Re:Start
This is the story
of an empty puppet and a flightless white bird
who joined hands and looked up at the sky.
The sky told them they could go anywhere.
But the sky would not let them go anywhere.
I am the sky. The empty sky. Your sky.
I promise.
I will be your sky. I will let you fly.
I will take you anywhere you want to go.
So said the puppet, admiring the white bird.
In the end, the puppet could not keep that promise.
They ran from it and everything else.
In the western region on the continent of Lucia—the former Kingdom of Elkia—Immanity had lost everything except for a single city in the last country they still controlled. But by now that was a distant memory. In a stunning recovery of their territory, they’d brought the Eastern Union, Oceand, and Avant Heim into a three-country, six-race commonwealth, a great power that had to be acknowledged. By now, however, that was yesterday’s news. Now word had spread that the monarch who had led this staggering advance had suddenly disappeared.
It’s all too familiar in history what happens when a country loses its wise king, its great leader. The administration stalls. Factions fight for power. Chaos reigns. And the country splits. Sooner or later, the great power declines…until, inevitably, it is said to have fallen…
…But that’s assuming the existence of a wise king or a great leader. When it’s a monarch who is neither wise nor great, then that’s a different story. For instance, a slacker king who dumps all the work on someone else. Or a shut-in leader who undermines the dignity of the state. A monarch who bets the Race Piece as if it was nothing and picks fights with higher races under policies a half step away from a reign of terror. If such a tyrant disappeared, that would be a completely different story. And that’s the tale of the Kingdom of Elkia—oh, sorry. The Republican Dukedom of Elkia.
It was as peaceful as could be. More stable than before if anything.
…With some exceptions. For example:
“…Are you listening? You have three choices.”
For instance, on the main road at a rest stop far northwest of the capital.
“You give me back my boobs, you cough up where you’re getting the drugs, or you die !! Do you understand?!”
Black-haired and flat-chested, she screamed with tears in her eyes in front of the open-air stall. Such a happy and lively town it was, filled with the hustle and bustle of merchants enjoying the boom in trade …
“Chlammy? Why, I told you, that drug was nothing more than barongrass extraaact.”
Next to young Chlammy Zell of the modest bosom stood Fiel Nirvalen of the ample bounty. The Elven Fiel gently admonished her friend.
“Barongrass is a spiritually active herb that merely inflates the breasts with air for a short period of tiiime.”
“That’s why I’m investigating this spurious substance!! Fi, can you understand how I feel?!”
Chlammy was furious. She wept profusely in her yearning to pummel the bastards responsible for this outrage against all that was right and proper. She, after all, had never been blessed when it came to matters of the chest. She had lived her life looking down at a wall that could never be surmounted, doing her best to cushion the blow with pads. But in her heart, not far from the surface, she knew more profoundly than anyone the greatness of voluminous breasts.
Three weeks earlier, the king and queen had abruptly gone missing. She and Fiel had searched for them high and low, across every plain and every mountain. Even Elven magic proved of no use to trace their whereabouts. Then, the previous night, they’d arrived here, and Chlammy had found this . It took no time for her to empty her purse.
Hastily she clutched the bottle labeled B OSOM E NHANCER . With her pinky out, without a second of hesitation, she gulped down the vial with a grand gesture.
……
It did not take long to hunt down the stall’s supplier. It was a little shop on the corner of the thoroughfare, and indeed it seemed to be doing brisk business. The line and the crowd were so massive that they could hardly even get close. Chlammy snickered as she made out what it said on the sign: A POTHECARY OF D REAMS . She slipped into the side street and reflected on the irony.
“Heh… Yes, quite. That night certainly was a dream …”
…It wasn’t as if Chlammy had trusted the concoction to be genuine in the first place. She had placed her hopes and dreams in the Bosom Enhancer with doubt—nay, with a near-certain conviction she would be disappointed. However—
“Yes, cleavage as if in a dream… I couldn’t even see my navel when I looked down.”
—her breasts had actually grown ! Ah, to have boobs most plentiful! She couldn’t even hear what Fiel was saying! It was time to rush to the inn, have a toast, and feast until her entire torso was swollen!! Wait? Where do they even sell lingerie big enough for these? ? Ha-ha!
“It was a nice worry to have, if you will, bouncing about in my chest as I went to sleep. A most pleasant night…” Chlammy whispered, her eyes gazing far off into the distance. She made her way to the back of the shop—and without a second thought climbed over the fence of the garden where it appeared they were growing their medicines. As they faced the door on which was written F OR S TAKEHOLDERS O NLY , Fiel raised her voice to rein in Chlammy.
“Ch-Chlammy? Wh-why, I don’t think we should trespass…”
“What are you talking about, Fi? It says ‘For Stakeholders Only.’ In other words, for me.”
Chlammy thought, “Apothecary of Dreams”? Fitting indeed. Yes, dreams. That which vanish the moment one wakes— nothing more than dreams .
She put her hand to her chest, which had been so cruelly brought back to reality after a dream-filled night, let the grandest of tears fall from her eyes now devoid of brightness—and asked:
“Are you saying that, with this void returned to me, with this emptiness in my barren bosom, I have nothing at stake?!”
A charlatan selling fake boobs on one hand, and Chlammy’s boobs on the other. Good and evil. What more did Fiel want to be at stake?! Sobbing uncontrollably, Chlammy started trying to kick down the door as Fiel hurriedly put her arms around her.
“Chlammy, y-you must calm down! Why, surely you knew it was a fraud?!”
“A monetary fraud, yes! But if you’re going to defraud me— don’t puff up my boobs in the firrrst plaaaaace!! ”
Ah, psychological fraud…first filling the chest with joy, and then emptying it of all hope. To lift her up with a dream that could never be, and then to drop her from such unprecedented heights—it was a sin deserving of heaven’s wrath!! Chlammy freed herself from Fiel’s grasp and unleashed her righteous fury.
…Only to freeze in the wind-up when she heard someone’s voice behind her.
“…Well now. I did plant quite a variety of seeds for the medicines…”
Chlammy and Fiel turned, and their eyes opened wide.
“…but I don’t recall planting seeds for washboards or weeds. How curious. ? ”
They looked back on that venom-tongued being, the most curious of all, with strained smiles.
A diabolical angel with a halo over her head of prismatic hair—the thing had appeared without sound, and now she casually opened the aforementioned door.
“ Master! ? Your humble servant Jibril has returned from deliveries! ? ”
“Yeah, good work—hey, it’s Chlammy and Fiel. C’monnn in. ”
“ …Welll-cooome… What are you…doing…here…?”
Ah, yes—those two voices answering merrily from beyond the door were, in fact, those of the long-lost king and queen. The very ones for whom Chlammy and Fiel had been searching for three weeks. The black-haired, dark-eyed older brother, an apron over his “I ? PPL” shirt, some sketchy implement in his hand. The white-haired, red-eyed little sister, standing on a stool, stirring a similarly sketchy cauldron. Sora and Shiro, those two siblings who epitomized sketchiness. At last, Chlammy gave them a friendly smile and said:
“That’s my line… What are you doing mucking about here?!”
Indeed, they were the very malingerers who had abandoned their administration without notice . They looked at each other. Sora apologetically took in a deep breath.
“Sorry…but actually, this isn’t muck. This is medicine. We’ve got all kinds. How ’bout it?”
He handed her a list of goods, among which was a Bosom Enhancer. How kind of him to offer a written confession of the outrage against all that is right and proper that he had committed upon her. Employing the momentum of her urge to strike him, she took the list and hurled it into the cauldron…
What were Sora and Shiro doing, you ask? Sora had a ready answer: They were killing time !
“I mean, we got chased off the throne… We’d be in trouble if they knew we were still in the country.”
He flinched not at the murderous gazes of Chlammy and Fiel. Though Sora told a sad tale as he sat in his chair, Shiro on his lap, his attitude was upbeat. More than upbeat, it was grand—it was with pride that they smiled as they continued!
“We got fired from our monarch job! We’re unemployed and penniless! Devoid even of the slightest desire to work !!”
“…Loser…shut-in gamers… That’s…us…!”
“But we don’t have a house to shut ourselves into! And you ask us what we’re doing? Is this not foolery?!”
“…The real…question is…what can we do…?”
“Oh, and when I said we were in trouble, I wasn’t kidding. We’re just about finished as human beings .”
Chlammy couldn’t help but clear her throat in the face of their zeal. They sneered.
— Why are you all surprised?
They had already been the scum of society, Sora and Shiro… “Just about finished as human beings” was far from the lowest they’d gotten! At the bottom of the valley, they’d dug a hole into the ground—and fallen through to Disboard, basically.
“But, you know, when we got to this world— we were just back at the start , right?”
“In, other words… ‘New Game’ … Playing again…”
“ ? !”
Yes, they had lost their throne, their home, and their power, even their value to society. But all that, to them, was just that. Seeing their faces, Chlammy couldn’t help but remember who they were, and it took her breath away. The personal effects they had—smartphones, tablet, portable game console—were vestiges of having lost everything. Those were all they’d had when they landed in Disboard, and now those were what they were playing with.
Those were all they’d had. And now their smiles and the fingers that played with them were the ones that had played the world. Those of the world’s ultimate strategist—“ ” (Blank), greatest gamer among humans, two in one. With their smiles and fingers—what was the point of worrying even if they lost everything else? They made it clear that the world was the game and they were the ones playing. And now—
“So, when you play the second time, it’s about everything but the main quest, right?! Like…”
“…Crafting…smithing, farming…and shopkeeping, duh…!”
“You haven’t even finished the main quest! Beat the game once first!”
They were done with conquering the Ixseeds and challenging the One True God for the time being. Chlammy made clear she was none too happy about their declaration that they were going to mess around with the world’s economy, but they completely ignored her. The only answer she received came from the medicinal products arrayed in this establishment Sora and Shiro were apparently running. Fiel looked about the compounding chamber, narrowing her eyes at the pharmacological ingredients she saw.
“Barongrass… Prana… Kama leaves… Why, none of these herbs are found on this continent, are theyyy? ? ”
“ ? !!”
Those elves and their foresty ways. Sora and Shiro chuckled as Chlammy gasped. Fiel had the eye to identify at a glance the effects and habitat of each herb—and to discern that Sora and Shiro’s claims were not worth trusting. If they were so broke and homeless— then how did they start this shop ? Chlammy searched their faces for the truth. She was met with a smile.
“Ah, you see, I simply shifted about the globe to collect what was needed and used magic to grow them in the back garden. ? ”
“What do you mean, ‘New Game’? More like ‘Cheat Activated’ !!”
Despite Chlammy’s protestations over the obviously broken character, Sora calmly raised a hand to silence her.
“Must you accuse me so unjustly? You should know that you get to bring new stuff along on the second playthrough .”
Yes—who cared how broken and OP she was?! If the devs said you could use her, then why not use her?! That’s right—!!
“So, on the second playthrough, we get to start with Jibril!! Thus we graduate from being broke, unemployed, and homeless! We sold materials and raised funds, and then we developed our own products and went into business! You see?! ”
“…Jibril, well…have you served…”
“It was a mere trifle. Ah… I deserve not this honor…”
“…All right… I see what you’re doing now,” Chlammy murmured to Sora’s bombast, Shiro’s thumbs-up, and Jibril’s wing-folding genuflection. “ Basically, the usual —cheating and swindling, right?!” She’d been holding back her urge to yell, doing her best to hear him out, but she’d reached her limit.
Sora said:
“…Sorry. Which case of cheating and swindling are you talking about? There’ve been so many, I’m not sure.”
“You’re clever to blow me off while acting apologetic, but could you stop?! I’m talking about your Bosom Enhancer. Your most wicked ruse yet, to hawk phony breasts . Give me back my dreams!!”
Chlammy screamed with tears in her eyes. But Sora looked back more quizzically than ever.
— Huh? He took out a vial of the Breast Enhancer.
“ Just take another dose. If you take it every day—congratulations! You’ve got big boobs.”
“Yes, I’ll have big fake boobs that will shrivel as soon as I stop taking it, won’t I?! Does your underhandedness know no bounds?!”
Chlammy censured him with a plaintive wail. Regardless, she took the vial.
“…Big fake boobs…? Ohhh, I see. You’re saying it’s not fair because the boobs are fake …are you?”
As if he’d finally figured out why she was angry, Sora nodded several times and said…
“All right, Chlammy… What sort of breast enhancement is not fake?”
Chlammy took in a breath, intuiting from the heavy sound of Sora’s question that something was up.
“Chlammy… You have my memories, so you should know. In our old world… Yes. We have many methods of bosom enhancement—of bust-building … However—”
Yes, having received Sora’s memories in the game of existence, Othello, Chlammy should have known. The many and various and dreamlike boob technologies that existed in their old world—for all that—were all—nothing more—than the likes of the Bosom Enhancer ? !
“All forms of breast augmentation are essentially just pads !!!”
“ ? Ah… Ahh!”
You could stuff your breasts with fat or with silicone. In any case, it was just stuffing. Just pads ! The only difference was whether you put it under your breasts or under your bra!! And she was saying that to inflate them with air was fraud?! Then all breast enhancement was fraud . Why, you ask?!
“Even if you manage to get big boobs, just as you yourself have realized, they will be fake!!”
“No—stoppp!! I don’t want to hear this. I—I don’t want to admit it!”
“You say you want to have big boobs — but that just proves you don’t . Ultimately, thinking that just proves your chest is flat as a board!! It doesn’t matter how many pads you stuff in there. That fact will never change!!”
“ ? No… Nooo… Oh, stop—stop—stopppp!”
It was a hard truth…but a truth she had to accept. Shiro, Fiel, and Jibril all looked down silently. Though Chlammy covered her ears and shook, the devious Sora continued mercilessly.
“You have a meager chest! You are impoverished! No matter how hard you try, you will never be well-endowed. So, if you’re not going to take pride in fakes that look realer than the real thing— ”
Yes… If she were just to smugly, proudly deceive herself and say: I can have real big boobs , or put on bouncy fake boobs and tell herself: These are real boobs —
“Then what you have— is even worse than fake .”
Chlammy slumped to the ground without a word. Fiel broke the silence:
“Chlammy…? Please listen caaarefully…”
Fiel gently embraced Chlammy. The Elf, the race most skilled in magic, said:
“Why, we do have magic that can make your breasts bigger… Buuut…”
They had all kinds of means, she was saying, from sex-change spells to camouflage spells. But as Chlammy had seen herself, and as Sora had told her, no matter what:
“In the eeend…they’re alll fake… Dreams are just dreams…you see.”
“…Ugh… Egh… Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
— To turn fake into real …was impossible even with magic. It was only a dream. Chlammy bawled as it dawned on her that the true nature of reality is despair. Even Sora’s and Shiro’s eyes glinted ever so slightly with tears.
“Yeah—they’re just dreams. Just dreams that vanish when you wake— but then …”
Sora and Shiro wiped their tears and proudly corrected their sitting posture, announcing with a glint yet fiercer:
“…That’s, why…there’s, demand…”
“And the nature of business—is to always supply a demand.”
Yes—in every age, in every world, it was a commodity always in short supply. An intangible commodity subject constantly to the most severe of shortages—namely!
“ It’s left to us to sell it —sell dreams. Drugs that make you dream for a short time!!”
That was why the sign said “Apothecary of Dreams.” He went on.
“You know why dreams are called dreams? Because they don’t exist in reality!! ”
Indeed. Dreams were dreams—mere fantasy, mere fiction. It wasn’t for nothing they’d written on the label, “Do not take more than the specified dose”! Those dreams packed so tight in that little bottle of medicine—
“Ah, even such a paradox as a big-breasted Chlammy !! A less realistic proposition than world peace!! A wild fancy contrary to Brahman! A dream ridiculous even as a dream! Even such a dream, one is free to dream.”
“…………Excuse me.”
“Dreams are the spice that adds zest to an otherwise unpalatable reality. All right, so it’s no wonder drug. It’s fake. But there’s no end to the demand for recreational drugs like this—it’s a dream ocean!!”
“Excuse me, Shiro. Do you have a drug that will help me realize my dream of punching Sora?! Name your price!”
Sora nodded deeply at his own statement that had brought the collapsed Chlammy back onto her feet.
Yes. This was proof: Even despair buckled under the rage of dreams! That’s why he was here, supplying those little wishes people had, like being popular or having big boobs. And that alone would suffice.
“And this keeps our business steady on the rails. Look at the sea of people outside our door!!”
“…So steady…the crowd…scares us misanthropes, from going outside… A critical hit!”
“But, you know, we’re shut-ins anyway. It’s not like we were going to go outside! We just have Jibril warp the goods to wholesale customers! And we sit here like courtiers fanning ourselves! Haaa-ha-ha-ha! Look at all those suckers!!”
“It is a natural consequence of my masters’ wisdom and business talent. ? ”
Jibril knelt before the cackling siblings. Chlammy and Fiel nodded jadedly.
No wonder we couldn’t find them anywhere…
Chlammy narrowed her eyes yet further, vowing not to look the other way this time.
“—Enough business . Get back to governing !!”
Chlammy’s booming howl shook the small shop. And then—
“If you’re so talented, then why did you get chased off the throne ?!”
—she thrust before Sora and Shiro the reason they were chased out—rather, the manner in which they managed to get expelled. For Immanity’s greatest gamer, the unbeaten ruler—“ ”—to lose the position of agent plenipotentiary —it had seemed impossible, and yet—
“It’s because of how you used the Covenants to force the Commercial Confederation to bend to your will!! It’s your relentless oppression that gave them an excuse to band together in a coup d’état!!”
…Yes. Basically, that’s all it had been—a coup. Sora and Shiro chuckled.
Three weeks earlier…
A placard reading CLOSED FOR BUSINESS hung from Elkia Castle. And there were a number of people in front of it. A ragtag band from the commercial associations, guilds, and various upstart nobles, who collectively called themselves the Commercial Confederation. Making a show of being on strike, they demanded of Sora and Shiro a simple game. Holding the country’s infrastructure hostage, they proposed a simple game—simply rigged for them to win, that is… And that was the story. That was enough for the greatest gamers to turn down the match and leave the throne.
The trick to never losing was never playing a game you couldn’t win . And thus the smoothly executed coup d’état turned Elkia from a monarchy to a constitutional dukedom. It was a parliamentary system in which capitalists and lords used their money and connections to influence state affairs.
“Oh well, it was bound to happen sooner or later anyway. Don’t worry about it.”
“You should be worrying about it!! Hey, are you listening?!”
Snapping out of flashback mode, Sora determined that they’d met their achievement quota for the day. Chlammy chased Sora as he started up the stairs to the second floor, where his living quarters were. But Jibril and Shiro, ascending at either side of Sora, dismissed her.
“For instance…the Eastern Union needs continental resources. Normally, Elkia would be able to sell them at exorbitant prices—”
“…But under the policies, of a multiracial commonwealth…Elkia’s got to, keep its prices, fair… Only a matter of time…”
“I’m…well aware of that…!”
Yes…Sora and Shiro’s ultimate goal lay in their plan to challenge Tet, the One True God. Their plan to create a multiracial commonwealth that would unite all the races without domination sounded good. No one would lose out, they had said—indeed. But what about those forced to sell goods otherwise commanding high prices at appropriately low ones? The merchants would suffer a loss in revenue—so clearly, they’d lose out. Chlammy had known that the discontent couldn’t be suppressed forever. But even so…
As the three reached their bedchamber on the second floor and sat on their respective beds, she asked them:
“Isn’t it the job of the government to suppress it anyway?! Why did you have to troll them?!”
It wasn’t oppression she was talking about but negotiation that Chlammy expounded. Sora, Shiro, and Jibril all grinned with increased ferocity.
“Come on, Chlammy… You’re asking a gamer why he has to troll people?”
“…We’re…not, politicians… You should, know, why we troll them…”
Politics was for the politicians. They’d leave aside a certain redhead. Sora’s and Shiro’s grins warped with malice—and the two of them explained how a gamer thought.
“The coup d’état event’s gonna happen anyway. So—”
“…We get the flag-setting … out of the way … ? ”
.
Chlammy and Fiel both knew better than to underestimate “ ”. You could see on their faces what they thought as they listened to Sora and Shiro: I knew it. They’d sparked the coup d’état on purpose.
Having tracked down Sora and Shiro to confirm this, the two were ready to move on to the next question: Why?
“Chlammy. After the Commercial Confederation chased us out, what happened here ?”
“……? Are you talking about how trade exploded after your regulations were loosened?” Chlammy answered suspiciously and carefully. Sora nodded gravely.
“In particular—at a certain waypoint along the trade route: here. This is the center of distribution .”
The Commercial Confederation’s capital lay mainly in the trade business Sora and Shiro had restrained. The goal of the coup was profit. And therefore, it could be inferred, free and unregulated trade. Anyone should be able to see what would happen—so, all they had to do was exploit it . In other words—!
“…You know all those stories about shopkeepers in alternate worlds? Don’t their protagonists piss you off?”
“…………Huh? The what in the what?”
“They win the contest of flavor using their knowledge from their old worlds to make mayo or miso and try to sell their product on the merit of taste alone? Ha!! These suckers don’t know how to think big! And they’re too slow! They think business is about having the better product. They can’t see the big picture!!”
“Huh? Wha—wait—what are you talking about?! It’s not?!”
Sora grinned, unconcerned with Chlammy’s bewilderment by his sudden change of subject and heated speech. To meet demand, you supplied the best products. Indeed, that was normal. Exceedingly appropriate.
And for that very reason, Sora laughed in its face!
“It doesn’t matter how good you think your product is. If no one buys it, it has no value! ”
Yes… Fundamentally, it was the reverse. Not supply, but demand was everything!
—Even if you set up a bunch of jewels on a deserted island, who were you gonna sell them to?!
—In a desert, water would go for more than jewels, wouldn’t it?!
You had to read who was gonna want what where. That came before questions of quality. So!!
“I’ll just come out and say it!! As long as you understand the fundamentals of business, you don’t need quality products, or even fake-boob drugs!! You can just take an empty bottle and slap on a label that says, ‘Ion-Enriched Air,’ and sell it so fast your crappy little hole-in-the-wall becomes the next big thing in three days and your series ends after one volume!!”
As Sora pontificated, he sat back on his bed, and his eyes glinted dangerously. He revealed the foundation and the secret of business. The truth. That being ?
“…If you want to sell your supply, first you make demand.”
Yes—all you had to do was goad the Commercial Confederation to mount a coup d’état. And then you didn’t have to predict demand. You just had to create it. That’s right—!!
“You gotta understand the flow of people and things—locations and trends!! Especially where it’s gonna boom when the Commercial Confederation loosens regulations!! You gotta know what’s going on with new currency being issued to smooth the flow of trade!! You gotta know before anyone else, and then frankly it doesn’t matter what you’re selling, you’re already rigged to win!!! Dooo youuu understaaaaand?! ”
— staaand!
……staaand…
…………staand…
Sora’s voice echoed.
“Why, it couldn’t possibly be that you really think us such fools as to take you at your word when you say that you sparked a coup d’état to run a medicine shop, could it?”
“You must know what’s really going on with Elkia right now… I won’t let you say that you don’t.”
Fiel and Chlammy looked back with subzero eyes. But Sora and Shiro laughed to themselves. They didn’t think them fools.
After all, it actually was the case.
And what was really going on with Elkia?
They didn’t have a clue… And so—
“Yeah, I don’t know what to tell you… We’re just commoners now, just medicine sellers.”
—to be honest—he’d known what would happen, he thought with a sneer.
“Our game is selling drugs. What else can we do now?” asked Sora sarcastically, lying in his bed.
A voice answered:
“ Proposal: List of options selectable by Master. Bath. Meal… This unit.”
Gaaah! Sora managed not to scream out loud. He leaped from his bed, where— Wait, let’s rewind.
She’d riffed on the conventional blushing-new-wife line, “Do you want a bath? Dinner? Or… me ?” Sitting up from within the sheets was a girl with violet hair—or rather, a machine that looked like one . Glossy naked skin peeked from between the sheets along with mechanical parts here and there.
“ Recommendation: Sequence. Process specification: Devour this unit in the bath. Unit recommends highly.”
The thing closed the distance with Sora. Another carryover from the last playthrough.
“—E-Emir-Eins?! How long have you been there?!”
“ Reply: Always.”
She answered immediately as she crawled toward him. Sora shook his head and screamed:
“Come on, not always ! What about your job?! Weren’t you supposed to man the shop?!”
“ Report: Inventory exhausted. Therefore, at 15:09, this unit initiated nude standby. Nude… Nude?”
Despite her placid response, she seemed to have just realized the situation she was in.
“ Error: Embarrassment far exceeding predicted value detected… This unit ready… Sofort? ”
…In other words, it was much more embarrassing than she thought when she tried it, and she wanted him to get on with it at once. Her glass eyes shimmered. But unexpectedly, the one who answered was—
“Oh, I see… It’s true, you’d never be the ones to deal with customers…”
—Chlammy, who’d just finally figured out what it was that had seemed amiss.
Who’d been dealing with the crowd? And…
Chlammy and Fiel narrowed their eyes. So this is the Ex Machina… Fiel eyed Emir-Eins warily, Chlammy pityingly. On the verge of tears, Chlammy spoke:
“Heh… What now? You’ve got a friend, haven’t you? Good for ? Eeegh! ”
“… Not a friend …an enemy—!! What happened…to your other, jobs…?!”
“Interesting. Being disconnected from the cluster affected not only your basic performance, but also your memory, did it? ? ”
Shiro’s outburst and Jibril’s murderous smile transformed Chlammy’s speech into a shriek.
—And, “Ah… This again?” Sora whispered as he looked up at the sky with the melancholy that had become his daily routine. Regardless of him and without response to the hostility of the two, Emir-Eins crawled out of the bed. The next moment, she transformed back into her maid costume. She bowed deeply to Shiro and Jibril.
“ Report: Shop closing procedure completed at 14:09. Currency transfer to exchange counter completed at 15:03, using optical camouflage.”
She’d even cleaned the shop, made orders—and performed tasks that Shiro normally would, such as market analysis. She’d finished them all, she was saying. Continuing her report inexpressively, she tilted her head.
“ Riddle: During same period, which incompetent one sat uselessly beside Master? Hint: Birdbrain.”
Emir-Eins faintly sneered, though to be fair, Jibril had also been floating some of the time.
“Dear me…? What could possibly be more useless than an Ex Machina with her Lösen abilities disabled…? How astonishingly inscrutable. ? ”
“ Acknowledgment: Productivity even lower than this unit alone in safe mode. Exceeds analysis capacity of this unit in state disconnected from cluster (32 percent of normal computational/analytical performance). Incompetence of Flügel astonishing. Wow.”
The two ridiculously powerful beings matched wits as Shiro remained so silent as to be even more unsettling.
Sora felt sure he heard the earth rumbling. Emir-Eins made to throw fuel on the fire—or to announce the end.
“ Conclusion: Plan to restrict and interfere with operation of this unit by task overload failed. High confidence.”
She flashed two V -for-victory signs coolly, and appended a single word coldly.
“ Taunt: Sieeeg. ”
Having declared her victory, Emir-Eins walked away, leaving Jibril and Shiro twitching. With a curtsy, she sat down next to Sora. It seemed that even the ingenuity of Shiro and Jibril had been insufficient to avoid this. Another day of this sad routine had begun… Yes.
“…… Focus … Staaare…”
Emir-Eins stared at Sora. That was all. That had been the routine for three weeks—making Sora very sad. Yes… Before, she had been taking a more seductive tack, and that was all right. Well, no, it wasn’t. But the much bigger problem was this. Emir-Eins just sat next to Sora—and, without expression—
“…… Ecstasy …… Mm. ? ”
—she just stared at him happily with a slight blush. He was doing his best not to give her free time, because this was always how she spent it. And that was a problem because—
“…………Uh, excuse me? May I ask…just what is this atmosphere?!”
“Don’t ask me! That’s what I wanna know!! Why do I have to lie on a bed of nails ?!”
—it always created this atmosphere , such that it made Chlammy scream and Sora roar back.
“…Hey—you’re Emir-Eins, right? …Don’t tell me…y-you’re—in love with Sora?”
Chlammy’s expression was probably like that of the first person who ate a sea cucumber. It was impossible, Chlammy thought, yet her question was answered in less than a second.
“ Acknowledgment: This unit loves him. This unit loves Master. This unit will say it once and say it again. This unit loves him. Liebe. ”
Yes—she would not deny her love. She was just doing what she said she would some days ago.
…A girl whispering her naked love, beautiful as a doll because she was one. It would be only natural for a male’s heart to flutter and for desires to surge under these circumstances. But Sora could solemnly swear: His heart would never flutter, nor would his desires surge. They were not doing so. Because they couldn’t. Not in a million years. Because—
“ Are you out of your mind?! How could you possibly—? Waaah, Fiii, help!”
“It’s all riiight, Chlammyyy— I’ll give my life to protect you!! ”
—yes—with one look from Shiro, Jibril, and Emir-Eins, Chlammy burst into tears. It was this atmosphere , which even put Fiel into a life-or-death state of mind!! The heart could never go aflutter amidst this malevolent, hostile silence. It would be more likely to sto ?
“Oh, man! Sorry, Emir-Eins! I forgot to ask you to go take care of the crops. Sorry, but—” Sora cried out, searching desperately for an excuse to escape the situation. But Emir-Eins smiled back gently.
“ Interrupt: Anticipated. Completed at 15:01. This unit will remain on standby by Master’s side. Ahhh.”
She thrust despair in his path. However…
“… Apology: Yet incomplete. One remaining crop: Could not determine whether to pick—”
“All right, let’s go get it! Hey, I’ll go myself! Shiro, come on! Okay, what crop is it?!”
Sora literally scooped up Shiro under his arm and started running. But Emir-Eins’s reply—
“ Reply: Only head protruding from Earth. Small Ixseed. Cultivar ? Dwarf.”
made him frown: Huh?
Ixseed Rank Eight, Dwarf… A higher race, with magic aptitude just below Rank Seven, Elf’s. The race lived in Hardenfell, second-greatest country in the world, in both size and power. And in the production of magical tools—machines using spirits—none of the other Ixseeds, not even Elf, could rival them. A well-known race of which they’d heard many times, and which they’d even seen on the monitors of the Eastern Union. But…
“…Let me just check. Dwarves aren’t something you pick out of fields, are they?”
“…Is this world, faithful…to the classics, that say…they’re created, of earth…?”
In a corner of the field, there it was, sticking out next to the lettuce they’d planted on a whim. A head, with brown skin and silver hair slightly peeking out from under a hood. Sora and Shiro looked quizzically at it. They’d never heard of such a thing. Jibril was less cautious.
“My, I don’t recall planting such unusual seeds as Dwarf seeds—what’s this?”
She pulled out the presumed Dwarf—and a slip of paper fell. Sora and Shiro casually picked it up and looked it over ?
.
“…Hmm. A Dwarf came all the way from Hardenfell to visit you…‘just medicine sellers.’ Some timing, isn’t it? I wonder what this could be about?”
Chlammy ironically prodded them for the truth. Sora just barely managed to answer with a smile.
“We’re medicine sellers, so it’s got to be about medicine, right? We’ve been waiting. It’s just…”
Looking back at the piece of paper, Sora stopped smiling, as Shiro looked down.
No address, no sender—no. There was a terribly stupid-looking signature, and there was some extremely sloppy Immanity script that looked as if it had been written by a child. Just one short, concise line, scratched insistently and brutally.
It’s me. Gimme the drugs, on credit , ya outsiders .
“…Seems like this customer might be tougher than we expected…”
“…………”
Countless memories flooded the minds of Sora and Shiro, outsiders to this world. Things they’d turned their backs on as they ran from and trampled over everything.
Their past was catching up to them to collect on the tab they couldn’t pay. Yes…flashing about in their heads as their hearts creaked in pain……
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