Prologue

The sun’s shining, the cherry trees are in full bloom, the first month of school has begun.

But nobody’s outside.

Why?

Because it’s break time right now at Akatsuki High.

In classroom 2B, the students are split up into different social groups.

Most of them except for a guy sitting off to the side reading a book.

One of the students, Haruto, the self-proclaimed class clown, goes to greet him, “Oi, Shin! Reading another horror novel?”

Without looking up, Shin responds, “Hmm? Yeah, and it’s not a horror novel, it’s a source book.”

“Really?” Haruto, glances over his shoulder, “What’s with the creepy symbols and scary monsters? Don’t tell me it’s some Demon Summoning Grimoire.”

Shin looks up with an incredulous look, “What? No, it’s an eldritch sourcebook.”

“Eldritch?” Haruto questions with fake ignorance, “You mean tentacle monsters like Cthulhu?”

“Yeah, didn’t I explain this all to you before?”

Haruto cheekily grins, “Yeah you did, I thought I’d let everyone know your tastes.”

“Bastard.”

Haruto pats him on the back, “Well, Imma leave you to it. By the way, this time you’re bringing snacks for the next board game meet-up.”

“Even though I’m the host?” Shin asks with a raised brow.

“Yup!”

He lets out a sigh, “You’re shameless, you know that?”

“I know! I wish I could share some of it with Aika, I swear, she’s literally a losing heroine!”

“Losing heroine? The heck are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how–” A pair of hands clasp over Haruto’s mouth, “Mmph! Mmph!”

The owner of the hand, the aforementioned Aika exudes a chilling aura contrary to her usual kind-hearted appearance, “What were you saying, Haruto? You weren’t talking bad about me were you?”

Haruto frantically shakes his head.

Aika lets go of him, Haruto dramatically clutches his chest and heaves, inhaling air as though he was actually suffocating.

One person questioned the duo’s comedic performance, “What are the two of you doing?”

“Ren!” Haruto immediately hides behind Ren’s athletic frame, “You have to help me! I think Aika’s been possessed! You hold her down while I get the salt and bible!” He attempts to push Ren forward, but Ren doesn’t budge an inch.

“From how I see it, you’re annoying people again.”

“What!? I’m just–” He quickly makes eye contact with Aika who smiles, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

He gulps and pretends not to see the demonic face floating above her head, “I’m just socializing with Ren! He hardly talks to anyone besides us.”

“Quit making a spectacle in front of him, guy just wants to read before the next class starts.”

“Don’t be like that, I was just teasing him.”

“Oh really? Since you're having so much fun, guess you don’t need to copy Yumi’s notes. Right Yumi?”

Yumi, with twin braids hanging down her back and glasses, looks up from her textbook confused, “Um, what?”

At the mention of being banned from note-taking, Haruto drops to his knees and clasps her hands, “Yumi Nee-san! Please don’t abandon me! I’ll be better I swear!”

Utterly flustered by Haruto’s nonsensical behaviour that matches with a deadbeat husband clinging to his fed-up wife, Yumi is dumbfounded.

Ren, retaining his composure, grabs Hazuto and tries to pry him off, “Stop troubling her. You’re already being annoying as is.”

Hazuto, “You can’t do this to me!”

His friend ignores his words and keeps trying to pry him off.

Desperate, the self-proclaimed jokes, clings onto her legs. He tries to appeal to Yumi with crocodile tears. Except he accidentally…

“Bunnies? Innocent as ever Yumi-chan!”

Ren lets go of Hazuto and facepalms.

Yumi’s face reddens, a shadow looms over Hazuto, it isn’t from the hand forming a fist Yumi’s raising.

He glances up to see what’s hanging above him, only to be met with Aika’s sinisterly smiling face.

““Die!””

Aika and Yumi simultaneously strike Hazuto with their fists.

The accidental pervert lets out a stupid, ‘Eh’ before sprawling to the ground with two bumps on his noggin.

The whole class, quietly observing the skit playing out, erupts into laughter.

Whilst the class was laughing at Haruto’s antics, Shin kept reading his source book, flipping to the next page.

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Alright, I hope you liked my friends, cause you won’t be seeing them as frequently as you do with me.

It’s time for a little self-introduction.

The guy reading and minding his own business while his friends play out a scene straight from a highschool comedy is me, Shin.

My real name isn’t Shin or Kyoshin. It’s Kyoshinja, literally meaning ‘cultist.’ Surname’s Tanaka in case you’re all interested.

It’s a funny story of how I got my name.

My parents aren’t the religious sort, but they’re an avid participant in politics.

Dad’s a higher-up in a labour union. Mom is the founder of a small-medium charity that helps the impoverished.

Despite their left-leaning professions, they’re proud self-proclaimed nationalists and right-wingers.

Not the extremist Imperialist mindset that prevailed in the early to mid 1900’s, thank god, but they can be quite vocal about their views.

So what exactly do politically extreme, possibly atheist parents have to do with naming a child ‘cultist?’

I’m getting there, just bear with me.

When I was born, my parents wanted to name me ‘Fanaticism.’ I think what they were trying to go for was ‘Patriotism,’ but they like ‘Fanaticism’ better since it sounds more extreme.

However, due to an error in the computer system, my name got added with an extra ‘ja.’

When the nurse presented my birth certificate to my parents, you’d think they’d curse her for making such a huge mistake.

Well… They didn’t

Apparently they thought naming a child ‘Cultist’ instead of ‘Fanaticism’ sounded a lot cooler, so they stuck with it.

I’m not gonna lie, I kinda dig it.

Every time I tell someone my name for the first time, they do a double take and ask for my name a second time.

Okay, so I didn’t have much religious upbringing. How did I get into the creepy, otherworldly, tentacle entities trope?

It wasn’t anything too dramatic, back in middle school, I had a pen pal from the West. He’s an avid fan of D&D.

One day I got dragged into an online session and got absolutely hooked. It’s just as fun, if not funner than the games that hardcore gamer, Yoshida, from the Otaku group hanging around the corner.

FYI, my favourite class to play was the Warlock. One of the most background flavorful classes to create and play as.

They even have several Subclasses related to Eldritch Beings. One of my favourite aspects of the game.

Just imagine it, having an all-powerful Lovecraftian deity who makes the heavens tremble and the gods shudder as your sugar daddy.

‘Mwuah!’ Chef’s kiss! Only thing that can top that is being a Necromancer, which I also play often to my friends’ annoyance.

Don’t get me wrong, I just have a fascination with the occult. Mostly things related to the dead or mysterious beings beyond human comprehension. Though I am impartial to Demonology once in a while.

Yikes, I’m trying to clear my name. Here I am, digging a deeper hole for myself.

In my defence, it’s not like I perform ritual sacrifices at home, whine about the meaningless of human existence, or purposefully act gloomy and make others uncomfortable hanging around me.

I even abhor piercings and loud rock music.

Also no, I’m definitely not a chuuni, that role belongs to Kantoro, who hangs out with his hodge-podge of misfits.

Surprisingly he doesn’t hang out with the Otaku squad in the back. Guess he isn’t extreme enough.

Anyways, back on topic, the reason why I’m so invested in Eldritch lore and horror is simple.

It’s fun to read.

That’s it.

Kinda like one person is interested in history but can’t wrap their heads around science, while the other takes joy in math but detest creating haikus.

Or how people are passionate about a manga like the ones about pirates, but find the sequel to that ninja series spits on the face of the original.

In my case however, I’m interested in reading about Eldritch entities. Not exactly popular with regular folks. Though I do enjoy a fair bit of Western classics as well. ‘The Great Gatsby’ is one of my personal favourites.

‘Different strokes for different folks,’ to put it in my pen pal’s words.

Unfortunately, everyone seems to get the wrong idea.

For some reason, whenever someone’s not into shonen manga as a boy or shoujo as a girl, but instead some obscure genre filled with horror and gruesome gore. You get labelled as a deviant to put it bluntly.

In any regular highschool, someone like that is going to be isolated and get bullied.

In a regular highschool that is.

The highschool I attend is Akatsuki High. Not to brag, but it’s the best school in this province. One of the top thirty schools in Japan.

Personally, I don’t find this school to be all that elite.

Aside from the well-maintained facilities and the various events students participate in. There’s hardly anything worth noting.

Everyone’s got decent grades, even the worst in this class is above seventy, but we can’t be called geniuses or elites.

There are some outliers, but you get them at pretty much every school.

Speaking of elites, I should pick up that series about high school students simulating the world’s dog-eat-dog societal system. Heard the main cast are all in their second years and one of them got expelled.

What was I saying again?

Ah, right, my nonexistent social life.

Luckily some old acquaintances of mine. Hazuto, Aika and Ren are popular with the class and help me build bridges with them.

For the most part, everyone’s chill.

Even the trio of delinquents who’re arguing about something. I think it’s something about who has the cooler tattoo? Are relatively decent individuals, as long as one doesn’t piss them off.

Although they’re nice, my classmates treat me with caution. I’m the kind of guy you’d want for a group project, but not to hang out with. Doesn’t really bother me though, I get enough social interaction with sports and the board games club.

Pitiful, really, I know.

Alright enough character introduction, let’s move the plot along. It’s already been, what, half a thousand words already?

It’s time to get to the real exciting stuff.

Anywho, it’s a typical sunny spring day in the first month of my second year in high school. I’m just sitting in class during lunch block, reading my shiny new hardcover Eldritch source book I’ve been dying to get.

The two thousand yen I spent was definitely worth it, so much interesting and new lore. I should use Shub or Yog for my next campaign. There’s only so many times a person can

Right, enough about me, everyone wants to rip off the skin and dig into the meat and bones of the story don’t they?

Of course, we’re starting things off with a classic.

Good old summoning circle.

Everyone’s minding their own business. A giant glowing circle appears beneath our feet.

How cliche.

Pretty much anyone who's ever read manga or light novels can guess what happens next. The circle shines brightly with a divine gold light and the next thing I know, me and my classmates all appear in a fancy castle or pristine church.

Some guy tells us to go fight a Demon King, we agree for some reason, go on some adventures, slay the Demon King, then we go back home.

That’s the typical start to any good old isekai.

I’m going to pause right there.

Bear with me for a moment. You all must be thinking ‘Ugh! Another trash isekai filled with waifus and either nonsensical or cliche magic power systems!

I bet the main character is just going to be a wuss, or a pervert!

They get some special ability and then go around collecting women like Monpoke Cards, gain the power to mess up the entire world order with a single spell, have the inhabitants blindly worship them for things that’s common sense on Earth. Yada yada yada.’

You’d be partially right.

Yes, there’s magic.

Yes, it’s in a fantasy world.

Yes, everyone gets some special abilities.

But bear with me for a minute or two.

What happens next is extraordinary.

For me at least. Everyone else gets the classic package.

Let me explain.

The basic outline for these situations is the people find themselves in the middle of a king’s castle or grand cathedral.

I didn’t find myself in either of those places. Neither am I greeted by a middle-aged king or an old bishop, nor by a beautiful princess or saint.

Where I am is at what I can only describe as a bottomless abyss.

I rub my eyes and pinch myself. All around me is nothingness. To be more exact, it’s a dark abyss with a couple of floating islands.

How am I able to see in a literal abyss?

Floating above the islands are various green sigils not too dissimilar from the ones in my source book.

Except… much bigger and more ominous looking than Haruto’s mom’s hips, and jutting belly she got four months after meeting a guy who wasn’t his father at a motel.

I wish the dude was here so I can say that remark out-loud as payback for the morning.

I walked to the edge of the island I was standing on.

Looking down from a height that I couldn’t even fathom, I see an endless sea.

Not a nice turquoise-blue color seen in the advertisement for the Bahamas. No, its waves are pitch-dark. Whenever the tides churn, something resembling tentacles spray about instead of white foam.

It isn’t just the sea that’s dark, the skies are equally dark, if not darker than the glistening void frothing below.

I don’t know if it’s my aversion to extreme heights or the atmosphere, but I feel extremely queasy.

Even on a cruise ship, I never felt the urge to hurl as much as I do now.

My head’s tingling, were those eyes I just saw blinking down there?

Blinking green eyes?

God, I’m really losing it. I feel like I have a fever.

I forcibly pull myself back from the edge before my sanity deteriorates further.

Unintentionally, I stumble into the light of one of the sigils.

Basking under its eerie glow, I feel the nausea recede.

Whew, nearly lost myself for a second right there. I shudder to imagine what would’ve happened if I kept staring into the sea for too long.

Looks like it’s true when they say ‘if you look into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.’

I don’t know if those eyes were real or not, but I am not staying in this godforsaken place any longer.

I turn my gaze inland.

Ruins, dozens of floating statues in a circle. Most were weathered beyond recognition or lay in pieces.

The only statue that remained relatively intact is a disturbingly large tentacled creature.

Honestly, I don’t know who it’s supposed to be referencing since half the entities in Cthulhu Mythos are tentacle monsters.

…

No matter how one slices it, it's quite clear I’m meant to investigate those ruins.

I trudge forward, the island I’m on is small, it doesn’t take long for me to reach the center.

The buildings aren’t of any note. I’m not an archaeologist, I doubt I can figure out what happened to this extinct civilization.

The only thing worth noting is a single dark shiny slab. Surrounding it are burning candles with a similar eerie green to the sigils floating near the islands.

Obviously, this is an altar, but I’m more interested in what lies on it.

At the center of the altar floats a book.

It’s incredibly chuuni-looking, black, covered in forbidden sigils, sealed with chains. To top it off, there’s even a skull adorned at its very center.

My gut and knowledge of typical isekai tropes tells me this is a really bad idea, but I have no idea how else to get myself out of here.

I go up to the altar and place my hands on the book.

And…

I immediately regret my decision, like a toddler placing his hand on a hot stove.

Actually happened to me once, guess I never learned from that mistake.

“A-aaah!”

Images are sheared into my mind. The rise and fall of civilizations, forbidden world upending secrets, visions of horrendous beings drifting through space. So much information, so many nightmares, so many prophecies.

It’s like a guy trapped in a white room and forced to do nothing but watch soap operas back to back for the entirety of his life.

Heck, even that option is better than what I’m experiencing right now.

At the very least, humans have a lifespan and eventually die. Plus, there might be a few good series easy and interesting enough to follow along.

Where am I going with this? Yes that’s right, I’m trying to distract myself from the pain.

Crap, I think my brain’s going to be fried. If not, my personality’s going to be out of tune at best or batshit crazy.

Suddenly-

‘GO.’

That single voice resounded in my mind, it was subtle, but the shock to my brain is far greater than listening to a boombox directly blasting Ado into my ear.

I black out immediately after.

As if someone pressed the factory reset button on a stuffed PC, all the recent visions I saw were wiped from my memory.

Fortunately, it also wiped away my mental stress and psychotic breakdown.

I’m honestly surprised I haven’t gone insane in the first few moments. Or could it have been moments and the pain was so great, my senses didn’t perceive it that way?

It hurt a thousand times worse than that time I went through a fever and recovering from wisdom teeth removal surgery.

I swear, if I ever find out who toyed with me using those visions, I’m going to fill their mind with eternal brain rot once I get my hands on some mental manipulation magic in the isekai world.

Anyways, that’s for the future.

Right now I’m unconscious.

I had no clue how long I was out.

But that doesn’t matter, what does matter is I awake in the new isekai world and start my adventure with the rest of class.

Surprise, surprise, the next moment I wake up, I find myself in a grand hall full of religious iconography. I’m surrounded by my bewildered familiar classmates, and armed inquisitors who look like they’re going to bring judgement down on heretics.

Okay, I know what everyone’s thinking. I said things were going to be different in this isekai, but I never made a promise of how different it’s going to be.

But getting surrounded by angry church members who look like they’re about to scream “Deus Vult” and start purging cultists with their weapons is new.

Hold up, why are they angry?

Also, why do their gazes seem to be directed at me?

Wait hold up, why are they drawing their swords and aiming their halbers at me!?

Ugh, I feel nauseous, and I don’t think it’s caused solely from being mentally cattle-branded with dark knowledge or flung through a half-dead dimension.

Hopefully everything ends well, right?

…

…

…

Yeah I figured out later it didn’t.