Prologue

The searing white sun passed through the sky, tracing the horizon.

Almost unnaturally bright, it never rose or set, carving a perfect path parallel to the skyline. Circling all three hundred sixty degrees, it had done this without a clear beginning or end, never once ceasing its perpetual cycle.

This was a world stopped in time, with no day or night.

As if the sky wasn’t mysterious enough, the land itself was in an inexplicable state, too.

At a glance, the scene seemed ordinary enough.

There were towns and villages, buildings with people living in them. Many of them were rather timeworn and almost Victorian-looking structures, but these houses weren’t strange enough that one would think too much of them. In the fields and forests were monsters that threatened the people’s everyday lives, and there were also adventurers who made a living by destroying such beasts.

But this world, which seemed natural, was all artificially made.

The people who lived in the towns and villages were all conjured puppets, carefully crafted to look like humans. The lifelike monsters, too, were all soldiers without blood or flesh, not natural creatures with their own ecosystem. And it wasn’t just the moving organisms that were fictions created with conjuring. Everything, from the land to the plants, was created and colored by a power from the Primary Colors.

The workings of this world were all made from Concepts of Primary Colors.

They were said to be capable of creating a world—because they had accomplished such a feat.

The result was the eastern Wild Frontier: the Mechanical Society.

It was made with an almost pathological level of precision, every inch packed with detail. Created with the three Primary Colors, this disturbingly large diorama seemed to repaint the world itself.

Upon realizing this, one would shudder at the emptiness of it all.

The mindless puppets went about their lives without saying a word. Families living together in houses. Children playing in the park. None of it held an ounce of meaning. They never produced a single emotion, never raised the slightest peep, only ever making dull echoes of their movements.

It was a robotic, empty box, created on land that was bound by the endless presence of the unsetting sun running parallel to the horizon.

There were no living creatures here. Even if a living being did set foot in this world saturated by Primary Colors, they would instantly be cloaked by the hue and made into one of the conjured soldiers that populated this world.

All of it was artificial.

In the heart of this world—where all things were manipulated by a puppet master—an innocent singing voice disrupted the silence, strangely out of place.

“Mm, mm, mmm, mm, mm, mmm!”

It was a little girl with black hair and black eyes, wearing a white dress. She looked like she was less than ten years old. There was something innocent and cherubic about her, though her features were rather refined. Heedless of the bizarre nature of this world, she cheerfully hummed a tune.

“Mm, mm-mm, mmm, mmm, mm, mmm!”

The girl was riding on a limbless monster that resembled a giant earthworm. Though it had no arms or legs, its body was covered in very humanlike mouths, and it was dragging itself along the ground with its teeth. Like a centipede but with mouths in place of legs.

The innocent-looking girl riding atop the hideous monster was even more horrifying.

Something was viscerally upsetting about how cheerfully she was humming despite being in a mechanical world cleansed of any living things and riding on a frightening creature. The warmth of her flowing blood, the softness of the soles of her bare feet, the intonation of her wordless tune…all of it was far too warm for this world in a way that chilled one to the core.

By all appearances, the girl was an innocent cherub—harmless, defenseless, and adorable. It would be difficult for an outsider to understand why such an adorable child seemed so out of place in this world.

Only the dress with three holes in the chest gave any indication of the girl’s dark nature.

She was the worst of all the Otherworlders who held unnatural powers. The progenitor of all monsters and demons in this world: Pandæmonium.

Character name: Pandæmonium. Data has been registered.

“Mm?”

The little girl suddenly looked up at the sky. A voice seemed to ring inside her head.

Welcome to Container World. Your ability to level up is…

As the voice continued to speak in her head, the little girl tapped the monster she was riding with a finger. It was a signal for the monster to bite down on the girl’s body, using its many mouths to tear her flesh and crush her bones, devouring the little girl within moments.

As a few of the mouths smacked their lips with satisfaction, a slender arm burst out between another set of teeth.

“How rude. You’re getting on my nerves.”

From within the mouth emerged the same little girl who had just been chewed up and consumed. Covered in monster fluid, she dragged herself out headfirst, then her torso, and finally came the rest of her body.

“I have business in the area, so I figured I’d come check on a certain someone for the first time in a thousand years, but I guess we still don’t see eye to eye.”

She had sacrificed her own body to summon a new self. The girl—who was immortal and whose death catalyzed revival—did a spinning jump back on top of the monster, returning to where she’d been before.

“Too bad. You’re a thousand years too early to try to mess with me and control me! I’m not going along with your silly games. As far as I’m concerned, movies are the best form of entertainment there is!”

With the unharmed girl riding atop it, the hundred-mouthed monster continued crawling along as if nothing had happened.

“Anyone who watches movies learns that the world isn’t supposed to be emotionless. Tragedies and comedies trigger a response in us because we have human hearts. Desperately struggling for freedom or defying fate gives our lives value… But the problem with gamers is that you just try to create elaborate things instead.”

Shaking her head in a show of utter exasperation, she gazed up at the distant sun.

In this world painted entirely with Primary Colors, the only pure-white object present was the sun in the sky.

Who would ever suspect that the white sun was man-made?

That was the one element that wasn’t part of this world’s creation—an artificial sun, made by the Ivory hero to seal away the endlessly multiplying Vessel a thousand years ago.

“It really is so grand, wonderful, and white.”

The ultimate, unbeatable, most powerful Pure Concept: Ivory. A single glance at that relic it had left behind was a reminder of its awe-inspiring strength.

If Ivory hadn’t been there a thousand years ago, what would have become of the world?

For better or worse, things certainly would’ve gone very differently.

There were only two beings that even Ivory couldn’t kill completely: the weakest yet most despicable Evil and the smallest yet most numerous Vessel. The former brought forth demons and monsters with Original Sin, but the latter used the Primary Colors to paint over the world.

The Pure Concept Vessel could create any shape and conceal itself within any form. With the limitless expansion of Primary Colors, it had tried to take control over the entire world. Which was why Ivory had created an eternal white midnight sun, to seal the threat away in a fictional world. It was an attempt to destroy the boundary between day and night, to cut off all sense of geography, time, space, and any other conceptual connection from the outside world.

Just like the seal that kept Pandæmonium in the fog, this seal, too, held for a thousand years without fail.

But somewhere along the line…

The white night that was supposed to be never-ending began to be visited by sunset.

For just an hour a day, the white sun sank away, and a true night fell.

In the darkness, Pandæmonium made her way into the heart of the world.

It was then that the conjured puppets that imitated humans, the Mechanical Society that mimicked life in another world, suddenly stopped.

Tens of millions of gazes gathered on her. The hundred-mouthed creature Pandæmonium was riding thinned all its lips, as if unable to bear the pressure.

“Mm.” The adorable little girl puffed up her cheeks in a pout. “So you’re still alive after all. I’m sad that you ignored me for so long.”

“Damned bugs,” a voice echoed.

One of the conjured puppets had opened its mouth, leading the others to follow in a cascade of voices.

“Pesky bugs.” “Damned maggot. You always come back even when I crush you.” “I try to fix you, but you never go away.” “Why are you here?” “In our peaceful realm?” “Why does anyone else dare try to exist here?” “Why do you attempt to open our world?”

“I see you haven’t changed a bit. You’re the definition of a shut-in, aren’t you? I can’t imagine anyone else would complain about the seal starting to weaken.”

It had been so long that Pandæmonium had even forgotten how to speak for a time. And yet, this person was complaining about the thousand-year stopper loosening at last.

“Why should I care?” “What does that matter?” “The bugs haven’t been crushed yet.” “There’s not enough time.” “For eternity.” “There is never enough time.” “Especially if it’s possible to go outside.” “Then I need even more time.” “To make the outside all part of my world, too.”

Pandæmonium shrugged her small shoulders at the echoing, forlorn voices.

“We still don’t get along, do we? Mm, your Pure Concept and mine are like oil and water anyway. We’re bound not to mix, but…being in conflict is wonderfully chaotic, too, I guess.” Pandæmonium cast her eyes around.

This entire world had been made by just one person. Amid all the strangely Victorian-style buildings, there was one structure that looked out of place: a square, three-story building made of reinforced concrete. The building had an attached gymnasium and fenced-off grounds. Its architecture was unfamiliar in this world, but any Japanese person would recognize it at once.

It was a school building.

“You’re in there, aren’t you? You never change, even if you pretend you do. I think that’s really quite typical of you.”

Looking at the heart of the Mechanical Society, which continued producing its strange world, Pandæmonium shook her head.

“But if you’re in there, then I’m not coming in. I’m sure it’ll be much more fun to leave here, meet up with Manon, and play with her.”

There was only one reason she wasn’t going in to see her old acquaintance for the first time in a thousand years.

“I always hated school. At least, I think I did.”

Letting the remnants of her memories and personality drift away on the wind, Pandæmonium twirled around to walk away. Then she blinked in surprise. Suddenly, someone was right in front of her.

A faceless man stood in front of Pandæmonium. Holes riddled his body, especially his head, where it looked like his facial features had been hollowed out.

And yet, he was alive. The Guiding Force that overflowed from his wounds was serving as his body.

“Mm!”

Pandæmonium, it seemed, had never seen the likes of him before. She exclaimed in surprise and spread her arms wide.

“Nice to meet you. Sooo, who might you be?”