World Alliance (2)

The thin forest offered little in the way of food, while monsters kept attacking us every now and then.

Starving wild dogs known as Hungry Dogs, giant crows that attacked in flocks, and Killer Worms that crept up on us while we slept.

Monsters of this sort had existed in the "surface world," too.

The gravity we felt, the vegetation around us, the movement of the stars—everything was exactly the same.

If that was the case, it would be better to assume that this was the "world behind the world"—the world from which the "Mediator" I fought in the Holy Kingdom of Kurvaan had come.

I told Asha everything I knew about this world.

——The eight-star Talent Jewel seemed to be necessary to offer up a member of the Holy King family and an innocent person who had never obtained a Talent Jewel. I don't know what they were to be offered up for, but according to the records available so far, that Talent Jewel appeared once every 100 to 300 years. Every member of the Holy King family who received that Talent Jewel disappeared without exception. It is thought that they departed for the "world behind the world."

That was what Earl Sillys had told me.

Members of the Holy King family had left for this world hundreds of years ago.

——Er, the "world behind the world" is only called "behind" from our perspective. It is said to be the exact same world, existing on the other side of this one. The "Alliance" is apparently a set of rules concerning Talent Jewels agreed upon with the "world behind the world."...