The world is bright!
I only pushed myself in a little more, but the dim interior became brightly visible. So now I can see clearly what I couldn’t see before.
On the lower floor, there are many heretics, and above, people wearing iron lids on their bodies are aiming something at me.
It’s fascinating that I can see their entire faces even though only their eye holes are visible. But most of the lights are weak.
There’s only a very small warmth, so it’s a light that will fall to me before long.
Just bursting one would make many fall, but gathering embers doesn’t make it warm. Rather, it only makes me realize once again that I’m colder after feeling a slight warmth on my fingertips.
More warmth.
Hehe.
Since there are plenty of living beings here that I can do anything to, let’s do something!
First, since my creaky body has become much easier to move, let’s look around once more.
In front of me is a large man with tattoos on his face that seem to have religious meaning. He’s at least the highest-ranking person in this place.
Because among the people waiting above, many are worried about this man, and the trajectories of the weapons don’t pass through him.
Oh?
How do I know they’re worried?
Even if I can read human faces, there are so many different species here that look human and not human.
Strangely, I can tell what emotions they have as if I could grasp them. I don’t know what they’re thinking, but at least I can taste their emotions.
Taste?
Ah!
The countless lights I’ve been licking until now!
Since memories flowed in when I licked them, I can understand the creatures here as much as I’ve eaten countless times.
At least I know that the big man in front is very angry. But first, outside. There are scattered pieces of light below.
No, my warmth!
Clank.
Something stopped me. I know without turning my gaze. There are iron handcuffs on my arms and legs, and they’re chained to the chair.
I forgot.
“Please calm down, I am not your enemy. We hope that the god will listen to our request, so please grant our wish.”
There are several things I want to say. If I’m a god, how many people would listen well if you tie them up like this and tell them to listen?
Looking up, there are several people aiming at me from far away. Not guns, but a type of bow. But their size is so enormous that they look like ballistas I’ve seen in games.
Moreover, an unknown power is rippling at the tips of those arrows, so I know that if I’m hit, this vessel will surely break.
That won’t do.
Yes.
There’s warmth in front of me, but.
I don’t want to be ejected back to that bottom without even getting warmth.
I turn my head. It’s not my head. It’s the girl’s head. As brain cells roll around, memories show up like when I licked light.
She was a child from a relatively well-off family.
She grew up loved.
Moreover, she had some special power that promised her a bright future.
But heretics came with weapons and killed her parents, family, and servants. After killing everyone, they stuck something strange in her tongue to check something on top of the pile of corpses, then knocked her unconscious.
And when she regained consciousness, she was in the middle of people chanting strange spells. She tried to scream but her body wouldn’t listen.
After that, snap.
She died watching a strange blade pierce her heart while her heart was being carved out with a strange tool amidst the pain.
I can’t see where the heart went.
The S-shaped knife that stabbed the heart is at the man’s waist. Even when I look around discreetly, I don’t see any pieces of meat.
Then that’s fine.
I don’t know why, but the hole that was in the middle of my chest is gone too. There’s a feeling that my power did something, but there’s no heart.
I replaced it with something a bit more efficient while I was at it.
Rather than beating, it rotates to pump blood, so it’s less noisy. Feeling anew how noisy this thing called a body is, I turned my gaze to the man.
There are several things I need to ask, but first, I think I need to gauge whether what the man wants is feasible.
If I can’t do it?
Is there anything else to do but be ejected outside again?
“What is your wish?”
Murmur murmur.
As soon as I finish speaking, the people wearing rags below start murmuring. Oh, did I say something wrong?
I asked in the language the girl knows, so shouldn’t the meaning have been conveyed properly? This girl doesn’t seem to be a foreigner?
“Revenge.”
The man answered shortly. But because he spoke in a quite loud voice, the murmuring sounds disappeared completely.
Is this what they call charisma?
Well, you need that kind of ability to be the ruler of such a heretical group. But his ability to answer questions is zero.
If you just say revenge like that, how am I supposed to know?
“I need a more detailed explanation.”
Then the man fell silent. Oh, did I make a mistake with the question? It seems I got it right that they sacrificed an offering to summon a god into this body, but did I not speak in the way they wanted? Is there a habitus here that only certain societies enjoy?
“First, tell me your designation that represents your essence.”
Emotions that could kill a person and have some left over are wafting from him. He’s wondering if I’m really the one with the name that sounds like a curse?
The thought that I should have done some roleplaying belatedly crosses my mind, but it’s too late now so let’s go with my true self.
A designation that represents my essence.
Do I have such a thing?
When I was human, I had a name, but now I don’t have a name. A name wasn’t necessary.
“I am cold. So I desire warmth. You are light. So hurry and fall. I wait for you at the bottom. If more fall, I’ll burst more. But that alone is not enough. You happened to call me. Good. Any name will do. But give it to me. I need warmth. More, give it to me. Cool lights like you are fine, but I want the warm lights that were living happily somewhere in this world. Right? You’ll give them to me? After putting me in such a splendid vessel, you won’t just tell me to leave, will you? Hey. What are you looking at? This is my essence. My designation. I told you, didn’t I? Right?”
Crack.
Oh!
The handcuffs crumbled and fell off.
Does this mean they accept me? Or did the handcuffs just break because they were old?
I don’t care. For now, the slowly disappearing warmth is important.
I passed by the man to the lower floor.
I approached where many corpses were strewn about.
Splash.
Blood and chunks of meat stick to the soles of my feet. There’s a faint warmth remaining. I step on it.
Splash.
Wow! A much warmer heat than the lights looking up at me blankly from here! It’s diverse. There are people who lived well, and people who lived unhappily.
There are even people who took their own lives? What a waste. You’re so faint, like a droplet fallen into ice. But warmth is warmth.
Splash splash.
The corpses don’t have warmth. Maybe something like a soul? That’s what’s warm. Since I think they go somewhere right after death, this might be remnants of the soul rather than the soul itself.
Oh, then did I die once?
Die and be reborn.
I’ve seen it a lot in books. But am I really like that? Or am I still swimming in a nightmare? Is this a faint hallucination I’m seeing while my body is dying from something going wrong?
It’s okay.
The warmth warms my heart. Memories are the seasoning.
Splash.
I go to the last pile of corpses and step on the warmth.
I lick the light that came up through my foot. This person was an extremely rich man. But he was also a wicked person who enjoyed indiscriminately killing people and dissecting them for fun.
Even such a person is warm.
As expected, this warmth isn’t about good and evil.
I walk back up the stairs.
I need to repay them for giving me so much warmth.
I don’t like the hard stone chair, but I have to go up.
Standing on the chair, I look straight at the leader of the people who called me.
“Now, I’ve answered your question and obtained plenty of warmth. Before this heat cools down, give me the detailed explanation I didn’t hear earlier.”
Oh.
For a moment, disgust appeared on the man’s face. He’s looking at me like he’s looking at something alien. That’s right.
The faded memory of the human man is saying this:
Is she crazy, playing around on top of corpses?
That’s right. But sometimes there are things more important than being human.
It’s me, a morally normal human man who fell into that place of nothingness, soaked in the cold that penetrates deep into the bones, and came to crave warmth.
So strictly speaking, I am crazy. From the point that one can’t know without experiencing it, the other person would judge me as crazy rather than understanding me.
Thinking like that while looking at the man, he soon began to explain his wish in detail.
“The annihilation of the kings, queens, ministers, and heads of temples of each country. And unavoidable death to the revenge targets that our cult members desperately want.”
Hmm.
I know. There’s no sincerity in the first part. This is, so to speak, close to propaganda. This cult wants these things.
So if you agree with this opinion, come and be on our side.
That’s all he said.
The real intention is in the latter part.
I can tell by looking at this stone temple. It’s filled with resentment. There are diaries written wishing for someone’s death.
Well, the only people who would be entranced by such unpleasant heretics would be those kinds of people. It seems like there are quite a lot of them for that.
There will be people who cling to it for profit, people whose hearts have changed, and if not that, people whose minds are occupied with other things.
There’s a problem.
“How do I do it?”
I don’t know how.
I only know that when I pour myself into the light I touch, an explosion occurs in the physical world.
That’s when it happened.
“You’re not Lord Cruxshibal!”
A man who had been aiming a weapon from the shadows in the ceiling fired the ballista he was aiming at me. He’s full of anger, but there’s no despair. It’s quite a bright light.
It’s strange.
Originally, it was a light in a far-off place I couldn’t reach, a light that fell after losing most of its original heat after an explosion.
It touches my hand.
The ballista pierced through my head and tore off more than half of my face, but the fact that warmth touched me is more important.
Still!
Warm!
Heat!
I grasped the warmth in my hand.