Chapter 21 — Basically, I’m Just Saying Things to Make You Think
“What is this?”
Unable to grasp the situation she was in, the UEG was in shock for quite a while. Or so it felt for her, but likely not much time had passed at all. Empty blackness stretched out in every direction. She was in a void. Luu and those under her protection were nowhere to be seen. The only things here were the UEG herself and a single boy.
“Let me start by saying I might sound like a know-it-all, but I don’t really understand anything either. Basically, I’m just saying things to make you think, so you can feel free to treat it all as nonsense if you like.”
“And just who are you?”
“Call me Kouryu. I’m the god in charge of this world. I just finally managed to take control back recently. I’m a bit relieved. It feels pretty good to have things work out just the way I planned.”
“You are a god? I felt nothing of such a being before.”
“Oh, I’m glad to hear that. Once I realized you had been resurrected, I was desperately trying to hide myself, though even if you had found me, I might have been too weak for you to care.”
As he said, this Kouryu didn’t seem particularly strong. The members of the Slow Life League were much more powerful than he was. Still, he seemed quite skilled in hiding his abilities, so there was no way of telling how strong he actually was except by fighting him.
“What are you doing here?”
“Huh. That’s a pretty strange response for someone as prideful as you. Are you still confused about what’s going on?”
Of course she was confused, so much so that it surprised even her. Everything always went more or less how she planned, so encountering an unexpected situation should have been impossible.
“I am asking what this place is!”
“That’s a good question. Maybe it’s like the gap between life and death, a space-time singularity, a flashback, or a dream? Like the last glimmer of life before you die? Or a single instant where everything comes apart when one’s fate has been decided? You’re not dead yet, but your death has been guaranteed. This place could be like a shadow born from the transition from life to death. Anyway, interpret it as you like.”
“Not that I believe you, but why are you here, then?”
“I’ve been waiting for a chance to say ‘serves you right.’ Takatou would never say that to you, so I wanted to get it off my chest. Of course, I can’t go somewhere weird like this myself, so I just projected a shadow of myself here for this brief instant.”
“I see. It is true; despite my great wisdom, this is a phenomenon I am unfamiliar with. But you claim I have died? I do not know what this place is, but I can simply teleport away as I wish.”
The UEG searched her surroundings. The empty blackness really seemed to go on forever. As far as her senses could reach, the darkness continued on, unending. So she tried looking into other dimensions, parallel worlds, or alternate universes, but none of it worked. Only the same void greeted her.
There really was nothing here. Finally realizing it, she started to feel the beginnings of fear. No matter where she went, there was nothing. Beyond that, she couldn’t teleport.
“I-In that case, I will incinerate everything! Time! Space! The universe itself! The higher-level universe that encompasses this one!”
The UEG unleashed her power in full force. But that power, which should have annihilated everything, vanished into the darkness. It hadn’t made the slightest change in her surroundings.
“It’s impossible,” Kouryu said. “There’s nothing here, so there’s nothing for you to destroy.”
“Like hell there isn’t! You think such a concept is even possible?!”
“To put it in simpler terms, this is something more like a dream that only you are seeing. No matter what you do in the dream, you can’t destroy the dream itself, can you?”
“A dream?”
“Right. A dream on the verge of death, from which you will never awaken.”
“Hah! You think I can die? Do not be absurd. I am indestructible. Even if I can be sealed away, I cannot be destroyed!”
“To be accurate, you’re not dead yet. It’s just that your death has been guaranteed. You decided to kill Takatou, so now you are going to die.”
“Who is this Takatou? And why does he matter?”
“What was that goddess’s name? Luu? Yogiri Takatou was the good-looking guy standing with her. He’s a special being. No matter what the situation, if he decides to kill something, it dies. To put it bluntly, it’s like an instant death cheat.”
“I have been subjected to this phenomenon, so I must admit that this Takatou has some sort of ability. But I have yet to do anything to him!”
“But you decided to kill him, right?”
“It was still only a thought! I had not done anything to him! Fine! In that case, I will refrain from taking his life! Is that what you want?!”
Though it was frustrating, she had no other choice. If she couldn’t escape this place on her own, she couldn’t act all high and mighty. If she was trapped here forever, there was no point in being alive.
“Yeah, if you were just an ordinary human, changing your mind would be the end of it. But you’re a god. You can’t do something that will cause your identity to collapse. Your belief in your ability to do anything is just that strong.”
“I... I do not understand... What is this Takatou?” She had never heard of such a being. She couldn’t even imagine something like that existing.
“There are all kinds of gods. They can be divided into two types: those who know about it and those who don’t. Those who don’t know tend to be reckless and arrogant, believing they can do anything, and so they become remarkably powerful. In contrast, those who know are comparatively calmer and try not to do anything crazy. Or rather, they can’t. They know their limits.”
“What do you mean, ‘it’?! Cease with this condescension!”
“Well, I don’t really know either; that’s why I’m calling it by such a vague name. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t want to either. But gods like me are a lot more moderate. We realize there’s a being more powerful than we could ever imagine. Just like humans punish wrongdoing because they believe God is watching them, we believe there’s something out there watching us gods.”
The UEG couldn’t accept the words he was saying. They were incomprehensible to someone like her, who believed herself to be the most powerful being in existence.
“Some of us believe in a theory like this: There are universes contained inside larger universes and so on. Why has that total collection of universes survived? If space and time are infinite, then there is a possibility that eventually an ultimate being would emerge, one that could wipe out all universes on a whim. If the possibility isn’t zero, then given infinite time, it is guaranteed to happen. But it hasn’t. From what we’ve been able to observe, once gods reach a certain threshold of power, they disappear. So there must be someone out there erasing them, right? There must be some sort of limit or criteria being applied.”
“Criteria?”
The UEG had never considered that. She had believed gods were indestructible, eternal beings. She had killed any number of gods, but death was just another state of being for them, one from which they would eventually recover.
“Yeah, some people call that the Scale, others call it the Limiter. Either way, it seems something like that is out there.”
“That is beyond absurd! The mere thought of trying to kill that causes one to die?! Do not be ridiculous!”
“The people who got wrapped up in your little rampage probably felt the same way, don’t you think? Someone showed up and decided to kill them for basically no reason, and they had no way to resist. You can blather on about their fate all you want, but is it that strange the same fate would eventually come for you?”
“But why would such a being take human form? Why would it be wandering around in a place like this? Even if it existed, when and where did it come from?”
“Who knows? I certainly don’t.” Kouryu laughed at her.
“What?”
“Like I said at the beginning, everything I’ve been saying is nonsense. There might not be even a single shred of truth to any of it.”
“You dare to mock me?!”
“Yes, exactly. I came here because I wanted to make fun of you before you died. And it looks like I’m going to disappear soon too.”
Those words sent a shiver down her spine. He was about to leave her alone in this eternally empty space. She was finally starting to realize what that meant.
“W-Wait! Do not leave! Do you intend to abandon me here alone?!”
“I’m not leaving you anywhere. The person you see in front of you is just a shadow anyway, melting into the darkness. Even this conversation was something I had planned out beforehand. It’s just picking what looks like the appropriate response from among the answers I prepared beforehand, trying to guess what you would ask about.”
“A-An illusion is fine! Just do not leave me! Stay here!”
“Man, seeing you panic like that is really cathartic. It’s a shame the real me will never know.” Despite her desperate pleading, the shadow of the boy named Kouryu vanished into the darkness.
“I-In that case, I will simply create a world here myself.” There was nothing here, and she couldn’t go anywhere, so she would have to make something here herself. As a god, she could create as much as she wished.
Or she should have been able to. But no matter what she made, it immediately vanished into the darkness. This space didn’t permit anything to exist. And it finally occurred to her that she too was disappearing. No matter what she did to try and preserve herself, her own perception of herself was starting to grow vague.
“Why? Why has this happened to me?”
Losing her form, losing her sense of self, the UEG finally vanished into the empty blackness.
◇ ◇ ◇
“That barrier did not help much, did it?” Hanakawa commented.
The UEG had waved a hand and the barrier Luu had created had shattered. Then, as Yogiri had realized his life was in danger, the UEG had fallen from the sky. Though he had no idea who she was or what she was here for, this was a common enough occurrence that he could only shake his head with a sigh.
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