It Was Your Mistake — 15 (End)

Tisha set his jaw, seized his sword, and rose to his feet.

Hieronymus, touched by the blessing, found every wound on his body gone. Had that been all, it would have been fine; they would only have had to fight him once more. But the old man who had held this battlefield with magic of every kind and a veteran's practiced skill had grown young. He had reclaimed the vigor that time had taken from him.

In plenty of works they call such a thing a second form, a second phase, and any number of names besides. In the end, the meaning is one.

He was stronger.

The monstrous man who until moments ago had single-handedly faced the elite soldiers of the Kingdom of Anselus and the former warriors of the Church of Future Hope rose once more. But no one there was looking at Hieronymus. A small girl standing directly before him had caught every eye.

A girl in her early teens, with long purple hair. Rebecca Rolf's true age was the late teens, of course, but she was small enough that no one saw her as anything else. According to Andrew—who had betrayed the leader of the Church of Future Hope because the religion he believed in had rotted—she was simply a girl with the ability to bestow blessings. She had been captured by the Church of Future Hope, he explained, and was only being worked to the bone.

When the people of Anselus demanded proof, Andrew pointed at Tisha and asked whether, after his conversion to the Holy God Church, the blessing had changed at all. Tisha had shaken his head. It had not. If anything, his regeneration had only grown stronger day by day, keeping pace with his own growth.

Then Andrew indicated those who followed him, and explained that they too remained blessed, even though they had resolved to betray the cult leader. The girl, he said, had nothing to do with this cult to begin with. She was someone he himself had to rescue.

The people of the Kingdom of Anselus did not swallow Andrew's words whole, but they were interested, because the blessing was that tremendous. They had faced it as an enemy all along, and in certain respects they knew the blessed even better than the Church of Future Hope did. If a chance came to take the girl, they meant to take her. Each of them was dreaming that dream.

Right up until the thing wearing the girl's skin, there in front of them, smiled wide enough to split its mouth.

That was the sort of future they had been imagining for themselves. A good one.

"What is that smile?"

Without thinking—truly, without thinking—Yasle asked.

Unfortunately, the question had already left him.

"When you're happy, you should smile. Isn't that right?"

She does not lie, for no grander reason than that she has no confidence she can lie well. There are times she deliberately withholds the whole of a thing, or explains it so that one is led to misunderstand, but what she says is the truth.

"Then would you explain what it is that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠makes you so happy?"

And so every answer she gave to Yasle's question was true.

"I can go anywhere now. I don't have to sink to a bottom where nothing can be seen, look up at the sky, and watch forever the sight of light flaring and going out. I don't have to wait for the falling light while I despair without end and break without end. I don't have to stare blankly up at a sky full of stars for the sake of the tiniest warmth inside that light."

As if singing, as if too glad and too joyful to help herself, the something Hyungkesuni had defined as an Outer God spoke.

"I don't have to give myself to the lights sunk upon the bottom and burst them anymore, just to obtain warmth."

And now.

Ksaxssibal, or the god whose name must not be spoken, or the god without a name. The true nature of a god with many names was laid bare. What until now had been nothing more than a single law—that a person sunk deep enough in despair would explode—was revealed to have been, in truth, someone's act.

There are worlds that know of this Outer God. In this world as well, a vanishingly few had faintly sensed that it existed, and so the talk of an Outer God come from outside became the soil in which Hyungkesuni could give the thing a name. But it was hidden knowledge. Forbidden knowledge, that not just anyone was meant to learn.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

In the first place, dragging it into the light did no good. Better that it remain a law, so everyone could rest easy. Precisely because it stood as a law, wicked acts—grinding people until they withered and died, cutting the wrist from anyone who failed to meet a fixed quota of work—were restrained, if only by a very little. It was for the same reason that primitive religions arose. The knowledge that there was a god who granted power to the deeply despairing was, for a person in that state, salvation in itself.

But in this world there is no salvation to be had by doing nothing. For the Outer God, it had been a desperate act, undertaken to obtain warmth. For people, it was no different from being hunted. To be robbed of one's warmth is no different from death, and so the Outer God's deeds are evil.

In other words, an evil god that eats people was standing right in front of them. An evil god that coveted, passionately.

At first he could not understand at all what this god was saying. But a mind that had been brilliant to begin with, and had been made keener still by the blessing, found the answer in an instant—and then, hesitating dreadfully, brought it forth. At that answer Yasle felt a sensation as though his heart were freezing solid, and he reached to seize the girl before his eyes by the collar. He failed.

The sight of the girl smiling in genuine happiness was so frightening that his hand would not move. And so, as if to deny it, he roared.

"You! Don't tell me you took my knowledge! In exchange for bestowing blessings—you gained the knowledge to summon yourself!"

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Three beats of that dry applause which, in certain worlds, is how one sneers.

"Yes. That's right. I obtained it. Hieronymus."

And with that, she looked around.

"I made a contract with Hieronymus. He said he would take his revenge with my power. So I let him. He gave sacrifices, so I accepted them. He wanted blessings, so I gave them. Wasn't all of it what Hieronymus wanted?"

It was the truth.

But though the Outer God said so, everyone there, Hieronymus included, stared at her with faces full of terror. It was not that they failed to understand the words. If what the girl before them said was right, then the wicked one was indeed the leader of the Church of Future Hope. But this fear did not belong to the realm of reason. It belonged to the realm of pure feeling.

The sun was declining, and the shadow of a towering pillar of rock lay over the place, and in the midst of it the girl's eyes blazed an ominous purple. They were giving off light. Physically. Like staring at a living thing stranded in the middle of the uncanny valley, everyone there felt fear and horror toward the something-like-a-person before their eyes.

Seeing those expressions, the Outer God said:

And so they were more afraid. That thing studied human expressions, and it knew what they meant. Even Yasle, a man whose very specialty was the reading of faces, had never understood what Hyungkesuni's smile meant. And yet here was an evil god versed in humankind deeply enough to read the expression of even a man like him. Almost no one knew the whole of it, but the sight of a girl looking at frightened people and telling them not to be afraid was truly dreadful.

And one person grasped what it meant.

Yasle took the ritual implement in his hand. The tool the Outer God had called a strange object was something like a magic wand, and it carried the power to strengthen him. It was also, originally, a holy relic that only the leader of the Yeongrang Church-State was permitted to possess. One could well imagine what it was capable of, then.

"Go back to where you were."

Hieronymus began to recite a long incantation.

Taking it for an attack upon Rebecca, Joanna threw herself forward to stop him.

No one here knew.

Joanna Smith. What she thought of Rebecca Rolf.

Hyungkesuni had believed that Joanna thought of Rebecca as her daughter. The others, Hieronymus among them, had believed she was serving a god with the utmost devotion. All of them were wrong.

Unexpectedly, of everyone there, she was the one looking the Outer God most squarely in the face. Joanna's unhappy past had let her see ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the wildness the Outer God harbored in its breast. And because she had spent a life of more than a few decades enduring unreasonable things, she could see that the Outer God was enduring, too.

And—

Whenever she cleaned, she had seen it wordlessly put simple tools away for her, or set them in order. Once, on a day it had come in from exercise tracking wet sand, she had watched it sweep that sand for a long while; after that, she saw it always take care to stamp its shoes clean before stepping inside.

It had done nothing. She had simply treated it as someone she lived with. Not above her, and not below. They hardly spoke, and yet even while each tended to their own work, it was a person who showed consideration.

A person who, in all her life, had never once existed.

She had not believed in it as a god. It was not a friend, nor purely a superior to be waited upon. Nor had she taken it for the child of her own she had lost long ago without ever bringing it into the world, or as something to stand in that child's place. It was ambiguous. She had simply been fond of it, and so she moved for its sake.

And someone stepped into the path of that Joanna, and stabbed her.

Tisha.

"I don't know what any of this is! But the most dangerous thing here right now is that one! Do it, Hieronymus! Do it! Send that thing back, quickly!"

He protected Hieronymus.

He protected Hieronymus, the mortal enemy he had been fighting until only moments before, and yet, astonishingly, not a single person there condemned Tisha. They too, from the exchange just past, knew that something was going terribly wrong. Before reason could speak, instinct cried out first that the one who had to be cast out was that girl.

Eyes wide, the Outer God saw the woman who had been charging at Hieronymus, her arm and her abdomen run through by Tisha.

"Jo... anna?"

For the Outer God, the situation was impossible to understand. She hadn't said anything particularly strange. She had only said that she had done what Hieronymus told her to do. So why? Why was Joanna stabbed, and dying? And at the hands of none other than Tisha?

And in that moment, Hieronymus's incantation came to an end.

A technique retained from the days of the Yeongrang Church-State: the art of sending back a god that had descended from the sky.

A long while later the light was gone, and all that remained in that place was a girl with blonde hair.

A twitch.

The girl moved. Everyone went tense and raised their weapons toward her. Presently she lowered herself slowly to the ground, laid a hand over her chest, and drew several breaths. Then she opened her eyes.

Her irises were blue, and they no longer shone.

"Hello, everyone. My name is Rebecca Rolf."

Everyone understood. The person before them now was not the Outer God of a moment ago. It was not simply that the colors had changed. The manner of speaking itself was entirely different.

She extended an arm and pointed at Yasle with her index finger.

"Leader of the Church of Future Hope. Because of you, my family and I were murdered."

She accused him.

Those present understood it, faintly. What stood there was a person. The something that had been filling the inside of that skin was gone. Tisha and the people of the Kingdom of Anselus grasped as much, turned, and leveled their weapons at Hieronymus once more.

The brief alliance was over.

They meant to bring their strength to bear and fight again, but no one could move.

"There's something I absolutely must tell you. Listen. Listen, Hieronymus. No—former leader of the Yeongrang Church-State, Yasle."

Yasle, who had been pouring killing intent over the people around him from sharp eyes, whipped his head ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠toward Rebecca. Watching that expression, Rebecca smiled faintly, and now she took the curse upon her tongue in blunt speech.

"You called that Outer God into this world. You dragged here an Outer God that could do nothing but look quietly upward from a place deeper than beneath this ground. And you put into that Outer God's hand a key that can now go anywhere."

Yasle knew what she meant. He was about to say that their side would need a great deal of preparation—when he suddenly recalled something Hyungkesuni had worried over not long ago. That the Outer God was spreading a word only they knew. But the moment he had learned the word was Outer God, he had let it be. It was only that the term the thing used for itself had changed. Then, realizing what would come of it if that art were joined to the summoning magic he himself possessed, Yasle sank to one knee before he knew it.

Rebecca recalled the sight she had seen from within. At every shining star there had been a different world. The clothes were different, the fashions were different, and even the species were different. One could reckon there were as many as there were lights. It was a memory Rebecca had seen inside that Outer God, so perhaps there were far more still.

She fixed him with a cold, stern look and went on.

"From now on, the Outer God won't be coming only to this world. It will reach for as many worlds as there are stars in the night sky. You should never have called a thing like that into this world. All of it is your fault. The future? Hope? You drove all of it down into that cold sea. No. This will hurt you more."

And Rebecca borrowed the manner of speech of the something that had once occupied her body.

Yasle knew what it meant. That the summoning should never have been performed in the first place. That all of it had been the Church of Future Hope's mistake.

Both knees met the ground. In a posture like a boy receiving punishment, he clutched at his own chest as though his heart ached. It was a defenseless posture, unguarded enough that a single swing of a weapon could have killed him on the spot.

But no one moved.

No one could open their mouth.

Let us use an expression that does not yet exist in this world.

They felt cosmic horror.

A fear unreasonable, difficult to describe, difficult to understand even once explained—a fear in which one could see, certainly, clearly, past all denying, that the only thing waiting ahead was an end already finished beyond all mending. And all that remained in that place was a terrible despair: that killing the enemy before their eyes would make nothing better.

Still without knowing what it meant, that the blessings went on working, exactly as they always had.