Dawn broke on the land of Mizgarz once again; the Twilight of the Gods was over.
I looked over the scenery I’d now gotten used to from the deck of the Argo, and my eyes narrowed. Though Mizgarz had once disappeared, along with the universe it was in, it was as if the whole thing had never happened. Nothing had changed from yesterday. After that fight with Alovenus, I had repaired time and space with her help, returning things to the same state as before the twilight happened.
But wouldn’t you then think, If she could do all that, why didn’t Alovenus just delete you?
Honestly, I wondered that myself. The reason behind that turned out to be both simple and silly.
The Goddess being too strong turned out to be a curse, as she was absolutely worthless at holding back.
No, wait. Now that I think about it, there were definitely signs.
Because her existence was so all-encompassing, she was basically unable to interfere with Mizgarz at all. That was the proof. If Alovenus were to try to wind things back, she’d accidentally go all the way back before Mizgarz was even created, or worse, before the big bang. If not for that, Alovenus would have rewound time the moment she found a bug like me in the system. It was an unexpected weakness for a Goddess touted as omnipotent. She was great at the large-scale, but it seemed that also meant she was bad at going small-scale and making fine adjustments.
In the Goddess’s own terms, “It’s kind of like trying to rewind a movie only a few seconds, but you mistake a button and end up going all the way back to the beginning.” It wasn’t a very good analogy.
Also, while I was reconstructing the universe, I returned all the mana I’d absorbed, so I was now back to my former strength. I’d already experienced the feeling of being that strong, though, so if the Goddess were to do something stupid again, I was confident I could go back to punch her a bit.
“So it’s over?” Dina, who was standing beside me, asked.
“Yeah,” I answered.
Though few words were exchanged, they were filled with a lot of sentiment.
Over... Yeah, it finally is. All we did was make the Goddess lay down her script. That’s all. But the process to make that happen was so long.
Now, Mizgarz is no longer in her hands. There will be no guidance from the Goddess from here on out. Even if there were, it wouldn’t be useful, so we’ll just have to find our way ourselves.
“Miss Lufaaassss! I believed in yooouuuuu!”
Scorpius spread her arms wide as she jumped at me, but she never reached her destination. Libra immediately grabbed her head firmly, stopping her.
“Raagghh! What do you think you’re doing, you piece of junk?!”
“I am suppressing a pervert who is trying to approach my master,” said Libra. “I am doing nothing wrong.”
“Just how am I a pervert?! I’ll turn you into scrap!”
“Things will only take longer with you around, so I will send you back to the moon first.”
“Yoooouuuu!”
Libra’s arm separated at the elbow, and the forearm flew off into the sky still holding Scorpius. As Libra herself said, it was headed for the moon.
At first glance, the moon looked the same as usual, but I’d actually made some adjustments as I was putting things back to normal. I’d moved Maphaahl Tower to the dark side of the moon. Why did I do something like that? Because I planned to live on the moon from now on.
I was still considered the symbol of fear throughout Mizgarz in the end. I’d destroyed this world once already. No matter how I tried to smooth that over, I couldn’t avoid being feared by others. That was why I would withdraw from the world at large and try making a country on the moon while living a laid-back life.
While I was adjusting the moon during my reconstruction efforts, I’d tweaked it so that the environment would be survivable for living things. It still looked the same from Mizgarz, but that was just the effect of magic. There were already oceans and other proofs of nature on it. Other than that, though, it was still fresh, virgin ground, and I would have to get to work building towns and the like from now on.
Of course, if I were to openly declare myself as its ruler, people would only come to fear the moon as a symbol of ill omen, so I simply made it common knowledge that the Goddess lived on the moon as I made Dina a new Goddess. In short, she now had the alias of Goddess of the Moon. She just keeps getting more titles, doesn’t she?
“And whose fault is that?” Dina retorted.
“I know. It’s mine,” I casually responded as I looked down at the earth.
We’d already dropped people off of the Ark, which was now hidden on the dark side of the moon.
The view was as peaceful as usual, but there was something that was different: they no longer feared the devilfolk. Obviously, the devilfolk couldn’t remain on Mizgarz. They’d been the enemy of humanity for too long, so they had all been moved to the moon. From their point of view, they probably didn’t like the idea of living with me, the very symbol of all their fears, but it’d be best if they just considered this comeuppance for all the things they’d done up until now.
“But are you sure about this?” asked Libra. “If you act now, you will surely be able to achieve world conquest again, master.”
“True. Such a thing would be easy... But the reason I even wanted to do so in the first place was to allow weak people to be able to live in peace without having to fear the devilfolk. Now, all the devilfolk have been moved here, so my goals have all been reached,” I answered with a hand wave, dismissing her concerns.
At this point, I didn’t want control of the world. I had no reason for it. My last job for the outside world would be to take in those who would only cause sparks of conflict if left on Mizgarz, like the devilfolk.
Of course, I didn’t only bring the devilfolk to the moon. There were also the demihuman villages and the small number of monsters who were over level 300 and clearly too dangerous for these times. The only things like that I left on Mizgarz were Pisces, who would take charge of protecting the waters from now on, and his underwater kingdom.
“Also, it seems that I’m not well suited to governing. At best, I can just use my power to force my way through... My method of leadership was to use power and violence to rule through fear instead of reason. I would just be a conqueror and a tyrant like that. I would never be thought of as a wise and benevolent ruler. Rulers like me would be in high demand during times of upheaval, but Mizgarz should no longer need those. Most importantly, I already disappeared from that stage once. I don’t want to come back to that as if I couldn’t let the title go.” Lufas paused. “It’s time to let things be decided by those living in the present.”
Though I said I would rule, I would probably be rather useless as a king in times of peace. Invasion, suppression, and wreaking havoc by standing on the front lines myself were the things I was good at, and all of them were just different applications of force in the end. I think I’d be a great king in wartime. In times where victory was everything, no one other than the Goddess could outvalue me.
However, expanding territory during wartime and governing during peacetime were two completely different problems. By my estimation, I wouldn’t even compare to the likes of Megrez in terms of governing ability. Being called a conqueror sounds cool, but in the end, the ones who get called that are just the unstable rulers who can only show their stuff with an enemy around. Killing my enemies until there were no more of them and creating a peace beyond those mountains of bodies and rivers of blood was the only thing I could do.
So what about after all the fighting? In a world without enemies, what happens to an incompetent king? Should I find a new enemy? Continuing to make enemies like that by saying, “I don’t like X or Y,” would only result in my finding myself alone.