21 / 04 / 2019 - Daito, Osaka Prefecture, Japan.
Three days later, Tuesday. The school's dedicated Budokan.
"Hajime! (Start!)"
"HAAHH—!!"
In an instant, tracking through the limited vision of his helmet, Ryohara-senpai lunged forward with a piercing battle cry.
His feet shifted in a swift, practised motion, sliding effortlessly across the smooth, polished hardwood floor.
The bamboo sword rose high, cutting a swift arc straight toward Akane's head, while Akane remained completely still.
To any onlooker in the dojo, Akane's small frame appeared frozen in place, paralysed by the senior's aggressive opening.
But while his body remained motionless, his eyes were not. He tracked every millimetre of the descent, not so slow, but still comprehensible.
Hence, to him, the senior's form was like an open book. Readable. Or, in a single uninspired word: boring.
'Every routine is the same. Just copying straight from a textbook…'
Thinking leisurely behind the mask of his helmet, Akane finally moved. Utilising the elastic recoil optimised in his legs, he slid a fraction of an inch to the right, matching the senior's textbook footwork with perfect, mocking precision.
Swoosh.
The wooden sword cleaved through empty space, sending a small gust of wind rushing against Akane's face.
At the exact microsecond of the miss, Akane's right arm snapped forward, the pre-tensioned tendons releasing like a tightly coiled steel spring.
Thwack!
A sudden jolt vibrated up his arm as his weapon struck Ryohara-senpai's wrist with absolute, rigid accuracy.
"Kote," Akane offered, his delivery entirely flat and deadpan.
Under his steady gaze, the sheer force of the impact violently rattled Ryohara-senpai's arms.
The bamboo sword nearly flew out of the senior's grip entirely. Seeing the weapon wobble, Akane's eye twitched slightly behind his visor.
It seemed he had overlooked the precise calibration of his arm's output. He had put a bit too much weight into it.
"Kote! Match over!"
The referee's flag snapped up through the heavy, stunned silence of the dojo. Hearing the verdict, Akane felt a slight tremor of annoyance.
Even he knew his performance had surpassed the expectations that he had set earlier.
'Tch, not good.'
Clicking his tongue inwardly, he quietly lowered his sword and stepped back. He forced his body to offer a polite, deferential bow.
He could only hope the onlookers would write the lightning parry off as mere beginner's luck. For the foreseeable future, he was going to need to heavily downgrade the force parameters in his upper limbs.
"Huhhhhh…"
Exhaling a slow, heavy breath, a familiar dull headache began to throb behind his temples once again.
…
Half an hour later, the training concluded. The students lined up in a neat row, removing their heavy helmets and sitting down in the traditional kneeling posture on the hardwood floor.
"Haahhh…"
Letting out a quiet breath, Akane rested his hands on his thighs. Strands of dark hair clung to his sweat-dampened temples.
His pale profile looked young and entirely impassive, though a distinct sharp elegance was beginning to develop in his features. His crimson-ashen eyes looked downward, staring blankly at the floor.
"Mokuso. (Meditate)."
As the command echoed through the hall, Akane closed his eyes. He slipped effortlessly into the quiet darkness of his own mind, a space surrounded by a strange, isolated comfort.
'Three minutes…'
Blocking out the ambient rustling and heavy breathing of the other students, he focused on the strict time limit. For these three minutes, he was entirely free to dissect his thoughts in perfect peace.
Silence reigned externally, but internally, it was merely the prelude to a brewing storm of data. That single brief exchange with the senior had left him with an amount of information to diagnose.
'As expected. Maybe I was a bit too impatient after all…'
He reviewed [Template #001], a temporary name given to the current modification of his low-power biological patch.
It was a crude, hasty attempt to maximise his mechanical efficiency, focusing entirely on streamlining the neural routing and muscle leverage in his limbs.
His solitary thoughts undulated in the darkness like gentle waves. He didn't need to activate
Truthfully, he was exhausted. Sitting through a full day of academic classes and then immediately jumping into gruelling club activities was draining him both mentally and physically.
He sighed internally. For a naturally lazy person like him, surviving a chaotic nightmare like Khtonres in the first place was already a certified miracle.
But now that he was back in the real world, even though he knew he had surpassed standard human limitations by a noticeable margin, he had no idea where he actually stood on the food chain.
'What am I, exactly?'
If his physical face weren't forced to remain perfectly still for meditation, he would be frowning right now. It wasn't an existential crisis, it was a genuine, practical question.
Where did his physical body sit on the global power scale? What was his exact status, and how was he supposed to accurately measure it?
Joining the Kendo club was a safe, albeit slow and time-consuming way to solve that problem. It provided him with a controlled environment to gauge how his current biology fared against ordinary humans.
'Strength. Dexterity. Constitution.'
The turbulent waves of his thoughts smoothed out. Fortunately, even if he spent his days being as lazy as possible, the passive knowledge absorbed from video games and light novels actually came in handy.
By breaking his biology down into those three standard parameters, everything became much easier to categorise.
'Strength, huh…'
Flashes of memory raced across his mind, the feeling of raw physical exertion during workouts, his initial training, and finally, the heavy thwack of his wooden sword vibrating through Ryohara-senpai's wrist.
Images began to piece themselves together gradually. He compared his current output to the exact moment his body had first been reconstructed.
Back then, a single explosive dash could easily cover seven to ten metres across the ground. His peak endurance had been terrifying, and his fists could strike in a blinding, rapid-fire blur within a single second.
Of course, the transformation had been time-limited, but then—
A heavy silence fell over his mind.
'Wait. Am I… weakened?'
The sudden realisation caught him completely off guard. When he looked at the data chronologically, the difference was vast.
He had experienced three distinct stages of biological transformation, not counting the fragile, ordinary mortal body he had possessed before everything started.
First, his original reconstructed body in Khtonres. Though it had been a limited-time emergency state responding to his desperate will to survive, its raw physical power was miles ahead of his current baseline.
Second, the catastrophic damage he sustained afterward. His body had been brutally torn apart by the spatial turbulence during his escape.
That was the missing variable. His current physical instability and lack of raw energy were the direct results of a rushed second reconstruction, a flawed automatic patch assembled by his system when it ran out of fuel.
Which brought him to the Third stage: his current state, a manual modification he was trying to build on top of that broken second chassis.
So was he beyond human right now, or just a broken piece of the First? Even after sorting out the root cause, the maths simply wasn't adding up.
Right as his thoughts began to spiral into a haywire mess of frustration and confusion, a sharp sound sliced through the darkness of his mind.
"Mokuso yame! (Meditation finished!)"
The unexpected voice instantly snapped him out of the deep, dark abyss of his thoughts, rising back to the surface.
"Ah?…"
Voicing his quiet confusion, Akane blinked as his eyes struggled to adapt back to the bright lights of the dojo. His survival instincts temporarily overruled his conscious mind.
He mechanically followed the rest of the club members as they bowed deeply toward the front wall, formally ending the session.
The heavy silence instantly melted away, replaced by the noisy chatter of exhausted students groaning, massaging their numb aching legs, and packing their heavy bamboo swords back into their bags.
A second later, full clarity returned, and Akane narrowed his eyes.
He remained kneeling for just a moment longer, letting out a heavy pent-up breath to compose himself and shake off the frustrating web of his sudden realisation. He felt completely out of sync with the mundane, sweaty room around him.
Then, an unexpected touch on his shoulder snapped him out of his lingering trance.
Tilting his head back, his crimson-ashen eyes met the steady gaze of the person standing directly over him.
Looking upward, Akane took in the features of a boy with deep blue hair cut into a short, slightly shaggy bob. The uneven bangs partially covered his forehead, framing a pale slender face and a long nose.
His expression was gentle and subtle, carrying a compassionate smile beneath a pair of narrow, grayish-blue eyes.
'Ryohara Arima-senpai, second year…'
"Ah. Hello, Ryohara-senpai…"
Quickly taking in his upperclassman's face, Akane tucked his helmet under his arm and pushed himself up from the hardwood floor. Standing at his full height, he realised he was actually a bit taller than the senior.
"That sparring earlier was amazing, Shirakami! But I was a bit curious why you were still sitting here completely lost in thought," Ryohara-senpai said, waving a hand toward the rest of the room.
Following the senior's hand with his eyes, Akane looked around and blinked. The other club members were already dragging their bags toward the changing rooms or heading straight for the door.
'So fast! Why is everyone in such a damn hurry…?'
Thinking dryly, Akane turned back to Ryohara and forced a calm, albeit slightly trembling smile onto his face. He realised that if he kept sitting there staring into space, he'd probably end up locked inside the dark building by himself.
"Heheheh, I'm just a bit tired, senior… To be honest, that hit earlier was a total fluke. I completely panicked since it's my very first time handling a sword…"
Akane chuckled nervously. Please just take the hint, Ryohara-senpai. He was practically handing him a golden excuse on a silver platter. Just take the win, save your pride as an upperclassman, and treat me like a total nobody.
A drop of sweat trickled down Akane's neck. Instead of backing off, Ryohara-senpai's smile softened into a thoughtful expression. He placed one hand on his chin, holding his helmet against his waist with the other, mirroring Akane's exact posture.
"Your first time? Are you sure about that? Well, regardless, being able to effortlessly dodge a clean strike while completely flustered is a terrifyingly awesome skill, Shirakami."
'It's a lie, obviously. Just pretend to be a clueless newbie and move on.'
Granted, the difference between a hollow bamboo kendo stick and a heavy western silver sword was massive, but clicking his tongue internally, Akane decided it didn't matter. What was up with the senior's knowing face anyway?
"Ah, please stop it, senpai! It was just luck, pure luck! Okay? By the way, shouldn't we go change out of our gear now, senior?"
Feeling that a prolonged conversation here would lead straight into a dangerous corner, Akane decided it was best to cut the cord and end this peacefully.
Curling his eyes into tiny crescent slits and pasting on a polite smile, he spun on his heel and strode away.
Sliding the heavy wooden door open, Akane slipped out into the corridor, effectively leaving Ryohara standing alone in the empty court.
Ryohara didn't seem to mind. He simply watched the freshman's retreating back, his soft smile unchanging.
"What an interesting fellow…"
Shaking his head in amusement, the second-year student finally turned to follow — keeping whatever thoughts he was harbouring completely to himself.
———
Thirty minutes later, 6:30 PM.
At this hour, the streets were far from quiet. On the contrary, the area was quite bustling, bathed in the warm inviting glow of storefront lights.
Walking past waves of businessmen in crisp suits and lingering groups of chatting high-schoolers, Akane tilted his head back.
The sky had darkened considerably, and a sharp evening breeze brushed against his face — fluttering his sweat-dampened hair and bringing a refreshing coolness that washed away the leftover heat from the dojo.
Bringing his gaze back down to the sidewalk, he glanced at his right hand as he resumed his walk.
He passed open stores standing in stark contrast to the destruction of the week before — the tragic atmosphere already heavily diluted by the rapid construction of fresh buildings.
'Cheerful, at the very least…'
It wasn't his concern, though. Clutching his phone in his right hand and swinging his gym bag with his left, he scrolled through the Dark Network to see if anything new had surfaced. It had quickly become a daily habit.
Bypassing security protocols and scrolling through various hidden forums, his deadpan crimson-ashen eyes reflected the sea of cluttered posts and alerts littering the dashboard.
[News! Active Fragmented Shard of Stars successfully discovered in Rotterdam!]
[News! Strange disturbance detected in the aquatic activity of the South China Sea. The Great Wall has not yet issued a formal response…]
[News! Norman Mareech — the young man capable of dethroning the old guard on the Judiciary Seats of the Association! Galand of the Round Table claims: "The Association is as peaceful as always."]
[News! …]
A few titles caught his eye, teasing his curiosity and inviting him to click and read their contents — only for his face to instantly crumple when he noticed the paywall. Every meaningful thread demanded forum points.
'Proving once again that information isn't free…'
Sighing under his breath, he flicked his eyes back to the path ahead, watching his step as he walked. He wasn't particularly angry. After all, what right did a penniless bystander have to be angry?
His lips twisted into a subtle wavy line as he rounded a corner, passing the entrance of a quiet municipal park on his left.
He glanced inside, watching the blooming flowers and trees sway under the streetlights — momentarily calming his chaotic thoughts.
'The Association…'
His thumb stopped scrolling. His mind remained stubbornly preoccupied with that single word, causing his footsteps to falter until he finally paused beneath the shadow of a roadside tree.
A true giant of the extraordinary world: [The Association of United Nations Extraordinary].
Expressionless, Akane stared down at the scribbled chaotic list of data he had compiled.
The Association wasn't a single, unified entity. According to historical records, every major nation had contributed a core branch of their elite forces to birth it: Japan's Heaven's Gate, China's Great Wall, Russia's Imperial Order, America's Black House, and the list went on.
On paper, they were created for the future sake of humanity, dedicating their resources to guarantee global safety.
Such beautiful words. The Association utilised those exact flowery promises to garner a massive, fiercely loyal membership of hopeful fools.
Even if Akane harboured a trace of spite toward their hypocrisy, he hadn't truly cared about their existence until now. Shaking himself out of his trance, he resumed his walk and lifted his gaze from the screen.
What the Association did in the grand scheme of things didn't affect him in the slightest.
'Though indirectly, they are absolutely the cause of the wreckage I'm standing in now…'
But even if he held a bit of malice toward them, what could he actually do? He currently held zero market value and possessed no guarantee of a grand future.
Compared to standard web-novel protagonists born with golden spoons, individuals whose guaranteed future value allowed them to single-handedly rival global superpowers, his own golden spoon only activated whenever it damn well pleased.
'Serpent, oh Serpent, forgive me for the blunt truth…'
Still, the Association was relentlessly discussed across every dark channel. And whenever something was discussed that heavily, loose mouths would eventually open and spit out critical information without a care in the world.
Based on his own manual cross-referencing, Akane had discovered that the root of all their power systems invariably traced back to a single concept.
"Lineage…" he murmured, his voice instantly stolen by the wind.
If Interpretations and Derivatives were his own, perhaps alien, then what was Lineage, exactly? Some local ultimate root system that ordained all supernatural authority in this world? Through leaks and intercepted conversations, he had managed to map out a few:
The Rising Sun Lineage of Japan.
The Sun and Moon Lineage of China.
The Northern Lineage of Russia.
The Morning Calm. Camelot. Federation. Persian…
There were too many. It felt like an endless, exhausting competition. Did every single country possess its own sovereign cosmic lineage? Or was that the deliberate design of this world's rules?
His eyes flashed with cold incomprehension. For now, the exact nature of Lineage remained deeply confusing.
It was clearly the root of all global conflict and the very glue holding the Association together, those massive factions willingly banding into a pack solely to protect their respective Lineages.
'But what the hell am I supposed to glean from this disordered mess of names…?'
Shaking his head, he let out a slow breath. He had done enough homework for the day. He needed to save his remaining forum points anyway.
The only way to earn them was by posting meaningful activity, and as a mere bystander, he didn't dare squander his net worth.
Earlier, he had anonymously traded some historical data regarding Khtonres to rapidly advance his forum account level.
Of course, he had carefully omitted anything sensitive — the advanced technology, his encounter with the [Malevolent Lump Fragmentation], and the blueprints were locked away in his mind.
Even with those heavy redactions, the leak had granted him a comfortable surplus of 700 points.
It felt like a negligible amount when certain high-level posts demanded thousands just to unlock — but what truly made him grit his teeth was the realisation that high-level players were willingly paying those astronomical prices without blinking.
"Huh…"
Just as he raised his thumb to close the application, a sharp melodic notification chime rang out from his speaker.
His gaze froze. His footsteps stopped dead on the pavement as he stared at the glowing screen. Tapping the flashing icon with fluid speed, he was redirected straight to a restricted subsection of the network: The Marketplace.
[Urgent Request! Investigation Contract for Extraordinaries in Osaka and Nearby Regions! This is directly linked to the previous report.]
Intrigued, Akane lightly tapped the attached link. The screen flashed, pulling up a highly classified bulletin:
[News! Mass Strange Deaths Discovered in Osaka:
Looking down at the horrific, unredacted thumbnail images loading on his screen, a cold smile tugged at the corner of Akane's lips.
"Oh, Serpent…"
It seemed his silent accusations against the world had been answered with terrifying speed.