Chapter Text
Gakushuu wakes up with a rather large headache, and a rather well dressed older man standing over him.
“Say kiddo, you don’t look so good.” The man has a fancy pinstripe suit with a red flower in his pocket, and a condescending smirk that would fit almost perfectly on his father’s face. Gakushuu hates him immediately. “First time in the Constant, hm? You’d better find something to eat before night comes.” And with that, there’s a small poof, and the man is gone.
Gakushuu sits up with a groan, the headache fading away surprisingly fast. The first thing he notices is that he’s surrounded by short grass and birch trees. A check behind him reveals some sort of grassland. To his left, water and harsh waves against a cliffside. Nothing to indicate where he’s ended up, no houses or stacks of smoke visible to point him in the direction of civilization. He pulls himself to his feet, and checks his pockets. His phone is gone, as is the small amount of money he was carrying on him.
How did he get here? The last thing he remembers, he was in his room, doing a bit of summer studying and trying not to fume over the fact that E Class is going to get that vacation on Okinawa instead of him this summer break. After that, everything seems blurry, and then he was in this place. So what could have come in between these memories?
Further attempts at piecing together the puzzle come up short, and Gakushuu can’t help but release a small sigh in frustration. Perhaps it would be best to look around before drawing a conclusion.
That man called this place The Constant? The way he said it… Gakushuu involuntarily shivers. There’s a feeling pressing down upon him, one that tells him he’s not going to be able to find his way home. He shakes his head, trying to ignore it. Focus.
Besides trees and grass, there’s some bushes filled with unidentified berries, some rocks and what looks oddly enough like flint, as well as some rabbits and birds. Gakushuu decides to grab the flint, as that seems generally useful, and examines the berries. They’re red, which could mean just about anything when it comes to being edible or not. However, they are aggregated, so there’s a very good possibility they are.
Gakushuu looks closer. He’s never seen these types of berries before. That chill comes back to him, stronger than before, and it’s harder to ignore. He decides to take some with him, just in case, and scratches an ‘X’ one of the trees to mark his spot before venturing away from where he woke up.
There are flowers of all different kinds, and while some look like daisies, others he can’t identify. Many of the birds he sees look like Cardinals, and a few Crows, but he isn’t able to get close enough to tell for sure.
Eventually, Gakushuu reaches a small cliff over what has to be the ocean, with its constant dark waves crashing against the side of the ground, most likely connected to what he saw when first waking up. Gakushuu could keep going around the edge, hoping to either find a beach, or if he’s on a peninsula, the mainland.
But there’s something in his gut that tells him he is on an island. And something deeper, telling him there’s nothing else out there, besides the Constant.
He’s a long way from home.
Gakushuu takes a deep breath and lets it out. There’s no reason for him to panic. Not only does he have training for this sort of thing, training his father set up for him a while back, but he didn’t get to where he is now, Student Council President of A Class, and first on finals, just to panic at a situation like this. He’ll find a way home, he’s sure of it.
Gakushuu decides to head back to where he started. It’s a decent enough place, with trees if he needs shelter, and those berry bushes he hopes are edible, but hopes to find out for sure. He makes sure to collect plenty of grasses along the way, as well as any sticks and seeds lying around. There’s a strange lump in the ground, that opens up into a circular mouth with many teeth as he passes. Gakushuu suppress a shudder, and wonders just where he ended up.
It starts to get dark, and he decides to start a fire, checking the berries for poison before coming to the conclusion that they’re most likely not, and deciding to try a couple. They’re frustratingly good, not because they blow other berries out of the water in terms of taste, but because he can’t compare them to any other berries, no matter how hard he tries.
Still, he doesn’t know how much these berries can sustain him, or how many there are in this place, or the rate at which they grow. Considering how many rabbits he saw earlier, he’d have a much better chance at being sustained if he went hunting.
Ugh. He knew it was necessary, of course, but he was never a fan of the process. Still, he needed to survive long enough to understand what was going on, and how to get home. Avoiding food was most likely a luxury he couldn’t afford.
A slight wind picks up and he shivers, hovering closer to the fire, and Gakushuu’s glad he was at least able to bring his coat with him to the Constant. He should put out the fire and try to get some sleep, but the warmth is too nice, and there are too many questions for him to expect any success.
Who was that man, the one who leered over him as he woke up in this place? There was something vaguely inhuman about him, even before he disappeared in a puff of smoke. His skin, his eyes… he could pass for human, but he was too unsettling. Gakushuu’s never seen anything like him. He has no idea who that man is, or what he goes by.
Maxwell, something in his mind supplies, the Shadow King.
That just brings up more unsettling thoughts. What does “Shadow King” mean, exactly? And, more importantly, how did he know that? It was the same as earlier, that sense he had that he couldn’t go home.
Something about this place is very wrong. I’m not supposed to be here.
Gakushuu would’ve thought that the night would drag on, considering he was alone with only his thoughts, but he is alone most nights, and it passes by before his fire goes out completely.
It’s his second day in the Constant when Gakushuu realizes just how different things are on this strange island. And not just because of the strange flora and fauna.
He had spent the earlier parts of the day setting up makeshift rabbit traps, as well as makeshift axes to get some more wood. It was the tree that had fallen first, and that was how he had discovered just how off everything was.
Because while normally it would take a long time for a tree to be chopped down and turned into logs, especially for someone like him, who wasn’t exactly an expert, not only did it fall fast, but the trunk was a pile of logs before he even realized what he was doing.
Perhaps this place affected perception of time? Or maybe it functioned somewhat like a game, where downed objects become item drops of sorts.
Whatever the case, Gakushuu decides to continue to treat the Constant like he’s in reality. It wouldn’t do to assume the impossible, and then have it not come true.
At the end of the day, he settles around his campfire and roasts the rabbit that he caught, stack of wood and pile of berries lying next to him. He wonders if anyone else is stuck here in the Constant, besides that Maxwell man. It’s not that he’s lonely, he’s gone far longer than this without company, and in fact the quietness of nature is somewhat peaceful. But two or more heads are better than one when it comes to survival and possibly getting home.
Gakushuu yawns and puts out the fire, in part to make sure it doesn’t spread, but also because he has no idea what lurks in these woods, and doesn’t want to attract anything. He can sleep in the darkness for now, although he should work on a shelter of some sort.
Not much more than ten seconds after being plunged into darkness, and there’s a noise, something much like hissing and then something strikes him, and Gakushuu barely has any time to scream as whatever the thing is rakes its claws across his face and chest, and there’s pain, so much pain, and then it strikes again and again, tearing him to shreds, and he can’t fight it-
And then there is nothing, and Gakushuu is looking down and there’s a skeleton right below him. Is that his? He can’t see anything but eyes peering out from inside the darkness at him, and he can’t shiver, because he can’t feel his arms-
Morning comes, and out of desperation, Gakushuu tries to go back to his own damn skeleton. There’s a flash of lighting, and it’s as though he’s being squeezed and pulled in all sorts of different directions, but Gakushuu lands on his feet, fully human again, with the skeleton lying right next to him.
He sits down. Remembers how to breath.
Focus. Take stock of your situation.
Right. Fact One: Gakushuu had just… died. Had just been murdered by some creature in the darkness. He struggles to control his breathing.
Fact Two: He had somehow come back to life in the morning, right after trying to go back to - to his skeleton. Was it just his skeleton that could bring him back, or could other things? He’s not sure yet, and isn’t too keen on experimenting. Perhaps if he dies again. Breathe.
Fact Three: Whatever that creature was, it only came out at night, and only when Gakushuu was in complete darkness. This would imply the fire was what was keeping him safe the previous night, and if he wanted to avoid - avoid what just happened again, he needed to keep the fire burning.
The creature didn’t seem to have taken his wood or food, which means there’s at least one good thing about all this. Still, Gakushuu needs an actual fire pit, and some shelter, as soon as possible. He doesn’t know if a shelter will keep the creature out, but there’s no harm in trying. He’s already starting to feel tired after almost two days of no sleep. He needs to be able to rest safely.
As Gakushuu ties up the last knot in his tent, he lets out a long breath of relief and exhaustion, freezes up and waits for some comment from his father on how pathetic he is for having taken so long to make such a small thing, then remembers his father isn’t here, and no one besides Maxwell could’ve heard him. And considering he hasn’t seen Maxwell since he arrived on the constant a week ago, he doubts the man will mock him for it.
Of course, his father wouldn’t understand just how much of a chore getting the materials had been. Some were easy, like making rope and gathering logs and twigs, but then he needed silk, which had meant exploring north until he had found an actual fucking spider’s nest that was bigger than him. He had been killed twice by the spiders before finishing them off and getting the silk. Dying from spider venom had hurt almost as much as dying had the second night, but he had succeeded, and was now reaping the rewards.
“Well how about that,” he muses. Then pauses. No one is around. No one can hear him.
Gakushuu’s not lonely, he’s not. In fact, it would’ve been embarrassing for anyone to have been around while he struggled to get such a simple structure working. With no one around to see his failings, he can still hold his head up high when he gets home, with none of them the wiser.
(And he’s definitely not making excuses for himself, that would be ridiculous.)
He needs more grass, and maybe some of that extra silk, to line the bottom of the tent with. He might as well sleep comfortably, after all.
Unfortunately, it takes all morning for Gakushuu to shake off his dignity and do what needs to be done.
He’s got rabbit traps all over, and even some bird traps, and they’ve been working very well. But he wants something more stable, and that means not only relocating the berry bushes closer around his campfire, but fertilizing them. And of course, manure is the best option for fertilizer he has.
It’s disgusting. He’s going to need an extra shovel, because he doesn’t want to use the one he has for other purposes, or god forbid his hands. So by the time he finally sets out, it’s already the afternoon.
Before, he’s always gone north, through the grasslands, woods, and the rocky areas beyond that. This time, he ventures south into the plains, and he can already hear noises coming from a large animal. This could be either promising or disastrous.
Thankfully, it’s the former. Beefalo look a lot like buffalo, although their odd shapes keep him from mixing the two up. There are tons of them, and they simply ignore him as he moves on by. Lucky for him… as it were, there is plenty of manure lying around, and because he really doesn’t want to starve, Gakushuu plugs his nose and carries it all back to camp.
He would like to come back though, if he can. It’s the first time he’s seen creatures that don’t attack him or run from him, and their fur looks really soft. Even if he isn’t able to shave it off, although he hopes to, he’d like to be able to touch it. He knows he could make some sort of razor if he wanted, maybe he’ll give it a try.
He’s out mining gold (because yes, the Constant does in fact appear to have gold chunks that can be found within rocks, and he isn’t complaining), when he hears the growling of something doglike, followed by quick footsteps.
Attached to those sounds appear to be some kind of hound, dark plump, and angry, with a mouth that can open as wide as its entire body, and very sharp teeth. Considering how fast the thing is moving, Gakushuu won’t be able to run. He switches out his pickaxe in his handmade backpack for a spear and prepares himself.
As soon as the hound is almost on him, Gakushuu jumps upwards, driving the spear down on the hound’s head as it passes under him. The hound shrieks and trips, and Gakushuu repeats, driving the spear down again and again before the monster finally dies.
There’s no time to relax, or reflect on how easily he was able to kill the thing, before two more hounds are charging him down. He manages to dodge and repeat his trick with the second hound, but the third seems much smarter, and latches its teeth onto his arm as he goes down.
A scream rips from his throat - he can feel his arm being ripped off of him, not quite at that point yet, but still tearing and painful. On instinct, he spins around and drives the spear through the hounds stomach, which kills the damn thing almost instantly, before it fades away with the others.
A quick check at his arm shows it to be as utterly disgusting as he feels. Gakushuu looks away before bile can rise to his throat. He’s got a couple wraps in his backpack, and plenty of roasted berries and carrots back at his camp, which seem to do the trick with the small cuts he gets, healing them almost instantly, leaving almost no scar behind. He doesn’t know if they’ll work for something this big, but he’d rather try something than do nothing and bleed to death.
Although he has to wonder if dying would fix his injuries. Gakushuu shoves the idea away. He’d rather not die at all anymore, if he can help it.
(Of course, it would be very useful if he had someone else to help tend to his wounds with him, even if that meant he would be tending to theirs in return. It strikes Gakushuu then, just how alone he is, out in the wilderness, bleeding to death where no one else can come and save him. Just one more causality in this dangerous place.)
Back to the camp it is.
He’s fishing at the pond when he notices the strange bone. It’s sticking straight up in the taller grass, looking like a fishbone of sorts, but with a closed eyeball in the middle. Full, healthy, and not carrying so many things that he would lose much if he died now, Gakushuu decides to pick it up.
Not more than a few seconds later, and a small odd creature trots up to him. It looks a bit like a furry pumpkin with horns and stubby legs, a chest-like opening instead of a regular mouth, tongue lolling down sideways.
Curious, Gakushuu reaches down and feels the creatures fur. It’s soft and fuzzy. The little animal leans into his touch, looking and sounding rather happy. It then opens its mouth, revealing plenty of room for storage inside. A living, dog-like, chest.
“Hey there,” he says softly, voice hoarse from weeks of little use besides screams of pain and muttered curses. “Is this yours?” He holds up the eyebone, and the little creature lets out a happy woof. It nudges his leg, and Gakushuu can’t help but smile.
“You need a name.” He casts about for one, and the first thing that comes to mind might be another instinctual thought from the Constant, but he likes it nonetheless. “How does Chester sound to you?” Chester barks happily, the pun either lost on the little thing, or making it enjoy its name even more.
“Would you like to come with me?” Perhaps it’s a bad idea to invite an unknown from the constant into his camp with him, but this is the first thing on the island that has not only not tried to kill him, but is actively happy to see him. He can’t help but want it around.
In the end, Gakushuu comes back from the trip with plenty of fish and a new companion, making it one of his most successful endeavors.
Gakushuu doesn’t need his thermometer or the birds and bunny’s change in color to tell him it’s getting colder, he can feel that for himself. As soon as the chill started setting in, he started getting ready, making as much non perishable food as he could find, graduating from grass bed rolls to woolen bed rolls, made from beefalo tufts, fashining himself some gloves from tanned hide. He’s even got some earmuffs, although he’s working on an actual hat, as well as a warmer jacket. Not to mention he’s put all that mined stone to good use, placing a wall of sorts around his camp.
Thank god for the odd way this world is structured, he would never have been able to make these items otherwise. Knowledgeable as he is, he doesn’t know everything.
Still, the colder it gets, the more his nerves start to get the better of him. Not just because he knows it will be harder to survive once the cold really sets in, but also because it means more time has passed than he had realized. Or has it? When he came to the constant, summer vacation had just begun. Now winter was setting in, meaning he was missing a great chunk of the second half of the school year. Even if he got back, how far behind his classmates would he be? Forget losing the Okinawa vacation to E Class, he was going to lose everything if he didn’t find a way home soon.
Maybe he already had. Lost everything, that is.
Gakushuu keeps by the fire, stroking his fingers through Chester’s hair, the little chest sitting by his side contentedly. It’s certainly become far more bearable with Chester by his side. As much as Gakushuu hates to admit it, he wasn’t sure how much more he could take without any company.
It’s not enough, sometimes. He misses human touch. Maybe not his father’s, since the man never gave him so much as a pat on the shoulder. And most of his classmates wouldn’t dare. (Why wouldn’t they? Was he really so aloof that none of them really felt comfortable around him? He was paying for that now.) But the virtuosos dared, and sometimes Gakushuu aches for when Ren would occasionally swing his arm around him.
He shivers. The fire isn’t doing nearly as much to keep him warm as it used to, even though the light is still going strong. A part of him just wants to stay in his tent all winter and alternate between curling up in his bed roll and sitting by the fire, but for now, he still has a lot of work to do.
It keeps getting colder.
It’s snowing constantly, and Gakushuu needs to keep to tent door closed at all times to prevent the stuff from getting in and messing up his only constant place of warmth. He wasn’t able to make his vest or hat in time, and knows he can’t risk going back to the spider nests for more silk. So for now he needs to deal with what he has.
Gakushuu is attacked by hounds again, twice, except he needs to conserve his food, which means healing from each wound much slower than he would like. The original bite on his arm did heal up, but there’s an ugly scar where it once was, and is soon joined by a few more. Apparently healing only goes so far.
His crops have stopped growing, as he suspected they would, and he makes sure to ration all his greens as much as he possibly can, setting as many bird and rabbit traps as possible. Still, meat like that expires easily, so he has to eat it fast.
The chill of winter is everywhere, seeping into his bones in a way he can’t seem to escape from. Despite his efforts, Gakushuu can feel his movements getting sluggish as the days go on, his feet nearing frostbite, his head pounding.
His mind is still running just as quickly, which is almost worse, because it’s like a lightswitch was flipped, and now Gakushuu can finally see just how alone he really is. He keeps Chester by him at all times, and is thankful that the little guy is so accommodating, because it’s all he can do to remind himself that there’s at least one thing on his side, one thing that wants to be near him.
What is everyone doing now, back at home? He isn’t quite sure what day it is, have they reached finals yet? He’s sure that he missed midterms, at the very least. Are people looking for him? Are Ren and Araki and Seo and Koyama worried for him? Is E Class celebrating the fact that he’s gone?
What does his father think? Does Father even care?
“Do you even care that I’m gone?” He whispers. His voice croaks, and even so, he knows there’s no way for his father to hear him. “Did you ever care at all?” Something wet is rolling down his face and freezing, and it takes Gakushuu a minute to realize that they’re tears. “Have you looked for me at all?”
No answer. He didn’t expect one, but….
“Maxwell,” he says softly. Then louder, as loud as his voice allows at the moment. “Maxwell! Can you hear me?”
Something moves beyond the light of his campfire, and the strange man from his first day hovers on the edge of the light. “Hello there, kiddo. In a bit of a rough spot?”
It takes Gakushuu a moment to recover from the shock of actually having someone respond to his words. Then he glares at the other man. “Why am I here? You brought me here, didn’t you? Why?” Truth be told, he’s not sure if what he’s saying is true. His memories of entering the Constant are still missing. Still, it’s as good of a guess as any.
Maxwell raises an eyebrow, smirk curling on his lips. “You don’t remember? Funny, you seem to remember my name just fine. How amusing. Oh dear, I hope you don’t continue to blame me for your misfortune. And right after demanding I show up!”
Something about him is dangerous and not human. “Still, I admire your tenacity. Perhaps a little gift? I think you’ll quite enjoy the material you get from this one. And at your unfortunately high level of sanity as well! You really do know how to get what you want from others, don’t you?” His tone is mocking, his smile sharp and condescending.
He disappears, and out of the shadows comes a shadow itself, scurrying around like a massive bug - or crab. Maybe a mix of both?
It comes at Gakushuu, dark and hissing, and Shuu has no choice but to fight it off.
The crawling horror is gone, and Gakushuu is cold and bleeding all over. There’s something black swirling on the ground, an odd sort of item that Maxwell may have been referring to when he mentioned a “gift”.
Nightmare Fuel, his mind supplies. Peachy. He has no idea what to do with it.
His food stores are on the other side of his camp. Gakushuu makes it a couple steps before collapsing in the snow, just far away enough from the fire that the heat barely reaches him at all. He can see his blood seeping into the snow.
What the hell is he doing? What the hell has he been doing? All that work for winter amounted to nothing. Training himself to fight hounds and capture food and farm - there’s never been any point to it. He’s just going to die again and again and again. He can’t escape the Constant. He can’t escape this cycle.
And who would be waiting for him? Who really wants him home? His father doesn’t give a shit. He would blame Gakushuu for failing, tell him that if he can’t make it out of the Constant himself, he doesn’t deserve to be rescued. His classmates? He barely knows most of them. The virtuosos may be sad, but he’s sure they’ll move on.
Trying to uncover E Class’ secrets, trying to make top grades, trying to one-up his father, it all feels so pointless now.
Maxwell must’ve brought him here, and is clearly no friend. The man looked like he would enjoy watching Gakushuu suffer. In fact, he’s probably enjoying his suffering right now.
Who would care if he froze and bleed to death here in the snow?
It takes a moment for Gakushuu to realize Chester is curled up under his arm, numb as that appendage is. He’s nudging him, trying to get him to move. Gakushuu appreciates the effort. He’d hug the chest-dog, but everything is going numb, and he can’t move his arms.
He’s so tired.
Gakushuu dies quickly after that, the pain that comes with freezing melting away. A part of him wants to just move on, to not worry anymore.
He resurrects himself in the morning.
The drying rack is the best thing Gakushuu’s made so far. Well, that and the thermal stone, which he can’t quite explain, but if he heats it up by the fire long enough, then takes it with him, he can travel about and still stay warm, which means he’s finally able to survive long enough to die at the spider’s nest a couple times, and finally get some silk to finish his winter hat and jacket.
With those items on, moving about is so much easier, and so is building the drying rack, where he can finally dry out meats and make jerky. So simple in concept, but considering how much he needs meat to sustain him at the moment, it’s a lifesaver.
“What do you think?” He asks Chester one day, as he takes the jerky off the rack. “I don’t suppose you need to eat, do you?” He doesn’t seem to, considering he hasn’t eaten at all since they’ve met, but it seems strange not to ask.
There’s a penguin’s nest nearby, and while he feels somewhat bad about it, one night he takes a torch while they’re sleeping and steals some eggs. Not all of them, but a few. They’re the first eggs Gakushuu has had in a while, and they’re delicious.
They find a few oddly shaped log houses that make Gakushuu twinge in jealousy (as well as hunger), but the inhabitants are odd to say the least. Giant pig-men with little kilts that walk on their hind legs and scream all of their words, both at him and at each other.
Still, they seem to be doing well for themselves, even in the winter, with flowers, berry bushes, and carrots blooming around their houses.
“Can I take some?” He asks a nearby pigman. “I’ll trade you.” He holds out some of his jerky. The pig eats the jerky, and utter delight covers his face.
“YOU IS GOOD! WILL FIGHT FOR YOU IF NEEDED,” the pigman says. Not exactly what he was hoping for, but Gakushuu counts it as a win. He does manage to get home with the first carrots he’s had since the beginning of winter.
He’s out gathering supplies when he just so happens to stray into the path of two oddly dressed walking walruses, who promptly start attacking him with blow darts. Gakushuu manages to avoid almost all of the hits, then remembers what that pigman said, about how he would fight for Gakushuu. He’s not sure if that still holds up, but it sounds easier than taking on those massive beasts by himself.
He stays just out of their range of fire, slowly drawing them closer and closer to the pigmen houses. He hopes that at least that one pigman would come to his aid, but is more than pleasantly surprised when the entire village of them band together with him to beat up the walruses, punching with their many fists while Gakushuu attacks with his spear. In the end, he finds himself with a blow dart of his own, as well as enough meat to last him for quite a while.
He feels another pang as he looks over at the pigman. He knows he’s got a decent camp set up, but… they may not be the smartest of company, but at least they’re some sort of company. He’ll take what he can get at this point.
He turns to one of the pigman. “Do you think I could stay around here for a while?”
But the pigman shakes his head. “YOU IS FRIEND, BUT NOT PIGMAN. NO STAY.” And that’s the end of that.
It isn’t so bad. He can always come back… but they most likely won’t enjoy his continued presence. As much as it pains him, Gakushuu is back to being alone again.
It’s a full moon, and Gakushuu is going grave-digging.
Morbid, he knows. But he dug one up a few days ago to fling at an attacking spider, and had found a strange red gem that warmed his hands up on the way back to camp. He’s not sure if that was a one time thing or not, but he’d like to find out.
There normally isn’t enough light from the sky in the Constant to see anywhere beyond the campfire glow at night, but the moon is so bright tonight, it lights up the whole Constant, and the dark monster is nowhere to be found. A perfect time for trying something new without worrying about the darkness.
It’s funny. After that massive monster about a week ago, the one with tons of hair, a giant eye, and long claws that sprung up ice wherever it hit the ground, Gakushuu wonders if he can really be scared of anything anymore. He died at least four times to that thing, either being frozen or mauled to death. In the end, he figured out where and how to hit, and managed not just to get tons of fur and meat, but a giant eye for his efforts.
For the most part, he finds odd trinkets, a couple gears, a strange pulsing amulet, and plenty of cold blue gems. He keeps the gears, trinkets, and amulet stuffed in his backpack, and hands the blue gems over to Chester while he searches for another red one. Who knows? Maybe he could use it for some of the inventions he was trying out with the science and alchemy machines he’d made.
Gakushuu sighs as he digs up a ninth blue gem, putting it in Chester’s last storage spot. All that work for more cold gems. He’s had enough of the cold with winter still going strong, although it’s been slightly warmer the past couple days.
A bright light shines on Chester as he rises into the air for a moment, then turns white and settles back down on the ground. Curious, Gakushuu walks over, and Chester opens up. The blue gems are gone, but when Gakushuu puts his hand inside, it feels like he’s put his hand in an icebox.
“You just got an upgrade, didn’t you?” He says out loud, patting Chester’s head. This, he knows, will be extremely useful.
Then a ghost comes out of the grave, and Gakushuu has to run for his life again.
The days finally get warmer. The snow melts, and the days get longer. It’s raining constantly now, so he fashions himself an umbrella, and carries it with him at all times. Seeing as he’s already usually wet, he decides to venture into the swamplands. How bad could they be, really?
Very bad, it seems. But as bad as the murderous frogs are, the tentacles are worse. Gakushuu dies three times to one, as it smacks the wind out of him, then smashes him to the ground, busting his head open over and over. But his backpack has dropped within its reach, and even if he’s put away much of his pride since coming to the Constant, Gakushuu still needs the supplies. So he fashions himself some makeshift armor of logs and rope, grabs one of his spears that Chester is storing, and dives back in.
It takes a frustratingly long time, and much of Gakushuu’s athletic and gymnastics abilities, diving in and hitting, then flipping away from the tentacle’s reach, but eventually he wears it down, and with a final stab, the tentacle is finished, leaving behind some sort of spiked mace, or bat. Gakushuu decides to keep it, and heads out after grabbing as many reeds as he can hold.
The spike proves very efficient against frogs, which is good, because Gakushuu might not be able to stand it if he were killed by frogs, of all things.
And then, of course, a massive monster with the body of a goose and the head of a moose just so happens to show up, along with her ducklings, because there was no way things were just going to get easier for him.
As if things couldn’t get stranger, it is now literally raining frogs.
This was more than annoying at first, because frogs just seemed to hate him with a passion, trying to attack him wherever he goes. Eventually, to get rid of them, he leads them over to the beefalo. They’re apparently in mating season, and don’t want anything on their turf at this point, so they go right after the frogs.
The frogs do succeed in taking down one beefalo, and while Gakushuu feels bad, he is able to snag the horns out of that mess, which could be useful later on. Also frog legs. So many frog legs. Looks like the crock pot and ice cooler are going to be filled for a long time.
There’s an odd carpeted area of the woods, in the center of which is a very evil looking statue of Maxwell, and around which are strange mechanical monsters. They’re not nearly as tough as many of the things Gakushuu has faced, and clearing them all out is a cinch. They drop gears, as expected (and useful since he was hoping to make some more coolers), but also purple gems, which unlike the heat of the reds, or the chill of the blues, gives Gakushuu a distinct sense of paranoia when he holds on.
He decides to store them away in Chester. Perhaps they can be used alongside nightmare fuel? He’ll need to do some experimenting to figure that out.
Gakushuu starts to walk away from the statue, but on instinct, turns back and flips the effigy of Maxwell off. It doesn’t summon the bastard or help him in any way, but he feels a little better for it.
Maybe it could be considered stupid to walk down a staircase in a sinkhole, but Gakushuu is all good on food and supplies, and has amassed a rather sturdy and protected base. He’s got torches and makeshift lanterns just waiting to be lit, and with Chester by his side, he feels more than prepared.
They walk down the stairs together, which eventually level out, and Gakushuu finds himself in what has to be the largest cave he’s ever seen, filled with all new sorts of flora, and most likely fauna as well.
At this point, he’s not surprised in the slightest when he sees plants with glowing light bulbs blooming instead of flowers. Only in the constant, he supposes. And there could be plenty of uses for them. He decides to pick a few.
It’s not just the flowers. Mushroom trees give off erie glows, shining on regular evergreens and berry bushes. The grass rustles in the nonexistent wind.
...If there’s berry bushes, trees, and grass glowing down in these caves, then there’s a chance he can set up a second base down here.
A part of Gakushuu wonders what the point would be, considering how well his original base is doing. But what could be the harm? Are these caves colder or warmer in the winter? Logic would dictate the former, but the Constant doesn’t ever rely on logic.
Not to mention that the days are getting even warmer, and if winter was so terribly cold, there’s always a chance that summer will be unbearably hot. Making a base down in the caves could negate those effects.
His mind made up, Gakushuu gets to work, relocating plants for farms, setting up a second tent and bedroll, and getting a firepit in place. He picks more lightbulbs, and relocates as many as he can, replanting them around the area he’s chosen. With all that light, hopefully he’ll never have to worry about the monster in the dark.
Does that thing come down here? Gakushuu would rather not take the chance.
Interestingly enough, he doesn’t get the chance to use his new camp for a while.
Summer burns through the constant like a wildfire, setting everything around Gakushuu ablaze. He avoids his regular camp more and more, as his things only seem to catch on fire when he is physically there. He suspects Maxwell is messing with him.
Overheating has become an issue, and Gakushuu has taken to wearing light shirts and keeping his umbrella around, if only for the shade it provides. He visits his cave camp more frequently. Chester and his icebox insides are a lifesaver, and he’s taken to placing iceboxes in the different areas he visits to always have something cool on tap.
It’s during one of these trips, with multiple bags, gears, and a premade icebox all ready to go, that Gakushuu finally finds out what those strange gaping mouths in the ground do. One fallen log and too much baggage, and Gakushuu is tumbling into the mouth-
-and being spit up again somewhere completely different. He hacks and coughs as sand fills his lungs, whipping around his face and tearing at his skin. Some sort of sandstorm? It seems likely.
The weight of all he’s carrying, combined with the sweltering heat finally proves too much for him, and Gakushuu collapses. He only dies much later, of course, from heat, dehydration, and starvation, but at least he recovers enough once resurrected to keep going. And at least Chester is still with him.
Unable to find that strange mouth that appeared to be some kind of wormhole, Gakushuu decides to keep walking forward. If he goes on long enough, he’ll reach the end of the desert, and while he might die a few times beforehand, he’s gone too far to go back now.
Gakushuu doesn’t reach the end of the desert first. Instead, he finds a circle of birch trees around a group of grass, and a lake in the middle. The sandstorm stops once inside, and he finds himself cooling down instantly. Gakushuu finally drops his things.
“What do you think?” He says to Chester. “Looks like we’ll be here for a while.”
So, there just so happens to be another giant in the desert, something the Constant has named the Antlion. Antlion isn’t so bad, all things considered. She did cause some tremors and earthquakes, and almost destroyed Gakushuu’s new base in the oasis once, but he’s discovered that giving her little gifts seem to appease her.
And of course the lake is wonderful. Sometimes he does manage to get some fish out of it, but plenty of times he finds himself opening odd packages, which contain both more trinkets, as well as the blueprints needed for him to figure out how to craft some desert goggles, which means he can finally travel back to the wormhole, and by extension his cave base, without any more issues.
While the light flowers can’t be transferred to the surface, their light bulbs make the most efficient lanterns, and at night, Gakushuu sits outside by the lake, thinking over everything that has happened in the past year.
And it has been a year, hasn’t it? It was summer when he left the real world, and the beginning of autumn when he arrived in the Constant. It’s so strange; it doesn’t feel like a year at all. So much has happened to him, so much has changed. All the things he was worried about seem so small and petty now. On instinct, he checks his reflection - he still doesn’t look like he’s aged a single day. But all the scars, from places he was injured that never healed right, from hounds and tentacles, and burns and frostbite, and all those monsters he’d faced and overcome, they were all signs that all of this really happened.
He’s still lonely. It’s an ache that stays with him all the time, churning and at times unbearable. But there is nothing he can do about it.
If he really isn’t aging, like he suspects, how long would he go on here? Would he spend all of eternity alone? That sounded more than awful, but a part of Gakushuu is too tired with worrying to do more than accept it.
Chester curls up next to him, and he absentmindedly strokes his fur. “It’ll be autumn soon,” he says softly. All his spoken words have been soft lately. There’s been no reason for anything else. “Guess we’ll be starting all over again.”
The summer ends, and temperatures cool down to a very bearable amount. Gakushuu goes back to his original camp, and is pleased to find it still very much intact, although a few changes might be necessary.
Gakushuu hasn’t seen Maxwell since that night in winter, and he prefers to keep it that way. The closest thing he’s seen since then is that statue he occasionally visits to get more gears, and he tries not to look at it while fighting those robots.
Gakushuu shifts the flower crown on his head slightly. It’s an odd look, he knows, but it’s better at keeping the shadow monsters away than almost anything else, so he wears one as much as he can.
He’s finished preparing his latest sandwich and storing it in an icebox when he feels it. What “it” is, exactly, he isn’t sure, but there’s a tug inside him, directed to a strangely specific spot in one of the evergreen forests by the edge of the Constant. Odd emotions of confusion are floating around his mind, and he’s sure they aren’t his. Curious, Gakushuu tries to press further, to understand what he’s feeling.
And then he gets it.
There’s someone else in the Constant now.
And almost all of Gakushuu’s well-made self arguments about how he can do everything alone seems to fly out the window, because there is someone else, another person, in the Constant and while he aches for them, that they now have to suffer as well, he’s not alone anymore.
“Come on Chester,” he says. “Let’s go meet our new companion.”
Asano Gakushuu
Nickname: The Survivor
The first to be trapped in the constant, and with more than a year’s worth of experience of living alone, he is the go to guy for information and survival tips.
Health: 150
Hunger 150
Sanity: 200
Perk: Empathic Leader, can feel the locations and status of the other survivors, and what they need at the moment
Disadvantage: Can feel when the other survivors are killed, does no favors for him.