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

by Akira Kareno

  She knew.

  But. Still. She knew, and what good did that do?

  The connection on the communication crystal clicked off.

  Whatever it was that kept her emotions in check burst into a million pieces.

  “Aaahhhhh!”

  Nygglatho howled.

  “Why?! Why this?!”

  She looked up at the ceiling, her emotions gushing forth in a wail.

  That mechanized version of herself she had made in her mind? That sickening thing should have gone straight into the trash. Thrown in the shredder and turned to scrap.

  “Why…? Whyyy…?”

  Her whirlpool of emotions quickly dried up.

  Her cries died out and became quiet sobs.

  Large tears welled up in her eyes, plopping one by one onto her knees and dampening her skirt.

  There was a time when she had resolved to be a strong woman.

  So the girls here would comfortably seek out her help. So she could be a pillar for their spirits. So even if clumsily, she could be the mother these parentless children had never had. Or at least play the part.

  She should have made up her mind that day. No matter what happened, she would never cry. It was the girls themselves who should have been truly uneasy and desperate to shed tears. So she had to take on the role of a shoulder to cry on. So no matter how impossible it felt, no matter how much she had to suppress her feelings, she had to support the girls with a smile.

  How stupid was that?

  That was impossible.

  She felt so sad. So defeated.

  She couldn’t restrain her tears and sobs.

  “Ohhh…hahhh…”

  The failure of a strong woman wailed like a baby.

  No one would comfort her. There wasn’t anyone who would offer her a shoulder to cry on. That’s why she didn’t know when to stop crying.

  “Pardon us, it’s an emergency!”

  “There you are, Nygglatho!”

  “Th-th-th-there’s trouble!”

  It happened so suddenly. The door swung open so violently she thought it had broken, and three little faeries leaped in.

  “Ahh!”

  It was lucky she was facing the communication crystal with her back to the door. Her sobs withdrew in surprise, and the girls didn’t have to see her tear-streaked face.

  “H-hold on, you’re supposed to knock before entering.”

  Her voice was shaky, so she objected quietly, her back still to them. But—

  “There’s no time for that. I said it’s an emergency!”

  “Come quickly, otherwise we’ll be in real trouble!”

  “We’ll have a death on our hands if you don’t hurry up!”

  Death?

  Oh, well, she knew about that.

  She knew that Chtholly Nota Seniorious would die. But that wouldn’t happen for another three days. Chtholly was fifteen; she was one of the oldest girls and acted like an adult even though she was still very much a child, and in fact a bit spoiled, even though she wasn’t very good at fawning over others. And—

  “Mr. Willem is going to die!”

  Silence.

  …What? Going to die? Who? Willem?

  One by one, words trickled into her heart, paralyzed by tears.

  After a few seconds—

  “How on earth did that happen?!”

  Her voice, still a bit nasal, came out in a shriek as she grabbed her nearby spice case…just kidding, her first aid kit…then flew out of the room.

  Once This War Is Over

  -starry road to tomorrow-

  1. That Day Long, Long Ago

  A long fight finally drew to a close.

  The sun had set three times and risen three more.

  Ocean water rushed in where sheer mountains had stood before the war, forming a large bay.

  The flames of purgatory unleashed upon the trees showed no signs of abating, continuing to spread death and black ash.

  Countless metal fragments were scattered about. If someone knowledgeable examined the scene closely, it would have been evident they were the remains of ruined talismans. The majority of the shards had once been a part of the Deflect charm, manufactured to the highest of standards at the Holy Empire Central Workshop. The fragmented clusters of bronze floating in the bay’s waves were broken pieces of the Allay Terminal Disease charm, passed down within the West Garmando Sands Federation. The molten iron bubbling red among the trees had, just a few days earlier, been the secret of the Selenzrode School of Magic, the Protection of Fate charm.

  It was a grand collection of the greatest of battle magic used by all mankind, gathered from quite literally all over the world.

  They had all been spent and now littered the ground.

  “—Man, you sure made this take a while.”

  The young man felt like he didn’t have enough strength to move even a single finger.

  He tossed away his broken sword and sat on a nearby rock.

  “No one told me I had to do this much to win, sheesh.”

  “I should be the one saying that, young one.”

  The air shuddered at the bitter voice.

  The old man’s voice sounded like it echoed from the depths of the abyss.

  “However…I shall acknowledge that you have had your own way thus far by straining that punitive life of yours.”

  “That doesn’t make me happy. Your recognition isn’t gonna grant me more time… Also, you’re talking like normal, but aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

  “Indeed. Even I, with my physical form so thoroughly destroyed as it is, must steep this body into the hush of death for a hundred years. What communicates with you now is, simply put, my echoes.”

  “Oh, great. That’s a relief.”

  Eleven Percival-series swords with seven ruinous spells, “sharpened” to a level of self-destruction. He had even forced himself to use the Braves’ final sword techniques, which he had no right to activate.

  If all that hadn’t killed it, there was nothing more he could do.

  “I say this as I fully accept it, but what a terrifying tale. You wield so much power alone, despite how powerless you are. It is truly, truly frightening. Had you used that power in the realm of man, it could have reduced two or three kingdoms to ash in a single night. But…of course, it seems it was not power without price.”

  The young man snorted.

  Long, stringy clouds of mist floated around the young man.

  As they slowly, slowly grew in number, they coiled around his body, as though trying to bind him.

  “That is the magnitude of that spell. The reaction becomes a curse and torments the caster. Casting just one is more than enough to shatter a person’s body, and it would not be surprising if your very soul disappeared, as well. To cast seven of them—you may be plagued by unspeakable agony.”

  “If it’s gonna end with me dying, then it doesn’t matter if I cast one or seven, and if I can’t fight anymore, then it doesn’t matter if it hurts or I’m in pain.”

  “…That does not seem like sound logic.”

  “People have been telling me that for years, but hearing it from a real monster makes it feel a little different.”

  The voice cackled.

  “You cannot stand up to the gods without such measures, hmm?

  “—Our time of parting has come to pass. I shall slumber now for a hundred years.”

  “Hurry up and get outta here. At least let it be quiet when I die.”

  “Very well. I can recognize that much as your right as the victor—”

  The voice faded, and along with the overpowering sensation that filled the air around the young man, it vanished into the wind.

  “Hey, you dead yet?”

  He called, and no response came.

  There was a dry creak by the young man’s feet.

  He used all his strength to lift his head and look down and saw that his ankles and feet had turned into rough, chunky stone.

  —The hell i
s this?

  There was a chorus of quiet crackling noises, and the gray crept up along his body. To his knees. To his thighs. To his waist. Then farther up.

  One after the other, the seven curses that should have cost him his life…intermingled elaborately, and after a series of mutual interferences, they manifested in a completely divergent form.

  As his chest began to petrify, the young man smiled again.

  “I had planned on going home, though. How on earth did this happen?”

  He looked up at the sky, and he imparted to all those precious to him under that same sky words that would never reach them.

  “Sorry, Lillia. Get home safely with the master.

  “Sorry, Suowong. I want you to go along with all of Lillia’s requests from now on.

  “Emi, I…I didn’t promise you anything. I think you’ll be fine on your own, but, well, at least live on happy and healthy.”

  Then… Then…

  As he uttered his last words, the young man’s body was turning to stone with frightening speed.

  There were too many he wanted to name. He had so little time left.

  There wasn’t much he could do about it. He sifted through all the names that came to mind until only one remained in his sieve.

  “Almaria, I’m really sorry—”

  The last name he chose was that of his daughter, unrelated to him by blood, who awaited him in an orphanage far away.

  “—I don’t think I’ll be back to eat that butter cake.”

  At last, there was a quiet ding.

  All that was left was a hunk of stone in the shape of a young man.

  2. The One Who Should Not Be Alive

  “What is this?”

  That was the first thing Nygglatho said once she was finished treating him.

  “What is wrong with your body?”

  “Ha-ha-ha, I guess you could say I’ve gotten pretty rusty. I haven’t held a sword in ages, so my body couldn’t keep up.”

  “I don’t need to hear your jokes. You should know very well what this means or, at the very least, what sort of situation you’re in.”

  Nygglatho wore a serious expression, and on top of that, her eyes were bloodshot for some reason and her voice shaky. It didn’t seem like he’d be able to blow this off with a joke.

  “To put it frankly? You’re in tatters. You have hairline fractures in almost all your bones, and they’re not healing. You have several weakened tendons, and they haven’t recovered. Almost half your internal organs aren’t working properly. Meditative healing isn’t my specialty, so I’m not entirely sure, but viewed from that angle, it’s safe to say your internal flow of energy is a complete mess.”

  He thought she was probably right. Willem didn’t know anything about that but was aware that his body was a wreck.

  “I wouldn’t even have to pull out a knife for the fibers in your meat, either. They’re so full of tears, I could rip them apart with my teeth alone.”

  He wished she wouldn’t say that with such a sad look on her face.

  “And these aren’t wounds from yesterday or today. They’re all old. Does that mean you’ve been keeping them a secret all this time?”

  “It’s not really a secret.”

  “It’s the same even if you act indifferent and keep quiet about it! How much did you have to exercise to walk and move like this…?” Nygglatho sighed deeply. “…These wounds are the aftereffect of turning into stone, aren’t they?”

  “It’s more like the damage from the fight before that happened. Well, I was in a state where just being alive was a huge bonus. I’m not asking for much.”

  “That’s no excuse for treating your life so lightly.”

  “Guess not.”

  He shrugged—well, he wanted to, but pain shot throughout his entire body when he tried, so he just smiled vaguely instead.

  “Don’t push yourself too hard.”

  Nygglatho gently placed her palm on his hand.

  Reflexively, his heart beat faster.

  “You’ll lose your flavor.”

  He’d thought she was going to say something like that.

  “Can I tell the children?”

  “Sure. Like I said, it really wasn’t a secret to begin with. If you feel like you have to, tell them as much as you need.”

  “All right. I’ll be off, then. You stay here and rest in the meantime. I think you know this already, but anything that will put a strain on your body is absolutely forbidden, okay? I can’t guarantee the life of someone clinging to it under such mysterious circumstances.”

  “Got it. I’m not gonna do anything that’ll add an extra dish to your dinner,” he strained to say.

  “This is not funny. I’m being serious.”

  “…O-okay.”

  She huffed at him with a serious expression and pouted her lips, but it wasn’t very intimidating.

  Who was it who’d been talking about flavor just now? He felt like something was unfair about this, but he didn’t protest.

  That would probably be best for his health, but…more importantly, he knew it wasn’t very good manners to use a joke to hide how embarrassed he was that someone was worried for him.

  She chose the dining hall as the place for all the faeries to gather.

  Nygglatho garnered the attention of almost twenty of them, then sighed.

  “…I see you’re all looking at me with such expectant faces, but it might not be a very fun story, okay?”

  “Well, we can decide that afterward. We’re, you know…not really excited, but we want to know the truth.”

  Ithea had spoken. The faeries around her nodded eagerly.

  It didn’t seem Nygglatho would be getting out of this one. “I suppose I have no choice,” she muttered, readying herself, and began to speak.

  “It was around spring last year, I think. Just before I was dispatched here. I had to work together with salvagers once, under orders of the Orlandry Alliance.”

  “Salvagers!!”

  The eyes of several faeries glittered. The salvagers, chasers of romance who dove headfirst into danger, had a heroic popularity among some of the children in Regule Aire. That being said, they were rather more popular with boys.

  “They were basically not very good at their jobs. They went down to the surface many times, but they didn’t bring back much. That day, they were just about to return to the islands empty-handed, but a clumsy fellow stepped through the ground and fell in—”

  There, the troupe had discovered an enormous frozen underground lake.

  Then they’d spotted a stone statue of a young featureless man sunken at the bottom of the lake, she explained.

  “It’s like ‘Icicle Coffin.’” One of the girls mentioned the title of a fairy tale.

  “There wasn’t a princess inside but a statue of a man.”

  One of their companions who could use Sight noticed that it wasn’t just a statue but a real person turned into stone by some sort of curse. After that, of course, they’d lost the option of just going home and leaving him untouched.

  They laboriously shattered the ice and pulled out the statue. It was a heavy load, but they managed to take it back to the island.

  After throwing him in a charity hospital for about a month, the petrification finally wore off, and he woke up.

  “It was quite the hassle, then. He would act unruly whenever he saw a boggard or an orc, and he couldn’t understand our language at all. We brought in a communications master from the Alliance, and we were able to talk with him for the first time. Eventually, we found out that he was a real emnetwiht. The last surviving soldier of a race that had made enemies of everyone but themselves. I don’t know why, but he slept for hundreds of years at the bottom of that lake…”

  “He was on the surface that whole time and was never eaten by a Beast?”

  “Possibly because he had turned to stone. Arguably the only good thing to come of the situation.”

  The language problem had been comparati
vely easy to solve. One of the ancient talismans on the ground near the ice was Language Comprehension. The young man used the charm and began talking about himself bit by bit, and he understood the information about the present the salvagers explained to him.

  Nygglatho still remembered the expression of despair on his face.

  She couldn’t forget how he’d wailed in lament.

  He was most likely the last of the emnetwiht, who should have all perished long ago. The companions decided to leave this special being alone, just as he wished.

  Nygglatho didn’t know much about what happened afterward. The man went on to live on Island No. 28 of all places—making his home where people were most critical of the featureless—and worked incredibly hard to pay off the debt he had incurred from the analeptics, the hospital, the communications master, etc. That was about as much as she heard from one of the salvagers.

  Then…that’s right. He’d come here.

  The young man had grown in this past year and a half. His smile came out more now. He even showed how oddly nice he was toward the children.

  And yet. The pitch-black flame of emptiness that gloomily shivered deep in his eyes had not changed from back then.

  “That’s all I know.”

  Withholding some of the more subjective things, Nygglatho finished telling the general story.

  The girls looked at one another, whispering among themselves in some sort of exchange.

  “—And that’s all I can tell you. Another thing I can do is ask you a favor. It might not be possible right away, but please don’t be too afraid of him or alienate him too much… That’s all.” With that, Nygglatho took her leave of the dining hall.

  As Nygglatho walked down the corridor, she thought to herself, I think I made a mistake.

  The emnetwiht race was detested. Willem himself might not have had anything to do with it, but it had been, without a doubt, the emnetwiht who’d unleashed the Seventeen Beasts to begin destroying the world.