Awakening (2)
Have you ever had an experience like this? The kind where you spit out lines straight from a novel, a drama, a movie, an animation, or even a game, then cackle to yourself afterward. For example, on a night when the full moon rises, tossing back a shot of soju on the veranda while staring at the moon and muttering, “Ah… what a killer moon…” only to suddenly remember your middle-school chuunibyou phase and scream “Kyaaak!”… That kind of feeling.
But some of those lines are a bit dangerous. The kind where the mere fact that you’re in a situation to say them is already dangerous. Take this one: “I’m fucked. After careful consideration, this is my conclusion. No matter how I think about it, I’m fucked.”
You might wonder why I’m saying something like this. Obviously because my current situation is completely fucked! Damn it. I wasn’t originally the type to swear this much, but the curses just slip out on their own.
Although my current age after reincarnation is barely five years old, the sensation feels exactly like I was killed yesterday. The final memory of my previous life had carried straight over the moment I opened my eyes.
The introduction’s gotten long, but to sum it up in one line: from my perspective, not even a full day has passed since I experienced death, yet I’m already facing the threat of death again.
My life really started at a climax. No wonder things felt off. From now on, if something feels even slightly fishy, I’ll take it seriously. It was an instinctive alarm system. Whether there’ll be a next time, though… I don’t know.
How did it come to this? Should I not have trusted the people I saw the moment I opened my eyes? Should I have been wary of anyone who held negative feelings toward me? Or should I have guarded against whoever might exploit those negative feelings? And after guarding against them, should I have predicted this exact situation and taken measures?
Crazy. How was I supposed to do any of that on the first day of regaining my past-life memories! Am I a regressor? A prophet? A famous detective who drags incidents wherever she goes? I didn’t even realize I was a girl yet, and I’m supposed to meticulously observe everything around me to predict the future? I can’t do that. I’m not a genius. Hell, I doubt even a genius could manage it in this situation.
Whether it’s fortunate or the worst possible outcome… the answer is right in front of me. Inside a monster’s stomach. I’d suspected when I heard the monster’s name as I was being sucked in, and sure enough, it was exactly as I feared. Whether on that side or this one, the meaning of “dungeon” was the same.
The scenery inside a living creature’s belly was hard to believe—stone walls and torches embedded at regular intervals to illuminate the space. There were no mazes, long corridors, or monsters like I’d imagined. Just one large dome-shaped chamber.
Since it was said that monsters are artificially created, I guessed that even if the purpose was unclear, this form had been deliberately designed from the start.
At the exact center of that space stood a single figure. I felt that familiar fishy sensation. Now I understood. This was the warning bell of instinct.
In my previous life, people often said I had good senses. But the this I felt after reincarnation far surpassed anything from back then.
And this whispered to me: the entity in the center was the mastermind.
In the space dyed reddish by the blazing torches, the bastard’s voice rang out.
“Embrace the void within chaos.”
“We are all puppets and sacrificial lambs.”
“Only destruction will grant us rest.”
With his back turned, both arms spread wide and raised high, shouting into the air with a sticky, metallic scraping voice, the pose looked like a prayer. From another angle, it resembled a showman welcoming the audience to his performance.
The bastard turned fully to face me. He placed his right hand over his chest, gracefully extended his left hand outward, and gave an elegant bow.
“A pleasure to meet you, Saintess candidate. Your name was Levia Leviathan, correct? Originally we would never have met, but…”
He was a grotesque man. A twisted existence.
Pale green hair that looked torn apart in places, a clown mask covering his face, and “Things went wrong, didn’t they? Still! Thanks to that, we’ve gotten to meet like this. Shall we call it a silver lining?”
The checkered outfit painted in every color was messy and ridiculous. Up to this point it might have barely passed for ordinary, but…
“Oh, right… Name! I must introduce myself first! What an idiot!”
The fact that his emaciated arms drooped past his knees all the way to the floor and that both hands were made of metal turned the man—no, the entity—into something truly bizarre.
“Ah, that’s right! I threw my name away! I suppose I have no choice but to tell you my nickname!”
Straight out of a horror movie: “Just call me ‘Clown’ for simplicity’s sake.”
It was the Clown.
“…Are you the one who turned Cheska into that?”
The answer was already obvious, yet I still asked.
“….What did I just hear?”
An offbeat question flew back.
“There’s no way the information could be wrong… I was told ‘that’ was nothing but a shell that couldn’t speak or use divine power. Like… a doll.”
Then, in an instant, he closed the distance and shoved his face right up to mine.
“You can, can’t you? Speak.”
Facing the Clown at point-blank range, the first thing that hit me was the stench. A rotting odor that seemed capable of decaying even my own body. The next thing I felt was fear—the terror of death I had experienced only moments ago. My body instinctively froze, then began to tremble violently.
What good were memories from my previous life? What good was being born with a beautiful face? This was a different world from my past life, and right now I was powerless, trapped in a child’s body. A helpless little girl who couldn’t even scratch the monster standing before her.
Yet I refused to look away.
“How cute. Trembling in fear, yet you won’t lower your eyes.”
The repulsive gaze behind the mask crawled over me.
“What could have happened in just a single day? Are you truly Levia Leviathan?”
It was the look of a chef wondering how best to prepare his ingredient. And I was that ingredient.
“I never expected we’d actually exchange words… This is quite the unexpected development.”
Snap! The Clown clicked his fingers.
“Well, no matter. The outcome won’t change anyway, so why not enjoy a little entertainment first?”
They say even the wishes of the dead are granted, don’t they? The Clown let out an eerie kikik laugh.
“Ah! Perfect timing—the protagonist of our story has just arrived!”
I sensed a presence behind me. At the same time, my body was lifted. It was humiliating, but unlike the gentle lift from before, this was a violent yank upward. Because he had grabbed my clothes, the fabric tightened around my throat and I couldn’t breathe properly.
Struggling, I looked back. The one holding me up with one hand was still Cheska, eyes completely unfocused.
“What was it again… Right! You asked if I was the one who made that ‘toy,’ correct?”
The Clown raised a metal finger to the mouth area of his mask, tilted his head, and made a show of thinking with a long “Hmmm~.” The sight was both grotesque and nauseating.
“To give the conclusion first, I didn’t do the ‘design,’ but I did perform the ‘completion.’”
“What…”
“I wasn’t the one who planted that seed inside it. It’s the Designer’s bad habit, you see? Expecting something without any promise to eventually bloom.”
“But in the end, that bad habit ended up helping me!”
“Wow~ It really was a coincidence! Do you remember? You saw my subordinates last night, didn’t you? When they went boom and exploded from that young cardinal’s divine power, I thought the plan had failed!”
So that was why I had been lying in bed when I woke up. Cheska’s grip grew tighter, making it harder and harder to breathe.
“Then I discovered ‘that’! Wow~ It had already begun to bloom. If a few more years had passed it would have been entertaining, but the immediate mission took priority, so I had no choice but to intervene. Shall we say I gave it the tiniest push of my power?”
“It was a tremendous stroke of luck that the barrier around those idiot parishioners hadn’t returned yet.”
“Why… are you doing this…?”
I forced the words out with great difficulty.
“Well, that’s because…”
The Clown shrugged, then shoved his face close again.
“Because you’re a Saintess candidate.”
The moment those words left his mouth, excruciating pain tore through me. I knew this pain. It was the pain of being stabbed by a blade. The pure-white clothes I hadn’t been paying attention to began soaking with red. The personality-robbed Cheska had drawn the sword at her waist and driven it into me.
It was unfair. What crime had I ever committed? To be killed by someone else not once, but twice. It was so unfair. That was the last thought I had as I fell from Cheska’s hand, my face slamming into the ground while my eyes slowly closed.
When the Clown’s first attempt at the mission failed because of the young cardinal, the emotion he felt was extreme annoyance. He had put in considerable effort, only for it to turn to nothing. Now he would have to invest even more—far more—effort.
It was then that he discovered it. The toy the Designer had planted, now germinating. Chepka? Cheska? The name was irrelevant. What mattered was that thanks to the toy, the task had become much easier. The parish barrier had not yet returned—the perfect timing. The Designer’s foolish hobby had sprouted enough for the Clown to intervene. The Designer would undoubtedly rage at him later, but so what? Good was good.
The best timing and the optimal material. Not using them would be stupid. Look. Hadn’t the Clown successfully completed his mission and felt refreshed?
“Now then, shall we finish this~?”
The Clown looked at the toy whose personality had vanished.
“Toy. With that sword—”
He issued the command.
“Commit suicide.”
Without the slightest hesitation, Cheska gripped the sword with both hands and aimed the tip at her own throat. Just as the blade was about to pierce her neck—
Boom!
Cheska’s body flew through the air and slammed into the wall. Then came a voice that should not have been heard.
In the spot where Cheska had stood only moments ago—
—stood Levia.