Chapter 104

“What’s in a name?” There was a shiver in the air—a chill and pressure that took one’s breath away. No sooner had Fay registered the sensation than the red-haired girl, who had been smiling a second before, was bristling as if her hair might pierce the heavens. Her pupils had narrowed like a beast’s. “All this world is a game. This name of mine, too, is but a game. To be distracted by it, to be constrained by it, is to be no god—mew!” “Wh-what did you say?!” A god. Had he misheard? No, he was sure. This girl, Nibel, had just revealed herself as a god. Not only with her words, but with her overpowering glory. So it was true. According to Uroboros, there were four gods hiding at Arcane Court headquarters. And Mind Over Matter had four members… “Heleneia!” Fay shouted. A gust of hot wind blew through the chairman’s office, surging from the red-haired girl—Nibel, the god. Fay bellowed into the raging gale, even though an instant’s inattention would see him blown away. “I have to talk to you! What you’re hoping for is—” “Thank you. I offer my gratitude in regards to your assistance of my father the chairman,” said the girl with the lavender hair, turning back toward them at last. Her eyes were veiled as though behind a hood, and she walked toward the hallway as if the rushing wind didn’t bother her at all. “But this is over, isn’t it, Nibel?” “Good, very good. I’m purrfectly happy now that I know my dear Heleneia can mind her manners. Well, b’bye!” Whoosh! The wind grew stronger. It felt hot enough to pierce the skin; Fay instinctively covered his eyes and looked away. “…They’re gone?” When he opened them again, the wind had subsided, and the members of Mind Over Matter were nowhere to be seen. Fay and the others who were left in the office stood and stared in disbelief. “I’m…not quite sure what to say about that,” remarked Miranda, adjusting her glasses on the bridge of her nose. One didn’t have to be staring hard at her to see how her fingers trembled. “Ahem. Uh, Fay? This would seem to imply that the world’s strongest team, Mind Over Matter, is in fact four gods. At least, that’s how it looked to me?” “I got the same read, Chief Secretary,” Fay said. The crimson-haired girl, Nibel, had definitely been a god. The look in her eyes, the sheer overpowering awe that had radiated from her—they were on a different level from any human. But it didn’t seem to bother Heleneia or the two guys behind her. All four of them must be gods. It’s the only thing that makes sense. If that was true, it would turn the Arcane Court—no, the entire idea of the gods’ games—on its head. The games were supposed to be battles of wits between humans and gods. And if humanity achieved ten wins… Even the participation of Leshea, a former god, was the exception to end all exceptions, but that had been allowed precisely because Leshea had abandoned her status as a god to become a human. For a god to participate in another god’s game would be a violation of an unspoken rule. Uroboros said so herself. She’d said it was better that way, so everyone could have a good time playing. To Fay’s knowledge, no matter how far back one went in the Arcane Court records, there were no cases of a god participating in a game on the human side. Games have rules. They’re fun to play exactly because everyone abides by them. And throughout history, everyone always had. But now, for the very first time, the members of Mind Over Matter—the gods themselves—were breaking those rules. It was Nel who broke the silence. “N-now, wait just a second! We’re sure that the four of them are gods. But who else at headquarters knows that? And how much do they know?! What about Secretarial Assistant Alain? What about the other apostles and staff members? What about the chairman?!” “I’m wondering the same thing!” said Pearl. “A-after all, Heleneia called the chairman ‘father.’ If she’s really a god, then does that mean…does that mean the chairman is a god, too?!” “Okay, slow down there, Pearl,” Miranda said, shaking her head. She looked pointedly at the couch where the chairman had been resting until moments before. “The chairman was just carried off to the medical office. Do you think a god would collapse from illness?” “N-now that you mention it… Okay, so the chairman is human. But then that would make it weird for his daughter to be a god. So maybe she’s human after all?” “Nah, I think she’s a god,” Leshea volunteered. “That doesn’t make any seeennnse!” Pearl pulled at her hair. She was right: It was almost time to check their answers. “Well, there you have it, Leshea. We humans don’t get it,” Fay said. “The red-haired girl, for sure. The other three, probably, is what I think.” Beside him, Leshea knit her brow, thinking hard. “Hmm… But that old guy, the chairman, he’s human, no doubt about it. Of that, I’m certain.” The chairman was human. But his daughter, Heleneia, was a god. Fay wondered how that worked. “I wonder if the chairman has any idea his own daughter is a god. Much as I’d like to know, the only way to find out would be to ask him, and he doesn’t look like he’s in any condition for questions right now…” Miranda shrugged in defeat. “I guess we’ll have to try to ask young mistress Heleneia about—” “Allow me to explain.” Fay heard approaching footsteps at the door behind him, accompanied by a very familiar voice. It was still too soon to call what he felt for that voice nostalgia. After all, he had been on the speaker’s team until only a year ago. “Chaos?!” “It’s been a while, Fay. A year, to be exact.” It was Chaos, the leader of Fay’s old team, Awaken. He had blue hair with a long fringe on one side that hid one of his eyes—eyes that always looked somewhat tired. He scanned the chairman’s office. “Sorry I haven’t been in touch, Chief Secretary.” “Ah, Chaos. It’s been a long time, but I’m glad you seem to be doing well,” Miranda answered easily, waving. “Still letting your hair grow out, I see.” “Too much trouble to cut it,” he replied. It was hard to tell if he was joking or not. Nel turned toward him, a nervous expression on her face. “Master Chaos, sir, you must pardon me!” “Hmm? For what?” “I’m going to ask you a very impertinent question. According to the stories, a year ago you dissolved your own team with hardly a word to Master Fay or his teammates. And then you simply vanished—isn’t that right?!” “Yeah, pretty much,” Chaos said softly. He looked every bit as serious as Nel was nervous. “I’ll tell you everything.” Pearl’s breath caught in her throat. “…You will?! The whole story?!” she sounded excited. “Oh, I’m Pearl! I’m on Fay’s new team and—” “I know. You’re Pearl, and that’s Nel. They’ve been streaming your games even here at headquarters. I make sure not to miss a single one.” Chaos looked from one side to the other, checking that there was no one else lurking in the chairman’s office. “As you know, I was at the Ruin branch office until a year ago. My old team, Awaken, was riding high—thanks in large part to a certain young rookie named Fay.” “Y-yes, that’s right! But you broke it up…” “A year ago, I learned a secret I couldn’t even tell my teammates. Or maybe I should say I was tasked with a secret mission.” “A secret?!” Pearl exclaimed. “Master Chaos, this mission…!” said Nel. Chaos replied with utmost gravity, “The truth is this world is being invaded by gods of destruction from another realm. I was fighting a one-man battle to save the world from annihilation.” “You what?!” Pearl cried. “You were?!” Nel exclaimed. “But I lost. My right arm and left leg are mechanical prosthetics now, and I’ll never be able to fight again.” “Your very body is mechanical, Master Chaos?!” “That’s right. These are artificial limbs made of metal.” Chaos rested his hand on his right shoulder. He was dressed in a black suit that concealed his limbs, but if what he said was to be believed, then underneath the fabric must be metal. “I’ve been searching headquarters to find someone who can take up the fight against the evil gods in my place. But…” He stepped into the room, gesturing with his allegedly mechanical right hand at Pearl and Nel, who looked at him in shock. “Now I’m sure. You two are the warriors chosen to fulfill that destiny!” “Us?!” Nel exclaimed. “You think we’re, uh, capable of that?!” Pearl said. The two of them looked at each other. Perhaps drawn in by Chaos’s passion, their cheeks had flushed with excitement. “L-let’s do it! Right, Pearl?!” “Y-yes! I’m not exactly confident, but if it’s to save the world, we’ll do anything!” “Then take these keys.” Chaos produced two keys from his suit pocket and tossed them to Pearl and Nel. “There’s a hidden warehouse below headquarters. It contains a hundred-meter-tall god-destroying weapon called Godfinger. I want you to board it and bring down the God of Destruction Megazombie!” “We’ll do it!” “Just wait—we promise to bring down this awful god!” Chaos, Nel, and Pearl shared enthusiastic handshakes. After watching the entire dramatic conversation play out, Fay and Miranda sighed. “Say, uh, Pearl? Nel?” The girls turned to him. “Yes?” “What is it, Master Fay?” A bit exasperated, Fay looked at them clutching their keys and said, “I think those are locker keys.” ““…What?”” they both said. “Am I right, Chaos?” “Mm-hmm.” The man with one eye hidden behind his bangs nodded in satisfaction. “This one’s to my bike. The other one is for a locker.” “Excuse me?!” “Wh-what’s this about?” Pearl and Nel asked, looking anxiously at their keys. “W-well, Fay? What is it about?” Pearl pressed. “Ah… Well, uh… Chaos may look deadly serious all the time, but he has more of a playful side than you’d expect.” “Let me put it in simpler terms,” said Miranda with a sigh, one finger pressed to her forehead. “Everything young Chaos just said was a lie. He doesn’t have any mechanical limbs, and he definitely isn’t waging a one-man war against evil gods.” ““Whaaaaaaat?!”” cried Pearl and Nel, the chairman’s office ringing with a shout that was a combination of anger and total shock. “Chaos has always been like this,” Fay said. Even though he looked so solemn at first glance! Fay couldn’t help sighing to himself. One thing was certain: This was undoubtedly Chaos, the leader of his old team, Awaken. A man who could tell a tall tale and look proud doing it. Incidentally, Chaos himself probably saw this as just a little joke, but he always sounded so sincere that people really got taken in. “When’d you come up with that particular story, Chaos?” Fay asked. “Oh, just a few minutes ago. Personally, I figured by the time I got to the part about the hundred-meter-tall giant robot, they would know it was BS.” “How were we supposed to know that?!” “Y-yeah, Master Chaos! You said you were going to tell us everything, so Pearl and I were listening earnestly! That was just plain mean, was what that was!” “It was just a little joke,” said Chaos, who genuinely didn’t seem to feel guilty. He looked at Pearl and Nel, who confronted him with red faces. “There is, however, one thing that I never lie about.” “Just one?!” “I never lie in a game.” All right… But what did that mean? And who was he saying it to? Fay was probably the only one in the room who knew the answers to those questions without a moment’s hesitation. “Chaos?” he said. “I’m not much for just standing around and talking,” the man with the blue hair said as he turned to Fay. It was then that Fay realized: Chaos had intentionally not looked at Fay yet, so that he could face him at this moment. “Fay. How about a game with me? For old times’ sake.” “Master Chaos?! What’s that mean? Weren’t you about to tell us why you split up your old team? How is this suddenly a challenge?!” “Because it’s not a pleasant story,” he said, brushing his hair back to reveal his hidden eye. Fay knew that was proof the man was truly serious. In which case… “So if I win, you’ll tell us?” “You got it. If you can beat me in a game, I’ll tell you everything you want to know and more. I don’t lie in a game…and well, there’s one more reason. The one I just told you.” Chaos reached into a bag he was holding and took out a portable deck of cards. “It’s not a pleasant story—so I’d like to at least enjoy a game while we talk.”