Chapter 525
Chapter Title: Librarian of the Hero Record
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525.
“Lord Leo. Please, look at this. It’s a statue of Lord Kyle holding a sword that I carved with my own two hands. After the Age of Calamity ended, I diligently carved one every single year! I’ve been meticulously sculpting a statue of Lord Kyle annually. This one is Lord Kyle using magic! And this one here is him using summoning….”
The god brought over statues displayed on one of the bookshelves and showed them to Kyle.
The statues, carved from jewels, were so lifelike they seemed ready to move at any moment.
Leo picked up a red statue of Kyle, posed with a sword.
The corners of its mouth were turned up in a smile.
It was what Luna would call his ‘infuriating smile.’
“That’s the smile Lord Kyle wore when he annihilated his enemies! A charismatic smile that seemed to look down upon the entire world! Ah! Could you not grant me the opportunity to be graced by that smile as well?”
Squee-! Squee-! The god shrieked beside him.
At that reaction, Leo’s face contorted, and without hesitation, he threw the statue in his hand to the floor.
Crash-!
“My work of art!”
The god let out a shrill scream, scrambled over on all fours, and clutched the scattered fragments, fat tears welling in his eyes.
The despairing god then snapped his head up and shouted.
“Yes! Destruction is a new beginning! This act of destruction signifies Lord Kyle’s reincarnation as Lord Leo! These fragments themselves are meaningful!”
Crunch! Grind! Grind-
Leo stomped on the fragments, grinding them into dust against the floor.
The new beginning had been reduced to powder.
Seeing the god fall to his knees again, hands on the floor in despair, Leo spoke coldly.
“I know gods are a bored bunch, but why the hell would you make something like this?”
“My work efficiency goes up when I make these.”
“Work?”
“My apologies, I’ve been late with my introduction.”
The god stood up, looked at Leo, and bowed politely.
“My name is Rian. I am the librarian of the Hero Record, and I am responsible for its chronicles.”
“Librarian and chronicler? Does that mean you have authority over the Hero Record?”
“To be precise, it’s delegated authority. This record system is yours… no, more accurately, it belongs to the Great Heroes.”
“I see. Is that how Luna was able to record Lunia in the Hero Record?”
“Luna? Has Luna Rubinance also been reincarnated in this era?”
Rian’s eyes widened.
An uncontrollable excitement filled them.
“She stayed in this world for a short while recently as a heroic spirit.”
“Ah.”
Rian let out a sigh of disappointment.
“Judging by your reaction, you seem to be aware that you are the master of the Hero Record.”
“I met Pibua in the World of Heroes once before.”
“Pibua? I see.”
Rian nodded as if he understood.
Looking at Rian, Leo asked.
“By the way, wasn’t it because of the incident 5,000 years ago that gods could no longer remain on the surface?”
“Yes, gods can no longer come to the surface.”
“Then how are you on the surface? If you’ve been managing the Hero Record, you must have been here for 5,000 years, right?”
“Yes, the reason I can exist on the surface is thanks to the Hero Record.”
“Thanks to the Hero Record?”
“Yes. To explain the reason, I believe I must first explain how the Hero Record came to be.”
Rian clapped his hands lightly.
Suddenly, a chair and table popped into existence.
An ordinary mage might have been astonished by the phenomenon.
It wasn't a simple matter of summoning the chair and table from a subspace.
It was as if they had been there all along.
He hadn't intervened with or twisted the laws of space; he had simply changed them.
It was a phenomenon that could never be replicated with magic.
But Leo was unfazed.
‘This being is an omnipotent god, after all.’
Of course, gods couldn't properly use their omnipotence on the surface.
Their role was, for all intents and purposes, that of administrators, or more accurately, observers.
Their administration was limited to maintaining the world to prevent its destruction.
In other words, they had been suppressing Erebos.
Beyond that, they were restricted from exercising their power on the surface.
Thus, gods were both omnipotent and incompetent.
Furthermore, having lived for eons, they had a strong desire to simply satisfy their own wants.
This was why Luna distrusted gods.
‘Benevolent gods like Pibua are extremely rare.’
Leo glanced at Rian.
‘This god is crazy, too, but at least he seems to be a slightly more refined kind of crazy. If I had to classify him, he’d be a benevolent god, I suppose.’
A benevolent god.
Meaning, a good god.
Of course, it wasn't that other gods brought harm to the world.
At most, they would cause some trouble on the surface and play pranks.
‘Well, since they’re gods, the scale of it is a real headache.’
There were also some who were disgustingly insane.
One only had to look at the heroes recorded in the Hero Record to see that.
He might not seem sane, but Leo knew that a god like Rian was quite benign.
“A long, long time ago, there was the Primeval Abomination and the five Great Heroes.”
Rian put puppets shaped like the Great Heroes on the five fingertips of his left hand and a puppet of Erebos on his right.
“The abomination roared. Raaawr!”
“…”
Rian, who had started a puppet show, began his clumsy performance with an endlessly serious face.
Watching him, Leo muttered inwardly.
‘Correction, he seems disgustingly insane.’
“But the abomination was defeated by the Great Heroes.”
Rian moved his left fingers elegantly, tapping them repeatedly against his right hand.
“How long do I have to watch this ridiculous play?”
“Just a little longer, please. This is my favorite part.”
Rian, who had been relentlessly striking the Erebos puppet with the Great Hero puppets, then grabbed the Erebos puppet with his left hand and viciously ripped it to shreds—rip, rip—before tossing the pieces into the air.
The black cloth scraps soared into the sky before falling back down.
“Wasn’t that cool?”
Leo gave a lukewarm reply to the fanatic, whose eyes were sparkling.
“Sure.”
“Eee~”
After cupping his cheeks in delight, Rian’s expression suddenly changed, and he spoke again.
“And so, peace came to the world. The gods, in order to praise the achievements of the Great Heroes who had accomplished an impossible feat for all eternity, and also to prepare for the return of the abomination, which was not yet completely finished, decided to create a completely new record system.”
“A completely new record system?”
“Yes.”
Rian spread his arms wide.
“The Akasha Record. A record system that chronicles the world itself. It is a system completed by all the gods who returned to the divine realm, pooling their omnipotence. This library is the Akasha Record itself. A copy of this library also exists in the divine realm.”
“What does it mean to chronicle the world, exactly?”
Rian grinned at Leo’s question.
“It means to record every single event in the world exactly as it happened, starting from 5,000 years ago. From the tiny movements of insects in a specific place to the kind of gentle breeze that blew in that location… It was a massive collection of information that even the gods couldn't handle. Long ago, the one who created the world and entrusted its management to us… even the creator, whom not even the gods have met, surely could not have predicted that such a thing would be made.”
“I get that it’s amazing. But what was the reason for creating such a system?”
“Because what the gods sought to create was the ‘world’ itself.”
“The world itself?”
“Yes. To create the world, albeit in a limited capacity. To reach the authority of creation, even if only in fragments.”
Rian closed his eyes and smiled blissfully.
“To manifest past events in the current timeline as if they were ‘real.’”
At those words, the color drained from Leo’s face.
“The World of Heroes.”
“That’s right! All of this was the groundwork for creating the Hero Record. The Akasha Record is essentially the foundational system upon which the Hero Record is built.”
Rian placed a hand over his chest.
“From the individuals recorded in the Akasha Record, we selected those worthy of being called ‘heroes’ and recorded them in the Hero Record. This was so the children of the surface could follow the records of the past and inherit the powers of the heroes who came before them. However, the Hero Record required a selection process, and there was no one who could make records in it. It also needed a source of power to constitute the Hero Record itself.”
“And that was you?”
“Yes. I am the librarian of the Hero Record, and also a part of it.”
“You’re saying you sacrificed yourself? Is there any value for a being like a god to sacrifice their own existence to become part of the Hero Record?”
“For other gods, there wouldn’t be. I was the only one who volunteered.”
“Why?”
“…”
Rian opened his gray eyes and looked up at Kyle.
“I used to hate the color gray. It's the color of useless ash, of things burnt away.”
Rian fiddled with his own hair.
“So I hated you, too. No, to be precise, I scoffed at you. First, I disliked you for your gray hair and eyes. And I thought you, living as if you couldn't die yet wanting for nothing, were truly transient. That’s why, during the Age of Calamity, I was certain the world would end. All the gods felt that way, but… I was more on the side of scoffing. But for all my giving up, I didn't want to be extinguished either.”
The annihilation of the world also meant the annihilation of the gods.
“But you never gave up and saved the world in the end. I had no choice but to revere you.”
Rian smiled brightly.
“That is why I wished for your will to be passed down to future generations for all eternity. Having already given up on everything, I had no reason to cherish my own existence.”
“Anyone with my kind of power would have done the same.”
Rian shook his head.
“Do not belittle the great deed that even the omniscient gods deemed impossible. Do not belittle the faith of your comrades who believed in you until the very end.”
Rian looked straight at Leo with his gray eyes.
“It was possible only because it was you. This is an absolute, immutable truth.”
“…”
Leo scratched his cheek.
‘A god is a god, I guess.’
Muttering inwardly that he shouldn’t be taken lightly, Leo asked.
“Did you know about my existence from the moment I was reincarnated?”
“No. Because of that damn abomination, the Akasha Record was also damaged. It’s been malfunctioning. Also, the Akasha Record is so vast that not even the gods know all of its records.”
Rian shook his head from side to side.
“Besides, they’re all hell-bent on recording their own favored heroes in the Hero Record. That’s why your discovery was delayed.”
“Aren’t you the one who makes the records?”
“Yes. But since I can't keep track of all the heroes myself, the gods hold regular meetings to select heroes to be recorded. But as you know, Lord Leo, that bunch of gods is hopeless, aren’t they?”
Rian’s face soured.
“Through those meetings, even those who are nothing like heroes end up being recorded.”
Annoyance flashed across his face.
“Why did you send the Heroes of Genesis outside?”
“Ah, that was an attempt to open a Hero Dungeon to get you to come to this place after I became aware of your existence… but it went berserk because of the abomination, and the puppets created by my power ended up going out into the world.”
“Omnipotent yet incompetent, indeed.”
“Ah!”
“Why are you so happy? That wasn’t a compliment.”
“From you, Lord Leo, I would gladly accept even an insult. No, if you were to spit—no, bestow your holy water upon me, I would gladly receive it!”
“…”
“Lord Leo, this hair! After I began to worship you, I plucked out all my original hair and implanted this new set! The same goes for my eyes! I gouged them out and put in new ones! Ah! Now that you have red eyes, I suppose I should pluck one of mine out too! Which one should I pluck! The left? The right?”
‘He’s just disgustingly insane.’
His improving impression of Rian plummeted back to rock bottom.
Leo clicked his tongue and said.
“If you’ve been recording the Hero Record, let me ask you one thing.”
“Yes. Your command is my will.”
“About Berkia and Vihar.”
“So you know about them.”
Rian let out a sorrowful sigh.
“You may find this unsettling.”
“Correcting what went wrong is also a master’s duty.”
“Then…”
Rian closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“I shall begin by telling you why the Fairy Knight became what she is.”