Chapter 26: Millennium

Dragon Era 1000
「Sensei, Inis-sensei is calling for you.」
「Mm, thanks, Nokia...」

I blurted that to the brown-skinned girl who had come into the room, then clapped a hand over my mouth.

「Sorry, Nora. Did it again...」
「Not at all, please don’t worry about it. But... do I really look that much like my great-grandmother?」

Nora is a descendant of Nokia; she came to Hiiro last month. From Nokia’s point of view, that makes her a great‑granddaughter.

In the end Nokia never came back to Hiiro. But a book she wrote about what she saw and heard on that journey—titled “The Astonishing World’s End”—was apparently copied by hand into the thousands in Mashiro.

All handwritten, in a country where literacy isn’t that high and proper papermaking doesn’t even exist—it would be fair to call it an unprecedented smash hit in Mashiro.

「In features you don’t actually look that much alike. It’s the vibe... and your eyes, I think. Those are really alike.」
「My eyes...?」

Nora blinked her golden eyes, puzzled.

Thanks to its meticulous descriptions, Nokia’s book seems to have been treated as a valuable source on lands outside Mashiro, but there was exactly one chapter nobody believed.

Namely, the chapter “The Farthest Land, Scarlet.”

「Those eyes full of curiosity—the kind that would believe the chapter no one else did and come all the way out here.」

I said, smiling. And it’s no wonder no one believed it.
Because—what Nokia wrote there was, in fact, nothing but lies.

A place where houses built entirely of fire‑dragon steel lined the streets, thousands of spirit‑drawn vehicles came and went, work was highly automated so people had no need to labor themselves, and it was ruled by a great fire dragon who had lived for tens of thousands of years. Hiiro was painted as that kind of dreamland.
In short, she laid it on outrageously thick.

「Coming here and seeing it’s not all that—didn’t it disappoint you?」
「No. The book was exaggerated, certainly, but even so this place has been one astonishment after another.」

And also—Nora went on.

「My great‑grandmother—Nokia, I think she probably lied on purpose. So people wouldn’t become too interested in this village.」
「Ah... you may be right.」

Nokia worried that Hiiro might be destroyed by other nations. And rather than trying to hide its existence... she must have decided it would be better to write so extravagantly that no one would believe it.

「Well, since there are people like us who do believe and come anyway, I can’t say for sure it had the intended effect.」

She said it with a bright laugh. And yes—Nora wasn’t the only traveler who took Nokia’s book at face value and came. Starting a dozen‑odd years ago, they’d begun turning up here and there.

「I think it did have meaning.」

Because the ones who made it to Hiiro were adventurers who believed an absurd tale—fools and the brave, just like Nokia and Nora. Not a single person came intending to harm Hiiro or to make money off it. The story was far too ridiculous to attract that sort.

「...In that case, I’m glad.」

Nora said it with a sunny smile.


* * *


「You’re laaate!」
「Sorry, we got to talking.」

Nora and I bowed together to Inis, who was standing imperiously atop her sofa with her hands on her hips.

「Honestly... and just when I’ve finally pulled off the invention of the century. Nora, get it ready.」
「Yes, Inis-sensei.」

Inis sank deep into her sofa and fired off instructions at Nora. Nora had taken an interest in Inis’s superior craft and was now working as her assistant of sorts. The crossbow said to have been handed down from Nokia through her line may have had something to do with it.

Well, she’d gotten all excited when she learned Inis had made it—only to be crushed when Inis said, “These days I could make something way better than this piece of junk.”

「All right, Sensei—the thing you’ve been waiting for is finally finished.」
「It’s done already!? It’s only been a little over thirty years since I asked you.」

I gaped at Inis’s words.
What I asked Inis for—a spaceship.
A vessel to cross the far beyond, past the sky—to head for my birthplace.

Of course, even if it were completed, whether I’d actually go back is another matter. I only wanted to at least be able to see how things stood… I never imagined it would be done this quickly.

「Fufufu, I am a genius.」

With a rumble, Nora rolled in something huge on a handcart: a dumpy cone about three meters tall, draped with a sheet. It was awfully small, but in a world of magic maybe you could build a spaceship even at this size.

「All right, Nora—showtime!」
「Yes!」

Nora whipped off the sheet.

「...What is this?」

I cocked my head at what lay beneath. In a word, it was a giant stuffed animal made of metal.

「Autonomous Iron Automaton No. 3. For short, Tetsuo-san!」

Inis puffed out her chest with a proud little ahem.

「...Tetsuo-san.」

I rolled the name around. Where did the “o” come from?

「Huh? What about the spaceship? Can we ride this and fly?」
「Haa? As if it could fly.」

When I blurted the question, Inis gave me the most exasperated look.

「I showed you the project plan the other day, didn’t I? Nora, the plan.」
「Yes, Inis-sensei.」

Flitting over to the shelves, Nora pulled out a thick book and brought it over hugged to her chest.

「Here.」

She opened it to a needlessly complicated flow chart.

「Sensei, you didn’t understand any of it at all, did you…? For a ship to sail that place you call the ends of the sky—space—these are, at minimum, the techniques and inventions we’re going to need, as far as I can think of them.」

Inis pointed down the long list of items, but there were too many technical terms for any of it to click. What did land was the sheer amount.

「And what we got done this time is this.」

She pointed to the very first item. The words written there were only three characters—a simple line even I could understand.

「Labor...?」
「Right. Labor that doesn’t rest, doesn’t tire, and doesn’t make mistakes. Before anything else, we need that kind of labor.」

So that’s this. I looked again at the iron automaton.

「But hadn’t you already been operating things like this before, Inis?」
「Don’t lump this one in with No. 1 or No. 2. All right, go, Tetsuo‑san… Awake!」

Inis floated her sofa over and pressed a little button on the automaton’s forehead. At once there was a hum, its eyes lit blue, and it creaked to its feet.

「Tetsuo‑san. Pick Sensei up.」

At her order the automaton extended its arms toward me and, with a casual heft, lifted me up.

「Whoa—h-hey, Inis, put me down!」

I yelled reflexively, and before Inis did anything the automaton gently set me back on the floor.

「Huh…? Don’t tell me that just now—」
「Told you, didn’t I? Autonomous Iron Automaton No. 3. Tetsuo‑san for short.」

Autonomous—meaning it thinks and acts on its own. That’s basically…

「...a golem, isn’t it.」

Amazed, I looked up at Tetsuo‑san.

「Incidentally, this uses nothing but enchantment.」

Inis said it with a got‑you grin.

「So it’s not running on a spirit!?」
「I told you—we need labor that won’t rest, won’t tire, and won’t err. Spirits won’t do, and neither will people.」

The hallmark of enchantment is that it yields exactly the same result no matter who uses it or how. Unlike spirits, which always carry the risk of running amok, an enchantment‑driven golem really won’t make mistakes.

I let out an admiring breath and stared at it…

「And this is… the first item?」

I snapped back to myself and asked.

「Right. This kid’s handy, but it can’t do anything unless it’s ordered to, and it doesn’t have a spirit’s level of judgment. It can only handle simple tasks. From here we mass‑produce them to secure labor, while doing basic research in each field—building the techniques that enable the techniques that enable the techniques. If you will, this kid is… the material for the material for the material for the material for the material for the material.」

The sheer scale of it made my head swim.

「...How long do you think that will take?」
「Who knows? Give it, say, a thousand years and we can probably manage.」

That’s… about as long as I’ve lived so far.
For the first time, the human—Inis’s—easy answer left me, a dragon, at a loss for words at our difference in sense of time.