Chapter 14 — So He Killed the Previous Situation?
“Oh? Then why have you not used that power?” the UEG asked. “I have interrupted your slumber. Does that not make you wish to kill me? I would have long ago killed someone for such an offense.”
“Like I said, I’m more surprised than anything,” the boy responded. “But I am starting to get annoyed. I try to avoid killing people as much as possible. That’s why I live all the way out here. So please leave before I can’t hold back anymore.”
“Well, well. What an unstable power. Judging from the scenery, it seems you have been killing everything around you.”
“I’m aware of that. Even with people I like, there are cases where I accidentally kill them if my emotions run too high. I’m sick of it.”
The sound of animals walking around or birds chirping was annoying. The sound of bugs was irritating. Mold and germs were dirty and gross. His power must have activated in response to those feelings. With just the barest thought, those things had all died.
“But I have already declared my intent to fight you,” the UEG continued. “If you believe you are capable, then kill me as well.”
“I told you, I don’t want to kill anyone.”
“Then allow me to try to change your mind.” The UEG stretched a hand upward, creating a ball of light in the air. The slowly growing sphere contained enough energy to vaporize a human being in an instant. Of course, she was going slowly on purpose. If all she was interested in was attacking, she didn’t need any preparation. Just as this boy claimed to be capable of doing, she could kill him with a thought if she wanted to. This was a plain attempt to provoke him. “Take this.”
As the sphere grew to twenty meters across in size, the UEG swung her arm down. In response, the light began to move, creeping closer to the boy at a pace anyone could see, on a trajectory that would strike the mansion behind him if he dodged it.
“Now then, I have managed to unleash an attack before you killed me. How will you respond?”
“All I have to do is kill it.” The sphere of light suddenly vanished. “I can kill anything I want. I can kill a dangerous-looking ball of light if I want to.”
“Then how about this?” The earth behind the boy erupted, shooting towards him in the form of a large spear. If he couldn’t see the attack coming, he shouldn’t have been able to choose to kill it. However, the spear crumbled to dust before it reached him.
“It doesn’t matter what you can do. I am killing anything dangerous to me. Things like surprise attacks or invisible poisons don’t work on me. It doesn’t matter if I can perceive them or not; I kill anything dangerous to me.”
“You kill the danger itself, do you? That is an awfully vague ability. I am curious about how you determine what is a danger to you if you do not even have to perceive it.”
“Who knows? I’ve never thought that much about it. But you should understand by now, right? You can’t kill me. Just give up and go home.”
“I see. I understand the depth of your confidence now. I suppose I will have to attack you directly. Then you will have no choice but to attack me back, yes?”
“What is wrong with you? Can’t you just leave me alone?”
“If you are so irritated, why not take it out on me? You live out here alone because you cannot control yourself. Hurry up and use that arrogant, egoistic power against me.” The UEG stepped up in front of the boy. When nothing happened, she reached forward and grabbed him by the throat. When nothing happened after that, she began to squeeze.
“This is your final warning. Let go of me or you’ll die.”
“Hurry up and kill me, then. The battle has already begun.” She slowly squeezed tighter. At first the boy still seemed quite relaxed, but he was gradually starting to look more and more concerned. Her grip grew tighter and tighter, and the boy’s complexion started to worsen. “What is wrong? Doing nothing at this point goes far beyond pacifism. Or is it that you have already been using your power to kill me?”
“Wh-What? How?”
The UEG was holding back, making sure not to kill him immediately. Though she had no intention of sparing him, she was being extremely slow at increasing the tightness of her grip, to the point it was hard to notice the change.
“Surprise is all well and good, but perhaps you should be celebrating? After killing so many unintentionally, you have finally found someone you cannot even kill on purpose.”
“Why...won’t you die?!”
“Hmm. In truth, I felt some power attempting to affect me. That is likely your power to inflict instant death, but...what is death, anyway? Do you understand what it means to make someone die?” The boy didn’t respond. It was likely he had never given such deep thought to his own ability. “In my opinion, death is no more than a change in the state of the physical material making up a creature. Life is simply the name we give to the situation of numerous infinitesimal materials coming together and coincidentally giving birth to consciousness. Life and death are simply the movement, or lack thereof, of that structure.”
“So...what?”
“As such, if your power is to cause that structure to cease its movement, the answer is simple. If it has been made to cease, it only needs to be made to move again.” The UEG just needed to keep her body in a living state. From the beginning, the body she now inhabited was an improvised, temporary vessel, so it wasn’t that much of an issue if it died anyway. “Now then, if we have reached a stalemate, I can put an end to this for you if you like. Though we can speak further if you wish.”
As the UEG wondered whether they had any more to discuss, the boy suddenly vanished. Though a moment prior she had been strangling him, her hands now hung at her sides. Seeing the destroyed mansion was back to normal, she immediately understood the situation.
“So he killed the previous situation, making it so it never occurred? In that case, he should be inside the mansion.”
In a way, it was like he had reverted time to just before she had entered the building. If he was trying to protect himself, it would have been better to go further, but maybe his power wasn’t unlimited. It appeared he could only go back so far in time by killing it.
“Hmm. I see the limits of your power now. There is no need to play along anymore.” The UEG reached forward as if grabbing at the empty space. The boy appeared in her grip. The roof of the mansion behind him was gone once again, perfectly recreating the situation as it had been.
“How?!”
“I understand your power. You killed the situation prior, so I have revived it. You ‘cut’ the scene we were in, but it remained saved in the system’s memory, so I simply ‘pasted’ it. Or perhaps more simply, I hit the ‘redo’ button.”
“But...but how...”
“I am a god. Something of this caliber is no difficulty.” Though she wasn’t omnipotent or omniscient, since no such being existed, she could do more or less anything she set her mind to. She could create life, rewind time, or change fate. Of course, she wouldn’t do something boring like wield all those powers from the start. She would always limit herself based on her opponent to make the fight interesting. “I will not allow the same thing again, but if you have any other ploys, by all means try them. I will simply continue like this.”
As she spoke, she began tightening her grip faster. Her interest was beginning to fade, finding this to be a waste of time.
“Oh? I see you have changed your approach. You are now attempting to kill the very concept of my being. Of course, killing this vessel means little, so that is the correct path to take, but is it something you are capable of? Underhanded tactics like killing the concept of a person only works if you alone are capable of doing it. If we are both capable, then it becomes a simple contest of strength.”
With a dull sound, the boy’s neck snapped. The UEG threw his motionless body to the ground.
“Dead, is he? I expected something like ‘killing his own death,’ but it appears he was not as sturdy as I thought.” Either he was incapable of it or had never considered it. She had hoped he would hold out a little longer so she could make him despair even more, but now she was just disappointed.
“If the strongest here is dead, I have no use for the rest. Perhaps I will borrow Euphemia’s style of cleaning up.”
Her recently added subordinate, Euphemia, made declarations to the entire city before exterminating the residents as a group. Starting to get bored, the UEG considered doing the same.
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