Encounter (4)
It was not long after this goddamn cycle of rebirth had begun.
That is to say... in the life after the one where I'd been made a slave and died.
A time when I resented God with every fiber of my being, and yet yearned for Him just as desperately.
I made the rounds of every church for miles. I sat through confession. I sought out prayer rooms. I once fasted and prayed for three days straight, until the sisters had to physically drag me out of the chapel. There was even a pastor who got up and walked out on me mid-visit, unable to bear the way I recited every last trivial sin on my conscience.
I felt bad about that, but I was desperate back then.
I howled the prayers thousands upon tens of thousands of times. Convinced the fault lay in my own lacking faith, I even tithed sums I couldn't afford.
But the cycle rolled on, as if mocking every ounce of my effort, and so I concluded that my prayers simply weren't being heard.
So I stopped praying.
Because when I had needed God, all that had been at my side was everything else.
Demons, humans, beasts, the wilds of nature — everything except God had been there for me.
And now?
God was standing right in front of me.
"...Should I... pray, maybe..."
"...I beg your pardon?"
"...?"
Two women were staring at me, startled by the mutter that had slipped out unbidden. Doing my best to shake off their gazes, I made a show of straightening my collar.
"That aside... where is that bitch, then."
"Th...that bitch... you say...?"
"Luna."
The instant the name left my mouth, both of her lips slid inward and vanished entirely, as if her own mouth intended to refuse me. Watching this, I pinched the goddess's lips, pried them back out, and pulled them toward me.
"Answer."
"Mmmph..."
"...I still don't like you..."
My words slowed — and with every slowing syllable, the pressure on her lips grew. That soft mouth began to compress under my grip.
"The only reason I'm letting you off this easy... is because there's a bitch I need to deal with more urgently than you."
"Mmm... mmph... ngh..."
"But don't get any ideas about stopping me. Shield her just because she's your sister, and I really might end up killing you too..."
"...!"
Her face floated a single, unmistakable question — how could you possibly know? — while my own wore an expression crafted for one purpose alone: to mock her.
"Your name is Solar — the Sun. And she is Luna."
"..."
"And in that story, the Sun is said to be the Moon's older sister. At this point, I doubt there's a soul alive who hasn't heard it."
"..."
"I'll ask one last time. Where is that bitch right now?"
When I finally released her lips, she gingerly massaged the swollen flesh and continued without once meeting my eyes.
"...I don't... know."
"...What?!"
"I... I really don't!!"
Wondering if I'd misheard, I scrunched my face into a scowl and asked again — and the same answer came back in a voice shrunk small with fear.
"Gods are bound by... something called causality..."
"..."
"I couldn't explain causality in exact terms... but if we squander too much of it, we simply cease to exist."
"..."
"And... she burned through so much of it that she has since fallen into a long, deep slumber. All to summon a single person into this world. You."
A goddess, a being on the level of a god, had come within a hair's breadth of annihilation just to drag a bastard like me across dimensions. I was honestly starting to lose track of whether I was supposed to be grateful for that.
"And in order to resurrect through your body, she will now move to take y—"
"...."
"Wh...what is... this hand...?"
My palm had come to a stop, heavy and flat, right in front of her. She stared at it for a moment, then lifted her head to look me in the face.
What is this hand, she asks.
Wasn't it obvious?
"Hand it over."
"Ye... yes?"
"I have spent my whole existence praying to the gods. Even when the people around me begged me to let it go, to be reasonable, I never stopped."
"Th...that's... a different..."
"So isn't it your turn to pay up now?"
She let out some unintelligible sound — ah... uh... — and looked up at me again as if searching for a rebuttal.
"In all this time, you have never given me a single thing."
"..."
"You knew exactly what I was going through, and you chose to ignore it anyway. For no one's benefit but your own."
"..."
"And the one responsible for all of this happening to me is your sister, too."
I finished and held her gaze with a look that asked, am I wrong? Her head sank low once more, and I caught the faint murmur — what is it that you want? — at which the corner of my mouth curled upward as I gave my answer.
"Anything will do. Hand over something that will make me stronger."
"Uh... um... pardon?"
"I intend to become strong enough to kill that bitch. And the truth is, I need your help if I'm to do it quickly."
"..."
"So hand it over."
But of course, she balked.
Who in their right mind would leap at the chance to help someone murder their own family? However heinous the criminal, there will never be a shortage of people willing to shield even a monster like that — so long as they share the same blood.
But the one holding all the leverage here was me.
"I'll set one condition."
"...?"
"If you help me now, then no matter what happens, I will not kill her."
"...!"
"Is... is that true?"
The moment the words left my mouth, not only the goddess, who had been hanging her head, but even Michael, still bowed beside her, raised their faces. A single hope seemed to bloom in their eyes — and the goddess in particular was having visible trouble keeping the corners of her mouth from creeping upward.
"You know my personality by now. I do intend to kill her one day. Without fail."
"..."
"No matter how many times this cycle begins again, there will never come a day when I give up on killing her."
"..."
"So choose."
Whether to find some means of saving her sister beyond all doubt — or to stake her sister's life on a gamble that might not pay off.
Just as I had intended, she looked profoundly shaken.
However grave her own sins, no human in his right mind would carve into the flesh of a god without a flicker of hesitation. And at the same time, one thought must have been ruling her mind: if it's this man... he really might do it.
At last, her tortured lips parted.
"Her wrongdoing is not something even I can make excuses for..."
"I keep my promises."
"...I understand."
The instant our conversation ended, something began to take shape in her hands. Blue, green, and white swirled together and warped, and soon a single gossamer-thin triangular plate rested in her palm.
Another took shape. It slotted into place. The pieces fused.
The process repeated itself over and over, and before I knew it, the triangular plates in her hands had assembled into a flawless regular icosahedron.
When she pressed the faintly glowing blue polyhedron to my chest, the thing in her hands began to sink slowly into my body — as natural as a droplet of water meeting a river and becoming one with it. And then my skull began to ring like a struck bell.
"Ah... ugh... what is...!"
"P...please calm yourself... it is only your body adapting..."
Just as she said, the maddening headache began to fade after a while — and ignoring the dull throb that remained, I asked her what this thing actually was.
"Um... how should I put this... in your world, you called this... a 'Status Window'...?"
"...?"
"Strictly speaking... it is not quite the same thing..."
'A Status Window...?'
As if she had heard the thought itself, a single translucent window unfolded in the air before me, angled toward the goddess — just like the ones that had popped up so often in the fantasy novels I read in another life.
Race:Human
Title:Sacrifice for the Resurrection of ■■
Vitality:52(38+14)
Strength:46(40+6)
Intelligence:87(67+21)
Appearance:71
Mana:67(60+7)
Traits:Alchemist's Blessing, Grip of Creation, #@◎#■..
"...What is this?"
"It takes a human's strength and expresses it in numbers."
"..."
"Do... do you not... like it?"
Did I like it.
Honestly? No.
Would a legendary weapon I could wield on the spot have been so impossible? Or the magic reserved for the gods themselves? What, exactly, was I supposed to do with a readout of other people's stats? My opinion must have been written all over my face, because the goddess began to fidget.
"I'm... sorry... but if I helped you any further than this, the causality would..."
"...You're telling me even something this trivial is dangerous?"
"For a person of our world, perhaps it would be different... but you are from an entirely different dimension... so even I cannot meddle with you freely..."
If that was the reason, I could accept it.
I had, after all, been wondering why she never so much as reprimanded me for treating her this outrageously. Even if you chalked her forbearance up to guilt, it had still been strange that even Michael couldn't bring herself to stop me — so there had been a reason all along.
She had presumably done everything within her limits to help me, I figured, and moved on to my next question.
"...These characters here I can't read—"
Before I could even finish, my body began to turn transparent.
The mana I had stored in the sacred chalice must have been just about spent.
Even as my consciousness scattered to the winds, I could still make out the shape of the goddess's lips moving before me — identical to the shape I'd seen right before I was brought here.
'For you... happiness.'
"—ake up!!"
"—ill he be all right?"
The instant my eyes opened, dazzling light poured in — and before it, three faces. The Saintess and her holy knights.
"It appears he has awakened, Lady Saintess."
"...You did not commit any rudeness in there, did you?"
Barely conscious, and the very first thing she asks is whether I was disrespectful to the Goddess. If that isn't a greeting worthy of a Saintess, I don't know what is.
When I answered "more or less," she rose from her seat looking thoroughly unimpressed, and the holy knights began rising after her, one by one.
"Ah... and you will need to come to the Church before long."
"...?"
"It seems the Pope wishes to meet you — on account of the crest engraved on your forehead."
The Pope. Ruler of the Church, servant of the divine will. For as long as I could remember, the man had been described as a raccoon with a soot-black belly.
Naturally, no one in their right mind would say such a thing aloud, but as far as the rumors circulating in the world went, that was precisely his reputation.
A man like that, seeking me out — I was musing that his motives surely weren't purely benevolent when the Saintess, pausing at the door, addressed me once more.
"...But you truly did not commit any rudeness, did you?"
"..."
"...Why is there no answer?"
"..."
"You. Come here this instant."
Apparently, my body still needed a little more time to make a full recovery.