HI3: Previous Civilization

"Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire." – Jean de La Fontaine

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Amid a burst of explosive compression, Fan—dressed in a white lab coat—emerged beneath a concrete bridge in another world. He opened his eyes to the rush of flowing river water, the sound echoing through the tunnel. Immediately, he checked himself. After all, this was his first time undertaking such a mission; better be safe than sorry.

He realized the outfit he was wearing was the same white coat from his lab. Reaching into its pockets, Fan felt something foreign. Without hesitation, he activated his Noble Phantasm power, slipped off the coat, and flung it aside. He then conjured a small black hole to disintegrate it entirely—just in case.

Meanwhile, in a pristine, white space, a brown-haired girl in a white dress sat in a duck-legged position before a television screen. She stared at Fan's cautious behavior and frowned.

"Are all members of the Traveler's League this paranoid?" she wondered.

His approach was totally different from the prior traveler who had visited this world decades ago. That traveler stayed a few years, then vanished again without a trace. At the time, there'd been no extreme crises, so she'd never had to contact the Traveler's League until now.

She was merely a regular world's Will, possessing no grandiose power to handle Devourer Bugs—a threat she couldn't resolve. Yet she'd also heard from the "senior wills" that while Devourer Bugs were terrifying, eliminating them brought beneficial materials to a world. This was both a crisis and a chance, so she planned to meet the traveler personally—though the seniors advised never to confront them face-to-face unless she had total confidence in her own might.

Stepping out of that white space, the World's Will manifested near the bridge. As she walked over, she began to greet him:

"Hello, are you from the Traveler's League—?" she asked, her eyes still closed. But as she opened them, she froze, seeing a black hole inches from her face. She stood there wide-eyed, hardly daring to breathe, for fear it might swallow her head on the spot.

Fan canceled out the swirling black hole and scratched his head sheepishly.

"Sorry. It's my first time doing something like this, so I got a little jumpy."

He paused. "Are you…?"

That was all it took for the girl to burst into tears.

"Sob…!"

She crumpled to the ground, crying openly. Although she was a World's Will and thus technically "unkillable," dying even once was hideously painful and required a long time to recover. She had only approached him out of good faith, intending to offer supplies and goodwill. Yet he'd nearly—and quite literally—blasted her with a black hole.

"I regret not listening to my seniors… They said all these travelers are crazy!" she sobbed. "They told me to just drop the supplies from a distance and never show myself unless I was absolutely sure of my strength. Why didn't I heed them? I almost got one-shot just now!"

Fan watched the bawling girl, feeling awkward. It really was his fault; that black hole nearly wiped her out of existence.

Finally, she got a hold of herself, though still sniffling. Then she fished something out from behind her—a wallet and a set of property documents—and shoved them into Fan's arms. Without another word, she vanished on the spot.

Now holding a wallet and real-estate records, Fan glanced at the place the girl had disappeared from. She was evidently the world's Will, and she had known exactly who he was. Opening the documents, he saw that they mentioned "Hikari Town," plus a deed for a place in Chiba Prefecture, along with an unregistered black bank card and an ID bearing his name.

Fan furrowed his brow, tapping his chin.

"A property deed in Chiba… Why does all of this feel vaguely familiar? Why is my name on these documents?"

He was still puzzling over it when noises caught his attention nearby. Up above, a cluster of delinquent teens sprawled across the ground. Only two figures remained standing in the middle of the brawl: a blonde-haired youth and a silver-haired junior high girl. They were trading blows at superhuman speeds.

Shrugging, Fan stashed the wallet and property deed into his pocket. Next, he pulled another pristine white coat from his System space and put it on before walking out from under the bridge toward the commotion. Emerging onto the road, he spotted those two in a clearing, surrounded by a bunch of fallen punks. The two combatants were still exchanging punches and kicks.

He saw the silver-haired girl unleash a fierce kick at lightning speed, and memory flooded his mind.

Pressing his right fist into his left palm, he nodded as if he'd realized something.

"Ah, I see now which world this is."

It was that world.

"CLANNAD," huh? People might not recognize the name, but if you mentioned "Dango Daikazoku," they'd get it. In Fan's previous life, that was one of the first anime he'd watched in middle school, later playing the game—deeming it a masterpiece, albeit with a tragic edge. On top of that, the fighting pair's presence signaled something else: "Looks like I arrived earlier in the timeline than I expected. Our so-called 'Empty-Husk Martial Emperor' is still just a middle-school kid."

He narrowed his eyes at the silver-haired girl.

"And who's she fighting? I recall 'Empty-Husk Emperor' once mentioned a certain Miyazawa Yukine route with a strong brother, so that might be Miyazawa Kazuto, the only person who can face her head-on—Kazuto Miyazawa. Too bad he supposedly died young."

Then he looked down at the property deed again.

"Why would I get a Chiba Prefecture property? Is this place also full of siscons…?"

He guessed it must be a fusion world. That explained why the World's Will had an oddly familiar face.

Plus, the real-estate documents were all in Chinese.

Fan quickly grabbed a laptop from the System, typed at blistering speed, and hacked a local database to scan this world's historical records. He whistled in surprise.

Years ago, in their version of the wartime era, a single general had emerged, dropping two "mushrooms" (presumably bombs) and conquering those islands. They'd done horrifying things to his people, so that general apparently unleashed unstoppable retribution, cleansing them with artillery and leaving only the old, weak, and infirm. Some voices had resisted total annihilation, so at least a minimal population remained. Ultimately, that region was annexed as part of Greater China. Soon after, the hero behind that victory vanished. Before leaving, he must have gifted them some advanced knowledge or technology, because they rocketed to the top—first to land on the moon, recently perfecting nuclear-fusion technology, and even building new spacecraft for a Mars mission. They possessed something called a Xuanniao fighter jet, already manufactured. Quite a leap.

"Fascinating," Fan murmured, shutting the laptop. He gazed at the dark sky. "Still, where do I start looking for Devourer Bugs? Do I roam the entire planet? The quest hints they target 'people with strong fates'… so maybe I can use these fighters in front of me as bait?"

Just then, he sensed a strange aura—something hungry, desperate, wanting to devour all.

A System popup informed him: [Devourer Bug detected 650 meters from the Host's location.]

Fan scanned the surroundings and spotted that the area where the silver-haired girl and the blonde boy were clashing was about 500 meters away. The ground bulged upward, then sank again, and something burrowed quickly toward the battling pair.

"Well, that was quick," he mused.

In that open lot, neither the blonde boy nor the silver-haired girl sensed the danger yet.

Kazuto Miyazawa maintained a boxer's stance, weaving around Tomoyo Sakagami's kicks. "Sakagami, if I win, you'll join us!"

"Win first, then talk!" Tomoyo retorted, launching another fierce kick.

Kazuto blocked with his arms. Suddenly, they both felt a tremor underfoot, and a mutual sense of danger forced them to break apart, each delivering a kick to the other to propel themselves backward. No sooner had they leaped away than the ground exploded violently, flinging dust everywhere and obscuring their view. A slicing wind shrieked through the plume, forcing them to dodge aside. Whatever it was slammed into the earth with a dull boom.

Kazuto shouted to the delinquents sprawled around, "Get yourselves to safety—now!"

Groaning, they managed to limp away, leaving just Kazuto Miyazawa and Tomoyo Sakagami standing on opposite sides, bracing themselves for the next strike. The dust settled, and what they saw made them recoil.

A giant, disgusting mass of pale flesh, worm-like, with countless twitching tentacles lined with blinking eyeballs at every tip. A massive maw opened, lined with serrated teeth, drooling saliva that sizzled corrosively on the ground.

Failing to reach its prey on that first attack, the Devourer Bug let out a high-pitched roar.