Wall Slum's Ninth Avenue.
When Eiji stands at the subway exit after going up the stairs, he wants to turn around and go back.
"Is this... another country? A real slum? This is crazy! I'm in danger here!"
The air is sooty.
The first abandoned building was one thing, but this place... is something else. If this place was in a tourist guide, it would say "the least secure place on earth" or "don't go near there."
"..."
"What do you call this kind of thing... Kowloon Castle? Showa-era Kabukicho?"
He looks up at the city block from the bottom of a valley of illegal buildings.
Kowloon Castle, a poorhouse that once existed in Hong Kong before the reversion to China, was a slum built by illegal immigrants on land that had been ungoverned by the government. Or the Kabukicho district of Shinjuku in the Showa era, a sleepless castle with neon signs for restaurants, brothels, hotels, and other establishments.
Dens of wickedness.
Wall Slum is the boundary between the real world and the Digital World. Real information is always flowing in through the network. So, it's constantly changing. And because of that, no one day is the same as the next.
"Loogamon..."
"What is it?"
"Are you, by chance, intelligent?!"
Eiji's eyes glaze over.
"Digimon are intelligent."
"Then I'll have you help me with the hard stuff. Should I refer to you as my superior?"
"Quit it."
"I love you, Loogamon! You're so very helpful!"
If Eiji had a tail, he'd be wagging it.
"And that's why your dog looked down on you... So, hurry up and get to work!"
With Loogamon patting him on the back, Eiji launches the tool on his virtual monitor.
He initiates the mapping.
Now we should just be able to fill in the map by walking around.
"Mapping this den of vice..."
If he tried to describe Ninth Avenue in words, he would lose his mind.
There are no straight streets.
Alleys are nothing more than gaps between buildings. The width and direction of the streets are all a mess, and there was clearly no urban planning. There are no restrictions on the floor area ratio, diagonal line restrictions, earthquake resistance standards, or any other legal regulations based on the Building Standards Law.
To add insult to injury, not even architectural mechanics seem to exist here.
If one were to bring in realistic human sensibilities, one would feel uneasy just by being here and would forever walk around thinking of the inevitable "collapse" to happen a mere two seconds later.If a signboard hanging from a single screw falls, the steel frame over there will snap, and all the buildings around it will collapse like dominoes.
Eiji checks the map as he walks around.
"There are Digimon around here. They're hiding though."
He can feel their eyes here and there in the alley.
"Ninth Avenue... It's the worst neighborhood in Wall Slum. Strangers are stripped of their clothes within 50 meters, and by the time they've walked 100 meters, they're dead."
"It's a scary place."
"The destination is the heart of Ninth Avenue, the Castle of the Nine Wolves."
Eiji and Loogamon continue their work.
As a result, they are able to proceed with the mapping without hassle, although that's a bit of a letdown in a way.
There are no Digimon to be seen anywhere. It's as if they are in the middle of nowhere.
But Loogamon insists there are signs of them around here...
A cul-de-sac.
There's a tiled-roofed building in a small plaza surrounded by overhanging, ramshackle buildings.
It looks more like a mausoleum in Chinatown than a castle.
"That's the Castle of Nine Wolves...? So, all we have to do is map that and everything else."
Eiji walks up to the mausoleum.
"..."
Loogamon stops.
"What's wrong, Loogamon?"
Eiji had gone ahead of him, but he cannot go too far, because he's in the middle of a hololization.
"This is my home... or at least it was."
"...? Did you remember something?"
"There's a faint smell. Markings I left behind me... It's me but not me. It's much, much stronger!"
"Then... could it be?" Eiji has an idea. "Could it be an evolved version of you?!"
"...! Something's coming!"
Turns its nose to the narrow sky between the buildings.
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
A roar.
The wind howls. The roar hits the ground and blows away the surrounding garbage data.
Eiji is forced to his knees. Loogamon stomps its feet.
"What is it?! What's coming?!"
A winged monstrosity casts a shadow over the Castle of Nine Wolves.
After closing his eyes because of the dust, Eiji holds up his hand and looks up at the sky with dimmed eyes.
"A bird? A dragon?"
"No, neither... It's that!"
It has engines on both wings.
It's a machine-type Digimon based on a tilt-rotor aircraft that is capable of vertical takeoff and landing.
ーCargodramon, ultimate, machine, virus type.
On the fuselage, the word "POLICE" is there to intimidate criminals.
"The DigiPolice!"
Eiji shouts.
"The police? What are they doing in Wall Slum?"
From the hovering Cargodramon, a Digimon from The DigiPolice descends from a rope.
Commandramon.
The heliborne squad deploys, quickly securing the base.
At the sound of the alert, Eiji looks at the map on the virtual monitor.
Markers indicating Commandramon appear in the vicinity of the Castle of the Nine Wolves. That's castle's being surrounded.
"They are demanded that we open voice chat... on the GriMM channel?!"
Eiji raises his voice.
The operation channel receives a warning from the police.
GriMM is not a service belonging to any particular company. Even if you don't comply, it won't be an immediate criminal act by itself, but it will mean that you have taken a defiant attitude toward... a state power.
"What to do?"
"That's not the question. The administrator of this operation channel is the interviewer..."
Eiji doesn't have the authority to open it.
ーCome on! Don't play dumb with me, code cracker!
BOOM!
A shrill voice comes from the Cargodramon above.
A suffocating voice.
A cartoony voice. It directly strikes Eiji's Mindlink sense of hearing.
Character design/illustration illustrator: malo