VIII.

Kenji Murao’s long letter, which came out of the blue after no communication for some time, astonished Kiso terribly with its contents. He began to worry that he might have gone a little crazy after getting so absorbed in the conversion of elements by atomic bombardment. What was worse, he told me that the energy generated by atomic destruction, which had recently been studied, had unimaginably enormous magical power, and that, according to this power, it would not be impossible to blow up the very earth itself. But why did Murao do this again? 　But why did Murao again confuse the micro-world, our world, and the micro-world with the micro-world? Kiso frowned and reread Murao’s letter two or three times. As he did so, the silliness he had felt when he first read it quickly gradually faded away, and he began to feel something uncanny from the bottom of it. Murao’s anxiety seemed to me like a prophecy of an easy ordeal. He immediately wrote a letter to Michiko Ishii. 　Personal letter from Reijiro Kiso to Michiko Ishii.

–It is very hot in Tokyo, but I am sure it is cooler there than in Tokyo. By the way, this is sudden (by the way, I read in Mr. Ishii’s letter the other day that Mr. Murao is very feverish), but I hope he is still doing well. According to the letter I received today, he seems to be suffering from a nervous breakdown. …… In other words, he has been raising questions about elemental transformation experiments and has even gone to the extreme of blowing up the earth. Please look at it carefully and let us know. Please look at the situation carefully and let us know. 　Then, just when I thought Kiso’s letter had not arrived at Michiko Ishii’s, another letter from Murao arrived by mistake. 　A personal letter from Kenji Murao to Reijiro Kiso. 　–I hope you have been able to understand the anxiety I have been feeling. This is a fear that no one on earth has ever imagined before, the fear that our universe will be bombed by a super giant. …… And now it is no longer a lie, a joke, or an imagination.

For, in my laboratory, a great change has taken place. Even as I write this letter, I feel as if my heart is being squeezed ……, but the great change is that a grain of mercury, which I had placed as an experimental material, has suddenly and spontaneously transformed into a natural substance. To my astonishment, pure mercury turned into something unknown. To be more precise, it was Mr. Ishii who first noticed this anomaly. He said that a grain of mercury in a glass tray (think of it as the head of a match) had a strange color, and he pinched it (mercury has a strong surface tension, so he was not shocked that he pinched it…). (I was not shocked by the pinch, because mercury has a strong surface tension. While I was puzzled, Mr. Ishii crushed it with a hammer that was at hand, and this mercury turned into a brown powder. I hurried to examine the other mercury, but none of the other mercury was altered. 　What does this mystery tell us? …… seems to me to be an endorsement of the space bombing scare I wrote about in my previous letter. In other words, the electrons in this mercury had more advanced science than our earth, and they must have foreseen that their universe would eventually be bombed by me, and before that, they have caused their own cosmic system to be bombed and transformed by their own power, and this super-giant to them, this This seems to fit very well with what I was thinking (so I guessed), and their scientific power in the tiny electrons seems to be more astonishing and destructive than that of the present earthlings (why?). (Because even the current Earth scientists, and even the scientists who are following a particular line of research, have barely found enough energy to blow up the Earth itself, they seem to have a destructive power that is so great that it could, in our case, be used to destroy the entire universe, i.e., they could be on Earth and yet be on Mars, or on Neptune, or on Mars, or on the Oceans, etc.) They must have had the astonishing scientific power to snipe and blow up Mars and Neptune from Earth, or they would not have been able to transform something as small as a single grain of matter into something that looks like a grain of matter to us! –(-).

Now it is our turn, we have been in an electron in this mercury. 　We must show the existence of our science to the super giants by transforming an atom of the solar system by our own explosion, at least before the cosmic bombardment of the super giants, using human methods (unfortunately, we do not yet have the power to imitate them). I am sure that Mr. Ishii will be my best assistant until the end, and that will be my only pleasure. （If only we could have found a way to communicate between living beings by means other than voice and writing, we might have been able to understand each other, the tiny human on the electrons I am bombing and the super giant that is bombing our planet, but it is too late for that now. At the same time, I, a small-minded person who cannot break through in the conventional way, will end up not being able to understand Mr. Ishii either (……). In any case, I would like to hurry up with the preparations and will write to you again. August 16th – attached.

IX. 　About half a month had passed since I received Murao’s letter, which was not easy to receive. I had been waiting every day for a letter from Michiko Ishii, whom I had previously inquired about, but it had not arrived. Suddenly, a telegram arrived. 　It was a private telegram from Kenji Murao to Reijiro Kiso. 　–Kekkoushimasu, tetsuzuki yoroshikutanomu. Attached on September 1. 　Reijiro Kiso was literally astonished. Murao wants to blow up the earth! 　What is Michiko Ishii doing, who did not even reply to his warning? 　There is no procedure or shit when it comes to smashing the earth! 　Kiso, without even time to call the waiter, flew out of the laboratory foaming at the mouth and rushed to the post office. 　A private telegram from Reijiro Kiso to Kenji Murao. –Mate. Atofumi. Dated September 1. 　Private telegram from Reijiro Kiso to Michiko Ishii. 　–Murao wo jikkenshitsu ni irunna. Atofumi. September 1. 　When a breathless Kiso returned to his room at the institute, he found that the airmail had been delivered while he had been at the post office.

A personal letter from Michiko Ishii to Reijiro Kiso. 　–Thank you for your letter the other day. I apologize for the delay. I am sorry to trouble you, but it is entirely my fault that Mr. Murao sent such a strange letter to Mr. Kiso, because he was so engrossed in his work that I, in a fit of excitement and out of a sense of mischief, sent him a piece of mercury in the laboratory without knowing that I would cause him such concern. I gently replaced a grain of mercury in the laboratory with a grain of Nitan (those small silver-colored grains) and said, “Oh, my God, you have already changed so much before you even started your experiment, it must be because you are so enthusiastic …… However, instead of laughing at my joke, Murao-san suddenly became very thoughtful since then. I was so busy with my work that I didn’t want to touch her body, but the prank I played on her somehow ended up shocking Murao-san so badly that no matter what I said or repeated, she wouldn’t even listen to me. …… I couldn’t even cry, but fortunately, I asked my soldier brother, who was out of town, to come all the way over and explain it all to me and apologize. I was relieved to hear that Mr. Murao was not the least bit angry and apologized to my brother, saying that he did not understand Michiko’s kindness. This is a common occurrence for people who are passionate about their work like Mr.