Goodbye, First World
Wow. This is boring.
Hyungkesuni was seized and hauled away. The people who hold a grudge against her are torturing her. I watched for a while, telling myself it served her right, but repetitive stimulation grows stale.
There is something far more interesting. The Harvesters are multiplying like mad! People are spreading so fast that I have to wonder whether a Blessing Proxy is even necessary — and the more the Harvesters grow, the wider they spread, the more warmth comes gathering in. Oh, this is genuinely wonderful.
I had been worried that the religion I suspect was modeled on my knowledge was altogether too bland. But then I thought back to when I was human, and even religions that bland went around killing a great many people.
They call it a witch hunt. Spot someone from the Holy God Church, and they hunt them down, toy with them, and kill them. Let purple hair become grounds for discrimination, and people turn on one another over that very discrimination — and a different color of hair becomes reason enough for murder.
As a rule, though, becoming a Harvester raises the body's performance, so without the blessing it is hard to win. The only moments they can win are when numbers favor them. And once those numbers reverse, all the hatred stored up until then comes crashing down upon them. It need not even be the Holy God Church. People who belong to no religion at all — such things happen to them constantly.
Thanks to that, I smiled as I watched the warmth increase, little by little.
Yes. That's right. This is an automatic warmth-collection system.
One world is slowly being dyed my color. Something calling itself the Holy God interfered along the way, but after a single great fight I no longer sense it doing anything. That alone is a little disappointing. If it had acted, I might have been able to catch hold of it. But there are countless worlds. It will work out somehow.
And Hyungkesuni — ugh. Truly, all that comes of her is a sigh.
When I went off to die, I had three people look at the book, didn't I? They kept it safe, and in time they handed it over to the Outer God Church. By then more than nine-tenths of the people were already Harvesters, so I could see everything, from wherever to wherever. I watched what became of that book as well.
As expected, there was a trap in it. They unraveled the book and devised an entirely new method of summoning, and on Rebecca's orders they worked the summoning magic in some remote place. But the thread that came down never reached the floor where I am.
Just as I had, they concluded that Hyungkesuni's knowledge alone could not call me. Of course I know that if Yaseulle had not inherited that knowledge, calling me would have been impossible. Anyone short of a fool would realize that much. Still, a disappointment is a disappointment. And with that, my anger toward her cooled. I was the one at fault, seizing someone who could not do the work and ordering her to do it.
The warmth?
Hmm. It is a difficult call. Even if Hyungkesuni had written the book in good faith, it is true she could not have summoned me. And the terms had been that, in exchange for writing the book, the warmth was not to be taken.
I did not get what I wanted, so I take revenge. Or else — I tormented a child who lacked the ability, so I keep the promise.
Fine. I'll keep it.
The warmth that once fell like the rarest droplet from a dry sky now comes down as a thin stream of water. Thinner than a thread, of course, but far better than no warmth at all. She is the one who joined the threads so that I could come this far, and I will count that merit highly. Then I can hold my head up later. Even if someone breaks a promise with me, if they made the effort, I respected it.
Hehe. It is the truth, isn't it?
There is no guarantee that someone who can peer into my memories, as Rebecca did, will never appear again. If I am summoned once more on the basis of Yaseulle's memories, there is a good chance the body I enter then will live again as well. This memory will help, when that time comes.
I keep my contracts, like a demon.
Of course the other side will go looking for gaps in the contract and try to screw me. That turns up in a great many stories. I used to wonder why demons are foolish enough to insist on honoring a contract — well, once people understand that they can aim for the gaps, someone will make a contract even with a terrifying opponent. I can trick them. A great many people think that way. When you see something that works, you ought to learn from it.
While I turned this over, the stream grew steadily thicker. If I make one entire world completely mine like this, just how much warmth could I go on receiving? I can hardly wait!
Harvesters fill an entire continent now. The child of a Harvester is a prospective Harvester. The drawback is that I have to seek out each one and set it in them myself, but it is no great labor. There is no need to read out any separate contract. I only have to find them.
And yet, though the number of people has grown enormous, I cannot go up.
Strictly speaking, I did try once. The place where I died is always thick with Harvesters. But the moment I moved to set my foot there, the support looked far too frail, and I could not climb. It felt as if the glass bottle would shatter on the spot. So I hurried back down beneath the surface.
I do not know what would happen if the glass bottle broke. Warmth is coming in steadily, though. There is no need to cut open the belly of the goose that lays the golden eggs, is there?
But — over there.
Why are cracks slowly creeping through the glass bottle? The bottle that holds light without number, as if a galaxy were sealed inside. As if it cannot bear the weight of what it contains, the cracks spread, little by little.
I watched in a fret, but there was no solution. I am thin as a thread, and joined to the light within; the moment I tried to interfere through that joining, the sound of everything around me breaking rang out, and I fled at once.
In the end the Harvesters felt that sound as well. I know it is growing more and more frequent. But the Harvesters pretend not to notice.
No — don't pretend. Find a way!
My wish never reached them.
Left to itself, the sky at last opened in a vast fissure. One glance is enough. The glass bottle is breaking. The first world — the one I spent a truly long time brooding over, and making — is falling apart. All I can do is look on and grieve, and the tears come. Why am I this powerless?
While the world was splitting, Rebecca said something strange. She said the time had come to meet the Outer God. There is no reason for me to go up there now, so I wondered what she could mean, and I watched. Rebecca went to Dakota and told her that this was the end.
At that, the woman who had tormented Hyungkesuni for so very long put on the face of someone to whom the inevitable had finally come, and raised a sword wreathed in spell-fire. Together with Rebecca she went down into the cellar, and there Dakota drove the blade into Hyungkesuni, who had been reduced to a lump of meat.
The witch died.
Then Dakota aged in an instant, and died right there as she was.
I looked to see what had happened, and for a moment I could only stand baffled, unable to understand.
The glass bottle shattered. Strictly speaking there was a slight gap in time, so the two were not truly cause and effect — but as the bottle burst apart, every light inside it fell.
They fall to where I am.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Now and then a clump of light comes toward me, hooked and bitten as if something were fishing for it, so I shook the thread still tied to the light — and it fled.
What. They covet warmth too?
Should I hunt those first, later on? I'll think about it later.
And in the end, they fell upon me.
Plop!
Heh. Hehe. Hehehe.
What is this. It's heat. Incredible.
Ah — yes. Better than a little candle. Better.
The cold, for a moment. Only a moment. Not forgotten. Gone.
No. Don't. Don't take it. This is heat I only just managed to feel. It's warm — the first heat I have ever felt, coming all the way down to this goddamn filthy bottom!
Ah. The heat is draining away.
What is this cold? What in the world is this chill? Why must I be the only one who has to be this cold? Well?
Shriveled black, I clutched the light slowly dwindling inside me. It melted and vanished within me, like flour sifting away to nothing. Wring the shriveled thing all I like — there is no warmth in it at all. The lights I did not clutch have already shriveled black as well, and are slowly disappearing inside me. Not a scrap of nourishment. Trash like this.
I seized one and hurled it upward. A great clump of light happened to be passing overhead just then, and I was annoyed. The clump caught the light I had thrown. It spun round and round like a fish, then flicked it away again with a tap.
Plop.
The light returned to the bottom. It had already been licked, so I cannot tell what was there. But a very faint warmth remains. This is not warmth the light itself possessed. It is light that belonged to the clump above. Which is to say, it is reasonably warm.
Oho. Is that so? That one's warmth can be a goal for later.
Anyway. Among those who had sunk, I found someone I had not seen in a long time. Already dead at the moment of the fall, but light still remained in the corpse. Warmth, though — none.
When I was first summoned, I could take both light and warmth from the corpses that lay dead around me. This one has none of that. It isn't that anyone ate it. Nor is it that I took the cold. Honestly, I took nearly all the heat. But I left one.
Before reason could sweep me away, I pushed it aside on instinct. You think that's backwards? Obtaining warmth is an eminently rational act. Contracts and the like are instinct. A rather useless instinct.
Well. In any case — welcome, beneath the surface. I have decided not to take the warmth.
So. How does this cold feel to you? Can you smile? Then, now. Will you change, the way I did? Will you become as unhappy as I am?
Thud!
The light shriveled, turned to dust, and was gone.
Huh?
As when I climbed up last time and fell, I had thought that if I did not eat it, and simply set it quietly aside, a monster like me would come to be. But it could not endure, and simply burst. As if this place were the deep sea, it shriveled and exploded. Was it too ruined to hold together, or is it that a human cannot endure? The questions only multiply. There is far too much I have to do.
What number counts as the proper amount. Whether it might be better, as now, simply to drop a world. How the Harvesters ought to be used. And what I myself can do, and how far.
All right. I'll do every bit of it. There is plenty of time, anyway.
Thinking that, I looked around. Beneath the surface, nothing remains now. Ripples run across the surface, but that is all. In short, this is the end. This.
I looked up at the place where the first world had once been, and offered my last farewell.