CHAPTER 3
SACRIFICE
A bit beyond downtown Elkia, in the suburbs, was the Elkia Grand National Library. The place had been retaken from Jibril, but remained under her management. In its kitchen, which Jibril had apparently set up herself, was Steph. But her face was one of utter exhaustion, suggesting that she had not slept properly.
“…At this rate, I’d rather they’d just stayed cooped up in their royal bedchamber…”
Sora and Shiro, having taken back Elkia’s repository of knowledge, were now no longer cooped up in their royal bedchamber, but instead occupied the library. Steph, busy with the domestic affairs, while also having to come all the way to the library to make reports and even make tea.
“What is it that obliges me to do this… I am no tea lady, after all!”
But, in the back of Steph’s mind as she grumbled was recalled that scene after the match with Jibril.
“Thanks, Steph.”
— Ba-bump , went her heart…
“It’s an implanted emotion! They’re just using me for their benefit!!”
As Steph thus screamed and engaged in her new daily routine of digging a hole in the wall with her head, suddenly she was accosted by a voice.
“Oh, if it isn’t little Dora. I see you’re as industrious as ever.”
“Can you not call me ‘little Dora’?! Wait, when did you even get there?!”
Though there’d been no sound of a door, Jibril was standing there as if she’d always been there.
“I have a message from my master.”
“Oh? Um, can you answer my…”
“Let’s see… ‘Jibril says there’s all kinds of stuff in the kitchen, like sugar and butter and shit. Apparently it’s all ours now, so I guess you can use it; knock yourself out’—those were his words.”
“…Huh?”
—She could use sugar and butter? Th-that would dramatically expand the scope of sweets she could—
“Hey, they’re just indirectly telling me to make delicious sweets for them, aren’t they! Just how far are they planning to walk over me?! I’d rather they tell me I could take a break!!”
Bam, bam, bam.
“I’m sorry to bother you in the midst of your head training…” said Jibril, extracting a note. “However, my master has made a note regarding a type of sweet that interests him based on a cookbook he found in my collection—”
“Why, thank you! ? I will certainly— ah! ” Jibril’s eyes looked distinctly amused, and Steph flailed her arms with a blush. “No—this is…”
“I have heard the story. It seems that my master ordered you to fall in love with him.”
“E-exactly! And by some kind of swindle tantamount to fraud, you know! Can you believe it?!”
Steph, seizing on excuses to justify her actions, raised a smoke screen. Meanwhile, Jibril seemed all the more curious.
“Well, I don’t know. I have little understanding of the ways of Immanity love. Please forgive me.”
“Oh—i-is that so?”
“Indeed. For ours is a race that only reproduces when necessary. All I need is love for my master. My grasp of the subtleties of the heart to which Immanity refers as ‘romance’ is limited to what I have heard.”
Jibril so casually mentioned her master—that is, Sora—in the same decisive sentence as “love.”
“Uh, well…um, by ‘love,’ you mean…the, master-disciple kind, right?”
“I am little capable of making such distinctions. What do you mean by normal love ?”
“Uh, yes… It’s as if, when you see them close to another your heart constricts; when they’re away you become uneasy; that kind of…—Huh?”
Steph realized that her first love was Sora, with whom she’d been forced to fall in love against her will.
She realized, in other words, that everything she just said was about Sora. She realized that Jibril, watching sunnily, could see it all . Blushing redder than a tomato and panicking, she said:
“I-I-I-I-I’m only talking in general, you know, in general! I-I don’t have any personal—”
Jibril only smiled at her utterly unconvincing defense.
“I see. With that, as I have delivered my message, I will take my leave.”
“Uh, all right… Thanks for—huh?”
She was gone. In the second she’d averted her eyes…where had she gone?
“……—( Peek! )”
Steph glanced at the recipe on the table for the sweets in which Sora had taken an interest.
“W-well… If we have butter, there are certain sweets I would like to try myself, after all. And, if I’m going to make them for one, it’s not much more work to make them for everyone. Yes, yes, that’s it. It’s in passing, only in passing.”
Steph started to rummage through Jibril’s kitchen.
“Hmm… The first thing is to figure out where everything is, I suppose…”
“Let me explain.”
“Eegh?!”
Jibril popped up once more soundlessly from behind.
“The preparation equipment you will need is in this cupboard. The dishes are over there. The ingredients and spices are on the shelf above. The tea set is here. The oven was made in Avant Heim, but I have summarized the directions for you in Immanity here. With that, I leave you to your devices.”
“Uh, um, okay… Thank you for everything,” said Steph while shrinking a bit.
“No, it is all in the service of my master . Farewell.”
Once more, she vanished. Of her master … Steph felt a certain edge in these words. It sounded vaguely like some sort of threat, but was she just imagining it? But Steph just shook her head.
“These are…for me!! Yes, now, it’s time I prepare sweets so delicious I shall surprise myself!!”
Her mind was crossed again by the sight after the match with Jibril. Her head being stroked—with only the words modified.
— You’re so good, Steph. Thanks.
“Like. I. Said—!”
Smashing her hands down onto the table.
“It’s not like thaaat!”
As Steph bashed her head against the table. Outside the door, Jibril.
“‘Fall in love with me’… Such a fascinating request is truly the work of my master.”
Yet she spoke as if she saw something even more fascinating. Though Jibril did not well understand the feelings of Immanity, she did at least know something about the theory of romantic affection.
“…Love burns in a flash and cools just as fast—why is it that Dora, who has not been ordered ‘Stay in love,’ should be affected long-term ? Hee-hee, how endlessly intriguing.”
Thus giggling quietly, she faded back into the void.
“Uh—red… Eeyaughh, it’s blooood?! Eungh…”
With Steph passing out at her own blood, it looked like the sweets would take a while longer.
Having rubbed ointment on her forehead and dressed it, Steph carried with effort the four servings of teacakes she’d completed after recovering from unconsciousness.
“Hee-hee-hee, now these are perfect!”
Steph congratulated herself on being flawless now that she had sugar and butter again, then headed for the room at the back of the library so as not to let it be thought she’d come just to hear Sora’s praise.
—And found that, with her hands full, she couldn’t open the door.
“This situation gives me an odd sense of déjà vu.”
Were the déjà vu to continue, her opening the door would be punctuated by finding no one there…she thought. In the end, fortunately, the déjà vu did not continue. Rather—
“So—Jibril.”
A man was interrogating Jibril with the most serious face imaginable.
“Will you tell me about the country of animal-eared girls I’m about to conquer—about this Eastern Union ?”
…A man one didn’t want to believe could be entrusted with the fate of Immanity was there.
“Yes, Lord, the Eastern Union is a country with a complicated background.”
The Eastern Union—the country of Rank Fourteen, Werebeast. Though the Werebeasts were considered a single race, it included countless tribes based on differences in physical characteristics. As a result, for many years, they cycled through civil war and truce among a number of small, disparate islands. Then suddenly a figure known as the Shrine Maiden subjugated and unified them over a period of only half a century. Now it was an enormous maritime empire, the third-largest nation in the world.
“Differences in physical characteristics…like, some have cat ears and some have fox ears?”
Sora responded to this part deadpan, to which Jibril answered:
“Yes. But perhaps even more critical than differences in appearance is differences in function. Though they are called Werebeasts, please do not think that their physical abilities are merely beastlike. For some tribes and individuals possess abilities approaching physical limits , and such unthinkable abilities allow them to even read minds . In addition, some individuals called bloodbreaks even go beyond—”
“Hm, sure, I get the picture—so.
“The animal-eared girls are mine; now, how are we going to smash this Eastern Union!”
—This king was hopeless.
“I’m sorry to say, Master, that it is most likely impossible .”
The one who dumped the cold water on him turned out to be none other than she who called him Master and claimed obedience: Jibril.
“Wha—Jibril, for what did I invite you into my party—as a sage?! How could you say such a thing about my godly scheme that fulfills both my private desires and the national interest—to pet animal-eared girls!”
Despite how fearlessly he displayed the extent to which his self-interest overrode important national concerns, Jibril remained unmoved.
“Master, I am most humbled. However—I do feel that even the two of you may be unable to defeat the Eastern Union .”
At these words, Sora, and even Shiro, who’d been reading a book at his side, squinted and glared at Jibril.
“Mmm? Are you trying to say that Blank will lose?”
“No, I worded that poorly. I simply meant that things may not proceed as planned.”
The reason being—.
“I myself have once challenged the Eastern Union— and lost .”
…What…?
“…Seriously? Wha, at shiritori ?”
“No, as it was I who initiated the challenge.”
…How many games could beat a freak multipurpose humanoid decisive weapon like her…?
“It was most likely the other party who selected the game.”
— Most likely?
“If I may add, the Elves—Elven Gard has challenged the Eastern Union to a formal battle of nations four times in the last fifty years, and each of those times— they were defeated ,” said Jibril, as if stating an unwelcome but inescapable fact.
But more importantly—Sora had to understand what her words meant, and why Jibril had gone so far as to state that it was impossible .
“…Could it be…”
But if it were the truth—it would mean, after all…
“…the Eastern Union…demands as a wager that you lose your memory of the game?”
…that, at present, it was impossible to win.
Bowing her head in reverence, Jibril spoke.
“My master indeed is wise. For this reason, not a single detail of their game or games is known .”
…Well, then. The race known for superior senses and some kind of sixth sense that let them read minds had gone so far as to erase memories to conceal their games. There was no place to dig; there was no way to learn from loss. Indeed, to challenge them under these conditions, with no prior information, would be suicide.
—But that left several unanswered questions.
“Elven Gard lost… four times ?”
Elven Gard. The thing was, he knew from their experience in the tournament to become monarch of Elkia what a pain those Elves could be. Even against Chlammy, who had merely called on their power indirectly, he was sure to have lost if he had had no prior information. Even attacking with two or three lines of defense prepared, she had forced them to struggle. And they were the largest country in the world. To be able to hold one’s own against that—
“Yes, and, as a consequence—I suspected the involvement of a higher race .”
Yes, just as Elven Gard had tried to do to Elkia. Someone else, who could even have pushed aside the Elves, might have turned the Eastern Union into a puppet state.
“And I was so curious about who could be behind it, were that the case—”
“You challenged them and got your ass handed to you.”
“…I can say nothing in my defense.”
Well, then. That explained why Jibril stated it was impossible. If they didn’t know anything about the game and had no way to bluff, there was no room for strategy. And, in this case, Sora’s crew, who had no weapons but wit and wiles, was all but doomed to be prey.
—But even so, there was a doubt that couldn’t be wiped away.
“…Isn’t the one who’s challenged at an overwhelming advantage in this world?”
The Fifth of the Ten Covenants: The party challenged shall have the right to determine the game. Obviously, someone who could select the game that suited them was in a superior position.
“But then if they erase all the memories— after a while, no one would try, right ?”
—Yes. It was like nuclear deterrence in Sora’s world. No one would pick a fight once they knew there was no way to win against the opponent.
“…Defensive, defense…?”
Shiro speculated on the implications for the stance of the Eastern Union. But Sora pointed something out.
“Shiro, you may be smarter than your brother, but this is why you lose to him in strategy games. There’s no fun in that, right? ”
If they had an unbeatable move that even beat Elf and Flügel, why would they stop at defensive defense? The real fun was making it look like there was an opening, getting others to attack, and then kicking their asses .
“…Brother, your…play style…is lame.”
“Are you saying the strategy I spent all my brains concocting is lame? That makes your brother really sad, you know?!”
But yeah. Shiro recognized she’d gone in the wrong direction.
“…For a country…that’s surged in the last half-century…to adopt defensive defense…is weird.”
“I-isn’t it?”
Sora, grabbing on to Shiro with tears in his eyes. Jibril spoke to the siblings who looked quizzical at the unresolvable contradiction.
“But in fact, in the last ten years, no country has challenged the Eastern Union to a battle of nations—”
…Jibril smiled.
“—oh, yes…except one.”
“…Mm…”
“Huh, what, which?”
Only Jibril and Shiro reacted. Shiro must have read about it already in Jibril’s books, but it was news to Sora.
— Oh, this is not a welcome development.
Steph detected an imminent disaster and tried to quietly leave the room.
“I believe it may be easiest to see for yourself. Dora should come along, of course.”
“Hngmh?!”
Not knowing when she had been approached, Steph raised her voice at the hand on her shoulder.
“Please hold on to me, everyone.”
“Hold on?”
Sora and Shiro obediently grabbed Jibril’s clothes.
“And please do not let go—for now we begin.”
And, the instant Jibril spoke, a sound at Sora’s ears like glass breaking made him close his eyes for a moment—and, just then. As he opened his eyes again, what he beheld…hmm, could it be a trick of the imagination?
—It appeared that he was floating a few thousand meters above the ground; quite a nice view, yes?
“What splendid weather we have today; visibility should be—”
“Wait, Jibril, hold on; first of all— what did you just do ?!”
Sora interrupted Jibril, who went on as if nothing had happened. While Sora demanded an explanation of this situation in which they’d been launched into the air at very high altitude in zero frames, Jibril answered nonchalantly that she’d just accomplished teleportation. “Whatever do you mean…? I merely shifted.”
…So that was why it seemed she could pop up anywhere, Sora realized. She actually was a teleporter. It was hard to wrap one’s head around, but it made sense.
“…Just how far can you shift?”
“Anywhere I can see. Or, otherwise, anywhere I have once visited .”
—Sora and Shiro had just run upon the greatest mystery of this world.
“—Hey, Shiro, how is it that Immanity survived the old war?”
“……Dunno…?”
If they had a “war” against the Werebeasts, with physical prowess said to approach physical limits , Elves, with their disregard for freaking common sense, and insane life-forms like Jibril, did that mean Immanity was actually able to put up a fight against this shit? But each of the residents of this world would answer that question thus:
“That is considered the greatest mystery in the history of the human race…” said Steph, with a sigh.
“Perhaps it was simply that no one took notice of Immanity?” answered Jibril with an excellent smile.
“We were mainly engaged with the Dragonia, the Gigant, and the Old Deus. Oh, to think back on those days of just barely bringing down a dragon with fifty Flügel, or when we took on a god with a force of two hundred and yet were routed.”
…She was saying that a race that took a hypernova to kill, that could teleport freely, and could fly, had failed to bring down one of these things when they went in a gang of two hundred, and this was what everyone was waging war against .
“That raises another question:
“—How is it that this planet even retained its shape?”
But Jibril answered Sora’s question with a bashful smile.
“That is exactly the reason the One True God was decided by default .”
…………………………It hadn’t…retained its shape after all.
“But never mind that. Look over there.”
As Jibril smiled as if to sweep away bad memories, she pointed to a place near the Elkia border, clearly visible from the air. On the inside of the national border, that is, inside Elkia’s territory, in the distance loomed an imposing tower. Yes, a tower, imposing.
—A structure that clearly was impossible for Immanity to have built—or, to get to the point…
“…Uhh, what, is that…a skyscraper ?”
Indeed, it was a building more or less like America’s Empire State Building.
“…So huge.”
Even Shiro’s eyes widened. Their sense of perspective was almost lost, except for the contrast with the buildings lined up below, which looked like an Immanity neighborhood.
“Little Dora, could you please explain?”
Slumping— I knew this would happen —Steph spoke.
“…It’s the Eastern Union’s—embassy in Elkia.”
“……Hmmm, embassy?”
Swishing her head away from Sora’s squint, Steph continued. “Th-the truth is—it’s where our country’s royal palace used to be.”
“…………Hey.”
As Sora squinted further into Steph’s face, Steph turned her neck further back in an attempt to escape his gaze.
“G-Grandfather h-had lost and lost and, uh, f-finally bet the palace.”
“…And, lost…” said the sister, softly, mercilessly.
“……”
Sora and Shiro had no more words, while Jibril beamed as if watching a puppy.
“Wh-what are you looking at me like that for!”
“If your capital has an embassy bigger than the Royal Castle, that is pretty pathetic…”
“Unghh…”
Hmm… Sora started thinking.
“So how did this Royal Castle get taken by the Eastern Union?”
“More to the point— everything on that side was taken by the Eastern Union.”
“—Huh?”
Jibril spoke sunnily, while Sora gaped incredulously. His sister explained with information she’d memorized.
“…In, the last ten years…the former king…lost to the Eastern Union… eight times .”
“Eight… Uh, well, I can see the Eastern Union’s motivation. A maritime nation with that kind of technology—”
The difficulty for a maritime nation was the lack of iron and stone, i.e., resources other than maritime resources. Judging from the style of that building, it appeared they had quite an advanced civilization. There were many resources they’d need, such as rare metals, that couldn’t be obtained in an archipelago. So it was only natural that they’d try to get them from the continent—but.
“But it was the Eastern Union who wanted the match, right? Why did he accept?”
However, Shiro shook her head. And then Jibril answered.
“Master, have you forgotten? The only nation that has challenged the Eastern Union in these last ten years…”
“…The initiator was… Elkia …”
…What…?
“First that mountain. Then that plain, and then…in the end, he bet the Royal Castle that had stood at the center of the nation—and here we are now.”
Jibril explained that she had flown them up in order to show them this.
“Hey, hey, wait a second, it had stood at the center of the nation ?”
Sora said, pointing at the “Empire State Building.”
“So what are you saying? That we bet half our territory challenging an opponent against whom even Elven Gard had lost after challenging them four times, and we challenged them eight times? Immanity? Hey, hey, come on. Cut the—”
But, to Shiro, responding with a sigh, Sora still shook his head.
“H-hey, wait, so what are you saying? That Elkia before that— had twice as much land as it does now ?”
At Shiro, nodding decisively, and Jibril, Sora put his fingers to his eyebrow. Steph had no more words.
“…Jibril, I want to go back to the library.”
“Oh, dear, are you afraid of heights?”
“No, I just can’t clutch my head here, so I want a floor.”
Back in the library. Sora sat cross-legged on a table, clutching his head. All that had come from his mouth for some time now had been sighs, one after the other. In her usual spot on his lap, Shiro peered at him with concern.
“…Brother…are you o…kay…?”
“…Yeah, sorry, Shiro, I’m just kind of in despair.”
It pained him to cause his sister concern, but, even so, it had to be said.
“I thought the old king was a moron, but, God, he had to be an alcoholic or something…”
Sigh……
Steph, who’d been listening, heard this long sigh and snapped.
“Y-you’ve been rather rude, you know!!” She hit the table on which Sora sat with a bang. “I thought you said before that my grandfather was right!!”
But Sora, with a great sigh, replied.
“—Just how do you defend someone who threw away half of the national territory on some crazy charge?” he said, predictably pointing in the direction of the lost land that they’d seen just recently.
“How much dairy farming and industry could you fit on that land area? If your gramps hadn’t gambled until he was in his shorts like those dumbass nobles, we would have had twice the amount of land we do, you know!”
“W-well, it’s—!”
As if he couldn’t stop his mouth once it had started, Sora grumbled:
“Yeah, he sure was your grandfather … Maybe he believed in that ‘luck’ shit, that if he kept playing the game eventually he’d win… We’re talking about competition between nations … Didn’t he understand what that meant?”
—Yes, a personal game and a battle of nations were two entirely different stories. A game that the agent plenipotentiary, a party responsible for other people’s lives, played with their lives as collateral. That was a battle of nations—a play for dominion . It was a game in which each race, each nation, would mobilize all the knowledge and strategy they had at their disposal. To challenge a nation that was ready for this no less than eight times—.
“I mean, is there a more positive interpretation than ‘He was drunk’…?”
But, shaking her shoulders, looking down, and squeezing out her words, Steph spoke.
“Grandfather—it is true…had not much of a head, for games…”
But —she lifted her head and shrieked:
“He was not the sort of madman who would assume the burden of the lives of millions of Immanities without care! Unlike you two, he was a model of common decency!”
But, given the actual situation resulting from this model…
“If throwing away half the territory is ‘a model of common decency,’ I’m happy to be an uncommon deviant.”
“~~! I’ve had enough of this!!”
Shaking her shoulders yet unable to argue, Steph ran away with tears in her eyes. Watching her recede, Shiro muttered:
“…Brother…that’s harsh…”
“…What do you want me to say after seeing that…?”
Sora spoke as if he had many things to think about, his melancholy switch all the way on and the excitement of a moment ago now lost.
—Then. He noticed the tea and cakes Steph had brought and left on the table. Faster than Sora, Shiro took some and stuffed them in her mouth.
“…Mm, good…!”
Hearing Shiro’s usually monotonous voice take a leap, Sora picked at the food reluctantly.
“……Damn it, it really is good…”
Sweet, but not cloying, and so fluffy. Though they had eaten Steph’s delicious homemade sweets the other day, those paled in comparison. Probably she’d looked at the recipe and put her own touch on it, struggling in the kitchen. Shiro imagined it as she stared at Sora. Jibril merely closed her eyes, waiting for orders. Tearing at his hair, Sora spoke.
“……Ahhh—fine, I’ll give it a shot !”
Elkia Royal Castle: the former royal bedchamber. Since Sora had in fact taken the one-story structure erected in the courtyard, it was now Steph’s bedroom. Buried in its gigantic, literally king-size bed. Sniffling and muttering, Steph spoke.
“Liar… Didn’t you say you were going to prove that Grandfather was right…?”
Steph was on her stomach, wetting the pillow she held to herself with her tears.
“Grandfather…was not a fool!”
Holding the key she carried with her everywhere, she saw her grandfather’s face.
……
Grandfather, what is this key for?
Oh, there now, Stephanie, you mustn’t touch that.
Why not? What’s it for?
This is the key to a place with something very important to your grandfather.
Important? Oh, I remember what Father was saying.
“Grandfather collects ‘books he can’t show people.’”
N-no, no, Stephanie! That is another matter!
Th-this is—the key of hope .
Hope…? What does that mean?
The cold, calculating man who always doubted people, so far removed from her grandfather, but, for that very reason . Sora, who believed in people’s potential more than anyone. Might it be all right to give it to him—the key her grandfather left? Steph herself still didn’t know what it meant—but. Would he…would Sora earn her grandfather’s approval? Would her grandfather tell her…“You picked the right man”?
“…Sora.”
Kreeek …opened the door at Steph’s hand as Jibril smiled subtly and Sora looked startled. Steph simply—made up her mind, and spoke.
“I have something for you.”
The next day…in the royal bedchamber that had turned into Steph’s room. Steph, Sora, Shiro, and Jibril were all present.
“—So, that’s the story.”
The first thing that was said in reply to Steph, who’d just finished telling everything she remembered, explaining the story of the key, was this:
“No question about it, it’s porn.”
Steph fiercely regretted her error in selection of personnel.
“A-are you mad? How do you get that from that story?!”
“’Cos it sounded like he got nervous when you mentioned what your dad said.”
“H-he said that was something different!”
“According to statistics in the world Shiro and I come from , 90 percent of men have a hidden stash.”
“…Of R-18 stuff…adult, goods…”
“Right? Yeah, Steph, this will really come in handy. I was in fact bemoaning the lack of pr0n in this world.”
Steph, out of things to say, decided to collapse on the bed quietly.
“But, Master, if you don’t know where the key goes…”
“There is a 100 percent chance that the hiding place for porn is the owner’s own room, i.e., here. So, no problem: in fact.
“We’ve already found a hidden room. Must be what the key’s for, right?”
“…Excuse me—?”
At these words, Steph lifted her head from the bed and saw Sora and company at a distance from the bed, which she raced to close.
“First of all—I told you the bed was tilted, right? When Shiro fell.”
That must have been the time a few days ago when Sora was trembling, thought Steph.
“So we backed up and looked at it carefully, and it was slightly tilted. So, this ornament carved into the footboard is a scale. A scale tilted left, meaning the left side is heavier, meaning there’s a device on the left.”
Calmly and without any sense of catharsis, Sora simply and cooly unraveled the puzzle.
“Then there’s this bookcase on the left. The spaces between the shelves are slightly uneven. Even though the shelves on the right side of the room are even.”
“Y-yes…n-now that you mention it.”
“But, having said they’re uneven, there’s a pattern of just two distances, large and small.”
Pointing out the shelves in order from the top.
“If we convert these into ones and zeroes we get 01, 00, 11, 10. If we look at this in binary, it’s 1, 0, 3, 2. Then, if we look for books in this room that have over a thousand pages, that leaves pretty much just the encyclopedia, right?”
Drawing the encyclopedia from the shelf and opening it, Sora.
“So, the first word on page 1,032 of the encyclopedia is lighthouse , in Immanity. Well, if we’re going to interpret something here as a ‘lighthouse,’ it’s got to be some lighting fixture like a candlestick or a chandelier or something.”
Clomping over to a candlestick by the wall of the room, Sora went on:
“Also, the word had, at the center, a depressed line, as if made with a pen without ink.”
Steph and Jibril looked.
—Indeed, there was a faint depression.
“Which means it’s the candlestick at the center of the left side of the room. Plus, there are three arrows to the left of the word to indicate an idiom, so—”
He tilted the candlestick, left, three times.
“Finally, to the right, there’s an arrow referring to the related entry harbor on page 605. Which means—”
He tilted the candlestick right once. Then the candlestick came off…
—Revealing four dials inside.
“Now after this is what Shiro solved, so I’ll hand it off.”
They slapped their hands together, and Shiro turned the dials.
“Factorize…the number of times…the lines cross…in lighthouse and harbor …in the Immanity writing system.”
There was a click.
“…Ex-actly…four digits…result: 2642 …”
Sora spoke to Steph and Jibril as they watched in a daze. As if showing a swift magic trick, he clapped his hands to get things moving again.
“Right, right—and then, what do you know! Look, behind the curtain, one block in the wall is sticking out oddly!… Oh, ya know, this is kind of tough; last time Shiro and I just barely managed to shove it together to open it; it probably hasn’t been maintained. Jibril, give us a hand.”
“Oh, yes—at your command.”
Jibril did so with a light push.
“And then, the moment you’ve been waiting for—”
Grmmmmm.
“The bookcase moves…”
And, after it finished moving, beyond—
“And here is our locked door. This must be where your key goes, right?”
Sora played with the key in his hand he’d received from Steph, utterly carefree.
“—…”
Yes, all too carefree. All too easygoing. The trick that the previous king had probably racked his brains to prepare—had been solved so nonchalantly that even Jibril was left speechless while Steph shouted:
“Wh-wh-when did you figure this out?!”
“I thought I already said— the day Shiro fell from the bed .”
Shiro nodded.
—“Wait, wait. Hold on,” said Steph. “…You refer to the day I was made into a dog and you played against Jibril?”
“Yeah, good memory.”
“I couldn’t forget that trauma even if I wanted to! But anyhow—!”
—That day, first thing in the morning, Steph had found Sora shaking. They’d played blackjack, and Steph had lost. And then they’d gone out to meet the nobles—and then to the library.
“When did you have time to find this—?!”
“When you got called out about the nobles, there was about an hour before you came back, right?”
He was saying casually that he’d solved this contrivance in an hour , while simply killing time—a puzzle over which Steph had brooded forever. Though Steph gaped, still, apparently unaware of just what he and his sister had done, Sora continued.
“But, yeah, last time we got stuck because we couldn’t find the key.”
“B-but, Master, a door like that—”
“Yeah, we could have even just picked the lock, but what fun is a puzzle-solving game if you cheat?”
Sora smiling, Shiro nodding. Yes, it was just a game …
And then, softening his expression, going, eh-heh, eh-heh .
“Sooo, shall we proceed to view these treasure texts he went so far to hide—oh, I’ll cover Shiro’s eyes.”
“…Mmg…not fair…”
“Time is unfair in a fair way. Just wait seven more years.”
“I’m telling you, it’s not porn!”
Sora placed the key he’d received from Steph in the keyhole and turned it. The door opened with the groan of high-quality metal fittings.
……Sora, though he’d just been charging under the assumption it was porn—along with everyone else, all present, somehow—was struck dumb.
Inside was a windowless library. A dust-covered study, with wooden shelves buried in books, ornaments with a tasteful air, a desk, a chair. But, contrasting to its peace, everyone must have felt the certain dread . It told them this wasn’t a place into which to step lightly, and it held back their feet. With a gulp, Sora slowly went through the doorway of the study. His gaze came to rest upon the book that lay open on the study table in the center, stroking just once the surface of a page rendered illegible by dust. The writing that appeared was bold, and it said just one thing.
To the monarch not of Immanity’s last days—but of its resurgence, we leave this.
Sora carefully turned the page, and it continued.
As king, we are not the Wise.
Rather we shall most likely be known as a rare Fool. Still, we take up our pen for the sake of the monarch of resurgence, not us. In faith that our shallow and desperate struggles may serve the monarch to come.
“……”
Peering at Sora, standing at a loss for words, Shiro and Jibril understood and felt at a loss themselves.
—What was there was everything. Over the span of countless matches with other nations in the life of the so-called fool king. Including all eight matches with the Eastern Union. The substance of this man who had charged headily, lost unceremoniously, and dedicated himself to exposing their hand —all of it.
—Knowing that, at the rate things were going, the human race would extinguish itself soon, and that his actions would only hasten this. But he’d taken the offensive anyway, under the assumption of defeat. That was the part he played, the fool, dedicated to exposing the cards of the Eastern Union and all his enemies , while scorned as the rarest of fool kings. All the memories he had managed to grasp as a mere human—.
—It must have been.
“The old king… didn’t lose his memories .”
“But—how!”
Jibril, wondering how he could have escaped the Eastern Union’s memory erasure she hadn’t been able to escape herself. But Sora had an idea. Just a guess—but close to a conviction.
“Jibril. A fool with money walks into a casino. What do you do to empty him out?”
“—Make him look like there’s a game he can win, and get him to attack…many…times…”
Jibril opened her eyes as if she’d seen it.
“The old king was probing them . Eight times. Intentionally giving them worthless land—and then, to take it back.”
But even if they didn’t erase his memory, there was no way the Eastern Union could allow him to talk. Therefore, probably—.
“Maybe he said he wouldn’t tell anyone his whole life…”
But that— didn’t cover after death … That was it. For humans, unable to use magic like the Elves, to grasp and remember the nature of the memory-erasing game was the only chance they had.
“—‘Let the next king be the greatest gambler among humans’…eh.”
“……Yeah.”
Sora whispered the will of the late king with feeling, and Shiro understood the meaning and took in a breath herself. He—must have known. Aware of the flaw in the tournament to decide the monarch, that other countries could interfere, he had ordered it anyway. What he sought—was gamers who could get past it, while still only human, to take the crown. For only one who could break through foreign interference head-on would be able to make use of these records . For these were records that made very clear at length his conclusion that they could never win fighting fair.
“…Steph.”
“Wh-what is it?”
To Steph, uncomprehending, perhaps, of the situation, starting at Sora’s serious face.
“…Your grandfather…no, the previous king …he was really your grandfather .”
Remembering Steph, who’d even bet her panties to reveal their hand.
He’d been reviled as a fool, by his people, by the world. And he’d went on playing the fool, dedicating himself to revealing his enemies’ hand. What kind of heart had such resolve? To keep believing in the “monarch of resurgence”—such faith in Immanity . He had gambled on the chance that, from the humans at the very bottom of the ranks, someone would appear who could rout the other races. On that infinitely small but nonzero chance, he had placed his faith and bet his honor, his name, his pride…his own life.
A life of shame and failure piled up high to set the stage for one invincible blow. The two-in-one “monarch of resurgence” with whom that blow was entrusted could only stand and stare. Sora looked down at his shirt which read “I ? PPL” and simply said:
“See, Jibril, there are some like that—what do you think: pretty sick , huh?”
“…You…may be right.”
With the sense that she’d caught a glimpse of that in which her master believed, Jibril, intending to revise her understanding, closed her eyes and nodded. Sora, taking out his phone, started his task scheduler.
What he slid his finger to input was, indeed, without hesitation, this one phrase.
— Objective: Swallow up the Eastern Union.
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