……The distant past rises in puffs like fog.
A memory of the Divine Era, a time that could not be expressed by the concept of time, having surpassed one year, ten years, one hundred years, even one thousand years.
Back then, a god still lived, and Kwei was a faithful believer.
Since only one god existed in that world, everyone but Him was a believer.
—What do you think today’s revelation will be like?
—Haha. We simply record whatever it is and accept it gracefully.
The believers of the Divine Era received the god’s revelation and spent their days interpreting it. They filled their bodies and minds with nothing but the god’s revelation.
A human life intertwined with god.
The life of a creation devoted solely to the One who created it.
In that great era, Kwei was happy.
Every moment was fulfilling, every fragment held value.
—Kwei. This revelation is fraught with meaning.
As such boundless grace continued, a revelation descended without warning.
A sentence particularly alien and direct after countless ages.
To Kwei, the revelation was interpreted thus:
[Your depravity shall lead me to death.]
The believers’ depravity.
And the god’s death.
Kwei was shocked then. He belatedly looked around this ‘village.’ He surveyed the believers’ faces with suspicion.
Only then did he realize that they were different from himself.
—…….
The believers’ expressions, once so fulfilled long ago, now looked as if they were jaded. They seemed somehow bored. As if something other than god had entered their hearts.
It was ‘time’ that had corrupted their faith.
—We must reclaim our faith! Look at this revelation! Otherwise, our god shall be imperiled!
Kwei tried to persuade them, but all that returned were dry answers.
—Kwei. The interpretation of revelation differs from person to person. It is merely a matter of how one accepts it.
—There is no room for interpretive disagreement in this revelation! Did the god not speak of His own death!
A debate over interpretation.
Kwei fought fiercely with the other believers, but despite his efforts.
Before long, the ‘death of god’ descended like despair.
—……?
That day of destruction was strangely ordinary. Nature was rather clear and refreshing. The softly blowing wind caressed his hair as if comforting him.
Thanks to that gentle touch, Kwei knew.
That the ‘divinity’ in the atmosphere had vanished.
That is, the god had been murdered.
———Pitter-patter, pitter-patter.
At the sound of falling rain, Kwei opened his eyes. In the dark mansion, the chandelier on the ceiling was vivid.
“You’re awake.”
Dekyulein’s voice called out to him. Kwei looked back toward it.
“…….”
He was reading a book. Sitting in the study’s chair, his cane propped at an angle against the desk.
Kwei looked at him and nodded.
“Yes. I dreamed for the first time in a while. A dream of the Divine Era.”
“Was it pleasant?”
“No. It was despair. It was the day the god was murdered.”
Rustle— Dekyulein turned the page and smiled faintly.
“What’s so funny?”
“I can plainly see your body crumbling apart just like mine.”
“……Pfft.”
At those words, Kwei smiled too.
A doll’s body indeed had its limits. The dream was likely proof that those limits were not far off.
“It’s enough time to see the end.”
“Same for me.”
Kwei rose. He adjusted his clothes. At that, the knight behind Dekyulein gripped his sword.
He was on guard.
“……A forget-me-not.”
Without so much as a glance at Yulli, Kwei instead pointed to a single flower placed atop the desk.
The forget-me-not that Ria had left with Dekyulein.
Dekyulein glanced at it and spoke.
“Do you know its meaning?”
“Flowers do not speak. They are merely things humans have arbitrarily made up.”
Drip-drop— Drip-drop——
Just then, the rainfall grew heavier. Cold droplets beat against the mansion.
“‘Forget me not.’”
Dekyulein said. Kwei turned his eyes to look outside the window.
“That is its meaning.”
“…….”
“God is approaching, Kwei.”
Rustle— Dekyulein turned the page. Kwei’s face twisted in an instant.
“God is already dead.”
“No. I can feel Him. Now I shall become a beacon and make way for Him.”
Clack—
Dekyulein closed the book. And he gazed at the rain outside the world.
“……That must be the reason She sent me down.”
With a sudden smile at the corner of his lips, he turned back to Kwei.
“Kwei. She pities you.”
“…….”
“She wishes that you will discover your own worth.”
There was no expression on Kwei’s face. He revealed neither affirmation nor denial.
Even so, Dekyulein continued.
“Her name is…… ‘Rain.’”
Rain.
The scenario writer of this game.
The one who structured the entire framework of the world, and perhaps the god who brought me into this place.
“She was always on this continent. Watching over Her creation. Affirming whatever choices humans made, loving their free will. And worrying about you.”
Kwei shook his head.
“We’ll soon find out. Who is right.”
Pitter-patter— Pitter-patter—
Raindrops hitting the window.
Kwei gazed at it, then took a step.
In that instant, space was overturned.
Whooooosh…….
The forest outside the Yukeurain mansion. Rain pouring down as if a hole had been torn open.
Within it, Kwei raised his head.
“……Rain.”
Rain.
Looking up at the falling rain, Kwei formed a faint smile.
As time passed, as this doll’s body grew weaker, as he met stronger humans like Keureto, Ipeulin, and Dekyulein, Kwei came to doubt himself.
He came to test his own faith.
Kwei already knows the reason.
“I have known for a long time. That Dekyulein’s faith is stronger than my faith.”
His infinitely strong faith, his mental fortitude firmer even than causality, was shaking Kwei’s own faith. He was being ‘tainted’ by a stronger faith.
Kwei let out a self-mocking sneer.
“……My God. Even so, I still believe in Your death. I am certain that the descendants of the god-slayer live on this continent.”
Therefore, precisely because his own faith was shaken, the dead You cannot come again.
No, You must not come again.
“But if You were not dead. If You merely pretended to take Your own life, watching from afar.”
A small anger filled Kwei’s voice. His clenched fist trembled like a leaf.
“Then the countless years I spent praying while waiting for You…….”
The ten thousand years Kwei devoted, prayers spanning perhaps even more distant eons.
Infinite years spent waiting only for the god’s return, isolating his very existence from the world.
“……would truly become meaningless.”
So, if You who never once called out during ten thousand years of prayer, have come again now merely throwing a tantrum to comfort me.
If that is truly what You are doing.
“I would rather kill You myself…….”
Plip—
Rainwater seeped into Kwei’s pupils. He quietly closed his eyes.
Whooooosh…….
As if receiving a baptism, he washed his body in the falling rainwater.
* * *
Dekyulein suppressed Jeokgwe. He threw them into the Painting Prison indiscriminately.
He sought them out on the surface and underground, in deserts and plains without distinction, displaying the will to exterminate their race, and stubbornly annihilated seventy percent of Jeokgwe’s population.
Furthermore, in that process, he toppled every political opponent.
Anyone who could be considered part of the Chinhwang faction was all judged to be on Jeokgwe’s side, tortured, forced to confess, and with those confessions arrested again; the arrested were tortured again, forced to confess, and arrested yet again.
He also drafted a declaration of war against the kingdom nearest to the Empire. Several kingdoms that heard this news prostrated themselves before war could even break out.
They had declared themselves colonies.
Thus Dekyulein became a triumphant general who won a war without fighting one. At the same time, he suppressed the media that had attacked him as a plagiarizing professor, and officially warned the Floating Island.
His sprint was akin to a rampage.
“……There are many resistance factions in the kingdoms, the duchies, and even this Empire~”
At Masal’s residence. In a conference room surrounded by all manner of papers and documents, Ganesya spoke.
Ria also set down her newspaper and nodded.
“Yes. Dekyulein is public enemy number one.”
Dekyulein wielded an emperor’s power and authority despite not being an emperor. All in the name of the annihilation of the Altar and the glory of the Empire.
“Commoners and nobles in the kingdoms as well as the Empire all hate him. Evidence of the crimes he committed has also been collected.”
Ganesya pointed to the papers filling the room.
They were all evidence, but they could not actually be used right now. With Dekyulein’s might crushing the continent, heads would roll before a trial could even be held, of course.
“……Do we just have to wait?”
“Yes.”
Ria nodded resolutely.
“The ending is already set, anyway.”
The end of this quest line.
Ria knew it.
In the end, they had to go to Myeolji, the Beacon.
Because the final knot would surely be tied at the Altar’s sanctuary.
“One day, Dekyulein will definitely prepare his magic at the Beacon.”
“Ah~ So we aim for the moment he tries to activate that Beacon~?”
“Yes.”
Dekyulein would activate the Beacon. He would prepare a grand magic for it.
That very moment would be the opening. The gap for Sophien and the Chinhwang forces, Jeokgwe and Masal to launch a preemptive strike.
“Soon, the chance to counterattack will come. It’s not far off.”
—Meow.
A sudden cat’s cry. The two startled people looked up.
A red-furred Munchkin was looking down at them.
“……Your Majesty?”
—Leave that moment to Me.
The Munchkin spoke thus.
—For I shall pierce his heart.
With a stiffly hardened face, its tail held straight out.
* * *
Myeolji, where dark-red demonic energy surged in thick clouds. On the ground of that place where life could not survive, people were swarming.
They were all believers of the Altar.
They bowed their waists as they looked at the towering Beacon erected in the heart of Myeolji. They prostrated their heads.
“Impressive, is it not?”
The words of Keureto, who had been watching that sight.
I, clad in a black robe, turned to him and nodded.
“Yes. It is impressive. A building that will neither be corroded by demonic energy nor devoured by demonic beasts.”
The Beacon was sturdy. The property of never breaking had been bestowed upon that magical structure.
No matter what happened, it would not perish and would remain on this continent.
“What do you intend to observe with that?”
“I shall open the path of the comet, and observe god.”
“……The path of the comet?”
“Yes. A comet that will bisect the continent.”
At that, several believers behind me flinched.
“Then the continent won’t be safe?”
“Things that are meant to disappear will disappear. Neither I nor Count Keureto will be among them.”
“…….”
Keureto smiled wordlessly. I deliberately hardened my face.
“The most thorough caste system shall arise.”
I spoke as if for them to hear.
Indeed, here were not only the remnants of Jeokgwe, but Ria and Ganesya as well. They were likely monitoring my every move.
“The continent filled with filth and trash shall finally become clean.”
“……Filth and trash. What are filth and trash to you? Are the believers of the Altar included among them?”
Keureto asked.
“Of course. Those who joined the Altar for petty gain are no different from the vermin of the Empire. They are merely used and discarded.”
In other words, those who rose to power by feeding on elixir.
“They shall be the first to be eliminated.”
It was then.
A dry cough sounded from behind, and Rellin slowly approached my side.
“Um…… Count.”
Rellin had a somewhat hesitant face. I turned to him and asked.
“What is it?”
“That…… the Magic Tower’s underground……”
The Magic Tower’s underground prison.
Hearing that, I immediately knew what he meant.
That Ruina and Yihelm had escaped.
“I asked what the matter was, Rellin.”
I merely asked back.
Given Rellin’s personality, he would surely falter and run away.
“Ah, no. There was a minor issue, but I can resolve it on my own!”
It was exactly the response I expected.
I nodded.
“Worship will begin soon, so see to minor matters yourself.”
“……Ah, yes. Yes……”
Rellin’s face became like a steamed bun as he left. I glanced at him sideways, and Keureto placed his hand on my shoulder and whispered softly.
……Then you shall have a hard time.
I know what he means.
As Kwei’s closest confidant, Keureto heard everything from him.
“Yes. It seems one who claims he will become a god appears weak before Lord Keureto.”
“……It seems so. I find it curious as well.”
Keureto smiled broadly. Behind him, over his shoulder, a familiar face flickered past for an instant.
Ria.
I hid my smile. Instead, I greeted Keureto.
“Farewell.”