El. Psy. Congroo.
Volume 1 Chapter 0
Prologue: Breakthrough
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can grab the PDF here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Within the dense growth of a primeval forest, several men were walking.
Despite the hour being slightly past noon, the vicinity was dim and shrouded in shadows. The area could not exactly be called ‘dark,’ but it was as if everything was being hidden behind a thin film of some sort.
The light from the midday sun was supposed to fall evenly, but it was being blocked by the numerous branches and leaves stacked on top of each other in the canopy above. What was illuminating the inside of this sea of trees was literally only komorebi——sunlight that managed to filter through and, in a sense, overflow through the gaps between the plants.
As far as the eye can see, the place was surrounded by trees, trees, trees, and more trees......
The stripes of light that jumbled together into all sorts of shapes and sizes seemed like an optical illusion. Any unwary viewer would easily have their sense of distance thrown into disarray, causing them to feel like they’re hallucinating. Just by carelessly turning around for a few seconds, one would immediately lose any idea of where they were facing before.
There were steel posts hammered into the ground at set intervals, and rope that wound around each post and connected them all in a row. These two were the only manmade things in that place. At the same time, they were also the lifeline of the men.
Aokigahara Sea of Trees.
Also commonly known as the Mt. Fuji Sea of Trees, it was located at the foot of Mt. Fuji.
Since long ago, this place has been known for being a『Famous Suicide Spot』and『the demonic forest which you can enter but never leave from』, but in actuality, it was a bona fide tourist area, outfitted even with a promenade. There was a park and a camping area nearby, and the number of people who come here for forest therapy or to just enjoy being immersed in a forest was not small.
There are ores that display magnetic properties in the surroundings, so rumors like『compasses don’t work』and『electronic devices would go haywire』are spread around in whispers with seeming truth. The reality, though, is that compass needles only deviate slightly, so it’s not like they can’t be used at all. As for electronic devices, most everything nowadays is durable enough to not be broken by such weak magnetic fields. However, as a result of novels and movies exaggerating this phenomenon so much, this rumor has apparently taken off by itself and become accepted as general knowledge.
“Even so......”
Fujita Keisuke muttered to himself in amazement.
“Visitors nowadays sure are fearless, eh?”
At his feet, there was a white piece of something on the ground.
It was a used sanitary product——a condom.
“To come all this way...... to do it?”
Apparently, there were people up to leaving the promenade and diving this far into the forest to do『that kind of thing』.
“They must have been young.”
The colleague who was walking beside him answered in a casual tone.
Though this too was a part of the job, this chore was just depressing. Fujita threw the used sanitary product into the plastic trash bag that he had brought, then sighed.
Currently, aside from their well-worn navy blue uniform, Fujita and his colleague were also wearing gray work clothes, a vest, and a hat. Naturally, their hands were being protected by working gloves, and they had on their feet climbing shoes. Furthermore, dangling from each of their belts was a torch, sturdy nylon rope, a water flask, and other similar items. Inside their pouches woven with synthetic fiber were compasses and other things, such as a map, a portable wireless radio, and assorted sundries.
On their vests, which served to indicate the organization to which Fujita and his colleague belonged to, the words『Yamanashi Prefecture Patrol』were clearly displayed.
Incidentally, Fujita and the colleague currently with him were the only people wearing the vests. Everyone else wore armbands colored with florescent dye.
Fujita and the organization to which he belonged to were a patrol squad.
As stated earlier, this Aokigahara Sea of Trees was well-known as a『Famous Suicide Spot』, so people from all over the country do purposely come here with the intention of committing suicide. Though the place was a proper tourist area with a promenade and all, in the first place it’s still a gigantic forest. It would only be natural for anyone without any equipment or information or experience who leaves the promenade and wanders into the forest haphazardly to become lost.
Therefore, the local Yamanashi Prefecture Patrol grouped up with volunteers from all over the country to patrol the area, with the aim of discovering and protecting suicidal people, and the discovery of the corpses of people who’ve already committed suicide. They periodically make their rounds inside the Aokigahara Sea of Trees.
These tasks were established practice from long ago.
However, recently, trash retrieval has also been added to their list of duties.
Despite the place being so dangerous, there would always be people who would come because of the danger. There were those who would leave the promenade and go into the primeval forest because of a dare or a test of courage. Furthermore, there are empty cans, cigarette butts, and other trash strewn all over the place. But that was not all. There were also manufacturers taking advantage of the place being far from prying eyes who would try to dump their industrial waste here. Year after year, Aokigahara Sea of Trees just keeps getting polluted more and more.
“More like, if this place was truly a『Demonic Forest』, then it wouldn’t get dirtied so much.”
“I know, right?”
Fujita spat out this comment in disgust, to which his colleague nodded in agreement.
At that moment——
“Ah——!!”
A scream suddenly resounded throughout the forest, causing Fujita and his colleague to turn around.
“What happened?!”
In the first place, all of the civilian volunteers were participating in the regular patrols at their own risk, so only people with experience in climbing mountains and maneuvering through forests were accepted. However, when something actually happens, it was necessary to inform the nearest police officer. Fujita and his colleague set a quick pace towards the direction from which the scream originated.
“Kawamura-san was......!”
“He fell, he fell down!”
The place where the owner of the scream in question——apparently it was a ‘he’ and his name was Kawamura——had fallen into was now surrounded by other volunteers talking on top of each other. There were some who were pointing their torches toward the ground, and there were also those hastily lowering ropes down.
“The ground gave out, then......!”
Fujita pushed through the crowd of civilians standing around to reach the front.
There, he saw——
“What is this......”
His colleague’s dumbfounded exclamation reached Fujita’s ears.
What lay before the eyes of everyone present was——a crevice.
Its width was roughly 20 meters.
The distance to the other side was the farthest where he stood, measuring slightly short of 3 meters. Although the form was that of a crevice, the surrounding leaf mold had collapsed in a basin-like pattern, such that when seen from the upper rim, the impression being given off leaned more towards that of a『hole』.
Its depth——was unknown.
The edge of the crevice did not go straight down. Rather, there was an incline lower down, so the beams of torchlight could not reach the bottom. There was no way to determine exactly how deep the crevice was just by looking. Needless to say, it was therefore impossible to ascertain the well-being of Kawamura Somebody, who had fallen into the crevice.
(T/N: The narrator didn’t hear Kawamura’s first name, so he’s just calling him “Somebody” in his mind.)
Most likely, there had originally been a cavity inside the rock layer, but the ceiling collapsed for whatever reason, causing the leaf mold to also slide into the newly-made hole. It was a natural pitfall devoid of any malice.
“Ooi~! Are you OK?”
Fujita raised his voice to call out into the crevice.
However, there was no reply.
Was the crevice so deep that his voice couldn’t reach the bottom, or was it——
“With this depth...... It’s already......”
Very quickly, a hopeless atmosphere was spreading throughout the volunteers.
However, Fujita lowered a rope while shaking his head.
“No——it’s too early to give up. I’ll go in person to confirm.”
Promptly, Fujita affixed a lifeline to himself, then looped the other end of the rope around a sturdy-looking conifer. Back in his university days, he had been a member of the Mountain Climbing Club, and even now he still went mountain hiking as a hobby, so he moved with a practiced hand. After confirming that the rope was firmly attached to the tree trunk, he nodded once at his colleague, then slowly walked backwards and began lowering himself into the crevice.
“......Fumu.”
The inclination of the wall face was gentler than he had expected.
While supporting himself with the rope, he continued descending while stepping backwards.
If the slope was only to this degree, then the probability that Kawamura Something was still alive after slipping down was high.
“Ooi~! Are you OK?”
Fujita periodically called out downwards while making his way.
However, there was still no reply from Kawamura Something.
............
If he had to put it into a number, he would estimate that he had already descended more than 20 meters.
The depth was beyond what he had expected. As Fujita began to consider going back up temporarily to report and get more proper equipment, suddenly——
“......?!”
He felt a strange feeling.
It was as if he was floating inside water.
His foot slipped. Up to this point, his foot had always been firmly dug into the cliff wall, but the sudden floating feeling made him lose his footing. The reason was not clear. The rope went slack. Abruptly, it was as if Fujita’s body weight had vanished——no, that was not it. It was as if top and bottom had been reversed......
“Uwah?!”
Fujita screamed in confusion.
His hands and feet grasped at empty air. His body rolled by itself.
He was falling——upwards?!
“Aaaaahhhh?!”
His sense of top, bottom, left, and right had been thrown into complete disarray.
And then——
“——?!”
Fujita felt like he had been ejected out of something.
Something soft cushioned his fall. After rolling two, three times, he realized that the thing that was growing so densely on the ground was grass.
Still staying on the ground, he blinked a few times. What projected into his eyes was the scene of a meadow that flowed on without end.
It was a sea of green that stretched from horizon to horizon.
Bathing in the white sunlight and feeling the wind gently ruffle his hair, the scenery evoked a strong sense of nostalgia in him——
“...... Eh?”
An idiotic-sounding voice escaped his mouth.
Wasn’t I just underground and heading downwards?
In a fluster, he raised his body. Immediately, he noticed a middle-aged man sitting on the ground next to himself. Judging by his clothes, he must be the Kawamura Something who had fallen earlier. He was also staring dazedly at the grassland spread out before them.
This can’t be happening.
There was no way that there was such an open area inside Aokigahara Sea of Trees.
“Impossible——”
Fujita’s mutter to himself sounded like a moan.
Where was this place.
Without thinking, his gaze began to roam around, searching for the sacred Mt. Fuji. However, the mountain was not on his right nor his left. Completely puzzled, he turned around to look behind himself when——
“............”
He immediately froze in place.
For a mere instant——he couldn’t identify what he was seeing.
No. He had knowledge of it.
It’s just that his deep-rooted standards of ‘common sense’ were hindering his mind from acknowledging its reality. It was impossible for this thing to exist. Even if it did, its place was only inside myths and legends and made-up stories. Or so he thought with a wildly beating heart.
However——
“D......”
Gasping for breath, Fujita’s mouth struggled to put a name to the sight.
Kawamura Something, who had been sitting next to Fujita, noticed his strange behavior and turned around also...... and then froze the exact same way Fujita did.
The thing that had caused two grown men to be petrified.
Its identity was——
“D......”
Calming standing still behind Fujita’s back was a gigantic, turquoise-colored——living creature.
It had its wings folded back, limbs crooked in posture, and a gigantic body proportional to a house. Every single breath was a warm wind that shook the grass. It was a humongous, fantastic-looking——
“......Dra......gon............?!”
As if to affirm Fujita’s words, this monster that was only supposed to exist in fictional worlds opened wide its mouth, displaying rows and rows of sharp teeth all lined up.