The Future Devoured by Despair
First, let me ask upfront. How much Faith is this going to consume?
[ 100,000. ]
Which meant, in effect, that I would have to pour out every last drop of the Faith I possessed.
Why does it demand so much? It's nearly three times the cost compared to the Divine Instruments before it.
[ The Akashic Records are a transcendent something in which every event in the world is inscribed. Put that way, it sounds like fatalism or determinism, but the concept is closer to an extreme extension of predicting future events through the past, and as such it possesses variability. ]
If you keep talking in circles like that, I'm never going to understand.
[ The Akashic Records consume this much Faith because they can absorb changes born of observation. To put it more simply: the act of observation itself through the Akashic Records is not counted as a variable. Under pure fatalism or determinism, the unfolding future would include the very act of observing it, and any struggle by the user would be utterly meaningless. ]
"……"
[ Furthermore, the Akashic Records reveal only the outcome. The process by which that outcome was reached cannot be observed. ]
This, then, was another crossroads of choice.
If the future I observed turned out to be a positive one, then the very act of witnessing it might mean that I, moving on the basis of what I'd seen, would instead bring about a negative future.
But what if it was the opposite?
No — it was precisely because of that opposite variable that I was hesitating over whether to refine the Akashic Records at all.
If the observed future were a negative one, then I could set in motion every possibility of changing it.
Of course, what could be observed was only the final result.
Once a particular future was shown, no search through the process behind it was permitted — no tracing why that future had unfolded.
Still, a single scene of the future. Just knowing that much…… wouldn't that be worth enough?
Roughly two years remained until the Demon World Tree reached full bloom, and if I gathered Faith diligently in the meantime, I could refine at least two more Divine Instruments.
And so I made my decision: the Akashic Records would be added to the roster of Divine Instruments.
[ Assembling consonants and vowels. ]
[ Combination successful! ]
[ Adding Akashic Records to the Divine Instruments roster. ]
[ Refinement — Divine Instrument ]
[ Akashic Records ( 0/100,000 ) — UNAVAILABLE ]
I will pay all the Faith required to refine the Akashic Records.
[ The Akashic Records have reached 100% refinement. ]
[ The Akashic Records can now be refined. ]
"Refine."
The instant I read the System's notification, I summoned the Akashic Records before my eyes without a moment's delay.
At once the scenery around me began to shift, revealing a vista like some vast library — shelf after shelf, lined end to end with books.
It bore a striking resemblance to the separated form of my past life's memories, so my surprise was limited.
[ Please state the conditions of the future you wish to observe. ]
There was only one future worth observing.
The moment the fully bloomed Demon World Tree brought about the final reckoning with the resurrected army of the Demon King.
The instant I fixed that future in my mind, a blue book was drawn from a shelf perched at a dizzying height, dropped down before me, and fell open of its own accord.
[ Initiating connection to the Akashic Records. ]
My consciousness drifted drowsily away, an unfamiliar sensation of being pulled somewhere else entirely.
When that sensation finally ended, I was at last able to perceive my surroundings — and I knew immediately that this was the imperial capital.
But that wasn't what mattered.
The moment I witnessed the scene laid bare before my eyes, I knew my judgment had not been wrong.
……
A blow that had fallen in a straight line, as if crushing the very walls of the capital in a single stroke — the aftermath was overwhelming.
It seemed that this version of me had refined the Yeui Geumgo Bong and used it.
The land scorched ceaselessly beneath it, leaving afterfire that seemed intent on searing everything down to the skin — could that be the Astra of Agni, god of fire?
Yet all of it was rendered meaningless by the sight before me: the me of that future was being toyed with in the Demon King's hand, dying.
Using a Divine Instrument directly meant, after all, that there was no longer any word left to speak.
Did the me in this place simply never find the manner of death the Demon King had chosen?
Setting the question aside, I kept watching. The Demon King, finding my future self's body knitting itself back together through the broken scabbard of Excalibur, let out a grotesque chuckle of amusement as he seized and tore off my limbs, one by one.
Frankly speaking, watching my own death like this did not feel good.
It was enough to turn my stomach.
But even a scrap of information might prove useful, and so I continued to observe my own end.
Before long, the future me — every limb ripped away — flopped down onto the ground, and as the Demon King opened his mouth to say something, nothing reached my ears.
The Demon King's army reaching the capital itself — that would mean it was the last stand, wouldn't it.
Still, perhaps the First Emperor's account hadn't been entirely wrong — I could find nothing remarkable about any special ability the Demon King possessed.
But then…… something's off.
A future observed through the Akashic Records did not unfold including the act of observation itself.
That variable was excluded.
In other words, it meant that I — moving purely on the basis of what the Akashic Records had shown me — had arrived at this outcome.
From this scene alone, there's nothing I can learn……
At last, the Demon King pierced my heart with his own hand, then walked slowly, deliberately, toward the inner keep.
Inside, evacuated citizens trembled in terror, and there — a platinum-blonde woman grown more mature than I remembered her — Aria, casting her magic.
End it.
I didn't want to see what came next.
End it!
The Demon King emerged unscathed from the wake of her cast spell, then in a single heartbeat dug his heel in and shot forward——
He appeared before Aria, and with one blow crushed her skull.
Brains scattering in a spray of gore.
Her frail body toppling below the castle walls.
And then, the indiscriminate slaughter of every survivor within those walls.
Lapis was nowhere to be seen — perhaps she had already died.
[ Terminating connection to the Akashic Records. ]
[ The Akashic Records have been consumed and vanish from the Divine Instruments roster. ]
"Ghk—!"
My own death, uncomfortable as it was, was something I could accept.
But the moment I witnessed Aria's horrific end, I could no longer hold down the surge in my throat and emptied my stomach, thoroughly and completely.
"Y-Your Highness!"
At once, without so much as a knock, the butler came bursting in, pale as death, and hurriedly directed the maids.
Having already observed a hopeless defeat, whatever future awaited the me who now moved on the basis of what I'd seen would surely differ drastically from what I had witnessed——
But whether it would be another picture of defeat,
or whether I would truly overcome it and grasp victory, I could not know.
At the very least……
There could be only one reason I had lost in the observed future.
I must have failed to uncover the single method of death the Demon King had chosen for himself.
In that moment, I understood with a bone-deep ache just how disadvantageous a position I — no, all of humanity — stood in.
If anything, I could only marvel at the First Emperor, who had begun from a truly blank page and won his war.
And yet, even after claiming that miraculous victory, a quiet bitterness crept over me at his judgment — that he had failed to root out the seed of calamity completely.
If things had come to this, then the remaining word slots should be spent not on supplementing my combat power, but on uncovering the manner of death the Demon King would choose of his own accord.
In theory, no matter how superb the Demon King's physical capabilities were, with the combination of Fairness and Physical Immunity, I would never find myself lacking.
Haah……
The truth was, I didn't know.
My head was a tangled mess.
No matter how desperately I reached for the best possible response, everything that came to mind left me unsatisfied.
And that ceaseless anxiety, born of dissatisfaction, wound itself around me, gnawing my confidence ruthlessly away.
"Did you eat something bad?"
"……"
But when that familiar voice drifted in, gently soothing my anxious heart, I wiped my mouth and steadied my reeling body.
I lifted my head — and there she stood. Aria, less mature than the woman I had seen in that future.
The instant I saw her, I moved on reflex, stepping forward to trace her cheek with trembling fingers.
Aria froze for a moment, flustered by my behavior — but when she saw the tears sliding down my own face, the hand she'd half-raised sank quietly back down.
"Did you have a nightmare?"
"……"
A nightmare?
Yes. If that was what a nightmare was, then call it a nightmare.
The cruelest sight in all the world.
A future steeped in the most dreadful ending the world could hold……