Chapter 132 : How to Overcome Greed (1)

“…And so, even I only found out that this world, which I had accepted as a story from another universe, really existed after I died.”

“…”

“…”

“In fact, the Successor knowing the future of this world in advance like this… was something even the goddess of [Beginning] hadn’t anticipated. Originally, you should have heard everything from Yuki Shikishima, the messenger. But the Successor bloomed and became active in this land earlier than that.”

“S-so.”

Dorim shook her hands with an expression of utter disbelief. The girl who had been calmly preparing for the next step even after hearing about gods and fate for quite some time finally began to waver after hearing my story.

The possibility that this world might have been an unreasonable story.

The possibility that striving in this world might have been a meaningless act.

‘Actually, I was planning to hide it and move on because I expected this kind of reaction.’

I thought the story would be too long, so I appropriately omitted things like my circumstances from my previous life or future goals, and only talked about the original future of this world and how I came to know about it. But even that seems to have been shocking enough.

Wars between magical girls.

Ordinary people and magical girls.

Demons pouring down.

The destruction of the world.

The fact that the fate of this world had already been determined as a story in some world would have been hard for me to believe as well.

“You just happened to find out? A novel you casually picked up and read at a used bookstore before you died was a prophecy book predicting this world…?!”

“I don’t know if it was a coincidence… but at least it was a book I read of my own will.”

“This… world was the world in the story, and it was destined to be destroyed soon, and Yuki was the protagonist…”

I could somehow understand why Dorim was so flustered and shaken.

Questions I had also endlessly asked myself since the time I decided to try to return to my original world after being reborn in this world.

The thought that this world itself might be an appendage of the world I had lived in.

The thought that even now might be the flow of some story, and we might be puppets appearing in it.

“Yeah… something was strange, this world was going to be destroyed anyway… fleeting…”

“Dorim.”

“Uh, yes…?”

“I don’t think this world is fake, or that it’s a world subordinate to where I originally lived, I don’t think the people living in this world are characters, and I don’t think Yuki is the only center of this world.”

“…Okay.”

“I… think that I myself might be a foreign substance that flowed in as a result of terrible probability or a miracle, in some flow perhaps even greater than the goddesses.”

“Foreign substance…?”

Dorim murmured, seemingly feeling some dissonance in my vocabulary.

‘Oh no.’

The attitude of realizing that I myself am not truly a person belonging to this universe seems to have sounded lonely to the people who love me.

“Perhaps to completely change the fate this world was to face, a truly enormous being might have guided me here through a miracle.”

“Would that be by some… god other than the goddesses?”

“Well, maybe it could be, or maybe not. It might be that I was led by an enormous being incomparable to the three transcendents who only scatter crude curses and distortions from the sky even now.”

“…An enormous being.”

“Or maybe I’m just a foreigner who broke through an extremely low probability, like how if millions of monkeys typed on typewriters, one might write a masterpiece.”

“…”

“Actually, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think this kind of talk was very important. We have already met long ago, changed, and are continuing to change. In fact, even among the remaining trials, I only know very little.”

“Even so, it’s really an unbelievable… miraculous story.”

Sumire was making an expression like she was dreaming while listening to my words.

The guilt that Fujimoto played a large part in the destruction.

Herself who died in vain without gaining true enlightenment in that.

The new tomorrow finally pioneered after defying all fates.

“We were already defying a huge predetermined tragedy and unknowingly pioneering a new fate. It’s really… like some mythical story. I’d believe it now even if Hikari-san said she was truly an apostle of god.”

“…”

Because I was a small human who couldn’t understand the truth of the vast universe at all.

Just as Sumire separated herself from Fujimoto’s history and dreamed of a greater cause.

I thought of myself as just a wanderer who appeared with the right abilities at the right time to help them.

Apostle of god.

Great fortune’s child.

Successor of the goddess.

These grand and noble concepts don’t fit me as a human.

I am just.

“I just happened to have the ability and knowledge to help at a time when I could help this world.”

I am just one human.

“It was you who accepted that.”

“Unnie seems to have a talent for modestly packaging mythical things.”

“Well, we know the leader is an ordinary citizen from living together.”

“That’s why we follow her, isn’t it?”

“Heh… by the way, FLAG. Should we establish it now?”

“Ugh.”

“I’m joking, joking.”

“…Whew.”

FLAG opposing Fujimoto.

Sumire and Ichika.

The two people who had become so misaligned that it was no longer even a joke, then turned around greatly and met again, were now just colleagues.

“By the way, to think Korea had already been destroyed… Yang bastard was incompetent as usual.”

“Hmm, maybe when demons invaded uncontrollably, they quickly sent the White Wing Unit or the Supernatural Ability Countermeasure Team that hadn’t awakened to America. And it’s fresh that Lieutenant Hong has such deep affection for her hometown.”

“Ah, that kid is Yeo-po in her household.”

Dorim decided to set aside the possibility that this world was a story for now after hearing my words. Saebyeok was appropriately agreeing while observing Dorim’s reaction.

Li Meilin.

Laura.

Himari.

All the magical girls gathered here seemed shocked at first, but they sorted out their emotions while looking at their current selves that had completely split from the world that had helplessly succumbed to the fate of destruction.

After sharing their own stories for a while like that, we decided to return to the original topic.

“Then how do the magical girls coming out of the rifts remember the already destroyed history?”

“One of my guesses is…”

I continued speaking while summoning a scale with white starlight.

The dazzlingly shining white scale was small enough to fit on my palm.

Creak…

A scale that begins to absorb surrounding starlight very faintly.

“This is the scale of greed that the magical girls of [Plague] originally possessed. The magical girl of [Plague] was originally an apostle with the authority to plunder starlight from magical girls. I think her being demonized by the curse of the three goddesses in this world is closely related to this incident.”

“The magical girl of [Death] said that magical girls’ souls are bound during the trials… is that related?”

“Yes, probably. Since the will of stars can interfere transcending space and time, I’m guessing that through some deal with the magical girl of [Plague], it read the fate of destruction and brought starlight engraved with the history of destruction that had been sleeping in it.”

“There’s no evidence, but circumstantially, that’s the only way to explain it.”

“In short, when guessed from the prophecy of the magical girl of [Hope] and the experience of the magical girl of [Revelation], they’re not actually themselves who lived through the destruction?”

Himari remained silent until all the words were finished, then presented one answer that penetrated the core of all questions.

“That’s right.”

“Correct.”

“I see. Then from now on, we should inform especially magical girls skilled in person-to-person combat through friendly match experience to be chosen as leaders, to unconditionally execute on the spot without being flustered even if magical girls with the same face appear.”

“…”

“…”

Everyone in the conference room agreed with those words, and the most important issue of countermeasures against fake magical girls was settled in an instant.

‘After all, the fake magical girls are no threat to the current magical girls who have become incomparably stronger.’

But Himari’s reaction of accepting all the stories so rationally was a bit surprising.

I knew Himari was a calm and cool type from before, but I didn’t expect her to have no reaction at all to a story so impressive that even the responsible Sumire, Dorim, and Saebyeok chatted for a while.

‘Well, this is more convenient.’

It’s better to make the future more hopeful rather than being obsessed with a fate that has already passed.

While I was thinking that, Himari quietly asked me and Hecate so that only we could hear.

“By any chance.”

“Yes?”

“By any chance… how was the relief group?”

“…At least as far as I know, it didn’t exist.”

“There wasn’t one.”

“…I see.”

In the vanished story, Tsugumi, the magical girl of [Order], led a security corps in connection with the collapsed police organization, but Himari, the magical girl of [Nursing], did not appear.

‘Maybe she died in vain even before blooming in the midst of war.’

Himari didn’t ask me any more questions after that.

But I could feel a faint sense of relief and pride flowing from her.

Murmur murmur

I slowly looked around the conference room where magical girls were talking about their changed fates.

Dorim and Saebyeok.

Ichika and Sumire.

Li Meilin and Laura.

Himari.

They let go of the shock that this world’s fate had already been determined in just the first few minutes.

What they were truly surprised by was my inner thoughts and reasons for trying to help this world.

They showed only concern and gratitude for me.

‘That’s right.’

We’ve come too far now to be surprised by such things, and we’ve grown enough not to be consumed by a past that might have been.

I was proud of that.