Prologue

From time to time, I have a dream.

It’s a dream about a classroom in Japan where I have never been.

Everyone wears a different uniform. There are school jackets, blazers, sailor suits. The uniforms are a clashing mishmash, but somehow nothing seems wrong.

When I walk into the room, everyone stops talking and looks at me.

It’s a warm place.

It’s calm, free of fighting, and no one carries a weapon. All they have to do is put a little effort into their studies, and then they’re free to spend their time as they like.

I say hello and everyone welcomes me in with kind smiles, then they chatter enthusiastically about nothing much at all.

Though everyone in the class is my friend, one of them is my best friend.

We’re thick as thieves, and have the kind of relationship where there are no secrets between us. When they laugh I’m happy, and when I’m happy so are they. I know the sadness in their past and they know the bitterness in mine; that’s why we accept each other.

I talk to my best friend about nothing much, and we wait for class to start.

It’s such a ridiculous dream that I could never tell anyone about it, and yet.

From time to time, I have a dream.

---

The first night after he was summoned into another world he spent under a bridge.

“Why?!” Mitsuki cried out, unable to bear it, as he faced the morning sun that had appeared with a chorus of birdsong.

The previous day, just as he had been at home putting on his school jacket in thoughts of evoking old middle school memories, he had been called here.

Then, when he’d met with a kingish person, he’d been told “We don’t need you” and none too gently kicked out.

After that shockingly crude and unreasonable treatment that could be related in two sentences, he’d had nowhere to go and passed the night under the bridge, sobbing.

“What kind of lousy king is that… He could have at least given me some money. Ugh, I’m hungry…” He listened to the murmur of the stream and sniffled. “For a fantasy world, this is way too real.”

A night of being homeless had made Mitsuki feel, down his bones, the meaning of “Wherever you go, there you are.”

Even back in the real world he’d been stunted by bad luck, retreating into his room after a high fever during test season when he was a third year in middle school meant he hadn’t been able to take a single high school entrance exam, so he’d ended up what they called a ronin. He didn’t have the imagination or the motivation to break through where he was.

Mitsuki’s stomach growled, but there was no prospect that it was going to get satisfied.

Was he going to starve to death here?

The worst case scenario of the future floated up in the back of his hunger-addled brain, and a shiver ran down his spine.

“This is no joke. I might have to steal…!”

Mitsuki, his thoughts roughened by his empty belly, set his hazy eyes on the search for a way of life.

“Stealing… but if I get caught, they’ll call my par— no they won’t, dumbass. Though I wish they would.”

“—lo. Is som — re?”

“This is a whole different world. The laws and social mores might be different from Japan, so would stealing even be bad…?”

“—ey. Hey over there! Helloooo!”

“But if there’s some other way… oh, dammit all. I’ve had it up to here with otherworlds. Why’d this have to happen to me—”

“Hey, you there! Are you listening?”

“—Ahhh! I didn’t do anything wrong yet!” he let slip as he froze in surprise, then rushed to turn around.

Standing there was a jaw-droppingly beautiful girl.

“Hm? Something wrong?” The girl regarded Mitsuki with eyes that were puzzled at his overreaction to being spoken to. Though she had a maturity to her beauty, she was the same age as him, or maybe a bit older. Her hair, the light chestnut color of milk with a drop of coffee in it, was bound in a ponytail with a thick black ribbon. “I don’t know what wrong thing you were thinking about doing, but it was just a secret in your heart, so I’ll forgive you. The Lord is magnanimous. Naturally a priest like me who works for Him has to be magnanimous too!”

Just as she said, the girl was indeed wearing clergy-like clothing, and was holding a thick tome that looked like scripture in her left hand. Her indigo blue vestments had a solemn air, but for some reason the right leg had a slit that went nearly to her upper thigh.

“So, the homeless deadbeat who’s been causing trouble sleeping under the bridge, that must be you.”

“Hey, I’m not a… well, I guess I am…”

“Yep. No mistake. There was a report from a good citizen of the Third Partition, the Commons. ‘There’s a suspicious person sobbing under the bridge, doesn’t seem drunk, it’s scary, please do something about him.'”

Mitsuki looked thoughtlessly up to the heavens.

So a beautiful woman in another world called out to him, and this was what she said.

“This is a a rough world… What’s the deal? I must have done something bad…”

“What’s the matter? On top of a night of crying under a bridge, hearing a compliment makes you look ready to cry again? You must have a lot of extra water and salt. Or are you in trouble?”

“I don’t have any money, yeah,” he said outright, knowing trying to hide it wouldn’t help.

There were plenty of other reasons, but for the time being the poverty issue was what leapt to mind.

“Mm, mm. Without a roof and without a dime. You came out to the city for a night on the town and got taken for a ride and left with empty pockets, hm? You should hurry home or go stay with a friend.”

“I’d love to go home if I could, but I don’t have one. I don’t know anybody, either.”

“I see. You don’t have any friends.” The girl, who had gone ahead and changed not knowing anyone into having no friends, nodded with a self-satisfied expression.

Outwardly the girl appeared to be a composed beauty, but her expressiveness undercut that impression. Whether natural or intentional, her frankness cut to an inch from the zone of insult.

“No cash, no home, nowhere to go… I know. If you want, why don’t you come with me?”
“Huh? Why?”

“Can’t you get the whole story from the outfit?” As if showing off to the reflexively cautious Mitsuki, the girl fluttered the legs of her vestments.

The daringly cut slit freely exposed her shapely right leg in its high-laced boot to the open air. The thigh was wrapped in some sort of decorative leather belt that it puffed out a bit around, and was an irresistible draw to Mitsuki’s adolescent eyes.

“I’m a priest of the First Partition, the Faust. My name’s Menoh. It’s only right for the clergy to extend a helping hand to the destitute, right?” the girl who called herself Menoh said with pride, swishing her ribbon-bound chestnut hair.

Yet, whatever she said, Mitsuki knew nothing at all about this world’s organizations. “…is that what they do?”

“That’s what we do. So, do you have any proof of your identity on hand? However much of an ally to the Commons the church is, we don’t abet criminals. If you can’t show us some proof of who you are and where you’re from, we can’t put you under protection.”

“Er… I’m from another world,” Mitsuki gave as his origin, so tired he didn’t have the will to hide it anymore and fully prepared for his sanity to be in doubt.

Menoh’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, so you’re a Wanderer, then.”

“A Wanderer?” Mitsuki echoed, half relieved and half bewildered to have it taken in stride.

“That’s our general term for humans from another world. They wind up here sometimes from some country called ‘Japan’ on ‘Earth.’ …Hmm. Now that I say it, you’re definitely dressed a way I’ve never seen before.” Menou gave Mitsuki’s school jacket an intent stare, then nodded in satisfaction. “Yep, that’s a new one. Leave it to me. The church takes care of Wanderers, too!”

“Seriously?! Then please, give me a loan!”

“Hm? Save mumbling nonsense for talking in your sleep, Mr. Deadbeat.” She was smiling, but there was no sense of her tone brooking any argument.

Abruptly, Mitsuki bowed his head. “I’m sorry, I really am. That’s too much!”

“I’m glad you know it. Anyway, I’ll show you to the church. It’s gonna be okay. The church has a lot of ways to help out, so you can start working tomorrow! Labor’s a great thing!”

“Labor…I thought you said they were going to take care of me.”

“Those who don’t work don’t eat. That’s a good line from an ancient civilization.”

“Ugh…”

Though Mitsuki was nearing the end of his rope, he followed along behind her. His initial surge of caution had vanished. Though he’d just met her a moment ago, Menoh gave the sense of somebody easy to talk to.

“Let’s see, what kind of work would be good for you? I say you should go into the construction industry. That’s a great one there’s always demand for.”

“Eh, jumping right into being a construction worker would be kinda… Isn’t there something more along the lines of ‘adventurer?'”

“Adventurer? Well, every age has reckless people who want to go plunging into the wilderness, but I don’t recommend that. The places people’ve given up on developing are mostly places where anybody who can’t fight just dies. That’s something you don’t want to jump right into.” So there were adventurers. As Mitsuki started to think that that was getting more appropriately otherworldly, Menoh continued her explanation. “It’s true that if all goes well you can aim to make a fortune overnight, but the better half of them are criminal types with enough skeletons in their closet that they can’t stick around civilization, yeah? Town is where it’s safe, so settle down and be a construction worker. Oh, I’m getting you the job, so the donation’ll be twenty percent of your salary. That’ll save our church this month!”

“…are you a church or a temp agency? The kind that gets kickbacks.”

“Silence. We’re not like the royals and titled folks in the Noblesse of the Second Partition who can collect taxes without anybody making a fuss; our finances scrape by on tithes and contributions. Especially the small churches!”

It was a hard knock life, apparently.

But it was a story that struck home for Mitsuki, who was penniless and at his wits’ end. “Is that right… It’s rough, being poor.”

“I’m glad you understand. It really is awful.”

It sounded like Menou was going through some trouble herself. Then Mitsuki had a flash of inspiration.

“Hey, maybe we can put some of my knowledge about stuff from the other world to good use! Like about mayonnaise!”

“That might be tough. Mayonnaise is good.” Menoh, well informed of mayonnaise, turned a pitying smile on Mitsuki’s embrace of a faint hope. “Wanderers have been around for ages, so we know the kind of things you have to tell us. Unless you’re an expert in something?”

“Not even a little…” He was a half-shut-in who hadn’t gotten into high school. Even so, he couldn’t bear to be cast aside here. With last night’s misery twisting in his chest, Mitsuki begged, “I’m really, truly sorry I can’t do anything useful. But please don’t ditch me here!”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Menoh stopped and turned back with a smile. “Priests are pure and upright, and strong too! So we’d never do anything like turn our backs on someone in need.”

It was a more forceful pledge than he’d expected. Menoh was standing tall, and her smile was brighter and more innocent than that of anyone Mitsuki had ever seen.

Mitsuki, unintentionally caught taken aback, scratched at his cheek to cover his embarrassment.

“Is, is that right. Now that you mention it, I wonder why was I brought here in the first place.”

“Don’t ask me. I don’t know the first thing about what the high and mighty Noblesse do.”

“Is there a demon lord or something around? As far as I know, whenever people get summoned to other worlds, that’s the standard.”

“There’s a lot of unexplored territory, but I’ve never heard of anything like that. Ever since the system the world’s under got set up, it’s been peaceful, with no major wars, yeah? We pour out a hail of gratitude to our great and powerful Lord.”

Mitsuki didn’t know anything concrete about the modern world system, but he gathered the part where there didn’t appear to be any major conflicts.

“So the king here, is he cooking up a plot or something? Like, using the power of otherworlders to invade somewhere.”

“I think you worry too much, but… Okay, I’ll make a report to my superiors later. Leave the bigwigs of the royal Noblesse to the bigwigs of the Faust clergy. Mine is the lofty mission to uplift the homeless, penniless rabble like you.”

“Got it. So if you get the rabble like me to you, does that make you the Faust’s rabble, too?”

“Quiet. I could always leave you here homeless.”

“O magnificent personage Lady Menoh! In your benevolence, please have mercy!”

“All right, I will. Looks like you have an idea where you stand.” Menoh nodded in satisfaction to Mitsuki, who had his palms turned up. “More importantly, I thought of something good. If you’re a Wanderer, you should have a special ability. We can brainstorm a job it’d help with. Honestly, even if I introduce you to a construction job like I recommended…”

She glanced at Mitsuki. She took in his physique and lowered her eyebrows in regret.

“You’re so thin and pale. If I send you into physical labor and you pass out on the spot, how would that look for me?”

“Shut up!” He certainly didn’t have any confidence that he could do heavy work, but she didn’t have to come out and say it. Mitsuki was a man. Having a girl call him weak stabbed him deeply.

“Right, right, you’re a boy, you’re a boy. So, do you know what kind of ability you have?”

“My ability…” Mitsuki had heard about his special talent at the castle where he was summoned.

However, remembering what had happened there dejected him. “It’s Null.”

“Huh?” Menoh stopped in her tracks. “That can’t be right.”

It was only for an instant that she paused, but in a subtle way, her tone was different from before.

Mitsuki felt like he was betraying her expectations, but there was no hiding it. He spoke frankly and honestly. “That’s what they told me.”

“What they told you…Was it based on something?”

“They checked for an ability with some kind of crystal. The verdict was Null.”

“A crystal that measures abilities…? A pu———cept turns into display and old———hiding some———ing?” Menoh was looking downwards and muttering something.

“What’s wrong?”

“Hm? Oh. It’s nothing. In any case, chasing out a person they’ve summoned up, that’s weird. You didn’t do something offensive, did you?”

“I didn’t have time to get a word in edgewise before they kicked me out. It must’ve been the other one they were after, the girl, right?”

Hearing the other one piqued her interest. Menoh’s eyes lit up. “Whaat. Somebody else got summoned too?”

“Yeah, it was this super hot girl with huge boobs. Though I honestly only saw her for a second from a ways away.”

“And her, what kind of power did she have?”

“I wonder.” He had really been thrown out immediately. They’d been so quick about it he’d wondered if they weren’t trying to hide the other person who’d been summoned from him, so he didn’t know anything about her. “But definitely, there’s no question she has some kickass power.”

“Oh, why’s that?”

“That’s how these things work,” Mitsuki said, his voice warped with envy for the girl who was still in the castle. Going by the knowledge he’d gleaned from poring over a great number of net novels in his free time after he hadn’t gotten into high school, it had to be something like that.

“Is that right? Well, I think you must have an amazing power of our own.”

“…what are you talking about? I told you, mine’s nothing,” he countered thoughtlessly to Menoh’s consolation. He had just been betrayed by the Noblesse who had summoned him. There was no way he could tamely accept anyone hanging their hopes on him.

Menoh gave a faraway look to the peevish Mitsuki. “Nothing, you say. The church’s operation for this month is, hm…” As she muttered disquieting words, she came to a stop. They’d reached their destination, the church. “Oh, here we are. This is the chapel I look after.”

“Oh? O, oh…Here? …Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Menoh put on a smile he knew was forced and set her hand on the main gate.

A hideous rusty squeaking noise cut through the air.

Clearly, it was a church that had seen better days. The gate was creaky, vegetation ran wild through the garden, and when they went into a building, the hinges on the door were coming off.

“Er, uh. Can, you know, people live here…? There’s no sign of anybody around, and putting it mildly, it looks like it’s some ruins somebody cleaned up a little?”

“Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“It never stops being a hard knock life.” As he’d guessed from their earlier conversation, Menoh was also broke. The inside of the church where she’d led him was so desolate that it made Menoh’s cheerfulness painful.

“Well, there’s plenty of open rooms, so you can stay here for a while.”

“Is this place gonna be okay? I don’t want to wake up crushed to death under rubble.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Menoh assured Mitsuki with a suspiciously sunny smile as he regarded the cracks of age in the wall pillars. “As long as the people who live there have faith in their hearts, our sacred chapel won’t fall. It’s chapter two, verse five in the scripture: ‘O, know ye that the wall that encloseth the pious sheep shall never crumble.’ Right? What with my faithful heart, this church won’t ever collapse!”

“Oh no, is that foreshadowing? That’s not good. Before you ship me off to be a construction worker, get some construction work done. I’m getting the feeling I’d be safer back under the bridge.”

“I told you, I’m broke!” Menoh was irked by Mitsuki’s sound argument. Probably very much not wanting to touch on the church’s damaged condition, she pointed at Mitsuki and shouted, “All right!? You’ve been wailing about being so down on your luck you couldn’t get anything to eat yesterday, but that’s nothing! Try licking salt for a week! Can you honestly understand what starving means!? Fix the building!? If I could do that, first I’d put it toward eating better than the kind of flat broke person who licks salt!”

By the tears in her eyes, the kind of flat broke person Menoh was talking about was herself.

“I, I get it! I was wrong! I’m sorry. So calm down! Kay?”

“Ngh. If you get it, try out your ability a little… It’s okay. If you’re a Wanderer, you should be able to use some incredible Guidance by feel.”

“You say that, but… In the first place, what’s Guidance?”

“Shut up and do it!” The Irked Menoh Hour continued. “You’re a Wanderer, so you can focus and make it happen! Try taking that super-awesome special Wanderer Guidance and doing something to that statue over there. Whatever you can do, that thing’s fated for the pawnshop!”

“Hey. What do you mean pawnshop, priest.” Her words and actions burst out in a direction unbecoming of a holy woman, but Mitsuki knew well the strange directions that poverty turned one’s head in. If he investigated any more than this, Menoh would end up far too pitiful.

Though it was the first time he had heard so much as the word Guidance, when he tried focusing as he’d been told, he found that there was a Power within himself that was so natural he wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before.

Guidance: Connect—

Even as Mitsuki reeled at the mysterious sensation, he pulled the Power from his body. He did somehow have an instinct for it after all.

When Mitsuki turned toward the statue by the altar and extended the Power as Menoh had directed, a hazy phosphorescence rose from his body to envelop it.

At that instant, an insistent desire seethed up from his soul.

Obj?far i?gi??? Pure Concept Null —

The Power welling up from him followed a directionless course. It transcended Mitsuki’s consciousness and took wing to connect to the wellspring of the world at the furthest edge of concept, and soon a piece of the world was falling toward him.

Invoke: Vanish

The incomparable malaise and unease were momentary.

Mitsuki returned to himself with a start, and the statue he had wrapped in his Power had vanished.

“I, it’s gone…? How did that— h, hey! Don’t point that ability this way, okay…? I. Am not. Your. Enemy.”

“I’m not!?” Mitsuki said of his power, smiling wryly at Menoh’s stilted words and gestures. He understood by intuition that the object that had vanished had been, just as advertised, Nullified. “Pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. With this, I can totally get by as one of those adventurers you were talking about before, yeah?” She’d said the adventuring life was dangerous but made good money. With this kind of power, he might be able to contribute more to the church that by that trade than as a construction worker. “Yeah. With this ability, I think I could do some incredible things.”

“Absolutely!” Menoh answered, possibly still afraid of Mitsuki’s power, as she nonchalantly worked her way behind him.

For the first time since he had come to this world, Mitsuki’s heart lifted.

If he had an amazing ability like this, he could make the king who’d summoned him eat crow. For that matter, the next time there was a chance to meet, Mitsuki could even use it to Nullify him.

“See, Guidance can temporarily enhance your physical strength, too. And if you raise your aptitude, you’ll be able to do more things.”

“Woah, so that’s how it works!”

Behind the joyous Mitsuki, Menoh used Guidance to reinforce her physical abilities. Pulling Power from one’s soul and governing it with the spirit to fill the body was a technique called Guiding Strength.

Menoh was enveloped in Guidelight, the phosphorescence that use of Guidance radiated, as she snuck her hand into the slit in her vestments. Affixed to the leather belt that wrapped her right thigh was a hidden dagger.

“An adventurer! It’s finally going how it’s supposed to. If anybody bothers me, I’ll Nullify them all good!”

“Heh, betcha will,” Menoh responded with a smile to Mitsuki as he clenched his fists and trembled with joy.

Mitsuki’s future scrolled out in front of him. From now on, all he had to do was Nullify anybody who got in his way. Everything that hindered him, every single thing. Everything that didn’t work for him.

That was the sole power he’d received from the obj?far i?gi??? Pure Concept.

“Haha. Yep, that’s right. I can Nullify everything. I’m thrilled!”

“It’s all thanks to my advice. Be grateful, okay?”

“Oh, definitely!” Though he said it thoughtlessly, this was indeed Menoh’s doing. If she hadn’t directed him, he might have died by the roadside without ever making the discovery.

She was his ally. He didn’t need to Nullify her.

Mitsuki turned a smile full of gratitude and hopes for the future toward Menoh. “So hey, Menoh. Introduce me to anybody you know who’s in the adventuring businessgh—”

The dagger drove into Mitsuki’s temple, above his smile.

“Hpph?” In a voice that would not be recognized as human, a rather comical sound came from Mitsuki’s lips.

The blade pierced through the place where the skull was thinnest and into the brain. With a wound so severe it was unfathomable that he had not died instantly, his life rapidly slipping away and crumbling out from under him, Mitsuki looked.

At Menoh, who was thrusting the dagger into him.

“Wh, y—”

It was moments before annihilation. Within Mitsuki, betrayed, welled up despair and a ferocious Power.

Guidance: Connect — obj?far i?gi??? Pure Concept Null — Invoke: What e hell n’t be llify everyth is world othing good in ot to be kiddi Meno

The power being drawn up from Mitsuki’s soul filled his body.

“Ngh!” As she caught the signs of unusual magic gathering in the hopeless boy, Menoh turned pale.

To escape from the Guidelight being unleashed along his sightline, she jumped suddenly and with all her strength to the side. She rolled across the floor in a defensive posture.

There was no crash. It was so still that one could be fooled into thinking nothing had been happening at all.

A gentle breeze caressed Menoh’s skin as she righted herself and stood up, and she was illuminated by daylight.

There was wind indoors, and the sunlight shone in.

“…an otherworlder, after all.” Menoh, who had survived the final magic the boy had invoked, let the tension release from her body.

Everything where Menoh had just been standing, from the floor to the wall to the ceiling as well, had vanished.

A soundless, conceptual manifestation of nothingness. The cross-section of the vanished portion was so smooth it was frightening.

“That’s what happens when they don’t die instantly. Even if his powers of Guidance were exceptional by grace of the Pure Concept, it’s near monstrous.”

She approached with caution and turned the boy’s head upward to confirm his death. The dagger that Menoh had wielded with her Guidance-enhanced arm had unmistakably pierced his skull and reaped his life.

“You said why at the last, didn’t you,” she recalled of his final words as she checked for pupil response. “…Just as you said, the truth is that this church was abandoned ages ago. Only the building was left, and I was given the use of it for this mission.”

The Menoh who gazed at the corpse had none of the abundance of feeling and liveliness she had shown while talking to the boy. She spoke in a quiet manner that suited the muted colors and maturity of her beauty.

“My using my influence to get you a job was a lie, too. The church truly does take on a role of aiding the poor, but in this case it was only a means to get your guard down. I wanted to know your ability before I killed you, and so I arranged a way to investigate that would not come across as unnatural.”

Pupils, breathing. Blood pressure.

There were no signs of life in the boy. What lay crumpled on the floor was without a doubt a corpse.

“Every once in a while there’s an otherworlder whose powers make them capable of not dying when they are killed.”

The boy’s power had been the Pure Concept of Null.

It was the terrifying ability to return the target to nothingness. If it were to be developed into a deeper comprehension of the concept, it might have advanced to an ability to Nullify even his own death.

“We received word that the country’s top Noblesse were planning to summon an otherworlder. We learned that a summoning by spirit wave had been carried out. Thus, someone like me was dispatched.”

The initial plan had been to infiltrate the palace, but first she had seen a boy in a school jacket coming out and had doubted her eyes, suspecting a trap. After a night of observation, contact. She had drawn him to the church that served as her base and, through conversation, had completed a confirmation of his power.

There had been no need for further interaction after that.

Moreover, she could absolutely not permit any folly that would let the boy’s ability develop. The moment she had established it, elimination had become essential.

Menoh had, from the first, made contact with the intent of killing him.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Menoh, having made certain of the boy’s death, softly passed her hand over his lids to close his eyes. “Not a thing. You did nothing to deserve being killed. I, the killer, am the villain, and you are the victim.”

The boy who had just been smiling and looking forward to the future would never rise again. Menoh had plucked away that possibility.

“But, still—” Though she knew her sin was unforgivable, Menoh recited softly, “The Salt Sword that melted the western continent into the sea. Pandemonium, the hold of mist and magic that devoured the southern archipelago. The Mechanoworld that commands the eastern wilderness. The Skeletal Star that floats in the hollow at the center of the northern landmass.”

The names she listed were those of legendary disasters that had taken place in this world.

Four disasters caused by supernatural phenomena. They had left scars the size of continents, and once a person glimpsed their ruins, the strangeness would cling to the back of their mind, never to fade.

The manifestations were all of different varieties. The one thing they had in common was the cause.

Natural disasters they may be called, but what gave rise to them was anything but natural.

They were made by the abilities of otherworlders. Human Errors.

“Otherworlders caused far too much damage,” she told the boy’s unspeaking corpse, in explanation of why he had died.

Otherworlders. Powerful, thus they drew the eyes of those who sought to use them. Powerful, thus they were seen as dangers and targeted for disposal.

It was not to say that she had no compassion for those drawn into their conflicts. However, Menoh had never allowed her feelings to hinder her mission.

That they must be the villains had been decided long ago.

That was why, even as Menoh played her role of chatting easily with him and getting close to him, to the very end she had never asked his name.

“Otherworlders are the Designated Taboo that we Executioners must exterminate.”

The dark side of the Faust. The unseen, unjust killers who reaped the taboo. The Executioners.

This that could never be shown on the surface was Menoh’s true, unpretended identity.

“…if you really had been powerless, maybe it wouldn’t have had to end in your death.” In her low murmur was the sorrow of the lost hope of the maybe that she had, only a tiny bit, embraced.

In the end, he had had a power. More than that, from his words and actions just after its discovery, he was clearly inclined toward Nullification. A side effect of his ability was that the Pure Concept would eat into his soul, and his thoughts would veer to Nothingness. Before long it would stain him through and leave as its legacy the infamous name of a Human Error.

Menoh withdrew her dagger from the boy’s head and wiped the blood away.

She met her own eyes in the reflection on the blade, and was suddenly reminded of the dream she had had that morning.

It was a dream about a classroom in Japan where she had never been.

Everyone’s uniform was different. There were school jackets, blazers, sailor suits. The uniforms were a clashing mishmash, but somehow nothing seemed wrong.

When she walked into the room, everyone stopped talking and looked at her.

It was a warm place.

It was calm, free of fighting, and no one carried a weapon. All they had to do was put a little effort into their studies, and then they were free to spend their time as they liked.

She said hello and everyone welcomed her in with kind smiles, then chattered enthusiastically about nothing much at all.

Though everyone in the class was her friend, one of them was her best friend.

They were thick as thieves, and had the kind of relationship where there were no secrets between them. When they laughed she was happy, and when she was happy so were they. She knew the sadness in their past and they knew the bitterness in hers; that was why they accepted each other.

She talked to her best friend about nothing much, and they waited for class to start.

It was a place she had never seen.

But from what she had been taught so she could kill the people who came from it, it was a country called Japan.

That dream was the emblem of Menoh’s sins.

The next time Menoh had that dream, that mismatched classroom would have one more boy in a school jacket.

That was all.

“So. One to go, then.”

She would reap the life of one more otherworlder, one in the palace in the royal capital.

Aware of her crimes and accepting of her evil, the executioner moved into action.

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Translator’s note: The garbled part with the ??s in it is『箏？罩i ? 絎???純粋概念【無】—』

I’m going to be one hundred percent honest – I’m at a loss. It seems to be playing with a kind of corrupted text that results in some weirdass archaic kanji: literally “koto(as in the instrument)?some kind of fish basket i?blindstitch???” then the Pure Concept stuff. Thing is, those weirdass kanji have pronunciations shared with far more normalass kanji, like ‘koto’ as in ‘thing,’ so it could be some homophone trickery. Probably it’ll be cleared up later and I’ll feel like an idiot, but I haven’t read ahead that far yet. So I can’t quite tell you what the deal is here, besides that it’s probably something clever.