CONTINUE
Say you had to die for the sake of the world. What would you do?
There was a girl who had to make this choice. She had to die to save her doomed planet. That’s what a god told her, and she agonized, fought, wept…and finally, she made a choice. She wanted to save the world, the land where those dear to her lived—as well as the one she loved. With a heavy heart and trembling lips, she staggered before the god. She had chosen to die. But then:
“I will die in her stead.”
A man stopped her and stepped before the god. He was the person she had chosen to save at the cost of her life, one of those dear to her—and their love was mutual. The god asked her beloved:
“Dost thou not fear death?”
The man smiled. He would rather die than allow his beloved to perish.
“There are more frightful things than death.”
Thus, he died amidst thunderous acclaim, and their world was saved. The girl he left behind shed a single tear and vowed to live enough for both of them in this reclaimed world. With that tired line, their heartwarming story came to a close. But the brother and sister pair just watched this ending apathetically. As the game’s credits started rolling, they thought:
“There are more frightful things than death.” Yeah, I’m sure. But why didn’t anyone say this to the protagonist before he died in the heroine’s stead?
“Are you going to impose a fate worse than death on your beloved?”
So that’s what they call “self-sacrifice.” Such pretty words… A real tearjerker. The boy with black hair and eyes produced a smile as twisted as his personality. The red-eyed, white-haired girl frowned sourly. They shared the same thought:
Looks like the world’s been saved by a single male protagonist’s death.
A single sacrifice prevented the deaths of billions of others, and the cute heroine survived. How wonderful. A real bang for their buck. Such a stunning achievement!!
Okay… Now.
So what had the girl who got left behind thought of all this? Her beloved himself had mentioned things more heinous than death—and proceeded to foist on her that very burden of surviving at the cost of her beloved’s life.
…That guy definitely had a death wish. After the heroine had made clear she’d rather die than lose him, what did she get out of it? The brother and sister exchanged glances as they reached the same conclusion.
—What a coward. Sure, I guess you could write it off as “self-sacrifice.” Sure, he could put it as just a matter of his ego, and likely no one would argue. Besides, who could argue…when there’d be no one left to do so? The siblings felt the real choice was not which one would die, but rather…
They both die.
They both live.
…it should have been between those two.
So let’s say it’s just a case of ego. In that case, be consistent and see it through. If the choice of them both living means their world would be destroyed—
—then just let it be destroyed.
So you think this is irresponsible? Then here’s a rebuttal: Whose responsibility are you talking about? Say the world was ending and was pulled back from the brink by their love and courage and those sorts of things. That’s all well and good. But who are you to take their kindness for granted? If it’s responsibility we’re talking about, then how about the responsibility of whoever made the world this way?!
…Try thinking about it like this. If the world was doomed in the first place, wouldn’t its destruction be expected? It’s already fated that the world’s going to end, so what difference does it make if it ends now?! In that case, why shouldn’t those two just keep on laughing and running away to the ends of the earth? If you complain this is an issue of “ego,” then no offense, but that’s invalid. Because even if you were planning to complain…the whole world would be gone!!
…But be that as it may, here is what the raven-haired older brother thought as he laid down his sleeping sister:
Say you had to die for the sake of the world. What would you do…?
Between him and his sister, who would die? Either was clearly out of the question.
What if they both died? That’s a little better, but they’d rather not.
So what if they both live? …That would be the preferred option.
But still.
Sure, he could just blurt out, I don’t care about your stupid world! You can all rot!! and run away. As he stroked his sister’s hair, he thought…she definitely wouldn’t be laughing with him. Then how would they go about saving themselves and the entire world, too? To gain everything without a single sacrifice…
Still young, the boy laughed derisively at himself as he gazed at his sister’s sleeping face.
The means to accomplish that might not exist in this world.
It had been thirty-eight days since the start of the game. The spiraling land floating in the heavens—the sugoroku board built by the Old Deus. In and of itself, this alone was enough of an unhinged marvel. But now, on the 296th space, there was a nauseating sight that blew the hinges clean off.
“Ee-hee, ee-hee-hee… Soooraaa?”
Through the dim candlelight of a small cave, three voices resounded.
“This was just as planned, too, wasn’t it? Please, please tell me it was.”
“Heh, if you insist, then I’ll say it—but who the hell would plan something like this?!”
“…Brother… It’s, not turn-based… W-we gotta, give a command…”
There was the hollow laughter of the young redheaded girl who, thanks to having two dice, was now age 3.6: Steph. The shrieks of the young toddlers, who, by virtue of having one die each, were ages 1.8 and 1.1: Sora and Shiro, respectively. And…several back-to-back thunderous blasts that foreboded the world’s destruction.
“And on top of this, we gotta play in real time?! What the hell?! This is nuuuuts!!” Sora screamed before closing his eyes and contemplating:
What kind of joke is this?
“…Calm down. Nothing’s gonna get done unless you get a handle on the situation…!”
Sora managed to squeeze out a few words as his mind began faltering, his thoughts almost frozen. Jibril’s Task appeared before them:
—Immediately accept a game by the Covenants proposed by a party of at least two members—other than the one who assigned the Task—and win.
They’d been made to swear by the Covenants and start a game that simulated the ancient Great War. Sora looked around. First, he had to size up the situation and the game’s rules.
They were in a dark, cramped space surrounded by exposed rock. On the table in the center, a map was spread. But this ragged, old, faded map was blank—no, rather, it was blacked out all over. They needed that field map, but there was almost nothing on it. Instead, the map, which resembled blacked-out parchment, bore something resembling a computer interface…ticking away with the game information.
July 184 BT, 03:45.
BT probably stood for Before Testament, that is, before the Covenants. There were Units represented by triangles, and Cities represented by squares… With the information this map provided, Sora could gather that the small cave they were in was what was labeled the “Capital” at its center. It seemed the map only showed the periphery of their Capital and the areas patrolled by their respective Scout units. Next to the map was a mass of paper and pens, and slightly farther away was a beat-up wooden mailbox. It looked as if they were supposed to write their commands on the paper and stick it in the mailbox to move their units.
Steph stood, perhaps distressed by the blasts that were descending one after another beyond the cave.
“I—I…I’ll take a look outside, all right?!”
“H-hold on! …Let’s try adding an armed Scout unit.”
Sora scribbled out a command.
The time displayed on the map progressed eight hours for every second they experienced. If this cave was their Capital—the player base—it wasn’t a sure bet they could step out into the game proper. But even if they could, who knew what they might run into?
Each unit’s information was displayed on the map when tapped—but no age, sex, combat stats, or the like. Not very user-friendly, to say the least. In any case, Sora wrote the unit ID displayed and dropped the command in the box. With that, a unit armed with an ax was dispatched through the exit and onto the field at eight hours per second—a 28,800× data writing speed, too fast to see with the naked eye.
“…Brother, what’s the point, of arming a Scout? …Won’t it just…slow him down…?”
“HA-HA-HA! Therein lies your brother’s cunning, little sister of mine!”
Sora shook his head in exasperation at his sister’s point.
“He might encounter another race. If we don’t give him a chance to survive, how will we know what the game’s conditions—?”
But just then, the climate shifted, blowing in a wind that could be felt even inside the cave. The unit that had gone on the field just seconds ago vanished from the map like melting snow.
“……The hell was that?”
When Sora tapped the map, it showed this was a “dead spirit wind.”
“…Good thing you didn’t go outside.”
Steph froze, her face pale, as Sora— Wait a second.
“Whoaaa! What—what’s up with that field?! It’s got those blue instant-death lava tiles!!”
Sora shrieked his “conclusion.” Although, “conclusion” wasn’t quite the right word… From the very beginning, Jibril’s cold, unfeeling eyes, which seemed to speak to how little she cared about the three of them, had indicated as much. Sora was just accepting a fact he’d resisted.
This is no joke.
Sora ground his teeth, tapped one of the Scout units on the map, and zoomed in. The Scout’s field of vision was projected in the air like a screen, showing what it looked like outside: a wretched spectacle. Everyone gasped, and Sora forced a hoarse laugh.
“…Ha-ha, this is the Great War? C’mon, Jibril, you’re going way too far with this.”
This could by no means be called a war. Every postapocalyptic setting they had seen looked utopian in comparison. If Sora’s group could summarize it in a single word, it could only be: hell.
…I see, thought Sora. This game simulated the ancient Great War. It was a realistic strategy game. Jibril’s Task had produced another world on the 296th space. Space had boundlessly expanded…or perhaps compressed. He didn’t know how it worked exactly, but it seemed the entire planet had been reproduced on a ten-kilometer square.
The crimson sky was blocked out by ash, burned by the fires of war that engulfed the planet. Blue “dead spirits” fell endlessly from the ruinous sky, which looked as if it might collapse at any moment. The wind that had in a single gust wiped out their scouting unit—and humanity itself—was rife with dead spirits and dust and ash. This substance formed the “black ash” that blanketed the land as far as the eye could see, like snowfall that would never melt. Explosions further devastated the already tomb-like wasteland; the deafening roars that rocked the small cave without respite were the flashes of warring Ixseeds prior to the Covenants’ ban on violence. Land and sea were transformed with each flash and sound, like a kaleidoscope.
…So this unending cataclysm is the Great War? Surely you jest.
“How did Immanity survive this inferno…?!” Sora wailed, but he knew… There was no reason Jibril would lie. So this was surely the Great War, the world the human race had survived. What’s more, according to the history Jibril presented, the human race had put an end to it themselves.
“You gotta be kidding me! A combat unit vaporized by a gust of wind?! In that case—”
The sky flashed once more in time with Sora’s outburst. The barely visible terrain on the map changed.
Presumably a consequence of the wind swallowing up their Scout unit, the video cut out, and things went black.
“This isn’t even a goddamn strategy game!! Strategy, my ass—the hell are we supposed to do?!”
Sora ranted, but he knew…it went without saying. He knew how strong those nutcase Ixseeds were without the Covenants, just not exactly how strong. It was patently obvious, though, that even a billion Immanities all together would be no match for Jibril, who could part the sea with five percent of her power and walk away from a direct hit from an H-bomb unharmed.
“…B-but, Brother…if we make a death stack…we should at least, make it through…one attack—”
“Against these bastards who can warp anywhere?! Against these bastards whose area attacks shift the planet’s crust?!”
As another blast flew by, Sora pointed to the map.
“The terrain changed again! Make it through one attack? Our Capital’s gonna get crushed by a single stray shot!”
Jibril said this was like Civ, Sora thought. Okay. That’s fine, then. So let’s treat it like Civ.
The Old Deus’s gaze seemed to indicate as much. Izuna could say nothing, but only hung her head…
At the same time, outside the game, someone in one corner of Kannagari, the Eastern Union’s capital, poked her head out of the window of an inn. She looked up at the spiraling land that blocked the moonlight—the sugoroku board created by the Old Deus—where people both inside and outside the game had lapsed into chaos, caught up in confusion, fear, impatience, and their own machinations.
“Hmm, I don’t really get it, but it looks like the Elven fleet’s arrived. I’m soooo bored, though.”
The figure spoke with utter indifference, as if wholly unacquainted with tension, then retrieved a single sheet from a large bundle of papers and nodded. She was convinced that everything was truly in place.
It had been thirty-eight days since the start of the game with the Old Deus. Everyone had either been betrayed, deceived, usurped—or killed.
—This is merely what happens when everyone seeks their own benefit. The truth is, no one can gain without taking from another.
Let’s say that, if you thought about it logically, this was as obvious as an object tumbling down a hill…
Then just don’t think about it logically.
Things had happened just as intended by those who had said as much, the ones who’d left her this sheet.
Word for word, precisely as written.
Feeling relieved and slightly chilled, the figure left the inn, a heavy knapsack on her back.
“Hey! I’m still in the backpack, aren’t I?! Just who do you think I am?! Hey!!”
As she who dwelled in the water-filled, overly heavy knapsack noisily asserted herself, the one entrusted with the sheet recalled what she’d asked herself:
—Say you had to die for the sake of the world. What would you do?
“If it would save the world, then I’d have to die.”
However, they had all smiled bitterly at her response.
“Then if that didn’t save the world, you’d have died for nothing.”
And they’d continued.
“One sacrifice, two sacrifices, a thousand, a billion—it’s not much difference.”
If you’re fine with sacrificing a few people in order to save many more, then one day, the number you sacrificed will surely surpass the number you saved.
Small sacrifices and self-sacrifice will never save the world. They’ll only help it survive—help it carry on unchanging, looking for its next sacrifices one by one, until the day it all finally ends…
If you’re gonna prattle on about saving the world, then you’d better refuse to allow even a single sacrifice. That’s what they’d said: This world is a game. If you accept a single sacrifice, the game will go on forever. In this world, such ludicrous rules are neither necessary nor absolute. And that’s why we’re going to put an end to this right here…
No longer in anyone’s memory, the figure who had been entrusted with such proof therefore carried their weighty move forward—
“Hey! Could you be a little more careful with how you’re carrying me?! How dare you treat me so roughly when you’re not even my darling! Do you want to make the sea your enemy? Excuse me, are you listening? Hello?!”
—their literal weighty trump card, complaining from inside the backpack.
Step by step, she staggered up the endlessly long hill to the Chinkai Tandai District.
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