106 – N Years, the Shabby Monster and the Noble Servant – Part 1
Episode 106 – N Years, the Shabby Monster and the Noble Servant – Part 1
It was a place filled with transparency, clarity and a kaleidoscope of colours. Having left the Divine Realm and returned there once more, Maria swallowed hard.
‘What on earth is this place…’
“Are you curious about this place? I should have told you it is a ‘path’ that leads anywhere.”
“If one can truly go anywhere… how is that any different from teleportation magic?”
“It is different. How could mere movement be the same as omnipotent power?”
“Are you claiming to be omnipotent? Only the Lord is all-knowing and all-powerful.”
“Pfft. That’s a laugh.”
Kanos let out a sneer that seemed to mock her. Realising she had read her thoughts, Maria shuddered slightly.
“Saint, this is where you are headed.”
Kanos waved his hand through the air. A transparent circle appeared in the void. It was a circle from which white wisps of mist rose like smoke.
“The Gate of Life. All souls enter the flesh through this place.”
“This is… the realm of life and death. Why are you, the Demon King, interfering?”
“I see no reason to answer that.”
“….”
An intangible force enveloped Maria’s body. Though her legs were clearly still, she found herself moving towards the Gate of Life of her own accord.
‘Soon… the cycle of cause and effect will come to an end. It’s rather bittersweet.’
‘Things are going to get busy from now on. I’ll have to take on Lord Joker’s affairs as well… and above all, I must stop that Demon King.’
‘Why does the Demon King wish to use such immense power for such vile deeds? No… even before that, I simply cannot fathom why he would want to be provoked in the first place.’
Just as she reached the very threshold of the Gate of Life, Maria summoned her divine power to resist Kanos’s telekinesis. Pausing briefly in her movement, she posed a question.
“May I ask you something?”
“How rude.”
“Why do you intend to destroy the continent, Your Majesty?”
“Because there is no reason not to.”
“The continent is home to countless lives. It is a place where just as many dreams and hopes blossom. Do you take some perverse pleasure in trampling on their dreams, Your Majesty?”
“Sigh… You’re being a nuisance.”
Kanos ran his hand through his hair irritably. His long locks fell back, revealing a broad forehead.
“Holy Maiden, do you think you’re cutting down lives when you chop wood with your axe?”
“…Pardon?”
“To me, you are no different. Whether I kill you or not, I feel no emotion whatsoever. Do I feel a sense of exhilaration? The answer is ‘no’. What kind of madman would feel exhilaration whilst splitting firewood? Useless rubbish is thrown in the bin. To me, the continent is just that.”
“What… The fact that you feel no emotion when taking a life implies a loss of empathy.”
“Have you only just realised that? I know nothing of empathy. I’ve never felt any emotion either. To me, the world is a dull grey. There is neither light nor darkness.”
“I see….”
“I wear sunglasses in the hope of seeing at least some darkness, but even then, I cannot see the darkness. And do not try to understand me. If you could understand me, and if I could understand you, the Saint, then I would have been a hero, not a Demon King.”
Kanos muttered in a gloomy voice.
“I simply wish to feel a sense of excitement. It is a hope that even I, the all-powerful, cannot fulfil, but who knows? Perhaps the Joker, who brings about miracles, will bring a miracle to me. A life-or-death struggle where my very existence hangs in the balance… Perhaps that would be enough to give me a thrill. That is my only thought.”
“Is it… even possible for such a being to exist in this world?”
“You’re trying to find a reason for everything. It’s truly a foolish thing to do.”
Kanos’s finger rose to point at Maria’s ample bosom.
“Even you, right now, don’t understand why you fell in love with the Joker five hundred years ago, do you?”
“That is because I felt the emotion of love for the Joker.”
“Emotion? Then why did you feel that emotion? The Joker is an evil man. Are you saying that a saint has a taste for feeling affection for an evil man?”
“Wordplay…”
“Yes, it is a play on words. It becomes a play on words because you’re trying to find a reason for an emotion. Just as a female might harbour affection for a male who is the exact opposite of her own tastes, the world is full of things for which we cannot find a reason.”
Once again, an intangible force pushed Maria’s back. With the force growing even stronger, Maria was helplessly sucked into the Gate of Life.
As Maria vanished into the distance, Kanos murmured casually.
“Good luck. If you save the continent and win love, I can’t say I’ll empathise, but there’s no greater success in life than that. What’s a little game of love, after all….”
Whoosh—.
A swarm of transparent light enveloped Maria.
*****
After seeing off Saint Maria as she departed for the continent, the Demon King Kanos was left alone.
She gazed briefly at the spot where the Gate of Life had faded, then turned her head and opened a new gate, stepping inside.
Vast darkness enveloped Kanos. Though, to Kanos’s eyes, it was neither light nor darkness, but something ash-grey.
The Spirit Realm.
The Divine Realm where the gods dwell, the Demon Realm, the land of demons, the Celestial Realm, a heavenly space, and the Continent, the land of mortals.
A dimension utterly distinct from the others, one that is truly unique and special.
‘The greatest prison.’
Originally, the Spirit Realm is a prison. A place to confine someone.
A strange world with no floor and no end, yet neither round nor concave.
Those trapped within it wander the Spirit Realm for eternity. Although a cross—a place of execution—stands there, it is the only structure in the Spirit Realm.
Upon entering that Spirit Realm, Kanos made his way towards the cross upon which the Virgin Mary had been nailed. The cross, far too large for Mary’s small frame, stood towering in the centre of the Spirit Realm.
Kanos flew leisurely towards that cross. On the front of the cross, where Mary had been nailed, there was no one there anymore. Only the marks of the spikes that had pierced Mary’s wrists and the cross remained.
However.
The situation was different.
The back of the cross. A place that, unless one stretched one’s neck as long as a snake, could not be seen even if the heavens were to split.
There, an old man was nailed in a posture similar to Mary’s. An old man whose body had shrivelled to the point where not a trace of life could be found, even if one strained one’s eyes, and whose withered, twisted face brought to mind a mummy.
“Your end is near.”
“…Kanos….”
Lips as parched as earthworms after the rain parted slightly. A voice, cracking like parched earth in a wasteland, murmured the Demon King’s name.
“Lord.”
******
Whether I call out to Maria through the rosary or cast a Tel magic spell, there is now only silence. It means Maria is not on the other end of the rosary.
It also meant that Maria had been born on the continent.
It was in the 701st year of the Imperial Era that Maria told me to come to Eden Academy. And now it is the 683rd year of the Imperial Era. I am due to enrol at Eden Academy in 18 years’ time.
However, I am now free to move about as I please. Since the Saint has been born, there is no history that cannot be altered.
There are two things I need to do right away. The first is to raise my pet goblin, Meta, to godhood. Having nurtured his vessel to the full and given his innate talent, I’m certain I’ll succeed in this lifetime.
The second is to attend the Holy Maiden Maria’s christening and sprinkle holy water with my own hands… but I simply won’t do that.
I still have a burning desire to do it. But why am I giving up? It’s because I want to prove that I’ve changed.
The Saint hopes to meet me again at the Academy. And she doesn’t want to show me her infant self. I wouldn’t be much different myself.
If this were the old me, I would have ignored her feelings and barged in regardless. Then, giggling away, I would have disguised myself as a priest and sprinkled holy water on the Saint as if it were nothing. But that would clearly be an act of disregarding her feelings.
Yes, this too is another form of ‘progress’. To ‘restrain’ my own desires for the sake of another!
I suddenly get goosebumps at the sight of myself doing something I couldn’t have imagined in the past, without a moment’s hesitation. I’m also filled with pride.
I’ll meet the Saint in 18 years’ time, when her sense of self is fully formed. This is ‘consideration’, ‘altruism’, ‘good deeds’! If the Lord were to see me, He would surely find it admirable.
“Lord Oscar, where are we going now?”
Meta, who had been shuffling along beside me, asked. I replied with a sly grin.
“I’ll tell you when we get there.”
“Yes… um, but aren’t the others coming with us? Lady Beatrice, or Lord John… or Lord Uriel… why just you and Aru and me….”
“Them? No, we can’t. If they interfere, it’ll be a disaster.”
“Are we… going to do something important…?”
Meta asks, her face full of shock. Fear of the unknown future is etched all over her face.
My child, you’ve worked hard up to now. Now you’re going to become a god.
The birth of a new god in the world is a colossal event that completely rewrites history. I could not have undertaken such a monumental task before the Saint was even born.
But now, there is nothing to hold me back. Therefore, I shall put it into action immediately. Why? Because if any more time passes, I’ll have to enrol at Eden Academy.
A god is not created in the blink of an eye. Creating a god requires an immense amount of faith to gather. Naturally, it takes quite some time. In my previous life, it took three years.
“Woof! Woof woof woof! Young demon! Why are we the only ones going! What about the other humans!”
“Aru, be quiet! Why is a wolf making such a racket!”
“Grr…! Where are you going! Woof woof!”
Has this wolf cub grown attached to his companions already? Why is he putting up such a fight?
The reason I brought only Aru and Meta to create Meta as a god is simple. No matter how much my existing party trusts and follows me, creating a god is a slightly different matter. Shall I say they won’t just stand by and watch?
With the exception of the Supreme God who created the world in the beginning, all gods are created solely through faith. What is faith, then? Isn’t it the fanatical belief of a collective?
There is a law of causality in all things in the world. In other words, the law of equivalent exchange. If you put something in, something of equal value is bound to be produced. That holds true even on a spiritual level.
For example, let us suppose that Person A loves Person B passionately. To the extent of the love that Person A bestows upon Person B, the people around them—or Person B themselves—are affected. This is precisely the result of the law of causality on a spiritual plane.
However, faith has no ‘object’, for it is directed towards that which does not exist. The energy of faith, having lost its destination, drifts through the world.
But what if too many people harbour the same faith, and that lost energy becomes too great? Only then does a god come into being. Just like the Olympian gods or the gods of Asgard today.
And this is a matter of the most basic common sense: the realm of the gods is one in which humans must not dare to interfere. Occasionally, a madman like Theseus, the slayer of gods, may appear, but should a human dare to harm a god, they are subject to immense condemnation in and of themselves.
Let alone if one were to claim they would create a god… Heh heh. To my eyes, he is a vision; to the Emperor of the Empire, a weapon of war; but to ordinary folk, he is a deranged, mad demon. The very notion alone would see him dragged before an Inquisition and burned at the stake.
King John is my comrade, but fundamentally, he is an apostle of the Saint Irowel. Furthermore, Beatrice Constantino was once a devout paladin. Needless to say, Uriel, who dreams of becoming an archangel. No, Uriel is the biggest problem of all, even more so than the other humans.
In the end, the only one left is Aru, who lacks even the slightest shred of common sense. He is the one I intend to appoint as my Guardian when I elevate Meta to the status of a god. And above all… to gather faith, I must maintain extreme concentration, and having too many people around is more than a little distracting. I’m also on edge, never knowing when they might cause trouble.
Hmm, having sorted out my thoughts to that point, I realised I’d nearly made a huge mistake. Aru is now set to become my sole guardian, and if I slip up with her, I could end up screwed like a martial artist who’s gone mad from practising qigong.
I calmly lowered the hand that had been poised to smack the back of Aru’s head. Aru, who’d been sniping at me, tilted her head in confusion. That was because I’d been stroking her head with an infinitely gentle smile.
“Huh? Why are you being nice all of a sudden?”
“It just happens. Anyway, don’t ask about the others. You’ll meet them when the time is right.”
“Woof… When’s that going to be?”
“Just about ten nights’ sleep.”
In reality, it’s thousands of nights, but I said ‘sleep’. Since Aru won’t be able to sleep from now on whilst guarding Meta and me, it isn’t an inaccurate statement.
“Ten nights… That’s short! I’ll see them in no time!”
“That’s right, that’s right. Aren’t you a good boy, Aru? I’ll give you some meat when we get back, okay?”
“Woof! Meat! Woof!”
Dogs really are dogs—just the mention of meat and his eyes light up. He’s completely forgotten about his comrades.
“Hmm… It’s such an important matter, I’m feeling a bit nervous… Sshh…”
Meta lets out a goblin-like sound for the first time in ages. Immediately afterwards, he gasps in surprise and covers his own mouth. I chuckled.
If he can control himself to that extent, it’s safe to say all preparations are complete.
“There’s no need to worry. Just… steel yourself a little. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Placing my right and left hands on Meta and Aru’s heads, I spoke those words. It was to put their minds at ease.
Beatrice, Inwang, and Uriel. I had slipped away without them knowing, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t made arrangements. I’d left letters for each of them, detailing their respective tasks.
My step is light. I’m already looking forward to a future where we give the gods the finger.
*****
“My lord has vanished. He left only a mysterious letter behind.”
Beatrice, Oscar’s loyal knight, waved a single letter in a showy manner.
“The Leader? I wondered… I haven’t seen him since this morning…”
“Demons! We must go and find him! We cannot lose a comrade!”
King Johann of the humans and the angel Uriel offered their respective reactions. Unlike Uriel, who seemed to have expected this, Johann appeared quite taken aback.
Beatrice, remaining unflappable, stopped him in his tracks. She read the opening line of the letter entrusted to her.
“No, my lord has left a letter instructing us not to search for him. And… he has set us a task to carry out whilst he is away.”
“A task? What is it?”
As Johann asked, his eyes widening, Beatrice lowered her brown gaze. The next moment, her eyes snapped open.
“To create a fictitious noble house with a verifiable identity within the Empire of the Continent. And…”
“And?”
“To take up a post as a teacher at Eden… Academy…? What on earth is this…?”