Chapter 218: Deep-Layer Epilogue: Those Behind the Scenes, or Those Called Gods

Apparently somebody said yesterday's update was the epilogue. Who was that brazen bastard?

It was an absurdly barren room. There was not even a window. The concrete-walled space seemed almost to reject sunlight itself; inside were only the soft glow of LEDs, a desk... and a single desktop computer so hopelessly outdated for the age that it looked out of place.

Its keyboard was positively prehistoric, not even a touch panel. The monitor was neither especially high-resolution nor a compact flat-screen. An early-twenty-first-century PC that could fairly be called an antique sat there, reinforced to the limit with cutting-edge technology that had yet to reach the general public.

???: "..........."

And in that achingly lonely room was one woman.

She wore faded, mismatched sweats top and bottom. Even allowing for laziness, her hair had grown absurdly long; if she stood up, the ends behind her would still brush the floor.

In that room containing nothing but the antiquated computer, she had been staring at its mediocre display with a look of unsurpassed happiness. Then she seemed to remember something, and the blissful smile from only moments before vanished beneath a scowl like she had just looked upon every ounce of malice in the world.

???: "Haaah... Maybe I should turn it into a death game even now..."

???: "Spare me, Tsukuri. My head might literally come off."

Tsukuri: "Nonsense, Tsukuyogi. I could never tolerate our... no, my world going down in history in infamy."

A man who had entered the room answered her mutter with a deadpan joke.

That's my former surname. I use a different one now... With a sigh, the sharply dressed man she had called Tsukuyogi leaned against the wall and addressed the woman he had called Tsukuri.

Tsukuyogi: "Amachi will probably come storming in here before long."

Tsukuri: "I'm sure she will. To be honest, I'm surprised too."

Tsukuri, Tsukuyogi, Amachi... The three people who had created the "game" called Shangri-La Frontier were now wealthy enough that they could practically build houses out of stacks of cash. Tsukuyogi found himself idly reminiscing about the days when the three of them had made a racket over drinks in a university room.

Just then, perhaps helped by the fact that the door had been left open, heavy footsteps thundered down a hallway that should have been soundproofed. Someone was plainly sprinting toward them at a ferocious pace, and the woman came into the room as though kicking the half-closing door out of her way.

She wore a white coat because, in her words, "I can tell right away when it gets dirty, so that's how I know it's time to take a bath." Her blunt bangs had apparently been hacked into shape with ordinary office scissors, displaying not a shred of feminine refinement. With every wrinkle in her body seemingly gathered between her brows, she barged in shouting.

Amachi: "Tsukuri! You didn't screw with the data again, did you!?"

Tsukuri: "You're loud. You're the one who messed with my world, aren't you?"

Amachi: "Because otherwise there's no damn way Unique Monsters would get taken down one after another this fast!"

Click. Tsukuyogi could almost hear a switch being flipped. The other switch had probably already been on since sometime that morning.

Tsukuri: "Do not screw with me! You're the one who shackled my precious Ctarnidd and Wethermon with those tasteless restraints! And then when they get defeated anyway, you turn around and complain to me? What is that supposed to mean!?"

Amachi: "You wanted fifteen forms total, plus spatial teleportation and time interference so it could ambush people from the past and future! There's no way in hell I could implement that!!"

Tsukuri: "Oh, poor Ctarnidd... forced into such a miserable battle with only four forms... And Wethermon too—if he could use his full functionality, he would be peerless under heaven...!"

Amachi: "What do you mean, 'peerless under heaven'!? That isn't strong, that's what you call bullshit!"

Tsukuri: "Bullshit!? You called it bullshit!? Of all the things you could say! About my! World! You said bullshit!?"

Tsukuyogi sighed once and took a dose of the stomach medicine he could no longer live without.

The genius who had created the "world" of Shangri-La Frontier: Tsukuyo Tsukuri.

The genius who had adjusted Shangri-La Frontier into a "game": Ritsu Amachi.

And the person mediating between these two women, whose compatibility was somehow even worse than oil and water, was himself: Tsukuyogi Sakai, Tsukuyogi being his former surname.

Calling it a catfight made it sound almost pleasant, but conflict between these two women could directly lead to the collapse of the enormous system known as Shangri-La Frontier.

That was precisely why Tsukuyogi spent his days struggling to mediate between them, fueled by stomach medicine and the bentos his beloved wife made for him.

Ritsu: "If I weren't here, your world would've been nothing but digital debris! Stop playing god and do some actual work!"

Tsukuyo: "Bold words from an aphid sucking up the scraps that fall off my world!"

Sakai: "...Calm down. I'm sure neither of you will ever run out of things to say, but start by taking a deep breath."

Ritsu: "Huff! Huff!"

Tsukuyo: "Grrrrrrrr...!"

The two looked exactly like beasts about to kill each other. But even if it did escalate into actual violence, sadly both women had athletic ability below garbage-tier, so the result would be more pathetic than a fight between hamsters. Both of them were frail enough to lose a battle against the pull tab on a can.

Sakai: "First, Amachi. Since the data hasn't been tampered with, those two Unique Monsters were defeated through the proper procedures... That much is fact, correct?"

Ritsu: "...Even so, it's too damn fast."

Sakai: "The timing of the two defeats probably just happened to be close together. Players had been challenging Wethermon for some time already. Ctarnidd's prerequisite scenario had already been triggered as well."

Ritsu: "...Yeah."

Sakai: "And Tsukuri, when you truly apply yourself, even we can't notice what you've done. Can you swear to your grandfather that you haven't altered the Unique Monster data?"

Tsukuyo: "...Bringing that up is unfair, Tsukuyogi. Yes... I can swear to Grandfather."

His wife had been busy recently, and he could not deny that their marriage had felt a little colder than usual. But today's homemade bento had contained little octopus-shaped sausages. In other words, the current Tsukuyogi was invincible.

Perhaps because their marriage had come at the end of a sweeping romance, once the normally deadly serious Tsukuyogi entered this particular state, he became extremely troublesome. The two women knew that perfectly well, so for the moment they sheathed the blades of their anger.

Tsukuyo: "More importantly, what interests me is that the same name appears among the players who defeated Wethermon and Ctarnidd."

Ritsu: "I checked that too. At the very least, he isn't one of 'ours.' He's an ordinary player............"

Tsukuyo: "What? Why'd you stop there like you're trying to be dramatic?"

Ritsu: "This guy's only been playing for about a month."

For a while, silence.

Amachi looked as though she had bitten into something bitter, a shadow crept over Tsukuyogi's otherwise blank expression, and Tsukuri's eyes widened in surprise.

Ritsu: "And he's also triggered the EX Scenarios for Lycagon and Vysache."

Sakai: "...An alpha tester?"

Ritsu: "Nope. I checked both the alpha and beta testers. No connection. Then I checked the logs, and at level 18 he satisfied two of the conditions for Lycagon's 'curse.' I even suspected cheats or tools, but..."

Tsukuyo: "Do you really think anyone could bring something like that into my world?"

Ritsu: "And there you have it from our resident goddess. Luck activating might make fulfilling the conditions by sheer chance possible, but... that means this guy has done all of this on nothing but his own 'skill.'"

Both of the others understood what Amachi was really asking. Whether it was coincidence or whether there was some reason behind it, should they interfere in some way with a player who was clearing major Shangri-La Frontier events at a blistering pace?

Tsukuyo: "...No. I will not allow that."

Ritsu: "Fine. Let's hear why."

Apparently tired of standing, Tsukuri pulled over a chair on casters and sat down. The woman who had created and now managed the very foundations of the world called Shangri-La Frontier—truly godlike in that sense—made her declaration with arrogance befitting a god.

Tsukuyo: "A god may observe an individual, but a god does not love an individual."

Sakai: "What, have you been reading collections of Nietzsche quotes?"

Tsukuyo: "Oh? Then shall I summarize the explanation down to about five gigabytes so even a mental gorilla can understand it?"

Amachi let out a sigh and shook her head.

It was true that Shangri-La Frontier had fallen into a kind of stagnation before this player appeared.

The implementation of the New Land had been intended with that stagnation in mind, but it was also true that the unexpected progress had made them panic needlessly. Mostly because their workload had exploded.

Ritsu: "You trying to turn an entire chunk of memory into a garbage dump...? Whatever. If our esteemed World Creative Administrator says so, I won't complain."

Then Amachi slapped her cheeks a few times as if changing gears and moved on to a different matter.

Ritsu: "Anyway, this is what we actually had scheduled as of yesterday... Apparently two parties have business with you."

Tsukuyo: "Hmm... Who?"

Ritsu: "The 'Brat Boss' and 'your family home.'"

Tsukuyo: "I'll at least hear what they want."

The hostility from moments earlier vanished as if it had never existed. The two women suddenly wore the sneering expressions of children plotting something together, with a strange sense of solidarity between them. Tsukuyogi became keenly aware that his stomach had started aching again.

Ritsu: "The first says, 'Leak us some new information.'"

Tsukuyo: "Honestly, they're like impatient children... The data is already in 'Orchestra,' so dangle some of it in front of them. Though after that little stunt they pulled before, perhaps they need a bit of punishment too?"

Ritsu: "Spanking the Brat Boss would feel pretty damn good... The second one wants maintenance. Apparently, 'It broke even though we didn't do anything.'"

Tsukuyo: "Pfft... What kind of prehistoric excuse is that...? Hehehe, how embarrassing to have parents who can't let go of their child."

They mocked both matters as though they were nothing, but either of those two parties could easily have every person in the room's head removed if this was mishandled. In Tsukuri's case, there was also a nonzero chance they would simply declare her dead and abduct her instead.

And on top of that, the one forced to stand on the front line would be him. It was true that, just as these terrifyingly brilliant women said, there was a dark sort of pleasure in seeing the indescribable expressions on the messengers sent by the "Brat Boss." It was equally true that his consumption of stomach medicine kept accelerating.

Once, an ordering mistake had led him to charge a full gross of stomach medicine to expenses. The fact that he had used it all within half a year said plenty about how much punishment his stomach took. If not for the omelet rice his wife had made the night before, he surely would have died on the spot.

Tsukuyo: "Now then, stop disturbing my blissful time already... Get out."

Ritsu: "Didn't need telling. I've got mountains of work adjusting the fourth stage."

Sakai: "...You are, technically, a working adult. Try to do at least a reasonable amount of actual work."

Tsukuyo: "Now then... Where's that player...? If he started a month ago, then 'Leviathan,' I suppose... There, found him."

Tsukuri fiddled with a mobile terminal made exclusively for her and searched for the player's information.

She smiled at the swift response from the thing that was both her faithful servant and her child, then looked over the player's trail—the logs—and murmured.

Tsukuyo: "Hmm... 'Tsukuyomaru' is impossible, but 'Kyojuro' looks doable... Well, I suppose I can observe him once in a while."

At the hand of a god, the file classification changed. Several player names appeared, and at the very bottom—the newest entry—the name Sunraku was displayed.

A god does not love individuals. But a god observes the world. And if that is the case—

We've finally made it this far... This was something I wanted to write fairly early on, and before I knew it I'd written 820,000 characters...

So, this is the Chapter 3 epilogue. I'll be taking a break for a while. More specifically, Guild War is coming up... As a Shiva-Shiva man, I want to open at least twelve boxes.

I'm planning to post some side stories over on Inventoria, so if you're interested, please check those out too.

Actually, among these three, only one of them...