“It seems like you were given quite the welcome. The fact that you managed to make it here despite that just goes to show you power even more,” said Lloyd-senpai with a smile.
I answered with a bitter smile.
“I suspect that you must be positively bursting with questions right now, Yuno, but I’d like to say something before all that,” he continued on in a gleeful tone, a dark smile appearing on his face as he looked straight at me.
“Congratulations on your victory. Did your wish come true?”
How scary.
I’m probably not misunderstanding it either.
I wonder just how much more he can surprise me.
The wish he spoke of was not winning the tournament, but an even deeper, more fundamental part of me. In other words, something relating to the goddess Athena––
“Yes, it most certainly did,” I answered with a smile. “Why this city?”
A light question, to start off with.
My answer came immediately.
“This city is darkness itself……”
…………………
There was a long silence.
It took quite a while before I realised that that had been the answer.
I don’t have the foggiest idea what that means.
“We’re the dark side of this country. Darkness is the most suitable place for us to hide, no?” Lloyd-senpai finally added.
…I think I kinda get it.
Still, people who willingly come here must really be few and far between, so it isn’t the worst place for concealing secrets.
“I see…” I murmured, causing Lloyd-senpai to grin.
Anywho, on to the main topic.
“The promised land… it’s natural that you wouldn’t understand what it means. But, Yuno, I’m sure that this land is something akin to a garden of fate for you; something you cannot avoid if you want to progress onwards. That’s the sense I used it in,” Lloyd-senpai said as I tried to open my mouth, then, while I was busy processing his words, he stood up and started walking towards the bookshelf on my right.
“Follow me,” he said as he stopped in front of it.
“…?”
I did not understand what he meant by that at all.
After all, he was standing in front of a bookshelf fully laden with books.
“Erm––”
It happened right as I was about to ask him what he meant.
He held out his palms in front of him and began to use magical power.
“Into the Perpetuity to which Darkness sinks––”
“––!?”
A magic spell –– the moment it started, a sudden wind blew around the room.
“––its Shining Heaven and Earth. Answer our ancient oath and open the door before me.”
Lloyd-senpai’s hair had been greatly ruffled by the wind.
I watched as Lloyd-senpai placed his palms on the floor, still in the middle of that violent wind.
“––Open!” he shouted.
The next moment, Lloyd-senpai’s magical power increased explosively, filling the whole room.
As the wind slowly died down, the magical power flowing from Lloyd-senpai also decreased, and before long, I couldn’t feel any traces of either of them anymore.
““……””
There was no change to the room, I remarked to myself silently, then watched as Lloyd-senpai took his hands off the floor and pulled out a red book from the bookshelf.
The next moment––
The bookshelves on either side of the one the book had been on slid forward with a loud rumbling sound, then off to the left and right respectively.
The sound and the bookshelves’ moving died down eventually, leaving behind two doors in their places.
“…”
Lloyd-senpai glanced at me promptingly, since I had lost my ability to speak for a moment at what had just happened.
“You should choose.”
“…Huh?”
“Out of these two doors, one is your fate,” Lloyd-senpai said, stepping back from the doors.
Following his instructions, I walked over to the door on the right and placed my hand on its handle.
“––I would recommend the left door,” said he.
“…”
Slightly uncertainly, I opened the door on the right.
I stepped through it, then glanced left.
“…”
The figure of the other door greeted my eyes.
I slowly looked over my shoulder at Lloyd-senpai.
“Erm, Lloyd-senpai, did it not matter which one I chose?”
“…Kuku,” came his answer in the form of a laugh. “This way,” he continued, walking past me and down the stone stairs that were the way onwards.
I followed him.
◆
We walked down the hard, stony stairs.
Neither of us made a sound apart from those of our footsteps.
Funnily enough, there were candles placed on the walls at regular intervals.
I descended down the stairs while slightly cheered by them.
Then, it was the last step down. Everything ahead was pitch-black.
I took that final step while feeling we had been going downwards for a long time, and no time at all, all at the same time.
A ray of light suddenly shone down from the ceiling, lighting up the room.
The walls of the room were also of stone, and slightly shiny in the way they reflected the light.
It was built rather strangely, in a form close to a hexagon.
And also––
“…?”
Then, I noticed it.
The light shining down from the ceiling was aimed at a stone pedestal slightly higher than my waist.
On top of it lay a big, bulky, black book.
What’s that?
Lloyd-senpai walked over to the pedestal, his footsteps reverberating throughout the room.
He picked up the book, then held it out to me.
“…That is?” was the question that came out of my mouth instead of the thought ‘…My legs feel like they’re about to give out. I wonder why.’
I suppose I was just caught up in the fantastical kind of atmosphere the room gave off.
Lloyd-senpai lowered his hand, the book going with it.
“Only a very few people can enter this place. In fact, even among the hundred members of Shadow Moon, only the Numbers even know of this place. The reason for all that is not to let just anybody touch this book. That’s the only thing I ask you to keep in mind,” he said quietly. “The number of people who know the contents of this book is even more limited. The only ones who do at the present moment are me and my brother. Not even the Numbers know what is written inside this book.”
“…”
“You are simply being added to the two of us.”
“…Why me?” I asked, and a smile appeared on his face.
“I told you, didn’t I? All I know is that you’re unique. But, I’m relatively sure that the answers you want are written inside here,” he said, holding out the book to me again.
I walked over to him to take it.
My footsteps rang out.
I gulped; there was a buzzing in the back of my ear.
Answers. Answers. I have answers!
I took the book.
“This book’s name is [True・Revelations]. Perhaps saying that it’s the original version of the ‘Revelations’ I possess would be better. It contains all the information gathered and management by the März family through the ages.”
I looked into his eyes and gave him a small nod.
Then, with a shaking hand, –– I opened the book.
––Eh?
I turned to the next page.
And the next one.
And the next one.
My hands wouldn’t stop turning to the next page.
I don’t even know how many times I repeated the process.
Then, finally, with a quavering voice, “…What… is this…”
“……” Lloyd-senpai didn’t answer.
“…Senpai?”
I turned the blank pages towards him.
There was nothing written there.
Not a single letter was to be seen in the book.
Was I tricked? But for what reason?
I was confused. I could make neither heads nor tails of the situation.
“What are you talking about? There’s plenty of stuff written there,” Lloyd-senpai said, rebuking me, while looking at me coldly, then looking down at the book in my hands.
Suddenly, a chill ran through me.
What… is he… talking about…?
And what’s up with the blank pages that go on and on, not a single letter in sight?
I turned to the next page, then the next one, then the next one.
I could feel myself starting to sweat.
If there had been something, I would have stopped.
I turned to the next page, and the next one, and so on, until––
I turned to the next page and stopped.
The book slid out of my hand from the shock.
I had seen it.
I knelt down to check, picking up the book again.
I –– opened the book.
Nothing had changed. Blankness filled the pages.
And yet.
There was a word written there, threatening to disappear at any moment.
Z e u s
“…Ah…”
……It’s an answer. Yup. That is one, all right.
But, but why?
Goosebumps covered my body. I felt like I had discovered something I wasn’t supposed to have seen.
I looked up at Lloyd-senpai dizzily.
“…What’s this?” my voice shook. I couldn’t stop it from doing so.
Why was I even that upset in the first place, I wondered.
“…First, I’ll tell you what I know,” Lloyd-senpai said, walking past me.
Then, his low voice rang out, the only other sound being that of his footsteps.
“I’ll get right to the point. That Revelations is a fake.”
“…Eh?”
“The März family has been in charge of the country’s information-gathering for ages. But more importantly than that, they also had the job of recording the gods’ movements. A so-called fake. That was the public job of the März family.”
The sound of his footsteps echoed round the room, my heartbeat syncing up with it.
“And yet, as you can see, there is nothing written in there. All records earlier than twelve years ago have gone missing. Or perhaps I should say tampered with. They should have been there, but were made not to be. In fact, the movements of the gods are written perfectly fine on the latest pages.”
Just as he said, as I flipped through the later pages, things about the gods were indeed written down there.
■ Movements by [Astaroth] [Fenrir] and [Blue Meteor (Name: Noah)] at the Forest of the Divine Beast
In other words, entries like that were recorded there perfectly fine.
All information from twelve years ago and before had disappeared.
…Is that the answer of the blank pages?
I desperately tried to organise all the information inside my head.
There was [True・Revelations], filled with blank pages.
Lloyd-senpai said that those blank pages were the result of the movements of the gods that should have been written inside having gone missing.
No, hold up.
“How come you think it’s been tampered with?”
Normally, one would just assume nothing had been written there in the first place.
“Right you are. I would think that, if I didn’t know anything,” Lloyd-senpai said, looking at me over his shoulder with a faint smile on his face.
“But I know it. The meaning of that book. What those blank pages are,” he said with a confident tone of voice. I gulped.
He calmly walked back to me.
He stopped as he was about to walk past me.
“I saw it. That moment––” he whispered.
“……Eh?”
“About the gods that you and I have our doubts and questions about. The secrets of the world. As far as I know, there was only one person who knew those things.”
“…Then, if we ask them––”
“––They’ve passed on already,” he said, turning towards me and covering his right eye with his hand.
“The man who knew everything is no longer with us. He died. Right here.”
“…”
I was really, really curious. But more than anything, the words ‘Twelve years ago’ had caught my attention.
No, still, rather than that––
“His name was Aurga März. The previous family head. My father.”
“…Your dad…? He died, here…?”
With that knowledge in my mind, the atmosphere in the room grew even heavier.
But, I already knew it. There was no going back.
And yet, I didn’t know anything yet. Especially not how all that connected to the name ‘Zeus’ written in [True・Revelations].
But, the answer came rather suddenly.
“Have you ever heard of Tenth-rank magic…?”
“…Eh?” I blurted out.
The answer to that question was ‘yes’.
It wasn’t a very difficult question either.
Magic was divided into ten ranks, based on difficulty. It would be difficult to find someone unaware of the fact.
So, I nodded.
“So then, just what exactly is tenth-rank magic?”
“…Lloyd-senpai?”
I had a guess as to what the answer was going to be.
Tenth-rank magic was more of a concept that ‘could exist’.
Other than that, nothing was known about it, apart from its frequent appearances in fairytales passed down to future generations.
I recalled the teacher of moon class in Ferris Girls’ talking about it during one of our joint classes.
Tenth-rank magic –– the ultimate form of ‘Magic’, which was already a miracle in and of itself.
It was said to be magic that could make the impossible possible.
However, it was also well-known for its drawbacks.
The huge amount of magical power one needed in exchange for its activation, as well as––
“…Li-…-fe…”
My whole body shook.
The pieces of the puzzle were lining up inside my head.
“So you know. It’s more or less as you think. All I can remember is my father, throwing up blood, covered in a golden glow, desperately doing something to this book.”
“…And you think that was tenth-rank magic…?”
“That’s what I suspect. And my brother, who also saw it happen, agrees. We have a hypothesis,” he took the book from my hands, saying “I’ll let my memories do the work from here on out,” then continued on. “Tenth-rank magic is said to be the very embodiment of miracles. Or at least, that’s what we gathered from all the fairytales. In a certain myth, an adventurer uses tenth-rank magic to summon a holy sword and defeat a gigantic dragon he was fighting. In a different story, a boy uses magic to save his family from terrible hunger and starvation by using magic, distributing the sudden abundance of food amongst the people.”
I had heard of both of them before. At the same time, a guess crossed my mind.
––[Magic that can grant wishes] our voices overlapped.
A smile appeared on Lloyd-senpai’s face.
“That’s right. But, that’s not what’s important right now. The problem is what my father wished for… the answer to that. So here’s what I think: my father wished to [Protect the truth].”
“…The truth.”
“He noticed something. Out of all the people in the world, only he, the head of the März family, could have noticed it. Then, he decided to himself. It had to be protected. And so that the things he had written, left behind, would remain, he used tenth-rank magic. Awkwardly enough, he died. I only say this because I know how much pride he had for being able to fulfil this duty.”
His rain of words didn’t end. I simply listened.
“However, sadly, his wish couldn’t be granted. As per what you can see. All that was left were blank pages and the word [Zeus], the meaning of which I don’t know. Yuno Astario, what do you think it means?” he asked me, showing me the word Zeus written in the book.
Seeing that––
“……”
I closed my eyes.
There was no way I could say it. No, I didn’t want to.
I flinched at the coldness of his gaze.
“Right, don’t misunderstand me, it’s not like I want to take revenge for him or anything. In fact, I rather hated him. Training that was closer to torture than anything else, I quite literally spent my youth vomiting blood and bleeding. I was too young to taste those days of hell. I really resent him. Still, I felt a sense of curiosity towards him, as befitting of my age at the time. Just the little wish of ‘wanting to know the truth’,” he laughed self-deprecatingly, but then his face quickly turned serious again. “I wanted to know what it was that my father gave his life to protect. The key to answering that question is the word ‘Zeus’, that my father managed to protect. And then, you appeared. You, who also had doubts about this world, just like me. What’s more–– you were also ‘special’. Someone who bears the burden of knowing the truth. Strangely enough, whenever I said something about this to others, they would just laugh it off as a joke. But you, Yuno, were different,” he smiled. “A conspiracy has erased the truth from this world. So, me and you will get it back. How about it? Sounds interesting, right? At the same time, I think that the evil god Noah is our only hope––”
As I watched him smiling innocently as he said that, I was unable to answer.
His voice, even the sight of everything in front of me, all disappeared from my mind.
Twelve years ago, the moment I was born, the god Zeus appeared in front of me.
[True・Revelations], the truth from before twelve years ago of which had disappeared.
Lloyd-senpai’s father, who used tenth-rank magic twelve years ago. And the word ‘Zeus’ he had managed to protect.
…A coincidence?
“…Fufu, hahahaha,” was the laugh that burst out of my mouth.
What a stupid thought.
A coincidence? …am I an idiot? There is absolutely no way it is…!
The life of one person was undoubtedly gone.
I had balled my hands into fists so tightly it hurt.
My legs wobbled.
I’m sure, I’m sure there’s some meaning to it all.
It’s not a coincidence. It’s all connected.
And I don’t just think so. I’m convinced.
And I myself am probably at the very centre of it all.
What even is the truth?
Lloyd-senpai looked at me expectantly.
What is truth?
The word ‘Zeus’, stuck in that book.
I’ll have to look into it. I just know I can’t ignore it.
Where is the answer?
Where–––– is the truth?
Zeus, what exactly are you…?
And, why me? Why was I mentally fully grown-up the moment I was born?
Somebody, please tell me.
“Kami-sama…”
––Who am I?
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