When the duel ended, Kojiro returned to his usual route home from school. Even though the fight had been fierce, less than two seconds had passed in real time.
Sunlight was still warm, and the students passing by were hurrying home with perfectly normal expressions. It was hard to believe that just moments ago, two Burst Linkers had been locked in a life-and-death showdown over their pride right here on this street.
That was exactly what made the Accelerated World so fascinating, Kojiro thought.
Even now, somewhere in Tokyo, there were surely Burst Linkers surrounded by spectators, fighting desperate duels. The thrill of moving back and forth between everyday life and the extraordinary—that was probably what kept Burst Linkers from ever stopping the acceleration.
Kojiro glanced over the peaceful surroundings once more, then hurried home as well.
*
The Comprehensive Protection and Training School for Orphaned Children that Kojiro attended operated entirely as a dormitory school. Since the school itself had been established to protect orphaned children, that was only natural.
And perhaps because it was a dormitory, and because of its special purpose of protecting orphaned children, the dorm where Kojiro lived was a little strict about bedtime and mealtimes.
Ordinary students naturally disliked that, but Kojiro did not care at all.
In fact, for Kojiro, who wanted to grow his body as quickly as possible, the dorm’s policy of paying attention to students’ nutritional balance and ensuring as much sleep as possible was very welcome.
There was, however, one part of it that Kojiro found less than pleasant.
After dinner, Kojiro carved out a bit of his not-at-all-long free time and headed to the student counseling room in the dormitory. Then, at the suggestion of the man waiting there, he sat down in a chair.
"Sasaki, have you finally made up your mind?"
In the not-very-large counseling room, a sturdy middle-aged man with dark-tanned skin asked Kojiro that question. His broad shoulders and thick, well-developed arms made it obvious that he had spent years, or perhaps still did, taking physical conditioning seriously.
This man was a teacher serving as the physical education adviser at the Comprehensive Protection and Training School for Orphaned Children Kojiro currently attended.
"Sasaki, you’re a genius when it comes to the body!"
He was also someone who had fallen for Kojiro, or more precisely, for Kojiro’s talent. For Kojiro, this unpleasant meeting had already been going on for nearly half a year.
Half a year ago, Kojiro had been in the middle of adapting to modern times. He couldn’t pay much attention to his surroundings, and he also didn’t think much about what consequences his actions might have in the future, so he would just do things first and worry later.
Well, it was what people called a stormy youth.
Anyway, during those whirlwind days, one day Kojiro spotted a group that looked obviously shady, along with children who seemed to be getting bullied by them. And the ones being bullied were students in the same grade as him, whom Kojiro knew well. Naturally, as someone who pursued the martial way, Kojiro couldn’t just stand by and watch, so he stepped between them.
At first, Kojiro had tried to calmly talk them down, but in the end, after the delinquents crossed the line, he gave them a little ‘massage.’ Well, the friends Kojiro personally disciplined that day were a bit numerous and a bit large, but that didn’t matter to Kojiro. Apparently, it mattered very much to this passionate PE teacher.
Somehow finding him, the teacher had persistently tried to persuade Kojiro from that day on, eventually making him undergo a physical assessment and the like, and at some point he had become Kojiro’s fan. Since then, things had continued exactly like this.
"If Sasaki-kun agrees, I can have you selected as a sports scholarship student at our school right away!"
"I’m sorry, but haven’t I been refusing that for a long time now?"
"Because I hate to waste talent! I hate to waste it! Sasaki-kun, you’re definitely a genius!"
In truth, calling a young bud a genius this early could have a bad effect on future growth, but the teacher was desperate.
"Sasaki-kun, you’re still young, so you may not understand this yet, but the time when talent can blossom is almost fixed. Fortunately, it’s not too late for you yet, but if a few more years pass, it’ll become really difficult. Only if you receive proper training and care from now on can you fully bloom in whatever field you eventually choose and truly succeed!"
He wasn’t pestering Kojiro out of any ill will. That was exactly why Kojiro found the teacher so troublesome. But Kojiro was also in a period where he was busy building up his own body.
Of course, it would be nice to receive the school’s material and intangible support, but if he ended up joining a sports club like the kendo club, it could interfere with his current self-directed training. No, it definitely would.
In the end, Kojiro straightened his posture, looked the PE teacher straight in the eye, and spoke seriously.
"I appreciate your concern, but I’m already preparing for my future in my own way. And there are things I want to focus on separately right now. I don’t know what path I’ll take in the future, but for now, I’d like to try doing things my own way."
At Kojiro’s serious attitude, the teacher could no longer say anything else. He only added a heartfelt piece of advice.
"Sasaki-kun, our school does have a small scholarship system. Usually it’s for top students who are given the chance to advance to an outside middle school, but if you become a special athletic student, I’ll see what I can do to get you that benefit. However, to do that, you’d need to join one of the school’s sports clubs and achieve a certain level of results. If you really mean that, I won’t push you any further. But if you’re truly thinking about a future in athletics, I’d like you to tell me before it’s too late."
Moved by the teacher’s sincere concern for his student’s future, Kojiro gave a heavy nod and replied.
"Yes, I’ll keep that in mind."
Then, as Kojiro stood up and was about to leave the counseling room, the teacher asked casually as if it were nothing.
"By the way, I hear some kind of game is becoming popular among students these days. You’re not obsessed with something like that, are you, Sasaki-kun? Haha."
"......Haha, of course not."
I’m sorry, sensei. That’s exactly it.
*
That night, Kojiro finally prepared to dive into the Unlimited Neutral Field. After using the bathroom and changing into comfortable clothes, he lay down on his bed. Since this was his first time entering the Unlimited Neutral Field, he didn’t plan to stay too long, but to prepare for any unexpected situation, he decided to dive on a weekend evening when he had no schedule for the next day.
Feeling the softness of the bed beneath him, Kojiro gently closed his eyes and spoke the command.
"Unlimited Burst."
Kwoooorrrrrr!!
With an acceleration sound twice as loud as usual, Kojiro opened his eyes and saw that he was no longer in the familiar dorm room. Instead, he was in a far more desolate place made of black, inorganic metal.
"Is this a dark field?"
It was an attribute he had seen a few times in the general battle fields. A dark, black atmosphere, like the castle of a demon king. The entire field was composed of black, rigid metallic background objects, and because their durability was so high, they wouldn’t break easily. Aside from that, it was a relatively plain field with nothing especially remarkable about it.
"Glad it’s not some lava or hellish field."
Kojiro muttered that to himself.
Brain Burst had a variety of attribute fields divided into eight types: earth, water, fire, wind, wood, metal, dark, and holy. Among them were stages where just standing still drained your stamina, and even fields that caused physiological discomfort.
While leveling up to Level 4, Kojiro had fought many duels and almost never allowed his opponents to land attacks, but there had been a few times he took damage from bizarre attribute fields.
In any case, no matter how long he intended to stay in the Unlimited Neutral Field, a field without any special gimmicks like a dark attribute one was very fortunate from Kojiro’s perspective.
After finishing his thoughts on the field’s attributes, Kojiro checked the top of his vision and confirmed that there was no time limit beside his health gauge. He really had dived into the Unlimited Neutral Field.
Kojiro first headed up to the rooftop of the dormitory building to look around. The building itself wasn’t very tall, but because it stood on high ground, the whole of Nerima Ward spread out before him at a glance.
And the sight he saw there was, quite literally, breathtaking.
Thick gray clouds churned in layers across the sky, and violet lightning flashed frequently through the gaps. On the ground below, a cluster of high-rise buildings had transformed into something befitting the name dark magic, like the fortress of an evil army. At first glance it had a certain coolness to it, but the overall dark color scheme made it look dreary.
Kojiro stared blankly at the scenery and thought about why he had dived into the Unlimited Neutral Field in the first place. This dive had two purposes: to learn more about the Unlimited Neutral Field, and to choose a place where he could train.
In truth, Kojiro had always thought, even in his previous life, that a warrior’s training belonged in the mountains. So while he was considering which mountain to settle on, he decided that if he was going to choose a mountain symbolic of Japan, Mt. Fuji would be best.
The problem was that Mt. Fuji was about 100 kilometers away in a straight line from the dormitory in his current location, Nerima Ward. If he tried to walk there, the trip alone would take quite some time.
For the time being, Kojiro started walking through the dark-attribute Unlimited Neutral Field, thinking he might as well treat it like sightseeing in Tokyo, just as he had when he first started Brain Burst.
Then, as Kojiro left the dorm and moved aimlessly wherever his feet took him, a strange sound reached his ears.
Tap tap!!Tadadak!
It sounded like footsteps. But not human footsteps. Rather, beasts. Three of them, not one. Just as he grasped that much, a shadow leapt up above Kojiro’s head.
Without even drawing the sword at his back, Kojiro immediately swung it while still in its scabbard.
Thwack!Keruk!
The distinctive sensation of striking a living creature ran through Kojiro’s grip. The one that had been hit let out an unpleasant groan, shattered the glass of a nearby shop along the road, and was sent crashing inside. Then two strange beasts surrounded Kojiro from the front and rear.
Their size was close to that of adult tigers, but their shape resembled dogs. Their eyes burned red, and their bodies were a mixture of purple and black, which seemed like it could serve as natural camouflage in a dark-attribute field. More importantly, every time the saliva dripping from their mouths hit the ground, it produced an unpleasant smoke, which meant their drool must also have a corrosive property.
While Kojiro was observing the enemies in front of and behind him, the third beast he had just sent flying burst out of the shattered shop. It looked similar to the other two, but its size seemed nearly one and a half times larger.
Kroooaang! Grrrrr! Krek!
With heavy roars unique to four-legged beasts, the three of them surrounded Kojiro on three sides. After a brief standoff, the beasts seemed to realize Kojiro was no easy opponent and did not attack rashly, instead circling him and waiting for an opening.
Are these really just simple mobs moving on AI? Kojiro wondered, and then—
Kwoaaang!!
At the signal from the beast that seemed to be the leader, attacks began from three directions at once. Even in that life-or-death moment, Kojiro found himself smiling without meaning to.
"So this Accelerated World really is a place where there’s never a moment to get bored."
And then he drew the sword at his back and swung it powerfully.
Unlimited Neutral Field - Dark Attribute
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