The Destruction of the World by Fire by Shiden Kanzaki Page A

face twisted in a bitter smile, she said, “But,” and slouched her shoulders a little. “Recently, I have been hit more and have had dirty words yelled at me more often, which is a little painful. Did something happen?”
    Just then, a passerby threw something metallic into her metal bowl. The girl smiled softly and quietly made a deep bow.
    Rentaro looked at the pull tab of a canned drink that had been thrown into her bowl and felt disgusted. He glared at the snickering man wearing a double-breasted suit, but the man soon disappeared from view.
    Rentaro slouched and looked at Tina. “Actually,” he started, and he and Tina proceeded to tell the girl the circumstances of the murder of a civilian by Cursed Children.
    “I see, something like that happened…” The girl nodded meekly.
    “That’s why you shouldn’t beg in the Inner Districts until this settles down. Everyone’s bloodthirsty, so it’s dangerous for you to be here.”
    Then, the girl stammered for the first time. “But…”
    Rentaro put his hands on the girl’s shoulders and looked directly at her. “Promise me.”
    The girl squirmed indecisively but finally faced Rentaro and said, “Okay” loudly.
    Rentaro exhaled through his nose. He could rest easy for now. Rentaro put his hand in his wallet and pulled out a bill, putting it in the girl’s hand. “Is that enough?”
    The girl took the bill and put it between her fingers. After rubbing it slowly, she lifted it to her nose and breathed in the smell deeply through her nostrils. “Wow, this much? Thank you!” As if to thank him, the girl crossed her hands in front of her chest and lifted her chin, then started singing low and quiet. When her voice eventually grew louder and went higher, the solemn and clear soprano pushed back the tumult of the city and spread gently through the air.
    She was singing “Amazing Grace.”
    Rentaro quietly put his hands on Tina’s shoulders to urge her on, leaving quietly so that the girl would not notice. After putting enough distance between them, Rentaro looked back a little, reluctantly.
    The voice singing a blessing continued. But for some reason, it sounded a little sad.
5
    Going through two more thoroughfares and into an alley, it seemed like they had arrived at another world; like the deep ocean where the light of the sun did not reach. The smell of perspiring grease, rust, and mold thriving in the humid twilight drifted through the narrow confines. When Rentaro pushed open the building’s iron door, creaking and thick with rust, he entered, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong with the GPS on his phone.
    However, he realized too soon that his feeling was wrong. After climbing the stairs of the run-down building with no elevator, he was at his destination.
    Even the sun, which was shining brightly when he left school, was now slanted, and threw orange light onto the ground. From somewhere off-site was the clang of heavy construction equipment, ringing hollowly through the building like the rumble of distant thunder.
    Rentaro and Tina stood for a while before the door that was beyond worn out and practically at “dilapidated.” The wall that was probably originally white was a completely different color, and there was graffiti on the lacquer in all directions.
    “Is this really the place?” Tina asked in shock.
    Rentaro, who could just barely make out the sign that said KATAGIRI CIVIL SECURITY AGENCY , responded with a “Probably.”
    From the information he got beforehand about how there were only two officers, Rentaro had predicted that it was not a large agency, but he had never imagined that he would find a civil security agency shabbier than his own employer in the entire universe.
    There was no doorbell, so he knocked on the door, yelling “Hey!” a few times, but there was no response.
    Just as he was about to go home, an energetic voice suddenly called out, “Oh, Rentaro Satomi the Pervert!”
    Turning to look,