Chapter 129
Do you know the one thing you should never, ever do in a horror movie?
That's genre drift. If you spend all that time building a terrifying atmosphere, and then the film suddenly switches to comedy, people are bound to freak out.
A good example would be some unfortunate clown who went from a man-eating monster to an ant wiped out in the stock market. The situation was a little different, but either way, nobody was scared of that clown anymore, were they? Anyway, it's the same sort of thing.
Usually, that kind of drift only leaves behind a pile of scathing reviews.
Just like in web novels, things like ‘pretending to be a pure love story and then veering into harem,’ ‘being a harem story but veering into pure love,’ or ‘turning a pure love story into NTR’ go beyond taboo and become things that need to be stamped out.
If a creepy horror work suddenly turned into a comedy that only made people laugh, the audience would personally try to teach the director what real fear was. By then, they'd probably be smiling from ear to ear.
The situation right now was no different.
“Senpai, senpai. Look over here, senpaiiiiii.”
“…….”
Third-period P.E.
The field where the first- and second-year students were having a joint class was swarming with kids. Not every class from both grades was doing P.E. at the same time, so it wasn't packed to the brim, but there were still quite a lot of them. Ian sat in a chair and watched them quietly.
Each student who looked like an ordinary human was, individually, an anomaly and a mystery. Maybe they were victims—wanderers who had once been human, but had their memories tampered with until they belonged to this world. Ian personally thought that was more likely.
Every action had a purpose. There was no way something that came into the school just to cause confusion for no reason would bother messing with people's memories. Mysteries weren't that kind to humans.
‘If your memories were manipulated so that you could no longer tell truth from falsehood. If you came to accept every memory exactly as it was.’
You'd be bound to this space as you were and end up living here like them.
“……Phew.”
Ian forced himself to ignore the Lord of the Outer Sea clinging to his side and let out a long breath. In a space where all four seasons coexisted, his breath fogged faintly.
“……Um, Ian.”
Then Seo-ah quietly spoke to him. Wrapped up tight in her gym uniform, she looked at the Lord of the Outer Sea pressed right up against Ian's side.
“Is that... the thing I'm thinking of...?”
“……I don't really know what you're thinking of, but it's easier to just let it go and move on. That's what I'm doing too.”
“……But.”
“At the very least, it won't do us any harm.”
Ian turned to look at the Lord of the Outer Sea.
“It has enough sense to know that much.”
“Of course, senpai.”
She smiled brightly and rubbed her cheek against Ian's shoulder like a cat. It almost sounded like a soft purr.
“I don't do things you hate, senpai. Never. No matter what happens.”
“…….”
“Of course, I might get annoyed. I might hate whatever's by your side so much that I could kill it. But unless you specifically want me to, my hands won't get stained with blood.”
“……Haa, thanks. Though I'm not sure that's the right way to say it.”
“Instead of thanking me, could you say you love me?”
“That might still be a little hard.”
“Tch.”
She puffed out her cheeks and hugged Ian's arm tightly like a doll.
“Ehehehe. This is so nice... I want to cut off just one arm and keep hugging it forever...”
“That sounds exactly like the sort of thing I'd hate.”
“That's why I don't do it.”
“…….”
It was too reasonable, so he had nothing to say. Ian tried to quietly pull his arm away, but gave up when he felt her grip growing stronger and stronger.
“……More importantly, how long are you planning to keep up that act?”
He still remembered his first meeting with the Lord of the Outer Sea.
Yohan General Hospital. When she first revealed herself through the Watcher's eye, even though they hadn't communicated directly, her overwhelming presence came through perfectly.
The sensation was like his entire body being crushed by water pressure. Water seeping into his airway and turning into insects that gnawed at every cell was not something he could forget even if he tried.
But all of that had only been temporary; the Lord of the Outer Sea hadn't actually done anything else. She had merely stared at Ian through a peephole, giggled, and disappeared.
It was only after that that they had anything resembling an actual conversation.
“When you first appeared as Pygmalion's Statue, I'm pretty sure you didn't talk like this.”
About a month ago, the Lord of the Outer Sea had once forced an imperfect descent through Pygmalion's Statue.
At the time, her manner of speech was far too light for something that could be called an Outer God, and she didn't use honorifics or anything like that. Naturally, she didn't use terms like ‘senpai’ either.
That might have been different before, but once her identity had already been exposed, there was no reason to keep up the junior persona anymore.
“Hmm... well, this isn't actually my real way of speaking! Honestly, keeping it up is annoying too!”
The Lord of the Outer Sea admitted it readily enough. Caressing Ian's fingers, she answered in a bright voice.
“But it can't be helped. If I want to stay in this space, I have to faithfully play the role assigned to me.”
“…….”
“If the act falls apart even a little, this space will go boom and split apart. Ah, look over there.”
She pointed with a finger at somewhere in the sky. The sky there was twisted as though glass had shattered.
“When I argued with that fucking bitch earlier, it broke like that because I didn't keep up the act. It couldn't withstand my level.”
“……That's absurd. Then why not just disappear? Why come here and be a nuisance?”
“Eek, no. How would I know when another chance like this would come? Spaces that can withstand my consciousness are rare, you knowooo.”
The Lord of the Outer Sea dragged out the end of her words and brought Ian's hand to her mouth, giving it a light bite. When Ian frowned at the throbbing pain, she gave a sly smile and licked the bite mark with her tongue.
“Mmm... salty. Ehehe.”
“……If you're just going to keep wasting time, then I'm leaving.”
“Aah, aaah! Don't go! That bastard is already staring at us from the teachers' office!”
The “bastard” she was talking about was, of course, Reconstruction of All Things.
Ian turned his head slightly, glanced sidelong at the pure-white figure pressing its face against the teachers' office window, then looked back ahead.
“……Are these things gods?”
“There are surprisingly a lot of people who want gods who are kind to only one person!”
“Be quiet.”
“Nyeeeng.”
Come to think of it, a mystery like a school ghost story had no choice but to be strong. It was a ghost story that existed not only in Korea but in Japan as well, and had built up decades of fear and notoriety... It would have been stranger if it were weak.
But even so, it was strange that it could still keep its form intact while containing the consciousness of an Outer God—no, two Outer Gods. No matter how much the two gods restrained it, there was no way a mere mystery could withstand it.
“Because it's not a mere mystery.”
Reading Ian's thoughts, the Lord of the Outer Sea smirked and folded her arms. Ian turned to look at her.
“……I figured it was something like that, but did you learn anything?”
“If you French-kiss me for five minutes, stroke my ears while whispering that you love me, and then finally bite the back of my neck hard enough to draw blood, I'll tell you.”
“I'm going to see Reconstruction of All Things. Seo-ah, let's go.”
“Aaaaaah!”
The Lord of the Outer Sea grabbed Ian's pants as he sprang to his feet and clung to him.
“This space was made by an Outer God!”
“……What?”
“More precisely, it's a space created by an Outer God's grimoire!”
Ian's face stiffened at the completely unexpected answer. Seeing his expression, the Lord of the Outer Sea grinned.
“Ah, your face is cute.”
“…….”
“Were you surprised? Of course you were. You killed one Outer God, and then another Outer God suddenly appeared.”
“……You killed an Outer God? What are you talking about?”
Seo-ah, who had been quietly listening to the two of them, frowned and asked. Ian stared at her for a moment, thought it over, then told her about what had happened before he regressed.
He wouldn't have told anyone else. But Seo-ah was one of the very few people who knew that both grimoires Ian possessed were the work of Outer Gods.
Naturally, she would also know a few of the things an Outer God could do. Regression would be one of them as well.
Even the grimoires that appear in the Cthulhu Mythos contain very dangerous magic. If that's the case, then a grimoire actually written by an Outer God couldn't possibly be ordinary. Naturally, it would be far more dangerous than those Cthulhu grimoires.
Seo-ah seemed to have thought along those lines as well, since she didn't react much to the regression.
Instead, she became interested in something else.
“……I get that an Outer God took care of another Outer God. I also understand that, in the process, the world's timeline changed. I can also understand that an Outer God helped Earth, even if I don't really get it.”
“…….”
“So if regression happened that way, then you're a regressor now? If every time you die, an Outer God can change the world's timeline, then—”
“Earth's lifeforms really are stupid, aren't they? You think something like that would be possible? Worm?”
The Lord of the Outer Sea cut Seo-ah off and muttered expressionlessly.
“Even for an Outer God, tampering with timelines is difficult. In the first place, the only one capable of doing that is that fucking bitch.”
“……Really?”
“You're awfully curt, aren't you?”
“……Yes?”
“Tsk. If you weren't a friend of senpai's, I'd have stuffed your head full of knowledge of the Outer Sea and toyed with you...”
Grumbling like that, the Lord of the Outer Sea slipped into Ian's arms and sat there. Ian tried to push her away, but her physical weight was so immense that she didn't budge at all. It was like trying to move an elephant.
“We called it regression, but it wasn't really that. The universe kept flowing as usual, and only Earth ran backward.”
“…….”
“And once a timeline has been touched, it can no longer be tampered with. If you ignore that and force it, not only Earth but the Outer Gods will be erased.”
“……Ah.”
“I really hate having to say this, but Reconstruction of All Things made a lot of sacrifices for my husband. That bitch is probably not in a normal state right now either. You can tell from the restrictions on her magic.”
Hmph, she snorted lightly and tilted her head up a little to look at Ian.
“If you'd called me then, we'd probably be laughing and having a good time at the beach right now. What a shame.”
“……I'm really glad I didn't call you.”
As he said that, Ian looked back at Reconstruction of All Things.
She was still pressed right up against the teachers' office window, looking down at Ian.
Just like at their first meeting, her face was expressionless. But Ian knew better than anyone that she was simply bad at making expressions. So he gave her a faint smile first.
Reconstruction of All Things awkwardly smiled and waved, as if imitating that smile.
“Look over here.”
At the same time, the Lord of the Outer Sea forcibly turned Ian's head back toward herself.
“I'm the one beside you right now, senpai. Focus on me.”
“……Mmph.”
“If you look closely, the favoritism is really severe. If you favor one side too much, the other won't be able to hold out. Please be careful, okay? Before I really gobble it up. A god's patience is very different from a human's, you know?”
“……I'll keep that in mind.”
Ian gave a wry smile and patted the Lord of the Outer Sea on the head. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the touch.
“Hmmm... anyway, to finish what I was saying, this space was created when an Outer God's grimoire settled here. It had only just reached the level where it could create a grimoire, so it brought one down to Earth.”
“Why Earth of all places?”
“Probably because it observed my imperfect descent. Or maybe it was drawn to your aura, senpai. Just like I was.”
“……Heh.”
“I don't really know the Outer God's name either, but there is one thing that comes to mind.”
She smiled slyly and tapped her lips with a finger.
“In this language, it'd be a dweeb? Yeah. That's the closest thing.”