WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Alyo

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◈ Surviving Among the Anomalies ◈

Chapter 2: Blue Moon (1)

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I forgot about the cigarette I was smoking and stared blankly at the moon hanging in the sky.

"Why is the moon blue?"

Drizzle struck my face. The recycling station's smoking area had an awning, but it did nothing against the raindrops carried in by the night wind.

'That's strange.'

According to the rules of web novels, the colors and number of moons were proof of another world. But mistaking fiction for reality was an early symptom of schizophrenia, and since I didn't have a mental illness, this could only be a natural phenomenon.

"Come to think of it, I've seen a red moon before too."

It had seemed so strange at the time that I'd looked it up, only to learn that light scattering in the atmosphere had caused it.

'This must be happening for a similar reason.'

As I smoked, I searched for blue moons on my phone. Just before I did, knowledge from a game I used to play came to mind.

"Whenever Blue Moon marked me, I just reset the game."

Sometimes, starting over was faster and easier than solving the problem. With that thought in mind, I checked the search results for blue moons. They were what I'd expected.

[A moon that actually emits blue light can appear when volcanic eruptions or large wildfires cause a high concentration of dust in the atmosphere.]

Damn fine dust. It was going to give me lung disease and keep me from living out my natural lifespan.

'Huh?'

On my way back inside after finishing my cigarette, I spotted an earthworm that someone had stepped on and crushed. Its body had burst, yet it still wriggled in an attempt to live. It was both disgusting and pitiful.

"So I was the one who stepped on you. Sorry."

After checking the bits of earthworm stuck to the sole of my shoe, I apologized and returned to my room.

'If the moon is that clearly blue, shouldn't people be talking about it online?'

I checked several online communities to see what people were saying. Yet not a single one had a post about the Blue Moon.

'It must only be visible in my area.'

Was there just more dust in my neighborhood? I considered making a post to ask, but I couldn't post anywhere.

[This ID has been banned. Ban duration: 99,999 hours. Reason: Trolling.]

[This ID has been banned for 999 days. Reason: Malicious posts.]

[Your IP has been banned. Reason: ‘You crazy bastard, stop trolling.’]

I'd hoped otherwise, but not one community had lifted my ban.

'Trolling? I only wrote posts about healthy debates and my personal thoughts.'

It wasn't like I was the only one. Everyone used online communities like that, didn't they? Why were the community administrators so strict with me alone?

'I should visit that place for the first time in a while.'

I'd use my computer instead of my phone. I got out of bed, turned on my computer, and entered a community made up of numerous boards.

'Still banned here. Same here. This one too, and this place as well...'

Each board was practically its own site, but just like the other communities, my IP and ID had been banned from almost every board.

"Is this the harm caused by power?"

I'd heard that board moderators were unpaid laborers, not employees of the site operator, but ordinary users entrusted with the authority to manage a board. Motivation to work was generally determined by compensation, so I'd wondered why they worked so hard for free. Apparently, they'd developed a taste for power, and I was its victim.

'I should check the newly created Minor Galleries.'

I looked through the Newly Created Minor Galleries listed at the top. I used boards to build knowledge and discuss it with people, so I preferred boards with a certain number of users. Most newly created Minor Galleries had few users, though, so I hadn't checked them often.

"This one looks good."

Fortunately, the board with an unfamiliar name had plenty of users and was active.

[God, please stop!]

[Argh! Stop posting disgusting images!]

Half the active posts, however, were disgusting.

'This new board is being raided.'

People killed in accidents or by drug cartels.

Filth such as urine, feces, and food waste.

Even photos involving sexual preferences outside ordinary categories.

"Same old thing."

As I read through the raid posts one by one, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

'Everything here is nothing more than digital data.'

All that reached us was visual information. It couldn't actually harm us in any way.

Put another way, even images built from digital information made of zeroes and ones could make us feel emotions similar to those we would feel from touching the real thing.

"This isn't real, yet it feels real. And society scorns people who treat things that aren't real as though they are."

The most obvious example was otaku.

We laughed at, scorned, and ignored them for liking and loving unreal beings from animation and comics.

"The difference between anime and comics on one hand, and photographs on the other, is merely the difference between depiction and reality."

Then what would happen if someone drew the photos people found disgusting and posted them?

They would probably find them just as disgusting.

Just as otaku poured affection and love onto drawn characters, people would pour rage and revulsion onto drawings of disgusting images.

"There's no difference between ordinary people and otaku. The only difference is their interests."

Why did this problem occur?

Was it because of humanity's base instinct to find the socially weak and display their own superiority?

Or was it the inertia of bullying culture, born from Japan's discrimination against otaku after a horrific kidnapping case and spread elsewhere?

Or was it because of the black-and-white thinkers so common on the internet, who viewed the world in binaries?

"All of that could be the reason."

The Buddha said that everything was created by the mind.

Hatred toward otaku did not arise because otaku were disgusting. It arose from one's own desire to hate them.

"Disgusting images are the same."

Digital photographs made of zeroes and ones had no substance, yet they greatly affected our minds as though they were real.

"It's no different from my mind stirring when I look at empty space."

Form was no different from emptiness, and emptiness was no different from form.

Form is not different from emptiness. Emptiness is not different from form. Form itself is emptiness.

"Everything depends on the mind."

I'd learned something else today.

I couldn't be the only one who knew something this good.

'I'll write a post.'

I saved the disgusting images being posted in the new gallery.

'It'll be easier to understand if I include the images.'

Posting disgusting images by themselves was nothing but raiding.

But disgusting images used as reference material to enlighten others and raise the quality of discussion as a debater weren't disgusting images. They were educational materials, so it was fine to post them.

'It's like how people who strip in the street are guilty of public indecency, but aren't punished if it's part of art.'

I also drew pictures of the disgusting images.

I attached both the disgusting images and the drawings to the post I was writing.

[Is the World Empty? What Is Real and What Is Fake? A Definition of Hatred Toward Otaku, Digital Terrorism, and the Difference Between Digital and Reality]

[Author: IAmADebater]

After posting it, I waited. Ten minutes should have been enough for people to read it. When I checked, people would have written comments with their thoughts on my post.

"Shall I check?"

After taking a shower, I checked the post.

[This ID has been banned by a Yooho Online manager.]

[Ban duration: 9,999 years / Reason: Spreading disgusting images and barking nonsense.]

Today, I'd been banned from another gallery.

＊＊＊

"...The moon's blue again today?"

The moon had been blue for two days in a row. I'd been wandering online communities since yesterday in search of a new refuge, which made the phenomenon even harder to understand.

'No one anywhere was talking about the Blue Moon.'

I searched diligently on my phone as I smoked. Still, there was nothing about a Blue Moon.

[The half moon is pretty today.]

[How is it split so perfectly in half? It looks just like a waffle.]

Instead, there were only unbelievable posts.

'A half moon?'

The post with the photo had been uploaded ten minutes ago.

[Pretty photo.]

[I like half moons more than full moons.]

[The sky is clear today too, so it's perfect for taking pictures.]

[I don't remember the last time it was clear across the country. There's no fine dust, no rain, and it's perfect for a night walk.]

The comments only talked about that.

I looked up at the sky once more.

"A blue full moon."

And raindrops striking my face in the night wind.

"..."

Nothing matched.

'Could it be?'

It was a crazy thought, but I recalled the first time I'd seen the Blue Moon.

The first thing that had come to mind then wasn't a natural phenomenon, but an Anomaly called Blue Moon from a game.

"Surviving Among the Anomalies."

An indie game whose goal was to survive as long as possible against Anomalies: urban legends, superhumans, extraterrestrial beings, anomalies, and monsters.

It was a game I'd once enjoyed, and Blue Moon was one of the Anomalies in it.

"Could it be...?"

The next thought that came to mind was possession. But that couldn't be it. My body hadn't changed, the home I lived in was still the same, and nothing else in the world had changed either.

'Then have the Anomalies from the game become real?'

It was a truly crazy thought. Reality and fiction had to be distinguished. There was no way such a crazy idea could be real.

Still, out of curiosity, I entered the [Surviving Among the Anomalies Gallery].

The game had been made by a solo indie developer. Since it was difficult to come up with special characters called Anomalies alone, the developer had created a gallery and made the game with help from many users.

'It used to be among the top-ranked Minor Galleries.'

Many people posted Anomalies they'd created on the board, and if they were lucky enough to catch the developer's eye, their creations would be added to the game. The board had many posts and many users.

[No search results found.]

Yet the board was gone.

I'd been banned from it for reasons similar to those at other boards around half a year ago, and I hadn't cared about either the game or the board since. It might have been shut down in the meantime.

[No search results found for ‘Surviving Among the Anomalies.’]

But even Google had no information about it.

It had been a fairly famous indie game and had even won an indie game award, yet there wasn't a single trace of information left, as though it had never existed.

[This game does not exist.]

The game I'd downloaded from Steam was no longer in my library either.

It had become a game that existed only in my head, as though it had never existed in the world.

"..."

I looked up at the sky again. The Blue Moon was brighter and larger than it had been yesterday.

"It sounds crazy, but if..."

I crushed out the cigarette in the ashtray.

On my way inside, I stepped on another earthworm at the entrance to my studio apartment.

"If that Blue Moon is the Blue Moon I know."

This time, there were two.

"Five days from now, I'll become a mass murderer."

Footnotes:

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