1. Prologue

At first, I thought it was just an earthquake.

The desk started shaking violently with a rattling sound, and the moment our Japanese language teacher, Urabe, shouted, "Everyone, get under your desks!"

The classroom lights flickered off, and the surroundings were enveloped in darkness.

The instant I thought that, I felt a sense of wrongness. Even if the classroom fluorescent lights went out, it shouldn't have become completely dark. After all, it was the middle of the day.

The time was 11:20 AM, I believe. I, who was leisurely engrossed in reading in an excellent seat at the left rear of the classroom, under the sunlight streaming through the gap in the curtains, will testify to this.

The weather was a cloudless, clear sky, with not even a hint of anything that could cause darkness.

Even if the sun hid behind a cloud, even if a solar eclipse occurred, it wouldn't become completely pitch black.

And yet, it was an unseeable darkness.

Did it suddenly turn to night? How on earth?

While being shaken by the earthquake, I tried to organize my confused thoughts, but I couldn't understand what was happening at all.

Staying still felt uneasy, but moving around was also dangerous until the violent shaking that felt like being thrust upwards subsided.

I hid under my desk, crouching down, with no choice but to endure this damn earthquake.

"Tch..."

I bit my lower lip in displeasure. Caught up in an overwhelming force, feeling powerless to do anything about the situation myself.

I still had plenty of attendance days left; I should have skipped that dull modern Japanese class. Why did I think of attending class properly at a time like this?

Oh, right, I thought it would be a good time to read.

In my hands was Hannah Arendt's *Responsibility and Judgment*, and I had planned to slowly contemplate and read through this great work today.

Of course, I still hadn't finished it. I was almost at the conclusion, "the banality of evil"... but now it was no longer the time for reading.

Being buried in such trivial thoughts in the midst of an emergency caused by an earthquake was escapism.

It was painful to be in the darkness, just crouching down helplessly, swayed by the situation.

The thought that I might die like this was unbearable.

I hadn't become anyone yet, and I hadn't done anything.

Was this the end of my shitty life, just drifting along? It wasn't anyone's fault, but I felt inexplicably angry.

As if echoing the anger from the pit of my stomach, the shaking intensified, and the desk creaked and groaned. In the classroom submerged in darkness, I heard screams, shouts of anger, and the sound of something falling.

It was like being in a ship tossed about by raging waves. The entire classroom was being violently shaken as if thrown into a stormy sea.

If this shaking continued to intensify, the building might collapse and I could be crushed to death. The eerie tremors fueled such grim imaginings.

I would die, everyone would die. While being continuously shaken by such a premonition of death, for some reason, I started to laugh.

It wasn't bravado. While I hated the thought of dying, a part of me thought that such a shitty way to die might be fitting for me, and I chuckled to myself in the darkness.

I didn't want to die in the slightest, but if I disappeared, that would be the end of all the troublesome things.

This fear, this anger, this unbearable irritation—they would all vanish if I disappeared. Not having to think about anything troublesome didn't sound bad; I would probably feel relieved.

After I died, the world could become whatever it wanted. Thinking that, I actually started to laugh.

Good, kill me then, just make it easy. The moment I thought that, the violent shaking stopped without any warning.

"Haa..."

I let out a deep sigh. I thought it would be something like this.

Life is just like this. The ones who strongly wish to live die so easily, and the ones who have no reason to live at all are the ones who survive.

I was, of course, the latter.

Even though I had absolutely no reason to live, when I thought I might die, I clung to life with a pathetic tenacity.

Even so, as long as people are alive, they must continue to live.

One hundred and thirty-two years have passed since God died. There is no salvation in this world.

"Are you alright?" "Why is it dark? Do something!" "The lights, someone turn on the lights!"

In the darkness, a few lights flickered on.

That's right, everyone has these convenient light sources called smartphones.

I took out my smartphone too. I unlocked the dimly lit screen and first checked the phone signal... no reception.

So, I couldn't call for help. This was supposed to be a school in the middle of the city, so being in an area with no signal meant either a nearby cell tower was broken,

or the classroom itself had moved to a place with no signal.

Next, the time. 11:26 AM. The shaking that felt so long had only lasted about five minutes.

By the way, the date was also normal. It didn't seem like I had time-traveled to the Warring States period, like in those comics.

No, even if I had traveled through time, the smartphone's clock might not be synchronized.

It suddenly became pitch black; maybe it was night outside.

Time travel was obviously a joke, but I should probably check just in case.

I shone my smartphone light out the window and felt a chill run down my spine. I roughly opened the window and touched it. Outside the window, it was completely covered by a stone wall.

The sudden darkness was because the window had been blocked by rock.

Were we trapped inside the classroom? Being "inside a rock" was no joke.

This wasn't funny at all; I felt the blood drain from my head.

I shouldn't be fooling around with a sci-fi mood, trying to escape reality.

We must have been hit by some kind of major disaster. Maybe a huge rock hit the school due to the earthquake. If so, the violent shaking that felt like it could blow away the entire building would make sense.

But wait. If that were the case, it was strange that the window glass was intact.

If a huge rock had hit the school building and blocked the window, the window glass should have shattered immediately from the impact. The window frame itself might even be twisted.

Then, was it possible that the bedrock beneath had risen vertically due to crustal movement?

...No, that's unlikely.

I touched the stone, and it was smooth and cool, as if it had been there all along.

When I looked closely with my smartphone light, it was a stone wall made of stacked stone blocks, like the wall of a ruin. Had an artificial structure been created in an instant? It made even less sense.

"Hey, the fluorescent lights aren't turning on! What's going on?"

The shout of a student apparently flicking the light switch repeatedly interrupted my thoughts. "What's going on?" was what everyone wanted to know.

And in this shitty game called life, no one answers the important questions. You have to figure things out yourself.

I activated the flashlight app on my smartphone and illuminated the surroundings.

Due to the violent shaking, desks were overturned, and their contents were scattered all over the place. Lockers had fallen over, their contents also spilling out. So that loud noise earlier was this.

Reflexively, I picked up a mop for cleaning that was lying on the floor. Just in case, since I didn't know what was going on.

Ignoring the teacher who was shouting about checking for safety and the classmates who were panicking, I carefully stepped over the scattered objects on the floor and went outside the classroom.

I had a vague feeling that light was leaking from the hallway... but when I went out, I was speechless.

There was no hallway there; instead, a stone-paved passage had appeared. It was like a dungeon from an RPG role-playing game.

Of course, the walls were also made of stacked stone blocks, the same material as before. The smooth feel of the stone, polished by time, had a profoundness that only a real cave possesses.

The faint light I had felt was apparently the flame of a torch.

Torches were placed on iron fittings hammered into the stone walls.

When I held one, it was a wooden stick with cloth wrapped around the end. The cloth was soaked in something flammable, and that was what was burning. The smoke had a unique smell; I thought it was pine resin, not something artificial.

Who would have done such a thing...? Both the old-looking iron fittings and the still-new torches wouldn't exist unless someone had put them there.

The school hallway had transformed into some kind of ruin or a dungeon passage. When I peered down the stone passage, I could see the light of torches here and there.

Someone, whoever it was, had kindly prepared proper lighting.

"Shinjo Shinjo-kun..."

"Seki, you came out too?"

Seki Midori. In my class, 1-F, he was the only male student I could call a true friend.

Even dressed in a high-collared student uniform, he had a neutral, well-defined face that one might mistake for a girl's, with pale skin and a slender build—a veritable beautiful boy.

Seki had striking black hair, which seemed slightly bluish, reaching down to his shoulders.

When illuminated by the torchlight like this, his large, dark irises appeared greenish.

That's probably why he was given a feminine name like Midori (碧 - emerald green).

Seki was usually mild-mannered, but calling him by his name alone would make him angry, so I never did.

If anyone dared to say to Seki something like, "You have a girl's name...", he would probably punch them, even if they were a soldier.

My face aside, Seki's slender arms looked like they would break, so I wouldn't say such a thing.

"I saw Shinjo-kun going out, so I followed you."

"You noticed in this darkness? Your eyesight is as good as ever. Seki, let's check outside a bit."

Taking Seki with me, I walked down the hallway that had become a stone pavement.

The air was cool, just like in a real dungeon.

Students were coming out from the next classroom.

I didn't recognize their faces. They were probably students from Class E. I ignored them and continued down the passage.

There were six classes in the first year.

A, B, C, D, E, and F—they were divided based on entrance exam scores.

If we were talking about boobs, F would probably be the best.

Unfortunately, Class F, where Seki and I were, was the lowest-performing class.

My high school was one of the top-ranked schools in the prefecture, so even Class F wasn't full of complete idiots.

However, there was a strict hierarchy within the school, and Class F was looked down upon.

Class F was a mixed bag—it included delinquents (half-assed ones at that, not really committed) who somehow existed even in a prestigious school, those who had repeated a year for various reasons, and simply unserious students like me.

Seki was born with a weak constitution and had apparently been unwell during the class placement test after the entrance exams. Otherwise, he would probably have been in a higher class.

If we had been caught up in some kind of anomaly, it would have been better if only Class F was involved. When I checked the stone-paved passage with a torch, all the first-year classes, from A to F, were neatly present.

It couldn't be that the entire school had become like this, could it? What about the second and third-year classrooms, or the faculty room?

I didn't think the entire school had transformed into a dungeon. If that were the case, the inside of the classrooms would have been petrified as well, not just the hallway.

It was too large in scale to be some kind of prank, and there were too many inexplicable points to be an accident.

Perhaps it would be more natural to think that only the classrooms had been teleported, replaced by dungeon rooms.

Teleportation would be a superpower. If it were magic, it would be translocation or summoning. This analogy was the height of unscientific thinking, but the phenomenon before my eyes seemed much more rationally explained by magic.

If I were to forcibly try to think about this anomaly scientifically, I would have to consider the possibility of being exposed to some kind of special gas and being hypnotized.

Considering the possibility that this was a vivid dream, a lucid dream, I pinched my cheek and picked up a stone to throw it, but it hurt, and the physical phenomena didn't change.

"Seki, is there anything strange about the laws of physics?"

"I see. You're assuming we've wandered into a virtual reality world or are under mass hypnosis, right? Could you swing the torch sideways a bit?"

While walking, I swung the torch sideways.

Seki tilted his head slightly and smiled.

"As far as I can see, the flickering is also realistic. Here, I'll throw a pebble... Judging from the parabola, the gravity is roughly the same as Earth's."

"You can tell the gravity by throwing a pebble?"

"Yes, I like parabolas and watch them often, so I don't think I'm wrong."

...Liking parabolas. The thoughts of a genius are hard to understand.

Seki was in the school's mathematics research club and had already obtained Level 1 of the Mathematics Proficiency Test as a first-year student.

I didn't know how amazing Level 1 was, but I was certain that Seki possessed calm observational skills and mathematical talent.

He had apparently even made it far in the preliminary rounds of the Mathematical Olympiad. He was quite excellent, though only in science and mathematics.

"As expected, Seki, you have interesting ideas. I hadn't even considered the possibility that this wasn't Earth."

"Yeah, it feels romantic to think we warped to a different planet, but there might be injured people, so now isn't the time for that."

For me, a game lover, this was like an RPG role-playing game, but Seki's imagination interpreted this abnormal situation as something like a sci-fi development.

It was better to think of it as super-science fiction or magic fantasy than to consider that our minds, as observers, had gone crazy.

So, what was the cause of such a supernatural phenomenon? If there was someone who caused it, what was their purpose?

That was none of my concern. Right now, practical measures came first.

I checked the classrooms in order, and when I passed in front of Class A at the end, I ran into a wall. It seemed to end here, so when I tried to turn back, I encountered the person I least wanted to meet.

I couldn't help but let out a voice.

"Whoa..."

In the dim light, her silhouette illuminated by the torch was clearly visible, and I immediately recognized who it was.

Glossy, long black hair, and round, double-lidded eyes.

Remarkably well-defined, refined features. She was rather short and slender, but the swaying grayish pleated skirt and white sailor uniform suited her well.

Girls' uniforms are light-colored, so they stand out even in the dark.

I tried to pretend I hadn't noticed and just turned back, but it was a futile resistance.

"Ah, Wataru-kun! I'm so glad you're safe. You came to me first, didn't you? As expected of my soulmate!"

"No one came to see you, you virgin bitch."

The virgin bitch, also known as Kujo Kumiko, the vice-class representative of Class 1-A. She's known as a princess, but I'm the only one who calls her by that bitchy nickname.

Kumiko was a top student even within Class A, which consistently ranked second in the entire grade. On top of that, she was the daughter of the prestigious Kujo family. As you can see, she was also quite a beautiful girl.

Despite being a first-year, her talents were highly anticipated, and she also served as a student council officer.

She was a well-known figure in the grade, a model student with impeccable conduct, intelligence, and beauty.

Being a bit too petite was a minus point, but her slender figure and idol-level good looks were appealing.

Many guys liked girls who looked beautiful and pure like her, so Kumiko had many fans at school.

From the outside, she was probably the ideal heroine. However, beneath the surface, Kumiko was a lewd little slut.

I had learned about the true nature of Kumiko, who pretended to be a refined young lady, from a certain incident, and ever since then, I had been constantly bothered and followed around by her.

I was truly fortunate that we were in different classes, to the extent that Kumiko's constant clinging was annoying.

I loved pure and beautiful girls, but I turned down bitches who were overly clingy.

"Oh, Kumiko was so scared!"

"Shut up as soon as possible, you damn bitch."

My protests were in vain, and Kumiko hugged my body tightly. I felt her warm body temperature and softness. Even though she looked thin and almost flat-chested, the soft sensation of her breasts was definitely there—she was a girl after all.

It was probably natural since she was deliberately pressing her chest against my arm.

Since I was holding a torch in my right hand and a mop handle in my left, I was at her mercy.

Because I was holding a torch and thought it was dangerous, I kept still, and she took advantage of that.

Kumiko, getting carried away, then puckered her lips and leaned in, making a sound like a broken vacuum cleaner, "Mmm~."

My patience had reached its limit.

"Hey, Kumiko. If you don't stop fooling around... I'll set you on fire."

"Oh, don't get so mad, I'm just kidding. Even I wouldn't joke around at a time like this."

Saying it's a joke at a time like this means you're completely fooling around.

It seems pointless to talk to this virgin bitch.

"So, Wataru-kun, how do you interpret this phenomenon?"

"Hmm... An earthquake happened, and after it subsided, we walked through the passage from Class F to Class A. It's a dead end here with a wall. Beyond Class F, there was more passage. That's all I know for sure."

"So, that means we have no choice but to go that way, right?"

"That's the idea. Just to be sure, how were the windows in Class A?"

"They were blocked by stone."

"Then, I guess that's the only way to go. Probably."

The young lady Kujo was quite sharp, as expected. She had already checked the important points, making things quick.

She probably followed roughly the same thought process as us and came out of the classroom.

"Then, let's go right away!"

"You... in this situation, grabbing my arm and crushing my dominant hand, do you really want to die?"

When I spoke with anger, Kumiko pouted and reluctantly let go of my arm. Enough with the picnic mood.

More and more students were starting to come out of the classrooms. It seemed that the windows in every classroom were blocked by stone walls.

However, it was unusual for Kumiko, who usually played the innocent and was overly concerned about others' opinions, to be so boisterous and touchy-feely in front of people.

Maybe she was just pretending to be cheerful, and in reality, she was worried in her own way.

Though, as far as I was concerned, it was just annoying.

Seki was watching my exchange with Kumiko with a dumbfounded look.

Encountering Kujo Kumiko while both my hands were full was a real mistake. I should have gone to the other side without checking Class A.

But there was no point in dwelling on what was done.

As we retraced our steps, it seemed that the teachers had gathered and were discussing countermeasures. No one paid attention to us moving around on our own. They were talking with serious expressions, apparently preoccupied.

There was no point in relying on adults in this situation, so we went ahead on our own, proceeding through the passage beyond Class F.

The passage led to a large stone-paved hall.

There was nothing particularly different, but there were many torches, making it bright. I called out to Seki, who was about to proceed carelessly.

"Wait, Seki. Don't rush ahead like that."

"But we're going, right?"

"I'm saying to proceed with caution. In places like this, when the path suddenly widens, you have to be careful."

"Like in an RPG, there might be traps or monsters?"

Seki said in a slightly playful tone, but he wasn't smiling at all. I could see fear in his trembling lips.

Traps and monsters—in the current situation, it wasn't a joke at all.

"There are three of us, but only one mop and one torch. Going empty-handed feels unreliable. Should we go back and look for something that could be used as a weapon?"

"Hey, Shinjo-kun. Monsters appearing is just a joke, right?"

Seki seemed to have started to scare himself by saying that.

He was completely hopeless.

"Seki, you have good observational skills, so look carefully. You should be able to spot traps, if not monsters."

"Um, yeah, I guess. What's bothering me is that depression over there."

In the direction Seki pointed, I could faintly see a line in the stone pavement. It was roughly from the center of the hall towards the left end.

I wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't pointed it out. He had good eyes to notice it in the dim torchlight.

"Seki's sharp intuition is reliable. Alright, let's poke around that area with the mop."

"Eh, let's stop! It's dangerous!"

"Wataru-kun, I'll do it."

Quickly snatching the mop from my hand, Kumiko touched the stone pavement where the trap might be with the end of the handle.

Kumiko had a knack for taking action in an emergency. There was no time to stop her.

I quickly looked around. Even if a trap switch was triggered, it didn't necessarily mean it would activate in that spot.

Something might happen in a different location.

In front of us, who were bracing ourselves, we heard a click, the sound of something activating.

P.s. please comment! Let me know your here, it'll really motivate me!!