Chapter 150 - Prologue (3)

4

"Oh, what a wonderful library."

In ancient times, there was a being named the Pond Where Memories Gather. Humans could not pronounce this being's name properly. “The Pond Where Memories Gather” was merely a name humans had assembled however they pleased.

Its actual pronunciation was ■■■■■. Just as humans did not name themselves with the expectation that crickets would address them, ■■■■■ felt no need to be called by humans. Simplified as much as possible, the pronunciation would come close to “Hamustra.”

"Such a lovely atmosphere, too. And an excellent collection."

Hamustra.

That was what humans called the Pond Where Memories Gather.

"I gladly concede, ■■■■■."

The human standing before him was different.

"Of all the libraries I have visited, yours is easily the finest."

This human spoke the dragon tongue freely. That alone was already remarkable. The Pond Where Memories Gather was an inquisitive being by nature. There was ample reason for him to feel a little goodwill and curiosity toward this insignificant creature.

Except that no one had ever set foot in this library before, making this human its very first visitor.

"Who are you?"

An untidy jumble of scents emanated from the human before him. It was strange. There was a dragon's stench, yet this was no dragon. There was a hint of a god's refined fragrance, yet this was no god either.

The Pond Where Memories Gather had never seen a being like this human.

"How did you get here?"

Wariness naturally crept into his voice.

"I never granted you entry. This is my world. State your purpose, stranger."

"I'm not a book thief. Please don't be so wary."

The human chuckled.

"I'm a sort of insurance salesman. I've been visiting beings like yourself one by one, trying to persuade each of you."

"I asked your purpose."

"I'm building a house. Or should I call it a vacation home? If I'm the landlord, then you could say I'm trying to persuade you to become a tenant."

The human chuckled again.

"..."

The Pond Where Memories Gather was irritated. He had not felt irritation in thousands of years. Perhaps many, many times longer than that. He loved characters in books, heroes and villains alike, and bestowed equal affection upon likable and obnoxious humans. But things were very different in reality.

The Pond Where Memories Gather was a great being. It depended on how one defined greatness, of course, but in the Pond's interpretation, true greatness hinged on whether one could beat irritating things to death.

"What an irritating thing you are. Get lost."

Today, once again, the Pond chose to be great. He lightly exercised his authority.

Within the library, the Pond's power was absolute. Not only ordinary humans, but even outlaws who had supposedly attained transcendence could only be shredded into dust. The Pond was confident. Long, long ago, before he became as exceptionally great as he was now, he had turned quite a few things to dust.

"Oh! I'm sorry."

The human before him did not turn to dust.

The human was perfectly fine.

"I got a little carried away. Still, couldn't you talk with me a little longer? Getting here was fairly troublesome, you know. Ugh, the traffic, the terrible road conditions..."

The Pond was shocked that his greatness had had no effect whatsoever.

It was a tremendous shock.

So tremendous that the Pond fled from reality. That last attack had not used his full power. Invalid. It ought to be treated as though it had never happened. Having perfectly justified himself, the Pond attacked the human.

"Speaking of which, I really must ask. Does this library not even have a door? Is this a library or a tomb? You should put in some windows, too. It's so stuffy. I can hardly breathe."

The human was still perfectly fine.

"Shall I make some openings for you?"

The human even punched a hole through the library wall, smiling brightly.

"Ah, now there's some ventilation."

The Pond's mind went blank.

"What the fuck?"

It was the first curse he had uttered in many, many times thousands of years.

This library was not merely a space. It was the Pond's body and soul. Being able to punch a hole through the library wall therefore meant being able to stick a knife in his gut. The Pond was competent enough to deduce that, and smart enough to dislike getting stabbed.

"All right! I surrender. I wave the white flag. What do you want from me?"

"I want all of you..."

"You might as well kill me!"

"Oh, shall I? May I kill you?"

"..."

The Pond was quite smart. At the very least, he had the intelligence to recognize that the human before him was a fucking lunatic.

"You don't want to die after all, do you? Of course not. Life is precious. Now, I want to help you, too. Please sign here to protect that precious life of yours."

Unfortunately for the Pond, this lunatic possessed power beyond imagination.

"What is this...?"

"A contract."

"May I ask what sort of contract...?"

"Oh, of course. It's not as though I'm some thug."

Even if not a thug, the human seemed to be something very similar, but the Pond did not point that out. Again, the Pond was smart. He knew the difference between what he could and could not say.

"I'm building a Tower."

A tower.

"I'll invite beings like yourself inside. And I'll also grant entry to the beings you call insignificant creatures."

The Pond read the contract carefully. His expression changed as he read.

At first, he had thought the human before him was a lawless lunatic here to steal his library. The human was indeed lawless. Indeed a lunatic, too.

But not a thief.

The contract overflowed with tempting offers.

"You will grant me the right to peer into every world? Truly?"

"Every world is a bit much. Only the worlds I can interfere with."

"... These confidential clauses."

"You must abide by those."

He did not deliberate for long.

Instead, his curiosity deepened.

"Why undertake such an enterprise?"

He wanted to know.

"For what purpose? What do you stand to gain?"

"No being is born because it wishes to be."

The human smiled.

"Everyone should be able to live at least one more life. Even if they cannot live the way they wish, they should at least be able to live because they wish to."

The Pond could not readily understand the human's smile.

"One day, you, too, will live again, Mr. Shut-In Librarian."

Nor those words.

5

"..."

The Librarian gazed up at me in a daze.

Had he not understood me? Or had he understood, but his mind couldn't process it? Either was fine. I waited without rushing him.

"Climb the Tower... with you?"

After a long while, the Librarian mumbled.

"I-I am no ordinary constellation. Unlike the ghost haunting you or the holy sword bound to you, I am a constellation responsible for stages. Despite appearances, my standing is fairly high... To belong to one particular Tower. That would. Then..."

"Then what would happen?"

"... I don't know. I have absolutely no idea. It is unprecedented in the Tower's history."

The Librarian's shoulders trembled.

"There have been cases of constellations becoming enchanted by warriors and volunteering to serve them. Quite a few. There have also been cases of warriors taking constellations in, as you swallowed the [Demon King of Autumn Rain] through [Rebirth of a Hundred Ghosts]. But... but I have never even heard of a constellation becoming a hunter outright..."

"Then you can go down in history as the first."

"..."

"Hamustra, don't live in a place like this."

I looked around.

A graveyard of books.

Traces of worlds long past had pooled here. That was all. Time did not flow here. Only breaths other people had breathed and stories woven in other worlds were sealed away.

'This feels familiar.'

A place where one could only yearn for or envy the worlds of others.

'This is a familiar place to me.'

I remembered the room I had rented before regressing.

My room, too, had been plastered with photos and interviews of the Flame Emperor.

The difference in scale was so vast that I felt bad comparing it to the Great Library.

'But they're the same at heart.'

That was why I could say it.

"Now step into the ring yourself."

You have to leave this place.

"Spending all your time in a place like this is what keeps making you strange."

"S-strange...?"

"Apocalypses record people's lives. Reading them might make you feel as though you know everything about a person, but you don't. Hamustra. Do you know how [Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon] described the world's destruction?"

The apocalypse had described Master's death like this:

「A strange plague suddenly spread, and the Heavenly Demon died.」

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"..."

"That doesn't say anything. Anything at all."

What expression Master had worn at the end, how the Cult members' voices had sounded as they wailed, how hard the children by the river had worked to dig up the soft mud—none of that could ever be known merely by reading the apocalypse.

He did not know.

"B-but!"

The Librarian objected.

"I can see it. I can watch it. I can peer into it all!"

"Yes."

I readily acknowledged it.

"You can enter a world yourself and watch. When Master died, you must have felt sorrow, just as I did. I don't doubt that."

"Th-then there is no problem...!"

"But you wouldn't have been sadder than I was."

"..."

"When Master unleashed the final form of the Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven, you must have held your breath, too. When the Sword Emperor struck back and cleaved that instant apart, you must have felt awe, too. But what you felt—all of it was merely 'appreciation.'"

Tightening my grip on the Librarian's hand, I pulled him a little closer.

"You must love Raviel, too. You must be fond of her. But you know it. You can never love her as much as I do."

"..."

"You're only getting a taste. Sitting here in the world of this library. Merely being an audience member, without ever putting your own life onstage. Clapping when you like the performance, yawning when you don't. That's all."

"I..."

"Live with us."

The Librarian flinched.

"I am bound by a... a strict contract. If I belong to a particular Tower, or commit some other violation of the rules, the 'Tower' will certainly impose sanctions. I will probably lose all my authority as a constellation... Then I would be useless. Of no use to you at all."

"That's not what this is about."

"..."

"You know that, too."

"..."

"Hamustra."

I looked straight at the person before me.

"Your dream was to die at the Heaven-Slaying Star's hands one day. Let go of that dream now. I'll give you a new one. It won't always be pleasant. In fact, it will often be a nightmare. There will be many times you'll want to erase it. But if you wish it. If you want it, I'll be there in that dream with you."

I said,

"Live a life with me."

"..."

"Let you appear in my story, and me in yours, so that we can call ourselves 'us.'"

The Librarian's lips trembled uncontrollably. He slipped his left hand, which trembled even more, inside his clothes. In his hand was a book even more worn than The Epic of Lefanta Aegim.

+

■■■■■

+

I couldn't read the title.

It was in a language from another world, one we could not read.

The Librarian—no, Hamustra—slowly handed me the book containing his life.

"Death King..."

"Yes."

"I will offer you my final advice as a reader. I am your most devoted reader. No reader loves you as much as I do, nor will there ever be one. So be sure to listen carefully and remember this."

"I'm listening."

"If you keep throwing around that sort of flirting, people may get the wrong idea, so please reserve that tongue of yours for the Duchess of Ivansia. Otherwise, Death King, one day she will put a hole through your heart and kill you..."

"I've already died that way before. But I'll keep it in mind."

"Death King..."

"Yes."

"Is living as a human enjoyable?"

The Librarian was afraid.

I smiled.

"It's shit."

I took hold of [■■■■■].

"But even shit can taste good if you chew on it. Sometimes you break a tooth, but I'll help you."

"Damn it..."

The Librarian was close to tears.

"To think this is the last line of my apocalypse..."

The Librarian held the spine, and I gripped the cover.

"Life rarely turns out like a work of art. Deal with it."

We opened the final apocalypse.

With fear and tears mingling in his voice, the Librarian spoke resolutely.

"I designate the following two people, Death King and Shut-In Librarian, as the characters of [■■■■■]. The difficulty of this apocalypse is undetermined. When you open your eyes, you will find a story being serialized to great acclaim..."

"When we open our eyes, we'll just be right here, exactly as we are now."

"... Yes."

The Librarian looked up at me.

At that moment,

"I declare the stage cleared."

FWOOSH!

White light enveloped us.