kscans

Chapter 201 - Message

The kids managed to recover after about a month in island time. Their wounds had not healed completely, but they wore the expressions of those who had swallowed a bitter pill and resolved to move forward, so I figured they would be fine. They might stumble in the future as old wounds reopen or new troubles arise, but when that happens, we adults can just lend them a hand. So for now, it was a happy ending.

(...Except it wasn't going to be that simple.)

On my way home from work, I met up with the kids at the Mutual Aid Society and we visited Okutama Island. Late last night, Saku-chan, who had just returned to our side, reported finding something strange. It was late, so I told her to get some sleep for the time being, putting it off until later.

"So, we went to the mountains to camp before heading back. And then Sarna-chan..."

"While we were setting up the tent, I felt a faint presence of death."

The presence of death, huh. Okutama Island is a diorama, but it has its own wild animals and insects. This was likely unrelated to them, though. She wouldn't have bothered mentioning it here otherwise.

"It felt strangely off, so I went to look for the source, and..."

Ah, it seems we've arrived. Sarna-chan pointed, su, at an empty patch of ground. At a glance, it looked like ordinary soil, but... I see, this was indeed strange.

"...It's over there. From that spot, I felt thousands, tens of thousands... no, even more deaths."

"Yeah, I get it."

The presence of death. I see, that's one way to sense it. Now that she mentioned it, it made perfect sense. An entire world had perished. It wouldn't be surprising for such a vast amount of death to be seared into this place. Sarna-chan must have sensed it with her Death God powers.

"Hero Uncle. We don't really understand."

"Hm, right. Maybe this will help you see."

I sent a light burst of my power at it, and the thing that had been blended into the ground revealed itself. A crystal orb suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Ignoring the startled children, I picked it up.

"Satou-san, what is that?"

"I've told you before. Okutama was once overwritten by a fragment of a world that had been destroyed."

This thing was a leftover from that other world, a piece of driftwood.

"I heard about that, but... you restored the original Okutama and swapped it with the diorama, right?"

Then shouldn't any leftovers be in the real Okutama? Hikaru-kun's question was reasonable, but there was a good reason for this.

"An adaptation, or perhaps I should call it a survival formula."

As I was peeling the otherworldly fragment off the real Okutama, the formula must have determined it would be discarded along with everything else. So it probably tried to escape Okutama, which was floating on the sea, but was blocked by my barrier. It must have been adapting while trying to slip through the barrier, but I finished my work faster. And the moment I was done, I immediately swapped the real Okutama with the fake one.

"You mean this got left behind at that moment?"

"Yeah. In the instant they swapped, it must have slipped into a blind spot and then just melted into Okutama Island."

"I wonder why the person who cast that spell went to such lengths to leave this behind."

Rika-chan tilted her head. It seemed Hikaru-kun and Saku-chan felt the same. The only one who seemed to understand was Sarna-chan, with her affinity for death.

"They probably wanted someone to know."

"Wanted someone to know?"

"Even if the world's destruction was unavoidable, they wanted someone to know how it came to be."

The chances of it falling into anyone's hands were slim. Still, they gambled on that infinitesimally small possibility. I could keenly feel the tenacity of whoever survived to the end just to leave this behind.

"Uncle, what are you going to do with that?"

"I'll accept it. Now that I've found it, it's the least I can do."

"Then we will too."

"Don't be stupid. The end of a world is a nasty business no matter how you struggle."

It was too much for children who get heartbroken for a month just from a little brush with the darkness of humanity. They fell silent, likely having no words to offer in return.

"Well, how about this. When you've come of age, if you still feel the same, I'll show it to you then."

I gave each of the kids' heads a light pat, pat, bringing the conversation to a close.

"Alright, shall we head back then? You still have paperwork and lectures to get through, right?"

"Ughh..."

Rika-chan made a face that was openly annoyed. Their training period was over. Now there was a mountain of this and that they had to do. They had to handle things the Mutual Aid Society had supported them with until now, which meant explanations and all sorts of other things. They had interrupted their schedule to come with me, thinking this was a matter I should know about as soon as possible, but our business here was done.

"Don't pout like that. I'll take you out for a meal when you're finished."

"Okay..."

"Alright then, I'll come get you when you're done."

I teleported the kids back, then made my way to my secret base on Okutama Island.

"...I don't know if it'll be to your taste."

I placed a glass beside the crystal orb and poured some sake into it.

"This is called sake. It's from this world, from my home country, where I happened to find you."

I added a quick apology in case they didn't drink, then took a gulp from my own glass. After drinking about half of it, I set the glass down and gently touched the crystal. In that instant, light overflowed from the orb, and a tremendous amount of information poured into my mind.

"Just as I thought. Not a pleasant story."

When a world reaches the end of its life, everything comes to an end. That, I could accept to some extent. Some things just can't be helped. But the world in that record was different. It met its end through clear, malicious intent.

"Creations of God, huh."

The creator god of that world brought the world and the life within it into being, but it seems they were a bit overprotective. After about a thousand years, they added a certain system so that people could live better lives. To explain that system in our terms, they were something like angels. The angels helped people, working diligently for their happiness. But there was a problem with the archangel who commanded them. Why must we suffer for the sake of such foolish beings? Why does God not lavish affection upon us, who are so much more magnificent than humans?

The accumulated dissatisfaction erupted in the form of rebellion.

But they lost. The archangel was stripped of their power by God, who told them to learn the sanctity of that life, and was reincarnated as a human. They were reborn again and again, living for an eternity as a human, but their arrogance never changed. Once the seal was broken, the archangel tried to appeal to God once more, but God was already gone. Yes, God had perished from the wounds sustained during the rebellion. It was obvious, if one thought about it. The seal had broken despite the archangel showing no remorse, so it could only be due to deterioration over time. And so the former archangel blamed humanity for everything and resolved to destroy the world.

"...It must have been so frustrating."

That was the gist of the story the sage who created the crystal heard when they risked their life to reach the archangel. The archangel themself was unaware of their folly, acting as if they were merely correcting a mistake. But from any perspective, it was clearly the result of a festering jealousy toward humans. Having your world destroyed because of some selfish idiot is just unbearable. Yes, I sympathize. I truly think it's pathetic, but...

"Why of all things was the archangel's title the 'Villainess'?"

Apparently, it came from their last reincarnation as the daughter of a great noble, but it's making it hard for me to process my emotions.