Game’s End Part 1

by Mamare Touno

  Li Gan, the self-proclaimed magician, pushed the door open, beckoning them into a study filled with thousands of books. They only knew it was a study because there was an enormous desk. The ceiling was high, and the room went deeper and deeper into the palace in a straight line, so that it looked like nothing more than a continuation of the corridor.

  Around them were books piled up in small mountains.

  The walls on either side of the huge corridor were fitted with bookshelves that were twice as tall as Shiroe, and the shelves were being engulfed by their own prey—the books. They overflowed with documents and scrolls to the point where tiny avalanches were occurring here and there.

  This sight continued back and back, until it was lost in shadow.

  Li Gan was rummaging around on the table and desk, saying, “Hm? That’s funny,” and “Where could it have gone to?” Shiroe and Akatsuki seated themselves on one of the sofas without being invited, although in order to do so, they had to add several books that had been on the sofa to one of the mountains on the floor.

  “I’m really sorry about this. I’m sure I had a pot for drinks somewhere…” Li Gan was apologetic. Shiroe shook his head, saying, “It doesn’t matter,” and took several glasses and a large bottle of Black Rose Tea out of the bag he carried.

  This drink, which had become a standard, tasted like a stronger version of roasted green tea, but its flavor was mild, and it was taken with honey or sugar. Shiroe was carrying around an iced type of Black Rose that had been cooled with spring water and sweetened with syrup.

  Shiroe poured this into glasses for himself, Li Gan, and Akatsuki. Li Gan drank his tea and broke into a smile. He was an odd man; although he was small and gaunt, there was something charming about him.

  As far as appearances went, at any rate, he seemed to be about the same age as Shiroe.

  “Thank you. I’m awful at finding things. —That’s Dazanek’s Magic Bag, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I had it made a while back.”

  Shiroe nodded, responding to the question frankly.

  “Hm. I’ve done some research regarding that bag… You need a purple flame crystal and the skin of a winged dragon in order to crystallize the magic circuits, correct?”

  “That’s right. I got those items and had it order-made.”

  Shiroe was impressed. The quest “Get a magic bag” could be undertaken when players reached level 45, and Li Gan seemed to have a fairly accurate grasp of its content. His knowledge seemed too great for a Person of the Earth.

  “Ah, pardon me. Let me introduce myself again. My name is Li Gan. I mentioned that I was a magician, and I can use magic, but it’s more accurate to say that I’m a lore master.”

  “A lore master?”

  “Yes, a researcher who studies magic. I can also teach general magic, but research is my specialty.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes. It’s been about thirty years since I settled down in the Ancient Court of Eternal Ice. This was originally my master’s study, but he passed on a few years ago. After that, I inherited his responsibilities and have spent my days here, continuing his research. I apologize for my shabby appearance.”

  “—Miral Lake. …The Sage of Miral Lake?”

  Recalling Li Gan’s introduction, the name struck Shiroe.

  The Sage of Miral Lake.

  When Elder Tales was a game, that name had come up in several quests, town rumors, and various books. For example, a key item in the raid “The Nine Great Gaols of Halos” had been the Key of Eternal Darkness, made by the Sage of Miral Lake.

  However, that had all been part of the game. He’d assumed it was just background information included to make the story more interesting, and he hadn’t given it much thought.

  “Well, yes, but honestly, I hardly ever introduce myself that way. I still feel like an apprentice, you know. When someone calls me by that name, I always think they mean my master.”

  “The ‘Sage of Miral Lake’ is a hereditary position, then?”

  “Indeed it is. Please call me Li Gan.”

  For someone who’d inherited a name like that one, it was a very humble greeting. He had almost none of the daunting presence the word sage suggested.

  Silence flowed between them.

  As he slowly drank his Black Rose Tea, Shiroe’s thoughts raced. Part of their reason for coming to the lords’ conference of Eastal, the League of Free Cities, was that they’d been asked to do so, but the greater reason had been because they had prioritized gathering information on the current situation. If they attended the lords’ conference, they would be able to make the acquaintance of this world’s ruling class, or at least its nobles. They had predicted that doing so would give them access to a range of information so vast that town rumors couldn’t compare.

  He had never expected to attract someone this big.

  It had been three months since the Catastrophe, and all sorts of knowledge about the world was finding its way, slowly, to Shiroe and the others. At the very least, it was probably safe to say that they had all the knowledge necessary for day-to-day life. Shiroe and the Adventurers of Akiba had acquired food, clothing, and homes in which to shelter from the rain.

  However, the more of this sort of knowledge they gained, the more keenly Shiroe felt that they really knew nothing at all.

  If it had been just Shiroe, on his own, this would not have been a problem.

  Even if he had been living with a few companions, they could have resolved nearly all of their issues. No matter what the People of the Earth thought of them, no matter what the reality of this world was, Shiroe and the others had the combat skills they needed to survive. They could have traveled endlessly, or set up a base deep in the mountains somewhere; there would have been any number of ways to manage.

  However, Shiroe wasn’t in any position to think things like that now, and he didn’t even want to. There were fifteen thousand Adventurers in Akiba, and nearly thirty thousand on the entire server. If he’d been able to abandon all of them, he’d never have dreamed of the Round Table Council in the first place.

  There was no way thirty thousand people could live quietly, hiding from the People of the Earth. On top of that, they needed a base.

  In the area administered by the Japanese server, whose total population was probably only about 1.5 million, Akiba’s population of fifteen thousand was too large. Any action they took would send a ripple effect across the world. In fact, the new item production method was affecting the world in a big way.

  Of course, even if Nyanta hadn’t come across it, a trick of that level would probably have been discovered and spread by somebody within a few months. The Catastrophe had triggered a panic and everyone had been depressed, and they had managed to get in ahead of everyone else by taking advantage of that psychological vulnerability.

  As a result, Shiroe didn’t feel responsible for the fact that the new item production method had spread. However, they had to be aware that that knowledge had affected the world at large.

  It was also likely that they would not be able to avoid causing similar situations in the future. No matter how they glossed it over, as far as this world was concerned, the Adventurers were a kind of contaminant. Guiding the situation to results that were as peaceful and nondestructive as possible would require profound knowledge. At present, Shiroe and the others had an overwhelming shortage of that.

  This meeting… It just may end up being more important than the lords’ conference.

  Shiroe’s expression had grown tense. Li Gan watched him, seeming intrigued, and began to speak.

  “A moment ago, I called myself a lore master, or magic researcher, but there are a vast number of different kinds of magic, as well as broad variation in the ranges they manipulate. Of these, my research specialty is world-class magic.”

  “World-class?”

  On hearing the unfamiliar term, Shiroe put a hand to his chin and nodded.

  “That’s correct. It’s a way of classifying
magic by the scale of its effect. The categories are action-class, battle-class, operation-class, tactical-class, strategic-class, national-defense-class, continent-class, and world-class. Of course, these categories are one-dimensional. Aside from classifying them by scale, it’s possible to classify them by special features—such as magic that uses energy, magic that changes the state of matter, or summoning magic—while another frequently used method categorizes them by the caster’s power.”

  Even as Shiroe listened, his thoughts went ahead.

  It wasn’t a way of thinking he was familiar with. He could understand classifying magic by type; for example, the energy Sorcerers used, or the summonings performed by Summoners. That method was easy to understand.

  He also understood classifying them by the caster’s power. In player terms, these would be spells acquired at different levels. That sort of thing had come up in the magic introduction section on the official Elder Tales website.

  “Classification by scale is a method that classifies magic phenomenologically from the aspect of scale, or when examining it in combination with its objective. Action-class indicates magic of a size that could substitute for one action. Swinging a sword and wounding a demon, say. If you did this with magic, the spell would be action-class. It makes it possible to wound anything from one demon to several demons with one gesture, you see. By that definition, most of the spells magic troops use are action-class magic. Even if attack power is increased, action-class is never more than action-class.”

  Viewed that way, Mind Bolt, Shiroe’s basic attack spell, would be action-class. It was a spell that used magic to unleash a shock wave of mental damage, and its effect was roughly equal to firing an arrow. Even if there were secondary effects or damage, they were only incidental.

  “Battle-class indicates magic that can sway the outcome of a single battle. It implies being able to determine the fate of an enemy platoon, or of an ally platoon.”

  Apparently there was quite a lot of depth to this classification of magic by scale. For example, on its own, Shiroe’s hypnotic spell, Astral Hypno, was an action-class spell. However, depending on how it was used, it held the power to push an entire platoon of enemies to the brink of death. In that case, it wouldn’t be odd to classify it as battle-class.

  “Operation-class is magic that can sway two or three battles at a stroke. The great magic said to have been used by the legendary combat magicians of this world would fall into this category.”

  Several battles at once… Would that be magic that granted powerful abilities? When Shiroe searched through all his own spells, he saw only one special skill that reached that level.

  “Tactical-class is the step above that. It’s magic that can sway from one day to several days—or, in terms of enemy organizations, one fortress, one tower, or one mansion—with one attack.”

  At this point, they were passing beyond the limits of Shiroe’s imagination.

  Simulation games aside, Elder Tales had been an RPG which gamers played by controlling individual Adventurer characters. If an individual Adventurer had had the sort of power that could destroy an entire dungeon, cooperation between players would have been completely unnecessary. It would have been overwhelming destructive power.

  “Now then, we’ll just skim over the rest. Strategy-class magic is an individual spell that can influence one war. National-defense-class is magic of a scale that can influence one hostile country. Continent-class is magic large enough to influence an entire continent. And world-class…”

  “That would be…magic that can influence the continued existence, laws, or fate of the world?”

  “That’s right.”

  As a general idea, he understood it.

  He could see it being used as a subject for research. However, did that sort of magic really exist? In the world of Elder Tales, Shiroe himself was an Enchanter, a petty magic user. It was ludicrous for him to talk of doubting the existence of magic, but the scale of the conversation was too big, and he couldn’t seem to bring it into focus.

  “I, uh… I’m sorry. I can understand the category itself, as a hypothesis, but does magic like that actually exist? Or is this purely theoretical?”

  At Shiroe’s question, the corners of Li Gan’s mouth curved in a vaguely endearing smile, and he answered in the negative.

  “It exists. In the literature and through my own senses, I’ve found three instances of its use. All three have been a magic known as a ‘World Fraction.’”

  “…You mean the Catastrophe?”

  The instant he asked, he saw the answer in Li Gan’s expression.

  Magic of that scale was no longer the result of an individual ability.

  It was possible that some sort of transcendental being had used this magic, but even the researchers weren’t able to see it in its entirety.

  Strategy-class. National-defense-class. Continent-class. …Why would research need classes of magic that didn’t exist? They did exist.

  It might be out of reach for both People of the Earth and Adventurers, but national-defense-class magical catastrophes could occur in the form of volcanic eruptions triggered by fire spirits’ increased activity or earthquakes provoked by earth spirits.

  As someone who was too familiar with Elder Tales as a gamer, Shiroe had seen magic as one of the techniques used by Adventurers such as himself. If considered as part of the story’s background, he could accept that enormous spells did exist.

  Li Gan, this gaunt researcher, had his eyes fixed on the type of magic that surpassed what individuals used. He truly was a magic researcher, not a magician. His ambition wasn’t to expand his abilities but to investigate the world’s mysteries. It was the same as having the ambition to figure out the structure of the world.

  “Your people call the incident that occurred in May ‘the Catastrophe’, don’t you? The People of the Earth seem to call it simply ‘the Revolution’ or ‘the May Incident,’ but I call it ‘the Third World Fraction.’ I invited you here to speak with you, in the hopes of obtaining any information you might have about the World Fraction. As a researcher, I want to know everything.”

  Li Gan’s eyes shone with curiosity, but they seemed sincere.

  Talking about it won’t be a problem. We know almost nothing in any case. But…

  “You said ‘the third,’ didn’t you? Earlier, you mentioned that world-class magic had been used three times in this world. Could you tell us about the first and second World Fractions? The Adventurers don’t have much information about the Catastrophe. I’ll give you what we have; however, we also need as much information as possible regarding the Catastrophe.”

  4

  At Shiroe’s words, Li Gan created a pause by picking up his drink.

  “I don’t mind at all, but it makes for a long story. Are you sure?”

  “……”

  “Yes, please.”

  After confirming that Akatsuki, seated beside him, had nodded silently, Shiroe answered Li Gan. Akatsuki was also listening to the conversation, her expression tense.

  “Let’s see. Where should I begin? Of course, as I’ve been saying, I don’t know everything about the World Fractions myself… Actually, it would be better to say I know practically nothing. That makes it terribly easy to tell you, ‘They’re incidents that happened long ago’ and leave it at that…but I expect that wouldn’t be much of an explanation. Very well. I’ll tell you all I know, from the roots up. …Let’s begin with the oldest story.”

  Shiroe resettled himself on the sofa and nodded deeply.

  From the beginning. That was exactly what Shiroe wanted, too.

  “—About three hundred and fifty years ago, they say the world was much more prosperous than it is today. Of course, it was nothing compared to the Age of Myth, which has vanished beyond the horizon of legend, but the population seems to have been between three and five times what it is now. Their activity was mostly centered on the continent, and their territory was vast, extending to the ends of the eart
h.”

  “What do you mean by ‘continent’?”

  “Ah, Eured, our neighbor.”

  The Eurasian continent: the continent that included China, the Middle Eastern countries, and Europe. Shiroe nodded. It went without saying that it was the largest continent in this other world as well.

  However, Shiroe hadn’t expected the part about this not being the Age of Myth. According to the game background legend in Elder Tales, the Age of Myth—which had possessed a completely evolved scientific civilization—had been torn apart and rebuilt as the current world. All the official site had said was that there had been a long Dark Age after the reconstruction, so he’d gotten the impression that the Age of Myth had fallen, been reconstructed, a Dark Age passed, and then the Elder Tales game had begun.

  However, he’d seen how far the buildings and roads from the Age of Myth had deteriorated. Now that he thought about it, all sorts of things must have happened during this so-called Dark Age. He’d assumed the Dark Age had been an empty era with no events whatsoever, so he was taken by surprise.

  “The world was inhabited by four races: humans, alvs, elves, and dwarves. They were mutually prosperous, and the countries were peaceful and wealthy. Many of the high-performance magic items that are still found deep in dungeons were made in this era. Then, too, magical ruins such as this Ancient Court of Eternal Ice clearly don’t belong to the Age of Myth, do they? These ruins were created during this era by the alvs. Yes, it was the alvs who invented magic and pioneered the powerful magic civilization. They are said to have created all sorts of magic implements, and to have unlocked the mysteries of the world.”

  Alvs… The official explanation was that they were an ancient race that had died out. As a half alv, Shiroe carried traces of their blood, but he’d never sensed any history or connection during game play. He’d thought of them only as a race with high magical abilities and an aptitude for using magic items.

  “It has nothing to do with the main story, so I’ll omit the details, but their abilities proved their undoing. alvs were highly intelligent and had a talent for magic, but unfortunately, as a species, their fertility was poor. Their population didn’t increase, and in terms of territory, the alv kingdoms located here and there were small. Resenting the fact that such a minor tribe was monopolizing magic technology, the other races’ countries formed an alliance and destroyed the alv kingdoms, one after another. —The alvs’ domain was obliterated. Their glorious history ends here.”