Project Necro is an official initiative by Re:Library.

So he is an Ore-sama, after all!
Don’t just drag someone off like this for your own interest!

Is this *One Thousand and One Nights* or something? Then I’m in the role of Princess Šahrzād.
If I remember right, in that story the king became misogynistic after his queen cheated on him, went “I can’t trust women anymore!”, and started executing the women he slept with the very next morning.
…When you think about it again, that’s really not funny.

Just like Šahrzād, my life and death are in someone else’s hands. The Demon Dragon King can boil me, roast me, or do whatever he likes with me.
Even if I’m not eaten or burned, being abandoned in a mountain like this would make survival impossible. I’m completely, utterly screwed.

You could have asked a bit more politely! If you’d explained the reason properly, I’d have talked about my past life anyway!
Dragging me to a place like this and telling me to talk—how is that not unreasonable!

Suppressing that inner scream with all her might, Ekaterina steadied herself.

Hang in there, me. I wasn’t a corporate slave for nothing in my past life. I’ve dealt with unreasonable clients and bosses more times than I can count.
Remember: the basics of handling unreasonable clients are empathy and dialogue. At least, that was my personal theory.
First, nod along and listen seriously to their demands. Understand what the client truly wants. Then take everything into account and present the most appropriate solution.
And finally—push through with momentum!

His face is way too good to be one, but treat him like a client and stay calm.
“Way too good” is an understatement, but still.
And no client would just kidnap me to a mountaintop, but still.
Stay calm. Deal with it.
Do your best, me.

“I’ll say this first: I have no intention of doing anything to you simply because you refuse to talk. As I said earlier, I too am a living being. I exist within the law of the God of Death. You are favored by that god—especially by his consort.”

…Huh?

Don’t tell me—can he read my thoughts too, like the God of Death!?

“I merely voiced what one would naturally think in this situation. I cannot peer into a human’s mind, nor do I need to.”

…Is that so.

“If you truly do not wish to speak, I will return you to where you were at once. You may rest easy.”

Then please don’t abduct people this roughly in the first place… I feel drained.

Seeing Ekaterina let out an involuntary sigh, Vladforen chuckled softly.

He’s definitely teasing me on purpose. Damn it.
Just because you’re outrageously handsome doesn’t mean you get an ‘handsome-immunity’ pass!
It just dulls my momentum a little, that’s all!

“…Three thousand years is a span of life beyond my imagination. If my past life can serve to relieve your ennui, then I am not unwilling to speak of it. What sort of things interest you?”
“Who knows. I do not understand your world. I wouldn’t know what to ask to hear an interesting tale.”
“Then allow me to answer the question you asked earlier—whether humans can fly in my previous world. Yes. In the world where I lived my past life, humans acquired the means to soar the sky.”

Seeing Vladforen’s eyes widen, Ekaterina felt a small sense of satisfaction.
How about that—surprised, aren’t you?

.

However, explaining it was difficult.
There are no airplanes in this world. No concept of them, even. Which means there are no words to describe them.
So she had no choice but to explain it like this.

“In this world, the vehicles we humans use for travel are limited to things like carriages. But in my past world, there existed vehicles that moved on their own, without horses. By giving such vehicles wings, people were able to fly through the sky. Some were so enormous they could carry several hundred people at once.”
“Hoh.”

When she explained the size of a jumbo jet using this world’s units, Vladforen grinned.

“They sound about as large as I am.”

No, you’re bigger, Ekaterina retorted internally. In the game, the Demon Dragon King—in dragon form—was trampling the imperial castle like it was nothing. He looked as big as the castle itself.

Or maybe that was exaggeration or an error by the game designers?

Earlier she’d only seen his dragon form from the neck up, with no reference points, so it was hard to judge.

“With such enormous vehicles, where do humans go?”
“Anywhere they wish. In that world, nearly all nations were connected by flying vehicles. They flew high above the clouds, crossed vast oceans, and carried people far and wide. The frozen lands at the northern and southern ends of the world, desert nations—there was practically nowhere one could not go, if one so desired.”

Vladforen fixed her with a sharp gaze.

“You said the frozen lands at the southern end. Indeed, far to the south, beyond the hot jungle nations, there lies an ice field like that of the far north. Some humans speculate as much, but I doubt any truly *know* this.”
“In my past world, everyone knew. We called the far north and far south the North Pole and the South Pole. From the era in which I lived… perhaps about two hundred years earlier, humans had already discovered those lands.”
“With flying vehicles?”
“No, at that time they used ships. Flying vehicles were invented about a hundred years before my lifetime. The discovery of the southern pole predates human flight by another hundred years. The explorers navigated between icebergs, crossed the seas, and reached the ice fields.”

Honestly, I don’t remember the discoverers’ names. When it comes to Antarctic history, the only people I recall are Amundsen, Scott, and Captain Shirase, because of the race to the South Pole.

Vladforen let out a soft laugh.

“You speak as though you saw it yourself. If you are so knowledgeable about history from one or two centuries ago, then you must have been born into a high social position in your past life—one that allowed you to receive an advanced education.”

Ekaterina shook her head.

“No. I was a commoner. In the country where I was born in my past life, there was no social class system in my era. All humans were considered equal from birth.”
“…Equal?”

Vladforen muttered skeptically.

“Yes. All children had the right to receive an education, and attended school from the age of six. Until the age of fifteen, when compulsory education ended, attendance was mandatory. Providing children with education was both a national and civic duty. All children learned reading, writing, mathematics, geography, history, foreign languages, and more.”
“It sounds like a utopia.”

At his ironic tone, Ekaterina smiled.

“To be frank, equality was more an ideal than a reality. Differences in wealth meant that some were blessed from birth while others were not. Still, that country in that era could be said to have had one of the smallest gaps between people in human history. The things I’ve described were common knowledge for many.”

Living in this world has made her realize it all over again: a society without a class system was extraordinary.
Even in her past world, if you looked at human history, the abolition of class systems was a very recent development. In Japan, they still existed until the country’s defeat in the Second World War—nobility, former warrior classes, and so on.

Even after class systems disappeared, true equality never fully arrived. Inequality shrank for a time, but in recent years it had begun to widen again. Perhaps progress always invites backlash.
The spread of democracy after World War II might have been a kind of global exhaustion—humanity sickened by unprecedented death and destruction, having vented its destructive impulses and entered something like a collective “post-climax” clarity. (She wasn’t entirely sure how that analogy worked.) As time passed, what had been expelled began to accumulate again.
Still, even with advances and setbacks, humanity had moved forward.

While Ekaterina reflected on her past life, Vladforen watched her intently.
Then he exhaled slowly.

“It seems your claim of memories from another world is no falsehood. What you speak of is not something a noble young lady could invent on a whim. It is truly intriguing.”
“I am glad that you believe me.”

Ekaterina smiled.