It had taken me a few minutes to get down here from the top floor. Had she been beating him the whole time?
“H-Hey, that’s enough.”
“Rekka Namidare, you’re late,” Hibiki turned around and complained to me.
Her face was speckled with blood. It really was a bit chilling...
“S-Sorry. I didn’t know where you were, so I searched the other floors first.”
“Hmph. Did you find anything?”
“It was all labs and libraries. Nothing, really.”
“Useless.”
“Ugh... I’m sorry.” I looked away from Hibiki’s annoyed face.
“Well, whatever. I was just hearing what Kult Graphimore had to say.”
“It looks like you were just beating him up.”
“I’m interrogating him.”
“I won’t be able to talk if you keep punching me like that!” Kult screamed, half-sobbing.
“That’s not interrogation. That’s torture.”
This time it was Hibiki’s turn to look away from me.
I sighed and squatted down, then looked at Kult’s bruised face.
“Um... I won’t let her hit you anymore, so tell me what you’re after.”
“Mrrrgh...”
“I guess I have to continue the interrogation.”
“Fine! Just stop hitting me!” Kult gave in to the threat and raised his hands in surrender.
I felt a little bad for the guy...
Hibiki used the wire she was carrying to bind his hands, and then Kult took us to a different room. It was particularly spacious, taking up over half of this floor of the building. The walls were lined with complicated machines and what looked like computers. The ceilings and floors were covered with magical diagrams. It was a strange room that combined magic and science.
And in the center, I saw “her.”
“......”
Even when we came into the room, she didn’t react at all. She was lying in a large, clear capsule with her eyes closed. She was wearing a dress, and her arms were crossed and placed over her chest like Sleeping Beauty in the fairy tale.
“This is...”
It was the woman I’d seen in the photograph in the upstairs room.
“...”
She was asleep, perfectly still. She looked just like Harissa had after she’d been hit with the sleep spell.
“Did you put her to sleep like Harissa and do something terrible to her?!” I grabbed Kult by the collar and screamed.
“I would never do that!” Kult got angry. “I would never do anything to hurt Meifa!” His voice was huffy as he angrily denied it.
“Then what’s going on? Why is she asleep?”
“She is the one girl I loved in this world... And the goddess who protected it.” He gave a loving glance towards his sleeping beauty, Meifa, and spoke with a hint of sadness.
“Goddess...?” Hibiki and I both raised the same question at the same time.
For now, I knew that Kult really cared about this Meifa woman. But...
“What’s this about her protecting the world?” What did that have to do with her being asleep?
Kult looked longingly at Meifa for a moment, then turned towards us and said, “Twenty years ago, our world was invaded by ‘the Demon Who Eats Darkness.’ His name was Zolphiakd. He was a demon who devoured ‘darkness energy’—the energy that is the source of unhappiness and disaster—and used it to increase his power.”
A real demon, huh? Hadn’t had one of those yet...
But something seemed a little off.
“I don’t know what a ‘darkness-eating demon’ is, but if it eats the source of unhappiness and disaster, isn’t that a good thing?”
“Hah! Only a fool would—GYAH!” Kult had indignantly puffed out his chest only to get punched by Hibiki.
“Explain. Now.”
“R-Right... In the simplest terms, there is no kind of energy in this world that isn’t needed. Even darkness energy is necessary. The world is a mixture of many different types of energies.”
“So even if it’s dark, it’s still bad if it disappears?”
“Indeed. If the energy runs out, the world will be destroyed. Zolphiakd was a demon with the power to destroy an entire world on his own.”
“So what does that demon have to do with her?” Hibiki crossed her arms and tapped her fingers impatiently.
“Meifa possessed magical aptitude to match her beauty... She was the only person who could possibly seal away Zolphiakd.”
“Then she sealed him away?”
“You could say that. But not quite. Meifa had powerful potential, but she lacked my knowledge of magic. The spell to seal a demon of Zolphiakd’s power requires considerable training, and this world didn’t have that much time left.”
“...So what did you do?”
Kult’s face twisted into a bitter frown. He must have been remembering what had happened, because he took several deep, pained breaths.
“It was Meifa who made the decision.” After a long pause, he continued. “She asked me to make her the vessel for the sealing. Using magical power and a catalyst as a base, I came up with a way to synchronize the vessel with Zolphiakd’s mind, and ultimately seal it.”
“Synchronize with his mind?”
The “vessel” was probably Meifa. Did that mean he connected her to the demon’s mind?
“I see. In other words, as long as she’s asleep, the demon will continue to sleep within the seal?” Hibiki asked, and Kult nodded.
“...She chose to sleep eternally in order to protect our world.”
“Sleep eternally...”
Was that what the magic that put Harissa to sleep was originally made for?
A realization made me gasp.
“So you sacrificed the girl you loved?!”
“...That’s right.”
“But...”
“There was no other way!” Kult’s shoulders were trembling.
“I’m sorry...” I apologized for my thoughtlessness.
“...Objectively speaking, it was the only way to protect this world. It was what she wanted, too. I was weak. I didn’t have any other choice.” Kult glared at me sadly.
I gulped, overwhelmed by the depth of his feelings. He had to choose between the girl he loved and saving the world... Of course that choice had to hurt.
There’d been times when making the wrong choice would have prevented me from protecting someone I loved. And the only reason I’d made it this far was good luck.
I realized how blessed I’d been, and I suddenly had nothing to say.
“So you used that white jewel pendant to seal the demon?” Hibiki pointed to the capsule and spoke calmly.
I followed the line of her finger and saw a pendant with a white jewel embedded in it resting on the woman’s chest. There was a strange pattern at the center of the jewel, and it was flashing in time with her breathing.
“Is this another magical science item?”
“That’s right.” Kult nodded in answer to Hibiki’s question.
I looked at the white jewel again. Was there really a demon inside with the power to destroy the world...?
“As long as the jewel that functions as the catalyst doesn’t break, and Meifa doesn’t wake up for some reason, Zolphiakd will never come back to life.”
“I see.” Hibiki nodded a little... then sighed. “I thought that this might have something to do with the story, but it turns out it was just a waste of my time.”
“A... A waste of time? Hey, you can’t just say that...”
Hibiki sighed in disappointment, and I got mad at her.
“Hmph. Don’t get the wrong idea, Rekka Namidare. We didn’t come here to listen to some tear-jerker. We’re here to solve the story that’s happening right now.”
Sure, maybe this story about Meifa and the demon didn’t have anything to do with the reason Kult attacked Hibiki... But it was still mean to call it a waste of time, right? I shot her a judgmental glance without thinking
.
“...Hmph.” But she just snorted and ignored me. Then she stormed over to Kult and grabbed him by the collar. “Okay, we’re done talking about stuff that doesn’t matter. Tell me why you came after me.”
“G-G-Gah! I can’t breathe!”
“Hey, knock it off,” I tried to intervene.
“Stop interrupting me. You’re making this take forever.”
Things got a little heated, and Hibiki and I yelled at each other for a minute.
“...Enough. Just tell me already,” Hibiki said after she finally calmed down.
“R-Right.” Kult nodded, looking a little scared. But there was a tinge of anger in his eyes, and it was directed at Hibiki.
This was bad... If their relationship deteriorated any further, we might never get the real story out of him.
Moreover, I was gradually starting to think that maybe Kult wasn’t such a bad guy. I still didn’t know what he was after, but maybe we could work together and find a way to solve the problem without sacrificing Hibiki.
For that to happen, though, we had to get closer...
“Before I continue, can I at least sit down? It’s starting to hurt to stand up all the time.”
“Stay standing,” Hibiki said.
“Yeah, go ahead and sit,” I said.
We gave opposite answers to Kult’s request.
“...”
Hibiki glared at me, but I ignored her.
“Um, where can I find a chair?”
“Thank you. The chair is over there.”
“Oh, at that desk?”
I took Kult over to a work desk that was situated between the rows of machines on the wall.
“Whew. My legs were getting numb.”
“Just spill it already.”
Kult sat down in the chair and sighed, and Hibiki angrily urged him to start talking.
For some reason, it felt like she was mad at me, too. I felt a little awkward.
“Indeed. Then... Oh!” Kult suddenly gasped as he looked at Meifa.
“What?!”
Hibiki turned around, and I prepared myself for the worst. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
“Oh, sorry. I thought Meifa moved, but I must have been imagining things.”
Imagining things? Well... Whatever.
“...”
Hibiki looked even more irritated as she started to tap her foot. She was about to snap.
I gave Kult a look, trying to tell him he should start talking. And fast.
“I... I needed you to save this world.” Kult seemed to take the hint and began to talk, sweating profusely as he did so.
“Huh? Wasn’t this world already saved?”
“Indeed. Meifa saved this world once. But it’s now facing a second peril.”
“A second... peril?” My eyes went wide in surprise.
Hibiki seemed a little shocked too, and stopped tapping her foot.
“What do you mean?”
“Just like I said before, Zolphiakd is a demon that eats darkness energy. He himself was sealed away by Meifa, but the darkness energy he ate hasn’t come back to this world.”
“Well... I guess that makes sense.”
They’d sealed away the guy who ate it, after all.
“Are you two aware of the law that states the universe is inherently getting colder?”
“Huh? What’s that?”
“Tch...”
I cocked my head to the side, but Hibiki clicked her tongue in annoyance.
“The second law of thermodynamics. Put simply, it states that if you put a hot cup of coffee on a table and leave it alone, it will eventually cool.”
“It’s that normal?”
I tilted my head again, but this time Hibiki looked more disgusted than annoyed.
“Are you following? Getting cooler means losing heat energy.”
“Losing energy...”
“That’s right. The world gradually loses energy, even if you don’t do anything. In other words, the world is getting colder. And since Zolphiakd stole a bunch of energy from this world, that reduced the time we have before it completely freezes.”
“The ‘heat death’ of the universe, huh?”
An image of the whole world frozen solid flashed through my mind. Just thinking about it made me shiver.
“What the hell...?”
This was the world that Meifa wanted to save, and that Kult had sacrificed the woman he loved to save, right? How could it be on the verge of destruction again?
“That’s just not fair...”
A story like that was far too cruel. But Hibiki didn’t react at all.
“I understand that this world is about to meet heat death... But what does that have to do with me?” she asked calmly.
...Even after hearing that awful story, she didn’t feel a thing?
“She’s pretty stoic, huh?” R finally chimed in. She must have been thinking the same thing I was. It was hard to tell.
Kult furrowed his brow. It seemed Hibiki’s attitude rubbed him the wrong way too.
“...To save this world, I first gathered all the remaining energy and made a walled garden.”
“You mean the walls of light I saw from the observatory?” I tried to keep the conversation going, hoping it would calm things down a little.
“That’s right. By minimizing the size of the world, I was able to conserve enough energy inside the walled garden to sustain human life.”
He made it sound easy, but wasn’t that actually pretty amazing? He could sound like an idiot, but maybe he really was some kind of genius.
“But just salvaging that energy isn’t enough. If left to its own devices, the world will still cool. Thus, I invented a tool to allow me to travel to other worlds so that I could find the means to save this one.”
Did he mean the red and blue doors?
“I traveled through world after world, using the dowsing pendulum and crystal ball to guide me. And finally, I found something that would meet my needs. That armor.” Kult nodded his head toward the other side of the room.
The room was so big that I hadn’t noticed it before, but sure enough, there was full suit of plate armor across the room. It was connected to another device beside the sleeping capsule, and the gauntlets and greaves were softly shining.
“That is an improved version of the armor used by the hero of a certain world.”
“A hero? But why armor?”
A hero’s armor sure sounded impressive, but how was it going to help solve this world’s energy crisis?
“Hmph. Let me finish.” Kult looked at me as if he pitied me for some reason. “That armor has the ability to transform its wearer’s Fate Ratio into power.”
“‘Fate Ratio’? Where have I heard that before...?”
“He said something about me having ‘a great Fate Ratio’ at your house, remember?” Hibiki wasn’t even trying to hide her exasperation at my interruptions.
“A Fate Ratio is, in its simplest form, the weight of a person’s fate. Someone whose life contains very few ups and downs will have a small Fate Ratio, whereas someone who leads a life of adventure will have a great one. Someone with a Fate Ratio sufficient to make them a hero has a great deal of power because of it.”
Hmm... It made sense that someone with the Banjo bloodline like Hibiki would have a strong Fate Ratio.
“I modified this armor to allow for one’s Fate Ratio to be transmuted into energy, rather than power, and return it into the world. The name of this device is the Infinity Reviver. All I need now is for someone with a powerful enough Fate Ratio to enter the Infinity Reviver, and I’ll have a perpetual energy machine that can save this world,” Kult said with his eyes shining as he looked at Hibiki. “Meifa sacrificed herself to save this world. I have to protect it no matter what.”
“Hmph. I see.” Hibiki glared back at Kult, then glanced over at the Infinity Reviver.
If he could put her to sleep, or freeze her, and then lock her inside that machine, he’d e
ssentially be creating a device that would supply energy to this world forever. That would successfully resolve Kult’s story.
But in order for that to happen, Hibiki had to sacrifice herself.
“...”
I silently stood between them.
I mostly understood Kult’s story now. I knew his motives, how he intended to achieve his goal, and his sad past.
But sacrificing Hibiki to save his story was out of the question. I had to find another way.
“Kult, I have some questions, okay?”
“...What are they?”
“That crystal ball you were talking about earlier... That lets you find what you’re looking for, right? Can’t you use it to search for something to save the world other than this armor?”
The Infinity Reviver wasn’t necessarily the only item that could save the world. If we could find something else, we wouldn’t have to sacrifice Hibiki.
“It’s not impossible, but it would be difficult. The crystal ball is powerful, but its search radius is limited to a single dimension.”
“A single dimension?”
“If what you’re looking for is in another world—in another dimension—it won’t show you anything,” he explained. “Even if your world had some machine that could create infinite energy, the crystal ball couldn’t detect it from here.”
So trying to find an item in another world would mean actually having to go to that world... And without knowing what world it was in in the first place, it was a needle in an interdimensional haystack.
“So it was a total coincidence that you found Hibiki?”
“...Yes, I suppose you could say that.”
Functionally, relying on the crystal ball to find another way to save this world would be as good as leaving it up to chance. I didn’t know how long this world had left, but Kult made it sound like the situation was pretty dire. So as to whether or not there was time to rely on luck...
“...”
If I just wanted to save Harissa, I could simply threaten Kult into giving me a way to break the sleep spell... but I didn’t want to abandon this world if I could help it. Yet, as always, the situation was bad and I had no idea what to do.
If I didn’t act fast, I might even be caught up in the heat death of this world.
But I still didn’t want to abandon anyone. I had thought Kult was our enemy, but now that I knew his story, I wanted to help him too. I wanted a happy ending for everyone.
I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 3 Page 4