We Made Up

"I'll take the third choice."

The other two parchments, everything but the third, curled away into pristine white flames.

They burn so nicely.

Past Lily looked at me with an expression of genuine surprise.

"I thought that option was meaningless... but this truly is unexpected."

"Believe me, I wanted to pick Divine Descent myself... but if I want everything I want, I don't exactly have a choice."

"Why not?"

Her expression turned inscrutable — the look of someone honestly asking for an answer. She may have been the one who offered me the choices, but even she couldn't know which one I'd take.

I spread the parchment open a little wider. Within it, a saintess was painted kneeling on the ground, a spear driven into the earth before her.

"With the first option, I defeat you and gain my 4th Advancement through the Path of the Spear. There's nothing bad in it for me. It's not as though I couldn't win."

"...Are you certain of that?"

"Yes."

I could win. No matter how strong she was, I had all the knowledge of everything that came after.

Past Lily's face soured slightly, and I went on with a smile.

"But... you'd never get what you want out of it. If you lost, things would surely turn for the worse."

"...And the second?"

"The second is Divine Descent. Had I not heard the third, I probably would have taken it."

It wasn't a quest that would jump me straight to 4th Advancement, but it was a technique that could upgrade my specs without any strings attached. Unlike the other two options, there was no additional mission to run — I could take it and use it on the spot. It was the option Past Lily herself hoped I'd pick, too.

"However."

"The purpose I came here for was never me."

It felt like the guest had stolen the host's seat, but I had come to this place for Pharaoh's body. Nothing more, nothing less — my only goal was to recover Pharaoh's body, whole and complete. That was why, back in the first era, I'd spent my time gathering information on Pharaoh and Serek.

But once Past Lily learned the truth and began moving down a different path entirely, Pharaoh himself got shoved to the back burner.

"This is Inom Ahjussi's dungeon — no, Pharaoh's. The most important thing has to come first."

I picked up the parchment.

The moment the white saintess inside it slowly opened her eyes, the pure-white room transformed in an instant, and we were back amid the desert ruins.

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A man lay quietly, eyes closed.

The one who had trespassed upon Pharaoh's body — the Forgotten Emperor.

"If Pharaoh is to have his body back in full, the impurity inside it has to be removed."

"...Even so, was salvation truly necessary? You, Senior, could certainly have excised him yourself."

It wasn't as though the Interference Gauge was blocking me. If I simply returned, I could remove him with my own power, no question.

And yet here I was, deliberately choosing the third path to save the Forgotten Emperor — a Celestial.

I turned my head.

"I told you, didn't I. That I'd fulfill everything I want."

"Why..."

"If I choose the third option, you go to Deoen. But since you won't have lost your power, you'll go with only your memories erased."

I couldn't be certain, but the three promises Past Lily received from the System were probably along these lines.

The first option: if you simply defeat me, you may go to Deoen with both your power and your memories intact.

The second option: you go, losing both your power and your memories.

The third option: you keep your power, but lose your memories.

'Which would make me, come to think of it, the fourth option.'

The one who loses her power but keeps every memory intact.

And Past Lily's second and third options carried a high probability of rebirth — not into her original body, but into a brand-new one.

After all, the System would never hand a complete reward to someone who hadn't even cleared the main quest.

Truthfully, if I were my original self, the third option could never have been chosen at all.

"......"

"You know how I am — I believe anything worth doing deserves proper compensation."

And you are more than worthy of being compensated.

"...The quest is not mine. It is the salvation of the Forgotten Emperor."

"To gain one thing, you have to give up another. And it's not as though none of this is my responsibility."

More than anything else—

This fool's incorrigible habit of sticking her nose into things hadn't been fixed even after decades.

Past Lily bowed her head. She hesitated over her words for a moment, then finally let out a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠long breath and nodded.

"...I will leave it to your choice."

"Good."

Divinity burst from my fingertips and wove itself into a dozen overlapping spell arrays. As though unshackling everything that had been restrained by the Interference Gauge all this time, the magic flew straight to its target and tore the Forgotten Emperor clean out of Pharaoh's body.

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The Forgotten Emperor hung suspended in midair.

Stripped of the flesh he'd stolen, he panicked at the sight of himself — then, catching sight of his own form, slowly began to beat his wings.

The wings he had craved his entire life.

The child who had at long last been granted wings became a single bird and vanished beyond the horizon.

"...What exactly did you do to him?"

"I gave him exactly what he wanted."

The ability to soar as high as he pleased.

I had gifted him the wings of a Celestial.

Dding!

At long last — the 4th Advancement.

Pristine white light of healing spread outward in waves.

A divinity so vast it felt dizzying filled the space, and from the ends of my shoulders a translucent fabric wove itself into being, draping down long and narrow like a mantle. The healing divinity unfurling at my back took the shape of pure white wings, and behind those wings, circle upon circle of white magic arrays stood guard over their master.

I drew in a deep breath.

"It's been a while."

An omnipotence I could feel with every fiber of my being. Divinity at this level was on par with one who wore a crown.

"Hm? This is a little different than I thought..."

"......"

"Maybe I can just feed the healing in reverse? It's a bit awkward, though. My divinity itself has been transmuted, so my techniques might not fire the way they used to—"

"As expected."

"?"

"There was a reason for everything, after all."

Swish.

My eyes, steeped in that vast divinity, turned back to Past Lily. She was staring at me with an expression of sheer astonishment.

"I would like to have a conversation with you."

"? We're having one right now."

"Alone. Just the two of us."

"Hmm..."

Was she asking me to end the stream?

Well, honestly, I was getting ready to head back myself anyway.

"I'll step away and have a quick chat."

She must have something she needs to say, so fine.

I turned the camera toward somewhere in Elbrit for a moment, then shut off my microphone.

That should let us talk.

With a light flick of my hand, I returned to the room where we'd first met. This time, I was the one to take a seat first.

"There's no one watching now, so speak freely."

"Got it."

"......"

She got comfortable fast, huh?

Screeeech—

Past Lily lowered herself into the chair across from me.

The situation had reversed itself, at last.

"There's so much I want to ask. I know I'll forget it all, but there were things I absolutely had to hear from you. You are my future, after all."

"Sure. Ask away."

Just as she said — this was the last time. I would answer everything.

"The moment I first learned of your existence, I couldn't understand you. If you'd truly returned to Earth, you should have ended the war between the two races. And yet you were... so unbearably weak."

"Fair point."

All the power I'd ground my bones to build, sealed away wholesale.

And then she'd tossed me twenty million won and washed her hands of me entirely. What on earth was I supposed to do with twenty million won?

'The moment I meet her, I'm caving her skull in with a hammer.'

"I'm grateful to you, you know. I was taking care of what the System never bothered to."

"...I am grateful."

"That's a relief."

I'd worried that going crooked had warped her whole worldview along with it.

"...It still doesn't make sense to me. To subdue those damned existences, you'd need godlike power — that would be the sane conclusion. And even without the power, you should at least have that kind of mindset."

"It's really not that simple."

There were so very many celestials and demons with the mental age of children.

Those I'd meet later... no, I suppose there'd be no meeting them now, but among the higher-ranked beings, more than a few were, frankly, literal children.

Especially the avatar of one of the Eight Seats that I'd run into back then. Good grief.

'Ugh.'

Truly, the more I thought about it, the more repulsive it became.

Hearing that, Past Lily's expression turned bizarre.

"...I really, really hate them."

"Same."

"Then just summon the Emperor back. I'll kill him myself."

"Where was this energy when I told you to let him go?"

A brief exchange of words.

Even if she was my past self, this conversation was oddly fascinating. She was, after all, a wholly separate being from me — born of a different set of events, grown into something else entirely.

Her fingertips were beginning to fade.

"...We're out of time. I had a mountain of questions."

"The System must be busy."

"Then, one last thing."

How on earth—

"How did the war end? Surely, at the very end, you reached it. You saw the 'End.'"

Lily Elbrit the Great, the one who ended the war between the two races.

What in the world could have happened to her?

"That..."

We made up, though?

"We made up. The two sides aren't fighting anymore."

"Huh?"

"Yep."

"Huh?"

We made up.

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"...What the fuck?"