Chapter 05 “Erika and Mia”
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Part 1
Why would Arcadia declare war on the Kingdom of Horfalt?
Is it because I have the old human weapon, Luxion, with me?
But then there is no need to involve the people of the kingdom as well.
Just defeat me, as they ordered Finn to do.
If they think the kingdom is going to unite to protect me —— they’re wrong.
So what’s the reason for them to start declaring war?
“Is Arcadia really such a great weapon?”
I couldn’t sleep at all last night.
My head is still trying to comprehend the shocking details that Finn has just told me.
After returning to my room, I talk with Luxion about various things, but unable to come up with any solutions.
[High Mobility Battleship —— It is the trump card of the old humans who specialized in combat. It had more combat capability than I did. Three of these high-mobility battleships were deployed, and yet they were matched against the Arcadia. From the current conditions, it seems that they could not make the Arcadia stop functioning simply by sinking it.]
From a performance standpoint, Luxion does not stand a chance.
“Depends on the state of Arcadia, right? There’s a chance even you could take it down.”
[I don’t deny it. But I have concluded that that Brave is no match for me. I don’t trust him, but if our odds were better, Finn would be on our side.]
Luxion thought that was the only reason he chose to antagonize me —— even to avenge Karl-san’s death.
The reason Finn returned to the empire, even by making an enemy of me —— was because he decided that even in the current state of Arcadia, Luxion could not win.
As I hung my head, Luxion approached me and spoke to me in a somewhat gentler tone of voice than usual.
[Finn chose Master over the Emperor’s request. What made him do so was——]
“I know. I’m grateful to him.”
I remember Finn’s face, which was extremely troubled.
Finn’s failure to assassinate me will damage his reputation in the Empire.
There is a possibility that he will be punished in some way, and if things go badly, he will have to leave Mia-chan’s side.
Finn, who puts Mia-chan first, took that many risks to overlook me.
I don’t want to sum it up in one simple word, “friendship,” but Finn saved me this time.
I double-check with Luxion.
“——Even you and me can’t win, huh?”
[Yes. I strongly suggest that we escape into space.]
Luxion’s words and actions, without sarcasm or irony, showed that he was serious.
“It’s pathetic, isn’t it? When someone stronger than you appears on the scene, you have no choice but to run away. I’ve been rampaging around all this time doing whatever I want —— I’m really hilarious.”
I am terribly ashamed of myself for thinking that with Luxion, I would have no problems.
[Running away from Arcadia is not hilarious. In the first place, the old humans could not defeat it even if they tried with all their might. There is no need for Master to be ashamed.]
“You’re being awfully honest today. You can be more sarcastic and ironic.”
[Master, I am not joking. ——Please make a decision.]
I forced myself to smile at Luxion, who pressed me to make a decision.
“I don’t fight a battle that I can’t win.”
[Yes.]
“I don’t think there’s any shame in running away.”
[Yes.]
“——I think it’s stupid to risk your life to fight.”
[That’s the right decision, Master.]
In the first place, if the kingdom is attacked because of my presence, I don’t mind running away.
I would rather just run away into space than fight a monster like Arcadia.
That way, even the Empire won’t attack the kingdom.
“Get ready to escape.”
[Yes, Master.]
—— If only I were gone, the Empire will lay down their arms.
There is no need to worry about anything.
If I’m gone, the problem will be solved.
“Now, let’s run away into space at night”
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Part 2
Once the decision is made to escape into space, all that remains is to prepare.
Fortunately, Luxion is a high-performance immigrant ship and is apparently capable of breaking through the atmosphere alone.
Luxion itself will provide the necessary items, so I will probably only bring a few memorable items with me.
The problem is —— who else am I going to take with me?
As I walk down the hallway with a bouquet of flowers, I look up a bit, a dark shadow under my eyes, and think.
“Will the three of them follow me?”
When I voice my concerns, Luxion gives me affirmation.
[It’s very likely. If so, there would be five people to take along, including Master and Erika?]
“It would be lonely living in space with just the five of us. In the first place, Erika would be in cold sleep, right?”
Imagining five people living on an immigrant ship makes me feel a little lonely.
[The symptoms will improve once the patient is removed from the magic environment, so there is no need to go to the trouble of cryo hibernation. Erika will be able to live a normal life on the ship. If Master and Erika have a child together, there is a good chance that it will have the characteristics of the old humans. We will give you our full support.]
He tells me to have a child with Erika at this point.
These guys are really bad at giving up.
“I told you I didn’t want to do that. I mean, there was someone who would have said that if Erika was going into space, then she would go, too.”
——It’s Marie.
And if Marie says she is going, of course those five idiots will follow her.
What will happen to Kyle and Kara?
As I counted, Luxion was stunned.
[Are you going to take Marie and the others with you?]
“I’m sure they’d love to go with me, right? But I guess I’ll never be bored with them, but what will actually happen?”
Let’s talk to Ange and the others first.
I had come to Erika’s hospital room to visit her before that.
On board the second Einhorn class ship —— Licorne.
I visited with a bouquet of flowers to visit Erika, who was resting in the infirmary.
In addition, I was going to tell Erika that I was going to follow her into space too.
We were almost at Erika’s room, but there was someone waiting for us in the hallway.
—— It’s Creare, she is different than usual.
[Master, I have something important to tell you.]
“Creare? Is Erika’s condition worsening!?”
As I worried about Erika’s condition, Creare shook her single eye from side to side in a head-shaking gesture.
[Erika-chan is sleeping. Her condition is not getting better, but it’s not getting worse either.]
“I see. I’m glad to hear that. So, what’s the important talk?”
As I breathe a sigh of relief, Creare tells me calmly as if her usual cheerful attitude is a lie.
[——Master, Erika-chan and the others are most likely descendants of the old humans.]
“Haa?”
I gave Creare a quizzical look.
What is she talking about?
The major difference between old humans and new humans is “whether or not they can use magic by utilizing magic elements”.
There is a clear way to identify new humans if they can use magic.
Yet Creare called us descendants of the old humans.
“Is that it? Are you saying that we are the reincarnated people have the characteristics of an old humans?”
[I’m not talking about that. Anyway, let me explain it to you once thoroughly.]
We are taken by Creare to another room.
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Part 3
The place we moved to was Creare’s room, which had been prepared on board Licorne.
A former artificial intelligence that managed the research institute, Creare’s room is furnished with a variety of equipment.
Or should I say laboratory?
In a small room with lots of stuff, I was standing in front of a screen projected in the air.
In a dimly lit room——the data I was shown presented unbelievable facts.
In place of me, who is not responding, Luxion is asking Creare.
[I was aware that Erika and Mia had opposite reactions to the magic element. But this is unbelievable.]
After analyzing both Erika and Mia-chan for treatment purposes, Creare had reached an extraordinary conclusion in the course of examining the data.
[Like I said, I did preface this by saying it’s a possibility, right? But it’s my prediction, and I judge it to be highly probable.]
Luxion pointed a red lens at the screen and moved the ring in the lens constantly.
“Erika is the descendant of the old humans —— and Mia is the descendant of the new humans?”
To Luxion, who was not convinced, Creare explained while giving him various data.
[We initially assumed that all humans in this world were new humans because they could use magic.]
[The ability to use magic is a major characteristic of the new humans. To begin with, magic elements were poison to the old humans.]
[Yes, that’s it! For Erika-chan, high concentrations of magic elements were poison.]
[I had expected it to be a result of the old humans’ traits as reincarnated people?]
[I’ve come to that conclusion as well. I’d concluded that the reincarnated people —— Master and others with previous lives were special, and that everyone else was descended from a new humans.]
It felt as if everything we believed in was crumbling noisily.
Initially, I had left all this talk of old humans, new humans, etc., as a fluffy setting for that otome game. I accepted it without doing much research.
The result of not taking it seriously is now.
Creare displays the information she has obtained in the kingdom of Horfalt.
I am sure the information was stolen from somewhere.
But I didn’t have the time or the mental capacity to ask questions right now.
[About Erika-chan’s illness, there have been a few reports, though they are few and far between.]
It seems that there are children who are suffering from the magic element, just like Erika.
Looking at the documents containing the detailed reports, it is written that they had recovered for a period of time, like Erika.
But soon after that, it became worse than before.
Creare gives a brief result.
[My guess is that the people of the kingdom are the descendants of the old humans.]
I question Creare.
“You are the ones who said that the old humans can’t use magic. I can use magic if I want to. That’s a mistake.”
I wanted to deny this talk.
I wanted it to be a mistake.
But —— Creare tells me a fact that I don’t want to know.
[While we were sleeping, the old humans must have studied magic. Even if they couldn’t use it themselves, they predicted that they might have acquired the technology to use and apply the magic elements, then the old humans chose to adapt to this planet full of magic elements.]
“Didn’t the old humans escape into space?”
I turned my gaze to Luxion and asked him about the circumstances at the time.
[——There was no luxury at the time to afford to send all humans up into space. I was built to carry selected human beings out into space.]
“So there were old humans left behind”
Those who were left behind must have somehow found a way to survive.
As a result, the technology they arrived at was —— magic.
Creare speculates what those left behind might have done in those days.
[I wonder because the old humans couldn’t use magic elements, so maybe they used it through machines? I think it gave the next generation the ability to use magic.]
To me, this raises the question.
“Isn’t that already the same as new humans?”
[Here’s the important part. The old humans had their genes modified by magic.]
Their genes modified? Is it possible for magic to do that?
I decided to keep my mouth shut, saying that it would be fine to interject after hearing the continuation.
Creare states her prediction without hesitation.
[I think they anticipated that in the future the magic element would fade away. They thought that if that happened, the new humans, who could not survive without magic elements, would perish. So——they had it worked out so that in the future, when the magic element fades, they can revert back to the old humans.]
“Is that possible? No matter how much——”
[Magic is an unknown field for us. We can’t rule out the possibility, and we’ve actually discovered the modified parts. So they expected the new humans to eventually perish, and they had an elaborate mechanism in place. Well, it seems they didn’t expect it to change so rapidly in this time period.]
Can’t new humans survive without magic elements? I’m more surprised at the mechanism that would allow them to revert back to their ancestors once the magic element has been faded away.
Creare talks about future problems.
[The triggers that perform the reverting are also tricky. There seems to be no way to fine-tune it, and once triggered, there is no going back. Since the concentration of magic elements has temporarily dropped dramatically, there will be more children with symptoms similar to Erika’s in the future.]
“Has the concentration of magic elements decreased?”
[Master, don’t you remember? The sacred tree that Ideal was guarding used to absorb magic elements.]
Luxion reminded me of that.
About what happened in the Republic of Arzel.
That plant, which is too ominous to be called a sacred tree, was sucking up the magic elements around it.
It seems that the concentration of magic elements has decreased worldwide for a while since that time.
Creare nodded.
[So Ideal is the hope. Indeed, for the old humans, it was a hope to reduce the concentration of magic elements by absorbing them. I don’t think it was ever completely removed, though.]
Transport Ship Ideal —— the same artificial intelligence as Luxion and the others, but he was the one who antagonized us in the incident involving the sacred tree.
Luxion and I took down an out-of-control sacred tree, but there was a problem in the process.
Luxion explains the situation at that time.
[I predict that during that battle, the sacred tree temporarily sucked up the surrounding magic elements and caused a change in their concentration. As a result, Erika’s physical condition improved——]
“On the contrary, Mia-chan got worse.”
As I look down, Creare states the results of her analysis of Erika.
[In Erika-chan’s case, she’s a special case in that she took the next stage earlier than most of the other kids.]
The hypothesis that the reincarnated humans have characteristics of the old humans seems to have been incorrect.
In Erika’s case, because she progressed to the next stage early, she showed more of the characteristics of the old humans than others.
As a result, she was unable to adapt to the environment and became sickly.
Creare proceeds to mentions countries that may be descendants of the old humans.
“Horfalt, Fannos, Raschel, and Reparto——The surrounding countries are more likely to be the old humans. Conversely, the Empire is more likely to be the new humans.”
From there, Luxion guesses.
[If Arcadia is supporting the empire, this is most likely the case. Even if they are unaware of it, the environment will eventually be favorable to the new humans. Since Arcadia possesses the ability to generate and spread magic elements.]
If that happens, the concentration of magic elements will become denser again.
For Erika —— It will be a world where people with the same constitution as Erika will not be able to adapt.
[It’s a trigger, but once it switches, there’s no going back. If we leave it at this, the old humans side will eventually perish in silence. ——Maybe Arcadia is aware of this. Maybe that’s why they thought of declaring war on the Kingdom?]
If they only wanted me, they wouldn’t have to go to all the trouble of starting a war.
Even so, if they decided to declare war, could it be because of some other —— Arcadia’s goal of destroying the old humans? Creare’s prediction had me breaking out in a cold sweat.
“Why are they doing such a useless thing now?”
The ancient war should have nothing to do with us.
And yet Arcadia is going to exterminate the people of the kingdom?
Luxion, sensing my question, tells me the answer.
[Master, our war is not over.]
“It must have ended a long time ago.”
[We have not received any orders or word that the war has ended. For us, the war is still ongoing. And so is Arcadia.]
It is beyond laughable that a war that happened a long time ago has not ended.
If this story is true, it is unlikely that the story will end with me escaping into space.
As long as Arcadia exists, there is a path of destruction ahead for the old humans.
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