Chapter 2: I Logged IN to Another World

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How did it go in the developments you often see?

If I remember correctly, the protagonist caught up in a strange phenomenon either falls into a hole or is sucked in, loses consciousness, and when he wakes up, he is in another world—something like that.

“This isn’t… the laboratory, is it? No matter how you look at it.”

However, Kazami’s senses and memories did not cut off.

Whether what he saw in the process was truly reality or not—that was an answer he could not come up with no matter how he racked his brain.

He saw a world shattered to pieces.

He saw himself shattered to pieces.

But he could feel that his body was there. He had hands, and he had feet. If he tried to feel it, he could even tell his heart was beating.

Among the many sensations, first inertia disappeared.

His field of vision was not something he could make sense of.

From the point when cracks entered the world and the scenery peeled off like plating, it was completely incomprehensible.

He saw things where the vegetation of the same landscape had merely changed, and then again he felt as if he had seen a strange world like peering into a kaleidoscope.

If speaking in terms of the degree to which the meaning of the phenomenon could not be understood, it might have been on the same level as Alice in Wonderland.

The scenery twisting and warping changed without any connection at all.

But there was just one strange part.

That was that “red” kept clinging to him now, before, and always. The rain of blood that should have been striking the window grew more and more intense, burying everything in a downpour.

Losing color, and again giving off new color…

Kazami, finally overcome with nausea amid the world of red and flashing images, covered his mouth and put his hand on the ground.

“G-ground…?”

His hand touched it—apparently.

Come to think of it, at some point the sensation like falling had disappeared.

After staring at the ground, he finally noticed.

The abnormality had already completely stopped, and gravity had returned.

“Ugh… Uu.”

But he felt sick. It was a feeling like severe carsickness or the morning after a rough drinking party.

Unfortunately, unable to vomit out the nausea swirling inside him, Kazami raised his pale face.

His field of vision was clouded white.

He wondered if his eyes were still strange, but from the sensation of something cool and damp on his skin, he could guess that it was probably fog.

When he strained his eyes, he could faintly see trees.

What came to mind was the scene often seen in movies and such, where thick fog covered a forest. Visibility was barely five meters at most.

When he lowered his gaze, leaf mold spread across the ground.

It really seemed to be a forest after all.

Within a radius of less than one meter, trees grew densely, and there was almost no undergrowth. The area where sparse young trees were visible seemed like a beech shade forest.

Of course, he still had no leeway to care about such things.

“Uah, another wave is coming…”

Kazami was somehow trying to swallow down the sensation rising up to the back of his throat.

What on earth had happened to the laboratory and the university?

And then, while he was worrying about whether it was really all right to throw up in this incomprehensible place, he suddenly noticed a skin tone at his feet.

It was a slender hand, both hands bound with rough rope.

Perhaps sensing his gaze, it gave a small twitch and moved weakly, gripping the hem of his pants.

“A girl…?”

A young girl, not yet grown, was lying face down.

She was small—a middle schooler, perhaps. Looking closely, would it be more accurate to describe her not as slender but as emaciated?

Her cheeks were somewhat sunken, and her lips were chapped. Her long brown hair lacked luster, and the dark circles under her eyes were quite deep.

Her clothing also bothered him.

The clothes she wore seemed to be made of hemp, which he did not see much of lately, and even so, the design was poor for a young girl like her to wear.

A long skirt and a simply made shirt—it gave the impression of someone having been stuck with inferior goods. Moreover, it seemed to have been worn so much that it was rubbed and stretched in places.

To put it simply, she looked like a medieval village girl.

“…Ah. —…kuh. …Tch.”

Kazami, who had been so absorbed in her clothes, had missed the girl’s gasping voice, like a fish thrown onto land.

She gripped the hem pleadingly while breathing painfully.

“Ah, hey, are you all right? Are you conscious and can you feel things properly?”

He should have been in a university laboratory, yet before he knew it he was in a forest. On top of that, he had encountered a girl bound with rope before he could understand anything.

He looked back on everything up to now, but no logic could be pieced together.

The current situation was completely incomprehensible, but the girl’s condition came first. Perhaps she had severe asthma and could not breathe properly.

Kazami raised her upper body so that she could breathe more easily with her diaphragm. At times like this, leaving someone lying down actually made it harder to breathe.

But in that instant, Kazami’s eyes widened.

Her hair slipped aside, and what was revealed was a neck stained dark red.

“What…”

When he looked closely, he could see a single line of cut wound on her blood-soaked neck.

Ten to one, it was a wound made by a sharp blade. It was not that deep, but it was not shallow either.

The blood was darkish, and the flow was slow, so the jugular vein was probably cut.

On the ground, which he could not see well because of the fog, a large amount of blood had soaked in and formed a pool.

A considerable amount of blood had also soaked into the right half of the girl’s body as she lay on it, and it looked as if it was already at the verge of whether it was too late or not.

‘Help… me…’

He felt as if the girl was trying to whisper weakly.

But there was no equipment for blood transfusion here, and he did not even know where this was. If this had been one of those strange dreams, it would have been better, but the girl’s body temperature, chillingly cold, pressed the reality of it upon Kazami.

“Then how am I supposed to save her…!?”

Normally, when there is not enough blood, hypovolemic shock occurs.

When there is not enough blood, blood pressure drops, and because blood does not circulate to the brain and vital organs, oxygen does not reach them either. When that happens, the body concentrates blood in the important brain and organs.

Then energy supply does not go well, and because new energy does not reach the heart either, it begins using emergency energy. However, using that causes waste products that lower cardiac function to accumulate, and the heartbeat gradually weakens until death—a vicious cycle.

A blood transfusion. If not that, then at least fluid replacement, or else a route for transfusion must be secured before blood pressure drops and the blood vessels collapse.

Kazami thought of a response using the knowledge he had, but in the current situation, the best thing was to take her to a place where she could be treated as quickly as possible.

“Breathe deeply and steadily. I’ll treat you soon, so bear it a little longer.”

It was cruel, but she had to at least keep breathing on her own.

Kazami looked into the girl’s eyes and told her firmly.

The girl, frightened by the cold sensation creeping toward her, still gave a small nod. Kazami told her with his eyes, as if praising her as a strong girl, and tried to carry her on his back.

Snap.

Suddenly, there was the sound of a twig being stepped on and broken.

When he raised his face and looked that way, a silhouette floated in the fog, and someone stepped forward.

The first thing he saw was jade-colored eyes.

Cold, inorganic eyes fixed on the other party. Kazami hallucinated a wolf’s eyes there and felt his skin rise in goosebumps. Of course, it was not that a real one was there.

What appeared was a brown-skinned girl.

Two sabers hung at her waist, and she wore sturdy-looking leather boots on her feet.

What she wore was not ordinary cotton clothing, but a bluish-gray uniform. That attire gave off an oppressive hardness and called military uniform to mind.

Both her appearance and her clothing made her seem like nothing but a person from a foreign land.

Even though it was unclear whether this was a dream or reality, this was what he got. Kazami was bewildered.

Was this heaven’s help, or not? That was the question.

Kazami observed the woman in the military uniform with wary eyes.

Then she looked at Kazami and the girl in order, rummaged in her pocket, and took out something thin. It was pinky-sized and had only one hole… a whistle, perhaps?

She put it in her mouth.

Then, though nothing had been done to him, he felt a sharp pain in his ears.

“A dog whistle?”

That sensation echoing from his ears into the depths of his head seemed like it could be nothing else.

After she blew it for a few seconds, the whistle was put away.

She slowly approached while swaying her dull gray long hair that reached past her waist.

“Voce e um convidado (Who are you)?”

“…What language is that?”

“…Voce e o convidado do assunto (Ah, I see. So you’re the one).”

The woman in the military uniform stared at Kazami and slightly raised one corner of her mouth.

It was probably a smile, but it was a strange expression with a faintly sinister air. Between the unfamiliar words and everything else, he could not help but find it somewhat eerie.

“Eu empreendo isto posteriormente (I’ll take over from here).”

With the same expression as before, she approached the girl’s side and turned a palm covered by a pure white glove toward Kazami.

Stay still as you are. You do not need to concern yourself.

He could guess that was what it meant.

“…U, ah.”

When she took charge of the girl, he felt as if the girl trembled faintly.

While Kazami was recalling the sensation left in his hand, wondering if it had been his imagination, she smoothly drew her saber.

“So it really was real after all.”

The brilliance of the blade and the flavor that came from being used made it feel genuine.

But as he watched, wondering what she intended to do with such a thing, she cut the rough rope. The girl’s hands fell to the leaf mold with a rustle.

And then, completely changing, she gave a calm and gentle smile and embraced the girl.

It was a face like an older sister cherishing her younger sister.

“Obrigado. E um trabalho excelente (Good work. That was a fine achievement).”

At those words, the girl nodded while trying to form a weak smile.

But on the girl’s face, an expression close to tears flickered in and out.

The woman in the military uniform comforted her, stroked her head somewhat to calm her—and then deliberately twisted the girl’s neck.

There was the sound of something breaking, and

the girl bent her neck in an impossible direction, and

when the woman in the military uniform let go, she collapsed into the leaf mold.

“—!?”

Kazami immediately pushed the woman away and looked at the girl.

There was no breathing anymore.

As he watched, her pupils gradually dilated.

In short, only the signs of a corpse remained there now.

When the bones of the neck were broken to this extent and torn apart inside, consciousness was cut off in an instant, and the command to breathe no longer reached her, so there was no way to help.

It was instantaneous death.

He could not produce any words.

He mourned the life lost before his eyes, regretted it, and choked up.

When he unconsciously clenched his fist tightly, he remembered the evil he ought to strike down.

He caught the woman in the military uniform with a sharp glare—and then, with a whoosh, “something” was swung up from below his eyes.

It was an abrupt thing, but he leaned back and somehow avoided it.

No, he was allowed to avoid it.

He had nearly fallen backward from the forced movement, but somehow endured it, yet the jade-colored gaze seemed to mock him for it.

Pasan! With that sound, fallen leaves danced up.

Before he knew it, a saber in its sheath had been thrust between Kazami’s legs.

Had his shadow been pinned?

Or had he been glared down by a snake?

From that moment on, Kazami forgot what action even was.

Thrown suddenly onto a dangerous stage, Kazami felt a burst of unpleasant sweat.

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