Chapter 117
Mirne is the protagonist favored by the world.
She is the protagonist whom everyone comes to save whenever she finds herself in danger.
But if she were placed in a situation where no one could help her, who would appear?
'Was it more likely that a male protagonist would suddenly drop from the sky, or that the gods would appear?'
Naturally, it had to be the latter.
And as it turned out, my prediction was exactly right.
[ The hand, eye, and foot meant only for ㅁㅁ appear in the Imperial Palace. ]
A tremendous pillar of light poured down from the ceiling of the audience chamber.
It seemed to be falling from the sky, but that wasn't important.
'I don't have time to admire their dramatic entrance.'
The key was to hunt down the gods attached to Mirne.
The circumstances were also far more favorable than before.
I heard that in the past, they had used something resembling an enraged death-throes pattern several times even after dying.
Within the Empire, even gods ultimately had no choice but to stand beneath the sun.
Just because they were gods, they could not simply refuse to die and suddenly resurrect; I could regard such a possibility as nonexistent.
Cut off their heads, and they died.
That simple fact applied to the gods as well.
Boom!
While I was thinking that, the gods fully revealed themselves.
'Their names are too long, so I'll just call them God-Hand, God-Eye, and God-Foot.'
Gods symbolizing parts of the body.
It was obvious at a glance that they were beings who would become Mirne's hand, eye, and foot.
Shing.
I drew the second sword capable of killing gods and wrapped it in Sol Bellos's flames without hesitation.
The power I possessed now was on an entirely different level from the power I had used to capture Romper.
Starting with the rewards I had gained from resolving the pact, and including the Empire's divinity that was accumulating in real time even now.
It was safe to say that I was in a state where I could not lose even if I wanted to.
That was why I intended to act before the gods began moving in earnest.
At that very moment.
[ This is an abnormal situation. ]
[ However, the blessing that 'Mirne must be protected' takes priority. ]
[ Intervention by all entities other than Mirne and the Crown Prince is temporarily prohibited. ]
Mirne's system appeared, and time stopped as before.
Mirne herself was included in that frozen time.
"This kind of thing is usually supposed to happen right before Save & Load."
Of course, that didn't matter, since my actions were not restricted.
I immediately flung myself toward the descended gods and swung my sword.
White-painted human figures with only a single hand, foot, or eye dangling where their heads should have been.
They were hardly worthy of being called gods; it would have been perfectly reasonable to regard them as nothing more than object heads.
Slash!
The gods offered no resistance and were cleanly beheaded.
There was not a single variable in the process.
"I feel as though I'm putting on an unpleasant play."
The gods appeared, Mirne's system appeared, time stopped, and I swung my sword.
The gods were cut down by my sword as though it were only natural, then disappeared, leaving only their heads behind.
And just as I had expected, as though it had been waiting only for this moment.
[ The gods have died. ]
[ As a reward for defeating the gods, their corpses will remain. ]
[ If you burn them, you will obtain a flame that burns forever. ]
The system messages continued one after another.
"It feels like it's saying, 'Eat this and get lost.'"
That was from Mirne's side, not mine.
"But do you really think this will resolve things? The fundamental problem putting pressure on Mirne hasn't disappeared."
This was hardly a situation where she could eat the reward and walk away.
If anything, it only created the additional problem of the gods' intervention.
Mirne still had not properly explained why she had hidden the aerial fortress in the first place.
Three object heads? They were nothing more than kindling that would burn forever from now on.
They were not an answer capable of cleanly resolving the current situation.
But.
[ It says that I'll forget everything anyway. ]
Mirne's system spoke with certainty that the situation itself would soon disappear.
It seemed to be trying to skip the intermediate steps and produce a conclusion along the lines of, 'Somehow, everything was resolved just fine.'
Unfortunately, I possessed the Record Keeper title.
"It's a meaningless struggle. Even if it's unconscious, watching you make one foolish choice after another is laughable."
The world remained frozen.
The only things that could move here were me and Mirne's system.
If time eventually began flowing again, just as it had before.
Mirne would have no choice but to face the same pressure all over again.
The system's actions had effectively helped me resolve the pact.
"If you have nothing in particular to say, how about letting time flow again? I don't know what you're trying to accomplish, but even that Mirne you love so much is frozen right now...."
I was continuing to speak in order to mock the system, which kept doing strange things, when.
A single question suddenly occurred to me.
'Why can't Mirne move?'
Under normal circumstances, this was something I would not have found strange.
It was a situation that could have passed naturally, just as it had during the previous Save & Load.
However.
The system message that read, '[ Intervention by all entities other than Mirne and the Crown Prince is temporarily prohibited. ]' kept grating on my nerves.
To prohibit intervention should mean that everything had to remain frozen, just as it did during Save & Load.
Mirne had stopped as well, just like Theo, Saintess Rowena, and Arveda, who were standing nearby.
'Why?'
At the same time, I remembered that the Crown Prince's memories did not appear in the order of his regressions.
The number of regressions he had experienced differed each time one of his memories surfaced.
That meant a thought he had expressed early on could have changed by the latter stages.
Things I had naturally assumed were facts could, through multiple regressions, turn out not to be facts at all.
Then what if the information that the system was Mirne's unconscious mind was false?
Why had the Crown Prince worked so hard to create a sword that could cut the system?
What had he seen, and what process had led him to think that the system needed to be cut apart?
No, why had he thought it could be cut in the first place?
"...Could the system also be Mirne?"
To be precise, the system was the real body.
Should I say it was putting on a puppet show?
Of course, this could have been an incorrect hypothesis.
But I could not shake the feeling that it was highly likely.
"Are you really Mirne?"
[ .... ]
Mirne's system did not answer my question.
It was an obvious silence.
That silence seemed to contain an affirmative answer.
'When you force the result to fit, the process falls into place one piece at a time.'
Why couldn't Mirne remember what had happened during Save & Load?
At first, I had thought it was a limitation of the mode, but if the system was truly Mirne's main body, then things were different.
'Because she doesn't need to remember.'
If the system—the main body—remembered Save & Load, then the puppet had no need to.
'Then that roughly explains why the Crown Prince was never able to kill Mirne completely.'
The Crown Prince had experienced countless regressions, and each time, he continued trying a variety of methods.
He had never allowed even a single surrender, and he had never treated any situation lightly throughout those countless regressions.
Why, then, had such a capable Crown Prince never dealt with Mirne completely?
- She doesn't die even when killed
Why didn't Mirne die even when she was killed?
- At first, I thought she was a god
Why had the second sword been a sword capable of cutting gods?
- Then I need another sword. A sword that can cut the system... even the laws of the world
What if the Crown Prince had witnessed something?
Something that was playing with puppets at the boundary of the world's laws while pretending to be the system.
"Ha."
Mirne.
Why had Mirne emphasized so insistently that she was the protagonist and viewed everyone around her as NPCs?
Because that was the truth. Even after transmigrating into the game world, she was playing this world like a game through some means.
She kept setting up a single avatar and repeating the same actions.
There was no way genuine human bonds could form in that process.
It might have been a wild guess. To be honest, I hoped it was.
If that was not the case, then as a fellow human being—as a modern person—wouldn't it be utterly disgusting?
Suppressing the nausea rising in me, I once again stoked Sol Bellos's flames.
Fwoosh.
"This pathetic game ends now."
I raised the sword high.
And at the same time, Mirne's system resumed its messages.
[ Deletes everything related to the pressure on Mirne. ]
[ Erases the unfavorable circumstances related to the aerial fortress. ]
The messages looked desperate.
A frantic struggle to somehow pull Mirne out of an inescapable trap.
Did it not realize that it should never have created a situation like this in the first place?
Or had nothing like this ever happened during the Crown Prince's countless regressions?
'Well, none of that matters.'
The point was.
"You went too far."
[ Confirmed that excessive intervention has been occurring continuously. ]
[ Assigning a penalty to the opponent. ]
Our system had also finished preparing to respond in earnest.
You couldn't even properly prepare an answer to the simple question of why you had hidden the aerial fortress.
And you let the situation escalate this far?
"I can't even begin to fathom how much you want to shower her with gifts."
With those words, I swung my sword at Mirne's system.
Slash!
A sound I had never heard before.
- At last.
The sound of the system being cut struck my ears with perfect clarity.