Prologue

V1: PROLOGUE — I WANT TO BE REWARDED

“Another second place, huh…” I muttered to myself as I looked at the ranking on the report card that had been returned to me.

Modern Japanese, 2nd place; Classical Japanese, 3rd place; English, 7th place; Japanese History, 3rd place; Politics–Economics and Ethics, 1st place. 2nd place overall out of 302 students in the third year in all five subjects combined. I thought I did pretty well, but once again, I was unable to snatch the top seat in my school year.

I looked at the several students gathered in the front right corner of the classroom.

“Kyaa! Kazuki, you’re first place again!? Amazing!”

“Moreover almost all first place! Hey~ c’mon teach me next time~.”

“Oh well, then how about this Sunday?”

““Thanks~ Kazuki~!””

I could hear noisy commotion. In the heart of that commotion was Sugawara Kazuki, a genius among geniuses, who had been topping the school year first place for over a year now. He and I didn’t have any real interaction at all, but I one-sidedly saw him as a rival.

Ever since entering this high school, I never beat him on an exam. I didn’t join in any club activities, refused to hang out with my classmates, and spent all my time studying except when eating, bathing, and reading—my only hobby; yet, I still couldn’t beat him.

There were geniuses in every place in the world, and Sugawara was the exact opposite of me; as the ace of the basketball team, the student council president, and a scholarship student, he was exactly a man who did well both in academics and sports. He was the winner among winners of life with his looks and popularity.

I swear, this world was unreasonable; because no matter how much effort you put in, you couldn’t compete with the barrier of having been born with talent. I was made fun of as a “try-hard,” called “bean sprout,” but even so, despite my undaunted efforts, I was no match for a genius. Although it was a leading school in the prefecture for advancement in higher school, only one or two people were accepted into Tokyo University each year. Sugawara Kazuki would most certainly be accepted. But to be honest, I had no confidence that I would be accepted, as I was not even certain I would be able to take the runner-up place in the school year—in fact, it’d been taken from me several times. Even with a life as strenuous as this, there were still many things that did not come true. And for a genius, Sugawara Kazuki got everything going great for him, and even constantly changed his girlfriend.

I was so frustrated by that, it was unbearable. That was why I didn’t want to lose, and I was half-stubbornly committed to giving my efforts. I just wanted to prove that the efforts of someone mediocre could beat a genius, so here I was, reading my flash cards even on my way to and from schoo⸻

“Watch out!!”

I didn’t know what had just happened. But by the time I realized it, the world was spinning round and round, followed by a loud noise and dazzling light, and a strong impact hitting me; I knew that apparently I had been hit by a car.

“Guhah…!”

A strange voice came out of me as I was slammed into the ground, but it felt surreal. I could feel my whole body, which must have been hit hard by the asphalt, slowly getting hot. I could tell that the surroundings were in a commotion and that students on their way home from the same high school were all paying attention towards here.

“Hey, are you okay…!?”

I could hear such a voice from a distance, but I couldn’t even make a reply. My whole body was hot, but it was starting to feel cold for some reason. A strong drowsiness came together with the chill, and I lost consciousness without being able to resist.

＊

An ambulance was parked. I couldn’t hear the siren. The red light was glowing and spinning. There were also some police cars parked, and the police officers were saying something to many of the onlookers. A yellow tape was stretched, and within the tape was a spot covered with a blue tarp.

For some reason, I was watching this scene from above. About ten meters up. I was looking at that scene in a daze for a few dozen seconds, and finally realized that I had died in an accident. This seemed to be the so-called out-of-body experience. I think it was a pretty dark experience. It was not something you could experience easily.

Meanwhile, I noticed that I was slowly ascending into the sky. I was already about 30 meters above the ground. It was exactly ascending to heaven. The commotion down below was also becoming hard to see.

100 meters up in the air. This was how it felt when I was looking down on the city when I climbed a mountain with some castle. I couldn’t see much down there anymore.

1,000 meters up in the air. It was like looking down from a high mountain, like Mount Fuji. I could even see the whole city I lived in. Well, I had no loveable childhood friend or any special close friend, so I didn’t have much attachment to it. My family also didn’t seem to put much expectation on me either, so it was a dull life.

10,000 meters up in the air. In short, 10 kilometers. I’d finally surpassed Mount Everest. The edge of the Earth looked round. I could no longer distinguish the world below except for whether there was a city or a forest. Coming here, the speed of the ascent was increasing rapidly.

100 kilometers up in the air. It was outside of the Earth’s atmosphere from here. Farewell Earth, until we meet again. …That said, I might not be able to see it again. While I didn’t even know if reincarnation really existed, there was no guarantee that I would be able to be born as an intelligent life on Earth again. At least, right after I died, I discovered that I was conscious in this way, so maybe there was reincarnation, though.

Right now I… actually, it was outer space. The distance was roughly 10,000 kilometers from Earth. I could even see the outline of the Earth clearly. It was round. The Earth was blue. Looking at Earth this way made me feel a little sad. I wondered where I would be going after this. I didn’t get any contact from a God-like person or anything, and there was no heaven above the cloud. I was going up, so at least I should not be going to hell. There was nothing good in my life, but it wasn’t like I didn’t want to go back to Earth again if I could. If possible, I would like to live a life where my efforts would be properly rewarded. …Well, looking back on my life, it didn’t seem like I ever had such a dream-like thing, though. In the first place, the Earth was also getting farther away.

I’d passed the moon. Mars was already close. Apparently, I might be the first person in the history of mankind to see the surface of Mars in detail with the naked eye. Well, I’d already lost my physical body, though. …Possibly it was the same for all dead people, but for that matter, I didn’t even see any other ghosts at all even though there must be a lot of other people dying besides me; in the first place, if they climbed straight up from the point of their death, then a Japanese and a Brazilian would climb up in the opposite directions. This means that not everyone who died would be able to see Mars up close. People bound for hell would probably see the continental plate and mantle. Then made me a lucky human. Well, since I died in a traffic accident, I guess it was lucky but not the best of luck., though.

I could see Jupiter. It was very far, but all I knew was that it was crazy huge. Everyday I listen to my heart hiitori jaanaaii. Uh-huh, I was ascending to heaven perfectly alone, though. Actually, where would this “heaven” be. It was not in the direction of the sun? Even though it had been worshipped as a God.

…I wonder if that was Pluto. The sun already looked much smaller. It was starting to get lonely. Actually, I wondered how long I would keep moving. I just wanted to return now. I got no body to return to, though.

……………I was getting tired of this. So this was the Milky Way Galaxy where I was born, huh (in monotone).

………………………………………Local galaxy group? Was that right? I had no idea anymore, really.

And then just for how many hours, or days, maybe years. As I was in a daze for a while, long enough that I didn’t even know how long it had been since my biological clock—I got no body, though!—had gone numb, feeling the hard to describe mystery of the universe, finally my consciousness began to fade. My vision was getting blurry, and dazzling, and I felt kind of warm, and right there, this time, my consciousness was completely cut off.