The Gift (3)
Inside the semi-basement room.
Damp wallpaper peeled up in patches here and there, and beyond the window the ankles of passersby showed faintly as they walked by.
This was my nest.
I had gone to CES in America and come home again.
Our place sat on a slope, half basement on one side and ground floor on the other. That made the rent cheap, and it meant even I, with my disability, could get in and out.
“Home really is the best.”
For a moment I thought back on the America trip. The praise of so many people. Mingling with the richest men in the world. The auction that had nearly stopped my heart.
All of that had been fine—but rest was still best at home. It smelled a little of mold, but it was still my place. I had stayed in a fine hotel in America, yet my heart was more at ease here. I could have been in an expensive hotel right now if I’d wanted, but somehow instinct chose this instead.
Flick. Flick.
The fluorescent light was dying.
“Guess this place and I are saying goodbye, too.”
The blinking tube ought to have been irritating, but right now even that felt like a memory. I had an appointment this afternoon to look at a new house.
“Shall I take out the gift?”
Under the flickering light I took out the prosthetic leg.
“Whoa. Look at that shine.”
The prosthetic from Mr. Everything—the Saudi crown prince. An ordinary prosthetic was little more than a lump of metal; this one had an artificial intelligence unit built in that balanced itself on its own. It even did the work of a calf muscle, and it was comfortable to wear. Price aside, I would have recommended it to every lower-limb amputee I knew.
“Yeah… but I can’t recommend this one.”
Gleam.
A gold finish on the surface I could live with. But the toenails of the prosthetic were diamonds.
“They’re supposed to be real diamonds.”
I had been so curious that I’d taken it to a jeweler to find out whether they were cubic zirconia or the real thing. The agent who delivered the gift had only said it was His Highness’s wish, so I had to check for myself. The verdict: genuine diamonds. The one on the big toe was more than a centimeter across. Five carats, apparently.
The toenails alone on this prosthetic could buy this house—no, this whole building.
Pry them off and sell them?
I did not have the nerve to walk around with diamond toenails showing. It was embarrassing. I was stuck between covering them with socks and shoes, or prying the diamonds off and selling them. And knowing Mr. Everything’s style, I doubted he would ever even ask whether I had sold the diamonds.
“Not your average gift.”
Bzzzt.
I was still examining the prosthetic when my smartphone rang—the one linked to the Nano World. I hit answer at once.
"Constellation. This is Illys."
“Oh, Illys! How have you been?”
The America trip had kept me so busy I barely had time to think. Everything I had was thanks to Illys in the Nano World; I felt a little guilty for neglecting her. But she showed no sign of resentment at all.
"Constellation. We have prepared a tribute for you."
If anything, her face was flushed and bright. She looked like someone who had a secret. A secret that showed clearly on her face.
“A tribute?”
"Yes. A tribute… no—a gift. Please accept it."
A gift. People kept giving me gifts from every direction.
“Wait, what is it—”
"Heehee. You’ll know when you see it. To you, Constellation, it may be simple magic, but we poured our hearts into it. The activation word and the deactivation word are both… ‘Rodriguez.’ Illusion magic will take effect on anyone within three times a person’s height of the magic circle."
“Rodriguez?”
"Yes. Everyone in the Rodriguez territory, myself included, is always grateful to you, Constellation. We put that feeling into it. For the rest, please try the tribute yourself. I will take my leave now."
Click.
“Huh?”
The line cut off far too quickly. She almost seemed embarrassed.
Tribute +1
A real tribute had arrived. When I pressed the button, light briefly pooled on the floor—and a green stick appeared.
“What’s this?”
It looked exactly like a RAM board. I picked it up and looked closer. Yes—a RAM board. A thin, long plate with fine lines running across it. Probably one of the memory modules I had sent them. Looking more carefully, though, there was no RAM chip on the board.
“Ah. So they used the actual RAM to build the HBM, and made something out of the leftover board.”
That was what the situation suggested. But what had they made and sent? Illys had seemed shy about it. I would know once I used it.
I spoke the activation word she had given me. Three times a person’s height was about five meters. I was alone, so now was as good a time as any.
“Rodriguez.”
Whoosh.
My vision flared and shifted, and an unfamiliar landscape unfurled before me.
“Where…?”
I had been in the semi-basement a second ago, and now I was somewhere else entirely. Teleportation? That thought was still forming when someone approached.
Golden hair glittering in the sunlight. A light dress fluttering in the breeze. With every soft sway of the fabric, a silhouette revealed itself—pure and devastating at once.
“Constellation. Hello. I am Illys Rodriguez. Allow me to greet you.”
A light, lovely resonance brushed my ear—close without being too close, a voice that reached me like a whisper. In that moment every other sound around me faded. Only her voice remained clear.
I swallowed without meaning to.
I had gone to an all-boys middle school and an all-boys high school. Then, freshman year of engineering, the accident. Maybe those were excuses, but the fact was I was a lifelong singleton. And now a goddess on the level of a top-tier idol was speaking to that lifelong singleton.
“Ah… hello?”
She was dazzling. A subtle fragrance even brushed my nose—something like the scent of grass in a forest mixed with the sweetness of white petals. Not artificial perfume; it seemed to rise from her own person.
I asked, flustered, but Illys’s reply was a little stiff. NPC-like, somehow.
“Constellation. This place is illusion magic. To you it may be simple magic, but we poured our hearts into it.”
Illusion magic? So it showed illusions? An illusion that even rendered scent?
There was nothing crude about it. It was, quite literally, fantastic.
“We drew a magic circle on the circuit board you gave us last time, and sealed image-capture magic into the board. We did our utmost to show you something vivid. Even if it is clumsy, we would be grateful if you found it lovely.”
Illys smiled brightly and stood demurely, as if inviting me to look around.
Clumsy? What was she talking about? I had always thought she was beautiful. But seeing her at real size—how to put it. Illys always called me Constellation, a god, but looking at her now, the goddess was standing right here.
I realized I had been staring at her for a long time and felt absurdly embarrassed.
“Ahem.”
I had read online that you were not supposed to stare at a woman for more than three seconds. But it was fine. This was an illusion.
I pulled myself together and looked around.
“It’s completely real.”
This was magic? Even VR had never reached this level. Green fields, stone walls, lively people moving about. This was the Rodriguez territory.
Looking around, I saw many people besides Illys.
“Constellation. Well met. I am Carlton, Knight Commander.”
It was an illusion, but he felt so alive that I answered him.
“Ah—good to meet you too, Carlton. I’ve watched you from a distance a few times. You looked impressive.”
Carlton, armor neat and precise, offered a crisp military salute. He wore a magnificent long white beard. Whenever I had observed Illys through the smartphone, he had always been nearby, guarding her. The white beard made him easy to recognize.
Beside him stood a somewhat plump man.
“Constellation. Hello. I am Bruce, the administrator. I handle the territory’s administration. Thanks to you, Constellation, governing the land has become immeasurably easier. Do you see my cheeks? This is not fat. It is swelling from three years of not eating enough. Constellation…”
One by one, the people of the territory I had only ever seen on a screen came forward to greet me.
“Thank you, Constellation.”
“Truly, thank you. Our children no longer go hungry.”
“How can we ever repay this grace?”
You can tell sincerity at a glance. Their eyes were genuine. Wave after wave of heartfelt gratitude washed over me. Moved, I lost my words for a moment.
“You’re not the only ones who are grateful. Honestly… I’m the more grateful one.”
It was an illusion, so they could not hear me, but I meant every word. The semiconductors I had received from the Nano World had changed my life. They were grateful to me, and I, in turn, was grateful for them—and held them dear. Warmth rose from deep in my chest.
This was a pretty moving gift.
I stayed for a long time in the illusion, listening to the people of Rodriguez and savoring the feeling.
“Rodriguez.”
Whoosh.
At the word again, my vision shifted. The fluorescent light of my semi-basement room, blinking as if I had just closed and opened my eyes. This was reality.
I looked at the circuit board in my hand—the one holding the illusion magic.
“This isn’t ordinary, either.”
The first thing the Nano World had sent me was ultra-high-speed DRAM. The second was twenty-layer HBM no one else had stacked. And the third was a circuit board they called a thank-you. What was I supposed to call this board?
“A VR device that is almost impossible to tell from reality?”
The VR industry would fall over backward. Joke, whom I had met in America a few days ago, seemed deadly serious about VR. I wondered what face he would make if I showed him this.
“Haa… but what am I supposed to do with this one?”
DRAM and HBM were still, somehow, within the range of what people on Earth could understand. Mithril was an unknown material, yes, but you could frame it as “we used an unknown material and made it insanely fast.” I just said I would not teach them the material. Take it to auction and reverse-engineer it yourselves—that was how I had sold them. That was why they had gone for so much money.
But how was anyone supposed to explain this illusion magic? Direct action on the brain? Hallucination? Drugs? I had no idea.
“Is making this public even the right call?”
And this had been a gift sent to me—a thank-you for me alone. Putting it up for auction and selling it to others the way I had with the other items did not feel right.
“This one… stays private, for now.”
I did not know how to explain it, and it was personal, so private seemed best. And there was no longer any reason to put everything the Nano World sent me up for auction. Two auctions had been enough; I was rich now.
I was still thinking that when my smartphone buzzed.
Bzzzt.
Thinking it might be Illys, I checked—and it was my real-world phone. Manager Jang.
"We've arrived outside the house. I'll come in."
“Yes, come in.”
The magic footage had been so vivid I had not even noticed how much time had passed. Manager Jang was here so we could go look at the house I was moving into.
He stepped inside and said, “CEO. They say the interior work is finished.”
I was rich now; there was no reason to keep living in a semi-basement. Living alone, I was used to it and it was fine enough—but showing it to Manager Jang or anyone else was a little embarrassing. Honestly, selling just the toenails on the gifted prosthetic would have bought a perfectly decent house. After two auction windfalls, money was not a worry.
I went out with Manager Jang, and bodyguards in black suits opened the door.
“CEO. Good day, sir.”
Special Forces veterans. Honestly, I had never imagined I would live a life that needed bodyguards. After becoming disabled, I had gotten used to either consideration or being ignored; simply not being ignored would have been enough. But JH Research had unveiled world-class products twice. The staff insisted I had to be under full protection.
In truth, our research institute had a strange structure. A research institute with no laboratories. The staff seemed to believe there was a separate, secret facility, and that for security reasons only I knew about it. Well—they were not entirely wrong. It was a research lab in the Nano World.
So my personal safety was a matter of the institute’s survival. That was why two Special Forces bodyguards trailed me everywhere.
Once we were in the car, Manager Jang laid out the schedule.
“We’ll take you to the new house first. Then this evening you have an appointment with the Minister of Science and ICT. I’ve prepared the minister’s likely questions. It would be good if you read them on the way.”
Manager Jang was sharp about his work, at least. I read the materials he handed me as we drove.
Vroom.
He had said he held a driver’s license for this sort of thing; the bodyguard’s driving was perfectly smooth. After a while we arrived at the new house.
“Whoa.”
A twentieth-floor penthouse was waiting for me.