【The Rise of the Ugly Monster】 Escape from the Mysterious Prison

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(...Huh?)

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Haruma Jou.

His surname was Haruma, and his first name was Jou.

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He was supposed to be just an ordinary high school boy, but one day, he suddenly found himself imprisoned in a dimly lit, vague somewhere.

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(Eh!? What, what!? I'm being held captive!? This is scary!!)

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Being a naturally timid person, he immediately panicked and thrashed about.

After all, the space he was trapped in was very small.

So small that he couldn't fit unless he bent his knees and neck and curled his body into a ball... "just like" a fetus.

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(No, no, no! Somebody, help meee!!)

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He flailed his arms and legs wildly and screamed.

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"N'EEEEEEEEH!?"

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What echoed from his own throat was not Japanese, but a strange groan.

He became even more frantic, and eventually began to bang his head against the wall surrounding him, which had the texture of pottery.

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Then, what happened?

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*Mishi, mishiri,* and—*Mishi, mishiri,* and—*Mishi, mishiri,* and—*Mishi, mishiri,* and—*Mishi, mishiri,* and—

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Cracks began to form on that wall!

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"N'EEEEEH!! N'EEEEEH!!"

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He desperately banged his head against the crack.

He repeated this several dozen times.

The crack in the wall gradually widened...

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"N'EEEEEEEEEEEEH!!"

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Finally, he succeeded in escaping the prison and peeking his face out into the outside world!

While breaking the walls of the narrow, cramped prison—pekipeki—he now hurriedly threw his entire body outside.

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Then, the first thing that jumped into his eyes was an overwhelming amount of light!

Having been trapped in a dark, confined space until then, he flinched at the stimulus of the light overflowing into the outside world, and reflexively narrowed his eyes.

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"N'eh... n'eh?"

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However, he gradually got used to it.

His world, which had been painted a solid white, began to be imbued with faint colors and outlines.

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At the same time, he noticed it.

The presence of a large being... shifting, next to him.

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"N'eh..."

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Fearfully, he turned his face towards that large something.

Then, what was there.

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A single black eye reflecting his figure, larger than his entire body... the profile of an overwhelmingly giant crow.

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"N'EEEEEEEEEEH!?"

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Being so afraid of crows that he would freeze up if a flock of them were on a power line, he fainted in the next moment.

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So at that point, he didn't realize.

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That his own figure reflected in the eye... had been transformed into that of an unsightly fledgling, whose feathers had not yet fully grown in.