In countless parallel universes, there are countless Earths, one of which is a very insignificant one. And the story I’m about to tell happens right there.
In this world, at the end of the 20th century, a force used absolute force to break down all the barriers between nations, borders, and beliefs, making all human beings become subjects before they could react. Anyone who dares to resist will be wiped out within two years.
Human beings completed the unification of the power of the entire planet in 2000. Since this year, the concept of national boundaries no longer exists on the earth. , only the names of the individual cities have survived.
A word that has not been mentioned for a long time has reappeared on the stage of history – the emperor.
For better or worse, at least in this universe, the people of Earth are not finally united in the form of a federation, but in the form of an empire.
In fact, from a long-term perspective, if a group of monkeys, or a group of bugs, or even a group of robots invades from outside the galaxy in a few years, the Earth Empire will definitely be more combative than the Earth Federation.
Of course, that doesn’t happen in this story.
Things begin in December 2100.
The Sakura House is one of the smallest “houses” in the world. Originally, the Empire planned to include it in Dragon County, but considering its geographical location at sea, there have been frequent earthquakes and tsunamis since ancient times, and there is also a volcano on it. It is alive, and it is possible to sink into the sea one day if it is not kept together; and the jurisdiction of Longjun is already very broad, so the upper echelons of the empire finally decided to set the Sakura House as a “house” alone.
This winter, on the streets of Hokkaido, a boy was running out of breath, and the cold air of the morning slashed at his face like a knife.
He is neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin, with a popular face, and the glasses on the bridge of his nose are as thick as the bottoms of two beer bottles. He was wearing a black school uniform and carrying a shabby schoolbag on his shoulders. From the temples to the buttons to the trousers, there was nothing wrong with him, a typical good student.
But this good student is late again.
“Oh, Ikeda-kun, I came here sweating profusely today, well, let’s sit down.” The teacher who said this was surnamed Matsuo, a middle-aged man with a bald head, the head teacher of Ikeda. , teaches mathematics.
This is a very good school, and it ranks among the top high schools in Sakura no Fu. However, compared to the academies attended by nobles and royal families, it was not worth mentioning.
Because the place where I live is relatively remote, Ikeda has to catch a bus with very few departures every morning to go to school on time. Once I miss this bus, Ikeda has to run for about 40 minutes to get to school, so although he I work very hard, but I will always be late so many times in a month because I miss the bus for various reasons.
Matsuo is a snob, and Ikeda is the kind of poor student he despises, and he often uses Ikeda’s little mistakes as an excuse to embarrass him in public. Fortunately, Matsuo seemed to be in a good mood today, and instead of humiliating Ikeda for fun, he continued to teach his class.
This also made Ikeda heave a sigh of relief. He scurried to his seat, put away his schoolbag lightly, and took out his textbook.
Because of being late, the first class was over ten minutes after Ikeda sat down.
Matsuo didn’t say much nonsense, and walked out of the classroom with the bell of the end of get out of class, but when he reached the door, he turned his face and glanced at Ikeda with a bad look, Ikeda clearly saw a sneer from the corner of Matsuo’s mouth.
“Hey, wet mosquito coils, I have something to tell you, come to the rooftop.” The monitor Miura is a tall and strong fat man, and his family is rich. I heard that his father is the director of a large hospital, so the snobbish Matsuo will let him study Miura, who has average grades, is the monitor.
“Oh, okay…” Ikeda didn’t react to the name “wet mosquito coil” because other boys and even girls in the class usually call him that. Mosquito coils refer to his ridiculous glasses, and wet mosquito coils actually mean that they can’t be used, so this nickname is basically equivalent to “waste”.
Because it is a high school, there are very few bad boys in the real sense, but bullying guys like Miura are all over the universe, from kindergarten to stepping into society, only such characters can be seen everywhere.
Ikeda has been bullied by Miura all the time. In addition to running errands, she has to write homework for her, and teachers like Matsuo naturally turn a blind eye.
After arriving on the rooftop, Miura didn’t say a word, and inexplicably beat Ikeda. He attacked very hard and didn’t pay attention to proportions, while Ikeda just held his head and curled up in a ball during the whole process, without any reaction. Signs of fighting back because of anger, just gritted his teeth and endured it.
Maybe it’s a habit. As soon as he entered the school, he was deliberately beaten up by the seniors of the senior year. Later, he was also regarded as the best target for bullying by the seniors. Ikeda, who is now a sophomore in high school, is just a trashy fool in the eyes of the first-year freshman, and is not regarded as a senior at all.
When the bell rang for class, Miura stopped and turned to leave.
“Why?” Ikeda struggled to squeeze out such a sentence.
“Huh?” Miura spat, and replied nonchalantly, “If you want to explain the reason, maybe it’s boring, I haven’t beaten anyone for a long time.”
The door to the rooftop was closed, and Ikeda was still on the ground. His self-esteem was probably hurt more than the bruises on his body.
Maybe it’s time to cry, but he couldn’t cry anymore.
For students like Ikeda, it seems that the only options are transfer or suicide.
Unfortunately, he did not have the conditions to transfer schools, nor the courage to commit suicide.
All he can do is continue this life.
…………
The evening of December 10th.
When the school bell rang, for Ikeda, every day in high school was like a year, and when he got home, he had to do a lot of housework, because the father of a gambler and an alcoholic was drunk all day, and usually only did three things : The lower limit of playing drunk and crazy show, beating son to practice body, drooling to sleep.
Ikeda walks weakly through familiar streets. The whole world is very dark for him, and every moment of his life is like suffering.
Gradually walking to a remote area, Ikeda suddenly stopped, looked at a shop on the side of the road, and said to himself, “Is there a bookstore here?” He vaguely remembered that it was just a few days ago. There is an open space, but now there is clearly a single-storey building of dozens of square meters. “BOOKS” is written on the signboard, and books are piled up behind the window facing the street, making it difficult to see what’s going on in the house.
Perhaps out of curiosity, or simply because he didn’t want to go back to his messy home too soon, Ikeda pushed the door and went in.
After entering the room, people feel that the space inside seems to be larger than the outside. The layout of the room is roughly cross-shaped. Except for the surrounding bookshelves, some of the tables are stacked with books. Books are also stacked in the corners and on the ground. There are almost no passages for people to stand and walk in this messy place, and the space is occupied by the piles of books that are placed at random.
The smells characteristic of paper and leather fill the air, and it’s not unpleasant. Going a few steps further, you can see a desk, sitting on a sofa chair behind the desk, a man in his twenties or thirties, with messy hair, wearing a black shirt and suit, with an open neckline, a pair of Rough look.
Tianyi didn’t respond to the customer’s visit, and still held the book in one hand and read it, while the other hand held a spoon, slowly stirring the cup of coffee on the table.
“That… Boss… Excuse me…” Ikeda instinctively wanted to ask where the bookstore came from.
Tianyi didn’t let him finish his words at all, and he didn’t take his eyes off the book he was holding. He just put down the spoon, raised his arm lazily, pointed to the three rows of bookshelves in the corner on his left, and said, “You The things to see are there.”
Ikeda felt that the situation in front of him was unspeakably strange, but he still walked towards the rows of bookshelves dumbly. Can lead him to solve all the doubts in his heart.
When I got there, Ikeda discovered that all the books on this shelf had black covers, and it was impossible to tell the content from the appearance alone, so it didn’t matter if you picked up any of them. So he took a book off the shelf and turned to look at Tianyi, where he was still reading and drinking coffee, completely ignoring himself.
“What a weird guy…” Ikeda whispered, opening the book in his hand.
The first page is a piece of white paper, turn to the second page, and the title of the book is written on the center.
Those are three words written in green ink that makes people uncomfortable to look at – Ikeda Nozomi.
“My name?” Ikeda instantly felt goosebumps, thinking, “Is it a coincidence? A prank? A TV show?”
He turned a few pages back. Except for the title of the book, the rest of the text was in normal black typography~IndoMTL.com~, but the content made Ikeda almost scream in horror.
“People like Dad, let’s die.”
“Mipura bastard, I really want to push him down the stairs.”
“I want to be a popular boy like Fujita.”
Ikeda quickly flipped through the contents, his face gradually filled with panic and anger, until about two-thirds of the whole book was read, the rest of the content was interrupted, and there were only a few dozen pages left. white paper.
And the last two lines are: “A coincidence? A prank? A TV show?” and “How is that possible?!”
Tianyi finally put down the book in his hand, took a sip of coffee, and turned to look at Ikeda: “Put the book back, let’s discuss a deal.”
Ikeda was trembling, hesitating, instinctual fear of incomprehensible things, and not wanting to put down the book full of his “voices”, which made him struggle and did not follow Tianyi’s words for a while.
Tian Yi sighed: “Put the book down and come over, or I’ll chop you up and feed the pigs.”
Ikeda compromised. He put the book back on the shelf, memorizing the location, and nervously walked towards Tenichi’s desk.
Tian Yi showed a fake smile that couldn’t be more fake: “Ikeda-kun, feeding pigs and anything is a joke, don’t mind, the content you just saw is free, but only for once.” He recalled the book that he had been reading since Ikeda entered the house until now. The book also had the appearance of being wrapped in black book cover.
“The title of this book is Kazuya Miura.” Tian was very satisfied with Ikeda’s expression after hearing the words, and he continued in a very provocative tone: “As long as you do one thing in exchange, you will You can see what’s inside.”