The Wind Spirit and the Unremarkable Boy ~A Convenient Romance Beginning in Another World~ - A Gray Afternoon and a Rift of Light

The moment Amamiya Takumi stepped on the white line of the crosswalk, the world disappeared. The sound vanished first. The engine noise of cars, the distant crossing bell, music leaking from someone's earbuds—all of it lost at once, as if stuffed with cotton. Next, the light inverted. The black asphalt turned white, the white sky flipped black, and then—nothing remained. Even the direction of gravity became unknowable. That was the entirety of Amamiya Takumi's transfer to another world. 　　＊ Rewind to that morning. Takumi sat in the back of the classroom, three seats from the window, with an assignment sheet spread across his lap—two days past the submission deadline. Four minutes until homeroom started. He could do it if he tried. But only if he waited until the last second. That was the precise outline of Amamiya Takumi as a person. He was one hundred seventy centimeters tall. Thin-framed, yet oddly muscular. His clothes were always simple—today, a navy hoodie and gray pants. His short black hair had a slight wave to it, impossible to tell if it was bedhead or just his natural texture. His deep brown eyes gave off a gentle impression, but right now they were fixed on the assignment sheet. A small scar marked his left shoulder from a bicycle fall years ago. Nothing significant. His chronic habit of running late had left a perpetual weariness etched into his face. Not so much apathy as a kind of energy-conservation mode—that was the look he wore. The boy in the next seat called out to him. "Still working on that assignment?" "…Yeah." The conversation ended there. The other boy didn't seem bothered and returned his gaze to his smartphone. Takumi did the same with his assignment. It wasn't that he was bad at talking to people. He just didn't know how to continue. By the time he grasped the thread of conversation, the other person had already moved on to the next topic, and he couldn't keep up with that pace. Before he knew it, he was always on the outside of the circle, smiling thinly. Takumi didn't resent it. He wore it like a familiar blanket, quietly wrapped around himself. Class began. The math teacher started writing equations on the blackboard. Takumi copied them into his notebook with meticulous care. Meticulous—he thought of it as one of his few strengths. Whether he understood the content was another matter, but his notes were always neat. His grades were below average. The combination of neat notes and below-average grades seemed to suggest something, but he chose not to think too deeply about it. A cloud drifted past the window. He followed it with his eyes for three seconds. Then he looked back. Those three seconds were almost the only expression of the impulse inside Takumi that whispered, "I want to see something farther away." 　　＊ After school, Takumi walked home alone. He wasn't wearing earbuds. His smartphone stayed in his pocket. It wasn't bravado. For some reason, Takumi had never filled his solitude with "sound." Silence felt like it made his outline clearer. Whether that was good or not, he didn't know. He cut through the residential streets and emerged onto the main road. The traffic light was green. He stepped on the first white line of the crosswalk. —And the world disappeared. 　　＊ The smell of grass came first. Then the pressure of wind. It hit his face—neither warm nor cold, just the flow of air that could only be called "wind." After that, the sensation of ground. Hard. Soil. He was on his knees. Takumi slowly raised his head. A vast grassland stretched before him. As far as the eye could see—grass, hills, and the distant ridge of a mountain range. The sky was turning orange with the approaching dusk—and on the opposite side, in the western sky still tinged with blue, another moon hung faintly. Shaped like a waning crescent, nearly translucent. But it was definitely there. (Two moons.) Takumi gripped the soil in his palm. It was cold, damp, and crumbled slightly between his fingers. Real soil, here. Not a dream. At least, his sense of touch was real. He thought he might panic. But he didn't. Instead, something in his head began quietly organizing itself. Language works—he'd just thought "the smell of grass" in Japanese in his mind, so at least his thoughts were functioning. No external injuries—standing up, his knees and hands were a bit dirty, but there was no pain. Possessions: only his school bag—inside: a few textbooks, writing supplies, wallet, a half-empty plastic bottle, two energy bars, smartphone. Current time: unknown—he checked his phone, but the signal was zero. Means of return: unknown. That was all. By reducing it to bullet points, he was trying to suppress the fear. He knew that, but it was all he could do, so he continued. (Where is this?) He pushed the unanswerable question to the back of his mind and stood up. First, move. Think while moving. That was all he could do right now. 　　＊ For the hours until sunset, Takumi walked carefully through the grassland. The distant mountain range seemed to stretch north and south. Massive. Just from the angle of elevation from its base to its peak, he could tell it had considerable altitude. He didn't know its name or what it was called in this world. How high could it be? he wondered, then immediately thought it was pointless to wonder about that now. To the east, a thin column of smoke rose into the air. A settlement, perhaps, or some kind of facility. There were signs of people. Twice, he saw figures pass along what looked like a road in the distance. A traveler-like person carrying luggage, and someone on horseback. He was about to call out when his feet stopped. (What would I even say? "Where is this?" And there's no guarantee they speak Japanese.) Before he could call out, the figures had already moved on, and Takumi watched their retreating backs. This moment of being unable to take that first step wasn't new. It happened in the classroom, in the hallways, always. But this time, the weight of regret felt somehow different. As the sun began to set, Takumi found a group of stone structures at the eastern edge of the grassland. They stood half-swallowed by trees. Vines crawled across them, stone was covered in moss, and half the entrance was blocked by collapsed rubble. The word "ruins" came to mind. Or "abandoned building." Either way, there were no other options for shelter from the elements. He placed his hand on the stone pillar at the entrance and peered inside. A dark corridor stretched deeper. Something was carved into the walls. He would later learn it was called the "Wind Pattern"—designs carved into stone by ancient peoples as prayers to the spirit of wind or to seal away the power of wind. But Takumi had no way of knowing that now. He simply recognized it as "old building decoration." As he stepped inside, something suddenly glinted at his feet. A small crystal fragment at the base of a collapsed pillar, half-buried in soil. He picked it up with his fingertips, and strangely, it was warm. Small enough to fit in his palm, it seemed to glow faintly from within. (A pretty stone.) He didn't think beyond that and slipped it into his pocket. He moved on to checking the contents of his bag, so he quickly forgot about the crystal. 　　＊ Two energy bars. A third of a bottle of water. Textbooks were useless. His wallet held about three thousand yen. His smartphone battery was at sixty-two percent. Laid out before him, it was a meager collection of survival resources. Takumi stared at them for a while, and for the first time, he felt like crying. But he didn't. The reason wasn't clear. Just a premonition that crying wouldn't bring anyone, and that premonition came a moment before the emotion itself. That was all. As the sky began to darken completely, he heard it coming from deeper in the ruins. A sound too fine to be called a voice. Like the resonance created when wind passes through stone crevices. But different. Wind carries no meaning, but this resonance had the quality of "trying to say something." Fragments of words that never became words, something closer to the residue of emotion. Takumi listened quietly for a while. It wasn't that he felt no fear. He did. A dark ruin, an unknown sound coming from the depths—anyone who wasn't afraid would be strange. But. (I'm not dull enough to pretend I don't hear it and fall asleep.) That awareness came a moment before his emotions. That was all. He turned on his smartphone's flashlight and stood up. 　　＊ As he moved deeper into the corridor, the patterns on the walls grew denser. Illuminated by the smartphone light, swirling lines and radiating shapes combined to cover the entire wall. Wind Patterns—this world's unique designs expressing the power that governs wind—stretched endlessly with no gaps. Spiraling storms, scattering leaves, rising currents—as if drawn in lines. The more he looked, the more he thought of "wind." The same patterns had been near the entrance, but at this depth, their density was completely different. There was an urgency to them, as if carved to seal something away or to call something forth. The stone floor beneath his feet bore the same patterns. Complex geometric designs were etched densely across the entire floor. Takumi tried to avoid stepping on them, then quickly gave up. Everywhere he stepped, there were patterns. The voice was becoming clearer, bit by bit. From ahead. From below the floor. Or from beyond the walls. The direction was unclear, yet it was definitely drawing closer. As he walked, Takumi suddenly thought: Who would notice he was gone? He had few friends. Three or four if he counted, but not people he contacted daily. His family—his parents both worked, and his younger sister was in middle school. They might notice at dinner time, but they wouldn't be particularly worried if Takumi was late coming home. At school, no one would immediately notice his empty seat. It would probably take several days before anyone realized. The moment he recognized that the answer to that question was "probably several days," Takumi felt a strange sensation. Was it sadness? No. Something closer to a sense of liberation. Not tragedy. As a kind of ironic freedom, the recognition settled quietly into place. No one's gaze, no one's expectations, no one's disappointment—none of it existed in this ruin. Only himself, the dark corridor, the distant voice, and the approaching voice. (That's strange.) He thought so himself. This wasn't liberation—it was just isolation. And yet, something that had been weighing on his chest felt slightly lighter. The corridor opened into a vast space. A sealing chamber—the innermost sanctum of this ruin, where the Wind Patterns were most densely carved, a circular room built long ago to confine some kind of being. The words and their meaning would come later. For now, Takumi simply recognized it as a stone circular room. In the center was something like a pedestal with complex patterns carved into it. Crumbling pillars in the four corners. Part of the ceiling had collapsed, and through the opening, the night sky was visible. So many stars. He'd never seen a sky with so many stars in Tokyo. The voice—it was here. From beneath the floor, beyond the walls, or from within the pedestal. He knew with certainty that "it was here." Something trying to become meaning, a pre-language resonance, was leaking from this room. Takumi stopped in the center of the chamber. He reached toward the pedestal, then stopped. (Is it okay to touch this?) He didn't know. But—the voice was there. A resonance as if confined in stone for a long, long time. The number three hundred forty suddenly flashed through his mind. He had no idea why that number appeared. One step forward. Fear was outweighed, for just a moment, by seriousness. That was all that moved his feet. No heroic decision. Just the quiet awareness that he wasn't the kind of per

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Episode 1

Name: The Wind Spirit and the Unremarkable Boy ~A Convenient Romance Beginning in Another World~
Author: Novelia

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