No Game No Life

Vol 4 Epilogue

Epilogue - Interrupt End

Part 1

She felt voices conversing behind her by the beach.

Miko, who was walking alone in the darkness, looked up at the moon and

began mumbling to herself.

“...Did he realize – I was testing him?”

No...Miko shook her head, denying her own words.

Even if he did find out, that man’s actions still wouldn’t change.

Sora from the start – never planned to sacrifice Ino at all.

The sounds of his heartbeat didn’t change at allfrom the beginning, and it

sounded incredibly relaxed.

- Yes, Miko was testing Sora and the others.

If Miko was in that position, being forced to make the same decision, what

would she have done?

It was very possible – no, it was unquestionable that she would choose to

sacrifice Ino.

Because it was an unnecessary risk, and that just by one sacrifice they would

acquire many benefits.

Because to ask for even more – would be ?Idealism?.

And to give up on her ideals -

- Was her limit.

“...Can we expect them?”

If it was those two, they would simply nonchalantly overcome their limits.

Just to confirm this – Miko who had used the decision to ?Save or sacrifice

Ino? to test them, closed her eyes.

Sora and s.h.i.+ro – would they choose to ?Sacrifice him? like she would...

She had stubbornly ?Tested? Sora and s.h.i.+ro, attempting to make them

surpa.s.s limits that even she could not.

- To punish herself, to force her to live with extreme guilt for the rest of her

life, she had intentionally chosen Hatsuse Ino (him) as the sacrifice, and -

“...Maybe we really can expect them.”

At this point, Miko finally realised.

The ruckus coming from behind her – Imanity, Werebeasts, Flügel and even

Dhampirs.

- Sora and s.h.i.+ro never had the concept of ?Racial Discrimination?.

“...If it’s them – maybe we can trust them with it.”

As she spoke, she clutched her chest.

Miko felt her own heartbeat – an emotion long forgotten.

She murmured to herself while looking up at the blood-red moon.

Part 2

“Jibril.”

“I’m here.”

Upon hearing Sora’s calls, Jibril immediately teleported behind him.

“You know how the Empress went into hibernation, and the conditions to

awaken her, don’t you.”

When they met Plum, it was Jibril that had explained the situation to them.

“Yes – but that was false information...”

Thinking that she would be scolded again, Jibril’s voice softened slightly, but

then Sora said:

“It’s not that, where did you get the information?”

“My hometown – Avant Heim.”

Sora continued half expectantly, half helplessly:

“...Anyway with the way you Flügel do things, you must have gathered all

sorts of written resources from all over the world, right?”

“Yes, of course ? “

Jibril nodded proudly in confirmation.

Looking at her expression, Sora couldn’t help but smile bitterly in

helplessness, thought to himself “Never mind” and continued pondering the

situation at hand.

- To beat the Empress’ game.

Victory conditions that n.o.body knew and practically didn’t exist, and there

were extremely limited ways to find them.

But – there were still ways.

They needed – information, and -

“Steph, please work together with Izuna to search for information in the late

king’s books.”

“- Huh?”

“Regarding the continent Elkia originally possessed that bordered the Seirens’

seas.”

And then – Sora said:

“I don’t believe that the king that had exposed the Eastern Federation’s game

wouldn’t do any other research regarding neighboring nations.”

The man that had pretended to be a foolish king with n.o.ble aspirations –

probably wouldn’t have a complete answer.

Because if he did, the Empress would’ve been awakened by now – but -

“...Even if there’s no answer, there could be observations that might lead us

to them.”

Upon seeing Sora’s eyes that contained trust in the King, trust in her

grandfather.

“Please, Steph.”

“- Alright, leave it to me.”

“...I understand, des.”

Izuna and Steph nodded in agreement at once.

“...Um, about that...w-what should we do...?”

“Ah yes, Jibril, s.h.i.+ro and I.... and Plum, you come along as well.”

“Oh, a-alright... huh, where are we going?”

“Didn’t I say it earlier? - We intend on conquering three races, not two.”

Sora continued with a smile:

“Alright, here’s the problem, in order to find out about this game where the

victory conditions aren’t clear, the only surefire way is to look for records of

people that have taken part in the game previously, and deduce the victory

conditions by comparing them – so where’s the only place we can go that

probably has the most records?”

...

- A second’s pause, and then...

A whoos.h.i.+ng sound was heard, and another one – but that was a sound

carrying a completely opposite meaning.

“Finally – finally! A new Master to rule us Flügel are to sit on the throne – ah,

to think that such a grand day would come so early!”

“Kyaaaaaaahhhhh please no! I don’t want to go to the lair of monsters like

those!”

Jibril knelt on the ground and began to pray with a force that kicked up all the

sand around her.

And the sounds of Plum struggling, yelling in an attempt to get away but was

being restrained by Jibril.

Sora ignored the commotion, and grasped s.h.i.+ro’s hand.

He nodded slightly.

“Alright, let’s go – we’re heading to ?Avant Heim?.”

Afterwords

Phew~ I’m really tired w. That’s it for now! (TL note:j.a.panese people often

add ‘w’ to the end of words. Kind of how we say ‘lol’ a lot.)

To be honest, it allstarted with my editor discussing with me to turn the

episode preview I made originally as a joke to a reality.

Honestly, I never really thought about what I was going to write ?

But I couldn’t turn down the editor’s well wishes, so I decided to try it out

anyway w.

So here are the messages to you readers from our editors -

Second-generation editor S: “Kamiya-sensei, please don’t adopt such poor

work att.i.tudes any longer.

If it weren’t for the fact that the author and ill.u.s.trator is the same person, this

novel might even be delayed for another month.

Also on online message boards, please limit yourself to about three lines.” (TL

note: The author’s first few lines came from the j.a.panese message board 2ch,

as one author there went overboard and got famous on the internet for being

overly emotional.)

- I’m sorry, I’ll work seriously from now on, and I’m Kamiya Yuu.

?NO GAME NO LIFE ? that was supposed to be published every five

months or so – was delayed by one month. (TL note:j.a.panese publis.h.i.+ng

time.)

First, I deeply apologize for the delay.

“Sensei, please reflect on this deeply. Even deeper than the Marina Trench.”

Also, one of the reasons for the delay is because the editors got my work

progression completely wrong.

“I’m reflecting on this already, even deeper than the earth’s mantle.”

Alright, now regarding this time’s ?NO GAME NO LIFE Volume 4?.

Just like what I had planned, I attempted to write a volume with a rather

cheery, relaxing atmosphere.

Because I wanted to let up on the plot from the first to third volumes, and

continue from there.

Also, to help the story progress for the following volumes, just a cheery,

happy, relaxing volume -

...That was what I had planned, so how did it turn out like this?

“I had heard originally that this was going to have a cheery, relaxing plot, so

why is the first draft over four hundred players long? I personally really want

you to explain this mysterious scenario that seems straight out of the X-Files.”

...Yes, the truth about this entire affair is actually even deeper than the

Gutenberg.” (TL note: A layer located between the earth’s mantle and core.)

Do you want to know?

“Even deeper than the earth’s mantle? Spit it out then.”

I’ll be honest.

Wasn’t it because some editor wanted to make this series into a manga with

my wife?

Because of that, I ended up spending one week of each month on drawing

manga instead – essentially returning to my roots as a manga artist.

“...Eh...about that...”

Also it was because I took up one of the series my previous editor S sent

over.

Over here there isn’t much work since everyone cooperates on everything,

but just as I was rus.h.i.+ng to finish the volume up my typewriter broke, and as I

was going to get a new one I was run over by a car that smashed my bones

to bits, but luckily since I was short on cash my insurance helped my purse

quite a bit so never mind.

“...Is that all?”

The problem is after that, because my lead editor completely messed up my

work progression, wanting me to work on three volumes, and due to the

process of dividing the workload being rather complicated, I was at my limit

just writing half a volume.

So it became four hundred pages, but since it’s half a volume the structure of

the story began to have problems, with the most worrying one being the story

lacking a climax -

Thus, I began pondering and editing the structure of the story with regards to

that.

So? Did this explanation reach the Guten-whatever?”

“It’s the Gutenberg, how should I put it, um – thank you for your hard work

? “

Yeah, the situation could be mostly attributed to ?Human error?, so please

say a few words about this incident ?

“To think that such devilish editors exist... what a horrifying working

environment...”

Yes, to think that a devil could say such words with a straight face... how

scary (trembling voice)

- Never mind, I won’t mention human error for now, but actually a lot of

other things happened that I just didn’t write down.

Such as diabetes, I was scolded by my doctor, and got food poisoning just

from going out to eat yakitori once.

- But just let me say this, all this isn’t made up.

“Kamiya-sensei, I suggest that you go for an exorcism!”

I already have!

“...Huh?”

I went to Meiji Shrine before I got cancer.

I visited Fus.h.i.+miInari-Taisha after I got cancer.

This year I went to visit Kawas.h.i.+ka Dais.h.i.+. But all this still happened anyway.

If I hadn’t been to visit all these places, I might even be on the other side of

the Sanzu River by now. (TL note: All the places above are places significant

to j.a.panese Buddhist beliefs. Sanzu River is a river that traditionally divides

the border between life and death.)

Ah, but at the end of the year I went to check my bank book only to see that

it had only the number ?0?written on it, I don’t even have money to pay the

ferryman across the river... what happens if I don’t pay him? WillI come

back to life?

“No, I don’t think those sort of lifelines exist...”

Fine – just like that, I’llstop here.

The content of this volume is relaxing, cheerful(with a deeper meaning).

But this is also approaching a sprint – the plot of this series entered its climax

in the previous volume, so to surpa.s.s it! I willsprint forward even faster, so

please support -

“Ah, Kamiya-sensei, Kamiya-sensei.”

Huh? Ah, I’m here, what is it? I’m just preparing to finish this up.

“The editor of Alive is here to rush you, is your storyboard draft completed

yet?”

...........

“And the special volume and the script for a booklet ofsome project, and

don’t forget – huh? Kamiya-sensei? Hey~ are you still there?”

References

1. ? In j.a.panese tradition, architecturals.p.a.ces designed to be used for

tea ceremony (chanoyu) gatherings are known as chas.h.i.+tsu (??,

literally "tea rooms").

2. ? -kou (?) is a suffix generally used for lords at governmental

occasions.

3. ? Four of a kind plus a joker (wild card).

4. ? To execute an extremely unsuspected or well-planned out trick that

others do not know is upon them until it is too late.

5. ? In the original text, her body laid on the floor shaped like the kanji

character, ?.

6. ? Translated as Miko’s home in Volume 3, Chapter 4. ??, read as

Mikoja, literally means Miko’s Shrine, and is adapted from??

(jinja/s.h.i.+nto shrine) which is where realj.a.panese mikos reside in.

7. ? A girl who has already reached adulthood (18 years old) but retains

the looks of a loli.

8. ? A popular dating sim, see here

9. ? Over-Powered

10. ? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanten

11. ? TL note: Originalreads ??, fits with the anime translation. Spirits

are basically Disboard chakra...? Edits welcome.

12. ? TL note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thala.s.sotherapy

13. ? TL note: Whoa! There goes gravity. Whoa! There goes Rabbit, he

choked, OK this isn’t funny.

14. ? TL note:Cthulhu are evil beings created by American writer H.P.

Lovecraft in his Cthulhu Mythos. They signify ‘water’. CL note: They

look like mutant octopuses

15. ? TL note: Tokimeki Memorial is a popular j.a.panese dating simulator.

Probably censored for fear of... copyright issues.

16. ? TL note: Time for some explanation. In the “Tokimeki Memorial”

series of dating simulation games by Konami, there is a well-known

cheat that sets all the player’s stats to 573 if they change their names to

Konamiman. Konami in j.a.panese is p.r.o.nounced the same way as 573.

However, this affects negative stats as well, like susceptibility to

injuries, things like that. Since the game they’re in is presumably based

on it, this cheat should work as well.

17. ? TL note:In the popular light novel/manga/anime series “I Have Few

Friends/Boku ha Tomodachi ga Sukunai”, the character Mikazuki

Yozora changes another character, Sena Kas.h.i.+wazki’s username in a

dating simulator to Kas.h.i.+wazaki Semoponume.

18. ? TL note: Yos.h.i.+o Saotome is one of the characters in the very first

edition of Tokimeki Memorial. His role is to provide the player with

info on the girls, phone numbers, blood type, hobbies, etc.

19. ? TL note: Another character from the first edition of TokiMemo. Rei

Ijuuin is at first introduced to the player as a guy but halfway through

the game it is revealed that “he’s” actually a girl. It’s a trap!

20. ? TL note:Riajuu – j.a.panese word for someone that’s living his/her

real-world life to the fullest. Think this term was used way back in

Volume 1 or 2.

21. ? TL note: TokiMemo 1st gen, of course.

22. ? Tokimeki MemorialReference. School name derived from Tokimeki

Memorial Online

23. ? TL note: Well, Katou Taka is a j.a.panese p.o.r.n star. You don’t want

to know what I had to go through to find that out.

24. ? TL note: Abdomen is an approximation. For the accurate term:"Gut"

Gut http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dantian

25. ? TL note: Go-home club i.e. no clubs. Go home.

26. ? TL note: That was a line from one of the first-gen TokiMemo

characters, Fujisaki s.h.i.+ori.

27. ? TL note: Ah. Bombs. Hugest pain in the a.s.s in this game i.e.

TokiMemo. Essentially if the player knows multiple girls but only has

high affections with some of them, the neglected ones will have “bomb”

icons and will begin to spread bad rumors about the player, ruining the

player’s relations.h.i.+ps. This forces careful planning/dating.

28. ? TL note:???in Chinese, edits welcome.

29. ? TL note: Elchean?