Chapter 31
Today.
Snow-white flakes drifted down from the sky. A thin quilt of white cotton settled over the rock desert, bleaching it for only a moment before it vanished, as if it had never been there at all. Well — it is a rock desert precisely because the rain hardly ever comes.
I had come out to exercise.
I halted mid-stride and stood on the uneven stone, quietly looking down. Looking down, mind you, only from the height of a grown man's eyes. I am short. Even perched on a rock, this is all the height I get.
Still, this is the top of a hill. Lower my gaze, and the village of the Future Hope Church lies below.
This village, one of the branches of the underground temple, has grown quite large. Every time I step outside to look, there are a few more houses than before. The trouble is that as they multiplied, they began sprouting one by one along the very path where I exercise. So these days I no longer run the flat ground. I circle around on the hill that used to stand farther off.
The curious thing is that even after I changed my route, the faithful know every step of it. Looking through those who have received my blessing, I can see that in the hours when I am not out exercising, plenty of people run the very path I ran. The same principle, I suppose, as a crowd flocking to a shop a celebrity once visited.
"Outer God!"
"Whoa, it's the Outer God!"
"Over here, Outer God!"
From quite a distance, children wave at me as they watch.
Yes.
That's right.
I succeeded.
Complex sentences and information are still difficult, but a simple word I can make rise in a person's mind. And it is not limited to those who have received my blessing. It works on most people.
Only, I can do it solely to those who are mentally very unstable, or to children. In short, people with little warmth. When I look up from that cold sea spread beneath an endless night sky, the lights closest to me must be lights like these.
If there is a problem, though...
Some distance from me, Hyungkesuni is hiding in the shadow of a rock, gripping her staff tight and staring. I thought I had been winning her favor little by little, and then, at some point, she became like that.
I should never have used the words Outer God.
Anyone can see how strange it is, can't they? This is my mistake.
If I had used some other word instead, I would have known at once. But a word from an entirely different world would be stranger still, wouldn't it? It is hard to know whether it can even be pronounced, or whether the thought would carry properly.
So: Outer God.
And the price is that my chance to obtain Hyungkesuni's memories has slipped farther away.
Hmm.
It is already past. Rather than obsessing over what is done, it is healthier to think about what comes next. Of course I reflected properly, so I would not make the same mistake again.
Then perhaps I will run one more lap around here, and go back to my room.
I waved at the children waving from far away, then set off running along the path once more.
A few evenings later.
At an hour when most people were asleep, someone shook Rebecca Rolfe's body awake. I opened my eyes, and Hyungkesuni was right in front of me. Standing over me, no less.
"Hello, Hyungkesuni."
"Honestly, that greeting is far too contrived. Rebecca."
Beyond the window the dark was complete, and everything around us was very quiet. Not merely quiet — blanketed in an ominous presence. Joanna, asleep in the next room, could not hear my voice or Hyungkesuni's.
Ordinarily she would. Joanna's hearing is exceptionally keen, and even asleep she can pick out the smallest sound. Now and then, when I leave Rebecca Rolfe sleeping and look around, I have felt it in this body: Joanna tracking my condition by ear. Which means the silence is because of this ominous presence. Simple logic.
Hyungkesuni had climbed onto the bed where Rebecca Rolfe was sleeping, shoes and all. An old memory of mine was throwing a fit for the first time in a long while.
Shoes. On a bed.
A dreadful thing to do — but in this world, is it really so strange?
My thoughts wandered for a moment. The truth is that this was a rather dangerous situation. Hyungkesuni was standing over me with her staff, the pointed end aimed at my heart.
"Not so much as a change in your expression."
Well, it is Rebecca's body, isn't it? She isn't dying. She only goes back to the way she was. If a game character dies, I would be a little annoyed, but that is all.
"Why are you trying to stab me?"
I had a fair idea what she was thinking, but I asked first.
"You're asking because you don't know? Say the word the church is using for you right now."
Yes. She was thinking exactly what I had guessed.
"Outer God."
"That's a word I coined. Care to explain why so many people are calling you that? Hmm? Rebecca."
She looked impatient. As if she were afraid of something.
No. She was afraid of me.
Even so, I was not going to say anything particular. I don't know how to soothe her, and I don't imagine I'm any good with words. So — only the facts.
"Yes, Hyungkesuni. That's the name you gave me, isn't it? So I had them call me that."
Oh?
Hyungkesuni's fur seemed to be standing on end. She looked down at me with an expression of profound unease.
"You had them call you that. But you've never said anything of the sort until now!"
True. I have never once said it aloud. How could I, when every time I meet someone, someone else is watching?
If I pared the sentence down until it was easy to understand... hmm. I could put it like this.
"Does it have to be said out loud?"
The nuance that I can compel them without ever speaking.
Of course, it was true. Pure fact, and the plain obviousness of having done it because I could. Not that I left the malice out of it — I did want her to misunderstand, and believe there had never been any need to speak at all!
The staff in Hyungkesuni's grip trembled. Veins stood out across the hand that held it. Well then. Are you going to stab me?
I was fine.
On the first day, I had been able to lick the person who attacked me, even though they came at me with an arrow. In other words, I can lick whatever attacks me. If the same thing happened now, I could obtain Hyungkesuni's memories.
I lay on the bed and looked up at Hyungkesuni looking down at me. A smile was still spread across my whole face.
Because I was frightened. So frightened.
And yet this is the expression of someone who knows no other way to be afraid. The people I have licked — I cannot begin to guess how deeply versed they were in reading a face. Or perhaps those who fall all the way to the bottom only fall after they have already passed through every feeling of that kind.
"You—"
Hyungkesuni stopped.
So I waited. The one in a hurry was not me. It was Hyungkesuni. And I would rather not do something careless and end up with a staff buried in my chest.
"So you really are an outer god we can't understand."
In the end, Hyungkesuni let understanding go. She raised the hand that held the staff and brought it down toward my chest — a sharp little poke — and stopped an instant before it would have pierced.
"People close their eyes when they die."
"I'm not a person, Hyungkesuni."
If she had given up on understanding, then her giving up was to my benefit. In any case, it did not seem I was going to die. I might have been the slightest bit disappointed.
Hyungkesuni climbed down off the bed. With room to move, I sat up. Looking down, I found her footprints still on the sheets, and brushed them away with my hand. Pat, pat.
"What are you doing?"
"Who climbs onto a bed with their shoes on?"
No.
It had slipped out before I knew it. I had thought the sensibilities from when I was human were already gone, and yet I could not endure this. Because it is truly nothing at all — is that why it has lingered until now?
"So you value your own nest, too."
Hyungkesuni sneered. But nest — that is far too much the sort of thing one says to a young animal, isn't it?
No. Of course, it was not wrong.
A little way from the bed, Hyungkesuni turned to face me. Fear and doubt, reproach and relief — several feelings mixed in her expression. Then she extended a small index finger and pointed at me.
"No. If you think of that body as a nest, then you cherish your nest terribly. You maintain it, exercising every single day."
That was true enough. Between the coming of summer and the arrival of winter, a height that had been very small grew just a little. I am still short. But taller than Hyungkesuni.
I sat on the bed and looked around. Everything was dyed pitch black — walls thick with that ominous presence.
"What is this?"
"Magic. Crude, I imagine, from where you stand."
At that, I shook my head from side to side.
"I don't know about things like that."
"Meaning you've got something even greater?"
Hyungkesuni flared. She looked like someone who had just been told, in the very field she excelled at, you're no good at this. But I shook my head side to side again.
"That I could give someone a blessing, that I could convey my will to someone — I only learned all of it after I came to this world."
No. Perhaps. What if?
"Would you teach me that?"
Hyungkesuni stared at my face, then whipped her head aside. The black that had stained the walls turned to dark-blue smoke and vanished.
"No."
As I thought. A secret never meant to be passed on.
"But it's what you're best at, isn't it, Hyungkesuni?"
Ah. Just now, strangely, the wall around her heart came down. Even so, she never said she would teach me. Not everything unfolds as I imagine. So I would indulge in a little spite.
"No. What you do best, Hyungkesuni, is smile when you're afraid."
Hyungkesuni, who had turned away, turned back to look at me. Her face was thoroughly startled.
Hehe.
Yes.
I can read your expression.
I caught both my cheeks lightly in my hands and shaped them into a smile. I am not a person, so I will not close my eyes when I die — but.
"A person ought to smile when they're happy."
Hyungkesuni glared at me, then left the room at once.