A question so obvious I had been carrying it for a very long time.
Why did I come to this world?
Why did I become Frondier de Roach and live my life with some bizarre main quest thrust on me?
Who was it that did something like this?
But I never imagined.
'That it would turn out to be humans.'
I looked at the humans gathered here.
Because I was seeing through Hestia’s eyes, I couldn’t even turn my head, but at the very least, everyone within my field of vision was someone I knew.
The heroes I knew. The ones called giants were gathered together, talking.
“Jeanne.”
A woman standing beside Jeanne d’Arc, as if trying to soothe her, opened her mouth.
It was my first time seeing this woman, but drawing on my knowledge from the game, she looked like Atalante, the hero of Greek mythology.
“If this plan succeeds, he won’t die either.”
“What kind of wordplay is that!”
Jeanne shouted.
“You all know how low the chances of this succeeding are! We staked our lives on that tiny possibility to save humanity! But will the human from the other world that we’re going to summon do the same? Have we even tried speaking a single word to him? No, we don’t even know who ‘he’ is in the first place!”
Rumble—
At Jeanne’s shout, the interior briefly ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ shook.
Only then did I realize that the setting of this memory wasn’t outdoors. They were all gathered inside somewhere.
...No, I knew where this was.
This was the Workshop.
“...Merlin.”
A man who had been silently listening opened his mouth.
It was King Arthur, Arthur Pendragon.
“I’m sorry, but this time I agree with Jeanne.”
“...Arthur.”
“Of course this grand magic is only possible because you’re here. You’re also the only one who can execute it. But is this really the right path? We’re just dumping far too heavy a burden on someone we’ve never even seen.”
At that, Merlin closed his eyes deeply.
“Arthur, you once said you would endure any sacrifice to save humanity.”
“...Right. And that was only ever about sacrificing myself.”
“This magic requires all of our lives.”
“Do you think that somehow absolves us? Just because we’re staking our lives, does that give us the right to decide that someone else’s life will be staked as well?”
The conversation was polite, yet sharp.
Then Sigurd, who had been listening, spoke.
“I think we have to use this magic.”
“Sigurd!”
Jeanne looked at Sigurd with resentful eyes.
Sigurd shook his head.
“We’ve come too far. Think about the sacrifices we’ve made to get this magic up and running.”
“That’s because we didn’t know what this magic really was!”
There, Jeanne d’Arc looked at Merlin.
“Merlin, you knew, didn’t you? What this magic is! You knew and you kept it from us!”
Merlin bowed his head deeply.
“...Yes.”
“How, how could you!”
“With the desire to save humanity in this world, I devised a plan to kill one person who has nothing to do with us. It is a pitch-black plan born entirely from inside me.”
“......!”
Jeanne bit her lip. No further words came out.
“...However.”
At that point, Merlin glanced sideways.
It was a direction I couldn’t see from my viewpoint.
“Why did you blab about this plan?”
Merlin let out a murderous voice. It was no different from the tone he would use toward an enemy.
He said,
“Loki.”
At that word, I was startled.
At Merlin’s words, someone stepped forward.
His red hair was messily tousled and a bit long for a man.
His sharp eyes blinked lazily, at odds with his air, and his gaze habitually slid sideways as one corner of his mouth curled up.
'Loki, it really is Loki!'
In the middle of these giants, Loki was mixed in among them.
It was such a jarring sight that Loki alone looked like he belonged to a completely different background.
“You call it blabbing about the plan.”
Loki let out a heavy voice.
“I simply never imagined something that important wouldn’t have been shared.”
“Loki...!”
“Even if we say I ‘blabbed,’ did I do something wrong?”
Loki spread both arms as he looked around.
“Among the giants, Merlin was the only one who knew the truth of the magic, so I told the others what this magic actually is. Anyone dissatisfied with what I did, perhaps?”
No one answered Loki’s words.
'...So that’s how it is.'
I roughly understood the situation.
The one who knew the full scope of this plan and the nature of the magic—in this group, Merlin was the only one besides Loki.
That was why Merlin had tried to hide this plan until his death. So that he alone could bear all the sin.
“And Merlin, this isn’t a problem that will be solved just because you carry it alone.”
“What do you mean?”
At Loki’s words, Merlin asked.
“We’re moving on the belief that this plan will succeed. Then when this plan does succeed, at the very least, none of us should be thrown into confusion. This isn’t something we can just hand-wave as ‘a magic that will save humanity.’ What will you do if, once that situation actually arrives, the people here can’t act properly?”
At those words, Merlin showed a displeased expression but did not refute him.
Probably because Loki was right.
“This is something we all have to decide.”
Loki looked at everyone with that characteristically sly face of his.
“Let’s all shoulder the sin together, my friends.”
Saying that to everyone with that face truly made the title “god of mischief” suit him.
But to me, there was something slightly contrived in that expression.
'For someone talking about sharing the sin, he’s the one volunteering to play the villain.'
I could see Loki’s intention.
This conversation was without a doubt about me.
A grand magic that drags someone from another world here. On top of that, without even getting his consent.
The heroes here couldn’t bring themselves to make such a choice, but if this really was the only way to save humanity—
Then at the very least, someone had to push their backs.
'...This feels strange.'
I already knew the result anyway. Because I was here.
In the end, they must have used the magic to bring me to this world.
Besides, judging by what they were saying, that was how humanity was going to be saved.
Then do I resent them?
Should I be angry that they brought me into a world on the verge of destruction without my consent?
...I still don’t know.
“Don’t worry too much.”
Loki shrugged his shoulders.
“Our plan will succeed. Then ‘he’ won’t die either, and it’ll just be a happy world where everyone eats well and lives well.”
“How can you say that? The odds of this operation are really...!”
“Forget the odds.”
Loki raised one hand.
When he moved that hand lightly, a coin that hadn’t been there was now between his fingers.
Ting—
He flicked the coin lightly with his finger, sending it up into the air. The coin spun a few times in the air and then landed on his palm.
Heads.
Ting—
He flicked it again, and it landed on his palm.
Heads again.
Ting—
Heads, again.
“I’m telling you we’ll succeed.”
“...That’s just a trick.”
“So what if it’s a trick.”
Loki laughed.
It was a mischievous smile.
“That’s what magic is.”
“...If everything goes according to plan, will we be able to send that person back?”
“Of course. The ‘Archmage’ of that era will send him back properly. Right, Merlin?”
When Loki asked Merlin, Merlin stroked his chin and spoke.
“The mage of that time will have reached a realm more advanced than mine, so probably.”
“See?”
Listening to that conversation, I fell into a daze.
So that’s how it is. If I want to go back, all I need is an Archmage.
Ospreet, or maybe Elodie.
“But this magic.”
Atalante opened her mouth.
“Even if we decide to do it, we don’t actually know if we can pull it off.”
“What do you mean?”
Arthur asked.
“We’re going to bring someone from another world into a time period where we don’t exist. That means ‘he’ will live his life without any advice from us. How are we supposed to make him move the way we want?”
“Right, he needs to know our situation to some extent. Our knowledge too.”
“For him to adapt quickly, his world will need to resemble this one as much as possible. Or at the very least, he needs some sort of chance to familiarize himself with our world.”
Hearing this conversation, there was one thing that came to mind.
It was a thought that made me think, no way, but—
'I first encountered this world as a game.'
The chance they were talking about, to get used to the world.
Was that something that appeared in my world in the form of a game?
Because there was no magic in that world?
'A game where no matter what you did, you couldn’t avoid a game over.'
The reason was simple.
This world had never originally gone beyond that point.
“That’s not all.”
This time it was Jeanne d’Arc.
“There are two conditions we want. Either the one we bring over has Weaving and then learns Menosorpo, or he gives Menosorpo to someone strong. The former is the ideal, the latter is the realistic one. But even just thinking about the realistic one, it’s not easy.”
“...Merlin, can you specify the person you’ll bring over?”
When Arthur asked, Merlin thought for a moment and then spoke.
“I can’t specify a single person. Narrowing it down by a few criteria is possible, though.”
“Criteria, huh.”
Arthur muttered.
There, Sigurd raised his hand.
“In that case, the conditions required of ‘him’ are—”
As he spoke, he began folding his fingers one by one.
“He must not believe in gods, have the talent to become strong in a short period of time, be able to adapt instantly when dropped alone in a strange world, and someday have the intelligence and curiosity to grasp the truth of this world?”
At those words, the others’ faces darkened.
Each condition was no small thing. That seemed to be what they were thinking.
“...The most important thing,”
Jeanne d’Arc said with a deeply troubled face,
“is that he must not collapse.”
“Collapse from what?”
“From everything. The despair of having lost his entire original life, the loneliness of drifting alone in a world, the dissonance of imitating someone else and living that person’s life, the desperation of struggling endlessly to save the world—he’ll need the mental strength to endure all of that.”
Ha, Sigurd let out a hollow laugh.
“Sounds about right. Then that guy will have to live swallowing every unreasonable thing that happens to him.”
Atalante spoke.
“On top of that, to grow rapidly in such a short time, he’ll need something beyond talent or effort. Whatever that is, it will be a kind of ‘price.’”
Sigurd snorted and shook his head.
“Hmph, if someone like that exists, he’d be a machine, not a human.”
“...I don’t know about a machine, but it’s not realistic, anyway. I don’t know if you could even call him normal...”
“If there are demons in that world too, maybe that kind of demon will be summoned.”
“Or maybe a god. Though in this case, it wouldn’t be a descent.”
They were all chattering away about me.
And yet I was a perfectly ordinary human being.
“He’ll be human.”
Someone said that at just the right timing, and I was a little surprised.
It was Jeanne d’Arc.
“It’s just that, if there really is a human like that—”
Her face was sorrowful.
“unless someone tells him, he’ll be someone who doesn’t even realize his own pain.”
I had nothing to say to Jeanne d’Arc’s words.
Am I that kind of person? I had never thought about it.
“Jeanne.”
Then Loki spoke.
“If everything goes the way we wish, you’re the only one who’ll face him. Are you prepared?”
“...Yes.”
Jeanne d’Arc nodded.
Loki spoke again.
“This magic is the sum of all our wishes. But we don’t know if it will really be granted as we wish. If we lack power, it might produce some half-baked result that is neither this nor that, or something even more miserable.”
“I know.”
“Faith is important for this grand magic. Silly as that might sound.”
“It’s not silly.”
Jeanne d’Arc shook her head.
“You said it yourself. That someday, far in the future, I’ll face that person. If I believe that time will come, I can be at ease.”
“...Right. You had ‘eyes.’”
Loki nodded as if something made sense to him.
He smiled again.
“Then, want to bet, Jeanne?”
“A bet?”
“On what that person’s eyes will be like when someone who matches all the conditions we want appears.”
“What do you mean, what they’ll be like?”
“You can tell by looking into someone’s eyes, can’t you. Whether they’re truly dead or alive. I’m betting on dead. There’s no way a human with that much experience could keep his sanity.”
Jeanne shook her head at those words.
“He’ll have better eyes than you.”
