The First Finale (1)
It felt like my heart had frozen solid. A vicious wave of dread made my hands shake as I fumbled through my inner pocket. Fuck. Was the Arcana really this easy to break? I had no idea. It was unclear whether the original story had given any detailed mechanics for it in the first place. No matter how much knowledge of the source material I possessed, no matter how many times I ransacked the memory palace in my head, the things I didn’t know stayed unknown. Besides, the memory palace wasn’t some grand technique despite the fancy name. It was nothing more than a way to search fragmentary memories using keywords as anchors. I made a point of remembering anything I considered important, but even then, the truly trivial details often slipped away with time. That was simply what it meant to be human.
What if it really was broken and unusable? Should I bolt right now? But then what about Sarah?
In the span of a few seconds, a thousand chaotic thoughts crashed through my mind. And in the middle of that storm—
—Squelch…
An oily sensation coated the hand digging through my pocket. Wondering what the hell it was, I pulled it out. A lighter. Oil was leaking from the cracked fuel reservoir. Since it was a cheap counterfeit to begin with, it wasn’t surprising the thing had finally given up the ghost.
“Shit. I scared myself for nothing.”
The moment I saw it, all the tension drained away at once. A hollow chuckle slipped out from the sheer relief. It was a shame to lose something I’d grown attached to, but I could always make another. No big deal.
“I really overdid it, getting that worked up.”
I tightened my collar and picked up my pace. Time to calm down. A faint unease still clung to me, but nothing had actually gone wrong. In the end, it was fine.
‘Brother, what’s this?’
Just picturing Sarah’s eyes widening in delight when she saw the Academy recommendation letter lifted my mood considerably. Hold on just a little longer, Sarah. I’m coming.
After walking in a daze for some time, the largest and tallest building I had seen since arriving in this world finally loomed into view. The Neo-Gothic structure exuded refined restraint, but what truly dominated the eye was the razor-sharp spire that seemed to stab the heavens and the enormous clock mounted just beneath its peak.
Even from a distance the tower’s height was dizzying, making it hard to judge scale, yet one of those clock hands looked longer and thicker than my entire body. The current time was ten minutes before noon. The plaza around the clock tower swarmed with people enjoying the most active hour of the day.
“Darling, where shall we go today?”
“I heard a new café nearby just started serving the most delicious strudel. Interested, honey?”
“Yes, yes! I love strudel!”
Beneath the bright midday sun, gentlemen in elegant frock coats and silk hats, ladies in flowing dresses, all wore wide, carefree smiles. Their conversations sparkled with talk of bright tomorrows and whispered endearments. Not a single shadow of worry touched their faces.
I clicked my tongue softly at the sight. It wasn’t the usual boiling hatred or jealousy toward the privileged. I had moved past those predictable emotions. No, this was something simpler.
Maybe it really was jealousy. Their wealth—I might catch up to it one day. But their effortless leisure? That felt like something I would never grasp in my entire lifetime.
“…Do I smell?”
I had worn fresh clothes and a new hat for the trip to the upper city, so I wasn’t objectively filthy. Plenty of people around me wore similar modest attire. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that a stench of rotting garbage clung only to me. I unconsciously lifted my sleeve and sniffed.
“Ugh…!”
A sudden, stabbing headache pierced my skull. It felt like insects were crawling across my skin.
I thought I heard a hallucination whispering from somewhere. No. I can’t draw attention here.
I forced my body to move, shoving the pain and revulsion aside. I had always been proud of this sturdy body that stayed healthy even in that shithole environment. Why the hell was it betraying me today of all days?
When I finally reached the designated meeting spot while pretending to be perfectly calm, a tall old man wearing a silk hat and monocle—roughly the same age as old man Matthias—gave me a subtle nod. He was the one supposed to receive the delivery. We were to pass each other naturally and transfer the item without breaking stride.
Our eyes met. I gave a slight nod and took one step forward.
—Crack…!
That same eerie sound and freezing sensation from before rippled out from inside my coat once again. The broken lighter had already been thrown away. The only thing I carried that could possibly make that noise was the revolver, and it was holstered at my waist, not in my inner pocket. Then this sound—
The hallucination returned. Praying it was nothing, I reached for my inner pocket again—
—Dong. Dong. Dong!
The clock tower began to ring out the hour of noon. The bell inside was monstrously huge, fitting the tower’s scale. The sound wasn’t just loud; it felt like a sonic assault that made my entire body vibrate violently.
Something was wrong. My mind was unraveling.
“Huaaak!”
I somehow managed to regain control of myself, only to realize I was screaming. Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
—Crrrrack…
The sound of something fracturing came from inside my coat.
The voice in my head.
—Dong, dong, dong, dooong!
The sonic bombardment hammered my entire body. The irresistible violence of sound.
Aaaah—!
An unbearable disgust washed over me. At the same time, I sensed something majestic and sacred. Sensed? This colossal resonance didn’t come through ordinary senses. It felt like it was being hammered directly into my soul.
Was it even permissible for a mere human like me to claim he had “sensed” such a thing?
It was as if an overwhelming, irresistible existence had chosen this world as its instrument and begun to play. The groans of the earth, the screams of the sky, and the heartbeat of the planet fused into one vast harmony that swallowed everything.
And then—
The jewelry box I had been carrying tore free from my grasp on its own, sprang open, and the sphere inside rose into the air before my eyes.
Arcana.
At first glance the small, pitch-black orb looked like nothing more than a polished lump of obsidian. But the instant my gaze met it—
I felt the gaze of something immense.
It was an eye.
What else could I call the medium that conveyed the stare of such a transcendent being if not an eye?
I clenched my teeth. I bit down so hard that blood poured from my gums. I even chewed my own tongue, filling my mouth with sharp pain, yet that pain felt almost welcome. In this moment, only pain proved I was still alive.
Using that pain as a shield, I desperately fought to keep my sanity. In response, a mocking, unpleasant will flowed from the Arcana, from that eye.
It wasn’t my imagination.
Yes. It was mocking me. That bastard was toying with me!
“You son of a bitch.”
I forced my eyes wide open. Something—tears or blood, I couldn’t tell—began streaming down my face, but I kept staring that eye down in a battle of wills.
I had been living a normal life. Then I was dragged into this world and suffered like a dog every single day. That alone was already unbearably unfair. And now this thing wanted to play with me again?
If things continued like this, I would die anyway. That much was certain. If this colossal being that could stop time at will and treat the world like a toy decided to kill me, there was no way I could resist.
But.
If I was going to die anyway, what did anything matter?
“Fate? Go fuck yourself.”
If I was going out, I might as well throw one last middle finger.
—Click!
With trembling hands I drew the revolver from my waist and aimed it straight at the eye. Without hesitation, I pulled the trigger.
—Bang!
The eye shattered into a thousand pieces. Yet I could still feel the gaze of that great being. Of course. There was no way a transcendent existence would be bound by a mere medium. Still, at least I’d thrown my tantrum. The despair felt a little more bearable.
A hollow laugh escaped me as that tiny sense of relief covered the hopelessness.
“This world really is complete shit.”
A hundred excuses later—fine, the possession I never asked for, I could accept. But to end it all with some random Cthulhu-esque finale? If anyone ever turned my life into a novel, it would be dismissed as worthless garbage not even worth reading.
—Click!
Thinking that, I pressed the revolver against my own temple and began to squeeze the trigger—
—and time began to flow once more.
When I regained consciousness—
“Kyaaaaaah!”
“No, darling! Darling!”
“Guards! Guards! Damn it, somebody help!”
—Crrrrack…!
Jet-black rifts tore open across the sky all at once. From them poured grotesque, monstrous creatures, and Sentinel had already become a living hell.
“Ah… aaaa…”
—Chomp!
A monster covered in black carapace snatched the head of an old gentleman who had been staring blankly into space and swallowed it whole. I thought he looked familiar. He was the old man who was supposed to receive the Arcana.
“Grrrrk!”
—Bang!
The monster that had happily crunched down the old man’s head charged at me. I raised my revolver and blew its head off. Even after losing its skull it kept coming, so I pumped several more rounds into its torso until it finally stopped moving. At least bullets worked. Small mercies.
After reflexively eliminating the immediate threat according to pure survival instinct, my head finally cleared a little. I quickly scanned my surroundings.
—Boom! Bang!
“Fire!”
“A void rift… and right in the heart of Sentinel. Has the Goddess truly decided to punish humanity herself?”
Whether you called it combat or desperate flailing, the moment monsters began appearing and people started dying, Sentinel responded immediately. But how long they could hold out was anyone’s guess.
If only monsters on the level of the one I had just killed appeared, they might be suppressed quickly. But—
—■■■■!
From far away came a roar that alone threatened to shatter the mind, and a monster nearly the size of the clock tower itself was crawling out.
Seeing the situation deteriorate this far, only one thought remained.
With Sentinel in this state of utter chaos, would The Hood really be spared?
“Goddammit.”
I stopped thinking and broke into a run. My destination was the elevator that connected Sentinel and The Hood.
Just hold on a little longer, Sarah. Your brother is coming.