by Yuu Kamiya
“Siren is a race beloved of the sea—the reason that they live in the sea and cannot leave the sea is that, in their bodies, they possess a plethora of spirits…water spirits capable of attracting any other spirits.”
“…Oh…”
“Oh, it’s like that.”
That makes sense, nodded Sora and Shiro, as it finally came together. How Siren, who, before the Ten Covenants, reproduced by devouring the men of other races, was able to survive without leaving the ocean and without possessing outstanding powers or magic. In other words—they just had to charm potential threats. That explained how they were able to swim with the schools of fish and how they were able to withstand the water pressure of the deep sea without magic.
“And this charm we’re talking about isn’t a magical charm?”
“It is not. It is simply a matter of the flow of spirits—a sort of magnetism that works on spirits. It is simply a feature of the race… Under normal circumstances, this would be no matter for concern, but—”
Glancing at the queen and looking away again.
“This fish-woman—seems to have a quantity of spirits that is truly exceptional.”
Jibril muttered, apparently unnerved by the fact that she could not escape the queen’s effects. Likewise, even having known that—the Shrine Maiden scratched her head with a look of weariness. But then—
Hmm, murmured Jibril. “On the other hand…why does it not affect you, my masters?”
“…Mmm…? Jibril, you said, we…don’t, have, spirits.”
“Yeah, you said all living things in this world have spirits in their bodies, but Shiro and I don’t.”
When they first met, they’d let Jibril check Sora’s body for spirits as proof that they were from another world. If it was a magnetism that worked on spirits, it should have come as no surprise that it didn’t work on Sora or Shiro—but.
“No, if you have a soul, you undoubtedly have spirits. They must simply be unknown to me or somehow evade my detection. But then why would you be unaffected? Let’s see…”
Jibril mumbled on, the object of her interest seemingly having shifted back to Sora and Shiro, as she surveyed them with sparkling eyes.
—Meanwhile, Ino suggested offhandedly, “Could it not be more simply explained in terms of King Sora’s virility?”
“You shut up, old fart. You’re just a dick-thinking horndog, whereas I am a model of reason.”
“Thaaanks for waitiiiiiiiing!”
—Amila and Plum burst back into the chamber. They seemed to have finished preparing the rite to enter the queen’s dreams or whatever. This having been accomplished—the two approached the ice in which the queen slept.
“’Kay, now we’re gonna use the spell Plum and everyone made to take you into the queen’s dreaaams.” Her disarming smile unchanged, Amila continued casually.
“Everyone who’s going to wake up the queeen, wager everything by the Covenants and then touch the crystal, okayyy?”
……
“What? Um, what are you saying?”
The one who broke the silence was Steph, but Amila replied vacantly. “Huh, is there a problem?”
“Of course there’s a problem. What are you saying?!”
…Wager everything? In other words, bet all your property, status, rights, and life—literally everything?
“Why do we need to do that?! I thought you were the ones who asked us to come save you?!”
“Whaaaa…? Plum, didn’t you explain it to them before you caaame?”
“Nghh…I-I’m sorry…”
Plum desperately apologized to Amila as she put a finger to her dismayed face. But they were interrupted—
“Cool it, Steph. The one who’s confused is you.”
—Sora interceded calmly and plainly. At his improbable composure, Steph turned back and looked around at everyone. Sora and Shiro—the Shrine Maiden and Jibril—even Ino and Izuna—all looked as if the situation was obvious.
“They called us here—to beat the queen’s game and wake her up.
“Third of the Ten Covenants: Play for wagers that each agrees are of equal value. The queen set up the game when she went to sleep, by the Covenants, saying ‘make me fall in love with you if you dare,’ so if we wanna win the queen’s love, we have to put our money on the table—right?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s a hottie for you! Not only is your face handsome, your brain’s handsome, too!”
Amila nodded with a girly laugh—but the Shrine Maiden and Shiro smiled, subtly, thinly, and Sora was the only one who noticed. But Steph, completely missing this subtle exchange, continued as if unconvinced.
“That-that’s absurd,” she insisted. Her voice swelling even more shrilly, she went on. “They’re the ones who are in trouble! Why should we bear such risk when we came to save them?!”
But Sora still took it in stride.
“Plum said meddling in someone’s feelings and dreams would normally be disallowed by the Ten Covenants, but we can do it ’cos the queen allows us—but her consent only goes as far as the game.”
—i.e.
“If we don’t start the queen’s game first, we can’t use our spells, and, of course, we can’t wake her up. So the ante the queen’s demanding for us to play her—”
Looking at Plum and Amila, Sora clowned.
“It’s like, ‘If you want my love, you’d better be ready to give up everything!’ …Right?”
Steph was stunned into silence, and the faces of the rest each assumed their own shocked expressions. Amila alone tore into Sora with a surfeit of praise.
“Thaaaat’s righhht! Ohh, can’t I have you instead of the queeen!”
Sora ignored the boisterous Amila. “Well, we’ve got a spell that will make the queen fall in love for sure, so I guess it’s fine.”
“Y-yeeess! I guarantee iiit; leave it to meee!”
“B-but that’s—I mean, what if for some reason the spell doesn’t work?!” Steph was still unable to shake off her unease.
“Then you can just leave it to Amilaaa,” Amila decisively declared.
“Even though the queen can play the game, she’ll still be asleep if she wins, and Amila’s the one in charge of her stuff! Even if something goes wrong, I’ll just give it all back to you, so there’s no risk!”
“Wait, we can’t count on—”
But Sora cut her off.
“Sure, no problem, then. So, shall we begin the game?”
—This is weird, Steph thought to herself. Something about this was definitely off. In the first place, why would such a high-risk condition only be brought up at this point? Why do they think nothing of it, Steph wondered, looking at Sora. It wasn’t like him. To go along with such a fishy game—. But Steph looked around again. Seeing that no one else seemed to think anything at all of it, she closed her lips tightly. Wh-what is this…? What is going on!
Now, then, began Plum as she started explaining the rules.
“Everyone, please swear by the Covenants that you wager everything and touch the iiice. Then I’ll cooperate with everyone downstairs to deploy the rite and magically lead you into the queen’s dreaams…then I’ll be coming along to help you with the ‘cheat,’ okayyy…?”
As Plum steadily wove together the rite, she elaborated:
“Since it’s a dream, the situation can be anything you waant… Your representative—it’s King Sora, righhht? King Sora’s imagination will form the foundation to build the situation in the queen’s dreaam… Regardless of the situation—there is only one victory conditiooon.”
Continuing on Plum’s theme, Sora took over.
“If someone makes the queen fall in love and wake up, they win, and if they get rejected, they lose—and the losers are out of the game and have to pay up everything they bet. That’s what we’re swearing by the Covenants, right?”
“Y-yeeess… B-but.”
But. I know, Sora interrupted.
“We’ve got Plum’s cheat, and even if we lose, we
can get it all back from Amila—right? Relax.”
Sora delivered this with a bold—yet to Steph, somehow off—grin.
“With this crew, under these conditions, there’s not a chance in a million we’ll lose, so let’s get this on.”
“O-okayyy. Then, King Sora, please imagine a situatioon, and—”
At her words, Sora imagined the single game you had to think of when it came to the romance genre.
“Please make your declaratiooon!”
“—Aschente!”
Sora, Shiro, Steph, Jibril, the Shrine Maiden, Ino, Izuna, and Plum. Together, the instant they said it, found their consciousnesses going white.
—Soon the white was repainted in blue. As if waking from a dream, their cloudy collective consciousness floated up. Blood flowed through all the slack parts of their bodies, and feeling returned—and then.
“Urbrbrbrbubrbugabrb?”
…They were drowning. In the middle of the great blue sea, Sora and Shiro, Izuna, Ino, and even the Shrine Maiden were being overwhelmed by the waves. The burning taste of brine. Pain stabbed through and past their nostrils. Calm thinking went out the window—yet, in their brains, a different vision played.
—As there are beginnings, so there will be endings…
Sparkling, gaudy visuals. With sound effects like spewing stardust, the monotone of a narrator somewhere coolly continued.
As there are meetings, so shall there be part—
“Is this the time to be chilling with the opening movie?!”
Desperately thrusting his face out of the surface of the sea, Sora raised a cry.
“In what world has Tok*meki ever started with you drowning? ‘Heartbeat,’ my ass!”
Well, it was true that his pulse was significantly raised. But he would have preferred not to describe the palpitations of imminent death as “Heartbeat Memorial.”
“Oh, s-sorryyy… Your image and the queen’s got a little mixed up, and it’s taking some time to build the environmeent… Hold on just a biiit—”
If you thought about it, it wasn’t surprising. Even if they were able to meddle in the queen’s dreams, it wasn’t as if the kind of school stories that existed in Sora and Shiro’s world would exist in this world. It was only natural that work would have to be done to make Sora’s image compatible with the queen’s frame of reference—but—
“…Brother…it was, a good…life…”
“Pluuum! My sister’s already giving up on life! Get it dooone!”
Shiro closed her eyes with a beatific smile in his arms as Sora screamed.
“—Uh, uh, rite build complete, configuring setting, now applying changeees!”
—That instant. The setting in which they had been drowning in the sea was overwritten as if turning the page of a book. From the surface of the sea to the ocean floor—the scene shifted. The unwanted parameter of breathing was gone. As if turning over cards one by one, the changes optimal in the dream world for the administration of the game were gradually added, and things became more convenient.
“—Master, are you all right?!”
At Jibril’s strong voice, Sora came to. Before he knew it, ground had been put under his feet.
“…Y-yeah… Damn, that was close…”
In the transparent blue sea, Sora let out a “deep breath” and wiped the “sweat from his brow.” Holding close Shiro, who was quivering from the fear of almost drowning, he muttered as if groaning.
“If you get off on weird scenarios like endings where you die right after the game begins, I’d really rather you do it somewhere else.”
“…I knew it, going to the beach…sucks…”
“This sea which has placed my masters in mortal peril—I suppose it must be eliminated outright.”
“Why can’t you just learn to swim…?”
Steph, apparently the only one who had been fine so far, chimed in with half-closed eyes. Beside her, though, the Shrine Maiden and the other Werebeasts irritatedly agreed with Jibril.
“…Right you are. What’s this ocean for? Who created this big, outlandish puddle?”
“For once, I must agree with Miss Jibril. We would all be better off if the sea were dry and gone.”
“And the sea stinks, please… It should just go away and leave us the fish, please.”
Now fully immersed in the dream, each took their turn at revilement as they gradually regained their composure.
—Sora, Shiro, Steph, Jibril, the Shrine Maiden, Ino, and Izuna. Each now having his or her feet squarely on the ground, they watched as the setting was constructed before them. Despite being at the bottom of the ocean, the blue sky shone overhead, and clouds floated across the shimmering surface of the sea. The undulating terrain was flattened, and, on the ocean floor previously littered only with rock and coral, a school appeared. The tropical fish that wandered around them were transformed into nameless NPCs. In just about the time it took to blink, the fictional setting of an ocean-floor school was created before their eyes.
A high school built in Oceand’s architectural style… As Sora regarded this bizarre scene, a voice piped up beside him:
“I’m most surprised that Her Majesty knew what a school was at alll… She must have read it in a book, I suppose,” conjectured Plum, apparently having likewise finished diving into the dream. She grasped the meaning of Sora’s gaze and announced with a tired smile tinged with bitterness, “Ha-ha… There’s no such thing as a school in Oceeeand… What would they studyyy?”
The scenery having finished changing, now Sora and crew found themselves being gradually modified. First—in their vision, countless icons lit up.
“…? What is this?”
As Steph tried to touch these oddities in her vision but found her hand sweeping through empty space, Sora explained.
“It’s the user interface…the command menu.”
—It was just like the status bar in a romance simulation game. Considering the scene that recalled Tok*Meki, just as he’d imagined, Sora continued.
“…If you’re capable of recreating this, I wish you wouldn’t drop us in the sea.”
“Well, it’s only recreated for the playerrs… To build the setting, it took a little more work to get your image and the queen’s memories working togetherrr… And now that you mention it.” Plum asked, suddenly suspicious, “Sir, where did you pick up that image? I’ve never seen the likes of iiit…”
Not knowing that Sora and Shiro were from another world, Plum was bothered by the source of their information—but was ignored.
“So, things that only affect the players are easier to change, huh?”
“Uh, yeeess, and I’m still building the riiite…so if you would please continue imaginiiing.
“However,” Plum added as she went on, “you cannot change your appearance, age, or seeex…so please take nooote…”
—The queen slept, hoping for the appearance of a prince. If she was to wake up and see the one she had fallen in love with, only to find that his profile pic was totally fake—she’d probably go back to sleep. That was fine. The real issue was—
“If we can change our names, make mine Kon*mi Man.”
“…Brother, starting…with all stats at 573, is cheating…”
At his sister’s chiding through half-closed eyes, Sora grinned boldly and shook his finger, tsk, tsk.
“Easter eggs are part of the game. Plus, with that trick, as soon as you try to do something, you get sick and end up taking the whole first year off and missing all the events… See, there are disadvantages, too, right?”
“…Okay, then, I’m…gonna be, Sem*ponume…”
“…Excuse me, what do those meaaan…?”
As they jabbered—now the players’ outfits changed to match Sora’s image. Sora was just wearing a blazer over his usual “I PPL” shirt.
“…Hmm, this clothing is a bit constricting.”
Likewise dressed in a boy’s school uniform—the ninety-eight-year-old sinewed geezer complain
ed next to him.
“…A uniform stretched out by bulging muscles…I think I’m gonna have nightmares.”
With this grumble, Sora turned his gaze from hell to heaven—in other words, to the ladies. Shiro, beside him, was dressed not in her usual all black—but a brightly colored girls’ uniform.
—Mixing Sora’s image with the queen’s, it was a sailor suit a bit on the revealing side. And, surrounding her, in the same sailor suits, were Izuna, Jibril, and the Shrine Maiden—
“…The Shrine Maiden in a sailor suit. Gotta say that’s awesome, but…”
“What, have you a complaint?”
Sweeping up her long, golden hair, the Shrine Maiden spoke, clad in the same brilliant sailor suit as Shiro. Her two tails swaying, the legs that peeked out from under her lifted skirt were nothing short of dazzling—but.
“…Hey, Shrine Maiden, come to think of it, how old are you?”
“Did no one teach you it’s rude to ask a lady her age?”
“I guess… By the way, you’re the one who created the Eastern Union, right?”
Flinch. The Shrine Maiden reacted.
“You even said yourself it was from as far back as you can remember. Izuna’s eight, and she remembers things. The Eastern Union’s meteoric rise over half a century—even if we don’t take into account the time it took to establish the Eastern Union, that makes you at least fifty-eight—”
“Let me teach you something interesting, you hairless monkey. Werebeasts—especially bloodbreak individuals—age slowly.”
Interrupting Sora’s on-the-mark reasoning, the Shrine Maiden spoke with a dazzling smile.
—That suddenly turned dangerous, and in an entrancing voice, she warned:
“If you try calling me ‘old lady’—you know what’ll happen. ”
“—Hf… Shrine Maiden, let me tell you something interesting, too.”
But Sora took it head-on and countered.
“Looks are everything! You give the feeling of being older from your behavior and tone, but, looks-wise, you’re a hot twenty-year-old at worst—in which case, your actual age is of no consequence. This is one of the basic precepts of Immanity.”