The Goddess of the Black Swamp (8)
I never imagined the stench of the Black Swamp would be this bad.
Luke's Biography was a world on a screen, so of course I'd never smelled anything there. And it wasn't as if I'd ever set foot in a rotting marshland like this before.
"Well then, good luck. May the Goddess welcome you kindly."
"Thank you."
The elf guided us as far as the Black Swamp, then set off toward another elven village to check whether any survivors remained there as well.
Clara, Dorothy, Agnes, and Alexander stayed behind with the carriage. Veronica and I stepped into the dense forest of rotting giant trees.
Before long, a stretch of ground thick with black mire came into view. Grey fog hung so heavy that almost nothing farther in could be seen. This was where the Black Swamp began.
"……It's full of eyeballs."
Just as Veronica said, the black mire was crowded with floating eyes. Every last one of them was looking straight at us.
"We offer the elven elders' eyes to the swamp."
We each took three eyeballs from the leather pouch. Whatever herbs the elf had packed with them had done their job — the eyes were barely decayed at all.
The moment we lowered them into the mire, those eyes turned their gazes on us as well.
So far, everything matched Luke's Biography. Step into the swamp without the eyes and you die instantly. With them, we should be fine.
"Let's go in."
"……I'll take the lead."
"Hm? Why would you walk in there? You'll ruin your clothes."
A woman's voice rang out without warning. Veronica shoved me behind her and stepped forward, ready to shield me.
"And here's this auntie coming out to greet you."
Parting the grey fog, a woman rose from the black mire — her skin so white it almost hurt to look at. Her pointed ears were unmistakably like those of the elves, yet the Black Swamp Elves who claimed descent from the Goddess all had dark skin.
For someone who called herself an auntie, the Goddess looked remarkably young. Her black eyes had no pupils at all; they looked like empty sockets with nothing inside.
"Are you the Goddess of the Black Swamp?"
"That's what they call me, at least."
She looked nothing like she had in Luke's Biography. Back then, the Goddess had been one with the Black Swamp itself, with no trace of a human form remaining. She hadn't been able to speak, either — just a monster that tried to devour anyone who entered her waters.
"Who are you two? No — you I know. Karl. Your mother brought you here once."
So Lady Manfred really had brought young Karl to see her.
"……I am a heresy inqui—"
"Just your name, dear. This auntie's a bit dim. Extra details are hard to keep straight."
"……Veronica."
"A pleasure, Veronica."
"……Yes."
The Goddess beamed and spoke with warm familiarity. Veronica clearly hadn't expected this; a faintly flustered look crossed her face.
"Well then. Karl and Veronica. What brings my little ones to see this auntie?"
Veronica glanced at me for a cue. I nodded, giving her leave to speak first.
"……I came because I wanted to know about you."
"Truly? How flattering. What exactly about me do you want to know?"
"……Are you truly a 'god'?"
"Well. This auntie likes to think she was once something worthy of that name. Though those days are so far gone I barely remember them."
"……So you're saying you're not a god anymore?"
"That's simply how we are. We grow sacred in proportion to how much you believe in us, and we dwindle in proportion to how much you cast us aside. My faith is fading more and more these days. This auntie has lost nearly all her power and nearly all her memories. I don't even know my own name anymore."
"……The more worshippers you have, the closer you become to a true god. ……Is that the right way to understand it?"
"That's right."
Then the Lumenic Church must have played a major role in weakening the Goddess of the Black Swamp. Lumenic worshipped only a single god, after all. As the Church spread its reach across the entire continent, every local faith and superstition had been snuffed out.
I had always believed spirits were something that had existed since the continent's beginning — or even earlier. From the Goddess's explanation, it seemed spirits were divine beings who had fallen into ruin after losing their faith.
The Goddess of the Black Swamp who appeared in Luke's Biography must have been what remained after the Demon King's army swept the continent and almost no faith was left — a being stripped even of reason.
"Alright! Karl's turn next."
"Pardon? Ah — Lady Veronica still has questions."
"This auntie thinks taking turns will be more fun. Tell me your business."
Veronica nodded at me, indicating she didn't mind.
"I want to know why my mother came to see you. Was it because of my curse?"
"That's right. She asked me to lift the curse on you. But a curse you've carried since birth can't be undone."
"Even with a goddess's power, a congenital curse can't be removed."
"It isn't a matter of power, dear — it's a matter of authority. Because that curse is the outcry of my kin who dwell in the Void."
"……Your kin?"
"When we are completely forgotten, we pass into the Void. The thrashing of those who refuse to vanish — that is what appears to your kind as curses."
The Void. The place from which humans, unable to produce mana on their own, draw it. Somewhere that doesn't exist in reality, yet is connected to every human mind.
"I was told there's nothing in the Void."
"Is that so? But you've seen it, haven't you?"
I started to say I had no idea what she meant — then something surfaced in my memory and I shut my mouth. The vision I'd seen the first time I touched the Void: a landscape packed with eyes and mouths and hands. The same sights Karl had always seen through his illusions.
"The Curse of Illusion is that kind of curse. It lets you sense my kin who have left reality behind, until you can no longer tell what is real from what is not."
So the curse that had bound Karl was never some meaningless affliction of random hallucinations.
"To return to your first question — at your mother's request, I changed the curse on you into the Curse of Illusion."
"……My mother didn't come because of the Curse of Illusion?"
"She didn't. The curse you originally carried was something else. The Curse of the Void."
The Curse of the Void. A curse I'd never even heard of in Luke's Biography.
"A curse that shares its name with the place my kin go when every last scrap of meaning is gone. It strips all sense of meaning from everything, until the victim takes their own life."
"……"
"This auntie explained to your mother that I could swap it for a curse of similar severity, but that it wouldn't change the choice you'd make. She asked me to change it anyway. I never imagined you'd still be alive and well like this."
Just as the Goddess said, the Curse of Illusion hadn't changed Karl's choice. He had tried to kill himself at the asylum. He'd survived in the end, but that was only hindsight talking.
"Alright, Veronica's turn again."
I had learned far too many things I never expected. I needed a moment to clear my head.
"……What did the Immortal King want from you?"
"Who's the Immortal King?"
"……A walking corpse came to see you not long ago."
"Ahh~ So that corpse's name is the Immortal King? This auntie thought those cringey names like 'Death Warrior' were actually real."
"……He was a subordinate of the Immortal King. ……The Immortal King himself did not come."
"I see. Well, that corpse asked me how to escape fate. I didn't care for him, so I didn't answer. His breath was absolutely foul."
As if her own swamp smelled any better.
"……Fate? ……Does the Immortal King believe in such a thing?"
"You don't? Fate exists, you know. Things like, 'If a human drinks water, they'll die within a hundred years.'"
"……Humans die even if they don't drink water."
"That's simply the role humans play. This world is a single story. Everyone has a part assigned to them on the stage, and no one can step outside it."
"……"
"This auntie was the same. And that Immortal King fellow must be too."
"So struggling to escape the role you've been given is pointless — is that what you mean?"
I cut into the exchange between the Goddess and Veronica. I didn't like what she was saying. The claim that no one could escape their assigned role felt like she was telling me that everything I'd done so far had failed to change Karl's fate of becoming a demon worshipper.
"Well. I wouldn't go so far as to call it pointless. Did this auntie's words upset our Karl?"
"……"
"But Karl. You mustn't grow arrogant. Having a little more power than others, knowing a little more than others — that alone won't let you change a thing. Even if it looks like you've changed something, it'll only be for now."
I had believed that if Karl and Maria never met, the future in which the demon worshipper and the Demon King joined hands and swallowed half the continent would never come. The Goddess's words seemed to deny that belief.
We will meet again. We must.
Maria had said those words without any deep meaning, simply because she wanted to see me again. Hearing the Goddess now, they felt nothing but ominous.
"Karl. The first time this auntie saw you, I thought the day we'd meet again would never come. But I was wrong. You must have worked very hard. I'm truly proud of you."
"……"
"But that isn't the end. You need to know more of this world. Karl. Once you leave this swamp, go somewhere wider. Look at more things."
"……Forgive me for interrupting."
It bothered me — but there was no need to hang too much weight on this Goddess's words.
"Shall we move on to the next question, then?"
Veronica looked straight at me. She seemed to have nothing more she wanted to ask. I didn't particularly want to leave just yet, but no right question came immediately to mind.
The Goddess smiled brightly and waited for me to speak.