Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou (LN) - Volume 13 - Chapter Ep

Epilogue

About a year had passed since an entire class of high school students had mysteriously vanished in the middle of the day. The thirty-two students sitting in that classroom, as well as their homeroom teacher, had simply disappeared without a trace. It had been a harrowing incident that no one had been able to find a cause or explanation for. The students couldn’t have been kidnapped, since it had been the middle of the day, and no one else in school had noticed. Besides, a group that large would have stood out no matter how hard a potential criminal tried to keep things inconspicuous. No one had seen thirty-odd students and a teacher anywhere in the streets, and no one had even seen the moment of their disappearance.

At first, people had suspected the teacher herself of perhaps doing something to the students, hypnotizing them for example, and then getting them all to leave separately and gather elsewhere. However, no evidence had been found of any suspicious activity on her part by the various investigative agencies that had looked into the incident. Besides, everyone’s lunches had been found left in the classroom half-eaten. Bits of half-finished homework students had been working on last minute, an only partly erased blackboard, and desks and chairs in the middle of being moved all pointed to one conclusion: the students had been going about their lives like normal up until the moment of their unexpected disappearance.

There were no traces of people being dragged out of the classrooms or moved against their will, so it really seemed as though they’d just vanished in the middle of lunchtime. The students in adjacent classrooms and those who had happened to be passing by at the time all testified that everything had been normal until those students suddenly weren’t there. They also all had mentioned that a bright flash of light had enveloped the classroom and someone had shouted, “Everyone, get out!” seconds before they’d all disappeared. Unfortunately, the police had been unable to find any leads whatsoever. It was as if another Mary Celeste incident had occurred in the modern day. After some time, the students’ inexplicable disappearance became the stuff of urban legends.

Naturally, the media showered the incident with constant attention as well. It became so famous that international news agencies started reporting on it as well, not just Japan. Journalists, cult leaders, and researchers of the occult from all over the world gathered to either look for evidence of their own or offer their own esoteric theories about what had caused the disappearance. That, unfortunately, also led to an increase in the crime rate in that high school’s city, and for a time the school had to close its doors for the students’ safety. The parents and families of the students who’d disappeared were bombarded with constant media attention as journalists pestered them with questions.

Unsurprisingly, those families became exhausted both in body and mind as they had to deal with the unwanted attention.

Both for good and for ill though, the march of time was relentless, and after half a year or so, the public’s attention moved on to other affairs. News stations stopped running stories about the incident, at best doing short update blurbs about how the investigation was progressing. Pundits and fans of the occult tried to milk as much content as they could to increase their own fame, but the general public went back to following the latest political events and celebrity scandals and so on instead. The criminals emboldened by the incident and the commotion it had caused were rounded up in short order, and the crime sprees ended too.

In the residential district of the town with the mystery high school was a decent-sized house with a nameplate on the front entrance that read “Nagumo.” In the living room of that house, a tall, lean man with short-cropped black hair said in a tired voice, “Sumire, shouldn’t you head to bed? You were up late yesterday too.”

He was none other than Shu Nagumo, Hajime’s dad. He was sitting at the living room table, staring intently at his laptop’s screen.

“I’ll be fine. If anything, you’re the one who needs to sleep,” Hajime’s mother, Sumire Nagumo said. She was sitting across the table and was likewise staring at her work rather than the person she was speaking to.

If Hajime could see what his parents looked like right now, he would have been quite surprised. Both of them tended to be quite energetic, cracking jokes all the time, but right now they resembled lifeless scarecrows.

Though Shu was combing the net for any news of the missing students and Sumire was busy making flyers with Hajime’s face on them, they were working mechanically, as if their hearts weren’t really in it.

“You’ve been doing your regular job on top of all of this, haven’t you? You’ll burn out at this rate.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. All the other guys at my company are helping pick up the slack. Hell, they chased me out the other day, saying I wouldn’t be any help with how sickly I looked.”

“It’s the same at my place. I’ve been on hiatus for so long that I feel bad about taking more breaks, but my editor and my assistants have all insisted I take as long as I need.”

The rest of the world might have moved on from the mass disappearance incident, but the families of the students certainly hadn’t. Not content to just wait for the police, they’d banded together and formed an association to share information and work on investigating the disappearance independently.

Naturally, the coworkers of those parents all understood the situation they were in. Shu was the manager of a small-scale video game company and Sumire was a popular shojo mangaka. Normally, if they’d taken as much time off as they had, their respective employers would have fired them, but their coworkers and bosses sympathized with the two of them and were doing all they could to accommodate them. Most of Shu and Sumire’s coworkers knew Hajime personally, since he’d often come in to help them both even as a kid, and they were worried about him as well.

At any rate, thanks to the kindness of those around them, Shu and Sumire hadn’t lost their jobs. The two of them were grateful for that, since they didn’t want Hajime to come back just to find his parents were both NEETs. However, as time had passed, those around Shu and Sumire had started to lose faith. At first they’d given the two of them words of encouragement, saying that they’d definitely find Hajime-kun before long, but now they’d written him off as dead and sympathized with his parents, who still desperately wished to believe he was alive. Of course, they couldn’t bring themselves to say they thought he wasn’t coming back, but in their hearts, they were hoping Shu and Sumire would move on, for their own sakes.

Shu and Sumire were both perceptive enough to notice the change, and it only made them feel more helpless. At the same time, it was only thanks to the pity their coworkers were showing them that they could continue searching for Hajime, so they couldn’t really say anything.

Some other families hadn’t been so lucky. Many parents had been forced to quit their jobs, or had collapsed from the stress of working while also looking for their kids. The Sonobe family, for example, had been hounded by so many reporters and gawkers that they’d been forced to temporarily close down their restaurant. The Hatayamas had it even worse, however, since at the start people had suspected Aiko of being the mastermind behind the disappearance. Many people willing to believe baseless accusations without evidence had started harassing them so badly that Aiko’s grandparents had a breakdown and needed to be hospitalized. But regardless of their situation, every parent was still desperately searching for their child even a year later.

Unfortunately, no one had been able to discover any clues. The reality that with every passing day the chances of finding their children grew slimmer continued to press down on everyone, draining their hope and energy.

Shu and Sumire were no exception. They still believed their son was alive out there somewhere and doing everything he could to make his way back home. They even cleaned his room every day so that it would be ready whenever he returned. But as time passed, despair started winning out over hope and their hearts began to waver. Whenever they cleaned his room, they could feel how cold it was without his presence, and it felt like they could hear echoes of his voice from the corners. They knew those voices were just hallucinations, but they couldn’t help but turn around hopefully every time.

Every single time the doorbell rang, they rushed out in the hopes it was Hajime standing outside. But recently, the two of them had stopped talking to each other as much. Trying to force a conversation just led to empty back-and-forths like this one, so they’d started having them less and less. However, when silence fell, they could hear the ominous ticking of the clock, denoting the merciless passage of time.

Tired of reading heartless comments on the internet, Shu closed his laptop and let out a deep sigh. As always, he hadn’t found any useful information. He rested his elbows on the table and covered his face with his hands.

“Hajime...where are you?”

“Dear...” Sumire said worriedly. Though both of them were in their early forties, they both looked wizened and old.

Sumire stopped her own work and looked up at her crying husband.

“Maybe you should sleep after all?”

“You know I can’t, even if I wanted to.”

“I guess not...” Sumire mumbled sadly. She understood her husband’s feelings perfectly. No matter how physically exhausted they became, they couldn’t shake the sense that time spent sleeping was time wasted.

As the days passed, their restlessness and frustration only mounted. They wouldn’t be able to sleep soundly until their son was safely home.

“Don’t worry. It’s only been a year. Even if it takes decades, we’ll find him. And we can’t afford to collapse until then.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

Shu worked his stiff facial muscles into a facsimile of a smile, and Sumire responded with an awkward smile of her own. She got up and circled over to Shu, hoping to comfort him even a little, but before she could hug him the doorbell rang.

Shu and Sumire exchanged glances, then turned to the clock in the living room. It was well past midnight.

“I’ll get it. It’s probably just another one of those vultures.”

“Be careful.”

Considering the time, it could only be a nosy journalist or a heckler of some sort. Even if there had been a serious breakthrough in the investigation, the police or any of Shu’s contacts would have called him first before just ringing the doorbell. No decent person would be ringing their doorbell at this time of night. In the worst case, it might even be a burglar or some other criminal.

Recently, they’d stopped getting as many visits from curious onlookers and journalists, so Shu or Sumire should have guessed that there was another possibility, but they were so exhausted at this point that they’d stopped hoping it was their son every time they went to the door.

Shu slowly got to his feet and picked up the interphone receiver. Never in his wildest dreams did he expect to hear his son’s voice on the other end.

“Umm...it’s me...”

Shu looked over at the display and his jaw dropped. Hajime was standing in front of the door, timidly looking up at the camera. Those who’d only known him from Tortus would have been shocked at how unsure he looked.

Sumire, who was staring at the display as well, looked just as shocked as her husband. Of course, Hajime had grown, both physically and emotionally, during his time in Tortus. He had a different air about him now, he was a few centimeters taller, and his eyes had a dangerous gleam to them that hadn’t existed before, but Shu and Sumire still recognized him instantly, especially since the way he raised his eyebrows slightly when he wasn’t sure how to act hadn’t changed one bit. Their beloved son, the one they’d fervently believed was still alive, had finally come home.

Shu dropped the receiver, then he and Sumire both rushed toward the door. They tumbled over each other as they crossed the narrow hallway and flung the entrance door open.

“U-Umm...I’m home, mom, dad.”

It wasn’t an illusion this time. A very real Hajime was standing there in front of the door, looking a little nervously at his parents.

“Hajime!” Shu and Sumire shouted in unison, almost bowling him over as they ran over and hugged him.

“Hajime, you dolt! Where have you been all this time?!”

“Ah, thank god... Thank god you’re safe. Do you have any idea how worried we were?”

They both squeezed him so tight he had trouble breathing. After all the hallucinations they’d seen, they had to know he was real. They had to know that he wouldn’t just disappear again. And so, they hugged him as tightly as they could.

The dim streetlights, the bit of light leaking out of the house, and the pale moonlight all gently illuminated a family finally reunited.

For a long time, Hajime said nothing. He just stood there, his arms half-raised, his eyes wide. He knew his disappearance must have been causing his parents to worry. He’d also known they’d have faith he’d return. But he was a very different person from the one they’d known. Sure, he’d dyed his hair black and made his fake arm and eye look as natural as possible, but that didn’t change what he was inside. He’d thought his parents would have been shocked at how he’d changed. In fact, he’d been expecting them to wonder if he really was Hajime or not. Depending on the situation, he’d even been planning on giving them some time to sort out their feelings if they weren’t ready to take him back right away.

Now that the moment had come though, he realized he needn’t have been worried. No matter how much he might have changed, Sumire and Shu would never mistake their own son. The fact that they hugged him without hesitation was proof of that. All of the fears and worries Hajime’s clone had thrown at him back at the Frost Caverns had all been groundless after all.

Overcome by emotion, scenes of everything he’d seen and experienced in Tortus flashed in Hajime’s mind. Once he was done reminiscing, he thought, Ah, I’m finally home.

With trembling arms, he wrapped his parents in a big hug. He needed to be careful not to crush his thin, frail parents with his monstrous strength, so his hug was as gentle as possible. In a voice that trembled as much as his arms, he said, “Dad, mom, I’m home.”

He’d wanted to say those words for so long.

After a while, Shu and Sumire stepped back, tears in their eyes. They looked down at their son again, taking him in. Then, smiling, they said in equally shaky voices, “Welcome home, Hajime!”

Those words signaled the end of Hajime’s long, painful journey.

Hajime had been teleported to another world along with his classmates, and despite being given one of the most run-of-the-mill jobs in existence, he’d grown strong enough to defeat god himself. He’d overcome all obstacles in his path, determined to make it back home no matter the cost. And now that he had, his story could finally come to a close.

Of course, the Nagumo family would have quite a busy time once they learned that Hajime had brought a vampire princess, a bunny girl, a masochist dragon, and a dagon mother and daughter back with him. The world would be in an uproar with the sudden return of the missing students as well, and numerous powerful organizations and world governments would take action once they learned about the existence of an entire other world.

Peaceful though they might be, Hajime and his comrades’ days would still be filled with incidents and adventures of all kinds. But all of that was a story for another time.

One thing was certain though, which was that no matter what else came Hajime’s way, he would overcome it without fail. No matter how powerful the threat, he would beat it down with even greater strength. If fate conspired against him, then he would tear down fate itself. Because as long as he had his precious comrades—and his beloved vampire princess—by his side, he was unstoppable.