Chapter 22 — Interlude: You’re Not That Serious about This, Are You, Gramps? Fine, I’ll Do Better This Time
After fleeing Suudoria Academy, Van made his way to the island at the center of the continent. It was a place full of idyllic, natural beauty. No forces from the four factions of Belm were permitted entry. Of course, that included Van, as he was a student of Suudoria Academy, but he was the one who had made that rule in the first place, so ignoring it was no problem for him. As the Game Master, Van could ignore the rules as he saw fit.
“Well, this is an issue. The whole academy is toast.”
An enormous squid had attacked, the Demon Lord had shown her true form, and then a god calling herself the UEG had appeared. All the fighting had reduced the academy to a pile of rubble. After defeating the Demon Lord, the UEG had wiped out the academy’s remaining students. She had even absorbed the Seyla that Van had hidden under the school.
Using his powers as the administrator of the region, he checked in on the other factions. They were all in shambles, having effectively been annihilated as well. According to the records, the UEG had wiped out the Slow Life League and Momurus, while the horrifying state of Himeln was a result of the queen’s own actions. At this point, all units of any notable strength had been killed. All that was left were stragglers with no real strength.
“I get the feeling there’s no coming back from this. I doubt Gramps would find it interesting either.”
Van had set up the war between the four factions of Belm in order to entertain his grandfather, the Great Sage Mitsuki. Truthfully, the balance of the game hadn’t been very good, so things had turned out rather boring in the end, but he doubted his grandfather would find having an enormous monster come in from outside and wipe everything out to be an acceptable way of ending things. He doubted Mitsuki would be that upset over it, but he still felt guilty. If things were going to end like this, he would have been better off setting up the rules to encourage a quicker conclusion.
“Well...I guess I’ll just have to apologize.”
Passing through the small settlement, he headed to Mitsuki’s mansion at the top of a nearby hill. As he stepped inside, the women working all turned and bowed as one.
“Yo. Is Gramps around?”
“Lord Mitsuki is within the inner garden,” one of the women answered, her polite tone failing to hide her disdain. Normally, Van’s good looks earned him interest from the women in his life, but the women here couldn’t care less about him. They had to treat him politely as Mitsuki’s grandson, but otherwise they had no interest in him at all.
Passing through the building, Van made his way to the inner garden, where he immediately found his grandfather lying on the grass.
“Hi, Gramps.”
“Oh, Van! Long time no see! How are you doing?!” The answer came back from a boy who looked even younger than Van himself. This youth with unbelievably good looks was Van’s grandfather and the one in charge of all the Sages.
“What’s wrong?”
“It would be faster for you to see for yourself.”
“Oh, you mean the game? Sorry, things have been moving so slow, I haven’t been paying much attention.”
“Yeah, I realized I made a mistake with that. Next time I’ll try to make things move a bit faster.”
Lifting himself up off the ground, Mitsuki displayed information on the game in the space in front of him. Stats for the four factions were written at the center of the map of the continent.
“They were wiped out? Oh...that girl woke up. So that means Malnarilna is dead? Things have gotten really messy, huh?” Though he sounded concerned, Mitsuki’s face was all smiles. He always enjoyed unexpected developments. The fact that he wasn’t angry made Van sigh with relief.
“You know her?”
“We dated for a bit a long time ago. That’s a secret, though. I don’t want everyone else getting jealous. Man, I figured things would be messy when she woke up, but this is terrible.” The information on the display in front of them changed, showing the state of the entire world rather than just Belm. “Half the population is dead. I never expected she’d do something like this. I figured a lot of people would get killed when she tried to take revenge on me or the goddesses, but I didn’t expect a massacre like this...”
“Even if it’s only half the population, all the major cities have been destroyed, so the world is basically over, right?” Van said.
“And that beam of light she fired went right through the core of the planet, so the whole thing will probably fall apart soon.”
“So gathering the survivors together and trying to rebuild civilization is no good, then?”
“No, recovering from this is probably impossible. We’ll have to reset. Hmm. I don’t want to go too far back. How about here?”
Van had no idea what Mitsuki had done, but since he flopped back down on the grass, he must have already been finished.
“Huh? You’re just resetting it without warning?”
“No time like the present, right? I’ll leave the rest to you.”
“You’re not that serious about this, are you, gramps? Fine, I’ll do better this time.”
After saying that, Van lay down on the grass beside his grandfather and closed his eyes.
◇ ◇ ◇
“Huh?” Tomochika blurted out as the scenery around her suddenly started changing.
Similar confused voices came from all around her. It took a moment for her brain to adjust. It was so sudden and unexpected, she couldn’t understand what had happened. Just a moment ago, she had been floating in the air with Luu and Yogiri, staring down at some girl who called herself the UEG. But now, she was sitting in the middle of a bus, surrounded by her classmates, all of them starting to panic.
“Huh? Wha? Huh? What’s going on here?” Looking out the window, she saw an expansive grassland. Up in the sky were floating islands. Looking at the seat beside her, she saw that Mokomoko had crammed herself in.
“Huh? Mokomoko?! Wait, isn’t Mikochi supposed to be sitting here? Wait...did time get reversed or something?!”
Your assessment of the situation is far too accurate! Should you not be acting far more flustered?!
“I’m pretty confused, but I’m used to weird things like this happening by now. Still, if time got reversed and Mikochi isn’t here...”
The seat beside Tomochika belonged to Romiko Jougasaki. If time had been reversed, it was strange that Romiko wasn’t there. Tomochika stood up and looked at the back of the bus. Yogiri was sitting there, sleeping with a dumb look on his face. She couldn’t help but feel relieved at seeing him.
I have taken the liberty of looking around, and a number of the seats appear to be vacant, beyond the ones which were empty from the start.
“What do you think happened?”
Time has been reversed, yet the situation is not quite the same. At this point in time, you should not be able to see me yet.
“Hmm. For now, let’s assume that’s what happened. Now the bus has stopped, so next is...”
The door of the bus opened, and a woman in a white dress stepped inside. It was just like Tomochika remembered.
“It has been quite a while, everyone. I am sure some of you have forgotten by now, so allow me to introduce myself again. I am the Sage Sion.”
A greater panic seized the bus. Judging by their reactions, everyone seemed to remember her. It didn’t seem like Tomochika had been thrown back in time by herself. According to her memory, her homeroom teacher would be killed by Sion shortly, but this time the teacher didn’t interrupt her. The look of sheer terror on his face made it seem like he remembered what had happened to him before.
Maybe the people missing are the ones Takatou killed? Tomochika thought to herself. But didn’t he kill Sion too? Oh, he never finished her off, did he?
Yogiri had killed the individual parts of her body to torture information out of her. After getting the information he needed about the Philosopher’s Stones, he had left her alone. Now that she thought about it, Sion’s movements did seem unnatural somehow compared to when they had met before. It was possible her arms and legs were still dead.
“Everyone, please listen! I understand your confusion, but you won’t resolve anything by panicking like this. Could you please calm down for a moment?”
In contrast to the last time this scene had played out, Sion waited patiently for them to quiet down. Eventually, the students grew calmer and waited to hear what Sion had to say.
“Now then, to be quite honest, I am confused as well. To put things simply, what you all experienced up until now has been a dream.”
“Excuse me?” Tomochika blurted out, her voice overlapping with a number of others. “Umm! Can I ask a question?!” she raised her hand.
“Yes. Tomochika Dannoura, wasn’t it?”
“Uhh...are you trying to write off everything that happened as just a dream?!”
“I suppose that’s what it would mean,” Sion replied, tilting her head to the side. It seemed she didn’t understand the situation particularly well either.
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