Fuyou Yuuna wa Yuusha de nai - 3

Hero History Apocrypha - Part 2

Fuyou Yuuna is not a Hero

Chapter 3 - Everyone lies. And it's the truth.

It is said that a lot of animal species explore an extremely limited territory over their lifespan. Home ranges of insects are particularly narrow.
Not only do insects have short lifespans, but some of them spend nearly all of their life burrowed in the ground, without moving.
But are they dissatisfied with the narrowness of the area they spend their lives in?
Do they wish to see a broader world?

I would assume not.

A bright sun was shining overhead.
It was already August.

We were at the beach of the Ichinomiya park at Toyohama town in Kanonji city.

The park had camping grounds and plenty more, so there were a lot of visitors there throughout the year. But at that time of the year, the beach was the busiest part of the park. You could see couples putting up beach parasols and families in inflatable boats playing around in the sea.

"This is wrong! Forget advancing, my body keeps sinking further! The human body was not made to float in water!"

Lily, wearing a swimsuit, came out of the water, fuming.

"That's just wrong... How do you even manage during swimming classes at school?"

"I can swim around ten metres with a kickboard. And I can swim a whole three metres with crawl!"

"Three metres doesn't count as swimming."

You could probably make three metres just by flailing your arms around while drowning...

Lily really was hopelessly bad at sports.

"Okay, fine, I'll teach you how to swim. First of all, learn to put your head in the water and to lay down on the surface. You keep sinking because you can't do that."

"Mrgh... And here I thought I was doing fine..."

I went into the water and started propping Lily's body with my hands, fixing her swimming posture. That alone was enough to make Lily able to swim nearly ten metres.

"Practice makes perfect! Yuzuki-kun, if we keep at it, we just might achieve our goal!"

"I think you're going to do 10 metres a thousand more times to make it."

"...I-I will, I will. I definitely will!"

Gazing at the horizon, Lily tried to forcibly rouse herself.

It all began at the end of July...

Lily and I were at a certain burger chain in Kanonji. Ever since the summer vacation began, I'd been helping Lily with her Hero Club business nearly every day. We would explore and experiment with ways of crossing the wall, as well as research the history of the Christian Era. We would always gather at an udon place, but that day was different.

Lily said, "Occasionally I get irrepressible urges to have some hamburgers. My mother's blood running through my veins must be craving American soul food."

I had no idea whether hamburgers were "American soul food" or not, but getting irrepressible urges to have fast food wasn't uncommon even without American blood.

But that day we were planning to do our summer homework together, so a hamburger place worked better than an udon place, thanks to its similarity to a family restaurant.

After quelling our hunger with some hamburgers, we placed our homework and reference books on the table and glanced at each other.

Lily kept solving problems one after another with zero hesitation whatsoever. All while giving me apt hints and leading me to the right answers whenever I struggled with a difficult question.

"Lily... Are you good at studying, by any chance?"

"Yeah, I'd say so. I placed second in the prefectural mock tests before."

There was no bragging in Lily's tone, she said that as if she was telling me the weather.

"...You've got to be kidding."

"It's true."

Lily was still nonchalant. So she was one of the most talented people in the whole prefecture?

"Sorry for thinking you were dumb, Lily."

"You thought what!? An insult most grievous..."

What else was I supposed to think about someone who brandished weird conspiracy theories, scattered weird flyers around the school and got caught by the teachers?

"I care little though, high exam scores won't help me cross the wall", said Lily with boredom.

The two of us really were polar opposites.

There were, obviously, our body builds, but aside from that, I was pretty good at sports but bad at studies. Lily, on the other hand, was unathletic but
her grades were great.

"Well, let's end our school studies here! Time for our Hero Club activities."

Lily began packing up her workbooks and reference books.

"Fair enough, I got a lot of work done thanks to you... So, what will it be today?"

"Heh heh, Yuzuki-kun, how proactive of you! Are you finally ready to become a member of the Her-"

"I'm good."

"A lightspeed answer... Good grief, you're stubborn as a mule. Keep hiding your true feelings and you'll let something precious slip from your grasp one day."

"I am not stubborn. And cut it out with that way of speaking, it's kind of cool."

I reached out across the table and roughly patted Lily's head.

Lily tried to get back at me, but couldn't reach my head. The heights of our seats were too different and, maybe, she was just too short. Lily glared at me angrily.

"Mrgh... Well, whatever. More importantly, today I've come up with a new way of crossing the wall!"

"And that would be?"

"To slip through it!"

"...Are you actually sane?"

"I assure you, I am of sound mind! According to the theory written in this book..."

Lily took a book out of her bag and began flipping the pages. The title of the book was "Record of the Divine Era's Wrongthink", and it was printed by someone publisher I've never heard about.

While Lily was flipping through the book in search of the page she wanted, I looked up the publisher's name. Just as I expected, they dealt in nothing but weird occultism and dubious conspiracy theories.

Lily's hands stopped. She must've found the page she was looking for.

"Here. This book features a lot of thoughts concerning the many mysteries surrounding the early years of the Divine Era. There are several theories about why there were no big changes to the sea once the wall surrounding Shikoku formed. One of them being...  That while it might be made up of densely packed plant matter, the density of it near the water surface and below it is extremely low.　Low enough that water and fish can pass nearly unobstructed! So even with the wall present, there was virtually no effect on the sea currents and the marine ecosystem. If this theory is correct, then we could slip through the wall by swimming!"

It's said that Shikoku was able to continue living in the same environment as before thanks to the protection of Shinju, a tree bearing divine powers. The seas around Shikoku, too, were supposedly virtually unchanged from how they used to be. It was natural to assume that was also thanks to Shinju's protection. That's what I was told growing up, and I never questioned it either.

So if Shinju's protection didn't exist, there had to be some different, rational explanation for the environment's preserved state.

...I felt like I was slowly falling under the influence of Lily's conspiracy theories.

"Let's put aside whether it's possible to slip through the wall or not. Is it even possible to cross the sea by swimming?"

"Apparently, in the Christian Era, in a country named England there was a race across a sea called the Dover Strait. The distance was 68 kilometres, and there were many people who would successfully complete the race."

"...Lily, and how long of a distance can you swim for again?"

"...I'm going to start practicing now, okay!?"

It seemed to me that there was no reason to expect success in that attempt to cross the wall either.

...And that's how Lily and I ended up coming to the beach to practice swimming.

A few hours after we began, Lily's form began to show signs of improvement.

"Haah, haah... I think I've gotten considerably better at swimming over the course of this day..."

"Considering that you couldn't swim at all at the beginning, you actually did."

"Isn't that so!? Isn't that so!?"

Lily proudly puffed out her chest.

"Okay. The sun is about to set, so let's test how far I can swim now. I might even make it straight to the wall!"

"Where do you even get that confidence from... Try not to overdo it. Don't want to get a leg cramp."

"Oh, cease the needless worries! I'm off!"

Lily jumped into the sea, then, after swimming a few metres, began wildly flailing around.

"Leg... cramp!"

"You didn't even last ten seconds!"

Panicked, I went into the water.

I pulled the nearly-drowned Lily back to the beach and put her under a parasol.

"My cramped leg hurts...　I don't think I can swim any more today..."

"Of course you wouldn't become able to swim for several thousand metres with just one day's worth of practice. That takes years."

"I see... Makes sense..."

Lily, lying on her back under the parasol, let out a sigh.

Beyond the horizon, on the boundary between the sea and the sky, was the wall. The sky near the wall was beginning to be dyed in twilight red. Other beach visitors around us were beginning to pack their things up.

"Haah... Maybe we should just go back for today."

Lily stood up. Her leg probably still hurt, but she seemed to be good to go.

We changed out of our swimsuits in the changing room and left the beach.

Just as we were leaving, we passed by a monument called the Dream Tower.

The monument had something like a wedding bell you'd see at a wedding hall attached, and they said couples who rang it together would be happy. You could see couples dropping by it, as well.

Next to the monument was a place where couples hanged locks with their names written on them, much like you would hang prayer boards at a shrine. Upon closer inspection, there weren't only names of couples written on them. Some locks had wishes.

Wishes.

If it was Lily, she'd definitely wish to cross the wall and see the world outside, without any hesitation.

If it was me...

"Yuzuki-kun, are you curious about the ritual with those locks? We could buy a lock somewhere and write our names..."

"No, I'm good. And besides, my name would stick out too much. I don't want it to."

"Ah... Right."

Lily seemed a little sad.

I turned around and quickly left the place.

Lily hurriedly rushed to catch up with me.

"Yuzuki-kun, why do you dislike your name so much?"

"Do you not care about it?"

"I like my mother's surname, Lilienthal, but I don't really feel anything about the name Yuuna. It's just like having the same name as a celebrity, right?"

"...I used to think the same way a long time ago."

We came out of the Ichinomiya park and headed towards the Toyohama station.

"When I was in elementary, I was on the girls' mini basketball team. I was all even back then, and I'd say I was the core of the team. I'm still a child, but I was even more of a shortsighted, arrogant child back then. Thought I had some special powers just because I performed well on a tiny mini basketball team."

The people around me made much of me, too. When we played with other teams, I'd always be showered in attention from the other players and the audience.

I even got interviewed by the local newspaper when we won our matches.

"But one day, our team made it to the Shikoku tournament. And we had a disastrous showing. Busted in the first match. And we barely got to show anything either, it was a one-sided beatdown.　I got completely trampled by players far better than me. Showed that I was just a frog in the well. I got taught that I wasn't anyone special. And then one of the people who came to cheer on the other team looked at me and said this, "She's not anywhere as much of a big deal *as I expected*."

"Who said that!? I'll go punch them!"

"A punch from you wouldn't even tickle anybody, don't bother."

I patted Lily's low-placed head.

"And then I thought to myself. To those who lived in my area, I was definitely known as a good player. But to the audience there? I was no top-class player known across Shikoku. The match made that abundantly clear. But the audience there had a　bird's eye view of my real abilities. They should've known I was just a big fish in a small pond. So why were they surprised? Why couldn't they judge my abilities objectively? I kept thinking about it, with my less-than-great head. And then I finally realised why. Why everyone kept singing me praises and misjudging me. It's because I was named "Yuuna". They weren't looking at my skills. They were looking at the skills of a girl named Yuuna. They made me out to be more of a deal than I actually was because of my name. When I realised that, I became too ashamed of even going outside. I even skipped school for several days."

Just remembering those times made me want to clutch my head and scream.

"I wrongly thought that the power of the name Yuuna and my own power were the same thing, and let the praise go to my head... It was embarrassing. It was frustrating. Without my name, I was nothing special. Just a huge, literally, fool of a girl. I thought I was a disgrace. I still do."

While I was talking, we reached the small building of the Toyohama station.

"Yuzuki-kun, crouch for a moment."

"What for?"

"Just do it!"

I crouched slightly, and Lily embraced my head.

I could hear her heartbeat. Thud, thud.

"This should make you calm down."

I didn't say anything and just let Lily embrace me.

"When Mother was still alive, she did this all the time whenever I cried or got angry."

There was nobody at the dusky Toyohama station but the two of us. Nobody would see me in that embarrassing state.

"...I really am a fool. Telling all this to an idiot like you..."

Lily didn't say a thing and continued to embrace me.

"...I'm beginning to understand why I hang out with you. You're an idiot and I'm a fool. Birds of a feather flock together, right?"

"Yeah. We're both fools, and both idiots alike", said Lily with a carefree tone.

"I... always wanted power. So that I would no longer be ashamed of my name. So that even if my name got me overrated, I could have the confidence to say I'm capable of greatness... But no matter how you slice it, I don't have anything special."

Power to stand on my own. Power to earn money. Power that no others had, my very own power.

Any form of power would've been fine. As long as my heart had something to rely on to live without being ashamed of myself, without being subservient to anyone.

"Yuzuki-kun, I believe that you do have power. But more importantly, know this. Whether you have power or not, whatever your name might be and whoever you might be, Yuzuki-kun, I'll always be on your side."

"...Thanks."

"Mhm."

Lily smiled and let me go.

"You know, Yuzuki-kun? Hearing your story only made my resolve to cross the wall stronger."

"...How come?"

"People like you, Yuzuki-kun, are the ones who need to go outside the wall the most."

"Like me?"

"Through all human history, people developed by expanding their horizons. The humans of yore would live their whole lives without seeing anything beyond their village and its surroundings. With the development of vehicles, they gained the ability to leave their villages and go to faraway places. In the Christian Era they could cross Japan from one end to another, thousands of kilometres, in a day, thanks to incredibly fast trains called the shinkansen and planes that could fly through the sky. People could fly those planes to other countries, and could even fly rockets to space. And expanding their horizons brought humans possibilities."

"Possibilities..."

"In the Christian Era, when people could freely go anywhere in the world, there were all sorts of lifestyles that couldn't be realised in Shikoku. If you went to places like Tokyo or New York, which were massive cities the likes of which don't exist here in Shikoku, it would be possible to do jobs and live out a life you never could in Shikoku. Or you could go to the unexplored wilderness in another country, and once again find a lifestyle that you couldn't lead in Shikoku. I love Kagawa, and I love this city. But because of this wall that closed the world to us, people lost so many choices and possibilities."

Lily was looking at the twilight sky... no, she was looking further, at the world beyond Shikoku.

"Yuzuki-kun, I'm confident that you have a special power. But neither I nor you know what it is. People like you are the ones that truly need to experience the wide world and face all the different choices and possibilities."

"...And then I could discover my own special power, my own possibilities... Is that what you're saying?"

"Yeah. If we prove that there are no Vertexes, people will be able to go outside the wall again. The world will expand. Our choices and opportunities will widen. We will surely find your special power, Yuzuki-kun. And then you won't suffer anymore."

"Yeah... I guess."

We probably wouldn't be able to go outside the wall.

But having hope wasn't bad either.

"The train should be coming soon. Let's go."

Lily began walking towards the station, and I followed suit.

"Lily, so you want to go outside the wall so that people can live outside Shikoku again?"

"That's not it."

Lily's answer was stiff and cold.

"I... just can't stand the Vertexes beyond that wall. Their very existence is unacceptable to me."

I couldn't understand the real intentions of Fuyou Lilienthal Yuuna.

I knew that she was a good actor. Even if she didn't show a trace of her real feelings on her face and spoke with detachment about something she didn't believe at all, nobody would be able to tell.

"I want to know the truth beyond the wall."

"I don't believe in unrealistic things like Heroes and Vertexes."

"I can't stand the wall and the Vertexes."

All of those were things Lily said, but I had no idea which of them was the truth. For all I knew, all of them could've been lies.

On one mid-August day, I got a message from Lily around noon.

"Let's take a break from club activities today."

Considering that we were doing club activities nearly every day since the summer vacation began, the message knocked the wind out of my sails.

"Did something happen?" I responded.

No, I definitely wasn't looking forward to the Hero Club activities, but I did have nothing to do without them.

"I just remembered I had something to do. Annoying thing that comes up every now and then."

I didn't know what kind of business it was, but I decided not to pry.

"Okay..."

And just like that, I was free all of a sudden.

Thanks to Lily, my summer homework was progressing at a good pace too. I had genuinely nothing to do.

"...Guess I'll drop by the library."

I got dressed and went outside.

The Kanonji city library was a short bike ride away from my house. I never went to the library before, but ever since I started hanging out with Lily, she would take me there to study history every now and then. Thanks to that, the library had become a completely familiar place to me.

I went to the history area and took a book on the transitional period between the Christian and Divine eras.

The book had "Approved by the Taisha publishing department" stamped on the first page. Books with that stamp, unlike the shady publications Lily usually took out, were properly checked by the Taisha, their contents found to contain no issues. In other words, the history written in them was based on true documents.

I sat down on a chair and began reading. Lily wasn't around, but what I was doing was no different from our usual club activities.

I've never been a particularly studious person, so I never really read up on the history of Shikoku. All I knew about the three hundred-odd years leading up to the Divine Era and the transitional period was from TV specials on history and a cursory knowledge of the school program.

But now that I was actually reading it, it seemed like all sorts of incidents and chaos happened.

Christian Era 2015 - Sudden appearance of massive monsters called "Stardust", "Vertexes". Little detailed info known to these days. Unclear even whether they were lifeforms or not. Those monsters bring ruin to Japan. At the same time, Shinju and the wall appear in Shikoku, and Shinju's divine protection helps Shikoku escape that fate, preventing the Stardust and Vertexes from reaching Shikoku.

Staring with Christian Era 2018, Vertexes and Stardust become capable of breaching the wall. Heroes belonging to the Taisha (written as "Grand Shrine" at the time) protect Shikoku from them. Two among them, Nogi Wakaba and Takashima Yuuna, bear particularly high combat abilities and defeat many Vertexes. All battles against the Vertexes take place in places without civilians, and nobody but Taisha-affiliated personnel ever sees them. Footage of battles is reportedly stored by the Taisha, but has never been publicly revealed.

In Christian Era 2019 Taisha conducts a ritual, after which all Vertex and Stardust attacks cease. All Heroes barring Nogi Wakaba perish by that time.

Shikoku achieves peace, which continues to the present day.

"Takashima Yuuna, huh..."

The person who my name was based on, and an icon of heroism. A special existence in human history.

She lost her life fighting the Vertexes. Laid it down to protect the people of Shikoku.

"That's not something you could normally do..."

To sacrifice your own life for the sake of others. A feat Takashima Yuuna and the other Heroes would need to have incredibly noble souls for.

Were they Heroes because they were capable of that?

Or...

Were they and the Vertexes they fought just tall tales like Lily said?

I continued reading the book.

Having come back from the library, I was in the living room reading a book I took out when my mother came back from a meeting.

"I'm home."

When she looked at the cover of the book, suspicion appeared on her face.

"You, reading a book? A book on history? Now that's unusual, are you doing your summer homework?"

"Kind of, yeah", I avoided a proper answer.

"Mom, have you ever seen the Vertexes or the Stardust?"

"I didn't. I've been in Shikoku ever since I was a kid, and they barely ever got into here. Why are you asking?"

"Just curious, since I'm reading up on some history... Say, did they really exist?"

"Eh? Of course they did. I know some people who've seen them personally."

"Really?"

”Yeah. Have you heard of uranophobia?"

"...I think I might've..."

"It's virtually nonexistent these days, but at the end of the Christian Era and the beginning of the Divine Era there were people who were extremely afraid of looking up at the sky. They say the Stardust and Vertexes appeared from the sky, and that gave them a form of PTSD. That means people with uranophobia had seen the Vertexes and Stardust with their own eyes, right?"

"Oh, I see..."

So there were people who had seen them, after all.

But there were also people in this world who claimed to have seen ghosts and UFOs. If you compared the amount of people who had "seen" Vertexes and of people who had "seen" ghosts, who would there be more of?

"By the way, Yuuna, have you been getting along with Lily-chan?"

Mom suddenly changed the topic.

"Well, I wouldn't call it getting along, but we're together often."

"Right, right."

Her mouth curled in a happy smile.

"Wait, why are you smiling?"

"Well, Yuuna, I haven't heard you talk about your friends in a while."

"...I guess."

She wasn't wrong, there weren't many people who I could call friends. I interacted with the presidents of the basketball, volleyball and tennis clubs, but we weren't on terms good enough to call them friends. So I rarely talked about friends with Mom.

After dinner, I continued reading the book in my room.

"Phew..."

I let out a sigh.

Having suddenly remembered something, I opened a desk drawer. Inside was all the money I got from Lily from helping with the Hero Club.

In the end, I didn't use up any of the money Lily gave me and stored it all. I wondered how much I had accumulated by now.

After counting all the money up, it added up to over 150 thousand yen. A hefty sum.

"I can't just keep accepting all this money forever."

As I was mumbling to myself, there were knocks on the door.

"Yuuna, do you mind?"

I opened the door and saw Mom's worried face.

"Fuyou-san's father just called."

"Did something happen?"

"Apparently, Lily-chan left the house and still hasn't come back. He asked if you knew where she went since it looked like the two of you were getting along nicely lately."

"We haven't met today, so I don't know..."

"Right... It kind of looks like Lily-chan and her father had a fight."

According to her, Lily had been doing weird stuff at school and around the city (which meant our Hero Club activities), and her father reprimanded her for it and told her to stop.

The rebellious Lily then left the house. He assumed she would return after a while, but the sun already went down and she still hadn't returned. She didn't respond to his phone calls either.

"I'll go look for her", I said to Mom and left my room.

I came out of the apartment complex and called Lily's number.

After some dial tones, Lily finally answered the call.

"Hello? What is it, Yuzuki-kun?"

Her usual voice. She didn't sound depressed or angry.

But I knew that Lily could easily conceal her emotions if she wanted to.

"Where are you right now?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you right now. I'm enjoying some solitude."

She was really posturing. It was time for me to use the ace up my sleeve.

"I've finally decided. I will join the Hero Club."

"Come here immediately, Yuzuki-kun! Let's have a welcoming party for you! I'm at the Kotohiki park right now!"

Easy. Was she really one of the most gifted people in the whole prefecture?

I ended the call and headed to the Kotohiki park. It was a short walk from my apartment complex.

The sun had already set, and there were almost no people at the park.

Lily was at the Ariake beach. She lined up some branches and was standing with her arms folded, groaning.

"What are you doing?"

"Ooh, Yuzuki-kun, you've arrived. I'm planning to make a raft right now."

"A raft?"

"Yeah. I realised that trying to swim across the Seto Inland Sea is an unrealistic endeavour. So I changed my plan to crossing it by raft.　It has become clear to me that it's better to journey into battle in full armament, rather than in one's birthday clothes."

"Raft..."

That didn't sound realistic to me either.

"More importantly, Yuzuki-kun, I see you've finally decided to join the Hero club!"

"Sorry, that was a lie."

"...I knew it... That's what I expected... Did my father ask you to find me, by any chance?"

"He didn't, but he did tell us that you didn't come back home. Did you two have a fight?"

"Yeah, I guess you could put it that way."

Lily began to line up branches again.

"...Look, I'll be honest. I also think that what you're doing isn't going to work."

Lily ignored my words and continued to line up branches.

"It's impossible to cross the wall, and there's no way the Vertexes didn't exist either."

"Why do you think so?" Lily asked with indifference.

"But... What, are you going to say that everyone in Shikoku got tricked, or what? The Vertexes and Stardust destroyed the world, Shikoku escaped that fate thanks to the wall and we can't go outside it because of the Vertexes... Are you going to say that all of that is a lie? How could anyone fake it on such a large scale? And why would they even do it? You should understand that much, right!?"

"I don't", Lily responded immediately, without any emotion in her voice.

"Tell me then, Yuzuki-kun. Have you seen them? The world outside the wall? How it's filled with monsters?"

Lily spoke indifferently, not even looking at me.

"No, I... haven't."

"Neither have I. Maybe the Vertexes do exist. But maybe they don't. We won't know until we see for ourselves."

"..."

"The way I see it, it's those who blindly believe things they haven't seen with their own eyes that are messed up. It's no different from religious fanaticism. And all fanatics will inevitably attack others in some way and harm them. I can't allow that."

I could hear bitter hatred mixed into Lily's words.

"Did something happen to you, related to the Vertexes?"

"No. I just want to enlighten blind believers. Those shallow, superficial fools who fanatically believe things without ever thinking for themselves and harm others."

The tone of her voice made me feel like all of my just sweat disappeared. It was the middle of summer, but I felt a chill run down my spine.

Lily had a faint smile on her face. Her usually transparent eyes seemed dark and clouded.

"In the past, people used to believe the Earth was the center of the universe, and all the stars rotated around it. All because religions and important scholars said so. And those who correctly asserted that Earth was not the center of the universe were attacked and ostracised. Those who blindly believe what the Taisha says are no different from those people. We haven't advanced even a little since those times. For being the pinnacle of creation, humanity is far too stubborn, foolish and ignorant. What a joke."

Lily was virtually spitting her words out.

Was all that an act? Could it have been one?

It was hard to believe that.

If you had told me that her usual jovial personality was an act, and the girl wreathed in hatred in front of me was her real self... I would have believed you.

"Yuzuki-kun, looks like you don't believe what I'm saying."

I nervously swallowed and finally forced my voice out.

"Y-Yeah..."

"I see."

Lily looked up at the dark sky and let out a long sigh.

Then she looked at me once again, and her usual loose smile appeared on her face.

"Oh well... Okay, can't make Father worry any longer, I guess. I'm going home. Thanks for coming, Yuzuki-kun. I'm fine now."

Lily picked up the branches she had laid out on the beach, wrapped them in a vinyl sheet and took them with her.

"Well, Yuzuki-kun, see you again."

"W-Wait!"

Lily ignored my call and walked away from the Ariake beach.

That was the last time I saw Lily that summer vacation.

===

Xth of August

It's instinctual for living beings to expand their habitat. Plants scatter pollen, expanding the habitat of their offspring.

During the old era, lifeforms that were brought from other countries (called invasive species) even became a problem. The occurrence of such problems only proves how natural and instinctive it is for living beings to want to expand their habitat.

Which is why I'll strive to go outside the wall.

How utterly deplorable.

We live in a twisted world.

The complex Yuzuki-kun has about her name, my stubbornness about the wall and the Vertexes - everything has its roots in how the world changed at the end of the Christian Era... In the twisted world that was born as a result.

At a glance, the world we live in is peaceful. All we do is calmly enjoy our time. But it's definitely twisted. And some people are caught up in those twists.

Today was the day for my regular checkup. They didn't find anything particularly wrong with me.