Tokyo: I can enlighten all obsessions

Mid-June.

Saturday, 2 a.m.

An old street in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo.

The cold rain, like beads from a broken string, relentlessly pounded against this steel forest.

Rainwater dripped down the tangled wires and flowed into puddles along the roadside that emitted a faint, foul odor.

Ding dong.

The convenience store's automatic door slowly closed, shutting out the noisy rain sound from outside the glass once again.

Thank you for your patronage!

Kamiki Tetsu stood behind the cashier, a professional fake smile on his face, mechanically bowing.

After watching a middle-aged office worker, who had just bought a pack of cigarettes and hangover remedy, stagger into the rain, the smile on his face instantly vanished. He let out a long sigh and reached out to rub his stiff neck.

He then pulled out his smartphone, its screen shattered into a spiderweb pattern, from his pocket and expertly opened the calculator app.

Fingers flew across the screen, making a soft clicking sound.

"With perfect attendance on the night shift this month, plus the occasional shifts I covered for Yamamoto, my total income is around 130,000 yen."

The crisp sound of the buttons echoed in the empty store.

"After deducting the rent of 52,000, the utilities (water, electricity, gas) and phone bills of 15,000, and then there's the installment payment for the private high school tuition..."

As the "=" sign was pressed, a somber number appeared on the screen.

Kamiki Tetsu stared at the result for three seconds, then scratched his head in exasperation.

"Ha...is this all there is? I'll have to be very careful with my food allowance next week."

"Sure enough, everything written in those online articles was a lie."

Kamiki Tetsu smirked and casually stuffed the phone into his pocket.

They say that if you travel to Japan, you'll bump into a beautiful girl eating bread around a corner, a rich heiress will throw herself at you, or you'll date girls of all kinds in the club room after school...

As it turns out, when you fall on the streets of Tokyo as an orphan with no relatives or friends, reality will only slap you hard in the face and ask you if you have paid your pension and resident tax.

Having been in this world for three whole years, he hadn't seen many beautiful girls, but instead had seen quite a few middle-aged women in convenience stores who would haggle with him for half a day over five yen.

There's no system, no mansion, just endless bills and never-ending overtime.

"Ding-dong—"

The electronic sound of the automatic door seemed particularly jarring in the quiet shop, and a chilly breeze carrying the smell of rain slipped in, interrupting Kamiki Tetsu's thoughts.

"Welcome, light!"

Before he could finish speaking, his fluent sales pitch got stuck in his throat.

A woman was standing in front of the door.

She looked terrible, as if she had just been pulled out of a deep well, completely soaked.

Her long, jet-black hair was soaked by the rain, sticking stickily to her cheeks and covering most of her face, leaving only a pale, bloodless chin visible.

Water droplets rolled down the hem of her clothes, dripping onto the clean floor, quickly forming a small, dark puddle around her worn-out cloth shoes.

Kamiki Tetsu's eye twitched involuntarily.

He stared at the water stain spreading across the marble floor, his mind filled with only one thought.

He had just mopped the floor five minutes earlier.

But seeing the other person's swaying, stiff posture, as if they might collapse at any moment, he suppressed his helplessness and tentatively asked:

"Sir, are you... alright? Would you like me to get you a towel, or help you call the police to contact your family?"

The store's stark fluorescent lights cast a shadow over the woman's head, but she did not respond.

Suddenly, the woman moved.

She took a step, her muddy shoes dragging across the marble floor with a screeching sound.

Squeak—squeak—

Kamiki Tetsu watched helplessly as the other person trampled a trail of footprints mixed with black mud on the floor he had painstakingly mopped until it shone.

Muddy water seeped out from her trouser legs, spreading into dark stains on the snow-white tiles.

"Tsk."

Kamiki Tetsu's fingers, which were resting on the edge of the cash register, unconsciously tightened.

At 2 a.m., when only the streetlights and the sound of rain accompany him, it should have been his only "paid time to slack off" and catch his breath.

As long as no one is around, he can rightfully lean against the cashier to rest, rub his aching back, or stare blankly at his phone screen for a while.

But now, this strange woman is inexplicably wandering aimlessly between those shelves.

She first walked to the refrigerator, her cold fingertips gliding across the neatly stacked rice balls through the glass, but she didn't open the door.

Then, she swayed to the beverage section and stood in front of the colorful canned coffees for a long time, as if trying to identify the labels or lost in thought.

For a full three minutes, she took nothing but more muddy scratches on the clean floor.

Kamiki Tetsu stared at the clock on the wall, and with each tick of the second hand, the restlessness in his heart intensified.

As a working man, he wasn't afraid of being busy; what he feared was this kind of meaningless waste.

After the woman leaves, he will have to carry the bucket again and mop the floor.

All this extra work wouldn't earn him a single extra penny from his 1150 yen hourly wage.

"What's so interesting about that kind of thing?"

Kamiki Tetsu muttered something in a low voice.

As he watched the woman's retreating figure, he began to devise the easiest way to deal with the mud stain.

Perhaps sensing Kamiki Tetsu's gaze, the woman who had been lingering for a long time finally stopped in front of the shelf.

She reached out her pale hand and picked up an ordinary mentaiko rice ball from the shelf.

As my fingertips brushed against it, the plastic wrapping made a screeching sound.

Then, dragging her heavy shoes, she slowly made her way to the cashier.

With each step, a footprint mixed with black mud and unidentified slime would appear on the floor, making Kamiki Tetsu's eyes twitch.

"...158 yen in total."

Kamiki Toru took the rice ball, picked up the scanner, and tried his best not to look at the other person's face, which was covered by wet hair.

The woman didn't speak, but slowly took a wallet out of her pocket.

It was a cloth wallet whose original color was no longer discernible, covered in dark red mud, and even dripping murky sewage onto the cash register.

A foul stench, like something that had been rotting in a sewer for half a month, instantly filled the small checkout area as the wallet appeared.

Kamiki Tetsu instinctively held his breath, his stomach churning.

With stiff fingers, the woman painstakingly pulled a few coins from her wallet and stacked them one by one on the counter.

The coin, covered in sticky black mud, made a dull thud as it landed on the metal table.

Kamiki Tetsu suppressed his nausea, lowered his eyes, and quickly began to count.

One, two...

"...Guest, you're five yen short."

Kamiki Toru raised his head, his voice filled with deep weariness.

Under normal circumstances, if he encountered a customer who was so destitute that he couldn't even come up with five yen, he might take pity on them and pull out a coin from the coin box under the counter to make up the difference.

But now, looking at the dirty floor the other person had made, smelling the nauseating odor, and thinking about his salary that hadn't increased despite the recent increase in consumption tax, the "working-class resentment" deep in his heart was about to burst forth.

"Five yen difference."

He repeated it, his voice cold and hard.

The woman froze, remaining in the position of taking out money, her lowered head trembling slightly.

Through the gaps in those layers of damp hair, Kamiki Tetsu vaguely sensed a cold gaze fixed intently on him.

Then, a chilling "click" broke the silence.

The woman's head began to tilt to the right.

Ten degrees, thirty degrees, forty-five degrees...

It did not stop at the limit that a normal human should have, but continued to twist with a crisp sound until it was almost parallel to the shoulder and formed a ninety-degree right angle.

Through the gaps in the damp hair, a bloodshot eye stared intently at Toru Kamiki, its eyeball almost bulging out of its socket.

"What...did...you...say...?"

Before Kamiki Tetsu's brain could process the horrifying scene, the woman moved.

The sluggish feeling from before vanished instantly.

Her right arm shot out suddenly, so fast that it left a blur in the air.

"Hmm!"

Kamiki Tetsu felt a piercing cold and a sharp pain in his throat.

That pale hand gripped his trachea like an iron clamp, its strength far beyond that of a human.

The next second, the world spun around.

He was lifted off the ground with one hand, like a rag doll.

His feet kicked wildly in the air in vain, but he couldn't find any foothold.

The air in my lungs was instantly forced out, and my vision began to go black.

The distorted, upside-down face loomed close to him, and the stench of decay, like that of a sewer, nearly made him faint.

The woman's mouth opened to an unbelievable angle, a dark void inside from which her tongue could not be seen; only a hoarse sound could be heard, each word squeezed out from deep within her throat:

"Five...days...yen..."

Oxygen was rapidly depleting in Shenmu Che's lungs, his vision began to blur due to blood rushing to his head, and all he could hear was the thunderous roar of his heart.

His hands were frantically grabbing, grabbing the barcode scanner on the counter, grabbing the pile of muddy coins, and finally, under a jumble of receipts, his fingertips touched something cold and hard.

That was the utility knife he had used to open the delivery box half an hour earlier, which he hadn't had time to put back in the drawer.

In that instant, the fear of impending death did not paralyze him; instead, it ignited his resentful mind.

On what grounds?

Why, on this damn rainy night, after I've stayed up all night and am calculating how I'll barely be able to afford food, do I have to encounter this inexplicable monster?

Are you going to take my life for a mere five yen?!

The pent-up anger of the past three years finally erupted at that moment.

"Go to... your... mother's... five yen!!!"

Kamiki Tetsu let out a roar from deep in his throat, his right hand gripping the utility knife tightly, his thumb pushing hard, the crisp "click" of the blade sliding out was unusually loud in the deathly silent shop.

With the last of his strength, he plunged his knife into the pale arm that was wedging his neck!

The moment the thin blade of the utility knife pierced his pale skin, Kamiki Tetsu's vision seemed to be struck by some intense electric current; all colors instantly faded, leaving only black and white.

Time seemed to stretch out infinitely in that moment; the clamor of heartbeats and the roars from the monster's throat vanished, replaced by a cold voice:

Strong emotions and obsessions were detected.

Immediately afterwards, lines of text emitting a faint, eerie blue glow suddenly appeared in front of Kamiki Tetsu's bloodshot pupils.

[Obsession Equipment: None]

[Detectable Entanglement: The Resentment of the Working Class (Level: Blue)]

[Currently available container: Convenience store utility knife]

Should I offer guidance?

Enlightenment? What is that?

Kamiki Tetsu's brain was spinning from lack of oxygen, but he could feel the hand on his neck tightening and the gurgling sound coming from his throat was clearly audible.

In the face of life and death, he had no time to think about what these strange characters meant.

His gaze was fixed on the utility knife that was stuck in the monster's arm but could not go any further; it was the only lifeline he could grasp at.

Fuck five yen! Fuck overtime! Fuck monsters!

"……yes!"

Deep within his heart, Kamiki Tetsu let out the most furious roar of his life.

[Confirmation of enlightenment.]

In an instant, Toru Kamiki felt that the cheap plastic utility knife in his hand, worth 100 yen, suddenly became scalding hot.

A dark red light spilled out from the gaps in the blade, accompanied by a metallic scraping sound, and new text appeared once again on Kamiki Tetsu's retina.

Title: The Resentment of the Working Class

[Quality: Blue - Sustainable Growth]

[Type: Weapon]

[Note: This is a cheap utility knife imbued with extreme anger. Its purpose is to make those capitalists who exploit your surplus value understand a most basic truth—]

In the face of death, all beings are equal. After all, we all only have one life.

[Special Effect: Salary Recovery (Causes bleeding that cannot be stopped by conventional means).]