chapter01 · 002-ep2

Episode 2: The Dark History I Was Sure I'd Thrown Away Becomes Power

By the time the commotion had finally died down, we were called back to the reception desk.

"Now then, let's proceed with your explorer registration. Some of this you'll have covered in school, but we're required to explain it, so please hear me out through the whole thing."

Even while Mishima-san was laying out our five sets of paperwork, the people around us kept stealing glances our way. Thanks to that earlier scene, honestly, the air was pretty uncomfortable. The world's first chuunibyou is not a sideshow attraction, you know.

Fujidou was leaning forward, hanging on every word, while Miyake was already yawning.

"First, explorer ranks. From the bottom: F, E, D, C, B, A, S — and at the very top, EX."

"Eight tiers. Rank-up conditions: the amount you've paid in taxes, and reaching the deepest floor of designated dungeons."

Fujidou answered instantly.

"My, you're well informed."

"We covered it in class."

"You'd know it too if you weren't sleeping through it, right?"

When Osawa looked at Miyake, Miyake looked away. So he was sleeping in class, huh.

"To elaborate: your tax payments are the amount automatically withheld whenever you sell drops. In other words, the system is set up so that those who earn more and pay more climb more easily."

"So you can't climb on strength alone?"

"Correct. Strength and track record are two different things."

No romance in this system at all, huh. Though when I think about my sister being high-ranked, it does make sense. She's strong — and she probably pays more in taxes than any explorer in Nagoya.

"Next, dungeons. Over twelve thousand have been confirmed nationwide at present."

"They keep multiplying!"

"Counting the unexplored ones, they say there are more still."

The number alone sounds impressive, but they're everywhere, so everyone's long since used to them. There's even one door standing in the corner of the park near my house.

"Each dungeon carries a difficulty rating. The doors of a dungeon rated above your own rank simply will not open."

"Huh? We physically can't get in?"

"Correct. It's authenticated with your Guild card."

So saying, Mishima-san produced five thin, gray cards. For something called a Guild card, I'd pictured something way cooler — but no matter how you looked at it, it was a plain point card.

"These are your Guild cards. They're linked to your My Number, so they also work as ID."

"This is one of those cards that just lives forgotten in your wallet!"

"Dungeon entry and exit authentication, cashing in drops, electronic payments — it's all handled by this one card. Your earnings can be stored on it."

"Isn't that too convenient?"

"It's so convenient that a great many people overspend."

Her saying that with a straight face means it's definitely from personal experience.

"Large-scale dungeons have a Guild branch office attached to the building housing their door. Sakae is that type. Small and mid-scale dungeons are basically unmanned — only an authentication gate is set up in front of the door."

"Kanayama's like that too?"

"Yes. The Kanayama dungeon is F-rank, beginner-grade, so it's unmanned. Tap your card and you can enter anytime."

"Kanadun," Yamabuki murmured. Everyone around here calls it that. Apparently the official name is some long thing with a prefectural management number attached, but I'm confident I'd forget it three seconds after hearing it.

"However."

Mishima-san's explanation turned suddenly serious.

"Minors may not enter during late-night hours. Also, solo dives are not recommended. Every entry and exit is recorded on the card, so if you haven't returned for a prolonged period, an automatic report is filed."

"They've really thought of everything!"

"Because every year, without fail, there are accidents."

Hearing "every year" — that's not funny anymore. We'll be diving ourselves before long, so it's not somebody else's problem.

From there, the talk moved to monsters. Kill one and materials drop — besides meat and pelts, weapons, armor, and even grimoires can apparently fall. What drops is mostly set by floor and monster type, and market prices are viewable in an app. All of this we'd heard in class too, but hearing it from an actual Guild employee made it feel real, and I got excited all over again.

"By the way — what sells for the most right now?"

"It depends on the season. Last month, ore from Sakae's fortieth floor spiked. Equipment development by the Clans seems to have driven up demand."

"Clans — that's those guys on TV, right?"

"Yes. The major Clans have corporate sponsors, so some of them are fielding prototype equipment."

"And the pricey stuff goes to auction, right? I love watching those!"

Miyake leaned in.

"Correct. High-value drops go to the Guild auction. Anyone can view the site, and winning bids are public."

"A sword went for eighty million yen the other day!"

"Saw that, saw that! Which Clan bought it again?"

Here we were, about to be high schoolers, chatting about an eighty-million-yen sword. But in this world, that's just ordinary small talk.

Explorers are stars — turn on the TV and someone's on; open a stream and someone's fighting on some floor somewhere, every single day. That's why explorer has been the number-one dream job among elementary schoolers, year in and year out.

And yet my Job is Chuunibyou. ......No, hang on — WHY!

"That concludes the explanation. Please accept your cards."

The card I received had my name, Lv1, and my Job printed on it.

Ichinose Saku　Lv1

Job: Chuunibyou

"Ugh, it's printed on the card too!"

"Well, obviously it is."

"What's the legal standing of 'Chuunibyou' printed on a government ID?"

"How should I know!"

Wordlessly, I tucked the card into my wallet. We're going to pretend we didn't see that. Yes.

When we left the Guild and split up at the station, I got cocky and said, "Maybe I'll dive in as soon as tomorrow." Fujidou deadpanned back, "What exactly are you planning to do with no equipment whatsoever," and even Miyake stopped me with a "You would honestly die." In the end it was settled: we'd dive the next day with gear rented from the Guild.

On the train home, I took the card out one more time and studied it.

Job: Chuunibyou.

No matter how many times I looked, it didn't change. Well — if it changed every time I looked at it, that'd be terrifying in its own way.

Okay. Moping about it won't raise my numbers anyway.

I got home around dusk, and while I was taking off my shoes in the entryway, my little sister poked her head out of the living room.

That's Seina, my little sister. Second-year middle schooler, basketball club, sun-tanned, hair tied up high. She's a full head shorter than me, and yet the eyes she peers up at me with are looking one hundred percent down — zero mercy for her big brother.

"Welcome hooome! So what's your Job?"

"A world-first Job. The name is Chuunibyou."

Seina froze on the spot. Hey — don't lock up at hearing your own brother's Job.

"Ew, gross!"

"Guh."

"And I thought you'd finally turned back into a normal big bro!"

"How is that my fault?"

"Then whose fault is it?"

Yeah, whose fault IS it? I'd like to know more than anyone.

"Show me!"

"No."

"Come onnn, show me!"

I showed her in the end. And the instant I did, Seina whipped her phone up, so I lunged at her in a panic.

"Delete that!"

"I'm not even filming!"

"I literally just heard the shutter sound?"

While we were carrying on, footsteps came down the stairs from the second floor.

"......Saku. Welcome back."

That's Rinka, my older sister. A university student — and the high-ranked explorer I mentioned earlier. The strongest person in our house.

And yet right now she was in a lounging hoodie, face bare, hair left as it dried. If her fans knew that THIS is the person diving floors deep enough to make TV, they'd weep.

"So what was your Job?"

"Chuunibyou. Go ahead and laugh."

"Hm."

My sister stopped mid-step.

"A world first. Impressive."

"No, the NAME is—"

"The name is irrelevant."

She brushed it aside without a moment's thought.

"No precedent. No telling what the ceiling is. It might be strong."

She came into the living room and added, while getting barley tea from the fridge,

"I know plenty of Jobs that turned out monstrous later on."

"Really?"

"Plenty. Judging by the name is premature."

She's the only one who's been like this since way back. She doesn't laugh, doesn't look down on me — she treats it as a proper Job.

And "no precedent" — I'd thought the same thing myself at the Guild. So hearing her say it made me want to start half-believing it.

It made me happy. Happy, sure — but it doesn't change the fact that the Job's name is Chuunibyou. An S-rank explorer, straight-faced, saying "Chuunibyou might be strong" — and I'm standing right beside her, watching it happen.

......What kind of face am I even supposed to make for this?

"Show me your Lv1 stats."

When I handed over the card, my sister studied it for a while, then — for whatever reason — began rummaging through a drawer in the living room.

I had a bad feeling about this.

What emerged was a single old appraisal certificate, and she laid it down beside my card. Her own Lv1 record — every single figure far above average. ......Please don't line them up. I'm begging you.

"Whoa, yours are nothing like big sis's were!"

"Seina, knock it off."

"Wow, big sis really was a monster from day one!"

"Is THAT the thing to be impressed by?"

"Saku's story starts from here."

My sister reached over and ruffled my hair. That's twice today I've been told that things "start from here." The first was Mishima-san. ......Which is exactly why that's the one that lands hardest.

Back in my own room, I flopped onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling.

In one single day, I'd been laughed at by my friends, called gross by my little sister, and told by my big sister that I might be strong. ......Well, I am a world first. Maybe good things will come of it. I'll have forgotten it all by morning anyway.

But maybe because of all that, I found myself remembering the old me. Just a little.

No. Bad idea. The old me got thrown out — all of him. Out with the burnable trash last week. So there is no need to remember any more of it. Absolutely none.

......And the next thing I knew, I had the closet open.

All the way at the back, under a stack of long-unused textbooks, past the cardboard boxes, there's one notebook. Sealed.

I dragged it out, and dust swirled up.

It's just an ordinary notebook, its cover inked over solid black with marker. Kid-me burned through three whole markers, and the coat still came out blotchy. Written across it in white pen:

†The Book of the King†

The Book of the End

Uwaaah.

......Uwaaah.

I knew that opening it meant there'd be no going back, and I turned the pages anyway.

Page one, right out of the gate: a magic circle — a circle drafted with ruler and compass, ringed with script no one could read. Page two: true-name practice, the same name copied out maybe twenty times, each letter in a different typeface.

Chaos Telos Kurnugias.

The King of the End, standing at the end of all dimensions, all universes, all timelines.

Beneath that, crammed edge to edge: origins, a chronology, the Twelve Seats who served him, technique names with explanations that ran on and on. All along the margins were entries abandoned mid-thought, still marked "※details to come."

Kid-me really gave it his all, huh.

Man, I dreamed of a Job like this. The strongest, beyond anyone's reach, a nice long name, twelve followers.

Not that my actual Job is Chuunibyou.

I flipped through to the last page and closed the notebook.

And then, somehow, my mouth started moving on its own.

"—Before the kalpa's dawn I came, and past its end I remain."

The moment I thought this is bad, there was no stopping it anymore.

"—Sprouting forth in a bleak waste where even the void was not, devouring the gods, binding time in chains. —Trillions of kalpas have I laid to rest. All of them, every one, ash upon my back. —All dimensions, all universes, all kalpas: prostrate yourselves, and carve that name. —The End of Beginnings, Lord of the Land of No Return."

......I said it.

And not just one line — all five, right to the end. Three years of writing them out hundreds of times, and my mouth had memorized them on its own.

When I finished, the room went dead silent. Not that I'd know what to do with applause.

In silence, I clutched the notebook to my chest and buried my face in the bed.

What am I doing? I'm fifteen. I'm about to be a high schooler. Just TODAY, at the Guild, in front of all four of them, I said I'd graduated.

A wordless "uaaaaah" scraped out of me while I kicked my legs. The pillow got knocked off the bed, but I didn't have the strength left to pick it up.

Embarrassing. Mortifyingly embarrassing. Nobody was even watching, and I was embarrassed.

When I lifted my head, a translucent screen was floating at the edge of my vision. The card was still in my wallet; I hadn't asked for anything to open — and my status had opened itself.

Name: Ichinose Saku

True Name: Chaos Telos Kurnugias

Epithet: The End of Beginnings

Job: Abyss King Who Rules the End

STR: 8 (+Unmeasurable / Release Rate ???)

Skill: The Words I Wrote Are No Idle Words

Abyss King????

And on top of that, the skill column that was pure white until minutes ago had gained a whole line.