CHAPTER 1
PREPARATION
The Great War. The time when the gods and their relations fought for the throne of the One True God. A stain on history, where they rent heaven and earth and trampled the world as if sneering at the decaying planet and the transient souls who inhabited it. Sora and Shiro, now engaged in a simulation of this war, continued to madly scribble out commands. As they kept scrawling these immensely über-Herculean tasks for the sole purpose of staying alive, though, Sora suddenly stopped and shouted—
“—?! Shiro, I just got a great idea!!
“Wouldn’t it be funny if we tried the command ‘Bang your neighbor’s wife’?!”
Pow.
There was another flash…and a mountain vanished from the map, right where their Capital had been seconds before. The destructive light would have surely blown them away along with the mountain had they not read the attack in advance and commanded a Settler to move the Capital. Shiro was unbothered and gave a thumbs-up in response.
“…Good job, Brother… But, your commands, need to be…specific…”
“Ohhh… Wait, so how do you go about banging the neighbor’s wife—?!”
He hadn’t banged anyone before—had never even had a real girlfriend who existed outside the confines of his own imagination. This could be considered a feat even more grueling than living. But in the midst of Sora’s agony—
“I’ve been wondering just what you’re up to—why are you being so casual about this?!” Steph screamed as she shuttled their commands to the mailbox. “If—if you’d been a second late, we—we’d be dead… C-can’t you take this seriously?!”
Steph went pale at the prospect of their Capital getting captured, but Sora merely said to himself, Whatever, it’s fine.
It was a strategy game convention—your Capital isn’t considered to have “fallen” until it’s been captured. And considering what Jibril was after, it was all the more unlikely that they would die even if they took a direct hit. The player space they were in was undoubtedly isolated from the outside world. After all, right now, the sibling gamers weren’t even two years old: Sora was 1.8 and Shiro was 1.1. Steph was 3.6. The table was so high for them, they couldn’t even write their commands without standing on a chair. Steph, the oldest, could just barely deposit their orders into the mailbox by standing on her toes. Kids like that, in a hell like this, would have been long dead if they weren’t isolated. It was true that if they lost all their cities they’d run out of Immanity units and be screwed. But hey.
“Hmm. Hey, how d’you think I should go about getting the neighbor’s wife to fall in love with me?” Sora asked Steph casually.
“Oh my, you’re asking me? Well, let’s see, if I may speak from personal experience… Why don’t you con her and force her to fall in love with you?”
“—Wha…?!”
Steph was beaming at her biting retort, and Sora was momentarily dumbfounded. “D00d, you’re sharp! That’s right, I just gotta con her!!”
“That was all the sarcasm I could muster! Can’t you at least react a little?!”
Steph responded to Sora’s sincere praise with an equally earnest plea. Then— Whap, Sora wrote out two commands without a moment’s hesitation as Steph pouted.
“With a head like yours that’s capable of coming up with such manner of vile abuses in mere moments, can’t you think of anything productive?”
“…Productive, you say. What do you consider productive?”
“…S-sorry?”
Sora paid no mind to Steph as she deposited his orders, and he continued with a stern expression.
“You’re right… Why don’t I do something productive, like diplomacy?”
Diplomacy. The building of fiduciary relations by contract. Sora and Shiro had little to bargain with, but it wasn’t as if they had nothing. They had their knowledge of their old world, their information as players, their food…and so on and so forth. Could they put that up to get some kind of promise of cooperation or trade from another force?
“…If you look at that and still think any such promises will be kept, then should we give it a try?”
“That”… In other words, the scene outside as projected in midair by their Scout. A raging storm that shattered the earth. Looking at that grotesque spectacle, Steph could hardly be convinced: In a world that conquered by killing, contracts…meant nothing.
“Well, how about I do something else productive, like combat?”
Combat. The securement of territory by force. The odds weren’t in their favor, that was for sure, but it wasn’t impossible. Of course, if they took things head-on, they’d be steamrolled…but Sora and Shiro knew more than a little about the characteristics of some of the Ixseeds, such as Werebeasts, Elves, Sirens, and Dhampirs. They could use this knowledge to mobilize their units, strategically encircle the enemy, and then pull off an ambush. If Sora and Shiro robbed the opponent of their advantage through limited confrontations and used the terrain’s features against them…then hey, they might win. They’d destroy one or two enemy units, and if all went particularly well—
“We might even be able to deal a fatal blow to one race—and then what? Where will that get us?”
It would only make them targets and drive others to take revenge, needlessly increasing their risk. So neither diplomacy nor combat would be productive. In fact, if they made any faulty moves or attracted attention leading their opponents to identify their Capital…
“They’d crush us on a whim and game over. The end, literally.”
So for starters… Sora chuckled bitterly.
“If you think in terms of common sense—we start in checkmate, don’t we?”
How had Immanity survived this war at all? Sora, of course, had no way of knowing the truth.
“There aren’t many ways humans could survive under these conditions.”
And, among these limited choices, only one stood out as the most realistic.
“—Run like hell and hide… That’s it.”
They would need to act so as not to be noticed, not even acknowledged. Like a small animal, like a worm, like a leaf, they would snuff out their presence. Their most feasible option was to run and run, forever. However…
“Even that won’t work when Jibril already knows about us… Will it?”
Right. They were screwed if the enemy took note of them, but she knew about them from the start. Under these conditions, they could barely even move any of their units. If Jibril so much as spotted one stray, she’d find their Capital—and it would all be over.
“……”
Sora nodded, continuing to chuckle bitterly at Steph as she blanched and made a gurgling noise in her throat.
What could they do to be productive? Right now—jack squat.
The most they could do was send out Scouts to track enemy movements and relocate their Capital to avoid stray fire. Or they could secure food supplies or send Jibril letters to troll her.
“We can’t fight! If we send a unit out, it’ll die, and then it’s game over! So how ’bout we risk our gamer pride on this totally undiplomatic, piece-of-shit game and try to enjoy it?!”
“You’ve got your priorities mixed up! It’s not your pride we’re risking, it’s our lives!!”
Steph’s panic was quite reasonable, but Sora was perfectly aware of all that. That was why he was experimenting. Yes, for example—
“…Brother… It looks, like…he…banged her.”
—this.
When Shiro spoke up, Sora grinned, leaped onto the table (the map), and zoomed in. It seemed to indicate the two units had successfully pulled off the experiment, but—
“Whoaaa… She really went and did it… Women are freaky…”
“…Yeah… Brother, women…are scary, aren’t they…?”
“Why’re you weirded out when you’re the one who made her do it in the first place?!”
There were the two units, the man and his neighbor’s wife, repeating their rendezvous in secrecy from the husband. Sora was repulsed, and Shiro was practically hypnotized for some reason. Steph shouted at them, but—
“Made her?! Pshaw! Have you forgotten what I wrote in my commands?!”
Sora had given Steph two commands to deposit. What he’d written was:
—Command 1: Unit c1fe436 “Neighbor’s Wife”
For the next twenty days at 2200 hours each day, you shall be panged with hunger and proceed to coordinates x765 y9875 “Food Storeroom,” where you shall covertly embezzle provisions.
—Command 2: Unit b3fc412 “Wife Banger”
Starting in fifteen days, at 2201 hours, you shall encounter Unit c1fe436 “Neighbor’s Wife” at coordinates x765 y9875 “Food Storeroom.” Then you shall demand carnal relations in exchange for overlooking her embezzlement.
So basically—!! Sora announced:
“I ordered her to steal food! I used that to pressure her into doing it once!”
True, he’d made the Neighbor’s Wife snatch the food. The Wife Banger had been forced to blackmail her.
“But! And yet! Howeverrrr—!!”
Wham. Sora pointed at the map where the two units, despite the command period having already terminated, were yet sweetly “rendezvousing…”
“The ones who decided to keep it up…are these two!”
No, he had not ordered the Neighbor’s Wife to fall in love with the Wife Banger. Neither had he ordered the Wife Banger to demand repeated carnal relations. And more importantly, Sora summed up, that meant one thing!
“I didn’t even order the Neighbor’s Wife to submit to the Wife Banger’s demands!!”
This proved that although Sora had been the one to provide the opportunity, the responsibility for this infidelity fell entirely upon the perpetrators themselves!!
“……No… No, there’s something wrong with your theory—”
“Gahhh, it’s the naughtiness, isn’t it? Does cheating on your husband feel so damn gooood?!”
“Uh, if I may! I still think there’s something wrong with you for making her cheat and then getting pissed off when she actually does it!”
But never mind Steph’s protests. Sora and Shiro smiled at each other contentedly, nodding at the results of their experiment. It seemed this game was fuzzier than they had expected, insofar as units decided of their own free will whether or not to cheat—in which case…
“Whatever. Next! We’re in a race against time, so hurry up and mail this now!”
Sora ceased his melodramatic wailing and handed Steph two commands he’d written in advance. Steph jumped to do it and then asked the two siblings suspiciously as they stared at the map:
“…What sort of mischievous commands have you issued this time?”
“Mischief? How dare you. This is a perfectly legitimate experiment in diplomacy and trade negotiations.” Specifically: “The Neighbor’s Wife tells the Husband they’re being blackmailed for embezzlement, and she passes on hush money to the Wife Banger. The Wife Banger takes it and flees to the third city. Those were our commands.”
“That’s not diplomacy, that’s extortion!!”
I suppose so, Sora thought in response. It came down to this:
“Your precious broad is mine. Pay up if you want her back.”
If that wasn’t extortion, then what was? Sora certainly thought it was. And thus—
Sora watched as the Wife Banger got his hush money out of the Husband and was now on his way to the third city. A wide grin spread across Sora’s face as he replied, “When you take off all the window dressing, diplomacy is really just extortion, isn’t it?”
“…Brother, you look…like you’re thinking, something dirty again… It’s so cool…!”
Shiro gazed at her brother reverently, but Sora’s bold assertion was also met by the expression on Steph’s face, as if she were looking at raw garbage. Sora didn’t seem especially bothered by this, as his grin only widened further.
You could con units without even issuing commands.
In that case, diplomacy between other races should be possible after all, huh?
As Sora reached this “breakthrough,” Steph glared at him and mumbled, “Th-this is savage… Oh, but at least it’ll bring harmony back to the household.”
However, Shiro made an observation.
“…? …Brother, there’s an…unemployed, citizen…”
Sora squinted and tapped the map to zoom in…and what he saw was the Husband roaming the streets penniless. Incidentally—
“…Sora? Is it just me, or is that the Neighbor’s Wife with the Wife Banger?”
—Sora, deep in thought, considered the units that had moved to the third city. Indeed, he intentionally hadn’t written exactly how much hush money was to be paid. He just wanted to see how much the Wife Banger could wring out of the Husband, whom he wasn’t commanding. As Sora surmised it…
“…So she conned her husband out of all his property…and ran off with…the neighbor?”
…………?.
“—W00t! Never mind that, we’ve found our breakthrough, Shiro!”
“…Mm, with…this, there’s all kinds…of stuff…we can do!”
“How callously you avert your eyes from the calamities you have brought upon your subjects…”
Sora and Shiro tossed Steph and her incomprehensible gibbering aside and began furiously scribbling commands.
Steph muttered as if to verify, “So you’re…not going to resign…?”
“…Huh? …What, for?”
“Things just got interesting, right? We’re gonna be busy!”
Sora and Shiro grinned and quickly sprang into action.
Meanwhile, the hall of another player space like Shiro and Sora’s cave was draped in silence. In the center of the fictional Avant Heim executive office was another beat-up mailbox, and in front of the table where the map was laid out sat Jibril. She had ten dice floating before her chest but was doing nothing. Just looking down, waiting— No, praying. Praying that Sora and Shiro, her masters, would resign.
“…I don’t wanna…lose…”
This game alone I must win, by any means necessary. Jibril had resolved and declared as much, but—
“I don’t wanna lose, I don’t wanna lose, I don’t want to lose… Masters!!”
Sora and Shiro—no, anyone who knew Jibril—would be shocked seeing her like this. She clutched the book that continuously preoccupied her: her journal. Her back, shoulders, and even her voice shook, as if she was pleading. She continued muttering furiously, her body curled up into a ball.
…If it was going to be like this, then perhaps she shouldn’t have restored her dice to ten before the start of the game. She didn’t know how to handle these unfamiliar “emotions.” Her trembling fingers touched her journal.
The cover read, in the Flügel tongue, Every time you lose your memory, read page 3205. As her eyes fixed on these words, she considered:
…If it was going to be like this, then perhaps she’d be better off having no memory at all. With something like a feeling of regret, Jibril slowly opened the book to page 3205, a page she knew not how many times she had turned to since the sugoroku game’s start. It was covered in countless notes Jibril herself had scrawled out, for instance:
Ino Hatsuse: Werebeast. Male. Safe to condescend to by default. Creepy.
Plum Stoker: Dhampir. Gender ambiguous. Functionally equivalent to a mosquito.
Such sloppy scribbles were followed by:
Stephanie Dola: Immanity. Female, red hair. aka Dora. Sora and Shiro’s servant. In love with Sora, but in vehement denial.
The list went on to include height and measurements, various anecdotes, and all kinds of other details.
She’d essentially written down the traits of everyone she knew. But there was one section written much larger than the rest. It was circled, double-underlined, and marked as critical information.
Sora: Immanity, black hair. Shiro: Immanity, white hair.
A brother and sister from another world. A harmonious, inseparable pair—and my new masters. The “answer” I have sought since the day of my birth…
Jibril looked down, tracing the shakily scrawled paragraph with her fingers. She recalled the time she wrote it, how she’d felt back then, just after the game started, thirty-eight days earlier. That is, on the first move. She no doubt remembered the first time she rolled the dice…
“…Goodness! Where am I?”
As a breeze brushed her cheek, Jibril tilted her head in a daze and mumbled. All of a sudden, she was alone on a sea of grass that rippled in the wind. There were nine white cubes by her chest, and surrounding her was an unfamiliar landmass whirling in a spiral. Jibril stood up, entirely ignorant of where she was and why. The crosses in her amber-colored eyes glowed as she looked around and then, using her space-bending vision, confirmed the existence of several entities moving along the spiraling land.
“One unsightly bloodsucking insect, two cheekily bipedal beasts…”
And— She furrowed her brow and muttered.
“…Three worms of even less value… My word.”
Jibril wondered what she was doing among such lower orders.
She couldn’t, after all, figure out what was going on.
“Hmm, I am perplexed. But surely there is someone who can explain it to me! ?”
Indeed, all she had to do was to make the obvious inquiries. Though it did rankle her to think she might have to take the role of a pilgrim in a fairy tale, asking a beast or worm to show her the way…
“Then I shall be sure to slay the source of this indignity. After all, it’s clearly not my fault!”
All would be settled once the bastard who had humiliated her kicked the bucket. Satisfied with her assessment, Jibril spread her wings and hastened her halo’s spinning.
—A Shift.
This warped space, connected coordinates—it was a more or less infinitely fast manner of movement. But it was still movement, so—
“?Meep?!”
—if something was in her way…then this is precisely what would happen. The silly sound she uttered bore no resemblance to the ferocity of the collision she’d had with something in that void at an almost infinite velocity. There was a booming thud as she stuck to the air like a frog against a windshield. And then…slowly, slowly…she slid down, before finally getting stuck in the ground.
“…Heh, heh-heh… To entrap me by spatial isolation… Heh, heh-heh-heh—”
She rose to her feet, an enormous bump on her head…laughing all the while. This was a kind of power that even a Flügel such as herself could not detect. And, come to think of it, the spiraling landform was enough of an obstruction that even she couldn’t shift past. Who could achieve such things? If it was an Old Deus, that would make sense, but—
“—That takes quite some nerve…doesn’t iiit?!”
—in that case… Well, why don’t you just go ahead and die?
For the sake of form, she fired a few Heavenly Smites, blasted off a space destruction spell, and so on until her bile subsided.
……
“…Huff…huff… I’ll l-let you off with…that much…”
At last, Jibril reluctantly acknowledged that this seemed futile. She assumed there was an Old Deus ahead of the people advancing through the spiraling land. She pressed onward bitterly, thinking about how she’d have to hold off on the killing for now. She still didn’t know what was going on, but it only took her a few minutes to cross the mysterious darkness of the spatial barriers through forty-two spaces, and then—
—Prepare a vessel containing four liters of water before you are swallowed by the lava.
As the unbearably pretentious voice resounded, before her very eyes appeared a fountain, two vessels respectively marked “five liters” and “three liters,” and…a flood of lava charging at her like a tsunami.
…Jibril had no idea what any of this meant. That is to say, she did, of course, understand the meaning of what had just been said. She was supposed to measure exactly four liters of water using two different vessels. But she was already in the worst mood imaginable, and now this childish problem was being thrust at her.
It sounded more like, Try to solve this before the lava gets you, if you can.
“…What sort of insolent braggart is responsible…? Here—”
Jibril sneered and went ahead and solved it. In short: She concentrated all the moisture in the air and earth, along with the water in the fountain, and smacked it against the lava. Thus, an explosion of steam gave way to a torrential downpour. Then Jibril magically created her own four-liter vessel and watched it fill with rain. As she reveled in her too-perfect answer—
—The Task is deemed fulfilled.
—the pretentious voice spoke up again, and the number of cubes at her chest increased by one. She gazed at them suspiciously, and the next moment—
“??!”
—Jibril clutched her body as if her knees were about to crumble beneath her…
“…What is…happening…?”
…and, shaking, just barely managed to get the question out.
What had happened…was clear as day. The questions with which she’d been plagued till just now—Where am I? Why am I here?—melted away. She was on the sugoroku board of the Old Deus, playing the game. For a time…she’d forgotten. That was all. But she felt an indescribable chill that threatened to sap her dry, a shock that rattled her teeth and made her want to run from everything.
Just what was happening to her?
“…Calm…down… Think…”
Jibril desperately talked down the incomprehensible thoughts driving her to distraction. She went over the rules, carefully, and began considering them objectively, starting with what had happened. That is—
Why did only she lose her memory?
01:
The seven are granted ten DICE that apportion their TIME OF SUBSTANCE .
Time of substance. Yes, however long they possessed a body. That didn’t include the soul, which contained no mass. Jibril had recognized as much from Sora’s provocations since the start of the game. She knew her masters had contrived so that they could continue to move even if they dropped out of the game. In other words, they’d split their vessels and souls, wagering only their bodies. Still, there was one highly likely hypothesis that came to Jibril’s mind. Once more, Jibril surveyed the area with her vision that transcended space. On the game board: Plum, Ino, Izuna, Dora, and Sora and Shiro…her masters. As Jibril watched them continue without issue despite having lost some of their dice, her hypothesis changed to conviction.
She alone—not a living thing, but an entity, a Flügel—
—had no clear boundary…between her soul and its vessel…
“—Oh… This is—”
Jibril finally grasped what was happening, and she struggled to cling to her consciousness, which threatened to abandon her. Teeth chattering, hands shaking, she took out her journal and began writing furiously. She jotted down her memories of the two players moving along the board, the ones she had until recently considered beneath her: her masters.
These memories should have been more precious than anything. They’d been lost with a single die, and she hadn’t even realized… Jibril experienced something she’d never known in her 6,407 years:
“…I see… So this is—fear…?”
She’d finally learned to understand it, yet, as if frightened of it, as if to run from it, she attempted to record in her diary every single thing she had seen and heard.
Jibril thought that, even if she lost her memory, as long as she read this journal, she should be able to recall.
The constant silence in the fictional Avant Heim executive office was interrupted only by the sound of Jibril languidly turning the journal’s pages.
All right, so losing dice made her lose her memory. It was because she was a Flügel, whose vessel and soul were not clearly demarcated. Even her masters must have overlooked this pitfall when they set the rules.
No. Her masters—in fact, living things in general—could not be aware of this. If anyone were to spot this problem in the rules, it should have been her. More importantly, Jibril thought as she turned another page.
If that were the case…then what would happen if she lost all her dice?
The other players would be left as souls—in other words, ghosts. But what about Jibril? The next page had a hypothesis: Perhaps…
…only my core rite shall remain, and then reboot.
Yes. That was it. She wouldn’t die like the others, because the minimum unit that composed a magical being such as herself, an insubstantial “rite,” would remain. However, in that case, all her memories would be reset, in which case, all she had to do was write everything in her journal. Even if her rite rebooted—even if she were “reborn”—Jibril would still be herself. Rather, it was much like the question, If you lost your memories, would you still be you? As long as she recorded in this journal all her thoughts, her memories, everything—even if she lost all her dice, Jibril would surely continue to adore her masters. Of this—
—she had once been convinced.
“Yes… Until my master casually handed me his dice in that bath…”
On the second move, as soon as she’d rolled the dice once more and lost one, everything written in her journal—its meaning, its sentiment, its value—came to elude her.
It was surely some sort of mistake that she adored the base likes of Immanities as her masters. They must have tricked her in a game and planted some convenient memories. Why don’t I have a look at these arrogant apes? And why don’t I kill them when I have an opportunity? With this conviction in mind, she’d gone…to meet her masters.
That day, after her masters had handed her those dice in the bath—after all her memories had returned—she’d asked them if they believed in reincarnation as clones. Would someone with exactly the same soul still be you?
The soul. The core rite. If the constituent elements were all the same, would that still be you? When her masters responded…Jibril at last understood.
The way she’d felt. The past she had recorded in her journal. This page which she now looked at with a single involuntary chuckle.
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
The page filled with the same word, smudged here and there by droplets, said it all. Without her memory, she wasn’t herself.
You could reason all you wanted about souls and such, but the fact was that the person who’d lost all her memories, the one reading this journal where all those memories were inscribed—could only regard it as the journal of a stranger.
This was another person altogether. And could you become that person by reading their journal? Of course not. It was just like how, no matter how many books you read, you could never obtain more than knowledge. Books could never tell you how their authors felt when they were written.
Having reached this conclusion, Jibril found herself unwilling to return the dice Sora had handed her. If she were to forget everything again, then she was inclined to refuse even rolling the dice another time. Given the choice, she’d even prefer dying right here. But that would mean she’d drop out with ten of the dice in her possession. And that was no laughing matter, for it could forfeit her masters’ victory—perhaps even their lives.
Thus, Jibril asked her masters if she might win.
“…How absolutely dreadful of me…”
Seeing the next page and what she’d written after making off with the dice she’d “borrowed,” Jibril couldn’t help but grimace in self-loathing.
She’d detailed on this page exactly how to set up this game.
If any of them could win this sugoroku game against the Old Deus, it would be Jibril. But she knew full well that wouldn’t suffice. Of all people, those two—her masters, her lords, Sora and Shiro—would never permit just anyone to win or themselves to lose. Therefore, she’d also made them bet their actual method for defeating the Old Deus and set it up so they had no choice but to resign. Jibril looked at the page where she’d laid it out, right down to the particulars, so she could carry it out even without her memory.
“Still… I beg of you, Masters…,” she whispered, her head low. They would scorn her. She would be content to accept any punishment. They could simply tell her to die… No.
If they would only let her die, it couldn’t come too soon… And yet!
“…Please, please, just once… I beg of you, Masters… Won’t you allow me this victory…? Just this once… Please—!”
She’d admit it: She was afraid. Helplessly afraid.
“…If someone not myself had my face, my voice…”
Everything she’d written in her journal—everything she’d seen, heard, learned, felt in these 6,407 years; the victory she was stooping to such depths to extort; the undeserved entreaty she’d made, the tears of shame—she had even forgotten their meaning.
“…If my masters called that person ‘Jibril’…and that person were not I…”
Recalling her most precious memory, being summoned to the side of those dear to her—
“…If that person treated them as worthless…I could never accept it…!”
—she imagined another in her place. Never before had Jibril experienced a fear like this…
……
It took a while. Then Jibril, who’d collapsed in tears, looked up at the flurry of activity displayed on the map and chuckled.
“…Of…course… My masters, Blank…would never…accept defeat, would they not?”
Surely, her masters had no mind at all to resign. That meant they would take up the challenge, and Jibril would be allowed to win. Just look at this mountain of letters she’d received from them; they were nothing but taunts. They could have just written “Resign” or “Die,” and as their property, Jibril would have had no choice but to obey.
“…I thank you, my masters, for this opportunity to test my mettle.”
With that, Jibril once more took up her pen and began issuing commands.
Victory would be hers, no matter what. Her masters would have no choice but to resign if she had them completely cornered. Still— Jibril took one last glance at her journal.
I cannot but think that my masters will win regardless.
This inscription made her think: Were this the case, at least she would like to lose to her masters…and die.
Were this her last game, she would like to get some answers: about that day the War ended, that time everything changed, how the world changed. Neither could she be sure of those answers herself, nor could she witness for herself the moment the world would change once more by the power of Immanity. How this game with the Old Deus might end, Jibril herself couldn’t be sure of, either. But once she knew these things for certain and wrote them all down…
It was at the edge of the 308th space.
“Let! Me! Through! Damn it! Please!!”
A scarlet beast roared in a furious attempt to shatter the surrounding space. Izuna’s fists descended in trails of boiling blood, each hit an explosion. Her bloodbreak transcended physics, allowing her vision to capture the battlefield far away.
From that edge, Izuna could see how the space was compressed to its utmost limit. The game simulating the ancient Great War—the power of the Old Deus made such things possible. Izuna had no hope of breaking through this space with her fists, yet still she burned with rage and threw herself into a frenzy, her fists, claws, and fangs piercing the void.
She had to go back and stop it. This was a game—a fantasy. Even Izuna understood as much. Still, she grasped the scene before her, where life was treated like dust and heaven and earth were torn apart like mere toys. And then there was Tet’s story, perhaps different in the details, but still tracing the same plot and the resulting conclusion…
“—Screw this shit—please—!!”
…Izuna was aware of that, too. She knew the answers that Jibril sought but did not know: how the Great War of old had ended and how the game before her would end.
Put simply: Someone would die.
“What troubles thee? Give but one name,” it proposed coldly. Izuna turned at the sound of the robotic voice, still swinging her fists so frantically that she might vaporize the tears spilling from the corners of her eyes.
“With that, victory will be yours—and all at once shall end.”
It just sat on the inkpot floating in emptiness, as if it had been doing so for all eternity.
The same one who’d asked, What is it to believe? the question she now had no interest in answering. The Old Deus who looked down on all confronted Izuna with a Task.
—Select one of the seven souls held by the Old Deus to be killed, whereupon thou shalt be transported to the final space.
Namely, who Izuna would sacrifice to finish this game.
“?.”
Something different from confusion struck Izuna. She averted her gaze and trembled, gasping for breath. She simply had to sacrifice this Old Deus who viewed these circumstances with such disinterest, along with one more person—
—and everything would end. The game below her where Jibril and Sora and Shiro were killing each other; the game outside where Ino and Plum and Chlammy and Fiel were killing one another; the game here where, even if someone made it to the finish, the Old Deus would die. Everything. So what was one more? Then what if Izuna…sacrificed herself to win—? Would that not prevent any further sacrifices??
!
“…Cut the crap, please… That’s bullshit, please—!!”
The hell’s this shit?! Izuna howled, baring her fangs. But she wasn’t addressing the Old Deus. She was addressing the biggest dipshit of all: herself.
At first, Izuna had thought this game didn’t require any complicated thinking. They’d all betray one another, yet ultimately cooperate, and someone would make it to the goal. She thought that once she’d exposed that logic with her childlike and consequently sharp sensibility, she would be the winner.
Then her plan had been to demand, Save everyone, including the Shrine Maiden. But now Izuna shrieked in frustration at what she herself had failed to notice.
“Doesn’t that just—bring us back to square one, please—?!”
If she finished, everyone would be saved? And that was why she was supposed to finish? If she just wanted to save everyone—then why play in the first place—?! On top of that, even if she did finish the game, this Old Deus would be sacrificed? That wasn’t even square one; it was more like square zero! And now, there apparently had to be another sacrifice in order to clear this Task?!
“—I! Don’t! Get! It! Please—!”
Izuna shook her head and, in childish petulance, thought: No way. No chance. That’s not possible. She’d never have agreed to that!
If you couldn’t save everyone, then even if you made it, what were you supposed to wish for?! If someone had to be sacrificed in this game, there was no way she’d ever have started it in the first place! In that case, Izuna glared at the Old Deus.
“To hell with your numbers, please… You’re a goddamn liar— I hate you, please!!”
Answering the claim that one or two sacrifices was all the same, she shrilly denounced it as a lie.
There was no question it was a lie. Izuna racked her brains at the innumerable mysteries. What was with this Task in the first place? The Task had stayed the same since the 301st space—why were they so close together?! No, let’s get straight to it: Who the hell even wrote this Task?! No—no, no, thought Izuna as she shook her head. In the first place… In the first place…
The Old Deus held seven souls…? Whose souls—? Sora, Shiro, Steph, Jibril, Izuna, Ino, Plum; sure, that made seven. But if you included the soul of the Old Deus, didn’t that make eight? And what about the Shrine Maiden—wouldn’t that make nine—?! No. That wasn’t it. That was definitely not it—!
“…I frickin’ swear to you…I’m not gonna name anyone, please!!”
Something was wrong; Izuna didn’t know what, but she had a hunch.
Hell no, that’s not it!
That much Izuna was sure of as she wept and cried, but…
“Acknowledged. Thy defeat is certain in any case.”
…the ever-emotionless voice of the Old Deus gave a response.
True, if she went for seventy-two hours without fulfilling the Task, Izuna would lose one die, leaving her with just one—which meant she couldn’t advance. But—
“…I don’t care if I lose, please. I just hate you, please! …But!!”
Izuna glared tearfully at the Old Deus.
“Even so—I’m sure as hell not going to let you die, please!!”
…After all, if nothing would change or cease without someone’s sacrifice, then why—?
“—Why’d Tet…tell me that terrible story…please?!”
Then this world…hadn’t changed at all, had it…please…?
It had already been sixteen hours since the start of the game with Jibril. The date 132 BT appeared on the map, which meant that, in-game, almost fifty-two years had already passed—
“—Done! Next! Hurry!!”
“…Too slow… Mail them, faster…!”
—and it had already been ten hours since they’d discovered they could deceive units. During this time, Sora and Shiro had been scribbling out commands without pausing for a second—
“Y-you know how to make an effort when it pleases you! You’re quite…mercurial, if you ask me!”
—while Steph was forced to sprint back and forth to the mailbox. It was close enough that under normal circumstances. Sora, or even Steph, could have reached it seated. However, now that the three were kiddie-sized, it was quite far.
“A-and of course…you have a good reason…for making me run like this, don’t you?!” Steph demanded.
“Of course. If there’s one factor that’s critical to winning games—”
Sora tapped his fingers on the map and projected it in midair.
“—it’s data, right?”
Steph gaped at the world map Sora showed her.
“We’re on Lucia?! H-how did we get to see so much—?”
The field map had been almost entirely black except for the city periphery and the modest range of a few Scouts. Now thousands of Scouts had exposed the continent’s entirety.
“H-how did you do it?! How do we have so many—?”
Indeed, it was no wonder Steph was surprised. Previously, their Scouts had died in at most a few minutes of subjective time (a couple months of game time). Yet now, in this hell where deathly ash fell from the sky and an encounter with another race would prove fatal, the map demonstrated that they’d managed to maintain thousands of Scouts—that is, increased their rates of survival. So how—? Steph gaped, to which Sora smirked:
“We made a telescope.”
“Oh… I should have known it was some such trickery or cunning…”
Steph was deeply disappointed. Discouraged, Sora offered a rebuttal: In a world that put nuclear warfare to shame, how could she call a telescope cheating?
“I can’t believe you! This is pretty much within the specs, you know?! What’s so wrong with doing something that’s well within the rules?”
“…Glass, the material, for…lenses…is in almost, infinite…supply.”
Even in present-day Elkia, glass transparent enough for lenses was by no means cheap or abundant. Steph eyed Shiro suspiciously.
“Yeah. Besides, these morons will make us as many as we want! ?” Sora scoffed.
There was another flash in that instant powerful enough to bore holes into the earth… In other words:
“…Extreme high-temperature, high-pressure shocks… The power to vaporize deserts, mountains—and even mines.”
Like an ancient nuclear war that turned deserts into glass. That glass came from lead-based cerussite, thanks to their favorite morons. With a little polishing, they now had plenty of the stuff transparent enough to use for lenses—and in infinite supply.
“Now all we have to do is order our d00ds to buff the hell out of that shit and build it to spec.”
Then the units wouldn’t need optical technology. They just had to follow Sora and Shiro’s commands, or “blueprints,” and voilà, these non-sentient units constructed a 50× field scope combining four convex-concave lenses. This broadened their reconnaissance and map display range, but of course, that alone wouldn’t be enough to dramatically improve the survival rate of their Scouts. They had to calculate relatively safe movement routes and establish the tech for survival. They had to develop agriculture to work even on this waste of a world, experiment with food preservation tech, and so on and so forth. The two of them fumbled in the dark to reveal the answers, sent off a massive number of commands, and now…
“…Brother…I’ve found, them…!”
Sora leaped upon the map on the table at the sound of Shiro’s voice. Little by little, the projected world map now revealed…a group of foreign units, the ones they’d been looking for. Sora grabbed hold of them.
“I knew it—the sons of bitches are hunting.”
He chuckled as he watched them moving back and forth on their fixed route, then tapped on a Scout and pinched out to project its field of vision into the air. With outstretched arms, Sora broke out into a wide grin at what the telescope showed.
“Welllcome, Werrrebeast. ? We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“…I would be loath to take on such a friend…,” Steph groaned softly. Sora’s tone implied, I’ll strip you of everything down to your ass hairs, so come on!
This was a land polluted by black ash, a world where everything might vanish in the next second. If you weren’t one of the top-ranking races, you wouldn’t have room for settled agriculture; it wouldn’t even be worth it. Given their physical abilities on top of that, there was no question Werebeasts would be hunter-gatherers. What remained unknown were their routes and frequency.
“…Brother… I’ve calculated, the routes…”
Ohm, a peaceful sigh of relief. Shiro had figured out the patterns in the blink of an eye and showed Sora her notes. The Werebeast stack went back and forth on six routes about every three seconds. Three seconds… According to the time in-game, that was pretty much every day, which meant—
“Just as I thought… They’re starving. All right, Shiro, time for some good, old-fashioned diplomacy!”
Look at this world. It stood to reason that prey would be scarce, and that meant…
…these guys were one of the few races that gave them an opening. Sora and Shiro smirked at the developments unfolding just as they’d anticipated. They had a command on standby and would just add the coordinates before handing it to Steph. Once again, she sprinted to the mailbox, and on returning, she asked:
“Wh-what exactly are you, doing? …Are you making an alliance…with Werebeast?”
Sora and Shiro merely frowned as they answered Steph, who was panting for air.
“…What would be, the point…of an alliance…with starving, Werebeasts?”
“You wanna tell these hungry Werebeasts we got some tasty Immanity goodies for them?”
Sure, they’d demonstrated that you could con units. But still—promises and contracts meant nothing in this world. And if the Werebeasts knew Immanity existed, they’d be done for; that wouldn’t change.
So, Sora announced with an evil grin that hardly suited a 1.8-year-old.
“First, we’re gonna get…an Elven unit.”
“…E-excuse me? I thought you were…negotiating with the Werebeasts?”
Sora and Shiro responded with a glance at the projected map.
There was a Scout moving across it. When it arrived at the Werebeast hunting route…it turned back.
Steph seemed as if she wanted to ask what was going on, but Sora managed to explain things before she got the chance.
“We left some food—along with a love letter.”
Fortunately, their infantile attempts at improving agriculture and storage technology had paid off in a modest food surplus. They’d left smoked chicken and pickled tubers… A banquet, as far as the starving Werebeasts would be concerned. They’d utilized the black ash to cover their scent and taken every possible precaution, then left the food on the route the bastards would take six days from now. About eighteen seconds later in real time, the stack would pick it up.
And then they’d read Sora’s “love letter.”
“A love letter… By that you mean a regular letter, surely. What did you write?”
“A trade proposal.” Yes, written in the Werebeast tongue—a proposal for exchange between races. Specifically, “We told them we’d give them twice as much food for each Elf they kidnapped. ?”
His face plastered with a grin, Sora was, in short, proposing human trafficking. This would normally be where Steph would let loose a few revilements, but—
“…Huh? You can even kidnap an Elf?!”
In this case, her first question was if it was even possible. Elf was the race most skilled in magic. Werebeasts might be fearsome, but could they really kidnap an Elf?
“Sure can.”
Sora dismissed Steph’s reasonable doubts and continued. “It’s a piece of cake. A stroll through the park… Easier than breathing.”
He’d even provided detailed instructions in his letter. Sora smiled darkly. Ah, yes. The lofty Elves, most acclaimed users of magic in the world…
“Say they’ve got magic, say they’ve got power—it makes no difference.”
Why, you ask? His sneer deepened.
“We’re not gonna let them use magic. We’re not even gonna let them resist, because we’ll create the conditions.”
That was the foundation, the quintessence of gaming. In other words—
“That’s enough to render everything useless. Today’s games and yesterday’s wars, it’s always been like that.”
—never let your opponents have their way. Do everything they don’t want. This was the one universal truth, even in war.
“So… First, we’re gonna use the Werebeasts to bring over one Elf.”
“…Then…we’ll use the Elves…to sell us…another race,” Shiro finished explaining drily.
If they scored just one Elf unit for their team, they could use it for their next “negotiation,” during which they’d exploit that darling magic—then everything would fall like dominoes. Thus, the two of them would hold the reins over everything. Their devilishly cruel conclusion so starkly contrasted with how young and innocent they looked. It sent a slight shiver down Steph’s spine, and she looked at the map projection with the pair.
It was as if everything had been preordained. As if reality itself was dictated by Sora’s and Shiro’s thoughts. Just as they’d predicted, a party of Werebeasts showed up at the appointed spot with an Elf. Indeed, they strolled in so idly, so easily, as if it were only natural. Steph’s eyes widened at the unfolding scene, and Sora’s and Shiro’s grins expanded.
That’s when it happened.
“…………Huh?”
The Werebeast stack vanished from the map.
Panicked, Sora projected the field of vision of a Scout unit out on reconnaissance off in the distance. The Werebeast party had disappeared without a trace, along with the surrounding scenery—and the Elf trudged back the way she’d come.
……
“…Sora? You did give instructions how to kidnap her, of course?” Steph asked, breaking the stunned silence.
“Uh, yeah!! I mean, look, they kidnapped her, right?!”
“…Brother… How, did you intend…to get…her?”
Sora tried desperately to argue, but Shiro saw right through him, her eyes vaguely cold…and doubtful. They seemed to ask, Sure, that’s all well and good, but how were we supposed to get her on our side?
“Huh? Well, I mean… We just crush her spirit and her pride, show her the joys of this and that, and then she’ll do anything we tell her. That’s why I told them to kidnap a woman in the first place.”
“…Y-you’re the absolute worst!!”
Steph’s eyes flew open when she picked up Sora’s meaning, but he just stared back blankly in response.
“Huh? …Don’t Elves usually break after a bunch of orcs, like, do stuff to ’em?”
Orcs, i.e., pig-men, i.e., a group of Werebeast pigs. Sora’s assumption had been unclouded by doubt, as if he were stating something as obvious as how the sun rises in the east.
…………
He was subsequently met with a silence deeper than the sea and an ice-cold stare, but seemingly oblivious, he pounded a fist on the table.
“Unbelievable…! What did I do wrong? What did I overlook?! It’s a staple of gaming for an elf to get captured by orcs and be like, ‘Just…kill me!’ only to surrender two frames later! It’s a universal, divine law of providence! All I had to do was make some sex-starved, O-faced woodland erof our puppet! Just how and where in this incredible, perfect plan did I go awry—?!?!”
“…Brother, that’s not a gaming thing… That’s in…doujinshi,” Shiro mumbled in disbelief. It seemed her brother was seriously, genuinely, from the bottom of his heart, anguishing over his failure.
“By the way, Sora… Orcs aren’t Werebeasts, you know.”
.
—Say…what…?!
Sora grabbed his tablet with trembling hands to prevent himself from collapsing in a heap. He opened the entry on the Ixseeds and gazed skyward.
“Son of a bitch! Orcs are Demonias?! No wonder we failed!”
“No! That is not why you failed!!”
But Steph’s cry fell on the deaf ears of one preoccupied with cursing his failure. What a simple mistake… He’d chosen the wrong race—?!
…No, save the grieving for later, Sora told himself. First, we’ll need to figure out how to fix this. He bit his nails and ruminated, his face racked with urgency.
“—Negotiate with Demonias… How should I even use them to our advantage?!”
Demonia: one of the races they’d still never met and about which they lacked sufficient intel. Finding an exploit wouldn’t be easy…
“Hey! Don’t you feel sorry for the Werebeast units? …I mean, can’t you at least pretend to?!”
Steph appealed to him for restraint but was promptly ignored. Those Werebeasts must’ve had a pretty good time with the Elf unit if they’d managed to bring her along…
So they oughtta be satisfied. It was their turn to go screw themselves. But then they kind of had, so really—
“…Brother… Isn’t this…an orc?”
The unit Shiro tapped lay just south of the Elf’s path back home. Its name appeared to be Demonia Orc 8.
“A fine play, Shiro! We’ll use the Scouts to lead them over to group-assault her!!”
Sora’s pen flew without hesitation, issuing commands at an incredible pace.
“Hey, wait a second! Aren’t you losing sight of the goal?!”
Steph pointed out how this would prevent Sora from kidnapping the Elf, but—
“Silence! As an elf, she’s destined to be trapped by orcs and say, ‘Just…kill me!’ then transform into an erofu—a sexy elf! The game may try to deceive providence and call them by some other name, but I say, Ha! Meet the iron hand of judgment!!”
“The one who should meet the iron hand of judgment is youuu!!”
Steph clasped her head and shrieked, only to be tossed aside by Sora, who added, “Well, anyway!”
Having mailed the rest of his commands, Sora calmly plotted their next steps. If things went well, they’d get a feel for the Demonias’ movements despite lacking cogent information about their kind. And when that Elf reached the climax of her… Well, at the very least, she’d be exhausted, so capturing her should—
—And anyway, most importantly.
Sora leered at the map with his smartphone at the ready. It’s safe to say there was some serious 18+ debauchery unfolding. He tapped on a Scout unit who should have been watching through a telescope and prepared to zoom in on its field of vision, but…
“…Brother, right now, you’re 1.8… 18+ stuff…is off-limits…”
“Heh, heh-heh-heh, mwa-ha-ha-ha!! I thought you’d say that, my dear little sister! However!!”
As Shiro blocked his hand, Sora erupted in a stunning example of maniacal laughter.
“One second of real time equals eight hours in-game! Something incomprehensible to the naked eye!”
However, Sora crowed, smartphone still in hand.
“Suppose I shoot it in super-slow mode! Then, when I’m eighteen again, I can break down the individual frames—it’ll probably be in at least one of them. Anyway, it should be fine. Any objections?!”
Sora spoke so loudly and so eloquently that it finally dawned on Steph…
“Y-you… This was what you were after all along?!”
“Heh, I know not of what you speak! I always take the necessary precautions!”
Sora, feeling triumphant, zoomed in on the Scout.
“However, I have no intention of letting the fruits of my labor slip—”
—past me, was what he’d intended to say, but…
“…Huh?”
…he now questioned what the map was displaying.
The orcs’ numbers were gradually dwindling. At first, Sora, Shiro, and Steph all thought they must have been getting butchered by the Elf. They soon realized this was not the case, however, and the three of them tilted their heads in befuddlement. One by one, each orc disappeared within a full two seconds, or sixteen hours in-game. There was no way the Elf could put up a fight that long, in which case—what the hell was this…? Sora was the first to come up with a theory, and he gulped:
“No way… She beat the orcs to a pulp? My God…”
His face twitched as he spoke, and sure enough, just as he suspected, the Elf dragged the last remaining of the eight orcs back on the road home.
.
It was as if time had stopped. How many seconds, how many minutes did that silence last?
Shiro piped up.
“…Brother… The Elves…have started, hunting…orcs…”
As if taking Shiro’s observation as a signal, the Elven stack began engaging the Demonia in battle across various locations and abducting them.
Hmm… Now, what could this mean? pondered Sora, nodding. As a spectator, his view was godlike in scope.
“I see. Now I know why Elf practices slavery… For that.”
Now fully in possession of himself, Sora remembered that Chlammy was Fiel’s slave.
…He spent several seconds deep in thought, giving flight to his fancy, a big smile spreading across his face…
“I have never heard of such a thing!!”
…until Steph interrupted him, thrusting her finger at the map so hard you could hear it cut through the air.
“Is it not your foul deeds that made the Elves—um, e-eloofs…just as you wanted them? How shall you atone for this obscene perversion of history? Miss Fiel would kill you if she were to witness this!”
Steph somehow managed to muddle the term “erof.” She persistently insisted that Sora claim responsibility, to which he furiously rebutted, “Whaaat?! Sure, I plotted to transform one erof’s life—that much I’ll admit! However!!”
This time, it was Sora who audibly thrust his finger at the map as he pointed to an Elf.
“For the whole race to go erof means they had it in them all along, right?!”
“Ng—gh!”
“Yeahhh, I thought Fiel looked oddly self-satisfied! Now I know—underneath that smiling exterior lies someone really kinky!! Oh, man, I can see it now: Fiel and Chlammy in hot yuri escapades!!”
Sora hollered but then had a thought.
…Maybe all the races are like that, really. Look at Jibril: She might have a unique way of expressing it, but the inclination seems to be there. And you know what they say—sadism and masochism are two sides of the same coin. When you look at all these sadists smashing up the world, damn, there are some seriously perverted—
“…Brother… The orcs’ numbers, keep falling… They’re gonna go, extinct!”
While Sora was lost in his own little world, the battle continued. Demonia were getting steadily destroyed as orcs were abducted one after another—
“…Hngh, what is this…?!”
Sora hung his head in deep lamentation.
“Have they no respect for the balance of ecosystems? How indistinguishable will they prove themselves from the fools in our old world…? Damn it, how could they…? Just because the orcs are built for rapid reproduction and active nights, what kind of excuse is that to take everything they have…?! Are these the actions of an intelligent life-form?!”
“Do you even remember that this is all your doing in the first place?!”
And just when he thought he’d spotted a ray of hope in his erotic theory… Ah well. Now his hopes were being crushed, along with an entire race…
So this is war… How brutal. Sora hung his head in disillusionment, but—
“…Oh.”
Shiro’s tiny utterance made Sora and Steph lift their faces. Then…the three of them were dumbstruck.
They saw everything transpire in just under an hour, or what had taken over three years in-game. Their mere meddling had set off something larger:
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