There Is No End Here — 10

Well. What am I supposed to do.

A man barges into the room of his own accord and starts screaming. Beyond the door I hear people running, and threaded through the footsteps is a metallic clatter. Heavily armed men will be inside any moment.

Hyungkeshuni watches him with the life gone out of her face — the man screaming, collapsed to the floor, trembling. Fine. Let's say Hyungkeshuni is only like this because she's being threatened.

But is the sight really strange enough to scream and fall over? You could just as easily take it for a funeral procession with purple spheres set upon their heads.

No. They probably haven't had many chances to see a thing like this.

In the world where I was still human, I might have danced along to some legendary pop star's dance song. Here, they'd call it frivolous nonsense and swing a sword.

Their heads are sealed inside dark-purple spheres, and they're half zombie besides, so the shock is understandable. Still, it's a little disappointing.

The moment has come to understand the sphere-humans. If I don't, I don't think I can escape this place.

I have no choice but to leave Hyungkeshuni be. The moment she realizes I can't get clear of this crisis, she could stab me and it wouldn't even be a crime.

I never bound her with some mystical power — no magic contract under which disaster falls if Hyungkeshuni fails to write the book. It is only a contract one person makes with another. You can always be cheated. Even so, you trust, and you go through with it.

Of course, out in the real world, what they spell as trust they set down as the iron hammer of the law. And if that hammer doesn't hurt, a contract is worth nothing at all. I am standing in for it with a phantom of myself.

Which is to say: from where Hyungkeshuni stands, she has made a dangerous contract with an Outer God of peculiar power, and if she fails to keep it, she dies. I led her into that misunderstanding on purpose.

So I can't use ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her. That means another method — and I can't trust myself to be any good with words. I can't speak beautifully enough to charm a person in a heartbeat, which is why I persuaded them by force, miming an Outer God of overwhelming power.

Persuasion delivered, yes, by grinding a head under my foot on a dirt floor. But persuasion is still persuasion. Yes.

The only unit in my hands right now is the sphere-humans.

Which reminds me. The sphere-humans. Strictly speaking, not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠one of them has ever taken me inside, have they?

If I had to put it figuratively, it isn't so much that they take me in. It's closer to throwing an overturned cup into the sea.

I seize whichever sphere-human is nearest. The same height, if I can help it, so the light reaches easily. Then I ease myself in, the same way I have bestowed blessings until now.

Dark-purple smoke rises. When I was in Rebecca's body, cracks split along the arm and dark-purple mist seeped from the gaps. This time the arm simply turns to smoke.

Ah. Is that why I could slip a hand into Hyungkeshuni's chest earlier?

The dark-purple mist goes in without the slightest resistance. Inside it there is a black light, threaded with the faintest violet.

Hm.

Hmmmm.

Oh!

I went in. Just like that. More of me than usual, even.

Sssk.

The dark-purple sphere shrinks, slowly. And from within it, a girl's face pushes out. One of Tisha's granddaughters.

I watch, and she opens her eyes.

"Where is Grandfather?"

Ah. Oh no. A child. Of course — anyone Rebecca Rolf's height is a long way from grown. If she screams, this becomes something I can never undo. A child's scream throws people into chaos.

I try to close her eyes, but right now my hands are mist.

For a split second the thought that I'm finished skims across my mind — and the child in front of me closes her eyes on her own.

Hm? Hm? Hm?

It doesn't feel as if I'm controlling her. Only the same sensation I have when I watch from the inside.

"Get away from her, you witch!"

A man armored head to toe charges straight at me. He swings, and the blade meets my neck.

Thock.

Severed, my head tumbles to the floor.

Honestly — how many times is my head coming off today?

Of course, in the very next moment, the head rolling on the floor goes hazy, as if its resolution is dropping, and vanishes. I have a head again.

I look at him. The man in the knight's armor has the girl clutched to his chest and his sword leveled at me. He's winding up to swing again, so I catch him with a sphere-human.

"Ghk—! Let go! What are the rest of you doing! Protect her, now!"

At his shout, the people frozen in the doorway start to move. At this rate every sphere-human dies, and I'll be in danger too.

So I hurriedly drive a hand into the chest of the sphere-human right in front of me.

The hand has turned to dark-purple mist, so it doesn't spray blood and meat — it simply sinks in. I follow the light that has gone black, and the dark-purple sphere on this one's head slowly shrinks as well.

A man's face comes out.

"What is even happening right now?"

Oh. He still has his reason.

If he panics like this, won't the whole situation come apart? If he could manage it, I'd like him to shut his mouth and close his eyes the way the girl did a moment ago…….

Huh?

He shuts his mouth and closes his eyes.

Is he obeying a command? Or am I moving him myself? Obeying seems the likelier of the two. I don't know the principle, but a phenomenon is a phenomenon. If it has already happened, the interpretation can wait.

I have to move fast.

What do I do?

If I can at least restore how they look, and if I can keep them conscious, I need to multiply them. Only then does a path open that might break this situation.

Starting with the ones gripping the sword-arm of the knight, I push myself in and strip the spheres away.

Partway through, I realize something.

Ordinarily, to do this, I have to speak the line.

There has to be a verbal contract, or they resist when I push myself in.

But these people offer no resistance. Because their warmth was already taken? And yet the monster whose warmth I took before stayed connected to me, and still lost its reason and turned on me.

I had concluded there was a law: lose your warmth, and you become a monster like that.

It feels as if the contract was already made, long ago.

They have purple hair. Tisha's own hair was brown.

Do the descendants of the blessed inherit the contract on their own? The way a lease, even after the term ends, keeps running tacitly unless you say outright that you mean to cut it off?

Then why can't I share their sight?

Ah. Don't tell me.

The contract passed down, but they never took me in?

The contract is finished, and yet it still stands as unfulfilled?

I like it when the blessed grow in number.

A good thing is a good thing.

So first, I increase them.

I move through the room and turn the sphere-humans back into the blessed.

Near the entrance I glance at the ones who can't bring themselves inside — weapons clutched, leveled at the room.

Every one of them is too terrified to cross the threshold. The man who screamed and collapsed earlier is pressed flat against the doorway now.

I check the faces visible behind him.

No priests of the Church of the Holy God.

No one here seems to know what I am for certain. There may be such a person farther in, for all I know, but they aren't anywhere in the memories of the people present.

So I'll assume there isn't, and move.

I have a little time before I've turned the dozens of people in here back the way they were.

I have to think until then.

Hyungkeshuni?

Every time I add another of the blessed, the smile on her face grows.

She's smiling because she's afraid.

From where she stands, does it look like a man-eating monster multiplying its hosts?

But she already said she would write the book. I have no intention of letting that go. I'll read it, and I'll take the summoning method from it.

A book is clean.

And the payload will be far smaller, too.

Faster than shaving Yasle's memories away a little at a time and handing them over, I can pass the summoning method along.

While I sort the present and the future at that speed, the sphere-humans grow fewer and fewer.

There is no time.

I have to decide what posture I'll take from here.

At the very least, I can no longer pass for an ordinary person. They've already seen a head come off and grow back. So I discard the little play in which I appear as a herald of justice, come ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to save them.

I could sell Hyungkeshuni out, make her write the book, and cut her down after. But from what I can see in the memories of the people here, they won't throw her straight into prison the moment someone calls her a witch.

I told you, didn't I?

Tisha was a good king.

And he spread a kindly influence, steadily, year after year. Right now the Kingdom of Anselus is living through the brightest days of a peaceful reign.

The courts are still fair. For now.

They'll hear Hyungkeshuni out and try to cross-check her. So I have to keep her in my hand. I'll move her however I must, so long as I can control her.

If she runs, I have no way to catch her.

What do I do?

How do ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I seize a rightful claim in this place, as things stand?

No. Let me decide I don't even have to survive all the way to the end. When you have nothing, wanting too much is only a delusion.

I only need to stay alive until Hyungkeshuni writes the book.

No matter what she says, the blessed who came into being in this room must not die. And the reverse is just as forbidden — Hyungkeshuni must not be made a traitor for attacking royalty and lose her head.

Until the book is written.

Yes.

I set a direction.

And I set my resolve.

It's the role Hyungkeshuni handed me, anyway. I'll take it on, and if things go wrong, I'll lay every bit of the blame on her.

After I turn the last sphere-human back into a person, I go to where Tisha's corpse lies and sit at its head.

While I'm at it I look over the fissure where the upper body ought to be. As expected, looking tells me nothing.

Simply saying Now. Rise. is enough, and the blood of Tisha in this room comes back to itself. His children, his grandchildren, and even his great-grandchildren, all of them gathered here.

I look at them, and I tell them the truth.

Whoever strikes first, wins. If you've got a problem with it, come down here and answer me yourself — you, god of the Church of the Holy God.

I pour my whole soul into playing the Outer God.