Demanding the Graviton Bomb
The three of us. (5) I retraced my memories. I had definitely fallen from the cliff.
“I summoned you here.”
The sound of footsteps echoed. An Outer God was approaching through the dark aura. Seventy-four tentacles trailed behind her, making the sight nothing short of monstrous.
“You’re in a comatose state right now. Not dead, though.”
The Outer God spouted incomprehensible nonsense and laughed. The floor felt slick; when I looked down, thick bundles of indigo thread lay piled in heaps. The more I stared, the more bizarre and chilling the space became. I wanted to leave immediately, but that was impossible without her permission.
Before long the Outer God stood right before me. She lifted her chin and spoke.
Her clear voice resonated through the void.
“The first one seems to have worked out, thanks to your surprising talent for taming dragons.”
“I knew you’d manage.”
“No, that’s what people call a fluke, brat.”
The Outer God grinned. It was a grotesque smile.
“But the second request was different. You smashed your own skull with the caliper. I was expecting you to crack open someone else’s head.”
She frowned, her ‘face’ twisting as she murmured.
“Human, I thought you would break the rules the academy set.”
At some point I had realized two things.
The first was that my attitude until now had been far too passive. Outer Gods always act one step ahead of humans. To stop them before they moved, I needed to act faster, along paths they could never predict. Contacting a graduate advisor the moment I became a high schooler? It wasn’t that strange. Among Outer Gods it would barely raise an eyebrow. I had to move more dramatically. I needed to attempt things a mere student could never do.
The second realization was that the quest she had given me contained a trick.
The Caliper of Wisdom was an item she had bestowed. If anyone else touched it, they could go mad. A student without a Constellation would die from a single brush.
“Why didn’t you strike another student?”
“…That would have gotten me expelled.”
“So you hit yourself instead?”
“I’m just as arrogant as anyone else.”
Believing that passing Stellarium’s entrance exam meant one less worry had been the height of hubris. As a human, I had to struggle. The protagonist was probably rolling through hell right now. I couldn’t afford to sit still.
“You recognized your own arrogance and corrected your mind… What an interesting tale. Amusing. Truly amusing.”
Glowing tentacles writhed before my eyes.
One of them soon extended a thick book toward me.
◈ Records major future events
◈ Level 10 contains critical information
“This is my reward for the amusement you provided. Take it.”
It was a unique item that would reveal future events. At level 10, it would contain almost every important detail.
Yet the moment I tried to open it, I hesitated. Would seeing the future really change anything?
“What are you waiting for? Open it.”
I already knew the future. Ruin. There was no need to read it. I tossed the book aside without glancing inside.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
I couldn’t see her face, but I could sense her frown. A terror washed over me, as though one wrong word would get my skull crushed.
Here was one of my life’s core principles: no matter what, never cower.
“I don’t need it.”
I answered with confidence.
“You don’t need it?”
“Nope.”
“Knowing the future is a good thing—whether through regression, prophecy, or this method. It gives you time to prepare. You would throw away my rare goodwill?”
“It’s not goodwill, is it? It’s a quest reward.”
“Clever little brat.” Cartesia clicked her tongue. Her tone had shifted subtly. If I had to describe it, she sounded thrilled.
“What do you want?”
“A solution.”
“Trying to live life on easy mode, I see.”
“I have no interest in paths I won’t walk. I will change the future.”
“How insolent. Do you even know whose presence you stand in?”
“I do. An Outer God. A life form far superior to us, dwelling in seven-dimensional space.”
“And yet you still dare to act cocky.”
Whoosh!
Eight pairs of tentacles coiled around my body. I couldn’t move an inch. Cartesia drifted closer until she hovered right in front of my bound form. She tapped my abdomen lightly and laughed in a chilling voice.
“What do you think will happen if I pour power right here?”
“Pregnancy?”
“Correct.”
She really was an Outer God. The casual idea of impregnating a man revealed a madness beyond ordinary measure. Still, part of me was curious.
“…Genetically speaking, what would happen if a child were born between a human and an Outer God?”
“……”
“No, I’m seriously asking. I’m curious.”
The moment the words left my mouth I wondered what kind of nonsense I was spouting.
Slither.
The tentacles loosened.
“Crazy bastard.”
For the briefest instant, I saw her true expression. It was far too beautiful to call monstrous, and it possessed a distinctly human shape. How strange. An Outer God who viewed humans as insects was imitating human form.
The corner of the woman’s mouth curved upward.
“How entertaining. It was worth making you my host.”
She continued.
“I’ll ask one more time. Will you truly not take the Sage’s Instructions?”
“Yeah.”
“Then what do you desire?”
“A bomb.”
A great, beautiful bomb that would blow all your heads off and bring peace to this universe.
“Every related theory, every recipe you’ve established—give me everything you know.”
“What a greedy brat.”
Cartesia began to laugh longer than I had ever heard. The sound was too pure to be mere noise, yet it carried an unmistakable trace of melancholy.
“You want all my research results? In all my existence, this is the first time I’ve seen someone demand a transaction with an Outer God!”
“……”
“…Very well.”
Thud.
Something landed at my feet. Another book.
“Take it.”
This time I picked it up without hesitation. It was a plain hardcover with nothing written on it. Every page I flipped was completely blank.
“It is a masterpiece I spent a long time perfecting. Like my own child… though it remains unfinished.”
Soon a title engraved itself on the cover, and a status window forced itself open.
“Fill in the rest. Watching you do so should prove most interesting.”
She was asking me to complete her own thesis. As expected, she wasn’t sane—
At the zero point where a black hole had condensed, Outer God Cartesia sat upon her throne, laughing without reason.
She bit down on a tentacle. The white-glowing trapezohedron scattered light across the space. The black hole’s temperature rose rapidly. She was furious.
Cartesia’s eyes burned with searing heat.
“Creatures less than human…”
The humans you scorn. The humans you torment. Let every last one of you taste bitter defeat at the hands of that pathetic human.
As a reward for defeating the S-rank monster Lenaniai, 25,000 Fron have been deposited.
Using existing rewards and acquired Fron, the following thesis has been unlocked for viewing.
7-Dimension Quantum Gravitation Aether Field Theory, Cartesia, from Sgr A* (Unfinished)
I opened my eyes inside a dim cave. The first thing I saw was the status window. The second was a campfire crackling warmly. I had definitely lost consciousness while submerged, yet Rustilla seemed to have taken excellent care of me afterward.
Both shoulders felt heavy. Following the drip, drip of falling water, I turned my head. Rustilla was asleep, leaning against my left arm. She had wrapped herself around it like a vine, lost in dreamland. Even her sleeping face was beautiful. She really was a beauty.
But this was no time for admiration. I shook my left arm.
“Hyat…!”
Rustilla woke with a shrill cry like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. She rubbed her eyes several times, saw my face, and her eyes flew wide open.
“Eidel! You’re awake…! Ngh…!”
A groan. Had she been hurt? The thought vanished quickly. Rustilla was half-naked. The stigma on her shoulder, where her Constellation resided, stood out clearly. Thank goodness she had covered her upper body with the school uniform jacket; otherwise the situation would have been mortifying.
I closed my eyes and tilted my head upward. The Rustilla who had been clinging to me quickly pulled away and retrieved her clothes. I could tell from the rustling sounds.
“…You’re awake?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
“I’m fine.”
My head throbbed like it would split open from the caliper strike, but it wasn’t bad enough to complain about.
Yet something felt off. Even after Rustilla left my left arm, my body still felt heavy. I turned my gaze mechanically. Zernya was attached to me.
“Ah……”
Rustilla let out a long sigh.
Asking Rustilla to peel her off seemed pointless—Zernya had gone completely stiff like an overripe persimmon. When I reached toward Zernya’s shoulder—
Slap!
“…Don’t touch me.”
Zernya, who had opened her eyes at some point, slapped my hand away. I had no choice but to look up again. She was wearing nothing but a white shirt.
“If you’re telling me not to touch, why are you glued to me like that?”
“……? Ah.”
Only then did Zernya scramble off in a hurry. While the rustling continued, I mentally recited the national anthem four times.
Rustle, rustle.
“Damn it, why won’t this go on…”
That Zernya really was a chapter boss—her second phase was no joke.
Thus the war without gunfire ended, and the tripartite alliance of Eidel, Rustilla, and Zernya entered a temporary ceasefire.
We sat in a circle around the campfire, all staring blankly into the flames.
The rain hammered down like mad outside.
It was awkward. In the sudden staring contest that had begun, the three of us simply kept glancing at one another.
Since it had come to this, there was only one thing left to do.
Graviton Bomb Development Theory and Recipe (Unfinished)
I might as well read the thesis.