"Hum~ hum~ hum~"
Kagehiro Shiro was in a fairly good mood, humming a tune called "Faraway Sky"—a song that technically didn't exist in this world yet. His school bag hung loosely at his waist as he walked.
The spring air hadn't quite warmed up yet; the mornings still carried a lingering chill, but spring had officially arrived.
What should I have for dinner today?
Curry? A simple cream stew? Or maybe something more substantial like a hamburger steak?
He used to wonder why people here loved curry so much—it appeared in every anime—but he finally understood: it was just incredibly convenient. The perks of getting out of school early and living alone were most apparent in the kitchen. There was no need to cook multiple dishes since he couldn't finish them anyway. One large pot of something could last two or three days, saving him a massive amount of time.
With all that extra time, he didn't even need to stay up late. Shiro had always believed that young people in the modern world stayed up late because they were so busy with work and school during the day that the quiet, peaceful night was the only time that truly belonged to them. Out of a greedy desire to stretch that personal time further, staying up late became an inevitable habit.
"Welcome," a voice called out.
Shiro stepped into the convenience store, picked up some spicy curry blocks, and a carton of eggs. He flipped through the new issue of Jump on the shelf and tucked it under his arm. Just as he was about to leave, his gaze was caught by a shelf of gravure magazines.
Well, let's see the competition.
Even in this world, it wasn't all beautiful people. If you looked closely, you could see the flaws; not everything that was "pretty" was perfect.
His memory was a bit hazy, but he still remembered the bias of the author who wrote The Tale of Hachiman's Youth back in his first life. That author had described Yukinoshita Yukino as a school beauty, a "once-in-a-lifetime" masterpiece, while the second heroine, Yuigahama Yui, was described as a common "girl-next-door" who just happened to be pretty when she dressed up.
There was never really a "waifu war"; the author had made it clear from the start that the girl next door wasn't Cinderella.
As Shiro quietly flipped through the pages, the sound of paper rustling echoed from right beside him. He looked up. Standing there was a girl from Sobu High.
She had long blonde hair, a sharp gaze, and a slender figure. She was the kind of girl where the word "beauty" felt like an understatement.
Miura Yumiko. The peak of the "normies" in Hachiman's class and one of the top-ranking girls in the entire school. The "Queen" was currently browsing a fashion magazine, the kind that dictated the current trends in clothing.
Sensing Shiro's gaze, she looked up at him.
"..."
Seeing that they wore the same school uniform, she didn't act cold or dismissive. They shared a brief, silent nod of acknowledgment before Yumiko looked back down at her magazine.
Shiro quietly closed his magazine—hoping she hadn't seen the somewhat "revealing" cover—and hid it behind his manga. Without putting it back on the shelf, Shiro headed straight to the counter to pay.
"That will be 3,360 yen."
"Here."
"Thank you for your purchase."
As he took his bag, he felt someone behind him. He glanced back; Yumiko was finishing her purchase too.
Most girls in the Tokyo area—and Chiba was technically part of the Greater Tokyo Area—talked about these trends. Only those who kept up with the fashion could maintain their social standing.
Shiro remembered a phrase from his past: "Japanese girls will never let you see their Absolute Territory." It was a joke because usually, they wore crew socks or short socks. High-fashion in Japan meant that 99% of JKs wore mid-calf socks.
Longer hosiery, like the black over-the-knee socks Yukino wore, was actually a rebellious outlier that went against the grain of the trend. On the other hand, Yuigahama Yui and Miura Yumiko were typical Tokyo-style girls, wearing the standard mid-calf socks.
After living here for a while, Shiro had grown used to it. The way mid-calf socks highlighted the curve of the calf while leaving the rest of the leg bare was certainly a look worth praising. But not every girl had the leg shape to pull it off.
Sigh... I still think long socks are superior.
He got off the subway and was nearly home. As he entered the residential area, the roads grew narrower. The high-rise buildings vanished, replaced by the typical Japanese "Ikken-ya" (detached houses), though his own apartment building was five stories tall.
It was probably around 4:00 PM. He pulled out his phone to check the time. The distant sky was beginning to take on a tinge of orange, and the shadows were lengthening.
He passed a woman walking toward him and stepped aside to give her room. He had walked about a dozen paces further when a piercing screech of brakes tore through the air.
CRUNCH.
Shiro spun around. The blood on the wall was vivid—it looked as if a whole bucket of red paint had been hurled against it.
What?! A car accident?
For a split second, Shiro wondered if he was about to be Isekai'd again. Rest in peace, he thought, quickly suppressing his disrespectful musing. If he were to die and reincarnate that way, it would be far too ridiculous. Live by the sword, die by the sword—that had been his principle in a previous life.
Judging by the amount of blood and the force of the impact, whoever was hit was likely gone.
He stood there, frozen, torn between the urge to help and the desire to avoid trouble. There was no one else around; it wasn't rush hour yet.
After a few moments, the driver, looking dazed and shaken, opened the door and tumbled onto the ground. He struggled to his feet, seemingly uninjured. He hurried to the front of the car, looking at the woman he had hit, and cried out, "Hey! Are you okay?!"
His hands shook as he reached into his pocket for his phone, his fingers trembling so much he couldn't even dial the emergency number.
Before he could finish the call, the woman on the ground let out a low groan.
"Ah..."
Then, she began to stand up. Her movements were bizarre—stiff and contorted.
When she finally stood, both the driver and Shiro, watching from a distance, sucked in a breath of cold air. The scene was pure horror.
The woman's neck was snapped.
Whether it was the angle of the impact or something else, her head was tilted at an impossible, exaggerated angle. Her eyes were rolled back, showing only the whites, a detail Shiro could see clearly even from a distance.
The woman began to shamble away, a sound wheezing from her broken throat.
"AAAAHHHHH!" the driver screamed in terror.
He collapsed back onto the pavement, his pants darkening as he lost control of his bladder. In that moment, he wasn't a man supporting a family; he was a terrified creature whose soul had been shattered.
Even Shiro was frozen with dread. It wasn't the carnage of the "corpse" that scared him.
It was the fact that he was terrified of ghosts.
The woman moved with the jerky, unnatural gait of an "Abnormal," forcing the driver to crawl backward away from her, his hands scraping the asphalt.
Finally, after a few more steps, the woman fell to the ground with a heavy thud, motionless.
Shiro didn't remember how he got home. He sat on his sofa, his fingers dug deep into his hair. The scene from earlier kept replaying in his mind. He hadn't taken a single step forward to help.
He was no longer sure if this was a "normal" world. He couldn't even convince himself that the event was just an anomaly—because he himself was the biggest anomaly of all! A reincarnated soul couldn't be explained by modern science. His very existence proved that there were things in this world that defied logic.
His previous lives had been "normal" worlds where historical events followed the scripts he knew. But this world, while mostly the same, had just shown its teeth.
The way that woman had stood up... it was like a freshly skinned bullfrog leg twitching on a cutting board, full of a life that shouldn't be there.
He leaned back on the sofa, throwing his arm over his eyes to block out the harsh ceiling light. His mind was a blur.
Are there monsters in this world?
Logically, if he had been reincarnated in Japan, there was a chance for supernatural entities. Maybe Tokyo was the territory of the Nurarihyon, or maybe the Inuyasha's father once roamed the west. He had always suspected that beneath the surface of this "normal" world, there was a "Hidden World" (Ura-Sekai)—a world of Ghouls or Tokyo Ravens.
He had pushed those thoughts aside in favor of a peaceful daily life, until today.
Another phrase floated into his mind: Only magic can defeat magic.
He had seen the horrors of famine in ancient sieges and the ghost-like despair of pillaged villages in the Crusades. He wasn't afraid of death; he was afraid of things he couldn't kill.
If he couldn't kill it with physical force, what would he do? Would he need actual magic? He wondered if the "Noble Spirit" (Hao) he had cultivated in his previous life in the East would be of any use against a ghost.
The scene he witnessed wasn't a "final surge of life" or a death struggle. Humans weren't frogs. A human shouldn't be able to stand and walk with a snapped neck.
There was no point in overthinking it. He had missed his chance to investigate, and the sun was setting—the "Hour of the Demon," when things were no longer safe.
He stripped off his clothes and tossed them, along with his gym uniform, into the washing machine to wash away the "bad luck." He stepped into the shower, letting the hot water slide over his toned frame as steam filled the room.
Once clean, he put on a loose T-shirt and board shorts and sat back on the sofa. He grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, searching for the news.
"Regarding the economy since 2008..." (Economic news.)
"Hahaha!" (Canned laughter from a variety show.)
"Why? Why wasn't it me?!" (A beautiful actress crying in a soap opera.)
There was even anime—at this hour, it was all for kids. The "good" stuff was reserved for the late-night slots. The world looked exactly as it always did. Peaceful. Unchanged.
"Ah~ there's a flu going around lately. Please be careful, though it's nothing serious."
Just then, his phone on the coffee table began to play a traditional Biwa melody. Someone was calling.
"Hello? Kasumi Utako?"
"Yes," a refined female voice answered.
"Why are you calling? Is something wrong?"
"You don't sound very happy to hear from me, Shiro-kun?" On the other end of the line, Kasumigaoka Utaha—wearing her signature white headband and sitting in her room—frowned. She was wearing a purple silk robe that ended at her thighs and had a red shawl draped over her shoulders. She subconsciously began to bounce her leg, feeling a bit annoyed.
"No, I just... ran into some trouble today." His voice was low and drained of energy.
"...Are you okay? Actually, you don't sound okay at all." Despite her usual sharp tongue, her voice softened. It was a rare display of genuine concern. Even between close friends, one usually avoids dumping negative emotions on the other, but in a moment of panic, hearing a familiar voice felt grounding.
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