NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1 part1
Welcome to Rosie’s Translations’ “Secret Organization”!
Hello, and welcome to my very first attempt at translating a Japanese web novel. It was hard. As it says in the “About”, this is a edited machine translation, so I honestly don’t know how faithful to the original it is. I only know I never want to see the words “rice cracker” ever again. Let me know what you think in the comments below. Chapter 1 will probably be 3 parts, Hopefully I’ll have part 2 up in a little over a week (haha nope). Hope you enjoy!
PS: Sorry for lots of footnotes, there probably won’t be as many next time. (yeah no I lied sorry)
I think all humans have wished for super powers or psychic abilities 1 at least once. Like wishing to be able to teleport or become invisible. For example, suppose you're caught in traffic and are going to be late, and you think about how you could easily and quickly arrive at your destination if you were able to teleport. If you're a healthy male student, once or twice you've probably had delusions about becoming invisible and doing 'such and such' things, Dufufu… If you're a lady, you may have thought about being able to 'charm' men into being your partner, Uhehehe… I don't know if women actually have such thoughts though.
Of course, as a junior high school student I had these thoughts as well. But for typical homosapiens living in the 21st century, none of these thoughts actually happened. And when most people become high school students, these runaway delusions start settling down, as there are too many other things to be thinking about. But while chatting, the question "What would you do if you if you had super powers?" will still occasionally pop up.
I was chatting about this very thing while walking home from high school with my friends, and thus it was still on my mind when I actually arrived at my house. After I got home, I sat on the sofa in the living room with some rice crackers and watched a bland variety show. I noticed that some cracker crumbs had fallen on the floor, and since I still had super powers on my mind, I decided to try and pick them up using psychokinesis.
Nope, nothing happened.
Then, suddenly, they were picked up.
" … Huh?"
I noticed after a moment that the rice cracker crumbs that were on the floor were now in my hands. I just stared at them. Isn't this strange? But it seemed as if it was completely natural. When I look at the floor, there are no rice cracker crumbs. The crumbs that should be on the floor are now in my hands. But I don't remember moving my hands to pick them up.
Having thought through the process, I still wondered… what does this mean?
I began considering that my memory may be faulty; that either I made up the memory of the crumbs falling to the floor, or I just didn't remember picking them up. I briefly considered it being juvenile dementia, but quickly disregarded it. I decided that I just didn't remember picking them up, with the reason being that, at the time, I wasn't being particularly conscious of my actions, so therefore no memory was formed.It's not like you can remember every little thing that happens during the day.
There's no way the crumbs ended up in my hands via psychic powers.
I try looking at the rice cracker bag and getting the rice crackers to come out on their own. Nothing. Not a single sign of awakening psychic powers. I let out a sigh, throw away the "psychokinetic" crumbs and grab the TV remote,
"What!?"
I dropped the remote.
WHHHAAAAAAAAAAAT!? It's not my imagination! It's definitely not! A piece of rice cracker flew to my hand even though my hand wasn't moving!
Huh? It's not my imagination, right? It's not just me? No way, no way. What?
My heart goes on a rampage; batsukunbatsukun. I wonder if it was beating this fast when I fell asleep at the principal's long morning meeting and got shouted awake by my homeroom teacher. He shouted into the mike so there was a lot of feedback, my head didn't work immediately when I woke up so I looked around but there was nothing but painful silence and I broke out into a cold sweat… let's not remember that.
My head is still confused and there's a lot of frustration. According to the patterns in light novels, after the awakening event there's some sort of attack and then a beautiful girl appears and now my nose is bloody Uhuhu!
No, calm down. This is no time for nosebleeds. Think of a prime number. Count prime numbers. Wait, before that, I need to cool my head. Let's do it. Everything will be KOOL 2 . I staggered into the kitchen and stuck my head under the faucet at full blast. The cold water hit my head with a splash! and scattered all over my clothes and feet, leaving me soaking wet. I hurry and close the faucet. I was impatient. The force of the water was 3 times more than what I expected. But the water has cooled me down both physically and mentally.
I listen carefully to the usual low groan of the electrical appliances, as well as to the carefree laughter coming from the variety show still on in the living room. I was feeling the coldness of the water as it gradually stained my clothes and wet my underwear, but I keep standing still. Somehow, I had cooled down. Both my head and my heart. So I could use psychokinesis. But the world isn't ending, it won't help me improve my grades, nor will it increase my allowance. The water dripping down from the ends of my hair is sad. I sighed and used a cloth to wipe the floor. I take off my clothes and throw them into the washing machine in the bathroom, and then head back into the kitchen to wipe down the dishes. I'm glad my parents weren't home. If they saw such a strange scene they would be worried, and I would have been embarrassed and only able to come up with a stupid explanation.
After all the cleaning up, I turned off the TV and headed to my room with the bag of rice crackers. I still wasn't satisfied. I changed into a different t-shirt and jeans then sat in a chair while eating a rice cracker. I was now able to calmly reason out whether I had super powers. Usually, things like crushing houses, lifting refrigerators, etc. are of a level that makes them easily understood and accepted as "super powers". But these things are also ridiculously outlandish . I, in contrast to that, moved a piece of cracker. Not even 1g in weight, it's smaller than a BB gun bullet. The rice cracker didn't move while the fragments did, therefore they probably were blown around in the wind. This is a much more convincing answer than me suddenly developing psychic abilities.
That being said, I don't remember if the window in the living room was open or not. I got up and closed the door and window of my bedroom. When I hit my bed with my shoe, dust flew up a little, and drifted in the sunlight coming through the window. It doesn't seem to be flowing anywhere. There's no wind. I broke a rice cracker into pieces as big as my little finger, then laid them on top of the desk. I stare at them, but they don't move. Of course. Next, I try fanning the pieces with a fan. The pieces flew away normally. Well, it's as I thought. It's just as I thought, but it's also different. When I saw the crumb flying in the living room, it was more stable and flew straight… damn it.
I take a deep breath. Should I do it? Should I try it? It'll be funny if nothing happens. No, it'll just be embarrassing. After all, I'm trying to experience something that's usually only experienced in daydreams.
I once more break a rice cracker into pieces and place them on my desk. I keep my eyes fully open so I don't miss anything, and make sure I'm paying attention so I can fully remember what happens. I stop breathing in the unlikely event that it creates wind, and I held out my hand. I create in my mind an image of grabbing a rice cracker piece.
A piece floated over to my hand and landed on top of it.
"Huh, really?"
I drop the crumb. I hold out my hand. Pieces come flying into my hand. I drop them again. I hold out my hand. The crumbs fly into my hand. Drop the crumbs. Hold out my hand. Crumbs fly in. I drop the crumbs for the final time. I hold out my hand. The crumbs fly right into it.
What is this, it's scaring me. "Is this a dream?", I mutter while pinching my cheeks, but this is not a dream. This is the overwhelming reality. Definitely. It's not hypnotism or super speed. What I'm experiencing is a glimpse into something unscientific.
Ha. Ha…
What should I do now? I have no experience or knowledge to use as a model. "Yay I have super powers Whoo-hoo!" I'm not feeling anything like that, but rather, I feel very troubled. Because nothing really changed. In light novels and manga, you dramatically awaken to your powers. And even if it's not dramatic, you usually at least get a mysterious voice in your head asking for help or an animal pushing you into some sort of contract. There has to be some sort of signpost or a clue. Like the words HOW TO USE being written in the notebook that a certain genius high school boy picked up 3 .
Compared to that, look at this. Drop some crumbs. They float, then land in the palm of your hand. Drop, float, land. So? What is this? I mean sure, it's probably amazing, but what is it? I have no idea why I suddenly became able to use psychokinesis or what it's for. A mediocre boy had his abilities awakened, but it turns out his ability is mediocre as well (lol).
I come from an ordinary, double-income family. None of us have any dealings in any "underground" industry. My dad works at a car manufacturer inspecting their materials, I even saw his workplace in elementary school when we did a tour for vocational day. He showed us what he does and said something about the material bouncing back the laser's light and blah blah blah. My mom works with her parents cultivating flowers. There's no doubt about that, since I helped them over the summer for some pocket money. I didn't have any sort of spiritual experience when I was younger, there's no mysterious transfer student, I don't have a strange birthmark anywhere on my body, as far as I can remember I haven't encountered any strange things lately, and even if I go over my entire life's worth of memories, I still have no recollections of meeting any characters from Wonderland.
I don't get it. It's the first time in all of my 17 years of living that I don't understand something. I even understood the math problems on the University of Tokyo entrance exam. Not that I knew how to solve all of them, but I still understood them enough to know I couldn't solve them. But I don't understand this even at a fundamental level.
But on second thought? It's probably premature to assume that I'm the only person with special powers. It's not like I suffer from chuunibyou 4 and have pitiful delusions that make me think I'm special. Maybe it's natural to have special abilities and the adults are just cleverly hiding it for some reason. Maybe all human beings awoke to their supernatural powers at the same time.
Ah…um…wwwww… I'm wrong, aren't I?
I should probably investigate at least once.
I sit in my desk chair, turn on my PC, and get on the internet. I look at several news sites, but there's nothing about everyone suddenly developing super powers. Well, it has only been 30 minutes since I first used mine. It may not have become news yet. I'll put off looking at the news and try a search.
Search:Adolescent psychic powers awakening
Search Results:
Adolescent remarks, Adolescence-Wikipedia, Children's Mental Illnesses, etc.
I try opening all the items on the first page, but there's nothing relevant to my situation. Well yeah. When an adolescent claims they have super powers of course you suspect a mental illness. Then you give them a half-smile and quietly go away. However, it reconfirmed one thing – that common sense says there's no such thing as super powers. See, if you tell someone you have powers, they probably won't believe you. Even if it's true, it will be difficult to prove it. Even I was convinced it was something else at first, if you show it to others they'll probably just it's some sort of magic trick. Trying to prove it just seems troublesome and useless. I may discover something if I ask a physics professor to run some tests on me using the latest scientific instruments, but I don't know how to go about asking something like that.
In regard to my search about super powers, it's a real let down. Hmmm. I guess it was worth the search even if it only reconfirmed what I already knew. After all, the internet is great. Every few minutes I was pushing F5 to refresh the news sites, so I had valid information.
Mental illness, those words were making me worry, and I considered that my newfound powers may come with some risks. Like shortening my life span every time I used it. Or maybe it was a side effect of a disease. Or maybe if I use it it will cause me to accumulate toxins in my body. I left the room to get the first-aid kit, and used the thermometer to take my temperature. I looked up the heart-rate of a healthy 17 year-old male, and then measured my own. The result, I was normal. I have no headaches or dizziness. For the time being, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with me.
I'd like to just completely ignore it and not use it, but that carries risks as well. If you don't use it, something called MP 5 may accumulate in your body – and it may cause more problems. Especially for young people. Investigating risks like this, rather than avoiding them, will actually increase my safety in the long term. You can never reach a solution if you just neglect the problem.
Thus I decided to investigate my powers a bit more. If I can develop a "cheat mode" for my psychokinesis, I'll be happy. I try to investigate by looking at a parapsychology pages or following the link for "Psychokinetic Thought (or Telekinesis)”. But after about an hour, I didn't find anything helpful. There was a site that presumes that this is all fiction, a site that claims that mental powers come from devils and had other dubious writings, but none of the sites had reasonable and convincing scientific or non-scientific explanation for my current situation. From here, I had two thoughts:
- There's no precedent for this phenomenon and I'm the first person in history to have powers. Or otherwise, or people developed powers but they were so shabby that they became just a rumor/died out.
- It's strictly concealed on a national scale and any information that circulates on the net is deleted
It seems like both are possible. But I hope it's not #2. If it's true, agents from a secret organization may be at my door and are going to kidnap me That's scary (treble) haha. No, I can't laugh at this. If it's true, I may end up going down the "human experiment" route. All I can do is pray that it's not #2.
Even after 3 hours nothing appeared on the news sites, so I gave up on getting information from the net, and tried to verify my newfound abilities. I went to the kitchen and grabbed our electronic scale and a plastic water bottle, and pulled a ruler from my desk drawer. I set this all on top of my desk. The rice cracker crumbs moved and the actual rice cracker didn't because of the difference in weight. Maybe. I decide to confirm how much weight I can move.
First, I weigh the empty water bottle. It weighs about 25g… it's heavier than the full rice cracker. Argh. I was going to check the weight after adding water as well, but suddenly that's become useless. Since it can't be helped, I break a rice cracker into pieces of various weights and try to move each piece, and after checking the weight of the biggest piece I can move, it turns out the limit of my psychokinetic power is 3g. I was able to easily lift up to 2g, but at 3g I had to consciously think "move" and use considerable effort. Once my output reaches the level of an ant, I make a new discovery. My psychokinesis output changes.
It's difficult to put it into words since I generally just "feel" it, but to use my psychokinesis I use a process of "seeing the object", "holding out my hand", and then "putting in power". "Seeing the object" is self-explanatory. "Holding out my hand" means I push my palm towards the object. Output falls significantly if I don't extend my arm with my palm sticking out. Specifically, about one-third. "Putting in power" is difficult to explain, I can only describe it as adding force. Words such as "strength" and "spirit" work too. Where the power comes from, I have no idea. If anything, supposedly there's invisible and untouchable "mental muscle" 6 , nenrikin 7 , and that may be what is moving it, like…
When you use your arm muscles to carry something light you don't feel any strain; but when you lift something heavy or do arm wrestling you arms start to feel tired and get shaky and trembly, then don't you feel more aware of the fact that you're using your muscles? It's something like that. In a sense.
3g is definitely the limit, I tried to do 4g but I got so tired that when I stood up, with a cry I fell right back down again. I was suffering from both physical and mental fatigue. I'm tired and dull. I rested a bit in order to recover. It seems using my power does consume MP. I don't really understand, but that seems to be the case, I need to make sure I don't have excessive usage of MP! I memorized my experiment notes and carved the results into my heart. If you have severe physical fatigue you can become overworked, and severe mental fatigue can result in neurosis. There's probably also nothing good about "power fatigue".
Next is range. How far can my psychokinesis reach? Apparently, it can surpass the distance I can measure with my ruler. It seems it can reach anywhere in the room, that is to say, as far as the eye can reach. On the other hand, if I can't see it, then it's out of range. For example, if it's behind foggy glass or too far away to see clearly, the movement accuracy drops. However, the output remains unchanged.
Finally, usability. How precise can I be with my telekinesis? Honestly, this part was unimpressive, I was only able to pull things toward myself (towards to the palm of my hand), or push things away from myself (away from my hand). Roughly speaking, objects could only move in a straight line relative to myself. Horizontal movement 8 is NG 9 . Although strictly speaking it could be done, it required twisting the "nenrikin", in order to slightly shift the trajectory sideways. But it only shifted it slightly. Real sideways movement is impossible.
I reached this far in my experimental notes, when as I was writing I heard my mom's car pulling into the garage; so I hurriedly put the scale back in the kitchen, and ended my experiments for today. I could try to sneakily practice my psychokinesis in the middle of the night. But what will I do if my power goes out of control while my family is in the house? Although that may be a bit over-conscious since I'm only at 3g.
- Literally translates as “sense power” but I used a variety of different terms like superpower, mental power/abilities, etc. When he’s referring to his own power, I mainly use psychokinesis ↩
- That’s exactly how it’s spelled in the original. KOOL. ↩
- If you get the reference, congrats. For others, go read/watch “Death Note” already ↩
- Chuunibyou=year 2 disease. So named b/c it occurs around the second year of middle school (8th grade). Causes delusions and acting as if you are the protagonist of a fantasy anime/manga. Those with severe cases last even past high school and even start to believe their own delusions ↩
- MP=mana/magic/mental points/power. Video game term ↩
- 念力筋肉=mental muscle. One of the translations I got was (Telekinetic rib meat) which made me lol. Thanks Yandex. ↩
- So the characters for this are ネンリキン (the second nenrikin uses the same characters) and the only thing the translators would spit out is “nenrikin” and I even searched a Japanese dictionary and this word doesn’t exist. Any ideas? ↩
- If you’re confused, think 3D space . Basically it will only travel along the X-axis ↩
- NG = no go, no good ↩