Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 10 Prologue (section)

== Prologue: 0.00 The Others ==


This happened before she was in elementary school.

It was around the beginning of June. She remembered how she turned toward the park, enticed by the smell of verdant trees.

It was a small park, built right in the middle of a neighborhood with many high-rise apartment complexes.

Inside were only a wooden bench, a slide, and a small sandbox surrounded by a wooden frame.

She found someone she knew there.

Thin, fragile-looking limbs peeking from within a camisole. The hem of a battered, worn-down hoodie dirtied by sand.

Noticing her approach, the child wore an innocent smile.

“Ah, good morning.”

At the time they were acquaintances, neighbors living in the same building.

Although they later went to the same elementary and middle school, they neglected to keep in contact.

Despite heading to different routes and going separate ways—they ended up reuniting later.

Meaning, they were childhood friends.

Nothing more or less.

“What’re you making?”

She approached her childhood friend, looking at the pile of sand and asking.

“A castle. Will you help me?”

With that complacent, toothy smile, her childhood friend looked like a small animal. That polite yet lisping way of talking actually served to further emphasize this childish innocence.

On the other hand, she, who used her finger to poke the castle, was often said to be mature. There was her face, which often caused people to mistake her for an elementary school or even middle school student, but perhaps it was her calm and adult-like behavior that led to this mistake.

“Hmm, should I? It’ll probably break down if I touch it.”

“If you help me, you’ll be appointed as my knight.”

“Knight? Have you watched some weird cartoon again? If I’m the knight, then what about you?”

“The princess.”

Saying this and rising up, her childhood friend headed to the nearby water fountain and then hurried back. A palmful of water was splashed on the castle. —Seeing half of the sandbox wet, she realized that her childhood friend repeated this process again and again.

Another round trip was apparently needed. Taking yet more water, her friend came back…

And stumbled, falling and striking the side of the castle.

“Eh!”

“Ahh! Ahh!”

Seeing the castle, she was surprised and her friend was crying.

“Uh… ukh…”

“Come on, don’t cry. Let’s build it again, alright? I’ll help you.”

It happened just as she patted the head of her crying childhood friend.

Leaping over the park’s fences, a person appeared in front of the two.

He was a man dressed in tattered clothes. The momentum caused him to roll on the ground, and he could barely stand.

“Are you okay?”

Her friend asked innocently.

“Uu…”

She would never forget his face. Whether it was due to malnutrition or an illness, he was so emaciated that the bones in his face were prominent.

She was also surprised at his exhausted behavior, but more than that—she was scared. With his eyes bulging out as if he was being chased by an assassin or a wild beast, he opened his mouth.

“—?”

He didn’t speak in Japanese. Clearly shocked, her friend turned toward her.

“Oh no… is he an alien?”

“English. Are you OK?”

While wishing he wasn’t some kind of pervert, she tried asking. Since her education-obsessed parents have sent her to English classes since she could remember herself, she could at least hold simple conversations.

“Are they… are they here?”

The man said in English. Looking closely, he was a young man. Although his voice was hoarse, it was also young.

“They?”

“They’re after me… they’re chasing after me…! Why…?! We’ve done nothing to them…! We didn’t want any of it…!”

“It?”

“It’s like we’re being hunted…! Right… they’re hunters—”

Seeing the young man cough, she pointed toward the water fountain. He took off, practically leaping there.

Meanwhile, her childhood friend grabbed her hand from behind.

“Who is he?”

“Dunno. Said that someone was chasing him.”

“So he’s playing tag?”

“I don’t think so. Probably not.”

After drinking some water, he looked more relaxed. The young man came back to the sandbox, wary of his surroundings.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. No need to be afraid of me.”

“…”

“Have you not seen anyone around? Someone who looks like they’re rich.”

“Nope.”

As she shook her head, the young man looked relieved.

“I see…”

“Who are you, mister? Is someone chasing you?”

“I’m still a teen… but well, I guess that can’t be helped with how I look. I’m, well…”

The man hesitated and then wore a bitter smile.

“Ever since coming to this country, they only called me Alpha.”

“Alfa?”

“The one chasing me is a monster. —I’m the same, though.”

“Hmm. He says he’s being chased by a monster.”

So she explained to her childhood friend, who in turn stepped in front of the young man.

“It’s fine. Kanon and her will protect you.”

“Eh?”

She ended up raising a voice without thinking. Meaning, both she and her childhood friend, Nakayama Kanon, would do it? She tentatively interpreted it for the young man.

Just like she thought, he was surprised.

“Kanon is a princess and this is Kanon’s knight. We will beat the monsters.”

The young man burst into laughter.

“Really? Wow, you look strong.”

“We’ll erase the monsters!”

“Haha, so you’ll erase the monster to save me? That’s incredible.”

“As a princess I can use magic and I have many allies.”

Her childhood friend spoke with a puffed chest.

A princess.

Right, perhaps her friend’s lie had served as the starting point.

Her childhood friend’s cute lie.

One day, it would end up involving both her, as well as dozens, hundreds, thousands—no, even more people than that—