The First News

The living room was wrapped in a damp, oppressive atmosphere.

Prime time after dinner. The TV screen, which would normally be blaring variety shows, was tuned today to the sterile footage of a news studio.

"And now for our next story. This afternoon, unexplained ground subsidence was confirmed in multiple locations across the Kanto region. Foul odors have also been reported near these sites, and police and firefighters are urging nearby residents to evacuate."

The announcer's voice was deliberately calm, but I caught their eyes wandering slightly as they read the script.

The screen switched to footage from the scene.

A residential area somewhere. The asphalt road had unnaturally caved in, leaving a manhole suspended in mid-air. Beyond the police tape, onlookers stood anxiously with handkerchiefs pressed over their mouths.

"According to experts, the cause may be cavity formation due to groundwater vein fluctuations, or methane gas leakage from corroded old gas pipes…"

"… Gas, huh."

I sank deep into the sofa, snorting as I sipped my cold coffee.

That's about what you'd expect from modern science's peace-addled interpretations.

Anything they can't see or measure, they try to force into existing frameworks (gas or earthquakes) just to feel safe.

But my eyes aren't so easily fooled.

Even through the TV's picture quality, I could tell. The cross-section of that subsidence wasn't a physical collapse like a landslide.

It traced a sharp, unnatural curve, as if the space itself had been scooped out with a spoon.

(Spatial erosion. When a dungeon forms, it devours the spatial mass of the present world to secure its "hole.")

And then there was the "foul odor."

It wasn't methane gas. That was the smell of stagnant air leaking from another world.

Monster excrement, blood, rotting flesh, and high concentrations of maso all mixed together. A distinctive miasma.

To ordinary people, it would register as "rotten eggs" or "iron rust," but to me, it was the smell of the battlefield itself.

"That's scary… Is it an earthquake?"

Beside me, my sister Chika looked up from her phone with a worried frown.

"Bro, will our area be okay?"

"Who knows. But at least confirm where the emergency bags are."

"Ugh, that again? You've been way too paranoid lately, bro."

Chika laughed it off, but her fingertips were trembling slightly as she kept scrolling through her phone.

Her instincts were sounding the alarm.

She was starting to realize that this peace was a castle built on sand.

I pulled out my own phone and skipped the mainstream news sites, going instead to places where information cycles faster: message boards and real-time social media searches.

Sure enough, they were already filled with the precursors of panic.

"[Breaking] The bottom can't be seen at the Kanagawa subsidence site"

"I was at the site with the foul smell, and that wasn't gas. It was way worse, like something rotting"

"Anyone else besides me saying the sky looks weird? Doesn't it seem kind of purple?"

"The prediction thread on the occult board was right"

"The government is hiding something"

A torrent of information where nonsense rumors and fragments of truth coexisted.

I filtered through it, instantly extracting only the useful information.

(Purple sky… That's the boundary-thinning phenomenon. Location is the metro area. The smell's range is gradually moving south from northern Kanto.)

I drew a map of Japan in my head, placing pins at the reported locations.

Saitama, northwestern Chiba, Kanagawa coastal areas.

The "spatial cracks" disguised as subsidence accidents were occurring in a donut shape around a single point.

An encirclement.

A disease was eating away at the world, advancing toward the center, filling in the outer moat.

(… The epicenter is around here.)

I stared at the center point of the map, feeling a chill run down my spine.

The middle of the encirclement.

The place under the most pressure, where the largest "hole" would ultimately open.

This very town where we live.

"Bingo."

A dry laugh escaped me.

I didn't know if it was coincidence, or if maso had gathered, drawn to my soul, an "anomaly" in this world.

But one fact remained.

My feet would be in the front row when the curtain rose.

"The government has dispatched an emergency investigation team—"

The newscaster on TV was reading about the government's leisurely response.

Too slow. Far too slow.

By the time they finish their "gas pipe inspections," a horde of orcs will be marching over those very pipes.

"… Bro? Your face is scary."

Chika's voice snapped me back to reality.

I'd unconsciously been radiating killing intent.

"No… it's nothing. Just got a bit hungry."

"You just had protein a minute ago."

I stood up and walked to the window.

Opening the curtain slightly, I looked down at the nighttime streets.

A quiet residential neighborhood with streetlights lined up neatly.

But to my Mana Sight, I could see a thin membrane covering the entire town. The boundary between worlds was creaking and screaming under the strain.

Space flickered and popped like static noise.

It was at its limit.

The time this world could maintain its "normalcy" was running out.

(Analysis complete. Scale is medium or above. The dungeon that will appear… probably won't be anything as mild as F-rank or E-rank.)

The initial impact might physically carve away half this town.

Or perhaps large structures like schools and shopping malls would be swallowed whole by the dungeon.

"… I need to speed up my preparations."

I closed the curtain.

The TV news had already switched to the next topic: some celebrity's affair scandal.

The world was about to crumble, yet the masses still slumbered on.

But I was awake.

I alone could read the numbers on this countdown.

There was no fear. Only the trembling of a warrior eager for battle.

I shoved my phone into my pocket and headed to my room.

Tonight, I'd double the output of my mana circulation.

Even if it burned out my blood vessels, I had to make it in time for X-Day.

The first news had aired.

Next would come the special edition: a state of emergency declaration.

When that time came, would I stand as a hero or die as fodder?

The die had already been cast.