K - Case Files of Blue Volume 1 Prologue

So, here we go. The prologue is sort of weird and about Munakata’s stalker rather than Scepter 4, but it’s sort of necessary, I suppose, and it’ll get better after that.

Prologue (volume 1, pages 7-20)

The Existence of “—”

In grade school, he was a child who almost entirely lacked presence.

It was a frequent occurrence for his name to be forgotten when teachers took attendance. Even during a school trip, the cla.s.s bus left without him, and only 2 hours later his homeroom teacher showed up to pick him up, apologizing profusely.

He wasn’t depressed or anything - he just sat on a bench and gazed at the sky, figuring it would work out somehow anyway. With a smile, he said as much to the teacher, but, despite being relieved that he took the situation in a stride, the teacher was worried.

In middle school, he was a member of the basketball club, but never once had he played in matches. He fatally lacked height and reflexes for it. The potbelly that would become his characteristic trait in his later years already started to form back at that time.

In high school, he joined the shogi club and also belonged to the library committee; when the time came, he simply retired without leaving any significant achievements in either of those occupations.

It wasn’t like he chose them of his own volition anyway, he just happened to be invited to one and put in charge of the other, but never once had he actively tried to do something because he wanted to himself. So, in regards to school life, his status was that of a completely ordinary and inconspicuous boy who, despite being young, looked more like a middle-aged man.

As to choosing a college, his homeroom teacher, after taking a look at his academic ability test results, named one for him, saying, “You should be able to get into this one,” and so, he successfully pa.s.sed entrance exams into that college which he put as his first choice on the school questionnaire.

As to the department, he chose economics, like his parents wanted him.

For club activities, he settled on joining the drama society because they were the first ones to call out to him on the first day of the freshman orientation.

During that period, in his life a very important event worthy of special mention occurred.

What triggered it was his meeting with the woman who would later become his wife at the drama society.

She was a beauty widely renown among the society - no, not only among the society, but also at her department and even throughout the whole college. She had chiseled features and cla.s.sic black hair, her stature was slim and elegant, and her demeanor graceful. She was nominated for Miss Campus pageant many times, but she declined to partic.i.p.ate every single time, shyly and modestly but firmly.

Naturally, many men approached her on the pretext of a persuasion attempt, but she always turned down their advances adamantly.

He was charmed by her at first sight. As if struck by lightning, they say, and at that moment, for him, it was, indeed, that way: his whole body was violently trembling and spasming.

All of a sudden, he experienced the pain and the throbbing of falling in love magnified hundredfold. Needless to say, it was his first love.

His neural pathways got saturated instantly, causing him to feel agitation so intense that it felt like his nerves were burning off. Various hormones, released from the pituitary gland in large quant.i.ties, flooded his system.

And, in that instance, from the medical viewpoint, a small miracle had occurred. His ability to understand things awoke.

Most people undergo that kind of emotional growth spurt in the period starting from kindergarten and through grade school. For him, however, it occurred instantly by means of love at first sight, leading to him cognizing his own self, that of others and the composition of society at the age of 20.

Late blooming that occurred almost too late. He was a kind of “abnormality”, or changing the wording, a “genius”. As a result, his self, inactive and vague till now, started to shape up actively, giving him an individuality for the first time since birth.

And his first wish was to marry that girl.

Not to just casually date her. He wanted her everything. It wasn’t unlike how a frog, living at the bottom of a well, would try to obtain the beautiful moon floating in the sky. But that particular frog chose to crawl out of its well for starters.

He started by reading all and every possible kind of books. Then, he gathered all the information about the girl in question he could and thoroughly a.n.a.lyzed it. Next, he pondered. He explored every conceivable approach that would allow him to obtain her, to the point where he even got a fever from all the growth he’d been doing.

First, he looked at himself from the objective point of view, immediately realizing that he was saddled with a heavy handicap, social values wise: a protruding belly, short stature, unattractive facial features. He didn’t feel particularly dejected, however. After all, his goal wasn’t to be liked by all of the female kind.

He only needed to get that one girl to like him.

If she was the type to attach grave importance to a man’s appearance, then he probably would’ve found himself at a loss. No, in that case, he would have probably saved up some money to undergo the whole body plastic surgery. Luckily for him, she wasn’t obsessed with looks.

If anything, it appeared that she wasn’t very good at dealing with men who had clean-cut features.

So he gave up on his outward appearance and instead adopted the tactics of improving his inner world.

He learned that she played piano as a hobby and, after undergoing superhumanly intensive training for half a year, he mastered guitar enough to play in ensemble. Having found out who her favorite novelists were, he researched writers with similar style, bought and read all their works he could lay his hands on, and started lending her their books. She joined the drama society because she aspired to be a playwright herself, so he attended a drama workshop and learned the drama theory in order to become a director who could make the most of her scripts.

Monstrous tenacity and tough mental strength. Exceptional focus. Fearsome intelligence. Impressive stamina allowing him to go three days without sleep. Sociability polished to refinement. Conversational skills honed to art. Smart clothes to make the best of his looks, always impeccably fresh and clean. The way to carry himself, amiable and this short of funny. Quick perception and intuition. Amiable personality. He acquired all the above in just a 2 year time.

Before long, he built up a network of personal connections and was popular among guys and girls alike, becoming the society’s head director and chairperson.

All of that for the sake of one woman.

By the time, the distance between him and her shrank enough for them to have little outings for fun together. And one day, he learned about a deep trauma a.s.sociated with men that she had suffered. About a certain incident, which was the reason why she had flatly turned down every man who approached her.

He embraced everything about her, and she, too, entrusted her heart to him. By no means was it an easy path, but his pa.s.sion, his skills, his soul and, above all, his immense love for her made it possible.

†

Soon, the two graduated from their university and made their relationship official nearly at the same time.

After the marriage, he lost his goal in life. He became listless and spent his days as a stay-at-home husband. She found a job and worked, making him not much better than a pimp.

His days of staring into s.p.a.ce after finishing general ch.o.r.es around the house continued. Only when she returned from work, he would allow himself a smile. It was as if he was back in his childhood days, left behind and sitting on a bench after the teacher had skipped his name during the roll-call.

In all honestly, having a househusband wasn’t all that easy, but she was very patient, keeping a close eye on her unemployed husband. Waiting for the moment when one day, his exceptional talents would surge like a wave again.

She was confident that such day would definitely come.

The second awakening did happen.

What triggered it was an interview with a multimillionaire, published in a certain business magazine: a frank tale of his success, of its fruits and influence it had on his way of living. In the middle of reading it at the book store, he couldn’t stop himself from shaking, feeling like life force was beginning to overflow from each and every cell of his body again.

I want to be like that, too, he thought. I want to live in luxury. And I want to give my wife all the luxury of the world, too. I want to eat delicious food, and give my wife the chance to eat it. I want to sample various drinks, and be able to buy them for my wife, too. I want to partake in all the pleasures the world has to offer and give them to my wife as well.

He had spent all the money he had on him on the business magazines and, when he returned home, he declared to his wife, “I think I’ll try to become a billionaire.”

The wife nodded with a gentle smile. “Yes, I don’t doubt you can become one.”

What he set as his goal was stock investing.

On the same day, he found a hard but well paid job and, making use of his extraordinary stamina, started tirelessly working, saving up his earnings. His impatience and crazy, obsessive streak roused, he started working not only a day job but also took up a part time night one. He found it all too much fun so he couldn’t help himself.

The joy of having a goal in life!

He was going on 3 hours of sleep and never felt better. A second sooner.

He wanted to have enough funds to start investing even a second sooner. At the same time, he studied all and every investment theory he could find, in books, on the internet, at investor seminars he attended.

He had saved up the sum of 1 million yen that he had set as the minimum for himself in no time at all. And so, he engaged in day trading, and—

—ended up completely broke in less than 2 weeks.

Due to a default taking place in a certain small country of South America, his bank account that had just grown to 3 million yen shrank to almost zero.

For the whole of that day, he just sat vacantly, shocked. Then, in the evening, he burst out laughing and, starting that night, went back to working like crazy. He saved up a million yen faster than last time. He was impatient. It just was so much fun.

He had the wife he loved so much by his side and the reckless goal to work towards. Physical fatigue was nothing.

Three times he went through the same ordeal.

His earnings reached as high as 10 million, only to plummet to nearly zero again. But each time it had happened he obtained something in return, be it caution, craftiness or calculatingness.

3 years later, his bank account had finally crossed the landmark of 100 million yen. 5 years after that, he had a billion. 10 years after, it was 5 billion. Social standing wise, he found himself being the focus of questions about how to become rich. He ate what he wanted and when he wanted it, went where he wanted when he felt like it, and his family, that had grown to 4 people over the years, could afford any luxury they could possibly wish for.

Only, with education and the future of the two children his wife gave him in mind, he kept their lifestyle rather simple and modest and far from luxurious.

He had predicted that their life could still take a turn or two for the worse.

And, as he had expected, he had lost his goal in life again. This time it was much worse. He stopped all his commerce activity and only started at the sky out the window of his apartment on the top floor of an ultra high cla.s.s condo complex. The reason was simple.

He simply got bored of it all.

He had visited all kinds of places with his wife and kids, tasted all kinds of gourmet food. He had bought splendid clothes, high cla.s.s furniture and quite a few expensive cars were lined up in his garage; he had villas in Hawaii and Karuizawa, and on top of that, a cruiser and even a small private jet.

But he didn’t enjoy any of it. Or, to be precise, he did at first, but soon found himself a.s.sailed by the feeling of emptiness.

High expectations brought severe, intense disappointment.

His mind was p.r.o.ne to activity swings dozens of times more extreme than those of an ordinary person, and all those years it maintained susceptibility unimaginable for normal human.

The disposition that could be called characteristic of a madman or, alternatively, a genius. So his mind had succ.u.mbed to stagnation, sinking into depression, until half a year later he found a new life goal for himself.

The trigger was a news program covering a large-scale earthquake that occurred abroad.

As he, now only a sh.e.l.l of his former self leading the life of apathy, watched volunteers risk their lives in order to provide rescue and relief, he had experienced the third soul quivering in his life. Money alone can’t make life worth living, he thought with all seriousness and purity of a child.

Once he had finished watching the news program, he immediately went to his wife and declared, “I think I’ll try to become the world’s biggest philanthropist.”

His wife looked fondly at him and nodded deeply. “I think it’s a good idea. I’m sure you can become one.”

From that moment on, he started taking action again. It was trial and error for him. He had gathered people and was betrayed by them, but pressed on, little by little gathering similar-minded comrades, hard to come across, under his flag, and soon enough people from different corners of the world came to trust him. He kept giving money, and his funds started to run dry, so he sold his condo, cruiser, cars, villas and sunk all his money into charity.

Through that, he had recognized that in order to continue with his philanthropic work, possessing a certain degree of wealth was necessary, so he earned a fortune again, although not as big as it was when he was actively engaged in money-making and, establishing his own organization, went on to broaden his network.

Meanwhile his wife, wisely choosing to keep her distance from her husband’s affairs, reared their two children in a house built in one of the suburbs. When her husband happened to drop by, she listened to him talking about his work progress with attention and smile on her face.

In ten years, he was acknowledged as the world’s leading philanthropist. But that resulted in him experiencing the feeling of hitting the dead end all over again.

The reason was simple: his organization became too big.

Naturally, there was only so much he, alone, could do, so he was continuously bringing up a great number of universal NPOs that could provide all kinds of humanitarian aid. He put them all on track to success, but it was for that precise reason that those charities needed the specific individual that was “him” less and less as the time went by. He had achieved great success as a philanthropist, but for him as a person, the excitement his work brought him now became only a far cry from what he had felt back when he only started.

Though he didn’t succ.u.mb to gloom and depression this time, if only because he had recognized the social significance and a good response his work had earned him, but still, he no longer felt like it was worth it.

And so, he had arrived to the point in his life where he had moderate wealth, now adult children and a beloved wife by his side. This was where he decided to retire from all the active social work, and reading and talking strolls became things he lived for these days. His life had become significantly different from what it was previously, marked with burning zeal on the verge of madness, but the peace, too, wasn’t all that bad, he had discovered. With those thoughts, his mind had begun to calm down, but, as fate would have it, shortly thereafter, he had experienced an astounding chance encounter for the fourth time in his life.

It was when he and his wife got dragged into a crime super power holders known as “strains” were committing in the inner urban area.

A man who had appeared at the scene completely enthralled him.

He was tall and slender, with intelligent features, and the light of a sharp will dwelling in his eyes behind the gla.s.ses. Wielding an overwhelming power, the man had subjugated the place in no time at all. The man’s dignified bearing with a high held head and straight back was so beautiful that it sent shivers running throughout his entire body.

The man was the king wearing the blue uniform, Munakata Reishi.

A few days after the incident, having thoroughly investigated everything about strains and kings, he said to his wife, ends of his sentences coming out jumbled from too much excitement, “I’ve decided.” His entire body was overflowing with energy again after such a long while. “I think I’ll try to become what they call a king.”

His wife answered affectionately, softly and dubiously, “Yes. I’m sure you can become one.”