There Is No End Here — 4
What am I supposed to do.
A problem I never saw coming has broken out. The people I sent my memories to aren't even thinking of summoning me.
It started like this. I gathered the memories of Yasle's summoning, cut them into pieces, and transmitted them little by little. I didn't send them all at once because people couldn't endure the transfer and died. So I dropped the volume as low as it would go and experimented, raising the capacity bit by bit as I sent. That was how I found the most I could transmit, and sent that.
But the quick ones used nothing but the memories I'd given them to cast the magic Yasle had used.
Yes.
No matter how many times I look at those memories, all I can tell is that the part which summons me is somewhere in them. And yet some people take that same memory, grasp the principle, and cast simple magic. How do they even do it?
Well. Anyway.
They can use new magic. That is the root of the problem.
The lights that fall to me, sunk beneath the surface like a cold sea, are all people deep in despair and resignation. Receive a blessing, though, and tremendous power arises as a matter of course. Just to be sure, I ran a complete survey. Before and after my blessing, it wasn't only physical ability that improved. Intelligence rose as well.
The degree differs from person to person, but on the whole the body itself changes for the better. And if they're lucky, one special ability fastens on besides.
Checking the results so far, 236 of 797 subjects have gained an ability. About three in ten. That's a decent probability, isn't it?
I say subjects, by the way, because they aren't all human.
In addition, in the world where I was summoned, the people I blessed came to 542 in all. The rest of the number is the count of lights that have fallen to me as time passed.
Not one of those who received the blessing failed to grow stronger. Wounds that could not heal, healed. They grew younger, stronger, cleverer, and a few gained special abilities as well.
Most problems solve themselves once the body grows healthy and strong. That alone is trouble enough, and those sharp enough to understand Yasle's knowledge go on to use magic. Many improve dramatically from before the blessing to after.
Yes. This is the greatest problem.
Once they have the power to climb out of a hard situation, they have no need to summon me. And if I wait for the blessed to grow unhappy again, the timing of that unhappiness is far too uncertain. It isn't being cast out and abandoned. It's the moment the head comes off. They run wild on power gained all at once, fail to get what they wanted, and are killed.
It's a dilemma.
To give knowledge to someone desperate enough to call me, I first have to give them a blessing. Give them the blessing, and they no longer need to call me.
When I was inside the world over there, I could reach people who had little warmth. Beneath the surface, I can't. It seems it wasn't only my consciousness that was dragged upward. My body itself had risen. That was why I could interfere with that world. Now that I've sunk back down, I can't interfere with it at all.
Speaking of sinking down, a scene comes to mind.
Back then.
I remember trying to make a phone and watching a crack run through empty air. What would have happened if I'd simply poured power into it then? Would the warmth have grown? Or would I have fallen through that gap again?
There's far too much I don't know.
At times like this, I shouldn't rush ahead. I should climb the steps one by one.
First, let's see if I can arrange it so the blessed are able to summon me.
What should I do?
I think it over. How do I make them summon me? What is it that I can actually do?
First, one thing. I can bestow a blessing.
To put it precisely, I hand myself over to the other person. Then the light they carry stains black, and the flesh mutates. We shorten that, and call it a blessing.
Those who receive a blessing grow stronger. Sometimes they gain a special ability. They command elements like fire or water, lightning or wind. The body changes size at will. An arm, even severed, regenerates at once. One person gained the power to twist a human mind.
This is a good thing.
Then let's consider the other side. From a third party's view, the bad side.
I can take warmth. And if I take only the warmth from someone still alive, that person turns into a monster.
The thought brushed through my head that perhaps I, too, had my warmth taken and became a monster. But the first person whose warmth I took felt a fierce cold as they changed. Then, to obtain warmth, they attacked the person in front of them. And yet the warmth of the one who was attacked was drawn to me.
Not to the monster that attacked. To me.
Shall we try a hypothesis?
That monster was infected by me. There's the old story, isn't there — a vampire drinks a victim's blood and casts them aside, and the corpse rises as a revenant that hungers for the blood of the living. In the same way, someone whose warmth I take might be regarded as a lesser entity beneath me.
But this is a little unclear. At the time, the monster saw me, looked at me the way one watches prey, then regarded me the way one regards a stronger monster, and chose a different target. I don't know what came after that. A pure-white carapace had covered its face, so I couldn't read the expression. But it was afraid of me. Was that because I was wholly other? Or because I am the one who gives the commands?
Either way, in the end, when a person turned monster kills someone else, I gain warmth. In other words, I can make unpaid laborers for myself to exploit.
Not bad. Set ideology aside, and it's the most efficient thing there is. I like that. Use them as I please and throw them away. Isn't that enough?
But this is not a good method.
The part where they fall into monsters without reason is especially bad. A simple enemy is easy to kill, isn't it? There's no guilt. You can slaughter them with the feeling of working a job.
I have an example.
Zombies, in a game where you shoot them. They look like people, but killing them stirs no guilt at all. Because they're monsters that eat people. Because they're already dead. Because they have no reason. There are any number of reasons, but in short, hunting them lays no weight on the heart.
Done this way, they'll be hunted in the end with no questions asked. It's fine at first, while it spreads like a plague. What comes after is the problem. It shows up in every plague-simulator game, doesn't it? If the infection hasn't spread far and the death rate is too high, people invent a cure in no time. Make monsters out of warmth, and they might find a solution I never imagined and kill them.
I know that if I have to do something, spreading comes first.
So a blessing is better than warmth.
It isn't necessarily a bad outcome for the people around them, is it? Whatever the true substance, it is only power. It looks as if good and evil have nothing to do with it.
And yet the blessed give me more warmth than I expected.
Someone driven to the extreme, once they gain power, tries to break the hardship they're suffering with that power. And because they have been through that extreme, they choose violence over talk.
Someone said it, didn't they?
This isn't an argument about who is right and who is wrong. It isn't about human nature, and all the rest of that. People with room to spare can worry over such things.
What matters to me is which side has the higher probability.
In an extreme situation, are there more who keep their reason and act? Or more who mean to live first and see what happens after?
Considered purely, there will be more who mean to live. And violence always breeds resentment. Of course, the one who used the violence might be in the right. The one who was simply struck might be the vicious one. So when that vicious person is hit, will they say this is what I brought on myself, or will they resent the one who hit them?
The blessing will clearly bring more warmth.
Yes. More warmth.
I know how to be patient. I'll choose the side with the greater total.
In other words, let us say my advantage is giving blessings. Warmth, I'll set aside for now. That's a problem to think about once I reach that world.
First I have to sell the advantage.
How do I sell it?
I dig straight through every memory I've gathered so far.
Hmm.
Mm.
There was that thing that kept leaping out on the video sites and lodging itself in my head, wasn't there? Right. In every kind of mass media, there is something that scatters a particular piece of information at people.
Advertising.
When I give them the memories, shall I slip my own advertisement in among them? Insert something along the lines of You can bestow still more blessings on the people around you! and one of them might take the bait.
I don't believe people like Yasle or Andrew come only one or two at a time. There will certainly be a great many. Even in the memories of the man whose light had faded, there is something like this.
For a church plant to run properly, you only need to gather eighty people.
With that, they say, you're out of the red and safely in the stable range.
Yes. For some people, religion is a business. Wouldn't a blessing make an excellent line of goods for people like that?
I've seen that kind of business with my own eyes, right in front of me, and lived through it. Someone will surely see my advertisement and call me.
Yes. I've decided.
It will take a little longer to put all the memories one person needs into them, but I'll tuck the advertisement into the gaps.
What sort of advertisement would be good?
Can you hear me? Can you hear my voice? Shall I start with that and follow the goddess in that game, the one who ends by striking you from behind?
I'd like someone who calls me without a thought, the way they do in cosmic horror. No — my mind went sideways. Those stories mostly show people driven mad by knowledge from outside, so there's little in them I can actually use.
Hmm.
For now, keep it simple. Simple.
If you want more blessings, use this knowledge and call me.
This sentence has a little trick in it, too. It sounds as if they themselves can gain more power, doesn't it? When I said more, I meant spreading blessings to more people.
Depending on the language, though, I'll have to adjust the method a little. Some tongues use an entirely different word for that shade of meaning. Even so, the frame is the same. It speaks as if it benefits the other person, when in fact it serves me.
I'll keep it short and simple, the better to stir desire. Isn't that what all advertising is?
There aren't any laws here anyway, are there?
Hehe.
I placed the advertisement.