Chapter 10 — Interlude: Recruiting God Slayers. Reward: Ten Quadrillion Credits.
One of Malnarilna’s angels stood on the summit of a mountain. There wasn’t anything particularly special about the place, only that it offered the wide open area she needed. The angels had begun taking action according to their own plans. They were all equally ranked, so with Malnarilna no longer there to offer them leadership, there was no hierarchy among them.
“That should be good.” The angel, looking like a young child, had drawn an enormous figure into the field that lay on the summit of the mountain. The lines glowing with magical energy connected into a complex geometric design, forming a magic circle. But this particular design didn’t hold any power of its own. It was just a sign.
“Assassins, huh? How much do we even pay them?”
They were looking for assassins from other worlds. There was no point in looking for someone who wasn’t already fairly strong. They needed someone as powerful as possible who could kill Yogiri Takatou without fail.
Yogiri had killed Malnarilna. The twin goddesses may have let their guard down against him because he was a mere human, but he had still been capable of slaying them. At the very least, they needed someone as powerful as a god to match him.
“Hmm...we don’t have any good connections or anything, so I don’t know what the going rate is.”
The angel accessed the Upper Information Layer. It was a layer that existed above the material world, loosely connecting numerous lower-level worlds beneath it. The angel accessed the segment group that included her own world and took a look at the forums. A brief glance showed that, as expected, there were no threads blatantly advertising the services of an assassin. So she decided to start a thread herself.
Recruiting God Slayers. Reward: Ten Quadrillion Credits.
With no idea how much was an acceptable offer, she set the reward fairly high. It wasn’t her money, so she had no inhibitions about spending it. She didn’t know how difficult the job would be either, so she just asked for anyone capable of killing gods.
She received two responses almost immediately. She waited a little while longer, but no other responses came. Perhaps the reward was so great as to make others suspicious.
The angel reviewed the two respondents with a frown. They were rather awful individuals. The laws and values of individuals varied from world to world, so there was no such thing as a universal set of rules. But there were those whose behavior was such that they wouldn’t be accepted anywhere. People like that were forbidden from entering any world.
These two were exactly that. The first was a serial killer of gods who traveled between worlds and murdered the gods that ruled them. His objective was unclear, but he was terrifyingly powerful and had been banned from entering all worlds ever since rising to fame.
The other option was a group of “pirates.” Rather than stalking the seas of any individual world, they traveled through the “sea” between worlds, which housed the numerous Celestial Foundations, laying waste to worlds wherever they went. Naturally, they were abhorred by those who inhabited the Celestial Foundations and so were forbidden from entering other worlds through official channels. This world was well aware of their notoriety and had denied them entry in the past.
“What am I supposed to do now? Well, it’s probably fine!”
Letting people like that into the world would be a huge disaster. Under normal circumstances, it would never even be considered. But the angel was desperate. She couldn’t care less what happened to the world now that Malnarilna was gone.
She accepted both offers.
Before long, something had appeared at the center of the magic circle she had drawn. A young man with a white coat and a friendly face stood there. She had given the would-be assassins permission to enter the world, designating the circle she had drawn as their point of entry.
“Hello! My name is Takumi. Nice to meet you!”
The serial killer was the first to arrive.
“Hello. I am an angel of Malnarilna. I don’t really have a name.”
“I see. Okay, see you later!” Takumi began walking away.
“Hold on!” The angel hurriedly stopped him. She hadn’t told him any of the details yet.
“Oh, sorry! I’ll hear you out. What did you want?”
She gave him the name and description of his target as well as the information she had regarding his powers and whereabouts.
“The reward will go to whoever kills him. One other group has been recruited to help take him out, so whoever gets him first wins, okay?”
“All right.”
“What’s wrong? You don’t seem very motivated.” The angel felt uneasy about how curt the boy was acting.
“Yeah, I was really only interested in getting into this world, so when I saw the request, I jumped at the chance! I’m not really all that drawn to the money.”
“I see. Well, I guess that’s okay.” The reward would only be paid if he succeeded, so this was just one of the angel’s attempts. There was no point in getting hung up on the first person who arrived, so she decided to put her hopes on the next option.
“It’s okay?”
“Yes. I’m sure you’ll cause all sorts of trouble in this world. It’s possible you’ll get the target caught up in it by accident.”
“Ah, I get it. I was just trying to tease you a bit, but now I feel kind of bad. Okay, if I see him, I’ll kill him for you.”
“Thank you.”
Takumi walked down the mountain. After a while, something else appeared in the magic circle. It was a group of a few dozen...things. An enormous lump of flesh. A doll made from a series of complex, interwoven pipes. A tube made entirely of eyeballs. A humanoid shape made from red thread. They were all mind-boggling creatures.
The angel immediately regretted letting them in. Even if she didn’t care what happened to this world, she felt it had been the wrong call to allow this group through.
From among the crowd of monsters, a single figure stepped forward. Compared to the others, he was the most human. In shape, he seemed like an ordinary person, but he was solid black. It was like his whole body was a window into a pitch dark void, like he absorbed any and all light that touched him, or like he was a shadow that had simply stood up. The angel felt repulsed by him. He gave off a much more sinister air than the other monsters standing behind him. His presence was overwhelming, to the point where she had to assume he was the leader.
“A pleasure to meet you. Thank you for your request.” The shadow spoke in a flat, monotonous voice.
“Oh, uhh, nice to meet you. You’re the ‘pirates,’ right? Do you normally take requests like this?”
“Ordinarily, we only plunder and pillage like pirates, but the reward you offered was too much to ignore.”
The credits they used as currency didn’t have a physical form, so there was no way to steal them. They only existed while the trade was occurring. So even if the pirates had the power to destroy this world, they had no way of stealing Malnarilna’s wealth.
“Okay then, this is your target.” The angel gave the pirates the information she had on Yogiri Takatou.
“Thank you. Do you mind if we make use of the tag here?” He was referring to the magic circle she had drawn. It existed only to be a searchable point from outside the world.
“Oh, sure. I don’t mind, but may I ask why?”
“We are pirates. A cabal of ruffians. There are far more of us than you see here.”
A shadow suddenly covered the mountain, prompting the angel to look up. Large ships had appeared above them. One by one, enormous vessels built for crossing the “sea” between worlds filled the sky.
“Uhh, do you really need this many people?” She didn’t know how strong they were, but they were only hunting a single human boy. She found it hard to believe they would need this much firepower.
“The reward is ten quadrillion credits. For such a price, we will not underestimate the task.” The shadow spoke as expressionless as ever, but somehow, it felt to the angel like he was laughing.
◇ ◇ ◇
“In the world of the gods, it’s eat or be eaten. There are no rules, only the will of the strong. But still, don’t you think it’s a bit immature for a parent to interfere in their child’s affairs?”
In one of the courtyards of the Heavenly Throne, the vibrantly colored array of buildings that served as the control room for the world, Kouryu faced off against someone. A goddess overflowing with a sublime divinity stood there with a motherly smile on her face. It was only natural that the goddess who had given birth to Malnarilna was even greater than they were, so Kouryu, who wouldn’t have been able to handle one of the twins alone, stood no chance against her. This was a dangerous situation for him, but all he could do was complain sarcastically.
“I can’t say I disagree. It is rather pathetic for me to come and clean up after my daughters, even after they’ve been independent for so long.”
Malnarilna’s angels had called her there. Obtaining permission to enter this world had never been especially difficult. Aside from a few specific examples, almost anyone could come and go as they wished.
“Is there some way we can compromise here? Would you be happy if I let you kill me?”
“Well, death isn’t a big deal to people like us.” She figured Malnarilna would come back to life sooner or later as well and didn’t seem to think too much of the ordeal. “I only came here because I was called. No matter what you did to kill them, I can only blame them for losing.”
“Then...” Please go home, he wanted to say. But of course, things were never that easy.
“But I suppose I can’t ignore the request of the angels they created.”
“What exactly is that?”
“They want me to destroy the world itself.”
“Well, that’s kind of crazy.”
She couldn’t possibly answer a request like that.
“It’s their final option if the angels fail to defeat a certain someone.”
“Are they looking for revenge against me as well?” Kouryu asked.
“No, they were born to support the gods. They wouldn’t even consider harming one.” While it was acceptable for a god to be slain by another god, they couldn’t let it go if a god were slain by a mere human.
“Hmm...speaking of which, are you aware he killed one of the twins?”
“‘He’? Ah, you mean him?” Normally, with such vague terms, she would have no way of knowing who Kouryu was referring to. But for those who knew of the individual, the general atmosphere was enough to indicate who the pair were referring to. Spelling it out wasn’t necessary. “No way... Why is he here?!”
“About half of this world is ruled over by people calling themselves Sages.” Kouryu gave her a rough explanation of how Yogiri Takatou had been summoned there and was now traveling across the world.
“Even knowing about him is a considerable risk. The chance of encountering him is so infinitesimally small, I thought there were greater merits in not knowing he even existed...”
If they knew he existed, they might think about him. If they thought about him, they might think their powers as gods would be enough to deal with him. And then what? If they tried to harm him with their powers, they would be killed instantly. So the goddess hadn’t told Malnarilna anything about him.
“Ah! I met him as well!” Kouryu exclaimed as if just remembering.
“I just realized, I have urgent business elsewhere!” With that, the goddess vanished. There was no way to interpret her departure as anything other than fleeing in fear, but she didn’t have time to make a more elegant retreat.
“I feel bad for you, Yogiri, but I’ll have to wait a little longer before telling you how to get home.”
The state of the world was in peril, to the point where Kouryu didn’t feel that his power alone would be enough to manage. But if he left Yogiri to his own devices, the boy would likely encounter and deal with many of those problems on his own. Kouryu had already run into Yogiri himself, so he figured he might as well use him as much as he could.
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