Prologue ~Shindō Katsuma’s Soliloquy~

Just living.

Just breathing.

People imprisoned by that kind of feeling.

My world is overflowing with rotten bastards who are worse than the dead.

Until fifteen years ago—yeah, back when “Shangri-La” was completed, it wasn’t like that.

Ever since the tragedy thirty years ago, the opening of Jigokumon that laid the world to waste, humans have been living more strongly than ever.

Short on food, in the ruins of cities where only clusters of buildings turned to rubble and on the verge of collapse remained, they set up makeshift dwellings out of tents and cardboard, scraped together the little “living soil” that was left, and cultivated Dream Beads—hailed as the greatest invention of this century, the very embodiment of a miracle—to use as food.

In that world, I, Shindō Katsuma, was born.

But that was when I was ten years old.

In these city ruins, a building had appeared overnight.

In no time at all, the building turned its surroundings into a land overflowing with greenery, and people called that land Shangri-La.

Then six buildings stood in a circle in Shangri-La; adults headed into the buildings to make things that weren’t necessary to survive, and children likewise headed into the buildings to learn knowledge that wasn’t necessary to survive.

In this way, the mere five million remaining humans returned to the wasteful kind of life described in records from before thirty years ago.

But I won’t go back.

No, I didn’t go back.

No, that’s not it either—I couldn’t go back.

Yes, back then, when I was only ten, I was chosen as a warrior who would fight to keep the humans alive, and to keep myself alive.

And then I was told by the adults of Shangri-La.

That a gate called Jigokumon had opened.

That there exists a hostile will flying toward our world from beyond that gate.

They will come to this planet this year.

An enemy called “Ogre,” whose combat power, numbers, and everything else are all unknown.

Our fighting strength consists of twelve humanoid weapons that Shangri-La possesses, called “Ark.”

We are throwing ourselves into a battle that can only be called reckless.