As my proficiency with 『World Forgery』 surpassed 90% and reached a sublime realm, I gained many insights into “forgery of memory.”
Within 『World Forgery』 the formulas that forge memory had reached an almost perfect level, yet to forge something “perfectly” in reality was impossible. The same held true in this world.
It was because of the concept called Procedural Memory (절차기억, Procedural Memory).
Human long-term memory is largely of two kinds: declarative memory and procedural memory.
Of those, procedural memory means habits, routines, route memories unconsciously seated in the human brain. These are stored not in the hippocampus but in the basal ganglia and cerebellum.
That’s why even when a dementia patient forgets their home, their feet head for home; why even if they can’t recognize their child, when they see that child (to them just a strange young person) they feel a strange sensation.
When my thoughts reached that point......
I found myself tracing back the concept called <Synchronization> that had puzzled me ever since I possessed this world.
In the <Synchronization> memories, Eve did not exist. But Rebecca existed in concrete detail.
And as for the Dormant Dragon Cadets, there were indirect memories. Like how the instant I saw Elize, I recalled the Shadowless Star○.
What this meant was as follows.
1. Abraxas did not know of Eve’s existence.
2. He had met Rebecca.
3. He had fragmentary information about the Dormant Dragon Cadets.
However, the moment I experienced <Synchronization> was when I had faced the target. (ex, after seeing Elize: Oh, she’s the daughter of the Shadowless Star○!)
1. Abraxas forged his own memories.
2. Because of that, I have no memories of being Abraxas.
3. Yet parts of the procedural memory, serving as a primer, were reviving the declarative memory. → <Synchronization>
If, then, this process of regaining memories one by one is precisely <Synchronization>,
if I were to be taken by the Empire Security Bureau, the assumption stood that I would realize almost everything. Because that place would be filled with Abraxas’s procedural memories.
......My judgment struck true.
Dragged by Elder Ikrumba toward Central Room 17, I was soaked through in the deluge of Abraxas’s memories pouring in from far away.
“Walk straight!”
“......”
A guard beside me shook my staggering body, but I only swayed like a puppet with its strings cut.
In real time, countless pieces of information, intentions, thoughts, the path and years walked by the great Constellation called Abraxas began budding up.
For example,
from Abraxas’s true age—already past the human lifespan limit of 140.
To how Abraxas entered the Security Bureau.
How Abraxas hid his identity and face from everyone through the long years.
The woman Abraxas briefly married in his youth, and their parting.
The circumstances under which Abraxas took in the street-urchin Agion as a disciple, and Agion’s betrayal. ...and so on....
‘...But this isn’t all.’
I could be certain.
The memories surfacing now didn’t even amount to half, and the most core things were missing.
For example, information about the Demon King did not get caught in <Synchronization>.
If you likened it to land-claiming, only that section was pitch-black and empty.
But if I were to reach Central Room 17...... the very place Abraxas last visited with his own feet to quit the Security Bureau.
“......”
I would arrive at a little more of the truth.
If only I could reach Room 17......
At that moment.
“Dante Hiakapo!!”
A commotion broke out down the corridor.
***
By nature, the Security Bureau is a body directly under the Imperial Household. All power and strength originate from the Emperor.
For that reason, with the Imperial Household attacked and the Emperor assassinated now—the Bureau’s executives were more agitated than the citizens.
That was so even before Blazing Constellation of Flame 火, Uki, arrived.
“Raizen, Hedicapel! What do you two think you’re doing?”
Middle generals of the Security Bureau, holding the Imperial Intelligence Treasure long swords, blocked the corridor.
“Stand aside at once!”
“Elder Ikrumba. We cannot do that.”
Taking Dante to Central Room 17 was because an emergency hearing had been scheduled for him.
The Bureau’s ultra-high executives could not abide that spectacle.
“You, hand over Dante Hiakapo.”
“Yeah! Elder Ikrumba! I’m going to kill that bastard right now!”
In other words, the two middle generals had come to enact private vengeance!
“You fools! The hearing is by decree of the Peaceful Constellation☮, substituting for the vacant office of the Security Chief. Who are you to block this way?”
“What do you expect us to do. We said move.”
“Elder. I won’t say it twice! Either hand over that vicious regicide who killed the Emperor, or choose to die with him!”
“Y—You...!”
Those two were trying to keep Dante from reaching Room 17. And he himself could not stop them.
But Ikrumba, as an elder, as a warrior who had lived in the Bureau for nearly a hundred years, knew what mattered.
“We are the Security Bureau! And in security, system must be prioritized above personal feelings! If you keep obstructing, I, Ikrumba, will now arrest you both on grounds of obstruction of public duty!”
Then, though the two middle generals were huffing hard, they stood and watched.
Had his words gotten through? Ikrumba tensed. That wasn’t it.
It was because, before anyone noticed, an old man had come to stand behind his back.
“...Ah!”
He was the Peaceful Constellation☮.
Chair of the Soltia Conference.
Master of the Tower of the Sage.
And currently serving as acting Security Chief of the Bureau, a 137-year-old archmage.
“Acting Chief Tirangstein!”
When he arrived with two knights, even the middle generals had no choice but to press down their fury and halt.
“Middle General Raizen. Middle General Hedicapel.”
“Yes....”
“We apologi—...”
Ikrumba sighed inwardly. In that case, Dante Hiakapo would once more head for Room 17.
“And you as well, Ikrumba. You three will make ready for battle.”
With those words, Tirangstein raised his staff and began pouring in mana.
Vuuuum ―
A heavy current of mana was drawn in, gathering at the gem at the tip of his staff. For some reason, he was incanting protective magic. At that, the two middle generals and Ikrumba also drew up their inner mana.
Fwooooooosh ― KABOOM!!!
Soon, a shocking event occurred—the background around them flipped over.
In the corridor connecting the Bureau’s main building to Room 17, everything save where Tirangstein’s 『Guardian Wall』 touched was burned away in an instant!
“Huh!?”
“W-What is this!!”
Heat, as if their very skin would cook even inside the barrier!
While the three executives were aghast,
from within a fire so bright it felt like it would split their eyes, a pitch-black man started flying in.
Gold-child on the head. Small stature. Yet his presence approached like a giant.
When flames tens of meters high died down in an instant, the only thing left was the man who held the fire.
Rank 18, Blazing Constellation of Flame 火, Uki Shun.
Suspended in midair, he spoke.
“ Hand over Dante Hiakapo. ”
It was but a single command.
Yet the guards escorting Dante collapsed on the spot. Bleeding from ears and eyes.
Only the three high-realm executives, Tirangstein, and Dante Hiakapo remained standing and endured.
“Uki. What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’ve no interest in you, old man. Hand over Dante Hiakapo at once.”
“He must stand a hearing before the elders of the Bureau.”
“That’s the Bureau’s stance. Get a grip, old man. Your duty as one of the Top Ten Constellations comes before your acting authority as Security Chief, doesn’t it?”
Fwooooosh!
When Uki raised the national treasure “Yeouibong,” the red flames climbing the staff began turning blue.
It was the level-9 supernatural ability 『Hellfire』, capable of burning even lakes and rivers.
“Right now I plan to {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} grab him and fly off to burn him to death before those lunatics of Dominion❆. That’s the optimal way to disperse those cockroaches spreading through the Empire.”
Ikrumba’s breath hitched hard. In this space, the moment Uki looked at him and thought “die,” he would die. Under that pressure it felt like someone was shoving a fist down his throat.
“The scope of my authority and duty is defined by me. You damned brat.”
But the moment Tirangstein opened his mouth, his windpipe seemed to open.
Shrouded in grand, majestic mana, the old man began to float into the air, and his momentum did not yield to that spewed by the god of flame.
“You, who move for the Empire’s security, are telling me—the acting Chief now—to defy you? Show respect to the Security Bureau.”
Then the flames scattered in reverse, and Uki barked out a roar.
“Men worthy of respect let the Emperor die!!”
Immediately after, the two Constellations clashed.
It began with a 『Meteor Shower』. Bursting the clouds into round holes in the sky, a dozen-plus fire masses fell and poured down upon the Bureau.
“This is why I hate humans.”
At the same time, the Peaceful Constellation raised power amplified through his staff. A shroud of translucent blue spheres spread, catching and swallowing the flames. It was the 『Mana Distortion Field: Advanced』 personally sown by the sage.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWANG!!
A distortion field that could scatter even siege-class grand magic in an instant—yet Uki’s meteor shower pushed through it like shattering glass, boring inside. Amid that friction, the flames once more became Uki’s power. Then layered distortion fields spread, swallowing the flames.
“Uweeeeh!”
“Kh— Avoid it! Move!”
“F-Fire!”
Guards and Bureau executives alike fell into confusion. In the midst of that, Ikrumba unwittingly gaped and looked up at the sky.
As if a giant tsunami were crashing onto an erupting volcano, as if a natural disaster and a natural disaster were dueling—high above the Bureau the two Constellations tried to devour each other through a contest of strength like gods and ancient monsters.
“Old man! All of the Top Ten Constellations are moving! You’re one of them, so you know! Dante Hiakapo will die anyway! Dispersing the Dominion❆ cockroaches is the urgent task!”
“That’s because they threaten your Elemental Banquet’s ranking. Because the Constellations who joined Dominion❆ are your competition.”
“I said no!!”
Uki, screaming, swelled the flames even more, but Tirangstein’s resistance was fiercer than expected.
―― .
At some point the two Constellations suddenly widened their distance, because a death god of roughly 30 meters in size had appeared between them.
“Kh! T-This is!”
“You are.......”
The two Constellations screwed up their faces and looked that way. No one knew when she had appeared—wrapped in pitch-black wings, a woman slowly descended, dyeing midday with darkness.
She was the head of the Reaper Assassination Corps, known to have some connection with the Imperial Household, a Constellation ranked 4th, who had not shown her face to the world once in the past several decades.
At the same time, she was once Abraxas’s fiancée.
It was the Reaper Constellation Ω, “Witch.”
“Where is Professor Dante Hiakapo?”
***
We tried to go to Room 17 and were blocked, then tried again and were blocked again, repeating. At the end of that, Uki and Tirangstein started fighting.
‘......Fine. Let both of you die.’
For the moment, I was watching the fight live in a daze.
A pitch-black woman showed up and things started rolling strange.
To me, it was a face I’d never seen.
The instant I took that face into my eyes, <Synchronization> surged through my head like a storm.
— So this is why...
The Reaper Star Ω is, by nature, the star closest to the Lord of Eternal Return, and she held information about the Demon King. And Abraxas extracted information about the Lord of Eternal Return.
After that, he informed the Reaper Constellation Ω that they were finished.
— So this was why you said you loved me....... You.
At this moment, I began to understand why, when Wolfgang targeted me earlier (elephant-ratatouille), the Reaper Assassination Corps Ω gritted their teeth and came to kill me.
At the same time, memories from even earlier surfaced through <Synchronization>.
Back when the Reaper Constellation Ω hadn’t completely fallen for Abraxas yet and was still rebounding him.
— If you want to have me, take my pain, too.
After we danced together at some ball.
What happened on a dark terrace.
When Abraxas tried to steal a kiss, the Reaper Constellation Ω pushed his body away and resisted.
And the Reaper Constellation Ω made a demand of Abraxas.
— Light thinks everyone is honest. If there were no light, there’d be nothing to pry into......
The Reaper Constellation Ω placed a hand on Abraxas’s cheek and said,
— I want to see the real you.
To win her heart, to grasp the truth of the Demon King, Abraxas revealed himself for the first and last time.
And the face Abraxas revealed of himself then was......
“......”
At that moment, the Reaper Constellation Ω’s eyes touched me.
“......”