Chapter 1

Title: My wife has been acting strange.

Post Content:

I am a 30-year-old man in my fourth year of marriage.

We don’t have any children.

Recently, my wife (30) has become distant.

We both work, but she uses overtime as an excuse and never makes it home before 10:00 PM.

Even when she gets back, she looks exhausted; she just takes a shower and goes straight to bed without saying a word, so we barely have any conversation.

She even finishes her dinner before coming home.

It’s hard to talk about, but we haven’t had any physical intimacy at all for the past three months.

I tried to initiate three times in a row, but she rejected me every time, claiming she was tired. My heart is pretty much broken at this point.

Is it possible she’s having an affair?

I thought things couldn’t go on like this and tried to set aside time to talk, but her attitude was basically “If you have something to say, make it quick,” which just left me feeling depressed.

If anyone has a tip on how to start a proper conversation, please let me know.

I spent twenty minutes rewriting those sentences over and over in the comment section of a message board, but in the end, I closed the browser without hitting the post button. Normally, I’d never even dream of using an internet advice board, but I suppose the mental strain has finally gotten to me. On the other hand, a part of me wondered if I was just imagining things.

In reality, there wasn’t a single shred of evidence that Emi was cheating. For instance, you always hear that a cheating wife will never let her smartphone out of her sight, but Emi didn’t show any signs of that at all.

She was just listless every day and refused to give me the time of day.

Am I just sulking?

But still, three months of zero intimacy in a marriage is painful. I felt that if I went to a soapland or a brothel despite having a wife like Emi, I’d be the one cheating.

Maybe there was another reason besides an affair?

Like some kind of dissatisfaction with me…

But knowing Emi’s personality, I figured she would just come out and say it. I had been stuck in this thought spiral for several laps now.

The time was 8:10 PM. Emi probably wouldn’t be home for a while yet. Since tomorrow was Saturday, I had invited her to go out somewhere, but she turned me down, saying she had to work through the weekend.

I’d heard she was entrusted with an important project, but it didn’t sit right with me. Staying home alone was only going to make me more depressed, so I decided to go on an overnight trip.

Maybe a hike tomorrow would help me refresh a bit?

I resumed the packing I had paused. I had started mountain climbing back in my student days, and even now as a working adult, I headed to the mountains several times a year.

I stuffed my gear into a large 75-liter rucksack while checking off my list. Since it was winter, the snow mountain equipment added up to quite a lot of luggage.

It had been a year since I last tackled a snowy peak; I wondered if my physical strength would hold up.

A thought suddenly occurred to me.

If I went missing out there, would Emi be sad?

Wow, I’m being negative!

It was my first mountain trip in a while, so I decided to just focus on enjoying it. Even if it was just a lonely solo climb…

I waited for Emi to return until 9:30 PM, but she didn’t come back. I sent her a message, but the “read” mark didn’t appear. Left with no choice, I decided to leave a note and my climbing plan before heading out.

I had already told her I was going to the mountains, so it wasn’t an issue. When I told her, Emi hadn’t seemed worried; she just gave a disinterested reply.

I drove down the highway at night toward Nagano Prefecture. At this rate, I should reach my destination around midnight. Once I got there, I planned to take a nap in the car and start climbing early in the morning.

The next morning, I overslept a little and began my ascent around 6:00 AM. At first, all sorts of thoughts were spinning in my head, but eventually, they were washed away, and I felt a sense of becoming one with nature. The weather was clear without a single cloud, and the ultramarine sky was so bright it stung my eyes. I was glad I came.

I think strange things happen quite abruptly. It happened just as I was trudging up the snowy path, right around the point where I passed the forest limit.

“Where am I?”

Without any context, I was standing inside a cramped stone room. Until just a second ago, it had been so clear out, and the snow had been painfully blinding—so what happened?

I took off my sunglasses, but the scenery before my eyes didn’t change. I gripped the ice axe in my hand tightly to calm my nerves.

An ice axe is a piece of mountain gear shaped like a small pickaxe. You use it for all sorts of things, like a cane, for digging into ice, or as a stopper if you start to slide. I’m sure it could work as a weapon, too…

The space I was in was about the size of eight tatami mats, and there were no windows.
A lantern hanging on the wall was the sole light source, dimly illuminating the room. I didn’t understand what was going on at all. A dull blue door was the only exit.

I guess I have to open it…

I pressed my ear to the door and listened, but I couldn’t hear a sound. Since I couldn’t think of any other option, the moment I touched the doorknob, the world turned black.

“Darkness this time?!”

It felt like I was dreaming.

Anyway, stay calm!

Without moving a single step, I carefully lowered my rucksack and tucked it between my legs. I pulled out the headlamp I kept in the top lid and switched it on. The white LED light revealed my surroundings. It was a completely different place from the room before.

What the hell is going on?

Is this… some kind of ruin?

I hurriedly pulled out my smartphone. There was no signal. The GPS had also lost my current location.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I couldn’t help but mutter to myself. Since I was climbing a winter mountain, I had prepared for a certain amount of unforeseen circumstances. But this situation was completely outside of my expectations.

I shouldered my pack again, strapped the headlamp to my head, and gripped my ice axe as I moved slowly down the corridor. I didn’t know what had happened, but it didn’t look like I could expect rescue if I stayed here. At the very least, I had to get outside and move to somewhere with a signal.

“△％＄#!!!”

A woman’s scream cut through the darkness and echoed off the stone walls. There was someone else here besides me. I hadn’t expected company since I was climbing a minor route, so finding an ally was heartening.

I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but judging by the atmosphere, it sounded like trouble.

I’m coming!

Wait.

The urge to help had come instantly, but I felt a strange sense of cognitive dissonance.

Was I always this brave?

No, I didn’t have time to sit around and think.

I headed straight toward the voice.

As I rushed onto the scene, an unbelievable sight unfolded before my eyes. A giant spider was attacking a girl with blue hair. It wasn’t just normally big. It was about the size of a large dog.

The girl was pinned to the stone floor, and the spider’s fangs looked ready to tear through her pale skin at any moment. She was holding the fangs back with a sword, but it didn’t look like she could hold out much longer.

Thinking back on it later, I wonder where I found that kind of courage. I think I was about six times braver than usual. I just knew I had to save that girl. I gripped my ice axe tightly with both hands and swung it down with all my might at the spider’s back.

The pick of the axe sank into the spider’s back, and a blue fluid began to ooze out. The giant spider writhed in pain, and I was thrown across the floor.

Fortunately, the ice axe had a safety strap attached to it that was tied to my body. As I was flung away, the axe pulled free from the spider’s body and clattered to the ground near me. Reflexively, I yanked the strap to pull the axe back to my hand.

I managed to do this just in time, successfully stabbing the spider in the head with the sharp metal spike at the bottom of the shaft as it lunged at me. Perhaps because the spider’s weight and momentum were so great, the spike sank deep, and the creature basically killed itself on my weapon.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

I rushed over to the girl in a panic.

“Elebanura baseria boreze… Lucarse!”

The words didn’t make sense!

Thinking about it, the girl didn’t look Japanese at all. She had blue hair, skin so white it was almost translucent, and eyes that were a grayish-blue.

“Sorry, I don’t understand your language.”

It didn’t sound like English or French.

I’m not exactly a linguist, but I can tell that much.

However, based on her bowing her head and her frantic hand gestures, I could tell she was thanking me. Her smile was incredibly cute. I pointed to myself and repeated my name several times.

“Kota. My name is Ko-u-ta.”

“Kota?”

“That’s right. My name. Kota.”

Then she pointed to herself.

“Ria.”

It made me so happy that we could communicate even that much. We both called out each other’s names and smiled. When she smiled, she was even cuter.

Looking at her again, her outfit was quite strange. To put it simply, she looked like a character out of a fantasy role-playing game. She wore leather armor and had a sword hanging from her waist. She had a helmet-like headpiece on and a cloak draped over her back.

Looking at her arm, I noticed she was injured and bleeding slightly.

Had that spider gotten her?

The wound wasn’t deep, just a small cut. I pulled my first-aid bag out of my rucksack. It was something I always carried as a precaution when climbing mountains. It contained a simple medical kit with ointment, athletic tape, and triangular bandages. I washed the wound with water from my canteen and applied some ointment.

“Lucarse.”

I’d heard that a few times now.

It probably meant “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Wait.

What was happening?

The wound was healing the moment I applied the medicine!

Both Ria and I were equally startled. This wasn’t some special medicine. It was just a standard steroid-based ointment sold at any local pharmacy. It had a good reputation, but it certainly wasn’t supposed to be a magic potion.

What on earth was going on?

Too many things were weird. The spider was giant, the medicine worked too well, and I still had no idea where I was. Even if I wanted to ask, we couldn’t understand each other. This was bad; I was starting to feel an overwhelming sense of anxiety.

For now, it would be best to get out of this building. I tried to gesture that I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t get the point across to Ria.

Next, I pulled out a map to try and grasp our current location. A map is a must-have when going to the mountains.

I spread it out and asked, “Where are we?” But after Ria looked over the map so intensely she practically bored holes through it, she shook her head weakly. She didn’t seem to recognize it.

Then, Ria pulled out her own map. It was printed on coarse paper.

Was it a woodblock print?

The printing technology seemed quite primitive, and the ink was smudged in places. It appeared to show the internal structure of this building. Honestly, it looked like a dungeon map from a game.

…No way.

Ria pointed to herself and then to a single spot on the map. I see, so this is where we are now. I couldn’t tell the scale, so it was hard to say for sure, but this building seemed quite vast. It felt as big as an urban underground mall, or maybe even larger.

A growl like that of a large beast echoed from the darkness of the corridor, and we both snapped our heads up.

Was there more than just that spider?

Ria put her index finger to her lips. I knew this gesture meant “be quiet.” So, some gestures were universal.

We moved through the hallway without making a sound and entered a small room. It was about the size of a six-tatami-mat room. I propped her sheathed sword against the door to act as a latch to keep it shut.

Just to be safe, I propped my ice axe up with it. That should make it difficult for anything to get in. I was incredibly anxious because I didn’t understand a thing, but thanks to Ria being there, I managed not to lose it. If I had been alone, I might have been sobbing by now.

Anyway, I needed to calm down. And to calm down, I needed food. I pulled out my mountaineering gas stove and boiled some water in a portable cooking pot. Ria watched my every move in silence, looking surprised. I pulled out some cup ramen and instant soup pasta (tomato flavor).

“Which one do you want?”

I held them out one by one to let her choose. She seemed to understand and chose the tomato pasta. The picture probably made the contents easy to understand.

She probably couldn’t imagine what seafood-flavored ramen tasted like just by looking at the packaging. I poured in the hot water and, once it was ready, handed it to her with a folding plastic fork.

Ria looked at the contents of the cup in surprise and sniffed it repeatedly. It’s okay, it’s not poisoned. And once she actually tried it, she seemed even more shocked.

“Ebro!”

Did she just say it’s delicious?

She was eating it so intently that she must have. I ate my seafood-noodle-thing as well.
Perhaps as a thank you, Ria gave me something that looked like a hardtack biscuit. It didn’t taste very good, but it was precious food. To practice some cross-cultural communication, I tried saying:

“Lucarse.”

It seemed to get through perfectly. Ria smiled brightly and said:

“Dou-itashi-mashita.” (Close enough!)

After that, I cleaned up and checked the state of the hallway. I couldn’t hear the beast’s voice anymore. I removed the sword and the ice axe and cautiously opened the door.

Did I forget anything?

I turned back to check the small room, and the moment I looked forward again, the world turned black once more.

Wait, what?!

Before I knew it, I was back in that small room—alone.