WorldEnd: What Do You Do at the End of the World? Are You Busy? Will You Save Us?, Vol. 3

by Akira Kareno

  Copyright

  WORLDEND: WHAT DO YOU DO AT THE END OF THE WORLD? ARE YOU BUSY? WILL YOU SAVE US?

  AKIRA KARENO

  Translation by Jasmine Bernhardt

  Cover art by ue

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  SHUMATSU NANI SHITEMASUKA? ISOGASHIIDESUKA? SUKUTTEMORATTEIIDESUKA? Vol. 3

  ©2015 Akira Kareno, ue

  First published in Japan in 2015 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through TUTTLE-MORI AGENCY, INC., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2019 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Yen On Edition: March 2019

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Kareno, Akira, author. | ue, illustrator. | Bernhardt, Jasmine, translator.

  Title: WorldEnd : what do you do at the end of the world? are you busy? will you save us? / Akira Kareno ; illustration by ue ; translation by Jasmine Bernhardt.

  Other titles: WorldEnd. English

  Description: First Yen On edition. | New York : Yen On, 2018– | Subtitle translated from Shumatsu Nani Shitemasuka? Isogashiidesuka? Sukuttemoratteiidesuka?

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018016690 | ISBN 9781975326876 (v. 1 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975326883 (v. 2 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975326913 (v. 3 : pbk.)

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.K364 Wo 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018016690

  ISBNs: 978-1-9753-2691-3 (paperback)

  978-1-9753-2692-0 (ebook)

  E3-20190212-JV-NF-ORI

  Before That War Began

  -legal braves-

  It was the eve of the final battle.

  Everyone decided they should at least spend their last night with the people they missed the most.

  The legendary band of heroes who had gathered to subdue the Visitor Elq Hrqstn, designated enemy of the Church of Exalted Light, temporarily disbanded for that very reason.

  “…So why did you come to see me anyway?”

  Her former master, whom she hadn’t seen in a long while, asked the question with a frown.

  “’Cause I don’t have any lovers or family, y’know?”

  Lillia cackled as she answered.

  They were in a shantytown in the corner of the Imperial Capital’s sixth district, far removed from the knights’ regular patrol routes. The inn where her master chose to stay was located on a block notorious for rampant pickpocketing.

  The floor creaked loudly with every step. Dust caked the hearths to the point that they were unusable. All of the installed lamps were almost out of oil, and none of them offered very good light. Five silver coins for a night at a place like this sounded like highway robbery, but there was value in the goat-head design carved on the bottom half of the sign that hung out front. Put simply, the area’s influential organization, known as the Whisperers, guaranteed peace and quiet to any who stayed here.

  “I was trying to think of someone who’s like family to me, but the only person I could come up with was you, master! Geez, what a lonely life I’ve lived, right?”

  Lillia burst into forced laughter.

  Her master was a man of many mysteries. He had a slim build, but it was hard to tell his age… He could pass for thirty or sixty years old either way. Lillia had first met him over ten years ago, and his appearance hadn’t changed very much. It almost looked like he was getting younger.

  His age wasn’t the only unknown; his birth and upbringing were also a mystery. He was a master of each and every martial art, though it was anyone’s guess as to where he learned them. Moreover, his deep and extensive knowledge was so great that all the scholars in the capital were no match for him.

  This man, her master, dropped his shoulders in an exaggerated manner, tired.

  “…And what about my senior pupil who you’re so fond of?”

  “Willem? He said he was going back to Gomag to see Allie and the others.”

  “You should’ve gone with him, then. He’d never refuse his adorable junior.”

  “Ah-ha-ha-ha, you always make the worst jokes, master!” Though she laughed, the crevasses between her brows suddenly deepened. “If I really did ask that idiot, not only would he actually say yes, he might treat me like real family.” She lowered her voice as though she wanted to intimidate him.

  “Of course he would. What’s wrong with that?”

  “The world might end.”

  Silence.

  “There’s a place that I’d give up anything to go home to, but I know I’ll never be able to go back. That’s true for me. That’s true for you. And it was the same for all the people who came before us. I don’t know why, but it’s one of the basic conditions for being a Legal Brave, isn’t it? It’d be bad news if I had a home to go back to, right?”

  “It’s not like it’s an exact rule, though.”

  “Still. I can only keep the title of Legal Brave because the Church of Exalted Light recognized me as the unhappiest person in the world, right? At any rate, that’s why I think the second I become the happiest person in the world, I’ll be stripped of my qualifications.

  “Of course, I think I’d still be able to fight well enough with all this talent and skill at my disposal. But not against the Visitors—not the way a certain someone can, that’s for sure.”

  “Wait, you don’t think you could be the happiest person in the world that easily, do you?”

  “I’m confident I could. I’m just lonely, after all.”

  Silence.

  “You said it to me before, didn’t you, master? No one can match a Legal Brave’s strength. That’s why the Legal Brave needs to stay isolated—right? That was all wrong.

  “I’m so strong right now that it even scares me. But someone has been constantly following behind me, always. Even though he should know that he’ll never catch up, he never gets it. I glance back, and he’s always there. It’s like a B-class horror story! He’s always, always following me. The fool won’t leave me alone.”

  “You hate him that much?” the master asked, annoyed.

  “Hmm.” Lillia stared into space and searched from within her for what she wanted to say about Willem. “Yeah, I hate how serious he is. He’s still a kid on the inside even though his body’s grown up; plus, he uses brute force and physical
strength in anything he does despite how much he studies; and just because he happened to meet you a bit earlier, he struts around like a senior pupil; and besides, he used to be cute a long time ago, but now he’s gotten so tall; then there’s the fact that he’s not inconsiderate, but he understands nothing about women.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  That was true. She didn’t disagree. She was practically forcing herself to come up with more false accusations as she rambled on.

  But what could she do? If she didn’t keep it up, then Lillia Asplay would stop hating him. The moment she stopped, there probably wasn’t anything she could do to keep herself from falling for him.

  Willem Kmetsch was the type of guy who couldn’t bear it if the people around him were unhappy. It didn’t matter if they were young or old, male or female. If someone said, “I’m lonely; can you stay with me?” he would undoubtedly do it. Even if that someone happened to be Lillia Asplay—though he might scrunch up his face in a frown if it was her.

  But that would be enough to satisfy her. She would discard the title of the unhappiest person in the world. Then, after that—

  “……”

  The Church of Exalted Light would mobilize and begin searching for the next suitable person to be the Legal Brave.

  She didn’t want to think about what would happen after that.

  “—Whatever. Whether I’m a backup choice or not, I’m not gonna turn away a pupil who’s coming to me on their last night.”

  As he mussed his own hair, the master grasped his coat from a worn-out chair.

  “This ain’t the place for a long conversation, so let’s continue at a place with food and drink. It’d be the first time in a while I’ll be hearing about your least favorite senior pupil’s tales of valor.”

  “Okay, sure. Are there any good places around here?”

  “Don’t get your hopes up. Most don’t serve proper meals.” Her master stepped across the creaking floor and placed his hand on the warped door. “That reminds me, Lillia. I’m surprised you found me here. I don’t think I’ve been telling the Alliance what I’ve been up to recently.”

  “Hmm? Oh yeah. Finding you was a serious pain.”

  …That was right. She hadn’t been able to track down the master himself at all through conventional methods.

  He had been a prestigious knight of the old Dione Order as well as the Eighteenth Legal Brave, once upon a time. She had assumed incorrectly that it would be easy to gather information on sightings of him out in public, given how famous he was.

  That was why it was entirely coincidence that she had run into the master here.

  She had actually been searching for someone else—the remnants of an armed anti-Empire cult she and the others had decisively taken down the other day, along with a dangerous individual who was developing some kind of new project.

  This inn was just one of the places that came up during the course of her investigation.

  And staying in this inn, for some reason, was her master, who she hadn’t been able to find no matter how much she’d searched.

  She wanted to think it was a coincidence. She wanted to unconditionally trust someone so important to her. But Lillia wasn’t so innocent as to drop all suspicions in a situation like this, nor did she lack any responsibility herself.

  “Oh yeah, I just remembered I had something else I wanted to ask you.”

  “Yeah? What?”

  She inhaled.

  Exhaled.

  She calmed her pounding heart and asked:

  “Are you the current leader of True World, master?”

  Slowly, her master turned around.

  He did not respond with words. He didn’t need to. Just by the tinge of caution in her master’s eyes, Lillia knew her prediction was correct.

  But not a single part of her felt happy about it.

  Even When the Sun Sets

  -slight light, slight hope-

  1. Even Further Beneath the Starry Sky

  A long time ago, life thrived on the surface.

  The trees grew thick, animals ran about, and many people, including the emnetwiht, carried on with their lives.

  What so easily destroyed that era of prosperity was what the world afterward called the “Seventeen Beasts.” They appeared seemingly from nowhere, completely obliterating anything and everything on land that could be considered “life.”

  Everyone and everything that once inhabited the surface disappeared.

  The emnetwiht, the dragons, the morians, the elves—they were all wiped out. The scant few who managed to escape into the sky narrowly avoided death.

  Over five hundred years had passed since then.

  The last pocket garden of Regule Aire, where the survivors remained, had still not sunk. They were managing to just barely hold out against repeated attacks by the Beasts.

  They borrowed the power of the wishing crystals left behind by the emnetwiht—the Carillon.

  And they sent out girls who possessed incredibly fleeting lives to die, one after another.

  The low, constant reverberation of the enchanted furnace vibrated deep in her stomach.

  Nopht got off the windowsill, thinking how bad it must be for her health.

  The world beyond the window was blotted out in total darkness. It now acted like a mirror, and all she could see reflected there was a single child scowling at her, lips in a pout. She had no fun glaring back.

  “Ugh! Man, I’m sooo bored! Bored, bored, bored!”

  She flopped backward onto the simple cot and kicked her legs about. She knew throwing a tantrum would get her nowhere, but her body still moved of its own accord.

  This airship—the surface observation ship Saxifraga—now hovered roughly fifty marmer above the ground.

  The Seventeen Beasts, the menaces of the surface, could not fly freely. It was estimated they would not be attacked if they kept this altitude.

  However, being safe and sound often led to boredom.

  “Wasn’t the surface supposed to be full of romance and adventure?! What about the falcon princess trapped on an emnetwiht altar, surrounded by a hundred Beasts, waiting for a prince to save her?! What about the mountain of treasure slumbering just beneath the gray sand and the ghosts of bandit kings waiting to possess you?! Why’s there nothing but sand and rocks here?! Where’s the treasure?! Where’re the ghosts?! Where are the Beasts?!”

  “Nopht, please shut up.”

  A quiet voice reprimanded her.

  Nopht turned her head to look, and there sitting on the cot beside her was Rhantolk, reading some kind of book.

  “What’s that?”

  “An artifact that emerged from the sand yesterday. I thought it might relieve my boredom, so I borrowed it from the cargo hold.”

  Rhantolk always sounded miserable, and she often spoke in a manner that put distance between her and others. That was why the youngest girls at the warehouse were typically afraid of her or didn’t like her… But Nopht thought the girl wasn’t so bad once she got to know her.

  She didn’t think Rhantolk was a good person, but then again, the feeling was mutual.

  “An ancient manuscript, huh. Can you read it?”

  Nopht wrapped her arms around Rhantolk from behind and peered over her shoulder.

  It was definitely a book. Though its coloring was a bit off, its binding was sturdy, and it didn’t look brittle at all. Maybe it was better preserved than they thought.

  She also directed her gaze to what was on the page, but—well, sure enough, it just looked like row after row of unfamiliar symbols.

  “Mm… There are some words I understand.” Rhantolk plucked out a simple biscuit with her slim fingers. “It’s not enough to accurately understand the content. But by stringing together words and imagining what they mean, it’s the perfect sort of puzzle to alleviate my boredom.”

  A slight frown appeared on Rhantolk’s face when she felt Nopht’s weight hanging on her back.

  “Huh. So what’s i
t mean?”

  “I’m just telling you what I think it means, okay?”

  “Sure, tell me what you think it means. Coming into contact with ancient records and setting my imagination aloft is exciting enough.”

  Rhantolk sighed, a slight expression of annoyance on her face.

  Nopht knew it well. Rhantolk made this face as she complained yet patiently went along with Nopht’s selfish requests.

  “—The emnetwiht race should never have been started. This was the first and greatest sin of the Visitors, who created them.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I told you—that’s what I imagine this book is talking about. After staring at the introduction for so long, that seems to be what the first line is talking about.”

  “Huh. If that came from emnetwiht ruins, I guess that means they knew they were bad news, too.”

  “No, it seems like this was treated as a dangerous idea to the emnetwiht at the time. Perhaps like the heavenward ideology in Regule Aire now.”

  “Oh.”

  The heavenward ideology. Nopht had heard of that before.

  Basically, the ideology stated that the Regule Aire they lived on now was nothing but a point of passage and that they would have to drift farther away from the corrupted surface and go to the distant stars.

  Just saying it brought very little actual harm, but there were more than a few among those who believed it who dirtied their hands trying to steal airships or build airships illicitly, so most islands treated it with caution.

  “Then”—Rhantolk’s slim finger followed the line on the page—“the beasts…sealed…the people… Oh, I think it’s the other way around. The people freed the beasts, and a world filled… No, the world filled with a gray truth…?”

  “Ohhh.”

  Nopht leaned even farther over her shoulder. Consequently, even more of her weight pressed down on Rhantolk’s back.

  “Nopht, you’re heavy.”

  “So that’s when the land was wrecked by the Beasts. Wow, it’s like a prophecy.”

  “You think so? It seems like this was just one of a great many produced, and I think it might have been something like a children’s story or a textbook or a doctrine.”