Chapter 1: Afraid of the Outside

Uh… hello. Or—wait—good evening?
I’m not really sure which greeting applies right now, but anyway, nice to meet you, dear observers.

I don’t know how you’re peeking into this record, nor do I particularly care. As long as my miserable situation reaches someone out there, that’s good enough for me.

Let’s start with an introduction.
Not with details like my name or weight or other character-setting specifics. Just this: in my previous life, I was a guy. A high school otaku—the textbook shut-in type. I loved anime, had absurd amounts of knowledge about certain shows and games, but was only average academically. As for exercise? Practically nonexistent. Think of the most stereotypical gloomy nerd you can imagine. That was me.

More detailed than you expected? Doesn’t matter.

Now then, with that information in mind, look at me now.

Long, flowing black hair. Arms so thin and pale that even someone as unathletic as I was would be shocked. A cute little face—one I definitely would’ve fallen for under other circumstances. A body far, far too small.

And above all that, the white wings on my back and the mysterious glowing ring floating gently above my head. What is this!? I cannot comprehend!

Ah, right. Those of you with sharp intuition already figured it out ages ago. Honestly, maybe you sensed it the moment you started reading this record.

It seems I’ve undergone that thing people call reincarnation into another world. Yes, that trendy one.

But rest assured—it isn’t possession. Fragmented memories from my early childhood are still intact, so at least I know that much. If I’d found out I was just hijacking the body of such an adorable girl, I don’t know what I would’ve done.

This is a problem. I may be an otaku, but I’ve consumed more reincarnation stories than I can count. Naturally, I love “TS reincarnation”—it fits my current situation perfectly. Calling it a staple of my media diet wouldn’t be an exaggeration.

But! But! That doesn’t mean I ever wanted to experience it myself!

I want to watch reincarnators stumbling through life in a girl’s body, embarrassed and confused! I want to see characters forcing femininity onto an unwilling reincarnated protagonist! And of course—I adore watching them suffer beautifully!

But when did I ever say I wanted to live through that myself!? Never! Right, God? If this is your doing, you’re misusing your powers. There were definitely better candidates for a TS reincarnation!

Anyway, back to the topic.

There’s another problem. It’s possible I actually know this world.

Anyone who’s played mobile games has probably heard the name “Blue Archive.” Yes, the game featuring all those, um… wise and cultured illustrations that often circulate on Twitter.

Oh? You just thought, “So you have knowledge of the source material, huh? Easy mode.” Didn’t you?
Reality isn’t that kind.

I’ve learned just how unreliable human memory can be.

Yeah! I forgot everything! I remember that I played it! But I forgot what happened! I forgot who my favorite character was! Maybe I’m no longer qualified to call myself an otaku…

…This is all the fault of whatever god reincarnated me. If the memory recovery method had been more reasonable, maybe I’d remember something. Who regains memories by falling out of bed!? What kind of shock therapy is that!? So sloppy!!!

…Be cool. Be cool, me. Calm down. I know yelling at you all won’t solve anything.

Phew… apologies. I lost my composure.
Right. Anyway, none of that was the real issue. I mean, okay, it’s a huge issue, but still.

The actual problem is something else.

As those familiar with Blue Archive know, it’s a school-life × youth × story-type RPG. I don’t remember the details, but it’s basically a tale about a bunch of students doing various things.

Yes… students.

In other words—school life! The nightmare known as youth! Lunchtimes spent with my face buried in my desk! Returning from the bathroom only to find my seat stolen! Girls gathering around loud, sparkling extroverts to chatter about who-knows-what! And the teacher’s terrifying words: “Pair up.”

Ah yes… those two syllables, “youth,” are enough to stab straight into my deepest complexes.

Please, spare me. All I want is to live quietly in the dark with nothing but blue light for company. But reality never goes the way I want. This body is, of course, that of a student—and students must attend school. And of all places, that high school.

Is this some kind of punishment? Please tell me it is. If someone insists this was an act of goodwill, I might actually lose my mind.

And yet, I didn’t give up.

This is my second life, after all. I’m not heartless enough to throw away everything this body has struggled through to survive. Besides, I’m a ridiculously cute girl now. With this appearance, maybe—just maybe—I wouldn’t end up like in my previous life. Yes, I had ulterior motives.

So I put on my uniform, grabbed my bag, and opened the heavy front door.

…Waiting for me was hell.

Sunlight pouring down like a death beam. Chattering in the classroom so loud it bordered on noise pollution. And the only place where silence existed was the lonely little corner where my seat was.

Of course. Naturally! This was high school. Middle schoolers might still be unsteady, but high school students? They all have friends carried over from junior high. Obviously I wouldn’t have a place to slip into their groups.

Aaaagh! It’s the worst. I grasped at straws and tried to rely on my new self’s memories—maybe I had a middle-school friend somewhere? Search results: zero. Damn it! Turns out the current me also barely scraped by on attendance, went straight home after class to play games, and lived the most stereotypical shut-in lifestyle imaginable! No wonder my skin is so pale! I want to punch my past self for thinking, “Oh, being a pale beauty is kind of nice.” And seriously, the facial beauty standards in this world are way too high! Give me back my only advantage!

…Ahem. My apologies. I got carried away again.

Anyway, thanks to all this, my attempt at a high school debut failed miserably. The girls I tried to approach already had their own groups, and the one girl who actually talked to me—a pink-haired one—had such overwhelming extrovert energy that I panicked and ran away. I feel a little bad about that… though I doubt I’ll ever manage to apologize.

Still, if this were all, I would’ve simply eaten lunch alone and quietly continued attending school.

But no. There’s another problem. In fact, this is the main event.

This world’s source material—Blue Archive. It calls itself a school × youth × story RPG, but… the game has guns.

"What?"

Yes, that’s the correct reaction if you don’t know Blue Archive. I thought the same. Guns have no business being in that genre description.

And yet they exist. Students go around firing them in the middle of town. Absolutely absurd.

But the students themselves are absurd beings who won’t even die from getting shot, so I guess guns count as appropriate brawling tools?
No, of course they don’t!

And so, while I got lucky enough not to encounter any gun-toting delinquents on my way to school, on my way home I wasn’t so lucky…

Yeah, I got beaten up. Badly. I forgot that kind of nonsense existed here, and even if I had remembered, or even if I’d been armed, there’s no way someone like me—a shut-in otaku born and raised in peaceful Japan—could handle a gun. Be serious!

And that’s how I learned pain.
And gained knowledge.

.

.

.

The outside world is scary.