Chapter 10 — Interlude: Congratulations, You Have Awakened
Wrapped in heavy armor, Shigehito Mitadera lay amid the rubble. He hadn’t moved since being kicked into the building by one of the Sage’s underlings. His wounds had healed, but he had no desire to stand yet.
They had been wiped out. Never mind Yoshifumi; they hadn’t even been able to defeat one of his lackeys. There was no point in standing back up. He could accomplish nothing. He hadn’t expected to encounter the Sage so early, so he hadn’t been able to make the necessary preparations. Besides, the moment Ragna, the one they had brought along specifically to stand against the Sages, had been killed, his plans became all for naught. Perhaps he could have come up with a new approach, but it wasn’t easy to shift mindsets like that.
As he lay there, staring dumbly into space, he began to wonder why he was alive at all. That woman had come to kill them, so there was no reason for her to have spared him. Her power had been overwhelming, and killing him would have been easy.
“What, did you save me or something?”
It wasn’t that the three of them had trusted each other. They’d been using each other for their own purposes. There was no reason for Rei to have saved him. But her having done so was the only possibility he could think of. Using her Charm ability, she had stopped that woman from finishing him off.
“Dammit...what do you actually think I can do?” The moment he realized it, he couldn’t help but wonder. Rei was alive, at the Sage’s side. If her Charm skill was working, she should be fine for a while.
Shigehito felt a small amount of his energy returning. While he didn’t feel like doing anything for himself anymore, he thought he should at least save Rei. It wasn’t like he was going to do so at any cost, but at least it gave him a course of action.
So, how could he help her? The amount of equipment he had gathered was clearly insufficient to take on the Sages or the empire. What could he do all on his own?
Shigehito summoned his Book of Prophecy. He didn’t much feel like using it at this point, but he was completely helpless without it. Lying on the ground, he extended a hand towards the sky. Just by willing it, he could summon the book to him.
But it didn’t appear. He had done the same thing as always, yet this time nothing had happened.
“What... Why?! Appear! This is my power! My one pathetic power that can do nothing more than call up a book! If I don’t even have that, what the hell can I do?!”
Of course, as someone with the Gift, he was far stronger than any ordinary person. By defeating monsters, his level would increase, improving his stats. But anyone who had the Gift was capable of doing that. There was no way it would be enough to defeat the Sage or his subordinates. It wouldn’t be enough to save Rei.
“Dammit! All you can do is make garbage writing that can be interpreted in a thousand ways!” he yelled at the absent book. “You have no right to be so full of yourself! Appear! Get out here! Please!”
“That’s not a nice way of saying it. It’s true it can be a bit vague, though. I guess I’ll have to accept that.”
Hearing a voice, Shigehito turned towards the speaker. A girl was standing there, looking down at him from inside a dress that was so oversized she seemed to be buried under it as much as wearing it.
“Who are you?”
“What do you mean, who am I? You’re the one who’s been so desperate to call me out, right?”
Despite her condescending words, Shigehito remained at a loss.
“Oh? Clearly, you don’t understand. I am that Book of Prophecy full of ‘garbage writing that can be interpreted in a thousand ways’ you were talking about just now.”
“What?” Why was this girl calling herself the Book of Prophecy? And why was she speaking to him in the first place? Shigehito was incredibly confused.
“Congratulations. You have awakened. Thanks to that, I’ve managed to transcend my form as a flimsy magazine to be reborn in this form.”
“What are you saying?”
“In order to escape the extreme danger nearby, your true abilities have been unleashed. I’m sure you have all sorts of doubts, but we don’t have time for that right now. Please get moving. You need to at least get beyond those walls.”
“What the hell are you talking about?! This doesn’t make any sense!”
“Seriously, give it up. Fine, then, I’ll just move you myself.”
The girl grabbed him where he lay and began pulling. She was far stronger than she appeared, easily dragging the heavily armored teen behind her.
“Oh, how I wish I could say something like, ‘I couldn’t care less about someone like you.’ However, you and I are one and the same. If you die, so do I.”
“What do you mean?”
“Even if I explain it, you won’t understand right now, will you? I won’t make you walk on your own, but at least stop resisting so that I can get you out of here.”
Shigehito gave up on thinking. He didn’t care anymore. Doing as he was told, he relaxed and let the girl drag him along the ground. Given the speed at which she was pulling him, she must have been using some sort of special technique. She hurried as fast as she could, pulling him behind her. Naturally, everyone they passed turned to watch, but she didn’t seem to care. As she drew close to their destination, she threw him forward. Somersaulting through the air, he flew over the wall.
“What the hell are you doing?!” He turned to complain but stopped short. There was nothing behind them. The city district he had just been pulled through had completely disappeared. “What...”
Shigehito froze at the sight. The streets, the people walking through them, the rampaging monsters... They had all disappeared, as if they had never been real in the first place. And the girl who had saved him was gone too. She had thrown him over the wall, but she herself hadn’t made it out. She must have known that would happen. That was why she had been in such a rush, why she had dragged him all that way.
“Why... Why would you save someone like me?”
“Like I already said, I was born from your power. As long as you’re alive, I’ll be fine.”
As Shigehito sank into self-loathing, he turned towards the source of the voice. The girl who should have been erased from existence was standing beside him, unharmed.
“What happened?!”
“I’d like to say, ‘Don’t make me keep repeating myself,’ but you are obviously severely lacking in intelligence. We’re not in danger at the moment... Why don’t we get out of here so you can calm down? I’ll explain things then.”
A significant portion of the city had just disappeared. It was understandable that the place was descending into chaos, so suspicion might fall on him if he were to hang around for too long.
The girl left Shigehito behind, walking away on her own. In spite of his confusion, he decided to do as she said for the time being. He discarded his equipment and followed her.
After passing through a number of districts, they reached a part of the city where the disappearance of the southwest block hadn’t made much of an impact, and the girl entered a cafe. Shigehito followed her in, joining her at a table.
“Let’s make things clear. Just because you don’t understand the situation doesn’t mean you can throw a tantrum like that. It’s annoying and embarrassing. Can you have a calm conversation now?”
“Okay...” As she said, they wouldn’t get anywhere if he kept getting stuck on every little detail. He decided to do his best to listen to what she had to say.
“I am the Book of Prophecy. If that’s too much for you to comprehend, we can simply say that your power has transformed. Up until now, your ability was to make a flimsy little book. Now it’s evolved to make this adorable, beautiful young girl. Got it?” The idea of a book transforming into a person was incredibly bizarre, but he decided to accept her explanation. “However, my nature as a Book of Prophecy hasn’t changed. I exist to express the will of the world.”
“So instead of being able to create a Book of Prophecy, I’m now creating a prophet?”
“I suppose that description will do. I still identify as a book, but there’s no reason to force that feeling on you.”
“You knew what was going to happen to the city because of the prophecy?”
“That is correct. But it was your unconscious perception of the extreme impending danger that led to your awakening in the first place.”
“So, now that you’re a person, what’s different?”
“The prophecies will be easier to understand. And you’ll always have a cute girl tagging along with you.”
“That’s it?!”
“Being easier to understand is a big deal, isn’t it? If you can interpret the prophecies better, you can be more careful about how you act.”
“Yeah, well, it was definitely hard to understand before...”
“Prophecies require a particular skill in order to be interpreted. At their core, they are difficult to grasp the true meaning of. But from now on, I will be able to perform that interpretation for you and provide a thorough explanation of it.”
“So, I can think of you as an ally, right?”
“Yes, although somewhat reluctantly. Any danger to you is a danger to me as well.”
The Book of Prophecy had any number of traps in it. Though it didn’t contain any lies, it wasn’t exhaustive, and depending on how one interpreted it, one could draw multiple contradictory conclusions from the text. With a prophet on hand, however, he would have a partner to discuss things with and could confirm his theories with her. And if he was in danger, she would be too, so she would hardly intentionally misinterpret something out of spite.
“Then please tell me how to save Rei.”
“So, that’s the route you’re going for. It would be a lot easier to run away.”
“What would that accomplish?”
“Running away for now and increasing your strength would be easy. You might even be able to defeat the Sage that way. But there’s no way of knowing how long Rei will last around him.”
“Please, tell me how to save her as fast as possible!”
“Understood. Let’s consider how that can be accomplished. First of all, let’s get out of here. It’s not like the Sage is watching the entire city at all times, but as long as we’re here, there’s always a chance we’ll run into him again.”
Shigehito shuddered. He had never thought that the Sage, the emperor himself, would be lounging around town like a common thug. He wasn’t optimistic enough to believe they wouldn’t come across him by chance again.
“Okay. But how are we going to fight him?”
“At this point, fighting him is more or less impossible. But if our only objective is to save Rei, we can do that without a confrontation.”
“That still sounds pretty difficult.” He remembered how strong the Sage’s underling had been. If Yoshifumi had multiple people like her around him, rescuing Rei wouldn’t be easy.
“Yes, waltzing through the front door will never work. So we’ll make use of Hanakawa.”
“Hanakawa?! He’s still alive?!” Shigehito finally remembered that Hanakawa existed. He had been with their group up until the incident in the bar.
“No matter which route we take, he’ll pop up sooner or later, so he seems to be alive for now. Who knows what will happen later, though.” The girl calling herself the Book of Prophecy stood up.
“By the way, what should I call you?” Shigehito asked as he made to follow her out. He was hesitant to refer to her as a book now that she had taken human form.
“Good question. How about Navi?”
And that’s what they ended up going with.
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