NOVEL WEB Chapter 23: You Can Stuff Drums with Anything
After consulting with company personnel, Hiroki decided to begin a major overhaul of the company’s premises.
Up until now, Hiroki had been fooling around by adding warehouses and other facilities as if he was just the owner of a small to medium-sized company, but when it came to conducting a large business that included liquid waste treatment, they had some inadequacy in capacity for various aspects.
They hired a major construction company in Tokyo and had numerous design meetings with the person in charge.
In the end, they decided to pave the entire current site, enclose it with a high wall, and build a large warehouse and the company building with a green tract of land in accordance with the local ordinance.
[It kinda looks like the military bases I saw in a foreign TV drama.]
Hiroki had such an impression, but the functionality of constructing it that way does indeed resemble that of a military base.
It seems that a similar arrangement was also in place when it comes to efficiently placing people and equipment, and providing security to the surrounding area.
In anticipation of entering the liquid waste treatment business, a large liquid waste tank will be installed for temporary storage.
[Some companies will probably bring their liquid waste by tanker truck after all.]
Ishida explained.
Since it’s a hassle to refill drums from the liquid waste tank, a pipe is designed to run directly from the tank to the building where the hole is located.
When they want to dispose of the liquid waste, they could simply open the valve, which is revolutionary in that it allows disposal even when Hiroki isn’t around.
Seeing this design, Hiroki wants to have the disposal of drums to eventually be automated as well.
Also, the building where the hole is located will be surrounded by thick concrete walls.
This is because a few days ago, a boar finally broke through the exterior galvanized iron wall, and covered with scratches, it plunged into the wall surrounding the hole.
In addition, corporate spies and yakuzas have been hangin around the company’s vicinity, so it’s no longer acceptable to simply enclose the hole in a shack made of galvanized iron.
[It feels a little oppressive though, so I don’t like it.]
Hiroki asserted.
[That is an absolutely confidential matter. We can’t just have it covered with galvanized iron forever.]
However, Ishida insisted.
It was indeed just as Ishida said, but the building’s completion plan is too exaggerated.
He wanted it covered with a cube-sized building made of thick concrete.
It looked like a scaled-down version of the concrete building he saw at a nuclear power plant he saw back then.
[Rather than a building, it looks more like a tomb……. no, a stone monument?]
As was the case at the site of the Chernobyl power plant, the concrete buildings of nuclear power plants feel more like stone monuments than buildings.
Stone monuments of science and technology that makes people feel fear, as if something that can’t be handled by humans has been hurriedly covered and reinforced with concrete.
Hiroki thinks that Ishida is probably just afraid of the hole though.
Having this in mind, the monitoring posts filled with deceptive sensors that have been erected around the site seem like wards to block anything that might come out of the hole.
The sensors are connected to the cables for power and data transmission, in a way which makes it look like shimenawa.
(T/N: Shimenawa are lengths of laid rice straw or hemp rope used for ritual purification in the Shinto religion. Having a shimenawa tied around or across an object or space denotes its sanctity or purity.)
Looking at it this way, it could be seen as a ritual place where humans continue to offer the filth of the world in the form of waste to prevent something ominous from coming out of the hole.
[In that case, am I supposed to play the role of the Shinto Priest in this place?]
Imagining himself in a Shinto Priest’s ikan, Hiroki laughed at how ill-suited it looked.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
In large-scale construction, in addition to the clean deskwork of designing, there’s also the mundane groundwork.
On the site that had been purchased for site expansion, a group of people had gathered out of nowhere and started to build a cabin under the sign “Group Against Environmental Pollution”.
The people actually sitting in the shack looked like skinny old ladies and naive students, but it was clear that whoever was supporting them was pulling the strings behind the scenes.
[Feels like I always end up having to handle these jobs……]
MCTBH is officially a technology venture company, and Ishida’s contacts and preferences determine who gets hired.
In other words, the employees hired were all scholars…… and for some reason, the physical labor and rough work is done by Hiroki, the Owner/President of the company.
[This is private property. Please leave.]
[With our rights as citizens, we oppose environmental pollution!]
[Oppose!]
[Oppose!]
[Polluting corporations should leave!]
As Hiroki had expected, they didn’t listen to him.
Do you call what they were doing Sprechchor or something like that? Anyhow, as they were shouting in unison, Hiroki thinks that what they were doing looks fun.
He did try to convince them that, from a data point of view, the pollution they’re worried about doesn’t exist.
After all, they have thrown everything into the hole, so there’s no way for pollution to spread.
[We have sensors that collect data on environmental pollution indicators, and the data from the monitoring posts is always available online. Looking at it, isn’t it obvious that there was no pollution outbreak?]
[Those data are fabricated!]
[It can’t be trusted!]
[Fabricated!]
[Fabricated!]
Well, this is something Hiroki had expected.
They are paid by whoever was supporting them, so there’s no way they would listen to him.
Also, “their data being fabricated” was the only thing they got right.
He then tried the opposite way……
[There are a lot of wild animals around here, so please be careful if you are going to stay in the wild. Also, you should properly get rid of your garbage.]
For an environmentalist group, these people were quite sloppy, with food scraps, wrapping paper and plastic bento boxes littering their surroundings.
Hiroki doesn’t know if it’s because his company was located in a remote location, but they were dressed in filthy clothes, as if they hardly had any shower.
Hiroki wonders, were they part of a commune or something? They looked like they’re from a refugee camp.
(T/N: A commune is a group of people who live together and share many of their possessions and responsibilities.)
[You should throw your garbage away properly.]
He reminded them.
[Oppose!!!]
[Oppose!!!]
[Capitalist pig!!!]
As strangely trained curses rained down his back, Hiroki returned to his office.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
A few days later, he heard the news that the environmentalist group’s cabin had collapsed after being chased around in the middle of the night by a pack of boars that had come to scavenge food scraps.
A human being would have been helpless if attacked by a boar weighing more than 100kg in the dark.
Many people were injured and the group was devastated, and by the next morning, several ambulances seemed to have arrived.
When Hiroki went to check it out, they found the collapsed cabin, a large amount of garbage left behind by the boars and baits that had been scattered about during the night. They are all stuffed into the drum and thrown into the hole.
Can be filled with anything and easily thrown away, drums really are convenient.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Within the complete darkness, “they” were born from their eggs.
As soon as they hatched, “they” devoured the carrion around them, competing with their siblings to eat, and “they” who triumphed scavenged the carrion around them again.
The carrion around them seemed endless, but soon there was nothing left but bones.
The hungry “them” gnawed at the hard bones with their strong jaws, drilled into them, and burrowed into them to sip the marrow of these bones.
When the bone marrow ran out, the hungry “them” finally began to cannibalize their siblings.
After a fierce struggle, “they” who survived gnawed on the flesh of their hard, fat siblings, crushing their shells, and again sipped their marrow.
Before long, sniffing the scent of new carrion falling from the heavens, “they” spread their wings wide and leaped.
All to lay their eggs, swollen with tens of thousands of lives, in this land near the new carrion.