Translator: Alpha0210
There were more things he wanted to hear, but with only three hours remaining, there was no leisure to calmly observe or listen.
Watching Residue rise abruptly, Futurix asked.
"Do you know where Demensio is?"
"I've been there before."
Lukas had, not Residue.
"If you went before the Unified World, that information is useless now. Among the territories in the World of Void, Demensio was especially vast in scope. Unlike Corpse Ghost, who lost most of their territory after losing the Dumpsite following the Unified World, the 0th Demon preserved the bulk of that land."
"Corpse Ghost lost the Dumpsite?"
"Yes."
"Why? Because of the aftermath of the Unified World?"
Futurix made a troubled expression.
"Well... I've analyzed it from multiple angles, but I couldn't find a definitive reason. However, there are too many oddities to simply chalk it up to the aftermath of Unification. The Dumpsite didn't just partially disappear; the vast majority of it evaporated."
"......"
"If you know about the Dumpsite, I don't need to tell you how vast it was. That enormous space vanished as if someone had deliberately omitted that part alone. From the Dumpsite's perspective, at least, it was no random catastrophe."
"Then Corpse Ghost must have no land left now. The title of Void Lord has lost all meaning."
"Having little land does not disqualify one from being a Void Lord."
Fair enough.
The Exile, for one, had never had any territory to rule over in the first place.
Futurix continued.
"...I wasn't particularly fortunate either, though not as badly off as Corpse Ghost."
"Hm?"
"My territory also lost over eighty percent to the aftermath of the Unified World. As far as I know, I'm the lord who lost the second-most territory after Corpse Ghost."
"...Ah. That's quite unfortunate."
Residue said so, unable to find better words.
His train of thought quickly shifted to the Dumpsite. The reason the Dumpsite had vanished was... probably because it merged with the Three Thousand Worlds. After all, in the World of Void, where the forsaken were cast adrift, the Dumpsite had been the resting place for the even more forsaken.
The possibilities of every parallel world.
The number of those possibilities was beyond counting, so if they had merged with the existing Three Thousand Worlds and all the corpses in the Dumpsite had been materialized... the world might truly have reeked of nothing but rotting flesh.
Of course, this was all merely Residue's speculation, and the truth might lie elsewhere.
...His thoughts had wandered for a moment, but the Dumpsite's disappearance wasn't what demanded his attention right now.
Demensio.
The territory of the 0th Demon was certainly a sprawling place. Layers of landmasses stacked upon one another above a bottomless abyss. Each one was large enough to be called a city in its own right. Disgustingly vast, complex, and intricate, like an elaborate anthill.
After a brief moment of deliberation, Residue spoke.
"You've mapped the location of Demensio, I take it?"
"I have."
"Give the exact coordinates to Michael. Michael. If you have the coordinates, you can transport this body there?"
"I've never been there, so I'll need time to calibrate."
"How long."
"Perhaps... ten minutes."
"Get it done in five."
Residue issued the order unilaterally and turned away. He heard Michael sigh but ignored it.
This time, he looked at Perus and spoke.
"Tell me more about the Blue Knight. What happened with Luca?"
"...Shortly after Your Majesty departed, the Blue Knight returned. Alone, without the Red Knight. She looked absolutely furious. There was no reasoning with her, and she came striding through as if she intended to tear the entire Top Universe apart... That was when space split open and the girl revealed herself. The instant the two came face to face, the Blue Knight's demeanor changed. After that, they exchanged words in low voices, then left together."
"Tore open space and appeared?"
Residue narrowed his eyes. Luca shouldn't have had that kind of ability. Setting aside who made the call, didn't this mean Michael had permitted Luca to act that way?
"Luca, was it? It was her idea."
Beniyang spoke up as if to explain.
"Originally, we had already escaped the area entirely using Michael's power, but then we became aware that the Blue Knight had appeared. She said that if we left things as they were, the Top Universe would be destroyed. And that if we brought her there, she could persuade the Blue Knight."
"Did she leave any message for this body?"
"She said not to worry."
"......"
Residue fell silent, and Beniyang cautiously asked.
"...What exactly is that girl? Between the name and everything else, she strangely reminded me of Master."
"Lukas's secret daughter."
"You're joking, right?"
Residue gave a vague shrug.
If Luca had gone that far with her words, it wasn't baseless confidence. She must have done it because she genuinely believed she could persuade the Blue Knight.
If that was the case, Residue had nothing more to say on the matter. He would help Luca if she was in danger, and she was someone he would rather protect whenever possible, but he had no intention of interfering with a choice like this.
And... being at the Blue Knight's side might not be a bad thing in the long run.
─Luca.
─Yes!
─When this fight is over, it would be better for you to part ways with this body.
The words he had spoken mid-battle had been sincere.
Perhaps those very words had driven Luca toward that choice.
Yet traveling the world alongside Luca, Residue had come to feel two things.
One was that she was the kind of person who made things less boring when she was around─ and the other was that she was hopelessly mismatched with Residue's way of life.
The path Residue walked would be torture for Luca. To adapt to it, she would have had to destroy herself to some degree, and by the time that process was complete, the girl would have become an entirely different being.
Change. Residue didn't like the idea of that naive brat changing. He would rather she stayed as she was, helpless and oblivious to the ways of the world.
If only the Blue Knight wouldn't mistreat her. Surely she wouldn't kill or devour her?
Residue entertained the thought for a moment, then shook his head. If the Blue Knight intended to kill her, she wouldn't have vanished alongside her; she would have killed Luca on the spot. That was the kind of woman the Blue Knight was.
Around the time his thoughts concluded, Michael approached.
"The calibration is complete. Shall we depart immediately?"
"Yes. But first, some preparations are needed. Agolet."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Lend a hand."
"With what, if I may ask?"
"Hm. First of all......"
***
They say the throne is a seat permitted only to kings. Then was everyone who sat upon it a sovereign? Whether they wished it or not, must they be?
"...Eat shit."
Sedi Trowman, seated on the throne in an irreverent posture, muttered in a coarse, phlegm-thick voice.
Demensio's goddamn throne. To Sedi, it was nothing more or less than a chair slathered in gaudy, cumbersome decorations, and she sat upon it as such.
Sedi had been drifting through memories, as if caught in a dream.
Reality was such a wretched mess that she found herself reminiscing about the past more and more often. She wasn't some decrepit old woman on her deathbed, and she should have been the first to laugh the loudest at this pathetic state. That was who Sedi was, yet right now she didn't have even the energy for that. And so the stale reminiscing spiraled in an even more pathetic direction.
Looking back on her life, she found herself seeking out happy times before unhappy ones. That was why the reminiscing kept stretching on.
When was the happiest time of my life?
She felt as though she had pondered a similar question once before. When was it? Back then, too, she had probably been half-resigned like this, chewing over her own memories.
...She couldn't quite remember.
Neither when that had been, nor what conclusion she had reached.
For that reason, the reminiscence traced all the way back to its starting point.
Her first memory. The very first sight her eyes had ever taken in.
The landscape of her home planet.
It was a planet where night did not exist. A scorching sun, haze rising from the desert, and people who spent their entire lives throwing themselves into battle.
─Born among them as a mutant.
White skin among bronze, black hair among gray.
Abandoned by her parents the moment she was born.
The fury and hatred she had harbored over that fact.
Using that as fuel, she fought, and fought, and fought again─ until at last she killed the planet's king and chewed on his heart. The child who should have died, the one who calls shadows, the one who would bring night to the planet of the unsetting sun, the reaper.
When she had killed every last one of those who had called her by such slurs. When they knelt before her, when they bowed their heads.
Had she been happy then?
─Meeting God.
Learning of the Absolutes, of a wider and more diverse universe.
She had not been the strongest. She had been a frog in a well.
There is much to be done, God had said. And offered her a choice.
To reign over her home planet as its king,
or to venture forth into a broader world.
When she received that offer, had she been happy then?
─Meeting the Demon King.
A Ruler. A being she had considered greater than God. The first being before whom she willingly gave up fighting and chose to kneel of her own accord.
Entrusting herself to the Demon King,
receiving a Soul Weapon,
hearing a few words of praise.
...Had she been happy then?
"No."
None of it.
Not once in that entire life had Sedi ever felt happiness.
Then why had she kept living? It might have been more accurate to call it mere survival. That, too, was simple. She didn't want to die, either.
A tedious life, an existence. Volunteering as God's errand runner, living on because she couldn't bring herself to die. The role of an Absolute: saving universes in peril. Even when she completed such missions, there was no sense of accomplishment. It seemed to be the same when the Demon King praised her.
In other words, the being called Sedi...
...could be said to have truly been born only when she received the name Trowman.
The weight of a life.
Because existence is profoundly subjective, one cannot help but rank its worth. Sedi had gone a very long time without doing so. She didn't know how, had no standard by which to judge value. She had prioritized herself over others, but that was closer to the selfishness of instinct than a rational decision.
At this point, there was no denying it.
Sedi's inner self was far more fragile than she had ever believed.
The first bond she had barely managed to sprout. A man she had unilaterally called Father, and who had accepted it without pressing the matter. A hastily forged bond had, before she knew it, become a real one, and its weight had grown and grown until it became everything Sedi had. To the point where his disappearance alone was more than she could bear.
"What should I do?"
The moment her murmured voice scattered like steam, someone made their presence known before the throne where Sedi sat.
A demon with red skin and horns. An Apostle, was it? Those who served the 0th Demon. One of Demensio's officers, essentially, though Sedi had already forgotten even this demon's name.
"My King."
The red-horned demon addressed her with that detestable title.
Sedi's expression soured. In truth, she already knew what the demon was about to say before a single word left its mouth.
"Do you truly intend not to attend the summit?"
"How many times do I have to repeat myself?"
"But......"
Summits, summits, summits.
These damned creatures had been talking about nothing but the summit for some time now.
Her teeth ground together at the mere thought of it. Sedi knew exactly who had organized that summit.
The 2nd Beginning Wizard. Former Ruler. Master of the Top Universe. He had been called by many names as of late, but to Sedi, he was nothing more than a loathsome being who had stolen her father's body.
But then.
When the man who had been confined in the mansion built atop the flight dragon Beniyang Argento had arranged, when he had succeeded in escaping. Strangely, Sedi no longer felt any desire to pursue him.
Was it because she didn't even want to cross paths with him? Or was there some other reason?
A headache was setting in.
Her thoughts hadn't even settled, and with the red-skinned demon blathering on in front of her, the confusion only deepened.
"Shut your mouth and get out. Before I rip it open."
When Sedi spoke in a voice that seemed to boil, the demon flinched, bowed its head, and scurried away. The new lord was, in fact, extraordinarily cruel in temperament, with a record of brutally executing demons who had dared to rebel.
Once the red-horned demon withdrew, Sedi let out another sigh.
The lethargy was stifling.
She didn't want to do anything, and it seemed she truly lacked the strength to do so.
Right. Perhaps living half-dead like this and then being killed by Destruction wouldn't be such a bad ending after a─.
CRASH!
In that instant, something exploded and the ceiling came crashing down. It happened without the slightest warning, and even Sedi's face registered genuine shock.
Clumps of dirt rained down in its wake, and someone tumbled out from amidst the debris.
"Cough......!"
The moment the man emerged from the cloud of dust, Sedi's face hardened like stone.
The blood-soaked man had a face that was impossible to mistake or misidentify.
"S-Sedi......"
"...Father?"
The instant she heard the faltering voice, Sedi said the word reflexively.
The man spoke, his face gaunt.
"H-help me, I beseech you. A lunatic is chasing this bo... I mean, me."
"What?"
Then, from the hole in the ceiling the man had fallen through, one more figure appeared.
It was a knight clad head to toe in white armor. Unlike the man who had dropped before him, the knight descended gently and completed his landing with a motion so graceful it was almost elegant, then raised his head.
And the moment his eyes met Sedi's, he spoke with a face that looked thoroughly reluctant to be there.
"The lunatic has arrived."
"......"
Sedi froze with her mouth hanging open.
The man continued.
"That's him! That lunatic is trying to kill me."
"......"
"He's an absolutely vile, wicked son of a bitch, and I barely managed to flee all the way here. So if we combine our strength......"
He didn't finish.
Sedi extended her hand, and from it poured countless black thorns. It was no joke; it was an attack loaded with every ounce of killing intent she could muster, and the man, Residue, dodged with everything he had.
The thorns pursued Residue relentlessly, and through some kind of power, they detonated in chain explosions. He evaded the thorns themselves, but couldn't entirely escape the blast waves, and Residue had no choice but to tumble across the ground.
After rolling a good few dozen times to dodge, he settled himself on the floor with perfect nonchalance. Chin propped in one hand, looking for all the world as if he were reading a book in his own parlor.
Dozens of thorns bore down on the abruptly defenseless Residue, but Agolet wedged himself in at the last second and blocked them with his shield.
"Hm."
Residue scratched his chin and spoke.
"To think 'Operation: Bumble Through Pretending to Be Lukas' was a failure. Where exactly did it all go wrong?"
"From start to finish, I would say. Your Majesty."
"Was my acting really that terrible? I even went so far as self-harm for the sake of realism, and to get these results... it truly wounds me......"
"I'm sure you'll see better results next time. More importantly, what will you do now?"
"Plan A failed, so it's on to Plan B."
Agolet tilted his head.
"This plan had a Plan B?"
"It didn't. I just came up with one."
"As expected of Your Majesty."
Residue rose to his feet and called out.
"Sedi Trowman! Lukas left a message for you!"
At that, Sedi, who had been doing nothing but raining attacks, faltered for the first time. The thorns that had been on the verge of swarming him all froze in place, as if time itself had stopped.
Crimson eyes fixed on Residue, and then she spoke.
"What message."
"...Well, you see."
Residue fell silent for a moment.
Because, from this point on, he had to make one up.
*****
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