“I overwrote his memories and replaced them with memories of me. He thinks I’m Sven.”
Human memory was said to result from electric signals coursing through the brain. Interfering with that process externally would not affect the human intellect. Subjecting someone to electric signals, however, could theoretically rewrite existing memories.
“How pitiful... and funny. The man she loves still loves her but he doesn’t recognize her. Ha ha ha... Her pseudo heart couldn’t tolerate that despair.”
The Saint looked down at Sven. Then she stomped on her head the way she might a dead animal.
“It was too mischievous of that boy to create something like her. Nonetheless...” The Saint had a thought. There was Sven, Meitzer, herself and him...
“Oh, I see... I wasn’t worth looking at.” For the first time, deep sadness colored the Saint’s features.
“Um, Saint? What should we do with her?” Without noticing the change in her expression, Toolman asked for orders.
“Good question. Perhaps I should crush her, and send the pieces to Meitzer.”
That would be the supreme act of spite against the man still bound in the underground cell. As she was thinking, a staff member in the control room timidly raised his hand.
“Um, excuse me, but... if you don’t need her, can I have her?”
“What?”
The man spoke to her without permission and the Saint openly glared with displeasure.
“It’d be a waste, wouldn’t it? She’s so pretty. So... if you don’t need her, um, heh heh heh...”
The man laughed obsequiously, licking his lips with a vulgar look on his face. He was so disgusting it gave the Saint the creeps.
“Should I kill him?” Toolman asked when he sensed the Saint’s displeasure.
“Yes, please.” At that moment, however, the Saint changed her mind. “No, it’s all right. I’ll allow it. Do as you like with her.”
The man disgusted her, but the Saint granted permission. She did not need to think about what this man would do to Sven’s body. The thought of him using her and defiling her as an object of his desire was immensely satisfying to the Saint.
“Do as you please to your heart’s content. Yes, and when you’re finished with her, throw her in with the man in the underground cell. Understood?”
“Yes, Ma’am!” The man agreed with a slobber like a wild dog, an expression of sinister joy on his face. “Now if you’ll pardon me...”
The man lifted Sven’s body and went off with it. Even that sight gave the Saint pleasure.
Meanwhile, Blitzdonner...
“Argh!”
He had fled into the forest and taken a long detour, eventually arriving at the coastline. This was Penmunde, originally a fishing port, where he thought he might find a boat, but there was only a rundown pier.
“I’m ashamed of what I did to Sharlahart...”
He remembered Rebecca’s face as she had hurled him away. Her expression was pathetic. It was the face of a soldier who accepted death but was holding on in order to save someone else’s life. Even if he accepted the humiliation of running away and the bitterness over abandoning his companion, Blitzdonner believed he had to survive.
“I wanted to find a way to get Langart and Svelgen out of there.”
But the plan had completely fallen through. This was no longer about helping Sven become human. The most he could do was get the two of them safely back to Organbaelz. Now he couldn’t even do that. He bitterly cursed his useless arm.
“What a disaster!”
He was about to say, “I guess this is the end,” but he brushed that aside. If he gave up now, then why had he sacrificed Rebecca? However...
“Think, Blitzdonner! You’re the almighty Crimson Hawk! There must be a way! Something... anything...”
He couldn’t think of a solution. Precisely because he was an excellent soldier, his thoughts were realistic and only considered what was possible. His left arm still worked. As he began to feel that it was getting heavy, he heard something.
“Hm?”
He had heard that sound before. It was a sound he recognized.
“Hey, wait. Why here?”
He stared at the surface of the sea and his body tensed.
Sven didn’t have the same type of dreams that human beings have. Her dreams didn’t arise from hopes and aspirations. Her dreams consisted of what the eyes saw during sleep.
Yeah...
Nonetheless, she was inside a dream. The feeling was familiar to her. She had experienced it several times.
“Oh dear, oh dear... This is quite a mess!”
She heard it again. A voice she didn’t know. However, she had finally grasped who it belonged to.
You’re Douglas Meitzer, aren’t you?
She was certain the owner of the voice was the mysterious man who called her his daughter.
“No, I’m not Meitzer.”
Huh?!
Sven was perplexed that her guess was totally wrong.
“But the smooth, insincere way you speak, as though you don’t think of people as people, is like Meitzer.”
Above all, he had said, “Long time, no see!”
“Oh, right. He did say that, didn’t he?”
The reply was offhand, exactly like Meitzer.
Then who are you?!
“I am God.”
What?
The voice claimed to be God. Meitzer had claimed to be the Devil. Sven’s head was beginning to hurt.
“Losing your patience? Well, it can’t be helped. I was called God by the people who created me.”
The people who created you? They made God? Who has the ability to make God?
“It’s always humans who make God. Human beings are imperfect, so they seek what is perfect. However, nothing perfect exists in this world, so they created it, and that’s me.”
I don’t understand what you mean. But... if you’re God, then...
With as much feeling as she could muster, Sven screamed and begged.
Give Master back to me!
She had never thought Lud would look at her the way he just had. It was a face she knew well and an expression she knew well. Her master had looked at her as if she were a stranger, and that was enough to break her heart.
“She does the cruelest things. It’s too bad.”
The voice’s owner, who claimed to be God, knew about the Saint.
Who is she?
Sven wanted to understand the woman’s identity. This mysterious woman who had taken everything from her.
“She’s similar to the one you and I call Meitzer.”
Now I’m even more confused!
She could not imagine the connection between the mysterious middle-aged man and the owner of this voice claiming to be God.
“If you want to know, you should ask him—Meitzer. He’s the one originally responsible. Besides, he knows how to get the person you want back.”
Really?!
Sven didn’t care if she was talking to a real god or not. If there was any way to bring Lud back, she would rely on a false god.
“You say the strangest things. ‘Bring back,’ did you say? Heh heh...”
God laughed as if it were the funniest thing in the world. It was a loving laugh toward someone ignorant, but innocent and pure.
“Take him back? Don’t be ridiculous. This whole world is yours. There is nothing you could want that you can’t have. If you think he has been taken, that’s an illusion. From the very start, you have possessed everything.”
You said something like that before. But what is ‘everything’?
“Everything is everything. There is no need to define it.”
Those were his final words before he disappeared. However, he was never visible. It would be more accurate to say she could no longer sense him. At that moment, Sven regained consciousness.
At the same time, Lud...