There was no one else in the house. Nor was there any indication of anyone else having been there.

Kino, coat removed, sat down on a chair. On the side was Hermes, stood up on the center stand.

"Here you go."

The man placed a mug cup on the table.

"It's tea made from the herbs in my garden. I don't know whether it'll be to your tastes, but it's a popular drink in this country."

Kino took a whiff of its fragrance.

"It smells interesting. What kind of tea is it?"

"It's called Dokudami Tea."

Hermes, hearing that, shouted reflexively,

"Doku... isn't that poison!? There's poison in it!? Don't drink it, Kino!"

Kino, although without speaking rudely like Hermes did, refrained from drinking it. Peering into the mug, Kino then asked the man for confirmation.

"Poison tea, is it? Will it be safe to drink for someone who's never had it before?"

The man chuckled, then went on,

"You two really are outsiders-- Ah, sorry for laughing. I wasn't intending to mess with you. Dokudami doesn't mean it's poisonous. It means to cure or stop poison... Ha ha ha, now that I think about it, anyone normal would've been weirded out if they were offered poison-something tea for the first time. Besides... how do I sa... y..."

The last word was no good. As the conversation went on, his smiling face changed not to neutral, but rather one that was on the verge of tears; in the end, he let out a cry and broke into a sob.

Kino and Hermes, clueless about what had just happened, watched over the crying man for a short while.

The man let his streaming tears fall, snorted once every few moments, then slowly spoke again.

"I wonder how many years it's been... since I last held a conversation like this... with other people... Ten years, maybe... No, perhaps even longer..."

After a short while, Kino spoke up.

"Could you tell me your story?"

The man removed his glasses, wiped his tears, and blew his nose. Then, while nodding repeatedly,

"Ah, of course, no problem. I'll tell you all about it. Why the people of this country don't meet face to face with each other."

The man wiped off the last of his tears. He then put his glasses back on and looked at Kino in the face. Letting out a slow breath, he then began to speak.

"Let's see... simply put, in this country, we all perceive other people's pain. That's why we all don't meet face to face with each other... No... I meant, we can't meet face to face."

"Perceiving other people's pain?"

"What's up with that?"

The man took a sip of his tea.

"You two, have your parents ever said something along these lines to you before? To grow up to be a person that understands other people's pain. Such that you would know what others dislike, and that you wouldn't do things that would hurt them. Or, have you ever thought something like this before? That it would surely be so wonderfully convenient to know what others are thinking?"

"Yes! I have! Just when we were on the way here, when Kino was... Jeez..."

To the man's question, Hermes pounced on the opportunity to answer. It happened so fast that Kino wasn't given any chance to make a statement.

"Sorry about that, Hermes."

Kino spoke in a disinterested tone, as if to cover up Hermes' remark.

"The people of this country believed it in earnest. Right from the olden days, it's the machines that do most of the work in this country, enabling the people to live in comfort. Food was abundant; the country, safe and affluent. Because of that, the people ended up having more free time than they could imagine, so they turned to using their brains to challenge various things. Things like discovering new formulae, going full blast on scientific pursuits, creating works of literature and music....