“But that’s as if you’re just spewing out wads of paper for no reason other than to increase the amount of waste.”
“That’s just how it goes,” said the president nonchalantly. “We’re a huge international publisher. Every day we produce mountains of books and sell them all over the world. With the profits we make from those sales, we fund the production of more books, which we then sell. We sell more and more, and our profits steadily increase.”
The president fluttered his hand in a movement that mirrored the books passing the window. The gold rings adorning his fingers flashed in the sunlight.
Rintaro tried his best to comprehend the situation that the president was explaining, but it wasn’t an easy task. Then he recalled the messy, disorganized piles of books they’d seen on their way. That bizarre landscape, and the sight of thousands of books falling through the sky before his eyes, coupled with the president’s smooth voice—it all seemed to tie up his thoughts and drag him into a swamp of confusion. Now he understood why the woman at the reception desk had been so concerned about the danger of walking outside, he thought bitterly.
“You’ve got to be joking,” he said. “Books aren’t meant to be thrown. They’re made to be read.”
“You are so naive.”
The president picked up a book at random from his desk.
“Books are expendable goods. It’s my job to make sure they are consumed in the most efficient way possible. I couldn’t do this job if I was some bookworm. Anyhow—”
He abruptly spun his black desk chair around, pushed open the window closest to him, and tossed the book he was holding straight out of the window. The book hung in the air for a moment as if there were something it had suddenly remembered, but then quickly disappeared out of view.
“This is what we do here.”
Rintaro suddenly understood what the tabby cat had meant when it said this adversary would be different from the first two. The men he’d met in the other two labyrinths—no matter how bizarre their behavior—were, at heart, book lovers. By contrast, the man sitting in front of them right now didn’t feel the slightest attachment to books. He treated them as trash and didn’t feel even the teensiest bit bad about it. This was what the cat had meant when it said the man was extremely unpredictable.
“Natsuki, are you okay?”
It was Sayo’s voice. Rintaro turned to look and met her intense gaze. He nodded and turned back to the man in the office chair.
“I came here today because a friend asked me to rescue some books.”
“Rescue?”
“That’s right. I think that means that I have to stop you.”
“Well, that’s a stupid thing to say. I’ve already told you that this is my job.”
“But you’re treating books as if they’re nothing but scraps of paper. If that’s the attitude of the people producing books, then nothing will reach the readers. The number of people who read books is already decreasing. If someone in your position has that kind of attitude, then the number of readers will just keep going down.”
Rintaro put forth his best argument, but the president was unmoved. Beneath his white eyebrows, his eyes were unreadable, and the slight curve of a smile on his lips simply added to his elusive air.
After a moment, his narrow shoulders vibrated ever so slightly. Then the vibrations turned into a stronger shaking, and finally the president exploded with laughter. His low-pitched chuckling filled the room.
As Rintaro and Sayo stared, the president pressed his left hand to his mouth, as if to try to suppress his laughter. He rapped a couple of times on the desk with the knuckles of his right. Finally he began to speak.
“You really are an idiot, aren’t you? Utterly dumb.”