WorldEnd: What Do You Do at the End of the World? Are You Busy? Will You Save Us?, Vol. 1

by Akira Kareno

  “All right, that should be good enough.”

  Chtholly, having been tossed around by the storm-like stimulus, was spent of energy and stared blearily. Willem pulled the blanket over her back.

  “Now, just rest. You should be feeling much better in the morning.”

  “Ohay…”

  Her response was inarticulate, probably because she still wasn’t fully conscious. She would probably knock out on her own soon enough if he just left her be. That wasn’t a problem, at least.

  He left Chtholly alone, her breathing still ragged, and exited the infirmary.

  What am I? Willem wondered.

  But it quickly became a pain, so he stopped. He had other things to think about now.

  Paper. Paper. Paper.

  That was the first thing that caught his eye when he entered the room.

  It was also the second thing and the third thing he noticed.

  He took a half step back and double-checked the room’s plaque. Engraved there on the bronze sheet was, without a doubt, MATERIAL ROOM.

  Once again, he went inside. It was by no means a small room, but it was jam-packed with paper. Not only that, but the variation was astounding. Applications to have the toilet repaired in the faerie warehouse, instructions for coordinating with the other races on the unified front against the Seventeen Beasts, an order form for a big bag of carrots and potatoes, a nighttime patrol report, clippings from a girls’ magazine—and it was all jumbled together in one big pile.

  Tick, tick, tick. The second hand on the clock on the wall echoed loudly in his ears.

  “…This place is a mess.”

  Paper rustled as he made his way through it, searching for a desk and chair. He placed the stack that was on the chair aside for the time being, plopped into the seat, and looked around the room.

  “This place is a mess,” he murmured again.

  He sat for a while with his arms folded, thinking about where he should begin.

  He came to the conclusion that he would not reach any conclusions thinking about it.

  He reached out to the nearest pile and pulled out a sheet from the bottommost layer. It was a letter detailing the results of an equipment inspection ten years past.

  I see. Sediment from a decade ago.

  He felt a little like an archaeologist.

  But it would be a waste of time if he let it overwhelm him like this. For now, he would start with sorting everything out—but as he reached out to the nearest tower, he realized there was someone peeking into the room from beside the door.

  It was a faerie with ashen hair. Her enigmatic gaze focused squarely on him.

  Thinking she might need to do something in the room, he waited. But she didn’t respond. The way she stuck by the side of the door and continued staring at him without so much as a stir gave her the appearance of a sculpture.

  “You need something, Nephren?”

  “Not really.”

  Nephren responded with an indifferent tone, then turned on her heel and disappeared.

  “…What was that all about?”

  He tilted his head as he faced the room again.

  There was something he wanted to know. More than likely, what he sought was sunken somewhere in this ocean of paper.

  The clock on the wall chimed twelve times in a row.

  The date had changed.

  Even after spending so much time, all Willem had managed to do was put the bundles of paper on the desk in order.

  There was no doubt his search was going to take all night. But it was also pretty unlikely it was going to lead to anything, even if he kept working without stopping to sleep.

  “…I’m exhausted.”

  Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t considered food.

  The last time he’d eaten had been before noon, so he calculated he’d spent more than half a day going full speed ahead without any nutritional intake.

  When he realized that, his stomach grumbled.

  “Man…”

  Had he noticed a little earlier, he might have been able to ask for a snack in the dining hall…but regretting that now wouldn’t fill his stomach.

  Willem lay his head on the desk.

  He closed his eyes.

  Regardless of his empty stomach, if he kept chugging along while ignoring his exhaustion, the only thing he’d accomplish would be the loss of his ability to concentrate. He figured he could keep going after a quick rest. He would close his eyes, just until the clock chimed again.

  …The smell of coffee tickled his nose.

  The sound of a cup being placed onto the desk rang in his ears.

  It was a gift, he thought. He remembered he’d left the door open.

  “Oh, thanks—”

  Just as he was going to say Nygglatho’s name, he saw who was standing there. Wavy, light-gray hair. Charcoal eyes that felt distant and were hard to tell where they were looking.

  “—Nephren?”

  “Ren is fine.”

  “Oh, okay. Thanks, Ren.”

  He looked at the desk again; right next to the coffee sat a simple sandwich on a plate. Willem was truly thankful.

  “I haven’t done anything to warrant your thanks.” Her distant gaze scanned the room. “I just came to see because I was curious. What are you doing?”

  “Hmm, just trying to find something.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes, here. Treasure chests are always hiding in the deepest part of underground labyrinths. You’ve gotta be ready for some hardship if you want to find anything of value.”

  “…Mm.”

  He took a sip of the coffee.

  “It’s sweet.”

  There was a huge amount of sugar in it, almost to the point of giving the coffee a syrupy texture.

  “I thought you might be tired. You don’t like sweet things?”

  “Nah, I like it.”

  He drained the whole cup. Nephren’s eyes wavered in slight surprise.

  Then he stuffed the sandwich into his mouth. Roasted dovelet, slightly wilted lettuce on dried bread. There might’ve been a bit too much mustard on it, but it was just the thing he needed to replenish his tired body.

  “Phew.”

  Willem breathed.

  His body was the capricious sort and eating even a tiny bit of food immediately revived some strength.

  “So.”

  Nephren placed both hands on the desk, assuming a pressing pose with her expressionless face, and she questioned him.

  “What are you looking for so late?”

  “Uhh… Well, I guess there’s no need to hide it. Your mission records.”

  “Mm?” She tilted her head. “Why?”

  “I’m an outsider, a fake officer, on top of being out of time. There’s too much I don’t know. I could also ask Nygglatho, but she’s not from the Guard, which means I won’t necessarily learn anything useful from her perspective. So it’d be best if I check the Guard’s data with my own eyes.”

  “From the perspective of a fake officer?”

  “Through the lens of my old experiences, I guess you could say.”

  “…Mm?” Her head tilted in the other direction.

  “Don’t think too much about it. Everyone has a past.”

  “Okay.” She nodded obediently. “Is there anything you want me to do?”

  “Would that be okay? In that case, see if you can find documents detailing the frequency of Timere’s appearances, the mission timing and deployment of all troops over the past ten years, as well as records detailing decisive losses. Also, if you can, records of attempts to repair and adjust the Cari…dug weapons. Anything that talks about what they were aiming for or what they did, plus the results. That would be ideal.”

  “That’s very specific.”

  “I’ll take care of all the detailed checks. All you need to do is find and pick out things that look like they might be related.”

  “Understood.”

  Now that he’d fortified himself with
food, the work started anew. Willem rolled up his sleeves. A moment later, Nephren followed his lead and did the same.

  Facing the ocean of overflowing paper, the two sailors began to row.

  Dawn broke.

  The two sailors were shipwrecked spectacularly in the endless paper seas.

  Morning came.

  Chtholly Nota Seniorious woke the same time she always did. Sluggishly pulling herself out of bed, she soon realized that she wasn’t in her own room, grasped that this was the infirmary, thought about why she might be in a place like this, and tried to recall what had happened the night before.

  She remembered.

  Her brain boiled over in a flash.

  “Wh—?! Wha-wha-wha-wha—?”

  She had been inebriated by her fever. She had been weak. She had lost all proper judgment. Under normal circumstances, there was no way she would have said or done any of those things.

  She could think of several excuses. Even all of those combined could not overrule the reality of what had happened.

  “If I were to die in five days, would you be nicer to me?”

  “Wh-wh-what on earth was I saying?!”

  She dove backward straight into the bed she’d just climbed out of.

  She rolled, flipped, kicked, and generally went wild. The bed creaked loudly under her, but that wasn’t something that bothered her right now.

  “…Like, if I asked you to kiss me, would you?”

  “Gyaaaaaahh!!”

  She hugged the pillow, squeezing it with all her might. She punched it. Then it flew into the wall with a mighty throw.

  Why did I say that? I can’t think of a reason why. Well, I certainly don’t hate him and definitely appreciate him, and I’m aware that I rather like him, but really, that’s something totally different, plus liking someone as a person and liking someone as a member of the opposite sex are two completely different things, which by no means should be mixed up at all, but that makes it almost look like I’ve been crushing on him for a while, and the fever made me confess my love to him, and aghhhhhh, okay, I’m not going to think about that anymore.

  There was one more thing. Chtholly’s memory was fuzzy after a certain point, but she felt like things had gotten intense. He’d definitely said it was to relieve her fever—

  “Chtholly!! Are you okay?!”

  “Yawha?!”

  There was a sudden voice, and flustered, she hid her face in the blankets.

  “Ohh, she’s fine.”

  “U-um. Yesterday, I heard you came back really tired, so I wanted to see if you’re doing okay. Do you want to eat anything?”

  Judging by the voices and the presences, she had two visitors.

  “Collon…and Lakhesh…?”

  She slowly peeked out from under the blanket, confirming who was there.

  No doubt. She could only see two very bright shades of pink and peach.

  “Hmm? Your face is red.” Pink-haired Collon peered at her.

  “R-really? Isn’t that just your imagination?”

  Chtholly looked away.

  “But it looks like you’re all right physically. Whenever you and the others come back from fighting, you always seem to be in so much pain. I’m glad you’re okay today.” That was peach-haired Lakhesh.

  “—Huh?”

  Now that she mentioned it, her body felt oddly light.

  Last night, she had definitely worked her venenum to the point of passing out. In the past, the morning after days she did that, she had always been bothered by heavy fatigue.

  She got out from bed and hopped gingerly in place.

  Rather than fatigued, her body felt incredibly good. She had recovered as if magic had been cast on her.

  “You’re right. I feel so spry.”

  “Spirit and guts!”

  That…probably wasn’t it.

  “Did you not notice?”

  “Uh, well…” She wondered why this was. Maybe it was the result of that odd massage—the details of which she would try not to remember, since her head still felt like it was about to explode. “…Oh, right. Do you know where he is?”

  “He?” Lakhesh stumbled for a second. “If you mean Mr. Willem, then the last time I saw him, he was in the material room.”

  “The material room… You mean the paper storage?”

  What did he have to do there?

  Just as she said, it was a place where they just tossed bundles of paper. At the very least, it wasn’t somewhere useful for looking up documents. As no one ever went near it, faeries often used it to hide when skipping out on cleaning duty.

  “He was with Nephren.”

  “…Huh?”

  “Collon!” Lakhesh raised her voice critically, but Collon paid no mind.

  “They were sleeping on the sofa together,” she continued. She shouldn’t have.

  “…Uh-huh.” Chtholly tilted her head. “Sure. Okay.”

  “U-um, Miss Chtholly?”

  “I just remembered I have to do something, so I’m going out for a bit. Thanks for checking in on me, and as you can see, I’m fine so don’t worry.”

  “Um, yes, of course, but”—Lakhesh slowly looked up at her with wide eyes—“be gentle with them, okay?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Chtholly smiled and left the infirmary.

  They were lucky to have excavated a sofa as they worked. Willem had plopped down onto it, and a woozy Nephren lay her head on his lap.

  “…Well, at least we got something usable out of this,” he murmured softly to himself so as not to wake his partner. He held a small stack of paper in his hand. It wasn’t as much as he’d hoped to find, and there were many unexpected things mixed in, but he managed to excavate a sizable portion of the information he was searching for.

  He picked out one paper from among the sheaf. He glanced over an account describing the existence of faeries.

  Faeries took many forms. There were blurred will-o’-the-wisps that led people lost in the forests astray. Then came the children with wings, halos of light glowing around them. And finally, little people, who only came up to a person’s knee.

  Faeries were all elusive beings, loved trickery, had the ability to use several forms of mysterious “magic,” resided in forests as well as their own kingdoms…and in most cases, they took an interest in emnetwiht and were always poking their noses in emnetwiht business.

  Well…that sounds about right. Those are the kinds of faeries that I know.

  But something was off. Willem wondered why these children were called leprechauns, these children who looked exactly like emnetwiht girls aside from the color of their hair. But there were many more important things he needed to learn before that, so he left it for later.

  I did think they might have evolved in these past five hundred years, but…

  As he pondered absently, he continued reading.

  The basic theory of necromancy was spelled out. It was a compilation of very occult logic, based on the premise that the soul existed. In essence, it stated that the spirit is pure white in the very beginning and then dyed the color of the world as it goes through life after birth. In conclusion, it takes longer for the soul to finish growing through its interaction with life than the physical body. Even if babies and children had mature bodies, their souls differed vastly from those of adults.

  And so souls that lost their physical bodies before they were completely dyed in the world’s colors become inconsistencies and “die before they are finished being born.” Usually, according to the rules of this world, souls would then go to the afterlife (if such a thing really did exist), but the souls of those who died too soon lost sight of where they needed to pass and wandered in place.

  Those were faeries.

  Lost souls that perished when they were too young to understand their own death.

  So their actions conformed to the behavior of babies and children. Led by their curiosity, unaffected by good or evil, sometimes innocent and sometimes cruel, t
hey play tricks over and over in attempts to get closer to people.

  “And yet, they have no place to call their own in this world… Huh…”

  Willem glanced down at the girl on his lap.

  His focus returned to the document.

  Everything written afterward made him feel sick. It was basically a detailed method of artificially creating faeries and how to use them. When it started talking about sacrifice, he stopped reading. He hadn’t picked this up to become a necromancer anyway.

  He moved on to the second document. It was a report detailing the mission of a faerie he didn’t know. The Carillon she took with her was Insania. She’d fought desperately against three parts of Six on the verge of losing control of her venenum, yet she’d somehow managed return alive. His eyes continued to quickly scan the words. There were several similar reports in a row. He occasionally read the phrase, “Open the gates to the faerie homeland,” which probably referenced a deliberate self-destruction via venenum overload.

  Faeries, and thus the leprechaun girls, were, in the strictest sense, not alive. They were ghosts. They didn’t count as soldiers, even if they were a part of an army. If any of them perished in battle, they would not be counted among the dead.

  “So they’re treated like weapons and not like soldiers…hmm,” he murmured absently, lightly stroking the gray hair on his lap. He heard a small groan. He thought for a moment he’d woken the girl but then realized he could still hear her soft snoring.

  What am I? Willem wondered.

  All the answers he could find to that question were lies.

  He had to decide here and now. Who was he, right at this moment?

  Was he just a shell with no place in this age? Was he a Quasi Brave, thrown out of time, whose dreams had been shattered and who’d lost everything? Was he a flimsy second officer who could just earn money and spend the days as he pleased? Or—

  A ray of light slipped through the window.

  The sky was covered in rain clouds, like always.

  The morning glow poked through the gaps.