The Meeting (3)
The moment I made it known that I was willing to hear her out, her face brightened in an instant — and the scenery around us changed.
Where moments before there had seemed to be an ordinary office, there was now the White Space, empty of everything — a place so featureless it was hard to tell whether it even had walls or a floor.
[U-um... where should I even begin...]
"As short as you can. And keep it simple."
[Y-yes...]
With that, the goddess clasped her hands together at her chest and introduced herself as Solar. From between her small lips, her story began.
[I was not the only one who made this world. The other gods lent their strength as well, and each of them bestowed their own graces upon humanity.]
The gods all cherished humanity. Of course, they never considered humans their equals — but it was plain that they regarded them, at the very least, as beloved toys.
Each god lent humans a helping hand in their own way, then took delight in watching how far they would grow. The exalted Knight granted them innate leadership and charisma; the artisan who wielded a thousand crafts granted them skillful hands; the god of war granted them mighty strength of arms.
Blessed thus by the grace of countless gods, humans worshipped them and put their faith in them alone.
And yet, typical of humans, they knew nothing of gratitude. As the ages passed, they stopped sparing the gods so much as a glance, as though they had never worshipped them at all.
Worse, they insisted their talents must not be dismissed as the gods' choosing — insisted their own effort could defy whatever destiny the gods had ordained — and set out to carve out fates entirely of their own making. And mocking the gods came free of charge.
Yet most of them — no, nearly all of them — took no particular action. It was much the same as how no one abandons a cat they have raised simply because it stopped fawning over them.
One god, however, apparently thought differently.
Luna — ruler of the night and goddess of the moon. She, it seemed, could not stomach the change in her pets' attitude. Watching humanity's hearts turn away, she flew into a towering rage over their behavior, insisting that the arrogant humans — ignorant of the grace she had bestowed, strutting about as if her gifts were their own merit — deserved to be punished.
But her opinion was not accepted. For one reason or another, the gods still loved humans.
And then, while her proposal went unheeded, an incident occurred. Humans, on top of Luna's already precarious mood, thoroughly provoked her temper. Right up until the moment she could bear it no longer and moved to purge them with her own hands, they showed no remorse — not even a flicker of guilt.
In the eyes of the Sun, her elder sister, the Moon's rage was justified. Even so, a god laying hands directly upon humans was something that could never be permitted. And so she was punished accordingly — while the humans left behind spread a beautiful rumor about having repented their sins. A rumor born from human mouths, interpreted and spread by humans themselves.
"..So why are you telling me all this?"
I was sick of it. I hadn't been sitting there meekly to listen to some ancient story. What circumstances you had, what desperate story drove you to pull that kind of shit on me — that was what I wanted to know. That was the only reason I'd followed you.
[It has to do with you... and very deeply at that...]
"Then what exactly—"
[The reason you keep reincarnating... is... her...]
The words were barely out of her mouth before I seized Solar's hair and hauled it up again — until it stretched taut as a rubber band.
"Explain properly, if you don't want your scalp torn off along with it."
[Ah... ugh...]
"Everything about why she keeps making me reincarnate. Every last bit of it."
No matter how I turned it over, nothing came to mind. I had never heard any story like that in any of my lives, and the only thing moon-related in my entire existence was the Nine Swords Under the Moon. Which was why I hadn't had even the faintest guess as to the purpose behind my reincarnation.
[Sh-she... has fallen.]
"What...?"
[Even while she was being punished, she never forgave humanity.]
Even with her power restricted and her body bound, she went on hating humans. We had believed that hatred would burn itself out one day — but that incident kept feeding fresh firewood to the blaze in her heart.
The wellspring of her soft radiance was dyed black, and where love had lived in her heart, hatred took root and grew. Hating humanity as she did, she at last walked down the path of corruption: she would cast off her divinity, descend to the surface in the flesh, slaughter mankind, and raise a new paradise from the ashes.
But that was not so easily done. For her to influence the surface would consume an immense amount of [Causality], so she had no choice but to find another way. She chose to dwell within a human body — and that, too, proved a difficult road.
She needed a body capable of withstanding the countless grudges that had attached themselves to her. The guilt she earned the first time she killed a human. The grief of a child clinging to its mother and wailing. The grudge of a lover who screamed while cradling nothing in their arms but half of a severed hand. Emotions that would drive an ordinary body to ruin in an instant. No body on the surface could endure them all — and even for a goddess who had once loved humans more than anyone, bearing them was anything but easy.
So she sank into thought yet again.
'If no such body exists in this world, then why not simply make one myself?'
If the humans of this world are too hateful to endure, bring one in from another dimension. And so it can withstand the guilt born of me — strip away its mercy. If it cannot bear sorrow — strip away its empathy. If it cannot bear grudges — teach it selfishness and rationalization. And so it can kill every last one of them — strip away its love.
Would that not do?
"..So the one who got chosen was me?"
[...Yes.]
I was so dumbfounded the words wouldn't come out right.
I had repented hundreds of times. Confessed thousands of sins. Shed tens of thousands of tears. I had thrown away my humanity by killing people, and thrown away my conscience by using them. And so I had damned myself as a piece of trash who might as well die at any moment. I had even thought the cause of my reincarnation might be some sin I'd never noticed — thought of it as a punishment handed down to me.
And that cause turned out to be... the tantrum of a goddess whose name I didn't even know?
'Fuck... me... this isn't even a joke...'
[U-um...]
At my frozen reaction, the goddess began to fidget, stealing anxious glances at me. And the things I had done to her — to her, who was still handling me so gingerly — began to surface in my mind.
She was strange, too. Going by her own account, she had done nothing wrong.
"..Then why are you apologizing to me?"
[...Because I was a... bystander...]
"That was far too heavy an apology for someone who 'merely watched,' don't you think..?"
[...]
Think, damn it. What would have happened if she had never granted me this meeting? I would have kept cycling through reincarnations, forever missing something. And then, just as she'd said, that son of a bitch calling herself a god would descend, borrowing my body. So what would this goddess stand to gain?
When a crisis grave enough to endanger humanity arrived, what would she — the goddess — gain from it? There was no need to even ask. Faith. Humans beg the gods for miracles precisely where their own power cannot reach. Which meant that in the end, they would have no choice but to wail for her — the one they automatically called their goddess.
When the thought landed there, only one conclusion remained visible to me.
"..Hey."
[Hyeeek!!.. Y-yes...!]
"You... fucking... it's not that you couldn't help them — you chose not to, didn't you?"
Letting crises fall on humans deliberately. So that humanity, driven to its final extremity, would end up wailing for you. Because for the gods, human faith is as good as their own divine standing.
The instant I finished, her head bowed of its own accord — and to me, that read as a silent yes.
I took her lowered head in my hand and drove it straight down into the ground, pinning it there.
"What's the reason you're telling me this?"
BAM—
"You want me to go save the humans down there? Is that it?"
BAM—
CRUNCH—
"No — why did you tell me any of this in the first place? If you'd just kept quiet, I could have gone my whole life without ever meeting you."
THUD—
SQUELCH—
"Hm? Care to answer?"
When I seized her head and lifted it again, her face was a complete wreck. The nose she had painstakingly restored had caved in all over again, and even her left eye had been crushed flat.
[At first... it was to protect my proxy...]
"And?"
Meaning hurry up and spit it out, I gripped her hair hard and wrenched it upward.
[Nngh... I made a promise... but if you died, it would never be fulfilled...]
"..And."
[I hastily possessed your body... and every last memory came flooding in...]
"..."
[The hollow loss from the first time you killed a person... the guilt... the pain wracking your body... the grief... all of it...]
At some point her voice had begun to choke with sobs, and from her beautiful eyes tears were welling one drop after another.
[The skin of your face flaying off entirely... every finger and toe severed...]
"..."
[Even just that hurt so... so much... I couldn't bear it... and you... you've been through it over and over...]
"..."
[I could have... just helped you... it wasn't even such a difficult thing to do...]
"..."
[I-I'm sorry... I was... w-wrong... sob...]
Even Michael, who had been clutching my sleeve, quietly slipped over to stand at her side and bowed her head — and for a long while I simply froze in place, doing nothing at all.
Had that much time really passed? Just as the sound of their weeping was finally beginning to die down...
"..Shall I pray one last time.."