The Weight of Small Kindnesses

In the inertia of habit, a single thought flashed through my mind as my eyes snapped open. “Looks like the Primordial Stone really is the trigger.”

“H-hiiik!? You’re alive—?!”

I ignored the noise around me and sank back into thought. Crossing my legs, I lay back down inside the stone coffin.

“Hmm. So if I don’t touch the Archive’s origin point, Astarote doesn’t show up? If the Primordial Stone is the trigger, maybe I can choose the battlefield myself.”

What exactly was a Primordial Stone, anyway?

I was busy writing down learned violence in the textbook of my mind when a sudden question occurred to me. Was it even possible to push through like this? Facing Astarote when she appeared from the Archive was overwhelming. I had tried talking to her a few times, but I always ended up getting attacked first.

Business. No hard feelings. Wasn’t that pretty much all she ever said?

Given that kind of response, there was no real problem. It was fine. The things that tried to kill me were things I could kill right back.

How could I reach Astarote? No—maybe it was faster to start with what I actually had right now.

“In the end, it’s just ‘regression,’ huh.”

The abundant ether that once filled me, the power that used to complete me—both had vanished without a trace. Could this even be called the same immortal from before? Honestly, I sometimes wondered if I wasn’t just something that mistakenly believed itself to be immortal.

But thoughts are short, and the body is honest. Staring up at the ceiling of this abandoned graveyard, I found myself thinking less about the mystery of regression and more about its usefulness. I needed to figure out how to handle this new form of ‘immortality’ that had come to me.

“This is the third time now. Hmm. Should I try powering up my specs before challenging it again?”

I had no idea what lay ahead, but my body kept throwing itself forward out of sheer inertia. Questions about the trials? I didn’t bother keeping them in mind. Once I decided to go, I went. Even death, which dragged me down, was ultimately just a tool for ascent. True death didn’t exist for me. There was only a fatigue that felt exactly like dying.

“I’m a little tired.”

My eyes blinked open and shut. I flickered away the darkness within darkness. Come to think of it, ever since waking up in this world, I hadn’t truly slept once. The darkness right after death, the void that pulled me in—if that counted as sleep, I would have fallen asleep countless times already.

Suddenly, drowsiness ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠began to creep over me.

“Guess I’ll sleep for a bit.”

And so, inside the stone coffin where I had just awakened, I closed my eyes for a very brief rest.

I opened my eyes. That tiny ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bit of sleep had restored my vitality. Thanks to it, I felt like going out.

“Night! Grrrr, it’s the time of the beasts.”

As I left the abandoned graveyard, the moderately murky air and the night sky welcomed me. Strong winds howled across the cliff.

—Whoooosh!

The Corridor City that filled my vision was pierced by towering searchlights that caressed the darkness of the sky, overflowing with colorful neon lights from the city itself. Light pollution so thick that even the stars were barely visible. The sky was choked with night clouds.

Hadn’t I called it wealth disparity before? It seemed even the lights of the Corridor City were the exclusive property of class. In the Lower District, the lights were like scattered grains. In the Middle District, they sparkled like a modern night. And in the Upper District and the floating islands, lights adorned with splendor twinkled in place of stars.

I crouched down and gazed at one side of the city. Suddenly, a public broadcast drifted to me on the wind.

Hmm. Refrain from going outside. The moment someone tells me not to do something, I immediately want to do it more. Besides, there’s always something about a night walk that drives people a little insane.

“A purposeless night walk isn’t bad, but… hmm. Let’s see what’s out there.”

I opened the community for Corridor Walkers.

Casino bathroom? Now that was a strangely compelling phrase. Whether it was some bottom-of-the-barrel scam or genuine desperation, it was hard to say. Like a magnet, I almost clicked on the post before freezing.

—Crackle.

Suddenly the gallery refreshed. Hmm. Must be that usual error again. It seemed the Corridor Walker Gallery and I just weren’t compatible.

I was searching for the bathroom post when I suddenly spotted a new one.

I clicked on it.

Instead of reading the comments, I carefully examined the corpse photo. Cold floors and walls as the background. Blood that had poured out and splattered from struggling. A hand that had reached for a sword at the very end but never managed to grasp it. Those images flickered before my eyes.

But what truly captured my gaze was something else.

Hair the color of rice straw, soaked in blood. The silver pride that had once shone there was now dyed crimson, then blackened in death.

There was no inevitability or coincidence. Only a dry, emotionless impression wrapped around me.

I moved my hand.

It was starting to piss me off. My dry indifference was only an imitation of reason. Maybe I needed to show the beast hiding behind my will before I could snap back to my senses?

Aha. So idealism works everywhere, does it? As expected, the world really is a fragile thing perched atop the ruler of perception. Or perhaps it’s a world where materialism and idealism are constantly at war. Or maybe it’s simply because I’m the last administrator of the Immortal Gallery?

In that instant, every comment that had been rising in real time froze. I could almost feel the fingers hesitating on the other side of the terminal. After a brief silence, the chat exploded with words.

Letting people misunderstand however they wanted was fine. There were plenty of ways to use confusion to my advantage.

It wasn’t a lie. After all, I was the last administrator and user of the Immortal Gallery.

Whoooosh— The wind blew past. The texture of the city flowed beneath my nose. I looked down beneath the cliff. It was pitch black. A darkness that looked like it would swallow me whole the moment I threw myself in. I walked until that darkness turned into the stench of garbage. I wandered through the city until it became the smell of death and blood.

I crouched in a corner of the slum, resting my arms on my knees and my chin on my arms.

“Small kindness and goodwill, huh… I guess those really are things that are hard to be repaid, aren’t they?”

…….

I spoke to the body that had lost its breath, just as I had once spoken to the enemies I had defeated.

I looked down at the corpse. No one was beside it. Even the clothes it had worn, the armor that had protected its body—everything was gone. The naked body had been toyed with, and its death had been mocked. The eyes. The fingernails. Even the heart. It seemed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠someone had taken every other organ and viscera as well.

The state of the body was even worse than the original photo taken by the Corridor Walker. In this city, even corpses could be turned into money. That saying seemed painfully accurate.

Only the silver rice-straw hair remained. Even that had been stained with dried blood and lost its color.

The area around the landfill was filled with a nauseating stench. The smell of garbage filling my nostrils. So this was the end of someone who had tried to show a little goodwill in the Corridor City. The paradox and the downfall of it all fanned the flames in my head and heart.

The rotten brain and the heart that had lost its fire spoke to me.

This is what death looks like. This is what downfall looks like. This is something I have not yet overcome.

Normally, my heart would have felt jealousy and envy. But now something else filled it. Something almost unfamiliar—pity.

Ah, small kindness and goodwill. Those words really were correct. The most trivial and useless commodity that could buy even the awkward remnants of my own heart. Just that much was enough. Buying my heart, that is.

“You worked hard, Ellen. I’ll remember you. Both the you who lay here and the you who showed kindness. Both of them. Death wasn’t absent, and neither was kindness.”

Meaninglessness. Irresponsibility. Uselessness. Those things flooded my mind. The deterministic answer that followed from every logical question and response. This world had always run on absurdity. Kindness and goodwill turned into garbage, and just the same, Ellen died here. An extremely simple leap and determinism.

And this was also the narrative of my reason. It was a meditation on futility that I told myself. Therefore, there was nothing I could do. Therefore, there was no path I could take. Therefore, there was no reason for me to think. Therefore, there was no need for me to pretend this death had never happened.

But my madness spoke.

—Rustle.

The last remaining fragment of humanity inside me reached out. I closed the eyelids over the missing eyes. I closed the stomach that had been torn open and emptied. I arranged the hair neatly and brought the hands and legs together. And with the pity born of my madness, I would cover this corpse.

I remembered that final moment. I engraved it fully inside my own corridor. And then I spoke.

“Hey, thanks for waiting.”

“…Is that so?”

The voice came from behind me. I nodded.

Goodness gracious, even a witch knew manners. To think she would wait for my acts of reason and madness. Of course, I had known she would come. I had messed with the gallery—there was no way she would stay quiet.

The witch Astarote was like a coefficient attached to the formula called Lumen Lux. A mortality constant, perhaps. One brush of the collar was coincidence, two was inevitability. The third was fate, they said. Then what was the fifth?

No matter how many times, no matter what it was—I would call it destiny. Even though I hated determinism.

I looked back at the something I had to overcome as myself.

“So this is destiny.”

“…You really are strange.”

“I don’t have any hard feelings. It’s just business.”

I mimicked the witch’s tone. For once, the witch Astarote’s words grew longer. Even as the black spheres that always delivered death with lightning speed floated around her.

Her long white hair hung down even in the endless darkness. She looked like a single white dot stamped onto the black canvas that was the Corridor City.

Gazing at my own death, I said,

“These things aren’t really that important to me. But I remembered something I have to do. Let’s finish this quickly.”

“I see.”

Astarote caressed me with eyes trapped in darkness.

“What a shame. That you won’t be able to finish what you have to do.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Yes, what did it matter? Having a goal was what mattered. That alone was enough for Lumen Lux to move forward on inertia.

So, Astarote. You’re next.

—Crunch!

And just like always, my death connected to the next one.

[I will swallow the wrong lights and walk forward as I am led.]

Yes, of course. As I am led—I will walk forward.