Here is the chapter. It was supposed to co out yesterday, but I had a few things I needed to sort out first. Sorry about that. I also didn’t have much ti to reply to the comnts, but I’ll do that tomorrow after I wake up.
If you’d like to read 3/7/13 chapters ahead, or simply support , you can do so on my (P)(A)(T). If not, I still thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading my stories. Thank you very much!
I won’t drag this out too much here. As always, good night everyone, and enjoy the chapter!
(P)(A)(T)/CalleumArtori.
[...]---[...]
POV: Devas Asura.
To be honest, I hadn’t planned all this theatrics.
When I called the police, my goal was to grab Brandon and dump him next to the body to make things easier for them. But the mont the 911 call ended, a mission appeared right in front of :
-//-
[The Seed of Doubt]
Rarity: White
World: Amalgam World
Ti limit: 30 minutes remaining for acceptance.
Mission Description:
Patrick Jane is a brilliant, broken, and deeply skeptical man. He built his life—and his obsessive quest for revenge against the serial killer Red John—on the unshakable belief that the supernatural is a sham.
To him, there are no psychics, no magic, no demons—only tricks and lies he himself is exceptionally good at using.
Prove him wrong.
Objective: Plant a seed of doubt in Patrick Jane’s mind by performing sothing he cannot rationalize. Provide him with a direct ans of contact and offer him what he desires most.
[NOTE: The mission will only be completed once he gives in to temptation and makes the call.]
Rewards: 50 Gold Coins, Unlock of the questline [The Red Smile], Information Update (CBI).
[..]
~ The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist… ~
-//-
Patrick Jane, The ntalist.
I knew the show. I’d watched up to the middle of season three before taking a break—and never got back to it, for one reason or another.
Lack of ti, if I rember correctly.
Even if it was just a “White” rarity mission and the rewards were basic, there was no reason not to do it. Especially since it was simple—and would tie into another questline later on, the [The Red Smile] missions.
Or rather, Red John—the na that would make Patrick call in the future.
I knew he would.
No matter his skepticism or anything else, the rage inside him would make him dial the number on that black card.
I could see it. I could feel it. The hatred inside him. All the grief, all the fury.
I watched the CBI SUV drive away from the Proto-A’s window.
If it ant killing Red John with his own hands, Patrick Jane would make a deal with the Devil himself…
[Archetype: The Devil — Synchronization 12%]
Lucky for him, the Devil he ran into was pretty reasonable—and offered discounts.
“They’re kind of a cute couple,” Jinn comnted beside . “Patrick and Lisbon, I an. I like them.”
“You got that from the little you saw?” I turned, starting to walk.
Jinn’s footsteps followed right after.
“Uh-huh.” She nodded. “It’s obvious they like each other—you can see it in the way they look at each other. But they’re both hesitant to take the first step.”
She humd softly before continuing.
“I’d say Lisbon—what’s her na again?”
“Teresa.”
“I’d say Teresa’s the one who’ll take the first step. Patrick is… angry. A focused man, but angry. As much as I can tell he likes her, he won’t do anything until that anger fades.”
(“Or consus him completely.”) Ozma joined in. (“I’ve seen that look before—in good n and good won who lost what mattered most to them. He wants revenge.”)
“Patrick isn’t exactly what you’d call a good man… He’s done morally questionable things before. He made a living deceiving people, manipulating them with his intelligence—taking advantage even of the innocent.”
I recalled what I knew about him—and what I’d managed to piece together on my own.
Patrick wasn’t a bad man either. Morally gray… that’s where I’d place him. A darker shade of gray, leaning toward selfishness—but still gray.
“What happened?” Jinn asked beside , leaning forward slightly with her hands behind her back, her face turned toward mine.
“He ssed with sothing he shouldn’t have. Provoked soone on national television… thinking it was just another ga.” I paused briefly. “It wasn’t. He caught the attention of a serial killer.”
The silence lingered for a mont.
“That man went after him… or rather, his family. When Patrick got ho, he found his wife and daughter dead.”
“Red John. The na—or rather, the alias—of the one who did it.” I finished. “That’s where the anger cos from.”
“Well… that’s more than enough to make soone hate deeply enough to strike a deal with the Devil,” Jinn said after a few seconds of silence.
I gave her an ironic smile.
“Are you going to help him?” she asked.
“Depends—probably. But help him how?” I shot back. “Kill Red John? That’s sothing I can do—and will.”
I kept walking without looking at her.
“Now… as for his anger…” I shook my head slightly. “That’s another story…”
After all, no matter what I did or said—no matter how much I helped—he wouldn’t get better.
You can’t help soone who doesn’t want help to begin with… unless I literally lobotomized part of his mind or brainwashed him.
And the anger wasn’t even his worst problem.
I could tie Red John up and throw him in front of Patrick—let him torture him for hours, days… and then finally kill him. Even then, even after all that, the guilt he carried wouldn’t go away…
In the end, the person Patrick hated most wasn’t anyone else…
It was himself.
[…]
The next few days were calr than the first day in the Amalgam World.
Nothing like the events of that first day happened again. Even the few random missions I took were basic, involving no one important—unlike with John and Patrick.
During those two and a half days, I also took so ti to go over the information Klein had sent through private (CHAT).
He explained, in broad terms, how Spirit Vision worked, what kind of world he lived in, and what the hell these so-called Beyonders were.
And to be completely honest, the “3/10” rating he gave his situation was starting to feel generous.
From his description, Klein’s world felt like Bloodborne had a bastard child with Dishonored—and that child turned out slightly unhinged.
Everything had that Victorian-era feel—gas lamps, carriages, revolvers, gentlen in top hats… it was practically a checklist of clichés.
And the most curious part was that control over everything seed to be in the hands of the Church.
Churches, actually—plural. Large and ancient institutions with an almost absolute monopoly over anything even remotely mystical—and responsible for damage control to keep the supernatural hidden from the public.
Honestly, it might’ve been a ménage à trois—maybe FATE was in there too.
Overall, the place made my skin itch.
And in the middle of all that, there were the Beyonders.
From what he told —and he admitted he was still very new to it, having been there just over a week—their powers ca from potions.
I’ll admit, that part surprised a little.
To beco a Beyonder, you had to drink a potion made from monster remains, mystical plants, and who knows what else.
Wouldn’t surprise if human parts were involved at so point.
And the way they asured strength was through “sequences,” starting from Sequence 9—the weakest, the starting point, where Klein was. He had a strange habit of bringing that up from ti to ti—for so reason—and then progressing downward to Sequence 1.
But like most things in life, there was a catch.
When you drank a potion, you didn’t just gain powers—you also gained a few ntal disorders. It varied from schizophrenia to borderline, bipolar disorder, and paranoia. Or all of them, depending on the person.
And you could lose control and turn into a monster too—a pretty ugly one—that was what was happening to Fors.
And once you took a potion, you couldn’t switch “paths” or “pathways,” which were basically the power progression each potion line followed.
Klein didn’t know how many paths existed—only that they ca from sothing called the Blasphemy Slate—but he did know the nas of so Sequence 9s:
The ones he knew were: “Sleepless,” “Mystery Pryer,” and “Corpse Collector,” which were the paths controlled by the Church of the Evernight Goddess.
“Sailor” and “Spectator,” which belonged to Mr. Hanged Man and Miss Justice, respectively—both mbers of the tarot club Klein had invited Fors and to earlier.
Lastly, his own pathway: “Seer.”
The thing was, interestingly enough, I knew two pathways as well: “Apprentice” and “Marauder.” I even knew the “Seer” pathway—before Klein ever told about it.
It was so kind of instinctive knowledge that ca along with the changes in my spiritual energy, my nightmare energy, and the “consciousness” awakening within the core of my spiritual energy—the “brain” of my soul.
Given that those changes ca from my exposure to the environnt above the gray fog, it was only natural to assu that place was sohow connected to those three pathways.
And since Klein was a “Seer,” I went ahead and tried to warn him—along with ntioning the “consciousness” that likely existed within people of that world as well.
That’s when I was stopped.
‘Death. Danger.’
It ca like an instinct born from my spirituality—and at the sa ti, a whisper from inside my mind. I didn’t even need to look to know the whisper ca from the “consciousness” in the “brain” of my soul.
If I spoke, Klein would be in danger. I knew that.
And it didn’t happen just once.
Klein asked what my reaction had been to the “Moon” and “Mother” cards. When I tried to think of an answer in the private (CHAT)—that there was sothing deeply wrong there—that instinct and whisper ca back, stronger.
‘Depravity. Evil. Cancer. Rot. Outside. Filth. Corruption. Mother.’
The words hit my mind harder than before, and my entire spirituality recoiled in revulsion.
They carried such intense disgust that it almost beca physical—to the point where my stomach twisted slightly and I felt like I might throw up.
It was like my earlier reaction to the “Mother” card—but amplified, fused with sothing deeper.
I felt that the “consciousness” had exhausted itself by manifesting so strongly, but it still made sure to warn before sinking back into dormancy.
I knew that if I gave him that information—even partially, even just enough to make him think about what was wrong—Klein would end up dead. Or worse.
The image of him going insane and collapsing into a mass of flesh, blood, and genitals birthing horrific creatures in the middle of the street ca to my mind as the consequence of him knowing that information.
Dying was probably the better option, in this case…
In the end, I had to seriously tell him to ignore it—to not think too deeply about it. Knowledge was a cancer, and in this case, I felt like that was literal.
It was like ‘The Eye’ all over again—only worse this ti, sohow.
Fortunately, Klein was smart. He realized it was serious almost imdiately and said he wouldn’t ask about it again—or think about it.
After those two incidents—centing just how terrifying Klein’s world really was—things returned to normal, and he went back to explaining how Spirit Vision worked.
For Klein and the Beyonders he knew, Spirit Vision required a process and so kind of “trigger” to activate.
In his case, he had to focus his spirituality and lightly tap his glabella—the space between his eyebrows—twice, as the physical trigger he had set to “turn on” the vision.
From that point on, he could see the deeper layers of people—what he called the Etheric Body and the Astral Body.
Those colors I’d seen floating around people at the market—that was basically it.
He confird that intense red ant passion, anger, or lust; pale white ant fear or shock; blue indicated logical thinking and calm.
Things I had already been instinctively figuring out—but he gave a full list of colors he’d learned from Old Neil, his mysticism teacher.
His Spirit Vision and mine were essentially the sa. The only real difference was that I didn’t need a trigger to activate mine.
That—and the fact that I could see and understand far more than Klein, thanks to several factors like Echo Humanitatis, my spiritual energy, my nightmare energy, and the Transparent World.
Another thing that caught my attention was how one advanced in sequence without going insane—Klein said you had to literally “digest” the potion.
Well, it was a potion. That made sense.
The problem was how to digest it—which was… surprising: “acting.” Literally acting in accordance with the potion’s na—in Klein’s case, since he was a “Seer,” he had to behave like one.
That alone wasn’t what surprised . Again, it even made a certain kind of sense. What caught off guard was that it was basically the sa as the stream update, where I also had to act as sothing.
I’d have to be an idiot to think that was just a coincidence.
The best theory I ca up with, after thinking it over, was that the stream created that part of the update because Klein had joined it. Which actually made sense—the stream always seed to adapt to and the viewers in so way.
But that raised another question: which bastard was it…?
Which fucking bastard joined the (CHAT) and was responsible for adding the gacha roulette to my stream?!
[…]
It was close to eleven at night. We should’ve been… sowhere above the sea off the U.S. East Coast.
I didn’t know exactly—and didn’t care much.
Proto-A was stabilized, hovering about fifty ters above the water. I was sitting at the edge of the open entry ramp, fishing with the Chum Caster.
These past few days had been pretty relaxing, actually. Especially for my tired primate brain.
I was wearing simple clothes: shorts and a beach shirt, nothing on my feet. The suit was nice, but I preferred sothing more comfortable during my downti.
When I felt the bait get hooked, I pulled the rod up—not with force. The line and rod could handle it, but the fish that bit couldn’t.
It was a short struggle. Within seconds, I had a shark in my hands… again.
“Is it just these guys out here? What the hell?” I muttered, looking at the sandbar shark thrashing against the tal ramp.
I’d caught about fifty or more of these by now, which was starting to get annoying.
I knew it was because of the Chum Caster, which made it easier to attract fish—and also because of the blood on the fishing line. Sharks were far more easily drawn to blood, and they scared off other fish too.
But I wanted to catch sothing else!
Clicking my tongue, I pulled the shark closer and bit into its fin. I tore off a chunk shaped like my bite, chewing through skin, blood vessels, and tough cartilage before swallowing.
I dripped a few drops of a healing potion onto the bite so the wound would close. Only then did I remove the hook from its mouth and toss it back into the sea.
I made sure it wouldn’t die from the fall, since it was a bit high. I lowered it with the black hands ford from my nightmare energy until it touched the water, then watched as it swam away, confused.
“And the biting is for what, exactly?” Jinn asked.
She was lying beside , reading a book. It was about marine life—she said that since I was fishing, she might as well brush up on this world’s sea creatures.
She wore a black bikini, her hair still wet. She’d gone for a swim earlier, playing among the sharks.
“Do you want the real answer, or should I make sothing up that sounds convincing enough to pass as one?” I asked back, casting the line again.
Jinn lowered the book, looking at over the top of it, one eyebrow raised.
“Both. But give the made-up one first. I like seeing how your mind works.”
“I’m doing this so the Chalice can drink the sharks’ blood and give more knowledge through it—and also to collect blood samples from different animals, in case I ever want to convert one type of blood into another.”
“It's actually sothing feasible.” She nodded. “It’s kind of true, isn’t it?”
“Sothing like that.” I shook my head, reeling the line back in again. “Another fucking shark…”
I bit into the great white’s fin before healing it and tossing it back into the sea, just like I did with the last one.
“And the real answer?”
I chewed through the cartilage before swallowing and replying:
“I’m bored, and I think the re possibility of marine researchers noticing that dozens of sharks in this area have human bite marks on their fins is incredibly funny.”
I paused briefly. “That, and their cartilage tastes good.”
I had already caught the sharks—the mont they bit the Chum Caster’s bait, they were basically dead. Letting them go after just one bite was actually pretty kind of .
[MoonPrincess]
The way your little mind works is quite curious—and that’s coming from soone who lives with yokai.
I stared at the ssage that appeared from within a bamboo scroll.
“Should I be offended?” I was a little offended—being compared to yokai was almost as bad as being compared to fae.
[MoonPrincess]
I won’t say whether it was a complint or an insult. Take it however you like. (ﾉ≧ڡ≦)
I snorted, dismissing the ssage. Kaguya was fun.
Two more ssages appeared right after, this ti flying in, carried by a small skeleton with bony wings:
[AinzOoalGown]
Devas, question: how many hours until that mission activates? I’ve got sothing to do here and want to know if I’ll have ti, since I don’t want any interruptions while I’m watching.
[AinzOoalGown]
If it’s sothing short, I’ll delegate it to Albedo or Demiurge… Actually, Sebas might be better for this.
“Huh?…” I pulled up the mission tir. “Thirteen hours and a few minutes. Still plenty of ti.”
That was also why I wasn’t worried about how far we were from Japan. In thirteen hours, Proto-A would get there easily.
As I replied, I ran through what Ainz might be doing. I’d given him part of the chapters I had of his story before—he’d read them too.
Tiline-wise, if he hadn’t changed much, it should be sothing involving the Lizardn or the Re-Estize Kingdom.
Since he himself ntioned sending Sebas, it was probably sothing in Re-Estize, since it involved humans—and those two were… unpleasant in that regard, to say the least.
Ainz was a curious case to . I liked the guy—he was easy to talk to—and at this point, I could consider him sothing close to a friend.
Ainz himself had already told he’d grown more attached to his humanity compared to the “him” from the story.
He said it felt a bit strange from a purely logical standpoint, but he found himself liking being human—and holding onto those traits—more than he expected.
The problem was the other inhabitants of Nazarick, who mostly saw humans as inferior beings—or even livestock.
They weren’t people I knew, nor a world I was familiar with. But just being indirectly connected to soone like Demiurge already made my skin crawl…
I looked down at the sharks in the water below—one of them had taken the bait again.
I pulled it up. Another great white.
I stared at it for a few seconds before tossing it back into the sea.
“Yeah… I think I’ve done enough fishing for today…” I muttered, standing up and tossing the Chum Caster into the Voidbag.
In the end, I guess it didn’t really matter…
Whatever was going to happen—if I ever went to Ainz’s world in so not-so-hypothetical future—would happen. And what wouldn’t, wouldn’t.
I’d just do what I had to do. Nothing more.
As I stretched—more out of habit than anything—and the sharks began to disperse now that the Chum Caster’s scent had faded, I felt sothing.
It was like… a faint vibration, coming from far away, pulsing slowly with each passing second, growing stronger—like a heartbeat from behind a wall that was starting to crack.
And the worst part was that, from behind that “wall,” I could almost hear sothing like laughter.
I looked into the Spirit Realm. The part of that was picking up this “signal,” so to speak, was there: the Mini-Pylon.
More specifically, the Mini-Pylon’s second ability:
-//-
Dinsional Echo:
The Mini-Pylon can detect and attract echoes from dinsions outside "The Strear's" current world. It can capture ssages, summons, warnings, and distress signals.
[On]
-//-
“No fucking way…” I said out loud, half in disbelief, turning toward where the vibration was coming from. “Murphy, you son of a bitch!”
As if the universe itself were laughing in my face for having said less than a minute ago that thirteen hours was more than enough ti to reach Japan, a mission appeared right in front of —without even needing to be in Tokyo:
-//-
[The Ginza Incident (Part 1 of ???)]
Rarity: Pink
World: Amalgam World/???
Ti limit: 3 seconds to open the "Gate".
Mission Description:
A large-scale spatial distortion is manifesting in the center of Ginza, Tokyo.
An unstable image begins to form at the origin point—translucent, overlapping reality. Stone structures with broad columns and defined arches beco visible, resembling ancient classical architecture, though incomplete and slightly misaligned, as if two distinct spaces were trying to occupy the sa place.
With each passing instant, the structure becos clearer, replacing the surrounding space.
The origin does not belong to this world.
Objective: Investigate the nature of the anomaly.
Rewards: 10,000 Gold Coins, Remnant of Hardy’s Divine Essence, Partial Map of the Special Region (Sector: Alnus), Sample of Soil from the Special Region.
[..]
~ The first step was not taken here… ~
-//-
“Are they invading my planet?...” It was so absurd I wasn’t even angry. I was indignant.
“Jinn!” I shouted.
I didn’t even need to continue. Before she could fully grasp what I wanted, she turned into a trail of dark blue smoke, vanishing into my shadow and reappearing in my Spirit Realm.
I grabbed the Proto-A and tossed it into the Voidbag. The ship would be too slow. I started falling toward the sea.
Even as I fell, I began equipping myself.
First, the Remnant Of The Deerclops manifested over my body, overlaying my clothes.
The upper part of the armor had been partially destroyed by the “void,” so I patched it up as best as I could.
It had beco even more tribal than before. The left side was gone, exposing my left chest, as well as my shoulder and arm, wrapped in the white plant bandages Alalia had created for .
The defense had dropped, but it still retained its attributes—and most importantly, the Hallucination Storm.
Across my exposed skin, dozens of markings, symbols, and vein-like patterns in a blood-red hue began to appear, spreading from where my heart was.
Next, I equipped the Angelic Greaves on my feet.
From within the bandage covering my left arm, the Shield of the Eye of The Moon twisted free, erging from my flesh. It unfolded its layers, gripped my wrist, and reshaped itself into its original form: a large circular shield with a mouth full of teeth.
I grabbed the air with my right hand. My fingers closed around the hilt of the Teardrop Cleaver.
I grabbed the air with my left hand. My fingers closed around the hilt of the Relic of Destruction.
From my back, I moved the Shadow Puppet until its arms extended beneath mine.
The Shadow Puppet’s right hand clenched the air. My shadow’s fingers wrapped around the handle of the Haemorrhaxe.
The Shadow Puppet’s left hand clenched the air. My shadow’s fingers wrapped around the handle of the Ice Blade.
Over my face, the Bone Helm manifested, erging from my shadow as the Shadow Puppet’s face overlapped with mine. Beneath it, on my forehead, my Demon Slayer Mark glowed in its sun-like form.
My eyepatch vanished into my inventory as the Shadow Puppet’s right eye appeared where my left eye should have been.
Behind my head, near my shoulders, two black hands from the Bone Helm erged.
The one on my left held the Undertaker.
The one on my right held the Blood Thorn.
I stared at the water rushing up to et .
The orange glow of my right eye contrasted with the darkness of the night sky.
The red glow of the Shadow Puppet’s right eye contrasted with the pale reflection of the moon.
The golden glow of the lines along my teeth contrasted with the purple Shadowfla coating my entire body.
The World turned Transparent.
Then my feet touched the sea. The waves stilled. The sound vanished.
I let out a breath and inhaled deeply.
Several Nightmares appeared in the water to my right. Small and large, in all kinds of forms. I swung the Teardrop Cleaver, tearing them apart as Temporal Sadness stole their ti.
I felt my body accelerate.
‘Drip… Drop…’
On my left wrist, the mouth of the Shield of the Eye of The Moon bit into the surrounding space, distorting it.
Then I took a step forward, reappearing dozens of kiloters away.
Distance and space weren't important.
[…]
POV: Yoji Itami.
I was… just standing there on a sidewalk in Ginza, holding a heavy bag of manga from Comiket.
The sun was high—almost noon—when the ground shook. It felt vaguely like an earthquake, enough that I thought it was one, but it was more localized, like sothing massive had slamd into the asphalt.
Before I could process it, the sound hit—roars, tallic clashing, and galloping, followed by screams of mass panic and fear. I looked toward the middle of the street and, for a few seconds, my brain—still in full otaku mode—froze.
Soldiers, wearing armor that reminded of legionaries—leather and tal. So rode horse-like creatures, others mounted drakes, even dragons.
And it wasn’t just them. Charging and attacking people were orcs wielding clubs, goblins, things that looked like ogres—non-human creatures. So grabbed people and dragged them off, where soldiers bound them and took them away.
“Shit… no way… you’ve got to be kidding …” I muttered.
The panic grew—people running, shoving, screaming.
I tossed my bag of manga aside. It hurt to let it go, but I needed my hands free, and I started moving.
Seriously, this had to happen now?! Why did a fantasy invasion have to happen while I was dressed like this?!
Hell, I was wearing an ani T-shirt and denim shorts. My uniform would’ve been really useful right now. Damn it, I didn’t even have a gun!
“This way! Don’t stand still! Run over here!” I shouted, guiding people.
I pushed a few elderly people out of the monsters’ charge path. Helped a woman back to her feet. The chaos was absolute—storefronts shattering, cars crashing, the sll of blood and fire mixing in the air.
It was practically a war zone.
Seconds passed. It felt like an eternity, but if I had to guess, it had only been one or two minutes at most. Everything was happening too fast. I was running along the sidewalk after helping a few people when I noticed soone who stood out.
She was an adult woman—tall for a woman, a few centiters taller than , and I’m one seventy-five. Mid-twenties, maybe late twenties at most.
ssy black hair, sharp gray eyes. She wore casual clothes—a white jacket and dark blue jeans—carrying a crossbody bag and a shopping bag like the one I’d just dropped, full of manga and a few gift wraps.
She must’ve been at Comiket too, just like , when all this started. Probably buying presents for friends, along with stuff for herself.
I vaguely noticed she didn’t seem as panicked as the others. Surprised and shocked? Sure. But she seed more focused. Military, like , maybe?
She was with a group of children and their mothers, trying to guide them to safety.
My eyes widened when I noticed sothing approaching her.
“Watch out!”
I shouted, running and pointing behind her.
A soldier—a lightly armored legionary with a short sword—was coming up behind the children. I couldn’t see his face under the helt, but it wouldn’t surprise if he was smiling cruelly.
Maybe that was just the anger I felt toward these guys making think that way…
The woman reacted quickly.
She turned, taking advantage of the fact that the soldier had likely underestimated her for being a woman—and a civilian—and swept his leg from behind, using a judo move, leveraging his own weight and armor to slam him to the ground.
She didn’t follow up after knocking him down, instead backing off before he could get up, beginning to turn away.
By then, I had closed the distance. I took the opening and grabbed the short sword—a gladius, probably, given their Roman-style gear.
Without thinking, ignoring the foreign words spilling from the man’s mouth, I drove the blade into the gap between his helt and armor.
The sensation of cutting through flesh was unpleasant. The man spasd as he was effectively throat-cut, bleeding out.
“And the day started so well…” I muttered.
I took a deep breath and stood, scanning the surroundings. The chaos had grown; this was a more open area—that was a problem. Bodies on the ground, the lower levels of buildings on fire.
Beside , the woman had stopped. Two small children were behind her, along with an elderly man and an adult woman the kids were clinging to.
“Yoji Itami. Second Lieutenant, JSDF.” I gave a quick wave as I introduced myself.
Better to identify myself right away to civilians—avoids trouble—and if she wasn’t a civilian, she’d introduce herself too.
She glanced at the body, far calr than I expected from a civilian. Surprisingly, she didn’t introduce herself with any military rank.
“I’m… Shizuka Hiratsuka. A teacher,” she said, slightly out of breath.
Hiratsuka-san’s gaze flicked briefly to my orange ani T-shirt, but she said nothing. Introducing myself as a second lieutenant dressed like this was… awkward.
A teacher? If I’d had a teacher who could pull that off back in school, I probably would’ve gotten better grades…
“We need to get out of here,” I said, refocusing. “There’s a police station nearby. We’ll evacuate through there—cut through Hibiya Park, then head for the Imperial Palace.”
She nodded, her expression sharpening again, and turned to signal the people behind her to start moving.
Then she stopped—just like I did—when we both noticed what was happening around us.
“Shit…” I clicked my tongue.
We hadn’t even stood still for ten seconds…
They closed in—goblins, orcs… heavier creatures, around two ters tall.
We were partially surrounded. An ogre with a massive club blocked the path ahead, letting out a guttural laugh. Goblins erged from the side alleys.
I gripped the gladius with both hands, feeling the sweat in my palms. I didn’t know how to use a sword, but it was closer to a big knife than anything else.
I let out a half-nervous laugh.
Fighting a two-and-a-half-ter ogre wasn’t exactly what I had planned when I woke up today—but life had a way of screwing over every plan, didn’t it…?
“Stay behind !” I ordered Hiratsuka-san, the old man, the mother, and the children. “I’ll try to open a path—run when I do.”
A suicide mission. That thing could probably kill in one or two hits—but screw it. When I joined the army, I was already prepared for this.
I just needed to push that ugly green bastard back—or distract it—for a second or two. Just enough ti for them to get away.
I tensed my muscles and braced myself—then Hiratsuka-san’s hand touched my left shoulder. I glanced at her from the corner of my eye; she shook her head in refusal.
Letting go of her bag and dropping it to the ground, she brought both hands to her mouth and took a deep breath, filling her lungs so fully that her chest visibly swelled.
Then she shouted, as loud as she possibly could:
“DEVAS, HELP!!!”
The scream was so loud my left ear rang for a mont. Even the creatures around us seed startled, pausing for an instant.
Nothing happened for one—maybe two—seconds… The creatures started moving again.
Then a presence fell over the entire area.
It was the sa sensation I’d felt many tis before: the feeling of being watched. But unlike every other ti, this gaze had real, physical weight.
It felt like it was coming from above.
The sounds around us seed to vanish for a few monts. The chaos dulled—soldiers, goblins, horses, orcs, ogres—all of them stopped moving, as if frozen, crushed beneath the weight of that gaze.
Then the ogre—the two-and-a-half-ter mass of muscle in front of us—exploded into blood as sothing slamd into it from above, cracking the ground.
The thing that hit it was grotesque. I hesitated to call it an axe—much less a hamr. It was enormous, disgusting, ugly—made of flesh and muscle—and it pulsed as if it were alive.
Maybe it was, because the ogre’s blood began to be devoured by mouths and teeth that erged from that grotesque mass, consuming skin, flesh, muscle—everything.
A hand grabbed the handle of that massive thing, lifting it as if it weighed nothing.
I… hadn’t seen where he ca from.
A man—huge—wearing a kind of tribal armor and a deer-bone mask. He had four arms—two of them made of shadow—each holding a weapon more dangerous-looking than the last.
Two shadow hands floated behind him. The exposed skin of his chest was covered in living red tattoos that moved.
His shadow had thousands of blinking eyes, looking in every direction.
His body looked… distorted.
At tis it flickered, like TV static glitching across him, as if he were out of sync. The space around him warped as well, like a curved lens bending the light.
I swallowed hard, my hands trembling.
Hiratsuka-san had a completely different reaction to the man.
While I was starting to wonder which god I should pray to, she let out a deeply relieved sigh and dropped to the ground, sitting casually on the sidewalk.
“Don’t make a habit of this…” the man’s voice echoed across the area as if it ca from all directions. “I’m not a god. I won’t always be here to save you.”
He turned, looking at Hiratsuka-san.
His right eye was orange; his left, blood-red.
“I know, but I was kind of desperate. And you showed up, didn’t you?…” Hiratsuka-san replied, pulling a cigarette from her pocket and lighting it with a lighter.
She took a drag and exhaled before speaking again: “Nice to finally et you, Devas.”
The man didn’t respond—he only gave a slow nod and looked around.
“Two minutes and thirty-two seconds… Thus long it took to co hither from the eastern coast of the United States…” He drove the weapon in his right hand into the ground.
A massive blade—almost like a cleaver—fleshy, with an eye near the base that was crying.
‘Drip… drop…’
I looked away, unable to keep staring at it.
“I ca here expecting to find a god… I can’t quite say whether I’m disappointed…”
He tilted his head slightly.
“I see thee…”
Then he extended his right hand toward where he had been looking, and sothing ca flying toward him from afar, as if carried by invisible hands: the body of a blond man, noble-looking, wearing armor different from the other soldiers I had seen.
Devas grabbed him by the neck as he struggled.
He lifted the man until their eyes were level.
“Domitus Fa Lernum, Supre Commander of the Saderan Expeditionary Force, of the Empire of Sadera… Answer …”
“What knowest thou of the God nad Hardy?”
The orange of his eye glowed.
“And what gave thee the courage to invade my world?”
[...]---[...]
Finally, the story is moving in the direction I wanted—well, at least partially.
I had to spend part of the chapter explaining things about Lord of the Mysteries and Devas’s understanding of the world. It’ll be more useful later, since he’s going to get heavily involved with that world, so there was no way to skip it.
GATE is an ani with a premise I really like: "what would happen if another world connected to Earth?"
What interests is the reaction—how people respond, how governnts deal with it, and how cultures clash. The part where everyone on the other side is dumb as hell isn’t as appealing to , but considering the ani is basically Japanese military propaganda, it’s understandable.
That said, I’ll explore that world a bit. There are so interesting things there. But don’t worry, I won’t drag things out there.
Devas’s reaction to the invasion makes sense, from his perspective. Sothing—potentially divine—was invading Earth. He could feel divinity and even hear laughter beyond the “crack,” and on top of that, the mission itself listed “a remnant of Hardy’s divine essence” as one of the rewards.
To him, it’s like so random god from another world suddenly trying to invade his ho. So he ard himself to the teeth—which might be a bit literal in this case—and fired straight at where the invader was.
And when he got there, he found a bunch of random guys who’d probably explode if he breathed too hard…
Well, I mostly added that scene to show what Devas’s new look/style will be like when things get serious.
As for Shizuka Hiratsuka, she’s one of the three viewers he has in this world, in case that wasn’t obvious.
I tweaked the tiline a bit to make her fit in there. What does that change? Basically nothing. It’s like I took Oregairu’s tiline and shifted everything back a few years. The characters and events are the sa, with so creative freedom to adjust anything involving technology.
I like her character—the “older woman who smokes” archetype, along with everything else. The rest of Oregairu should show up too, especially the dead-fish-eyed guy—I like him as well.
Mini-spoiler: the other two viewers he has in this world are not from Oregairu.
Alright, I think that’s it—have a good night, everyone, and enjoy the read!
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