Wish Execution (2)
Breathless silence. Elly lit the magic candle in her mouth and rose from her seat.
“Fine. I’ll go kill that Eve thing or whatever real quick.”
“Stop announcing your murder plans…!”
What’s with that calm tone? It makes it sound like she’s actually going to do it! I grabbed Elly from behind, wrapping my arms around her waist to hold her back. But the difference in strength was too great. She kept walking, dragging me along.
“C-calm down, Elly! She properly rejected me! It wasn’t like I was leading her on or anything!”
“…That’s good. But that’s not the problem I have with this. Even if we ignore everything else, there’s over a hundred-year age gap. How does it make sense to propose to a child like that?”
“She’s not a child, okay? She’s a full adult! And you’re one to talk when you’re the one getting turned on by me too!”
“Kuh…!”
That one hit home. Elly stopped with a grunt. I pressed the advantage.
“Think about it. Even when I said we should get married and left the door open, you were the one gritting your teeth and doing nothing. Now you’re getting mad just because someone else proposed to me?”
“That’s…!”
“It’s a good thing I decided my first time would be with you no matter what! What if I’d gotten tired of your cold attitude and accepted her? Would you still be this angry then?”
“…I-I don’t think I was that cold.”
“Is that really the point right now?!”
When I shouted, Elly flinched. Her ears and tail drooped, making her look almost pitiful.
“Haa… Elly. Look at me.”
“Okay.”
She turned around with a sulky expression. I grabbed both of her cheeks and stretched them outward while continuing.
“I think there’s something else you should be doing right now. What do you think?”
“Um… sorry?”
“I don’t want an apology. Come on, repeat after me, Elly.”
I spread both arms wide. Still looking uncertain, Elly followed suit and opened her remaining arm. Her full-body suit made her figure stand out sharply—the generous swell of her chest, the narrow waist, the flare of her hips, the faint dip of her navel. Drawn in by those alluring curves, I stepped forward and hugged her.
“Yup.”
“Huh? Uh…?”
Elly floundered with her arms still spread. It was cute, but I wasn’t satisfied yet.
“Haven’t you gotten used to this by now?”
“Mmm. Not really.”
Her awkward reply made me sigh deeply.
“What did I tell you to do? I said to follow me. Am I spreading my arms right now?”
“…No?”
“You know that. So now hug me back the same way.”
“…Okay.”
Elly obeyed as if entranced. Her arm wrapped gently around my shoulder and back, pulling me close. We pressed together with no space between us, yet it wasn’t the usual heated atmosphere. Just a pure hug, sharing warmth without any suggestive rubbing.
In that position, I spoke softly.
“Elly.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’m not going to marry Eve.”
“Okay.”
“And I’m not marrying you either.”
“…Huh?”
I tightened my arms around her back. She reflexively hugged me back, her grip strong enough to feel reassuring. …Along with that came a heavy sense of responsibility.
I planned to deal with all the dangerous loose ends I’d scattered across Pan Grave. If it was Elly, she’d try to help me no matter how risky it was. The thought made my chest ache.
“More precisely, I mean I can’t get married right now.”
“Ah. That’s what you meant.”
“Yeah. I’ve got things I need to do. Quite a lot of them.”
“So it seems.”
Elly answered briefly while stroking my back. At first, I hadn’t intended to change this world. The dangers I’d planted were just episode bait to be used midway—nothing like the inevitable world-ending threats that usually appear in the final act. Back then, I was too busy surviving, and even after I gained some leeway through pickpocketing, I’d planned to leave Pan Grave with Elly. I’d believed the protagonist would handle everything even if I did nothing. I never thought the flames would reach me even if I missed a few.
But the protagonist died. By my hand. Now I had no choice but to do something myself.
“Someday, once I’ve finished everything I need to do, I’ll propose again.”
“…Just to check, when would that be? You’ll be past twenty, right?”
“Is that really important right now?”
It was absurd, but Elly seemed sincere, so I answered honestly.
“Probably? It won’t take one or two years just to reach the bottom of the labyrinth.”
“That’s a relief. As long as you’re an adult, then…… Wait. What did you say?”
Elly broke the hug and grabbed my shoulder to create distance.
“Haa. You really wanted to hear that again? Fine… Ahem. I won’t pester you to marry me for a while. But when I become an adult, will you hold me then…?”
“No! Not that! That was nice to hear, but there’s something even more dangerous!”
“Something more dangerous than that? Don’t tell me, Elly… you can’t wait until I’m an adult and you just like me as a kid?!”
“That’s dangerous in its own way, but it’s a different kind! I’m talking about the labyrinth! What do you mean you’re going to the bottom of the labyrinth?!”
“Exactly what I said? I need to go to the deepest part and meet the Goddess of Love.”
“Meet the Goddess of Love…?”
Elly frowned slightly. Was she jealous of the Goddess of Love too?
“Don’t worry, Elly. I like you a little more than the Goddess.”
“That’s not what I was worried about. The scale is just so big I don’t even know how to react.”
Elly scratched her head with a complicated expression. Rydia, who had been nodding contentedly from a short distance away, had a similar reaction.
“Yona. No one has ever reached the end of the labyrinth. Even the current front line, what we call the deep layers, is only the 7th floor. And the gods who survived the Divine War…”
“There are thirteen. Minus the Goddess of Love, that’s twelve.”
“Right. So the estimated total is 12 floors. In a thousand years, adventurers have only cleared 7 floors. We haven’t even finished half. …And you still want to see the end?”
“Yes. I know all that, and I’m still saying it. I think it’s possible. And whether it’s possible or not doesn’t matter. I have to do it.”
I had already decided to take responsibility for this world. So all that remained was to do what needed to be done. I smiled at the stunned expressions on Elly’s and Rydia’s faces.
“It’s fine. You saw today that I have some cards to play, right? And there’s another reason I need to focus on the labyrinth besides the Goddess.”
The 3rd floor. Where the God of Mechanisms sleeps. The technology that developed rapidly during the Divine War underwent explosive evolution, giving birth to a new field called magitech that combined magic, alchemy, and blacksmithing. Everything convenient and oddly modern in daily life—lighters, braziers, subspace storage, water and sewage systems—were all products of magitech.
And new concepts give birth to new gods. The youngest god, born during the war: the God of Mechanisms. From the very beginning, he was an extraordinary being. After all, he was born by tearing open the belly of the God of Blacksmiths and devoured the corpse to usurp the divine throne.
Born amid the cruelty of war, his nature was equally ruthless. He viewed the world as a precise machine and saw every living being, including himself, as nothing more than parts. That didn’t make him an evil god, though. Cold and merciless as he was, the God of Mechanisms was still a benevolent deity. His sole purpose was to end this tiresome war as quickly as possible and bring peace to the continent.
For the greater good, he could turn even his own followers into magitech tools and “consume” them without hesitation—and he was no exception to his own logic. Near the end of the Divine War, having survived thanks to his cold rationality that never accepted losses, he concluded that a heartless god like himself would only be a blight upon the world. Once decided, he didn’t waver. He ceased all external activities and devoted himself to leaving behind his knowledge of magitech. He gathered every technology related to killing people, every inhumane technique, every excessively advanced technology, disposed of them, and entered eternal slumber.
But time was short, and even a god couldn’t control everything in the world. Some of the artifacts he had painstakingly disposed of leaked out due to the shock of the labyrinth’s formation. Naturally, adventurers happily took and used them… and what I was after were the products of that over-technology.
I fiddled with the empty sleeve of Elly’s arm and smiled faintly.
“I’ll get you a really nice prosthetic arm, Elly.”
“……Huh?”
Elly blinked her golden eyes, as if she had just heard something she had never even imagined.