The Day I Feared Came Too Soon
The days you eagerly await always seem to arrive slowly, while the ones you pray will never come have a way of showing up in the blink of an eye. Following that particular law of the universe, the day I was to meet my mother arrived far too quickly. However, since the place where my mother lived wasn't somewhere one could visit easily, Armadu—who told me preparations would be necessary—summoned me to a remote plain.
As I walked there, a thousand different thoughts swirled through my mind. Why did she abandon me? What kind of person was my mother? Surely there must have been some reason for leaving me behind? What would she even say when she saw me? Would she apologize? Or would she thank me for growing up so well? I'd tried to ignore it all, but now that the moment was approaching, every random thought imaginable came flooding in. I was an Arhat who had already attained enlightenment—I should have shaken off such worldly worries long ago.
"Preparations are complete, Lord Werner."
The steel hedgehog Armadu was guiding me with a reverent attitude. Ever since our contract, he'd shrunk down to actual hedgehog size, which was honestly pretty cute. The path was rather lonely, so I decided to make some small talk.
"So, is there anything I should watch out for when I meet my mother?"
"As long as you observe basic courtesy, there shouldn't be any issues. She doesn't particularly care about etiquette or titles anyway. Among her Apostles, there are some who speak to her casually."
"Isn't that a bit too open-minded?"
It seemed like our mother didn't care one bit about dignity or any of that...
"By the way, did I ever spend any time with my mother when I was young?"
"There was a very brief period, yes. The Apostles mostly handled the childcare, though..."
So she was completely useless as a mother. It sounded more like she was just a roommate than a parent. As my strange feelings toward my mother continued to grow, we arrived at a spot where a suspicious magic circle had been drawn.
"We've arrived. Drawing the teleportation circle at the exact location designated by the Mother Goddess of Creation was quite a tedious task..."
Armadu looked quite exhausted from the effort of drawing the teleportation circle.
"You've worked hard. Is our mother the kind of boss who's a real pain to work for?"
"Yes, she can be a bit... No, that's not it! The Mother Goddess of Creation is a truly wonderful person!"
It looked exactly like the attitude one would have toward a dictator, but I decided to ignore it. After all, most gods were essentially dictators.
I stepped onto the teleportation circle, and mysterious, warm lights began to envelop my body. But the light was so blinding I couldn't keep my eyes open. After keeping them shut for what felt like a long time, the light that had been torturing my eyeballs through my eyelids finally disappeared.
When I cautiously opened my eyes, the weed-choked plain had vanished without a trace. A garden full of lilies spread out before me. White trees planted here and there were covered with crows perched on every branch. A scene of only black and white and trees... It was so much like a Go board that I nearly lost my mind. I didn't know who created this garden, but they certainly had unique taste.
From afar came the sound of something being pounded into pieces with a bat. I decided to follow it.
"One, focus! Two, unity!"
It was a clear voice that still carried a hint of girlish youth. Thwack! The sound of impact echoed from beyond the horizon.
"Focus!" Thwack! "Unity!"
Worried about what kind of merciless violence was taking place, I ran toward the noise. From a distance I began to make out someone's back, and the owner of that back spoke.
"Alright, my dear Apostles. Since my son is coming, we'll stop here for today. Be grateful and get lost. Oh, and to that slimy bastard in charge of the afterlife who ignored my call, tell him he's really dead meat."
By the time I got close enough to properly recognize the figure, all those so-called Apostles had disappeared without a trace. Standing there was a silver-haired girl with purple eyes. No matter how you looked at her, she appeared to be a very young girl, around thirteen to fifteen years old.
"Oh, you're here?"
"Ah, yes... Are you perhaps the..."
"Yep. I'm the goddess who rules this world... and the one who personally crafted your soul."
She stated the fact that she was my mom so casually, like it was a simple self-introduction. Moreover, her outfit was far from what you'd expect from a goddess. It looked way too comfortable. A white shirt with stains all over it and pajama pants... No matter how you saw it, it was more like something a neighborhood shut-in would wear than a goddess.
While my mother's attire looked peaceful and everyday, everything else was the complete opposite. First of all, she was holding an extremely long wooden bat that was over five meters long with nails driven into it. On top of that, the surrounding area was soaked in blood, turning the lilies a deep red.
"Um, those people you were hitting just now..."
"Ah, I hadn't beaten them in a while so they were getting lazy. I called them over to give them a good whacking. They're all slacking off and not doing their jobs properly. And that bastard I sent to manage the afterlife even dares to ignore my calls saying he's busy. Later I'm going to beat him to a pulp and ferment him into salted fish..."
Yeah, I had to admit it. This person was definitely my mother.
"What are you looking at me like that for? Got a problem?"
"No."
"Tsk."
My mother clicked her tongue and walked toward the mansion in the distance. Despite having much shorter strides than me, her pace was incredibly fast. By the time I'd taken about five steps, she had already entered the mansion.
When I followed my mother inside, a wide and splendid hall greeted me, along with an elegant old butler wearing a tailcoat who welcomed me.
"Welcome, young master. It's been a while. It brings back memories."
"You are..."
"I am Sebastian, the butler who serves our goddess and an Apostle who has inherited a portion of the Authority of Words."
What a butler-like name.
"Where did my moth... I mean, where did the goddess go?"
"She went up to the second floor after gathering some snacks and drinks."
"Even though I came, her attitude was quite cold... Now she's just ignoring me."
Well, I hadn't expected to be loved ever since I was abandoned, but it was still a bit disappointing.
"Hehehe... Please don't think too badly of her. The goddess is simply feeling shy."
"Shy?"
It was hard to believe someone who beat people with a bat over five meters long could feel such an emotion.
"The goddess always takes only three bags of snacks when she goes up... but today she took six bags. It must mean she wants to eat them together with you."
"Ah, I see. But... wait a moment, bags of snacks?"
As far as I knew, the snacks here were mostly things sold in stores.
"Yes, all sorts of items from various worlds flow in here. Of course, there are also game consoles and computers that you would know, young master. Internet connection works as well."
"That's impressive. To think such things exist here."
"The goddess has been absorbed in such hobbies for the past five hundred years or so and rarely goes out."
"So does that mean she usually just eats snacks while playing games in her room?"
Sebastian nodded with a smiling face. Then she was basically just a hikikomori.
Still smiling, Sebastian pointed to a room in the middle of the second floor. I had no choice. When he asked with such a smiling face, I couldn't exactly spit in it.
When I opened the door and entered... she was connected to a large TV with a game console, playing Super Smash Bros.
"Ah, fuck! Should I just kill all those fucking noob Hokari bastards for real?"
When a god says something like that, it doesn't sound like a joke at all... As she was munching on potato chips, she turned around, saw me, and threw a bag of Matdongsan at me.
"...You like these, right?"
For a moment, I was at a loss for words. It was Number Two Hundred who liked Matdongsan. Not Werner. That meant she had been watching everything—how I had lived on Earth after reincarnating.
"...You've been watching everything?"
"Yes, I've seen it all."
"Let's be frank. Why did you do that to me?"
"What do you mean?"
"You've been watching everything, so why... No, to begin with, why the hell did you abandon me?"
The words I'd tried to keep inside burst out.
"First of all, the reason I was only watching... I'm basically not the type to intervene directly. And the reason I abandoned you... Tsk, why should I have to explain it?"
Unable to control my anger, I smashed the game console she was holding and the TV it was connected to.
"You fucking bitch..."
"Why should I have to receive this kind of treatment from you?"
"What?"
"I gave you unprecedented talent in magic, and in your next life, I gave you martial talent that let you copy techniques just by seeing them once. What exactly did I not do for you?"
"Are you seriously saying that, you crazy bitch?"
I swung my fist at her. At the very least, I felt like I needed to smash that face of hers to feel better. But she grabbed my hand instead and threw me toward the wall.
"Ugh!"
"This is why I didn't want to meet... With this kind of power difference... I... You were so weak... and I was so strong... so I had no choice but to abandon you..."
"What are you even..."
"Don't act all high and mighty just because you were abandoned... I... That's enough. I have nothing more to say to you."
The goddess was crying. I was the victim here, so I didn't know why she was the one crying... but she was crying with a truly wronged expression.