Project Necro is an official initiative by Re:Library.

“So this thing you call reforestation, too—was it knowledge from your past life?”
“Yes. It had been practiced since long ago in the country where I was born.”

I looked it up when I wrote a report for it in high school—apparently, in Japan it dates back to the Muromachi period.

“In that past world as well, did humans begin to consider coexistence with magical beasts?”

Ah—misunderstanding.

“No. Reforestation in my past world did not begin for that reason. In that world, magical beasts did not exist. Not only that—magic, gods… though they appeared in legends, they were considered things that did not actually exist.”
“Did not exist?”

Vladforen’s eyes widened.

“Ridiculous. If there is no magic, how do those flying vehicles you speak of fly through the air?”

Ah—so in his mind, airplanes were running on magic!
Well, I never explained propulsion, so that’s only natural. Or rather, inevitable. H-how do I explain this…

“They burn oil, and convert heat into power. That power allows them to fly.”

This is the best I can do…
I don’t think it’s wrong. If you explain engines very roughly, that *is* what they do.

“Oil…”

Murmuring skeptically, Vladforen looked unconvinced. Ekaterina quietly averted her gaze. It was frightening to imagine what was going on in his head. He wasn’t picturing something like a giant flying lamp, was he?
Also, when someone is this beautiful, even a doubtful expression adds a touch of cuteness and turns them into an even more dangerous object. That’s scary.

“No magical beasts, no magic, no gods…”

Vladforen’s burning red eyes fixed on Ekaterina.

“Then humans would have no threats at all.”

Oh—that angle!
Sorry for thinking about flying lamps.

“I would not say there were no threats whatsoever. Before natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and floods, humans were but small, fragile beings. However… beings that overwhelmingly surpassed humans, like yourself or the gods, certainly did not exist in my past life.”
“Then humans did as they pleased.”

Ugh.

“Your words are… not inaccurate, I believe.”

I mean, really.
How many species of plants and animals have humans driven to extinction?
I once read that due to human influence, about twenty-five percent of Earth’s plant and animal species are at risk of extinction. It stuck with me because it was so shocking.

Meanwhile, the graph of the human world population shoots up at a terrifying curve over the last two hundred years or so. Around 1800, the global population was apparently about one billion. A nice round number. By around 2000, it was seven or eight billion. People were saying we might reach ten billion soon.

Saying that humans in my past life consumed the world and grew bloated wouldn’t be wrong.

…Around 1800 was when the Industrial Revolution began.
Thinking about that makes Great-Uncle Isaac’s prismite magic circle—the equivalent of a steam engine in this world—terrifying, in terms of how it might change everything.

Looking at the good side of the Industrial Revolution in my past life, humanity overcame many diseases, nutrition improved, flood-control technologies advanced, and people were able to live in places that had once been uninhabitable. Many more people survived.
But that also meant taking habitats away from countless other living beings, driving them toward extinction.

And in the end, temperatures rose, and climate change intensified… it all came back to hit us.

The prismite magic circle does not carry the risk of global warming. For that, I’m grateful all over again.

And this world has black dragons, green dragons—dragons so powerful they are close to gods—who will not allow rampant destruction of nature. There are gods as well, who bring anger and calamity if humans act too selfishly. Fear of that should keep humans from going too far. Unlike in my past life.

After I died of overwork, what became of that world?
Did it somehow manage…?

“What is it?”

Vladforen’s voice snapped Ekaterina back to herself.

“My apologies. I was recalling that doing as one pleases ultimately leads to one’s own destruction.”
“Did humans perish in your past world?”
“No. When my life in that world ended, humanity was still in the midst of prosperity. However, that prosperity had a great impact on the world, driving many species to the brink, and there were growing warnings that signs threatening humanity’s own survival were everywhere. Whether humanity managed to overcome that crisis—I cannot know. But I do wonder.”
“It would not be strange if they had perished. Those who prosper beyond their station are fated to fall—especially when that prosperity alters the world and wipes out many other species.”

The strongest, invincible dragon who had lived for three thousand years said this lightly, and Ekaterina gave a wry smile.

“So even in another world, humans are greedy creatures. Had they truly put the world in danger?”
“As you say. But are humans truly special in that regard? All living things wish to live and survive. To eat their fill, to gain a mate, to bear many children, and to hope those children grow strong and prosper further—this is not unique to humans. Humans merely had the opportunity to realize it.”

Vladforen narrowed his red eyes. Rather than being displeased, he seemed intrigued by her rebuttal.

“Besides humans, is there any other creature that prospered so greatly it changed the world and caused the extinction of many others?”
“In the studies of my past world, it was said that such a thing did occur—far in the distant past.”

Snowball Earth.
There was a time when the entire Earth was covered in glaciers, becoming a planet of ice. Traces of glaciers have even been found near what was once the equator.
That climate change caused a mass extinction.
And the cause was said to be a certain living thing.

“Oh? And what creature was that?”
“Algae.”

At Ekaterina’s answer, Vladforen looked baffled.

“Algae?”
“Yes. Plants that grow abundantly in water.”

Strictly speaking, I think it was photosynthetic bacteria that caused the Snowball Earth, but calling them plants is close enough. Besides, bacteria haven’t been discovered in this world, so I can’t explain it properly anyway—please forgive me.

“How could algae change the world?”
“Simply by living and breathing. Plants breathe as well. However, what they inhale and exhale is the reverse of animals. The breath plants exhale contains something that cools the world. Animals inhale that cooling substance and exhale something that warms the world.”

Oxygen, carbon dioxide, methane—none of these have been discovered in this world, nor even conceptualized, so please forgive this crude explanation. They’re not even exactly breathing, it’s photosynthesis—but plants do release carbon dioxide at night too, I think, so please forgive that as well. I really have no choice but to be sloppy here.

“In the distant past, algae so small they could not be seen with the naked eye multiplied explosively and consumed all that warmed the world. As a result, the entire world froze, and living things died out. Even the regions that correspond to the southern jungle nations you mentioned earlier froze over completely.”
“How can you know such a thing?”
“By studying rocks. We had the technology to read the rocks in my past world. Rocks are not eternal—they were once mud, or the remains of living things, which accumulated and hardened into stone. By examining them and analyzing what they were made from, one can learn what occurred in the distant past when those rocks were formed.”

Radiometric dating and the like don’t exist in this world… but never mind.

“If the world froze so completely, how did it recover?”
“Over a long span of time, through volcanic eruptions and the heat of the sun. Volcanic eruptions also expel things that warm the world. It was thought that these gradually raised the temperature and melted the ice. The world froze hundreds of millions of years ago. It was said that tens of millions of years were required before the ice finally melted.”
“…”

With an expression that was half exasperated, half grudgingly impressed, Vladforen fell silent.

“When I learned this in my past life, I felt something I cannot quite put into words—that humans were creatures not so very different from algae.”

More precisely, I recalled lines I’d often seen in manga or online—humans are ugly beings who destroy nature, unlike other living things—and thought, no, even algae would destroy the environment if given the chance. Humans aren’t all that special.

It might be an extreme view.
Unlike those bacterias, humans quite literally reshaped entire maps with our own hands—but still.

Unlike bacteria, humans also do things no other creatures do. They predict that continuing like this will lead to disaster, and try to reduce CO₂ through things like the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.

But the countries with the highest emissions were the most resistant, so prospects were bleak. It wasn’t just countries—many companies and individuals said, “Economic activity comes first.”
Even when you call it economic activity, at its root that is still an animalistic desire to prosper further.

I can’t really criticize them myself. I worked overtime until midnight day after day, used huge amounts of electricity, and lived far from anything eco-friendly. I was just trying to get by.
I thought tomorrow would be the same as today. Even knowing the data of climate change, even seeing the graphs, even understanding global warming, today always felt the same as yesterday. I couldn’t imagine destruction waiting in the future.
Well, I died of overwork long before humanity’s destruction—and now I’m being haunted by destruction flags.

If, by living only for the present without considering the future, humans ended up perishing and taking other species with them, then the conclusion would be that humans did the same thing as bacteria—that humans are of the same level as bacteria.

“And yet, how could algae or humans ever become creatures that do not seek prosperity? In the end, the instincts of living things drive them only to increase and flourish further. Humans of my past world were not such special creatures that they could say, ‘We have reached the peak of prosperity; from here on, we must not flourish further.’ Would you call that evil?”

We called ourselves the most intelligent creature on Earth—so shouldn’t we have been able to control our instincts? I do think that. But when a species reaches the far end of its path, making a swift and correct course correction is difficult.
Still, I think humans did better than those who came before us, at least in realizing that a course correction was necessary.
But in the end, results are everything.
Even so, I don’t think humans are evil, or ugly. Humans are probably not so different from other living things—for better or worse.

“Most humans simply know no other way of living except to give their all to each day. If you would, please—do not hate them too much.”

With that, Ekaterina smiled at Vladforen.