Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 15 - Chapter Pr

Conjunction: The Game Board They Know as This World

The Gaol, Café “Dice”

Two figures were sitting in a café and playing a game of chess.

One was a black-haired man with a smile on his face, while the other was a tired-looking young woman.

“Board games are profoundly simple,” said the man, moving his knight to take the lady’s bishop. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

This man was none other than King of Crime, Sechs Würfel — the proprietor of this establishment and the leader of the Illegal Frontier clan.

“...Not at all,” the lady replied. “This is actually pretty hard for me...” She was Gerbera, a member of the aforementioned clan, as well as a freeloader here. As she played, her eyes were glazed over.

This was a slow business day, so the two had decided to pass the time with chess, but Gerbera was less than an amateur at the game. Even with handicaps, she was losing badly.

“Chess is simple,” Sechs insisted as he took another one of Gerbera’s pieces. “After all, there are only two factions on the board, and only one king for each of them to take. In reality, the number of factions can never be known, and there might be multiple kings that must fall in order to take each faction down. Also, there is a chance that the world itself — the game board, if you will — would bare its fangs, as well. I’ve seen it happen before.”

“The world itself, huh...? You mean natural disasters like earthquakes? Oh, that reminds me — my dad told me about how he barely survived something like that back when he was a kid. Japan gets earthquakes all the time, doesn’t it?”

Being half-Japanese and half-British, Gerbera had a certain degree of knowledge about Japan from her father. He always told her that the people there feared a few things: earthquakes, lightning, fire, and their fathers.

Would I also be afraid of my dad if I lived there? she wondered.

“Natural disasters... Well, I suppose you could call them that,” said Sechs.

“...The way you’re phrasing it is making me curious,” Gerbera replied — as though Sechs’s description of the world “baring its fangs” wasn’t intriguing enough to begin with.

“It was certainly a disaster... But at the same time...I think it was the game board’s ‘king.’”

Sechs’s words were truly bizarre — he seemed to be implying that the world itself was another player. That would be akin to the very chessboard they were using joining the game and playing against them.

...How would it move its pieces? Gerbera wondered, completely serious.

“Oh, right. I’ve yet to tell anyone in I.F. about that encounter. I’ll have to distribute the information later.”

“...Huh? You were talking about this world? Not reality...?” Gerbera asked in surprise.

“Yes,” Sechs nodded. “Back then, I believe I saw the ‘king-piece’ of this world... Though, I suppose it’s more fitting to call it the final boss.”

Sechs casually stated something very shocking.

Gerbera’s tired eyes and mouth went wide in surprise.

“...Am I reading too much into this, or did you just drop a bombshell on me? This game has a final boss? Seriously? Something above raid bosses like the SUBMs...?”

“Yes. The term ‘final boss’ suits this quite well, actually. Though, according to a friend of mine, it’s the final boss of the world this game used to be. Observers like the Red King are the final bosses of the game this world is now.”

Presenting information he’d gained from the most ancient monster of all — The Skydragon King — Sechs took a sip of his coffee.

“...Dendro isn’t the first game in the series...? And...a ‘friend’ of yours? I... Are you sure you should be telling me this? I really wouldn’t want to get a death penalty or something for knowing too much...”

“There’s no need to worry about that. The control AIs would never do anything to affect the Masters irreversibly. Though, I suppose that doesn’t apply to psychological damage.”

“Hm?”

“I mean, the trauma from things like a tian friend of yours dying a horrible death.”

“...Ohh. Well, there are lots of people who can’t handle gore... But...where did you encounter this final boss, anyway? Some created dungeon...? Oh! I know! You’re from Altar, so it’s probably the Tomb Labyrinth, right?”

“I’m sorry, but no. It was in the capital, but not in that dungeon.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” Sechs had just implied that the final boss was in the city of Altea itself, and Gerbera couldn’t help but wonder how anyone could possibly run into something like that in such a mundane place.

“The final boss I met had a human form and led a human life,” Sechs said with a smile on his face.

“...Wh-huuhh?” Her companion’s words made Gerbera freeze up.

As he looked at her with amusement, Sechs remembered the latest report.

I believe today is the day Zeta will fulfill Dryfe’s request and assault Altea, he thought. Zeta and La Crima — two core members of I.F. — had combined forces to attack the capital of the kingdom.

Dryfe’s goal in this was to bring a certain entity out into the open and — if possible — finish it off.

Sechs was fairly certain that this “entity” was none other than the thing he’d seen back then.

I suppose I ended up talking about it because the memory was in the back of my mind... he thought.

Sechs believed that through this event, Dryfe would find out what he knew. That would cause a drastic shift in the world, much like it had during the war in which Sechs challenged Shu to a battle he couldn’t refuse.

Does that mean it would also be stirred into motion? I’m far away from it all at the moment, though. It would be quite a bother if everything ended while I’m still stuck here, he thought as he looked outside, at the scenery of the gaol.

A false sky, a false horizon...a false world, built by Red King using walls of spatial fixation.

“I suppose it must be starting right about now,” he muttered, looking out at the closed world — though he seemed to truly be seeing something far beyond its walls.