by Akira Kareno
You’re fine with that, right? someone deep in his heart whispered to him. Forget everything.
“—I could never.” He waved away the invitation with his still-murky reasoning.
He should wash his face to make himself feel alert. Good idea. He sat up from the couch.
A small girl rolled off his stomach.
“…Ow.”
A girl with ashen-colored hair sat up as she complained disinterestedly.
She rubbed her eyes and looked around.
“Huh? Where is this? Why am I…?”
Willem knew this girl. He recognized her. He remembered her. It was Nephren Ruq Insania. A leprechaun. She lived at the faerie warehouse. She was one of the protectors of Regule Aire.
“……Oh—”
Off came the lid. Once he remembered one thing, the rest came quickly. Like a forceful pull on a string, he saw images replay in his mind, one after the other. Conscious of his own deep confusion, Willem called to her:
“Nephren…?”
It was five hundred years too early to find this girl on the surface.
He called the name of the girl who should not have been there.
He would have noticed right away had he been a little more levelheaded.
He would have noticed the small chunk of metal emitting a soft light sitting on top of his rapidly beating heart.
That was the language comprehension talisman. It was an ancient (?) treasure, one that conveyed someone’s very intentions through language. Once it was activated, one did not need to kindle any more venenum. Regardless of the user’s intentions, it would convert all words directed to the user. It once helped Willem in his daily life just after he’d woken up in Regule Aire and didn’t understand the official language at all, and it was now starting to work again.
No matter what anyone said, Willem Kmetsch was still a seasoned hero. His old self would have noticed right away exactly what that light meant. What exactly it meant for the world he was seeing right now. It would have shown him everything. But now—
“Mm… Hmm?”
He couldn’t hear Nephren’s voice as she looked around, puzzled.
“Dad? What’s wrong, Dad?”
He couldn’t hear Almaria’s slippered feet approaching.
He couldn’t see anything, couldn’t think anything.
He was in a world that was neither dream nor reality, just a blank white world—
And all he could feel was the distant warmth of a tear rolling down his cheek.
Afterword
Of Course It’s an Afterword
I like stories that make us notice things.
I like stories where, upon reading it over from the beginning, I end up smacking my cheek and exclaiming, “So that’s what that was!” Cost-effective books that can be read over and over are great, too. So I really hope the story I’m writing can be enjoyed in the same way.
Long time no see—this is Kareno.
…And as you can see, we’ve continued! We’ve made it this far! I think we’ve come to a really bad stopping point, but in a way, that’s how it always is (how awful)!
With this and that, I now present to you Book Three of WorldEnd, even though I said I didn’t know if I could in the afterword of the last volume!
Seriously, just between you and me, if I may be so blunt, this series was actually not supposed to keep going at one point. I was sort of vaguely thinking to myself, Hmm, maybe I should switch gears and write an absurdly cheerful story. I managed to get all this way only because of all the readers who decided to stick with me through the first two volumes. Again, thank you so much!
By the way, I actually didn’t used to like butter cake very much.
I think it’s because long ago, when I was a kid, I ate a very terrible one at a homestay once. It felt like cheap butter was slathered all over my tongue, and there was too much for me to stomach, and my host was just sitting there smiling as she watched me eat, so my eyes watered as I ate it. I finished the whole thing. I really could not stand butter cake after that.
But since I was starting to write this story, I thought, Why not? and bought one at a nearby store. It was so fluffy, and I ate it as I worked on the early developments in the story. It was seriously delicious. My eyes were glittering as I wrote.
Man, butter cake really is the best. I think I’ll go out and get another one when I finish writing this afterword.
Next time, the past, present, and future will all meet, and his story, her story, and the girls’ story will all start heading toward the same conclusion—at least, I hope we can reach that point.
Summer 2015
AKIRA KARENO
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