“People, buildings, and not only those but even the shape of the land was gone. We lost everything.” When I said it out loud, I felt a tightness in my chest. “That is how much power is contained in the Fighting God Armor we are going to collect.” I thought of lost things and lost memories. I thought back on all the beautiful vistas that no one remembered. “It is the power to destroy the world.”
Did Geese understand how much might be lost from here on out?
“If, in the Biheiril Kingdom, it comes to the same conclusion it did last time, the entirety of the Divine Continent and around half of the Central and Demon Continents will be wiped out.”
Geese took this in in silence.
“The great explosion will alter the landscapes of the remaining continents as well. The Central Continent will cease to maintain its current prosperity. The Great Forest may become a desert. Millis could be swallowed by the ocean and the Begaritt Continent may be pushed even farther away…
“The races would be thrown together, and there would be conflict. Though it was not recorded in any history book, four thousand and two hundred years ago an age of darkness reigned for nigh on three thousand years. All the races wandered, searching for a land to make their own, fighting one another…”
Having said that, it was not until some years after that war ended that I awoke, so I knew little of that time. Fwahahaha!
I remembered how, after many years, the humans expelled the demons from the Central Continent and drove us over to the Demon Continent.
“Land changes, cultures change, ways of life change, and so conflict breaks out. Though it may be hard to get a sense of such things when merely hearing of them.” When I awoke, I was stunned. The world looked different from before. It had changed in every way. “It was a whole different world.”
The end of the world is less flashy than you’d expect. After a few thousand years pass, no one remembers the world that once was except for us immortal demons. I changed after that war. I became engaged to Kishirika and stopped worrying about trivial problems. We lived in contentment through days of peace. As such, I have only pleasant memories of the past four thousand and two hundred years—though I also forgot the bad ones where it suited me. Fwahahaha!
Geese was silent. In his position, he could not understand.
“With all that on my mind, I just had to stop.” Unlike Atofe, I am relatively quick on the uptake. But now that I had come to a stop, I wouldn’t move again until I was satisfied. I am, after all, a wise demon king. I cannot act unless it is rational. Fwahahaha!
Which is to say, I was waiting to be persuaded. This was where Geese’s smooth talking would be put to the test. This was a demon king’s trial.
“…Hey, bud.” After a period of silence, Geese spoke. “You’re an immortal demon, so I guess you look at the world differently from the likes of me.”
“I expect so.”
“When the land changes and cultures change, well. It probably does look like a different world to you.”
“Surely it would look that way to anyone?”
“Nah, it wouldn’t. No way.” Geese shook his head. “The way I see it, even if you don’t do nothing, just going to the neighboring country is like…heck, it’s like a different world. If you go back to your old country ten years later, it’ll look totally different. Like a brand new reality.”
Ten years, he said. I knew it in theory, but ten years really was a long time to most other races.
“In just ten years, there’s a lot that doesn’t change much, so you get moments where you see that stuff and feel at ease. Then you think about how you ain’t changed either and it really brings you down.” Geese spoke with the same nonchalance as he always had, but there was a weight behind his words.
“Destroy the world? You ask me, that’s an honor. After the world ends, I’d like to build myself a monument.” It sounded like a jape, but his tone was serious. “Only, if there’s that big an explosion, I guess I won’t be surviving that. Hell, I’ll probably die in an aftershock halfway through the fight.”
Geese looked me straight in the eyes as he went on. “The boss—Rudeus, I mean—he’s an exceptional guy. Yeah, he’s got magic coming out his eyeballs, but like me, he can’t use battle aura. He doesn’t let it get him down. He tries hard and gets clever, plus he’s humble and he knows how to rely on folk. People don’t rely on him, mind. He relies on them. Even though you’d think he could do whatever he wanted by himself, a guy like him who can do basically everything. He can divide up tasks among other people and they’ll do it. There’s not many who can do that.
“Me, I’m not strong enough to take on the boss. I know that. See, this time, what I did was bring people together. It’ll be a fight on equal footing. Makes you wanna win, doesn’t it? Unlike the boss, I ain’t got nothing but this. I got the Sword God, the North God, the Abyssal King, the Ogre God, and now the Fighting God. Yeah, I borrowed the Man-God’s powers, but I reckon I’ve gathered as good a force as I could’ve. We’ll go in with a lineup like you’ve never seen before. I thought it up, I gathered them, and I’m going in to win. So it’s nothing to me if I die along the way. I’ve lived a shady sort of life, doing what the Man-God told me. That’s how much I valued my own skin—I’ve looked after it real careful, so no way am I gonna lose it, that’s how I felt. I thought it was the most important thing, but I also thought maybe there might be something else more important out there somewhere. Anyway, it ends here. I know I might die, but I’m not about to stop. So you gotta commit. My opponent’s Rudeus? Well, yours is Dragon God Orsted. Against an enemy even stronger than Laplace, seems about right that the world should end, y’know?”
Risking your life was an idea unfamiliar to me, an immortal demon. The Dragon God had the power to kill immortal demons—that was what had killed my father. Yet it didn’t seem real to me. Even Atofe was still going strong after being sealed away who knew how many times over. I was unfamiliar with death. Having said that, I knew that people with finite lives valued life. People like Geese held life especially dear. They wouldn’t do anything important with their lives, but they treasured them, nevertheless.
…That was just it. It was now that he had the chance to do something important that he was willing to give his precious life. There was nothing that obligated me to join him… I had decided to oppose the Dragon God. I’d decided to join the Man-God. Though I’d said never again to myself at the end of the Second Great Human-Demon War, I had plumbed the depths of the Devil’s Cave to retrieve the Fighting God Armor. Indeed, I had to commit. Just like Geese.
“Fwahahaha! Just so! Very well, let us go and obtain the world-destroying armor!”
“That’s what I like to hear! Let’s go!”
Dear me, I got a little tangled up in my thoughts! After that day, I ought to have known that it was better to plunge ahead without thinking about what might greet me. I was clever, but I was also foolish, and I thought that would make a man worthy of Kishirika.
Well, if so, I’d better get started! Fwahahaha!