Chapter 1: The British Shop
 

My name is Madarame Shinichi, a 16-year-old high school student.
 
School’s on an indefinite self-imposed break. The trigger? My old man.
 
Ever since I was a kid, I thought my dad looked cool in his sharp suits. Vaguely, I figured my future would be something like that—no big dreams, just a fuzzy thought.
 
But one day, I saw him bowing deeply to someone on the street. Apparently, he’d messed up with a client and was apologizing.
 
“Guess you saw the uncool side of me, huh?”
 
He’d noticed me watching. That night, as soon as … Read the rest

Prologue

I was sprinting down an office building hallway in the dead of night.

Behind me, a crowd of salarymen and office ladies chased in eerie silence. Their faces were devoid of any expression—no humanity. Simply put, they were terrifying.

“Uh, this is REALLY bad!!”

I shouted into the headset mic clipped to my ear, my voice louder than intended.

“You hearing this, Eli-san!?”

[It’s not Eli.]

A woman’s crisp voice replied through the headphones.

[Address me as ‘Your Majesty.’]

Mid-conversation, a woman in a skirt came sprinting toward me—along the wall, parallel to the floor, like some track star … Read the rest