怪獣の放出 / Kaijuu no Houshutsu / Unleashed Beasts

第２章 (Chapter 2)

Kirai returned home that evening and crossed another day off the calendar in her bedroom. She didn't have any events on the calendar aside from her birthday, and even then it was labeled simply "Birthday". Not "Happy Birthday" or "My birthday!" or anything enthusiastic. Her birthday is October 19th. 

In the kitchen, she prepared a few onigiris and ate them. She rarely prepares a proper meal for dinner. She more often enjoyed onigiri than a meal that takes a while to make. After finishing the small meal, she made her way back to her bedroom to sleep.

Then she noticed the book, amulet, and the key on her desk; the materials she had retrieved from the old bedroom the night prior. She lie down in bed and grabbed the amulet from the desk, examining it. It had a strangely exotic design, with a symbol in the center. It was something Kirai had never seen before.

 It looked like a character, but not like any from the Japanese or Chinese languages, or from any other language. She had looked through some books about linguistics at the library before. She knew her Kanji well, and she knew they were of Chinese origin, meaning that there are similarities between the Chinese writing system and the Japanese Kanji writing system. The books at the library contained linguistic information about everything from Roman letters to the Korean Hangul writing system to even the Arabic writing system. It contained information on a vast array of languages.

However, out of all those languages that she had read about, Kirai couldn't determine what kind of language a character like this would come from. It felt exotic in a way that was other-worldly. Kirai tried to find similarities between this symbol and the characters from other languages. She couldn't think of anything significant at the moment, but she thought about Odia, one of the languages of India, and thought it seemed similar to the characters of that language. But she didn't think this symbol had any connection to India.

Tired of thinking too hard, Kirai put the amulet down and looked at the Calling notebook. For some reason, tonight, the ominous notebook seemed to have some kind of gravity, pulling Kirai to look at the book. She grabbed it and looked over it, turning it over and looking for any kind of clues to opening it, as she couldn't open it the night before.

She wondered- maybe the book will open this time? She put her thumbs in the pages and pulled away to open it, but again it was to no avail. Perhaps she was doing something wrong? With this in mind, she got up out of bed, grabbed the strange key, and went back to that old bedroom to look for more clues. 

In the bedroom, there were a few papers scattered on the floor. She hadn't noticed the night before because she hadn't turned the lights on. The only light coming into the room the previous night was the moonlight through the window. Now, however, Kirai illuminated the room with lights and could see that there were these papers scattered all over the floor. 

The papers were covered in a strange dialect, symbols that appeared to be from the same language as that on the amulet. She couldn't read any of it, and again, it was a language that she had never seen in all the time she spent reading up on exotic linguistics. She believed that if she had some kind of key to reading it, she could read it and understand it from there.

The papers were arranged in such a way that seemed that they have "exploded" from a central point, where there was a lot more of these papers. Kirai looked at the main pile closely, looking for clues, but not one paper was readable. However, the pile was close to the door to the back storage room, so Kirai decided to look in that storage room. 

The storage room was also connected to the kitchen, so the door immediately to the left when she entered led to the kitchen. However, Kirai wasn't interested in going to the kitchen. She had to explore the storage room.