"Damn it... as I thought, all the good jobs require a university degree or higher..."

I groaned as I sat before the job opening sheets I had brought home from the public employment office.

The day after taking my first step back into the real world, I collected a massive pile of job listings. I had the motivation. I had the suit. I didn't have a career history or a degree, but I'd at least bought a resume template.

However...

It wasn't that I was being picky, but since I needed to send supplies to the other world, I really wanted to find a job with decent pay.

But this is the tragedy of being a high school graduate. Combined with the recession, there weren't many good openings—especially for someone whose only "career" was at a black company that had since gone bankrupt.

I'd heard that the trick to job hunting was to go to Hello Work every day and apply the very second a good opening appeared. So that's exactly what I was doing, but—

"Maybe I should go into the culinary world... But I hear it's hard to become independent unless you have a certain amount of capital, even if that's the end goal..."

"Wait, is apprenticing under a swordsmith another option since they're lacking successors? No, they probably barely pay a salary... And the industry is shrinking. Outside of the Warring States period, there's just no demand. Honestly, stainless steel is more convenient for kitchen knives, and chefs who insist on carbon steel are only going to decrease..."

"I'm done with anything related to scams, so maybe legitimate jewelry work? But those places won't hire high school graduates because of trust issues... Probably because the products they handle are so expensive..."

"There are surprisingly many jobs that could use my craftsmanship skills, but I wonder. A local Buddhist altar shop had an opening..."

"I guess looking for a normal company is the safest bet..."

I stared intensely at the job sheets, muttering to myself as I agonized over the choices.

Job hunting is hard.

They say there are plenty of jobs if you aren't choosy, but it's only human nature to want to choose a little.

'The economy’s been in recession forever.'

By the time I became aware of the world, people were already shouting "recession!" and they've never really stopped.

I don’t have any personal memory of good times. The economy has been bad my whole conscious life, so "boom times" feel like fairy-tale legends from some fantasy world.

Back in my black-company days, older guys would sometimes talk nostalgically about when the economy was booming. About their Bubble Era memories:

They said if you had the will to work, you could get any job you wanted.

They said the streets were overflowing with people.

They said every single restaurant was packed.

They said even trading in your car every two years was considered slow.

They said being a civil servant was a job for "losers."

They said you'd get a job offer and an envelope of cash just for showing up to an interview.

They said if you played the stock market, you were guaranteed to win.

They said you could live off interest alone.

They said land worth 50 million yen would sell for 100 million the next day.

They said, anyway, every day was a life of luxury and debauchery—

It's a myth. There's no other words to describe it.

I can't even imagine such an era ever existed.

The bit of fun I had in the other world was nothing compared to the "fever" of that Bubble Era.

"...Well, anyway, let's just go for an interview."

I picked out a few listings from the pile.

Tomorrow, I planned to go through the procedures at Hello Work to set up interviews.

The reality, apparently, is that getting hired isn't that easy.

Companies prefer people who can contribute immediately, and a man who graduated from high school with almost no career history is a hard sell.

I heard the success rate jumps significantly for university graduates, but unfortunately, a standard high school diploma is my highest level of education.

I opened my laptop.

There was no point whining about the degree. Going to university now wasn't out of the question, but I had no capital, and I wanted to send supplies to the other world.

First, I had to earn money.

You can look for jobs online, too.

There's the site run by Hello Work, and there are listings for companies that don't go through the agency.

"Still, searching from a PC is inefficient after all..."

Apparently, people post job leads on Twitter and such, but finding them is a chore. Sticking to Hello Work is the fundamental way to go.

I opened the auction page.

Yesterday, I sent an apology to the winning bidder I'd left hanging for a month after the mirror broke.

The "Very Negative" rating I received as a seller was likely permanent, but that was just the consequence of my own actions.

For now, I'd ship the item to the bidder I'd finally contacted.

"...Hm?"

I noticed a new rating had been added.

"At this timing?"

The number of ratings is proof of trust in an online auction.

Many "Positive" ratings serve as evidence of successful transactions, giving bidders peace of mind.

Naturally, I always kept an eye on my rating count.

".........What?"

The moment I read the comment in that rating, my mind went blank, as if time had stopped.

My heart skipped a beat.

It was a feeling of unreality, like being greeted in a local park in broad daylight by a character you'd only met in a dream.

But there it was, written plainly.

Rating: Very Negative Seller.

User: darker_than_darkness

Imported Folk Art:

Hand-carved Wooden Mask (Handmade♪)

Comment:

OP-san, a guy calling himself Mirage, the Great Archmage of Phantasms, is in the thread.

He says he can fix the mirror. So, come back.

"The Great Archmage... of Phantasms...?"

I had definitely heard that name before.

It was a name that cropped up occasionally in that world... A hero of Erishe from nearly a hundred years ago, I think?

Wait, first off, "OP-san"...?

And the "thread" means the one on the Fairy Board...?

My sense of reality was thin, as if I were having a waking dream. But no matter how many times I looked back, the text remained the same.

I checked the auction page for the mask I had listed. In the transaction message board, there was a new post from the winning bidder.

Hello, I'm darker_than_darkness, the one who won the mask.

I don't know if the reason you disappeared was because you were worried about being doxxed or because the mirror actually existed and really broke, but I'm just a hobbyist who wants the mask that Black Elf-chan wore.

Please feel free to proceed with the transaction.

Also, please show yourself in the thread again.

I don't know if this "Mugen" guy is the real deal, but if he is, he's posted a dummy email address, so it might be worth contacting him.

As a fan, I'm looking forward to new photos.

I'd be especially happy if you uploaded more of Black Elf-chan.

Thanks in advance.

".........Are you serious?"

The mask in question had been sitting around since I took the photos. It was a slightly old wooden mask I'd bought at a flea market in Erishe.

I navigated through my computer and dug through my image folders.

"Is it this...?"

Among the photos I'd uploaded to the thread was a snapshot taken at the mansion where Marina was playing around with the mask.

I hadn't been careless—or so I thought—but I'd underestimated the thread's residents.

To think they could link the two from such a small detail... No, at this point, that didn't matter.

They said the Great Archmage of Phantasms was in the thread.

It made no sense, but I wanted to hear what he had to say.

I had no way of knowing if he was the real deal... or the man himself, but I had never told anyone about the Great Archmage.

Of course, I hadn't written about him in the thread. My own understanding of the name was just, "Oh, so that's the name of a great man from the past."

I opened the message board.

I went to the latest thread and caught up with the summary thread.

I made a few posts to hear what the residents had to say.

I obtained the burner email address for the self-proclaimed "Great Archmage of Phantasms."

There wasn't much to scrutinize, but regardless—

"He's... the real deal... isn't he...?"

I couldn't help but think so.

It could be a coincidence, but I had never called Diana a "High Elf" in the thread.

Nor had I mentioned "Nightmares." I might have let the words "Erishe" or "Lucraella" slip, but 'Misumikandallu' and 'Linklumie' were names I barely remembered myself.

At the very least, he was definitely someone connected to the other world.

And he was saying he was the one who made that mirror.

"Alright..."

I wanted to contact him.

If it could be fixed, nothing would make me happier.

But...

What if he's a dangerous person?

I couldn't easily say, "I have nothing left to lose."

I still had the fragments of that mirror.

To me, they were the only remaining link to the other world.

Suppose he really was the Great Archmage of Phantasms. Suppose he really was a wizard. Even then, who's to say he wouldn't just say, "Oops, I messed up," as the magic failed and the mirror was lost forever?

Or once he saw the mirror, he might say, "I made this, so I'm taking it back." If that happened, I had no power to stop him.

What would I do? Try to fight back with the Magic Sword? I'd just end up getting arrested. But I was tired of just being a victim.

Those "what-ifs" dominated my thoughts until I finally reached a conclusion the next morning.

In the end, I decided to contact him.

I wrote the email, choosing my words with extreme caution.

I didn't know what kind of person he was, but if there was a chance he could fix the mirror, I had no other choice. I wasn't strong enough to choose inaction out of fear when a solution was right there.

* * *

The reply came almost instantly.

Mugen-san was surprisingly frank. He wrote in a friendly tone, saying how much he missed Emes-Palette and asking if things were still peaceful over there.

Apparently, he had come to this world using that mirror long ago and had never returned. More precisely, he couldn't return anymore.

After several exchanges, we agreed to meet in person. He told me he'd explain the details then.

Perhaps considering my wariness, he suggested talking at a coffee shop. Personally, he had wanted to meet at his home so I could meet his wife as well. However, since Mugen-san lived in Yamanashi Prefecture, the travel distance made that difficult.

I briefly wrote an outline of the situation for Aurica and handed it to her.

By "outline," I only mentioned that I would meet the Great Archmage of Phantasms. Explaining the computer-related details wouldn't make sense to her anyway, so I simply asked her to tell me as much as she knew about the Great Archmage.

A short while later, Aurica's reply arrived.

• The Great Archmage of Phantasms was a human blessed by a previous Priest of Erishe. According to records, he is the only person in the last thousand years to hold a "Unique Vocation."

• The Unique Vocation title was "Illusion Mage: The Mirage." The specific names of his skills have apparently been lost to time.

• Legends say that during a war eighty years ago, he stopped an army of a thousand men all by himself.

• He is male.

• He has been missing for fifty years.

• He is a hero famous not just in Erishe, but across all of Emes-Palette; hence, he is called the 『The Great Archmage of Phantasms』.

That was the gist of it.

In any case, he was a massive celebrity in that world, and even I had heard his name several times.

I hadn't paid much attention to it before, but the bronze statue in the middle of Eliche's main plaza was apparently modeled after him.

Even the titles of the plays Elepipi had minor roles in were things like 『The Great Archmage and the Forest of No Return』 or 『The Great Archmage and the Elven Princess』.

Why was such a person in Japan...?

The mystery only deepened.

Regardless, the news that I was going to meet the Great Archmage sent the household into a frenzy. The legendary genius who reportedly created the mirror was going to help us. It was a bit premature, but some were already convinced it was as good as fixed.

Truthfully, I didn't know if things would go that smoothly, but for the first time in a while, I felt like singing.

I just prayed this feeling wasn't merely a "drowning man clutching at straws."

* * *

On the day of the meeting.

Mugen-san was coming all the way from Yamanashi, so we agreed to meet at the station.

There was no agreed-upon landmark. We hadn't exchanged photos, but Mugen-san told me to count on him because 『I'll make sure you recognize me the instant you see me』.

We had each other's cell numbers. We hadn't spoken on the phone yet, but if push came to shove, we could figure it out that way.

I paced around the first floor of the station building, unable to sit still until the appointed time.

Meeting someone you met online is always nerve-wracking.

The person called himself an "old guy," but in Erishe, he was a legend from a hundred years ago. I couldn't even begin to imagine his actual age. In that world, rejuvenation via spirit stones is possible. Then again, there was a non-zero chance that a very old man would show up.

Five minutes before the meeting.

I waited for Mugen-san, who was taking the humble route—local lines from Kofu to Fuji, then Fuji to Shizuoka. For a self-proclaimed wizard, he was remarkably down-to-earth. Though, coming from Yamanashi, there's no direct line, so he didn't have much of a choice.

...Come to think of it, I realized just now that I'd been calling him Mugen-san in the emails and had completely forgotten to ask for his real name.

Passengers streamed out from the local train and poured through the ticket gates.

I just stood there, watching them.

Would Mugen-san really show up?

He said he would bring an unmistakable landmark, but...

"Hm...? Is that a commotion...?"

A stir was rippling through the crowd near the gates.

People were walking past while glancing back over their shoulders, clearly distracted by something.

It was as if a celebrity were walking through.

And then, the man appeared.

The unmistakable landmark—or rather—

"You've got to be kidding me..."

Bathed in the collective stares of the public, a tall, handsome middle-aged man was descending the stairs. He was wearing a deep navy blue cloak embroidered with the motif of a winged bull—specifically, the Great Spirit Le Baraka. He stood out like a sore thumb.

He was a Western man with light brown hair styled in a casual, effortless manner. Age-wise, he looked to be around forty. In a sense, it was exactly the age I'd imagined.

He was smiling and waving at some high schoolers who were turning around to try to snap a picture of him.

...It seemed that eccentric man really was the "Great Archmage of Phantasms".