me praize only me, soooo pitty....meaningless,meaningless.
A developing, mirage-like dog was walking toward a public office to register itself in the family registry as a humanoid, while idly thinking about trivial things along the way.
If I had stayed in dog form, things might’ve been easier with an owner around. Maybe if I’d just told the vet what I was thinking, I wouldn’t have ended up with this psychosomatic mess of a mind.
“Kagerou. Mirage. Something elusive like that would be nice to add to my name… The characters for sun and flame, I can borrow those from the old man and old lady who raised me. Can’t exactly hold my head high against them.”
I’ll think about it once I’ve decided on a forward-looking reason to live.
At the public office, all sorts of people were gathered. Some had steady jobs and had come for paperwork, while others were job seekers, or applicants for relief systems like public assistance.
The dog thought, “In this world, there are wild Trace Manifesters too, and cases like mine aren’t exactly special. But they made me undergo a few rounds of what they called vaccinations, which felt more like precision examinations… What the hell was that about?”
The public office was filled with official notices, day-labor postings, requests, and groups of explorers who took on commissions. Job seekers were everywhere.
The dog thought, “Why are there still this many job seekers and endless requests being posted, when the world is overflowing with such convenient abilities? I have to choose, right alongside this dog-to-human registry process, whether I’m going toward job placement or a survivor’s pension. But I don’t even know how long my lifespan will hold out. I want more points of contact with communities outside. I want to visit landscapes I still don’t know, as an explorer.”
Public Office Clerk: “Temporary name, Kagerou. Thank you for waiting.”
Public Office Clerk: “According to the documents you submitted in advance, you are able to communicate verbally in this language, and you are here to formally register your name. Is that correct? Then, may we begin by confirming that you can communicate through human speech?”
From dog to half-beast: “Even in this state, I can proceed in this language.”
Clerk: “Yes. That means you also have other forms, correct? If you don’t mind, could you show us those as well?”
From dog to almost human: “This state is no different from the half-beast one in terms of speech, but I’m more aware of other people’s eyes, and emotionally I feel closer to my dog form.”
Clerk: “Yes. That seems broadly acceptable. Then we will move on to the formal registration of your name.”
Clerk: “Do you have any preferences? In this town, there are no particular restrictions, and a long name is acceptable. However, during later procedures such as employment support, it may take more time, so although we do not use middle names exactly, there is a high chance you will be addressed by a nickname. How would you like to proceed?”
The dog wrote down a rather long name.
Dog: “When others address me, Enyou will be fine.”
Clerk: “Then we will call you Enyou. The formal name registration has been completed without issue, and the data has already been shared within this institution. Whether you go to the employment support section or the survivor’s pension desk after this, I believe they will address you as Enyou. That concludes the procedure at the formal name registration desk. Thank you very much for coming in.”
Enyou: “Thank you.”
The old man and old lady probably don’t have much longer. Some wild instinct in me can tell, and I can smell the way their bodies are turning toward the scent of death. What do I do now? If I say I want work tied to pharmaceuticals, then it’s either becoming an investigator or explorer, or earning the absurd medical costs for life-extension treatment through some medical institution. Well, I don’t want to end up like that old man from the journal. Either way, maybe I’ll start with short-term work.
Enyou went to the employment support section and browsed through the job postings in a rough, unfocused way.
How old am I, really? I had that treatment, but I can become either one, man or woman. Let’s see… There’s a lot here. First of all, they’ll probably doubt whether I even count as a Manifester. Some exploration group somewhere, maybe… Hmm. But I might not be able to come back. Ah, what a pain. Passive is fine. I’ll register the traits of my Manifested Gear and go through the proper route.
After Enyou finished explaining his three forms, his slight wild abilities, his emotional tendencies, and his innate qualities, he was issued a communication device. According to the explanation, his abilities were supernatural but not outstanding. When asked where his traits could be clearly put to use, the staff member simply said, “Perhaps it will depend on the right encounter.” He was given a device through which he could accept short-term jobs and short-term requests, then headed home.
…………………………………
Wake up! Write! Leave! Die!
That came too fast, so I had the ask sir AI and hail,obey....
……………………………………………………
On the way home, Enyou kept turning the newly issued communication device over and over in his hands.
Jobs. Requests. Investigations. Escorts. Gathering. Transport. Experimental cooperation. Clinical trial assistance. Missing-person searches. Vermin extermination. Patrols of abnormal zones.
Just looking at the categories, it seemed like he could do anything. But each request came with small-print conditions.
Must have Manifested Gear registered.
Must be able to communicate during form changes.
Must agree to liability divisions in case of injury.
Those without medical insurance will have fees deducted from pay.
In cases of death, disappearance, feralization, or memory confusion, the regulations of the affiliated institution shall apply.
Enyou stopped walking.
“Convenient abilities aren’t called convenient by the ones being conveniently used.”
If he had stayed a dog, maybe he could have gone on without knowing any of this. He might have had an owner, a place to sleep, food served to him, someone to pet him, someone to take him to the hospital, and maybe someone who would cry when he died.
But now that he had been registered as humanoid, things were different.
He had a name.
He could be called.
He could work.
He could choose.
And even the responsibility for not choosing would belong to him.
The device gave a small vibration.
Short-term request notification.
Low-risk residual trace reaction survey at an old pharmaceutical warehouse on the outskirts of town.
Low pay.
Meal support included.
Beginners accepted.
However, priority given to those with a strong sense of smell.
Enyou laughed a little.
“I thought being treated like a dog was over. Turns out now they’re hiring me for my dog skills.”
Even so, his finger stopped above the accept button.
……………………………………………………
TAKAYAs note.....
I can’t write because someone seems to be irritated. I was thinking of dropping this. I’m the one currently on public assistance over here, and when it comes to money, I’m starting to think that maybe I can receive certain things if I completely ignore that whole “the grass is greener on the other side” theory, even if only a little. So I’m dropping it here.
It’s Enyou, but he isn’t shadow. Still, a part of Hiiragi-san lives with wolves, and apparently kagerou is a summer season word. Maybe I should make it so he can distinguish the smell of death, then frame it like, “Is this some crude theorem?” Not like I can make anyone suddenly gasp in realization anyway.
I’ve been wondering whether it’d be cruel to steer Hiiragi-san more toward something like Kinnikuman, Ryo Saeba, or Space Dandy. If it doesn’t turn into Cthulhu, then it becomes AVP. There’s also Okami, that brushstroke game with the wolf god.
Well… today seems to be one of those “die, write, leave, die” days, so I’ll stop. If I at least set down the economic sphere, hunger, and libido for now, I can step away, let it be enjoyed, and end there. Then I can rest slowly.
In the end, I guess “a pig that doesn’t fly is just a pig” is only carrying a bit of my envy and speaking on my behalf.
………………
………………
Somewhere, a voice spoke.
Someone said, “As has been stated, for someone like me, whose mental disorder makes even receiving a survivor’s pension feel like finding that living is the same as dying, either way is fine. Still, I think I’ll move forward.”
Enyo said, “What was that voice just now…? Maybe this is the downside of pushing the psychosomatic angle so hard…”
As he walked, Enyo thought only in the hollow of his chest.
There is no real “me,” and yet I was always sensitive to the smell of death.
As a creature raised as a pet dog, I had an imagination even back when I ate dog food, and even when I secretly ate human food in human form.
When you are kept as a pet and your owners are elderly, the days barely change beyond whether you go for a walk or not.
Sometimes they complained to me. Sometimes I listened, nodded along, got petted, and stayed quietly beside them.
A dog’s lifespan was apparently set at around fifteen to thirty years.
But thanks to the Trace equipment that lets me take human form, I think my life has been extended.
Originally, I should have lived as part of a pack.
But I spent too much time alone.
Maybe that loneliness only made my habit of imagining things worse.
It was inconvenient, apparently because I was incomplete, but there were times when my raw body could still outperform Trace ability users.
Maybe that was what broke me.
Enyo said, “Death… huh. I’ll knead that one inside my heart.”
According to the old man’s notes, he hated any way of dying except one that exceeded bodily regeneration.
That was what he had written in that absurd, worthless pile of garbage prose.
Come to think of it, how had I gotten those notes?
…………I remember.
When I was in human form, working as a non-regular day laborer on a cleaning job.
I found them in a trash can.
Were they missing pieces?
Was I reading them while filling in the gaps?
Were they paper? A forgery?
Or did they regenerate while I read them?
Enyo said, “This is strange… Would my psychosomatic symptoms really get this much worse just because I registered my ability traits, registered my human-form family record, and qualified for regular employment?”
A bad habit.
Maybe my spineless life had been the foundation, and my imagination and psychosomatic issues had just tangled together.
I should stop thinking about conspiracy theories and properly read the job I had already pressed accept on.
The solo explorer device read the request aloud in a flat voice.
Solo Explorer Device: “Sugar-date gig… hm… hmm-hmm… It exists even though it doesn’t, and doesn’t exist even though it does. What should I do… Transportation covered by the other party, one hundred fifty thousand. Payment, thirty thousand. Client, four hundred twenty years old… unusual.”
Enyo said, “I have no experience, but if I go in half-beast form and dog form, that’s basically one hundred eighty thousand…”
Compared to the technology sugar-dating and ability-edge rates flooding the streets, it was an exceptional deal.
Enyo said, “Two nights and three days? Oh, I said that out loud.”
I want to let Grandpa and Grandma eat something good.
Two nights and three days should be fine.
And so Enyo set out toward the plain, simple land where Shu Amane was waiting.
On the way, Enyo began thinking again.
Am I reading too much, or is this just imagination?
A wolf photo and an old man.
Did they really think that was subtle?
If I think the way the old man’s notes taught me to think, then maybe something will happen to me on the road.
Or maybe I’ll come home safely, only to find Grandpa and Grandma dead.
Those awful thoughts kept coming first.
I need to read some other kinds of bad prose too.
Leaning too far one way is never good.
My heart and body are swaying.
In some book from Earth, I feel like I heard something like victory to the dead starving wolf.
Can wolves and dogs interbreed?
Enyo said, “I’m not getting sleepy.”
Without stopping, Enyo called up a voice he only half remembered.
Enyo said, “That miserable loser of an old man who claimed to be a ladle-type Trace manifest user… Would he listen to the imaginary stories and delusions of the me-that-is-I-and-I-that-is-me?”
As if sensing the emotion of death-smell and processed things, Enyo assembled a simulation inside himself.
A miserable piece of trash.
A ladle Trace equipment user.
MADAO.
MADAO said, “What?”
Enyo said, “I want you to chat with me a little. About my worries. About my imagination.”
MADAO said, “Sure.”
Enyo said, “Why can’t I get your notes out of my head, even though they were worthless, horribly disordered writing?”
The hollow MADAO narrowed his eyes just slightly.
MADAO said, “You read that thing…? Nobody believes me, but there was a time when endless versions of my own account started appearing. I got curious and inhaled them.”
Enyo said, “Accounts?”
MADAO said, “I don’t know if there’s any similarity on your side. But I was talking to something like a hallucination, or a ghost, or a scientist who got assassinated one step before completing the panacea… It was hundreds of years ago, and apparently they don’t care anymore now, but there were too many shared details and connections online.”
MADAO laughed faintly.
MADAO said, “Inside a virtual reality inside a virtual reality, I got mocked by shitty brats who kept changing the settings halfway through while kicking a corpse. The stuff about reading PDFs and so on, you’d know that if you read my notes.”
Enyo said, “So these are worldlines that were never supposed to intersect?”
MADAO said, “Maybe you’d call them parallel worlds. But the world is wide. There were plenty of people with abilities that could send a single notebook into a different worldline.”
MADAO lowered his voice.
MADAO said, “And this might shock you, but your world has a lot of points in common with the second story I encountered as the next step after those notes.”
Enyo said, “Then are we living in a virtual reality?”
MADAO said, “No. I don’t have that much spiritual power.”
Enyo listened in silence.
MADAO said, “But when I went full power in combat meditation, I had thread techniques, oni-form fast-twitch enhancement, ghost fire that burned through ancestral guardian spirits, plain old grudge techniques… all kinds of things. Near the end, after sulking and sulking and leaving the adults of my night parade, I spent about half a year with an original little yokai called Puikeitai, two or three heads tall. At the very end of that, I unlocked the trait called Ladle Manifestation.”
Enyo said, “On your side too, did the roads you had walked lend you strength, like land gods?”
MADAO said, “No. Nothing like that at all.”
His answer was instant.
MADAO said, “From age seven to eighteen, I was a transfer kid, and I started getting sick wondering if it was bullying by a rich-kid group or something… But being a transfer kid came with a company-president buff and a transfer-allowance buff, so I got to live better than I deserved. I decided not to resent it.”
MADAO’s voice sounded dry.
MADAO said, “But even in the country called Japan, I only had one and a half years of free time. Because of a mysterious email, I went to a breakup I didn’t remember. If you can access YouTube from your side, there are videos called as revive called and as revive called 2. That was a style aiming to sell through counting mass, and I still regret that if I’d tried a little harder, I might have been able to fight against Western music.”
Enyo said, “And that became the ladle equipment?”
MADAO said, “After I became a pig who stopped looking upward, I wrote down every place where I had stayed for over a month. At first I thought, wait, that’s the right eye. But at the time there was a here-born clerical Pentast, so I decided to look at the density too. China and Slovakia became the handle, and Australia got a bottom-water challenge valve attached to it, more or less. The rest is places I stayed in again and again. That’s what I think of as my ladle equipment.”
Enyo said, “What did you basically do with that equipment?”
MADAO said, “I drowned people, or drained water from drowning people to clear their airways. If I got poisoned, I turned the farthest route into a bypass and hid while generated water blended into the blood. I trained that far.”
Enyo said, “……”
MADAO said, “If a meteor big enough to raise sea-level visibility fell from space, then compared to my delusions, someone would just smack it back with something like pantyhose, right…”
Enyo let out a small breath.
Enyo said, “Hey. Tell me about the sensibilities we don’t know. Information that may already have been overwritten.”
MADAO said, “Hmm… This is a story about the panacea, and I’m not hoping for a revolution. But I do want someone to enter the happiness route opposite to mine.”
Enyo said, “Tell me.”
MADAO said, “I don’t even know whether it’s my power or not… and every day is probably just going to be corpse-kicking anyway…”
Enyo said, “Tell me!”
The oni who could use the ladle equipment lowered his eyes in irritation.
MADAO said, “Why? From your side too, the mood’s already like you’re mocking me, isn’t it?”
Enyo said, “I don’t know anything. Only now do I feel like I can understand a little of the miserable, pathetic old man’s heart.”
There was silence for a while.
MADAO said, “I see… You’re going to meet Shu Amane, right?”
Enyo nodded.
MADAO said, “I think you’ll return safely. His age, four hundred twenty years old, is real too.”
MADAO’s voice gained just a little reality.
MADAO said, “Because of the military and the upper ranks, there is the design child, Koharu Uten. And in that world’s Re-Association, there is a Trace equipment user named Otome Gorai, who shares the same goal as Koharu but faces the opposite direction.”
Enyo said, “Koharu and Otome…”
MADAO said, “Yeah. There’s one more. A sixteen-year-old who inherited his grandfather’s Phantom Whale Trace through atavism and manifested an Arrangement. A frighteningly capable one.”
Enyo said, “Is that connected to the panacea?”
MADAO said, “Panacea, panasīa, panakeia. There seem to be all kinds of names for it, but it means the universal medicine. I can’t say any more than that. Even if I’m writing a novel about virtual reality, I don’t want it to overlap too much… even though it’s all according to script.”
Enyo said, “Aren’t you going to abuse your authority?”
MADAO said, “Nobody believes me… so I’ve given up.”
MADAO looked into the distance for a moment.
MADAO said, “What made me forcefully permit a manifestation inside you was one Pomeranian, neutered. One natural. One Schnauzer, neutered. That was all.”
Enyo said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
MADAO said, “Of course you don’t. But the manga where a dog bites through God’s throat was fun.”
Enyo did not answer.
MADAO said, “And one more thing. If something like Hirnamin, or any of those amines, reverses on you, even starvation can become frightening. Be careful.”
With that final voice, MADAO’s outline faded.
Enyo kept walking toward the land where Shu Amane waited.
Sleep still did not come.
今日はもう良いよな…俺も疲れた。19:57。2026/06/20
就農支援此処の受け付け来年度やわ…。
