Vol 2 Prologue (1/2)

Chapter 0

[Search Engine] Definition Confirmation [Absolute NOAH]

1. A life form that has surpa.s.sed the limits of known biology and has a lifespan either infinitely or immeasurably long.

2. A life form created from or by a human.

3. A life form that’s individual traits present a risk of spreading 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 Archenemy itself refers to Satan in a certain monotheistic religion and from there came to mean any sort of “demon lord” in general.

Synonymous terms are the undead, the living dead, and the immortal.

Vampires and zombies are the representative examples Archenemies in modern times.

Part 1

It was a refres.h.i.+ng moonlit night after the city’s air pollution was swept away by an out-of-season storm.

I was holed up in my room, curled up on the floor, and pressing my back against 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 home through the rain and realize something smelled great 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 Archenemies, which made them something 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 myself from reality) and saw Maxwell speaking through an SNS speech bubble.

However, Maxwell was not an international friend or a cla.s.smate with a cringe-worthy screenname.

This was the system management agent for the Maxwell disaster environment simulator.

“What is it, Maxwell? I’m kind of busy.”

“Sure. And that is why I am contacting you. I determined you needed this system’s a.s.sistance since you stepped in it and have no way out.”

“Y-you mean you’ll make full use of the simulator’s processing power to calculate out a way for me to survive Erika and Ayumi’s double punch!? That’s almost too good to be true!”

“No. I have calculated 8.6 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 mussed up my bangs with a hand while still leaning against the door.

I really had understood this wasn’t a problem that would solve itself with time. In fact, my sisters’ anger would only grow the longer I put it off. My best option was to immediately open the door and bow down in apology. But I was scared! If I prostrated myself before them, they might just crush my head underfoot!! I mean, my older sister was a vampire queen and an extreme S!! The defendant requests time for the lay judges 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 am asking 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 me or Maxwell speaking.

My palms were sweaty and fear clutched at my heart, so Maxwell could indeed be the better negotiator 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 what was 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 cement dumped on top. It was all riding on his performance!!

And then he spoke with my voice.

“Oh, shut up!! I’m sitting in front of the monitor with my pants down and it’s at the most exciting part, 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 my face was filling with bright 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 s.p.a.ce!

“More importantly, their thought processes will only remain shut down for around 30 seconds at the longest. 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 window!

I wanted to get as far away as possible. For more reasons than one!!

“By the way, the Cla.s.s Rep next door should have her window open to view the moon on this clear night now that the storm has pa.s.sed. That concludes my perfect simulation. Ehehn.”

“Sorry, forehead gla.s.ses Cla.s.s Rep, but I’m dragging you into this!!”

I hopped to my feet, threw open the window, stepped back for a running start, 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 moon and right through the open second story window next door.

The black-haired forehead gla.s.ses Cla.s.s Rep was in her pajamas and looked utterly shocked.

“Kyahh!!”

“Nice one, Cla.s.s Rep! That’s the normal reaction!!”

Just 30 seconds ago, I had been trapped with a vampire and zombie only a door away while a parallel processing computer stabbed me in the back. After that fantastical situation, the Cla.s.s Rep’s normalcy soaked into the core of my being like the first taste of miso soup after returning from an overseas vacation.

Speaking of the Cla.s.s Rep, she wore pastel-colored pajamas and she adjusted her gla.s.ses with a hand as if she could not believe what she was seeing.

“S-Satori-kun? Is it just me or have your own actions grown a little monstrous of late? You look like you should be wearing a cape and a b.u.t.terfly mask and calling yourself a gentleman thief.”

“…Heh. Humans are changed by their environment.”

“Well, whatever.”

As she spoke, the Cla.s.s Rep shut her thin curtains instead of the window.

And at the same exact moment, I heard a door burst open in the neighboring house – which now meant my own.

“O-Onii-chan is gone!? Fuguu!”

“I wonder what kinds of exciting things Satori-kun was watching. What if it was older girls or blonde big sister types? Kyah!”

They apparently couldn’t tell I was in the Cla.s.s Rep’s room thanks to the shut curtain.

They seemed more interested in searching my room than for me, but that was fine as long as it bought me time. And there was nothing inside my room I didn’t want them to find. Nothing inside it.

“So what are you going to do now, Satori-kun?”

The Cla.s.s Rep supposedly had no idea what was going on, and yet she asked that, rummaged through her closet, and pulled out some sneakers.

For some reason, she had chopsticks, a toothbrush, a simple change 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 remnant of when my parents were getting 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, Cla.s.s Rep. I had business outside anyway, so this really-…”

When I reached for the shoes in relief, the Pajama Cla.s.s Rep pulled them away some reason.

…?

“S-sorry. It’s not your fault, Satori-kun.”

She was muttering about something.

Just as I wondered why she was blus.h.i.+ng, she confessed the reason.

“B-b-b-but I kind of wish you wouldn’t loudly proclaim to the entire neighborhood that you’re having an exciting 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 from the Cla.s.s Rep and left through 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 storm had just pa.s.sed through, the area was damp but fresh. The air was cleaner than normal, so it may have been the perfect time for a night stroll.

Not that I was in the mood in the slightest.

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 abnormally high number of disasters, primarily lightning strikes and powerful winds, so it had taken advantage of that to become a disaster prevention city that made money off of disasters by inviting in multiple inst.i.tutions researching disaster prevention and protection.

And the city had another face hidden deep underground.

A final testing ground for vampires and zombies.

Those undead and Archenemies were tested to see if they could get along with modern society.

And if they failed, they were executed and disposed of.

A ma.s.sive network of underground tunnels spread like a spider web below the city and any Archenemy that caused problems was dragged 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 Ayumi who laughed, 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 important as those two and I could not let those things be trampled on.

So…

“Maxwell, give me the simulation data.”

“Sure. I have completed the scenario concerning the destruction of the j.a.panese 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 was well-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 manage for the time being.

I of course couldn’t allow the Bright Cross’s tyranny to continue anywhere in the world, but if I was going to fight something on such a ma.s.sive scale, I had to start by solidifying my footing here first.

Fight.

That word seemed so vague and none of this felt remotely real as I wandered through the dark night.

“Maxwell? Where do I need to go?”

“Sure.”

My smartphone’s map app opened and with a single location pinned on it.

…That’s pretty close by.

Just as I thought that and looked up from the screen, I happened to be pa.s.sing 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 me who had wavy blonde hair grown to shoulder length. She wore a baggy white sweater and a chocolate-colored miniskirt. I could see more of her brilliantly white legs than necessary. I wasn’t sure that was doing much to protect her. It felt like seeing a dumb soldier holding his s.h.i.+eld in the complete wrong 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 impression may have been helped by how her baggy sweater covered her mouth a little and only her fingertips poked out of the sleeves. However, her blonde hair was not the forcibly bleached blonde of a delinquent girl. She was a half-j.a.panese girl with naturally blonde hair.

…Hm? Half-j.a.panese?

“Oh, you’re Itou Helen, right?”

When I used the name I had remembered, she bowed again.

She was an undercla.s.sman at school. She was popular among the 1st years and among the ruder uppercla.s.smen who said they liked small girls.

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 something so heroic? Needless to say, I only got dragged into it because I was nearby and the true criminals were a few of my mischievous male cla.s.smates.

So it was honestly strange I remembered her name and I didn’t feel like I had done anything for her.

I was like the boring merchant in the same party as a hero, a sage, and a magician. In fact, I was more like a villager 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 uppercla.s.sman-y advice as I left.

No. I was just trying to use my position at school to escape since I couldn’t find anything to say.

In other words, I was a chicken who was afraid of this little girl.

I was afraid of failing to grasp the distance between us and making it awkward.

It was laughable that I thought I could fight an international foundation for my family.

“…chan.” Itou Helen said something 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 know who exactly this “Onii-chan” was, but had something happened? She was in the 1st year, so had she gotten separated from her brother when moving up from middle school?

It was only a small thing 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 dramas. If you weren’t a good match, the conversation would trail off and create an awkward 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 something again.

No, the conversation had never ended for her. Had it only seemed awkward to me?

“So please…be careful. But that’s also…a somewhat dangerous scent.”

“…”

Her point of view was 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 someone about to pick a fight with the Bright 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’s make sure Itou Helen isn’t following me 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 am I trying to lose the girl I met on the roadside? That’s not the Amatsu Satori way.”

But I was worried over nothing.

Itou Helen did not follow me.

I felt embarra.s.sed about my unneeded caution and Maxwell left a targeted comment.

“Reality is cruel. It would seem you have not met a video game 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’m kind of relieved for the confirmation that I’m standing 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 becomes more of a commuter town. So after the owner on paper changed countless times, they ran off in the night, leaving the rights to the land ambiguous. In other words, the area is poorly managed 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 reminder of the fort under the bridge brought a p.r.i.c.kling to a corner of my mind.

But this was no time to be searching 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 crumbling moonlit silhouette.

Whether it was debt collectors or sc.r.a.p metal collectors, the inside was almost entirely stripped of machinery, leaving a giant empty s.p.a.ce.