Discussion (1)

"Goddamn it. Who the hell is this?"

Thud. Thud. Thud—!

The Fifth Dimension. The Void. A sovereign domain that no one could ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠invade, save those who belonged to it utterly. On the planet at its heart, a colossal black serpent was driving his head into the ground.

"Keep that up and that rotten brain of yours is only gonna get worse. Knock it off."

"......Don't twist my guts any further. Get lost. This is partly your fault too, you crazy bitch."

"Ha! As if. Don't you try dumping this on me. What was it you said to Oz, again?"

At that, he had no choice but to shut his mouth. All of this was a disaster he had called down on himself, and he wasn't out here in his true body instead of an avatar for nothing. His head was spinning so badly he couldn't even hold the avatar together.

"Still, you climbed a rank ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this time. Isn't that basically what you wanted?"

"The ranking would've been the same even if I hadn't shot my mouth off......"

Oz's claim — that he was only holding to his own stubborn code — seemed, unfortunately, to be true. This was nothing like the early ranking that had sorted out the hierarchy within the Void. This time the standings had been overturned in a single stroke.

And just as that first announcement had declared, his rank was entered at second — a combat ranking strictly for the case in which one brought every means at one's disposal to bear. Unlike the last time, though, the backlash now was the worst there had ever been.

The list was drastically different from the ranking chart Oz had drawn up and substantiated himself not long ago, and so the Transcendent Gallery had broken out into a full-blown debate.

But.

Existence None — Nirvakh, by the name he was known under. He, who had flinched at that ranking more sharply than anyone, no longer cared about anything so trivial as rank.

It was the commentary written beneath the ranking that was the problem. The opening, of course, was a widely known story. Nirvakh's tale was famous even outside the Void — the sort of thing anyone could write down just by opening the Pantheon Record. What followed, however, was another matter.

The rest of it left him, quite naturally, aghast. The gallery crowd only laughed it off, or cocked their heads at a detail or two; a handful of lines wasn't nearly enough for them to grasp what lay underneath. For the one it was about, it was not something he could laugh past.

"......How in the world does he know that? There's almost no one left who does."

"Well. Either Oz is in with the old folks, or he heard it from somewhere. Hearing it from someone doesn't really hold up, though."

"That's what I'm saying — I can't even get a read on it! There are barely any of the old generation left. Most of them have been forgotten outright. Their very existence is gone!"

"I didn't know Oz was on that level either. This one's scarier than I thought...... At that point she isn't just a big sister, she's the big sister. How many years has she even been alive?"

She let the last of it out on a nasal hum. Hnnn.

......She was ninth on the ranking, and her gallery name was Beyond the Boundary. Ephin.

"Now that I think about it — you went and exposed the bit where he took that beauty spirit fruit? Even I'd have lost it from the shame. You screwed up, snake boy. Simple as that."

"Ah, would you just get lost! I know, all right!"

"Okaaay~ I understaaand~"

Bleh—

She stuck out her tongue and vanished on the spot. Nirvakh glared after her with eyes that were, quite literally, a snake's. She had been scraping at his nerves since back in the gallery, and it was irritating beyond belief.

"......Ah. I am completely screwed."

He wanted to cry right then and there. His true body, of course, could not shed anything like tears. All he could do was hang his head in gloom and flick his tongue, over and over.

Who could have predicted it? The old generation — most of them already gone, fused into the laws themselves — and the one doing this a transcendent out of an age when even calling those records back to mind had been made forbidden. Was he supposed to count it a mercy that they hadn't come looking for him in person? A sudden private audience, or his own secret history spilling across the gallery: either one frightened him just the same.

"......Crazy bastard."

If there was any comfort in it, it was that he had caught on to that one's identity even now. Watching some fool puff himself up in the gallery, he shook his head. Keep that up and the bastard was going ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to die.

And it wasn't an empty guess. From only a few mentions, Oz seemed to have every true name in the gallery memorized. An old-generation being would already hold divinity on the level of a creator. With enough karma, merely speaking a true name was enough to erase an existence — and there was no chance an ancient god lacked karma, not one who had stayed alive all this time and quiet enough that no one could even begin to guess he was there.

"Did he actually die?"

Watching the fool fail to appear again after that, Nirvakh could not keep from trembling. It was the second most incomprehensible terror of his entire life......

"What's with this guy."

There's always one bastard who won't be convinced no matter how long you argue. In a case like that, you generally have three options: ignore him, grind it out to the bitter end on pure stubbornness, or prove that the messenger is an idiot.

The second one is impossible. I'm a four-star mage now — plus half a star — so my lifespan has stretched a good deal. Four or five hundred years, I could probably manage without much trouble. But these things, even the young ones, have lived on the scale of hundreds of thousands of years, and the average runs well into the hundreds of millions. Put me in a contest over who has more time and I lose, no question. If this one dug his heels in, the argument might genuinely drag on for months.

The first option doesn't appeal much either. My tier list, at the very least, has to keep being regarded as nearly flawless, the way it is now. That's what draws the interest, and that's how I can keep siphoning points the way I have been. It isn't at that level yet, but let the points pile up long enough and they'll become a fortune nobody can afford to ignore.

So what I chose was the third.

"Dead."

A nickname alone wasn't enough to identify him, so I started scrolling back through his posts. If he were someone with truly no footprint at all I'd have been in trouble — but getting into the Transcendent Gallery in the first place seemed to run on invites from acquaintances.

"......There you are, you bastard."

More often than not, I can pin them down. I put on a thin, cold smile and sent a private message at once.

"So we're playing dumb, are we?"

A stunt that wasn't even funny. He had to be wondering how I'd known. In truth, most of the transcendents on the gallery probably couldn't have identified him at all. I'm different, though.

......After that last message, he really did vanish.

"Mm-hm."

For the record, the part about knowing a thirteenth-generation hero was true. Naturally, I only know of them. They show up in the original.

With the Giyeol Hero dealt with, I went back to the gallery.

"Huh."

After a few rebuttals on the original post, a fair number of them seemed convinced. A handful of holdouts were still digging in.

"......They've got a case, at least."

Still, maybe because this really was the Transcendent Gallery, the counterarguments were proper ones. That trash-tier Giyeol Hero from a minute ago had argued with pure empty-headed stubbornness, same as the ordinary posters on the lower-realm galleries, which is why I'd handled him the way I did. Posts like these were worth answering with an actual argument.

And so the second phase of building the tier list began.

Discussion.