Vol 2 Prologue (1/2)
Chapter 0
[Search Engine] Definition Confirmation [Absolute NOAH]
1 A life fory and has a lifespan either infinitely or i
2 A life form created from or by a human
3 A life for to or infecting unrelated people around it
The conditions change depending on the environment and situation, but those are the fundamental definitions of an Archenemy
The term Archeneion and froeneral
Synony dead, and the immortal
Vampires and zombies are the representative examples Archenemies in modern times
Part 1
It was a refreshi+ng ht after the city’s air pollution ept away by an out-of-season storm
I was holed up in ainst the inside of the door
I had a simple reason for this
Knock knock! Knock kno-knock knock knock!! Knock knock knock knock!
“Satori-kuuun? Your big sister would like to speak with you Specifically, we need to discuss what happened to the limited melon bread from Asamiya”
“I know, right? They only make 20 a day and don’t take reservations, so it’s super rare Onee-chan and I were arguing over who got it, but then it just up and vanished”
Tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble tremble!!
I hadn’t known
I really hadn’t known that was holding everything together here All I did was trudge horeat when I set foot inside our house And then that golden glittering prize was just sitting there! Of course I was gonna eat it!!
This was really bad What was I going to do? My older sister Erika was a vampire and my little sister Ayumi was a zombie They were known as the undead or Archene like an RPG’s hidden boss I was in real trouble if they were angry They wouldn’t even need a fist to break through the plywood door; a karate chop would be enough to break right through! And then they’d drag me out!
While I trembled in fear, my smartphone buzzed in my pocket
I pulled it out and checked the screen (to distract h an SNS speech bubble
However, Maxas not an international friend or a classe-worthy screenname
This was the systeent for the Maxwell disaster environment simulator
“What is it, Maxwell? I’m kind of busy”
“Sure And that is why I a you I determined you needed this system’s assistance since you stepped in it and have no way out”
“Y-youpower to calculate out a way for me to survive Erika and Ayuood to be true!”
“No I have calculated 86 trillion different scenarios and each and every one of them ends in failure”
“So all I know is that I’m really and truly doomed! That’s a disaster environment simulator for you!!”
“However, I have detected a single unknown variable It is a possibility of unknown impact, but it seems better than any of the options with a 100 chance of failure”
“…In other words, there’s almost no chance of success this way either?”
“Sure It is like the difference between a suspension bridge just about to snap and one that has already fallen”
I ainst the door
I really had understood this wasn’t a probleer would only grow the longer I put it off My best option was to iy But I was scared! If I prostrated ht just crush my head underfoot!! I mean, my older sister was a vampire queen and an extrees to cool down!!
“I guess I just have to go for it Okay, Maxwell! What exactly do I have to do?”
“Sure Turn your smartphone’s voice input option on and lower your privacy protection settings to Level 2”
“?”
“User, I a for permission to borrow your ‘voice’ to speak”
On the other side of the door, they wouldn’t be able to tell if it was
My palms were sweaty and fear clutched at otiator since he operated on strict numerical values
“Okay, Maxwell Let’s do that …There…there…and done Updating…and done”
“Very well”
The smartphone replied with my exact voice
So as Maxell going to do? Anything was fine as long as it shattered this feeling like I was trapped in a cleaning locker which was then thrown in a big hole and had ce on his performance!!
And then he spoke with my voice
“Oh, shut up!! I’ in front of thepart, so can’t you wait until this box of tissues is empty!?”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
You…
“You…! Maxwell…!?”
“Sure The two behind the door have fallen silent The unexpected attack has shut down their thought processes”
I could tell ht red heat I wanted to call this a false accusation, but I’d be in trouble if he brought up the folder I’d stuck in a hidden drive disguised as his BIOS space!
“More iht processes will only reest If you do not act soon, they will recover”
“Kh!!”
Opening the door to face my step-sisters was not an option now
That meant the !
I wanted to get as far away as possible For more reasons than one!!
“By the way, the Class Rep next door should have heropen to view the ht now that the storm has passed That concludes my perfect simulation Ehehn”
“Sorry, forehead glasses Class Rep, but I’ you into this!!”
I hopped tostart, and then leaped into the open sky I wasn’t riding a bike with an alien in the basket, but I still flew in front of the h the open second storynext door
The black-haired forehead glasses Class Rep was in her pajamas and looked utterly shocked
“Kyahh!!”
“Nice one, Class Rep! That’s the normal reaction!!”
Just 30 seconds ago, I had been trapped with a va computer stabbed me in the back After that fantastical situation, the Class Rep’s nor like the first taste offrom an overseas vacation
Speaking of the Class Rep, she wore pastel-colored pajalasses with a hand as if she could not believe what she was seeing
“S-Satori-kun? Is it just rown a littlea cape and a butterfly entleman thief”
“…Heh Hued by their environment”
“Well, whatever”
As she spoke, the Class Rep shut her thin curtains instead of the
And at the sa house – which now meant my own
“O-Onii-chan is gone!? Fuguu!”
“I wonder what kinds of exciting things Satori-kun atching What if it was older girls or blonde big sister types? Kyah!”
They apparently couldn’t tell I was in the Class Rep’s room thanks to the shut curtain
They see htinsideinside it
“So what are you going to do now, Satori-kun?”
The Class Rep supposedly had no idea as going on, and yet she asked that, ruh her closet, and pulled out some sneakers
For soe of clothes, and exercise shoes for me at her house And yet I hadn’t slept over at her house since before we moved up to middle school
Maybe it was a lingering re divorced I had escaped to her place a lot back then
But there shouldn’t have been any reason for her to worry about me now
“Thanks, Class Rep I had business outside anyway, so this really-…”
When I reached for the shoes in relief, the Pajama Class Rep pulled them away some reason
…?
“S-sorry It’s not your fault, Satori-kun”
She was
Just as I wondered why she was blushi+ng, she confessed the reason
“B-b-b-but I kind of wish you wouldn’t loudly proclai time in front of the computer screen Th-there are some wet tissues over there Okay?”
Ma-
“Maxweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!?”
Part 2
It was all just too much
But anyway, I borrowed the sneakers froh her house’s front door
She came down to see me off and her skeptical voice followed me out
“Where are you headed this late? The convenience store?”
“Yeah More or less”
I gave a dismissive wave and left
Since the storh, the area was damp but fresh The air was cleaner than norht stroll
Not that I was in the htest
I spoke to the smartphone in my hand
“Maxwell”
“Sure”
“Let’s get started”
Kukyou City was a strange place
It was a picturesque sightseeing city surrounded by the sea and the mountains
But it contained an abnor strikes and powerful winds, so it had taken advantage of that to become a disaster prevention city thatindisaster prevention and protection
And the city had another face hidden deep underground
A final testing ground for vampires and zombies
Those undead and Archene with modern society
And if they failed, they were executed and disposed of
A round tunnels spread like a spider web below the city and any Archeneed into the darkness by men in black who appeared from the depths of the earth
It did not matter what the reason was
They could even be people like Erika or Ayuhed, cried, and attended school like normal
I had only learned of this by accident
But now that I knew that those two girls who lived in my house could be taken away at any time, I couldn’t just sit idly by
They weren’t the only Archenemies
And there were other things just as is be trampled on
So…
“Maxwell, give me the simulation data”
“Sure I have co the destruction of the japanese Branch of the Bright Cross Disaster Prevention Foundation operating in its underground facility”
The Bright Cross
That international organization was thought to be peaceful and ell-known enough to have donation boxes next to the registers at national convenience store chains
I was picking a fight with them
“I have calculated 3448 scenarios for their later reaction, but in none of them do they maintain any influence over Kukyou City I can promise you they will be fully driven from the city”
“So all I can do is drive them from the city? What about the Archenemies outside of Kukyou City?”
“That is too wide a range for my simulation abilities Either input different parameters and repeat the calculation or physically expand my system”
So that was all I could
I of course couldn’t allow the Bright Cross’s tyranny to continue anywhere in the world, but if I was going to fight so on such ahere first
Fight
That word seeue and none of this felt reht
“Maxwell? Where do I need to go?”
“Sure”
My sle location pinned on it
…That’s pretty close by
Just as I thought that and looked up fro by a convenience store that faintly lit up the regional city night
“Nn”
“…?”
Someone suddenly bowed toward me
Who was it, you ask?
A girl a head shorter than th She wore a baggy white sweater and a chocolate-colored s than necessary I wasn’t sure that was doinga du direction during a hail of arrows
She seemed to have just left the convenience store She used both hands to hold a single plastic bag containing whatever she had bought
To put it simply, she reminded me of a small animal
That iy sweater covered her ertips poked out of the sleeves However, her blonde hair was not the forcibly bleached blonde of a delinquent girl She was a half-japanese girl with naturally blonde hair
…Hm? Half-japanese?
“Oh, you’re Itou Helen, right?”
When I used the naain
She was an underclass the ruder upperclassirls
I didn’t really know her, but I had helped her out when the guidance counselor was getting after her for having too short a skirt
I don’t look like the type to do soed into it because I was nearby and the true criminals were a few of my mischievous male classmates
So it was honestly strange I re for her
I was like the boring ician In fact, I was er or a corpse
“Well, not that it matters So is your house nearby? Just make sure you follow the main roads and walk below the cameras, okay?”
I tried to give her some upperclassman-y advice as I left
No I was just trying to useto say
In other words, I was a chicken as afraid of this little girl
I was afraid of failing to grasp the distance between us andit aard
It was laughable that I thought I could fight an international foundation for my family
“…chan” Itou Helen said so quietly “You have the same scent as my Onii-chan, so I can relax around you”
I couldn’t say anything for sure since I didn’t knoho exactly this “Onii-chan” was, but had sootten separated fro up from middle school?
It was only a s like that
“Maybe it’s because I have a little sister too”
That was all I said
And I had a big sister too
Real conversations weren’t like in draood match, the conversation would trail off and create an aard silence It looked like the conversation was over, so I waved and started to leave
“You have the same scent as my Onii-chan”
But Itou Helen said soain
No, the conversation had never ended for her Had it only seemed aard to me?
“So please…be careful But that’s also…a soerous scent”
“…”
Her point of vieas so skewed from mine that this hardly qualified as advice
But her words did seem to stab into the center of my chest
Especially as soht Cross
What kind of person was Itou Helen’s Onii-chan?
To be honest, I was more interested in her
“Sure Let’s both be careful”
“…”
She bowed
And this time we really did part ways
“Maxwell”
“Sure”
“Just to be sure, let’sme before I head to the coordinates Give me a route”
“Sure This is a lot like an open world quest, user”
“I know And why airl I met on the roadside? That’s not the Amatsu Satori way”
But I orried over nothing
Itou Helen did not follow me
I felt eeted comment
“Reality is cruel It would seeame heroine who becomes obsessed with you the second you meet her”
“Well, I suppose this is honestly the real Amatsu Satori way In fact, I’ in the real world here!!”
But it was true it would have been a problem had she followed me
I called up the map app with its pinned location
“Maxwell, so the location is in the old factory section of the Hirano Ward residential district?”
“Sure That area has shrunk in size as the city becoed countless tihts to the land aed and difficult to find accurate information on”
“I can’t believe this And I built a hidden fort there when I was a kid”
That re to a corner of my mind
But this was no ti for happy memories
I had to make for the abandoned factory
There were environmental standards for residential districts, so the factories had been in the way History had its winners and losers and one half of that equation appeared as a cru moonlit silhouette
Whether it was debt collectors or scrap metal collectors, the inside was aliant empty space