#please negate me with max ammo

[the-small-cimarron-paparazzi]

i choose to embrace it

Everything is just coming together too neatly.

Let’s try to piece together how the human side of the boxes situation might be like.

Basically, we know that at the start of Carolia Arc Big Cimarron had (just got?)  the Wind box

"In this world, four objects exist that are not to be tampered with under any circumstances," said Conrad. "The humans, and the humans of the superpower Shimaron at that, have managed to bring one of those objects under their control. The name of the box is 'the End of the Wind.' If it remains in their hands, they will open it sooner or later."

(quoting BT, c1, n5)

and was sneaking into Shinma with Wincott’s Poison to try to get control of its key. (and yes, they knew it was Con, though they [accidentally? intentionally?] cut off Con’s arm)

The Wincott’s poison they got from Flynn, offering her a deal:

“A secret messenger from Big Shimaron came with a proposition.  The Wincott poison is supposed to be in the recesses of the Gilbit Estate.  They wanted that terribly.  Furthermore, they were in a great hurry.  It is the only substance in the world that will let one control another at will.  If a body is afflicted by that poison, it will become a puppet of the descendants of the Wincotts.  Whether it’s alive or not.  I gave them that poison.  In exchange for the lives of the Calorian soldiers.”

(BT, c8, n6)

In the same chapter we hear from Hube that Small Cimarron has put their hands on another one, the Earth Box, having got it via the rotten Luis Biron (from novel 4) and ultimately from Suverera, before which the royals in Suverera tried to open it with Hube’s left eye, but failed.

Again in the same chapter Hube speaks of how the Earth Box was originally buried in Suverera’s soil, near the parts of the MA flute (from novel 3), and either because of the box or flute that part of Suverera harbored houseki of strange property (only mentioning maseki won’t do this not how normal houseki would do?), and the removal of box followed by flute made the place stop turning out these houseki.

Although the esoteric stones certainly brought them immense fortune, that was simply a byproduct.  Svelera wasn’t mining for stones; they were looking for something much more terrible in the places where many esoteric stones were.

[...]

Yes, they were looking for a box. 

[...]

While Svelera was digging for esoteric stones, they finally dug that up.  Deep, deep within the rock formation, where only emaciated women and children can reach, in a place like a labyrinth.

And near that place, the treasure of the demons, the Demon Flute, was sealed.  As soon as they discovered the box and brought it out of the esoteric stone pit, I had my acquaintance inconspicuously sneak down there and secure the Demon Flute.  The power slowly leaking out of the box over hundreds of years may have slowly changed the surrounding bedrock into esoteric stone. Or, the part of the earth fighting against the power of the Demon Flute may have resulted in its quality being changed.  At any rate, once the two objects were removed, for some reason esoteric stones completely stopped appearing and the Sveleran citizens lost their jobs.

(BT, c8, n6)

he also said Suverera’s king acted strange mining those houseki (as the cover of looking for the box)

At that time, the kingdom of Svelera had put much effort into the procurement of their esoteric stones for the betterment of the kingdom and many of the unemployed citizens began to work in the mines.  

[....]

Anyway, it is no exaggeration that there was something abnormal with the mining of esoteric stones in Svelera.  No matter how little rain fell or if the drinking water dried up, at the bare minimum they had to raise the crops for the next year’s seeds.  However, the king of Svelera did not protect the farmland or the farmers and continued to do nothing but dig up esoteric stones.  If he wanted to dig, he should have at least dug a well.  It was as if the finances for the next year were in some way guaranteed.

(BT, c8, n6)

Skipping forward into the story, from Seisa Arc we know this about Seisakoku’s houseki via Sara:

Do you know what power this country has? Manpower and houseki in abundance

(BT, c7, n11)

there being also:

On the other hand, the pale pink ring Saralegui put on my finger has not budged at all, acting like a normal stone. Apparently it’s a precious houseki that can only be mined in Seisakoku, and yet it hasn’t reacted in the slightest.

(BT, c11, n12) though I mildly suspect this can be just a metaphor about Sara

And we know that the Fire Box has been in Seisa for

After staying in the same country for seventy years, I know a lot more about this country than the kids born here.

(BT, c3, n12, not remembering where to find other sources I turned to the timeline of Hazel) 

Although to be honest we don’t know what the houseki relevant circumstance in Seisa had been like before this, but this time span is long enough to cover the whole experience with Seisakoku of Sara +Yel+ Probably Alazon.

Also Gilbert might have been able to tell.....? randomly off topic

Back to Suverera c8n6, Hube talks about how

Naturally, the king of Svelera did not know the significance of the box nor the power it had.

[...]

Since Svelera did not have the key – the left eyeball of a certain bloodline – and could not open the lid, they sold it to a large country. 

even if they had the right idea of where to look for it and some idea of possibility of opening it with the left eye of whom.

So did they originally came to know about this box all by their own?

(OR: Another possibility- them selling it was not about reasons above but failure in opening it lead to practical worries about having neglected about finances.)

And did Small Cimarron find out about this Earth Box after it was put out to be sold by Suverera or did something else entirely just happen here?

Although certitude regarding this might never be achieved, but we know that in chapter 10, novel 6, Maxine was saying:

「ところで諸君、労働に従事する日々とはいえ、現在この小シマロンを始め、シマロン両国を宗主とする大陸全域が、魔族との聖戦に向けて一丸となっていることはお聞き及びだろう。その一翼を担う諸君にも、非常に関わりのある朗報がある」

But gone are your days of repetitive manual labor! No doubt the whispers have already spread to you; here and now starting with Small Cimarron, this continent with the Cimarrons as its countries’ suzerains, is coming together to wage our holy war against the mazokus. This is a much relevant and joyful news for you, who are after all going to undertake a part in this feat.

and answering Yuuri’s question about if the boxes are in fact things fairly easy to come by, Flynn was saying:

“It’s not easy.”

Flynn had a look on her face that looked like she was going to start chewing on her thumb’s fingernail.

“Numerous countries have been competing and searching for them for decades.  They weren’t quickly found.  But for them to fall into people’s possession one after another… I thought only Big Shimaron had a box and key.”

(BT, c10, n6) 

which means something must had changed between the current situation and that of the last decades (or more innocently it can be just the miracle of perseverance but anyways I’m asking↓).

So this added to Maxine’s talk about how this new (yet-to-happen-or-be-stopped) war the humans were planning to do with mazoku was engineered by Small Cimarron, 

Would this something be SARALEGUI?

Though Sara claimed he didn’t remember anything from his early years in Seisa

“But Saralegui, why didn’t you mention to me that you were born in Seisakoku? Not only that, back when we were in Shou Shimaron, didn’t you say that be it your country or yourself, this is your first time contacting Seisakoku?”

This means that throughout that long journey before, he was always lying to me.

“Yuuri, I never lied to you. That’s because all that happened when I was young, so I don’t have any recollection of it myself.”

(BT, c7, n11)

but for one thing he was fluent enough in Seisa language to write up a treaty for both Seisa (able to read it and thus held possibility of exploiting flaws?) and Shinma to sign. (or it can always be forgotten and re-learnt later in life but anyways I mean to say↓)

Then there were mentions of the shinzoku twins-lords corresponding after Saralegui became king in Small Cimarron

「だからって、十三年間一度も連絡取らないはずはないだろう。双子の兄弟がさ、一方は父親の国の王子様で、一方は母親の国の王子様だぞ？国交が無かったのは本当だとしても、白鳩の一羽くらい飛ばすだろう」 Even if you say so, it’s hard for me to believe you never had any contact throughout these whole 13 years, the pair of you twins being the princes of your father’s and your mother’s countries. Even if you didn’t have an alliance, do you expect us to believe there wasn’t even a single letter?

「飛ばしたよ。わたしが即位してからだけど」 We did write letters. But that was after I became king.

(c7, n11)

Also in the catacombs he was showing signs of some knowledge about (at least this part of) Seisa

“Although I heard that there are ruins underground, I never thought they would be this large in scale.”

After walking for around an hour, Saralegui seems to sigh with emotion. In contrast to me now, his condition is much better than it was a while ago.

(BT, c10, n12)

Which leads to the conclusion of this post (finally), that

If he had any impression about the circumstances of houseki yield in Seisa and a legend of miracle box, or if anything along the lines was brought up in any casual (?) correspondence with Yel,

→having the advantage of insight about a country with plenty of houseki (Seisa) and experiencing the lack of it (houseki being rare and valuable at opening of c8, n3) in the world outside Seisa

→Saralegui might be able to realize what the Suverera’s houseki mines really mean (or he might be guessing like us everyone else and happening to come to the same conclusion as marumafan-san did in here)

and this could lead to him discovering about the key to finding boxes. or just the one box to par and panic and affect Big Cimarron.

Sara being Sara, it seems legit if he just found out about the Suverera box and sold the royal family a lie making them locate and extract it only to inevitably let go of it for Small Cimarron to get.

(Although he actually seemed to not know if the arm would work...or can it be intentionally done so only to wreck Carolia and punish Flynn? Then, how about his way of pinpointing where the soushu forces strike? Was it in fact a successful opening of Earth box because things more or less went his way?)

So the last thing is, if we remember Guenter said in novel 1 that Yuu-chan was summoned back to the other world earlier than planned because Humans were making a move (it must be somewhere in n1 but I don’t seem to kind the source)

the situation named Saralegui might very likely be the reason everything STARTED TO HAPPEN

And though it’s not the point of this post but since we’ve got this far there’s no need in holding back before asking:

Are we really not having the slightest chance of Shinou being all benign (+only YANDERE about Daikenja or whatever old acquaintances) and really arranging all things trying to save the day?

(OR: Another possibility- Shinou somehow made Saralegui happen and that lead to everything else.)

why it is suddenly Shinou or Sara I somehow want to be able to love them both

MY GOD THAT WAS HARD FOR MY STARVED BRAIN TO SORT OUT

AS SOMEONE ORIGINAL ONLY CONCERNED ABOUT SARA’S PERSONAL HISTORY AND CHANGES IN STATE OF MIND I’VE REALLY COME VERY FAR

At the VERY end I’d like to quote a certain Professor Quirrell from chapter 26 of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality:

"Mr. Potter, one of the requisites for becoming a powerful wizard is an excellent memory. The key to a puzzle is often something you read twenty years ago in an old scroll, or a peculiar ring you saw on the finger of a man you met only once. I mention this to explain how I managed to remember this item, and the placard attached to it, after meeting you a good deal later."

Because he is probably very right.