The Forest Where Spirits Dwell - 08
From nothing, a world is made.
The seas are made. The earth is made. Forests are made, and mountains, and deserts. And then humankind is made.
That is creation. The Goddess is a magnificent being who accomplished that very feat, and every soul born into this world comes into it already indebted to Her.
Of course, just because She had given them life did not mean they had to cling to their creator for every last thing. A minimum of respect was still in order, though, and that respect was what people called faith.
Some held that respect with deadly seriousness. In others, it had worn almost to nothing.
And now, in the middle of all that, the great spirit who lived in this shrine was telling us that the world had not been created by the Goddess at all.
It was a statement that demolished what had, until this very moment, been as good as common sense in this world.
Olivia and I could do nothing but sit there with our mouths hanging open, waiting for the Shrine Spirit to speak again.
"It simply was?"
"Ah — or is the order reversed? Maybe the Goddess was actually the first life born into a world the Evil God created, or something like that."
"An amusing hypothesis."
The Shrine Spirit smiled at Olivia's words.
"Then how was the world made?"
"I do not know."
"You don't know?"
"The Goddess would not know, nor would the Evil God, I expect. There is no one who knows. The world simply existed, and we were merely born into the world that already was. Every living creature in this world is the same."
The world had simply been there, and we had simply been born into it…
I found myself frowning at those words. The thought that crossed my mind was that if anyone said this in a place like the Great Cathedral, they wouldn't just get beaten — they'd be executed, and they'd have no grounds to complain.
"The Goddess, too."
"Is the Goddess included among all those living things?"
"Sharp. I am glad your understanding is so swift."
"What are you talking about?"
"It's simple, Olivia. The Goddess isn't an omnipotent deity. She's just a living being, the same as we are."
"Huh?"
"No. I put that too simply."
I let out a small breath.
"She's an overwhelmingly higher lifeform than we are."
She did not age. She did not hunger. She could create life. She possessed every power humans typically ascribed to a god — and yet she was not one.
"It is as you say. The Goddess did indeed create humankind, but she did not create the world. She is merely the first higher lifeform born into it. A being who possessed a self, who could speak, who could move her body, who could recognize the existence of others."
Neither of us spoke.
This was not a story you could take in lightly. Even this much, if it ever came to light, would cause considerable chaos. For all the arguments you could make, it was still the Goddess who bestowed the role of savior known as the Hero — and that meant her standing itself was at risk of being shaken. Maybe it wouldn't be. Then again, maybe it would. Either way, it was a terrifying thought.
"Then what about the Evil God?"
"In the same instant the Goddess was born, she felt someone who possessed the same power as herself. That someone was the Evil God."
"In the Book of Genesis, it was written that the first being born into the world the Goddess created was the Evil God. But the Goddess and the Evil God were twins, born at almost the same time — is that the right way to put it?"
"That is not wrong."
The Shrine Spirit let out a quiet sigh.
"At first, I am told, they recognized each other as family and lived together in harmony. But as time passed, they came to feel the loneliness of being the only two in this vast world."
In those days, there was nothing. Only the Goddess and the Evil God existed, and nothing else besides. Being the only two in a world of nothing would have been unbearably hard.
"And so they each sought to create life. Thus humankind was created by the Goddess, and monsters by the Evil God."
I see. The fact of that creation was widely known — but I had never imagined the reason was to soothe their loneliness.
The spirit had told the story briefly, but the time between the birth of the Goddess and the Evil God and the creation of humankind and monsters must have been considerably long. Decades. Centuries, even. It could well have been thousands of years.
To the Goddess and the Evil God, time was merely something that passed. They had no lifespan, and so there was no need to do today what could be done tomorrow. Nothing would go wrong if it waited for the future. And in the meantime, the years would have slipped by in a blink.
"The Goddess was overjoyed after that first act of creation. At last she was surrounded by a great many people she could speak with. They all praised her, and in answer to the hopes carried in that praise, she used power like a miracle to make the world a better place for them to live."
"She lived among humankind in pure joy…"
"So that's where our faith in the Goddess began, then?"
"And why is that?"
"Even if she isn't a true god — someone who created us, who does what we cannot, who teaches us, who shows us the path we should walk. That's what we usually call a god."
"I see."
"Yes. It is as you say. The Goddess was treated as a being no different from a god, and though it sat uncomfortably on her, she lived involving herself directly in their lives — as if, having created them, she bore a responsibility for them."
These days, there were people who weren't even sure she existed at all, so completely had she ceased to show herself. Only indirect evidence remained, like the Holy Sword or the World Tree. No one had ever witnessed the Goddess with their own eyes.
"Then came a certain day. The monsters created by the Evil God attacked humankind, and people began to die."
"The Goddess was startled, but she thought it some kind of mistake. The attacks continued, however, and she had no choice but to teach humans how to fight — or rather, how to protect themselves."
So she hadn't taught them how to fight before that. Well — if she had created them out of loneliness, they wouldn't have needed that kind of aggression. Being able to laugh and chatter together would have been enough.
"How to protect themselves? Not how to kill the enemy?"
The Shrine Spirit nodded at Olivia's question.
"Just so. The Goddess believed the Evil God had simply failed to manage them properly, and that if something was wrong, it could be resolved through conversation."
"She was far too trusting."
Olivia smiled, a little painfully, as if the words had called up something of her own past.
"Yes. But for all that, the Goddess and the Evil God were beings like twins, born in the same instant. To each other, they were family. So the Goddess believed, fully, that words would be enough."
"And in the meantime, humans were being hunted by monsters."
"That is so."
"I have a question…"
"What is it?"
"The Goddess and the Evil God have almost equal power, don't they? They're like twins born at the same time."
"They do."
"Then why is there such a huge difference between the humans and the monsters they each created? Humans are absurdly weak compared to monsters."
Coming from someone who tore through those same monsters like paper, it might not have been the most convincing argument — but she was right, in principle. A human who hadn't trained couldn't face a monster. The monsters, meanwhile, could kill a human with nothing but the raw power they were born with. It seemed the two races had been different from the moment they came into existence.
"Because their purposes were different."
"Their purposes?"
"Humankind is a race the Goddess created out of unbearable loneliness, built around affinity. Social bonds, communication — those were the faculties that developed. Monsters, however, were made for one purpose only: to fight, to kill, and to win. That their efficiency would differ was only natural."
"But why…"
"It's a simple story, Olivia. The Goddess created humankind to soothe her loneliness. The Evil God did not create monsters to soothe his."
"Just so."
I swallowed dryly. We were being told something more serious, and more outrageous, than I had expected. Was this really a story we ought to keep listening to?
But curiosity, mixed with a strange feeling of we've come this far — might as well hear the rest, kept me hanging on every word the Shrine Spirit spoke.
"Humankind was made for survival — to endure by any means. To be precise, this refers less to the survival of any single individual than to the survival of the species called 'humanity.' Monsters, on the other hand, were made for the law of the jungle: the weak are discarded, and only the strong remain."
"The Goddess went to the Evil God to speak with him. The Evil God could not understand her."
"I see."
"That the strong should rule the weak is only natural, and we made those weaker than ourselves for that very purpose — that is what he told her."
The law of the jungle, followed through to its absolute end. A being who believed that one followed only the strong, that strength alone was truth, that strength alone was justice. An ideology that seemed liable to breed fanatics.
Whatever the subject, something that overflows like that creates true believers, and there are those who would rather have that overflow than something halfhearted. Never once considering that the overflow — that poison — might one day come pouring down on their own heads.
"The Evil God instead asked the Goddess to stand with him. For all that had happened, it was not as though he felt no affection for her. He believed she was the only one equal to himself."
That contempt for the weak did not apply to the Goddess. She was a powerful being, born in the same instant as he was. But if she had been the sort of person to accept an offer like that, she would never have given birth to a humanity that did not even know how to hold a weapon.
"In the end, no compromise could be reached, and the Goddess was forced to choose. Her twin, the Evil God — or the creatures she herself had made."
"And she chose her creations."
"That is so."
The Shrine Spirit spoke with a sigh, as if the memory pained even a being like itself.