“…!”

Astaroth Avasia awoke with a start, knocking over the inkpot on his desk.

“Mh…?”

He found himself more than a little disoriented. Had he dozed off in the middle of work? How embarrassing. What’s more, what kind of dream was that?

He prided himself on being a realist, yet that dream was anything but realistic. The king of demons and lover to the goddess of darkness? He? Even a child’s dreams would have more sense.

Was this proof that, in the end, he too wished for more than he had, just like any other? That he wished not to be a faceless priest, but instead something far more significant?

Surely not. Dreams were mere figments of the imagination. So what if he had happened to dream of something unusual? It meant nothing special. Everyone was bound to have an unrealistic dream a few times in their lives.

More importantly, he needed to hurry and clean up this ink, before the spill stained his desk. By the time he had grabbed a rag and wiped away the black liquid, the dream had already left his mind completely.

With that done, the next consideration was why he had fallen asleep, to begin with. Had he overworked himself lately? No, not in the slightest. He had taken on not a single sheet of paperwork more or fewer than normal.

Then, was he simply sleep-deprived? No, his sleep schedule was perfect. Nutritional imbalance? Another out—this was a convent, so his meals were all taken care of, and the nuns had always been particular about proper nutrition.

So, then, what was the cause?

Systematic elimination of all options left only one possibility.

Tedium.

He had gotten so bored of his trite, inconsequential life that he had simply fallen asleep.

This was, of course, a problem, in and of itself. As a priest, it was unlikely that outside influences would bring many new winds into his life. Of course, there were the faithful who would come to seek his counsel or the Goddess’s blessings, but it was hard to say they were plentiful, exactly.

For a moment, he ruffled his hair, lost in thought, but in the end, he decided that just getting back to work was the most proper course of action. His work, after all, was critical—as the head priest, he was essentially the leader of the community, so all official business needed to go through him.

It was not like he had done much to reach this point, either. At any given point in time, all he had done was do the work assigned to him, and that had landed him at the top of this small convent. He fundamentally lived life with the belief that doing as you’re told will land you in the place you belong, and the place fate had ordained for him, it seemed, was right here.

Astaroth Avasia was that kind of trite, boring man, and thus an equally trite and boring life of paperwork and sermons should have suited him perfectly.

However, just as he was getting set up to return to his paperwork, his attention was once more pulled away, this time by a knock on his door.

“Enter.”

He put down the quill he had only just picked up, directing his attention to the door as it creaked open.

An apprentice priest quietly snuck inside, careful not to disturb the door any more than necessary so as to prevent excess noise—Avasia made a mental note to have the hinges oiled sooner rather than later.

The young man opened his mouth to reveal with what business he had come here, but before he could, an odd sense of static assaulted Avasia’s mind, through which he saw something that was neither a premonition nor a memory, but distinctly similar to both of those concepts.

“Ahh… There is a visitor for me, yes?”

“As expected, sir head priest, you are already aware? Truly, you continue to amaze me every day!”

“ ‘Tis nothing special. Simply an ability you gain when you hold this post for a time.”

After clearing his throat, Avasia moved the papers on his desk to one side, put away the quill and ink and stood up.

“In that case, if you could guide me. She is waiting, no?”

“Certainly, sir… But did I ever mention the visitor was female?”

“Ahh… do not worry about it.”

Calm, unhurried strides carried Avasia through the halls of the convent, following after the apprentice priest.

Once the pair reached the main prayer hall, Avasia bade the young man halt by raising his hand and turned to the statue of the Goddess.

The Goddess, said to be like the most beautiful woman in the world. Eyes of rainbow and hair of snow, he had always thought she looked oddly artificial.

Even so, he lowered his head to the statue, offering a quick prayer, before letting the apprentice priest continue.

The visitor was… certainly, she was a sight to behold.

Avasia’s first thought was that she looked out of place. Like something that didn’t belong.

Yet moments later, he found himself wondering where that thought had even come from. Nothing about her was all that unusual, save for perhaps her purple hair and eyes.

“This is?” he asked the priest.

“Ah… Yes,” the priest responded, looking over one of the sheets of paper he was carrying. “Claimed name, Cyci. Claimed race, human. Claimed purpose, religious pilgrimage. Claimed identity, pilgrim.”

“Yes, yes, I can see most of that just by looking at her. I want to know why she was looking for me.”

“Ah…”

The priest leafed through his entire stack of documents, including proofs of identity, travel documents, interview documents, and several other types, but all he managed to come up with was…

“Refusal to disclaim.”

“Hmm? Then why have you permitted her to meet with me at all?”

“Why, I wonder…”

The priest couldn’t help but scratch at his head—this was no bluff, he appeared to be well and truly baffled.

“Ah…”

The purple-haired pilgrim opened her mouth and let her voice leak out. For some reason, that terribly out-of-place voice ringed a certain bell of reminiscence in Avasia’s head.

“As I thought, you are a wonderfully grand personage.”

“Hmm? What are you on about?”

Avasia’s cold black eyes stared at the pilgrim like he was staring straight through her, peering into her very soul. Refusal to allow a non-answer.

“Might I… know your name, sir?”

“Hmph. Is it not manners to introduce yourself, first?”

“Ah… yes, of course. I apologise. My name is Cyci. I am here for a religious pilgrimage, as this is said to be the place closest to the Goddess’s heart.”

“Astaroth Avasia. I have been entrusted with this convent. I do not know what you have heard, but the place you are looking for is likely a city several leagues due east. You are in the wrong location.”

For some reason, talking to this pilgrim was filling Avasia’s head with a sense of non-stop, staticky deja vu, akin to white noise sticking to his eardrums. Like he had talked to her before. Like he had had this exact conversation before.

“No… after seeing you, I am convinced. This was truly the right place.”

“I know not of what you speak. You will have to elaborate.” Avasia turned to the other priest. “Leave us.”

“Huh? B-but, sir…”

‘I couldn’t possibly leave you alone with such a strange woman’—he didn’t quite say it aloud, perhaps out of a semblance of respect for the pilgrim, but it was written all over his face.

“I would have you leave us. For all we know, this woman could be an assassin, yes… but are you implying I would not be able to defend myself?”

“That’s…”

“Or rather, you should rest. We must all do our jobs, and resting so that one has enough energy to do their job is an important part of that.”

For that was the sort of trite man Astaroth Avasia was, always had been, and always would be.

“Y-yes, Most Reverend Avasia…”

He was clearly more than a little reluctant, but even the apprentice priest knew of Avasia’s skill with darkness-attribute magic, the attribute said to be closest to the Goddess. Indeed, common sense dictated that any common person could pose no possible threat to him… but this pilgrim somehow seemed anything but common.

Yet at such direct orders, he had no choice but to leave, leaving Avasia and the pilgrim on their own.

“So then, pilgrim. What in the world were you talking about? I heard nothing but nonsense.”

“Ah… Yes. I am no fan of returning questions in response to questions, but even so, I must ask you—Lord Avasia, have you ever felt like you were constrained by the rules of the world?”

A moment of silence ruled the air, so thick one could cut it with a knife…

“What rubbish. Do you think me a child? I should not have heard you out. Leave.”

Indeed, the words she had spoken were similar to the kinds of things children would utter when they were fed up with the world the adults had created and wished to escape into juvenile fantasies.

Avasia had no problem with others having such fantasies, but on the other side of the same coin, he also felt no desire for them to involve him in that escapism.

“Then let me rephrase my question, Lord Avasia, the Black Guillotine. Have you ever felt like you were truly putting your full effort into anything?”

“... Where did you hear that name?”

The words came out more like a hiss or a growl than a sentence. The chill in his black eyes had transformed into a piercing glare without his own notice, but the pilgrim did not retreat.

“Pilgrims have their connections, Black Guillotine, executioner of the church’s special Execution Squad. O you, who has taken over a thousand lives with your own hands… please, answer my question.”

“Your questions are nothing but drivel. Go bother someone who will indulge in your fantasies. But before that, erase that name and everything related to it from your memories. It is not relevant. That is behind me now.”

The obnoxious sense of deja vu, which was akin to neither a memory nor a premonition, simply would not stop.

“Have you ever given anything your all, or have you simply drifted along, content to be whatever your environment wanted you to be?”

“Like I said-”

“Is that not why you became the Black Guillotine?”

Thump.

At once, her question caused his heart to leap into his throat.

Why had he become the Black Guillotine and executed so many people?

For the money? No, he had never had monetary problems.

A matter of faith, then? No, he was certainly a religious person, but he would rather reform a heretic than chop off their head.

Then, why?

Thump.

Considering the question filled him with primal dread.

Had he truly done it merely because he could?

His environment had judged him suitable, and thus he had taken up the role—was that really, truly all the justification he had needed?

Thump, thump.

Blood rushed through his entire body. To begin with, was he so fragile that he could be so affected by a single question?

That train of thought led him to a new question.

Just who was this girl?

She claimed to be merely a pilgrim, but there was no way that was the case. A pilgrim wouldn’t know such things.

Noise. Noise. Noise. His thoughts were blocked out by an aggressively encroaching sense of deja vu.

He had had this conversation before.

He knew how it ended.

He knew what it would lead to.

“Who… are you?” he managed.

The scenes this encounter would lead to.

The meeting with the Goddess.

Spending time together in secret.

Falling in love with Her.

Meeting the four elemental goddesses serving under the Goddess.

Learning Her name—that beautiful name, Entropy.

“I am Cyci. Merely Cyci. Just the one closest to the Goddess. A far more important question, Lord Avasia, is who are you? What is the purpose of your life, devoid of meaning, simply letting yourself be pulled by the flow?”

Thumpthumpthumpthump—

Reaching the end of his brief mortal lifespan. Her face, stained in sorrowful tears.

Her plan. Extraction of a part of Herself, to give to him to allow him to surpass humanity.

Cyci, in the background, smirking as she watched an outside influence snatch that part of the Goddess out of Her own hands.

The Goddess, clutching onto his lifeless body. Cyci, whispering in her pointed ear.

The extraction of his soul before it could return to the world.

“You are not merely meant to die here as a mortal man. I shall introduce you to a girl who you will be able to love more than anyone else in the world, for that is your role. To love her is your role, as he who stands opposite of this world’s law.”

The entrustment of his soul to another world. To a friend by the name of YHWH. Another world, where he would enjoy living again and again, in many eras, in many countries, without limit.

The simple act of sending over that one soul dug a tunnel so deep that it could later be reused to perform the exact opposite operation, many times over, giving birth to a new sort of life—Heroes.

From start to finish, it was all because of him.

“Yes, that’s the truth and the whole truth behind it all, Lord Avasia… Asty. Have you realised? That you were merely a pawn in my plan to bring this world to its knees?”

“Nay. Nay, ‘tis not true.”

He had remembered everything. That ‘dream’ was the real world, but so was this. This was no more than the distant past. Having realised such, the sensation of deja vu dissolved like snow before the sun.

“I was not merely a pawn in your plan. Certainly, everything went as you had accounted for, but that does not mean I was dancing according to your instructions. My love for her, my hatred for this world that condemned her, none of that was false in the slightest.”

“Hmm? And that being so, what will you do, Asty?”

“What will I do? Hmph. You ask another stupid question… Of course, what I will do has not changed at all. I shall create a world and offer it to her. And for that purpose alone…”

Once more, Faith awoke to his true form. His hair grew out, past his shoulders, down to his hips. His clothing changed. In his hand manifested the Demon Sword, breaking apart the illusion cast by the tunnel of memories in a single fell swoop, and exposing—

“I shall destroy this world and everything inside it! Let us begin, Cy!”

The all-consuming darkness burst out, ready to tear a hole in the omnipotent Throne and ravage the multiversal cosmos, revealing the true framework behind everything.

“Aah… After all, it has turned out like this.”

The system error in the foundation of the world made a smile as if lamenting her own mistake.

“Ngh…!”

The multicoloured prism upon which all reality was built finally woke up.

“Ggggghhh…!!!”

And the goddess of all-destroying light let out an infuriated shout.