Renegade Sanctuary

Yomuin-san wa Yuusha ja Arimasen node – Prologue – 2

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Well, this one took longer than I had thought since I’m still refining my workflow, but I think it came out better. I should get faster as time goes by, but I can still say that I will be committed to at least updating once a month. If I get more free time, I’ll post a chapter early. In the meantime, feel free to read some of my other stories. ^_^

Enjoy!

One Person, Rising Up

 

Kurando felt the gentle caress of a breeze against his face.

He opened his eyes and realized he was inside of a cave because of the light coming in through the entrance.

The distant, shining, light exposed a world of blue and white beyond the cavern’s mouth..

Unsteady on his feet, Kurando was drawn to view outside and rushed toward the entrance of the cave.

The cold air bit into his skin and irritated the back of his nose, but it didn’t bother him.

What he saw were endless sky and white mountains.

Looking up, he also saw a not so big bird thing flying across the sky.

Also, on the opposite mountain slope, there was a strange looking, long, white, cat-like creature striding along a ridge.

He realized he was finally free from everything, released from all obligations.

Sure there would be inconveniences and troubles, but he felt such a deep emotion from throwing away both prejudice and pride. He was able to put the entire situation, appearances and lack of salary all behind him.

How long had it been like that?

Kurando felt a sudden chill. It’s understandable to feel this way when he only had a white towel wrapped around his neck and wore a long-sleeved, black V-neck, with grey overalls, a crappy analog watch and blue boots which seemed ok when working as a janitor but weren’t suited for a snow-covered mountain.

Kurando returned to the depths of the cave with the feeling it might be a lot more difficult to get out of this place.

In the back of the cave, Kurando found a large, moss-green rucksack enshrined in a nearby passage.

Kurando remembered this was what had been promised by the Goddess.

With the view outside, the interior of this cave, and having been in a white space with only a voice, he finally understood he really had been brought to some other world and time.

Kurando sat down right where he was.

He casually stuck his hand into the rucksack’s opening, but found nothing within.

There was supposed to be food and water for a year, a magic spellbook, and a knife, but there’s nothing inside the rucksack.

The thought came to Kurando that perhaps he only had to think about what he wanted.

Maybe if he thought of a specific food…

Like some rice or crackers? Or perhaps bread?

While he thought about it, something like a long stick touched his hand.

What he took out seemed like French bread. Looking at it carefully, and noticed it had an almost cookie-like consistency made into the shape of a small baguette. He guessed it was something like a handheld pastry.

“Guess I eat this…”

Kurando’s small, dejected voice carried throughout the interior of the cave.

He could make more of the pastry appear as many times as he wanted. Water would also appeared in a small cask. Lastly, he was able to pull out a largish knife and a magic spellbook without any issue.

Apparently, this rucksack seemed to hold a large quantity of things contrary to its appearance.

Everything except the knife was replaced into the rucksack. Kurando then stood up.

It was getting dark outside.

Before it became completely dark, he needed to find somewhere to sleep.

Sleeping in this wind-swept passage wouldn’t be possible.

Knife in his right hand, he advanced deeper into the cave.

The dusky cave was about two people wide, with a height of thirty centimeters over Kurando’s 170 centimeters. There was no moss on the walls of the cave and there were no other scents other than the smell of earth.

Kurando didn’t sense anyone’s presence ahead.

Still, as carefully as he could, he continued into the depths.

Fortunately, it seemed no one had ever reached the deepest part of this cave.

Ahead, there was an empty space of about six tatami mats.

When the light finally stopped coming through the entrance, he slept.

He might be defenseless, but it was a fact there wasn’t anything he could do about it. With that defiant attitude, Kurando slept.

Kurando awoke to a roaring sound within the dim light of the inside of the cave.

He had been able to sleep last night, even if it become a bit chilly. Although it didn’t get too much colder than it was now.

Wiping away the last signs of sleep, Kurando found himself invited back into the passageway by a faint light coming in.

The scenery he had seen yesterday was now obscured by a blizzard.

Nonetheless, the diffuse morning sunlight still managed to come into the cave.

The farther forward he advanced in the passage, the colder the temperature fell as well as inversely affecting Kurando’s state of wakefulness.

After about ten steps, Kurando felt as if he were going to freeze and turned back around.

A thought occurred to him as he quickly returned to the room.

A door and heating would be needed immediately, but something also needed to be done about light.

Just like around the same season in Japan, he’ll die if he didn’t take care of all those things.

Without it, he would die.

He could say it with certainty.

After all, Kurando had firsthand experience.

To survive one has to let death roll on by like a stone.

Also, it would be disappointing to die when there should be some magic (method) to avoid it.

Kurando trotted back to the small room in the cave, dug the magic spellbook from the rucksack and started to devour what was on its pages.

Fortunately, the paper was high quality and thick, so it didn’t have thin pages like some encyclopedias did.

It also looked like he could read the alphabet without problem.

Kurando began his studies in survival.

Drow Story – Chapter 1-4

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In the Classroom

The classroom was already buzzing with activity. Girls chirped incessantly, boys talked about what girls they wanted and what had happened on TV last night. Overall it was a rather happy high school setting.

And yet another day to trudge through. At least until he could get to the range.

The truly fascinating thing was Humanity’s near universal ability to fill any sort of idle time with utter crap. Everyone here talked, but no one really said anything. It was just all superficial stuff.  So damned boring. Funny thing was it didn’t matter if you were in the US or here in Japan, everyone did it. It’s just the Japanese at least had the good sense to tone it down a bit with others around. Mason was thankful for that at least.

Mason made his way to his back of the class window seat, dropped into the chair and sighed. He leaned back and closed his eyes as if he could recapture a couple precious minutes of sleep.

Worst of all, he heard near every word of it. Every nauseating conversation about this and that. Details on things he couldn’t care any less about. As a writer, he had honed his skills of observation so he could improve his writing, but at times like this it would be nice if he could cut off the stream of bullshit once in a while.

“Glad to see you’re in a good mood, old man.”

Mason opened an eye and watched as his seat mate, Kurokawa Hyun-Woo sat at the desk to his right. He was pretty much the only one in the class Mason bothered talking to. Only because he was the first one who had talked to Mason when he had transferred into to St. Lazarus Academy when he was a first year. Part of the Welcoming Committee, he helped new students like Mason acclimate to the school. At the time Hyun-Woo was also in the student council, but this year he was vice president.

Normally, Mason wouldn’t have bothered but Hyun-Woo was a persistent bastard. Eventually, Mason relented and started talking with Hyun-Woo and found he a good guy. It was also great he didn’t talk a lot, but was still sociable. Nothing worse than dealing with someone where you had to pull a conversation out of them. Hyun-Woo coined the nickname after one time he had yelled at Mason to stop acting like an old guy. Mason got his revenge though calling him a variety of other nicknames pointing to Hyun-Woo’s ikemen status.

What was it they always said? That all ikemen should go and explode? A bit extreme but not an opinion Mason totally opposed.

Returning to a blissful state of near sleep, Mason grunted.

“You’re just guessing, aren’t you, pretty boy?”

Hyun-Woo’s grin deepened.

“Hard to tell with the constant scowl on your face.”

“What do you mean? I’m actually in a decent mood for once.”

Mason knew he suffered from what the Internet referred to as RBF, or Resting Bitch Face. Usually applied to women who never smile, it just meant whenever he rested the muscles in his face its default position would be best described as a frown or scowl. Coupled with a set of narrow eyes and an angular face from his German heritage you got a rather imposing and intimidating face. If anything, Mason was thankful for it since it usually kept people away who wanted to engage in small talk. Of course he was just reminded of it when he walked by the classroom earlier.

Coupled with a darker complexion, dark brown eyes and black hair which was combed back (but which got curly when it grew too long), and a tall, but stocky frame you got someone who was near the epitome of a guy screaming “Leave me the hell alone”.

So yeah, safe to say, Mason didn’t have many friends. Never mind a girlfriend.

Contrast that with Hyun-Woo. Tall, with well-groomed black hair and brown eyes, wearing a constant near smile and a body all the girls seemed to fawn over, he was never at a loss for friends or girls. Rumor had it that he had to at least fend off two or more confessions a day. Oh, to top it off he came from a rich family and was captain of the Kendo and tennis teams.

Oh yes, he was very much an ikemen. If Mason wasn’t friends with him he would have hated his guts. Thankfully Hyun-Woo was a great guy to be around and was one of the few which made going to St. Lazarus pleasant.

“Putting that aside, not everyone can be like you, ikemen.”

“Really wish you wouldn’t call me that. I’m not that great.”

At the change in voice, Mason opened his eyes and saw Hyun-Woo’s constant smile ticked downward.

“Sorry, guess I went to far.”

Before anything else could be said, the door to classroom slid open and Hiyoshi stood there. He looked like he had been roughed up but he ignored anyone’s attempts to help and went to his seat. Hitoshi didn’t look Mason’s way at all and only stared forward.

A detached part of Mason’s mind wondered if perhaps he should have done something. Maybe he could have made a difference? Maybe he could have saved him instead like he did the drow girl. After all, wasn’t he supposed to not let something like that happen again?

No, no way was he getting involved again. Last time he had a big mess to clean up and stepping in the middle of that would have been just as messy. There was no benefit to doing so.

Then we the hell did he bother with the girl?

Mason had no idea. It didn’t make any sense to go out of his way to just add more aggravation into his life. That was the worst part: He didn’t get why he did it. He shouldn’t have.

He breathed out slowly. Well, it wasn’t like he was gonna see her again, so Mason decided it was for the best to put it behind him.

But God I’m such a hypocritical bastard. Mason thought.

Hyun-Woo went to speak to Hiyoshi, but the other boy shook his head. Eventually, Hyun-Woo returned to his seat.

“That guy. Something bad happened to him.”

“Bad things only happen if you let them.”

The sentence escaped his lips, but Mason didn’t regret them. It was true. People either let bad things happen to them or they did something about it. It didn’t have to be fists, but the guy could’ve used his brain. Either way, he only had himself to blame.

“Wait, you saw what happened?”

“Nope, didn’t see a thing.”

Hyun-Woo was quiet and stared at Mason before finally shaking his head.

“What a cynical way of looking at things, old man.”

Mason shrugged.

“Maybe, but it’s kept me alive.”

“You mean it’s kept you alone.”

Before Mason could reply, the homeroom teacher entered the room and began class.

Phantom Star is now out!

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eecWoooo, it’s finally out! The first chapter of Phantom Star can be found here. So that means I now have two original stories and the translated work going on. I still have at least two more coming online soon so that will have at least four serialized works plus one translated work.

Yes, I must be insane, but I’m having fun while falling into the abyss. ^_^

Phantom Star – Chapter 1-1

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Working for a Living

Floating within the clouds always felt great.

Hoshino Satoshi loved the feeling of how the winds buffeted against the small one-man utility flyer, a Work Bee, as he went about his rounds. Getting away from the high-altitude atmospheric rig to make the inspection rounds was a rare pleasure and he took every opportunity to get assigned to it.

The Work Bee had two large fans on either side of the small flyer which was used for its main propulsion through the helium gas giant Xeres’s upper atmosphere. He had heard there were versions of it which used gravitic propulsion, but those were too expensive and tended to be used in military applications.

It was peaceful out here. No one incessantly chatted with him, just the sound of the ducted fans whirring in the background. All around Satoshi was just pure orange sky. Unfortunately, the gas giant of this system, like most planets of this size and composition, had a completely unbreathable atmosphere, but it wasn’t so destructive where you actually needed to have an environment suit on just to go work outside.

Although most on the rig would put on at least a light environment suit, Satoshi usually would wear his normal blue utilities and a breather. That way when he was working outside he could feel the cold wind hitting his skin. Thankfully, Xeres was one of the few gas giants within the “Goldie Locks” zone so it wasn’t as cold in its upper atmosphere as some other giants. Even though the air was unbreathable, it felt nice against the skin. Of course, without the breather, he would drop dead in a matter of minutes.

The breather, a nickname given to the atmospheric replacement device Satoshi wore, was a compact affair. It had a face mask connected to a rebreather and cylinder and was carried on the small of Satoshi’s back. Using nano destructors, NanoD for short, to take apart the air at the molecular level, it produced breathable air and stored it in the cylinder. Conceivably, if supplied with enough power, it could operate indefinitely. Of course, as with most technological things, there was an upper limit to how much time it could operate on a small internal battery, but for the most part the NanoD would take their main energy from the sun and from what was created during disassembly/assembly of the air instead only relying on the battery for initial startup or emergencies. In a way, it was like having a small fusion and fission reactor on his waist.

Satoshi tried not to think about it too much. Right now it didn’t matter since the Work Bee had its own atmospheric systems and Satoshi had his breather in its receptacle near by.

His solace was interrupted by an incessant chime. Satoshi reached over and pressed the terminate button, silencing it.

Before he could slide back into the blissful silence, the chime returned. Again, he pressed the terminate button. Once more, just the noise of machinery and the winds outside.

Ahhh, how nice.

His peace was interrupted by a 2D holographic window poping in front of his face, accompanied by a screaming, near shrill female voice.

“Dammit, Satoshi, stop ignoring me!”

“WAAA!”

He swerved the the Work Bee and almost lost control before regaining altitude. It was dangerous to dip too low in the gas giant. For one, there was no solid ground, and if you kept going down the gravity and pressure increased to such a point where it would crush most any vehicle except for specially designed core mining probes that were used to break through the liquid metallic hydrogen and helium “ground” and gouge out part of the diamond cores to extract the valuable gem.

Satoshi clicked his tongue inside his mouth. How did she get through? Ah, of course, the emergency interrupt channel. Damn, how did he forget about it?

Melina De Aquila’s face filled the 2D holo window. Satoshi guessed she had pushed right up against the holo imager for the similar window hovering on her end. She was a young woman, with short, mousy brown hair and eyes, with a dash of freckles splayed across her nose and other parts of her pale, tanned skin. The freckles only helped to heighten her cuteness, which also made it more difficult for others to take her seriously. She worked as the main communications officer so she was aways first to call Satoshi over the commlink.

“I know you can hear me, Satoshi!”

There was no stopping her when she got this way. Even though his side hadn’t started to transmit audio and video, she had already guessed he was watching. She was correct, after all, and knew he was in the Work Bee from her seat back at the rig so there was no hiding it. Satoshi sighed and clicked on the button.

“I’m here, Melina. What’s up?”

“Finally! Do you know how long I’ve been trying to get you?”

Satoshi mumbled.

“I have a bit of an idea…”

“What was that? I didn’t copy what you said.”

He knew perfectly well she had heard what he had said, but Satoshi was smart enough not to get drawn into that landmine of a question.

“I said, I have no idea. So what’s going on. I’m still en-route to Remote Platform 5. Is something wrong?”

Melina backed away from the holo imager on her end, and Satoshi saw the small slip of her body come into view. She wore the typical blue company jumpsuit like he did, but it looked a little baggy on her. He knew she was a very petite woman and had trouble finding uniforms in her size, but in a lot of ways she was still very endearing to Satoshi. Over the last year or so he had been working for Consolidated Mining Corp. out on this Helium-3 mining operation and he had come to enjoy her company quite a bit. Maybe the next time they had some downtime he may ask her to get something from the commissary.

“Heeellllloooo Satoshi? Are you still there. You’d better not be pretending you’re experiencing noise!”

Unless, of course, he kills her first.

“No, I’m still here. You haven’t told me what you wanted.”

Melina sighed.

“If you were paying attention you would have heard me. Fine, once again, we’re picking up an equipment failure on Remote 10. Administrator Harris wants you to divert there and check it out yesterday.”

Satoshi groaned.

“Remote 10? You’ve gotta be kidding me, that’s almost on the other side of Xeres! It’ll take me ‘till the end of my shift just to get there, even if I go sub-orbital.”

“Sorry, Saotshi-kun. Boss’s orders.”

Satoshi grumbled. She never called him that unless she was trying to make him feel better. But no amount of sweet-talking was going to change that he was looking at at least another couple of hours just to get there and then whatever time was needed to fix whatever was wrong at the remote mining platform and then there was the return trip back. It was gonna be a long day.

“Hey Satoshi-kun.”

Satoshi noticed Melina’s voice softened quite a bit and when he glanced at the holo it looked like her face was a bit red. The freckles seemed to stand out even more because of her blushing face. Wait, what was she embarrassed about?

“Yeah?”

“When you get back. To make up for the trip over to Remote 10, maybe we can get dinner at the commissary together?”

He blinked at her image. Did she just do what he thought she did? A date? Now it was his turn for his face to get red. Satoshi wasn’t an idiot when it came to women, but he could count on the palm of his hand all the girlfriends he had in his entire thirty years of life. He had always been so busy with work, first as a researcher and a scientist, and now as a technician here on the mining platforms. Not to mention, he hasn’t really spent time with any woman since his brother Takashi told him to disappear…

No, he didn’t want to think about that. Not now, after he had put it behind him so long ago.

“Satoshi-kun?”

She wasn’t Japanese, but Melina tried her best to make him feel better and Satoshi felt she was all the more cute for it. Although she now had a look of concern on her face and seemed to be fidgeting in her control chair.

Oh no! She must think he was gonna reject her!

“Ye-yes, Melina? I heard you, and yes I’d love to go out to dinner with you when I get back.”

Her face brightened and a visible sense of relief permeated her face.

“I’m glad! So, um, I’ll talk to you when you get back, ‘kay?”

So…damned…cute… He was sure that his face was tomato-like in appearance from this embarrassing exchange.

“Yeah.”

“And now that amateur romance hour is done, can we get back to work?”

The gruff voice of Administrator Harris broke into the link, audio-only, and Satoshi felt his blush deepen and saw that Melina’s face reciprocated.

They were so nervous they both blurted out their replies simultaneously.

“Yes, Administrator!”

The link terminated, but Satoshi’s mood felt lighter. He was going to have a date with Melina. Maybe he could even take it farther and they could spend the next time off planet together at the settlement near the gas giant where Mine No. 44 was located.

Satoshi punched in the co-ordinates for Remote 10 and pushed the execute button. The Work Bee’s auto guidance and pilot system complied and swung about to get to the remote mining platform.

This was turning out to be a great day after all.

Beta Readers Wanted!

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TheFuckamIReadingThings are going well on the site and the stories are coming along. In fact with weekly chapters of Drow Story being posted, I will start with Phantom Star shortly as well, followed by Memories of Ys and finally Proof of Self.

Even though I know there isn’t much traffic on the comments (except for the translated works) I hope you’re enjoying them as much as I do writing them. If you do like them, please feel free to tell me in comments. Your feedback would be great! (and motivating ^_-)

On that note, I wanted to see if any of you might be interested in becoming beta readers for some of the next stories. Being a beta reader isn’t difficult. All I need is for someone to read through the new posts and tell me what they think; if something needs improvement, or they just didn’t like it, etc. I don’t need a copy editor (I’m actually pretty good at that myself) but I’m looking more for people to give the story a once over and tell me if it seems to be on target and not going off in a nasty direction.

If you’re interested, feel free to post a comment, or message me through the About Me page.

Drow Story – Chapter 1-3

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Bullies in the Schoolyard

They got off at the train station, closest to school. Just after the doors to the train opened, Mason and Rosa took off. Both rushed through the station as much as possible without raising a ruckus.

At times Mason swore his sister was practicing parkour and not gymnastics with the way she moved through the crowd. At best, his method resembled a Russian icebreaker crashing through the polar ice. Mason wasn’t a small person, being taller than the average Japanese person and definitely a lot huskier than one, it gave him the weight to push his way through the throng leaving and entering the train during the morning rush.

They weren’t late but man it was gonna be close.

Outside the station, they continued their dash through the shopping district in front of the station and past the main gates of St. Lazarus Academy.

St. Lazarus Academy was an escalator school. On the same property were a pre-school, kindergarten, grade school, junior high school, high school and a university. Apparently, if a parent was so inclined, and had the bankroll for it, they child could place their child in as a pre-schooler and they could stay there until they walked out with their bachelors. An impressive thing to say the least.

The entirety of the school was only on one part of the large property owned by the Hoshino family, which were also owners of The Vigil group, a large multinational conglomerate with its hands in many different industries across the world. Mason had taken a glance with Google Maps and saw the property was comprised of a large hill with the school on one side and Vigil Group facilities on the other side. Atop the hill was the Hoshino family’s large estate. It was rumored portions of the  estate had been there since the Sengoku era if not earlier. Supposedly, there were parts which were also done in a Western style as well. Some of the newer, Western-style buildings could be seen from orbit peaking out from the thick cover of trees.

All fascinating stuff on its own, but not really important now. Mason just needed to get to class.

“See ya, niichan!”

“Just stop with that!”

Mason yelled at Rosa’s back as she ran off toward the main classroom building of St. Lazarus’s Junior High School section. Her uniform skirt waved as she dashed. Thankfully she wore the uniform blazer so it kept things a bit under control as compared to the some of the sailor uniforms or other schools. If that girl wasn’t careful, she was gonna show everyone her panties.

Ugh, no way in the world he wanted to see that. He was by no means a siscon or lolicon. Then again, although several years younger, there was no way they could accuse her of being a loli. Not with that chest.

Then again, she could be an oppa loli….

UGH! No, no no! Not touching that thought process in a million years. Nope. No. Forget it.

Mason realized he had been standing in place and took off once more. He hated wearing a blazer as part of his uniform. It made him sweat, especially when he had to run. And being a larger guy he had a nasty tendency to sweat more than most of his friends. It was annoying to say the least.

“Ooof!”

The sound came to his left, from between the high school section’s classroom building and the gymnasium. There he noticed a group of guys around a smaller one. Mason knew who it was. Takamura Hiyoshi. An ordinary student, completely middle of the road as far as grades and athletics. Someone who would’ve flown below radar for the most part. Except for the fact he was short. Almost girl short. This of course made him the target of the more obnoxious characters in their class.

There were at least three others. Mason really didn’t remember their names since for the most part it didn’t matter who they were to him. They were just another trio of idiots he made a point of avoiding.

Takamura was on the ground getting punched and kicked in places where it would be hard to notice the bullying. Sometimes Takamura went to the infirmary for part of the day due to the beatings, but his bullies were a conscientious bunch, they wouldn’t do too much damage to get in trouble.

How nice of them.

Mason watched as a detached observer would. It was something which didn’t involve him. Why would he stop it? Getting caught up in it would just cause problems for him. Last thing he needed was any more attention of any kind. It was bad enough people were already pestering him about his club activities and the fact that he didn’t quite “fit in” with his appearance.

For a moment, Mason and Takamura’s eyes met. The small boy’s pain was clearly communicated in that glance. ‘Help me!’ It said.

The other guys stopped bullying Takamura and looked Mason’s way. In their eyes were what you would expect from a bunch of bullies: Contempt, malice and a host of other nasty emotions.

Emotions were such messy things. Mason really didn’t like dealing with them too much. Getting emotional meant getting closer to others. Once again, getting involved.

Nope, not for him.

Without showing any sort of expression other than his typical near frown, Mason broke eye contact with Takamura and the bullies, continuing toward his homeroom.

This wasn’t his fight. It was bad enough what happened yesterday when he involved himself. The worst part was when he walked up the hill behind the practice range the drow girl had left, but she had left behind the bodies of those goblin things. The ugly squat bodies were bleeding everywhere and damn did they smell awful. Mason had to grab a shovel from the groundskeeper shed and spent the next hour or so digging a hole to throw the damned things inside. At least he was able to dig the bullets from the bodies so he could plant them into the backstop, solidifying his excuse and shots fired report.

After all said and done it wasn’t unit the late evening when he got back. His normally straight-back combed black hair had curled and were filled with twigs an leaves. He had to lie to his parents and told them he had fallen down while getting something from the shooting club’s storage area near the practice range. Mason hated it when his hair would go outta control and look like almost like a curly afro. He always kept it short and combed it back to keep that from happening, but that day he had needed to get his haircut.

Either way, it was a lovely object lesson why you shouldn’t lend a helping hand. It just ends up getting caught between the jaws of whatever problem happened by.

He sighed, seeing his normally stern expression lighten a bit as he walked by windows of the outside building. Sometimes Mason wished his face would have a better resting position, but whenever he let his face relax, it would end up looking like a scowl. It didn’t help his eyes were narrow and pupils near black in color. During some of his nastier grade school experiences, some kids would tease him about being mad all the time. In fact, people would always ask him if “something was wrong” or “are you mad?” The ironic thing was usually by asking the question, most people would put him in a bad mood and that annoyance would grow into irritation and then eventually lead down the path to being angry with something.

Thankfully though, Mason had a good grasp of his emotions and just aim to keep his face as neutral as he could, but he still wasn’t too good at hiding his irritation apparently.

He sighed again. At least he wouldn’t be late. Couldn’t say the same for Takamura though.

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