Chapter 166 : Chapter 166
Chapter 166: Phantom Liberty (4)
“T, That, what kind of bullshit is that again...?!”
At my words, Evie asked back, greatly flustered.
“Going... in there?!”
The events currently unfolding beneath Rine’s feet, based solely on what could be seen, was ‘taxidermy’ no matter who looked at it.
But to say we would go to be taxidermied voluntarily, of course she would wonder what kind of crazy talk that was.
“Pariah is trying to kill Rine by any means necessary.”
Therefore, I calmly stated the grounds for my reasoning.
“The fact that such a guy is obediently trying to become a part of that means it must be a way to approach Rine.”
And it actually is.
“Just... what are you going to do if that guy is also just doing some idiot act without knowing anything...?!”
“...Mr. Pariah is not someone who would act without any basis, at the very least.”
To Evie’s rebuttal asking how I could be sure, Toric, who knew Pariah’s personality well, carefully intervened and chimed in.
“If that person is acting like that, there must be a valid reason.”
He was always a cautious person, who took on the role of the commonly referred to ‘voice of reason’ even among the high-ranking Kapers.
“In the first place, Pariah’s behavior isn’t the only thing I trust.”
I continued speaking immediately.
“I trust Rine.”
“What?”
“I don’t think Rine is really going to ‘taxidermy’ people.”
“No, but no matter how you look at that...”
Yes, it is taxidermy.
Freezing people just like statues.
However, that is not something ‘Rine’ is doing.
It is something ‘Shurine’ is doing.
It is the result of Shurine’s personality, which had been dormant inside Rine all along, running wild after being liberated along with the released curse.
“Of course, the current Rine might not be the Rine we knew.”
But the Rine we knew was also, in the end, Shurine.
“No matter if she lost her memories and ego, the ‘essence’ does not change easily.”
In other words, our party’s silent wizard Rine is also an entity derived from the original personality engraved in the deep consciousness of Shurine.
“Then I think that Shurine over there is also an existence not too different from the Rine we know.”
And the Rine we know would not, at the very least, do something like turning people into statues and taxidermying them without any reason. I said.
“Are you saying... there might be something different from what is seen...?”
At Lily’s question, I nodded.
It wasn’t just ending with them simply stopping.
It only looked that way.
Like a sort of ‘Event Horizon’, shall we say.
You know, like a black hole.
From the outside, it just looks like they stopped right there, but inside that ‘Circle’, events are continuing to happen.
And if left alone, that ‘Circle’ will soon swallow this city, eventually the entire continent, and this entire present world, so in that sense, it is no different from a black hole.
In short, that taxidermy was a sort of ‘warp’.
It was a method to go to a ‘different world’, not this reality.
To a place not ruled by time.
──And haven’t I already been to such a space once?
Not simply a story beyond the monitor, but directly with this body.
Of course, I couldn’t say this much, but instead, I looked at my companions one by one.
Please trust me, I said with my eyes instead.
Then.
“......Driving me crazy, sh*t.”
Evie, who was hesitating, muttered a curse and scratched her head as soon as she saw my eyes.
“Fine, whatever. Let’s try it once, sh*t!”
Then she gestured largely as if telling me to do whatever I wanted.
“I also... believe in Sister Rine!”
Next, Miki shouted with a voice full of conviction as if he had made up his mind, and following him, Lily and Toric also nodded.
“Let’s go.”
Like that, we all started walking together toward the ‘Circle’ that was gradually approaching.
It wasn’t just the people who were swallowed by the ‘Circle’ and stopped.
Everything around them── for example, the items they dropped while running away, or even the piles of pure white snow that scattered in all directions the moment they fell, were all stopped exactly as they floated in the air.
Gulp.
Someone watching that scene swallowed their saliva.
Well, since we were on the verge of becoming part of that and being taxidermied soon, and we were even walking to be taxidermied voluntarily, it was natural to be nervous.
But no one stopped their steps first.
The result──
“──Wait, Rine.”
Once again, time stopped.
***
Here is......
First, the puzzled muttering of ‘Beginning’ was heard.
Because it would have been an unfamiliar, yet at the same time very familiar space.
Inside this ‘Circle’, to put it simply, was a mental world that visualized the ‘Salvation’ that Shurine thought of.
A Unique Barrier, was it...?
Like in front of that throne where ‘Beginning’ revealed itself to me for the first time.
Unlike then, in this space painted with pure white emptiness instead of pitch-black darkness, the concept of ‘time’ likewise does not exist.
Therefore, the pain brought by the concept of time does not exist here either.
Neither aging, nor lifespan.
Nor death.
The partings that follow them.
They were not here.
An ‘Eternal and Indestructible’ world where no one has to suffer.
The visualization of ‘Salvation’ that many had wished from her.
......So, this is a tragedy.
Rine, who recovered her memories and came to her senses, no, Shurine, was not trying to put everyone into an eternal and indestructible world like this to take revenge on this city and its people who made her that way.
Rather, thinking that this was exactly the work for them, she was practically apologizing to somehow earn their favor.
Because she thought the reason she ended up in that state, almost treated like a slave after losing both her memories and power, was because she couldn’t give them this ‘Salvation’ that she rightfully should have given them sooner.
As soon as she opened her eyes, she tried to give them ‘Salvation’ as quickly as possible.
How sad is it.
Shurine does not know people.
She doesn’t understand them at all.
But because she loves them nonetheless, she did this to somehow earn their favor.
Of course, she herself would say she doesn’t need to be loved.
She would say it’s fine if they don’t particularly understand her.
She would also say she just wanted to give.
...Sh*t. Would that really be the case.
I mean, is there really an existence that would be satisfied with a love that doesn’t need to be reciprocated.
No.
She is doing this because she naturally wants them to love her.
It was a desperate courtship saying, I love you all, so I wish you would love me even a little bit.
Yet to the people receiving that courtship, this method is merely accepted as ‘taxidermy’.
As an avatar of a god, possessing a strictly divine way of thinking, she couldn’t consider at all whether they maintain a ‘human-like life’ or not.
No, she did consider it.
Rather, she thought that was the cause of pain and tried to deliberately remove it.
And it was hard to see this ‘misunderstanding’ as solely Rine’s fault.
Of course, the most fundamental cause was that her way of thinking was different because she was a god, not a human, but the problem was that there was no opportunity to understand that different way of thinking itself.
Rine wanted to know people, but people blocked such a Rine.
They drew a line.
Because she was the ‘God’ they had to serve, they didn’t treat her as the same ‘person’, is what it means.
Even later when they no longer served her as a god, they only thought of her as a ‘tool’ to use, not a person.
So Rine also couldn’t easily reveal her curiosity.
Once, there was a time she asked.
Why do you wish for such things from me.
For Rine, it must have been a pure question asked because she really couldn’t understand.
Rine couldn’t forget the eyes filled with disappointment and doubt from the people looking at her back then.
She was afraid.
That she, who had already been abandoned by the ‘heaven’ once, would be abandoned again even by the existences of the ‘earth’ she belonged to now.
That she would be considered useless even here.
That no one would love her.
So she couldn’t ask anymore.
She didn’t understand them at all, but she pretended to understand.
Without even dreaming that such an attitude made it look like she was completely indifferent to them from the people’s perspective.
──Therefore, we must meet Rine all the more.
If only to stop the ‘taxidermy’ born from this current misunderstanding.
And, just...... to say the words I’ve always wanted to say.
To do that, I would have to find her first.
“...So, what are we supposed to do now?”
Unlike me, the companions experiencing the inside of a Unique Barrier like this for the first time were all looking around the ‘nothingness’ with expressions that showed they couldn’t even guess where this was or what in the world had happened.
“Unless we all died together or something and came to heaven or hell hand in hand... doesn’t this mean those ‘taxidermied’ guys are all gathered here?”
“But, I don’t see other people...”
Well, this place is like a sort of station you pass through.
You could call it a place waiting for a train.
Those who came earlier probably already took that train and left somewhere, and we were in the position of still waiting for that train.
This place was a place that ran on such a system.
“E, Everyone! Over there!”
As expected, Miki, who was looking around blankly, suddenly discovered something and raised his hand high to point.
It meant the train had arrived.
And at the end of his outstretched finger.
“──! Sister Rine!”
“Hey! Rine──!!”
Was Rine.
However, in a slightly different appearance from until now.
It didn’t mean the Rine running wild floating in the sky of Shurina that we last saw.
Of course, it didn’t mean the Rine of our party either.
“Rine! Can you hear me!”
“Sister Riiiiine──!!”
Rine, who showed no reaction no matter how much we ran over and shouted her name at the top of our lungs, had an appearance we had never seen (directly).
“S, She seems to not hear us at all...?!”
“Wait a moment, those clothes are...!”
But the outfit was familiar.
She was wearing the exact same outfit as the ‘1st Shurine’ we saw in the Pantheon before.
“Is she... the her from the days she was worshipped as the god of this city...?”
In short, that was the Rine of the ‘past’.
So no matter how much we called, she couldn’t hear us.
Because she doesn’t actually exist here in front of our eyes, but simply the past Rine existing in Rine’s ‘memory’ is showing.
──Right.
The train that people come to wait for at this station was precisely ‘memory’.
Even if Rine didn’t properly understand the existence called human, no matter what, she naturally understood enough that they wouldn’t want to be neglected in a place with nothing just so they wouldn’t die.
Something to make the people who reached here ‘happy’ was needed.
But no matter how omnipotent, building another new world... a Utopia where they could continue a happy life inside a Unique Barrier like this was an impossible task.
In the first place, how could Rine, who only possessed a part of that power, accomplish something even the real Shurine herself couldn’t do.
So, what Rine brought for this was precisely ‘memory’.
Simply put, she made them continue to live buried in their happy memories in this world outside the timeline where they neither age nor die.
Because that was the only method Rine knew to achieve ‘happiness’.
Pretending to guess, I carefully conveyed this fact I knew to my companions.
The reaction to that was,
“No then...... why are we seeing Rine’s memory?”
Naturally, it was a question.
“Shouldn’t we be seeing our memories?”
That is correct.
If it were according to the original system, the train should have been our memories that we would feel happy about.
Like now, not Rine’s memory.
“Just why...”
Evie, who stopped speaking while expressing her doubt, couldn’t finish her sentence in the end.
Just like Toric who also couldn’t continue speaking and let out a breath through his nose, Miki who bowed his head deeply, and Lily who gathered her two hands modestly and squeezed her two eyes shut.
They must have realized instinctively.
The one who made this space is Rine.
Meaning, the fact that Rine’s memories started showing instead of ours, breaking the original system, is because Rine herself wanted this.
Nothing else explains it.
Whether unconsciously or whatever.
Whether intended or not.
Rine wanted us to see her memory.
To understand her.
To know her.
To find─── me, who is buried somewhere inside the happy memories of the past just like the many others who came here.