CGBTS Chapter 20

Chapter 20 – Parallel Worlds

Novel Title: あの夏から戻れない (Can’t Go Back to That Summer)

Author：宮緒葵 (Miyao Aoi)

Illustrator：笠井あゆみ (Kasai Ayumi)

Translator: K (@kin0monogatari)

Protagonists: 櫛原夏生 (Kushihara Natsuo -MC) & 四辻柊 (Yotsutsuji Shuu -ML)

*Please read at knoxt.space, the original site of translation. TQ*

֍֍֍

What was there to understand? If he went through it, wouldn’t he simply come out in the forest on the other side?

Still confused, Natsuo did as he was told—and then stood there in stunned disbelief. What appeared before him was not the forest, but Shuu, waiting there with an expressionless face. Behind him was the lake, its surface undisturbed by even a single ripple.

“…Wh… why?”

Blinking repeatedly, Natsuo turned on his heel and passed through the wall of mist once more. This time, he gathered momentum and went through at full speed. Then he tried slowly. The third time, he ran through it.

…But the result was the same.

No matter how many times he tried, he could not pass through to the forest faintly visible on the other side. He always ended up back on this side, where Shuu was waiting.

―――Unchanging.

The meaning of that word slowly seeped into Natsuo’s mind.

“Now you understand, don’t you?”

After repeating it over and over until he was out of breath, Shuu, who had been silently watching him, finally spoke.

“This mist surrounds the entire village. There might be another world beyond it, but as long as this wall of mist exists, we can’t leave Odamaki Village.”

“…No way… that…”

Even as Natsuo stubbornly shook his head slowly, refusing to accept it, Shuu did not become irritated. Perhaps it was because Shuu had gone through the same experience himself.

Shuu took Natsuo by the hand and walked him around various parts of the village. The village was not particularly large, and after walking a certain distance, a wall of mist would inevitably appear. Even if they passed through it, they would simply be returned to where they had started.

Natsuo was the only one surprised by the phenomenon. Even the young children and the other villagers naturally accepted the existence of the wall of mist. There were even times when they came across elderly people reverently praying toward the wall as though offering thanks. To them, the mist was not something frightening, but probably a symbol of Odamaki-sama’s protection.

“………Are you all right?”

Shuu brought the utterly exhausted Natsuo to the village chief’s residence. It was closer than Shuu’s house.

Natsuo did not want to run into that village chief at a time like this, as he felt doing so would completely drain what little mental strength he had left, but he was relieved to hear that the village chief usually rested in a bedroom at the back of the residence and rarely came out. Yesterday, he had probably forced himself to come out because of the important ceremony of meeting a newcomer.

“Yeah… …somehow.”

After sitting down in the spacious living room and being given some cold barley tea to drink, Natsuo’s exhaustion eased just a little.

He stared intently at the glass decorated with orange flowers. This, too, had probably washed ashore from the Megumi Lake. The household appliances in Shuu’s house and the ingredients used for breakfast must have contained Odamaki-sama’s blessings as well.

……So I’d already been taken in by Odamaki-sama long ago.

There was no way he could deny it anymore. …This was another world. Once someone wandered into it, there was no way to leave ever again, and it was an unchanging world where they would repeat the same way of life forever.

“…Why would Odamaki-sama want a world like this? Repeating the same things over and over has no meaning.”

When Natsuo murmured this softly, Shuu shrugged.

“Who knows? I’ve thought about it many times too, but I never found an answer. …Or perhaps it is precisely because human beings cannot comprehend the thoughts of a god that they are called gods.”

“…”

The hand that had fallen limply onto his lap brushed against something hard. Come to think of it, when Shuu had dragged him along earlier, Natsuo had still been holding the cigarette pack, so he had shoved it into his pocket.

For some reason, Natsuo took it out and placed it on the table. Shuu narrowed his eyes nostalgically.

“That’s what Uncle used to smoke, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s a little different…”

Perhaps Shuu had not remembered it accurately because he had been so young. When Natsuo pointed to the crescent moon mark, his grown-up childhood friend nodded with an “Ah.”

“Then it was probably drawn here from a world close to the one we existed in.”

“…A close world? Are you saying there are still other worlds besides the original world and this one?”

Natsuo instinctively tensed up at the thought. As if there could possibly be any more other worlds than this.

There was the original world, and then there was Odamaki Village, ruled by Odamaki-sama. Even accepting that fact alone had been difficult enough.

“Of course there are.”

Shuu stated it matter-of-factly and pulled the go board and go bowls that had been sitting in the corner of the room over in front of Natsuo. It was hard to imagine, but apparently the village chief enjoyed playing go. Did Odamaki-sama bestow these kinds of recreational items as well?

“More precisely, they’re called parallel worlds. You could also call them parallel universes, but haven’t you heard of them?”

“…I think I’ve read about them in manga…”

It was a story about a protagonist who died in an accident in his first life. He was then mysteriously sent back in time to before the accident by some strange power, and survived by taking action to avoid the accident the second time around. The world in which he avoided the accident and reached a happy ending was, if Natsuo remembered correctly, explained to be a parallel world of the first world, where he had died in the accident.

“That’s right. But just because the protagonist survived instead of dying in the accident doesn’t mean the first world, where the protagonist died in the accident, ceases to exist. The first world remains the first world, continuing alongside the second world.”

Shuu picked up a black go stone from the go bowl and placed it with a click in the center of the board.

“This is the starting point, meaning before the protagonist gets into the accident. Now, the protagonist gets into an accident and dies. But afterward, some kind of power sends him back to the starting point, and he avoids the accident. Once that happens, the world splits into two patterns at this point.”

Shuu placed two black go stones diagonally above and to the right of the starting point, then placed one white go stone diagonally below and to the right of the starting point.

֍֍֍

*Translator’s Note: I think the concept of the parallel worlds is interesting. I have experienced some glitch in the matrix before, so maybe they do exist? -K

Next update: 2026.10.21

֍֍֍

Would appreciate some donation. Thanks!