Fantastic World (4): I Don't Do Petty Glass Breaking! I'm Flipping the Table!

The rotating platform was overturned in one savage motion, spilling its horrors everywhere.

Equipped with my Thousand Fists, I clapped once. The shockwave shattered every surface in an instant.

The scream that summoned a vampire became nothing more than a toothless human house after I ripped every fang from its maw.

I seized the spinning column and hauled it back into place with raw strength.

I swung the entire boat like a club and smashed them all to pieces.

Boom. Crash. Crunch.

After that I blew up the bumper cars, the bicycles, and the monorail too. By the time I was finished, not a single attraction remained inside Divine Castle.

“...You collected every token. Aren’t you leaving?”

“Obviously not.”

I ignored the fed-up voice of Diablo and strode toward Magical Island. My amusement-park exploration tour was only getting started.

A clear laugh rang across the empty plain.

Diana Diabeluna felt a refreshing catharsis she hadn’t experienced in a long time, and the weight on her heart lifted. Even though her heart had been worn down to almost nothing, every time she became entangled with him it healed again. It wasn’t the only reason, but it was definitely one of the reasons she loved Helio. The only thing that could still stir emotion in her exhausted soul was always him. No matter how many times she had witnessed the scene, that truth never changed.

“Flooding Magical Island—what an outlandish method. Don’t you think?”

“......”

“And once again he succeeded in properly inferring the situation. There were a few parts he couldn’t grasp, but that’s inevitable since they lie outside his knowledge.”

“......”

“This world is an illusion created by stimulating memory. More precisely, it stimulates the concept of ‘a place to play.’ That’s why people usually recall locations from their childhood.”

“......”

“It’s a clever idea. Fear is maximized when a familiar, nostalgic space is invaded by something unreal.”

That was also why the evil god had deliberately imposed restrictions. To amplify the negative emotions it collected, it had intentionally removed overly cruel situations. The shock of realizing one’s own home is unsafe is far greater than suffering misfortune in a place that already feels ominous. If it had been a house, even Helio would have fallen for it.

“Funnily enough, the ‘place to play’ inside that man’s memories turned out to be a location from another world. It was neither familiar nor nostalgic, and because it was packed with accidents and ghost stories, it didn’t even feel fresh.”

The rules followed the same logic. By giving rules, it offered the illusion of safety if followed and the hope of escape. Then it flipped those expectations to harvest even greater despair. The environment, the rules—everything was structured so that only the creator profited. Truly the work of an evil god.

“But look. He’s physically destroying it all right now, isn’t he? I was right to choose this route after all.”

“.........”

Diana continued to chatter in a teasing tone. The evil god, however, remained silent.

“.........”

Because it no longer had a mouth.

The organ that had once been its vocal cords had been neatly sewn shut long ago. It was a perfect seal that could release neither words nor screams.

“Oh dear, my mistake. I already crushed it so you can’t answer.”

Her voice, dripping with malice, mocked the evil god with an apology she clearly did not mean.

“.........”

Even that was not enough to call humiliation. It was an evil god, after all. No matter how much of a remnant it had become, mere human malice was nothing more than a pleasant seasoning to it. Tracking the magical core through the mascot and observing the man had not been particularly surprising either. It was a remarkable ability, but among all the people who had come before, there had certainly been others with similar power.

‘How vexing.’

What truly unsettled the evil god was neither emotion nor ability.

“Your eyeballs are rolling around in their sockets, aren’t they?”

Diana smiled thinly, as if she had read its thoughts exactly. She knew what the evil god was curious about.

“Still, I have no obligation to explain it to you, do I?”

With those words she stabbed its remaining eyeballs and burst them as well. Now eyeless and mouthless, the creature was reduced to nothing more than a receiver that could only watch Helio. Holding the grotesque lump of flesh, Diana looked around.

“...I can’t show him something like this.”

It was a desolate place. The only living thing that breathed was her. Yet there were plenty of inanimate objects. After all, the chair she had been sitting on until a moment ago was a human corpse. Blood and corpses, corpses, and more corpses. The lifeless human remains stretched from one horizon to the other. A sinister sky thick with black smoke. It was the landscape of a common battlefield.

But what had startled the evil god was not the fact that the battlefield had become a playground, nor the puppet strings draped over it. It was what lay beyond.

“And you know what else? I’m a little disappointed.”

The repeating scenery. A sight that copied the same hell, the same battlefield, with only a single difference. And beyond that was yet another identical scene, and beyond that still another. An infinite repetition that was nevertheless never quite the same. A vast continuity like a clay animation in which each world served as a single frame. And the abnormality of regarding all of it as a playground. There lay a loop as countless as the grains of sand along the river Ganges.

“This is the story you began, isn’t it?”

With those final words, Diana returned to her observation.

“Ah, it looks like he found it.”

“Found it.”

At the center of Adventure World floated a crude, blood-red gem, humming with power. Even at a glance it was clearly the core of the magic. Instinct told me that destroying it would lead to true escape.

“Aaaah, what a shame.”

“...What is?”

The moment I arrived here, every memory came flooding back. About my companion, Diana. And about the evil god ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I had met before.

“Because I could have kept you here a little longer. You weren’t even that scared.”

“Even though your body has grown stronger, it was impossible to completely erase the instinctive fear I stimulated.”

“That is my role, after all.”

Only after recalling everything did I understand why Diana had said she was weakened beneath the academy.

‘Now I finally see you as an enemy.’

It had been suspicious from the start and its appearance was grotesque, but only now that my memories had fully returned did the option to treat it with complete hostility appear. That was the power of words and persuasion. It hadn’t told a single lie the entire time it led me here.

“Partner.”

“...What.”

Even in this situation I unconsciously answered the word “partner.”

“Be careful of that woman.”

“As if I’d obediently believe advice from an evil god.”

With a resounding crack I ignored Diablo’s words and shattered the magic core at once. Simply conversing with it was already a loss.

“Smart choice.”

Those were the last words I heard before my eyes opened.

I bolted upright.

“Diana?”

She lay unconscious beside me. It seemed she had fallen victim to the mental magic as well. In my hand I still clutched the Thousand Fists. Although I had only just woken, my body was in perfect condition. That was how I noticed it immediately.

“That thing…”

Beyond us, at the center of the seal, it waited.

The most ominous symbol—black emotion, the aggregate of malice, the left foot of a god.

“...Ugh.”

In a single glance, information flooded my mind and crushed my psyche. A higher being that exerted pressure merely by being seen and influenced its surroundings simply by existing. The absurd part was that I could sense it had grown weaker. And even weakened, its presence was still this overwhelming.

“.........”

I felt the eyeless lump of flesh recognize me.

“Hey there, partner.”

‘Crazy!’

There wasn’t even time to spit out a short curse. The single word “partner” had made me falter for the briefest instant, and in that gap an attack came flying.

“Hey, it’s me. You haven’t forgotten, right?”

“What the—”

I ground my teeth as the ground rumbled. It wasn’t carelessness, and I wasn’t taking the nonsense seriously. They were only words; I should have been able to ignore them.

“Don’t be so cold. You’re not getting angry over a little prank, are you?”

“Bullshit!”

‘I can’t ignore it!’

Even when it had no voice, its abnormal charisma forced me to focus on every syllable. The result was that, even in the middle of battle, I unconsciously tried to agree or refute. Like a child rebelling against a parent yet still shaped by every word, I was being toyed with by the evil god.

“That’s such a sad thing to say.”

And the enemy skillfully exploited that opening. Unfortunately, the evil ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠god was not an opponent that would end simply because its mental magic had been shattered.

With a metallic clang, it was time to fight once more.