by Yuu Kamiya
“How much dairy farming and industry could you fit on that land area? If your gramps hadn’t gambled until he was in his shorts like those dumbass nobles, we would have had twice the amount of land we do, you know?”
“W-well, it’s—!”
As if he couldn’t stop his mouth once it had started, Sora grumbled.
“Yeah, he sure was your grandfather… Maybe he believed in that ‘luck’ shit, that if he kept playing the game eventually he’d win… We’re talking about competition between nations… Didn’t he understand what that meant?”
—Yes, a personal game and a battle of nations were two entirely different stories. A game that the agent plenipotentiary, a party responsible for other people’s lives, played with their lives as collateral. That was a battle of nations—a play for dominion. It was a game in which each race, each nation, would mobilize all the knowledge and strategy they had their disposal. To challenge a nation that was ready for this eight times—.
“I mean, is there a more positive interpretation than ‘He was drunk’…”
But, shaking her shoulders, looking down, squeezing out words, Steph.
“Grandfather—it is true…had not much of a head, for games…”
But—she lifted her head and shrieked.
“He was not the sort of madman who would bear the lives of millions of Immanities without care! Unlike you two, he was a model of common decency!”
But, given the actual situation resulting from this model…
“If throwing away half the territory is ‘a model of common decency,’ I’m happy to be an uncommon deviant.”
“~~! I’ve had enough of this!!”
Shaking her shoulders, yet unable to argue, Steph ran away with tears in her eyes. Watching her recede, Shiro muttered.
“…Brother…that’s harsh…”
“…What do you want me to say after seeing that…”
Sora spoke as if he had many things to think about, with his melancholy switch all the way on, the excitement of a moment ago now lost.
—Then. He noticed the tea and cakes Steph had brought and left on the table. Faster than Sora, Shiro took some and stuffed them in her mouth.
“…Mm, good…!”
Hearing Shiro’s usually monotonous voice take a leap, Sora picked at the food reluctantly.
“……Damn it, it really is good…”
Sweet, but not cloying, and so fluffy. Though they had eaten Steph’s delicious homemade sweets the other day, still those paled in comparison. Probably she’d looked at the recipe. And put her own touch on it, struggling in the kitchen. Imagined Shiro as she stared at Sora. While Jibril merely closed her eyes, waiting for orders. Tearing at his hair, Sora spoke.
“……Ahhh—fine, I’ll give it a shot!”
Elkia Royal Castle: the former royal bedchamber. Since Sora had in fact taken the one-story structure erected in the courtyard, it was now Steph’s bedroom. Buried in its gigantic, literally king-size bed. Sniffling and muttering, Steph.
“Liar… Didn’t you say you were going to prove that Grandfather was right…”
Steph was on her stomach, wetting the pillow she held to herself with tears.
“Grandfather…was not a fool!”
Holding the key she always carried around on her person, she saw her grandfather’s face.
……
Grandfather, what is this key for?
Oh, now there, Stephanie, you mustn’t touch that.
Why not? What’s it for?
This is the key to a place with something very important to your grandfather.
Important? Oh, I remember what Father was saying.
“Grandfather collects ‘books he can’t show people.’”
N-no, no, Stephanie! That is another matter!
Th-this is—the key of hope.
Hope…? What does that mean?
Ho-ho… Someday, you can have this, Stephanie.
Really?!
Yes… But, Stephanie, listen closely to my words.
When one day you find a person with whom you believe from your heart that you can trust Elkia, give this to them.
……
She’d thought back, for some reason, to events over ten years past. Two years since she’d received the key from her grandfather, when he’d foreseen his passing. The key whose lock was still a mystery to her, but of which she never let go for a moment. Why was she thinking of this now?
—Sora. That man. Who’d affronted her grandfather. How could she ever give it to him?
“Dora, do you have a moment?”
“Eeyaaaaaaugh!”
Vipp—Jibril appeared out of space, peering at Steph from her bedside, causing Steph to leap and scream in an excess of shock.
“Wh-wh-wha-what is it?! Y-you’re trespassing!!”
“I have but a simple matter I wish to convey to you, so please don’t worry about that.”
Um, that wasn’t exactly the point.
“It is my recommendation that you return to the library at this time.”
“—What? At this time? Do you know what time—”
But, perhaps inattentive of Steph’s opinion, simply bowing once and continuing unperturbed, Jibril continued.
“I came according to my own judgment that it would be better for my master. The decision is yours to make.”
With this unasked-for announcement, she once more melted into space and disappeared.
…That was the Flügel for you: their thinking must have been totally different from Immanity’s. Steph was disconcerted over the disjoint, but chewed over Jibril’s words.
—So she was trying to tell her to go back to Sora now?
“…You must be joking; how do you expect me to go right after that!”
Steph pulled up her blanket, but the ticktock of the clock in the room kept her puffy red eyes open. The words of her grandfather that she’d just remembered. The man who’d just affronted him. Could it be just because Jibril came and talked to her, or was there some meaning in her having remembered that?
“…Ohh, fine, then!”
Flumping aside her blanket, Steph got up and out of bed.
Elkia Grand National Library. Though Steph had been here many times before, for some reason she still entered with quiet steps. In any case, Sora and the rest were probably in the room at the back as usual. With that assumption, she slinked up to the room and found the door slightly open. Peeking in, she saw Sora, Shiro, and Jibril.
“Master, don’t you think it’s about time to retire?”
“Mm…just a little longer…”
But, turning the page of the book, staring unceasingly at the map, Sora answered absently. On his lap breathed Shiro, asleep, buried in pages, as Jibril pulled a blanket over her and spoke.
“I suspect that, regardless of how hard you look, it will not be possible to defend the folly of the previous king.”
As Jibril glanced as if aware of Steph, Steph hid with a gasp.
…It wasn’t as if you could escape the notice of a Flügel just by being sneaky. But it seemed you could at least escape Sora’s. Sora answered with no sign of having noticed her, and with little cheer.
“—That’s not what I’m trying to do. I just noticed something funny.”
“Is it not the case that you…‘found something,’ for the sake of Dora?”
“I was just scouring the records for how not to conquer an animal-eared kingdom!”
Sora barked indignantly at the sly Jibril.
“Well, what do you mean by ‘funny’?”
“Let’s see now… There are several things.”
As Jibril continued to smile with amusement, Sora answered stone-faced:
“Like I was saying this morning—why does the Eastern Union erase players’ memories?”
That ought to deter anyone from challenging them. It was hard to see the point. At Sora’s question, Jibril put her hand to her chin and thought carefully.
“Perhaps they intended to
steadily build their domain until then, and then close themselves off.”
“Yeah, that’s the most obvious answer. And it’s true that in the last ten years, only Elkia has challenged them.”
If that was their plan, you could say they’d succeeded. But, then, why had the old king challenged them? Eight times?
“Well, you know, with the brains of Immanity, anything is possible!”
“That’s what I was thinking when I was clutching my head. But it’s weird.”
Sora answered the smug Jibril without changing his expression.
“Eight times—that’s not a number of times a decent person shouldering the lives of millions would attempt just out of frustration.”
“—…!”
At the sign that Sora had actually been listening to her opinion. Behind the door, Steph gasped quietly.
“So I researched the Eastern Union’s continental domain.”
Sora, pointing to the map.
“First, this here is a mine for a metal called armatite, right… This is the first place the old king bet.”
According to Jibril’s books, the melting point of armatite was three thousand degrees. Such a metal was beyond the present abilities of Immanity to process—in other words, the mountain was worthless to them.
“Next, this big plain. The Eastern Union has large-scale farming here; it’s a key food source for them… This is the second place the old king bet.”
By now, the Eastern Union had developed the land and turned it into a plain, but at the time of the game, it was a marsh—in other words, again, worthless.
“This coal mine was third. Again, it’s a resource that Immanity cannot yet use. And then the fourth time, the fifth time, the sixth time…until he bet the castle the eighth time, the old king—never bet anything that was valuable.”
But most important. Sora said, pounding the map.
“Isn’t all of the Eastern Union’s continental domain—originally Elkian territory?”
—Indeed, all the territory the Eastern Union possessed on the continent was that which they had collected from the old king.
“You mean the previous king handed over to the Eastern Union all the continental resources they needed?”
“In the end, yeah. But the point is, until then, the Eastern Union had no territory on the continent, right?”
Which meant.
“The one who was trapped—was the Eastern Union.”
A high-tech nation with that kind of construction technology, an advanced civilization capable of using resources with a melting point of three thousand degrees. A civilization that advanced—would need continental resources. In this world where everything was decided by games, if even trade was decided by games. The tightly defensive Eastern Union would be in a tight spot.
“But what the old king kept asking for was ‘one coastal city of the Eastern Union.’”
That made sense: they’d get more maritime resources, and they’d get technology. It was a reasonable condition. Except that, if it was the Eastern Union that was trapped, they should have been able to squeeze them for more. Why did he do it eight times? Holding out land worthless to Immanity, little by little.
“He had to have some reason…”
Why—did the Eastern Union erase memories when that would be a loss? Why—did Elven Gard challenge them four times? Why—…no, wait. That wasn’t it.
“Why…did the old king stop after eight times?”
Look at it the other way. Not why did he challenge them, but why did he stop challenging them after so many times? Until the eighth time, when he bet the Royal Castle, he’d only bet things that were worthless. He could have stopped after seven times or nine. Why eight times—? Then, having thought that far, Sora. Reached a hypothesis.
“What if the old king—hadn’t lost his memories?”
Taking out the map, he compared it against the data he’d gathered. Staring at the borders of several years, he whirled his thoughts around at blinding speed to confirm his flash of insight. The hypothesis was still full of holes, but it was worth looking into. The biggest holes were two. How did he avoid having his memory erased? And—
Meanwhile, to the furiously thinking Sora. Jibril whispered hesitantly.
“Master. You are, in theory, an Immanity.”
“—Mm, huh? What’s this all of a sudden?”
Sora, taken aback, stopped his train of thought and looked at Jibril.
“However, it is not the case that all Immanities think as deeply as you before they act, Master.”
An indirect way of checking Sora as he tried to force a justification for the previous king’s folly. This was the most she could say as a servant, to keep him on the right path—this faint admonition from Jibril, who could never cast doubt on her lord. But Sora brushed it off.
“But some do. And usually—no one understands them.”
This time staring at the data he’d organized on the tablet, Sora.
“To try to understand them is my duty.”
As if reading the mind of Jibril, who had fallen silent.
“Jibril, it’s okay if you just say it.
“This puny, powerless, abject animal. How are we supposed to believe in the humans of this world, who to you are nothing more than lower animals, both physically and mentally—that’s what you want to say, right?”
“—No, I certainly didn’t…”
…She certainly did. After all, no matter what kind of folly was undertaken by the previous king, what could you expect from Immanity? Jibril had decided to follow not the lower life-form known as Immanity, but the two unknown entities known as Sora and Shiro, who broke all conventional wisdom. But, at Sora’s next words:
“The answer is simple—I don’t believe in humans.”
“What?”
Neither Jibril nor Steph, outside the room, could believe her ears.
“You probably think that, since Shiro and I are from another world, we’re different from Immanity in this world, but it’s totally the same over there. Everyone, everywhere, they’re all just dumb, unbelievably crass animals—including me.”
In Shiro’s face as Sora deprecated himself…was nothing but thick, deep despair.
—Their old world, covered in optical fiber, was a world shrunk to its limits, a civilization created by unbelievable wit and wisdom. Yet…the massive flood of information this technology made possible, somehow…only taught them more and more how foolish people could be.
“…Humans are shit. It’s the same no matter what world you go to.”
As Sora spit out these words, Steph clenched her key.
—She couldn’t trust Sora with her grandfather’s key, after all. This man…could not possibly be worthy of trust. As Steph, with these thoughts, started to move away from the door…
“But I believe in their potential.”
—Still Sora’s words held her. Jibril knelt to sit by Sora, who was tracing the floor.
“The evidence—is here.”
Sora stroked the head of Shiro as she lay in his lap, breathing softly, asleep. His sister was exhausted after stuffing an enormous mass of information into her little head.
“If all humans were as useless as me, I’d have given up and hung myself long ago.”
The expression of the brother now caressing his sister was not the man just seen in the depths of despair and disillusionment—but someone else entirely.
“In the world, there are some…”
The eyes of a gentle brother, squinting as if looking at light. Saw hope and dreams…a white sister, her chest minutely rising and falling.
“Some who—because of that puniness, that foolishness you see, come to embody learning, that special kind of divine potential, of hope, of fantasy, in a little body like that…the real thing.”
“……”
“See, I’m a dumbass, all right.” He chuckled bitterly. “I’m great at spotting ’em. The world is really full of dumbasses—sickeningly so,” said Sora.
But then.
“And yet…this girl was different.”
Gently passing his hand over the head on his lap, he continued.
“The day I first met Shiro—it was eight years ago.”
Sora’s face relaxed, as if he were thinking about something that just happened yesterday.
“This kid who was just three at the time… Can you guess what the first thing she said was what she heard my name?”
…You really are…“empty”…
—Not getting it, Jibril knit her brow. With a laugh, Sora was made to explain.
“This kid who was already a polyglot at the age of three saw the pun between my name, Sora, and me, who she could see right away was just smiling just because everyone else was, and insulted me using its double meaning—isn’t that funny?”
At these words, still without shame or anger, but rather as if delirious, Sora smiled boldly and spoke.
“My heart skipped a beat. I was so excited—the ‘real thing’ really did exist.”
Someone who flew beyond his petty delusions without even taking notice of them. Someone who answered when he asked, “How can you do that?” By asking back straight-faced, “How can you not?” Someone overwhelming, impossible to catch up with, who saw a different world.
“—To be the new ‘big brother’ of the real thing…”
With a strained smile, but also with resolve.
“I knew I wasn’t worthy, but I wanted to be. I decided to believe. I thought that, no matter how worthless I was, if I tried like my life depended on it to understand, maybe I could be—maybe not like my sister, but almost.
“So, I don’t believe in humans.”
—Just as he didn’t believe in himself.
“But I believe in their potential.”
—Just as he could believe in his sister.
“The potential of humans is infinite. It’s just that it’s infinite both in the positive and negative directions.”
Thus people could be infinitely wise, or infinitely foolish—and so.
“So it’s like, maybe, if I’m as foolish as possible, I’ll be able to catch up with my sister, who is as wise as possible?”
