A Game's Opportunity Becomes Reality, Episode 194
============================================================
A Game's Opportunity Becomes Reality, Episode 194
45. Each Side's Position (4)
Rondel and Earth.
Earth and Rondel.
These two worlds seem to be far more deeply connected than we think.
"Come to think of it, wasn't there a plaque at the entrance of this ruin that said 'Exchange Nation'?"
At Blake's question, Arcia and I nodded.
When we were exploring the sunken village in the sea the other day, we saw a plaque with that phrase written on it at the ruin's entrance.
"That would mean that long ago, the two worlds were aware of each other and shared exchanges. Of course, it's not confirmed, but the circumstantial evidence strongly suggests it."
"I think the same. Thanks to that, it feels like all the common sense I built up on Earth is crumbling."
If anyone other than us had heard Selin's story, they would have dismissed it as nonsense.
Calling it blasphemy, no less.
But in this world, the ones with the most information about Earth are none other than us.
So we couldn't just brush off Selin's story.
"But should we really dismiss this as mere coincidence?"
"What do you mean?"
"I just think there's too much here to call it all coincidence."
And indeed...
Me, being from Earth.
Me, obtaining the Opportunity of a Grand Mage from Earth.
Even obtaining an ancient ruin that allows me to stay on Earth for a short while.
And on top of that, I dragged a demon worshiper here to interrogate, and he said that a demon king from Earth was behind him.
With all of this revolving around me, there was no way I could see it as mere coincidence.
"It definitely is excessive."
"They say when coincidence piles upon coincidence, it becomes inevitability. I wonder if we're not running along rails someone laid out for us."
Blake also looked at Selin with an expression of discomfort.
"We don't need to judge right away. There's still plenty of information to gather."
That's true.
I too followed his gaze toward Selin, when a question suddenly came to mind.
"Wait."
"Yes?"
"The demon king on Earth is called 'Lord Exceed,' right? You said that demon king ordered an attack on the management terminal of the Hollywood System?"
"That's correct."
"How is that even possible? Even in this world, no one knows that information. How could a being from another world find the management terminal and give such an order?"
With new facts revealed, new questions arise.
At my question, Selin wore a bewildered expression, as if her resolute look from battle had vanished somewhere.
"I don't know that either. The demon king is such a great being that I just took it as 'that's just how it is' without questioning it."
For a moment, Grand Duke Lucas, who must have been reborn on Earth, flashed through my mind, but I shook my head.
If Grand Duke Lucas were involved, an attack aimed at me wouldn't have ended at just this level.
Not getting an answer, I clicked my tongue and asked her.
"Then do you know why the demon king of Earth takes an interest in Rondel?"
"That I know!"
Sensing my gaze turn cold, as if to ask what she actually knew, she gave a fawning smile and began to explain.
"The creator of the world centered on Rondel is called 'Sepia,' and the creator of the world centered on Earth is called 'Caius.'"
I asked her to explain the demon king, and instead she suddenly starts talking about gods.
But since this was the first time I'd heard of a god on Earth, I listened to her story with half disbelief, half curiosity.
"However, the god of Earth, Caius, has reportedly lost his power and faded into extinction."
"A god can go extinct?"
"Yes. It is said that when a god is forgotten from the memories of their creations, they naturally lose power. The god Caius was a god forgotten from the memories of his creations, and in the flow of time, he eventually perished."
The name feels similar to the original pronunciation of Chaos, which means disorder, but I've definitely never heard the name Caius before.
"Fade into extinction if forgotten by people? Then why not just periodically make your presence known like the goddess Sepia of Rondel?"
"I think so too, but I don't know the reason. I'm merely remembering what the demon king told me."
I nodded, signaling her to continue. [New Terms] Caius = Caius
"However, it seems the goddess Sepia has taken an interest in that world where the god disappeared, and she has begun to interfere."
"The goddess Sepia?"
"Yes, and because of that, great chaos is reportedly erupting in that world. Perhaps the goddess is planning to merge the two worlds. If that happens, it would cause tremendous chaos not only on Earth but also in Rondel. Chaos accompanied by enormous devastation."
Blake and I tilted our heads in confusion.
The gist of the story roughly adds up.
After all, we do know that great chaos has actually occurred on Earth.
But her claim was so unexpected that it was hard to believe easily.
"So your goal is to interfere with the goddess, or if you fail to interfere, to minimize the chaos?"
"Yes, that's right. You understood right away."
"It's hard not to, given the flow of the story. It's a clichéd plot."
The Myriad Mirror records her words as truth, but the Myriad Mirror catches a person's emotions it doesn't see through the essence of an event.
In other words, Selin believes her words are true, but there's no guarantee that what the demon king told her is actually true.
And how could it be otherwise the other party is the demon king.
There's no law saying he can't deceive people with lies.
"I don't blindly trust the goddess, but I can't just take the word of a demon king from another world and treat her as a villain either."
"Besides, a demon king claiming to move to prevent chaos that alone makes it less believable."
Blake and I looked at each other and shrugged.
At our remarks, Selin looked momentarily indignant, but when I reached for the holy water container again, she calmed down as if nothing had happened.
"They're thinking too highly of their own position, for people who contracted with the demon race because they each wanted something... I think we can just take this with a grain of salt. But if the goddess really intends to stitch the two worlds together, that's going to be a headache."
"Can she even do that?"
"It depends on the method. A god isn't a god for nothing."
I recalled the goddess Sepia who had descended during the Saintess and Holy Son contest.
Back then, I got a cold impression from her rather than that of an all-embracing Mother, but she didn't seem heartless enough to endanger her creations out of greed either.
'Of course, I shouldn't apply human standards to a god.'
After all, she was the one who accepted the request of a mere human, Grand Duke Lucas, and sent me to Earth.
So I couldn't think of her only in a negative light.
"Then let's accept the story for now, keeping the possibility open."
"Agreed."
I had stepped away from the iron bars and was quietly organizing my thoughts, about to continue with a new question, when
"Ah! How about we try talking directly to the demon king said to be behind this woman?"
"What? Talk to him?"
Blake pointed his finger toward the door of the ruin.
In that direction lay the dimensional teleportation device.
"If we take this woman to Earth, we'd be able to converse freely with the demon king, wouldn't we?"
At Blake's words, my eyes went wide.
Certainly, if we could converse with the demon king as he said, we'd be able to obtain far more information including the parts this woman claimed not to know.
"Isn't that too dangerous?"
"It is, but we hold the initiative. If we wanted to, we could turn the demon king's plans to dust at any moment."
"But we'd be giving away our weakness too. The fact that I'm Grand Duke Lucas's disciple would be revealed."
"Even if the demon king knows that, the only ones who could spread that information are his own followers. If demon worshipers spread it, what would it look like? Just them shouting, 'Hey, I'm a demon worshiper, and our demon king says Grand Duke Lawrence is Lucas's heir!'"
"That's true."
"If demon worshipers spread such a rumor, they'd only be putting themselves in danger, and since you're basically their sworn enemy, you could frame them as trying to take revenge by slandering you."
Right.
I have the Blue Moon and the administrator authority of the Hollywood System, so wrapping the truth in a lie wouldn't be difficult at all.
At this point, I couldn't help but be persuaded.
"Alright. Let's go then."
And so, with a mix of worry, curiosity, and optimism, I decided to make a brief trip to Earth.
* * *
News of the Count of Reiers' territory vanishing.
The royal family of the Walter Kingdom was thrown into complete chaos upon hearing the news.
"What in the world is this! What on earth has happened!?"
"The Royal Magic Tower is conducting an investigation, but they say they cannot determine the cause at all. They claim there is no trace of magic or natural disaster whatsoever... They say the island simply vanished as cleanly as if scooped out with a spoon."
The Count of Reiers' territory was an island domain, smaller in area than other peer domains, but with 2 small cities and 1 large city included, it was by no means a negligible size.
To compare it to Earth, it would be roughly the size of four Jeju Islands combined.
It was hard to comprehend that such a territory had disappeared in the blink of an eye without leaving a single trace.
Because of this, the King of the Walter Kingdom snapped at his ministers with irritation.
-Bang!
"Nonsense! From the recent abnormal weather in the Count of Reiers' territory to all these bizarre events happening in succession, you haven't figured out a single thing and just keep saying the cause is unknown! Do you ministers even have any drive!?"
"We are deeply ashamed! But please believe us! We are doing our utmost in the investigation!"
"Then bring me at least one result that makes sense!"
And so the ministers had to grovel before the King's wrath, and eventually the head of the Walter Kingdom's Royal Magic Tower, who was caught in the middle and taking the brunt of it, made a new proposal.
"Your Majesty, to uncover the cause, we need the aid of a Mage of a higher level."
"You want to request help from other nations?"
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
"You fool! We can't solve an incident that happened in our own home, so now we're reaching out overseas? Are you suggesting we advertise the incompetence of the Walter Kingdom, the leader of the Southern Three Nations!"
"Th-That is not what I meant."
But the King did not accept the Mage Tower head's proposal.
"We must prevent any information about this incident from leaking as much as possible! Make sure nothing gets out to the outside! Focus on the investigation so that no one says 'we don't know' or 'we can't tell' at the press conference later!"
What the King wanted was not the rescue of lives.
It was that the 'King's authority' and the 'nation's authority' not be diminished by this incident.
Thanks to that, the news of the Count of Reiers' territory vanishing in the Walter Kingdom was not immediately revealed to the outside.
It was only a full day after the incident that the Blue Moon, which considered the Walter Kingdom relatively low priority and didn't pay it much attention, sensed something was off and launched its own independent investigation.
The Blue Moon quickly identified the cause once it began its investigation, but since Adrian, the intended recipient of that information, had entered the Dragonlands, the information could not be delivered in time.
And so Adrian remained unaware that one of Rondel's territories had been dropped whole onto the Earth he was heading to.
* * *
Without revealing myself at my family home in Jung-dong, Bucheon, I arrived at an uninhabited island located in Japan.
It was a measure to avoid exposing my parents' existence on Earth to the demon, just in case.
In fact, since my first connection, I had stayed on Earth three separate times for ten minutes each, having conversations with my Mother.
So there was no 'I must see them right now' or 'I feel like I'm going to cry from missing my parents.'
The time ratio between Rondel and Earth is 10:1.
Ten days in Rondel equals one day on Earth.
From Mother's perspective, her dead son had been visiting every two or three days.
"Connection available time."
Thanks to connecting regularly, even if briefly, I had become familiar with using the dimensional transport device.
[You can remain connected for 3 hours, 1 minute, and 20 seconds.]
[This device is currently charged to 96%.]
A holographic window appeared before my eyes in response to my muttering, relaying the information.
Fully charging the dimensional transport device takes a full 90 days in Rondel.
That's why I had been making short connections all along, and thanks to that, I was able to secure nearly 3 hours of connection time now.
"Hey, try talking to the demon."
Selin, who wore a puzzled expression, tilted her head at my question.
Probably because we'd appeared on an uninhabited island, she didn't seem to realize this place was Earth.
At my instruction, she said okay and used the technique the demon worshipers called 'prayer.'
"Oh!?"
It seemed the demon had answered her call.
I used the thought-sharing spell on her.
[What is this situation?]
And then the demon's deep voice reached all of us, including myself.