[99] Toward Infinity (3)
"You idiot… a real idiot…!"
He'd come to her first, handed her coffee, and she'd cruelly brushed his hand away. As if turning away from a reel of regret, Amy squeezed her eyes shut. Then, with everything she had, she shouted.
"Shirone!"
Shirone smiled. He was relieved Amy had regained her memories. If nothing else, he could leave as the Shirone who remained in someone's memory at the end.
"Thank you, Amy."
Shirone's tears fell on Amy's cheek.
Why are you crying, Shirone?
Amy's chest tightened. Something was wrong. When she saw the will to live ebb from Shirone's eyes, she understood.
"Shirone! No!"
"Sorry. I couldn't keep my promise."
Shirone hugged Amy and fully opened the Immortal Function. As his consciousness expanded toward infinity, his sense of self thinned, like dye dissolving in water.
"Goodbye, everyone…"
Father, mother, the Ozent family, friends from school—so many people had loved him that Shirone could smile. A vast light filled the cliffside. The falling students—Iruki, Nade, even Sade—were swallowed by the radiance and vanished from sight.
Then a great flash shot straight up.
It was a mass teleport that moved four hundred people at once.
Ah—so that's it.
Arkein, sprawled on the ground, watched the flash that had leapt skyward split into dozens of rays. Only at that final moment did he finally know where he had been, and how wonderful his life had been.
"This playground is one you could spend a lifetime in and never tire of. Isn't that right, Alpheas?"
Thus the legendary archmage who had shaped an age left the world.
"Master?"
Kanis stood dazed before Arkein's corpse. He had at least been a disciple, hadn't he? But his master had left after doing only what he wanted, without even a last message.
"So it was really nothing? We were only tools?"
Kanis grabbed Arkein by the collar and shook him.
"Get up! How could this happen! I should have been the one to die! Why did you leave me behind!"
Arin approached Kanis with sorrowful eyes. In the scrying pool, his form looked like a figure made of foul liquid. That shape never stayed still; it spread like water and reformed into a human silhouette again and again.
"No, Kanis. It wasn't because of you. That man used us. He was a villain."
"Ha—don't flatter yourself. You only realized it now?"
Harvist's voice was coarse.
"Yes, Kanis. It's all your fault. Arkein died, I died, and someday Arin will too."
Arin, glaring at Harvist, abruptly turned to Kanis. Shocked, his human shape collapsed and flowed into a filthy puddle that clung to the floor.
"Why? What did I do? Survive Radum? Be unlucky?"
"Because you're weak."
Harvist's conclusion was blunt.
"How long will you live hoping others will acknowledge you? There is no such thing as 'I must live because of this' or 'I must die because of that.' Arkein simply lived his life and left."
Arkein had given his life to uphold his conviction. Harvist had chosen self-destruction to fulfill the pact expected of a magical creature.
What was I trying to die for…?
Kanis could find nothing. He was no more than a blind colt running wild. His life had been nothing but a collection of shells.
"Like Master…"
"Yes. And like that boy."
At the center where four hundred students lay strewn, Shirone had collapsed. He'd vowed not to hurt anyone—and he'd held to that belief to the end.
Kanis stepped closer to Harvist to check his condition.
"How is he?"
"Say he's fine all you want—he'll die. He can't survive without parasitizing life."
Arin said, "You could form a master–servant contract with me. Kanis doesn't have the mental strength to hold out."
Harvist shook his head.
"Sorry, but I can't do that."
"What? Why? He'll just vanish like this!"
"My lord is Kanis."
Harvist's words stabbed Kanis in the chest. It was time for him to raise his own standard of conviction. Could he hold out? If he failed, they might both die.
"Harvist. I will accept you as my subordinate. But I won't forgive betrayal a second time."
"Heh. Understood, my lord."
"Kanis! It's too risky! If something goes wrong—!"
Arin fell silent. Mud seeped into the liquid shape that was Kanis, hardening it. Would he one day gain an unshakable heart like the Shirone she had seen in the scrying pool?
Kanis reached out and touched Harvist. As the subjugation contract took effect, Harvist began draining the last of the life force. Kanis's consciousness sank into darkness and his eyes slid shut.
Far from Kanis and his group, Alpheas stood in sorrow. They had saved the students by the skin of their teeth, but the losses were enormous.
"Headmaster."
Etella felt the same weight. From today the Magic Academy would change drastically. Students who regained their memories would be thrown into chaos, and Alpheas's mistake from forty years ago would surface.
"Etella, I am a sinner."
"Do not blame yourself so harshly. If mistakes must be unforgivable, then human existence itself would be a sin."
Alpheas bowed his head. Anyone can make mistakes. But every action carries responsibility. Like Arkein, he had no intention of running away.
"You raised dark magic to the rank of great magic. Harvist was an innovation in memory transfer. Abyss Nova will be registered as a codified spell with the Mage Association."
Before Arkein's corpse, Alpheas folded his hands and mourned.
"Arkein, the archmage who was always a boy at heart. The path of magic you walked will continue in the generations to come."
When Alpheas opened his eyes, he looked relieved. Etella remained worried. This wasn't something the school could handle alone—the entire student body had had their lives endangered.
"Headmaster, what will you do now?"
"What is there to say? I too must await judgment. Leave the question of punishment to the experts. For now, let us honor today's hero."
Alpheas searched the area for Shirone. The boy had a knack for startling people the more they looked at him. Even he couldn't be sure he could teleport four hundred people at once.
"This is terrible!"
Amy was sobbing where Shirone had fallen.
Sensing the urgency, Alpheas and Etella hurried over. Iruki and Nade were running in from a distance.
But before they arrived, Amy called out first.
"Shirone isn't breathing!"
Meeting a God (1)
Shirone had expanded vast and thin, letting go of any lingering attachment to the world and dissolving into everything. Then an overwhelming force pulled him to a single point. If there is anything beyond life in a human, this was a hijacking of the soul.
"Huff! Huff!"
As Shirone's mind reassembled, memories from before he tried the Immortal Function returned. Shivering at the thought of death, he exhaled roughly and checked his body. Apart from not wearing clothes, nothing felt particularly wrong.
"Where is this?"
The space was all white. In that monochrome landscape stretching infinitely, there was no sense of distance. He tried walking slowly, but it didn't feel like he was making progress.
'How strange. It's like my senses are numb.'
Shirone had a peculiar idea. As an experiment, he slowly bent his knees and planted his foot as if climbing a stair. To his surprise, his body rose.
"Huh?"
He climbed an endless staircase. Pausing to look around, he was at a loss for words.
"..."
He didn't feel any higher. No matter where he moved, it was the same white landscape.
"There's no distance at all."
If you can't measure it, space doesn't exist. To test the hypothesis, Shirone tried going down. The result matched his expectation: wherever he moved, he hadn't actually displaced.
As the pointlessness of further movement sank in, a woman's voice sounded.
"Impressive. You've perceived the meaning of space. You truly deserve to be here."
Shirone didn't turn. Direction meant nothing here.
"Who are you? Am I dead?"
A beautiful woman stepped from a gap in the whiteness. As distance appeared, the scenery changed in an instant. A colossal temple he'd never seen in life loomed above him.
"Wow…"
The scale was unimaginable. Even ancient temples weren't this vast. Hundreds of columns held up the ceiling; each one was roughly two kilometers tall.
"What is this place…?"
"Welcome, Shirone. I've been waiting for you."
Her sea-colored hair reached to her ankles. Shirone had never seen a woman so beautiful. It wasn't just looks—the value of her existence. Like a man in love seeing his lover as the most beautiful thing, her worth here felt absolute.
"Oh no!"
Shirone hastily covered himself. He'd been standing boldly naked without realizing it.
"Haha. No need to be embarrassed. This isn't your world. Your body still remains in the original world."
With a wave of her hand, clothes appeared on him. Shirone stared at his reflection in a daze, then finally gave in. One thought rose immediately.
"Is this the afterlife?"
"No. It's not the afterlife. It's just a different spot from the place you lived."
Shirone tilted his head. A spot is one-dimensional. A point moves to make a line, a line moves to make a plane, and a plane moves to create three-dimensional space.
"You don't mean…?"
He recalled the white space he'd just occupied.
"That's right. It's a spot. It's not that space is absent; it's compressed into infinity."
If her words were true, it made sense there was no sense of distance. But if he were trapped in one dimension, his body still existed in three. If he could measure the distance between his right and left arms, wouldn't that prove space existed?
"Ah. So a three-dimensional thing can exist within one dimension."
"Your insight is remarkable. Yes. That's the essence of spacetime. No matter how vast a world may be, from afar it's just a point. Conversely, no matter how tiny a point seems, once you enter it a boundless world can unfold."
For the first time, Shirone felt calm. If this was a realm where logical conversation was possible, even if it were the afterlife there was nothing to fear.
"Then who are you?"
The woman laughed with a fool's glee. The sound was eerie, but even that was beautiful to Shirone—because she was the most valuable being in this place.
"I am a god."
* * *
The Magic Academy was in chaos.
It took a full eight hours just to collect Arkein's body and return the students to their dorms.
The students still lay in their rooms with their memories blocked. If the faculty regained theirs, cleanup would speed up, but the headache of the turmoil that would erupt when the entire student body came to their senses made heads throb.
To make matters worse, suspects in the incident—Kanis and Arin—had vanished, so those left to tend to Shirone in the infirmary were only Nade, Iruki, and Amy.
"'Tend to' is hardly the right word," Etella thought. Shirone wasn't breathing and his heart had stopped. Yet no one dared say the word "death."