Hidden Code (3)
Shirone absorbed, almost instantly, the record that Gevin had been telling the lotus for forty thousand years.
The closer the end of Omega drew, the more restless he'd become, but there was no faster way to build omniscience.
'Because it's the entire history of the universe.'
Although his attention was on Gevin, the incoming data were literally every event across the world.
Even logs like "the 3,241st rabbit on a remote planet mated with the 8,790th rabbit and produced the 17,653rd rabbit" were being transmitted in full.
"I've decided."
Gevin's voice reached Shirone through the eleventh sense where Shirone's consciousness was concentrated.
His appearance hadn't changed since Shirone first met him, and the lotus that had been his nest had not withered.
"I must leave."
'So suddenly? Where are you going?'
Gevin stroked the lotus.
"Thank you for all this time, for listening to my long, tedious stories. I'm sorry too…."
'You mean the stories about humans. Humans are fascinating. Truly amazing. Actually… I want to be human, too.'
"I lost my wife and child."
Gevin looked up at the sky.
"I wondered what it even means to become a god. If you live forever and still lose someone else, maybe you won't be able to bear it."
'You suffered a lot. I know.'
"If there had been nothing from the start. If this world itself had never existed…."
For a moment, emptiness filled Gevin's eyes.
But the void lasted only an instant before affection flooded his gaze as he looked back down at the lotus.
"Still, I want to go out into the world."
'Why?'
Gevin didn't hear the lotus' voice, but by coincidence he answered as if he had.
"Because it continues. Because it must continue, endlessly."
Gevin rose from the lotus, leaped across a wide lake under the moon, and landed on solid ground.
"I feel like I told you too many stories. That must mean I suffered that much."
He could not communicate with the lotus, but he didn't believe a plant that had endured for forty thousand years would remain unchanged.
"If you're listening to me now, if you understand, then it means something of me has settled in you."
Gevin added after a moment of thought.
"It means it's connected to the outside."
'The outside?'
Gevin gave a wry smile.
"To be honest, I don't really know. Maybe this world should finally close its doors."
A world full of suffering.
"But even so, if it wants to continue…."
Gevin bowed his head in gratitude to the lotus for guarding their forty thousand years of companionship.
"Help the humans."
Humans.
Beings who could tilt toward either good or evil, toward duty or affection.
The lotus hesitated.
As Gevin turned and walked away, golden smoke rose from the petals and took human form. A girl exuding a fresh floral scent bowed to Gevin in his own slow, deliberate way.
'Farewell.'
With the birth of that flowerkin behind him, Gevin calmly strode through the remote forest.
'How much time has passed?'
He hadn't counted exact days, but it felt like roughly forty thousand years.
An unfathomable span for humans.
But for Gevin, who had lived through eons, it was no more than the time people take for lunch.
"Forty thousand years. Things must have changed a little." When he first came to this planet there had been primitive tribes, but they wouldn't have lasted long anyway.
A species' endurance is decided by the superiority of its systems, and building systems that can handle countless variables requires the price of experience.
The price of failure.
'Perhaps humans are gone.'
Maybe unimaginable monsters now ruled the world, or perhaps no one remained at all.
'Then I'll be alone again.'
Rather than sink into despair, Gevin's steps quickened at the thought of an exit.
'Don't get your hopes up. If I get excited for nothing, I might cry.'
He forced himself calm and climbed the last slope of the forest. What spread out before him was…
"Ha ha—"
A brilliant gold reflected off the sun.
'Of course.'
Centered around a towering castle, human civilization stretched to the horizon.
The 9 o'clock of Delusion. The group that had stepped out from the power to make imagination real stared hard at Kuan.
'Did he cut space?'
None of them had heard of a sword style that could do that.
'Nemesis.'
Sein looked at the ring on his middle finger.
'Did he slice his delusion with his own imagination?'
If that were the case, it made sense that everyone wearing Nemesis had been freed from the Hidden Code.
'I understand this much, but… how was it possible?'
The delusion Sein had suffered was not something one could endure even with the Iron Wheel Eye active.
'Kuan has feelings for Shiina. Not as strongly as before, but Armin's feelings too…'
Sein turned his gaze.
As expected, Armin was biting his lip, his face full of sorrow.
'The most regretful incident in life.' What could it be?
'Was it the moment he lost his sight? Or was it that he didn't confess to Shiina first?'
Armin muttered in a small voice.
"…I'm sorry."
From that, Sein thought it was the latter.
Or perhaps the two were connected.
If he hadn't lost his vision as a child, he might never have left Shiina.
So that apology meant—
'…that he ended up happy in that delusion after all.'
Who could blame him?
'Only Kuan deserves it.'
But when he turned his eyes, Kuan was in no state to hear Armin's small voice.
"Huff! Huff!"
Kuan was not so weak that a single sword swing would leave him breathless.
'What kind of delusion was that?'
The Siok code that interferes with the unconscious would have led Kuan to his happiest moment.
'Probably an uninjured body. And meeting the woman he loved most…'
Sein stopped his thoughts.
'I see.'
He realized why only Kuan could escape the 9 o'clock of Delusion.
'A happy reality is actually misfortune for him.'
Such a contradiction.
To protect Shiina, Kuan had destroyed his own body.
Because he loved her so much, in his position Shiina should not love someone like him.
"You bastard."
Kuan slowly rose and glared at the 9 o'clock of Delusion.
"You shouldn't have touched her."
For Kuan, the happiest ending became a horrific tragedy for Shiina—a cruel contradiction.
Kuan's eyes, having seen the worst ending where she smiled happily with him, were ghostly.
The 9 o'clock of Delusion, still irritated by its code being broken, relaxed and laughed.
"Ha ha! Her? I don't even know who I am. All delusions are made by you, not me."
Not even the Siok can read the waves of the heart.
'That's why Satan covets that woman's ability.'
The frequency of the gods.
"Don't expect a pretty death."
Kuan activated the extreme of asymmetry and vanished from everyone's perception, but the 4 o'clock of Sloth could still set specific conditions about things it didn't want to experience.
Kuan's gale-like slashes kept grazing past the Siok's side in a repeating pattern.
"Filthy rats…!"
A gaunt girl with dark circles hurled curses at Kuan.
"You unlucky bastard! May you be miserable for life!" She was the 10 o'clock of Vengeance.
'The Hidden Code?'
Something unpleasant was about to happen.
Someone among the Siok spat, and that saliva—moving in a strangely deliberate way—hit Kuan's eyes.
"Gah!"
'So they'll somehow make him miserable. It's definitely a cheat, but it's only spit…'
The process by which misfortune occurs follows Law.
'It's not particularly threatening. But when someone falls into a delusion, the other Hours support the 9 o'clock.'
That meant Hidden Codes could combine.
'The 2 o'clock of Defiance wins against all kinds of probability. If combined with this…'
A terrible misfortune could strike.
"Lilia! Support Kuan!"
She didn't reply, but Lilia was already pouring everything she had into supporting him.
'No. The upper bound of the Law has been exposed.' If they couldn't offer more than they'd already experienced, they couldn't counter the 4 o'clock of Sloth's cheat.
A jolly, pot-bellied man with a warm smile shouted.
"Hohoho! It's over now!"
The 11 o'clock of Apex.
"Here's a proposal. If you leave just one alive, I'll guarantee the others' lives."
What they wanted was Meirei.
"However—"
The 11 o'clock of Apex licked its lips.
"The one left must play with me."
Sein waited for a mental wave.
'Hidden Code.'
Desire has no limits.
You needn't sleep or you can sleep as much as you like; no amount of beef will fill you; even indulging in sexual pleasure forever will not exhaust your vigor.
'What on earth are these…'
Sein had no intention of bargaining with the Siok, but hearing "Hidden Code" made his hair stand on end.
Meirei sent the final wave.
'The 12 o'clock of Nihility.'
An older man with deep wrinkles and a stubbornly closed mouth.
'The Hidden Code?' It resets every phenomenon created by the Siok.
'It's not liberation.'
If you torture endlessly and grow bored, you reset and enjoy it from the beginning again.
'…Now I understand.'
After identifying the Hidden Codes of the Siok as a whole, Sein was certain.
'A time of 0.666 seconds outside the Law. In other words, the incident itself disappears—absurd phenomenon O…'
All twelve cheats combined and realized.
'Knowing doesn't change anything, but one thing is clear.'
'Ha-vitz.'
Where Sein looked, Havitz sat with dilated pupils, sniffling.
"I want to cut off a finger. I want to eat intestines. I want to hear screams. I want to lick eyeballs."
'So that was it.'
Disgust clouded Sein's eyes.
'Twelve kinds of cheats. A person living in this world with such authority—his brain, his mind… there's no way he's sane.'
Havitz said,
"Shall we try? Start with fingers." When Havitz activated Vanishing, the battle finally reached its peak.
As Sein, Armin, and Meirei responded to Havitz's ability, Eden spread a defensive barrier.
'I must hold on.'
When Lilia amplified the Law, Kuan moved in bewildering patterns.
The 5 o'clock of Prejudice shouted.
"Don't trust that examiner! He steals women's underwear! He probably stole yours too!"
Eden shook his head.
"Don't be ridiculous! Kuan is not that kind of person!"
The 3 o'clock of Dogmatism retorted.
"Look at his face! Look at his physical condition! The conclusion is that he's a pervert!"
Lilia struggled desperately, but her mind was already filled with huge suspicions.
'So that's why my underwear…'
Meirei abandoned tracking Havitz and broadcast Kuan's heart to everyone.
"Ugh!"
Faces reddened when the truth came out, but there was no time to tend to those feelings.
'No. It can't be.' Kuan's fury was about to explode, but the colder his head became, the more he restrained himself.
'I can't pierce the Siok with my movements.'
He could still perceive Havitz's actions via the gods' frequency, but that came with a grave drawback.
'If Havitz explodes with evil intent again…'
Eden wouldn't hold.
If the shield fell, the survivors would be nothing but offerings to the Siok.
In the end, Havitz would get what he wanted.
Meirei knew that.
- Kuan, a particular segment of the wave is strengthening. Should we pull back for now?
- No. I'll handle it. Don't let Havitz get away with this. One chance…?
At that moment Eden's barrier blocked the surge, and a fierce malice took root in Havitz's heart.
"Kyaaa!"
A scream tore from Eden's throat and the Absolute Barrier vanished.
'Now!'
Kuan moved.
Havitz's heart was truly horrific, but because it was hatred directed at Eden, it was still within endurance.
'Kill!'
As Havitz raised his sword to strike Eden, Kuan's body surged in behind him.
"It won't work!"
The 4 o'clock of Sloth activated its Hidden Code, and at the same time Kuan raised the sword in his left hand.
'Transcend.'
The moment he turned the blade on himself, he drove it deep into his right eye.
A grotesque, clownish, ultra-gory act.
Around Kuan, one side of the world surged dramatically upward, and the perceptions of the Siok and Havitz slid downhill.
'Missed it.'
Siok's heart dropped.
Still, they saw Havitz—unaware and still swinging his sword at Eden.
"O Satan!"
Siok screamed as if his throat were being torn out.
All the Laws were swept away by that immense tilt, and behind the wickedly laughing Havitz….
"Die."
Kuan's sword traced a horizontal flash of light.
"Aaah—"
Dozens of startled gazes detached from their bodies and shot through the air, following Havitz's neck as it rose into the sky.