14. Is He Giving Us a Chance?
Just when am I ever going to make a friend...
Faced with a cluster of white blobs trembling like leaves, the white-haired boy heaved a deep sigh and lamented his sorry lot. It's not like I look as grotesque as I did before the change. So why on earth is everyone so terrified of me?
He tipped his head down and studied his own body. What met his eyes was the form of a young boy—skin snow-white, frame small and stumpy. He brushed a finger along his arm and found the touch impossibly soft, like the skin of an infant.
Judged on looks alone, there was nothing about him the least bit frightening. But to the white blobs—his cultists—it was a very different story.
Aaah, just standing before Father makes my whole body shake...!!
Strictly speaking, the problem was never his appearance. It was his presence.
He isn't even trying to hide it—he's just blasting it out like this... He really is furious, isn't he...!?
Just as a rabbit freezes solid the instant it faces a lion, a creature confronted by something that reigns overwhelmingly above it cannot even summon the thought of flight. That was less a decision than an instinct bred into the very bones of every living thing.
Could it be my face that's the problem? But then, I have no way of seeing my own face...
Unfortunately, this dim-witted Father was not nearly clever enough to catch on to any of that.
Please, Father—at least yell at us, or say something, anything...!!!
His silence alone was enough to drive the cultists before him half out of their minds.
Those women I saw before I fell asleep were like that too... hold on.
Still absently patting and prodding at his own face, he suddenly recalled the faces he had forgotten. ...Now that I think of it, where did those girls with the red hair and the gold hair go?
They were the ones who had kept watch at his side right up until he drifted off.
...They definitely said they weren't going anywhere, didn't they?
Yog-Sothoth had said exactly that. That she would never leave Father's side. And yet, she was not at his side now.
She promised she wouldn't leave. She said she would help me die.
So why isn't she here?
Of course, Yog-Sothoth had not left his side of her own accord. More than ten billion years had passed—a span of time so vast that even her kind, who experienced time on an entirely different scale, would recoil at the sheer weight of it. Had he merely slept a day or two, that would be one thing. But keeping vigil at his side through a stretch of time that could only be called an eternity was, frankly, beyond anyone.
But as always, he failed to grasp any of this. He simply misread her actions and flew into a rage all on his own.
Meanwhile—
"Ghhk... urk..."
Th-this level of presence...!! He really is angry...!!!
The overwhelming presence pouring off his fury was pressing the cultists flat against the ground like rounds of kneaded dough.
...I'll have to find her and ask. Why she left me.
Just before the cultists were crushed out of existence beneath his presence, he managed at last to calm himself, and the presence he had been leaking without realizing it finally drew back in.
"...Haah!! Cough, cough..."
Wh-what was that? Did he vent his anger...? I honestly thought we were done for...
As they slowly picked themselves up, still struggling to catch their breath—
"Um."
He drifted closer, stooped down, and asked, "Can you guys find people?"
With the darkest of smiles.
"...Women with red hair and gold hair, you mean...?"
The white blobs asked cautiously, peering up at him.
"Yeah. Both of them have blue eyes, and height-wise... I think they're a little taller than me."
"Hmm..."
Only one possibility came to mind as they listened to his description.
That would be Lady Nyarlathotep and Lady Yog-Sothoth, wouldn't it...?
"Um... Cult Leader? I'm pretty sure those are the ones."
One of the members voiced the thought in a whisper to their leader.
"Hmm... so you think so too, huh?"
"But Cult Leader, there's something that's been nagging at me..."
"Hmm? What is it?"
The member paused for a beat before going on.
"Why wouldn't he just look for them himself...?"
He was the creator of the universe, the great Father of All. However mighty those two women might be—counted among the handful of supreme beings in all existence—their presence could never, ever surpass the Father's.
"If Father went out there himself, he'd find them in the blink of an eye... so why would he go out of his way to make us do it...?"
"Hmm... true enough..."
Why had he left the task to his cultists? The answer to that question was exceedingly simple.
Because he didn't know how. That was all there was to it.
"...Oh. Wait—could he be testing us?"
"Ohh!? That's it!! He's giving us a chance...!!"
But once again, their speculation about him sailed wide of the mark.
I hope these guys can actually find them...
And so the misunderstanding only sank deeper and deeper.
