Fangaku:Volume1 Act1 Prologue
Act 1: For a Tutorial, Watch Some Dragon Busting[edit]
Today is a sunny day
But with localized lesser water dragon attacks
Everyone, please watch your step and your gear
As you make your way to school
This morning
▼001: For a Tutorial, Watch Some Dragon Busting
“Isn’t this going to get me killed!?”
Prologue[edit]
●
The blue morning sky shined overhead.
Far in the distance, the ceiling terrain seemed to fade away into a dazzling azure sky where the sun rose and the clouds flowed.
White cherry blossoms scattered below that sky.
Those blossoms spread out across a huge city.
This was the city center.
The sign on the tall train station building read “National Railways – Underground Tokyo – Tachikawa Station”.
A great many people were walking to and fro at the very center.
Mainly on the city streets.
There were so many people moving in so many directions, but the uniformed students provided some patches of unified color.
Their voices left the crowd and continued on past the cars and aerial ships traveling by.
Sign frame school emblem plates wavered near their uniforms.
The schools those emblems indicated were those students’ destinations.
Their conversations all wandered from topic to topic.
“Did you see yesterday’s run!? Ryukaku-san is as monstrous as ever!”
“On my way back from Iidabashi for special duty work, this guy gave me a look that said he didn’t like my Expression. Pissed me off so much I gave him a glimpse of my Expression power.”
“Excuse me! Do you have a compressed sleep charm!? For 2nd period! I need to sleep in my bottle!”
“I got a discount ticket from a friend at MUEE, so want to go to Tama Tech tonight?”
“Ugh, I didn’t eat breakfast. Think I have time for one of those celluloid-flavored things?”
They were broadly divided into three colors: white, blue, and black.
The white ones took a path to the northwest.
●
The street veered away from the Tachikawa Station shopping district, but the four-lane street stretched from east to west.
To the south was a residential district with a railway line.
To the north was a park with a forest forming a wall around it.
A bulletin board style sign frame hovered above that street.
<Tokyo Depths School → Tachikawa Area: traffic jam in Tama Tech area.>
It provided information on the traffic for both surface cars and in the sky.
On that street’s sidewalk, a small voice spoke from a group of girls in white walking between the right lane and metal fence next to the forest to the north.
The voice contained both confusion and curiosity.
“A dark elf?”
●
“Yeah…”
A school’s front gate sat in the forest.
And a dark elf stood before that white gate.
Yes, that’s right.
This was that dark elf’s first day here.
…I really do stand out.
Until this morning, she had been at a midway waiting zone on the border between the Depths Region and the outside.
She had spent two weeks there undergoing adaptive training for the Depths Region.
And this morning, she had entered the Depths Region early and gone through the citizenship process at the local government office. But…
…I really should have taken a taxi like the receptionist suggested.
Specifically, the receptionist had said:
“You won’t know how to get in since you’ve never been there before, right? Then it’s safest to take a taxi.”
But since everyone would be walking to school now, the dark elf figured she could just follow the others.
She had assumed she could accustom herself to the school’s vibe as she did so. But…
…I really stand out looking like this.
While she looked down at her hands again, someone called out to her.
The other commuters all shifted their attention from her to the speaker.
“Transfer student! The office asked me to show you around the school.”
●
The girl was in my year and her name was Ushiko.
I had never met her before.
Just like I was a dark elf Expresser, she said she was a Jersey cow Expresser.
She had saved me earlier when I couldn’t figure out how to “enter” the school.
<This can all be a pain, but it helps to have a guide, doesn’t it?>
Even the Tutorial sign frame given to me by the local government found this custom odd.
Anyway, it was Ushiko who had guided me this far.
“Thank you for all your help.”
“I don’t mind at all. I will be joining the upperclassmen in my party for a Depths speedrun today, so I am excused from my classes for the day. That gave me some extra time.”
“Anyway,” she said, turning toward me at the front gate. “After coming this far, you cannot return to a normal life. You understand that, I hope?”
●
Ushiko was mildly interested in the transfer student.
They had only just met.
The girl had been stuck at the school’s front gate because she “couldn’t find it”.
…This land really is like a playground for the local Depths Asama Shrine and for the other gods.
She had been accurately guided to the “shrine path”, but this kind of trouble was rare.
It may have had to do with the lesser dragon that had formed in some water in the Tama Tech area this morning.
The Tachikawa police had sent out their Central Depths Unit, which had likely disturbed the ley lines in the Depths Region.
…It was fortunate I was here to help, but this girl is very easily “called”.
The advanced AI called Tutorial had been caught in it with her, meaning the girl hadn’t just triggered the right conditions. It meant she and her possessions were being targeted.
Were dark elves closely related to spirits?
That might be good to look into later. And…
“Tokyo Depths School here can be seen as the center of Underground Tokyo. The vast underground cavern here was first discovered after the Tokyo Liberation. Investigations have revealed the Tokyo Depths begins in Kokubunji where the Musashi Michi Road once was, but right here still remains the most stable ‘entrance’ to the Tokyo Depths.”
“Yes, they taught me a lot during the classroom lessons at the midway waiting zone. Including that…people like me can live here.”
“Oh? It’s nothing so dramatic.”
“Maybe not,” she admitted. “It’s just…I had a weird nightmare and then I woke up as a dark elf and found my entire life transformed.”
●
Ushiko listened to the dark elf.
“I have no idea what’s going on in my life anymore.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Everyone I knew was walking on eggshells about it and I had planned on majoring in engineering, which includes using spells, but now the ‘mold’ of my very being has changed, which means my qualifications from when I got my recommendation are no longer valid and I have to change all my plans.”
<She was complaining about this for ages before you showed up.>
“You see,” said the dark elf. “It’s like the entire world either betrayed me or isn’t sure what to do with me. …It’s such a pain.”
“Oh, dear,” was all Ushiko could say.
And she saw a smile on the dark elf’s face.
But on the inside…
…I could have handled that better.
●
To become an Expresser like the two of them was to change from your past self.
That girl was a transfer student.
…She must have made that choice for a reason.
Was it her relationships with the people in her life?
The better one’s relationships with their friends and family, the greater the change to their life the Expression process caused.
If they gained an unwanted form, then it was unwanted for both them and the others in their life.
So…
…The way she’s talking, I must have screwed up somewhere.
The dark elf had said it was “such a pain”.
That was a simple enough description.
But Ushiko knew one thing.
…If her issues can really be summed up as “a pain”, she wouldn’t have chosen to come here.
Ushiko had failed to realize that and pushed too far.
She felt bad for that, but she doubted apologizing would help soothe the dark elf’s pride.
I will make this up to you eventually, she decided just before Tutorial interrupted.
<We should enter the school soon. It is time for classes to begin.>
●
It was nearly 8:30.
There were no more other students around anymore.
That wasn’t exactly why, but Ushiko thought for a moment before speaking.
“Do you know what kind of place this is?”
“No, I honestly don’t know anything.”
“You don’t?”
“Nope,” replied the other girl. “Like I said before, my life was turned upside down overnight, so I was afraid to get my hopes up or look into it too much.”
…Afraid of another unpleasant surprise?
Ushiko kept that thought to herself.
This was all speculative anyway, so she cut off that line of thinking.
…You’re being silly.
Those fears were unfounded. Ushiko at least was willing to promise that.
But it wasn’t like the girl had any reason to trust her at this point.
So she decided to give something of an introduction.
“Listen, this area is known as the Tokyo Depths Region. The Tokyo Depths are a periodically-updated multi-level open-world dungeon and it is also a site of conflict with the mysterious phenomena flooding the streets here, as well as the bonds, corporations, and states linked to them. Also…”
She looked to the northern sky where a long shape was visible even higher than the clouds.
“Musashi there is one of the Five Great Peaks who saved Tokyo during the Tokyo Liberation. They too have their influence on this place, making the competition here fierce even by Tokyo’s ‘anything goes’ standards.”
●
“Let’s go,” gestured Ushiko and the dark elf followed.
“Okay,” she nodded, but she was honestly feeling a little concerned.
…Tutorial is right. I kind of was just complaining there.
She had been a little too open with about her current circumstances.
Ushiko’s personality helped, but that wasn’t something you should unload on someone you had just met.
…Yeah.
But this place was not like her home.
That must have become all too clear to her now.
Her hands, her skin color, the shape of her shadow on the street, and the height of her gaze.
All of it had changed overnight and she wasn’t sure how to describe the shock of that.
●
Her relationships were the same.
There was no going back to the boy she had been, but everyone still acted like she was the same person as before.
But they would all gradually realize that, other than her memories, the person they were speaking to was not who she had once been.
●
How had that made her feel?
Saying it out loud would just sound like complaining.
And really, she didn’t have a great grasp on her own feelings there.
But while she tried to figure it all out…
…I’m definitely stewing in it.
She had a feeling staying at home would be a bad idea.
That was why she had come here.
And…
“––––––”
She passed through the white-pillared gate to the school.
●
“Good morning.”
Ushiko greeted the gate pillar and it bowed back, so the dark elf did the same.
“You weren’t kidding when you said ‘anything goes’.”
“It isn’t just us Expressers, everything can express itself here. There are times when it seems like wordplay has taken on physical form, but sometimes it doesn’t. This world is built on a foundation of Contradiction Allowance and you can really see that here in Tokyo.”
The dark elf nodded and walked on the red brick sidewalk instead of the stone-paved street.
The street was surrounded by forest on either side. A stream flowed by too.
“Wow, this place is great.”
But the things she saw seemed to waver in and out of existence.
“Hm? Now I’m seeing a campsite? Oh, no, it’s back to a forest.”
“You won’t be able to see it if you look away. Most of the school was originally the Showa Memorial Park. After the Tokyo Liberation, the park was mostly transferred up to Surface Tokyo, but the 1st Showa Memorial Park’s lingering ‘regrets’ will still display its old appearance here.”
“Um, so it was a park and then a school, but there’s also the depths below. Does that mean there are three ‘phases’ overlapping here?”
“Yes. Once you’re used to it, you can focus your gaze and mind on the school phase when you arrive, but if you can’t do that, your eyes will tend toward the forest.”
“Oh, so I’m only seeing the way to school because of you?”
“Yes. By watching me as I walk to school, you are focusing on that path.”
●
I see, thought the dark elf as she began walking while keeping her eyes on Ushiko’s back.
Sure enough, the view opened up around her.
Like opening a book, the forest parted to the sides, revealing stone pavement and sidewalks drawing out a gentle curve.
“I need to be careful about this.”
“At the start of the year in April, the upperclassman will guide the new students in. But you are transferring in mid-term.”
Ushiko walked on ahead, matching her pace to the dark elf’s.
The dark elf could tell that much.
And as Ushiko walked, her tail, which had a ribbon tied around it, swayed side to side. But…
…She’s huge.
Her height. Not her butt.
Well, also her butt.
And also also her chest.
Wait, what is “also, also”?
No, it doesn’t matter. Or does it?
And I’ve never seen someone supporting her boobs with a harness. Or is it an exoskeleton?
■Powered Harness
<Allow me to explain. A powered harness is a type of exoskeleton that is primarily meant as a lightweight means of “connecting or supporting” a part of the body. They usually double as a hard point part and many people use them for posture support like Ushiko does.>
“Is there a tutorial for everything? And I guess that’s the same type of thing the guards wear in Kawasaki.”
“?”
When Ushiko looked back, the small battery hanging from her horn cowling swayed.
“Did you have a question?”
“Not really. I’ve just never seen someone who regularly wears a powered harness.”
“My, my.” Ushiko smiled a little. “I need to remain in control of my body during combat. And outside of combat, I use it to preserve my posture in relation to the ground.”
“I see. So is there a lot of fighting here?”
“You generally can’t die here, so things have a tendency of getting out of hand. But…”
“But?”
“You should be getting to know a number of people and phenomena soon, but you need to be careful. Not all Expressers are based on species like us. Some embody celestial bodies, weather conditions, chemical substances, scientific phenomena, machines, weapons, and even historical figures. The disaster-class Expressers – that is, Expressers of natural disasters – are no joke.”
■Expression
<Allow me to explain. Expression is a process by which some imaginary idea, or someone that became such, resides in a “well-suited” body in order to manifest in the real world. Currently, this only happens to the residents of Underground Tokyo and the locations referred to as ‘enclaves’. Simply put, this results in anthropomorphized versions of just about anything. There is no known way to remove the Expressed idea and this is the primary reason for the large teenage population in Underground Tokyo. It is a form of mysterious phenomenon, but due to its permanence and harmlessness, it has temporarily been designated a specified intractable disease. It currently falls under the category of a ‘sudden sexual characteristic’.>
“For a while, it was popular among outsiders to stay in Underground Tokyo for a while to try their luck at the ‘Expression Gacha’.”
<It was later discovered that visitors only receive NPC-class Expressions and the named-class ones only go to residents of Tokyo and the enclaves, so other than short visits, the process is only provided to those want to change their identity/body for medical purposes or to avoid trouble.>
“I need to be careful since mine is so rare.”
“Hee hee. Where are you headed? The faculty room? I can show you the way.”
“Oh, I want to go to the library to get my slow life started.”
“Your…slow life?”
●
“Huh? I’d heard I could work through the Depths while enjoying a relaxing slow life here. Was I misled?”
“Oh, I suppose you could describe it as a relaxing slow life. And the library would be a good place to go for that.”
“Oh, good. That’s a relief. Kawasaki was a pretty wild city too, but I actually prefer things more on the quiet side.”
Just as she said that…
“–––––!!”
The forest on the left was blown away and something emerged.
It was a dragon.
“What’s that? Some kinda training?”
Ushiko tapped her on the should with a big smile. Before yelling.
“That would be a wandering encounter!!!”
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