New Humanity (4)
"I'm back."
Bardvelve carefully set the unconscious Borbor down in front of Piri.
"Yay, meat."
The girl examining Borbor's body had eyes as black as obsidian, and a tiny light flickered up.
'Piri's eyes.'
Bardvelve trembled.
'Her gaze doesn't count as an act of observation. So it's completely outside the Law.'
She could control quantum signals.
"Then, where shall we start eating?"
Just as Piri reached to tear off Borbor's arm, the inner room's door slammed open.
"Lady Piri."
The locust people were crying.
"It's outrageous. That woman slaughtered our comrades. Outrageous. Please—give us a chance to take revenge."
Piri, who had been watching the locust people and Borbor in turn, readily consented.
"All right, take him." No matter how exceptional a human was, they were still food.
"We are the New Humanity. We're not like humans who kill each other over food."
"Thank you! Thank you!"
As the locust people dragged Borbor away, Bardvelve awkwardly shrugged.
"I thought you'd like that."
"We should know how to share. Humans have eaten and dominated everything on this planet for so long. Now it's our turn to make humans our livestock."
To the New Humanity, humans were nothing more than that.
"Kraaa!"
A scream from outside made Bardvelve move to the window and scan the city walls.
"I'll bring back something better."
By the time the breeze swept through the inner room, there was no trace left of the locust body.
"Krrr. Krrr."
Watching Shirone as a haze of light rose like heat shimmer, Tanzura trembled.
'Is this Yahweh's power?'
It was a Hand of God strike that annihilated over three hundred locust people.
'Seeing all things as a single form. It's the pinnacle of enlightenment, but…'
White Dragon Asraiker said, "Don't be so surprised. The Messiah is the one who will save humanity. Being on another level is only natural."
Tanzura fanned herself.
"Hmph. I'm hardly surprised. I was merely confirming the Five Great Saints' strength with a generous eye."
Asraiker's extravagant praise made him uneasy; he couldn't bring himself to look at her.
"Locusts…"
Shirone murmured with a grave expression, and the dragon-general Gaitan stepped forward.
"Is something the matter?"
"Swarms of locusts from the east are an omen of disaster. They ruin the grain. So this mutated form isn't a coincidence. It's a message to humanity."
"That's one way to read it. Still, they don't look especially threatening."
"The problem is that the mutation is controlled."
That was the key.
"Hexa can change the Law, but it can't control mutations. Humans have minds. Their quantum signals collide and produce intermediate values."
They would mutate into countless forms according to each individual's nature.
Asraiker stepped forward. "Are we facing an enemy that can perfectly control the human mind? That's impossible. There's no way to observe an electron's position and velocity at the same time."
Gaitan added, "The mind is a quantum signal. The trajectory of a thrown stone is already fixed by the Law, but what a person will feel one second from now exists only as probability. Even if you hand bread to someone starving, you can't guarantee they'll eat it one hundred percent of the time."
Shirone was still deep in thought. "The mind's indeterminacy is expressed by quantum signals, and therefore humans define the world. If there's an entity that can deny this fact…"
Gaitan fell silent at that chilling implication.
'The outside world.'
The only phase in which an electron's position and velocity could be simultaneously observed would be outside the universe.
'And that means… even the human mind might be measurable out there.'
"Messiah."
"I know."
Shirone finished his thought. "Whether we are minds or programs doesn't change anything. Minds make mistakes, and programs have bugs."
The Miracle Stream shimmered and transformed into a colossal Hand of God.
"How about it, Tanzura?"
Tanzura stopped fanning and asked, "Hm? About what?"
"The mutation that felt the Otherworld. Do you think we can subdue that mutant with the Hand of God?"
After a moment, she answered, "…Probably not."
The two apostles showed displeasure, but Shirone simply nodded.
"I think I have the gist. Orders from here on: Tanzura, report to the Ivory Tower. Gaitan and White Dragon, go rescue Borbor."
"But we can't leave the Messiah—"
"The difficult part is for you. Borbor's mental fluidity is a weapon humanity needs. We can't sacrifice him now. Use any means necessary to bring him back alive."
As the two apostles looked uneasy, a massive form thudded down from the sky.
Tanzura froze at the familiar locust silhouette.
"I am Bardvelve."
"…I'll go first."
Asraiker and Gaitan slammed off the ground and shot toward the sky, vanishing into the distance.
Watching them go, Bardvelve turned his gaze back to Tanzura.
"You were that one from earlier. You brought a stronger human, huh? Letting him go before was the right choice."
His pride badly wounded, there was no time for self-pity.
"Grrk!"
As Tanzura dashed away, Bardvelve's vocal organ trembled. "Kekeke! I knew it. But I hate letting something go twice."
Without warning, Bardvelve vanished and reappeared behind Tanzura like an afterimage.
'I could kill and take him.' As the locust's claw lunged for Tanzura's nape, a massive force struck from the side.
"Huh?"
When he came to, he was surrounded by light and his consciousness was thrown into dissonance.
Ka-whrrr!
Bardvelve, having torn through all the buildings in the northern quarter and been flung outward, rolled clumsily across the ground.
He kept his face buried in the cold earth for a long time, then turned his head and asked, "Who are you?"
Shirone was walking toward him.
"I should be asking. What kind of being are you? Why are you in this world?"
He didn't want to talk about Piri.
"Are you the king of humans?"
Bardvelve planted his limbs on the ground and straightened his back; he looked every inch a locust.
"Kekeke. Perfect. I can show our king the finest flavor."
Before he finished speaking, Bardvelve leapt and slashed at Shirone with his claws.
Quantum motion activated.
"Ugh!"
All of Shirone's probabilities linked to the locust's claw, and hundreds of shockwaves struck per second.
'As expected, this one is…'
Shirone realized before a force that breached the Miracle Stream's defenses.
'Different.'
A dissonance, as if a piece had been cut from one painting and pasted into a completely different one.
'This being wasn't formed from this world's cosmic constants. Its signal is absolutely foreign.'
When the universe was born, the total amount of energy was effectively fixed.
In other words, the universe's mathematical limits—the bounds of physical quantities—are set.
'If an outside world exists, our universe is bounded by a rational-number barrier.'
For example, if the maximum explosion power or top speed of the universe were fixed at a value of ninety-nine—
'No phenomenon can exceed ninety-nine. If something does, it becomes an error and the system will correct the world.'
But Bardvelve seemed to skirt that limit.
The total magnitude might be similar, but certain aspects overwhelmed Shirone.
'Especially its time-sensing ability.'
A temporal perception that pierced even the quantum signals of Shirone's intuition.
'Dangerous.'
Seeing it as an early-stage form made the threat feel even more acute, so Shirone increased his power.
"Kiiii!"
The Hand of God slammed into the ground, and Bardvelve hunched over, clutching his face.
'Amazing.'
Even livestock at this level deserved applause.
'No. We are the rulers.'
Reminding himself of the New Humanity's philosophy, Bardvelve moved faster and attacked.
Light flashed across the city in every direction, and tiled roofs vaporized from the heat.
'Here.'
Bardvelve broke through that barrier and threw his fist at Shirone.
A mushroom cloud rose.
In a clean expanse hundreds of meters across, Shirone drew a deep breath.
"Hoooh!"
Bardvelve's shoulders trembled.
'Did I stop it?'
A physically impossible occurrence.
'Could it be like Lady Piri? No way. Livestock can't have that kind of power…'
The Hand of God—the 'Hand' technique.
If Bardvelve was certain of something, Shirone couldn't hide his mind.
"What childish tricks!"
As Bardvelve raised his other hand, a piercing sound split the air from beyond the sky.
A sword of white light drove cleanly into the locust's flank.
"Kraaa!"
Shirone's eyes widened.
What is this—?
The Sermon Gate.
Screaming, Bardvelve was flung dozens of meters back, trembling and convulsing.
"It hurts! What is this?!"
A moment later, a man who had fallen from far above the heavens landed beside Shirone.
"Nane."
"You're hard at work again today, Shirone."
They weren't on friendly terms, so Shirone asked guardedly, "Why are you here all of a sudden?"
"That." Nane pointed at the locust humanoids. "I've been watching from the lunar surface, and things felt off. I have matters to discuss with you."
"Discuss?"
"The outside world. Because of your meddling, the situation's become much more complicated."
Shirone frowned. "That's your angle. If you'd thought differently from the start, none of this would've happened."
"You insignificant livestock!"
Bardvelve trembled and shouted, "How dare you threaten the future of the New Humanity! I'll tear you apart! I'll chew you to bits!"
Their shouting cut off.
"I withdraw my offer to present him alive to Lady Piri! Instead, I'll give him pain! Unimaginable pain! The worst a living being can feel…!"
"Shut up."
When the two turned their heads at the same time, Bardvelve's roar suddenly died.
"First, deal with this."
"All right."
Shirone turned and Nane followed, walking slowly.
'W-what are those things?'
Bardvelve involuntarily stepped back.
'Me, feeling fear at the hands of livestock? No, that can't be.'
Still, his legs wouldn't move.
'What on earth are they?' Yahweh's Hand of God split the sky, and the Buddha's sermon poured down like a storm.
"Kiaaaa!"
He had been born to be a king.
And at this moment, Bardvelve, for the first time, regretted choosing life.
"No, no!"
A flash detonated, and that which should not have existed in this world reverted to nothingness.
Continued in the next volume.