Prologue (Revised)
Prologue (Revised)
Countless animals lived in the world.
From small animals like dogs, cats, and chicks, to large animals like elephants, giraffes, and rhinoceroses.
So many animals were spread across the earth that no one could count them all.
Among them, humans had lived alongside many other animals since prehistoric times.
That symbiotic relationship had endured to the present, bound by a special power.
Humans called the animals they lived with “Companion Animals,” while each animal recognized its human as a “Human Companion” and remained with them for life.
Through the Companion Contract, that bond turned them into family.
In the modern age, everyone had a Companion Animal.
But why was it...
"Why am I the only one without a Companion Animal?"
I was the only one without one. For twenty long years, no less.
"It can't be helped. Animals run away the moment they see you."
"I don't get it. Do I look scary or something?"
"No."
Not to brag, but I thought I looked fairly gentle myself.
"Then do I smell bad?"
"No."
I washed thoroughly every day and even went around spraying perfume that animals supposedly went crazy for.
"Then what the hell is the problem?!"
"Hmm, maybe it's a biological thing?"
"So you're saying I've gotta change my genes just to get near an animal!"
"Hey, don't be so negative! At least I'm not scared of you, right?"
"If even my own family avoided me, wouldn't I be better off dead?"
A reality in which every living creature rejected me.
If that were the case, there was no way I'd be walking around sane like this.
"If you're that bitter, try again in your next life—or try being a little nicer. Maybe you'll get a Companion Animal someday. Right, Hoya?"
"Aaooong!"
"See, even Hoya says so!"
My little sister’s sarcasm was merciless.
She even asked her companion fox a question, got an answer only she could understand, and used it to make a fool of me.
“I’d like to applaud my little sister’s garbage personality for talking so lightly about something that isn’t her problem.”
“You want to fight? You shitty excuse for a brother!”
It was an ordinary sibling fight during an ordinary morning walk to school.
Every day was the same.
That didn't mean being ordinary was bad.
Ordinary meant peaceful. For someone who loved peace, an ordinary life was my ideal.
The only problem was that I alone lacked the ordinariness everyone else had.
"What, we're here already. Anyway, I'm going ahead?"
"Ah, sure. Have a good one."
"You have a good one too, bro. No sneaking out of school like last time, got it?"
"Worry about your own belly fat. You pig of a sister, stuffing your face with school lunch every day and then moaning you've gained weight."
"Ah, fuck! You really are the worst!!"
I fled at full speed, dodging my little sister who came charging at me with veins bulging on her face.
So facts really did hurt. Once again, I was reminded of that timeless truth.
But come to think of it, hadn't my sister hit me with the facts first earlier?
Was it normal for her to try to kill me just because I did it this time?
Seriously, a real-life little sister wasn’t a girl. She was a barbarian.
"What a rotten little pig."
How such a kind mother had produced a barbarian daughter like her remained a mystery.
Even so, she proved she was Mother's daughter; her instincts were just as sharp.
In fact, just as my sister had worried, my steps were heading not to school but toward the hill behind our neighborhood.
What a uselessly sharp intuition...
"Haa..."
I was twenty years old and still stuck in my second year of high school.
I was still attending a school my peers had long since graduated from because of a traffic accident three years earlier.
Three years ago, a truck turned onto the narrow road I was walking along and ran me over.
I was badly injured, but the surgery went well and I survived.
But I spent nearly two years in the hospital and missed out on a normal school life.
So once I was discharged, I had planned to live freely with only a middle-school diploma.
But my mother had pleaded with me to enjoy my youth, so I reluctantly enrolled in high school.
"Youth, my ass..."
Sadly, though, the word youth did not exist in my life.
A school where not only the students but even the teachers treated me as if I were invisible.
Trying to find youth in a place like that was harder than finding a needle in a haystack.
From the start, telling someone with a chronic problem like me to have a fun school life was a mistake.
The vast majority of people had always mocked those who lacked what they took for granted.
A society that openly ridiculed people for lacking money, strength, or knowledge.
In a society like that, what if one single person didn't possess a Companion Animal that everyone else had?
That escalated beyond mockery into contempt, persecution, and ostracism.
I could say that with confidence because I had experienced it firsthand.
The scars etched into my body still ached...
The scars covering my body served as proof.
Anyway, for someone like me who couldn't even be treated as a person because I lacked a Companion Animal, youth was an absurd word.
So it was only natural for me to skip school and head for the hill behind.
With that rationalization complete, I set off to play hooky again with a spring in my step.
***
The mountain really was the best.
Clean air, a refreshing grassy scent, and even the sense of spaciousness from occupying a big space all by myself.
With all three in abundance, the mountain was nothing short of paradise to me.
Did I really need to be in a suffocating space called school when such a paradise was near my house?
The answer was obviously NO.
I felt sorry for my mother, but schools, workplaces, and human society in general did not suit me.
So I planned to graduate high school, hole up in the mountains, and live as an off-grid hermit.
I wanted to become that kind of person who lived alone in beautiful nature, unbound by the shackles of society.
But before that, this damned trait of mine had to get fixed...
There was nothing around except grass, trees, and rocks. Not a sound broke the silence.
There was no birdsong, not even a single ant crawling past.
I could understand if not a single animal lived in the mountain, but that wasn't the case.
Animals refused to be anywhere near me.
It was all because of a trait only I possessed.
I didn’t know why. Apparently, I’d been that way since birth.
I wanted to feel a fluffy sensation too...!!
People with furry Companion Animals, such as dogs or tigers, always had one thing they liked to brag about.
[My Companion Animal's fur is the fluffiest ever.]
I couldn’t speak for anything else, but I was damn jealous of that.
I'd never once touched an animal. The only fluffy sensation I'd felt in my life was my mother's faux fur coat.
I kept vowing that someday I would pet one to my heart's content, but in reality, even animals shunned me.
Fuck...
"Get lost...!"
"Huh?"
"Don't let it get away...!"
While I was feeling dejected at the grim reality, the surrounding area suddenly grew noisy.
What was going on?
As long as the trait that repelled animals wasn't fixed, it was a given that my surroundings stayed quiet at all times.
And yet the area had become incredibly noisy.
That could only mean one thing.
'People came all the way out to this secluded place?'
It was an extremely rare occurrence, but not entirely impossible.
It was just that the people who came to a place like this were usually illegal dumpers or middle-aged men and women here for an affair.
I'd hardly ever seen anyone else.
All the more so on a refreshing morning like this.
'Hmm, should I go over and say something?'
It wasn't my land, but I couldn't stand seeing a space that was like paradise to me get defiled by trash or filthy moans.
What they were doing was illegal, so even an outcast like me had every right to confront them.
So I decided to investigate.
I headed toward the sound. It was not far; a short walk would get me there.
In the middle of my cautious approach, something suddenly caught my eye and made me stop in my tracks.
The sight was far too unnatural to ignore.
It piqued my curiosity.
This was way too suspicious.
Piles of fallen leaves heaped up thickly.
The ground beneath the other trees was clear. The only oddity was one tree with a thick pile of fallen leaves beneath it.
Wasn't it practically advertising that someone had arranged the leaves to hide something?
Anyone would think the same.
Human curiosity would not let me ignore something this suspicious, so I began brushing the leaves aside.
No way someone had done their business here and just covered it up, right?
I was too uneasy to sweep them away all at once, but I soon felt something beneath my fingertips.
My fingertips touched something solid. Sure enough, something was hidden beneath the leaves.
With no reason to hesitate any longer, I pulled it free, revealing a heavy oval object.
"This is...?"
It looked rather strange, but it was unmistakably...
"An egg...?"
It was an egg belonging to some creature.