Chapter 2: EVE burst error
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Danganronpa Togami Volume 1: Multiple Counts of Attempted World Domination
Chapter 2: EVE burst error
1
McDonald"s. McDonald"s. Convenience store food. Cup noodles. Domino"s. KFC. Cup noodles. Cup noodles. McDonald"s. McDonald"s. Domino"s. Convenience store food.
If I told you that this was my weekly meal plan, would it send a chill down your spine?
2
Fast food isn"t a blight that only arrived with the modern era. For someone like me, that fact alone saved me.
In Ancient Rome, there were no kitchens in apartments, but you could buy ready-made meals; in 13th century Paris, there were already stores that sold cooked meals and cakes; in the Edo period, food stalls flourished.
The benefits of home-cooked meals? The camaraderie that"s formed around the dining table? Those are downright lies.
I grab some leftover McFries, browse the net, make sure everyone else still has a talent except for me, feel tired, and then go to sleep.
I wasn"t really sure anymore why I kept on living like a mole, but what I did know for sure was what was to blame for it, and that was G.o.dd.a.m.n hope. I was crushed by hope, and so I lived in a world without hope. I didn"t leave my room, and lived peacefully in a place where hope was nowhere to be seen.
"Ehehehe."
"H-Hey... Why are you laughing?"
"You really are inexperienced, mister. When you laugh, even if it"s forced, you can calm yourself down."
"Is that right."
"Why don"t you try it out right now? Come on, let"s do it together. Ehehehehe... Hm? What is this? It"s delicious. Try some of this. It"s so good."
So why was I outside, connecting with someone over a meal like this?
3
With just a cursory search, you find the Super High School Level Traditional j.a.panese Dancer, Super High School Level Pet Groomer, Super High School Level Female Ba.s.sist, Super High School Level Bear Hunter, Super High School Level Candlemaker, Super High School Level Charcoal Burner... plenty of talents pop up. It almost makes me want to declare talent in itself to be completely worthless.
Long story short, I was stuck before I even started.
I had been out of school for a while now, a mole sleeping all alone. As long as I had some carbs and some net access with me there in the dirt, I wouldn"t die, but I felt like I may as well be dead, the way I lived.
That day was the same as any other. I nabbed some cold potato chips, doing some searches to see what those glittering talents were doing right that second.
Some people live to expand their video game collection, and plenty of others get their kicks from their favorite baseball team winning. Those people"s lives are directly connected to other people"s lives. They s.n.a.t.c.h up the best parts of other people"s lives in order to bring some color to their own lives. Otherwise they wouldn"t know what to do with their money, or with a ball, on their own.
What I did probably wasn"t too far off from what those dumba.s.ses were doing.
When I, the mole, got wind of talents popping up like the first bamboo shoots of spring, I couldn"t stop myself from constantly rea.s.suring myself, "It"s probably natural to have a talent. They"re not unique." I knew it wasn"t productive. I wanted to go Outside.
But people with zero talent don"t get to go Outside, and what agonized and pained me more than anything else was the fact that plenty of people with zero talent were living on the Outside anyway. These people could be bathing in literal s.h.i.t, and while they were drenched in the stuff, they"d be all, "The water"s great!" and leave it at that, and so I guess that counts as the Outside for them. There were plenty other people who mistakenly believed they belonged on the Outside, even starting families, even having successful careers. I could never do something like that.
I would never fall into the trap of self-satisfaction. And I wouldn"t become some evangelist preaching fire and brimstone either. I wasn"t gonna be part of any Mommy and Daddy team protecting their fragile papier-mâché household, and I wouldn"t be some cackling corporate manager.
So, what would I do? That question haunted me the most. I never thought it would turn out this way. Frankly, I still can"t quite believe it.
Because I believed that even if I had nothing else, I had to have a talent.
Not like running a hundred-meter dash in three-point-something seconds, or being able to tell what brand wine is just by looking at the color, or levitation, or any special art or technique like that... For example, what about a talent for writing?
I tried reading the novels published by the Super High School Level Literary Girl and Super High School Level Light Novelist, but they were so s.h.i.tty that I got all worked up about it. Son of a b.i.t.c.h. Why do they get to be the Haves, while I"m with the Have-Nots? Why do they get to live on the Outside, while I"m still a mole?
Huh? You think I"m going on about this for too long?
Maybe you"re right. A little girl giving out life advice is annoying as s.h.i.t, but a grown man like me talking to himself is the worst. I should just close my eyes. Fall asleep.
Dreams: go to h.e.l.l. Hopes: go to h.e.l.l. People who think hopes and dreams come true: go to that extra special level of h.e.l.l.
Good night.
4
Of course I noticed the disaster. Anyone would notice if they had been fast asleep, and then woken up by the sound of an explosion.
At first, I thought the Despair Disease had already made it out here to the boonies. But when I opened the curtain and looked outside, I got kind of a different impression. I"d seen videos on underground file-sharing sites of a certain country where over half the citizens had come down with Despair Disease.
They"d looked like they were having fun.
It was like stacking despair onto despair made it a double negative, and so they"d become happy instead, guffawing with boisterous laughter. They killed each other with smiles on their faces. Whether they were beating someone or being beaten, stabbing someone or being stabbed, they laughed their way through a blissful a.s.sault. So since everyone was an a.s.sailant, that would mean that no one was a victim.
But here and now, I could hear screams from outside my apartment building. Of course it had woken me up too, but after I checked to make sure my door was locked, there was basically nothing else I could do. I had a headache, maybe from all the anxiety or something.
I went back into my room and washed my hands, and tried to turn on the TV, but there was no signal. The Internet connection had been cut out too.
What about phones?
There wasn"t anyone for me to call, or anyone who would call me, so I called the weather forecast number instead, feeling strangely awkward. The line was down.
The screams outside were clearly growing in number.
I checked my stockpile of cup noodles, and then wandered aimlessly around the room like a tiger in a zoo, before finally going back to hiding in bed.
There"s a term in psychology called "normalcy bias". It"s a system where even when someone sees accidents and disasters in front of their very eyes, and even when their own life is in danger, they cling to what"s familiar and ordinary, thinking, "Well, it"s fine. I probably won"t die." A system where they take themselves out of their own stories, avoiding the death right in front of them.
The terrible thing is, even knowing about that, I couldn"t make myself get out of bed. I stayed there for about an hour. During that time, all the noises stopped. I couldn"t hear anything except for the wind. Silence. It was beautiful. Just beautiful how the silence spread out eerily over everything. It was so peaceful, it felt like the world had only just been born.
I tried getting out of bed.
The listlessness in my body, the hard keratin on my feet, and the feeling in my stomach of only ever being about 60% full were all the same as they always had been. And yet, it felt different somehow, as if everything had been—refreshed. It took almost a full minute for me to realize why.
Oh, I get it. It was the world that changed, not me.
All the common sense I"d had up until yesterday was out the window now. I could do whatever I wanted.
Wait, hold on. I wasn"t stupid. I wasn"t going to get carried away. Only cowards rejoice at the end of the world. If I waited expectantly for the end to come, I"d be no different from a cultist. I may have been a mole, and even a coward, but I hadn"t fallen far enough to cling to some G.o.d fresh out of the imagination oven.
So, what would I do? Nothing really. I could just keep on going as I always had, if I was still the same. I could feed my grudge against talent. Start like I always did. Start in the negatives.
I"d just do a quick confirmation of the situation first.
For the first time in a long time, I headed out for something other than food.
Stay tuned for the next update next Sunday (PST)!
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