.
I stepped onto travertine paving stones as the temperature instantly dropped by several degrees and a wind that was slightly too strong to call light blew my hair. My clothing was a bit thin for that, so I immediately began circulating Light mana to ward off the chill. Glancing back at my companions, I saw the gawking expressions that I had fully anticipated, even from Dilorè.
“Where are we?” she asked as her eyes grew a bit wider with each moment. She could feel in her fairy senses the same impossible change that we all saw, of a completely different environment appearing around us in a single blink. Thus she didn’t turn around to see the absence of a room with Curator in it behind her, the way Ryuu and Chiara were doing.
In the background, the flags that had been still images on the wall were now moving while very audibly snapping and fluttering in the breeze. The wind made a faint rushing noise as it passed the silent pavilions and over the empty stands that could probably accommodate thousands.
Nearby, a ball which was transparent nearly to the point of invisibility floated at an altitude a little higher than Ryuu’s head. It was called an ‘observer sphere’ because an instructor at a hidden location could watch and hear through it. It was also a focal point through which to give instructions and requests to the system.
“It didn’t feel like a [Shadow Pass] or [Earth Shift],” Chiara said in a weak voice. “I couldn’t feel any sense of acceleration or vertigo at all.”
Being inside the air boat had buffered their senses during the transition from greater world to small world. Only the view out the window had changed. And as Brigitte noticed at the time when we first did it, walking through a portal is essentially the same action as the [Shadow Pass] spell. This time, instead of passing through, we experienced the world around us instantly transforming.
Ryuu, after looking around, leveled his gaze on me. He had briefly looked disoriented, but was now already relaxing.
Right. He had been through a similar experience before, when he was summoned to Huade. Except there had been a lot of light from a magic circle that time. He also had the background to guess what was happening.
“In one sense, we are in the painting,” I said, waving my hand broadly across the view in front of us. “As you can see, this place is the same as the scene that it depicts. In another sense, we are nowhere at all. But to be more accurate, our physical bodies are currently in an immaterial state while our minds experience a simulation of reality operating in the Spirit Realm.”
Dilorè stared at me as the gears turned in her head, trying to put my words together into something sensible. Her eyes narrowed, as she made the decision to wait for more information from me rather than ask.
When I told them ‘hold on tight’, I hadn’t been worried about leaving them behind. The act of making sure that we were connected designated the group that the painting brought over, and ensured we stayed together. The transfer began the moment I touched the painting surface. The remainder of the motion of ‘stepping through’ had been performed in Illusory Reality.
“It looks… not entirely real,” Chiara noted, staring out at the stormy clouds that seemed to be approaching.
I chuckled. “Take a close look at your hand.”
Puzzled, she held her open hand up in front of her eyes, then she gasped. “B… brushstrokes?”
“We’re in a painting, after all,” I noted playfully.
“That… that doesn’t even make sense though?” she asked, looking up at me and expecting a better answer.
“Vee Arr” Ryuu said. Yup, he got it.
“What?” Chiara asked him.
“VR,” I repeated. “In a language of the world he came from, it means ‘Virtual Reality’. It’s a term for something that uses technology that we don’t have on Huade. Although this isn’t it, it is the same concept. Immortals created this technique to interact with mortals. We named it ‘Illusory Reality’, because it’s both illusion and reality.”
“Illusion and reality,” Dilorè echoed. “My fairy sense says that you are really there. You’re saying it’s an illusion, but I can see the Light mana you are circulating to keep warm.”
“Yes,” I smiled. “It’s quite real, you see. If you take off and fly into one of the walls around us, it will hurt exactly as much as it should.”
“Then what’s the difference?” Chiara demanded. “If we can get hurt, what’s the point?”
Ryuu answered before I could. “The point is, she can create situations at will. Right?”
I nodded to him. “That’s one part, yes. We can also change the rules of reality to fit our needs. For example, the mana in my small world doesn’t properly match up to the mana of Huade. Many of its principles have small differences. There are also two extra mana types, and Aether acts differently, such that the people in worlds within this world’s universe call it Lightning instead of Aether.”
I gestured around. “But we can compensate in here, make the mana perform exactly the way it does on Huade. We can do other things as well. This scene might be extremely ancient, but it is normal and familiar to a great extent. But what if I need a Servant to fight in the arctic, or the deepest parts of the ocean, or up in space, or on the White Moon? To train her ahead of time, I make a scenario with the appropriate properties.”
Then I gave them a smile and said, “But especially crucial is that I can create whatever opponent I want for you. This initial stage has a special name for that reason.”
“What is it?” Ryuu demanded. He was growing suspicious of me, and it was probably because I couldn’t hide the smirk on my face.
“First, let’s get you guys equipped. Ryuu, you brought your sword, so you’re set. Chiara?”
She produced her combat fan.
“Do you want a rapier?” I asked. “You carry one normally, right?”
She shrugged. “I rarely use it. I’m a combat mage by class.”
I projected into the observer sphere while looking at Chiara, For the designated recipient, a rapier and scabbard, on a lady’s sword harness.
Chiara gasped as the specified item appeared around her waist. She seemed to hesitate to touch it.
“Draw it,” I suggested. She did, and a good-quality rapier slid out of the scabbard. She used her left hand and flexed the blade to test it.
“For Dilorè…” I said, then projected, A spear of seven spans, made from giant’s bone.
It appeared, floating in front of me. I hadn’t focused enough on Dilorè when I ordered it. I grabbed the weapon and felt its weight as the constructor program let it go, then held it out to her. It served as both her weapon and her magic focus, so she was set.
“It doesn’t have the special enchantment for fire, but it will perform the same, otherwise. And for myself…”
I had left the Starfire Jade Writing Brush and Durandal with my gear, and they were now apparently waiting for me at my cottage. I needed to practice fighting without them. I requested, A combat fan and a mithril sword, on a harness with sheaths for both.
Once I had it, I smiled around. “There. We’re all set for the initial stage.”
I glanced up at the approaching storm clouds. There, in the distance, hung a familiar shape, approaching. I had seen one recently, but this one was somewhat larger.
Smiling, I explained. “The point of this stage isn’t to win, but to learn just how real these scenarios can be, and adjust your mentality accordingly. We call this stage the Dragon Fighting Arena.”
“You call it what?” Chiara yelped at me, her eyes growing huge.
Stretching out my arm and index finger like Babe Ruth, to point out the incoming beast, I repeated, “Dragon Fighting Arena.”
We had appeared roughly one quarter of the way across the great plaza. The massive beast tilted into a bank to veer off, then tipped toward us, settling into a grand circle around us. Unlike modern dragons, this was an ancient beast, with scales of reddish gold. Instead of the demonic back-swept horns, he had upward sweeping horns and a majestic half-circle crest extending from the back end of his skull, with points that made it look a bit like a crown.
He let out an ear-shattering roar as he passed off to our right, and another after circling behind us and returning on our left. After spiralling in for another full orbit, he came in for a landing from behind us, passing only a handful of paces over our heads and causing the ground to quake as he touched down ahead of us, roughly three-quarters of the way across the length of the grand plaza, the tip of his tail barely fifty paces from us.
The moment that ground-shaking boom resounded, a crowd of applause and cheers erupted, and the formerly empty stands were suddenly filled with roaring spectators. I glanced to my left and right. My companions were staring around in amazement at the sudden change. Dilorè and Ryuu had their weapons already at ready, and Chiara was frozen in the middle of tying the cord of her combat fan around her left wrist.
I chuckled and decided I should do the same. This fan wouldn’t come back to me on command like the Starfire Jade Writing Brush did.
“Your Highness?” I heard Dilorè asking with a shaky voice. “Will this be like fighting an actual dragon?”
“What do you mean?” I asked with an innocent tone as I worked with the cord. “It is an actual dragon, you know?”
“Why would you make this your starting stage?” Ryuu demanded as the dragon rotated his body to face us.
The sounds of clattering hooves erupted from behind us and columns of riders in incredibly colorful livery appeared, riding out along the walls to our left and right.. Their mounts were very odd, however, having heads and a horn vaguely like a rhino and fat, short lizard-like tails. I recognized the animals as riding beasts used in the deserts of the Southern Continent. The beasts were actually a dinosaurian clade that never had the opportunity to evolve on Earth, but did appear on Huade. They had horse-like hooves and lost the weight and the neck frills of the triceratops and its relatives, becoming somewhat like horses. The riders flew banners from their upright lances, except for a quartet on each side that had them hanging from herald trumpets.
After they formed up and turned their beasts to face the center, the trumpets on the left began a bright, rapid fanfare. Ryuu returned his attention to the larger threat.
“It doesn’t look like the dragon we faced before,” he noted as he scowled at it.
“That one was a demonic dragon,” I answered. “This is an ancient dragon, a creature of the Primordial Age. The demons hunted them to extinction during the Elder Age, to convert them all into demonic weapons.”
The trumpets on the right had responded with their own fanfare while I was speaking. Now, an amplified voice began speaking through hidden loudspeakers in an ancient tongue. I recognized it as a language many of my Servants had spoken in their native land, which had been in that same continent. I probably had understood it at one point.
I projected to the observer sphere, Switch common language to Ostish.
“…now here witness our newest warriors in the Great Arena, who bring forth their honor and their might, to dare challenge the King of the Crystal Marble Range, the magnificent Gugrenar!” the voice was suddenly saying.
The dragon tipped his head up and let out a magnificent bellow in response. The stentorian roar powered up the crowd’s excitement, and the stands erupted in another thunder of enthusiastic cheering, stomping and applause.
“Now say the challengers, how shall your first challenge?” the voice blared, sounding like it might be mocking us a bit. “Do you send your first sally as one, as two, as three or as all?”
The translation of the script into Ostish was a little rough. I needed to work on that. Although it had a kind of quirky, poetic feel this way, so maybe not.
The others had been in a defensive stance with their weapons ready, this entire time. I had simply stood until now. I drew my sword and raised it above my head, then yelled, “We shall attack as three!”
The crowd responded again. During their applause, I sheathed my sword once more.
“Your Highness?” Dilorè asked uncertainly.
“You and Mr. Kowa as vanguards. Chiara as your support. Go get him.”
All three turned their heads to face me, eyes enormous.
Dilorè tipped her head and echoed, “‘Go get him’, Your Highness?”
