After choosing a big adventure at Lupine's Bar

After studying how to draw comics with the lowest budget, the general specifications of short entries and the steps to complete the comics, Meikong started construction during the summer vacation.

First of all, what kind of story do you want to draw?

He thought of the Book of Friends, and Natsume Reiko.

Therefore, it was decided to create a story about humans and monsters.

Then, just do whatever you want, play freely, and set a happy ending of "writing BE, reading HE".

What?The two protagonists have both untied their knots and realized self-growth. Isn't it HE?

"Huh? This is not HE."

The younger sister complained mercilessly.

"Now, HE in the popular sense refers to a perfect happy ending, with at most a little bit of a small flaw, and this small flaw cannot be directly related to the protagonist."

"But," Mingkong was a little puzzled, "it's easier to touch people's hearts by destroying beautiful things? Isn't that what the story is like?"

"But this is a shoujo manga," my sister patted the table. "Shoujo manga is the carrier of love and dreams. One of the purposes of reading this kind of manga is to temporarily forget the troubles in reality. No matter what the process is, the ending is certain." It's meant to be sweet and fulfilling."

"Eh……"

Ming Kong listened to it on the surface, but still planned to follow his own ideas.

Title this story "The Fall".

He wanted to try to express the feeling that in the eyes of the protagonist, it's not that she herself is falling, but that the whole world is constantly falling.

I drew on and off for the whole summer vacation, plus the rest of the part-time job after school started, and completed a short story with a total of 64 pages.

"Have you decided on a pseudonym? Although your name already resembles a pseudonym."

Nasora nodded, and filled in "Zero" in the pseudonym column.

"'Zero'? Why?"

"It means starting from scratch." Mingkong said with a smile.

However, in fact, he felt that the greater proportion was probably the meaning of having nothing in his heart and being at zero point all the time.

After submitting the manuscript, while waiting for the result, the younger sister brought her boyfriend to play at home and introduced him to Meikong.

He is a gentle-looking person with a smile on his face all the time.

But Mingkong felt for no reason that this was really a winter-like man.

He is transparent.

And don't complain.

Autumn is getting colder, and Dengguo spends most of the day sleeping in the quilt of his little nest, spitting his nose and soaking in bubbles.

When Mingkong returned to the reception room with the juice, he saw his sister's boyfriend staring at the snake-like creature that had entered a semi-hibernation state in a daze.

"Ming Kong, have you seen my hair rope?"

"Is it in the kitchen?"

"Ah, really."

My sister is off to cook curry (instant food) and he is currently alone with her boyfriend.

So embarrassing, I don't know what to say.

"...Is there something on my face?" Seeing the man's gaze shifted from Dengguo to him, Mingkong felt a little uncomfortable.

"No, it's not," he explained hastily, "I just think you two really look alike."

"Indeed, fraternal twins are actually ordinary brothers and sisters. It's really rare for them to look similar to us."

The other party actually smiled.

"When she first chatted with me, most of the topics were about her brother."

"what……"

real or fake.

High school girl.

"When she mentioned you, she always said 'my brother', so I was a little surprised to hear her call you by your first name directly."

"So you were in a daze just now?"

"...No, I just kept watching him sleep."

Ming Kong was amused.

At first, I forcibly endured it, but in the end I just laughed outright.

"Sorry...but, it's so funny..."

The little snake's snot bubbled.

He vomited the snake letter, and got his head into the small quilt, coiled into a ball.

The male high school student being laughed at had question marks all over his face.

With such question marks on their faces, they entered the dinner time.

And at sunset, when no matter what unexpected situation happened, my sister proposed to take a commemorative photo.

Mingkong doesn't like taking pictures.

To be precise, he doesn't like his appearance being recorded in the form of video.

But today he suddenly felt that it didn't seem like a bad thing to record what he looked like at this time in the form of photos.

So, we took a group photo together.

Add Polaroid with your arm.

He was caught between the two, with just the right smile on his face.

"I will definitely buy our original home again in the future," the younger sister held the still dark photo in her hand, facing the dying sun, "and then keep your room for you forever."

"That's not necessary."

He himself doesn't really want to continue living in a place where every step is full of memories that lack one person now.

That would make him feel like he shouldn't be breathing here.

Since then, Meikong often sees her sister's boyfriend there when she comes home at night.

"Am I disturbing you?"

And when he asked this question, he always got some strange answers.

"Fame and space basically exist like air, so it's fine."

"Do you mean that I have a weak sense of existence?"

"No," the two of them said in unison, "it means that if you don't have it, you will die from lack of oxygen."

And every time they said something like that, Mingkong couldn't help it.

Because of some small changes in life, when Mingkong received an email reply from the publisher, he even forgot about it and reacted for a full 3 minutes.

He won the Newcomer Award.

"Eh? Why don't you go meet the editor and have a chat? We're graduating at the end of this semester. I think you can give it a try."

"No," Mingkong smiled, "After all, I don't have anything in particular I want to fight for, and I probably can't adapt to the intensity of work and the pressure of competition."

Of course, this is a lie.

This is only part of the reason.

In fact, the most fundamental reason is that since they moved out, the news that the friend's account is in the hands of Natsume Reiko's children has spread in this area.

The intervals between getting troubled were getting shorter and shorter, and he began to have more things to worry about.

Both he and his sister are close to their mother in breath.

Although my sister doesn't have demon power, most of those monsters who covet my friend's account are simple-minded and come directly at him who has demon power, but what if someone bothers my sister?

She could not see what belonged beyond.

Therefore, it stands to reason that the affairs of another "world" should not involve her.

Under the guidance of Deng Guo, he has learned some spells, coupled with his already powerful monster power, he can protect himself normally, and he usually hits one of those monsters who come to him beyond their means.

But if there is a problem with his sister, even if he receives the news immediately, it will be difficult for him to arrive in time.

So, he thought of a coup.

Please Deng Guo to be my sister's bodyguard on weekdays.

Deng Guo is easy to talk to, maybe because of the sleepiness in winter, she agreed easily.

The generally peaceful life lasted until the spring of their high school graduation.

The younger sister and her boyfriend were admitted to the same university. According to the original plan, Ming Kong did not continue to study, but continued to work.

After the start of college, my younger sister usually takes the tram to and from school and home, Deng Guo basically runs along with her, and returns to Ming Kong to watch before dusk.

This strategy has never gone wrong.

Until the day of the first birthday after the beginning of the new life, May 5th, which is like a destined flag.

Nakara's physical strength is poor.

So, after running for a while, he was already panting out of breath.

The big guy chasing him was no good.

There was miasma all over his body, and the land in the mountains and forests he passed was stained with black mist, and the grass sprouts were completely rotten.

It feels like a gathering of ghosts and ghosts, not for the account of friends, but I don't know why they came to him.

For him, getting too close will affect him, and he can't attack him at all.

This mountain was originally protected by the snake god, and it has a rare and clear "Qi" in modern times.

While Meikong felt sorry for Deng Guo, he remembered what Yuko Ichihara said that day.

【You, look dead. 】

And just when he thought of this sentence, he noticed that there was a cliff ahead of this road.

On the way to escape, normal people will take out their mobile phones to ask for help, and let the bodyguards who can solve the problem come to save themselves.

But Mingkong is not a normal person.

literal meaning.

He seemed to have completely forgotten that there was such an option as calling for help, and he only thought about at least leading this monster to a place where no one was around.

And when he turned his back to the cliff, he vaguely remembered the opening and ending scenes of that award-winning short story.

Also on such a cliff.

He was stunned, and had the leisure to see the appearance of that "monster".

Like a huge black snake.

On the tram, my sister suddenly felt palpitations.

It's like half of my heart is missing.

"Dengguo, something happened to Mingkong!"

The real name of Dengguo is not Dengguo.

As for what his name is, this is a secret that only he and Natsume Naku know.

He was originally a mountain god.

It is not the snake demons who are enshrined as gods, but the elves who live and die together with the mountains and forests. After years of sacrifices, they have a specific form and will.

Therefore, at the critical point of loss of faith, he lost his godhead and became a monster.

After transformation, there is usually a big change in personality.

For example, full of resentment and hostility.

But Dengguo loves the mountain and the believers.

Although it is not to say that there are no negative emotions, but those are far from the proportion of love.

Therefore, when the garbage of emotions and demonic powers was transformed, they were separated from Him.

"So... so... Cough...!"

A fishy-sweet smell of rust welled up from his throat.

He was tightly entangled by the black snake, and he was lifted into the air. The sharp tail of the snake pierced through his chest, stirring constantly.

The perception of pain reached its peak in an instant, but because of the protection mechanism, it suddenly lost the pain sensation, and could only feel the coldness of the blood loss.

In his first reaction, he judged that this incident was probably because the negative emotions that Dengguo had towards him had fed back to Hei Snake, and it had been magnified to the point of being aggressive towards him.

Second reaction...

With all his strength, he took out the account of friends from his bag when his body was not functioning well.

Get moving, hurry up!

Must catch up!

He directly opened the last side of the roster with his fingers.

Blood stained his hands, which inevitably stained the paper with Deng Guo's real name written on it.

"Ah... sorry..."

Slowly, he wanted to raise his hand and tear off the paper, but he couldn't.

At least before you can't move, you must return your name to Him.

In the blurred and darkened vision due to excessive blood loss, a flash of white flashed back.

There was a humming in the ear.

My sister has another important person, so there is probably no problem financially or spiritually.

Well, the only remaining problem that's a little ominous is—

His lips and teeth trembled slightly, and he let out a breathless sound.

"Sorry, Dengguo."

He knows what his bad habits are.

But he never wanted to change.

Even at the end of this life.

For the first time, Deng Guo yelled the name of the little ghost he had raised for many years.

"Famous space——!!!"

Then, he saw that Mingkong cried.

The pupils that have been as dark as the bottom of a burnt pot since childhood, dizzy with water vapor, half-closed, without focus, transparent water mixed with blood and slid down the cheeks.

"Sorry, Dengguo."

Then, the body fell off the shackles of the black snake tail and fell off the cliff.

At that moment, Deng Guo lost consciousness.

When he came back to his senses, He had already devoured the black snake.

Immediately, he rushed to the bottom of the cliff, and hovered over the corpse whose bones were broken and muscles were broken for a long time, regardless of the mixture of blood, brain plasma, tissue fluid, etc. that flowed all over the ground, circled around.

Then, when his sanity returned, he hurriedly moved the body to another place and buried it. He tried his best to find a place that was difficult for humans to find, so as to create the illusion that it was just "unknown".

After dealing with these, Deng Guo changed back to the size of a small snake, and returned to the old house of Natsume's family in Tokyo with the help of memory, opened a crack in the tatami mat and got in, entering a long hibernation.

When I woke up, someone lived in this long-unused house again.

It's a familiar breath.

In a daze, he quietly walked along with a photo, hid it under the tatami, coiled it up, and continued to sleep.

Mingyin opened her eyes as she fell slowly, and slowly landed at a place that was probably at the ground level.

Total darkness.

Nothing at all.

You can't even see your own hands.

But it was boring to stay in the same place all the time, so I tried to walk.

He didn't know how long he had been walking, but in such a void where there was no concept of time and space, he felt someone approaching behind him.

Turning his head, he caught a glimpse of long light-colored hair and a blue sailor suit.

I was stunned for a moment.

And at the moment when he turned his head, he was grabbed by the wrist.

He was almost pulled down by the force.

When he turned around completely, the person in front of him was a beautiful girl who looked familiar.

About the age of a high school student.

what.

It's Natsume Reiko.

He responded.

At the same time, he found that he could see his hands.

Natsume Reiko chuckled lightly.

"If you can immediately judge that I am Natsume Reiko with this posture, I probably won't be able to hold you back."

She closed her eyes and tucked the side hair that was floating in front of her eyes behind her ears.

"Because you are used to avoiding the people you like."

In a daze, Mingkong was hit on the forehead by this man with a hand knife.

"But fortunately, because of your momentary hesitation, I held you back."