Chapter 114

CHAPTER 2 Secrets of the World I didn’t know how much time passed after the black void consumed me. When I came to, I was looking at my familiar soul blade display. Below me was a blue planet. “Where is this…?” At first, I thought it was Earth. But it didn’t look like any picture of Earth that I had ever seen. The shapes of the continents were all wrong, and the land was split between swaths of lush green fields and blasted and depressing wastelands of gray. “This is how the world appeared when I first arrived, O final hero.” “Huh…?” I heard a voice, but when I turned, there was only a white light, floating in space. “Who…are you…?” I asked. “I am the very first hero who was summoned to this world.” The light spoke with a female voice, quite high, like that of a child. But unlike a child, it spoke calmly and eloquently, so much so that I didn’t even think to doubt what the voice was saying. I simply accepted it as the truth. “First, I must explain how this world came to be.” The light told me a story. It told me of the goddess Luna and how she created the race of vampires, who in turn created the other nonhuman races of this world. It told me of the fallen god, Lunaris, who cast Luna out and created humans. And it told me of the third god, the outer god, who came from Lunaris’s world and birthed the race of demons. And then it told of the proxy war these two gods waged, using humans and demons as playing pieces. “The outer god is using the demons to rob this world of its life force,” the light explained. “When a demon, lacking a soul, slays a creature with one, it absorbs its life force as experience, and a part of it is sent to the outer god.” “Huh.” “Usually, the local god can use their divinity to repel this interference, but at this present moment, this world’s god is in hiding. Outside the divine realm, her power is greatly curtailed. If this world becomes completely drained of life force, it will become a barren land, where no new creatures can be born.” “You don’t say,” I replied. “…You don’t sound very interested.” “Don’t I? Maybe I’m not.” It felt like my brain was filled with fog. I didn’t even know why I was still here. The light’s words went in one ear and straight out the other. “I see. In that case, allow me to tell you a story you will find interesting. Let us speak of the hero, the princess, the priestess, and the demon lord.” My ears pricked up. “The demons fought the other races,” the light went on, “covering the land in strife. But the outer god sought ever more efficient ways to drain the life from this world. To this end, they birthed a more advanced form of demon, stronger and more suited to the task. This demon was called the demon lord. For the duration of its life, the demon-lord would hoard the world’s life force, before finally transforming into a Demonlight Tree and drawing the power from the land directly.” Looking down at the world below me, I spotted several sky-scrapingly tall trees dotted here and there. They were all, without exception, located in the blasted, gray parts of the land. “To combat this, Lunaris created the role of the hero. Unlike humans of this world, the hero is blessed by Lunaris. However, Lunaris is a fallen god, while the outer god is so powerful they need not even cross over into this realm to affect it. A human of this world would have little chance of defeating the demon lord without devoting undue levels of this world’s life force to the attempt.” “…” “In such a case, even if the hero were to emerge victorious, the amount of life force they spent would render the effort fruitless. And so, after much internal debate, Lunaris decided to summon heroes from a different world.” “There we go.” “By supplementing this world’s life force with that of another, Lunaris was able to perfect a method by which a hero could be brought across safely, while receiving great power in the process. That method is known to the residents of this world as the summoning ritual, and it allowed Lunaris to combat the dwindling life force of this realm, while also giving her a chance against the outer god’s demon lord. However, this solution came with its own problem. The hero would be slaying monsters and demons, absorbing this world’s life force in the form of experience points. When the hero’s quest was over, this life force, which was originally of this world, would go back to the other world with them.” “Yep, it sure would.” “Lunaris considered this a crippling flaw in an otherwise perfect plan. She could not allow the hero to reap this world’s life force and then simply leave. To combat this, Lunaris devised a means by which the human could be persuaded to stay in this world after their quest was over. This is where the princess comes in. The role of the princess was created to win over the hero and bind them to this world.” A honey trap orchestrated by the divine. It sounded ridiculous, but I could see the logic in it. “An adoring public. The authority of a royal associate. A beautiful young lady to share your burdens. A dazzling trifecta of power, fame, and women, created to trap the hero in this world. If even this was not enough to prevent the hero from leaving, however, then the princess was to kill them. That way, at least the life force would remain in this world.” Alicia’s face flashed through my mind. “Makes sense. So where does the priestess fit into all this?” I asked. “Lunaris created the kingdom of humans with a deep disdain for the other races. This was for her own benefit, but it doesn’t necessarily always conform with the worldview of the summoned hero. Many heroes turned out to be naturally averse to looking down on beastfolk, elves, and dwarves…much like you were.” The light had no eyes, but it seemed to be looking at me. “This cultural difference often meant the hero was unable to accept the princess, and even after the princess tried to kill the hero, many heroes were too smart or powerful to succumb to her. The hero would become a fugitive, hunted by the world, and it was in these cases that the priestess would step in to fill the princess’s role.” “That’s not how it went for me,” I recalled. “That is because you fell in love with the demon lord instead of slaying her,” the light explained. “From Lunaris’s point of view, the main priority is to slay the demon lord. Besides, your desire to return to your own world was too great. Lunaris was left with no option but to eradicate you.” “I see. That all makes sense.” “That is all I have to say on the nature of this world,” said the light. “What will you do now?” The hero, the princess, the priestess, and the demon lord. These were the roles assigned to the four of us. A tight cast for a conventional storyline. It was all so cliché that not a single word of the story surprised me. However… “I don’t care anymore…” I could not bring myself to say anything else in response to the light’s question. My heart simply felt empty, like I no longer had interest in the outside world. I had lost something. Something that once held me together. A dynamic, motivating force that had once pushed me on. Ever since coming to that world of endless gray, something about me felt different. “I just don’t care anymore. Not even…about vengeance.” The words fell from my lips. “I finally understand now. I never wanted revenge. I was being made to want it. I said I needed it to move forward, but that all sounds so silly now.” After the shadow consumed me, I felt for the first time that I was truly myself again; the real me that had been hidden away so deeply within my own mind.