Major Premise (2)
Miro, who had maintained a critical stance, couldn't hide her disappointment when she heard Arius speak.
"How could there be no way?"
"Human minds are exclusionary; they detest the idea of being forcibly invaded. That's why divers keep circling, clinging to familiar concepts as keywords. Even so, you can't avoid egoists. In the end it's impossible for one person to perfectly know another's mind. Psychic excavation is more tolerable because forgetting is a natural flow for humans. But engraving something onto the maternal psyche—that's exactly what Ikael did to Shirone. They'd go mad; they might even die from the shock. Usually divers shrug and say it's fine, but this time the situation is different."
"Then it's impossible from the start, isn't it? Even if we expand cognition with agape and transplant Ultima through Drimo, what if the subject simply won't accept it—"
"I've thought about that."
Shirone said.
"If someone resists adopting another's concept, make accepting it seem natural to them."
Most of them didn't understand, but Arius wore a grave expression.
"Hmm."
He found it plausible.
"You mean repeatedly exposing them to it to lower the threshold?"
When Shirone nodded, Miro glared down at Arius and spat.
"Explain."
"Nep."
Arius sat up for the first time and began to explain.
"Humans are creatures of adaptation. The more an experience repeats, the more we take it for granted. Like how even the most delicious food gets boring if you eat it every day. The reverse can be true as well."
Arius raised both index fingers.
"Let's call Shirone's Ultima system a kiss. Suppose the recipient has never kissed anyone in their life. If you implant the concept of a kiss, of course there'll be resistance—something never experienced is being defined in their head. But what if you implant the experience too—the memory that they've kissed before? Resistance then drops to less than half."
Miro gaped.
"So you're saying..."
"Yes. What Shirone means is to conceptualize the experience of the Ultima system itself. There's definite potential. Familiar concepts can be implanted. If you tried to implant a different memory of pedaling into someone who already knows how to ride a bicycle, there'd be some confusion, but ultimately they'd accept it as their own memory. In that sense, the mind's exclusivity is matched by a strong tendency to self‑assimilate."
"But this isn't a kiss," Miro said. "This is implanting a state no one in human history has reached."
Arius countered, "In the Ultima system the experience is unitary. Its base data assimilates whatever's attached to it. Once you can conceptualize it, the transplantation itself becomes easier. And don't talk lightly—Master still hasn't kissed anyone, have you?"
"That's—"
Miro glanced at Gaold and sighed when she found him lost in thought.
"All right. Then where do we get that experience? Even Shirone has never been integrated with someone else."
Minerva asked, "A four‑star resident saint brain. That one—he's a Gaia‑in, right?"
Shirone admitted it without hesitation.
"Yes. But he lost his Ultima. He won't help this time."
Shirone already knew via Omega what had happened between Adam and Eve.
Miro, exasperated, asked, "So what do we do? There's no way."
"No."
Shirone looked around the room.
"There's exactly one. Someone who already has a perfect Ultima system and doesn't need further integration."
"Is there such a being?"
Miro skimmed the people she knew like lightning. She tilted her head, then when the category extended beyond people she finally realized and opened her eyes wide.
"...Imir."
The hall stirred, and even Rian—who'd been meditating without participating—opened one eye.
"Yes. Imir. The only lifeform in the universe that has integrated ten billion Gaia‑ins."
No one spoke. Shirone turned to Luber and reached a conclusion.
"We go into Imir's maternal psyche through Drimo and excavate his Ultima system. Then we transplant it to all humanity. That will end the war."
"Hu hu. Huhuhuhu."
A laugh half tinged with madness echoed through the Grand Hall and drew every gaze.
Arius was shaking his shoulders like a man possessed.
"Heh heh… kekekeke."
Sein, another top mentalist, couldn't match Arius's zeal for excavation, so the room let him vent his emotions until he ran out.
"Hah."
The dog who'd been groveling psychologically under Miro finally lifted his chin like a human.
"So it comes to this in the end?"
He fumbled toward Miro with his blind eyes, raised his index and middle fingers, and said, "Master, may I have a cigarette?"
"Shut up and speak quickly."
"…Nep."
Arius licked his lips. "I've entered the maternal psyche called Yahweh—the one Shirone possesses—and I've even been inside my master Miro's maternal psyche."
Both had been approached with ill intent, but the authority they carried was palpable.
"It was impressive. Yes, impressive. But in the end it's still the mind of a single human. Not that Shirone's or Master's minds are shallow—just that they're individual. What I really want to say is... ten billion minds."
Unlike his trembling shoulders, Arius's mouth gleamed with ecstatic madness.
"And their integration. I can't even guess what kind of world that would produce. If you're serious—if you call this the only hope—let me be blunt: it's suicide. It's surrender without a fight."
Shirone smiled. "So you won't go?"
"We'll go."
Arius, who had resolved to give everything for Miro, felt the first real regret in the empty sockets he had ripped out.
"I'll go no matter what. But as the one leading this, I must warn you: we are not going to come back alive. I'll do my best, but remember that."
"All right. I'll join via simultaneous events too, but this is the Ultima project's single most critical problem—we need more collaborators. Anyone willing to—"
Before she finished, dozens of hands shot up across the Grand Hall.
No confirmation was necessary; Rian, Iruki and Nade, Amy and Tess—their eyes burned.
Nade stepped forward.
"Shirone, we're coming too. You know my stubbornness. I'm going, okay?"
Shirone smiled awkwardly. She was moved by her friends' resolve, but given the mission's difficulty, this team would be inadequate.
"Kids stay out."
Nade and Iruki glared, then turned away and slunk off like sulking children.
Miro exhaled an aura like the Thousand‑Armed Kannon and walked up to Shirone.
"How about me?"
She didn't need permission, but asking made team formation easier.
Shirone, who had been gauging the impenetrable barrier Miro radiated, nodded.
"Sufficient."
Even Miro's permission made Iruki, Nade, and Tess step back quietly.
Two people still refused to give up: Rian and Amy.
Amy said, "Shirone, I'll go. I've experienced Drimo and even acted there."
Amy had saved Shirone's life with her quick thinking. 'Amy is strong.' Her martial might—having conquered the realm of destruction—was beyond imagination, but Shirone hesitated.
"A little... very slightly ambiguous," he thought.
About that level of difficulty.
Shirone turned his gaze to the person he'd originally had most in mind.
"Gaold."
He'd expected Gaold to follow if Miro went, but Gaold was still lost in thought.
As if some invisible force answered Shirone's wish, people opened a path on either side, and Gaold walked through.
"Well? Not going?"
The answer Shirone expected didn't come.
"Have you really become useless? If you can't fight, just leave. Stop loitering in front of me."
Kangnan glared.
"You're harsh. You've never once hurt yourself for your own sake. It's all because of you."
"Is that so? Sorry. But what can I do? Seems there's nothing left here to break anymore, you foolish shut‑in."
Though the insult targeted Gaold, Kangnan's eyes reddened with embarrassment.
What made Miro treat Gaold so harshly?
"There's a condition."
As if not even noticing Miro and Kangnan, Gaold turned to Shirone.
"Say it."
"In exchange for me going, Miro stays. If you decide that, I'll tear apart Imir or whoever gets in the way."
Gaold's words came from the same cold analysis as Shirone's, but to Miro they felt like unbearable humiliation.
"You bastard!"
Miro lunged and, in a gesture that shocked everyone, swung a leg and struck Gaold's jaw.
'Gasp.'
Those watching realized in a blink that it had been a hallucination and they quickly blinked away the image.
Miro was breathing hard.
"...Just die."
She wanted to kick him for real, but the moment any crack opened in her mental seal her projection would break.
"Just die. Get out of my sight." Shirone began to understand, a little, why Miro bullied Gaold so fiercely.
At that moment Lupist entered.
"I'm Lupist, head of the Magic Association and overall director of the royal succession ceremony. Please follow me."
He spoke with stiff courtesy and looked to Pony.
"It's time to become king."
News that the succession ceremony would be held had reached even the fields on the outskirts of Bashka.
"You even go to things like this. People really do live a long time, don't they? Right, dear?"
Farmer Klein's wife eyed him with disbelief as he tied a butterfly tie to his threadbare shirt.
"Are you actually going? What would a farmer like you do at such a place?"
"We won the war. There are only a few families left who survived. Since the town was razed, I'll see if there's anything to make money from."
"If you had that kind of sense you wouldn't be living like this. Don't let them rip you off."
Klein scratched his cheek.
"Why have I been itching all over since last night? Is something wrong here?"
"The only strange thing is your face."
Just then, their son dashed out of the kitchen.
"Dad! Are you going into the city?" My beloved son.
"Hahaha! Yes! Today dad's going to go in and—"
The moment he threw his arms toward his son, a stabbing pain like a red spike jammed through his body.
"Waaaaa!"
The boy froze in shock. The wife put a hand on her collapsing husband's shoulder.
"Honey! What's wrong?"
"It hurts! Don't touch me! It hurts—!" He seemed about to lose his mind.
"Where does it hurt? Here? Here?"
"I don't know! I said I don't know! It's all... aaah!"
As if his sense of pain had become a hundred times sharper, even breathing felt like his airways were burning.
Farmer Klein became the first reported case of Emotion Sickness infection in the Bashka territory.