The Cyclical World (1)
Shirone stared at the enormous eye suspended in the gate of the Maika ruins.
It was hidden behind an opaque veil, but it certainly looked like an eye—and it seemed alive.
"Who are you?"
There was no answer, and the thought occurred that it might not be capable of speech.
When Shirone walked along the side of the gate, the pupil surprisingly shifted to follow him.
'It's watching me.'
If this was something from the outside world, every truth humanity had known so far would be overturned.
"You know I'm here, right? Show me proof—anything."
The opening of an ultra-ancient gate wasn't proof that it led to the outside world.
'I need to go in myself. No—if not sound, then at least some kind of evidence.'
Unless there was a mechanical response from inside the gate, it meant nothing.
Then the pupil blinked.
It might have been a deliberate signal—or it might have meant nothing—but Shirone, expectant, asked:
"Is that the outside world? If you can't speak, blink twice."
There was no response.
No matter how he tried to persuade it, the pupil seemed to act independently of Shirone's presence.
Frustrated that he couldn't take even one step closer to the final truth, Shirone's anger boiled.
"Tell me. Why do we exist? Where did we come from, and where are we going?" Staring at that indifferent eye, he felt as if it had never been interested to begin with.
'I can't give up.'
Shirone tried every method that came to mind, one after another.
The results were total failure.
Having gotten no meaningful response from any of them, Shirone reached mental exhaustion.
"This is impossible."
Perhaps everything he'd tried looked to the pupil like a single meaningless twitch.
'No matter what a bug does, to a human eye it only seems to wriggle.'
Shirone sat down and looked around the Maika ruins, where no trace of humans remained.
'This place is lonely.'
The sense that there was truly nothing here felt like proof of an indifferent god.
'There once was a god with a heart.'
Lost for a moment in memory, Shirone asked the pupil with a bitter smile.
"Do you think Geopin is in there?" He only missed him—he wasn't expecting an answer.
"McClain Geopin—my father. I hope he's well. I want to see him."
At that moment, the pupil blinked twice for the first time.
"Huh?"
Shirone snapped upright at the first remarkable change since he'd arrived.
"Did you just answer? If you know anything—!"
Before he could finish, the pupil vanished behind the veil and Shirone bit his lip.
'Come back. I said come back.'
Whether his plea reached it or not, the pupil reappeared.
Kiii—!
A powerful high-frequency noise burst out. Shirone winced and stumbled back, doubled over.
"Ugh!"
It seemed to be trying to convey something, but even the Ultima system couldn't decode it.
'Don't try to interpret it.'
Even the smallest fragment of the pupil's signal would outstrip Nane's sermons.
A stream of emotions—almost like questions—came through, and a moment later the high-frequency stabilized.
"Shrine."
Shirone's eyes snapped open.
'It's interpretable.'
Like when the Gyorogi had reversed the flow of information, this was clearly a protocol of this world.
"…금지 은핀거 인라클맥."
The instant he caught that phrase, a tremendous roar tore through everything and blew his mind apart.
'No! It can't end here—!'
He tried to hold on, but the entire Maika ruin crumbled into dust.
"Ugh!"
When Shirone returned to reality, wrapped in a magnetic field, Poine rushed to his side.
"Messiah! Are you all right?"
"Hah! Hah!"
Not even certain it was real, Shirone replayed the recent moments.
"I heard it."
"Sir? What do you mean…?"
Nothing had been neatly sorted yet, but the shock of that moment was vivid in his memory.
"It tried to transmit something to me."
While Poine and Kaios didn't understand, Kalt's voice drifted in.
"…Is that so."
Shirone looked up to find Kalt leaning back in his chair with an ecstatic expression.
"What happened?"
Brain matter and blood had sprayed like shrapnel behind Kalt's chair.
Poine said, "His head exploded. Then the Messiah immediately reappeared."
Shirone climbed the steps and reached the chair; the dying gaze tracked him slowly.
"Did the pupil…try to speak to you?"
Since gaining curiosity through the OOPArts, one question had plagued him without end.
What's out there?
"Kalt."
Shirone felt an affinity.
He didn't know Kalt's philosophy, but the emotion felt through the electric field was the same.
'Where did we come from?'
Perhaps from the moment the Spirit Zone was opened, they'd been running only to find that answer.
'It's maddening.'
To live day after day—eat, sleep, reproduce—without knowing who we are was unbearable.
'Humanity…'
That truth was intolerable.
"Still, it's fortunate. At least I could confirm it before I died. No—saying 'die' is absurd."
Life faded from Kalt's eyes.
"Did I…really live in this world?"
Those were his last words.
Shirone pushed aside the fact that Kalt was a pirate and closed his eyelids.
'It was a dangerous journey.'
That Kalt's brain had exploded when he was forcibly cut off from the ultra-ancient civilization's information meant...
'If it had been me?'
He might not have fallen so easily, but facing the outside world he couldn't be certain.
'I have to find it myself.'
He needed a safe way to connect that wouldn't let the OOPArts dominate him.
"Bro—bro."
Jakhra, freed from confinement, approached Kalt in disbelief.
"He's really dead?"
Seeing the head blown off behind the chair, he raised his hands.
"Ha ha ha! He's dead! It's over! From today I'm king of Dionas!"
Other pirates joined in.
"Damn it! I thought I'd go insane from the frustration! Every day, blathering nonsense!"
Watching the scene, Kaios asked, "What should we do?"
"Detain them all for now… and handle the rest as you see fit."
When Shirone said this, Jakhra pressed his temples and bared his killing intent.
"Ha! It's already too late! My ability—huh?"
Other pirates mimicked Jakhra, but the space-jump didn't work.
"The OOPArts were only with Kalt. With his cognition gone, you're just ordinary humans."
The pirates froze in stunned silence. Shirone turned to Cairns.
"Let the refugees in. I'll handle the rest of the diplomatic procedures. And as for Rangi…"
Cairns, quick to read the room, bowed his head.
"Nothing will happen. If she wants it, I'll send her back to the motherland immediately."
Would Rangi be a problem?
If Arakne could exercise all the rights of Dionas, it would be a tremendous opportunity.
'Of course, the theocracy will consider there to be a debt…' politics worked like that anyway.
Passing the pirates, Shirone left the castle with Poine hurrying at his side.
"Messiah, what should we do?"
"For now… how about we rest a little?"
They hadn't had a single easy day since taking on the protection of twenty thousand refugees.
"That's a wise choice. And after that—?"
"We'll do what we can."
Finding evidence of the outside world didn't change today's responsibilities.
"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't troubled. But someday we'll find the ultimate answer. And…"
Shirone looked at Poine.
"To reach that day, don't we first have to keep living? Day by day, giving our best."
That's how they would live—again.
"I see."
Relief spread across Poine's face as she realized universal love still existed in the world.
Lunar surface.
Nane looked down at the human planet.
'Look down?' Direction meant little on a moon floating in space, but that was how it felt.
"What matters?"
From the moon, contemplation made the tragedies on that blue planet feel like someone else's problems…
"Why must they suffer?" Nane's heart ached even more.
"Buddha."
Shura watched the rows of sermon-swords planted densely within a hundred-meter radius tremble.
"It's getting dangerous." Those sermons provided an environment in which living beings could survive in space—if they were destroyed, it would be catastrophic.
A scream pierced the intangible defense.
"Kiaaaa! Kiaaaa!"
The space-dwelling mental lifeform Destura had been drawn to Nane's thought.
"Grrr! Bu…ddha!"
When its scythe-like limb pierced the barrier, golden electrical light spread like a crack.
"Is the universe rejecting me?"
Destura, which materialized through the thoughts of others, was the chief species blocking humanity's escape from the planet.
Watching the monster gradually infiltrate the protective field, Shura swallowed.
'If a particular thought is perceived by the universe, they come without fail. They're a truly dreadful species.'
Her research said that six hundred years ago, a dragon fleet attempting planetary escape had been seized by Destura and torn apart as it fell.
"Kraaa! Kraaa!"
When the giant creature thrust its upper body into the barrier, air began leaking out through the cracks.
"I'll hold it."
Just as Shura crossed her hands to unleash Gestalt's power, Nane spoke.
"A guest is arriving." Shura kept her stance and turned toward the planet.
"What—?"
Like a meteor piercing the atmosphere, something red-hot rushed toward the moon.
'Escaping the planet's gravity alone should be hard enough.'
Watching a little longer, Shura sighed as she recognized the one wreathed in flame.
"Haah, of all people…"
Son Yoojung, incarnation of the Stone Monkey, came with her yeoui stretched to infinity and driven into the ground.
Drawn by the moon's gravity, she landed, spat fiercely, and handed out the yeoui staff.
"I finally found you. Damn it."
Nane, reading her words by mouth-shape, smiled.
"If she's the granddaughter of the Thunder Bareback, it's no wonder she came to the moon…"
The Destura that had been aiming for the Buddha shifted their target and began approaching her.
"Do you know where you are?"
Burning like heated iron, she eyed the monsters and drew another yeoui.
Rian had split one before, but since each could still adjust length, having two was the same as doubling it.
Nane snorted.
"Igon-type?"
Holding clubs in both hands, Son Yoojung cocked her head and muttered, "What a bunch of trash…"
On the lunar surface, as an eight-meter Destura raised both arms—
"Kiiiii!"
Golden light poured from Son Yoojung's eyes. She bared the monkey's fangs and leaped forward.
In the near-vacuum silence, the two yeoui went berserk, striking the Destura relentlessly.