A month has passed since that day, the day of the Great Transformation that engulfed the entire world.

　I was now at the far end of the dungeon in my domain, preparing for the coming invasion.

　Standing beside me is Kobold, a half-dog, half-man monster with a silver sword at his side.

　In front of me, a group of evil fairies - goblins - are waiting for my command.

　Come--a group of self-proclaimed heroes!

　I wanted freedom and chaos - and creation that day.

　First, we must fight off the invading heroes.

　I am going to survive this world. To grab my freedom in my hands.

　As the first step, I aim to become the strongest demon king in this land - Kanazawa City.


　　◇


　The year 20XX.

　The world is headed for destruction.

　The birthrate is declining and the population is aging every year. The peak of super-aging has passed, and the total population of the world has been reduced to less than 50% of its peak.

　Advanced science has given people peace of mind, but at the same time it has brought laziness. Science provided people with better conveniences, but at the same time it deprived people of their ambition. As a result, many people refused to move up - to grow up.

　The growing arsenal of weapons easily obliterated lives and wore out the planet's vitality.

　Turn on the TV and many commentators sound the alarm. But their words sounded somehow otherworldly, as if they were from a different world.

　It was such a time as the end of the century. But a time when no one has a sense of crisis.

　I - Kurosaki Shion - entered a university.

　The criterion for the university he chose was academic ability. It was the economics department, but I wasn't particularly interested in economics, nor was the department related to the job I wanted to have in the future. It was simply because it matched my academic ability. That was the only reason.

　However, I wanted to live on my own, so I chose to attend a university in the city of Kanazawa in the Hokuriku region of Japan rather than my hometown of Sendai in the Tohoku region.

　A university is a strange school. It was different from all the other educational institutions I had attended in elementary school, junior high school and high school.

　Compulsory education was compulsory until junior high school. Why are high school and university so different?

　First of all, there are no uniforms. There may be many students who are happy about this, but for me, who is not very good at dressing up, it's hell. If I had a school uniform, I could wear the same outfit every day, but if I had to wear civilian clothes, I couldn't say I had to wear the same outfit every day. Moreover, the taste in plain clothes even had the potential to create a caste system.

　Then there were the classes. At university, you have to make your own timetable. The school doesn't provide you with a timetable. In short, you decide what classes you want to take. There are some mandatory classes, but depending on how you choose, you can even take a three-day week. The classes you want to take?　Microeconomics?　Macroeconomics?　Do any students really want to take these classes?

　And finally, classes. There are no classes in college. I heard that at my university, classes like a class called a seminar start in sophomore year, but not in freshman year.

　How am I supposed to make friends?

　I'm from Sendai, remember?　I don't have any friends, or even acquaintances.

　I don't have any friends, or even acquaintances, at all, even if I take a class. I don't have a fixed seat next to me.

　Talk to her?　What?

　Join the circle?　That bunch of glitter?

　Is a university, by any chance, an educational institution that honors communication skills?　Then give me a tutorial....or a recreation.

　That's how I was spending my college life today, alone and lonely.


　　◆


　Three months have passed since I entered the university.

　Today was no different. I bought my lunch at a convenience store in the university campus and was eating my lunch alone on a bench when I heard a telegraph sound.

　Huh?

　The source of the electronic buzzing was my smartphone, quivering in my pants pocket.

　Huh?　Why is it beeping?

　I'm on silent mode all the time.

　Or maybe it's because I haven't heard a ring tone in a long time, but I can hear the electronic sounds overlaid on top of each other.

　Out of embarrassment, I hurriedly take out my smartphone and hit the [OK] button displayed on it repeatedly.

　A text message?

　Or rather, despite the fact that I pressed the [OK] button, the unpleasant electronic sounds continued to echo in my ears as usual.

　Looking around, every student in sight was hurriedly grabbing their smartphones.

　The current smartphone penetration rate is 180%; the reason why it is over 100% is because some people have more than one smartphone. In today's day and age, there isn't a person who doesn't have a smartphone!　Smartphones were so prevalent that you could say, "I'm not the only one.

　Not just me, but all of us?

　J-alert?

　I'm reminded of a feature I've seen on TV that's forcibly built into my smartphone.

　What's that?

　The electronic sounds that echoed around me gradually diminished in number, and the students around me were peering at their smartphone screens.

　I looked down at my smartphone again too.

　What's this?

　The smartphone was receiving a suspicious email.

'~Notice of the start of the World Salvation Project~.

　Investigate the aptitude of all human beings to save the world.

　Please take the aptitude test according to the following items.

　It is recommended that you take the aptitude test, as those who do not take it may become [neutral] and suffer disadvantages in the future.

　The Aptitude Test will be conducted within 24 hours from now. The aptitude test will take about 3 hours.

　Now please click the button below to start the aptitude test.

　[Start]

　--?

　A virus?

　I suspected a virus.

　If you press [Start], it asks for money or personal information. That kind of virus, I guess.

　Nowadays, who's stupid enough to fall for a virus like this?

　I put my smartphone back in my pocket and resumed my interrupted lunch.


　　◆


　Afterwards, the students on campus were talking about junk mail. I didn't have any friends to talk to, so I attended my afternoon class as planned. Then I went home.

　When I got home, I fired up my tablet and surfed the web.

　The online news and summary sites were dominated by the topic of junk mail.

　If you read the article, you won't believe it... but it seems that the junk mail wasn't confined to all Japanese, but to people all over the world.

　All the telecommunication companies held a press conference to urge people not to click [Start] so easily, and the government also held an unusual press conference due to the amount of damage.

　If you look at an anonymous message board, there were already dedicated threads in disarray, and when you looked at the most vigorous thread, the people who clicked on it were posting.

　228 Nameless Adventurer ID: tfdykgr
　That was my aptitude [Rowe].

　231 Nameless Adventurer ID: aofhoqw
　＞228?　Seriously?　I'm a [Rowe], too.

　257 Nameless Adventurer ID: nsfoihf
　＞228 Me too, Rowe.
　Hey, I just ran a virus scan, and there is no virus.

　276 Nameless Adventurer ID: ihsfhoa
＞257 willscan www.
　You've been privy to a lot of personal information, so shudder and sleep.

　281 Nameless Adventurer ID: nsfoihf
　＞276 What?　XXXX teacher, I'm sorry!　

　 282 Nameless Adventurer ID: nsfoihf
　Hey, it's a trial version, but it's okay, right?

　285 Nameless Adventurer ID: ihsfhoa
＞282.

　305 Nameless Adventurer ID: dhoehdb
　Are there any brave men other than [Rowe]?

　307 Nameless Adventurer ID: hsuebad
　>305 I [Second]

　314 Nameless Adventurer ID: wodnruu
　>307 [Second] is a gear?

　320 Nameless Adventurer ID: qodkrun
　＞Then I [chaos]

　323 Nameless Adventurer ID: oiohdpa
　＞320 ****ing reincarnation!　Game brain.

　Then the thread was followed by a great celebration of words, associated with [neutral] and [Rowe].

　Looking at other forums and summary sites, I feel that aptitude [Rowe] is a fact.

　However, all other aptitudes were treated as stories.

　If you didn't administer the aptitude test, you're [neutral]. If you implemented it, [Rowe]?

　After that, I continued to surf the net out of curiosity.


　　◆


　Nine hours had passed since the spam email was sent.

　The situation had shifted in an unexpected direction.