February 6
Esralem, capital of the Israfail Empire, Northwest of Juperia Continent
Gas lamps light the streets at night, and chimneys churn out smoke from the harbor. This is the only country in the world that has reached the "industrial revolution," and it looks completely different from other countries. Yet, few people in other countries realize the importance of this country, which strictly restricts the flow of information. In the center of the capital is the residence of the country's emperor. The Emperor, Jacob Ephraiman Moshe, or Jacob XII, stared at the report brought by the director of intelligence who had visited the emperor's office.
"Oho, Japan... I've been hearing a lot about it from your mouths lately."
"Yes, they have been at war with the largest empire in the world, Crossnellyard, and they have managed to put their blades to the test in their capital city, despite the enemy's superior numbers."
Isaac Asheran, Director of the Intelligence Bureau, explained the war situation between Japan and the Crossnellyard Empire, which has caught the world's attention. However, since there is no branch of the Telecommunications Company in this country, the general public has little idea that a war of this magnitude is taking place on that continent.
"I think they came in from another world... It's like our myths from 2.700 years ago," Jacob XII, who was listening to Isaac's explanation, muttered to himself.
Many people in this world have heard that Japan is a country that claims to have been transported from another world. However, few actually believe it. The Israfail people, however, are a bit different. The founding myth of their country begins its Second Chapter with a sentence that suggests the "transference from another world" as claimed by Japan.
"...After all, even if they are touted as the 'world's strongest,' they can only rely on an overwhelming amount of material resources. Compared to our own equipment, the armies of other powerful nations are far behind the times. However... the mysterious new power of Japan, which destroyed 350.000 troops in the blink of an eye in a landing battle... My interest is piqued! I want to know more about this country, please continue your research."
"Yes, Your Majesty! I will report back to you as soon as I have any new information!"
After listening to the emperor's order, Isaac bowed deeply and left the room.
There are three "Dragons" in the world that Japan has yet to make contact with. They are the "Dragon of the West," the Israfail Empire, the "Old Dragon," the Arabanne Empire, and the United Kingdom of Slephen, which was known as the "Last of the Seven Dragons" until Japan appeared.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January 15, 2030
Somewhere in the Margraviate of Seannut
A month after the Miket Tirith landing.
In a wilderness with a light dusting of snow. There is not a shadow of a house, and the entire area is empty. In this place where no one was supposed to be, there was a figure of a man.
"Haah... haah..."
The man was out of breath. He had a beard and his clothes were torn and covered in mud. He walked through the wilderness with the appearance of a vagrant, and his name is Shiro Kanzaki. He used to work at the Red Cross Hospital established in Lithianburg to treat local residents and improve medical knowledge in this world. The first time he saw the HIV virus, he was surprised to find himself in a place where the virus had been discovered.
"Where... am I? I've walked this far and there isn't even a village!?"
Kanzaki looked around, but all he could see was the horizon, the sky, and the small river he used as a guidepost. He cannot even find any living creatures other than insects and himself. To explain how he got into this state, we need to go back four days before.
. . .
4 days ago
January 11
An abandoned house in the Seannut City, Margraviate of Seannut
The Northern AIDS Investigation Team was regarded as one of the criminals who assassinated the emperor by the government of Seannut, an Orthodox that values loyalty to the Emperor over the Pope, and they were immediately hunted by the Seannut Army. The investigation team had gained the trust of the underworld residents by treating a certain prostitute for syphilis, and in exchange, the team was hidden from the army, but after two months of hiding out, the location of an empty house that was both a hiding place and a temporary clinic was finally discovered.
"Lucrezia! Doctor Shiro! Terrible news, the Seannut Army has found out about this place!"
"!!"
Salween, a servant of the brothel, informed Kanzaki, the head of the investigation team, who was on the second floor of the vacant house where they were hiding, in the examination room, and Lucrezia, the head of the prostitutes in the underworld, of the emergency. They were shocked to hear it.
BANG-BANG... BANG!
"...Gunfire!?" Kanzaki exclaimed.
Almost as the same time that Salween appears, the sound of a gun is heard after that, one of the team members, laboratory technician Hajime Amon, came running upstairs.
"Kanzaki-sensei, get ready to escape! They are right behind us! All the patients in the waiting room have escaped from the back! The team members are already getting into the trucks with their luggage. It's just us now!"
"...Just give me a minute!"
With that, Kanzaki rushed over to one of the only three old beds in the examination room and begins to remove the IV needle that had been placed in a patient who was being treated with an IV penicillin antibiotic to cure syphilis.
"Amon, take care of that one over there!"
"...Got it!"
The two men finished removing the IV in less than 10 seconds. However, there was one patient who had just started medication, and the IV connected to her could not be removed yet. After having the two patients with the IV removed get up and having Amon take them to the back door on the first floor, Kanzaki gave instructions to the two remaining people there.
"...Lucrezia, Salween! Take this person downstairs, and when the drugs in the bag have finished flowing, you two remove the needle! The IV bag must not be lowered, got it!?"
As he spoke, Kanzaki pointed to the one remaining patient.
"...I understand! Hey, you!"
"Yes!"
The two nodded at his words. Salween, under Lucrezia's order, held the patient's body, while Lucrezia removed the IV bag connected to the patient from the wall. After the two carrying the patient went down the stairs, Kanzaki followed them down to the first floor. Watching Lucrezia and Salween's backs as they walked out the back door, Kanzaki said a final goodbye to them.
"So long, and stay alive somehow!"
Lucrezia looked surprised at Kanzaki's words.
"...That's my line! I can't thank you people enough! Don't get caught!"
With these words, the two disappeared out the back door into the darkness of the night. After seeing them off, Kanzaki immediately for the Type 73 heavy truck parked in front of the building.
The GSDF members were engaged in a gunfight in the darkness of the night, and numerous bullets were fired from the 9 mm pistols and Type 89 rifles held in their hands. Facing intense defiance by the escort of the investigation team, the Seannut Army soldiers, who were in close proximity, took cover in the shadows of the buildings to avoid the gunfire. Around the area lay the bodies of several soldiers who had bypassed and walked out in front of the GSDF soldiers.
"Hey! We're running out of ammo!"
One of the guards informed the squad members, who continue firing, that the situation is deteriorating. Although the pursuers were now completely suppressed, if they ran out of ammunition, they would be beaten in no time because of the difference in their numbers.
"Amon-san, where is team leader Kanzaki!?" First Lieutenant Usaki, who was leading the land troops escorting the team, exclaimed.
"That's weird... he should have come out by now."
Amon peeked out the window of the back of the truck at the entrance to the abandoned house where they were hiding. Just when everyone was getting antsy about the leader of the investigation team not showing up, Kanzaki finally emerged from inside the vacant house.
"Sorry, I'm late!"
He apologized for his tardiness as he jumped on the back of the truck. The last one got in, and after confirming that all 15 men were present, Usaki ordered his subordinate in the driver's seat.
"We're getting out of here ASAP! Start the car!"
"Yes, sir!"
After receiving the order to depart, the soldier instantly turned the gear and stepped on the accelerator. Immediately after, the Type 73 truck carrying the investigation team begins to move, moving away from the Seannut troops hiding in the shadows of the buildings.
"T-they're getting away! After them!"
The Seannut soldiers, noticing their movement, tried to get their bodies out of the shadows of the buildings to chase after the fleeing team. However, several soldiers opened fire from the back of the running truck, and the Seannut soldiers were unbearably frightened. Meanwhile, the truck speeds up, and the distance between the team and the Seannut soldiers is getting further and further apart.
"Shit! After them, after them!"
The soldiers, who were able to move now that the shooting had stopped, tried to chase the fleeing investigation team, but the truck was already out of sight of the soldiers.
"We did it! We made it out!"
The 15 members of the investigation team, who had managed to smoke out their pursuers, smiled, exchanged high-fives, and rejoiced in the fact that they had succeeded in escaping without a single person missing. Perhaps because it had been raining from morning to early afternoon, the city was shrouded in darkness at night, which seemed to have helped the team escape.
"The bridge is at the end of the road. After crossing it, turn left and you will be on the outskirts of the city."
"Understood."
From the back of the truck, Usaki indicated the route to be taken to the driver at the wheel of the truck. A few dozen seconds later, the bridge came into view, just as he had said. It was a small bridge over a small river that appeared to be a canal, with no parapets. The truck crossed the small bridge, made of sturdy-looking stone, in an instant. But just as it was about to make a left turn, the truck was hit by the impact of a curb-like object.
"!!"
A moment later, everyone in the car was flying through the air. Then tragedy struck.
"Aaaah!"
Kanzaki, who was sitting in the back of the truck because he was the last to get in, was thrown out of the truck by the impact of the curb.
"Kanzaki-sensei!"
Amon, who was sitting right next to him, leaned out of the back of the truck and frantically reached for his hand. But it was already too late, and Kanzaki was thrown from the back of the car and fell onto the bridge they have just finished crossing. Instead, his thrown body bounced off the bridge and fell into the small river flowing beneath it.
Splash!
"Crap! Stop the car!"
Usaki, realizing what was happening, hurried to stop the car. They got out of the truck, peeked over the bridge at the river into which Kanzaki had fallen, and shone their flashlights. The rain that had been falling from morning until late afternoon had increased the force of the river's current, and Kanzaki was already gone.
"Oh no... has he been swept downstream?"
Usaki paled at the seriousness of the situation. The others were just stunned by this tragedy that had suddenly struck just as they were about to rejoice.
"Hey, there they are!"
"...!"
The Seannut soldiers can be seen on the other side of the bridge. Usaki, realizing that their pursuers were approaching them again, announced his decision to the members of the team who were standing by his side.
"...The fourteen of you, escape from the city first!"
"What!? But Kanzaki-sensei—"
Amon, concerned for Kanzaki's safety, tried to object to Usaki's cruel decision, but Usaki interrupted him and continued.
"I know! But we cannot risk the lives of 14 people here for that. After evacuating to a safe place, let's head out to search for him."
"........."
Usaki calmly stated a sound argument, but his lips were trembling and his expression showed his frustration.
After that, they made their escape from the city and found a new hiding place in a small forest on the outskirts of the city. They searched everywhere where they thought the irrigation canal running through the city flowed into the river, and a few of the team members went into the city again to search for him, but they could not find Kanzaki. Since there were several rivers, both large and small, into which the Seannut City drew its irrigation and sewage water, the search for Kanzaki by the investigation team, which was limited in what it could do, soon came to an end, as they did not know which river the water had flowed into.
. . .
January 15
A certain area in the Margraviate of Seannut
"Uuuhhh..."
Kanzaki fell into a canal and was presumed dead by his friends. However, he was alive. He struggled desperately but could not resist the current, and was thrown out into a small river that runs along the west side of the Seannut City. However, Kanzaki, having reached the limit of his strength, fainted and was swept away to the wilderness far from the city.
"........."
Looking around, not a single person was to be seen. It was winter, and the wind was so cold that it tore at his body and drained his strength without mercy. He was not walking aimlessly; he was walking upstream from the river where he had been swept away in order to reach the Seannut City where his friends might still be, but his legs were not moving as fast as he wanted, and he kept falling over and coming to rest.
"I'll be fine... I'll make sure I will survive!"
Kanzaki encouraged his body, and after not having eaten anything for four days, he continued upstream, eating dead grass and sipping the muddy river water to satisfy his intense hunger, even if only slightly. However, the sun went down without finding anyone, and it was finally his fourth night in the river.
Perhaps because the sky was overcast, Kanzaki continued to walk across the wilderness, using the river as a guidepost. Finally, however, his legs reached their limit and he stumbled down on the ground.
"Ugh..."
Covering himself with his muddy white coat, he braved the night's chill. He would like to go to sleep to regain some of his strength, but he can't because of the risk of death from hypothermia if he goes to sleep now that he has lost all his strength and has no warm clothes. He was shivering as he waited for the sun to rise.
"........."
As the sun went down, the temperature dropped and the wind became colder and colder. To cheer himself up against the freezing cold, Kanzaki kept reassuring himself in his mind, "I've already survived this night three times, so I'll be fine." However, he finally reached his limit, and a strong feeling of drowsiness finally overtook him.
'I can't... take it anymore... I'm so tired.'
Realizing his fate, Kanzaki collapsed on the frozen ground. Both eyelids drooped, and his drowsy consciousness fell into a blackness.
"...!"
Kanzaki woke up. His consciousness, which was supposed to freeze to death, suddenly awoke, and his eyelids, which were never supposed to open again, fluttered open. He immediately sat up and looked around. There was no wilderness, no river that he had used as a guidepost. There were fields of flowers stretching as far as the eye could see and a huge river flowing majestically.
"Huh? It's warm..."
The wind, which was had been so cold that it tore at his body, had stopped before he knew it, and the shivers had disappeared from his body, which should have been frozen with cold. Kanzaki, who even felt the warmth, took off the white coat he had been wearing to endure the cold.
"I see... I see..."
Kanzaki, who is a doctor, soon realized the situation he was in. Is this 'hanahata,' or is that the 'Sanzu River?" As he sat on the ground thinking about this, a light from the heavens suddenly shone down on him.
"...!"
Kanzaki looked up at the place where the light was shining, namely the heavens, and saw a figure in the light shining on him. Kanzaki tilted his head at the figure, which he felt a sense of déjà vu.
"...Princess? ...No."
At first, the figure descending from the heavens with light looked like the Fourth Princess Theopha Rae Anglem, who had been temporarily treated in Lithianburg.
"...!"
However, he soon realized that the figure he thought was the princess was a different person. It was the figure of his colleague's former lover, and 'companion,' whom he had met in Nanjing during the war, who had been his emotional support. Kanzaki, who knew the identity of the person who came for him from heaven, gazed at the vision with a smile on his face. It was not the nurse he had always seen in the field hospital, but dressed in a pure white costume, as if she was a real angel.
"I never thought I would see you for the last time..."
'.........'
As Kanzaki said to himself in self-mockery, the person who had descended from heaven smiled and extended her right hand to Kanzaki's left cheek. Kanzaki grabbed that right hand. He knew it was only an illusion, but her hand felt warm and gentle, as if it were real, on his left hand and left cheek. Kanzaki asked her a question.
"Hey... Yuikawa, will I able to see Shibata—I mean, Tomokazu, at some point?"
'.........'
'...Thanks.'
Yuikawa nodded in silence at Kanzaki's words of concern for his friend. Kanzaki was relieved at the answer and shed tears. His body, enveloped by the light, gradually became lighter. With Yuikawa's vision pulling him by the hand, Kanzaki felt as if he were ascending to heaven, and he knew where he had to go.
'Apparently, I have to go... I never thought I could go to heaven... I'll be waiting for you after I'm gone first, Shibata!'
Lured by a vision, Kanzaki's euphoric consciousness gradually fades from this world.
A few hours later, the sun rises and a dazzling light shines on the wilderness. The light illuminates the clouds and grass covering the sky and earth, as well as the river. At the same time, the light illuminated the body of a man sleeping on the earth, with a single tear streaming down his cheek.