Story 1:
The Final Dream
THE PLACE I FOUND myself was all white. The same white place as always. I could count the number of times I’d been here since being reincarnated in this world on my fingers, but every time, without fail, it was still the same white, empty place I kept coming back to.
When I came here, I always looked as I had in my past life, with a potbelly and rolls of flab. My body felt heavy and powerless. Strangely enough, it didn’t disgust me anymore. I didn’t feel frustration welling up in the depths of my chest. Being like this didn’t seem so bad. Maybe that was because I hadn’t been back here for such a long time.
Unless…
“Wait, what?”
That was weird. Sure, it had been a long time, but I didn’t remember taking my bracelet off. I never took it off.
Why was I here?
Hold on. What was I even doing before I came here? I couldn’t remember what I’d been doing before I fell asleep. I think it was probably, you know, something along the lines of baby-making…No, scratch that, I hadn’t done anything like that for a long time. I’d been neglecting it for around ten years now.
My memory was hazy, for some reason.
“Hey.”
Dazed as my memory was, my vision was sharp. As usual, he was here in this white place. That pixelated blob. The Man-God.
But what was this? He looked strange. His body was in pieces, with each of his four limbs held in place by something that looked like a magic circle and bound by some sort of translucent chain.
He looked like the final boss in an RPG. It was like, I dunno, unless you hit him in the right leg, he’d use a restoration spell to return to full health. A giant pain in the ass.
What happened to you? Cosplaying Exodia the Forbidden One or something?
“They got me.”
Who?
“You’re asking me that?”
I don’t see anyone else asking. What, is there someone here other than me?
“…Take a look over there.”
I turned around and saw a crowd of people. They were standing with their backs to me. No one there I recognized at first. Unfamiliar men and unfamiliar women, demons, humans.
There were about eight of them. One of them I knew. It was Orsted. He was the same as ever, but a few things had changed. He didn’t have his black helmet, and there was a sizable scar on his face that made him look more fearsome than ever. Yet the people around him were all smiling at him. Orsted’s face was as terrifying as it’d ever been, but there was a slight softness to his expression. I couldn’t make out what they were talking about, but I could see the trust between them.
The one speaking…was a boy. He looked seventeen or eighteen years old, with short hair and the kind of good looks that made me think he’d be good at sports. A normie sort of face, and Asian, going off his features. He had a nice smile. I guess Orsted’s curse didn’t affect him.
As I was watching the boy, a woman in the group stood up. Sitting, she’d been hidden by the others. Really, she was more a girl than a woman. She had blue hair and at her side was a giant white wolf.
Ah, I’d seen her somewhere before. She looked like Roxy, but not Roxy. She was definitely a Migurd, but I’d never mistake someone else for Roxy. So…who was she?
Could…could she be Lara?
Just then, the girl turned and waved at me. It couldn’t be at me. She had to be waving at the Man-God.
A man near her said something to her, probably asking what she was doing. She said something in reply, and he looked my way in surprise. He looked Asian, too. There weren’t many people in this world with that sort of face. He could have been Japanese. I’d have put him in his twenties, no older than thirty. He turned to me and bowed—a Japanese gesture. Maybe he was Japanese?
Then, the whole group turned my way. I saw faces both young and old. What I’d first thought was eight people was actually a much larger group, but they were hazy, making them hard to see. The only face I recognized was Orsted’s, but…oh, but was that Eris? A sword fighter with braided red hair was looking this way. No, she didn’t quite look like how I remembered Eris, though…
They all looked our way and made gestures of gratitude. Were they thanking the Man-God? Probably not, their manner wasn’t quite right for that. Who, then?
As I watched, wondering, they all stepped onto a magic circle drawn by Lara and disappeared somewhere. Just like that, they were all gone. The magic circle remained, glowing pale blue, but after a while, the glow faded, and the magic circle itself disappeared. Everything was gone.
“That lot ganged up on me and went to town. Then they cut me up like this and sealed me here. Said if I died, the last remaining human world might be destroyed.”
Would it be destroyed?
“How should I know? It’s not like I’ve died before.”
Right, fair point. No one knows what happens when they die.
“So, are you happy now?”
With what?
“This is the ending you wanted. Me, living here alone with all my powers sealed away. I’m living only to keep the world in existence. I can’t see it anymore. I can’t speak to anyone. I’ll just go on staring into this empty, white void.”
I dunno. It’s hard to say if that makes me happy or not. My goal was never to do anything to you. I just wanted a happy life with Sylphie, Roxy, and Eris. Go to work, earn a living, come home to eat dinner with my family, do some sweet, sweet baby-making at night. A normal…no, a happy life like that.
A normal life—the happiest life I could possibly imagine.
“Your happiness is my misery.”
Yeah? All right, I’m satisfied then. I mean, you look about as miserable as it’s possible to be right now, so I must be happy.
“You…you can’t seriously… You disgust me!”
I couldn’t read the Man-God’s expression, but his voice wasn’t hateful. It was simply full of sadness. He sounded like he might cry.
“I hate you.”
Okay. Well, you—
I lost consciousness.