novelraw Chapter 228
Chapter 228
I couldn’t give any reply at all to the emotion welling up inside me for some reason.
So I forced myself to turn my head to Bion and asked.
“Then why did you name Trail’s first name Bion?”
Bion’s face reddened a little as she answered.
“You were the one who suggested it.”
“I did?”
“Yes.”
In a small voice, she continued.
“You said it was because you hoped I wouldn’t feel guilty anymore.”
“Ah.” “I’m basically the one responsible for creating Aktion. I was the first person to say we should create a new world and expand humanity.”
“That must have been interference from the unknown existence.”
“Even so, it’s true that it happened through my mouth. I think Mr. Mide felt quite sorry seeing how much I suffered because of it.”
We stayed silent for a moment.
Then Adwin cautiously asked.
“But is that really possible? Duplicating a soul.”
“You are the one who accomplished that.”
“Kuku. As expected, this body is…… ah damn, the mood is killing it.”
“So you can hold it back when you are conscious of it. Maybe try that more often.”
Xenia chimed in.
“Come to think of it, Idria tried to refer to Pirensha’s soul to create a new soul, didn’t she?”
“Yes. This is only speculation, but she was probably unconsciously testing something she had experienced herself. An idea like soul duplication doesn’t just pop into existence from nothing.”
“Aha.”
“Of course, as you know, she failed. That’s why Serein’s soul and Pirensha’s soul were connected.”
Even though it was a story from a long time ago, Serein shuddered.
“But Idria and Mr. Trail are different. It’s correct to see them as two different beings. Just like Serein and Pirensha became different people after Mr. Mide severed the worlds of the two souls in the underworld.”
This time, Offense asked.
“If they are totally different existences, then why did Trail die along with Idria when Idria died?”
“The souls are different beings, but the two of them sharing a single energy source is an undeniable fact.”
“Ah…… when Idria dies, the negative energy scatters, so he collapses along with her.”
Everyone nodded.
Bion continued.
“After that, Trail went down to the world full of spirit…… and from here on, you already know.”
“Idria revived no matter how many times she was killed.”
……? Huh? Wait.
Something was strange.
“Why did Trail even kill Idria in the first place? The original goal was for all the negative energy to flow into Idria, and for Trail to watch her forever.”
“You really do pinpoint the core.”
Bion’s face darkened.
“After Trail descended to the surface, we intended to contact him right away through the Eye of Omniscience. He had gone down with his memories wiped like the others.”
“That makes sense.”
“But no matter what we did, we couldn’t reach him.”
“……No way?”
“Yes. The unknown existence we have been talking about interfered.”
That thing again.
It felt like it really was persistently obstructing us.
By now, even I could roughly guess the identity of the unknown existence.
But why? What intention was behind all of this, I still couldn’t understand.
“It wasn’t just that we couldn’t reach him. Even calling him back into the embrace of the world became impossible. It’s probably still the same now. Unless he comes together with you, Mr. Mide, like this time.”
“So in the end, there was no way at all to deliver the situation to him.”
“Yes. In the end, Trail had no choice but to think he was the Hero sent down by the celestial god, according to the ‘settings’ we planted in Adin.”
She looked at Trail with an expression of deep apology.
“And he lived a life of endlessly killing Idria under Adin’s instructions. For roughly 1,800 years.”
“…….”
“To those of us who lived 230,000 years, that was a short time, but to Trail, who had lost his memories, it must have felt close to eternity. Even now, I still feel very sorry.”
Trail said lightly.
“It’s fine now. More than that, what happened afterward?”
“We worked to reconnect the link the unknown existence had severed. While also doing routine maintenance to keep the world from collapsing. They were truly agonizing days.”
“…….”
“In the meantime, the Demon King of Destruction descended, and Grade and Lisel went down.”
“…….”
“When the Demon King of Greed descended, Lepia went down. During the Demon King of Corruption, Leon worked hard.”
And all of them defeated their respective Demon Kings, and like during Impelium’s era, they were qualified to receive the world’s Gift granted by the system.
But as is well known, they refused the Gift and left for the underworld.
“Couldn’t you call the Heroes back here? Even if Trail was impossible because the unknown existence interfered.”
“If that had been possible, we would have done it back during Impelium and Serad. As I said, a Hero who defeats a Demon King leaving for a new world is……”
“The Cornerstone Law.”
“Yes. At that time, we were so overwhelmed that we couldn’t even touch general laws, let alone the Cornerstone Law. The resource shortage was so severe that not even a two-shift schedule, everyone had to work 24 hours.”
In the end, Bion had no choice but to send them to the underworld without revealing the truth.
I felt a faint sting in my chest.
“But our hard work paid off, and we barely managed to restore the connection to Trail. That was around the time Idria created the Demon King of Desolation.”
The era when the fake Hero, Padania Brook, was active.
Trail scratched his head.
“I don’t remember being contacted then. I was busy hunting Idria as always.”
“That’s expected. Right before we contacted you, an incident occurred.”
“Incident?”
Bion sighed and said.
“The unknown existence spoke to us.”
It happened exactly when they opened the screen window to contact Trail.
Now, with Trail connected, all that remained was to reveal all the secrets of the world to him and achieve the original goal.
They relaxed for only a moment.
Chijik.
The screen window blurred, and suddenly a sentence appeared.
Mide and the party could only be shocked by this event.
No one asked who had written the sentence.
Because the same thought struck all of their minds.
“Could it be that thing that has been persistently tormenting us?”
As if answering Neril’s words, another sentence appeared.
“What?”
Its tone was like something looking down from the sky.
Offense spoke, unable to hide his displeasure.
“Who are you?”
“No. There is every reason. You have meddled with this lab to a sickening degree. You even kept us from having kids so we wouldn’t get distracted, didn’t you.”
<…….>
“You forced Bion of all people to come up with that out of character idea of giving a new world as a gift and you pushed the researchers into madness so they would oppose shutting down the hero system.”
Serein picked up his words.
“You look shameless as hell, so this probably won’t mean much, but if you have even a scrap of guilt, how about revealing your identity?”
Everyone let out a sigh at the predictable answer.
Then Mide spoke.
“There’s no need for him to tell us who he is. I already know.”
In an instant, everyone’s heads snapped toward Mide.
Even the mysterious being seemed surprised, because text appeared on the screen.
“No. I’m certain.”
Mide answered calmly.
“You are the one who sent us back 230,000 years.”
A benefactor who gave humanity another chance.
The one who allowed us to rebuild the world destroyed by Kaeld.
The shock was so great everyone’s jaws dropped.
Xenia asked,
“Mr. Mide, you assumed the one who sent us back was a ‘law’, right? Are you saying that thing is the law of the universe itself?”
“That, I don’t know. So let’s confirm it with the one in question.”
Mide jerked his chin at the screen.
“You’re the one who sent us back, aren’t you?”
For a long moment, the text was silent.
Then finally…
“……”
“……”
His last sentence was as good as admitting Mide was right.
Neril spoke in a trembling voice.
“Is it true? You really sent us back?”
“Why?”
The sentence almost felt warm, gentle.
“…….”
“……”
No one spoke.
If someone else had said such things, they might have laughed.
But this was being said by the one who rewound time 230,000 years for humanity’s sake.
It couldn’t be dismissed lightly.
“……”
“……”
No one could argue back.
Except for one person.
Mide smirked and opened his mouth.
“I think this system is exactly what will drive humanity to its extinction.”
“Did we?”
“Everyone, listen.”
Mide turned to the group.
“Has anyone here actually seen humanity go extinct?”
An oppressive silence fell over them.
Xenia answered cautiously first.
“Um… I-I saw it. Or well, everyone said we saw it.”
“You saw humanity go extinct?”
“Yes. When that bastard Kaeld messed up and scattered 80 billion units of negative energy, it formed a giant hand and destroyed the world.”
“That was the destruction of the world, not the extinction of humanity.”
“What?”
The screen flickered.
“Yes. What we saw was just one world exploding.”
“……!”
“Who can say that the human domain consisted of only that one world right before the regression?”
Everyone looked as if they had been struck with a hammer.
Mide continued.
“Think about it. Right now we are spreading humanity across the universe and dimensions through the hero system.”
“…….”
“Why would it have been limited to one world 230,000 years ago? No. We must have spread across countless worlds. Flourishing more and more by the day. Advancing every moment, every second.”
Heat filled his voice.
“That thing twisted our memories. Before sending us back!”
“……!”
“It’s not surprising. It mentally corrupted the researchers in countless ways. Who is to say it didn’t interfere before sending us back as well?”
“…….”
“That thing doesn’t want humanity to last. It envied and resented humanity’s brilliant civilization. So it rewound time to erase us.”
Nothing appeared on the screen.
Serein took a deep breath.
“Then… was the ‘Humanity Salvation Project’ before the regression actually…”
“Yes. It wasn’t to prevent extinction. We were thriving.”
“…….”
“They were trying to control and manage negative energy as an infinite power source. We were a far greater species than we ever imagined.”
“…….”
“But that so-called law interfered. And it whispered to Kaeld.”
Isn’t it a waste to use this infinite energy just for the public good?
Imagine the future if that power were yours.
“From there, our memories probably match reality. Kaeld gave in to the whisper. Humanity gave in to the instigation. Sadly.”
“W-Wait. No matter what, the law really did rewind time for us, right? Why would it do that?”
“To try again.”
“What?”
“If 80 billion negative energy wasn’t enough to wipe out humanity completely, what about 200 billion? 300 billion? One trillion? Ten trillion? A hundred trillion?”
“…….”
“With that much negative energy, maybe it could annihilate humanity in a single strike.”
Bion’s eyes widened.
“So that’s why it made me create that rule.”
“Right. From the experience 230,000 years ago, it understood. To destroy humanity, it needs ‘one enormous surge of power’. But with just one world, it’s impossible to gather enough negative energy.”
Mide growled at the screen.
“So to destroy us, it first has to let us develop.”
<…….>
“Humanity needs to spread across the universe again. Far more than 230,000 years ago. Only then can the amount of negative energy it wants be harvested.”
His voice, fired up until moments ago, turned cold.
Creak.
He leaned back in his chair.
“That’s my deduction. Got anything to add?”
After a long while, text finally appeared.
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