“Now that I have become a Beast Tamer,” Kanata said, “I have no further business with this school.”
For many long years she had played the part of a dignified and studious young lady, all in order to qualify for as many Professions as she could. Now that she had become a Beast Tamer, there was no longer any need for the facade.
“Ha ha ha,” she started to laugh. “Aha ha ha! Aha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I’m free! No more stuffy noble girls’ schools! And good riddance!” She was giddy with her success, laughing maniacally as she effortlessly evaded her teachers.
“C-Come back here!”
Despite the major decline in her stats from becoming a Beast Tamer, Kanata showed no signs of difficulty. She could lose another tenth of her power and would still far outstrip her teachers in agility.
“Fluffy fluff~♪,” she sang as she skipped along. “Fluffy fluffy fluff~♪”
Anybody who knew Kanata during her time as a student would be shocked to see her skipping happily like this. She had finally discarded her honor-student mask. She left the school gates with a big grin on her face and headed for the edge of town.
“Oh, it’s been so long!” she exclaimed. “Finally...finally I can find fluffy beasties to pet!”
Why did Kanata pretend to be an honor student for so long, and why did she throw away every rare and valued Profession to select Beast Tamer? To understand, we must go back in time.
To the moment of her reincarnation.
As Kanata reflected on her trials, she, too, thought of what had happened before she was born.
† † †
In the beginning, there was darkness. There was no sound and no light. She was floating through an utterly empty expanse. It felt like an eternity passed, when suddenly she could hear someone calling her.
“Yoshino Kanata-san,” the someone said.
“Yes?” Yoshino Kanata had been her name once, so, hesitantly, she responded.
In the next second, a white, shining sphere appeared in her vision. It was the only thing she could see in the darkness.
The sphere seemed to recognize that Kanata was conscious. It spoke to her in a soft voice. “Listen calmly to my words. You have passed away. This is the Realm of the Hereafter.”
Kanata wasn’t especially surprised. She had been expecting to die for a while.
“I knew it,” she said. “So this is death.”
If this was the Realm of the Hereafter, Kanata thought, then the sphere might be a god. She decided to try asking. “Are you a god?”
The sphere gave a well-rehearsed answer. “I am nothing more than an entity that manages souls. I am not any god that you would worship.” It seemed like it got that question a lot. “I called you here because there was an irregularity with your soul.”
“An irregularity?” Kanata was surprised. As far as she knew, she had been completely normal.
“Kanata-san, while you were alive, you were forced to endure many hardships.”
“Was I?” she asked. “I think I led a pretty normal life. Really, by the standards of our world, I was sort of lucky.” Kanata had never known severe hunger or thirst. Her death had been from natural causes. The moment of her death itself had been more frightening, but that, too, was comparatively mild. From Kanata’s perspective, it was a fairly decent death. It was even a valuable experience, she thought, to feel her consciousness fade to the flat beeping of the ECG machine.
The glowing sphere, however, did not seem satisfied. “Since your birth you lived connected to many tubes, forbidden to leave the hospital, alone. The only time you met your family was on your deathbed. You do not consider these to have been hardships?”
“Oh, well, I had the internet,” she said. “It may have only been through a computer screen, but I was able to interact with the outside world.”
Aside from the medication, the injections, and the surgeries, her life could’ve been seen as the envy of any NEET. Although her parents had never come to visit while she was old enough to form memories, they’d always paid the hospital bills. She felt she must be grateful for that, if nothing else.
“Perhaps it is due to the considerable weight of your soul that you did not feel that these were hardships.”
Despite everything, Kanata was a girl. There was no way she would let a comment about her weight slip by unchallenged.
“Excuse me, it’s rude to talk about people’s weight like that!” In fact, she thought, now that she was dead she must have withered away to skin and bones. She was probably very light!
“You misunderstand,” the sphere clarified. “I am speaking of the mass of your soul.”
Kanata didn’t know what that meant, but whatever it was didn’t sound good.
“It is not a matter of good or bad,” the sphere continued. “The scales are out of alignment. Your soul is uncommonly heavy. To bring balance to the World Tree, we must move your soul to another dimension.”
“Well I don’t really understand what that means, but wouldn’t it be enough to let me go free, now that I’ve died? I lived the best life I could, and I died a proper death, after all.”
“Then you have no regrets? Not even a small one? You truly mean to say that you have no regrets at all?”
“Hmm,” she thought aloud. “Regrets, is it?” Something finally came to mind after the sphere’s prodding. A regret. There was one thing. One thing that she had to regret from her life. “W-Well, if I must say, I suppose there was one...”
“I see. And what is your regret? Tell me, no matter what it is.”
“I wanted fluff.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Fluff. I wanted fluff.”
“Fluff, you say?” The sphere didn’t seem to understand. Somehow it gave the impression that it was tilting its head in confusion.
“I’m sure you know, but I lived my life in a sterile room. I never had a chance to touch an animal. And their fur looks so soft, I’m sure it would feel amazing to touch. Oh, if only I could have caressed the fluff and licked the fluff and breathed in the fluff and fondled the fluff and...”