Chapter 1 – Prologue ①

That event happened four years ago.

It was after the end of the long h*ll of high school entrance exams, and I, Kazuma Miyoshi, a first-year high school student, was finally going to attend the high school at the start of the spring.
On my way home from buying my high school uniform, I was on the Toho Line of the Sapporo subway.

The high school I was entering was one of the best in the city for university entrance, and although it was a public high school, its deviation score exceeded 70.
It was particularly popular with male junior high school students, and its acceptance rate was twice as high as other schools.

Well, the reason was simple: it was a former girls’ school that had become coeducational the year before.

Still, it was a relief to pass the entrance exam.

But that joy gradually became unfamiliar, and recently the fatigue from studying like an idiot has been closing in on me.

“Haah…”

I sighed and my eyelids grew heavy.

On top of that, I’ve been playing a game late into the night as a backlash from studying, and now I’m being chased down by sleepiness.

By the way, the game I was playing is a battle royale game called “PUBC.”

This game is really deep and enjoyable, but because of it I haven’t slept at all.

Tonight I want to watch a certain broadcaster’s stream, so it would be better to sleep earlier.

“I’ll just sleep for a little bit…”

I muttered this and closed my eyes while holding the bag with my uniform inside of it.

After falling asleep from exhaustion, I woke up after what was probably sufficient time.

For some reason, the sound around me was too loud and I woke up.

Is there a festival going on? Or are female high school students recklessly filming TILTOL? Or is it an old man with a weird head that I often see in those videos?

Well, the subway is not a noisy place… As I raised my heavy eyelids with some irritation to check the situation…

What I saw was a desperate figure trying to escape from something and running down the subway car’s corridor.

It was a young man in his mid-20s, wearing a suit and his tie seemed out of place in this situation.

His face was pale and sweat was dripping down it.

He looked around restlessly and then suddenly stopped in front of me.

“Please, you have to help me!”

He said this in a hoarse voice and grabbed my shoulder.

At the same time, I heard the sound of something heavy coming closer from behind him.

All of them were in a terrible state, kicking aside others and desperately trying to escape, and I was forced to wake up due to the screams of children and the startled cries of adults.

The people who were desperately trying to escape all ran towards the front of the train.

What happened? Did we derail? Or is there a fire?

But the subway shows no sig