Chapter 1_Job Board

It was not the kind of work Tomiko was used to doing. She had never held an official job, or been paid for anything aside from birthday money. It had always been more important to her to focus on studying and track; but she was in need of some clean, quick cash, and decided that the compensation was worth just about anything. As much as she hated it, she was finally going to check the quest board.

The quest board was the kind of thing school faculty tried to discourage, but it always had a way of popping up in some obscure part of campus.

Tomiko had seen it twice before. First, she saw it at the main entrance at school like everyone else. That happened about a week after the rips appeared. It was immediately taken down, but the student body never forgot its existence, and devoted enthusiasts would make sure it maintained some sort of presence. The second time she encountered it was behind the school next to the track and field shed about two weeks later. It was quickly found by the faculty, and taken down the next day.

She hated seeing it by her hallowed ground, and surely would have reported the cursed thing herself if it persisted to be in her line of sight. But here she was, now seeking it out.

It was her friend, Aio, who had told her where it currently resided.

“You know that boys bathroom that no one uses on the far east of the second floor?” Tomiko remembered to herself on the way to find it. “It's behind the door since nobody bothers to clean there. It’s been in that spot the longest, the teachers haven’t taken it down for two months now.”

Tomiko did not bother asking Aio how she knew about its location, but at this point, she had a feeling she was the only one who didn’t.

She found herself at the spot, and sure enough, it was behind the creaky old door. It was full of job postings, most of which were asking for a lot while offering very little. Odd jobs collecting items others wanted but couldn’t be bothered to earn. Healer positions for parties traveling in competitive worlds. Her eyes drifted to the high risk jobs, as difficulty was not a concern to her. She soon found the best offer.

It was a simple companion quest to assist in exploring one of the less ventured portals. This was not an uncommon job type to have, as it allows less experienced divers to get experience and item drops from portals that they could otherwise not be able to do well in. It was not something that you would see on a school quest board, as most divers in school had friends to explore with.

“This must have been posted by some loser with no friends then.” Tomiko thought to herself.

The idea of spending time with some low life shut in disgusted her, but this ‘loser’ was offering 100% of the drop loot while also promising to pay 3000 Yen per dive. This guy was desperate. She looked closer over the details of the request. It was a class S portal, meaning that the difficulty rating had over a 90% fatality rating. Not that Tomiko was aware of this. She had very little experience or interest up until this point. However, she really needed the money.

She pulled out her tag from her backpack so that she could message the loser’s diving ID written on the request. She powered on the device, which opened up her user dashboard. Other teens her age would have many different profiles from the different portals they had dived into, but Tomiko only had the one. She lingered on it for a bit, trying to suppress some old memories.

She struggled to navigate her tag’s user interface for a bit before. Most people would have taken seconds to send, but it had been over a year since she had used it. Fortunately no one was around to judge her. She noticed that about six tallies were marked on the request. This was a local courtesy developed by the students to denote they tried and failed the quest. Tomiko being out of the loop assumed something different.

“This guy may be kind of picky.” she thought to herself “Must be why he doesn’t have any friends to dive with. Beggars can’t afford to be choosers.”

She thought about messaging for some other jobs, since this one might not pan out, but none of the other postings came close as far as pay. She would just have to hope for the best. She put her tag away and set out for track practice.

She disliked the track team, or more so, she disliked what the track team had become. Sure, more people had joined sports teams when it was found out that real life physical attributes correlated to a person's base stats when entering a portal for the first time, but they were joining for the wrong reasons. No one cared for the sport anymore. It was only seen as a way to be better for something else. Tomiko would find that many members flaked to a different sport to improve a specific set of skills after a different portal became popular, or when they wanted to try picking up a new set of skills for a different profile. The whole situation sickened her.

She looked over at her ‘team’, and found that another member had dropped to join a different sport, and that the two people they had recruited last week were off playing hooky again to participate in some portal event.

Tomiko went over to Aio to let her know she found a job.

“Oh that’s wonderful news!” Aio said with a little too much enthusiasm. “I think that this is an important step for you!”

“Yeah, well, if I’m going to give it another try, I might as well have a reward to treat myself built in.” Tomiko replied back, not wanting to go too much into the details of the job.

“I hope you didn’t take one that was paying too much.” Aio said in a concerned tone “Those always turn out to be desperate guys with other things in mind.”

“No way, the last thing I need is to be stuck in an unfamiliar place with some perv.” She lied, not wanting to explain to her friend that she was mostly interested in the money and not actually getting over her issue with portals.

They finished stretching and continued with practice. Tomiko decided not to tell Aio about the portal threat level either, as getting scolded was not going to change her mind. She didn’t know how dangerous it was, but she knew enough that it would be considered a red flag by people who did.

Aoi was the track coach's daughter, so she was the only girl that Tomiko could trust not to leave the track team, which was the primary reason they were friends.

Tomiko liked running. She picked it up after quitting ken-do a few years back. It was well before the portal rips appeared, but they would contribute to her stubbornness to stick with long distance running. It was generally not a trait sought after to perform well in portal worlds. Most find it more worthwhile to focus on agility, or short bursts of speed if any. While this did make for some weak competition, it led to many arguments with others saying her training is inefficient.

Practice ended as usual, and Tomiko left for home alone.

On the way home, she looked more diligently at the changed world around. Many buildings were torn down and rebuilt to enclose or leave out the dimensional rips. Much of the flow of traffic and walkways had to be diverted from portals. Only half the roads were usable, causing a lot of traffic for those who stuck to commuting. Building codes and safety standards were for the most part disregarded in the wake of sudden rips in reality. The government didn’t move quick enough to reflect the changing needs. Either that or they were too busy dealing with other problems. Or even more likely yet, people in power were using their time to best find ways to exploit the new portals. Tomiko was not one to follow the news or buy into conspiracy theories. She had her own life to take care of.

Due to the odd circumstances, construction companies mostly just did whatever the highest bidder asked them to do. This led to some fairly inconvenient local development.

The path that Tomiko used to take home was completely blocked due to an addition to a building that covered the sidewalk and went right up to the street, which happened to be still usable. If Tomiko was to keep using the path, she would have gotten hit by a car by now.

Tomiko's old favorite cafe closed down due to a six foot portal straddling through the first and second floor of the building. The store owner found the tear too dangerous for customers, so they closed down. Eventually the floor was taken out and walls built to encapsulate the portal, but it seemed the business was closed for too long and never reopened. Not that Tomiko was that much into Cafe’s anymore. Still, it was upsetting to see something that used to be so important to her disappear. Her new route passed by it, so every day she was reminded of the destruction the portals had on her way of life.

“What a nuisance” Tomiko thought to herself. She usually would try to ignore them, but now that she had signed up for a dive quest, she was a little curious which portal the job would be in.

She noticed one a few blocks from her complex that had a bunch of tags sticking out of them. It must have been a group of friends hanging out after school. She hadn’t noticed people diving in it before, but she could have just been locking it out. What type of world was on the other side?

That night, she got a message on her tag. She had no friends associated with the device, so it had to have been the client replying to her interest in the job. She read it right away.

“I am interested in seeing what you can do. Please meet me behind the candy shop next to the dumpster after school. Payment will only be given after the dive. Come alone.“

“Wow” Tomiko thought “This kid isn’t doing anything to make himself less suspicious.”

She had no real reason to believe this guy wouldn’t abduct her, let alone pay her. She was confident in her ability to outrun anyone in town. But decided that she would bring her old collectors katana that she used to practice with back in her kendo days. The katana was in her parent’s room though, which she had not entered since her mother passed away.

She did not know whether or not her father was home, but if he was, she really didn’t want to be found snooping through their room for a weapon she would then be forced to explain why she needed.

In case he was home, she decided to cook up one of his favorites, beef stock ramen. Sure enough, the smell brought out her sulking father from his room. It looked as though he had not even gone to work that day. His hair was messy and his face unshaved. By the length of his facial hair, it would not be a stretch to say he had not gone into work at all that week.

Tomiko knew that as soon as he was done with dinner, he would go crawling back to his room. She needed some assistance; and his sloppy, wrinkled attire was the perfect set up. Their landlord had been concerned over his ability to continue paying rent, so she just needed to make a quick text to have her come over. A simple ‘Dad missed work today’ had her knocking on the door in no time.

Tomiko’s dad just sat there for the first few sets of knocks, trying to ignore the bombardment he was about to receive. He was well aware that the only person who would be knocking was the landlord. A stern glance from Tomiko let him know that she was not answering the door, meaning the knocks would continue until he took the scolding.

Tomiko’s father finally got up and left for the door. He took a deep breath before opening to reveal the furious woman. Sure, Rin was the landlord, but she knew a little bit about Mr. Tetso’s troubles. There was more of an anger in his inability to take care of himself than that he was at risk of not affording rent.

“You said earlier this week that you would be able to pay what you owe! How do you expect to do that while staying at home? You really need to shape up, or else…” Rin continued to scold, but Tomiko stopped paying attention.

Tomiko used the situation she had created to go into her parent’s room. It had an unpleasant scent from all the dirty laundry thrown about. Her katana was not immediately visible among the mess, so she moved to the closet. Her father had no real reason to hold onto it. It was more of a keepsake than a hunch that Tomiko would have a use for it later. He was always a pretty sentimental guy.

She found the sword tucked behind some old shirts next to a box she recognized as containing old pictures of her mother. ‘Just get over it already like I have’ she thought to herself.

She wasn’t really over her mother’s death herself, and a small part of her knew this, but she had become really good at putting on a face for others. The delusion almost worked for her, but she had become a bit too numb, holding others at a distance. Not even Aio was able to get past this wall of hers. Tomiko continued to stare at the box, letting some of the feelings slip in. She remembered what she was doing and bottled up once more.

Tomiko put the katana back in her room before returning to the dinner table, her father still taking a verbal beating from Rin. He was only responding with half hearted ‘yeah’ and ‘I get it’ for the remainder of the conversation. She ended with “Fine, but if you miss even one month's payment, I’m kicking you to the street.” This was an empty threat. Everyone in the building knows she tried too hard to get along with people. Not that she was a poor performing landlord, her kindness motivated others to comply, but she put in way more compassion than the average collector.

Father came back to the table. He looked a little upset that the remaining half of his meal was now cold, but did not bother heating it up; instead opting to go back to his room for the rest of the night.

Tomiko washed the dishes and went back to her room. She looked down at the weapon she had just spent so much effort to get. It was a souvenir back when their family went on a trip up north during middle school. The piece of junk was the whole reason she took up kendo in the first place. After seeing it in the shop, she impulsively wanted to take up ‘the way of the sword’. Now, it only served as a reminder of her lack of commitment. It had no cutting edge and was not constructed to take a hit. Definitely meant to be a decorative item. Not reliable in a fight, but it would at least make her seem more intimidating. She felt good about giving her safety a little attention.