Chapter 2
I woke up.
Ahh, I slept well.
I don't want to go to work. I'm exhausted.
Well, it's my day off, so I'm allowed to laze around.
"Still, the fact that I wake up at the same set time really shows how deeply my corporate-slave mentality is ingrained in me..."
The bathroom... I need to pee.
I dragged myself out of bed.
I flushed and sighed in relief.
Come to think of it, it's awfully noisy outside.
I can hear what sound like alarms and sirens...
What's going on this early in the morning?
Well, whatever.
"I'm hungry..."
In the end, I went straight to bed after getting home yesterday, so I haven't eaten anything.
Yeah, I'll eat breakfast and go back to sleep.
"Let's see... Oh, crap, I didn't cook any rice. Guess I'll have to eat bread..."
I had eggs and bacon, so I'd make bacon and eggs with toast.
All right, let's make some Ghib◯li food.
The stuff Pazu was eating.
"...Huh? What's this?"
Something was wrong.
The light in the refrigerator was off.
"Whoa, the milk's lukewarm..."
The milk I'd taken out of the refrigerator was lukewarm.
I wanted it ice-cold.
When I opened the freezer to get some ice, the ice had melted, leaving everything soaked.
What was going on?
Wondering if that was the problem, I pulled the cord to turn on the fluorescent light in my room.
It didn't turn on.
"...Oh, crap. Did the breaker trip?"
Was there a thunderstorm yesterday?
No, I thought the weather had been fine.
I had no choice but to go to the entryway and flip the breaker back on.
It still didn't turn on.
What was going on?
"Hey, wait. Is there a power outage?"
Was the whole area without power?
So that's why the sirens had been going off.
Nothing I can do about it. Hang in there, East◯ Electric Power.
The gas... Yeah, that was fine.
"Well, it'll probably be fixed after a while. More importantly, food. I need food."
I put a frying pan on the stove and turned on the heat.
I melted some margarine, then added the bacon and eggs.
"I can't use the oven, so I guess I'll toast the bread in the frying pan too."
Once the bacon and eggs were done, I spread more margarine in the pan and put in the sliced bread.
I toasted it until one side had browned slightly.
It was kind of like a panini. Surprisingly, it tasted pretty good.
I put the bacon and eggs I'd just made on top, and it was done.
Salt and pepper to taste.
A simple, easy bachelor meal.
Mmm, it smells good.
It looked delicious.
"Let's eat."
The bread was crisp, the bacon crunchy, and the fried egg wonderfully runny.
It was delicious. If only the milk had been cold, I wouldn't have had a single complaint.
I turned on the TV while drinking the lukewarm milk. It didn't turn on.
Oh, right. The power was out.
In that case, I'd check the news on my smartphone—
"...Ah, crap. I forgot to charge it."
My smartphone was dead too.
Seriously? What a day!
"Huh? Wait a second. If I can't use electricity, then I can't use the internet either!"
The novels I'd bookmarked were waiting for me...
Sigh... Nothing I can do about it. I'll just go back to sleep.
I slowly finished breakfast and climbed into bed.
I left the dishes soaking in water for now.
I'd wash them properly later.
...I could put off feeding it too.
"Well then, good night."
And so, I went back to sleep.
Man, it's been really noisy outside for a while now...
What the heck is going on...?
Well, I can still sleep through it.
Zzz...
...
...
I woke up.
Man, I slept well...
I groggily crawled out of bed and checked the time.
"Whoa, it's already noon."
I had slept for a solid six hours the second time around.
The light filtering through the gap in the curtains was unmistakably the light of midday.
"It's so bright..."
Sunlight is poison to a corporate slave.
It purifies the negative energy in my body (mostly my boss's fault).
No. It mustn't be purified.
I need to save that energy for the day I can give my boss his comeuppance.
I swished the curtains open.
"...Huh?"
I tilted my head.
My room was on the fourth floor of a run-down apartment building.
I could see a little of the city from above, but...
"What am I looking at?"
The first thing that caught my eye was a mysterious giant tree.
A massive tree that must have been dozens of meters tall.
It looked like one of those World Trees you often see in fantasy.
They were growing everywhere, bursting through concrete and buildings.
On top of that, the ground was a patchwork of paved sections and exposed earth.
It was as if someone had forcibly fitted together a jigsaw puzzle with pieces of completely different colors.
Smoke was rising here and there, while sirens rang out without pause.
I could hear car horns blaring constantly too.
Mixed in with them were screams and cries that couldn't possibly have come from humans.
There were sounds like "Aaaagh!" and "GIGAAAAAAA!"
Yes, they sounded just like monsters...
No, that couldn't be.
There was no way something like that—
"Oh, that's an orc."
It had a plump body and a pig's head.
A classic fantasy monster.
An orc was walking down the road.
Well, good morning—ah, it's noon already. You seem lively.
"Wait, no, no, no!"
This was wrong!
This was seriously wrong!
An orc?! Why is there an orc?!
I looked at the creature that seemed to be an orc again.
It was real. ...It didn't look like a prop or anything...
There wasn't even anything resembling a zipper on its back.
It was far too elaborate to be a costume.
That enormous cleaver in its hand looked like it could slice through a human neck with ease... Oh, wait, there was blood on it.
"......"
And that orc-san seemed to be holding something in its other hand too...
Blood was dripping from it. It was round... Yeah, maybe it was a bowling ball or something.
Surely that's what it was.
I could see what looked like eyes and a mouth where the holes should have been, but surely that wasn't it. I must have been mistaken.
Nice boat.
"Urp... Bleeeeuugh!"
I threw up.
Yeah, no. I couldn't handle that.
What was that?!
It was gruesome.
Seriously gruesome.
It was the kind of gore that would definitely get censored.
Other monsters, like orcs and zombies, were wandering around too.
Was this some kind of early Halloween?
What am I saying? It's only May, for crying out loud.
"Seriously...?"
My mind couldn't keep up with something so utterly unreal.
But apparently, that was what was happening.
The world had changed.
It had become a world where monsters appeared and attacked people.
I didn't know why, but apparently that's what had happened.
"This isn't a dream, is it...?"
I pinched my cheek. It hurt.
It was exactly the sort of development you'd see in a light novel or an otaku's fantasy, I thought.
I mean, I read that sort of novel online all the time.
But I never thought it would actually happen.
My mind couldn't process it.
"Phew..."
There was a carton of milk I'd left on the table.
I wanted to get something—anything—in my mouth.
"Glug, glug... Ahh."
I drank the whole thing. But at least my brain was starting to work again.
"...So does that mean what happened yesterday might not have been a hallucination after all?"
Once I'd calmed down a little, I remembered what had happened yesterday.
That impossibly large dog I'd run over and killed on my way home.
Could that have been a monster too?
If so, then the world had already changed by yesterday, at the latest.
"So what about 'that voice' I heard afterward?"
A voice had echoed in my head after the dog vanished.
Remember.
What had that voice said then?
"I think it said something like, 'First Subjugation confirmed. Skill acquired...'"
Then a possibility suddenly occurred to me.
A world where monsters appeared.
And a mysterious announcement.
If so, could that thing exist too?
The usual thing in situations like this.
"—Status Open."
Just kidding.
Kudou Kazuto
Level 1
HP: 5/5
MP: 1/1
Strength: 3
Endurance: 2
Agility: 1
Dexterity: 1
Magic: 0
Magic Resistance: 0
SP: 10
JP: 10
Job: None
Unique Skill: Early Bloomer
Skill: None
...It really appeared.