“......”
In the end, Kaiser did not take the call. He gave no reply to Professor Dante Hiakapo. As if he had never received such a message at all.
“...Quan. Walk with me.”
Instead, Kaiser began to move forward on his own. Quan followed after him. It was a walk. The road was quiet. Kaiser limped. He had had chances to rebuild his leg through multiple surgeries, but he never did.
Quan thought: Kaiser is such a consistently heavy man. Even when everyone else made a fuss, he was quiet. Even when everyone laughed, he did not. So it was no surprise. Just as he had always been a man sunk into silence in the past, he was sunk now, and would live that way in the future. Born to be a ruler.
“Kaiser.”
“Yes-sir.”
“As a Constellation, do you know where the Heavenly Way is moving?”
“Of course.”
Quan answered with a grin. “The world is moving toward two endings. Convergence and divergence. One is convergence toward a fixed end. The other is divergence as eternal return. The latter is what we call Eternal Recurrence.”
That is why the Demon King is called the Lord of Eternal Return.
“Is that so. But those words sound strange.”
“Strange where?”
“In either case, no possibility exists. A world that converges cannot diverge. A world that diverges cannot converge.”
“......”
“So what can the ‘protagonist’ moving for such a world even do?”
Kaiser stopped and looked up at the sky. It was late at night. Quan also looked up—thirty-three stars gleamed each in their place. Among them was one that peeked out behind another star, his Spy Star│ㅅㅇ)—his guardian star. Tonight the hidden star was the Star of Life♥.
“I learned in the Academy that the reason the stars exist is to make one world and ensure it runs soundly.”
“Yes.”
“In other words, manufacture and operation... If it’s a world where every value is already fixed, if the futures within it are already determined, then why should stars even exist?”
Kaiser’s voice sank. “The role of the stars should have ended at manufacture.”
“...Strange words you speak?”
“Is it strange.”
“Kaiser. When a man ascends to [Constellation], he gains access to many truths of this world.”
“......”
“For example—the reason for existence. Many people wonder. Even a child asks its mother: ‘Mom! Why were we born?’ Sadly, the mother does not know. Then why does the mother live? Even if you think alone, you cannot know the answer. The reason creatures cannot answer that question is because, from the start, there is no such thing as a reason for existence.”
“All things in the world are designed to ‘scatter.’ Like ink diffusing in water, like grains of sand scattered by the wind. But among what has scattered, some might by ‘coincidence’ gather at a ‘narrow point.’ If the component is stone, it becomes a pebble; if protein, an organism. We are no different from stones.”
“......”
“Do you think stars are different? No. Stars support that. They are what keep that taxidermied world preserved.”
“...Stars, keeping a taxidermied world, you say...”
Quan laughed. Kaiser absentmindedly continued a train of thought, then closed his eyes.
It was then—
— ******
A transmission came. Into Kaiser’s ear. Quan realized it was from the Dominion❆ infiltrators within the Imperial Palace.
“...No.”
At that moment Kaiser’s eyes flew wide.
“Yes?”
“Your words were wrong.”
“Haa? My, my. Kaiser... you even betrayed Dante Hiakapo, and now that you think you’ve climbed into some exalted seat, you feel like sharing realizations only Constellations should see...”
Quan was about to yap on—What do you know anyway?—but at some point his mouth closed. Kaiser’s face, gazing at the sky, swelled with emotion. His eyes widened as if they might split apart.
“...A limping, gaunt, long-haired man stands here. This is no different from a pebble. But this—” His thin, long finger touched his temple. “—Consciousness, my awareness of self, does not exist in a pebble.”
“...And so?”
“You just told me ‘there is no reason for existence,’ did you not? But there is a reason consciousness came to be.”
Kaiser’s expression began to swell with fervor. “Yes... It is to make a choice before the flow of the world.”
At the same time, Quan’s eyes narrowed. A world fixed as convergence or divergence. The countless other 『worlds』 of other dimensions were fixed as divergence, and those who entered them were trapped in Eternal Return. This was a truth 「Spy Star│ㅅㅇ)」 had realized while secretly peeking into the records of the System⧉.
“Kaiser. Don’t get cocky.”
Hatred boiled in Quan’s chest. “Live and die as ordained. If you were given more authority than others, be content with it. Greed beyond that leads only to ruin.”
Maybe it was simply that the attitude of a mere man, untranscended, daring to override the world felt contemptible. Or maybe it was jealousy—that Kaiser would dare defy something even a Constellation could not.
“...No.”
But Kaiser, his eyes gone white, blankly turned to Quan. “None of that matters.”
His voice was lower, smaller, but the force within it was on an entirely different scale. “I have just fully realized the identity and location of the Demon King. Even the way to summon him.”
Quan tilted his head. Of course. Realization up to that point was simply the flow of the world. Perhaps Kaiser had figured it out a beat faster than Dante Hiakapo.
So what?
Ah—
“...Don’t tell me. You...”
Kaiser, to the end, spoke calmly. “The stars of the sky are already ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ too excessive in their places.”
And if every creature is designed to be dragged toward its end like pebbles—if maintaining such a taxidermied state is the ‘will of the stars’—
“Then I will drop every star in the sky.”
The next moment, mad darkness began to surge around Kaiser. Like a torrential downpour filling the world from heaven to earth, mana poured down. The pressure was so great that even Quan, a Constellation, could not help but wince.
“Stop spewing madness! The one meant to do that has already been chosen! It is written in the Heavenly Way, in the world’s flow, in the stars’ memories!!”
“......”
“In no dimension is there room for a nobody like you! This world was composed for one person only, and you still don’t see it?!”
“No, I know. That is exactly why I move. Because the protagonist has been chosen. And because that protagonist will inevitably fail.”
At that instant, both men thought of the same figure. The one living under the blessing of the whole world. Yet just as in other dimensions, where all had died, this one too had death prepared.
“If the fate of the world is fixed into one ending—” Swathed in darkness, Kaiser said: “—Then I will drop the stars, to move the taxidermied world.”
And then, Quan spotted the Nibelung Matriarch in the distance. She bowed before Kaiser and unleashed her full strength.
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The Black Star⚉ alone among the stars could bury the awareness of the others. Before its endlessly spreading power, darkness covered the entire sky.
“...What the hell... Haha...”
The “end” was beginning.
***
“Walk with me a moment.”
“......”
Rebecca walked with the Reaper Constellation Ω. She quickly realized that if she did not, she would be killed. Her opponent was a monster of monsters, once holding Rank 4 for long, now risen to Rank 2. She was no match.
Ironically, her first impression was that this woman resembled her. Eyes steeped in hatred toward the world. A face calm, yet steeped in killing intent. This witch was a “woman who had been betrayed many times.”
“I’ve looked into you a lot. Why Dante Hiakapo is at the Academy. Why he left me. Then, out of nowhere, why he married a bastard girl... I wondered about everything.”
“......”
Rebecca’s eyes twitched. Left me? Those words pierced.
“You two. Smell like a contract marriage. Am I right?”
“......”
“No answer? I’ll kill you.”
“...It’s true.”
“Of course. I knew it.”
“......”
Rebecca stopped walking. Of course, I knew it—she had just been ignored by horned vermin on her way here. Her breath grew short.
“Why did you contract-marry that man?”
“Do I have to tell you?”
“If you don’t want to die.”
“...Because Professor Dante wished it.”
“Exactly. That’s how it is. That guy’s a conman with women.”
“...What?”
“When he wants something, to get it he seduces or uses women. Isn’t that what he did with you?”
“......”
Rebecca’s eyelid twitched faintly. The words were vile. Yet remembering the past—there was, indeed, a moment similar. For instance, that time after their reunion, when she had first felt something strange toward Professor Dante, when he tended to her wounded foot...
“...So I was right.”
“I said no.”
“No need to distort or deny. That man was originally mine.”
“......”
“To find out about the Lord of Eternal Return, he seduced me. Held my chin, said he loved me. Kissed me. God... the first and last time I ever felt loved was then.”
The witch murmured as if recalling, her eyes hazy as though in a dream. Rebecca froze in place.
“...Why say such things?”
Her voice shook. Her jaw trembled with rage. The witch woke from her dream and smirked.
“You’ll be thrown away. Like me.”
***
“What is this?”
“A gift.”
I handed Balmung one of the relics of 「Machinery Star⚙」: a prosthetic leg. It was an ancient relic that attached to the flesh, a [Legendary]-grade magical tool that allowed the severed to move whole once more.
“Whoaah. A black leg, cool.”
Elize giggled beside him, then suddenly asked primly: “But what about me?”
“What about you.”
“I don’t get anything?”
“Your legs are fine.”
“I’ll cut them off.”
“...No.”
What the hell.
“Balmung, try walking.”
“Ah, ah! Yes.”
Then Balmung began practicing walking with the prosthetic. When the mechanism bit into his thigh he grimaced, but afterward it worked seamlessly, as if part of his body.
“Can you walk?”
I held his hand and walked slowly.
“Yes, Professor. I can walk.”
“Good.”
“...Thank you. I thought I’d need crutches for life... I don’t know how to express this gratitude...”
“Enough. You’ve endured much.”
Afterward I said to the two: “Want to go for a walk?”
“Yeah!”
“Gladly.”
If they’d had tails, they would’ve spun like propellers. They were utterly delighted.
I went out to the fields with them. Adele was still bedridden (hospitalized long-term after the backlash from 『Curse of Instant Death』), so Ran came along with sandwiches and a ball.
“...Hello?”
On the way I summoned Chief Professor Cain.
“Oh? Professor Cain. Cute.”
“Hm... Hello.”
Elize played with Cain, laughing, while Balmung fetched the ball and asked him to throw it. Cain glanced at me, then busied himself playing with them.
Even just watching from the picnic mat was deeply satisfying. A kid and two puppies. Perfect combo.
“Come here.”
I gathered the two and spoke. “From now on, one of you must become the assassin of the Hero Party. The other must guard Chief Professor Cain.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Whichever it is, entrust it to me.”
For this choice, those near-monstrous Constellations had convulsed and prepared for over a decade. The Black Star⚉ and the Shadowless Star○. They had harmed countless people, poured in countless elixirs, even tried to kill their own children...
“Should we decide with rock-paper-scissors?”
“Yeah!”
“Yes.”
For professor and students, that much was enough.
“Rock, paper, scissors!”
“Rock, paper, scissors.”
It was decided. The one chosen as the Hero Party’s assassin—was Balmung.