chapter01 · 001-ep1

Episode 1: The World's First Job — Its Name, 【Chuunibyou】

I, Ichinose Saku, had been stricken with chuunibyou — the disease that every kid going through puberty is guaranteed to catch (confirmed). Back then, oh, I was churning out dark history on a daily basis. But with middle school graduation as my cue, I finally resolved to transform from a dark-history production machine into a perfectly ordinary high schooler, and graduated from chuunibyou. I GRADUATED!

Never again will I buy dragon-emblazoned sword keychains or eyepatches as travel souvenirs!

But even if I'm set on being a normal high schooler, dungeons are another matter.

In Japan, anyone can register as an explorer from age fifteen. Plenty of kids go get their appraisal done with friends over spring break — it's a completely normal thing to do. So it has nothing to do with chuunibyou.

......Nothing to do with it. But honestly, dungeons have always been the stuff of dreams for me, so I was stupidly excited.

Today was status appraisal day at the Guild, and we were meeting at ten in front of the convenience store by the station. I arrived five minutes early to find all four of them already there, and Osawa Kenta, who'd been sitting on the guardrail, sprang up the second he saw me. He's the one who witnesses most of my screw-ups.

"Yo, Saku! Over here...... wait, where's the bandages? The eyepatch?"

All four of them burst out cackling.

"Wha— you seriously graduated!?"

"I told you guys. I'm a graduate now."

Yamabuki Ryou had a meat bun in each hand.

"Without the bandages, for a second there I had no clue who you were."

"But I saw you muttering 'the time draws near' three days ago. I witnessed it."

"That was about the weather."

"There wasn't a single cloud in the sky, though?"

For the time being, I glossed it over with a yawn. The sleepiness was real, at least. I'd been watching dungeon videos and looked up to find it was morning.

"Man, you talking like a normal person is kinda messing with me."

"What part?! I've been normal my whole life!"

"From the guy who was saying 'Onward, my brethren!' until yesterday?"

"I never said that."

"You totally did!"

"If you want proof, Osawa's got it."

Fujidou Yuu sold Osawa out without so much as glancing up from his phone. Osawa started playing last year's culture festival video on his. Me with an eyepatch, thrusting my right hand out on stage...... brutal.

"Delete that!"

As we set off walking, Miyake Kaito slid in beside me.

"Man, I can't wait. Wonder what I'll pull. If it's swordsman, that's it — decided. I'm running vanguard!"

Miyake started whipping an invisible sword around.

"Eighty percent of results are general Jobs, you know."

"Fujidou. Now? You're saying that now?"

Yamabuki was already on his second meat bun.

"What's the rate on high-tier Jobs again? Thirty percent?"

"A little over ten. And no rerolls."

"That's low!"

The Nagoya Guild is a five-story building that looks basically no different from city hall. I peeled up a corner of the entrance mat on the off chance there was a defensive magic circle hidden underneath, and Osawa gave me the weirdest look. He's the strange one here.

Inside, the place was packed with what were unmistakably middle schoolers on spring break, same as us. Because of that, it was an hour's wait to reach the reception desk. While we waited, I looked around, spotted a list of Nagoya City's dungeons posted on the wall, and stared at it the whole time. Kanayama, Sakae, Atsuta, Nagoya Castle...... I wanted to dive into every last one of them.

At long last it was our turn. We were called over to the desk, where a young woman was working reception. According to her name tag: Mishima-san.

"First-time registrations, is it? That'll be all five of you, correct?"

"Yes."

"Then please have a seat in those chairs over there. We'll call you through one at a time."

Some distinctly middle-schooler-ish kids came out of the appraisal room laughing — "general Job for me, huh." Watching them, Miyake began to pray.

"Sword, come forth! Swordsman, come to me!"

Miyake prayed without stopping. Standing right next to him, it was unbelievably loud. But I got the feeling, too. If this were a mobile game you could just reroll — but here, once it's decided, it's final.

"What about you, Saku?"

"Anything's fine by me. I graduated, after all. Something normal."

When we were called in, there was a pedestal standing in the middle of the appraisal room with a crystal-like terminal resting on it. Mishima-san came in with us.

"Hold your hand over it, and a screen will appear before you. No one else can see it, so if you'd like to show it, please use Disclose."

Osawa went first. The moment he hit Disclose — Dual Swordsman. A high-tier Job.

"Dual wielding?! No fair!"

Fujidou froze solid for a good while, then hit Disclose without a word. Mishima-san leaned in to peek from the side.

"Spell Analyst, hm? That's a rare Job."

"What's that? Is it strong?"

"It's a Job that deciphers the workings of skills. Having one in your party changes the whole course of a run."

"......Hm."

So saying, he was already taking notes on his phone.

Yamabuki wiped his meat-bun hands on his pants before stepping up to the pedestal. Do not decide that counted as wiping them.

"Says I'm a Pyromancer. Cool as hell."

Osawa took a step back.

"You, with fire — honestly terrifying."

"Why? I could roast sweet potatoes and stuff."

Miyake screwed his eyes shut and laid both hands out over the pedestal.

"Please, please, please......"

"......Heavy Knight. That's a shield. Where's my sword?"

"Still front line, no?"

"......A shield, huh."

"Our luck on pulls is insane, isn't it? Party's basically complete already."

I haven't even gone yet.

"Ichinose-sama, whenever you're ready."

All four of them had pulled good ones, so by now I was getting my hopes up a little too. A healing Job would hit the spot. Nobody in this crew can heal. Come to think of it, what do healing magic chants even sound like — "O light of healing, um, something-something" — and by the time I'd thought my way through that, I was already standing at the pedestal.

I held my hand over it, and a screen floated up before my eyes.

Name: Ichinose Saku

Lv: 1

Job: Chuunibyou

Chuunibyou????

There was more listed underneath, but none of it was landing. Thinking it had to be a mistake, I yanked my hand back and hovered it over again — the Job field still read Chuunibyou. ......Wait, wait, wait — I graduated. The eyepatch and everything else went into a trash bag, out to the curb at seven in the morning on burnable-trash day. Mom watched me do it. Unless it's the notebook in my closet? No, no — that one's merely sealed away, so it doesn't count.

I buried my head in my hands.

"Huh? What, did you pull something insane?"

"No, it's nothing. Seriously. It's nothing."

"That is not the face of a guy whose pull was 'nothing.' Show us!"

"Yeah, come on — it's not like you'll lose anything."

I WILL lose something. I have been chanting "graduated, graduated" all morning long, you know.

"......Don't laugh."

And so, I hit Disclose.

"Huh? Chuunibyou?"

Miyake started pounding on the wall, howling with laughter, and then it was all four of them. Well — I'd laugh in their position too. Osawa had his phone up and ready. Do not film this. Fujidou was laughing while looking something up.

"......Zero hits on any search. Probably a world first."

"A world fiiirst?"

When Mishima-san called somewhere on the phone on the wall, a staff member came running. Looked at my screen, and ran off again. When they came back, an old guy with a crooked tie was in tow. People were gathering outside the door, too.

The old guy and the staff member grilled me in turns.

"Please let us take a record of this. May we include you in the statistics?"

"Might we save an image of the screen?"

"Oh, certainly. ......Huh? It's that remarkable?"

"Even a rare Job is one in a thousand. And this one's a world first......"

Even Mishima-san was buzzing now.

"A world first, Saku! That's awesome!"

"It's chuunibyou, though?!"

"But a world first's still a world first!"

I mean, true.

"Actually, isn't that basically the perfect Job for you?"

Yamabuki said it. He actually said it. "Sure, I had chuunibyou until middle school ended" is one thing, but "perfect Job: chuunibyou" is straight-up slander...... and WHO are you calling a perpetual dark-history manufacturing machine, huh?!

Mishima-san looked toward the bottom of my screen...... huh? What? Why did she go quiet?! That's terrifying!

"......It will be alright. Everything starts from here, after all."

Stop. Please stop. That cuts deeper than the laughing did.

"Um."

"Yes?"

"If it's a world first, doesn't that mean it could also be absurdly strong?"

"......As a possibility... it exists."

"Right?! Like, maybe it comes with some amazing exclusive skills!"

"There have been such cases among past rare Jobs."

"See, it does happen!"

"However......"

Mishima-san pointed at the screen.

"In Ichinose-sama's case... the skill column is empty."

"Could they, like... grow in later?"

"The first skill is, ordinarily, displayed at the time of appraisal."

"In other words, my true power has yet to awak—...strike that. Forget I said that."

"For reference, how do my numbers stack up against other people's?"

Mishima-san tapped at the terminal, and averages lined up beside my values.

HP: 22 (Lv1 average: 30)

MP: 14 (Lv1 average: 20)

STR: 8 (Lv1 average: 15)

AGI: 11 (Lv1 average: 15)

INT: 13 (Lv1 average: 12)

LUK: 7 (Lv1 average: 10)

I never should have asked.

"......Your INT is high, at least."

"Noted — loud and clear, that's the one thing worth praising."

Behind me, Fujidou muttered, "Smart chuunibyou are the ones who go hardest on their lore," and got stopped by Osawa with a "Fujidou, that's kicking him while he's down."

Mishima-san was summoned by the old guy and bustled out clutching a stack of documents.

"Hey, Saku, buck up!"

Osawa — his face was still half laughing.

"A Job's just decoration! Grind your levels and it all works out!"

"You did a tiny fist pump when Dual Swordsman popped up, didn't you."

"You saw that?"

"Saw it. Crystal clear."

"Well, anyway."

Miyake smacked my back, same as always...... it hurt.

"We'll grind it out together, world's first chuunibyou!"

His voice was so huge that even from beyond the door came "they're saying it's the world's first chuunibyou."

"CUT IT OUT!"

World first. A phrase I'd heard more times today than I could count. My stats were below average in everything except INT, and my skill column was a blank white.

And yet — no precedent also means no one can say how far I might grow.

Not a bad hand at all...... and the fact that I caught myself thinking that means, in all probability, I was already too far gone.