What, Failure to Transition!? Volume 6 Prologue+Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Book 7 of the Light Novel

Prologue

――The lame guy disappeared.

That day, Nitta, Yamashita, and I went to a gambling parlor outside the station, and we all lost a lot of money.

It was late in the evening, and we had just started playing, but we had no choice but to leave early because we were out of money.

When we went to the station to go home, we saw a boring-looking middle-aged man in work clothes at the lottery booth in front of the station.

At first, we didn’t pay any attention to him because he looked lame, but that changed when we saw him winning scratch tickets and exchanging them for several tens of thousands of yen.

“Hey, let’s ask that lame guy to share it with us.”

At a quick glance, I saw that he had the ticket with a maximum prize of about 50,000 yen, if I remember correctly, so even if we each got 10,000, the man would still have 20,000 leftover.

Since it was easy money, it was the elder’s duty to invest it in the youngsters.

Besides, if I had 10,000 more, the slot machine would definitely take pity on me, so I should be able to make up for today’s loss. Hehehe.

No, if I do well, I might be able to get this month’s money back all at once!

Nitta and Yamashita were also excited, so we followed the lame guy.

“He won, but he’s still walking around like a dunce… that means he deserved to be robbed, and that means we’ll be able to get back what we lost in that stupid machine…!”

It really pisses me off. Alright, I changed my mind. I’m going to confiscate everything in his wallet.

“Hey, Yoshida.”

Nitta looked at me with a grin on his face.

Yamashita also looked around and nodded his head several times, showing how happy he was.

(Heh, that guy’s an idiot. Do you want to know why?)

The middle-aged fool, unaware that we were following him, continued to walk into more and more unpopular areas.

We reached a back alley where there were almost no CCTV cameras.

Thinking it was time to get to work, we signaled each other, but before we could do anything――

“Ahhhhh!!”

“ “ “Eh!?” ” ”

――The lame man suddenly turned and pointed at the back of us, shouting in surprise.

We reflexively looked in the direction he was pointing.

Our heads turned around.

But there was nothing there.

Man, that scared the hell out of me.

All right, I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to confiscate your driving license and make you ‘invest’ in us regularly as well――

“What?”

――But the moment we turned around, the lame guy was gone.

Chapter 1 – Yoshida Makoto

“Hey, are you listening to what I’m saying?”

“Yes, yes. The man vanished into thin air… right.”

That day, Makoto Yoshida told his circle mates what he had experienced some time ago, but they didn’t believe him.

“No, it’s real! He must have used hypnosis, or super speed, or something!”

“And I’m telling you, I’ve had enough of this talk.”

After that, he tried telling the same story to other people in his circle, and to his senior and junior colleagues at his part-time job, but nobody was interested in a middle-aged man disappearing into thin air. Hell, even if it was a beautiful girl – they would treat it as even more bogus.

To be precise, he was not interested in the outcome and did not care whether the listener believed his story or not, but Makoto hated the guy’s attitude too much to just let it pass.

(Damn, but it’s true though…)

He thought, and seeing that his persistence did not work in real life, he changed his audience by posting his experience on his social networking timeline.

[Why did you follow that guy in the first place?] The trigger was this answer.

[Ah, this guy could be my junior at my part-time job. I remember he was giving an impassioned speech about how he was trying to hunt down his father because he was pissed off about him losing in the gambling parlor. LOL]

[Oh my goodness, that’s terrible.]

[And this guy is?]

[I think he said he was a student at ‘that’ university.]

[Why are you answering that question like that, Senior? LOLOL]

[Oops, I almost forgot about those “compliance” rules, hahaha]

[Yeah, that was close. You almost told them you were in one of those “tennis” circles.] [1]

[Compliance, everyone, compliance! LOLOLOL]

[Hm – what’s with the quotation marks? Aren’t they just a bunch of people who play tennis?]

[Seriously, do you believe that shit?]

[My friend, let me ruin your pure mind. This is just a cover. It’s “those” circles… for adults.][2]

[Seriously? This should blow up!]

[Yeah. My companion’s cousin was done something to her at one of their gatherings there… her drink was spiked, and you know the rest.]

[Rumor has it that a senior part-timer who quit before I joined was also a big shot in one of these circles, but he got into some kind of trouble, so he was out].

[Well, this daughter of an acquaintance of mine who works part-time with my mom – I heard that she left that university right after her first year and became a recluse. Maybe she stumbled into “that” side of the circle by accident? Your thoughts]

………

……

…

[Hey, Yoshida!]

One morning, Makoto was woken up by a phone call from Nitta.

“Nn… ah?”

To which he answered Nitta’s call without trying to hide his grumpiness.

He had just returned home from a party, where he had eaten some snacks and was sleeping comfortably when he answered the phone, half asleep, only to be suddenly yelled at the other end of the line,

No wonder he was in a bad mood.

“What now? You’re already loud so early in the morning… fuck you…”

“You idiot! Because of what you posted, your profile is now on fire!”

“What?”

As he removed the smartphone from his ear and returned it to the home screen, he saw that the number of notifications on the social networking icons had reached a number of digits he had never seen before.

〇●〇●

“So, Mr. Yoshida… I wonder how you’re going to pay for this fallout?”

Just as he was about to hang up and check the status of the SNS, Yoshida was summoned by his senior.

Yoshida, who had been summoned to a family restaurant a short distance from both the university and his residence, checked a long thread of replies while on his way.

There were many posts exposing Makoto’s personal information and the misdeeds of the circle – including what was true and what was not.

And it seems that some users who saw this reported them to the police, the university, and others.

“Well, the police won’t act without a formal complaint, so that’s fine, but the university… they’re going to pursue this a lot.”

“I’m sorry…”

The modus operandi of the circle Makoto was in was really clever, and normally the problem would never have come to light.

It had apparently been created by students at another university some years ago, and when their seniors explained the system to them, they were very impressed.

However, when a matter becomes this big, it isn’t easy to cover it up.

The circle will be dissolved, and those responsible will be punished accordingly.

“Well, this circle is already run by talented youngsters, so we’re no longer involved.”

His senior laughed as he spoke.

(Run by talented youngsters? I have never heard of that.)

At least until yesterday, the senior in front of him was in charge of the circle.

He’d heard from someone before that he had connections to some big business group, which was why this senior was put in charge; to give the circle a boost in reputation or something.

“So, Mr. Yoshida, as the person in charge, you’re the one who has to report to the school, okay?”

“What…?”

Apparently, Makoto was to be made a scapegoat.

The records of the circle had already been altered, going back to the person in charge of the circle since its inception, who was supposed to be a sophomore.

Around the time they were settling in at the university, a group of people from his circle of friends took over for the plausible reason of gaining experience in organizing people.

The founder of this group is now in a high position in a large conglomerate and is said to have good contacts in various fields.

This is why the university wants to keep things as small as possible.

Basically, they are trying to end the controversy by severely punishing the current person in charge.

Now, for some reason, this position of the person in charge has fallen on him instead of the senior in front of him.

“If Mr. Yoshida takes responsibility, everything will be fine.”

“N-no way…”

The blushing expression on the senior’s face disappeared as if he was not pleased with Makoto’s reaction.

Then he leaned forward and grabbed Makoto by the collar.

“You think I have time for jokes now, huh?”

“That… Because, you know, it’s absurd… I didn’t do anything…”

“You didn’t do anything? You’re the one who posted that shit. That’s why we’re in this mess! A middle-aged man disappearing? I don’t give a shit!”

“No, but… really…”

“This. Is. Why. You should take responsibility. As the person who started a flame war over something so stupid!”

“Hiiiiee…”

Makoto shrugged in a low voice, though the volume was controlled.

“Well, if you don’t want to, I can turn myself in.”

The senior, who had been furious, seemed to calm down a little thanks to the emotional outburst, and his expression and tone of voice became somewhat calmer.

The same senior then removes his hand from the collar and puts it on Makoto’s shoulder.

“This would ruin my job. And my future.”

“I’m sorry…”

“You don’t have to apologize. For I’ll make you pay for it.”

“Pay for it…?”

The senior’s mouth twisted into a grimace.

“Since you’re going to ruin my life, you’ll have to pay for it with yours. You and your family.”

“No, that’s…”

“If I’d gone through with it, I’d have made ten million a year by the time I was thirty, having found a solid place to work. But since we’re in the same circle, I’ll let you off with a billion. How’s that for the price of a betrayal?”

“――? W-we can’t pay that much…”

“Then there’s only one option, isn’t there…?”

Makoto remained silent and depressed for a while but eventually let out a weak voice.

“I…I will turn myself in…”

“All right! Now we’re talking!”

There, the senior tapped Makoto’s shoulder and slapped him hard.

“Uguuuu…”

“Even though I’m grateful for this, my position is guaranteed to be downgraded. All because you screwed up.”

“……”

“Well, if you’re as good as me, it’s only a matter of time before you work your way up from the bottom, right? Yeah, I’ll let you off the hook because I’m such an excellent person.”

“…Thank you.”

“You’ll be suspended for a while, but you’ll be back when things cool down.”

After saying this, the senior patted Makoto lightly on the shoulder, stood up, put down his portion of the bill, and left the premises.

After paying the bill, Makoto went to the university to confess.

――But later that day, a notice of expulsion arrived in Makoto’s unit.

“What the hell… expelled? Shouldn’t I only be suspended from school?”

By being expelled, it was assumed that Makoto had not even been admitted to the university.

Therefore, his final education was not that of a university dropout but that of a high school graduate.

With the circle leader expelled from the association, the firestorm ended surprisingly quickly.

Though it seems that some sort of great power is at work, he has no way of confirming it now.

“Damn. It’s all that lame guy’s fault…”

He pointed his anger at the man in work clothes who had disappeared before him the other day.

Otherwise, he would not have made that post.

“For now, let’s just take a shot and get rid of the bad stuff.”

That day, Makoto was on his way to the street lottery.

“Still, that lame guy pisses me off. If only he wasn’t there, that man in the work clothes… eh? Hmm?”

Suddenly, looking at the seat opposite him, he saw a familiar outfit.

“Work clothes…?”

And as he stared at his face, he realized that it was the man who had disappeared back then.

(I mean, how didn’t I notice him this close?)

He thought that if he saw him again, he would be able to recognize him immediately, and if he found him, he would punch him two or three times to make him pay.

It was an unreasonable excuse but reasonable enough for someone holding a grudge.

In any case, Makoto was expelled from university because of the man – clearly a self-inflicted wound – and he did not even get the money he was expecting.

And now the man in work clothes, the object of his resentment, is sitting in the train seat opposite him.

(Has he been on the train since the beginning? No, it doesn’t matter…)

Makoto takes his smartphone out of his pocket, captures the man’s face on camera, and saves several pictures in a way that the other person will not notice.

(Oh? He’s getting off at the same station?)

To find out who this man was, Makoto tried to follow him ――

Hey, you…”

――Until he was stopped by a tap on the shoulder from behind.

“Huh? What now?”

When he turned around, a woman in her thirties was there, giving him a piercing glare.

“You were snooping around earlier, weren’t you?”

“Haa?”

Apparently, he had been mistaken for a voyeur because he had taken a picture earlier.

“No, you’re wrong! I didn’t do anything like that! Ow ow ow ow!”

The woman was later revealed to be an undercover member of the railway police, and Makoto was dragged and questioned in a separate room, but as there were no images or videos on his smartphone that could be linked to voyeurism, he was immediately released.

“Phew… yeah, that was really bad…”

Thankfully, after the fiasco with the circle, Makoto backed up all the photos and videos of the circle activities recorded on his smartphone to his PC and then deleted them.

He was in luck as if they had remained, even a single picture, he would have been in trouble then and there.

(Damn… I lost him in the end.)

Makoto then arrived at an off-track betting shop a little later than planned, but all the tickets he had bought that day had turned into scraps of paper – all of them were a bust.

〇●〇●

―― Blip!

The sound of an SNS notification, which Makoto had not heard for a long time, rang.

He really wanted to delete this account, but a senior colleague told him not to, so he only turned off notifications for replies on his timeline.

The only time a notification sounded was when there was an incoming message, and when he opened the app, he received a group message from his circle.

“Oh. At least I didn’t get kicked out of here.”

The circle had been inactive since the fiasco, and the group they all belonged to had fallen silent.

Rumors are that several members had formed groups with those who were close to each other, but Makoto had been excluded from every one of them.

“Search for her?”

The message was accompanied by several photos of the woman’s face and full body, as well as a short profile.

She is a plain woman with glasses, but on closer inspection, she is quite the cutie.

“Reward… 10 million!? Seriously!?”

The message states that a reward of 10 million yen will be paid for any leading information.

“Come to think of it, I think I saw her somewhere.”

Makoto tilted his head for a while and then somehow scrolled through the photos on his smartphone.

“There it is.”

Where he stopped was a photo of the man in work clothes, which he had taken on the train the other day.

The photo of the man had the woman with glasses next to him.

“What the, the other woman with silver hair next to him was beautiful as hell! And the other one with brown hair is also beautiful, and looks like a friend of his… all in all, the three of them are so conspicuous, how come I didn’t notice them when I was there? Ah, no, that 10 million comes in first before that!”

Makoto cropped the image with an image editing application, leaving only the girl with the glasses, and sent a message with the photo attached to the sender’s personal account, not to the group.

[Where did you take this?]

A reply came back quickly with the location, date, and time, and the information was shared with the group.

[We will transfer the reward. Could you give us an account number?]

He had not expected much as far as rewards were concerned, as he thought the sender was half-joking, but when this happened, it started to feel more real.

Maybe it was a new kind of scam? But since there was no money to be taken from him anyway, Makoto honestly gave his account number.

A few minutes later, he received an email from his online banking application informing him of the payment.

“Seriously…?”

When he checked his balance on the online banking application, he found that 10 million yen had indeed been transferred to his account.

Soon after, another message arrived.

“We will reward you again with the same amount for any new positive information. To this, we look forward to your continued cooperation.”

“For real?”

Makoto was overjoyed.

〇●〇●

“I can’t believe this is happening…”

A few days later, after withdrawing a certain amount of the money from an ATM, Makoto went to a discount store to buy some branded goods.

Makoto was depressed because the activities that used to take place every week not so long ago had stopped.

He decided to go out and pick up girls to relieve his frustration, and in the shallow belief that dressing up in brand-name clothes would increase his success rate a little, he decided to go on a spending spree.

On his way to the brand name section of the discount store he visited, Makoto was taken aback by the sight of the home appliance section.

Large-screen televisions and video cameras lined up, and images from some of the cameras were projected onto monitors.

On one of the many large-screen televisions, a woman wearing glasses was projected onto the screen.

Amazing… talk about a stroke of luck!

Thinking that he was being compensated for the misfortune that had led to his expulsion because of the circle’s fiasco, Makoto stopped his shopping and followed the woman.

It seemed that she was shopping with a friend.

As soon as he started following them, he almost lost sight of them, so he quickly turned on his smartphone and started recording a video.

His intention was to review the video later and at least leave a clue as to where the two women were going in case he lost them.

“Hmm?”

Makoto tilted his head.

He had almost lost sight of them, but when he pointed the camera at them, he easily caught them in the frame.

While wondering what was going on, Makoto thought it would be better to keep a record, so he followed them while filming the video.

(Whoops!)

As she followed them from the other side of the road, the slightly taller woman, who was not the target, suddenly stopped and began to look around.

The woman, with brown hair and suit-like clothing, was clearly suspicious of her surroundings.

(――That was close.)

Makoto quickly put his smartphone in his pocket, walked past her with a nonchalant expression on his face, and turned the next corner.

(Please be there, please be there…!)

After turning the corner and ducking for cover, he immediately took out his smartphone and looked at the screen, this time with only the camera out of the shadows.

(Alright!)

Makoto managed to catch them just before they entered the building, and after they disappeared from the display, he took a moment to go back the way he came.

“Hmmm, [Grand Court], isn’t it… Looks like an expensive flat. Let’s see, I’ve… identified… it….”

Still marveling at the situation, he operated his smartphone, checked the address from the GPS information, pasted the location information along with a short message, and sent it.

〇●〇●

Another 10 million yen was transferred to Makoto’s account.

At this point, he was asked to conduct surveillance in the building, which he agreed to do on the spot.

“I can’t deny that I overlooked this when I was paid so much money.”

Usually, paying this large sum so easily to a stranger for information about a single person would be impossible to happen if the other side is a normal person.

If this is the case, the person from whom the payment is made must not be a decent person at all.

If you make a mistake against them, you won’t know what they will do to you.

“On the other hand, both Nitta and Yamashita are idiots, really.”

Hoping to take turns with a few people, he tried to contact his acquaintances, but they refused to help.

Then again, they were also put in quite the trouble for being with the man in the work clothes when he disappeared, so he couldn’t help but think they are doing this because they wanted to sever their connection with him as much as possible.

He even offered to pay 100,000 yen per day, but that seemed to have the opposite effect, only increasing their suspicion.

“Oh, here they come.”

Every time someone left the Grand Court, Makoto would take a picture with his smartphone.

He would rather record the process in one video if he could, but if he did that, his battery and memory would soon run out from the constant usage.

If he had more manpower, he wanted to at least buy a cheap camera and spare batteries, but he could not afford to leave this place now that he had started the surveillance alone, so he decided to just take photos as a desperate measure.

“Damn. Am I going to fail now?”

Makoto continued his surveillance in contemplation for a while.

The excitement of receiving a large sum of money and the fear of someone who had the ability to pay it so easily kept him on his toes, but it also allowed him to continue the surveillance without any major lapses.

Fortunately, the woman with the glasses had not left the apartment in the meantime.

“Hey, there you are.”

About half a day after the surveillance, a man appeared at the end of the night.

“Yoshida, was it? Thank you very much.”

“No, it’s my pleasure… also, thank you… for that…”

A black luxury car pulled up near Makoto, and two men got out.

One was a tall, mature man with a mustache, and the other was a slightly shorter young man who was less than 160m tall.

Since the man with the mustache, who was the driver, got out first and opened the back door, the younger man must have been of higher rank.

“Um, this… I recorded it just in case…”

Makoto showed them both the photos and videos he had taken of the woman with the glasses.

The man with the mustache remained expressionless throughout, but the younger man repeatedly nodded in happiness, sometimes with tears in his eyes as he stared intently at the screen.

“Thank you, Mr. Yoshida!”

The young man, who had finished watching the recording, hugged Makoto.

“Um, I’m glad I could help you…”

But the young man immediately broke the hug, put his hand on Makoto’s shoulder, and spoke happily.

“No, you’re very useful! It’s rare to find someone so good!”

“Not at all… I was just lucky.”

The young man patted Makoto on the shoulder.

“Don’t say that. Luck is also a part of one’s ability!”

He said with a wink.

But then, all of a sudden, the smile on the man’s face changed.

There was a hint of wickedness in it.

“But Yoshida, I heard that you destroyed the circle I created. Was it true? And that you were expelled because of it?”

Makoto didn’t understand what he was saying for a moment, but after chewing on his words for a while, he realized what he meant.

The student who created the clever system of the circle is the very man in front of him.

“I-I’m very sorry!!”

As soon as he understood, Makoto bowed deeply.

“Haha, don’t worry about it. I have no need for that circle anymore. In fact, it was good riddance as it would ruin my reputation.”

When Makoto looked up in fear, he saw the face of a man smiling at him without any sign of anger.

“Instead, I must repay you for your achievements.”

“No, no, I already received 20 million, so…”

“What are you talking about? With your expulsion from the university, your future has become uncertain, hasn’t it? Twenty million is far from enough to cover your needs these days.”

“Um…”

“So I have decided. We will take you [inside].”

The “inside” the man is referring to is probably the company or organization this man belongs to, or at least that’s what Makoto thinks.

He doesn’t know what kind of organization the man who can spend 20 million yen to find a simple woman belongs to, but whatever the reason, he is a godsend for Makoto, who has lost his educational background.

Though from the outside, he also felt that this man wanted to make him feel indebted to him and use him for his own gain.

(I knew it, my luck has finally returned!)

But Makoto didn’t care about that.

Makoto bowed deeply, keeping his mouth from twitching upwards.

From that day on, the tall man with the mustache, the young man and Makoto continued their surveillance.

The man with the mustache immediately found out that there was a vacant room in the apartment opposite and signed a lease, and using that apartment as a resting place, they did rotating shifts while continuing their surveillance.

“Fufufu… these things are fun sometimes, aren’t they?”

From what he had done and said so far, one would expect this young man to be well-placed in a fairly large organization.

He wondered if such a person could stay in a place like this for days, being such an influential man, but Makoto decided not to pursue the matter too much.

“Ah, there they are!”

From the camera image that captured the apartment entrance that God knew when they had set up, something was projected onto a large screen, and Makoto noticed a woman with glasses on it.

“Alright!!”

The young man hurried out the front door, followed by the mustache man and Makoto.

Around the time Makoto leaves the apartment they are using for surveillance, a young man has just approached the woman with the glasses.

“Sis!”

The woman with the glasses flinched at the young man’s voice. Her body shook, and she stopped.

Then she turned slowly.

“Aaah… aaaahhh… w-why…”

Having caught the young man in her vision, the woman with the glasses widened her eyes and squeezed a mosquito-like voice out of her slightly open, trembling lips.

“Fumi…ya…”

Translator Notes:

[1]. Tennis Circle (テ二サー pronounced “Te-ni-ser”, literally meaning Tennis+Cir in Circle).

Circles are common in universities in Japan as part of their collectivist social culture, and with such a culture, it is mandatory for these people to participate in these clubs or else they would be socially ostracized.

So what if they’re socially ostracized? Well, because their culture prioritizes the group over the individual, their human needs (and, by extension, their human rights) will more often than not be denied for the sake of the many, all because they’re a loner. What’s worse is that the people who run the country are the old generation, who judge everything by image, don’t care about the youth at all, and are willing to abandon them to the point of making them take their own lives. For them, to be a loner is to be a no-good person, making the youth have no choice but to go along and be a yes-man – otherwise, they would die in the ditch, and no one would care. This is how the leaders of this kind of circle get a good grip on their members – because they know that they are desperate to have a decent social standing.

Think of these “circles” as mini fraternities or mini sororities.

And imagine that you have to hang around with such people in order to gain a share of human rights and benefits. Before you say “Oh, it’s just like work,” it’s not, because work is a different thing altogether, but you can say it’s the same cloth. This is just the equivalent of hanging out with ‘friends’ if we compare it to other cultures – the bad side is that they do it to survive and not for the happiness you get from friends. And people still don’t understand why Japanese teenagers turn into hikikomori’s, mocking them as if they were going through their “emo” phase. They’re not. They’re being ostracized, along with their rights and needs.↰

[2]. “That” kind of circle being talked about here is a Yarise ヤリサー (pronounced Ya-ri-ser, the literal meaning is “spear cir(cle)”), and if you look at the definition, is “a club that exists for the purpose of getting women drunk and taking advantage of them”. There is no direct translation for English. But basically, it is a drunken forced date orgy? I don’t know, and I don’t want to look any further.

Basically, a “yarise” is a sex circle disguised as a normal circle, like in this case, a “tennis circle”, which invites innocent women to date rape them once they are in deep and willing to attend their gatherings and parties, usually in bars or private beach houses. Not every circle is a sex circle in disguise, but this usually happens when a son or daughter of a rich and powerful person joins and corrupts the circle from within. The same son or daughter usually ends up as the backer – until a huge scandal occurs enough to bring the whole circle to collapse.↰

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