"I know," Bernadette replied. Then, as if she had remembered something, she asked, "Can you read his diary?"
"I can," Alice said softly. "Among us—well, not necessarily all of us, but at least quite a few of us should be able to read it. I mean, if there really are many beings like us."
"You've met other people like yourselves? Those symbols are what you use to communicate?" Bernadette immediately asked.
"I have." Alice nodded. "That... that isn't a set of symbols."
"Not a set of symbols?" Bernadette repeated with a frown.
"It's a written language." Looking at Bernadette's shrinking pupils, Alice said softly, "It's a systematic language that has evolved over thousands of years. It is... the native language of some of us."
"Native... language?" Bernadette's voice turned hoarse. She stared fixedly at Alice, asking one word at a time.
"We... came from a civilization that no longer exists in this era," Alice said gently. "His inventions, the poems and novels he wrote, most of his famous quotations... and many other things. All of them are remnants of that civilization."
Alice looked at Bernadette. Complex emotions filled the latter's constricted pupils, the most apparent of them being shock.
Bernadette was indeed deeply shaken.
If every word the young girl before her had said was true, she could almost imagine the splendor of that civilization—only fertile ground that had achieved both peace and prosperity could develop enough technology and art.
Moreover, moreover, it sounded like that civilization had more than one language. In other words, there had been more than one country...
But... compared to considering whether to believe that the father in her memories had actually been a shameless copyright thief, Bernadette was more concerned about something else. "But he was clearly an Intisian!"
—Emperor Roselle, who had been