VIVI’S explanation still didn’t clear Yuki’s doubts. Why did she suddenly talk about the world falling apart? Excitement over Luca waking up had overwritten the nagging feeling she had at the time.
This world…is going to fall apart. Yuki absently pondered as she trailed behind Luca outside his mansion. A damper had been put on the liveliness she witnessed inside the capital the last time she was there with Luca, but it still thrived with people.
All of this is going to be destroyed?
The entire situation was too surreal. Knowledge told her what was happening in this world was like what would happen on Earth once all the oil and natural resources dried up. Despite knowing the chaos that would ensue once it’s gone, humans continued to use them. In the depths of every person’s heart they wrote it off as a problem that would eventually handle itself. No one knew when that eventuality would come or if extinguishing the life of the planet would come sooner.
Monsters will appear and volcanoes will erupt…. What will happen if volcanoes become active?
Yuki recalled the news from a few years ago about some mountain in Japan becoming volcanically active, forcing the residents in the surrounding areas to be evacuated. She couldn’t remember why though. Was it fear of the volcanic ash raining down on the villages? Or the mountain erupting and the lava reaching the distant towns?
She looked up at the golden hair swaying in front of her. Luca said they were in a hurry, but still matched her slower pace.
“Hey, Luca, what will happen if the volcanoes erupt?”
Luca looked over his shoulder at her as he continued walking. He slowed his pace until he fell in step beside her. “The last time a mountain erupted on the continent of Aridol is said to be almost absurdly long ago. So long ago it happened while the Hero Aridol was still alive.”
“The Hero Aridol?”
“Among the legends of how this world began is one about the human who saved the world. This continent took the hero’s name—Aridol—and the name of the three friends who saved the world with him became the names of the three countries on Aridol.”
“What are they a legend for?”
“Legends say when the world was on the brink of destruction, Aridol and his three friends sealed away the dragon and banished the monsters plaguing the land.”
“Neat…I didn’t know there was a legend like that here.”
“It’s not much more than a fairytale. Written with the legend and biography of Aridol is the record of the mountains erupting.” Luca frowned. “When the mountains erupt they send out lava and poisonous gases. Anything that touches the lava melts and all who breathe the gases suffocate…. Gray snow that isn’t cold rains across the continent, making the water it contaminates undrinkable and the food inedible. The water and air will become toxic and monsters will run rampant—it can only mean the end for us.”
Yuki stopped. Luca stopped several steps ahead and looked back.
“How can that happen?”
She sharply inhaled thinking of the unimaginable tragedy awaiting them. Chills ran along her spine and caused her to shudder just thinking about those things happening to this world. Yuki finally developed some understanding of the weight behind the game Vivi carelessly challenged her to. What had Vivi been doing all this time to keep the world from falling apart?
“…What should I do to stop that from happening?” she muttered.
Yuki didn’t know what she needed to do, but her panic mounted when she thought she had to do something and felt the weight of it increasing on her shoulders. The weight of what she had been challenged to dragged her back into the dark depths of depression and despair. If it successfully captured her, she wouldn’t be able to take action anymore. Scared to death, her feet rooted to the ground. She lifted her head to find the golden locks of sunlight to save her from the recesses of darkness.
Luca stared emotionlessly off into the distance. “I don’t know how long that Witch has been alive for, but she has kept the world in order until now. And the world has existed throughout her time without falling apart. Do you know what her actions reveal?”
Yuki shook her head. She didn’t know what Luca was getting at. What had Vivi been doing all this time? What did Yuki stop her from doing? Yuki had interacted with Vivi far more than Luca, but she was clueless about what went through the Witch’s mind.
“What it reveals about this world,” Luca supplied for her. “A massive change has fractured the world as we know it over the past few decades. You’ve heard of it, haven’t you?”
“Yeah. Rvydom losing its right to be a country, right?”
“Correct. I’m also in the dark as to what the Witch has been doing. But the more you look at the state of things the easier it becomes to see the answer…. Trivial things can’t move the world as a whole. The loss of Rvydom is the greatest change in the last few decades. Since its inception, Aridol has been made up of three separate countries. War came, changing the balance with the loss of Rvydom as a country. And then the Legendary Witch no one had ever seen and everyone doubted was even real—appeared. In other words, the answer is to right the change and return things to how they should be.”
“Are you saying we just have to bring Rvydom back?”
Luca moved his gaze from the sky to Yuki. One corner of his lip curled up in a lopsided smile and he walked off. Yuki rushed after him. Another nagging feeling hit her: why did Luca know Vivi had been keeping the world’s equilibrium?
Luca didn’t wake up until after that conversation…
She stared at his back—the back of a man whose thoughts she could never read.
“…Hey, Luca, at what point did you actually wake up?”
He turned toward her, sending his golden hair swaying. With a devious smile he replied, “Around the time a certain someone started crying. Tears or snot dripped on my face. The cold drops woke me up.”
“It was cold…?”
Despite promising herself not to cry anymore, she had broken down crying on many occasions. But the only time she had ever cried in front of Luca was once Shae left and before Vivi appeared.
“That means you were awake since before Vivi showed up!” Luca lifted only one corner of his lip as he turned around and quickly walked down the road. “Hey!”
Yuki ran up to him and punched him in the back, but her fist slammed into the armor hidden behind his cloak. Sharp pain reddened her knuckles and she crouched on the ground. He stopped to laugh at her. Teary-eyed, she held her tingling fist to her chest. She was on the verge of tears not only from the pain in her right hand, but an immense sense of relief.
The terrible burden on her shoulders lightened immensely.