Discussion (2)

In short, my tier list had never been perfectly airtight.

It was only an inference: if you took the novel's descriptions and the facts those descriptions had confirmed, then this was how things ought to stand. I had a fair amount of confidence that it came closer to the truth than anything else.

Which meant that, on the line of argument that boiled down to you're just guessing too, aren't you?, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had nothing further worth adding.

Every objection that doubted whether my claims and my evidence might be wrong sank with that. The tier list I had posted earlier on the Lower World's community was no different. It hadn't been trusted at first, and the reason it later came to wield this much influence was simple: the very people on the list could vouch for what I'd written.

And sure enough, this time too, one of the parties ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in question showed up on the spot and certified it.

"But what the hell is this one even ranked for."

The trouble was that the rest of it was so baffling I hardly knew what to do with it. They'd clearly tried to reason out my identity, and they had stepped, very neatly, on an entirely wrong foot.

The true body was probably Ephin of The Void. Just as the epithet The One Who Knocks suggested, he possessed the ability to reach every "entrance" that existed in the world. He had plenty of other peculiarities besides, but if you pared him down to the single largest trait, that was it. Rare among those born of The Void, his true form was not an Oddity. In the original he'd been written as quite the brain, and yet here he was saying things with a screw loose. Too much time spent with that serpent, maybe.

And so there was only one piece of advice I could give. They had lived tens of millions of times longer than my own life, yes—but I was someone who had combed through this world forty-two times. Lie down with ink and you turn black. I could hardly leave one perfectly sound transcendent to rot.

"Auuuugh—"

Once that last objection had been put down, I put on a proper stretch and pushed myself up. My body still wasn't right, but I'd recovered at least to the point where I could move.

"Five days, was it. Ha."

When I came back to myself, I had spent five solid days rotting on the gallery. I'd have to get used to it eventually, but it genuinely felt as if my sense of time had gone bad. Trade words with beings who live a day like a single second, and the world turns into a funhouse.

But the return was undeniable. Watching the total climb toward half a million, I couldn't help feeling pleased with myself.

"Mm. I'm the best, I s'pose."

Some transcendent had been trailing off with that s'pose—suppose— tic the whole time I'd been on the gallery, and a little of the habit had rubbed off on me.

Vooooom—

I checked the mana inside me once more. It was no longer four and a half stars. It was genuinely close to five. Incomplete, still, but a few days ought to see it stabilize.

"Once I step onto the Arcane Path, I can pick up the rest, too."

Nine stars.

The far end of conceptual magic, past systematic magic. Reach that, and then gain entry to the Arcane Path, and you truly join the ranks of the Lower World's strong. This planet, modeled on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Earth to begin with, was a thorough backwater even within its dimension and its galaxy. Grow just a little more, and I could come and go across it without a second thought.

"......I'll have to bring him in, won't I."

My goal, before I left this planet, was to take the protagonist. Not devour him, the way the Void aberrations did. His nature was gentle and honest from the root, a gem of talent among stones, and that meant I needed him on my side. He was already growing at a speed this world had never seen. Add my support, and he could become a powerhouse on an overwhelming scale—unlike me, who, even with the gallery in hand, would have a hard time aiming at anything above a middling transcendent. If I couldn't become the strongest, then I'd aim to be the strongest's adoptive father. That, most likely, was what would turn my life into a comfortable eternity.

"Hup. Guhhh—"

I came off the bed with some spirit, and a numb jolt shot through my lower back.

"Fuck."

Only after I'd gotten the curse out could I actually move. The mess strewn across the floor I tidied with telekinesis—though fine control of mana was out of the question, so what I actually did was cram it all into a sack. None of it mattered, so it was fine.

Once that much preparation was done, I picked up a ring from the table beside the bed.

"......This is a little much."

The reason a jade ring had appeared out of nowhere was, of course, the gallery. More precisely, it was the nonsense Existence None had set loose there. I was PositiveCutieSunbeamSexy... something. Anyway, once I'd come to be called by that grandiose title I could barely remember, the DMs had truly exploded.

Could beings who were transcendents possibly be simps?

To that question, I could answer: obviously yes.

Because, to begin with, there are hardly any women.

Even by the standards of the Lower World, the sex ratio among the gifted was badly broken. Below the Golden Elixir realm, below the arcane mages, below the Nature realm—draw the line around there, and it was roughly three to one. The higher the realm, the more the women dwindled, until at the moment of transcendence it was ten to one. And among the higher gods who actually appeared on an official list... sixty to one, sadly. Transcendents who truly kept a companion of a rank that matched their own basically did not exist.

Of course, some had bound themselves to a companion even when the levels didn't match. Those cases were rare as well, and if you cited a line from a transcendent who had been rather gentlemanly in the story, the reality came through clear enough.

Set aside the profoundly disgusted look the protagonist wore on hearing that answer. The reality being what it was, a reaction like this toward any female transcendent above a certain level was inevitable. And then one post drove the wedge all the way in.

......One crazy woman had burned seventy million years of her own karma just to find out whether I was married.

She herself had surely thought the cost came of my being some tremendous transcendent being. The truth was the exact opposite. This was a low-civilization planet of the Lower World, the sort that received the heaviest correction from causality, and so even an answer that simple had demanded that much effort. Anything greater than that, it seemed, she had been unable to learn. The backlash of the divination had laid her out sick, and in exchange she was elevated as the gallery's third-generation hero. It was still ongoing, so you could fairly call it the longest reign in the gallery's history.

"......Ahem."

And what did any of that have to do with this ring?

There had been a DM from one transcendent. A figure famous enough that even I knew the name. It opened with an exceedingly cautious preamble, and summarized, it was simply a love letter. At first I'd meant to ignore it. He was a little too grand a personage to block outright, and if I left the bulk of my DMs unopened as a matter of course, people would conclude I didn't look at DMs at all.

But then there was the line written at the very end, and the exchange link posted after it.

"Well. If someone's giving it to me, I can hardly not take it."

I shut my eyes and accepted the ring declaring its presence there. It was an item that had shown up several times even in the original. By Lower World standards it could be used with no risk at all, and it was extremely useful.

"......"

Of course, I wasn't exactly proud of how completely I'd folded to greed. It stung the conscience worse once I remembered that the ring's original owner had been something like that transcendent's grandniece. I felt like one of those old-game catfish who used to sweet-talk innocent boys while pretending to be a girl. But what was I supposed to do? Shame is a moment. Profit pays out for a long time. I decided there was no particular need to deny that I was PositiveCutie... whatever-it-was.