Death March — Fixed

“Tek here, during the time when games were sold on CDs, before the era of online launchers--usually a deadline was tight, but it meant that development was properly over. Nowadays, there are always a lot of patches and updates, so there is no real finish line, so it’s more difficult. The most troubling time is when the hardest work comes from something that I’ve forgotten.”

 

The sensation of hair tickling my nose causes me to partially rise to consciousness.

 

Let me sleep a bit more.

 

I catch whoever it is, fumbling a little, and pull them into a hug.

 

Huh?

 

It’s different, the scent is sweet, but the body isn’t Mia…it’s someone who moans “Uhh, ehh” in a very confused, and familiar, way. It must be the High Elf.

 

It doesn’t really matter--I am more asleep than awake, and the sensation is pretty good, and the confused noises are cute--I will keep this embrace until I wake up, and I will cope with what happens, when it happens.

 

Dozing off while enjoying the nice sensation and cute voice, I return to blissful sleep once again.

 

***

“Wake up!”

 

Ahh, there’s Arisa’s voice.

 

“Mwuu.”

“Master, it’s morning. Umm, please wake up.”

 

That’s Mia and Lulu.

 

Hmm?

 

Lulu sounds a little nervous…I wonder why.

 

Someone is poking my cheek, I think it’s Arisa.

 

“I conjecture that his fatigue is high. To rest, please.”

“It’s certainly very rare for Master to wake up late, he must be quite tired.”

 

Liza and Nana sound like they are worried for me--such nice girls.

 

“Tired~?”

“Sleepy~”

 

Tama and Pochi begin poking my face and retorting in sing-song tones, they seem happy this morning.

 

“Mwuu, Aze.”

 

“That’s right, erofu. How long do you plan on enjoying Master’s embrace before you get up and let some of us…molest him, hehehe.” The last part of Arisa’s strange complaint is muttered quietly, but I can still hear her.

 

I wonder why they are complaining to Aialize...and what does Arisa mean by enjoying my embrace.

 

“Uuu, I mean, I mean, I can’t move. It can’t be helped. I mean, I can’t move.”

 

Come to think of it, Aialize’s voice is strangely close.

 

I slightly open my eyes, and there’s the brilliantly crimson face of Aialize right in front of me. Hmm, isn’t she too close?

 

“Good morning.”

“G-Good morning.”

 

Aialize is on top of me, as I lay on my back on the bed. I have one arm around her slim waist, and the other around her shoulders--she’s squished against me. It seems that the ‘dream’ of hugging Aialize this morning wasn’t, a, dream.

 

“How long are you going to hug her?” Arisa raises an eyebrow, “I can see that you have realized what has happened.”

 

I release Aialize and apologize to her.

 

“N-No, you were half-asleep after all, it, it can’t be helped!”

 

Even after I release her, she seems to be unable to get up, she is squirming around a bit, half of her body still on my chest.

 

With a smile, I help her sit up.

 

***

“And so, have you accomplished your objective at the Duchy Capital?”

“Yep, the new Scrolls will be completed in 5 days or so.”

 

Arisa asked as we sat down at the table for breakfast.

 

Breakfast was Lulu’s experimentation with curry--so as to get it perfect before the Elves start cooking it. It tasted like every curry I have eaten, so in my opinion it was good.

 

Lua, who has come here after breakfast, is going to tell me the result of the observations of the caged jellyfish. Since they don’t want it publicized, I lead her to the parlor, instructing the girls to not follow along. Aialize--who blushes whenever her eyes meet mine--follows along as well.

 

According to the information, the ice cage lasted half a day, the stone cage lasted until earlier this morning. But the Space Magic cages that Aialize created are still going strong.

 

I quickly check to see who among the Elves can use Space Magic, but it seems to only be Aialize and one of the Elders, who are awake. If we count the ones sleeping, there are a total of 100.

 

Lua also reports the same numbers, but says, “However, the sleeping ones won’t want to be counted among the number.”

 

“Why is that? Since it’s the World Tree’s crisis, they shouldn’t complain if we wake them up, right?”

 

“They are people who chose to sleep, instead of forgetting.”

 

I am not sure what she means by that, and she seems to have guessed it, as she explains in more details.

 

It seems that elves compress and store old information every 1,000 years--which is understandable, since they are an immortal species, but with minds that can’t store infinite memories.

 

Apparently, the World Tree has a ‘storage space’ for every Elf. When a new Elf is born, they are ‘Recognized’ by the awake High Elf, and they get something analogous to a ‘folder’ inside the World Tree. This means that the memories of every Elf who ever lived is accessible by certain people…the High Elves, who can also grant limited access to others.

 

Anyway, every 1,000 years an Elf will enter one of the ‘Memory Chambers’ in the world tree and enter their ‘folder’ with their mind. They use something like a direct neural interface mixed with a meditation technique. Once in their ‘folder’ their memories are backed up into the World Tree, and the memories in their minds are compressed.

 

When the memories are compressed, all the emotions and thoughts and such are stored and only the knowledge is returned. For the next 2 years they have to be careful, but after that, they can access the knowledge whenever they want. But to them, it is like something they learned, but there are no emotions associated with it--they can remember their family, but they need to learn to love them again.

 

Thus the Elves who have something that they don’t want to lose, or an emotional event that they never want to forget. They are put into a long sleep--this allows for the memories to slowly filter and compress in such a way that they can be stored and still used like normal memories--this process takes longer each time it happens, and the memories last a shorter period of time. So, the Elves sleep and dream until needed. The longer they sleep, uninterrupted, the longer the memories will last when they do eventually wake.

 

It seems that it’s difficult to live for a long time.

 

“The seven High Elves will be fine even if they wake up though--those kids are sleeping because they ‘got tired’.” Aialize speaks up with a grin.

 

Apparently, High Elves are naturally, constantly, networked to the World Tree. They can keep their Memories, and their minds can naturally store tens of thousands of times more memories than the normal Elves. But, they find it overwhelming to keep 10s - 100s of millions of years of knowledge, so they tend to just keep most of them in the World Tree.

 

Aialize has almost all of her memories stored, which is why she doesn’t seem all knowing, but she can access them--and the associated emotions--if it’s ever needed. She says she keeps a maximum of 2-3 thousand years of memory at a time, and with High Elven slowed emotional aging, it basically means that she is a teenager or early twenties.

 

“Even though I’ve never directly met them in person, there seem to be High Elves who hate every race other than Elves, and some are radical, so please try to think of a way to do this without waking them.” Lua asks with a slightly pitiful expression.

 

“Igess, like Ifleze, would absolutely say, ‘Huuh? Pests you say? Just burn them! Kuhahaha, it’s a festival of fire!’, and then proceed to continuously fire ‘Inferno’ to make big fires.”

 

Lua seems to pretend that Aialize’s insider story doesn’t exist, as she coughs, and then returns to the topic.

 

The results of the matter that I asked the Elder to inquire about back then seem to have also come in.

 

Firstly, they tried investigating substances that the jellyfish hate, but they couldn’t found any. Magic is the only substance that the jelly fish seem to like as well.

 

However, to us Magic to lure them away…The lure needs to output more Magic than the World Tree itself, so it’s impossible.

 

As for my plan with the cages, the clans that are interested in trying it aren’t only the Beriunan Clan and Burainan Clan, which are clans that enjoy researching, but also the Zuwakanan Clan.

 

While it seems like a plan that anyone could come up with, there wasn’t anyone who had tried it.

 

When a jellyfish was separated a certain distance from its peers, it seems that the jellyfish in the surroundings would all attack with their lightning at the same time--at that moment, the jellyfish that was being pulled away would roll up its tentacles and use an Electric Barrier to protect itself from the Lightning attack.

 

This attack would take its MP from the World Tree branches, and the branches caught up in it would wither.

 

It seems that the Biroanan Clan are concerned with preventing relapses, with more jellyfish approaching at a later time. It seems that their High Elves have made artificial Lifeforms, which go on patrols around the Void outside the World Tree.

 

“However, aren’t the duration of things like Wisps and Ifreet, and other artificial Lifeforms rather short?”

 

The Magic in the Void is scarce, so they can’t recharge themselves by absorbing surrounding Magic Power.

 

“Yes. They are originally stocked with a lot of MP, which can last for 10 days. They can attract individual jellyfish if they hit them. Of course, when the battle begins, it’ll quickly dry the MP--so they use the Light Ship when it’s time to exterminate the jellyfish.”

So it’s basically a bait for any approaching jellyfish--before they get close enough to the World Tree that it’s impossible to lure them away. Once the jellyfish is discovered, they are exterminate by a Light Ship that departs from the Observatory.

 

Ships that fly through the air and through the Void, they are called Lightships.

 

“Every World Tree has eight Lightships each, but Bornean only has four left. The Goblin Demon Lord was rampaging a little over 100,000 years ago--Heroes didn’t exist at that time, so three Lightships were destroyed before the Demon Lord was defeated.”

 

Okay, so what about the last one?

 

“The fourth was given to the Hero as a reward for exterminating the Demon Lord. I think it’s still at the Saga Empire even now, since they seem to pass it along every generation.”

 

There are four other ships that are the same as the Jules Verne, huh.

 

“E-Even if you look at me with those eyes, you can’t.” Aialize has given me a warning ahead of time, “I-I’m resolute, you know!”

 

Lua is looking between us and started giggling.

 

However, if this World Tree has less ships than the others, I think it’d be better if they think about the forces to keep away any extra jellyfish after the extermination--a way that doesn’t rely on Lightships.