I Came Back but the World is Still a Fantasy!?
2-05: Changes in History (3/4)

The only ones who took the revelation of the otherworld with happiness and excitement were those who held a romanticized view of otherworlds.

But it is doubtful if those people still held the same opinion today.

Shinichi used the search function of the PC and looked up the incidents that occurred this past 8 years.

At first he looked up all the events relating to Garesto, but there were too many, so he narrowed it down to just the incidents.

—Hey, hey! What unstable country is this!?

When he did, he almost forgot he was in a library and yelled.

Even if the people in charge were able to hide the demerits of interacting with Garesto, they couldn’t hide the incidents and uprisings that resulted from the exchange.

Or perhaps they were able to cover up some incidents, and the ones that Shinichi was able to find were only the ones they failed to hide.

The number of main incidents relating to Garesto in the past 8 years numbered 50.

Perhaps, that might strike one to be on the fewer side, but when one considered that these incidents were limited only to Japan, then the story changes.

Moreover, there were still incidents that were either prevented by the government or were unable to hit the news.

When all that was added together, it wouldn’t be strange if the number of incidents reached three digits.

And considering that that number is coming from a country where such incidents were rare in the first place, the picture just that more terrifying.

The real problem was the reason behind the incidents.

No matter the era, there will always be people unsatisfied with society.

So long as the people behind the incidents had different motives, then there wouldn’t actually be a problem.

Unfortunately, based on the articles that Shinichi had gathered, the reasons the incidents all boiled down into one reason.

Although only an excerpt of what the various leaders behind the incidents were present in the articles, making it difficult to surmise the complete picture of their respective stances, it could still be seen that there was barely any difference between the motivations of the leaders of each incident.

“Our life is a mess because of Garesto!”

Is what the reason boiled down into.

Considering the technological level of Earth at the time, the revelation of otherworld tech must’ve caused many scientists and scholars to lose their spirit and job. But that’s not all, because of the revelation of the otherworld’s existence, although the employment rate hadn’t changed much, the discrepancy in wealth had worsened even more.

Exactly, just what was the reason?

For some reason, there was a lot of books and newspaper articles on Status a year after interaction between civilians began.

According to the articles, Garesto predictably accepted the interaction between civilians.

It was important to make people understand that there ‘existed’ a continuing interaction between the people of Earth and Garesto.

To that end, Garesto publicized their culture, history, and common sense in steps.

In the first year, they released the details of their interaction with Earth and their political system which resembled a combination of the presidential system and the noble system, where nobles defended various lands.

Although their technology was more developed than Earth, they had a threat they had to fight against.

They also followed a meritocracy that was based upon the ability known as Status.

—I have a bad feeling about this.

The cultural exchange that prioritized what was permitted and the slowly growing sentiments of statusism.

Inside Shinichi’s mind, those two pieces found their way to each other and drew a complete picture.

To find proof, Shinichi waded through volumes of books pertaining to Status, and when he did—

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—This time he yelled out loud for real.

Harsh gazes gathered onto him from everyone in the room, including the librarian, leaving Shinichi apologetic.

But it couldn’t be helped. Because what he read was just that shocking. On his right was an article on Status when it was first announced.

On his left was the newest publication on Status. When he compared the two articles, he was finally able to understand.

The article on the right defined Status as a list of attributes ranked according to one’s abilities, and was a representation in part of one’s overall abilities.

High Rankers had the duty to fight, but in exchange, they will be given special privileges.

Low Rankers can’t uphold that duty, so they will instead have to perform other jobs.

This is how the roles were to be allocated in order to deal with the threat of monsters.

But the publication to the left considered Status as a system that fully ranked one’s abilities.

The difference between high rankers and low rankers would serve as the basis for evaluating characters in the new generation.

And granting enormous special privileges to the brilliant would be for the sake of the era’s development.

—What the hell is this?

Even though the wording was similar, the idea they were trying to convey was completely different.

Just to be safe, Shinichi also checked the other publications on Status, but the next article he read was inconsistent.

It included the responsibilities and duties mentioned of in the announcement and tried to word it in a way that spun everything as nothing more than an allocation of roles,

but in the end, it still tried to prioritize high rankers.

Most of the publications either leaned towards the ideas of the first article or the latter, but they were also worded in a way that avoided commitment.

The authors all had their own way of seeing things, so there were differences.

But in that case, how would the common Earthling – or more importantly – how would the common Japanese see things?

Shinichi gradually read back to the older articles.

At the same time, he also started reading the articles one year after the otherworld announcement was made and gradually made his way toward the more recent articles.

By reading and comparing from the two perspectives, he was soon able to see form a picture of how the world ended up in its current state.

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