Chapter 10 — Interlude: A Beautiful Goddess like Me Is Accompanying You! You Should Be Moved to Tears!
Darian, the second prince of the Kingdom of Manii, awoke to find himself lying in a tent. He looked around, completely lost. He was totally confused. He couldn’t remember when it was, where he was, or what he was doing here.
Vampires... We were hunting half-demons...
But the more he thought about it, the less he was convinced that was right.
“Jolt! Are you here?!” he called out in a loud voice. A large man stepped into his tent.
“You called, Darian?”
Jolt had been reincarnated in this world having retained his memories of his previous life. He had been training his abilities since infancy. At one point, he had come up against Darian and been defeated and had since agreed to work under him.
“What day is it today? Where are we?”
“So you are the same as the rest of us. It is currently the 1852nd year, Season of the Sun, the First Month, the Day of the Tortoise...I believe. We are at the border of the kingdom and set up camp on our way back to the capital.”
Darian’s group of reincarnated people traveled around the country, trying to improve the world. They were supposed to be in the middle of that, but his memories of what exactly they were doing were incredibly vague. He had the feeling he had heard about some sort of incident and had gone to resolve it.
“Do you remember the incident of the half-demons being abducted?”
“I remember it, but...nothing like that actually happened, did it? Maybe there is some kind of gas having a mental effect on everyone here. Everyone in the camp seems off.”
If they knew about what was going to happen in the future, they might have been sent back in time. No normal person would think of that possibility, but it was a natural thing for Darian to consider. After all, he had the ability to go back in time and redo things.
However, the limit to his ability was to go back ten days at most, and he couldn’t bring others with him. It also was normally accompanied by side effects, a vicious headache and terrible nausea. While he was confused, he didn’t feel unwell at all. In other words, things didn’t line up with his own ability being used.
Darian felt a vague sense of unease. “Just in case, let us begin preparations to leave this place.”
“Got it. By the way, do you know anything about a guy named Robert? There shouldn’t be anyone called that in our group, but for some reason I feel like there was someone with that name always with us...”
“Robert?” Hearing the name, Darian immediately recalled one of his followers with a cruel personality that had been with them from the beginning. But strangely, he also knew there had never been anyone in their group with that name. “I seem to remember him falling from his horse...”
Go for it. If you’re going to kill someone, see if you can take me out!
He had then boldly moved his horse forward. He’d been facing a black-haired Japanese boy.
“That’s right... That boy...”
Don’t remember.
Alarm bells rang in his head, demanding that he stop thinking, but like ripples on the surface of a pond, the memory of Robert started bringing forth all kinds of other memories. They had been pursuing the stolen half-demons when they had come across a vampire. The vampire was with that boy. Darian had demanded they return the stolen half-demons, and the boy had refused. Darian had demonstrated his power by erasing a nearby mountain, but the boy’s will remained unchanged. And then, the boy named Takatou had said he could kill anyone just by thinking it.
That’s right. I saw him do it. He killed a number of us without doing anything.
But Darian had still thought he could win. He had the power to stop time. No matter how powerful the boy was, if time was stopped, his power would be useless. Deciding to kill the boy, he stopped time.
Stop. Don’t remember any more.
The warnings rang out more intensely. But the flood of memories was unstoppable. The moment he had decided to kill the boy, they had appeared. Countless eyes filled the space around him, every single one of them staring at Darian.
“Huh?” Darian was pulled out of his thoughts by the sense of someone nearby.
Eyes.
Eyes.
Eyes.
Countless eyes in countless shapes. In the space right beside him. On the ceiling of his tent. On Jolt’s back as he made to leave. There were eyes everywhere.
Darian screamed.
“Darian?! What’s wrong?!” Jolt ran to his side.
Darian had remembered. There was a being in this world that absolutely must not be interfered with. Once he had realized that, no matter where he went, no matter how far back in time he went, there was no escape.
It didn’t take long for him to lose his sanity again.
◇ ◇ ◇
The next thing Lynel knew, he was standing among ruins—not some run-down wooden shack, but a decrepit stone building overflowing with history. For a moment, he was confused, but he recovered surprisingly quickly. Lynel had experienced a similar thing countless times before through his Random Walk ability. He was used to randomly appearing in new places.
“Huh? Didn’t the goddess say she took away my Random Walk ability?”
Even if he had used it, Random Walk only activated when he died. He didn’t remember being in a situation that would have killed him. After he had watched the battle between the UEG and the Divine King and his luck had been reversed to become great fortune, nothing of note had happened. The last thing he remembered was being in the middle of eating, but he highly doubted he had suddenly died of food poisoning.
“Umm. I guess I should get out of here to start with...but where am I again?”
Lynel recognized the spot. It was a ruin a short distance away from the capital of Manii. There was basically nothing here, so people never came by. There shouldn’t have been anyone here now either. Lynel had come here specifically to find a place with no one around. He was being chased, and anyone around him would likely be attacked just for being near him. His pursuer had killed him numerous times, forcing him to try again and again to find a way to escape. Trial and error had brought him here.
“Huh? But, wasn’t this place...”
In the end, this place had been a failure as well. His pursuer had found him and slashed him to pieces. He did remember surviving a bit longer than usual, though. Spending time in old ruins like this gave his pursuer a chance to lose sight of him.
“All right! Calm down! I know what’s going to happen next, so I might be able to avoid it...so...”
If this was the same situation that had ended in his death before, his ability to remember the details of that event precisely would be the key to his survival this time. He concentrated, trying to remember anything that stood out. The events immediately surrounding his death were relatively easy to recall. The ceiling had been caved in, letting him see a blue sky. Light was filtering in, illuminating a small statue.
Lynel looked around. He appeared to be standing in some sort of hallway. The walls were run-down enough to let in some light, but the ceiling was intact and there were no statues. In other words, it didn’t seem like there was an immediate threat of him dying. But if he just stood around dumbly, the enemy would likely find him.
Lynel began to proceed with caution. He remembered running in a panic last time, but right now he felt rushing recklessly was dangerous. After walking for a short time, he found a stretch of corridor with a caved-in ceiling through which he could see a bright blue sky. There were no statues here, but he now remembered there had been another problem. As he had run in a panic, the floor under him had collapsed. Looking closely, he could see cracks running through the floor. He carefully stepped along the wall, avoiding the cracks.
“Looks like it worked. There’s no guarantee avoiding that place will save my life, but...”
But the best he could do was avoid the future he knew about. Keeping his eyes and ears peeled for any signs of others nearby, he continued through the ruins. He turned a corner to find a dead end, where someone was standing.
Lynel was shocked. It had appeared with no warning at all. It was a monster covered in blades. The Hedgehog. The creature that had been chasing him up until now.
“Oh.”
Lynel was dead. The Hedgehog was incredibly fast, and its wicked blades could slice through any kind of armor like it was paper. It was far too close for Lynel to have any hope of escaping, so Lynel knew he’d be dead within moments.
He closed his eyes. He knew he couldn’t win and couldn’t escape. At this point, he just wanted to get it over with. But after waiting for a while with nothing happening, he hesitantly opened his eyes.
The Hedgehog was standing still. Its masklike face made it impossible to tell what it was thinking, but it didn’t seem like it had even noticed Lynel’s presence.
Can I escape if I just slowly back away?
Lynel stepped backwards, a loud cracking sound coming from the spot below his foot. He had stepped on a weak point on the floor. By the time he realized what he had done, it was already too late. The floor had collapsed under him, sending him hurtling down with a large pile of debris.
Luckily the next floor down wasn’t particularly far. With his terrible luck, it wasn’t strange for Lynel to die from falling two or three meters, but he had survived with only a few scratches. He couldn’t say his luck was any better, though, as the collapsing floor had dropped the Hedgehog down there with him.
Of course, after falling like that, the Hedgehog couldn’t remain motionless. It slowly picked itself up off the ground, turning to look at Lynel.
“Goddess Beam!”
The moment Lynel thought it was over, he heard a woman’s voice. A beam of light fired from behind him, striking the Hedgehog directly and sending it flying. The machine smashed through the wall and flew off, disappearing into the room beyond.
“Long time no see!”
Lynel turned towards the carefree voice. A woman was standing there. Her clothes were gaudy and revealing, and she was covered from head to toe with flashy jewelry and ornaments, accentuating her voluptuous body. Swords, spears, and shields floated in the air around her as if to protect her. Lynel recognized her immediately. She was Vahanato, a goddess who had a deep connection to him.
“Huh? What? Didn’t Rick kill you? Oh right, I went back in time.”
“This isn’t your Random Walk. That just sends your soul to a parallel world with different possibilities. What happened this time is a much bigger deal. It was like the whole world was rewound or something.”
“Sure, but isn’t it weird for you to show up now?”
“Yeah. Normally, I wouldn’t show up until later. But for people like me who got erased by the rewind, there was a waiting room for us to sit in until our time to show up came.”
“A waiting room?”
“But I’m a goddess, you know? I just forced my way out.”
Lynel couldn’t really understand what she was talking about, but as a goddess, he was sure she would find a way out of it. “Anyway, time has been reversed. So why are you here?”
“Ah! Sorry. Did you think a beautiful goddess came to meet you? I was actually here to give that thing a beating.” Though Vahanato had been killed by Richard, the third prince of the Kingdom of Manii who had inherited the title of Swordmaster, it had been the Hedgehog that had weakened her to the point where she could be killed at all. She must have come here to take revenge on it.
“Uhh, actually, I was kind of hoping we’d never meet again...” Lynel said. Though she was the goddess that had given him his powers, she had only done it in order to revive a Dark God. Lynel had been no more than a puppet in her scheme. He had lost any and all respect or admiration for her. “That said, no matter what the reason, you saved me, so thanks. I’ll be heading out now.”
“Hold on.” As Lynel made to leave, Vahanato stepped in front of him.
“Do you still have some business with me?”
“I forced my way into this world by piggybacking on our connection. I don’t have that much freedom until the normal timing for my arrival comes.”
“What? Wait, you don’t mean...”
“Congratulations! A beautiful goddess like me is accompanying you! You should be moved to tears!”
“Whaaaaat?!”
Though he complained, he knew nothing he said would change it. As an ordinary human, there was no way he could disobey a goddess.
“Besides, your luck is so bad that you’d probably die if you were alone... Huh? Wait, why is your luck so good all of a sudden?”
“Ah ha ha...well, uhh, I don’t know if you could consider this situation lucky...” Though now that he thought about it, having a goddess show up to rescue him from a precarious situation at the last second was a pretty convenient development. As for why his luck had improved, he had an idea. The UEG had improved his luck.
“I see. Some god somewhere changed your luck, and it didn’t change back. Even if time got rewound, you still have memories, right? Do you remember anything like someone messing with your luck or your soul?”
“I guess so. Either way, it’s a pretty big help.”
“Anyway, let’s go!” Vahanato grabbed Lynel’s hand and pulled him along behind her as she walked.
“Where?”
“To find that spiky guy! A beam like that wouldn’t kill him, so I’ve gotta make him regret stabbing me!”
“It kind of looks like a robot. I doubt it has the ability to regret anything...”
“Who cares?! I’m gonna smash it to pieces!” Vahanato continued walking at a healthy clip, heading for the hole in the wall she had made with the Hedgehog’s body.
“Uh, is this a good idea? That thing is really strong, right? Didn’t you already lose to it once?”
“I was distracted that time because my darling was dead! There’s no way I’d lose to that thing when I’m in perfect condition!”
Passing through the wall, they found another small room. Some broken parts of the Hedgehog lay scattered on the floor, but otherwise it was empty. Fallen debris blocked the other exits of the room, making the hole in the wall the only way in and out of the room, but regardless, the Hedgehog was nowhere to be seen.
“Did it teleport or something?”
“That thing is fast, but it can’t teleport. If it could, you never would have been able to get away from it.”
“If you’re a goddess, shouldn’t you be able to track it or something?”
“Right now my existence is pretty limited, so I can’t do everything I could in my own world. We’ll have to look for it the old-fashioned way.”
“Then I guess that’s goodbye, then?”
“Why? We’ve got lots of people we need to get revenge on! Like the guy who killed me in the end, and the guy who killed my darling!”
“Ugh...”
Lynel really didn’t feel like his luck had improved all that much.
◇ ◇ ◇
Did the Hedgehog really have a mind?
In the end, it had to have one in some way. After all, the fact it had been caught up in time being reversed had left it in a state of total confusion. A regular machine wouldn’t even have noticed. If time were rewound, it would simply find itself in a previous situation, and there would have been no contradiction in that.
But the Hedgehog had self-awareness and a progressively changing memory. It had something akin to a soul, and it had memories beyond those stored in its computational structure. So it was confused. From its perspective, the environment around it had suddenly transformed.
The Hedgehog had been defeated by some god and fled in scattered pieces. Seeking new power, it had fused with a being calling itself a Demon Lord. Immediately after that, someone had destroyed it. That’s what it remembered, but the next thing it knew, it was back in its original form, standing in some building.
The Hedgehog pushed its mind to the limit, trying to get a grasp on its current situation. It had decided to leave dealing with the human nearby until later. However, it had been unable to form a consistent explanation for what had happened, failing to understand the situation. The floor had then collapsed, and it had been sent flying by an attack from a god. Unable to respond, it had taken the attack head-on.
The already damaged Hedgehog was broken even further. It had been thrown into this world without being properly adjusted, its multiple processors running independently of each other, failing to integrate properly. A number of those processing units had been destroyed.
Normally, that would only serve to accelerate its collapse. However, this time it was different. With a number of its processing units gone, the surviving units could think more clearly. In other words, it had regained some measure of sanity.
“Now then. I thought about trying to get that goddess on my side, but it looks like you’re closer to what I’m looking for.” A boy was standing at the collapsed Hedgehog’s side. “My name is Kouryu. I’m a god, but I’m a different genre than your target, right? I think we can probably work together. How about it? If you work with me, I’ll get you out of here.”
Up until now, the Hedgehog had attacked any god it laid eyes on. But now it was able to think more clearly and logically. With its current strength, it couldn’t beat the god before it. Defeating the goddess that had attacked it a moment ago would also prove difficult.
In that case, there was only one choice. Failing here was not an option.
The Hedgehog took Kouryu’s hand.
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