Chapter 1
The best thing about online auctions is that you can make money without ever meeting anyone face-to-face.
For someone like me, who likes being alone, they're a godsend.
After entering the workforce, I drifted from one job to another, but I couldn't stand meeting and talking to people. Stress wrecked my health, so I shut myself away in my rented house in Okutama and began making a living through online auctions.
With a small garden, a well, unattended delivery services, and online auctions, I can live all year without meeting anyone.
At first, I made money by repairing things and relisting them.
I'd always been confident in my dexterity, so I bought broken antique clocks, old automata, and safes whose keys had been lost and whose locks had rusted shut, all for cheap. I repaired them, repainted them, and relisted them, earning just enough to scrape by.
But there are competitors everywhere. Someone doing the same sort of thing would often buy an item I'd had my eye on before I could, and affordable items weren't always listed steadily in the first place.
Making money by relying on other people's listings wasn't stable.
So I decided to become my own producer.
Instead of buying broken things, repairing them, and listing them, I would make original products from scratch and put them up for sale.
I made all sorts of things—secret puzzle boxes with yosegi marquetry, snow globes, artificial flowers, models, and more—but the most reliably lucrative products were replica weapons from popular anime.
Anime often featured magic swords and mysterious wands, and the official companies released merchandise of that sort.
But the official items either had a cheap, obviously toy-like feel, were limited editions with low production runs, cost too much, or took months to arrive after being ordered.
So every week, I checked the season's popular anime and picked out weapons that appeared in them that "looked possible to make and likely to sell." If I was quick, I would make a replica and put it up for sale within the same week the weapon appeared in the anime.
At first they didn't sell very well, but the anime's popularity soon helped them sell at the buy-it-now price. The fact that I'd become known as a reputable seller helped a lot, too.
Reproducing complex transformation mechanisms, making my own character-inspired perfumes and scenting the weapons with them, and obsessing over the paint's color, the materials' texture, and durability all paid off. My products, marketed as "authentic realism," were a huge hit.
My coffers filled up. I bought a full set of tools, covered my material costs with room to spare, and was even able to save money. I no longer had to sneak into junk-car lots to gather materials; I could order them online or buy a patch of mountain land and cut down trees myself.
It was the perfect job: a hobby and a source of income rolled into one, without having to meet anyone.
Of course, there were problems.
For example, comments like, "Do you have official permission from the anime's creators to sell these?" left me utterly speechless. I was so terrified of being sued by the official rights holders that buying every piece of official merchandise and displaying it on my household altar became a habit.
Resellers were another problem. They'd buy my listed products immediately and resell them at inflated prices. It made me furious, but since I was selling merchandise without official permission myself, I couldn't exactly take a hard line. It was maddening.
I had, of course, considered seeking official permission or proposing a merchandise-sales partnership. But I was a certified misfit, by my own admission and everyone else's. Just imagining the effort of corresponding with the official company and having to interact with them made my stomach hurt and nearly made me throw up.
I'd started online auctions so I could live without meeting or talking to people. Taking action that involved meeting and talking to people would defeat the entire purpose.
So, while dealing with those problems, I enjoyed my fulfilling life deep in the mountains. Then one day, I found a meteorite in my backyard. It lay in a small crater and was still slightly warm, leading me to guess that it had fallen during the meteor shower the night before.
I was overjoyed, picked up the meteorite, and immediately drew up some plans.
Making fantasy weapons, which had started as a way to earn money, had become more fun as my skills improved, until it turned into a life's work. A magic weapon forged from a meteorite... There was nothing more romantic.
It could be a wand, or a sword. Would making it a gun be trying too hard to be unusual?
A close examination revealed that the meteorite's outer shell, made of a mixture of metal and rock, enclosed a transparent, jewel-like crystalline substance at its center.
With careful carving, a fist-sized rough gemstone emerged.
Some weapons appearing in anime used gemstones—often called magic stones or spirit gems in the story—so I knew a little about gemstones myself.
But even after comparing it with a gemstone dictionary, I couldn't find anything that matched.
I brought out polarizing filters, a spectroscope, and a loupe to examine it, but still couldn't determine what it was. If anything, the examination revealed that its hardness was abnormally high.
The gemstone I'd dug out of the meteorite was harder than diamond.
The fabled Mohs hardness of eleven.
Could such a thing really exist? I was about to look it up online when I noticed another anomaly.
The internet was down.
As the sun went down and darkness fell, I tried to turn on the lights, but they wouldn't come on. The power was out, too.
Suspicion outweighed my anxiety.
Had a cell tower gone down and the power failed, too?
Had some kind of disaster struck at the foot of the mountain? There was no typhoon-like wind or rain, and I hadn't felt any tremors, either...
It was a little strange, but not enough to panic over.
Japan was quick at disaster recovery. At the earliest, things would be back tomorrow; at the latest, within a few weeks.
Since I lived as a shut-in deep in the mountains, I kept a plentiful stockpile of food. Losing access to online auctions hurt, but I wasn't so short on money that I would run dry just because I couldn't list anything for a few weeks.
I tried to continue examining the gemstone by the light of an emergency flashlight, but the flashlight wouldn't turn on, either.
Well, it was the flashlight that had come with the rental house, and it looked older than I was. The batteries had probably died from natural discharge. I should have bought spares.
With no other choice, I lit an aromatherapy candle I had planned to sell with a match and secured some light.
It was inconvenient to have neither electricity nor the internet, but I could endure it for a few days.
While investigating this astonishing gemstone from outer space, I could take my time and wait for things to be restored.
It took me seven days to study and process the meteorite gemstone.
I named it "Octameteorite," after Okutama, where it was discovered. It had a Mohs hardness of eleven, a refractive index of 1.55, a specific gravity of 7.7, and a weight of 2,300 grams. Its color was deep blue-gray.
In other words, it was a fist-sized black gemstone harder than diamond, sparkling like quartz, and about as heavy as iron.
Taking every possible precaution, I carved the Octameteorite into a sphere and polished it.
Gemstones with high hardness are resistant to scratching, but often have low toughness and are prone to shattering. They're strong against scratches but weak against impacts like a hammer blow. So first, I carved the rough into a sphere with chisels and carving knives. Then I crushed and ground the resulting flakes and sorted them to obtain a fine powder. Finally, I used the powder as an abrasive and polished the stone until I had a beautiful, glossy, gleaming gemstone sphere.
There are many types of gemstone cuts, but given the rough stone's shape and properties, I decided a sphere was best.
I gazed, mesmerized, at the beautiful finished gemstone.
The romantic, mysterious history of being a huge gemstone carved from a meteorite was impressive enough, but when I looked at it like this, it had a strange allure that seemed to draw me in. For some reason, I could stare at it forever without getting bored.
Because of my work, I'd handled all kinds of gemstones. But I'd never encountered one that stirred my heart like this.
I thought I understood why bloody conspiracies had been plotted throughout history over famous gemstones...
After taking a breather and spending several hours spacing out while admiring the gemstone from every angle, I suddenly remembered my current circumstances.
I'd been so absorbed in polishing and processing it that I'd forgotten: even after seven days, the power and internet were still down. To make matters worse, the water supply had stopped a few days ago, and now I was relying on the old well in my backyard for water.
I had plenty of rice stored away. I could harvest vegetables in the backyard. If I gathered firewood in the mountains, I could light the dusty old fireplace even if the gas was shut off.
So I still wouldn't be in trouble for at least a month.
But by then, it was starting to bother me.
If the power and internet still hadn't been restored after seven days, a major disaster must have occurred.
The recovery effort was probably well underway in the city center, but it would take a little longer for it to reach Okutama, this mountain region called a remote frontier despite belonging to Tokyo.
I wondered what was happening. A localized earthquake? A tornado? Surely it wasn't terrorism or a missile strike.
I wanted to know the situation, but going outside to find out felt like too much effort.
Buying a newspaper meant enduring the terrifying experience of meeting a store clerk and paying, while going into town and stopping someone to ask what had happened sounded like torture.
I didn't want to meet anyone, and I didn't want to talk to anyone, either.
Well, I was worried and uneasy, but it couldn't be all that serious.
It had only been seven days since the power and internet went out.
Even in disaster-prone Japan, expecting the remotest mountain backcountry to be completely restored in seven days was asking too much.
There was no need to panic or make a fuss. I could just wait patiently.
Japanese government administration was pretty competent, for all its faults. If I behaved myself and waited quietly, they'd surely return my life to normal. It wasn't as though I was being forced to live under truly desperate conditions.
While I waited for things to be restored, I could make and decorate a hobby weapon brimming with fantasy and romance from this beautiful gemstone, the Octameteorite.
Another seven days passed. Holding the Octameteorite aloft in both hands, I stood dumbfounded, staring at a crack that had appeared in my house's wall.
Did something like a beam just come out of the Octameteorite and slam into the wall...?
It started with an investigation into the Octameteorite's properties.
The power was still out and the internet still wouldn't connect, so I couldn't research whether similar gemstones existed. I conducted my own experiments using things I had around the house.
I wasn't investigating it for any particular purpose. Playing researcher was simply fun, even for an amateur. Besides, without the internet—the ultimate boredom-killer for shut-ins—I had time to spare.
As part of my investigation, I examined the Octameteorite's natural frequency.
A natural frequency is, just as the name suggests, the frequency at which an object naturally vibrates.
It is closely related to the phenomenon known as "resonance." For example, if you expose a wineglass to a sound matching its natural frequency, you can shatter it with sound alone, without touching it.
Even without going that far, when listening to music at ear-splitting volume, you may sometimes feel dishes, tables, and windowpanes trembling. That's resonance caused when the sound waves happen to match the natural frequency of the dishes, table, or glass perfectly.
Using whatever tools I had on hand, I experimented, calculated, and verified my results, eventually identifying the Octameteorite's natural frequency.
I was so childishly delighted that I produced a sound matching the Octameteorite's natural frequency, like a singing voice, and touched it, exclaiming, "Ooh, it's vibrating! It's really vibrating! This is awesome!"
The Octameteorite, vibrating in time with my voice, gradually intensified its resonant hum. Just as I thought I should stop soon in case it cracked, it fired something like a white beam and blasted the wall of my house.
The impact sent a crack racing across the wall, and dust trickled down.
I stared intently at the Octameteorite I had been holding aloft in both hands.
Did you just fire a beam?
I had planned to attach the Octameteorite to the tip of a magic wand and play at being a wizard.
To that end, I had carved a piece of Enju wood, famous for its warding properties, into shape; carefully engraved original magical patterns; and fiddled with the joint between the gemstone and the handle, the protective resin, and the metal wire. All the parts were finished over those seven days, so I'd been playing around with resonance before assembling them.
Of course, it was all make-believe. The magic wand looked realistic, as if it were the real thing, but there was no way I could actually use magic. It was nothing more than a prop for enjoying the fiction of magic with an added touch of immersion.
Or so it should have been.
I went out into the backyard and nervously sang at the Octameteorite's natural frequency.
Once again, something like a white beam emerged, pierced through the trees on the mountain, and vanished into the distance.
What!?
Seriously!?
I made magic happen!?
A-amazing!
I ran around excitedly, firing magic over and over while striking dramatic poses, completely absorbed.
Once I'd assembled the parts and finished an old-fashioned magic wand—a wooden handle topped with the gemstone and reinforced with metal—my excitement shot even higher.
Firing magic beams while imitating that line from the anime, that pose from the manga, and those cool wizards was way too much fun. I felt like a child again.
But fun never lasts forever.
After firing magic over and over, I gradually began to tire.
This wasn't ordinary fatigue. An unpleasant sensation of my body floating weightlessly grew stronger, as though I were in a swimming pool—or no, in zero gravity, or feeling the lift of an elevator. I began to feel unwell.
I wondered if I'd overdone the excitement, but then reconsidered. Could this be something like running out of magic power?
It was a common idea that magic required the expenditure of magical power.
Swinging a sword around used physical strength, while using your brain caused mental fatigue.
Using magic probably consumed some kind of resource too... something that ought to be called magical power.
Surely I was tired now because I had spent my magical power.
This is getting interesting!
No, it had already been plenty interesting, but a fantasy that had fallen from outer space was enough to send my excitement through the roof.
I've decided! This magic wand is going to be my treasure! I'm never selling it. No matter how desperate my circumstances get, I'll never let it go.
...Speaking of desperate circumstances.
I suddenly remembered the state of things and sobered up.
Fourteen days had passed since the power and internet went out.
The water had stopped long ago, and the gas had gone out a few days earlier. All the infrastructure had shut down.
Fortunately, I still had plenty of food stored up, I could draw water from the old well, and I wouldn't lack fire as long as I gathered firewood from the mountain.
But even if I lived deep in the mountains far from the city center, could restoration really take this long?
How long did recovery take after the Great East Japan Earthquake or the Noto Peninsula Earthquake?
Hmm. Something was nagging at me.
Could the restoration work actually have finished long ago, with only my house forgotten due to some sort of mix-up?
No, no, there was no reason to single me out like that. Sure, my social skills were utterly nonexistent, but I paid my taxes properly. Surely the government wasn't ignoring me specifically. No way.
I was getting worried, but going to the government office to confront them in person felt like too much effort.
I was a dyed-in-the-wool homebody. Don't underestimate me.
Well, there was no need to panic yet. Maybe everything would just snap back to normal tomorrow, as if nothing had happened.
It wasn't as though I'd been left without help for an entire year. It had only been fourteen days. If the disaster area was extensive, it was only natural for a remote place deep in the mountains with barely any residents to be dealt with later.
Take it easy.
I could take my time waiting for things to be restored while investigating this mysterious magic stone.
Another seven days passed.
I didn't want to go outside or talk to anyone, but I did want information from the outside world.
Then I remembered the dream item called a "radio" sleeping in my junk box, an item that could grant that selfish wish. Unintentionally, I had obtained the key to learning what had caused the disaster now unfolding.
The radio, buried under a mountain of junk I'd won cheaply, was of course broken and wouldn't work.
I disassembled it to repair it, and that's when I found something strange.
A milky-white, quartz-like crystal covered the radio's capacitor.
Thinking that was odd, I tried to remove the crystal with tweezers, and noticed something even stranger.
The milky-white crystal wasn't stuck to the surface of the capacitor. It was encrusted there as though it had broken through from inside and grown outward. Threads of quartz had taken root and rampaged through the inside of the capacitor, destroying it completely.
How could something possibly break like this?
Puzzled, I thought it over and hit upon a hypothesis.
I disassembled other junk items and examined their power sections, then took the batteries out of the flashlight and disassembled it, too. I took apart the computer and refrigerator as well.
Sure enough, my prediction had been correct.
Every electrical appliance I examined had been destroyed inside by quartz growing out of its power and conductive sections.
I couldn't believe this strange phenomenon was happening only inside my house.
I summoned my courage, went outside, and headed for the public telephone at a general store ten minutes away on foot.
Relieved to see the general store's shutters down, I secretly disassembled the public telephone while keeping an eye out for anyone watching. As expected, its electrical system had been ravaged by quartz.
The others were the same.
Streetlights, vending machines, even a light truck that had been abandoned—all of them! Their electrical systems had been invaded by quartz and destroyed.
A chill ran down my spine, as if the peaceful daily life I'd enjoyed until now had suddenly been swallowed by a horror story.
This phenomenon probably wasn't confined to Okutama. If it were happening only in Okutama, a rescue team would have arrived by now.
The fact that no one had come meant that this very thing was happening on a far larger scale, and chaos too great for rescue efforts had erupted.
All of Japan?
Could it be global?
Humanity was weak after having its electrical devices destroyed by the invasion of mysterious quartz.
Infrastructure had stopped, communications had stopped, and all coordination had been severed.
In hospitals, diagnostic equipment and the computers used to manage medical records must have stopped. If the refrigerators storing medicine and blood for transfusions had stopped, treatment would be impossible.
Once traffic signals stopped, transportation would grind to a halt. In the first place, cars wouldn't run.
If agricultural tractors and sprinklers stopped, food production would suffer catastrophic damage, and if ships stopped, so would the fishing industry.
Airplanes must have crashed. Nuclear power plants might have exploded.
Once electricity was lost, everything was lost.
As I stood aghast, the rain that had begun to fall in scattered drops struck my cheeks.
As the rain grew heavier, I took shelter beneath the general store's eaves.
The rain was loud, and I couldn't hear anything else.
Only now did I realize that none of the houses scattered through the mountain valleys showed any sign of life.
The residents had evacuated somewhere long ago.
Dark, black clouds gathered in the sky, and before long, hail began to fall.
No...
...This isn't hail.
I was struck speechless when I saw a small milky-white crystal rolling toward me, splashing mud around my feet.
Lightning is large-scale static electricity that occurs inside clouds.
Static electricity.
Electricity.
This crystal grows by feeding on electricity.
The rain clouds of this changed world no longer released lightning.
Instead, they had begun dropping crystals.
If crystals had spread not only across the ground where humanity once lived in splendor but even into the sky, this phenomenon had to have spread throughout the world.
It's all over.
While I was idly lounging around in seclusion, human civilization had collapsed.