The lumberjack that wished upon a star.

Have you ever gotten up one morning and found yourself wishing for love and companionship?
When I did, it was already dusk.

“What the hell do you mean a convenience store?! MOM!!!”

Everything started with those words.
While casually performing my work as a lumberjack in the woods, a silent thought came to my mind: What could I add to fulfill my life? 
Not to say that I’m discontent with how I live, on the contrary. Still, I kept wondering about the answer.

Making parties at the banquet hall? Not my thing.
Becoming a scholar and studying the sciences? I would have to move to the capital.

Thinking and pondering as I was cutting down my trees, the image of my stone-faced old man came to mind, how he always smiled as soon as Mom came by.
Dad also had a complete life, but being with Mom made him happier.
So, if love could make me happier than I am.
Should I try to love, and be loved in return?

“No! No don’t do that, come with me!!”

There, right when I was ruminating about love, the world suddenly turned black and white for a second or two. A feminine voice that I never heard before resonated throughout the entire forest, suddenly making the winds completely silent.

This was quite strange to me. I always make sure that no one is around the forest before I cut down my trees. It’s dangerous work, and I don’t want anyone to be hammered into the ground by a tree. Without thinking, I turned my head to the origin of the voice and found myself staring at the sky.

At first I thought someone was stuck up there on a tree.
But the idea was quickly dismissed when I found a large, beaming hole in the sky.

“…Wait, whaaaaaaat?”

As if someone pierced through a piece of paper, the sky opened up to a monochrome void in many shades of gray. Taking the form of a three-pointed star, with unimaginable heat distorting, bending the space around it, a phenomenon of the most mysterious circumstances was happening before my eyes.

“Am I, seeing this right?”

Light of many colors poured out, contrasting with the orange sky and the gray beaming hole facing the sun. The birds of the forest all took flight at once, making for a bone-freezing ruckus of leaves and croaks. 
I knew right there that those screams were warnings to everyone in sight—warnings of a most bleak omen.

It didn’t take too long for the hole to suddenly change, from a three-pointed star to four, then five and six to seven. The limbs of the celestial body grew infinitely in so little time that it then took the shape of two circles, one so dark even the deepest darkness could not rival, and a smaller one radiating pure light, overpowering the sun itself.

“MOM! NOOOOOO!!!!”

The next moment, something massively heavy was thrown out of the rift, and as if time too got distorted, I couldn’t notice what came out of it, or when it did. By the time I felt the earth trembling beneath my feet, I realized that the otherworldly oddity had landed.

Instinctively I took hold of my axe and quickly ran there. I heard the strangest of noises amid the sound of foliage being stepped on, and saw large pieces of a tree trunk still falling on the ground, broken by the invader that pierced through—to be honest, my heart was beating way too fast.

“Move! Move already, come on!!”

I arrived there.
A clearing made by the bombastic landfall, a machine in fumes anchored into the ground.
And someone that shouted uncontrollably.

“I don’t have the time for this, I have to go back!”

Fixing my eyes on the machine where the voice came from, I noticed that a person was encased within the never-before-seen contraption of metal. The thing bore limbs made of ores I had no knowledge of, some parts of it completely transparent, and at the core.

“Oh…”

Was a breathtaking woman.
Her short, silken gray hair contrasted her pure white skin, a spotless face that would fade among the snow. Despite her pained expression, my word, I couldn’t stop myself from admiring that person from afar.

“Come on, come on! MOVE DAMN IT!!!”

She frenetically moved the controls of her machine back and forth, turning on and off every single button and lever on her control board around her seat. With visible tears streaking down from her face, veiled by steam and smoke, her situation could only be viewed as desperate.

“Ah, you!”

She noticed me.
With beautiful olive-colored eyes.
She threw the ugliest, most arrogant glance.

“Come and get this tree trunk out of my way, I ain’t got time no more!”

A machine wielding woman talking a strange tongue.

“Hey you deaf or what? Close that gaping mouth and come help me!!”

Yet, a breathtaking woman.

And so, here we are.
Have you ever found yourself wishing for love and companionship, only to be sent an otherworldly anomaly you wouldn’t dare approach, and yet wrapped in unparalleled beauty?

If the answer is yes, then tell me.
Kind-hearted man that I strive to be, is my answer the right one?

“…Nah I won’t.”