Chapter 183
Chapter 183
It was in a distant past, so far distant that even the person who had experienced it herself could not remember it. It wasn’t about who was right or wrong. She was just unfortunate enough to have too much power. Everything had occurred merely because of that.
From the moment she was born, or perhaps even before she was born, she understood that she was an existence that had been horribly displaced. The world wasn’t a fantasy, but a merciless routine life called reality that went on everywhere, day after day.
The people could not use magic or supernatural powers. The ones who appeared on TV were simply stage magicians. Those who called themselves fortune tellers or prophets merely made predictions based on statistics. They couldn’t actually see the future. When the prophecy was fulfilled, they would brag, “I told you so.” When it wasn’t, they would act as if they couldn’t remember ever saying anything.
The people couldn’t fly in the sky. They couldn’t live without air. They couldn’t emit fire from their hands and couldn’t resist old age. Therefore, everything that was fantastic was merely a fanciful fairy tale. They were just ephemeral dreams that could exist only in fiction.
However, she alone was different. In a world without dreams or fantasy, she alone was a dream and a fantasy. She could use magic and she had supernatural abilities. She could fly in the sky and survive in outer space. She could emit fire from her hands and could stop aging at a whim. Even rejuvenation was easy for her.
She had once experimented with her own body by incinerating it into ashes, but even that did not disrupt her consciousness. She had lost her body, yet her consciousness remained. When she tried to undo it, she was able to return to her original state immediately. Even life and death were phenomena that she could bend to her will.
She didn’t know why someone like herself had been born. There probably wasn’t any reason at all.
Everything was merely a coincidence. By coincidence, the universe was born in an expanse of nothingness. By coincidence, the green planet known as Earth was formed. By coincidence, life had developed there. Just as fire was born in the world, just as water was born, just as everything was born, she—or the concept of her being—was surely born in the same way.
Her existence was an event in itself. She was a walking singularity whose birth had a lower probability of occurring than the birth of the universe itself. She was…the biggest bug in the world.
It was analogous to scattering computer parts into the sea and then coincidentally reassembling the parts into a complete computer. It was such a low probability that one could simply say that it was zero percent. Yet she was born out of such an impossible probability. The impossible had happened.
From the moment one was born, a human began walking towards death. One would spend an entire life in fear of death. This was something that she couldn’t understand, and it made her feel sorry for those people. No matter how delusional one might be, a human could not escape the cage of reality. A person could dream only while asleep.
She had thought, How pitiful these people are.
And at the same time, she was angry.
Why doesn’t God help these poor souls? Even though they had prayed so comically. Even though they had wished not to die. Why doesn’t God reach out to help them? Why? Why? Why?
—Her questions were endless.
Why is there so much suffering in the world? Why do people make so many mistakes? Why do they hate and kill each other? People make weapons because they are afraid. Even though they want peace, they still have to use weapons to protect themselves in case they are attacked by others using said weapons. As long as the notion of conflict exists in the human heart, this fear will never disappear. Since they would be killed if they don’t have the means to defend themselves, peace and weapons can never be separated.
People know that peace and murderous weapons are incompatible because they are polar opposites, yet they are bound together as if they are one and the same. Because of that, everyone starts to collect weapons in order to become stronger. Eventually, people will perish. They will be burnt by the overpowered weapons that they themselves have created.
Deep down, people already have a vague idea of that impending future. That’s why they write many novels and stories set in worlds that have already been destroyed by war. But even so, they just can’t let go. If they let go, they would be consumed by those with weapons. They won’t be able to protect anything.
So this is where God should have stepped in. If a child has a toy that’s too dangerous, it’s the parent’s job to take it away. But nothing has been done. God hasn’t done anything. It was clearly no good if God doesn’t properly manage and discipline such insecure, weak, and pitiful creatures. But no matter how much they pray or lament, God just pretends not to notice. No, God probably didn’t notice at all.
…If God really exists, how ruthless he must be.
She had been having these kinds of thoughts for some time.
As she lived among the people for years, decades, and centuries, every time she learnt about the various troubles that she couldn’t experience for herself, her dissatisfaction with the creator of the world swelled.
All living things must die. They would leave behind children as proof that they had lived. They would die and pass their legacies on to the next generation. The raison d'être of living creatures was to leave behind offsprings. They lived to leave behind proof that they had lived to future generations.
It must have been a necessary evolution to survive. It allowed them to adapt to a wide variety of environments and protect biodiversity. It prevented the previous generations from wasting resources by having them die early. There were various other reasons, and she understood them.
But even so, this was cruel in itself. Because they were intelligent, they would die while saying, “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.” The will of the world commanded all living things to die. There would be no salvation. Birth inevitably led to death…Nothing could survive. Why was the world so beautiful and yet so cruel?
At some point, she embarked on a journey to save people. She continued to extend a helping hand to the sick, the injured, those who were suffering…and everyone that she could see.
She kept picking up nicknames. She was called a savior, a saint, and a goddess. She saved, and saved, and saved…But there was no helping it. There was no point to it. It was because people were born to die. Ultimately, they had been made to be unable to be saved. There was no fundamental solution to this because the world had been made this way.
To save the world…To release all people from suffering, the world must be fundamentally changed. Therefore, she decided to crush it at its roots.
It was easy to reach her destination. She flew through the sky, flew into space, and headed for the far reaches of the universe at a speed that was faster than light. Human-sized objects could not move faster than the speed of light. If that could somehow be achieved, it would cause a catastrophe.
But this didn’t matter to her since she was a singularity. Unbound by the laws of the universe, all laws and providence were contained within her. She could rewrite the common sense of the universe, apply new laws at her convenience, and forcefully push reason aside.
When the temperature of water was sufficiently reduced, it would become ice. However, if she said that it should become fire, she could cool the water to produce fire instead.
Why? She didn’t know the reason herself. It was simply something that she could do. There was no reason why she could do what she could. “I can do it.”…That was the whole truth.
The entire universe looked like the brain of a living creature to her. When she flew beyond the universe, there was indeed something like a person there.
The white expanse beyond the universe continued indefinitely. The creator deity, the will of the world, was there. The indifferent and ruthless one was there. It had no language and no expression, but it certainly had a will. Perhaps, it was the universe itself.
The will of “God” wordlessly turned towards her. If it had verbalized its will, it would have surely said something like “Fool” or “Ignorant one”. It turned the very concept of death upon her.
No matter what something might be, it would eventually die or break. Therefore, there was no way to resist it and no one who could withstand it. Even the universe itself would eventually die. So it should have worked…but it didn’t work on her.
“God” attacked her further even as she stood still. It was a miracle that was possible because it was the universe itself.
Supernova Explosion. Black Hole. Great Wall Great Attractor. Starburst.
Despite the invocation of various acts of God, she stood unharmed in the center of it all. Despite having used universe-scale attacks on a person who was much smaller than a star, not even a single strand of her hair was burnt.
She coldly spoke to the startled will of “God”.
“…Is that all?”
It was neither a provocation nor a ridicule. It was a disappointment. She was disillusioned and convinced of the fact that the universe itself could not even reach her feet.
I see. You couldn’t save anyone. No matter how much they prayed, you couldn’t reach out to them, because you do not have the power to do so…God is so weak that he actually looks cute.
But I’m different. I can save them. My hand can reach out to them. If they pray, I can be next to them, just like the mythical gods that they had created in their delusions. I can listen to their hopes, because I’m very strong.
“You are not needed anymore.”
She announced the old God’s execution sentence, signifying the end of the universe. She placed her fingers on the universe, which corresponded to the neck of God, and flicked it lightly. That was enough to erase the corresponding part below its neck, leaving the universe in her hands.
She didn’t even have to fight…because she was way too strong.
She laughed innocently and rejoiced.
I did it. I did it. Now, there will be no more interference. There isn’t a merciless God anymore. From now on, I’ll be God.
It’ll be fine. I’ll never give up on the people. I’ll definitely make everyone happy. I’ll save them all.
A prison-like world with no special powers is boring, so I’ll share my power with the people.
I’ll create the universe using a fragment of my own power (mana). I’ll create a planet and invite everyone there.
They’ll be able to fly in the sky and use magic. They’ll be able to use supernatural powers. I won't even put restraints on evolution. If they don’t want to die, then they can live for thousands or tens of thousands of years. I’ll forgive them for being immortal. If someone were to die for some reason, I’ll prepare a place (Valhalla) to welcome the soul into the afterlife.
The knowledge to hate and hurt others, as well as the unnecessary concepts of a lifespan and violence, will be sealed away in the bad mana and isolated. I’ll make a wonderful world where everyone can live without conflict.
At first, it had surely started out as a noble ideal. It had started purely as a hope for the happiness of others. However, that ideal eventually faded away, disappearing beneath the immense number of years.
She had forgotten what she had originally wanted to do. What remained was the twisted goal of making people happy. Until finally, only the goodwill of hers, which had gone out of control, was left in that space outside of the universe. It was as if she was humorously dancing by herself.
Forever, forever…She never forgot her ideal of making people happy, but she made a fatal mistake in her method…
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| Image from KonoSuba S01E02 |
Author’s Notes
Good evening, everyone. Since it’s Golden Week (April 29 to May 3-6), I’ll publish a bonus chapter outside of the usual scheduled release. This time, it’s the background story of a character (the real form) who has nothing to do with the main plot.
~Then~
True Creator God: “What a huge bug!”
???: “I don’t like you, so I have come to defeat you!” (゜∀゜)
~Now~
Alovenus: “What a huge bug!”
Ruphas: “I don’t like you, so I have come to defeat you!” (゜Д゜)
In her defense, there had been no wars, conflicts, or limited lifespans for 10,000 years until the ancestor of Ruphas ate the forbidden fruit. She had maintained a utopia where all wishes could come true. (Well, it was only after depriving them of the feeling of hate and displeasure as well as the concept of violence.)
Even though she had been doing as she pleased, she is still called the goddess of love because what she had done back then still lingered on in people’s hearts.
However, since she is an idiot, it’s certain that everything would still collapse even if the ancestor of Ruphas didn’t do anything. After all, she’s a useless goddess.
If someone could stay close to support her and point out her mistakes, she would have the ability to maintain it forever. Yes, she certainly has the ability…but she can’t make good use of it, since she’s terribly idiotic.