Even if Defeat Lies Ahead

60

The very next moment after sensing the explosion…

I stood in the Void.

“Huh? The Void?”

Feeling puzzled by my own thought, I looked around.

Well, it certainly was a black space with nothing in it, so calling it the Void wasn’t exactly wrong, I supposed.

So, am I dead then?

Is this the afterlife? Could not even Laplace’s demon withstand that explosion?

“No, you are not dead. So all your efforts to find her are in vain.”

I turned toward the voice.

A blonde woman, a stranger to me, was approaching.

With each step she took, the scenery around her shifted.

But it was no ordinary change of scenery.

Neither natural landscapes of mountains, rivers, and seas, nor distinctions between indoors and outdoors.

Etched onto shards of space, like a shattered mirror, were the future, or the past, or the present.

A catalog of possibilities that might have been.

“You understood right away after seeing this? You truly are special. Laplace’s demon could well acknowledge you as its master.”

She was suddenly close, her eyes widening as if startled.

Why? It seemed to me that her eyes were mocking me.

“Are you Greed?”

“Oho? Why do you think so?”

In the final moments of the battle against Oblivion, Kaios triggered a self-destruct using a magical device laced with artificial stars as a medium.

Even if they were artificial, the power contained within those stars was immense.

And even if artificially made, a star is still a star.

It wouldn’t be strange if the real thing intervened, triggered by the explosion of such immense power.

“Hmm. Then among the seven stars, why did you think I was Greed?”

“Because your ability is Causality Theft.”

It’s a concept I heard from her too, but the world isn’t singular.

As she explained, there are countless branching points in the world, and at each branching point, another world exists.

The Guardian Clan called it the parallel world concept.

I think I’ve heard of similar concepts among magicians, but that’s not important now. Anyway.

“The ability to bring desired causes and effects from countless, infinite parallel worlds and overlay them onto reality. Isn’t that Causality Theft?”

At my words, the blonde woman clapped with flamboyant gestures.

“Ooh, wonderful! You really know a lot about us! I am sincerely delighted! That there is still someone who remembers us!”

“Are you being sarcastic.”

“Yes.”

She ceased her applause, her face betraying a thinly veiled scorn as she continued.

“To add a trifle, my name is not Grid. Grid is merely the name of the star I inhabit.”

“So what are you, then?”

“Nemesis. One of the seven Sacred Spirits, essentially the star’s ego.”

Six more like this one, then.

Just wonderful.

“And? Have you sought me out solely to taunt me?”

“In a manner of speaking. While the others seem to have little interest, I have been watching you for a very long time. Countless iterations of you, to be precise.”

Nemesis, having casually opened with talk, snapped her fingers, and the scenery dissolved.

The multitude of interwoven destinies, once like shards of a broken mirror, vanished, replaced by a single destiny, vividly rendered in the space.

The place it depicted was familiar, even to me.

The Imperial Palace of the Arkirus Empire.

Yet, while the place was known, the sight Nemesis conjured was anything but.

“…The future?”

“Indeed. One of the futures where you meet your defeat.”

Beneath the crumbling palace, His Majesty lay dead.

The bodies of David and Ellis were there as well.

My father, too, it seems.

And the corpses of nobles and pro-democracy factions alike were scattered about.

“So, this is the ruin that supposedly occurs when the Seven Stars are placed upon the Tablet of Creation.”

“Not necessarily. The specific form of ruin varies with circumstance. Even the order in which the stars are placed upon the tablet can bring about different outcomes.”

Information I hardly welcome.

“Speaking of which, I don’t seem to see my corpse.”

“Ah, you wished to witness your own demise? Alas, in most futures, you are present at the very moment the Seven Stars gather upon the Tablet of Creation, and thus consumed by the onset of destruction. However…”

The scene shifted again.

There was my corpse.

A dagger planted deep within my heart. A world line where I failed to secure Laplace’s Devil, perhaps.

And before it… the corpse of Christina?

Had she taken her own life?

“A future where Christina, unchosen by you, murders you and then takes her own life. I’ll keep showing you other versions.”

With each snap of her fingers, the scenery flickered and changed.

There was a future where Celine killed me. Something about poison slipped into a lunchbox.

A future where Francesca murdered me too. My head cleaved off in a single, brutal stroke.

Ah, Lisana got me as well. Judging by the pulverized skull, it seems I was bludgeoned from behind.

Did Jessica use magic to do it?

Angela, why…?

Wait, even Ellis?

What in the world happened in the timeline where the Elf Queen kills me? I can’t even fathom it.

And why is the Oracle girl here?

…Who even *are* you?

Some of the faces were unfamiliar, but they all had one thing in common: they killed me, then themselves.

“The futures where you’re killed by a woman are overwhelmingly numerous. A man burdened with sin, aren’t you.”

Sinful or not, I can’t help but feel a surge of relief that Laplace’s Demon is on my side.

“I always thought, if I were to die, it would be by the hand of the Oracle or Oblivion.”

“While Oracle, maybe, being defeated by Oblivion wasn’t common. Maybe one in 14,000,605. Even taking that into account, they were dealt with extremely quickly this time around.”

Nemesis, who was already chewing out Oblivion and Kairos for pulling something so foolish in the capital, snapped her fingers again.

This time, beyond the deaths at the hands of women, she showed me moments of my demise at the hands of the Oracle.

They were all eerily similar, offering nothing new.

It seems no matter how hard I try, I inevitably end up like that.

“Are there *no* futures where I win?”

“So far, no.”

None at all.

“…You’re taking this rather calmly, aren’t you? Finding out that within an almost infinite number of possible futures, there isn’t one where you win, and you don’t despair or suspect that I’m lying?”

The reason is simple.

“Let’s answer the second question first. You people, or at least you, seem to loathe humans. And as a general rule, people tend not to act like, or be like, what they despise.”

“And how does that prove I’m not lying?”

“Because humans lie.”

“………”

And it’s just as easy to explain why I’m not despairing.

“If the possibility of victory doesn’t even exist, there’s no need to bother with taunts. One can simply watch from afar and sneer. If you think about that in reverse, then instead of despair, hope is born.”

Nemesis twisted her lips, the same reply she’d heard from countless ‘me’s.

“Always the same unwavering answer. But do you know what? Every single ‘you’ who said that eventually died in defeat.”

“So what? Then let me ask you in reverse. Has even one ‘me’ despaired after hearing your words?”

Nemesis couldn’t answer the question.

Because it was obvious.

There wouldn’t have been.

“Since I am Nine, I will fight to the very end. Even if a 100% certain defeat awaits me, that’s not a reason to give up.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the last promise I made to the woman I love.”

She clutched her head with both hands.

“Ariabella! That damned Ariabella! This story started because of that woman! If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have known! I could have quietly embraced oblivion!”

After screaming for a while, Nemesis, with her disheveled hair and bloodshot eyes, glared at me.

“I’m tired of it. I’m truly tired of it! You’re always like this! You just repeat the same things, word for word!”

“Because that is me.”

“I’ve heard that too! Already tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of millions of times! It’s agonizing! ! Please, just stop now!”

“No.”

“aaagh!”

As if reacting to the scream, the scenery surrounding us began to distort.

Eventually it returned to nothingness,

Eventually Nemesis vanished, and finally,

Eventually my consciousness—

“Ugh?!”

“Erwin!”

“Minister!”

“Minister!”

“Your Excellency!”

—surfaced back to reality.

“…Explain what happened.”

Taking advantage of her position as commander of the Imperial Guard, Francesca asserted her authority and secured the opportunity to explain to me that immediately after beheading Kaios, a beam of light emitted from his body was fired into the magic device.

Those who sensed the imminent explosion lunged for me, but I’d already ducked, and then another burst of light, blinding as the first, erupted.

“The explosion…it didn’t happen?”

“It happened, I believe… only it was as though the explosion was drawn into Ervin’s, or rather, His Highness’s ring.”

A Laplace’s Demon?

Could such a power exist?

“How long was I out?”

“Not long, barely a minute, I’d wager.”

I see.

Well, I can’t be certain, but it seems we’ve weathered the immediate danger.

They say the remaining enemies have all been eliminated, so it’s safe to assume the battle against Oblivion is over.

But from here on out, it becomes real.

“I’ll ensure they suffer no more.”

“Sir?”

My subordinates, puzzled by my words directed to the empty air, received only a faint smile.

“Just thinking aloud.”