It took me about fifteen minutes to reach the mansion where Nagisa said Bruno lived.
No one answered the bell, but when I pushed hard, the large gate opened. I made my way through the vast garden on foot and stopped at the front door. I took a short breath in, let it out, then pushed the door open.
The mansion was completely silent.
A staircase towered at the far end of a red carpet. Under normal circumstances, would I have been welcomed in by maids and a butler? Right now, the place felt deserted. Lanterns set at regular intervals faintly illuminated the mansion, but that combined with the fact that the doors hadn’t been locked felt as if they’d been expecting visitors. All alone, I set off to explore.
The mansion was a strange place.
For one thing, there were an awful lot of staircases. This made it easy to lose track of which floor I was on. The building had a high ceiling with an atrium in the center and narrow catwalk-like paths strung all over the place. I didn’t know quite how to describe it. It almost felt like there was no clear boundary where one floor ended and the next began.
That said, it wasn’t as if the building had been constructed without taking its residents into consideration. There were long slopes and elevators in addition to the staircases that made every part of the house accessible. When I looked down, I noticed there were tactile paving blocks in the floor, and what appeared to be speakers were attached to the walls. The mansion was deserted now, but I felt like I’d caught a glimpse of what it was normally like.
The mansion had so many rooms it was impossible to keep track of them all, but most of them seemed to be living quarters. They looked like they belonged to the maids, butlers, and cooks who worked here. It was clear from a glance at their furnishings that the servants were of all different ages, genders, and nationalities.
This place was a small world in and of itself.
It was a microcosm created by an old man who’d crossed many national borders during his long journey, reflected on the fact that those borders had no color or shape, and had been asking himself what that meant ever since. That was what made this mansion what it was.
As I was exploring, I found myself underground and eventually arrived at an enormous library. It was closer in size to a public library than a private one and large enough that I could imagine it held every single book in the world. The entire space almost seemed like a physical manifestation of the mind of the Information Broker, Bruno Belmondo.
The place was dark, with only minimal lighting. Without really thinking, I took a thick book from a nearby shelf and illuminated it with my smartphone.
“An illustrated record, huh?”
Every page held ancient pictures so simple they were almost pictographs.
This one, for example, was of a grotesque monster surrounded by a group of twelve figures holding spears and other weapons. It seemed familiar, as if I’d seen that sight somewhere else before.
“It’s an enemy of the world and the Tuners.”
A figure materialized from the darkness.
It was a white-whiskered man with a cane—the master of the mansion, Bruno Belmondo. “I suppose I should have expected no less of the Singularity. You’ve picked up an interesting book.” He came to stand beside me looking completely at ease, as if he’d known I’d come here. As he looked at the page I’d opened to, his eyes narrowed slightly.
“As you can see, the Tuners have been the shields protecting the world since the dawn of history.”
Twelve heroes confronted the monster. Apparently, the history of the Tuners stretched back several thousand years.
“I bet there were positions here that aren’t around anymore,” I said.
“Yes, those change with the times. The Sorcerer, the Sage, and the Paladin, for example. All of these were important positions that existed before I became the Information Broker.”
As I listened to Bruno, I turned the page. The next image showed what looked like an upside-down triangle with a large group of people kneeling beneath it.
“Is this the System?”
The monument shaped like an upside-down pyramid that Charlie and I had seen and tried to destroy. Did the fact that it was shown here mean the Akashic records were also at least several thousand years old?
“In antiquity, humans considered the Akashic records something like a vessel of the divine.”
Bruno spoke about this secret of the world as if he’d seen it himself. The Information Broker must have known about this all along, as I’d assumed.
“Does that mean humans have entrusted things to the Akashic records since long ago?”
“If I had to say, the records probably fulfilled a role similar to divination. Fortune-telling has always been an integral part of human life. Even in modern Japan, I believe the culture is quite a familiar one.”
“Yeah, well. Every time I check the horoscope on the morning infotainment show, mine’s always dead last for some reason, so I don’t believe in them myself.”
Bruno chuckled. “You see, fortune-telling isn’t actually a spiritual matter. For all living beings, not just humans, living in the same location for a prolonged period of time carries risk. As long as natural disasters and food issues exist, they will be forced out of their homes one day. However, without some sort of standard, we don’t know where we should go or where best to live. It’s easy for us to hesitate.”
“So you’re saying that’s where fortune-telling comes in? That people leave their decisions—their futures—up to the invisible teachings of oracles?” I found myself looking at the drawing of the inverted pyramid. “A logical system meant to safeguard human survival instincts…”
That was the Akashic records.
If that was true, plotting to destroy them might be akin to defying the very gods themselves.
“While we’re at it, look at the next page as well,” Bruno prompted.
I turned the page. There, the grotesque monster I’d seen earlier had taken on an even more ominous shape and was clinging to the inverted pyramid.
“No way… Is this Abel?”
The way the thing was trying to control the Akashic records seemed a whole lot like Abel to me. Had the Great Cataclysm been prophesied this far back in time?
“No, that monster isn’t Abel nor is it a Tuner who’s turned evil. It is the Singularity.” Bruno let a brief pause hang between us. “Fundamentally, the Singularity is a great crisis that could very well threaten the world’s continued existence. Said to be born once every few centuries, this dangerous element unconsciously remakes the world, ignoring the price of doing so. The Singularity is an entity with the arrogance of a god.”
Silence fell in the library.