“You’re right... In a world where I can do anything I want... I can look for a possibility that will save the world. It may be the only way out of here.”
“I think you should get to work right away, then.” Yoshie pulled up a mana screen and displayed the entirety of history so far as a model.
“The data you have access to is a copy of the world at the moment of its destruction. As long as that copy exists, you can use it to go back and calculate out any possibility you like.”
“But it feels like a world which was created that way would be pretty sloppy and inaccurate,” Akuto complained.
“That’s fine. Even a sloppy and inaccurate possibility is still a possibility,” Yoshie replied.
And so Akuto resolved to find the possibilities within himself.
○
The world was howling.
Only a few noticed it, but of course, that few included Brave and Boichiro.
“What’s going on?” Brave asked. But he instinctively knew the answer: the world itself was losing its shape.
“This is the moment the world is reconstructed. Each time you changed the past, I was able to sense a smaller version of this. I don’t think anyone else did, though,” Boichiro explained.
“Which means the change...”
“Of course. It was caused by the Demon King. Boot up your suit. We’re leaving.”
“Leaving?” Brave asked, but as he did, he activated the suit’s time travel device. He adjusted the settings so that when he jumped, Boichiro would jump with him.
“We’re going to disappear from this space. In this moment, the Demon King is in complete control of the afterlife. We’re going to make it so we’re not a part of that.”
“You can tell me the details later.” Brave jumped to a time he’d never gone to before.
He wanted to avoid any human contact, so he’d chosen the summit of a high mountain in a time where there was no magical, or even electrical civilization.
“I figured you wouldn’t want to go anywhere cold, so I chose a place 2000 meters above sea level, in the middle of summer.”
They were surrounded by rocky mountaintops, with a forest below and nothing else for miles. Snow could be seen on the peaks above them, but the sun was shining here, and it was actually hot.
“Thanks. The weather might be better than the afterlife here. The chill from this wind is actually rather pleasant.” Boichiro sat down on a nearby rock.
“So, the Demon King changed the whole afterlife?” Brave asked, putting a hand on his hip.
“It’s always getting changed. This time, however, he erased it.”
“Erased it? You mean he reset it and did it over?”
“That’s right. The afterlife is completely within his control. One of the people around him must have told him that,” Boichiro said, looking a little troubled.
“Completely? I thought that was a place where everyone’s wishes came true, and the Demon King just had the strongest will of all of them.”
Brave frowned. There must have been dead people there before the Demon King arrived.
“No. There’s a chance that even the memories of the dead within the afterlife were only created after the Demon King arrived. Not that there’s any way for them to realize that.”
Brave nodded at this explanation, but his expression remained unchanged.
“You’re talking about that thought experiment that says that even if the world was created five minutes ago, if your memories were created then too, you could never tell. I’ve heard of that. But if that’s true... no, was always true, I guess... then what are we?”
“The obvious question. But answering it is difficult. We’re on the inside of whatever’s going on, after all. But if I were to venture a guess anyway, if the whole universe was created by the Law of Identity, then everyone, including us and the Demon King, are fictional.”
Boichiro began to choose his words carefully.
“That’s what you were saying before.”
“The afterlife is within the boundaries of her creation as well. And we can assume that it’s within the domain of the Demon King, too.”
Brave nodded again.
“I see. Everyone died and was reborn... But at the hands of the Demon King.”
“Correct. The entire world was reconstructed in digital form. Just like the computer gods once tried to do.”
“So why delete it and start over? He’s practically a god. How is he not satisfied with the world he created?”
“We can guess at that from the statements he made. Because it was a world that had ended, but would continue for eternity,” Boichiro said. “I know the feeling.”
“I don’t,” Brave complained. The frown was still on his face.
“He realized that there’s no story to him fulfilling his desires.”
“I figured that out first. Otherwise I would’ve lived here in this world with my girlfriend.”
“We can’t do that. Just because of who we are,” Boichiro said. For the first time Brave’s expression changed.
“Who we are? That’s what you were explaining, wasn’t it?”
“If the people in the afterlife are fictional characters, we’re real people. We, the Demon King, and nobody else.”
“Just us and the Demon King?” Brave asked, startled.
“We may have been chosen by the Law of Identity. Of course, we’re side characters. But we still have an important role to play.”
Boichiro’s face seemed strangely relaxed.
“Sure, I feel something here that you might call fate. We weren’t caught up in what the Demon King just did, after all.”
“The Demon King is going to start the story over and over again, and see what he can learn. Using the people who went to the afterlife as characters.” There was no doubt in Boichiro’s voice.
Brave agreed.
“But it won’t work.”
“That’s right. Something that didn’t work the first time won’t work the second, unless someone else is there to help.”
“And that’s our job?” Brave continued. There was a hint of exasperation in his voice.
Boichiro nodded.
“You’ve already made your choice, right? It’s always the hero that saves the world.”
“How?”
“There is a way. We go back inside the Demon King’s world. No, we go inside, but we interfere with it without being caught up in it. We can move upon the line of history drawn by the Law of Identity. Of course, there will be sacrifices, though.”
“Sacrifices?”
“We’re the ones who intervene in the Demon King’s world. Not our individual personalities.”
Boichiro spoke with a strange sort of resolve. There was something in his voice that made Brave uneasy.
“What do you mean by ‘sacrifices’?”
“Neither the Demon King nor the Law of Identity treat people as complete personalities. They each have their own inner world... but in the face of the story, people’s inner personalities are meaningless. That’s going to be true even after the world is reconstructed.”
“I see...” Brave said, and sighed.
“We’ll be treated as a personality that has been reconstructed to serve as the hero.”
“That’s right. Probably because that’s how the Law of Identity wants it. That’s what it means to be a character.”
“I don’t want that to happen to me,” Brave said. But Boichiro was no longer in front of him. He could feel memories, a mind, and knowledge flooding into him, and he closed his eyes to examine each in turn. He kept breathing softly, and then looked up at the sky.
“I understand. We need to show something to the Law of Identity.”
4 - Infinite Universes
Maybe opening up all the possibilities was a mistake. Space is finite. Characters are finite. But their combinations are infinite. Opening up a possibility meant breaking down the walls of the worlds within Akuto that might have been.
&nbs
p; It was the equivalent of giving birth to a new universe within himself. Of course, the tools for this universe weren’t limited to what was inside Akuto. The gods of the outer universe, even they became a part of the story. As a result, the story became chaos.
What does it mean when a story turns into chaos? You can find the answer within one of our oldest stories: “The Tower of Babel.”
Until then, you could say that humanity shared a story. Everyone, essentially, was playing their own role in the story. That’s why the world refused to allow anybody but Akuto to alter it.
But what happens if a story ceases to be shared?
The answer is: chaos.
The gods of the outer universe were, you could say, their own main characters, with their own main stories. So multiple protagonists tried to advance their own stories within the same place. It may have been chaos, but there was no conflict.
The reason for this was that it wasn’t just strong stories that were trying to take control, but even weak stories were included in this as well. The frustrating thing was that the strength of a story had nothing to do with its size.
Weak, huge things drove daily life.
Strong, small things drove the abnormal events.
Those stories that explained the birth of the world and made humanity realize its shared nature were large in scope, but some of them dissolved unnoticed into the bustle of daily life. Stories of individuals were carved irreparably into the mind, but of course, they applied to nothing more than individuals.
Individuals.
This was the first time that humanity became “individual”.
With shared words, but no shared stories, no relationships could be born. It was impossible for someone to be an enemy or a friend, of course, but they couldn’t be a stranger either. Infinite possibilities made stories impotent.
Infinite loneliness.
First-Person Pronouns.
But still, I begin the story, no, what comes before it.
Sleeping in the darkness. No, rolling.
Being thrown. Doing nothing.
I hear a voice.
Fast. No, near.
I don’t understand. Is the voice calling someone? Calling me? Or someone else? No way to know. Maybe it is my voice.
As long as the voice continues, I may be able to understand that time exists. But there are no units. It is continual, eternal. No guarantee that the same word isn’t being repeated. Count an eternally ringing bell, and you’ll have no words to describe a single toll.
How many times? Counted how? From which eternity?
I hypothesize that the voice is my own. It’s still not a story. There’s not even loneliness. Because I am a first person pronoun.
I speak. Sound.
I speak to speak.
I speak. Words.
Can’t find the right answer. No meaning. Not even a wrong answer. Meaningless.
A misspoken word. A mistake.
Everything, nothing.
I move my body.
Move.
Outside and inside.
Barely separated.
Move.
Which way? Is space outside? Or inside? Go inside, and find nothing. Go outside, and find nothing.
Separation.
Count an eternally ringing bell, and you’ll have no words to describe a single toll.
How many times? Counted how? From which eternity?
I count anyway.
Split. I split more and more.
Split the heavens and earth.
I move.
I can move.
I can move upon the Earth.
Stand. With bones. With muscles of the spine inside.
Hurt.
Not everything. The inside. No pain outside.
Howl. Meaningless.
A misspoken word. A mistake.
All that there is.
Only the misspoken words dwell in the voice.
Only the mistakes dwell in the inside.
Only pain is there.
Not there. Can’t be sure.
Only mistakes.
I mistake.
I make better mistakes.
I mistake, somehow.
I mistake with a strong will.
I mistake again and again.
And beyond that. Nothing.
I see.
I see mistakenly.
I see mistakenly, better.
I see mistakenly, somehow.
I see mistakenly with a strong will.
I see mistakenly again and again.
There was a mistake, there.
I see.
You. A second person pronoun.
Standing in the light. No, standing there lost, in the light.
There. Doing nothing.
I hear a voice. Far. Calling out.
To me? Or to someone else?
I split more and more.
Me and others. Here and there.
I hypothesize that the voice is there.
It may be a story. It may be loneliness.
Because it may not have been spoken to me.
Because it is a second person pronoun.
I speak. Sound.
I speak to speak.
I speak. Language.
I can’t find the right answer.
There is meaning.
There is also misspeaking.
Howling.
Meaning.
Misspeaking.
Failure.
That is all that there is.
Only the misspoken words dwell in the voice.
The mistakes are everywhere.
The pain is there.
Only mistakes.
I mistake.
I make better mistakes.
I mistake, somehow.
I mistake with a strong will.
I mistake again and again.
And beyond that. There is a story.
Thus, reality became reality.
To recognize reality, stories are needed. And this is because relationships with others are born here. But recreating all those possible stories took Akuto what amounted to an infinite span of time. Because, of course, he needed to test every story. But even so, the stories instantly became more complicated.
As soon as the modern era arrived, they became exponentially more complex, because the machines and cities themselves became elements in the story. But what made things particularly difficult here were the elements brought in by the gods of outer space. Things that the Law of Identity lacked were there.
Akuto tried conflict with the outer gods several times. Sometimes he won. In the academy in another world, a story was born where Akuto, bossed around by Fujiko, helped her with her plan for world conquest. There, Fujiko’s world conquest never ended, and the story ended without Akuto and Fujiko even kissing.
The test of that possibility ended.
Sometimes, the outer gods won.
February 23rd, 1945. Dresden.
Akuto was there.
The allies launched a completely meaningless bombing raid, and both he and Junko were caught up in a terrible explosion. Akuto was badly injured, and could only watch as Junko died in front of him. After that, he stood in the city as a wounded veteran, living off donations, until he died from malnutrition. That possibility ended there.
Akuto was born with the strange power to see ghosts. Using that power, he solved complex mysteries with the help of Korone, a ghost.
Hundreds of thousands of stories were tested, and all of them discarded.
July, 1950. Korea.
People belonging to the Bodo league were gathered from nearby villages in an old cobalt mine that the Japanese army had run during its occupation, and massacred. They were suspected of being communists. However, the Bodo League was created to re-educate communists.
And what was worse, in an effort to increase its numbers, the league had begun offering employment to anyone who joined it, which meant that most of its members had no idea what communism was. There wer
e barely any communists there who would sympathize with North Korea. The cobalt mine had been chosen because it would make it easy to bury the bodies.
Akuto was killed there. He’d been a member of the league. What shocked him, just before his death, was that the Korean police who killed him didn’t even know what communism was.
Yoshie was reborn in another world, carrying her memories of her previous life. This other world was medieval, and she used the power of science to do great deeds there. This story was easily ended when he realized that the ending wouldn’t be a story. He couldn’t be sure that it wouldn’t end with the modern world being proven superior to the medieval one.
Junko ran away from home. She’d always been a wild child, so her parents didn’t go to the police. She was walking down the street at night when she was kidnapped by a band of thugs. When she told them her story, they realized that no one would look for her. So they drugged her, raped her, and dumped her in the mountains. They’d given her enough drugs to cause an overdose, and she died in the mountains. Her body was found, but her killers never were.
Akuto was an ordinary boy who was visited by a ninja. The ninja’s name was Junko. She was a beautiful girl, but had grown up in the countryside with no knowledge of the modern world. She causes chaos in Akuto’s peaceful town. Countless variations of this story were tried, but it ultimately became clear that it would never see a real ending. Thus, it was abandoned.
Fujiko was born to wealthy parents. Her parents, however, were gaudy socialites who disliked having to care for a child. Despite the fact that they had the money to hire nannies, though, they held the odd belief that it was a parent’s responsibility to care for a child themselves. Fujiko was, of course, abused almost from the moment she was born. With no one to rely upon but her parents, and no concept that a higher power like god, might exist, she worshipped the parents that abused her, and only made them hate her more, and fear her.
The murder was done by her father. He spun her around by the leg, slamming her into a wall and splitting her skull. She died. The family doctor was well-paid to keep this quiet. A year later they’d forgotten she’d existed.
Akuto awoke to psychic powers in a world where only girls could be psychics. He became the one male student at an all-girls psychic training school...
That was where Akuto gave up making stories. It had all started to seem pointless. The stories were all developing, but everything he made felt so... stupid. The only thing he seemed to want was a world where he could feel peace and comfort forever.
Demon King Daimaou: Volume 13 Page 6