0. Prologue.

One day in July. You, who went to university in Tokyo and then got a job at a company in Tokyo, were visiting your grandmother’s house in the mountain village of S in M city, M prefecture, for the first time in seven years. Tired of the restless anxiety of city life, you decided to fully enjoy the countryside for the first time in ages. You took time off and planned to stay in this village for three days. It was a clear, sunny day. There is no air conditioner in your grandmother’s old traditional Japanese house. You sat on the engawa, chewing on a half-melted ice cream, feeling the humid summer wind blown by the fan, and absentmindedly gazed at the sky beyond the garden wall. Then, suddenly, a profile appeared peeking over the top of the wall — like a floating severed head. That’s strange. Even by the most generous estimate, the wall is at least 2 meters high. If someone were standing on a ladder peeking in, maybe… but that face was moving slowly, as if the person were walking casually outside the wall. To have a face visible over the wall like that, the person would need to be over 2 meters tall. What shocked you even more was that the face peeking over the wall belonged to an incredibly beautiful woman — the kind that sends a chill down your spine. Her eyes were hidden in the shadow of a large white hat, but her beautiful lips, beautiful black hair, and beautiful facial contour left no doubt that she was an extraordinary beauty. Cold… You were completely captivated by her appearance. The ice cream you had forgotten to eat slowly melted and dripped onto your lap. When you looked down, sticky sweet liquid was spreading messily across your pants. But more importantly— you quickly looked back at the wall. You couldn’t believe your eyes. In the split second you had looked away, she had completely vanished. You hurriedly ran out to the front entrance and headed toward where she had been standing. You hadn’t thought at all about what you would say if you actually met her. Yet your body moved on its own, driven by curiosity about where that beautiful woman had gone. But she was nowhere to be found. A chill ran through you. Because this place was nothing but rice paddies in every direction, and the nearest house was almost a kilometer away. Flat land as far as the eye could see. There was literally nowhere for that woman to hide. Of course, there was no reason for her to hide in the first place, but… Still unable to believe what you had just witnessed, you slowly walked back into the house. That evening, while eating dinner with your grandmother, you almost casually asked, “Is there any extremely tall woman in this village, like over 2 meters tall…?” But you swallowed the words before they came out. This is a tiny village where only a few dozen elderly people live, quietly tending their fields. There’s no way a woman like that could exist here. Today was a scorching 38°C day. Having grown accustomed to air-conditioned rooms, you concluded that you must have hallucinated the whole thing because of the unbearable heat. You felt too embarrassed to tell your grandmother that you had seen a vision of a beautiful woman, so you decided to keep the daytime scene locked away in your heart. After finishing dinner and taking a bath, you went to sleep for the night. Thank you very much.