Chapter 307: The shape of the end

Pyujeok Sashimi: Hey, so what’s your relationship with the Heavenly Sword?

Saint_Ryu: Are you jealous, simple mortal?

Cheongeom Sarang: I’m dying of envy. Dying. Dying. Dying. Dying. Dying. Dying. Dying. Dying. Dying…

Gijon Geomje: You… why…?

Ddatdatjwi: Hmm… Is the Heavenly Sword really that important…?

Cheongeom Sarang: You wanna die, moron? This idiot doesn’t even know who Eunhae is.

Cheongeom Sarang: If you start praising the Heavenly Sword, you could filibuster for a whole week non-stop.

Ddatdatjwi: Hey, but why do you praise him so much?

Cheongeom Sarang: Because he saved the world.

Ddatdatjwi: …

Cheongeom Sarang: No rebuttal, huh?

Ding!

Pyujeok Sashimi: Dammit!! But that’s not the point, you old geezers!!

Laiyoung: Who are you calling geezers?

Pyujeok Sashimi: Everyone who plays this game is a fossil.

Pyujeok Sashimi: Anyway!! Saint Ryu, where is that bastard?

Pyujeok Sashimi: Hey!!!

Ding!

Saint_Ryu: (carrot emojis ×2)

[Saint_Ryu has logged out.]

Pijeok Sashimi: ?

Ddatdatjwi: ???

Cheongeom Sarang: ???

***

The cult that worships the outer god. Just as its name suggests, Welter, bishop of that cult (though he was just a priest ten years ago), was currently suffering.

And it was all because of…

“Miss Saint.”

…It was all Yu Sein’s fault.

His role in the church was to assist Yu Sein, and that’s why he had been living with her for a long time in a far-off land—South Korea.

The days crawled by.
It was hell. Welter was withering away inside.

He prayed daily to the outer god, hoping to banish any doubts creeping into his faith.

“Oh, outer god. Don’t you only test us with what we can endure? Why are you so cruel to me…?”

How many nights had he spent crying?

When his patience hit its limit, he finally spoke up.

“Could you stop playing video games?”

“After this round.”

She wasn’t even listening.

‘Lately she’s so hooked on VR games she’s abandoned real life.’

He was deeply worried.
More than her image as a saint, Welter feared for her health.

Even if games were fun…

Yu Sein had gone overboard. She’d ditched meals and everything else just to keep playing.

“Then at least eat while you play, please. Saint, at this rate, you really will ascend to heaven.”

“I ate chicken earlier.”

The VR goggles she wore flashed for a moment.

“…But there’s no chicken box anywhere.”

“I ate it in Battlegrounds.”

“…”

“Can you save the lectures for later? A new game just dropped.”

Welter’s sigh sank into the floor.

It was better to give up. She wasn’t someone you could reason with.

And he couldn’t stop her either. Doing so would violate the tenets of the outer god’s order. The saint was untouchable.
It was best to let her be.

A plastic container rolled to his feet.

A moment later, a tear fell.

‘Holy exile…’

Welter felt deeply desolate. As Yu Sein remained absorbed, he decided to clean up.

“Kyaaa~”

“Cheongeom Sarang, if you’re gonna play like that, just log out already.”

“……”

“Ah, right. It’s me, bro~”

After quite some time, Welter finished cleaning. He stepped out with a trash bag.

“A bishop cleaning up after the saint?” he muttered with a bitter smile while sorting the recycling.

Then he sensed an unusual presence.

He turned sharply.

A man approached, waving one hand from his pocket.

“You are…”

“Long time no see, Bishop.”

Welter’s eyes welled up.

He crushed the plastic bottle in his hand.

It felt like meeting a savior.

“Please, save me!”

And in the Church of the Outer God… that plea wasn’t out of place.

***

As soon as he saw me, Welter burst into tears. A man over thirty, sobbing like a child.

“Heavenly Sword, huu… I…”

“Calm down. People are watching.”

“I can’t take it anymore!”

“Okay, okay…”

I barely managed to calm him down.

I asked him to wait at a nearby café and headed straight to Yu Sein’s house.

The living room was too spacious and comfortable to be called a room.

Just looking at the scenery brought a sense of relief. In short, a waste of space.

“That’s not how you play. If you’re bad, quit the game. Don’t annoy others.”

Yu Sein stood right in the middle, wearing her VR gear, making movements as if dancing.

She was so absorbed she didn’t even notice me.

Not even when I got really close.
She kept blurting out phrases like nothing was happening. Judging by her actions, it seemed she was playing an FPS.

‘A saint… playing shooters.’

No wonder Welter is depressed. This can’t be made public.

I could already hear her saintly reputation crumbling.

“Hey.”

I gently placed a hand on her shoulder. Instantly, Yu Sein reacted sharply and yanked off her goggles in anger.

“I said I’d eat later!”

Yu Sein’s face had gone pale.

Her pupils, black like mine, reflected my cracked face like a shattered mirror.

A short while later.

“So that’s what happened.”

Yu Sein muttered while rubbing the bump on her forehead. A little “gift” I had given her to celebrate our family reunion after such a long time.

Worth mentioning, we still kept up the pretense that we were distant relatives.

I’m a possessed.

Yu Sein is a reincarnate.

Since we couldn’t explain this clearly to anyone, we just decided to keep it that way. We never had a formal conversation about it, but we understood each other.

Ryozo and Abel never suspected our connection. In fact, they went out of their way to stay on good terms with Yu Sein. They were the ones who arranged this house.

Thanks to that, the dynamic between a possessed and a reincarnate was clearly defined. I was the superior, and Yu Sein the subordinate.

Without me, Yu Sein wouldn’t end up on the streets, but she wouldn’t be living this comfortably either.

She’d probably be dragged back to the Church of the Outer God.

“You’re saying you came here because of a bad dream?”

“Don’t reduce it to just that. You think I’d come just because of a nightmare? It appeared as a status window, like when the Outer God sent me a message before. And this time there were two!”

For clarification.

The Outer God and the G.M. are the same entity. The God of the Sword was a part of the Outer God, separated to destroy the false gods.

The blend of those three beings is me.

Confused? Me too. Just think of them as versions of myself from different timelines.

“What exactly did it say?”

I recited the message to Yu Sein as I remembered it:

[Complete the world’s perfection.]

[You must renounce your humanity.]

[You are an unnecessary impurity for perfection.]

[If not fulfilled, the Suppression Force will intervene directly.]

[This is an inescapable, already established causality.]

“Hmm…”

“Does it ring a bell?”

“Of course. But what stands out most is the word ‘perfection.’”

Since becoming an adult, Yu Sein had stopped talking like she posted on forums. No deep reason, she just got tired of it.

“Why does that word stand out to you?”

Yu Sein frowned slightly and turned the question back to me.

“Geom-Ma, what do you think perfection is?”

“Total purity? Absence of flaws? Something like that.”

Yu Sein nodded solemnly.

“An absence of flaws means not even a single impurity exists. So what’s an impurity? From the universe’s perspective, even the Sun could be an impurity. Galaxies, star clusters… anything might be considered a blot. And humans?”

“Don’t tell me… the universe wants to completely eliminate humanity?”

This time, she firmly shook her head.

“You said the voice told you to give up your humanity. So from the universe’s or rather the Suppression Force’s perspective, your ‘humanity’ and the human species are equal in trade value.”

“So you’re saying I need to stop being human?”

Am I supposed to be some kind of absolute being now?

“Geom-Ma, even if you cease to be human, that won’t solve everything. I believe…”

Yu Sein trailed off mid-sentence.

It was the first time I’d seen her so serious. Even when the world had nearly ended, she had remained composed.

“They want to strip you of your humanity and then use your power to rewrite the universe. Return it to its primal state.”

She added those words like a painful whisper.

“What…?”

“Let me ask you something. Lately, you haven’t been able to use the Blessing of the God of the Sword, right?”

“Yeah.”

It had been a while since I last felt the pain from the blessing.

However, I limited my abilities to times when I could activate the Blessing of Insensitivity to Pain.

When I wielded my sashimi, I didn’t get hurt, but the universe did. The universe was too fragile to endure the impact of my strikes.

I had to protect the universe from my attacks with blessings like Insensitivity to Pain, Transfer, Regeneration, and Superhuman Power.

The process was a hassle, so I resolved things with cerebral attribute magic whenever I could.

“Imagine it. You, swinging your sword without humanity, without thought. From the Suppression Force’s view, you’d be the perfect cleaner, right?”

“Damn it, this Suppression Force… what the hell is it?”

I couldn’t help but curse.

After a life spent in kitchens, cursing had become second nature.

“The Suppression Force is exactly what it sounds like—suppression. It has no morality or ethics. It just moves toward what it considers perfection.”

“After hearing this, I’m more convinced. Give up my humanity? Screw that.”

Yu Sein shrugged like she’d expected that.

“But if I go against the Suppression Force’s will, then what? There are no more false gods. The threat of demons is gone. What else could possibly show up now?”

“The end. Maybe it will come. Perhaps even in physical form.”

“The end of the world… in physical form?”

Yu Sein didn’t answer my question.

She merely murmured, as if chanting a spell:

“Ragnarokkr, may, Frashokereti.”

She glanced at the TV. Since I had interrupted her, her character had died and lay sprawled on the ground.

Over the body, a phrase in red taunted her.

[GAME OVER]

Yu Sein’s gaze was rough like sandpaper. Under that stare, the letters began to dissolve, one by one, from the corners.

***

At the Academy, there are certain unspoken rules that everyone respects.

For example, even among nobles, if there is a difference of two or more ranks in hierarchy, the lower-ranked individual cannot initiate the conversation.

An archaic rule, without a doubt.

Despite the great efforts of both current and past directors, uprooting the deeply embedded feudal system in this world is not something that can be achieved in just ten years.

And if the person in question holds an even higher status—then, whether they’re a sage or a celestial archer, it’s difficult to interact with them casually.

There are only a handful of people in the entire world whose rank exceeds that of the Academy’s director.

For instance, in the world’s major powers that still maintain monarchies, only members of the royal family would qualify.

And even among them, the circle tightens—they must either be the current monarch or first in the line of succession.

It’s something that is theoretically possible, but in practice so unlikely that it barely seems real.

And yet…

“Director.”

A student who met all those seemingly impossible requirements appeared before the director of the Academy, Saki Ryozo.

Hair like pure molten gold, skin smooth as a freshly boiled egg, and movements brimming with elegance.

However, her eyes—sharp as axes—were so filled with hostility it seemed they might fall upon Saki Ryozo at any moment with deadly precision.

“I heard you personally sanctioned the Marquis of the British Empire.”

Princess Victoria of the Grand British Empire.

Nineteen years old. Final year, third term.

“I need to speak directly with the Heavenly Sword.”

She had deigned to visit the director’s office herself.