Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 13 - Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Changing World

I sank into the depths, deeper and deeper, but it wasn’t suffocating. It wasn’t dark either. I felt a warm light. Sensing something was out of place, I opened my eyes.

“Aah...”

I cried out on impulse. An extremely nostalgic sight spread out in front of me. Rows of apartments. Cars parked on the side of the road. A wide highway past the bottom of the hill. The residential district on the other side. The pleasant scent tickling my nose was probably from the takeout place across the street. It was all so nostalgic—so much so that I realized what this was too quickly.

“Oh, it’s just a dream,” I murmured, disappointed.

Before me was the town I’d lived in before being teleported to another world, but the scenery wasn’t exactly as I remembered. I felt this helpless sense of discomfort.

Looking far off into the distance, the scenery came to an unnatural stop. It wasn’t obvious whether it was day or night. The sky was smeared in black, yet visibility was mysteriously clear. Not a single person was in sight, and no cars were zooming down the highway.

In reality, I was currently staying in one of the Five Northern Kingdoms, Aker. I was waiting for Iino to come back from the imperial capital. A part of me did want to go back to my old world, but I knew it would never happen, which was why this could be no more than a dream.

Being a dream, it was imperfect, but it was exactly why I could see my hometown once more. With that thought in mind, I knitted my brow.

“What...the...?”

I looked down. Cracks ran along my figure. A large crevice centered on my left arm carved its path across my entire body. With all the tiny fissures all over, it would be hard to find a spot where there weren’t any. That wasn’t all either. I saw a fiery, bluish-white projection of myself—a familiar sight. This was how I appeared inside the world of light, the place I’d visited several times already.

“It’s not just a dream...?”

But if this was the world of light, something was wrong. The world I knew of was a place of never-ending darkness. This was different. It was possible I was dreaming of the world of light too, but...

“I can’t really tell.”

In any case, first I had to figure out what was happening. If I walked around, maybe I’d find something out. I tried taking a step. In an instant, my vision dipped.

“Whoa?!”

As I tried to put weight on my right leg, it failed to support me. I felt a strange, mushy sensation, as if I’d stepped on something soft—or as if my leg had melted away. I tried to regain my balance, but my left leg wouldn’t move. It was as if it had become a bloodless wooden leg. At this rate, I would fall over. I reflexively thrust my hands toward the ground, but right before I could, something jumped out and supported my body. It was a spider leg piercing through the asphalt.

“Huh...?”

At the same time, a fissure ran across the ground. It spread out, and in the blink of an eye, cracks ran across the entire world—the apartments, the parked cars, the houses of the residential district, everything. Space itself was no exception. Cracks ran across everything, and then it all shattered.

“Ugh...!”

The nostalgic and warm world crumbled. I couldn’t even scream. In the end, even I crumbled away—and before I knew it, everything was back to normal.

“What...?”

I was dumbfounded. After taking an uneventful step forward, I came to a complete stop. For a moment, I couldn’t understand what was going on. I looked restlessly around me. The world still maintained its original tranquility. It was so calm that it felt outrageous. The nostalgic scenery hadn’t crumbled, and the baffling transformations to my body were gone. Not only that, I couldn’t even see the flame projection of my cracked body anymore. I stood on guard, ready for the next transformation, but nothing happened. After a short while, judging that nothing was going to happen, I slowly let the tension out of my body.

“What the hell was that...?”

It’d been like a waking dream. It was weird seeing a dream inside a dream, but that was the only way I could explain it. I wasn’t sure whether it’d actually happened at this point. Maybe it had all been my imagination. It certainly felt like that now. If so, that was fine. Or perhaps none of it mattered if this was just a dream.

However, if this wasn’t a dream—

“Masss, ter!”

“Wah?!”

As I sank into thought, a voice called out to me, startling me greatly.

“Asarina?!”

A friendly Venus-flytrap-looking head popped out of nowhere.

“You’re here too?”

“Sssster.”

Without paying my shocked state any mind, Asarina purred at her own pace and started playfully prodding at me. I didn’t mind pampering her, but there was a time and place for everything.

“H-Hang on a sec, Asarina.”

I grabbed her as she began play-biting around my chin. She wriggled around curiously at this.

“If you’re here, then this isn’t a dream?”

“Ster.”

“Where is this?”

“Ster?”

“You don’t know?”

“Ssster.”

“I see. Oh well.”

“Sttter.”

Well, it wasn’t going to be that simple. I let Asarina go, and she continued play-biting me as I scratched my head.

“Anyway, if you’re here, it wouldn’t be weird for the others to be too, but...”

That said, there was no one in sight as far as the eye could see. I couldn’t sense anything from the mental path that linked me to all my servants either.

“Wait, no. I can feel something...”

“Sster.”

Mysteriously, I could feel the others through the mental path. They were right next to me, but I couldn’t see them. The only ones in sight were Asarina and I. Also...

“Is anyone else here?” I called.

“Sssster.”

“You want me to come with you?”

Asarina stretched out far, bobbing up and down to indicate in a certain direction. There was no point standing around here, so I started walking.

“Ssster!”

I went down the curved road Asarina was pointing out. Coincidentally, this was the way to my high school. I was familiar with this path, so I walked without hesitation. It kind of felt as if I were taking a dog for a walk.

“Oh yeah, did you see that earlier, Asarina?”

“Ster?”

“Like the world was crumbling for an instant... Aah, never mind. It’s fine if you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“Ssster!”

We kept talking as Asarina happily led me down the path to my high school. And on the way there, we bumped into her.

“Oh, Master.”

Salvia’s golden-brown hair swayed behind her as she turned my way. She was crouching down by the roadside for some reason. She hadn’t come out since the battle with the provincial army, so it’d been a while since I’d seen her face. I started walking closer, and she stood up and waited for me. She looked at me with a gentle smile, then shifted her focus to my companion.

“Asarina, did you bring him here for me?”

“Ssster! Ter!”

“There, there. Good girl.”

Asarina shook about energetically, and Salvia gently petted her. She then shifted her downturned eyes my way.

“In any case, I didn’t think I’d meet you all the way out here, my dear.”

“Neither did I. Actually, what is this place, anyway?” I asked, glancing around me.

Salvia put her hand to her cheek gracefully, then cocked her head.

“How to explain it?” she said. “Rather, wouldn’t you know better than me?”

“Well, I guess I know. This is the world I come from.” I looked around, then shook my head. “But not the world itself.”

“That’s about right. I’m sure you already noticed, but this is the place you call the world of light.”

“So it really is...”

That was what it’d felt like until recently, so I accepted it with ease. Now that I thought of it, when I’d fought against the Travis variant of Holy Water, Salvia and Asarina had been the only ones who could intervene inside the world of light. The fact that they were the only ones here now was probably for the same reason. That much made sense to me, but I still grimaced.

“This isn’t the world of light I know of, though,” I said.

It was supposed to be a pitch-black world far beyond the depths, a place beyond human cognition. That was the impression the world of light had given me. This, on the other hand, was completely different.

“Meaning it changed?” I muttered suspiciously.

If so, what did that imply?

“Rather than change, I suppose you could say it evolved,” Salvia said, a faint air of sorrow in her voice. “You could also say it has advanced to the next stage... The transformation of this world is likely related to your ability, my dear.”

“Uhh...”

This was bad news. By the time I realized that, it was too late. Salvia’s gaze was clearly sour now.

“You already know, don’t you?” she said, anger written on her face. “What you did last time was irreversible. To defeat Travis and the Holy Water, you really reached your hand out right to the limit. Even though going there once means never coming back again...”

Salvia took a step closer and peered into my eyes.

“A wish beyond your means will destroy your body. This was before I became your servant, so I didn’t witness it for myself, but I’ve heard of what happened when Lily was kidnapped by the Mad Beast Takaya Jun. I’ve lived a long life, so I know of other such examples. The power you visitors possess sometimes brings about your own destruction. You are no exception to that, my dear. Do you truly understand this?”

She kept on criticizing me. Depending on the situation, this could be interpreted as an annoying sermon. However—

“In that case, you need to treat yourself more dearly,” she continued. “You’re going to live a peaceful life with everyone, right? It’s just a little further. If these talks go well, the future you dreamed of will be in reach. You have your priorities backward if you destroy yourself before grasping it.”

“You’re right,” I said, accepting everything she said. “Thanks.”

Salvia remained silent.

“I’m grateful for the scolding,” I added.

There’d been no other choice at the time. I couldn’t have saved Rose otherwise. No matter how many times that choice was presented to me, I would surely do the same thing every time. I had nothing to be ashamed of.

But this was this, and that was that. My choice definitely hadn’t been a good thing. That was also the truth. If it was necessary, I wouldn’t hesitate, but it wasn’t something I could rely on so naively. I couldn’t misinterpret it. With someone to scold me like this, I wouldn’t.

“Good grief...” Salvia said, looking somewhat troubled yet also affectionate.

A moment later, she suddenly smiled and took another step closer. As I wondered what she was up to, she pulled me into an embrace. It startled me, and I stiffened. This wasn’t an embrace between lovers, but one simply filled with deep affection. She patted the back of my head a few times while Asarina purred curiously from my side.

“Such an adorable child. You’re all so lovable. When you act so earnestly like that, it makes me want to cheer you all on.”

“Umm... Salvia? It’s a little embarrassing when you treat me like a child,” I protested.

Salvia giggled. Her tender body felt warm, like basking in the sun, and the slight tremors from her laughter ran through me.

“You’re a child to me,” she said. “Every human living in this world is.”

“That might be true, but...”

In all likelihood, she was one of the oldest beings in the world. I didn’t have much room for argument, so I obediently let her treat me like a child.

“Yes, it is. You’re all such adorable children,” Salvia said lovingly, squeezing me a little tighter.

She held me in her embrace for a while longer, and eventually satisfied, she loosened her hold on me a little.

“Now then, let’s leave the scolding at that, shall we? It looks like you understand well enough,” she said as she let go, then sighed regretfully. “Aah, looks like time is up.”

Her voice was a little hazy. I felt my consciousness floating away from me. I was about to wake up.

“How unfortunate,” Salvia said. “We finally got the chance to come here, even if it’s only the two of us. I wanted you to show us around your world, my dear.”

“Ssster.”

“Hmm. Maybe next time. If the opportunity arises, may I ask that of you?” Salvia asked, clapping her hands together in front of her chest.

“Yeah. One day, for sure...” I nodded, and Salvia made a face like she was looking forward to it.

My consciousness faded more and more, and I felt myself floating to the surface.

“See you later, my dear,” Salvia said, waving me goodbye. “Do be sure not to make any of the girls you share your love with, and the ones who are in love with you, cry.”

“I know.”

I would only throw everything about myself away as a last resort. I nodded, but then almost immediately, Salvia’s wording bothered me. I knew who the girls I shared my love with were, but what did she mean by the ones who were in love with me? Before I could ask, my consciousness separated from this world.