The Evil God's Gift (2)
Riiip, stick. Riiip, stick. Riiip, stick.
I stuck duct tape to the wall. Pulled it off. Stuck it back on. Pulled it off again. I stared blankly at the wall, repeating this meaningless action over and over.
...Meaningless action. Ha. As if anything I do isn't.
What was the point of being able to see all the secrets of Earth? I couldn't use that knowledge to change a single thing. A sudden impulse gripped me to rip the tape off entirely. If I did, this ancient colony would slowly decompress and collapse, and I would become nothing more than space debris, drifting endlessly through the moon's orbit or the deep void.
Amazingly, there was no difference between that hypothetical space junk and the current me. No one knew I existed. And I could change absolutely nothing.
Riiip, stick. Riiiiip, stick. Riiiiiiip...
Just as my self-destructive impulses were slowly reaching their peak—
Beep—!
An alarm blared. It was a signal that one of the event conditions I had pre-programmed into the observatory had been triggered. I scrambled to my feet and rushed to the console. Clutching Wilson, who had been sitting in front of the monitor, I stared at the screen with wide, frantic eyes.
"Please, please, please, please..." With trembling hands, I adjusted the observatory's controls, panning the camera. I focused and zoomed in. Clutching my pounding chest, I watched the screen.
Walking out of the gate, proudly wearing a modified black priestess robe that looked like a cosplay outfit, cradling an AK-47 in her arms... was a young girl with golden hair and ruby-red eyes.
"...!"
For a moment, the sheer rush of emotion choked the words right out of my throat. I wanted to scream, to jump for joy, but the overwhelming relief paralyzed me. All that escaped my tight throat was a hollow laugh and a breathless mutter.
"Ha... Hahaha. Yes. Yes... You didn't leave for good..."
The girl who could sense my gaze. My sole beacon of hope, reaching out to me across 380,000 kilometers of isolation. She had crossed back through the gate while I was briefly asleep, and I had feared she would never return. Yet, for some reason, she had reappeared—from an entirely different gate.
Last time was Africa, but this time it's Korea. Did she know the locations of the gates and travel between them? Or... wait, her necklace was glowing in the infrared spectrum. Could that be the reason?
A flurry of natural questions rushed into my mind. If she was going to return, why did she leave in the first place? How did she emerge from a different gate? Who was the old man accompanying her? But all these questions vanished before a sudden wave of anxiety. The reasons? The methods? None of those trivial details mattered. The only thing that mattered was that she could cross the gate again at any moment—and I had to do whatever it took to stop her.
Is there any way to win her over? I managed to guide her before. I need to give her something this time, too. But what? What on earth can I give her to make her stay?
My thoughts raced in a disorganized jumble. She seemed to know how to use a gun, so should I give her magazines? Looking closely, she only had a few left on her chest rig. But wait, is there even any 7.62mm ammunition nearby? Or maybe food? She seemed to enjoy that canned soup last time. In the recorded footage, I saw her packing away the cans. But this area has probably been completely picked clean by scavengers. My anxiety deepened.
I hadn't agonized this much over an anniversary gift for my very first girlfriend. No matter what I thought of, nothing felt right. A few minutes passed. Even as the girl clashed with a gang on screen, my internal debate raged on—until I finally heard Wilson's advice.
"A home? A home... Ah, the bunker! Right! There was that!"
Wilson's advice was spot-on once again. The moment I heard it, the perfect piece of real estate came to mind. It's a bit of a walk, but she can get there through the underground shopping district.
What I pictured was the location of a bunker built by a certain religious cult. During the Second Cold War, cults had cropped up like mushrooms, riding the wave of anxiety eating away at society. Most of them ended up as cheap, generic doomsday cults, but a few had secured funding from conglomerates to construct impressive facilities. The Church of the Second Coming of Christ in the Heavenly Haven was one of them.
They claimed that since God had promised never to judge the world by water again, He had chosen nuclear fire instead. Once the flames purified the earth, Christ would return. They declared their bunkers to be the arks of the new era. Of course, their marketing was nothing but cheap propaganda. The cult leader himself had been high on drugs, throwing a wild party, when he was vaporized into nuclear dust.
But regardless of the leader's demise, the ark they built remained. The bunker facility, constructed with the grand ambition of housing 144,000 people, was still perfectly intact even after all this time. Well, the actual life-support systems could probably only sustain a thousand people at best. But for just two, it's more than enough. Though, it does bother me a bit that some strange woman moved in a while back and was conducting experiments...
Still, that woman hadn't been seen for years. It was highly unlikely she would suddenly reappear. Aside from a few lingering traces of her experiments, it would make a perfect new home for the girl.
"Thanks, Wilson. That was a great idea." Having finally found my answer, I thanked Wilson and began manipulating the celestial observatory. The corners of Wilson's ketchup-painted mouth seemed to curl up slightly.
Seraphina walked through the estate, following the guidance of the Evil God. On the surface, the estate housed various facilities: living quarters, kitchens, a chapel, recreational areas, and even cultivation plots that had once served as fields. However, the gaze of the Evil God directed her further down.
A secret staircase was revealed behind a cleverly concealed door. She descended along the archaic path. Merlin cast a simple fire spell to light their way.
"Are you alright?"
"It is surprisingly easy to channel mana here. It feels as though someone has repeatedly artificially concentrated the mana density. A brief spell will pose no issue." Guided by the light at his fingertips, the two forged ahead through the darkness.
Descending the long staircase, they pushed past a half-melted iron door, and a whole new world unfolded before them. The first thing they saw was an auditorium large enough to hold hundreds of people. The chairs, filling the semi-circular space, all faced a single direction, and behind the pulpit loomed a massive mural. It depicted a god and a human reaching out to one another. Though worn and peeling under the weight of time, its grandeur remained intact.
Passing through the auditorium, they found a residential sector. Most rooms were structured to hold two bunk beds each, but a few were far more luxurious. The gaze of the god lingered on one of these lavish rooms. Seraphina stepped inside without hesitation. After a brief pause, Merlin followed.
Seraphina unpacked her belongings with practiced ease. She turned to the old man, a hint of pride in her voice. "What do you think? It is a rather decent place, is it not?"
"...Hmm. Indeed. I cannot say I am not surprised," Merlin murmured, a low groan escaping him. His mind was in utter turmoil.
When he had first spoken with the girl and she abruptly suggested crossing the gate, he had thought her mad. That belief had only solidified when she bombarded him with questions and spoke of a god existing beyond the gate. He had assumed she had lost her mind after gaining power far beyond her station. Does she truly believe a god resides in this world of monsters? he had lamented inwardly as he followed her.
Yet, her actions beyond the gate told a different story. She had navigated the underground tunnels, evading the Iron Masks as if guided by an unseen hand, and had led them straight to this facility... It forced the old mage to reconsider.
Could there truly be a constellation in a world like this? The 'God of Monsters' wasn't just a bard's tall tale?
Merlin's thoughts grew heavy. He was an enigmatic powerhouse who could summon lightning from his fingertips. He had crossed the gate simply to borrow the strength of a madwoman to save his dying village, but now he felt himself being dragged into something far larger than he had anticipated. If a constellation truly exists in this world, and this girl is its priestess... this is a matter that could shake the entire Continent.
The old man fell into deep contemplation. Merlin did not consider himself a good person. Though he had once served as a royal mage, his patriotism was average at best; he had no desire to sacrifice himself for his country. His morality was much the same. He had gathered the shunned beastmen and built a village for them, but that was merely a desperate attempt to leave some legacy behind in his fleeting life, not out of any noble crusade. In his youth, he had been cynical and debauched. Objectively, he was no saint. Yet, even with his meager patriotism and morality, he felt an instinctive aversion to entangling himself with a god from another world.
...Should I return to the Continent right now and report this? Merlin's mind wavered. But before his internal conflict could resolve, the girl suddenly sprang to her feet.
"Merlin. We must return to the entrance. I think something is here," Seraphina whispered urgently. Her eyes were already fixed on the far end of the corridor.
Clack. The girl gripped her terrifying weapon. Seeing the device that spat thunder and shredded goblins sent a shiver down Merlin's spine. ...Right. Now is not the time to worry about that. Recalling his primary objective, the old man stood up. He followed her, sprinting down the corridor back to the auditorium.
The moment they reached the auditorium, Seraphina ducked behind a row of seats. Merlin hastily threw himself down beside her. The situation was changing rapidly, without context. For an old man who could not perceive the gaze of a god, keeping up with her pace was incredibly difficult.
"Has something happened? So suddenly—"
"Shh."
But his question was cut short by a sharp hiss. The old man shut his mouth. He decided to watch and wait. They hid in the darkness, Merlin refraining from using even a spark of fire magic.
A moment later, the old man realized exactly what the girl had been waiting for. The warning the Evil God had conveyed to her was about to manifest in reality.
"Hey, you sure about this? The bastards who crippled our guy came in here?" A group of Iron Masks kicked open the auditorium doors and marched inside. There were five of them, carrying torch-like rods to light their way as they advanced aggressively.
"Yes! I saw them clearly! They had guns! A man and a woman!"
"Boss, can we really trust this punk's word?"
"Shut up if you don't know anything, you idiot. Out of all the kids we left by the gate, he's the only one who Awakened. He's got some weird vision that lets him see past events."
"There's a power like that? Man, what is this world coming to..."
"The world? It went to shit a long time ago. Fuck, more importantly, where did they get a gun? Didn't the Haninhae confiscate every firearm left in Korea? And it's not even a K2, it's an AK. Did they pick it up in some African jungle or something?"
The muffled, metallic voices characteristic of the Iron Masks echoed through the auditorium. Seraphina watched them with bated breath, biding her time. She would not repeat the same mistake she had made with Renatus. Suppressing her impatience, she waited for the signal.
"B-Boss. Are we sure we should be in here? Isn't this that place? The one where they say that crazy bitch who burns people alive lives?"
"What, you scared? Dumbass. That rumor is years old!"
"But you remember too, Boss! That crazy bitch in the red cloak burned several of our guys! Some of the dust in here is probably their ashes!"
"Enough. It doesn't matter. Do you have any idea how useful a single gun would be to us? Focus on that, you idiot."
Before long, the signal came. The gaze of the god flickered between the intruders and her weapon. It highlighted the positions of the five men, signaling her. A clear command of death. The thunder-spitting rod was aimed at the Iron Masks. The girl prepared instantly. Selector switch to full-auto. She took a breath, and pulled the trigger.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
A deafening roar erupted as thunder tore through the monsters. The mural was instantly painted red. Four of the five figures collapsed like puppets with their strings cut. Four out of five. Which meant one of them remained standing.
"...Shit. I was leading because I thought they'd come from the front. Who knew they'd jump out from the side?" the leading Iron Mask growled. Through his clothes, shredded by the storm of bullets, his skin was revealed. It gleamed with a smooth, metallic luster—a hide that had deflected the thunderous barrage.
"Well, I found you anyway. You motherfuckers."
Seraphina's eyes locked with those of the Iron Mask.