Miss Hebe Is Fighting Her Way Out of the Lostbelt!

She took her mother's doll. "Only this cannot be forgotten." Yet she could only abandon the piano her mother had loved just as much.

Toyokawa Shoko took the man crushed by reality and plunged into a cold world she had never known before.

Because she had not yet reached the required age, there were too many jobs she could not take on. Even when she occasionally found work, she would be fired within days.

Even she could not explain what exactly she was doing this for. For the first time, Toyokawa Shoko realized that not everything in this world had meaning.

Under such circumstances, Toyokawa Shoko's spare energy vanished like water slipping through her fingers. Her fingers had once played Liszt's melodies across black and white keys, but now, prematurely exposed to cold water and chemical cleansers, they bore pale blue stains along the sides of her knuckles that could no longer be washed away.

Her former school was far too expensive. If she transferred to an ordinary school, she could save on tuition; if she cut away unnecessary habits, she could preserve enough for daily necessities.

The sudden upheaval forced Toyokawa Shoko to keep her distance from everyone. Only then could she properly hide her wounds and preserve the last scraps of her dignity.

In such circumstances, it was difficult for her to find the time to carefully maintain her dreams and hobbies. Only when a friend's message arrived did she realize: Oh, so I still had a band.

Toyokawa Shoko tried to recall the past, but she realized that even if she played again, she could no longer strike out melodies filled with dreams.

It was not as though no one had cared for her. When her inseparable best friend cautiously tested the waters, Toyokawa Shoko merely brushed her off with bland excuses. After once or twice, her words became sharp, like a sword meant to make her friend retreat in the face of difficulty, while killing a little more of the Toyokawa Shoko she had once been.

She knew she had to kill the little girl in her heart.

Pity, wishful hope, weakness... those emotions had to be cut away.

Yet she still kept that hastily formed band by her side. Her emotions told her there was no need to leave, while reason urged her to break away from it quickly.

Toyokawa Shoko stumbled forward between those two choices, while her father drank himself senseless every day, greedily clinging to dignity that did not exist amid his haze.

This life had once caused Toyokawa Shoko endless pain. Sometimes, she wondered, how could it possibly get worse?

She found out soon enough.

Time continued onward, and rain seemed ready to fall from the pale gray sky.

Toyokawa Shoko received a message. Its words were earnest, tugging at the hem of her clothes like a drenched little animal.

She thought of the girl who played bass and seemed to see her face through those words.

For her now, the crushing weight of life was no longer inescapable. She had already learned how to squeeze more time from the gaps.

Even she had yet to realize that when she saw those messages, a smile like the one she had worn in the past had appeared on her face once more.

Her fingers tapped out words on the screen, and the message showed as read.

A call from the police station came in. Toyokawa Shoko's gaze froze. Trembling, she stopped herself from sending the message and answered the phone.

—Her father, drunk, had been struck by a car at the roadside. Fortunately, his injuries were not serious.

When she arrived at the police station, the officer behind the desk gave her an unreadable look.

Toyokawa Shoko pulled crumpled bills and sweat-damp coins from her pocket. There were large and small denominations alike, and she counted them several times.

The officer gave them a cursory glance, took the money, and indicated that Toyokawa Shoko should sign the informed consent form.

After she signed it, the officer tapped the desk and looked at Toyokawa Shoko with sympathy in his eyes.

"Do you have a payment app?"

"Yes, I do." Toyokawa Shoko was caught off guard.

She did indeed have some spending money. In the past, it would have amounted to nothing, but in the present day, it was still a considerable sum.

Toyokawa Shoko had not handed it over to her father.

"You probably haven't opened it recently, have you, Miss Toyokawa?"

Toyokawa Shoko mechanically opened the payment app on her phone's home screen. What made her heart plunge into an icy abyss was the gray-white notice declaring that it had been "frozen."

She frantically swiped through the pages, but every single one looked the same. A cold fact lay before her—those debts not only still existed, but had now fallen onto her own shoulders.

"Then... what about my dad?" Toyokawa Shoko asked instinctively.

"He doesn't have any debts on him." The officer glanced at Toyokawa Kiyoka with faint disgust. In his eyes, the real debtor naturally could not have been the still-young Shoko.

Toyokawa Kiyoka must have borrowed excessive sums using his daughter's name.

Toyokawa Shoko tugged at the corner of her mouth. She could not spare the time to think too much as she dialed a number she had not called since leaving the Toyokawa Family.

"Hello, Grandpa. It's me."

But the answer she wanted did not come from the other end. The old man told her to come to the Toyokawa residence.

The Toyokawa Family's old estate.

A statue stood in the open space at the center of the courtyard. It depicted a male covered in countless wounds, yet still standing like a mountain and laughing boldly. This was the Otogiyama Ogre King, the Toyokawa Family's faith.

"That man has caused a real disaster." The old man sat behind his desk. "During this period, those hundreds of accounts have remained active. Do you know how large the resulting financial hole is?"

"Twenty billion." Before Toyokawa Shoko could speak, the old man stated the figure.

That number alone was enough to leave the entire Toyokawa Zaibatsu badly wounded.

Most terrifying of all, those figures came from thousands upon thousands of different individuals, companies, and organizations... Even the finest actuaries could not settle every account clearly.

So long as they remained uncleared, those debts would continue to split, grow, and spread. In other words, the tide of money was already enough to swallow the zaibatsu itself.

Just as the old man began to feel despair, a turning point appeared.

An actuary clicked the screen as part of his routine, but he quickly realized that something seemed wrong.

An enormous cash flow appeared once again, but this time, rather than entering the market directly, it split into thousands upon thousands of portions and poured into those accounts trapped in the void.

The digits rolled, soaring upward at incredible speed... If this device had used mechanical rollers instead of a touchscreen, blazing Mars would probably have been spraying everywhere by now!

The actuary stared blankly. His cigarette burned down to his fingertips, yet he felt no pain, while tears streamed from his eyes.

If money had a god who ruled over it, then at this moment, that god was using his fingertips to tip the scales of wealth.

A mysterious existence had bought up all the debts in one stroke.

If the Toyokawa Zaibatsu had once needed to face a tsunami from the entire market, then that tsunami had now been reduced to a single wave—though that wave was as fucking tall as Mount Fuji.

The old man was completely convinced. He realized that the Toyokawa Family seemed to have fallen into someone's trap, and he accepted their defeat at the hands of such a terrifying opponent without complaint.

Toyokawa Kiyoka absolutely did not have the standing to make the other party do this, and neither did he.

What their opponent wanted could only be the Toyokawa Zaibatsu—or so the old man had thought several days earlier.

But that was not the truth.

"The other party calls himself the Lord of Blanckug. He is now the Toyokawa Family's largest creditor."

"The Lord of Blanckug has waived the interest generated by this money, but he demands that you go to Albion and work for him." The old man seemed to force the pent-up frustration from his chest. "I agreed."

Toyokawa Shoko stood there in silence. Her scar-ridden heart shattered once again.

But she said nothing, nor did she shed a single tear.

That weak self had died long ago. She kept telling herself that.

"What about Dad? And the Toyokawa Family?" Toyokawa Shoko said. "If I take on this debt, will all of you be fine?"

The old man hesitated before nodding.

"Fine. I'll go."

The clouds sank darkly through the sky, while thunder rumbled in the far distance.

Blanckug, Silent Bookstore.

Hebe woke from the hard bed and saw more words appear on the dark green screen.

A new card had quietly appeared on the table.

"Fearless Forgetting" Toyokawa Shoko

Toyokawa Shoko could not stop everything she cherished from being lost, just as white snow could not conceal Abydos. Thus, the more she lost, the greater her suffering became. Yet among all the dolls, her soul was the most resilient. Besides, to history, even rulers were no more than dolls. Upon Blanckug's faintly bright sea, the doll would find a path that freed her from all shackles. (This person is currently heading to Blanckug.)

Abstract strokes depicted a masked girl seated beneath moonlight on the pale blue-white card.

"Uh..." Hebe was speechless, the corner of her eye twitching faintly.

She rubbed her hands together, used the mouse to open Fearless Forgetting's card, and dragged it into a translucent box.

—Let me see!

It Was the Fox Spirit Possessing Her!

Torrential rain poured down like the end of the world. Toyokawa Shoko staggered out of Furukawa Court. She had not brought an umbrella and simply rushed into the rain.

It was hard to say how much of her truly thought that it would be fine to simply die like this.

The gray city was soaked by the downpour. Pedestrians bustled past without giving her even a shred of pity. For Toyokawa Shoko, that was probably a good thing. With her heart now broken, even a gaze that was too warm would have been enough to crush her crumbling self-respect.

Rain fell from the clouds, and lightning struck the city's crown like a heavy fist. Toyokawa Shoko walked along the road, sometimes swept forward by the crowd, sometimes blinded by passing vehicles and stumbling backward.

At the intersection, she finally stopped.

She nearly swore that she would never ask anyone for help again, nor make another wish to anyone she could trust.

But before that, before that—

In a voice so soft that even she could barely hear it, Toyokawa Shoko struggled to murmur:

"Anyone is fine. Please save me, save me..."

Something that might have been rain or tears ran down Toyokawa Shoko's cheeks. Grief and despair alternated across her face. Suffering surged through her body far too early, making her shrink inch by inch.

All despair was nearly as empty as the void, yet amid that nothingness, Toyokawa Shoko heard bells ringing by her ear.

"Who are you?" Toyokawa Shoko suddenly straightened up again.

"As you can see, I am the Lord of Blankog." Hebe looked around through Toyokawa Shoko's perspective. "Why didn't you bring an umbrella?"

Toyokawa Shoko did not know how to answer that question. At the end of the day, she had never imagined that her future employer would see her at her most miserable.

If she had a choice, Toyokawa Shoko would rather have fainted right then, but her spirit was too resilient.

"...I don't have money." Toyokawa Shoko forced the words through her teeth.

She had just paid the bail, her savings had been frozen, and she had fled the old estate after receiving that devastating blow... Until now, she could not even find enough money on herself to buy an umbrella.

"I'll lend you some."

"No!" Toyokawa Shoko refused on reflex.

"Then what will you do?" Hebe's tone became somewhat teasing. "How about borrowing an umbrella from a convenience store?"

My creditor is unexpectedly easy to talk to. Toyokawa Shoko thought.

Naturally, such a subtle thought could not escape Hebe's notice. She watched Toyokawa Shoko walk toward the convenience store.

Her excessively bedraggled appearance spared Toyokawa Shoko the need for much explanation, and she successfully borrowed an umbrella.

The wide black canopy opened, shielding her from the unending rain above.

"...Are you still there?" Toyokawa Shoko asked tentatively.

"I am," Hebe replied.

Toyokawa Shoko took a deep breath. Just as she was about to say something, her phone suddenly began vibrating on its timer.

She took out her phone and turned off the vibration. When she saw the message marked as read on the screen, her expression stiffened abruptly.

It was already very late. She had broken another promise... and soon, she would break them forever.

If someone could take her place—no, she could not.

That weak feeling flashed through her heart only briefly.

Only she, only she could say those words.

Toyokawa Shoko followed the road she remembered toward their meeting place. It was where they had once shared joy, sweat, and dreams. Every time she had gone there before, she had been full of anticipation, but now, she felt as though she were walking down a road to hell.

She had to do this.

Cold gradually seeped into her body. Toyokawa Shoko sneezed several times in succession, and her vision slowly blurred.