by Yuu Kamiya
—Yes, just as if going in a circle. As Sora spoke bashfully, patting his little sister. Jibril, kneeling beside, watched him with deep interest.
—He probably didn’t realize. His negligence of the fact he himself, at that time, was only ten years old. At ten years old, unraveling the truth behind the words of a three-year-old child, and accepting it. And, on top of that, respecting it. And starting to think about how to become like that. Seeing that he couldn’t win with the same methods, and then immediately searching out his own path. Someone like that…who could do things like that…what would you call them? This man who called himself dumb—probably didn’t realize.
“—I see, so folly and genius are like two sides of a coin—these are deep words.”
Seeing Sora looking up toward the ceiling, Jibril ended up looking up herself. Squinting his eyes, through the library skylight, at the stars in the immaculate night sky, Sora told the story.
“In our old world—humans fly through the sky and even to heavenly bodies.”
“—To tell the truth…I cannot believe that.”
“Yeah, no one could. Not even humans ourselves.”
But there were those who believed in it, believed in the dream. Looking up to the distant sky, aspiring all the more because they were not born with wings. In the end, people, by their own hands, built wings of steel and soared to the sky above. And then hoping higher, hoping faster, flew off the very planet. Because they were born with nothing, they filled themselves with ambition—and went for the other side.
—If you don’t have it, you can look for it.
—If you look and it’s not there, you can make it yourself.
—If you try that and you still can’t get it, you look to the ends of the world.
Being born with nothing. This fact itself was the proof of the potential of the proud weak, humans.
“There are some people who have found it. Not wannabes like me, but the real thing, without compare.”
Not to try to understand was a crime. Because their words—were so self-evident to themselves that they could not explain.
“So it’s our duty as ordinary people to try to get it.”
In which case—.
“We gotta believe before we can do anything. The old king, too.”
As Sora, smiling thus, dropped his gaze back to the map. Jibril simply closed her eyes, created a fantastic light from her hands, and lit Sora’s work.
“What I believe is what you believe, my master and mistress. If you believe in Immanity, I shall simply follow you wherever you may go. There is nothing more.”
In the back of the mind of Steph, who had been listening to the exchange as she hid outside the door. An image flashed by of the back of her grandfather, scorned as foolish, but warm and big. The back of the man, gentle and warm, who always believed in people.
—…a person with whom you believe from your heart that you can trust Immanity…
The cold, calculating man who always doubted people, so far removed from her grandfather, but, for that very reason. Sora, who believed in people’s potential more than anyone. Might it be all right to give it to him—the key her grandfather left? Steph herself still didn’t know what it meant—but. Would he…would Sora earn her grandfather’s approval? Would her grandfather tell her…“You picked the right man”?
“…Sora.”
Kreeek…opened the door at Steph’s hand as Jibril smiled subtly and Sora looked startled. Steph simply—made up her mind, and spoke.
“I have something for you.”
The next day…in the royal bedchamber that had turned into Steph’s room. Steph, Sora, Shiro, and Jibril were all present.
“—So, that’s the story.”
The first thing that was said in reply to Steph, who’d just finished telling everything she remembered, explaining the story of the key, was:
“No question about it, it’s porn.”
…This. Steph fiercely regretted her error in selection of personnel.
“A-are you mad? How do you get that from that story!”
“’Cos it sounded like he got nervous when you mentioned what your dad said.”
“H-he said that was something different!”
“According to statistics in the world Shiro and I come from, 90 percent of men have a hidden stash.”
“…Of R-18 stuff…adult, goods…”
“Right? Yeah, Steph, this will really come in handy. I was in fact bemoaning the lack of pr0n in this world.”
Steph, out of things to say, decided to collapse on the bed quietly.
“But, Master, if you don’t know where the key goes…”
“There is a 100 percent chance that the hiding place for porn is the owner’s own room, i.e., here. So, no problem: in—fact.
“We’ve already found a hidden room. Must be what the key’s for, right?”
“…Excuse me—?”
At these words, Steph lifted her head from the bed and saw Sora and company at a distance from the bed, which she raced to close.
“First of all—I told you the bed was tilted, right? When Shiro fell.”
That must be the time a few days ago when Sora was trembling, thought Steph.
“So we backed up and looked at it carefully, and it was slightly tilted. So, this ornament carved into the footboard is a scale. A scale tilted left, meaning the left side is heavier, meaning there’s a device on the left.”
Calmly. Without any sense of catharsis, Sora simply and calmly unraveled the puzzle.
“Then there’s this bookcase on the left. The spaces between the shelves are slightly uneven. Even though the shelves on the right side of the room are even.”
“Y-yes…n-now that you mention it.”
“But, having said they’re uneven, there’s a pattern of just two distances, large and small.”
Pointing out the shelves in order from the top.
“If we convert these into ones and zeroes we get 01, 00, 11, 10. If we look at this in binary, it’s 1, 0, 3, 2. Then, if we look for books in this room that have over a thousand pages, there’s pretty much just the encyclopedia, right.”
Drawing the encyclopedia from the shelf and opening it, Sora.
“So, the first word on page 1,032 of the encyclopedia is lighthouse, in Immanity. Well, if we’re going to interpret something here as a ‘lighthouse,’ it’s got to be some lighting fixture like a candlestick or a chandelier or something.”
Clomping over to a candlestick by the wall of the room, Sora.
“Also, the word had, at the center, a depressed line, as if made with a pen without ink.”
Steph and Jibril looked.
—Indeed, there was a faint depression.
“Which means it’s the candlestick at the center of the left side of the room. Plus, there are three arrows to the left of the word to indicate an idiom, so—”
He tilted the candlestick, left, three times.
“Finally, to the right, there’s an arrow referring to the related entry harbor on page 605. Which means—”
He tilted the candlestick right once. Then the candlestick came off…
—Revealing four dials inside.
“Now after this is what Shiro solved, so I’ll hand it off.”
They slapped their hands together, and Shiro turned the dials.
“Factorize…the number of times…the lines cross…in lighthouse and harbor…in the Immanity writing system.”
There was a click.
“…Ex-actly…four digits…result: 2642…”
Sora spoke to Steph and Jibril as they watched in a daze. As if showing a swift magic trick, he clapped his hands to get things moving again.
“Right, right—and then, what do you know! Look, behind the curtain, one block in the wall is sticking out oddly!… Oh, ya know, this is kind of tough; last time Shiro and I just barely managed to shove it together to open it; it probably hasn’t been maintained. Jibril, give us a hand.”
“Oh, yes—at
your command.”
Once Jibril did so with a light push.
“And then, the moment you’ve been waiting for—”
Grmmmmm.
“The bookcase moves…”
And, after it finished moving, beyond—
“And here is our locked door. This must be where your key goes, right?”
Playing in his hand with the key he’d received from Steph, carefree.
“—…”
Yes, all too carefree. All too easygoing. The trick that the previous king had probably racked his brains to prepare—. So leisurely that even Jibril was left speechless while Steph shouted:
“Wh-wh-when did you figure this out?!”
“I thought I already said—the day Shiro fell from the bed.”
Shiro nodded.
—“Wait, wait. Hold on,” said Steph. “…You refer to the day I was made into a dog and you played against Jibril?”
“Yeah, good memory.”
“I couldn’t forget that trauma even if I wanted to! But anyhow—!”
—That day, first thing in the morning, Steph had found Sora shaking. They’d played blackjack, and Steph had lost. And then they’d gone out to meet the nobles—and then to the library.
“When did you have time to find this—?!”
“When you got called out about the nobles, there was about an hour before you came back, right?”
He was saying casually that he’d solved it in an hour. This contrivance—the puzzle over which Steph had brooded forever. As if it was just to kill time. Though Steph gaped, still, apparently unaware of just what he and his sister had done, Sora continued.
“But, yeah, last time we got stuck because we couldn’t find the key.”
“B-but, Master, a door like that—”
“Yeah, we could have even just picked the lock, but what fun is a puzzle-solving game if you cheat.”
Sora smiling, Shiro nodding. Yes, it was just a game…
And then, softening his expression, going, eh-heh, eh-heh.
“Sooo, shall we proceed to view these treasure texts he went so far to hide—oh, I’ll cover Shiro’s eyes.”
“…Mmg…not fair…”
“Time is unfair in a fair way. Just wait seven more years.”
“I’m telling you, it’s not porn!”
Sora placed the key he’d received from Steph in the keyhole and turned it. The door opened with the groan of high-quality metal fittings.
……Sora, though he’d just been charging under the assumption it was porn—along with everyone else, all present, somehow—was struck dumb.
Inside was a windowless library. A dust-covered study, with wooden shelves buried in books, ornaments with a tasteful air, a desk, a chair. But, contrasting to its peace, everyone must have felt it, that certain dread. That told them this wasn’t a place into which to step lightly, that held back their feet. With a gulp, Sora slowly went through the doorway of the study. He stopped his eyes upon the book that lay open on the study table in the center, stroking just once the surface of a page rendered illegible by dust. The writing that appeared was bold, and it said just one thing.
To the monarch not of Immanity’s last days—but of its resurgence, we leave this.
Sora carefully turned the page, and it continued.
As king, we are not the Wise.
Rather we shall most likely be known as a rare Fool. Still, we take up our pen for the sake of the monarch of resurgence, not us. In faith that our shallow and desperate struggles may serve the monarch to come.
“……”
Peering at Sora, standing at a loss for words, Shiro and Jibril understood and felt at a loss themselves.
—What was there was everything. Over the span of countless matches with other nations in the life of the so-called fool king. Including all eight matches with the Eastern Union. The substance of this man who had charged headily, lost unceremoniously, and dedicated himself to exposing their hand—all of it.
—Knowing that, at the rate things were going, the human race would extinguish itself soon, and that his actions would only hasten this. But taking the offensive anyway, under the assumption of defeat: That was the part he played, the fool. Dedicated to exposing the cards of the Eastern Union and all his enemies, while scorned as the rarest of fool kings. All the memories he had managed to grasp as a mere human—.
—It must have been.
“The old king…didn’t lose his memories.”
“But—how!”
Jibril, wondering how he could have escaped the Eastern Union’s memory erasure she hadn’t been able to escape herself. But Sora had an idea. Just a guess—but close to a conviction.
“Jibria. A fool with money walks into a casino. What do you do to empty him out?”
“—Make him look like there’s a game he can win, and get him to attack…many…times…”
Jibril opened her eyes as if she’d seen it.
“The old king was probing them. Eight times. Intentionally giving them worthless land—and then, to take it back.”
But even if they didn’t erase his memory, there was no way the Eastern Union could allow him to talk. Therefore, probably—.
“Maybe he said he wouldn’t tell anyone his whole life…”
But that—didn’t cover after death… That was it. For humans, unable to use magic like the Elves, to grasp and remember the nature of the memory-erasing game was the only chance they had.
“—‘Let the next king be the greatest gambler among humans’…eh.”
“……Yeah.”
Sora whispered the will of the late king with feeling, and Shiro understood the meaning and took in a breath herself. He—must have known. Aware of the flaw in the tournament to decide the monarch, that other countries could interfere, he had ordered it anyway. What he sought—was gamers who could get past it, while still only human, to take the crown. For only one who could break through foreign interference head-on would be able to make use of these records. For these were records that made very clear at length his conclusion that they could never win fighting fair.
“…Steph.”
“Wh-what is it?”
To Steph, uncomprehending, perhaps, of the situation, starting at Sora’s serious face.
“…Your grandfather…no, the previous king…he was really your grandfather.”
Remembering Steph, who’d even bet her panties to reveal their hand.
He’d been reviled as a fool, by his people, by the world. And he’d went on playing the fool, dedicating himself to revealing his enemies’ hand. What kind of heart had such resolve? To keep believing in the “monarch of resurgence”—such faith in Immanity. He had gambled on the chance that, from the humans at the very bottom of the ranks, someone would appear who could rout the other races. On the infinitely near zero, but nonzero chance, he had placed his faith and bet his honor, his name, his pride…his own life.
A life of shame and failure piled up high to set the stage for one invincible blow. The two-in-one “monarch of resurgence” with whom that blow was entrusted could only stand and stare. Sora looked down at his shirt which read “I <3 PPL” and simply said.
“See, Jibril, there are some like that—what do you think: pretty sick, huh?”
“…You…may be right.”
With the sense that she’d caught a glimpse of that in which her master believed, Jibril, intending to revise her understanding, closed her eyes and nodded. Sora, taking out his phone, started his task scheduler.
What he slid his finger to input was, indeed, without hesitation, this one phrase.
—Objective: Swallow up the Eastern Union.
CHAPTER 4
CHECKMATE
The embassy—no, once Elkia’s castle, now the “Empire State Building.” Looking up from below, Shiro had one comment.
“…My neck hurts.”
“Jeez, why does it have to be this big… Wait, Immanity doesn’t have this kind of construction technology, does it?�
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To Sora, complaining as he held his neck, Jibril replied indifferently.
“That goes without saying. The Eastern Union remodeled the building any number of times after they took it.”
Hmm… Sora answered, “…Well, I was already pretty sure…but, yeah, I think we’re gonna have to just charge into this baby.”
“…? What are you talking about?—And, wait—”
Steph, with a tinge of irritation, pointed to the ground.
“May I finally ask what we are doing here?”
—And likewise. Shiro and Jibril, having also been led here with no explanation, looked to Sora as if agreeing with Steph’s words.
“Soft, soft, I come but to lay my eyes upon the fair ‘animal girls.’”
Sora dodged the question and marched ahead.
“H—wait a minute, this may be in Elkia’s borders, but it’s an embassy, you know!” protested Steph.
“I’m aware. And it was our castle.”
“Ngh, no, I-I mean—i-it’s a violation of sovereignty!”
“Who said anything about violating anyone’s sovereignty? We have an appointment.”
“Wha? That’s—”
Impossible, Steph was going to say before she was interrupted.
“Right—Gramps?”
Just as Sora said this…
…The door of the giant building opened to reveal a figure.
“—Welcome, King Sora and Queen Shiro of Elkia.”
A gray-haired, wolf-eared, bushy-tailed, hakama-wearing—Werebeast. Descended the steps of the entrance to the height of four people or so and bowed deeply.
“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am the deputy ambassador of the Eastern Union in Elkia—my name is Ino Hatsuse.”
Thus deferentially spoke the old man—Ino Hatsuse.
“Uh, what? H-how did you make contact?!”
Sora didn’t know what Steph was getting all that excited about, but he answered.
