Chapter 1

Have you ever heard of something called a lottery?

In our country, Japan, it is a lottery where you can win as little as 100,000 yen for a small prize, and as much as several hundred million yen for a big one, all at an extremely low probability.

Every year, many lucky millionaires are produced, but perhaps no one in this country has ever been as lucky as he was.

"Damn, even though I didn't tell anyone other than my parents, where did those money-hungry people get their information from..."

This lucky winner, Shino Ichirou, cursed while driving the family car he had bought after winning, along the quiet mountain roads of the countryside, which had just welcomed summer.

The incident began about a month ago.

On his way home from work, as usual, he happened to notice the lottery stand next to the supermarket where he usually buys dinner and decided to stop by on a whim.

There, he found a poster that read:

"Lottery 6 on sale! Currently with a 4.2 billion yen carryover!"

He thought to himself, "If I win this, I can end my salaryman life after just three years. At 25, a slow life would be nice."

He bought a ticket, thinking that even if he didn't win, it would make for a good story.

However, Ichirou, thinking that buying it normally wouldn't be interesting, bought 10 tickets with the exact same numbers. In other words, if he was the only winner, he planned to take almost the entire 4 billion yen carryover, a foolish purchase.

"Still, I never thought I'd actually win 4 billion yen."

Indeed, his foolish purchase paid off, and he achieved the feat of winning 4 billion yen.

On the night of the draw, Ichirou spent an hour confirming that the lottery numbers in his hand matched those posted on the internet, and spent the night pacing around his small apartment, holding the lottery ticket and staring at it.

When it was time to go to work as usual, he was putting on his suit when he realized,

"I don't need to work anymore..."

So he called the company to inform them that he was taking a sick leave. He confirmed once again that his lottery numbers matched the winning numbers, locked his apartment door, and hid the lottery ticket in the gap under the refrigerator.

From that day until the date when the ticket could be cashed, he stayed in his room, guarding the refrigerator, and did not go shopping or to work. On the day of the cashing, he called a taxi to go to the bank and cashed the ticket immediately. He then deposited 4 billion yen into his bank account.

After cashing the ticket, he went to the company and reported to his superior,

"I've decided to take over my parents' machine shop, so I will be resigning from the company."

His superior seemed to be worried that he had been too strict, but when Ichirou explained,

"My parents are getting old, and it's becoming difficult for them to run the shop, so they asked me to come back."

His superior seemed to understand and said, "It must be tough, but do your best. If you need anything, come and talk to me," offering warm words of encouragement.

Incidentally, the family machine shop is currently almost inactive, and Ichirou's parents have been using their savings to travel and tend to their hobby garden.

After spending a month handling the handover and remaining tasks, he resigned smoothly. The next day,

He received over 50 phone calls a day from unknown religions, suspicious volunteer organizations, and friends he hadn't seen since elementary school, all asking for money. Tired of the constant knocking on his door by these money-hungry people, he decided to escape from the apartment. After consulting with his parents,

"There's an old mansion in the mountains of Gunma that has been in the family for generations. Why don't you go there for a while? When I saw it 30 years ago, it wasn't in bad shape, and the pillars and roof were solid. Also, I want to use it for fun, so please deposit about 100 million yen in my account."

Thinking that no one would come to such a place, he decided to stay there for a while. He also deposited about 500 million yen in his parents' account.

Two days later, the key to the mansion arrived by express mail, and Ichirou quickly left the apartment.

"I haven't seen this building in a long time... The address on the car navigation system is around here."

After driving for about 30 minutes on the mountain road and 10 minutes on a narrow, unpaved road, he saw a large, single-story mansion. The front of the house was covered with gravel, and there were almost no weeds, making it quite clean. The surrounding area was a bamboo forest, rustling in the wind.

"Wow, this is it. It's in pretty good shape, considering it's been abandoned for 30 years."

He parked the car on the gravel and got out to look at the mansion. It was much cleaner than he had expected. When he peeked inside using the key, he found that it was clean enough to live in immediately. It didn't look like it had been abandoned for 30 years.

"Why is it so clean? Maybe good buildings are fine even if left alone."

Feeling a bit uneasy, he explored the house and discovered a room at the far end with a sliding door and a padlock.

"Hey... Why is there a room with a padlock inside the house..."

Feeling uneasy, he touched the padlock, which broke with a "snap." Ichirou let out a pitiful scream and stepped back, but the padlock that should have fallen to the floor had disappeared without a trace.

"...This is it, right? The flag that if I open this door, I'll disappear. I'm opening it, though."

He took a rope from the car, tied it to the door handle, and clung to a pillar about 10 meters away, pulling the rope with all his might. The door, pulled by the rope, opened easily with a "creak," revealing a simple 6-mat room.

Ichirou, still clinging to the pillar, muttered, "Damn..." and sighed as he entered the room.

"What? It's not a normal 6-mat room... No, it's not..."

When he entered the room and looked up, he found that it was not the 6-mat room he had seen earlier, but a cold stone-paved corridor.

He quickly turned around and saw a sliding door on the other side, leading to a large stone-paved room.

"Huh? What is this? Did I get kidnapped by a spirit... Wait, what!?"

When he tried to return by stepping over the threshold of the sliding door, his view instantly switched back to the landscape of the mansion where he had been. When he stepped over the threshold again, he was back in the stone-paved corridor.

"Wow, this is amazing..."

After going back and forth between the mansion and the stone-paved corridor a few times, Ichirou suddenly noticed his dirty socks.

"...I should go get my shoes from the entrance."

His socks were heavily soiled by the dirt from the stone-paved corridor.