Chapter 7: The Shape of the Apocalypse
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 7: The Shape of the Apocalypse
Ⓐ Invincible Sashimi: No, seriously, what is your relationship with Lord Heavenly Sword?!
Ⓢ Saint_Ryu: Heh heh. Are you envious, mere mortal?
Ⓐ Heavenly Sword Love: I'm so jealous I'm going crazy. Going crazy. Going crazy. Going crazy. Going crazy. Going crazy. Going crazy. Going crazy. Going crazy. Going crazy(...)
Ⓐ Zljon Geomje: Why... you......?
Ⓑ Ddatdattjwi: ...Hmm...... Heavenly Sword. Is he really all that......?
Ⓐ Heavenly Sword Love: Do you want to fucking die? This ungrateful bastard doesn't know grace when he sees it.
Ⓐ Heavenly Sword Love: If I really got going on praising Lord Heavenly Sword, I could easily pull off a non-stop filibuster for a week.
Ⓑ Ddatdattjwi: No, but why are you simping over him so hard?
Ⓐ Heavenly Sword Love: Because he saved the world.
Ⓑ Ddatdattjwi: ...
Ⓐ Heavenly Sword Love: Can't refute that, can ya?
Ding!
Ⓐ Invincible Sashimi: Fuck. That's not what's important, you boomers!!!
Ⓒ Rai Young: Who are you calling boomers?
Ⓐ Invincible Sashimi: Anyone playing this game is an old geezer.
Ⓐ Invincible Sashimi: Anyway! Saint Ryu, where the hell did this punk go?
Ⓐ Invincible Sashimi: Hey!!!
-Ding.
Ⓢ Saint_Ryu: (Carrot Emoticon x2)
[Saint_Ryu has logged out.]
Ⓐ Invincible Sashimi: ?
Ⓑ Ddatdattjwi: ?????
Ⓐ Heavenly Sword Love: ???
* * *
A cult that worships the Outer God. True to its name, Bishop Welter of the Outer God Church—a mere priest ten years ago—was currently groaning in distress.
The reason for Welter's agony was...
"Saintess."
...entirely because of Yoo Se-in.
His role in the church was to assist Yoo Se-in. Thus, he was staying long-term in the far-off nation of South Korea, living under the same roof as her.
The days passed slowly, imperceptibly.
It had been a hellish time. Welter felt his insides rotting away. His daily routine consisted of praying constantly to the Outer God to erase the lingering doubts in his faith.
‘Ah, Outer God. Did you not promise to give us only trials we could handle? Why are you being so harsh to me?’
How many nights had he spent weeping?
He had reached the limit of his patience.
Unable to take it any longer, Welter finally spoke up.
"Could you please stop playing games?"
"Just after this one."
She wasn't listening to a single word.
‘Lately, she's so obsessed with VR games that she's completely neglecting reality.’
His worry was immense.
Setting aside the damage to her image as a Saintess, he was deeply concerned for her health.
No matter how fun games were, this was too much.
Se-in took it far too far. She was completely absorbed in gaming, refusing even to eat or drink.
"Then at least eat while you play."
You're literally going to ascend to heaven at this rate, Saintess.
"I ate chicken earlier."
Light flickered on the light-blocking goggles Se-in was wearing.
"...There are no chicken boxes, though?"
"I ate it in PXXBG."
"……."
"Can you save all your nagging for later? It's time for me to play the new release that just came out."
Welter let out a deep, heavy sigh that seemed to sink into the floor.
Let's give up. She wasn't the type of person who would listen anyway.
Besides, if he stopped the Saintess himself, it would violate the doctrines of the Outer God Church. The Saintess was inviolable. Leaving her alone was the best course of action.
Clatter.
A plastic bottle rolled and tapped against his toe. His gaze dropped to it after a moment.
‘Chanting Water.’
Welter felt a deep wave of existential dread. He decided to clean up while Se-in was distracted.
"Giggle."
"……."
"Heavenly Sword Love, if you're gonna play the game like that, just quit."
"……."
"Oh, yeah yeah. It's me, bro~"
Only after quite some time had passed did the cleaning finally end. Welter stepped outside carrying an armful of trash bags.
‘To think that a bishop like me is acting as the Saintess's servant.’
As he was sorting the recycling with a bitter smile, a distinctly unusual presence registered in his perception.
Welter snapped his head around. A man, with one hand shoved in his pocket, gave a brief wave.
"Y-You are......!"
"It's been a while, Bishop."
The bishop's eyes welled up with tears. His grip tightened, crushing the plastic bottle in his hand. He felt as if he had just met a savior.
"Save me!"
Since it was the Outer God Church, the phrasing was ironically appropriate.
* * *
As soon as Welter saw me, he balled his eyes out. A man over thirty was sobbing so sorrowfully, goodness knows what grievance he'd been holding in.
"Lord Heavenly Sword, sob. I'm just so..."
"Calm down. People are staring."
"I-I've reached my limit...!"
"I get it. I get it, so..."
I roughly managed to calm him down.
After soothing Welter and telling him to rest at a nearby cafe, I walked straight into Yoo Se-in's house.
The living room was far too pleasant and spacious to be called a recluse's den. The view alone was enough to make one breathe a sigh of relief.
Which is to say, this place was completely wasted on her.
"……."
"I told you, that's not how you do it. If you're a scrub, just quit the game. Don't be a nuisance to others."
Yoo Se-in was puttering around in the middle of it, wearing a full VR set, putting on a whole performance. She was so focused she didn't even notice my presence.
Even when I stepped right up to her, it was the same. Yoo Se-in was talking trash to thin air. Judging by eye, she seemed to be playing an FPS game.
‘A Saintess playing shooting games.’
She really does it all. No wonder Welter was weeping.
The public must never see this. I could already hear the sound of her glorious reputation as a Saintess evaporating into thin air.
"Hey."
I placed a light hand on her shoulder. At that, Se-in snapped irritably and ripped her goggles off.
"I told you I'd eat later!"
Se-in's face went pale.
Her eyes—pitch-black eyes just like mine—reflected my stern, heavily scowling face.
A few minutes later.
"So..."
Yoo Se-in muttered, rubbing a lump that had grown near the crown of her head. It was a gift I gave her to celebrate our family reunion after so long.
For the record, our cover story of being distant relatives was still in place.
I am a possessor.
Yoo Se-in is a reincarnator.
Since we couldn't clearly explain this to those around us, we agreed to just go with this flow. Even if we hadn't sat down to explicitly discuss it, that was our implicit agreement.
Ryozo and Abel didn't doubt our relationship in the slightest. In fact, they tried their hardest to make a good impression on Yoo Se-in. They were the ones who got her this house, too.
Thanks to that, the power dynamic between possessor and reincarnator was set in stone. I was the one in power; Yoo Se-in was the subordinate.
Without me, Yoo Se-in would end up on the streets... well, maybe not quite that, but she wouldn't be enjoying this luxurious lifestyle. She'd probably be dragged back to the Outer God Church.
"So you came all the way here just because you had a bad dream?"
"Don't simplify it like that. Would I have come if it was just a bad dream? It appeared in the form of a status window, just like the messages the Outer God threw at me before. And it happened twice."
To clarify a point.
The Outer God and the G.M are the same entity. The God of Sword was a piece of flesh ripped off from the Outer God to eliminate the false gods.
And the mixture of those three entities is me.
Feeling dizzy? Me too. Just roughly think of it as me from different timelines.
"What exactly did it say?"
I recited it to Yoo Se-in word for word.
[Achieve the perfection of the world.]
[You must abandon 'Humanity.']
[It is an impurity unneeded for perfection.]
[In case of non-compliance, the Counterforce will directly intervene.]
[This is an inevitable, predetermined causality.]
"Hmm......"
"Got any ideas?"
"I have plenty of guesses. But the word 'perfection' stands out to me in particular."
Now an adult, Yoo Se-in had graduated from her shorthand, blunt speech style. There wasn't any special reason; she was just tired of it.
"What about it?"
Yoo Se-in knitted her brows slightly and turned the question back to me.
"Geomma, what do you think the concept of 'perfection' is?"
"Flawless? Without defect? Something like that."
Yoo Se-in gave a heavy nod.
"Being without defect means having zero blemishes. So what is a blemish? From the universe's perspective, even a sun could be a blemish, or galaxies and star clusters. Let alone humans?"
"Don't tell me... is it trying to purge humanity entirely on a cosmic scale...?"
This time she shook her head side to side.
"You said that voice of the universe told you to relinquish your 'humanity.' So from the perspective of the universe—or the Counterforce—the entire human species and your 'humanity,' Geomma, are considered an equal trade-off."
"So you're saying I have to stop being human?"
What am I, an ultimate lifeform?
"Geomma, this isn't a problem that ends just because you stop being human. In my opinion..."
Yoo Se-in let her words trail off.
It was the first time I'd seen her so serious. She had remained pretty nonchalant even when the world was driven to the brink of destruction.
"They want to castrate your humanity, and then use your power to rewrite the universe. To reset it back to primordial times."
She added, almost like a groan.
"What?"
"Let me ask you while we're at it—you haven't been able to use the Blessing of the Sword God at all lately, right?"
"Yeah."
I had long been freed from the pain caused by the blessing.
However, I restricted my use of my abilities to the active duration of the Divine Blessing of Painlessness.
Swinging my sashimi knife didn't hurt me anymore, but it left permanent sword marks on the world. The skin of the universe was too soft and fragile to withstand my slashes.
I had to protect the universe from my own attacks using the 'Divine Blessing of Painlessness', 'Divine Blessing of Transfer', 'Divine Blessing of Regeneration', and 'Divine Blessing of Borrowed Power'.
Because that whole sequence was a hassle, I usually just resolved things with lightning-attribute magic.
"Imagine yourself brainlessly swinging a sword without any humanity. From the Counterforce's perspective, wouldn't you be the perfect janitor?"
"Bullshit. What the hell is this Counterforce anyway?"
The vulgar profanity I had been keeping bottled up finally burst out. Old habits from my past life rolling around in restaurant kitchens were hard to break.
"The Counterforce is just the Counterforce—there's no good or evil to it. It's simply a directional force driving toward the concept of perfection."
"Hearing you say that makes me certain. Abandon humanity? Tell it to go fuck itself."
Yoo Se-in shrugged, as if she knew I'd say that.
"But if I go against the will of the Counterforce, what happens? The false gods are gone. The threat of the demons is gone. There's nothing left that could possibly show up."
"An ending will come. Maybe taking a physical form."
"The Apocalypse taking physical form?"
Yoo Se-in didn't answer my question.
She merely recited like a spell:
"Ragnarøkkr, Kali Yuga, Frashokereti."
She glanced at the TV screen. Because I had interrupted her, her character was dead, splayed out flat.
Above it, crimson text floated as if mocking the dead character.
「GAME OVER」
Under Yoo Se-in's abrasive, sandpaper-like gaze, the lettering began to crumble away little by little from the edges.
* * *
There are a few implicitly agreed-upon rules in the Academy. Even among nobles, if their ranks differ by two or more tiers, the lower-ranking noble cannot initiate a conversation.
An extremely archaic rule.
No matter how painstaking the efforts of the former and current Academy Principals were, uprooting a feudal system deeply entrenched in this world within a short span of ten years was impossible.
What was more, if someone was higher in social status...
Whether it was the Sage or the Immortal Archer, it was difficult to deal with them without reservation.
As such, people who held a higher status than the Academy Principal could be counted on one hand in the entire world.
For instance, royalty from one of the prominent world powers that still maintained a monarchy.
Narrowing it down further, they had to be the current monarch or first in the line of succession to be of equal standing.
A condition so strict that while theoretically possible, one wondered if it could actually be met in reality.
And yet.
"Principal."
A student who satisfied those needle-eye conditions came to visit the Academy Principal, Saki Ryozo.
Hair like spun gold, smooth skin like a freshly peeled boiled egg, and elegant demeanor.
However, her glaring eyes were sharpened with malice, looking ready to chop Saki Ryozo down at any moment.
"I heard you handed out vigilante justice to a marquis of the British Empire."
Princess Victoria of the British Empire.
A bright nineteen years old. A member of the senior third-year class.
"I will need to speak with the Heavenly Sword directly."
Her Highness had personally graced the Principal's office with her presence.