Chapter 97

“Anyway, just let me handle the excuses. Let’s jump right to scheduling. I need a day I can take PTO. Hmm… That means we would leave the day after tomorrow… Oh.” Miranda stopped and looked off into space as if she had suddenly thought of something. “…That’s right, we have an all-hands meeting the day after tomorrow. Maybe the weekend, then? No, Ruin has a budget thing this weekend…and it’s going to happen again the same time next month, so we’d have to leave…” She pored over the calendar on her screen, scrolling through day after day after day, her schedule broken down into detailed plans. “Fay…,” she said. “Yes, ma’am?” “I think I can take a couple days off in the summer two years from now.” “Somehow, I’m not surprised.” “…Me neither. Anyway, I’ll make it work somehow. I’ll do overtime until I drop, I guess. Haaah…” Miranda’s shoulders slumped. She looked like she might cry. 3 The seventeenth floor of the Arcane Court branch office was a special one devoted to receiving important guests, and Leshea’s room there was even more special than the others. “I guess haste doesn’t always make waste,” Fay said, putting his communications device into his pocket. He stood in a reception area that doubled as a living room. It was piled with toys and games of all kinds: decks of cards, darts, and even a roulette table. “The chief secretary says she managed to force some vacation into next week. We just have to wait until then.” “Just wait?” Pearl asked. “It means we’re going to sit around playing games.” As he and Pearl were discussing the situation, Uroboros was eagerly examining one of the games. “Oh-ho! So this is The Game of Another Life? The events of a human life are written on the squares, and you pass through them to arrive at the goal.” She rolled some dice, with the roll totaling six. She moved her piece that many spaces along the board sitting on the table. “Ooh, I landed on the ‘payday’ space. How does this work? It says you get a salary based on your profession. I’m undefeated, so I’ll take a hundred million goals…” “Wait, what are you doing?!” “Hold it right there, Mistress Undefeated!” Pearl and Nel both tried to intervene as Uroboros grabbed handfuls of (fake) bills. “There’s no such profession as ‘undefeated’!” Pearl said. “You’re just a regular company employee, so you get ten thousand goals. Which is one of these bills.” “Hmph…” Uroboros looked put out to find her windfall confiscated. “But Chesty, you’re a politician, and Rumpy, you’re a company president. You both have higher salaries than me!” “Well, then you just need to land on a job-change space.” “Precisely. You might even be able to become a pop idol—they earn way more than either of us.” “I so will! I’ll become a singing, dancing, divine idol!” Uroboros’s eyes were practically sparkling. Neither Pearl nor Nel nor Fay felt like asking why she was so bent on becoming popular in the human world. “It’s your turn next, Tiny Human.” “Let’s see, I rolled a three… Ugh! ‘Your house is broken into by a thief. Lose half your assets.’ Well, that’s how it goes. I’ve got a question, Uroboros,” Fay said. “Hmm?” “Chief Secretary Miranda was wondering—we’re all going to headquarters. What do you want to do?” “Oh-ho! Are you saying you would like me to accompany you?” Uroboros spared him only a sidelong glance; she was mostly focused on examining the squares of the Game of Another Life. Then a confident grin spread across her face. “I’m very popular, you see. I may be a mere company drone in the Game of Another Life, but in the real world, I’m an idol.” “…I’m not sure when you got on the idol track. But anyway, aren’t you angry that this unknown god messed with you two different times?” The first was when she had been forcibly “logged out” of the Labyrinth of Lucemia. The second was when they had dived into the divine gate after that. Fay and the rest of his team had ended up in the forest of the God-Tree, but Uroboros had been ejected with an anguished “Awww, again?!” “Oh, little things like that don’t bother me,” Uroboros said, still studying the game board with a smile. “Games are everything. Isn’t it more fun to be playing than to be angry?” “Well, when you’re right, you’re right.” “I have arrived at the Truth. More delicious than pizza eaten while angry is pizza eaten while playing a game—oh?” Uroboros had rolled the dice again, and when she moved her piece, she landed at a space on which GET MARRIED was written in large letters. “Let’s see. You get married to the player who is on the square nearest to you. The closest player to mineself is behind me… Oh! Tiny Human! Tiny Human, it’s you!” Uroboros turned; for some reason, this was what caused her to raise her voice. “Tiny Human and mineself are married!” “What? Oh, yeah, that happens all the time in these games.” Getting married was one of the most iconic events in the Game of Another Life. Fay and the others had played it plenty of times, so he’d seen it before, but it was all new to Uroboros. “Wh-wh-what shall I wear?!” she exclaimed. “The only kimono I have is black! I’ve heard that a white dress symbolizing innocence is what one needs for such an occasion!” “You’re more shocked than anyone in history by this! Slow down…” Fay was about to point out that it was just a game when Pearl grinned and beat him to the punch, saying, “Ha-ha-ha! It’s all right, Uroboros. It’s a game—just a game.” She practically sounded like a calm, reasonable adult in contrast to the panicking Uroboros. “You don’t have to take it so seriously. Do you, Nel? Leshea?” “Mm-hmm, a most uncharacteristic misunderstanding, Mistress Undefeated.” “Yeah, that’s right. You don’t have to lose your head just ’cause you landed on the marriage space.” Like old hands at the game, Pearl, Nel, and Leshea all shared a look of agreement—and an indulgent smile, as if to say, Isn’t it cute to see her all riled up? The girls’ expressions changed the next time Uroboros rolled the dice. “Oh? It’s another new space.” This one had an adorable baby picture on it. “Ooh! A baby space? In other words, mineself and Tiny Human—” “““Stooooop!””” the others cried. “Wha—?! Wh-what are you doing, Chesty? Rumpy? Tiny Dragon?! I-it’s mine own turn, so why are you—yikes!” The three of them piled atop Uroboros and took turns sitting on her. “Now!” said Leshea. “L-let me go, Tiny Dragon! I just want to start a family with Tiny Human and—mrgh?!” Uroboros found herself restrained by Leshea, while Nel and Pearl shoved bread in her mouth to shut her up. Thus, the Game of Another Life came to an abrupt end. “Boo… What’s the problem?” Uroboros grumbled, even as she munched on her toast with jam. “And just when Tiny Human and mineself were about to begin our happily married life together!” “Not allowed!” said Pearl, who was also eating jam on toast. “Gods and humans can’t get married. And they definitely can’t have children! The kid would be half-human and half-god!” “Is it that shocking, Chesty?” Uroboros asked, looking as if she didn’t understand why Pearl was so upset. She rolled over on the floor and said, “It’s not unlike gaining ten wins in the gods’ games. Insofar as it’s possible for a human to become a god, should a half-divine child be such a surprise?” “…What?” “Huh?” “What did you say?” Pearl, Nel, and even Fay, who had all been relaxing in the living room, were flabbergasted. “Mistress Undefeated?!” Nel practically flew off the sofa. “What are you talking about?! Ten wins in the gods’ games? Humans and gods and…human-god children?!” “I meant what I said, Rumpy,” Uroboros replied breezily from where she lay. “If you win ten times and clear the gods’ games, you can receive a reward.” “That much, we know…” “Hmmm?” Uroboros sat up. “Rumpy. You know about that, but you don’t actually know what the Celebration—the glory of the gods—is? The reward you receive for achieving a Clear, you see…” Celebration: when one was accorded the right to join the ranks of the gods. A human who had won ten games would enter the company of the all-knowing, omnipotent deities. In other words, they would become a god. “…………” “…………” “…………” The others looked soberly at each other for a long moment. “…Fay…” Finally, Pearl broke the silence, sounding almost as if she were talking to herself. “Fay… Did you know that?” “Who, me? No way,” Fay replied. Nobody knew exactly what the Celebration was. Of course they didn’t. No human had ever cleared the gods’ games. But there had always been whispers from ancient times: The gods will grant any wish you ask, they said. The sort of thing people would tell themselves. Fay, however, had asked Leshea about it, and what she had told him of the Celebration was… “The rumors you humans have about it are pretty accurate—the gods will grant your wish. That much is true.” “But if ‘that much’ is true, that means there’s something we’ve got wrong.” “The gods don’t just grant one wish. You could make a hundred wishes, or even a thousand.” But that had been only part of the answer. At the time, Fay had taken her to mean that the granting of unlimited wishes was itself the Celebration—when in truth, it was that one could become an all-knowing, all-powerful god. The wishes were themselves secondary, a sort of bonus; an almighty god could fulfill their own wishes. I see. It makes sense. Leshea’s wish is to go back to being a god. And that’s exactly what the Celebration is. Leshea hadn’t been hiding anything. In fact, she had told him precisely the truth of the reward. It was he who had misunderstood. Leshea, incidentally, was taking a shower at that moment. “…Still, uh… Huh…” “Hmm? What’s the matter, Tiny Human? Why do you look so displeased?” “Uhhh…” “You too, Chesty? What are you so concerned about?” “Well, it’s concerning.” “And Rumpy, you’re crossing your arms? What’s wrong?” Uroboros tilted her head quizzically at them. She couldn’t understand what caused the three of them to furrow their brows—precisely because she was an all-powerful, all-knowing god. But of course, Fay, Pearl, and Nel were all feeling the same way. Precisely because they were imperfect humans. Precisely because granting wishes was not easy for them. To even imagine making one’s own dreams a reality… “Tell me what’s going on, Tiny Human!” “It’s just, we get that it’s not a bad deal for us,” Fay replied with a strained smile. “But somehow, it’s like…say you’d lived in the same house your entire life, when suddenly someone says they’ll give you a room in a luxurious mansion. It’s… You know… We already have a house we’re attached to.” “Y-yes, that’s exactly how I feel!” Pearl said. “Mm-hmm. I, too, don’t particularly wish to become a god. Just having a single wish granted would be more than enough for me,” Nel agreed. Each of them nodded in turn. From behind them came footsteps accompanied by cheery whistling. “If that’s what you want, you can do that.” Leshea appeared, wearing a summery tank top. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, and she was drying her soaking vermillion hair with a towel. “You get ten wins and become a god. Then, after you grant whatever wishes you want, you can just go back to being a human. I mean, just look at me.” The former god Leshea’s wish was to regain her divinity. In other words, she would go from god to human to god again, whereas Fay and the others could do exactly the opposite, going from human to god to human. Leshea was proof it could be done. “I… I see.” Nel nodded, although she was thinking deeply. “It still doesn’t feel quite right to me, but assuming I could become human again… What do you think, Pearl?” “Y-yes, I guess… I guess knowing that does make me feel a little better.” “Well, there you have it! Discussion over!” Uroboros said, energetically grabbing the dice in one hand and her game piece in the other. “Back to the Game of Another Life, then! Let’s see! I stopped on the children square and was just about to start a nice, happy family with Tiny Human—” “““Nooooo! We said stop!””” “Wh-what the heck?! It’s just a game, remember?!” Uroboros, just after turning to the “have kids” square, found herself pinned once again by the three other women. In the end, they decided to play a different game. They wondered what they should pick from the pile on the table… “What is this game?” Uroboros inquired. “That’s a murder mystery. It’s all the rage right now,” Pearl told her. “Mm-hmm! It’s one of those games where everyone tries to deduce who the killer is,” Nel added. Meanwhile, Fay and Leshea had left the other three to their selection process and walked over to the seventeenth floor’s break area. They were standing by some vending machines. “So, what would you like to drink, Fay? Cider? Ginger ale?” “The yogurt drink, please.” “Thing is, I already bought the cider.” “Then what was the point of asking?!” “I thought it was soda! Anyway, here you go!” Leshea said, shoving the can of juice at Fay. He took it reluctantly, knowing there would be, well, cider in it. Then he said, “By the way, Leshea.” “Yeah? What’s up?” “Uroboros said some stuff earlier, and I was really surprised. I guess I had the wrong idea.” He tugged the tab on his can, which opened with a psshh of carbon dioxide escaping. “I didn’t realize that was what you meant when you talked about the reward for getting ten wins. I guess any reward the gods came up with would have to be on a crazy scale, huh?” “I don’t think what she said is any different from what I said.” “…I think it was pretty different.” Leshea grinned. It was possible that, from the very first time they had met, this former god had been picturing the surprise on Fay’s face. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t really feel like I need to become a god at all.” “Sure.” “I mean, I know you want to go back to being one. What would you do if you were a god again?” “………” Leshea didn’t answer. The vermilion-haired former god was completely silent. Instead, she gazed off into space, her expression something between somber and blank. “…Oh yeah,” Fay said. “I guess we’ve never talked about this.” Sublime. The barely whispered word held within it the power of a god. “I’ve been one of the gods who oversees the gods’ games, but before that…” The time of the Dragon God Leoleshea must have been roughly the same time as that of the ancient magical civilization. What had been before that? “Maybe I could call it a past life. But it’s not as if I was born into another life like in the game we were just playing. I was still myself…but ‘myself’ was something quite different before I came to this world.” “Huh?” Before she ‘came to this world’? She almost made it sound as if she had come from a different world. “I was a dragon before I became a god, too. But not like I am now. You might be surprised to hear it, but…I was a very rowdy dragon.” “I’m definitely not surprised to hear that.” “What?! Why not?!” It sounded to him like she was the same as she’d always been. Fay quietly suppressed the impulse to say so out loud. He was about to speak when Leshea said: “Calra -l- Bediws Leo Lecie.” “What’s that? Some kind of code?” “It was my name. Back then, maybe I wasn’t called Leoleshea or Leshea, but Calra.” She gave the slightest of smiles. Normally she wore the brightest grin; this was an unusual smile of pain from her. “That name, it means… The Winter Princess of the Tragic Red Plague.” “That’s a heavy name!” “Yes, it is. I was a bad dragon. Back then, I was in pain, always lashing out…always anxious. But then one time, everything went…white? No, more like…rainbow-colored. And the next thing I knew, I was a god in this world.” She gently shook her can of blood orange juice, the contents sloshing. “I thought it was such a lovely world. There were no wars here! Instead, gods and humans could enjoy games together.” “………” Fay didn’t say anything. “I thought, ‘Oh, I’ve been freed from battle.’ We were allowed to play games in this world, so I was sure this world was a reward; the place you went after all the pain was over.” Leshea turned to him and smiled brightly, any trace of those dark memories wiped from her expression. “I really like this world, you know. For the same reason that I want to go back to being a god. Because after I do, I want to play lots, lots more games! It’s as simple as that.” The vermilion-haired girl’s smile, full and broad, seemed to say that there could be no greater wish. “Well,” Fay said after a second, “you are a gamer through and through, aren’t you?” “That’s it!” “What’s it?” “You remember what I told you? That I was playing hide-and-seek with some humans, and that I hid at the bottom of a lake…” “Oh, yeah. And then, while waiting, you fell asleep.” She’d accidentally slept for three thousand years and ended up in the present day. Talk about oversleeping! “In the end, the ancient magical civilization disappeared while I was napping.” Leshea sighed in exasperation. “Waking up in this era—that was the biggest shock of all.” “The ancient magical civilization, huh?” Fay wondered if it was just a coincidence. It reminded him that his old team leader, Chaos, had been investigating something in the Relic City of Ange—the very place that held the ruins of the ancient magical civilization. “Do you ever wonder, Leshea? I mean, about what happened to the ancient magical civilization while you were asleep?” “Of course I do.” Leshea opened her drink with a soft fzz. “But there’s no way to even begin investigating. Before I met you, Fay, I asked Miranda to gather every bit of research material she could find.” “But it didn’t tell you anything about the ancient civilization?” “No, but it’s all right.” She shook her head, almost speaking as much to herself as to Fay. “If I can become a god again, that’ll solve everything.” “Yeah… Yeah, you’re right.” The gods were all-knowing and all-powerful. Once Leshea regained her divine status, she would be able to use her supernatural awareness to find out what had happened. “As for you, Fay, you don’t have to become a god to get your wishes if you don’t want to. Once I’m a god again, I’ll be happy to grant them for you.” Leshea giggled, her lips curling up into a smile as she held her can of juice out toward him. Cheers. Fay gently tapped the lip of his cider can against her juice. “A red-haired older girl, right? You want to find the person who taught you to play games.” “Right. And, hey, we’ve come this far.” Fay gave Leshea a firm nod as he looked into her eyes. “I’ll fight as hard as I can to clear the gods’ games.” He was at seven wins now—just three more to go until he reached ten wins, something no one in human history had done before.