"..."
Those were heartless words.
Hoshino had wanted to answer like that, but her current identity was that of an immortal. Her expression did not change at all. If it had changed in any way, it was probably the slight upward curve of her lips as she marveled at the little rabbit's courage.
Being able to speak to her like this—was that not courage?
"Why?"
Hoshino asked with great interest. She raised her umbrella, her long hair drifting in the wind like a lone boat sailing through a storm.
"I want to hear your reason."
Tens of billions of souls drifted through the air, communicating mentally with their descendants and answering the summons of later generations in the form of "Originium Arts." This was the foundation for the existence of all such supernatural phenomena.
The people of that time probably could never have imagined that the alternative energy source they had created in despair would, after the passage of ages and upheavals, become the medium through which casters unleashed their spells, forcibly turning this world into one of high fantasy.
"The birth of civilization is no different from that of humanity."
Amiya spoke, and Hoshino felt as though she was no longer speaking with the little rabbit, but with that Sarkaz Demon King who bore endless history.
"If the umbilical cord is not cut after birth, the child will die."
That was quite an apt metaphor.
The previous civilization's nearly resolute self-termination had been like an umbilical cord, tirelessly nourishing all the conditions necessary for modern civilization. Yet now, Oripathy was growing ever more severe, as though the fetus had already been born but the umbilical cord had yet to be cut.
So, was I the attending physician?
Within the ink-wash world, Hoshino fell into thought once more. As if