“This world (like most fantasy world), can be divided into major and minor factions. In this world, there are four major factions and countless minor factions. There are the Merchants, the Empire, the Alliance and the Demon army.” Crayford spoke – he was much calmer compared to before. Right now, he was politely answering Sora’s questions about this world.
“The Merchants as their name suggests are only interested in profit. The country’s dominant profession is trading. They are led by a trading council. The number of council members is fixed at five. Only the five richest members are elected to become council members…”
“That is a dumb election process…” Sora blurted out as soon as he heard it. “Won’t the rich council members only create rules that favour them?”
Crayford nodded. “I cannot deny what you are saying. All current council members have inherited their positions. It has been like that for the last hundred years….”
“Oh what happened a hundred years ago?” Sora asked curiously.
“War….between the Alliance and the Empire.” There were strong emotions in Crayford’s voice. “A certain merchant family was ruined because they invested heavily in the Alliance. The Alliance was defeated in the battle and the merchant family, which hoped to acquire trading rights, went bankrupt. This recent event has become a reminder for Merchants to remain neutral.”
Recent event?....a hundred years ago is recent….how old is Crayford?
For some reason, Sora didn’t ask that question. Instead he asked more about the political environment and history. After all, this was the first time someone was kind enough to explain everything to him. “Why is the Empire and Alliance at war?”
“The Empire consists of the residents of this world who hate adventurers. In turn, the Alliance consists of adventurers who hate the Empire. The hate is mutual.”
“This doesn’t explain anything…” Sora replied. He already knew this much from the Abbe’s explanation.
“Are you really going to listen to a long explanation patiently?” Crayford asked with skepticism.
Sora nodded – ofcourse! Finally, someone willing to explain everything! No riddles just straight forward replies!
“If you want to understand why there exists mutual hate…you need to understand how the current political regimes came into being. This requires me to briefly sum up several thousand years of history….”
Several thousand…wait does he know this to heart? I might doze off…
Crayford ignored Sora who was making strange-skull-expressions and spoke, “Several thousand years ago, when the magic of this world was still at a rudimentary stage, the people of this world had never heard of adventurers. As this world progressed, so did the magic…or maybe it would be more correct to say, this world progressed with the development of magic.
The first adventurers to arrive in this world had been summoned here for – boring repetitive story: defeat the evil demon lord. The first group was kind and noble. They easily defeated the demon lord. They even brought with them, many cultural and technological developments to this world.
Everyone praised the adventurers – not only did they defeat the demon lord but they brought many wonder recipes like jelly, pudding, smoked fish, burgers. They brought non-magical tools which revolutionized the way work could be done. Sadly, all good things must come to an end. Time passed by and the first adventurers grew bored of this world and returned to their own.”
“There is a way to go back?” Sora briskly interrupted.
“There used to be….but that magic is now lost. Many adventurers have been researching a way to go back….but there is not much to go on….”
Sigh…I should have known….
“Coming back to where I left off, this world had progressed quite rapidly under the adventurer’s guidance – but that was the problem. After they left, the world economy collapsed…so did the people’s sense of justice. Pillaging, looting, murder was rampant….”
“Hou?” Sora whispered. Rapid societal degradation….huh?
“This is my own hypothesis and a paper I am working on, but I believe the world economy collapsed because the first adventurers came from the twenty first century to a medieval world. The changes they brought with them, were a several generations ahead of the time period here. Residents who had a mind-set of the medieval era were now suddenly operating in a technologically advanced world. See the disconnect?”
Sora nodded. “Like our own world, we have operated for nearly eight thousand years as an agrarian economy, then another two hundred years through the industrial revolution and finally the informational technological era. That time period provided us the necessary time to evolve and mature our way of thinking. However, this world went straight from farming to technology....skipping eight thousand years of evolution?”
“Yes.” Crayford nodded. “You can take a farmer out of the farmlands, but you can’t take out the farmlands out of the farmer….Systems of governance evolve over time, while the adventurers brought many technological and cultural revolutions which revolved around them, they never considered the consequences of their actions. Take any discipline, law, economics, philosophy – all these fields were completely underdeveloped in this world. This led to the underlying decay of society, which collapsed after the departure of the adventurers.”
“Hou…it is indeed an interesting hypothesis… but whatever the reason for the societal collapse, what happened thereafter? How did this world fix itself?” Sora asked.
“The solution the people of this world thought of? Summon more adventurers. After all, the problems in this world only surfaced when the adventurers left? Why not summon new ones? Since, then the arrival of adventurers has become somewhat of a common occurrence….Problem of monsters? Summon Adventurers. Problem of Plague? Summon Adventurers. Technological Development? Summon Adventurers. Bored and in need of entertainment? Summon Adventurers.”
What the heck?
“This bad habit, led to massive immigration of adventurers into this world….but that is when the problems began appearing. Not every ‘adventurer / Hero’ was noble, honest, and virtuous. However, the *stupid* nobles of this world ignored the ‘wrong-doing-incidents’ by these summoned ‘adventurers’ and continued to summon more adventurers.
At some point a line, which should not have been crossed, was crossed….It was finally decided, that no more adventurers will be summoned. Furthermore, an ‘Alliance’ of ‘good adventurers’ was created to get rid-off the ‘bad adventurers’. The Alliance succeeded and they were granted kingdoms (till before this adventurers could at most acquire land and a noble title) in this world…”
“From what you are saying…the people of this world and the adventurers should have gotten along well. But that is not the case? So what happened?” Sora curiously asked as he rested his chin on the hilt of his sword.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
“It should have been a lived-happy-ever-after story except for one problem; the barriers of this world broke due to all the pointless summoning. The residents no longer had the ability to prevent adventurers from appearing. Some came through reincarnation and some through ‘being transported’. The problematic-incidents began all over again….”
“Heh…” ,Sora smirked. Serves them right…
“The residents of this world turned to the Alliance for help. However, not all Alliance members were interested in helping. It was negotiated and a handsome fee was paid to the Alliance for preventing serious incidents…However, no matter what the Alliance did, the death toll of residents was at an all-time high.”
“Death-toll?”
“It was a dark time….” Crayford’s voice became soft – as though he had personally witnessed that era. “City after city of residents was being massacred….amnosity over the Alliance’s incompetence grew amongst the residents of this world. After all, the Alliance taxed them heavily yet failed to protect them. The Alliance was filled with adventurers, who were summoned to solve their problems….so of course they were angry when the adventurers weren’t doing enough to protect them.”
“Hahaha…” Sora began laughing. “Sorry, but expecting someone else to clean up their mess, is just wrong.”
Crayford nodded in agreement. “Yes, but that just shows the maturity of their thought. After all, till now adventurers had solved all their problems. The people of this world were completely reliant on adventurers for everything. However, as the anger grew, relationships worsened. It was around five hundred years ago when the residents finally openly declared their hostility.”
“Something happened then?” Sora immediately asked.
“The leader of the Alliance, Enma Ikeda or better known as the Immortal God, wiped out an entire kingdom. The great arid desert which you crossed used to be a flourishing kingdom five hundred years ago.”
“What?!” Sora exclaimed in shock. “The leader of the Alliance?”
So is that what the Abbe meant when he said “with his almighty guardian Ryu, they destroyed an entire nation and united half the world….the Empire as we know it exists because of the Shakuhachi….” There always existed an inconsistency in his version of the story. It made me think that the Emperor was an adventurer….which is paradoxical to the nature of the adventurer hating Empire….so that is what he meant….
Crayford nodded quietly. His four disciples listened quietly – their eyes were red in anger and sorrow. “Yes, Enma Ikeda was the leader of the Alliance. He was amongst the earliest adventurers to arrive in this world. By my estimate, he must be six thousand years old. Using his guardian, Ryu – an electric based dragon, he massacred countless people….the rough estimates are in millions. Even five hundred years after the attack, we are unable to ascertain the exact quantum of damage.”
Holy sh*t….six thousand….what is his level now?
“Wait…why did he wipe out an entire Kingdom?”
Crayford shrugged his shoulders with no reply. “No idea. People have said he went mad. Some say he is practicing forbidden magic….I don’t have an answer to that question….but trust me, everybody hates that person. That one event was the starting point of it all; the residents of this world quickly came under a single banner known as the Empire. These people hate adventurers or ‘intruders’ as they call us. They are led by the Old Emperor – his strength comes from his familiars the Cardinals and other high level monsters. In the last five hundred years, his familiars have killed more adventurers than all other years combined. This brings us to the present time….where two factions are hell bent on killing each other off…”
“Ah…that certainly makes so much more sense….compared to someone else’s explanation…” Sora said at the end of the long historical narration. “but Crayford….you haven’t told me why are you so emotionally involved in this?”
Crayford winced in pain – as expected he noticed.
“The Old Emperor and I, were friends….I was a teacher in the Royal court of a small kingdom and he was the crown prince.”
Woah…dude…doesn’t that make you over six hundred years old? Aren’t you a human? Don’t you ever die?
Crayford paused, took a deep breath and then gritted his teeth in anger. “Using my knowledge….he has built the Empire…..the cities, the security, the schools, governance models…everything was my knowledge….and he is using it against me….”
Is that why Feladonia looked like a city designed by my disciple?
“pfttt…..Hahahaha…” Seeing Crayford’s tomato red angry face, Sora began laughing and rolling all over the floor.
Everyone was too shocked to see this unexpected heartless reaction – maybe only Crayford was prepared for it.
“Sorry…” Sora finally said after he stopped laughing. “But the irony of it all was too much for me….the hand that fed the monster got bitten by the monster…”
“It is likely you said.” Crayford replied plainly – without any emotion. He blamed himself every day for the rise of the terrible and cruel Empire. What others thought and said – no longer mattered to him.
“Okay….if you want to take responsibility, why not kill Enma? He started it all, right? So why not go kill him?” Sora asked.
“I thought of that as well….but that won’t settle the matter with the Empire. The citizens of the Empire hate adventures. It won’t end with just the Immortal God’s death. They will work till they see everyone dead. Also, the Immortal God has gone into hiding ever since the massacre. So the real problem at hand is the Empire. If the Empire goes on at its current pace…there may be no adventurers left alive….in another few decades…that is why we must absolutely win the war this time. Defeat is not an option.”
Only silence hung in the air after that statement.
Next Chapter >>
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Author's Notes:
1. Twist #2, Enma is not the Old Emperor but ex-Alliance leader. Actually, this isn't really worth calling a twist. For some reason everyone kept thinking Enma the Old Emperor and Sebastian his guardian...however, way back in Chap13.2, i clearly stated the Guardian is Ryu. :3 Also, you (the readers) should have asked why would an adventurer be the Emperor of an empire that hates adventurers....but whatever, I felt least inclined to correct the misunderstanding of the readers.
2. So at chapter 58.3, I have finally began building the world....kind of late, ain't it?
----------------------------------------
And I am first. Deal with it.