kscans

Chapter 170 - The Hourglass of Life and the Little One, Part Eight

‘My name is Tsathoggua. You probably know me, don’t you?’

""What?!""

The Little One and Katsumi’s eyes widened.

There was no way the Little One, who knew Joker’s true identity, would not know of his counterpart. And Katsumi, who spent his days swimming in the sea of the internet, knew as well. Above all, Tsathoggua and Atlaq-Nacha were characters from a story on Earth. They should have had no connection to this world of Arcadia. Although they were characters said to be in the Abyss even in the story, she never thought they actually lived there.

Hmm..... But since Joker is here, maybe it’s not so strange?

The Little One’s head was spinning.

As if seeing through her thoughts, Tsathoggua narrowed his eyes slyly.

‘There’s no point in thinking about it. Because, you see, I actually exist here. From the Abyss, I can peek anywhere that darkness reaches, and it’s a perfect place to gather knowledge. The only drawback is that it’s a bit boring.’

So his obsessive collecting habit is still intact.

The Little One couldn’t help but bare her teeth in a grin.

‘So, well. You guys are going to pick a fight with the Higher Beings, right?’

Tsathoggua asked casually. It was not the Little One who answered.

"Chiihiro?! What are you talking about?!"

"Hero, did you do something again?"

""""My lady?!""""

Everyone’s face turned pale.

Uh, um.....

The Little One stared into space with a suspicious look.

‘Oh? Did I say something I shouldn’t have?’

The grotesque being tilted its head innocently.

Grabbed by the scruff of the neck by Romel, the Little One flailed her arms and legs with an ‘akyaa’. After hearing from Tsathoggua that the gods couldn’t see them here, she resigned herself and explained to Romel and the others the plot of the Higher Beings that she had learned at the Table of the Gods.

Even Tsathoggua looked as if his soul had left his body.

‘Wow..... that’s nasty. It seems the Higher Beings are the same kind as you, Yami-kun.’

《Do not lump me in with them. I am raising them with care, am I not?》

"Well, if the people of that world want a cradle, it’s not necessarily a bad thing, is it?"

‘How do you intend to explain tricking Hayslope, you bastard!’

A four-way conference of beings related to the gods.

At the enraged Cesare, Tsathoggua slid his gaze towards the Little One.

‘This child said it in the town earlier, didn’t she? What the Dark Spirits caused is what the people themselves wished for. It merely amplifies it. .....In other words, Hayslope wished for its own destruction. And so did you.’

Cesare’s face stiffened.

‘You understand, don’t you? The people of Hayslope created foolish weapons, checked each other, and wished for each other’s destruction. It is merely the result of that.’

That’s right. The people of Hayslope wished for it.

It would be good if disaster struck that country. It would be good if disease spread. It would be good if many people died. And all the countries wished for it. That the opposing countries would be destroyed.

Cesare closed his eyes tightly.

He had wished for it too. .....To save his world, no matter the sacrifice.

‘In your case, it’s a textbook example of reaping what you sow, but the people of Hayslope are the same. You know the saying, ‘curse others and you dig two graves,’ right?’

Dark Spirits love strong desires. Hatred, murderous intent, jealousy. These negative emotions are stronger and purer than anything else. The many worlds that have been destroyed. The root cause of it all is the desires of the people. Without them, no matter how much the Dark Spirits maneuvered in the shadows, they could do nothing.

Cesare hung his head. His anger was something he couldn’t direct anywhere.

In the midst of this heavy atmosphere, the Dark Spirit King was producing something, poko poko. Round objects about ten centimeters in diameter. As the Little One stared, wondering what they were, Tsathoggua noticed and, looking at the round objects floating fluffyly, explained with an ‘ah.’ ‘He’s gathering the sludge here and making eggs out of it. This sludge, you see, is the final remnants of souls discarded by the Higher Beings and the Heavenly Gods.’

The sludges clung to the Dark Spirit King, uzuzuzutto. Brushing them off with an annoyed look, the huge black slime gathered the sludge from under its belly and turned it into eggs.

"Final remnants?"

‘You all passed through it, didn’t you? The abyss. When you pass through there, you reach the great Abyss. .....Most souls are pulverized by the time they get here. These guys have no consciousness. They’re just possessed by life, lamenting and squirming.’

In other words..... this was originally some kind of soul? And it gets shredded when passing through the abyss?

The Little One looked horrified, and Tsathoggua sighed lightly.

‘It’s terrible, isn’t it? Well, now Yami-kun regenerates them. Dark Spirits are born from these eggs. By gathering them together. Yami-kun is a god too, so he can reconstruct them, yep.’

The minced-up waste of the gods. The Dark Spirit King regenerates them into Dark Spirits.

Wait, does that mean.....?

"The Dark Spirit King is a necessary existence, isn’t he? If a lot of this stuff accumulates, some kind of incredible creature could be born, right?"

‘Oh, you’re well-informed. That’s right. A master is essential in the Abyss. Until Yami-kun gained consciousness, those dangerous things were born many times. .....Sad creatures with nothing but hatred and resentment. They were cast down by the gods and smashed to pieces. The resentment of that collective mass, well, it’s something truly terrifying.’

I can see why the Dark Spirits like negative emotions. At their core, that’s probably all they have left.

Resenting the gods, hating the world, cursing humanity.

‘But you know, because Yami-kun loves humans, the Dark Spirits love humans too.’

The grotesque being’s eyes curved into a fukuri smile.

《Do not speak of unnecessary things.》

The giant slime swallowed Tsathoggua whole, gapah.

‘Whoa, I told you to stop doing that!’

Tsathoggua, spat out with a peh, was now a wet hedgehog covered in sticky mucus.

‘Ah, ahhh..... honestly, this won’t dry for a while now.’

Dorfen cleaned the squelching, becho becho, Tsathoggua with water magic.

‘Oh?’

And then, Romel promptly dried the now clean Tsathoggua.

‘Ooooooh, how convenient! Magic, huh, how nice.’

As Tsathoggua hopped around happily, pyoko pyoko, the demonic hand of the giant slime reached for him again. But the grotesque being dodged it in the nick of time.

‘I told you to stop!’

The members from Frontier, taken aback by the two who seemed to be performing a comedy sketch, looked at each other and laughed. Even in the Abyss, living creatures were the same. They laughed, cried, got angry, and laughed again.

"Well then, I’ll tell you my side of the story too."

‘Yeah, it’s about that human, right? I heard from the turtle.’

Huh?

The Little One, caught off guard, made a kyon sound, and Tsathoggua smiled wryly.

‘The turtle was the one who connected the Abyss and the mortal world. Though I was the one who asked.’

"What did you say?"

Tsathoggua, laughing like a child whose prank had succeeded, began to tell an old story. It went back to when the Little One was Fatima.

‘Turtle, you doing okay?’

《Aye. It seems there’s a commotion on land, but I’m doing fine.》

‘A commotion?’

The turtle chuckled at Tsathoggua, who was listening with wide-eyed excitement, and spoke to the darkness inside its shell. A Golden King, born extremely rarely in the world above. This generation’s was a different breed, an otherworldly person, who was apparently running rampant, derailing the gods’ plans in a grand fashion.

‘What’s that? The Higher Beings must be turning blue, right? ww’

《I imagine so. The gods of Arcadia are young. I look forward to seeing what happens.》

‘Aaaah, if only I could peek into the Celestial Realm too. As expected, I can’t peek into a world with only light.’

Just as the Abyss has only darkness, the Celestial Realm has only light. It is a world without a sun, pure white, with a drifting mist, and the gods themselves emit light, so even shadows do not exist. Just as the Abyss cannot be seen from the Celestial Realm, the Celestial Realm cannot be seen from the Abyss. It is well made.

While they were having such idle chats, the situation changed drastically, and the Little One, surpassing the imagination of the turtle and Tsathoggua who knew of the gods’ wager, kept everyone alive and won the bet. Even Tsathoggua couldn’t help but be amazed.

‘Well, I’ll be. The gods of Earth were cooperating, so I thought Arcadia would win, but I never expected all the Lords of the Forest to survive. Not bad.’

The gods are cruel. They will mercilessly discard their pieces for the sake of the world. Even the turtle had not thought that the Lords who were used this time would survive.

Furthermore, the returned Golden King was no longer the Golden King.

Tsathoggua, who was well-versed in the methods of the Higher Beings, narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

.....Something is up.

And so time passed, new rumors of the Little One spread, and Tsathoggua, who was observing, learned that Chihiro’s memories had awakened when she turned two, and the Golden King had been revived. What’s more, she had been reincarnated with a blessing from the Higher Beings.

Too convenient. It’s like a fixed race.

From there, he conspired with the turtle to have it split the land and connect the Abyss and the mortal world, he said.

"A blessing?"

Did I get something like that?

As the Little One tilted her head, Tsathoggua scooped up the sludge crawling on the ground and threw it at her. At that, the Little One’s hands and forehead shone, and just before the sludge reached her, it was repelled with a pan sound.

‘There, that’s it.’

On her glowing hands and forehead, golden patterns had emerged.

"What’s this..... a triangle?"

On the back of the Little One’s left hand was an upright triangle. On the back of her right hand was an inverted triangle. Her forehead was twinkling with a dazzling light that seemed to shine from within.

‘The kin of darkness can see it. The glittering golden magic power. A power that can repel the sludge here can only be a blessing from the Higher Beings.’

At these words, the Little One remembered.

She remembered that when the envoy of the Higher Beings came down to the Celestial Realm, they had touched her body with their left hand, and that spot had glowed.

"Ah, I remember now. I think an envoy of the Higher Beings or something touched me and it glowed."

At the Little One’s words, this time it was Tsathoggua who tilted his head.

‘An envoy of the Higher Beings? There’s no such thing. The Higher Beings are three gods, you know?’

Tsathoggua’s words were a bombshell.