we found it, we’d feed it milk, but it soon began foraging for food itself.”
As the three of them headed back toward the schoolyard, a light truck drove up and stopped right in front of them. A young man dressed in farming overalls stepped out of the driver’s seat.
“Eri? You’re back?”
“Mamoru, long time no see! Oh, and these two are sientists from my university.”
Mamoru bowed deeply to Watari and Toyama.
“I’ve heard all about you from Eri. Welcome to our little town. I’ve already arranged your accommodations.”
Eri urged Mamoru to continue.
“So, Mamoru — is it true that one is Non-ta?”
“Non-ta?”
Toyama sounded skeptical. Eri answered.
“That’s the sloth’s name. At first, someone suggested calling him ‘Nonbiri-Taro’ meaning ‘Laid-back Taro,’ but it was too long, so it got shortened to Non-ta.”
Mamoru spoke with a serious look in his eyes.
“Back when we first got him, he banged his head against the corner of a concrete block and got a cut right here. The scar never went away.”
He pointed to the area just above his own left eye as he spoke.
“That huge one had an identical crescent-shaped scar in the exact same spot. It was dim in there, but there’s no mistaking a mark like that.”
Watari asked Eri and Mamoru, “So, how long did you keep looking after the sloth?”
Mamoru answered thoughtfully.
“From the autumn of our fifth-grade year until the four of us graduated. I stayed local and took over the family farm, though I had to go to the next town over for junior high. Eri moved to Sendai for junior high, right?”
Eri nodded and continued.
“The other two moved to bigger towns after graduation, too. By then, Non-ta was able to fend for himself without us looking after him.”
Toyama raised his eyebrows at Mamoru’s next words.
“Yeah, by the time we graduated, he’d grown big enough that he was about the same height as me when he stood up on his hind legs.”
That night, Watari and Toyama stayed at the inn Mamoru had recommended. It was a small, old, two-story wooden building with only four guest rooms.
Because the elderly couple running the place couldn’t handle the workload, Watari ended up sharing a room with Toyama; Watari kept grumbling about the situation while slowly sipping the canned beer he had bought earlier.
“Honestly, there are rooms available — they really should have just put us in separate ones.”
Toyama speaks in a laid-back tone as he picks at a large platter of simmered wild mountain vegetables.
“Oh, let it slide. After all, good company makes the journey shorter. But what we discussed earlier confirmed my suspicion: the creature those kids were raising weren’t modern-day sloths.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mentioned before that modern sloths only reach a maximum size of about sixty centimeters, right? Well, that young man, Mamoru — assuming he was around 140 centimeters tall when he was in his final year of elementary school — if the creature stood as tall as he did, it was already abnormally huge.”
“This area is a dense mix of primeval and man-made forests; if it was herbivores, food would have been plentiful. Couldn’t it just be a case of good nutrition?”
“They also mentioned that the creature would go into the mountains on its own to forage. That’s a behavioral pattern typical of ground-dwelling animals. Modern sloths are arboreal — meaning once they hang from a tree branch, they generally don’t move from that spot unless something extraordinary happens.”
“So, you’re saying it was a completely different species from a sloth? Then what was it?”
“I don’t know yet. Sloths fall into a single suborder comprising two families. In addition to the sheer size, there shouldn’t be any creature on Earth quite like the one we’re talking about.”
The next day was another hot, clear morning. After Eri guided them on a walk through the woods behind the elementary school, Watari and Toyama returned to the school building to find a sleek, black luxury car parked in the yard.
An older man — dressed in a high-end suit but with his jacket off and slung casually over his shoulder — was glaring at the three of them with a look of displeasure.
Beside him stood an elderly man in work clothes, looking flustered. As the trio approached, the man in the suit spoke in an imperious tone.
“What do you think you’re doing here?”
The elderly man, his posture slightly stooped, spoke to the man in the suit.
“N-now, now, there’s no need to get so worked up. Hmm? Are you, by any chance, a graduate of this school?”
He addressed Eri. Eri looked surprised when she saw his face and bowed respectfully.
“Mayor! It’s been a long time.”
The old man was evidently the town mayor. Watari and Toyama hurriedly bowed as well. The man in the suit, ignoring the pleasantries, continued to rant.
“I want you to stop wandering around this property. We’re discussing redevelopment here, and the last thing we need is some weird rumors spreading.”
The mayor spoke in a tone that clearly betrayed his fear of offending the man.
“Well, nothing has been decided about selling the land yet. It’s town property, after all, so we’d need approval from the town assemby.”
The man in the suit glared sharply at the mayor and spat out his words.
“The assembly approval is coming through tomorrow. I’m telling you, we’re going to turn this backwater into a gold mine. Demolition starts right away.”
He spun on his heel and got into the back seat of the car, which the driver had opened for him. The car then drove off. Eri quietly stepped up to the mayor and asked in a low voice,
“Are they going to tear down this school?”
The mayor replied, his expression and tone apologetic.
“There’s a plan to demolish this place and build a corporate retreat. A lot of people are calling for the school building to be repurposed somehow, but we can’t go up against the power of money.”
The next morning, Assistant Inspector Miyashita visited Watari and Toyama at their inn.
Despite the height of summer, she was dressed in a dark gray pantsuit, with the jacket buttoned up neatly.
In their room, Miyashita slowly broached the subject.
“Over a decade ago, there was a project attempting to resurrect an extinct species by gestating it inside the womb of a living relative. It was an illegal operation.”
Toyama spoke up.
“I recall hearing talk about creating a fertilized egg from mammoth cells and having an elephant give birth to it.”
“It was a profit-driven project conducted without academic authorization, and this creature was among those involved.”
Toyama gasped as he looked at the documents Miyashita handed him.
“Megatherium! I see — that fits the description of the giant creature we’re dealing with!”
Watari asked, “What is that?”
“It’s a relative of the ground sloth that went extinct ten thousand years ago. Estimates based on fossils suggest a total length of around eight meters. So, you’re saying it was artificially resurrected in modern times?”
Miyashita spoke while glancing at her notebook.
“The illegal project began after tissue fragments from the extinct creature were discovered near the Antarctic region of South America. However, the scheme was exposed, and the group behind it fled to Japan. One of the items they were transporting went missing — right near this very town.”
Watari’s expression shifted to one of sudden realization.
“It wasn’t a coincidence that the young man named Mamoru was saved from the bear. The creature in question protected him — the Megatherium protected the human who had raised it! And perhaps … it may be going to protect that elementary school building, too. If that’s the case … when is the demolition of the school building scheduled to begin?”
Toyama answered, his face pale.
“It’s today. It’s already started!”
Watari and Toyama got into the car Miyashita had arrived in and headed for the elementary school.
The grounds of the closed school were encircled by plastic off-limits tape; inside, three pieces of heavy machinery — a bulldozer, an excavator, and a hydraulic excavator equipped with a crab-claw-like attachment — stood ready.
Perhaps because demolition work was about to begin abruptly, a large crowd of local residents had gathered around the site, murmuring in bewilderment. Eri was among them.
Watari and Toyama stepped out of the car and made their way through the crowd toward Eri.
The mayor was standing beside her. Watari asked the two of them:
“Why are members of the local hunters’ association waiting in that tent over there?”
The mayor grimaced as he replied.
“It’s a precaution against bears. The town office didn’t ask for it; it seems the contractor arranged it on their own initiative.”
A tent had been set up at the edge of the property, where five hunters armed with rifles and shotguns were standing by. Mamoru was among them.
The man in the suit — the same one from before — was barking orders at the construction workers with a menacing air.
The hydraulic excavator with the claw attachment began to move toward the school building. The standard excavator and the bulldozer followed close behind.
Just then, the trees on the wooded slope behind the school building began to rustle violently. The wave-like swaying of the branches moved down the hillside.
A man in a suit frowned and spoke to the members of the local hunters’ association under the tent.
“Is that a bear that’s come down? I’m counting on you guys.”
It emerged fully from a gap in the woods beside the school building. It was not a bear. Its head jutted forward, resembling a bear’s face but more streamlined. At the tips of its forelimbs were rows of massive, long claws curved into arcs.
When it reared up on its hind legs, its body stood some eight meters tall — a posture that looked down upon even the operator’s cabin of a massive piece of heavy machinery.
A low sound, reminiscent of an oboe, resonated from its throat as the Megatherium lunged at the lead hydraulic excavator.
It hooked the long claws of both forelimbs firmly onto the machine’s arm, attempting to pull it down forward.
The operator screamed and tried to reverse, but the Megatherium’s forelimbs — unfazed by the engine’s power — dragged the entire excavator down to the ground.
The operator scrambled out of the cabin, fleeing for his life. Pursuing him, the Megatherium’s thick, short hind legs shook the earth as it hooked its claws onto the arm of the next excavator.
Upon seeing the crescent-shaped scar above the giant creature’s left eye, Mamoru muttered with conviction:
“That’s Non-ta. No doubt about it.”
The Megatherium toppled the second excavator — now abandoned by its fleeing operator — onto its side. A deep, booming sound and vibrations that resonated in the gut rippled through the area.
“It — it’s a monster! Shoot! Hurry!”
The man in the suit shouted at the hunters. Just as the members hurriedly raised their rifles, Mamoru stepped in front of them, spreading his arms wide.
“Stop it! Don’t shoot! He doesn’t attack people. He’s actually a gentle creature!”
From another corner at the edge of the site, the high-pitched voice of a middle-aged woman rang out.
“You — stop! Come back!”
When Mamoru turned around, he saw Eri — having slipped past the off-limits line — running toward the Megatherium.
“Non-ta!!!!”
Eri screamed. The massive creature, which had been crouching low and preparing to charge the bulldozer, froze in its tracks.
“You’re Non-ta, aren’t you? That’s not an enemy! So please, stop rampaging!”
The giant body, which had been looking down at Eri, suddenly shuddered. Then, it collapsed forward onto the ground. Its head came to rest on the earth right in front of Eri.
The large eye, which had been glancing sideways at Eri, eventually closed, and the massive body fell still.
Three months later, Watari, Toyama, and Eri returned to that abandoned school.
The building had been reinforced and renovated — complete with an attached café — and transformed into a place for the local community to gather.
Toyama spoke up.
“After performing the dissection, we discovered that, being an artificially created lifeform, it had internal organ deformities. Its heart was only half the normal size. It was able to survive only because this land is quiet and rich in the greenery it fed on.”
Eri asked, a look of sadness on her face.
“So, it wasn’t meant to live a long life to begin with?”
“It might have lived longer had that incident not occurred. To think it battled heavy machinery with a heart that small … It was a case of acute heart failure.”
Watari spoke as he gazed at the massive taxidermy mount of the Megatherium displayed beside the school building.
“It became a local landmark as a mounted specimen, and the school building itself was preserved. I imagine that’s exactly what it would have wanted. After all, it ended up protecting the place.”
Watari turned his gaze toward the beautifully restored school building and continued.
“The place where it made memories with its childhood friends.”
コメント
1件
感想、ありがとうございます。第5話、一気に読んでしまいました。 まず、マモルとノン太の再会の場面が胸に迫りました。「あの傷痕だ」って確信する瞬間、10年の時を超えた絆が感じられてじんわり来ましたね。それにしても、まさかノン太があんな最期を迎えるとは……心臓が半分の大きさだったって事実が切なすぎます。 でも、倒れる直前まで校舎を守ろうとした姿、そして最後にエリさんにだけ見せたあの穏やかな横顔。ちゃんと「ありがとう」って伝えたかったんだろうなって思うと、涙が出そうになりました。 剥製になった今も、みんなの思い出の場所を見守ってるんだなあと。とても温かくて、少し切ない、素敵な物語でした。
/s/[storyId]/_containers/next-in-series-container/next-in-series/assets/list-icon.c10ab777f3210550.svg){kind=icon}
作品ページ
