CHAPTER 1
WEAK SQUARE
The country of Immanity—the Kingdom of Elkia. The capital, Elkia: Block 6, Eastern District. In the guest hall of a resplendent mansion, five people surrounded a table, as several spectators looked on.
One of those at the table was a young man with chaotically sheared black hair and dark circles under his eyes sporting an “I ? PPL” T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. The second was a little girl sitting on his lap—with long, long hair as white as snow, irises red like rubies, eyes deadpan and half-lidded, and wearing a black sailor suit. Around the young man’s arm was wrapped the queen’s tiara, like an armband. Likewise, the girl used the king’s crown to tie her overly long bangs. As it happened, these siblings were collectively the monarch of Elkia, the last nation of Immanity. The brother: Sora. Eighteen, virgin, unpopular, socially incompetent, loser, game vegetable. The sister: Shiro. Eleven, friendless, socially incompetent, shut-in, game vegetable.
……So long, humanity.
THE END
…Well, that’s what anyone would think if that was all they heard. But these two—were not of this world. In their old world, they had set unbeatable records in the rankings for over 280 games. Carving their empty name at the top of all kinds of games without a single loss. And so these gamers, with their unreal skills and mysterious identity, came even to be regarded as the urban legend known as “ ”—and here they were.
To this world, Disboard … Where war had been forbidden by the Ten Covenants since the distant past. Where everything, even nations’ borders, was decided by games. At a time when Immanity had been backed into a corner by other races that cheated using magic, which humans could neither use nor even detect. As the last city of Immanity was on the verge of being turned into a puppet state by an Elven spy. To this world, they had come, without magic, without powers. With nothing more than mere human ability, they had earned the crown declaring them the strongest of all humanity, in both name and truth, and had ascended to the throne.
True, they were undeniably failures at life. It was also true that they were inarguably unfit for society. But, in this one world —the siblings could very well have been the saviors of Immanity. Of these two in whose hands the hope of Immanity rested, the brother, Sora, cards in hand, spoke!!
“Hey, Steph. Where do babies come from?”
……Perhaps we should say so long after all.
A certain figure watching from the fringes of the table just next to Sora and Shiro, responded with a cold glare.
“…I don’t really want to have to explain that to someone upon whose shoulders weighs the fate of Immanity…”
The girl was in her late teens, with red hair, blue eyes, and just the sort of frilly clothing you might expect to see in a fantasy world. Her fashion, her appearance, her manner all suggesting high breeding—Stephanie Dola. Aka Steph. The young miss of a most pedigreed household, once the granddaughter of the king of Elkia, answered:
“—Your Majesty, have you finally lost your mind?” No, that wasn’t the right way to put it—she corrected herself. “When I say it like that, it makes it sound as if you were sound of mind to begin with.”
“Hey, I’m sound as can be!”
“Asking that question as if it’s perfectly rational is exactly what’s irrational!”
“Jeez, you just don’t get anything! Look, in this world, we have the Ten Covenants , right?!”
The Ten Covenants . The absolute law of this world, established by the god Tet upon winning the throne of the One True God.
1. In this world, all bodily injury, war, and plunder is forbidden.
2. All conflicts shall be settled by victory and defeat in games.
3. Games shall be played for wagers that each agrees are of equal value.
4. Insofar as it does not conflict with “3,” any game or wager is permitted.
5. The party challenged shall have the right to determine the game.
6. Wagers sworn by the Covenants are absolutely binding.
7. For conflicts between groups, an agent plenipotentiary shall be established.
8. If cheating is discovered in a game, it shall be counted as a loss.
9. The above shall be absolute and immutable rules, in the name of the God.
10. Let’s all have fun together.
“…Yes, and so?”
“I mean, look. Bodily injury is forbidden. So how are you supposed to make babies?”
……
“…May I ask why you are asking this now?”
“I was just bored, and it occurred to me. But isn’t this kind of a serious problem?”
Mindful of the gazes around her, Steph whispered at Sora’s ear:
“In your world , were people born from eggs?”
Yes, it was a secret that Sora and Shiro were from another world.
…Her point being, don’t talk about this in front of all these people . Steph chastised him with cold, incredulous eyes as usual.
“—H-hey! Don’t make fun of me for being a virgin! It’s not like I don’t know it’s, like, the monster in the guy’s pocket goes in and out of the girl’s secret garden and then the whole world flips, all right?!”
“…Brother, when you, put it like that…it makes you sound, even more…virginal.”
“I am a virgin! What do you want me to be if not virginal?!”
The royal gentleman who had never had a girlfriend in his life, childishly rebutted the observations of his eleven-year-old sister perched on his lap.
“A-anyway, when you do that stuff, it causes injury, right?! At least the first time!! So with the Ten Covenants, how does Immanity reproduce in this world? That’s what I’m asking!”
Steph realized that he might actually be asking a serious question after all. But first—
“…Just let me check: this isn’t some fetishy plot to humiliate me publicly, is it?”
“—Um, I think you’re the one who’s weird for thinking that?”
She could come up with a porn game scenario in a world without porn games. Really, you had to be impressed at that kind of imagination.
“Forget it. I’ll just ask someone who knows how to explain things later. Useless.”
“Wha—Fine, fine, I’ll explain it to you!”
Steph, cleared her throat— a-ahem .
“It is clear what constitutes the basis for constituting a violation of rights.”
“Hmm. Specifically?”
“Put simply: actions that violate rights with malice —are canceled.”
…—Wha?
“—Uh…what, are you saying our brains are being censored in real time?”
“Yes, that’s quite it.”
Okay, while this may have been a fantasy world, you gotta say that’s ridiculous.
“Therefore, since the establishment of the Ten Covenants, most laws have become mere relics. After all, any action that is successfully executed has got to be conformant to the Covenants, or else performed by consent or by mistake—”
“ Hhh … Your God here really can do anything.”
“The One True God obviously can do anything, can’t he?”
—The right to rebuild the laws of the world on a whim. And now—that itself would be decided by a game in this world, it seemed.
“Hmm… All right, then. So let me ask again, why is making babies okay?”
The one who answered was not Steph, but Shiro, who was on his lap shuffling cards.
“…Consent… ‘Transfer’… In other words…”
“Oh, so if you give each other permission, it’s not a violation of rights.”
Sora, remembering how he was kicked in the back by Shiro before, finally grasped it. If it was Shiro, it was natural to think he might have agreed unconsciously.
—With a yawn, Sora mused as he shuffled the cards in front of Shiro:
“Well, that makes sense. I mean, doctors’ hands would be tied if you couldn’t do anything that wounded another person.”
As Sora mumbled again that these sure were well-designed Covenants, Steph commented: “You can see the world is functioning, and the rules are fast.”
“That’s not how it was back in our world …”
…Surprisingly, the world still functioned even without rules, though riddled with contradictions and defects. This world had to have been the same before the Ten Covenants, really.
“…But then that raises another question.”
“What is it?”
“Why was I able to fondle your boo—Okay, never mind.”
We’re in public! If you go any further —Steph’s piercing glare was unmistakable, and Sora shut up.
“Anyway, this was a very interesting discussion. Great way to kill time.”
“You just explicitly said it was only to kill time, didn’t you?!”
As Sora lifted his sleepy head, he noticed around the table the last three guys . Nobles in their underpants. Three middle-aged dudes with a little too much fat. Also watching these men as if bearing witness to something very pitiable were several spectators.
—Sora’d been playing half unconsciously and had almost forgotten. But the siblings were in the midst of a game with these three nobles. Poker, betting everything they had .
“Seriously, who wants to see a bunch of old guys naked…? Can’t we call it a day?”
Indeed, they had just had all their assets cleaned out by Sora and Shiro, these three now- former nobles . “All their assets” meant just what it sounded like. Their land, their fortunes, their rights, of course, and even their wives, children, families. All of that had been wrung from the trio in just two hours, and all they had left by now was their underpants.
“H-how—? If we stop now, we won’t have anything left!”
“Y-y-you think you can get away with this?”
“If we don’t recoup our losses, we won’t even have clothes! How dare you?!”
Sora yawned, only half-listening.
“…You’re the ones who agreed to play, and you’re the ones who laid your families and clothes on the table when we didn’t even ask you, right…?
“Plus, if I may—”
As the king continued to upbraid them, the three nobles—no, former nobles—shrunk at Sora’s gaze.
“We’re looking the other way about the three of you cheating together. You should be grateful.”
“…Full house… Game over…”
The hand Shiro played with these words meant that the nobles’ last resort—their underpants—was forfeit.
—And thusly, the three high-born ringleaders of the movement against agricultural reform were left in their birthday suits, and the demonstrations they’d instigated came to a close.
The capital, Elkia: Main Street. It was an arterial road that joined the city’s north, east, south, west, and the castle. It was Elkia’s busiest street, and the one the nobles who had lost even their underpants opposing Sora’s agricultural reforms had to take home.
“Th-this is just too much. It’s sick…”
Walking the well-traveled road home among carriages and crowds, Steph couldn’t hold it in.
“Did you really have to take their families?!”
“What? They just up and bet them. To put their wives and children on the table, they’re the ones who’re sick,” Sora answered from behind her as he walked with Shiro’s hand firmly in his grasp. “But never mind that. This crowd… Sh-Shiro, whatever you do, don’t let go, okay?”
“…Y-y-you, too…Brother…”
The two spoke with their heads lowered while flinching at all the eyes around them. For two socially incompetent shut-ins, walking on a big street at noon was nothing but torture.
“Aren’t you the one who said you wanted to walk home, Sora?”
“I-I had something to do…b-b-but this is just too many…”
Hardly having left the castle in the months since they’d come to this world, the two jerked sketchily, gripping each other’s hands harder as Steph sighed at them.
“So what about all that stuff?”
“S-stuff? Wh-what stuff?”
“All the stuff you took from those three.”
“Oh, well, nothing in particular.”
Somehow putting his brave face on, Sora answered:
“If you’re talking about their families, they can do what they want. If they can forgive those guys for betting them, they’ll go back. The other stuff, well, you and the ministers can take care of it.”
The purpose of this visit had been to eliminate the nobles in the way of the agricultural reforms. Their being stripped naked was simply a means to strip their authority. Sora thought the state could just deal with the assets now.
“Um, Sora… It is my responsibility for not having been able to head off the protest, and I am sorry for having caused trouble to you two. Still, the way you’re doing things leaves a bad taste.”
Sora and Shiro may have rebuilt the country with one pillar of wisdom after another from another world. But only having been in this world for a month meant that they were liable to make a massive gaffe or two in an unfamiliar culture. To avoid any slipups from this, they limited themselves to dictating policy while the ministers handled execution. As a bridge, they employed Steph, with her thorough education in the ways of royalty.
—Or that’s what they said while dodging all the responsibilities of running a country they found boring. In fact, they had said this a month before—
“We’ll set out the policy and direction. You and the ministers can work on the details. If there are any assholes who aren’t satisfied with that, bring ’em here. I’ll take everything they have and send ’em out naked—that’s what I said, right?”
“That’s what I’m saying! Your idea to begin with is savagery!”
“Don’t worry about it. A reign of terror would make things annoying later on, but just one or two things like this is nothing.”
Actually, if he kept this up, he’d be just like one of those genocidal reds.
“In fact, it’s really impressive to me that this is the first time this has happened in the month since we took the throne.”
Big agricultural and industrial reforms always caused disputes over rights. Nobles revolting, guilds conspiring. One always finds lame events such as these in simulation games. He’d tossed all those annoying flags to Steph and the ministers to clear. But he hadn’t expected it to take a whole month before they started popping up—
“Well, yes…I’d been controlling them.”
“…Controlling them?”
“From the beginning, most of the nobles opposed the agricultural reforms you proposed. Fortunately, the Dola family has some clout with the Oluos and the Bilds, so we were able to get them to help us set the stage.”
“………Huh? Oh, okay.”
“We used data gained from a large-scale experiment on lands held directly by the crown and sowed the spoils among major nobles who were on our side. Some of the petty lords came looking for a piece of the pie, and we slowly isolated the lords they served… There were some major houses we had no choice but to confront. The three today were at the top of those, so this shouldn’t happen again. You should avoid provoking them unnecessarily and proceed—Wait, what?”
Sora interrupted the smooth flow of Steph’s narrative by putting his hand to his forehead.
“…I-it doesn’t feel like I’ve got a fever. Why does Steph sound like she’s smart?!” said Sora, clearly consternated. “Is there something wrong with me?! S-sorry to make you take us all around, but I’ve got to see a doctor right—”
“……Um, excuse me, isn’t that taking your rudeness a little too far?” Steph’s shoulders shook, but Sora only shouted:
“But, I mean—you’re Steph, right?!”
“Yes, I am Steph! So?!”
Sora closed his eyes and shook his head.
“Hey, hey, wait, wait…stop, hold up…could it be…?”
Like a physicist who’d just seen a real ghost, his assumptions had been shattered. It can’t be possible , he thought. He swallowed audibly, looking agonized, before verbalizing a notion he could scarcely comprehend.
“I don’t think this is possible…but Steph, could it be…you’re— not an idiot?!” Sora wailed, hardly able to give credence to the idea.
“U-um… Do you know I graduated at the top of my class from this nation’s top academy? What are you on about?!”
“But, I mean—look at yourself!”
—Stephanie Dola. The well-bred young lady, once the granddaughter of the king of Elkia. Now wearing a collar and the ears and tail of a dog , the leash around her neck held by Shiro as she walked the downtown thoroughfare.
“What kind of smart person would be in your position?!”
“Aren’t you the one who put me in this position?!”
Yes, just this morning after Steph got her ass kicked at blackjack by Sora, she’d been informed randomly, “Okay, now you’re a dog for the rest of the day,” and forced to comply. Given that she was taking a stroll down Elkia’s Main Street in that state, it was no surprise, but everyone turned to stare as if having just seen something bizarre. It must also be mentioned that even at the mansion during the showdown with the nobles, she had been like that the whole time .
“C-couldn’t you think of something better to demand than that?!”
As Steph shouted, suggesting her anger had returned at this late hour, Sora and Shiro thought:
— Looks like she’s pretty much the same as always.
“…Steph, shake…”
At Shiro’s outstretched hand, Steph draped her front paw—rather, her right hand—over it.
“Ng-ghh… Why must I obey you?!”
“I thought you just explained it a minute ago. Because those are the rules of the world.”
—The Sixth of the Ten Covenants: Wagers sworn by the Covenants are absolutely binding.
“…Steph, lie down…”
Flattening her body on the surface of the thoroughfare, Steph cried out.
“Ungghh! I mean, why can’t I beat you?!”
At this question, Sora sighed with evident relief.
“Oh, so you couldn’t figure it out after all… I’m glad you’re the same old Steph.”
“It sounds like you’re using Steph as an insult…is it just me?! Is it just me?!”
But Sora ignored Steph’s protestations and took out his phone, oblivious to just how hard Steph was actually working. He took another look at the national data he had graphed from the ministers’ reports on an app. It looked like most of his reform proposals were going to go through smoothly. He wasn’t entirely satisfied with the area that had been achieved for dairy farming, but if things worked, it should prove sufficient for the population trend. Meanwhile, those employment problems were getting better to some extent—Having confirmed these things, he started his task scheduler. Going through “Reform agriculture,” “Reform industry,” “Reform finance,” etc., he put a check to mark the completion of each.
“…But, still, it is just a stopgap…”
No matter how much the siblings employed their knowledge from another world, fundamentally there weren’t enough resources and land. It would take half a year for the agricultural reforms to start bearing fruit. Even if they wanted to overclock the hell out of their tech, they just didn’t have enough materials in the country.
“I guess it’s true—we have no choice but to ‘take back our territory,’ right?”
In other words. It was finally time to move to take back the borders . But—where could they strike…?
“…”
Shiro seemed to understand Sora’s thoughts as he fell silent, falling silent herself to think for a long time. Steph, walking in front of the pair with a collar around her neck, was consequently forced into silence herself.
—But she just couldn’t bear the looks directed at her.
“So-Sora. I-I can’t stand these stares. Please, at least talk—”
At Steph’s remonstration, Sora noticed something odd.
“…Hm? Isn’t there something weird about the way people are looking at us?”
“What did you expect when you dressed me up like this?!”
“No, I mean…don’t they look kind of scared ?”
Sora asked having noticed something faintly odd about the glares directed at Steph. Indeed, they weren’t the looks of ridicule directed at a buffoon forced to walk in costume—Rather, they seemed to be uneasy glances at Sora and Shiro …
“What do you expect when the monarch of Elkia is leading around someone dressed as a Werebeast ?”
— …Come again?
“Wait, what did you say just now?”
“Who’d believe that the monarch of Elkia would make someone—”
“No! That’s not my point!”
“Wait, are you saying that wearing dog ears and a tail makes you look like…a Werebeast ?”
In a flash, Sora played over all the information he had gathered so far in his mind.
—Ixseed Rank Fourteen, Werebeast. A race whose foremost territory was the Eastern Union, the third-largest nation in the world. Little information was available, but they knew they had extremely sharp physical prowess and senses. And that they had something called a sixth sense , reputedly capable even of reading minds, and that was about it.
“…Steph, please answer immediately.”
“Huh? Wh-what is it?”
“Werebeasts—do they include girls with animal ears and tails like the ones you have on right now?”
“…The reason you limit your argument to girls is beyond my understanding, but—”
Of course they do , she thought. Steph blurted—“Female Werebeasts practically all look like this, you know !”
…
“…So what you’re saying is, the Eastern Union”—with a gulp, Sora asked as if to double check—“is a country where females who look almost exactly like human chicks, except for animal ears and tails and maybe paw pads and whiskers and such—super cute furries—fill out half the population of a veritable Eden that really exists in this world… Is that what you’re saying?”
Was she saying that the Eastern Union—was that kind of an Arcadia?
“Hell yeah, this paradise is mine! Let’s go conquer the animal girls! Now! Stat!”
Drawing his phone like a sword, he relaunched his task scheduler and started typing: Conquer animal girl dynasty #yolo.
“Hey—wha-what are you saying! Things aren’t even stable yet at home!”
Steph stammered at the “mad king” who’d just suggested picking a fight with the third-largest nation in the world, but Sora would not be dissuaded.
“Ahh, hush! How dare you find fault with this perfect keikaku in which my private desires and the national interest are perfectly aligned! What makes you think you can stand in the way of my glory?!”
Looking around as if searching for something, Sora continued:
“Which way to the Eastern Union?! That way?! We’ll charge ahead; call a carriage!!”
As Sora ranted, the little sister whose hand he held dropped a single soft word…
“…… Information …”
“Ung—gh…!”
…and shattered his so-called perfect plan just like that.
—Yes. What they’d just been thinking about. And the reason that, in the month since their coronation when they’d declared war on the whole world, They still hadn’t gone on the offensive to this day. Having this pointed out silenced the king.
“Hrm, rmghgh… Is there no way to avoid solving this puzzle first…?”
Silence descended as Sora and Shiro shut up once more.
…—. Not that she enjoyed Sora’s outbursts, but the silence weighed on Steph in its own way.
“Uh, uhh, Sora, tell me why I lost at blackjack this morning—”
Steph, unable to bear the silence, tried to make conversation.
…No answer. Steph looked back, but…
“……………Huh?”
The leash, which Shiro had held mere moments before, was now dragging along the ground, and the two who were supposed to be there were nowhere to be found.
“—Huh? Hey, are you…leaving me like this?”
Amidst the soft sound of giggles, a gust of cold wind blew through.
“…De…licious…”
A library on the other side of a labyrinthine alley breaking off from Main Street. Before it stood a café where Sora and Shiro gorged themselves on doughnuts and tea while holding books.
“They’re pulling it off despite not having enough ingredients…but it does seem the reserves are in bad shape.”
Doughnuts they had bought from one of the stands at the square off Main Street, and black tea from the café. But the stands seemed to have lost their original vitality. One could tell from the vendors’ faces that times were tough. It was fair to say that this spoke to the whole of Elkia now. Looking at the data, by the standards of Sora and Shiro’s old world , it would be about time for riots and pillaging. But what was really odd—
“How about you, Shiro? You find anything?”
“…Hm. Nope…no luck…”
“Surprise, surprise. Jeez, what’s up with this country? There’s something weird about it.”
“—There’s, something, weird about—”
“—your heads , you knaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaves!”
Concurrent with this cry, her shoulders heaving as she struggled to draw breath, appeared Steph (doggy version).
“Oh, Steph. Where were you? We looked for you.”
“‘Oh’? What do you mean, ‘Oh’?! Did you actually just forget?! Could it be that your reason for dressing me up like a collared dog and abandoning me in the middle of the city was not teasing or harassment, but that you just forgot ?!”
Screaming with tears in her eyes, Steph prostrated herself at Sora’s feet.
“Please! Do this one thing for me…just let me punch you!! In heaven’s name, I beg!!”
“Uh, well… See, Shiro smelled something good and started drifting away. Obviously, I can’t let go of Shiro’s hand, and I totally thought she had your leash—and by the time I realized, you weren’t there…”
“Steph, forgive. And sit,” Shiro commanded, her mouth full of doughnut and her thumb up. Sora continued.
“Yeah, well… Shiro didn’t mean anything, either, so forgive her.”
“You’re making me sit, commanding me to forgive you, and you think that’s an apology? It’s really just abuse, isn’t it?!”
Still in her doggy “sit” position, Steph pointed at Sora and shrieked:
“First, tell me why I lost!! If you don’t, there’s no way I can accept this!!”
“Hm… So you ask not that we release you, but that we explain?”
—…Huh?
“…Steph…do you…actually like it?”
“O-of—of course not! Do you mock me?!”
But Sora and Shiro would never miss the instant it took her to deny it.
“Craaap, I thought that kind of thing only existed in porn games…”
What should we make of the unjustifiable derision of the one who made her do it in the first place?
Never before had Steph so strongly cursed Lord Tet and his prohibition against violence. The pressure of her stare was so great that Sora had to say something.
“O-okay, okay, I’ll tell you… Card counting.”
“Card…uh, what?”
* * *
Steph’s counterattack against Sora, who’d commanded her, “Fall in love with me,” wasn’t “Rescind the command,” but “Become a decent person.” There were conclusions to be drawn from this.
…You’d think one would be able to figure it out with a little bit of thought.
“… Hff …”
It seemed the eleven-year-old girl who moodily returned to her book was the only one who noticed.
—Meanwhile, Steph was dressed up as a dog with her panties pillaged and displayed to the public.
“Heh, heh-heh… I don’t care… I gave up on my modesty the day I lost to Sora…”
Father, Mother, Grandfather… Your Stephanie has been sullied. Heh-heh, huh-huh-huh-huh , Steph laughed, and Sora winced.
“Uh, you know, Shiro, I really don’t feel right about this—I mean, looking at her makes me depressed.”
“…It’s okay…”
It wasn’t clear what was okay, but that was what Shiro declared, panties still on her head.
Suddenly, though, as she lay on the ground wet with her tears, holding her skirt down, another thought occurred to Steph. It was strange—there had to be such a thing as a game of pure luck in this world. (That’s right. Even just now…they had failed at least once!) In other words—guesses were just guesses. Shiro had specified “Best out of ten” because they could lose . Which meant—!
“So-So-Sora! I-I-I have a new game for you!!”
Faltering, apparently unwilling to stand up without panties, Steph sounded desperate.
“S-sure, but…are you really okay?”
Already dehumanized and deprived of underwear, if Steph tried to double down now, wouldn’t it totally be R-18—? But Steph pressed her attack forcefully.
“It is no matter!! All temporary setbacks stand insignificant before the cause of revealing your hand!!”
—What was it? Somewhere, there was a hint of why Elkia had been reduced to this state.
“…I-I see. So, same wagers. What’s the game?”
“How many seconds will it take till that bird takes flight. Closest guess wins— best out of one !!”
In the direction Steph resolutely indicated with her finger:
“Cwoop- coo .”
A nasty white pigeon sat on a roof. “Blank can’t lose,” but in a single round of luck—just you wait! In all likelihood, they’d refuse the match . But even that was enough if she could find a weakness to exploit—! Steph found her expectations betrayed by Sora’s casual acceptance.
“Sure thing. I’ll let you guess first. Aschente —so, how many seconds?”
“Uh, yeah, aschente …w-well— thirty seconds , I say!”
Though momentarily flummoxed at having been so completely off base, Steph recovered.
—It seemed very unlikely that the pigeon would stay there for more than a minute. This meant that, early or late, the easiest approximation was the value in the middle. Racking her brains, this was the conclusion Steph reached. But as if he wasn’t even listening , Sora fiddled with a stone in his hand and made his own guess.
“Then I say— three seconds .”
He’d hardly finished speaking when he swung his arm over his head and threw.
“—What?!”
The stone, pitched with all Sora’s might, zipped right past the pigeon. The bird, startled—flapped away.
“…Done… Brother wins.”
At Shiro, panties still on her head, who pronounced the victor without lifting her eyes from her book, Steph raised her voice in furious argument.
“H-h-wait a minute!! How is that not cheating?!”
Of course, Sora was already well prepared for her objection.
“When did we set a rule that you can’t intentionally make the pigeon take off ?”
“Wha—”
“This is what happens when you don’t carefully delineate the rules of the game.”
S-so childish—just how childish can these two be?! But Sora, reclining again in his chair and returning to his book, advised seriously:
“—There’s no such thing as luck in this world.”
“…Huh?”
— No such thing? Steph furrowed her eyebrows at the irreconcilable cognitive dissonance.
“Rules, premises, wagers, psychology, skill levels, timing, conditions… All these ‘invisible variables’ determine the outcome of the game before it even begins . There’s no such thing as luck.”
— Luck. It was just another name for an unpredictable fate , dictated by invisible variables.
“For example, let’s see…imagine a card facedown.”
Without diverting his eyes from the book, Sora continued his lecture adroitly.
“What’s the probability that it’s the ace of spades?”
“…Uh, there are fifty-two cards in a deck, so one in fifty-two, right?”
“Sure, that’s the typical way of looking at it. But what if the card is the one from the bottom of a new deck of cards , fresh from the box?”
“…Huh?”
“New decks are pretty much always in the same order. So, if you take out the jokers and then take the deck out and lay it facedown, dealing the card at the bottom of the deck, it’s always going to be the ace of spades.”
“Uh, b-but…”
That’s —Steph tried to argue, but Sora—
“That’s right. I never said it was a new deck fresh from the box—i.e., you didn’t know !”
—went on to explain that that was precisely the point.
“That’s the thing. If you know, 1.92 percent becomes 100 percent. So those who don’t know bitch that they got bum luck , while those who know are fated to seize the victory.”
Sora concluded:
“You got it? That’s the trick to winning at games. The reason you lost to me at blackjack. And, by the way, also the reason Immanity has been losing hand over fist —”
And then—with a sour face and a cluck, Sora said:
“—and the reason we’re trapped.”
……Huh? Trapped?
“In the past month, we’ve gone through every damn book in the country, and I gotta say, you don’t know shit about other races—or countries, you could say. We can’t find an opening. For God’s sake, what is wrong with this country—?”
“Uh, if I may… What do you mean?”
“—What, did you think all we were doing in this month was sitting in our room and playing games?”
“Yes, that is exactly and precisely what I thought,” said Steph, loud and clear without a moment’s hesitation.
“Well, whatever,” Sora mumbled before elaborating:
“Let’s say we attack the Furry Kingdom—I mean, the Eastern Union.”
His example seemingly designed to make it clear he’d still not given up on this notion, he continued.
“But practically all we know about Werebeast is that the enemy uses a sixth sense .”
“Y-yes…they do say they can read minds …”
“If they can read minds, bluffs aren’t going to work, and there’s no way we can play mind games.”
Rank Sixteen, Immanity, the lowest-ranking of the Ixseeds, had no special abilities or magic. Thus, if they intended to come out on top in a game with a race that used “supernatural powers”—
“It’s not even a game if we don’t at least know something about the enemy.”
And yet—Immanity hardly had any information to speak of when it came to the other races. Of course, each of the races must have been concealing such data; having it known would put them at a disadvantage. But even so, this was too much. This was what Sora had been complaining about when griping about the books in the library.
They didn’t know what kind of games their adversaries played, what kind of abilities they had. But the other side knew Immanitites’ specs inside and out—which meant “invisible variables” visible right from the start—and that was a whole different story. If the siblings attacked with no advance intelligence, they were doomed to fail. For exactly the same reason that Steph had lost to Sora—they’d be fated to lose.
“That’s why we’ve devoted a whole month but still haven’t found an opening.”
“B-but…” Steph stuttered as Sora crossly closed his book.
At an apparent condemnation of her grandfather’s choice to attack anyway , Steph simply had to speak up, arguing feebly:
“E-even so, nothing will happen if we don’t do something!”
—Sora delivered his next words completely dispassionately…
“Look…if we make one wrong move, it’s over .”
…and they echoed with enough weight to flatten Steph to the ground.
“—Our position now is just that bad. Don’t forget it.”
—For a moment—though really just for a moment—Sora’s face displayed a rage that made Steph freeze.
It was easy to forget, since they hardly ever acted like it. But the fate of all three million lives of Immanity rested on the shoulders of these two. Without a doubt, Immanity’s greatest gamers, who had even vanquished Elf, albeit indirectly. They said—they were trapped . The meaning, the weight of that, finally became clear to Steph, and it bore down on her such that she couldn’t stand.
—If they made one wrong move, millions of lives would end . Under that kind of pressure—Steph considered it, holding in her breath. Sora stretched languorously, fiddling with his task scheduler. “—We only know one way out, and we don’t have the key. Damn, what to do…”
To be capable of such composure… What kind of constitution did he have? Steph felt the hint of a chill—
—…and then. A sudden shadow instantly enveloped their surroundings in darkness.
“…What? Why is it suddenly…night—”
Sora shifted his gaze—and his eyes popped. Even Shiro’s usually half-lidded gaze widened as she let the doughnut drop from her mouth. The blue sky that had hung above them just a moment earlier had been erased from their collective vision, now directed to the heavens. As if a piece of the earth’s crust had been ripped away— a huge rock bed now drifted in its place .
“Wh-what the hell…?!”
— Amazing! Laputa really does exist! The line replayed involuntarily in Sora’s mind. It did look longer horizontally than in that anime, but however you looked at it, an enormous island was floating in the sky .
—Come to think of it. He remembered seeing an island floating in the sky from up there, when he first came to this world.
…Oh, so apparently this was a familiar sight in Disboard. The only ones who were surprised were Sora and Shiro. The other people walking the street didn’t even seem interested.
“…This world has so much of everything, it’s ridiculous… At this rate, that ‘too-soon’ thing will…”
As Sora and Shiro gaped upward, marveling, Steph seemed to finally realize.
“—Oh, it’s your first time seeing it, Sora?”
And she followed their gazes.
“That’s Avant Heim—a Phantasma.”
Now that she mentioned it—if you looked closely—the island, which at first glance seemed like just a rock bed, actually had what passed as sad excuses for fins. It looked…like a giant whale—kind of…probably…if you looked at it a certain way. A question popped out of Sora’s mouth.
“—Don’t you have rights to light or rights of airspace in this—Wait, ‘Phantasma’?”
“Yes. It is a single entity of the race at Ixseed Rank Two.”
— Ixseed . The “sixteen seeds” of intelligent life to which the Ten Covenants set by the God applied. Still, pointing to the heavens—no, to “Laputa”—Sora howled:
“You’re saying that’s an intelligent living being ?! How are we supposed to play—I mean, can we even communicate with that thing?! If it weren’t ‘Laputa exists,’ but ‘Laputa talks,’ even Pa*u would have just looked at the old geezer pityingly!!”
“…I didn’t really get that last part, but, yes, it’s impossible.”
Steph spoke decisively.
“Even the Flügel who live on top of it are far beyond Immanity’s ability to defeat.”
“Flügel—O-ohh, ‘Avant Heim’… It was that thing.”
Watching Laputa Mark Two—The Phantasma “Avant Heim”—pass by, Sora recalled what had escaped him in his shock: The description he had previously read in a book.
—Ixseed Rank Six: Flügel. The winged vanguard created by the gods to kill other gods , in the ancient Great War. A warrior race. With the establishment of the Ten Covenants, their combat abilities were effectively sealed off. Still, they possessed virtually eternal life spans and high magical aptitude, a literal city of the heavens their sole territory. Thus, they did not participate in “play for dominion,” that is, gambling over borders, but as they had a powerful thirst for knowledge, many of their kind engaged in games in order to obtain knowledge from the world’s other races. That is, to collect books. For Immanity, which had little to bet, the Flügel were one of the few races the siblings could draw in, with their knowledge of another world. They were the first race that had grabbed Sora’s attention after arriving in this world.
—But having said that…
“…I’m sure it would be a great idea to get the Flügel on our side, but there’s no way we can contact them , is there?”
To get into the empire of the animal ears—ahem. To obtain the information necessary to compete with other countries, in other words—they absolutely needed the knowledge possessed by the Flügel. But in this world, Immanity lacked the technology to fly. They had neither means of reaching Avant Heim nor any method of contacting them. There was also no way they could make their knowledge of another world public in order to fly there. It was too soon to reveal any of that to Elkia. It was Sora and Shiro’s sole trump card. While Sora ruminated and muttered, seemingly stymied, Steph offered, “Huh? If you have some business with the Flügel, there’s one nearby.”
…… ? .
“What did you say?”
“There’s one. She’s, uh…kind of sitting…”
No, wait, wait —Sora objected:
“We dug through all the libraries in the castle and the country, and we didn’t read anything like that!!”
“You probably didn’t. In fact, she’s the very one who tore all the most important books from Elkia.”
—Sora, assailed by a slight bout of dizziness but supported by his sister (whose eyes were half closed as she likely felt the same), barely managed to stand his ground and urge Steph on. “D-details, give me details.”
“Well… Five years ago, a Flügel appeared at the greatest library in the country, the Elkia Grand National Library, and made off with the entire collection…you see?”
— Indeeed! No wooonder Elkia had no data to speak of! ?
“You n00bs bet your intel ? Are you even sane?! That’s your only goddamn weapon, you know !!”
Without intel—i.e., information—they couldn’t compete with other countries. To bet that, if you put it in terms of combat, was like throwing away both your sword and your shield. Or, to put it in generous terms, fail. Accosted by Sora’s invective which made even passersby stop in shock, Steph stammered:
“I-i-it was my grandfather who bet them—h-he must h-have had some deep…”
Heedless, Sora pressed her. “What did he demand in return?!”
“U-uhh, uh, I-I hear he said that if he won the Flügel would have to j-j-join him!”
—Hmm, so he was trying to get someone with knowledge exceeding humanity’s on his side. That was, in fact, exactly what Sora was trying to do. It wasn’t a bad condition. Not at all. What was bad was—
“And then he lost and let our knowledge get taken awaaaay?!”
Scratching at his scalp and tearing at his hair, Sora pointed at Steph and yelled:
“How the hell do you let them make off with everything?! Didn’t you make copies?!”
“W-well, it’s…a budget problem…”
“Budget?! What’s budget got to do—?!”
To the uncomprehending Sora, the panty-hatted Shiro murmured:
“…Brother… Elkia… Book, technology…and lit-eracy…”
“—Oh, huh. I-I see.”
As someone who had lived in modern Japan, it was hard to believe. But literacy in fifteenth-century Europe was said to have barely touched 10 percent. They knew from the data that Elkia appeared to be roughly equivalent. Considering that without mass production technology for paper, making copies would, in fact, incur an enormous—
“…Steph, later I’m going to give you a memo translated into Immanity, so get on it as your top priority.”
“Uh, yes, sir… What kind of memo?”
“Drawings for ‘paper manufacturing’ and ‘letterpress printing’…”
But this was criticized sulkily by Shiro, eyes half open, panties on her head.
“…Brother… Cheating, again.”
“Sorry, Shiro, but this is just ridiculous .”
As Sora input a new task on his phone, he let out a looong sigh. All things being equal, then, Steph, with her whole personal library, was in fact quite the well-educated one after all…but. In this world, where games decided everything—
“If you can’t even read and write , how are you going to game? Are humans even trying?”
“You’re the ones who are weird, knowing six or eighteen languages!”
“Don’t joke around! If you’re gonna play games with other countries, six languages is the bare minimum !”
Hff…hff… Having pretty much finished what he wanted to say, Sora moved on.
“—Uh, okay, whatever. Steph…”
“Y-yes?”
“As I understand from the literature, traditionally, there’s only one game that Flügel play , right?”
Indeed, as far as Flügel was concerned—the game had been leaked. Therefore, Sora asked purely for confirmation, and Steph nodded.
“In that case, the next task has finally been confirmed.”
Sliding his finger, he input it into his scheduler.
“It’s our time to strike. If we go now, we should be able to get back by nightfall. Steph, get us a carriage.”
“Uh…huh?”
With that, Sora double-checked the task he’d input on his phone.
—Get Immanity’s knowledge back.
“…Hm, I think this is doable, too; let’s add it.”
With that, Sora input further.
“Uh, Get a Flügel …yeah, like that.”
—Though mere moments earlier, Steph had called them invincible. Rank Six—the race of god slayers. Sora, having all-too-casually declared that he would “get” one, turned his indifferent back for Steph to watch in a daze, gripped Shiro’s hand, and walked on.
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