Suzuki Tadashi

“This shitty feeling… just won’t leave me.”

I remembered Matsuda’s face as he stomped towards me angrily, frowning. “What happened?” I asked him innocently, lying in the center of the aisle of the barn of horses. The brown mud was all around the stables, with poop and fodder on both the edges of the isle of horses’ homes. He then stood right in front of me as I moved my back up, sitting up on the ground, looking at him dumbly not knowing a thing. He then moved his right leg up, and then waved it up on my face.

BANG!

“Pfft!” The rich old guy in his blue coat chuckled a little as he looked at me and covered his face with his right hand.

I was lying on the ground again—my left cheek burning with pain.

“Mmhmhmhmhmmhmm!” My ears were filled with that suppressed laughter. I moved my right hand on the ground, slowly pushing towards the ground, moving my shoulders and upper body up again. With the upper half of my body leaning on my right hand on the ground, I covered my left cheek with my left hand. A drop of blood ran down from the left edge of my lips to my chin as I moved my eyes up at Matsuda, innocently looking at him. I then turned my head to the front right, looking at the rich guy standing at the edge of the stables, laughing with his right hand covering his mouth. As our eyes met with him laughing at me innocently looking at him, he turned his head backward, tilted his back a little down, and continued to laugh secretly. “Mmhmhmhmhmhmhmm!”

“So that’s what you find funny, eh?” I thought. “Laughing off living stock?”

“I don’t really remember my life before the isekai, and who knows if I’ve had worse experiences before, but… that was the first time I ever truly felt humiliated. All these years I’ve been living under the shadows of my parents, not knowing what the real world is like or how it works, but then I was suddenly thrown here. I was humiliated. And this shit feeling… just won’t leave my chest.”

***

“I’ve turned into a slave. Literally…”

“Over with this tyranny! We want democracy! Over with this tyranny! We want democracy!”

I snapped out. I had the white cloth bag in my right hand, hanging beside my moving legs covered with black pants which were filled with dirt, mud, and holes all around. I turned my head to the left as I crossed a four-lane intersection, looking at the white bricked thoroughfare completely filled with women blocking the whole street and marching towards me. “Over with this tyranny! We want democracy!”

“What the hell is happening here?”

***

Takemura Itsuki

“Over with this tyranny! We want democracy!” I started to hear the faint noises of women shouting on the streets. We continued to walk through the white bricked thoroughfare, tapping on the bricks, as Kurayami, some steps in front of me, turned right at a four-lane intersection. We looked at the colorful backs of women on strike, raising slogans. Kurayami stopped at the edge, and I walked a couple more steps and stopped beside him.

“That’s what I wanna tell you about.” I turned at Kurayami as he said that. “… The current political situation of the empire of Dansamia.”

I turned my head to the front, looking at the women about half a hundred meters away from us, protesting for democracy. “Why you wanna tell me about this useless shit?”

“Because it’s not useless kiddo,” He said, smiling. He rubbed his messy black hair with his right hand—which somehow made no difference in his hairstyle—and then turned to his left at me. “Our fight is gonna be largely determined by how all these protesting things untangle.”

“Whaddya mean?” I asked, looking at the protestors.

Kurayami moved his hand down from his head and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “In your world, there’s something termed as French Revolution, right?”

“I… guess so…?” I replied. “We were not really told about it in detail.”

“Broadly saying, it was about how France became the first country in the world which overthrew its king and became a democracy. But… there were several factors which led to the execution of the king Louis sixteen.”

“Like?” I crossed my arms in front of my chest too, and turned my head right at him.

“The unjust taxes, discrimination between clergy, the nobles, and the peasants, extravagant consumption of the king, bankruptcy of the empire, and a lot more taxes—all of it which led to the revolution. In short, the people had to pay huge taxes, while some were not paying even a single penny to the king. The people got fed up and killed the king.” Kurayami then turned to the protestors again as the two of us heard the faint voices of their slogans.

“We want democracy…”

“You can read what exactly happened once you’re back.”

“But what about it?”

“We too, kid, are in the same situation in this world,” Kurayami turned at me and smiled. “The people with a family member in the army are termed as nobles, and they are exempted from taxes, paid huge sums of money, and a ton more benefits. And, it’s like a lottery for the whole family if the member turns out to be a kazi controller.” He then turned to the front again. “The age for joining the army is lowered down to fourteen, so many parents enrolled their kids in the army instead of joining themselves. You see, it’s beneficial for them too. Because kazi might manifest in a kid. But an adult is definitely not a kazi controller.”

“Hmm…” I nodded.

“And second is that the adults already have their works set up. They can’t just… leave them for the army. And what if they don’t even make it into the army, after a whole year of training which takes a lot of money? So, it’s kinda risky.”

“So it’s like a school or something, man?”

“Yeah, exactly. It’s like sending your kid to a school.”

“That’s kinda shitty.”

“Yeah,” Kurayami turned at me.

I turned at Kurayami’s smiling face. “You could have just told me this shit at the bar, man. Why the heck did you waste my time and energy?”

Kurayami’s smile suddenly turned into a little smirk as he moved the right end of his smile a little up. “We’ve not even come to the darker parts of the story, kid.”