Chapter 108
Somehow, I had always believed I would never die.
It was only after I died that my arrogance was shattered.
Tsurushima Gyges (24) was a Transcendent known by the epithet "Illusion Mage."
His real name was what people might call a yokai name, so he had stood out from everyone around him throughout his school years and resented his parents for it, but by now he had given up.
Simply being able to introduce himself and start a conversation was one of the few advantages of having a yokai name, and ever since joining the Defense Ministry, he had been called by his epithet.
In some truly rural areas, the superstition that touching a demon or a Transcendent would turn you into a monster still survived, so perhaps he ought to accept the slightly overexcited name his parents had chosen for their transparent baby, whom they raised with such delight.
It was during his first Class 1 battle that the Illusion Mage realized he himself had been the flighty one all along.
Like all Transcendents, the Illusion Mage possessed a sturdy body. Even as an invisible man, his physical durability was no worse than that of other Transcendents. A normal spell merely felt like a poke, and even a spell that would kill an ordinary person instantly left him with only cuts and bruises.
He had learned about the fearsome power of dynamite in the university's combat department and had even hunted a Class 3 monster for his graduation exam. But he had never once felt any real danger to his life, and somehow believed that death was something far removed from him.
When the Class 1 monsters "Four-Headed Dragon Tiamat" and "Gazer the Glaremaster" appeared, the Illusion Mage was dispatched in an emergency and died in a tragic accident too awful to watch.
Because of a false report, he ended up helping Tiamat, only to be crushed to death beneath Gazer's giant body after Tiamat sent Gazer flying.
Running away from the battlefield with his back turned in response to the withdrawal order was a mistake.
It was also a mistake to turn around at the sound of the roar and hurriedly try to cast a defensive spell when Gazer's massive body came rushing toward him. He should have used Emergency Defense, but he had been through too few desperate battles, so his mind went blank and he could not cast it in time.
Transcendents were people who had surpassed humanity.
Yet even a Transcendent died with startling ease.
The Illusion Mage had registered as a body donor.
He knew of the attempts to research resurrection magic led by the Blue Witch, but resurrection magic was an unbelievable fantasy, about as credible as the old tale that "humanity once stood on the moon." His family was saddened that he had not chosen a flower burial, a funeral conducted by the Alraune, but registering as a body donor had certainly been better for his image when he joined the Defense Ministry.
It had been about ninety years since humanity acquired magic. Resurrection magic had not been discovered.
It was perfectly reasonable to assume that it would not be discovered in the future, either.
However, the Blue Witch, who routinely defied common sense, had discovered resurrection magic, overturning common sense and bringing the Illusion Mage back to life.
His body-donor registration backfired when he was resurrected.
The departments of Magic Forensics and Mutagenics at Tokyo Magic University took his registration as a perfect excuse to poke and prod his corpse, examining him as thoroughly as though they had licked him all over (and he could not rule out the possibility that they really had), before finally casting resurrection magic three days after his death.
He was resurrected in an experiment testing whether ritual resurrection magic could be performed using the Eleven Ritual Implements of Ritual Magic. Even after being resurrected, the Illusion Mage was examined until he could not stand it, and was not allowed to go home until two days later.
The faculty of the Mutagenics Department wore sickly smiles and seemed to know every inch of the Illusion Mage's body better than he knew it himself, which gave him chills. He had achieved a miraculous resurrection, only to feel as though he had been defiled.
Perhaps out of sympathy for the Illusion Mage, who had been humiliated by those mad scientists, the Defense Ministry ordered him to take two weeks of leave.
The Defense Ministry was currently frantically busy conducting a forced investigation of Kranom Corporation, which had been illegally keeping Tiamat on Izu Oshima. The matter had developed into a major diplomatic problem, and with armed conflict even a possibility, his superior had gone out of his way to visit him with a gift of sweets.
With his superior bowing deeply and apologizing for issuing orders based on a false report because he had not adequately checked the information, it was difficult to complain.
He had even worried that, after joining the ministry amid great fanfare only to die stupidly in an accident, he had become the laughingstock of the entire ministry, so in a way, a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
After his superior left, the Illusion Mage let out a relieved breath and decided to enjoy his unexpected vacation.
The Illusion Mage was an extremely rare person with experience of resurrection magic. If he had not lived in Defense Ministry housing, the media would have descended on him and made a vacation impossible, but fortunately, there were too many other major news stories, so the attention on the Illusion Mage was relatively small.
He brewed and drank coffee as he sat on the sofa, then spread out the news magazines he had bought at the commissary on the table. Even five days after the incident, the Class 1 incident was still making headlines in every paper.
The front pages of the national newspapers were devoted to the question of where Class 1 Gazer-kun should be housed.
For now, the leading candidates seemed to be the Chichibu mountains, the Izu Peninsula, and the vicinity of Cape Choshi. People were uneasy about keeping him in the city, but wanted him close enough that an approaching Class 1 monster could be detected and intercepted quickly... It was an incredibly convenient compromise.
Perhaps as part of an information campaign, the papers referred to him affectionately as Gazer-kun, but as someone who had been crushed to death by Gazer-kun, the Illusion Mage found it rather bitter.
The financial papers' front pages were being disgraced by Kranom Corporation.
Kranom's stock price had plunged, and bankruptcy was considered certain. Other companies in the United Irish States had been caught in the backlash as well.
By contrast, companies involved in magical-beast ranching were on the rise. Companies focused particularly on new magical-beast taming were receiving a great deal of attention, making it clear just how important a stable supply and the breeding of Ghost Gremlins had become.
As expected, the magic press was completely dominated by resurrection magic.
Experts rambled on about the importance and potential of resurrection magic, its limitations, and the dangers of its privileged use. A considerable portion of the papers was also devoted to repeatedly stating that "research into the civilian use of resurrection magic is under way" and warning people to "refrain from rash action."
It was impossible to know how much confusion could be suppressed through publicity and warnings, but it was certainly better than doing nothing.
The weekly magazines were the most idyllic of all, with reports on the Blue Witch's love life taking up more than half of each magazine.
Even though she had spent much of her time away from Tokyo, the Blue Witch remained immensely popular. Manga depicting the tumultuous era immediately after the Gremlin disaster, with titles such as "The Blue Witch and the Red Witch" and "Elegy for the Monsters," were still being serialized, so even modern children were deeply familiar with her.
While the magazines gleefully reported an unverified rumor that a celebrity who suffered heartbreak over the Blue Witch's love life had been taken to the hospital in a state of diminished mental capacity, there was strangely little information about the identity of the mysterious man who had managed to bring out the Blue Witch's womanly side, suggesting pressure from the people involved.
The Illusion Mage, for his part, had also been warned by his superior to keep quiet about it.
Once he put the circumstances together, he could more or less guess who the mysterious man was. The Blue Witch, who was probably the source of the pressure, surely knew as well.
It was like the president or the future-seeing clans. It was unavoidable that people knew they existed, and they even went out in public. But no one was allowed to hound them to the point of tracking their schedules, and if some nobody broke through their guards and approached them, they would be removed. Something like that, anyway.
After skimming through the news magazines and confirming what had happened while he was dead, the Illusion Mage checked the clock and realized it was already dinnertime. He drained his coffee, picked up the light meal he had bought at the commissary, and moved to his workroom.
It was called a workroom, but in practice it was a hobby room. Shelves filled with manga, novels, and figures covered the walls, while posters had been pasted across the ceiling.
The Illusion Mage sank heavily into his chair, sighed at the blank manuscript left on his desk, and activated his eyeball familiar for the first time in seven days.
"Hello. Sazarei-shi?"
After a short silence, a flat female voice devoid of emotion answered.
"Maboro-shi. Long time no see."
"Long time no see. Anything happen while I was gone?"
"No. I worked on my manuscript. First time in seven days. What happened? Was work busy?"
"Sort of."
They must both have known each other's true identities. Even so, Sazarei-shi asked with such transparent pretended ignorance that the Illusion Mage answered with a small laugh.
The first time the Illusion Mage met Sazarei-shi was at Winter Comiket five years ago.
They had both published doujinshi, and their booths had been next to each other. Sazarei-shi had not even tried to conceal her magical power, and her name was so direct that it made him wonder whether there was any point in using a pen name at all, so he had immediately realized who she was.
On the other hand, the Illusion Mage had not concealed his magical power, either, and had used an equally blatant pen name, so he had no room to talk.
"Why don't you quit? Your job. Maboro-shi, become a NEET with me."
"No, no, I can't exactly do that."
He chuckled at Sazarei-shi's flat voice and utterly serious attempt to tempt him.
It was true that dying had made him lose his nerve, but he had not gone so far as to consider quitting his job. He himself had decided to join the Defense Ministry. No one had forced him to do it.
He had joined under the preferential treatment given to Transcendents, so retiring without doing anything spectacular enough to befit a Transcendent would be embarrassing. It would be utterly pathetic.
"Stop being stubborn and live off the government. Let's increase our free time together and spend it supporting our faves. With a Transcendent Certificate, you can get government support for your activities even in the worst case. I can even recommend a nice place to live."
"Well, well? Sazarei-shi, are you a Transcendent!?"
"...I'm a mysterious beautiful-girl doujin author. I have nothing to do with the Witch of Sazareishi."
"That's what I thought. Stop saying stupid things and get back to your manuscript. How's your progress?"
"Progress is terrible. I accidentally fell into a new favorite ship's rabbit hole and time melted away."
"That sounds bad...!"
The Illusion Mage was frantic after losing six days, but Sazarei-shi had lost just as much time. She truly was a hardcore NEET otaku by her own admission and everyone else's. She had no hesitation about letting herself get sucked into a rabbit hole.
Her aggressiveness as an otaku, plunging headfirst into any genre that caught her interest and sinking deeper and deeper even when it threatened to make her miss a deadline, was something he wanted—and did not want—to emulate.
The collaborative anthology he planned to publish with Sazarei-shi at Summer Comiket would be fanwork based on the spring's blockbuster film.
It was a romance set during the previous era's golden age, the Age of Electricity and Information. The film had struck him more powerfully than anything else in the past few years, while Sazarei-shi had complained endlessly about its historical accuracy but praised its story and characters highly.
For a while, the two of them worked silently on their manuscripts.
The Illusion Mage loved this time, when they poured passion and interpretation into blank pages and turned them into art.
Having an older friend who could share the same time with him despite being somewhere else made the time he loved even more enjoyable.
The Illusion Mage concentrated and finished two pages of rough sketches, but got stuck halfway through the third. He thought about it for a while, but could not figure it out, so he consulted an expert.
"Sazarei-shi, Sazarei-shi. May I ask you a question?"
"Go ahead."
"Do refrigerators run on dry-cell batteries?"
"No. They normally plug into an outlet. Some portable ones do use batteries, I suppose."
"Non-otaku people don't even know batteries exist, do they? What should I do? Draw it looking like dry cells and add a note saying, 'This is a battery'?"
"What's with young people's faith in dry-cell batteries? You don't think they're infinite, all-purpose energy sources, do you?"
"I don't, but isn't that what most people assume?"
In the first place, most people simply knew little about electricity.
Everyone who had seen electricity or lightning firsthand was either dead or a fossil. Of course they did not know much about it.
"Honestly. No wonder works about the previous era are declining in quality. The lack of knowledge among the people actually making them really stands out. The characters and story are good, though. Even if you've created the strengths of the new age, neglecting the strengths of the past means it can't be perfect. You think so too, don't you, Maboro-shi?"
"Easy there, Granny."
"I'm a young lady, you know. Don't get lippy with your elders, brat."
Feeling the anger in her flat voice, the Illusion Mage laughed.
In reality, regardless of her actual age, the Sazarei-shi he had met in person was indisputably a beautiful girl. Her artificial, inorganic quality made her seem more like a beautiful-girl doll than a beautiful girl, but that could not be helped.
Sazarei-shi was a moving, life-sized ball-jointed doll. She would remain young forever and had no natural lifespan. She could break, so she was not an immortal being, but still.
When one thought of ancient witches who had lived since the previous era, the Dragon Witch and the Blue Witch came most strongly to mind.
They seemed to have no shortage of powerful, flashy legends, but there were also people like Sazarei-shi who lived quietly.
Of course, Sazarei-shi was a mysterious beautiful-girl doujin author and had nothing to do with the Witch of Sazareishi.
She was the Illusion Mage's doujin companion, a friend with whom he could lose himself in their hobbies. That alone was enough.
The two doujin authors continued working on their manuscripts, exchanging occasional remarks about their progress.
And so, the early-summer night quietly wore on.