Mizuumi Amakawa

The answer to what connected our wills had always been books.

I realized this was a pipe dream straight out of a fantasy book; it was impossible to achieve my ideal society within my lifetime. However, if I wanted to come as close as possible to fulfill my dream, I had to rely on the help of society as a whole. If it was impossible on my own, I had to rely on the combined strength of 100 people. And if that was not enough, I had to gather the strength of 10,000 people. I wanted to try my best at achieving this impossible dream.

The food chain was relentless, but no life form existed solely for the purpose of sustaining others. Everyone was fighting for their own survival on equal terms.

The dreaded night always came, and the light of the stars was too pale to illuminate the path I was bound to walk on. I was shrouded in darkness, paralyzed at my feet. My ideal man was someone capable of conquering the eternal night, for which no flame or light was bright enough.

Humans tend not to cherish things that they do not consider their own. From small things like coins to bigger ones like plots of land and countries. A sense of belonging makes them think of the plot of land as their own.

How much further will I have to run until I can catch a break? Don’t tell me I’ll have to keep going at full speed until I die. But if that was what this world had intended for me, then I was prepared to run to the depths of Hell. I had made up my mind a long time ago. And don’t think I’m going to hold back from rummaging through Hell either. I wondered who was going to regret the challenge in the end.

This was the heavy weight of those who gave out orders. While there were good reasons for it, I still made my subordinates go through great trials. It was difficult for a competent superior to also be loved.

Hell was a place to judge whether someone’s belief was real or not.

He was prepared to go after his dream no matter how exhausting or painful it would be. He was ready to go beyond one thousand nights and still not achieve his goal. He was looking through an out-of-focus super telephoto lens to make out the contours of a dream which may never come to fruition. As a result, he did not notice the easy path at his feet. But that was only natural. It was pure joy to chase a dream so reckless that others tried stopping you. It felt great to burn with passion and love. Even when you failed and were full of regrets, it was fun to curse the ground upon which you fell. And it was the greatest feeling of all to swear revenge towards that bright light shining in the sky.

I realized how hard it was to have a dream in a poor society. If you were desperate just to survive, any plans for the future would only seem like excessive burdens.