Divinity (3)
A secret laboratory built deep underground.
A dizzying tangle of electrical wiring, lamps blinking so frantically it was almost maddening, and monitors where all manner of numbers fluctuated up and down.
Far removed from a clean laboratory, the space was packed full of enormous machines of unknown purpose.
Ziiiiiing—!
In that instant, a heavy mechanical roar rang out from its center.
Waves spread in every direction, accompanied by a strange magical power that shook the air.
Crackle— crackle—
Kwa-gwang! Boom—!
The machines affected by it all began to malfunction at once, spewing black smoke.
“Woo-hyah-hyah-hyat! It’s finally complete! My masterpiece, steeped in my blood and sweat!”
But the owner of the laboratory, Doctor, paid no heed even as chaos erupted all around him.
Whether sparks flew or flames spread right beside him, he did not so much as blink, simply staring at his creation before him and bursting into laughter.
To him, even the expensive equipment in this laboratory was nothing more than consumables that slightly reduced the labor required for experiments.
After all, all the data he needed was inside his head, and if necessary, he could shorten even the most complex processes as much as he liked.
“Magical engineering, of course, as well as machinery, life, chemistry… In any case, the ultimate work of art into which all their essences have been compiled!”
With that cry, red flashes burst from the eyes of the being standing before him.
A demonic something nearly four meters tall, half machine and half living creature.
“Its name is… the ‘Mecha Devil Executioner’—!”
As mechanical noise blared noisily from the metal devices embedded all over its body, Doctor’s face, bearing a madness-filled smile, was reflected on the red lens occupying one of the Mecha Devil Executioner’s eyes.
An artificial life-form created by weaving together a homunculus made from a body sample collected from the Executioner, magical tools processed into mechanical device form, and even portions of the rank and karma Doctor himself had achieved.
Doctor, gazing with satisfaction at the transcendent monster that was practically his own alter ego, tilted his head slightly.
“…Hmm, but now that I think about it, the pronunciation seems a bit lacking. Perhaps Mecha Demon Destroyer would be better after all.”
Then, as if dissatisfied with the name he had spent three days and nights agonizing over, he began to frown and groan.
“Or perhaps instead, Gigantic… Machine… Astaroth… Hmm.”
For a researcher, the name given to a creation was an element on which no compromise could be allowed.
A dignified name could sometimes raise even the value of a being’s existence.
For the sake of a splendid naming, he was willing to invest several more days and nights from now on as well.
“…Somehow, every time I come here, your laboratory seems to be a complete mess, Doctor.”
But at that moment.
An uninvited guest’s voice came from within Doctor’s private space.
A languid woman’s voice drifted in along with a cool breeze.
Whoooosh—
Along with it, the flames devouring the surroundings died down in an instant.
In place of the dense smoke, resplendent five-colored mist took over, and instead of the acrid smell of burning, a sweet fruit fragrance began to linger nearby.
As if a dreamlike illusion were overlaying cold reality.
“Why not tidy up a little from now on? Working in a clean environment should be more efficient.”
A brown-skinned woman wearing a sari, traditional Indian attire, with a pipe in one hand, appeared wreathed in mist.
“Oracle?”
At that sudden appearance, Doctor, who had been blankly staring at her, frowned.
Given how polar opposite their dispositions were, it was nothing new for their relationship to be poor.
Since it was obvious they would only end up fighting for no reason, they hardly conversed unless absolutely necessary, and naturally they were not on the sort of terms where one would suddenly barge into the other’s domain like this.
“Puhahaha! I find it more comfortable this way! After all, I remember where everything is!”
But Doctor soon greeted her with a grin, as if it were nothing.
Right now, he had just completed the masterpiece into which he had poured so much effort.
As such, he was in an exceptionally good mood, and for today, he could generously understand and let any matter pass.
“Hmm. If that is how you feel, then I suppose I have nothing more to say.”
“But what brings you all the way here, Oracle? You, who are always holed up in India?”
Oracle’s visit itself being extraordinary also played a part in that reaction.
Just as he spent nearly all his time shut up inside his laboratory, she, too, was reluctant to leave the altar she had constructed.
“The Adversary has come into contact with the world line.”
And that expectation hit the mark precisely.
At her impassive words, spoken as she put the pipe she held to her lips, Doctor’s eyebrows twitched as he chuckled.
“…Hmm. Already? That is faster than expected.”
Scratching at his roughly grown beard, he smacked his lips.
Oracle, who had taken a deep pull of her tobacco, exhaled thick smoke and shook her head.
“The second hand has already begun to move. They say that if you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes back into you. Based on this observation, the time at which the Outer God arrives on Earth must have been brought forward significantly.”
It was also the reason the Buncheon Society Leader had shared the truth with only a very small number of his closest confidants.
The more people knew, the less time they would have to prepare.
But now, not an ordinary powerhouse, but the Adversary, who possessed influence great enough to receive the world’s protection outright, had come to know this fact…
“It means you no longer have the time to agonize over naming such a toy.”
“Hey now~! A toy? Isn’t that a bit too harsh? This is practically the last keepsake left behind by our Executioner! Where did you sell off your respect for the dead, I wonder!”
“…Is it not a lost article rather than a keepsake? No, I suppose it should be called stolen goods. And as for respect for the dead, you are even more…”
“Ahem! If you’re done saying what you came to say, stop nitpicking uselessly and be on your way. I’m busy oiling up my little darling.”
At his childish complaint, she quietly closed her eyes.
They had spent no small amount of time together, but as expected, he was an opponent with whom she was utterly incompatible.
“…Phew. Then I shall take my leave. I hope you will also take care that there are no disruptions to the schedule. One wrong step, and truly everything may come to nothing.”
“Woo-hyah-hyat! You may set your worries aside! Do you know how long I have waited for that final experiment? Why would I ruin it now?”
In the end, after making him reaffirm it once more, Oracle had no choice but to withdraw obediently.
At first glance, he might appear to be a one-track mind obsessed only with research, but that man, too, had once been an absolute ruler who held the entire world in his grasp and toyed with it.
Even if he looked that sloppy, when an important juncture came, he would prove his worth one way or another.
“No, wait…! Simple is best. What if I just call it ‘Mecha Demon’…? Uohhh! Isn’t this good?”
…Though, to be honest, he was not exactly trustworthy.
‘Still, it is true that he has put in a great deal of effort for this very moment.’
That research-mad man would absolutely not allow this plan to come to nothing.
The work of making mystery sprout on Earth was merely the beginning; to him, this was a once-in-a-lifetime, ultra-large-scale project that would never come again if he missed this opportunity.
He would likely use any and all means to make it succeed.
Just as he had done until now.
‘Complete freedom for humanity.’
With neither the Outer God that manipulated them nor the System in existence.
For a new world led solely by Earthlings, without any outside intervention whatsoever.
***
Mystery does not exist on Earth.
…To be more precise, it did not exist until a little over twenty years ago, in the year 2000 AD.
Not until the System appeared and otherworld transfers began.
‘Dimensions like Earth probably aren’t very common.’
Judging from everything I had experienced so far, it was no exaggeration to say that rather than being uncommon, it was almost unique.
That aspect must have played a large part in the Akasha System choosing Earth.
After all, an empty state with nothing in it was most advantageous for making Awakened Ones deviate from the laws of various dimensions and maintain their own independent rules.
That was probably also the reason an error had occurred in Lamu’s awakening process.
“Phew.”
I opened the eyes I had closed and let out a deep sigh.
The cold sweat running down my entire body and the blood soaking the front of my clothes made me feel unpleasantly clammy, but I did not even have enough strength left to move right away and get up to wash.
‘Still, the harvest wasn’t bad.’
I narrowed my eyes halfway and focused inward.
Something wriggled deep within me.
A crack had formed in the seed of divinity that had been firmly hardened until now, and through it, a small sprout had grown.
‘I was lucky. I had some expectations, but I didn’t think it would really succeed in one try.’
Since I had made a proper start, from now on, whenever some opportunity arose, it should grow rapidly and bloom splendidly.
The same went for the divinity of the avatars, who were influenced by the main body.
That much was certainly good news, but…
“This suddenly got bigger in scale.”
Separate from that, I could not help feeling uneasy.
The secrets of the world I had been able to confirm thanks to my consciousness reaching a dimension higher the moment I obtained 「Faint Divinity」.
Most of the enlightenment I had felt within that flow of truth had already scattered like dust, but thanks to 「Record of Myth」, I had been able to bring back a few pieces of information I considered absolutely necessary without losing them.
‘That eye. It was definitely a Divine Being. And not just an ordinary lesser god, but a chief god-level being equivalent to the creator of a dimension.’
Just meeting the gaze of a remnant left in the records had been enough to stop my thoughts for an instant.
Even though, in that moment, I had been in a state no different from a god myself.
‘Something like that is descending on Earth?’
Pressing down on the corners of my eyes, which were twitching involuntarily, I let out another sigh.
A chief god cannot directly appear in the lower world.
Even if it could, it must not.
Because that alone could shatter the world.
There had been a reason why the chief gods in countless dimensions I had passed through, such as Auterica and Ganghwan Realm, had merely stood back with their hands behind their backs.
“This has become troublesome.”
If the Buncheon Society Leader’s goal was to protect Earth from that Outer God, then I could fully understand his actions up until now.
With an assured apocalypse approaching, he surely could not simply sit still and do nothing.
‘But even so…’
As someone who had directly suffered harm, I could not simply support his actions.
Moreover, the method the Buncheon Society Leader presented as a solution was also something I could not possibly accept from my standpoint.
Even the process of sacrificing the majority of Earth’s humanity to make mystery sprout was merely a stepping stone.
In a sense, his plan was not all that different from Earth’s destruction.
“There’s a lot to do. On top of stopping the Buncheon Society from running wild, I have to come up with countermeasures against the Outer God. How did it end up like this?”
My original goal had clearly been nothing more than taking revenge on the bastards who ruined my ordinary life, then living quietly and comfortably.
At this rate, I really was going to end up responsible for all of Earth.
‘…First, let’s wash. If I rush too much, even things that would have worked won’t.’
With what little strength had returned, I barely managed to get up and head to the shower.
As I stood blankly beneath the warm water striking my entire body, I felt as though the complicated feelings inside me were gradually unraveling.
‘Good grief. Earth is standing at the crossroads of destruction, and yet something as trivial as this…’
Just as I came out of the shower, drying my wet hair with a towel—
Tiririring—♪
The smartphone I had left on the table began to ring.
—Gang Taesan
It was my one and only friend.
Well, there was nowhere else that would really be calling me, so I had expected as much.
Since he was practically the only “ordinary life” I had left, I would often meet him, drink with him, and continue our relationship as easygoing friends.
Recently, he had even been making a fuss about how things were going pretty well with a female employee from another department, which had been quite irritating.
‘But what’s going on at this hour?’
It was roughly around ten in the morning.
For an office worker, it was a time when he should have only just arrived at work and be in the middle of handling his duties.
It was not the usual evening after-work hours, nor was it lunchtime when he had some leeway, but this awkward time in between.
Feeling an inexplicable sense of foreboding, I frowned slightly and answered the call.
—Hey, you got time today?
Contrary to my worries, his voice sounded calm.
But because we had been together for more than ten years, I could tell.
Something serious had happened to him.
“I mean, time is the one thing I have plenty of. But what’s with this out of nowhere? Don’t tell me you’re calling to brag that you got a girlfriend again.”
—Ahaha! It’s not that this time.
I tried speaking in a deliberately bright voice, but the reaction I got back was utterly flat.
‘It shouldn’t be anything related to his grandmother.’
Through the secret yet regular divine power treatments, Gang Taesan’s grandmother had become so hale and hearty that one would wonder when she had ever been bedridden.
Even if divine power could not do anything about lifespan itself, she should be able to spend the time given to her without minor illnesses until it ran out.
In the end, that afternoon, I left the house earlier than usual to meet Gang Taesan.
***
“I Awakened.”
“Pffft—!”
And at the words I heard there, I ended up spraying the water I had been holding in my mouth.
“…”
“…”
Two pairs of eyes met amid a quiet silence.
At the sincerity filling his gaze, I squeezed my eyes shut and, in my heart, muttered a complaint to no one in particular.
‘My head already hurts enough. Isn’t it a bit much to make things even bigger here?’
…Naturally.
There was no answer.