Kurato became a third-year student.

As usual, he wakes up early in the morning to perform magical power circulation and during classes he repeatedly carries out practical training using his shield.

However, there was a slight change in his routine after coming home.

A PC was introduced into our house.

It was a laptop, but it was connected to the internet.

In this era, the spread of the internet is not yet complete.

Because of that, there are still devices that exist which have a PC but remain offline.

In that respect, our household’s laptop PC was ahead of the curve.

Kurato intended to use it to obtain various kinds of information from around the world.

His objective was to search for bugs.

If it was the internet, where information from around the world is updated in real time, then if something strange was happening, it should be obvious at a glance.

Thinking that, Kurato decided to devote a few hours before bed to internet surfing.

Of course, while searching, he was also carrying out shield operation training.

And then…

He obtained absolutely no results…

Why?

Were his search keywords strange?

Did bugs simply not exist in this world?

He tried digging through the websites of environmental organizations and (somehow) continued reading English research papers, but no particularly abnormal phenomena could be confirmed.

He also accessed occult articles, but most of them seemed like obvious hoaxes.

Cursed shrines, moving human mannequins, people claiming to have seen spirit flames…

There was an article claiming that the entrance to another world had been discovered, so he tried reading it in detail.

It said that mysterious phenomena occurred at the remains of air-raid shelters built during the student movements after the end of the World War (historically speaking, World War I).

Apparently, if you entered there, your soul would be extracted and you could go to another world.

However, this was highly likely to be a hoax.

At best, people were probably just fainting because they were too scared, or perhaps ghosts from the wartime era were supposedly stealing souls.

He could go investigate, but the possibility of it being a bug was extremely low.

To begin with, as an elementary school student, traveling far away was quite difficult, so verifying the truth of these things would have to wait until later.

Therefore, for now, he would limit himself to information gathering only.

Days continued to pass without him obtaining any information that seemed promising.

Even so, Kurato did not give up and continued gathering information about bugs.

* * *

Then, one day.

“Everyone, we’re going on a field trip!”

There was a sudden announcement from the homeroom teacher.

A field trip.

An event where children visit currently operating factories or workplaces in order to broaden their knowledge, observing or experiencing how adults work.

This time, they would tour a beer manufacturing factory in the morning and a waste processing plant in the afternoon.

They were handed a simple pamphlet for the tour and as Kurato quietly read through it, the teacher emphasized something overhead.

“We’ll be traveling by bus on the day. We’ll be meeting at the school, but the meeting time will be earlier than usual, so please don’t be late.”

Which meant that the supervising teachers would have to come in even earlier.

‘Teaching really was a tough job.’

Kurato thought, once again feeling grateful toward the teachers.

* * *

Several days later.

Today was the long-awaited field trip, at least for some people.

Kurato and the others would act in several groups.

The factory side did not have enough tour space for everyone to go around together.

The members of Kurato’s group were Kurato, Nishihama’s aniki, Takeuchi-kun, Iizuka-san, Takeda-san and five others, making a group of ten.

Keita had once again ended up in a neighboring class, so this time he was in a different group.

For the next year, their interactions would probably be minimal.

Since he still participated in after-school training, Kurato thought it wouldn’t have that much of an impact.

The first place they toured was the Houou Beer Factory.

Kurato and the others looked through the glass of the observation corridor at the large machines and equipment in operation.

“Yes! This is called the mashing process, where the malt that becomes the base of beer is turned into something like juice!”

A young woman guiding them explained things clearly and energetically.

While glancing at the machines and workers visible through the glass, Kurato and the others wrote the woman’s explanations down on their memo sheets.

Apparently, they would need to submit either an essay or a report later.

He needed to take proper notes.

While Kurato was taking notes, Iizuka-san energetically raised her hand.

“Excuse me! This plant called hops, if it’s bitter, wouldn’t it be better not to add it?”

“Well, um, you see, the bitterness of beer is something that adults find very delicious…”

Iizuka-san actively asked questions.

Looking closer, Takeda-san was also listening intently.

Were they interested in beer?

On the other hand, the boys like Takeuchi-kun didn’t seem interested.

They were drawing a yellow electric mouse on their memo sheets.

‘Hey, later your report is going to be a disaster, you know?’

When Kurato discreetly warned Takeuchi-kun so the girls wouldn’t notice, he replied in a low voice.

“Because, you know, it’s a world that has nothing to do with us anyway.”

‘Huh? What did he mean by that?’

When Kurato showed on his face that he didn’t understand, an aniki’s finger extended from the side and pointed beyond the glass.

“Look closely, Kurato. Everyone working here is a woman. If a man were to work here, at best it’d be carrying luggage or being a cleaner.”

The world on the other side that the aniki pointed to was indeed filled only with women.

People operating equipment, people checking product quality, people giving instructions, people apparently in some kind of business meeting.

All of them were women and there wasn’t a single man to be seen—ah, wait, the restroom cleaner was a man.

“Listen, Kurato. Us men, at best we become full-time househusbands. Even if we go out into society, we can only do part-time, temporary or bottom-tier work. Being an employee at an elite factory like this is nothing but a dream.”

The aniki said that and snorted.

A world for women.

That was this ability-based world.

Kurato was slightly surprised as he witnessed reality firsthand.

Because he had never seen a world like this before.

He had seen countless worlds where men strutted around arrogantly.

That was why, rather than feeling that this was abnormal or strange, the impression that rose up first was that it was unusual.

It was just that men and women had switched places.

He thought it was a topsy-turvy and interesting world.

However, that way of thinking lasted only until they arrived at the next waste processing plant.

Waiting for them in front of the plant were also female staff members.

“Everyone, please follow after me.”

A woman wearing a slightly rumpled suit guided Kurato and the others.

First, it seemed they would watch a video in a room like a conference room and then tour the factory.

‘Hey, the video is on cassette tape. That’s nostalgic.’

Keeping those inner thoughts to himself, after finishing the video on waste processing methods, the children walked along the visitor corridor while listening to the staff member’s explanation.

“Yes, here we remotely operate the equipment inside the plant. We grasp the status of the machines with the central computer, operate them and process the waste.”

Where the woman pointed, there was a large PC and behind it sat a massive machine like a supercomputer.

And the ones operating them were—

“Huh? Men.”

In front of them were only male staff members wearing uniforms darkened with oil stains in places.

There were no women.

Hearing Kurato’s mutter, this time Takeuchi-kun explained.

“Well, obviously. Garbage is dirty, so women don’t want to do it.”

“These kinds of tough jobs are for us men. What was it called again? Sankē, was it?”

3K.

Tough, dirty and dangerous.

Kurato nodded at the aniki who provided the additional information.

In other words, jobs that women didn’t want to do were passed on to men.

Cleaning jobs like garbage disposal and toilet cleaning, jobs where you’re exposed to hazardous substances like welding and mentally taxing jobs like call centers also fell into this category.

In these kinds of occupations, the proportion of men was quite high and the pay was low.

When he looked into just how low later on, it seemed that for men, the monthly salary didn’t even reach 200,000 yen.

It was working poverty, with annual income under 3 million yen.

For women, even in the same job, 5 million yen a year was basically guaranteed.

However, even this 3 million yen was a dazzlingly good workplace for men.

If you looked, there were countless jobs with annual incomes under 2 million yen and with part-time or temporary work, just over 1 million yen was about the limit.

If you got married and were supported by a woman, you could manage somehow, but for a single E-rank man, it was a salary that made old age worrisome.

But this was a normal reality for men outside special zones, especially E-rank men.

That was why they tried to enter even slightly better workplaces, acquiring abilities unrelated to supernatural powers, such as academic ability and technical skills and aiming for factory work like this.

Apparently, even if they trained their abilities, at E-rank they wouldn’t even be considered in the selection criteria.

What a harsh world it was for men.

Historically speaking, it was probably about the same treatment as women in the early Showa and Heisei periods.

Kurato looked at Takeuchi-kun and the others with a gloomy expression, but they were seriously listening to the woman’s explanation and moving their mechanical pencils.

Conversely, this time Takeda-san and the others looked bored.

It seemed they thought this was a world they had nothing to do with.

They were drawing pictures of handsome men wielding swords in their notebooks.

…No, isn’t that way too good?

“Hey, what are you looking at?”

Uh-oh, Takeda-san noticed.

Kurato scratched his head and gave a small bow.

“Sorry. It was a good drawing, so. Is it some kind of character?”

“Date Masamune.”

Huh?

Kurato was surprised and dropped his gaze back to the drawing.

However, Takeda-san quickly hid it, so he couldn’t see it.

When he returned his gaze to Takeda-san, she was there, her face slightly flushed.

“It’s fine, right? It’s just popular among girls.”

‘I see. It’s popular.’

Now that he thought about it, even in history, samurai had been turned into beautiful women and become popular…

As Kurato reminisced, the tour was gradually coming to an end.

By the way, the staff member who guided them was a woman, but she was a city employee.

In other words, a public servant.

He had heard that public servants were also overwhelmingly women and that men were mostly D-rank.

He had heard this about four years ago.

The information came from Ryosuke’s mother, but it probably hadn’t changed even now.

‘Come to think of it, how was Ryosuke doing?’

As Kurato felt nostalgic, the tour had already ended before he realized it.

* * *

Essay on Impressions from the Field Trip – Makishima Kurato

〈Through this field trip, I was able to see the real world. How difficult a world it is for men to live in. How ability rank and gender are such critically important selection criteria for society.

At the same time, I also felt a sense of doubt. Why have men stopped raising objections to these social conditions? The recent terrorist incident is beyond the pale, but I believe that methods of protest such as unions and strikes still remain. In fields unrelated to supernatural abilities, it should be possible to insist on fairness.

Roughly one hundred years ago, until before the world war occurred, the world was one dominated by men. I do not think that modern men are unaware of this fact, so I believe it would not be strange for some form of rights assertion to exist.

Therefore, considering that such assertions are not made, I felt through this field trip that the men who are out in society are very docile people〉

“Makishima-kun? Could you come to the staff room for a moment?”

On a later day, the moment he submitted his report, Kurato was called out by the teacher.

After this, Kurato got chewed out terribly…

Or so it seemed, but instead, the teacher gently admonished him.

“You’re D-rank, so you don’t have to worry, you’ll be able to get married. You’re popular enough that invitations are always coming from the girls in your class, right?”

Faced with the teacher’s smirking expression, Kurato had many things he wanted to say, but he endured it on the spot.

In other words, if you wanted a stable life, then getting married was the quickest way.

This too was something with little hope if you were E-rank.

Even the path of marriage had a large divide depending on rank.

Kurato once again recognized how thick the walls of this world were.