Chapter 63
"Oh, what is this? The boss is here?"
I rose from the smoke chair and began approaching Kairon's body, suspended in midair.
[...]
An impression that had changed as though he were someone else.
Should I call him expressionless, or say that he was incapable of feeling emotions at all?
If there was one distinguishing feature, it was just one.
His eyes.
Kairon's eyes had momentarily split into vertical slits, like the pupils characteristic of an animal—specifically, a reptile.
[The boss...? No. I am not the boss.]
In the first place, this isn't even an organization with an established hierarchy headed by a boss.
"Hmm?"
Not an organization either?
[It is a pleasure to meet you, singularity of this world.]
Keywords suddenly began pouring out.
[I apologize for not revealing my name. I am temporarily inside this man's body through possession, and if I were to state my name incorrectly, this man's mind might not be able to withstand it.]
He is not as strong as you, after all.
As he said this, the unidentified being with reptilian pupils smiled strangely.
It looked like the smile of a doll that had learned human emotions.
[Ah, and there is one thing I must correct. You called this place a trap, but it is not.]
"A trap—in other words, you aren't calling it a trap?"
In response to my question, the unidentified being possessing Kairon's body nodded while hanging in midair.
[Indeed. I merely wanted to see you once. The singularity of this world.]
"You've been going on about singularities since earlier."
What kind of thing was he talking about that only he could understand?
Besides, what was that guy before him called again? Sailor?
I still hadn't fully grasped what he meant about the barriers between dimensions, and now new mysteries kept surfacing. I felt like I was going to die of frustration.
"Enough already?"
Humm.
Before I had even finished speaking, I changed the smoke I had already released into spikes and began applying pressure.
[Hahaha. My apologies. After living for so long, I have grown accustomed to speaking this way.]
'Lived for so long...'
The sudden change to reptilian pupils, and the fact that he had lived for so long.
Finally, there was his voice, filled with a peculiar sense of pressure simply from the way he spoke.
'Ugh...'
A certain species came to mind, but I still lacked enough information to be certain.
"All right, all right, you unidentified gentleman."
Come to think of it, he was currently possessing someone through possession magic, wasn't he?
Moreover, he was the entity that had wrested control from Sailor.
"How about we ask each other questions and have a sound, productive conversation?"
It was a fact I really didn't like, but they were the ones with the upper hand in information right now.
"What do you say?"
[An exchange of information. But I have nothing I want from you right now, so what are you scheming?]
"Naturally. To be honest, you have nothing to gain from this right now. Naturally."
I nodded as though agreeing with him.
If I had captured his true body, I could have tortured or interrogated him, but that wasn't the case either.
'No matter how I look at it, that's impossible.'
I focused all my mana into my eyes and looked at Kairon as he was now.
It was clear that he was stronger than when Sailor had been possessing him moments ago.
A powerhouse whose latent mana had been shattered simply by possessing someone.
I began to feel strongly that it would be impossible to restrain someone that powerful with Ariel's help.
He was possessing someone rather than being in his original body, had no advantage in information, and I couldn't even imprison that mind.
Should I offer the other three members of the organization deployed for this operation as bargaining chips?
'Maybe?'
But if I were in his position, I would have no reason to accept.
The upper hand in information was that precious.
So.
"But I can earn your goodwill."
I should stake what I could offer, right?
[What...?]
"Goodwill. I mean goodwill."
He had just said this.
[You called this place a trap, but it was not.]
That was what he had said.
In other words, although I didn't know about the organization's members, the individual who appeared to be their boss had no great hostility toward me.
No, judging by the fact that he called me a singularity, it was probably a fairly positive interest.
"Now, let's make a simple comparison."
You said you weren't beings that could be called an organization.
"But Sailor is listening to what you say right now."
Even now, Sailor couldn't voice his opinion.
That meant a hierarchy was in place.
And, in other words, it also meant this was information freely known within their ranks—enough that even someone like him knew it.
"The obvious facts you all know. And by telling me those facts, I can earn your goodwill."
Which of these two do you think is more beneficial?
[...]
In short, what I was saying was simple.
In exchange for a tiny piece of information you knew, I would think well of you.
A simple equivalent exchange.
An equivalent exchange even an elementary schooler could understand.
Of course, accepting it was up to him.
What if he rejected the offer?
Then it would be unfortunate, but what could I do? I would have no choice but to interrogate the others currently captured and obtain information from them.
"..."
[...]
I quietly looked at the unidentified being occupying Kairon's body.
The being occupying Kairon's body merely looked back at me.
[Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!]
A peal of laughter loud enough to reverberate throughout the engine room.
[Hahaha. Yes. Your goodwill?]
"Yeah."
I lightly affirmed it in a voice of hostility tinged with laughter.
Just then, I began drawing up power in case the negotiations broke down.
[I accept.]
It was then that I heard his affirmative response.
"Huh?"
He really accepted?
It was almost a gamble with only half my chips on the table.
No, perhaps it was closer to a bluff relying on nerve than a gamble.
[Why? Wasn't this the deal you proposed?]
"...Because I didn't know if it would really work."
[Heh heh. Half of it is simply a reward. It has been several hundred years since I last laughed so freely.]
Ah, but in return, could you withdraw the smoke binding me right now?
Kairon said this while pointing with his chin at the smoke binding him.
[It is a little stuffy.]
"Sigh..."
...
All right, where should I start explaining?
To put it simply, it would be best to think of the current world as half-broken.
Whoa, don't be alarmed. When I say broken, it isn't that dangerous.
It would be more accurate to say that the world's cycle has disappeared.
What do I mean by the world's cycle?
Simple.
[Demon King.]
This world is continually accumulating mana because there is no being called the Demon King.
...
"What?"
Listening to Kairon's words, I had no choice but to voice my confusion.
[Hehehe.]
In response to my question, the unidentified being controlling Kairon's body continued in an unconcerned tone.
[This world originally follows a cycle. The demon race—in other words, the being called the [Demon King]—starts a war against the world at set intervals and consumes an enormous amount of mana throughout the world.]
But.
[But the nameless hero who failed to leave his name in history wagered everything he had and ended up erasing the very existence of the [Demon King].]
As Kairon said this, he began using mana to create a small soap bubble.
[Thus, the fates of the hero and the Demon King were twisted, and the world's cycle was broken.]
The soap bubble gradually began swelling.
[Mana continued accumulating in this world, and as the age advanced, mana's efficiency began to reach its maximum.]
Originally, it would have been impossible for civilization to develop this far because of the Demon King's existence.
The soap bubble began growing larger than a person.
[That is also why ability users came into existence.]
A strange phenomenon began appearing in the swelling soap bubble.
Small granules began clumping together inside the soap bubble.
[Mana concentrated to an extreme degree. And the result of life-forms that absorbed that concentrated mana undergoing mutations.]
Mana basically had no particular properties.
But even if water was harmless to the human body, drinking highly concentrated water could cause stomach pain or diarrhea.
Even more so for children—especially those who absorbed mana from infancy through innate talent—pure mana was akin to poison.
[But living things are resilient.]
The instinct to survive.
People and other races began undergoing strange mutations at that moment.
Their bodies transformed to make it easier to absorb mana.
This was also why they gained abilities beyond human understanding.
Because it was done instinctively, and because the mutation continued until they awakened mana, abilities beyond human understanding were born.
[And because of this, we came to reject you ability users all the more.]
The soap bubble began changing once again.
The granules inside the soap bubble turned into something like star candies.
The granules that had transformed into star candies flew freely around inside the soap bubble and began striking the walls supporting it.
[Have you ever heard this? That the abilities of ability users being born anew today are far stronger than those of ability users in the past.]
"..."
I had.
In the early days when ability users first appeared, only simple abilities emerged.
But look at the ability users appearing now.
[Smoke Manipulation],[Illusion], [Magic Bullet], [Absolute Defense].
Even just among the people around me, abilities were abundant—strong enough to go beyond common sense, not merely strong.
[Naturally. It is the result of mana that could not circulate becoming increasingly concentrated over time, giving birth to ever stranger abilities in order to survive.]
The soap bubble had now begun growing huge enough to occupy half the engine room.
Inside it, star-candy-shaped mana reacted with one another madly, causing violent chemical reactions.
[What do you think will happen at the end of a world where this keeps piling up?]
"..."
[Accumulating and accumulating and accumulating. What if this world's defensive wall, piled up to its limit like that, were to collapse?]
Boom!
The soap bubble burst in an instant.
Then the star-candy-shaped mana inside began scattering in all directions.
As I stared blankly at the sight, I heard his voice once more.
[Of course, this is not a big deal.]
"What do you mean?"
Not a big deal?
Then what was all that information he had delivered with such gravity, talking as if the world would be destroyed right away?
At my questioning gaze, the boss possessing Kairon's body shrugged as though it were nothing.
[I said it was a defensive wall, did I not? Even if the defensive wall collapses, it does not mean this world will be destroyed.]
But.
[The shield protecting this world will break, and monsters from beyond the dimensions will pour in.]
"What...?"
[That is what the defensive wall is. A barrier to protect our dimension. If the wall protecting a castle collapsed, would it not be natural for a band of thieves to storm in to devour the treasure sleeping inside?]
"..."
Wait a moment...
As the conversation progressed that far, the puzzle pieces in my head instinctively began fitting together one by one.
'I understand that this world will be in danger if things continue like this.'
Then what was their objective?
They definitely had to share a common purpose.
Otherwise, there would be no reason for so many people to gather.
The absence of the [Demon King].
The broken cycle of the world.
Ability users, the dimensional barrier.
If so, their objective now was...
"Hey."
[Hmm?]
"Don't tell me you..."
Compressing everything that had just occurred to me into a single thought, a hypothesis sprang into my mind.
"Are you planning to restart the world's cycle yourselves?"
Grin.
The guy occupying Kairon's body looked at me with a creepy smile at my words.