Free Web Novel“You will, of your own will, come to be with me.”
As though that was absolutely what would happen.
As though no other ending but that could possibly exist.
Words filled with certainty.
At those words, I frowned and answered,
“That will never happen.”
“Ha ha! Well, thinking that way isn’t bad either. I have not seen your future either, after all. But... we could make a wager.”
Hearing me, she simply laughed my words off as though even that meant little,
then looked at me with eyes full of goodwill.
“One day, we will share the same purpose, and walk the same path together.”
And then.
Spreading both arms, the thing turned its back on me.
“Ahh, how I look forward to it. Me, and you. And...”
That gaze filled with anticipation.
“The day all of us together devour the entire universe!”
Swoooosh—
the world contracted.
It was a familiar feeling.
The feeling I had experienced when returning to reality from Mirinae’s space.
Exactly that feeling.
It had given up trying anything with me and was sending me back to reality. ƒгeewebnovёl.com
“...Then let me ask one thing too!”
“Hmm?”
If so—
“You...!”
Before leaving this space,
there was something I had to ask it.
“You abandoned your children, and really... felt nothing?”
Along with the contraction of the world, my body was dragged somewhere.
“...Good grief, is that really your last question?”
As my vision receded into the distance,
it looked momentarily dumbfounded by my words.
“Well, it’s not as though I can’t tell you.”
It closed its eyes for a moment,
then opened its mouth.
“...I gave those children no command.”
“...!”
“That should be enough.”
Bang!
“Farewell. And...”
With those words, its figure vanished from my sight.
“Let us meet again soon.”
***
I could feel my consciousness rising somewhere.
The mind that had been asleep was rapidly surfacing into reality.
And.
Feeling that sensation, I thought,
'...Of the four grand dukes, Valarak was the only one who actually took action to do what was necessary to meet the Progenitor.'
That was why I had needed to ask that question.
Because of that very point.
'When you think about it, it makes no sense.'
That thing’s goal was to create a being equal to itself.
And the method was certain as well.
If it had truly wanted to achieve that goal—
'All it had to do was give an order.'
The grand dukes would have obeyed the Progenitor’s command absolutely.
If it had ordered them to devour one another, or told Isabella—the first child, and the one most like the Progenitor—to offer up her life,
they would surely have done so without hesitation.
'But the Progenitor did not do that.'
She merely left behind the means by which they might meet her,
then departed without a word.
Left behind that way, they had only two choices remaining.
Without the Progenitor’s help, live out their own lives as they were.
Or kill their own kin—even devouring their siblings if necessary—in order to meet the Progenitor.
...The other three grand dukes chose the first path.
Valarak merely chose the second.
And....
That was why the Progenitor had vanished without giving any command.
'To give them a choice.'
So that its descendants could make the decision for themselves.
“Ahh....”
...And.
No one grants free will to something that is nothing more than an ordinary tool.
“Thank... you....”
The meaning contained in that fact.
What the Progenitor had truly thought of them, the descendants it had abandoned.
“Truly... sincerely... thank you....”
The one who realized that shed tears as it thanked me.
***
'Thanks, huh.'
Watching the grand duke disappear beneath the sunlight,
I could only give a bitter smile inwardly.
No matter what the Progenitor had thought of them,
the fact that she had abandoned them did not change.
It would not have been strange at all if the grand duke had still been furious.
And yet.
Simply from realizing that they had not been ordinary tools,
simply from learning that the one who abandoned them had considered them at least a little special,
the grand duke wept tears of joy and offered me heartfelt thanks for letting it know that fact.
...The goal the grand duke had sought to achieve even while slaughtering and devouring countless lives.
That meant that goal had begun from a very small wish, one that could have been resolved by a single trivial sentence from the Progenitor.
'How unbearably pitiful.'
A being that offered unconditional faith and loyalty to its creator.
And even after that pure faith and loyalty had been betrayed,
a being that forgot all of its anger just because it had been shown the tiniest shred of affection.
How pure that love was.
And because of that—
whatever goal it had wished for at the end of it all—
'I don’t like it.'
I did not like the Progenitor that had abandoned descendants like that.
'Faith and loyalty like that ought to be met with an answer that matches them.'
That was the truth I had come to learn.
'You think I’m going to end up with you?'
And.
Because of that—
'...That will never happen.'
That, too, was why I had still managed to remain myself.
“...Ghk.”
An immense pressure weighed down on me from my body itself.
It was not because the Progenitor had done something.
It was because I had judged on my own that I could not endure it and had chosen unconsciousness.
'The pressure caused by the change in species.'
The Progenitor had declared that one day, of my own will, I would come to be with her.
When I first heard it, I had wondered what the hell she was talking about.
But the moment I returned to this body, one thing came to mind.
'This change.'
Separate from the fact that she had let me go,
the blood of hers inside my body was still changing me.
If I could not resist that change,
then I really would be reborn as something the same as her.
Not only in power and ability, but in way of thinking as well.
But.
Unlike before I had been dragged away by the Progenitor,
I could resist this pressure a little better now.
The reason was nothing special.
'I already didn’t like that thing.'
After seeing it in person, I liked it even less.
And now I was on the verge of becoming the same kind of thing as it.
'You think I’m going to lose?'
It was only that, because I found that outcome unbearable,
I could grit my teeth and resist a little harder.
But.
Sway....
That did not last very long either.
The moment I regained consciousness, I had needed to speak with Jinlei.
And given the nature of that conversation,
'while answering him without losing “myself,” the mental strength I’d already spent was drained away far more severely.'
I have to endure.
If I became a being like the Progenitor
and chose to join her,
I knew what kind of ending that would bring.
My legionnaires and I would surely be safe.
Even the Progenitor had wanted to give her descendants a choice.
There would certainly still be parts of me that remained unchanged even after I transformed.
But.
'Not the rest.'
I did not know what goal the Progenitor had in mind.
But for the sake of that goal,
she had said she would devour the entire universe.
...A being that would devour everything except the Legion.
Quite literally,
I would be reborn as a monster hostile to all life.
In the past,
I might have thought it was enough for the Legion to be safe.
But the me now was not.
This ruin had tormented me all this time,
but it had also taught me that there were others worth standing with besides humans.
Creak....
It felt as though my mind could collapse at any moment.
In every ordinary word that left my mouth, there was a part of me that was not like me, one even I barely noticed.
An arrogance that seemed to come from the Progenitor was leaking out.
'The human me is disappearing with every passing moment...'
To protect it, I had to pour even the concentration needed to breathe into that task.
And then, at that moment—
Flaaaaaash...!
Light poured down from the sky.
Dazed, I slowly lifted my head and looked up at the sky.
'...The sun.'
As I stared at that light,
“...The sun!”
“It blesses the Guide!!!”
Voices rang out from somewhere.
Perhaps that light felt sacred to them.
I could sense people bowing their bodies in reverence.
'Blesses me?'
But.
I could only let out a hollow laugh inwardly.
'What nonsense, befitting inferior species.'
If the Progenitor’s words were true,
fate apparently was not something in which absolutely everything was sharply fixed after all.
-But... fate is ever-changing....
Even if something had been decided,
that was only the conclusion that one would arrive at some particular moment, or some particular state.
The process and the details could change as much as they pleased.
And so—
'Erase me?'
The sun that had shown me goodwill not long ago.
Even that thing, as though unable to be certain of my future,
had now changed its mind and was trying to eliminate me.
The reason was simple.
'Is it... afraid I’ll become a being like the Progenitor?'
That thing hated the Progenitor so much that it had laid a curse upon her descendants, so that they would burn to death if they so much as looked at it.
From such a being’s perspective,
someone who might become a being like the Progenitor, freewebnσvel.cѳm
someone who might share her way of thinking and end up standing beside her—
that meant a thing like me was a target that needed to be removed.
...The moment I realized that,
the very first thought that came to me was—
“...How laughable.”
So very petty.
So very insignificant.
Absurd beyond words.
“A thing that couldn’t even drive off the Progenitor herself, and has done nothing but torment her descendants.”
Leaving the true object of its hatred, the Progenitor herself, untouched,
while tormenting her descendants instead,
and a bastard like me who merely showed the possibility of becoming her companion.
“You think you might actually be able to get rid of me... is that it?”
According to the system’s explanation, it occupied a fairly high place?
But no matter how immense its power might be,
just look at what it was doing.
Wasn’t it as despicable and petty as a worthless bug?
'Did I look that insignificant to it?'
Thinking that,
a certain desire welled up in me.
'If it were forced to kneel by the hands of someone it looked down on so much... how would that feel?'
That thing that looked down on me and sought to eliminate me.
A desire to make it taste humiliation.
'...There is a way.'
It was °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° not even difficult.
I did not exactly like it, but if I accepted the changes happening in my body
and was wholly reborn as a being like the Progenitor,
then by walking the same path as her,
receiving her power, and draining the souls of everyone in sight to grow stronger,
even that arrogant thing shining so proudly—
one day—
would have no choice but to submit beneath my feet.
-Ding.
Right.
I must not get fixated on something pointless and mistake my goal.
Wasn’t my goal to survive?
If I simply accepted the Progenitor’s offer, that goal would be achieved.
Even if, in the process,
it meant devouring every living thing in the entire universe.
As long as my legionnaires—
those who had chosen to stay with me—remained safe and sound,
then the fate of everyone else was not something I had any reason to care abou—
[...Skill....]
“Ugh....”
Just as I was thinking that,
at that very moment—
[‘Swallow the Sweet, Spit the Bitter’ activates.]
A sudden wave of nausea, for no reason I could understand, surged up—
and then—
“Uwaaaaaaaargh...!”
Something inside my body began to be forcibly vomited out.
