“Hah… damn it…”
From the pillars to the floor, everything is composed of metal, and a young man is rushing through the corridor with a resounding metallic clang.
The young man is dressed in what seems to be a military outfit with an emphasis on utility, and he has a sling around his waist that appears to be fashioned from leather with a number of metal balls serving as ammo connected to it.
“ーーーーー！”
“!?”
A faint animal-like cry can be heard coming from the rear of the passageway, and when the young man perceives it, he hastily endeavors to turn from the passageway he is currently running down into the nearest side path. Even though he is slightly disoriented, he succeeds in entering a new passageway as he retains his speed.
“Hah hah… please let me make it…!”
“Burashaaaah!”
As soon as the young man slips into the shadow of the passageway, he begins to hide, holding his breath. Simultaneously with the youth concealing himself, a huge quadruped with brush-like fangs on its head darts through the passageway where the youth had just been running, uttering bizarre cries.
“Damn… how did this happen…”
“ーーーーー！”
When the young man hears the cries fading away, he sinks deep into the ground and clutches his head as if lamenting the current situation.
Nonetheless, the fact that the young man is still alert to his surroundings is indicative of the level of training he has received.
Even so, the fact that he is so well-trained and is familiar with common knowledge and the rules of the game may make it even more disconcerting for him to accept his present situation.
The young man then looks back, pondering about how this situation transpired to him.
■■■■■
“Today is another peaceful day…”
“Isn’t it good being peaceful?”
With my long, thin rod in my left hand and a sling with its bullets at my waist, I and my partner, Beyta, are making the rounds of the downtown area of wooden one-story dwellings.
“Thank you for the peace today, Amaterasu-sama.”
“Well, I do understand that this peace is partly dependent on the power of Amaterasu-sama like you said, Beyta.”
Sighing more or less in agreement with Beyta, who is striking a prayer pose towards the sun in the middle of the road, I also affirm Beyta’s words.
The name of this world is “Milast”.
In this world, there seem to be several city-states, and each city has a number of gods who protect the city and its inhabitants.
And the name of the city we live in is Japoterasu, a city-state protected and administered by our main goddess, Amaterasu-sama.
“But you know what? I suppose we are the ones who actually protect this city.”
“That power to protect it was granted to us by Amaterasu-sama, wasn’t it?”
Having stopped praying, I return to the patrol with Beyta.
However, even if I said protecting, Amaterasu-sama does not actually descend and directly strike the criminals.
A God in this world is an entity who makes a contract with humans and offers a portion of their power in exchange for their prayers and other offerings. The security organization to which Beyta and I belong aims to utilize this power to ensure the security of the city and to discover the entrance to a space called “Maze” and destroy the “Maze”.
“And this pool of water seems to be okay.”
“Then let’s move on.”
As we make our way to the back alley, Beyta uses the tip of the rod in his hand to probe the puddle’s surface to make sure it is a normal puddle.
“Oops, there’s another one over here.”
Beyta pokes the next puddle.
The “Maze”… is an existence that most people living in this world, let alone in this city, fear.
This is because, first of all, a maze suddenly materializes whenever there is a level surface that reflects light above a certain level, such as a puddle, a mirror, or a section of ore called a mirror stone.
And inside the maze is a complex maze, as the name suggests, however, I have never been inside so I can only speak from my understanding of it.
At the same time, it is said that misshapen creatures called “monsters” roam about and hunt down wandering creatures, and kill them should they venture into the maze.
Furthermore, it is reported that if left neglected, the structure inside the maze will gradually evolve into a more complex structure, while simultaneously the monsters will grow more vicious, and eventually, the monsters will even emerge outside the maze.
For this reason, we, the Security Organization, patrol the city on a daily basis and report any discoveries to our superiors, who subsequently dispatch the Security Organization’s eradication squad to destroy the maze.
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“There’s one over here, too.”
Beyta pokes through puddles one after another.
Right. The adversaries of our Security Organization are more often the mazes and the monsters that dwell there than the people who commit the crimes.
And it seems that the master of these monsters and the creator of the “Maze” have an adversarial relationship with Amaterasu-sama and other deities, and that is one of the reasons why Amaterasu-sama and the others are lending us, humans, their power.
This is something I learned from my senior.
Well, there is no way that I, a newcomer, can meet Amaterasu-sama and the other gods. This is inevitable.
“Hey! Come here for a minute!”
“What’s wrong?”
I rush over to Beyta and look at his rod.
It is evident that the rod has sunk deeper than the original depth of the puddle.
There is no doubt about it. A “Maze” has arisen.
“Could you take a look while I call the higher-ups?”
“I under….!?”
“What!?”
And the moment Beyta is about to contact the superiors, hands are reaching out from the “Maze,” dragging both me and Beyta into the “Maze”.
——————
A/N:
This is a new work.
Be warned that TS (Gender swap) elements will appear in the story.
T/N:
This is the fourth Outer World Story series of the author’s work. Below is a summary of what Outer World Story is.
Outer World:
There exist a myriad of worlds.
This is a story that takes shape and is told within those myriad worlds, with the same origin.
※Each of these works can be read as a separate work, but they are all connected in some places, so if you have the opportunity, you may find it fascinating to look for the connections between them.
Even though it’s a separate work, to thoroughly understand and enjoy the novel, you pretty much have to read the novels in the proper sequence.
So here’s the key point of Outer World Story:
They are three major forces behind each Outer World Story series. Those three are “Tower,” which are occupied by gods, the most major of all, “Multidimensional Trading Company Complex,” and other Gods that are not affiliated with them. And also there is still other “(Title) Complex” though I don’t think they are important. Besides, they only make their appearances from the seventh Outer World Story series onward.
Characters from other Outer World Story or other mysteries that are not revealed in that series will be disclosed in other Outer World Story, so for the readers to understand it, please read other Outer World Story as well otherwise, the mysteries and characters that will be revealed are simply inconsequential things if you do not mind.
There are new developments from the third Outer World Story: Pumpkin Sorcerer that will make their appearance in this novel.
Those who read the series from the proper sequence, these are the mysteries that will be revealed in this novel:
The reason why the Gods abandoned Kurokiri’s world (Earth) and what became of Kurokiri.
The continuation of what happened to Izumi after the defeat of the God of Calamity (the replica) in Kurokiri’s world.
There might still be some mysteries from the second Outer World Story series revealed in this series, but I only know the characters from the second series will make their appearance, not the details.
Though, I will inform you of two characters that are prominent in the Outer World Story series. The first is Licorice=S=Insanity and the second one is Izumi, and also the antagonist may or may not be regarded as an antagonist. You will understand who the antagonist I am referring (I am not talking about this novel’s antagonist even if they are the same character this time) and what I meant if you have read other Outer World Story series. Outer World Story settings are just too broad (I might need to write up the clarification to 3 pages or more) for the explanation of Outer World itself.
I am not going to consider this as spoiler since they are already revealed in the past Outer World Story series. And the existence of Gods is always the key point in each Outer World Story series.
As for the readers who saw the shoujo-ai genre and choose to read this, I am not too sure about that. The author listed the shoujo-ai tag in the source but Outer World Story series isn’t focused on romance, so I think is just a sub-plot or very minor element.
The author’s style tends to use non-linear storytelling/multiple timelines with multiple POV (this is extremely common in Japanese web novels by the way) so if you do not like that, please refrain from reading it cause I do not want to face another reviewer who criticizes the author’s style when this is actually a frequent occurrence in Japanese web novel yet they are ignorant of it and still condemn the author when the author is not at fault. This is simply unjust to the author. It’s even possible to write a third-person narrative in one paragraph and switch to first-person POV in the next sentence back and forth for those who are unaware of it (This is also a common thing in Japanese web novels). Though this is not part of Kurikishita’s (Author) style and I will choose one of them only to translate even if that happens.
And this is a series, not a stand-alone novel which means there will be details that are left obscured in this work and will be explained in future works.
Fun fact: The first Outer World Story series uses “dungeon” whereas the fourth Outer World Story series uses “maze” despite being the same word in Japanese