Chapter 16

It was, an infinite darkness.

No matter how far one went, there was no end

No matter how long one waited, there was no dawn.

There was one spot, where there was light.

A throne that floated within the darkness──Only there.

A dark clump that had the shape of a person sat on that throne.

It’s shining red eyes, they asserted that it wasn’t just some darkness or a type of shadow.

Then again, it wasn’t like that was its true form.

But, it wasn’t like it had a true form.

It became like this after abdicating its right and responsibility to establish its form. That was all.

That thing that had abdicated even its name……It was something called the “Demon God”.

Demon God.

The summit of all demons.

The Creator of all demons.

The enemy of all good.

The enemy of all evil.

The tolerator of all good.

The tolerator of all evil.

The one who affirms all contradictions.

The one who transcends all logic.

In this place where the past and the future mixed together, the Demon God danced happily.

「Ahaha……AHAHAH, HAHAHA!」

A smiling face appropriate of that little girl form.

A sweet voice appropriate of that little girl form.

She spun around.

*tan, tan* She walked with light steps.

「The best, really the best! You are the best, Vermudol!」

Clad in a sweetness that would make all that saw her smile, and clad in a madness that would make all that saw her break, the Demon God danced.

「I didn’t think that you would wish for the Hero! Fufufu, you are a child that does the absurd!」

Being the Demon King, Vermudol had the power to create Mazoku.

However, the creation of the Hero surpassed that sphere of action.

The Hero was something outside of the normal way of things.

They were not born naturally, and would always appear with some sort of reason as the cause.

They would either be some sort of mutation, or maybe be some sort of element from another world.

Containing the element of being from another world, Vermudol only possessed the 「key」.

However, he was unable to create the Hero with just that.

「Unbelievable, unbelievable! To think that he would move my heart! I reflexively lent him my strength!」

Smiling.

Sneering.

The Demon God laughed.

The Demon God’s steps resounded in the soundless space.

「But you know, Vermudol. Remfilia’s stupid Goddess, unlike me, she isn’t gentle, you know?」

The Demon God danced a dance that had no definite beginning or end.

「Fufufu……Ahh, how fun. I wonder how long it’s been since I’ve had this much fun?」

There was no one to answer those words.

Everything lost its meaning, within this space.

Within that infinite darkness.

The Demon God, she looked somewhere that wasn’t here.

It was a place that wasn’t here.

It was a time that wasn’t now.

What those eyes percieved, was a single young man that lived in the world that Vermudol was once in──Oozora Yuuki.

In a dazzling place, Oozora Yuuki opened his eyes.

He remembered as far back as having rushed out in front of a truck when he tried to save a girl.

The memories after that weren’t definite, but he was relieved when it seemed that he was alive.

「No, you have already died.」

The one that told Yuuki that was a mysterious voice that would relieve all those that heard it.

Maybe it was because of that.

Yuuki accepted the fact that he had died without any sense of discomfort.

「I see……So I’ve, died.」

「Yes, however……The brilliance of your life……That beauty, I know of it.」

It was not a meaningless death, is what the voice said.

The owner of the voice gently touched Yuuki’s head, who was sitting down like he was in gym class.

Having beautiful golden hair and eyes blue like the deep ocean. What covered their magnificent body was a silver gown that emitted a radiance of purity. A woman that expressed a smile that seemed like it was the embodiment of all of the love in the world──She was the Goddess that watched over Remfilia.

The Guardian Deity Philia.

The Goddess that was called such made a single proposition to Yuuki.

「Would you like to try walking a new life in this world?」

That was a contract for reincarnation.

A ceremony of protection for the sake of birthing a new Hero in Remfilia.

The Goddess Philia nodded at the answer that was spoken from Yuuki’s mouth.

A place that wasn’t here.

A time that wasn’t from here.

All while not realizing that the Demon God was peering into that scene from the world of the past.

「Fufufu……Hey, hey, Vermudol! It would seem that the Human side’s Hero is close to being birthed, you know? What’ll you do, I wonder what you will do!」

The Demon God danced.

She knew that her voice wouldn’t reach Vermudol.

However, she had no intention for it to reach him.

The Demon God danced.

With a smile like that of a child eagerly waiting for the continuation of a picture book.

「Ah, wait a second?」

Suddenly, the Demon God stopped dancing.

She put her index finger on her chin, and displayed a lovely pondering behavior.

「Come to think of it, there shouldn’t have been anything for him to be searching for in the Dark Continent……」

Going *U~n*, the Demon God displayed an appearance of her worrying over something.

It’s because I was doing nothing but assisting with the Hero matter……is what she muttered.

「Well, whatever. This much will be material worth watching.」

When she said that and convinced herself, the Demon God snapped her fingers.

As for what had happened with that, only the Demon God knows.