Prologue: The Melancholy of the High School Girl Light Novel Author Never Ends

“Um... what is this in regards to?” Kanako Orihara was at a loss to hear the sound of her editor’s voice on the other end of the phone.

She had been lying in bed in the middle of the night, fooling around with her cell phone, when she’d gotten the call. She hadn’t expected anyone to call her this late at night, let alone her publishing company.

The company that was putting out Kanako’s book was a sham organization created by Makina Shikitani to make Kanako a published author. When Makina’s plans had been crushed, Kanako had convinced herself that her career was over.

“Huh? What is this in...?” the editor said. “Surely you jest, Ms. Orihara... It’s about your manuscript, of course.”

“Um... I thought you weren’t putting out my books anymore...”

Kanako hadn’t written anything. Before the phone call came in, she had been looking at pictures of Yuichi on her phone. She’d been doing that a lot lately, as a matter of fact.

“What?! Why would you think that? Did I say that?” He paused. “I’m getting a rather sinking feeling, here... I don’t want to believe it, but... is it possible you haven’t written anything?”

“Yes...”

She hadn’t heard anything from them lately, but she had told herself it didn’t matter and given up. She had wanted to be a writer, but being freed from the continuous pressure was liberating, in its own way.

“Ah, well, I knew I’d been pressuring you a lot lately, so I was waiting for you to call me...” the editor said.

That waiting had proven fruitless; Kanako hadn’t written a thing.

“Since the November publishing date will be impossible, we were going to talk about an extension... but it seems a one month extension won’t do it, either. What will we do...” The voice through the receiver sounded extremely flustered. Kanako felt herself swiftly being dragged back to reality.

Even with Makina gone, her sham company was still in business. It seemed so obvious now, yet it hadn’t occurred to Kanako.

“What about Demon Lord volume two? It’s half written already. I could probably finish it right away...”

Kanako was referring to her maiden work: My Demon Lord Is Too Cute to Kill and Now the World Is in Danger!, or Demon Lord for short. Volume one had gotten a positive reception, so she had started up on volume two. The plans to release it had been scrapped temporarily, but since that had turned out to have been part of Makina’s intrigues, Kanako wondered if it would be okay to release it now.

“Ah... actually, we really do want you to write a new story,” said the editor. “It’s not that we don’t want volume two. We just want to delay it a little bit...” The editor’s tone was awkward; it seemed he didn’t understand why this was the case, either.

“I understand. Then you want me to continue with The Half-Isekai Classroom?” This was the plot that they had urged her to write after Demon Lord had been scrapped.

“No... I’m really am terribly sorry, but we had an editorial board meeting and had to scrap that one, too...”

Kanako rarely ever raised her voice, but this made her want to scream. It was only the editor’s genuinely apologetic tone that allowed her to keep her head.

“So, could you think up a new plot?” the editor asked hopefully. “If you do, we can extend the deadline by two months.”

Kanako’s mind went blank. The next thing she knew, the call was over, the phone thrown down on the bed beside her.

“But what should I do? A new plot...” she murmured. She had submitted several plots to them, but this meant they hadn’t found any of them acceptable.

It would take a while for Kanako to get her feelings in order. For now, she just lay there on her bed, staring up at the ceiling.

✽✽✽✽✽

It was early October, when the students of Seishin High School had switched to their winter uniforms.

Yuichi Sakaki came to the survival club’s meeting room after class.

When he opened the door, the first thing he saw was a girl. She had striking chestnut hair in soft waves, and a gentle sort of manner about her.

It was the club’s vice president, Kanako Orihara. The label “Love Interest III” floated above her head.

Yuichi had acquired a special ability called Soul Reader: ever since spring, he had been able to see labels over a person’s head, which seemed to convey something about their role in the world.

Kanako didn’t seem to notice Yuichi’s arrival right away. She was seated at the table, her face downcast, deep in thought. She looked depressed.

“Um... are you okay?” Yuichi asked in concern.

“Yuichi...” Kanako looked up at the sound of Yuichi’s voice. She certainly didn’t look okay: there were huge bags under her eyes, and it was clear she wasn’t getting enough sleep.

“Orihara, what’s... did something happen?” Yuichi was wondering if perhaps the recent drama around Kanako hadn’t fully resolved yet. Kanako had briefly become an “Isekai Writer,” and it was always possible that someone else might show up, trying to make use of her power.

Hoping they could talk it out, Yuichi sat down across from her.

“I have to write a novel!” Kanako burst out, her voice unusually panicked. She seemed like she was at her wits’ end.

“What’s wrong with that? You’re a writer, after all...” Yuichi couldn’t quite see what the problem was; of course a writer should have to write. Then he remembered the conversation he’d had with Kanako in the cafe a little while ago. “But it’s what we talked about before, right? Are you still struggling with material?”

“Put simply, yes...” Kanako began, then froze, staring past him, her mouth slightly open.

Sensing there was someone behind him, Yuichi turned around. What he saw there shocked him.

A tall, beautiful woman in glasses — Makina Shikitani — was standing at the entrance to their club room.

“You!” He hadn’t expected to ever see her again.

Makina Shikitani was their enemy; he didn’t have a shadow of a doubt about that.

Makina had recently made their school the stage for a massive disaster. She had used Kanako to turn the school into an isekai, then tried to force the students trapped inside to kill each other.

He stood up quickly and got ready to fight.

“Calm down, would you? You really should show more respect to your teachers,” Makina said with a shrug, as if Yuichi were nothing more than an unruly child.

“I do not acknowledge you as a teacher!” Yuichi shouted.

“You don’t have a choice in the matter,” Makina said matter-of-factly. “I am Ms. Nodayama’s substitute, which makes me this club’s advisor.” There was no label above her head; Makina was a being that existed outside of the world — an Outer — which meant that Yuichi’s Soul Reader wouldn’t work on her.

“You haven’t even been to school since then!” Yuichi exclaimed.

Makina hadn’t been seen at school since the incident, so he’d assumed she had just run off.

“Losing to you was quite traumatic,” Makina said. “I had to take some time off. Didn’t you hear?”

“I heard you were taking time off, but I figured it was just an Outer’s worldview normalization! I didn’t think you were coming back!” Yuichi shouted.

When an incident occurred that influenced a large number of people with differing worldviews, things typically resolved with events being made consistent with the most powerful of those worldviews. Mutsuko called the phenomenon “the world’s ability to normalize,” and he’d assumed that it had been behind Makina’s supposed “taking time off.”

“You’re free to think what you want, but we can’t have a conversation until you calm down.” Makina was unfazed by Yuichi’s anger.

Yuichi had certainly lost control of himself, but when he realized how afraid it was making Kanako, he forced himself to calm down. Fortunately, he’d beaten this woman once before. If they had to fight, he could probably do it again.

“I’m impressed you were willing to show your face again,” he said. After what he’d done to her, Yuichi had assumed she’d give him a wide berth.

“I intended to come sooner, but it took a while to sort out my mental state,” Makina said.

“So? What did you come here for?” Yuichi demanded.

Makina was the enemy. Yuichi knew that very clearly, yet he felt no sense of hostility from her. At the least, she had no intention of starting a fight just yet.

“I wonder if you’d be willing to hear the whole story...” she said.

Yuichi thought for a moment. “Try me.”

He didn’t see any particular reason to indulge her; he’d just as happily kick her out. But he couldn’t deny he was curious to see what she had to say for herself. He wanted to know what so important to her that she’d risk coming back to do it.

“I don’t feel that what I did to Kanako Orihara was wrong,” said Makina. “Looking back, I don’t think anything I’ve done was wrong, either. Of course, it’s not that I can’t tell good from evil. From an objective point of view, I’m aware that what I did counts as the latter. I suspect a psychiatric evaluation would find that I’m perfectly capable of taking responsibility for my actions. That’s why, though I have no regrets about what I did, I do want to change. If I don’t, I can never gain your understanding — and I need that, because I’m still afraid of you. There are various ways to deal with fear, but generally speaking, you can either conquer what you’re afraid of, or surrender to it. At first, I thought I should try to conquer my fear — after all, who would pick yielding as their first resort? — but that proved impossible.

“Yuichi Sakaki, it was impossible for me to imagine any scenario in which I might beat you in a fight. Just thinking back on what had happened left me curled up in a trembling, immobile ball on the floor. After playing it over and over again in my mind, I realized that I could not conquer my fear. This left surrendering to it my only option. Under most circumstances, that would be humiliating; it basically means prostrating yourself before another, and doing whatever they say.

“But do you know what? The moment I chose to submit to you, the immense fear that had seized my heart turned into joy. The thought of serving so powerful an entity enveloped my mind in serenity, and filled me with a pervading sense of well-being. Yes, I suddenly knew that for all of my very long life, I had simply wanted to be dominated. Yet I never even realized this fundamental part of myself! Once I understood that, it all became simple. I just had to let you dominate me.

“Of course, it means nothing for a submissive like me to simply declare herself under your control. I need your assent. In other words, Yuichi Sakaki, I need you to agree to dominate me! To achieve this, I must have your understanding, which means I must regret the things I’ve done. I must apologize, repent, and seek forgiveness. But if I don’t truly believe what I did was wrong, does a superficial apology have meaning? Perhaps that would be the true act of bad faith...”

“Shut up!” Yuichi’s frustration with Makina’s wordiness was outstripping even his anger.

“I know that the ritual of apology is necessary, even if it is superficial,” she continued. “But objectively speaking, I have no illusions that a spoken apology will be sufficient for what I did to Kanako Orihara. Not even getting on my hands and knees would suffice. Shall I break one of my own fingers, then? Or an arm, perhaps? I could even offer my life—”

“Stop it!” Yuichi shouted. “Stop talking so trivially about killing things!”

That shut Makina up immediately.

Yuichi was torn: Makina sounded earnest, and he could sense that she wasn’t lying, but he also couldn’t understand why she was saying all of this.

“If you want to apologize, stop making excuses,” Yuichi said angrily. “You’re supposed to lead with the apology, whether or not it’s gonna be accepted!”

“You’re right,” she said. “Loquaciousness is a terrible habit of mine. Kanako Orihara. I am very sorry. Forgive me.”

Makina turned back to Kanako, bowed, and spoke the conventional words of apology.

Kanako’s eyes darted around uncertainly. She seemed to be at a loss as to how to respond.

“Um... please stand up.” Despite her slight panic, Kanako was able to calm herself down enough to say that much.

Makina stood again in response.

Kanako continued haltingly, but genuinely. “Um... the idea that you’ve done something to me still doesn’t feel real... and even if you have been manipulating my life, I really did enjoy the book you recommended. It’s what got me reading books, and why I chose to write stories... and that much I don’t regret. But... maybe later, it will start feeling real, and maybe I’ll feel angry with you then... so if you want to apologize, then please wait until after that happens.”

Yuichi still had resentment towards Makina, but if Kanako’s feelings were more ambivalent, it wasn’t his place to object.

“Now that that’s settled,” Makina began, turning back to Yuichi. “Will you let me be your submissive?”

“No way!” he snapped back.

“Is the term too abstract? You can call me your servant, or your slave, if you wish.”

“Oh, that sounds really great!” Yuichi shouted back sarcastically. “My teacher, the slave!”

“Sounds like a porn game to me!” a new voice declared.

As the declaration resounded through the room, all those present turned towards the door. Mutsuko was standing there, hand on her hips, chest thrust out.

Above her head was the label “Big Sister.” Objectively speaking, she was an attractive girl, with a slender build and long hair. As the label suggested, she was Yuichi’s older sister, as well as president of the survival club.

“That’s the first thing you have to say?!” Yuichi shouted.

Makina was someone they’d just been fighting, yet Mutsuko didn’t seem surprised by her presence at all. She clearly had her own sense of priorities.

Aiko and Natsuki were standing behind Mutsuko; they must have met up with her on the way.

Aiko Noro was a pretty, petite girl, with the label “Love Interest” hanging over her head. She came from a clan of vampires, and the first label he’d seen over her head had reflected that. But after he’d saved her from a kidnapping, she’d acquired the new label.

The tall girl with cold eyes was Natsuki Takeuchi, whose label was “Love Interest II.” Hers had originally been “Serial Killer,” but the label had also changed after she’d lost in a duel with him.

“C’mon, she’s no threat!” Mutsuko scoffed. “You beat her once before, and she hasn’t triggered any ‘I’m stronger now’ flags! It’s not like a recycled monster design ever wins, anyway!”

“I’m not a fan of that phrasing, Mutsuko Sakaki...” Makina said. “But you are correct. I’m well aware that I can’t beat you, and I have no malicious intent towards you. So please settle down, Yuichi Sakaki.”

Even with the other club members present, Makina still seemed perfectly at ease. She really was showing no trace of hostility.

“I am never going to trust you!” Yuichi snapped. Those were his feelings in a nutshell; even if they were no longer directly opposed to each other, he’d never met anyone he could trust less than her.

“That’s fine; I don’t expect to win you over immediately,” said Makina. “Trust isn’t something that’s built overnight, after all. I’ll just have to show how reliable I can be, little by little...

“I know. Why don’t I bring you to the height of ecstasy in ways that these little girls never could? You can confess to me all those dark desires that you couldn’t possibly venture to speak of in public. I’ll accept them all, and indulge you in any dirty fetish you ask for. I’ll even modify my body, if that’s what it takes... I don’t mind adding a hole or two. I can even reduce my breast size, though I’d ask you to be sure before you request it, since it would be hard to restore them to normal later.

“Oh, but don’t get the wrong idea — I’m perfectly willing to have irreversible procedures done. It would be hard for me to become a little girl, but I can supply them to you... perfectly brainwashed and prepared for whatever you want. I’ll be sad that you aren’t satisfied with me, but some things can’t be helped.

“Also, oh... you said you wanted to kill my fellow Outers, yes? I’ll help you with that, too. Despite your grand declarations, you don’t know how to do it, do you? But with my help, it will be easy. I’ll make all the Outers bow before you; make them slaves to do with as you please. That reminds me — you’ve been acting as Monika’s surrogate in the fight for the Evil God’s body parts, haven’t you? I’ll help you with that, as well.”

The endless stream of words, all managed in a single breath, sent a dull shock through Yuichi. There was a dangerous madness hanging at the edges of those words. It convinced him, more than ever before, that he couldn’t afford to leave her at large.

“The dominance stuff aside... you’ll do anything I say, right?” Yuichi demanded.

He was angry with Makina. He couldn’t forgive what she’d done to Kanako, and saw no reason why he should. Even so, he hadn’t killed her, which meant he had some responsibility for what she might do from now on.

“Yes, I’ll follow any order you give me,” Makina said.

“If I told you to live a life as a quiet nobody, not bothering anyone, would you do it?”

“I would,” she said. “But how would you know if I was keeping my word? You’re worried that I’ll revert to my old ways, aren’t you? If you want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’ve stopped my evil schemes, the most reliable method would be to kill me yourself. Of course, if you chose to kill me now, I wouldn’t resist. I’d happily let you do it.”

“So... you’re saying I have to keep you nearby, right?” Yuichi asked.

“That’s right,” she said. “You can’t trust me, but you can’t kill me, either. It’s the only logical answer, isn’t it?”

She had seen right through him, and she was right. He couldn’t just send her on her way.

“Never use your abilities again,” he said.

“Very well,” Makina said with a bright smile. However reluctantly he had come to it, she knew that she was getting what she wanted.

“You said you could distinguish between good and bad, right?” Yuichi asked. “Then don’t do things that society at large would deem bad.”

“Understood,” she said. “From now on, I’ll conduct myself as an ordinary high school teacher. But I do run a publishing house. If I hold strictly to your word, that’s a conflict of interest for a civil servant, isn’t it?”

“I couldn’t care less about that,” said Yuichi. “I think you know that, right?”

Yuichi had been talking about bad things like torturing people using her role as an Outer. He didn’t care if a civil servant had a side job.

“Of course,” she said. “But as you know, I’m doing all this to keep you from hating me, so I want to make sure we’re on the same page.”

“If you have any long-term plans in the works, put a stop to all of them now,” Yuichi ordered. “If you’ve made trouble for anyone in your plans in the past, make it up to them to the best of your ability.”

“I’ve already halted all my plans, and minimized the damage as best I could,” said Makina. “I swear to put the utmost effort into this in the future, as well.”

“What will you do about Ms. Nodayama?” Yuichi had heard she’d been released from the hospital and was resting up at home. They said she’d be back at school soon.

“Good question,” said Makina. “I’m not entirely sure. Should I reunite her with her childhood friend, or should I try to get her to give up on him and focus on the future? I’d like to give her the best possible resolution, personally.”

Now that she mentioned it, Yuichi wasn’t entirely sure which would be better. “Just keep an eye on her and proceed with caution,” he responded eventually.

That was the final demand he could think of, for the moment. He didn’t know how much he could trust that she’d do what he said, but all he could do was watch her.

“By the way... it’s a bit awkward to do all this talking standing up, isn’t it?” Makina asked. “Why don’t we have a seat?”

Mutsuko, Natsuki, and Aiko had just been standing in the doorway, watching Yuichi and Makina talk. Yuichi, not wanting to continue quarreling forever either, decided to sit back down.

“I only just got here, and things are already crazy...” Aiko murmured confusedly, as she sat down to his right.

“It’s not like I know what’s going on, either,” Yuichi muttered.

Natsuki sat down to Yuichi’s left. On the surface, she seemed unconcerned, but it was always hard to tell what she was thinking inside. Makina had beaten her badly in the earlier incident, after all.

“The enemies you defeat always seem to come back wanting to be your allies,” the usually expressionless Natsuki said with a sigh. “You may have what it takes to be a Monster Master.”

“I think I’ll pass!” Yuichi shot back, annoyed.

“Ibaraki, Takeuchi, Ms. Shikitani... and Konishi, I guess?” Aiko said. “I feel like she counts...”

“Noro... don’t say that stuff...” Yuichi muttered.

By that logic, Aiko’s brother, Kyoya Noro, would also fit in there. Yuichi didn’t dislike Kyoya, but he didn’t like thinking about things that way.

As if intending to be part of the club herself, Makina took a seat next to Kanako, diagonally across from Yuichi.

Mutsuko set up camp at the whiteboard as usual, and looked at the club members, but didn’t seem like she was going to start the meeting. In that case, Yuichi decided, he’d continue his conversation with Makina.

“You said you’d help me beat the Outers, right?” he demanded. “Do you know where they are?”

“I knew, at one time,” Makina said. “Now that I’ve betrayed them... well, I suppose that phrasing is deceptive. Relationships between Outers are flexible, and I wasn’t really working with them to begin with. But they probably already know I’ve joined you, so I wouldn’t expect to find them in the old hideout anymore. I can tell you where that is, though, if you want to know.”

“It’s worth a look,” he said. “There might be clues. What do you know about the Divine Vessels?” It was a vague question, but Yuichi didn’t know enough to ask a more concrete one. Certainly, Makina seemed to know more about them than Monika and Yuichi.

“Let me see,” she said. “Divine Vessels can be located through their resonance... and you don’t have a host, do you?”

“Monika has the two eyes, but she said they were both already in use,” he answered.

The Divine Vessels could be used only by the host they possessed, and once they had a host, they couldn’t be used by someone else. To make them usable again, you had to kill the host, and neither Monika nor Yuichi was eager to do that.

“If you give me the left eye, I could have him use it again,” said Makina. “You know, the one you half-killed during summer vacation.”

“The one I half-killed during summer vacation...” Yuichi thought back, but the description didn’t really narrow things down.

“We’ve had this exchange before, I believe,” said Makina. “Rather bloodthirsty, aren’t you?”

“What am I supposed to do? They come after me!” he protested.

“I mean the one who attacked you in a truck.”

“Oh! Yeah, you mentioned he was working for you,” Yuichi said.

She was referring to a hulk of a man with the label “Immortal” whom Yuichi had fought over summer vacation.

“Who is he, anyway?” Yuichi wondered, perhaps belatedly. Monika had called him a yokai of unknown origin, but that didn’t give him much in the way of details.

“He’s a dangerous kind of makura-gaeshi, a pillow-turner,” said Makina. “It’s a long story, but... ah, no, never mind. He’s lost the will to live. He’s basically a walking corpse now. I’m not even sure I could have a decent conversation with him.”

It sounded like a gruesome fate, but Yuichi found it hard to have sympathy for him. That man had murdered innocent people.

“Well, I have a few clues as to the locations of the Divine Vessels,” said Makina. “Just sit back and relax while I investigate.”

“Relax? There’s no telling when they’ll resonate next, and we have no way of knowing when they do, right?” Yuichi asked.

“Don’t worry about that, either,” she said. “They won’t resonate for a while, probably. How to put it... Oh yes, it’s sort of an ‘it never rains but it pours’ situation. Once a resonance starts, it remains in place for a while, but then it will go a long time without starting up again. There are patterns to the resonances, and that’s one of them. I think you should be all right for another month or two.”

“How can you know that if you don’t know when it’s resonating?” Yuichi asked.

“Because I’m an Outer. Even if I can’t feel the resonance itself, I can feel when a story is proceeding.”

It didn’t sound like Makina was lying.

They couldn’t afford to completely forget about the Evil God and the Divine Vessels, but this was better than being on full alert at all times.

“Does that mean we’ll have uneventful, ordinary school days for a while?” Yuichi asked hopefully.

Makina said nothing in response.

“Hey, you’re scaring me. Are you saying something is gonna happen?”

“Soul Reader is too much for an ordinary human to handle,” she said. “Seeing things you shouldn’t is going to cause all kinds of trouble for someone who isn’t an Outer. I think you’ve had plenty of experience with that already, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Yuichi said. “But seeing all that stuff means I can actively work not to get mixed up with weirdos.”

“An admirable approach, but I think you’ll find that resistance is futile,” she said. “Seeing worldviews with Soul Reader will cause them to mix together around you. The more you see, the more chaotic your life will become. The more time passes, the faster it will accelerate. Your best option would probably be to abandon Soul Reader entirely.”

“But the only way Monika knew to do that was to ask the Evil God.”

“I suppose you’ll have to wait until after the Evil God comes back into play, then,” she said. “Until then, you’ll probably get involved in even more strange happenings. I hope you’ll navigate them well enough.”

Yuichi had already navigated through more than his share of bizarre events. Her warning didn’t sound like it signified anything new.

But in fact, Makina was right. Yuichi’s situation was quickly about to change.