Hortus Arcanus planēta

ACT 2

Magic

Long ago, in the human world, there existed people who could wield magic.

Some commanded flames, water, wind, earth, light, and darkness.

And among them were those blessed with an even stranger power — people called Writers, who could create entirely separate worlds simply by writing stories into existence and freely manipulating them.

It was a power akin to that of gods themselves.

Through that power, countless worlds of stories were born, bringing joy and wonder to humanity.

However, human greed soon turned its eyes toward magic, and those powers began to be used in wars and conflicts between people.

And so, from across the world, one master of each form of magic was gathered — the greatest wielder of fire, water, wind, earth, light, darkness, and story-writing magic.

Together, they attempted to seal magic away forever.

The vessel chosen for the seal… was a single book.

Within that book, they tried to imprison all the magic in the world.

And the sealing was successful.

However, as the years passed, the book could no longer withstand the overwhelming magical power it contained.

Then, merely two years after the sealing—

the book cast magic upon every book across the world.

It was a magic that preyed upon the emotions humans felt while reading stories — joy, happiness, wonder, inspiration — converting those emotions into sealing energy.

The worlds inside stories are built from human emotions.

That is precisely why, once the essence of positive emotions disappears, the original story begins to distort into something entirely different, while the negative emotions left behind spiral out of control.

When that happens, the words within books transform into darkened text, and those who read them become consumed by sorrow and hatred, sowing the seeds of conflict throughout the world.

The ones who exist to stop that rampage are people known as book caretaker.

By restoring balance to the worlds within stories, they strive to erase conflict from humanity itself.

“Do you understand now, Refa?

That is the entirety of my story.

…I do not have much time left.

The rest is in your hands.”

That was what my grandfather said while sitting in the chair of his study.

“Yeah… I understand, Grandpa.

I’ll do my best.”

“I see, I see.

But don’t push yourself too hard.”

And with his wrinkled hands, my grandfather roughly ruffled my hair as he smiled.