It was like the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons from Japanese folklore.
That was my impression when I joined the quest. The tree at the center was probably FIND, but its branches were shaking violently. Its roots were not buried in the ground, but were exposed as it walked on thick legs that grew from its trunk. Something humanoid appeared from the shadows. At first, I thought it was a SUMIFS, but there was a single flower blooming on its head. That must be a LEN. LEFT looked like an ordinary dog from behind, but when it turned around, it had the face of a foreign man. I felt like I had seen that face before someone, I think it was the founder of Google. It was a Human Faced Dog from Japanese folklore, but actually seeing it in real life was quite rough. I couldn’t bear to see a human face on a dog’s body and I couldn’t bear to see the lack of humanity on its face as its tongue hung out while drooling. VLOOKUP’s basically came from horror games, but now there was a big googly eye on the back of the hand. Most of all, it was now so big that it couldn’t be called a hand anymore, if I let my guard down, I fee like my whole body would be crushed instead of just getting my leg pulled if I wasn’t careful. The didn’t stay in their cells either and formed a group as they marched around.
“That’s from ARRAYFORMULA, are you scared?”
“If anything, it’s even worse than I expected.”
“I think you can tell by their appearance, but they will attack you, so be careful.”
“Yes. That’s why we’re heavily armed today.”
Saito and I were holding shields similar to what riot police would have. By the way, Inoue was on vacation today. Although I was just discharged from hospital today, it was surprising that Saito, who was supposed to be in a more serious condition than me, had already made a full recovery. Where did this old man’s physical strength come from?
“ARRAYFORMLUA itself is just a ball of fire. It’s not even hot. The only problem is that it attaches itself to other functions.”
On the way to the quest, I realised what Saito meant when he said that. These guys really look like monsters. Except VLOOKUP, which was a monster to begin with…
“You know the procedure.”
“We can’t process everything. We have to wait until the main ARRAYFORMULA comes out and then we have to process it before it hides away again. That’s all we have to do.”
“That’s right. We have to pick them off one by one and dispose of them without disturbing the others.”
“Okay. Where to we start?”
“We’ll start with the weakest one.”
“But, they all seem strong…”
“…Then, let’s start with LEFT. Our eyes just met.”
It had a face I definitely didn’t want to make eye contact with. I wonder if Saito is used to it.
“Let’s go. Takahashi, support me so nothing gets in the way.”
Saying that, Saito ran out.
“Hey! Damn mutt!!”
He broke into the ARRAYFORMULA possessed functions while provoking LEFT. Saito slammed his metal baseball bat into LEFT’s body while blocking VLOOKUP and LEN with his shield.
“Gufu-!”
LEFT let out a strangely human like pained scream as it was blown 5m away.
“Takahashi!! Support!!!”
“Yes-!”
Saito kicked LEN in the stomach, causing it to fall, before running towards LEFT, which was trying to get up. I stood in front of the functions in Saito’s place. ARRAYFORMULA somehow gave the functions expressions, which was scary.
“Don’t come over hereeeeeeeee!!!!”
I screamed in fear as I swung my baton at LEN and VLOOKUP, which were slowly approaching me, and the FIND, which was behind me.
Author’s Notes
I had a lot of trouble deciding on how to describe ARRAYFORMULA and ended up making it a Tsukomogami.
※Reference Material
[Modern Edition] Folklore Picture Book: Tsukumogami（Text by Yasushi Machida / Illustrations by Ayako Ishiguro）