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“The decisive moment is coming.”

I watched the four battles approach their conclusions and spoke to the Goddess (Dina).

The Earth Ouroboros and Heavenly Ouroboros had died. The Fire Ouroboros was already half-dead, so there was no way Benet and the others would lose. At this point, even Benet alone would have won without any problems. On the other hand, the Wood Ouroboros had to deal with both Pollux and Orm at the same time. It was only a matter of time before Aries and the others headed over there and helped them achieve victory.

However, the Goddess (Dina) still maintained a casual expression. That was natural…since the most important existence was still unharmed over here. No, even if I had defeated Dina, she would still be just as casual. After all, this entire world was just a game. If she lost, she might be disappointed. If she started sulking, she might never play it again. That was all there was to it.

No matter how hurt the game character was, the player still wouldn’t receive a scar in real life. That was why I needed to destroy this universe (game) to be on par with her. If I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t be able to fight her. I wouldn’t even be able to meet her face to face.

Naturally, I couldn’t afford to lose to her right here. After all, I haven’t even managed to reach the same battlefield as Alovenus yet.

“What a bunch of useless guys. However, your steady advance is ending here. No matter how strong you are, you can’t defeat me.”

“Not quite. That’s Dina’s body. You yourself aren’t even on this battlefield yet.”

“I see. That’s true. However…For someone like you, this is more than enough.”

As she spoke, the pressure released by the Goddess (Dina) increased.

—She’s coming!

I could feel the mana from beyond this star ebbing away. It wasn’t something inferior like Midgard’s mana. She was collecting the mana that made up the universe itself. Yes, the universe itself was her arcane magic. Therefore, the amount of mana that she had access to was infinite.

“Now, come forth. You, the ruler of the sky, the thunder of destruction that shattered the stars…Ceraunus¹!”

The sky parted and lightning descended. At our level, I would say that a lightning strike was just child’s play…but naturally, this wasn’t ordinary lightning. There was no way to know how much voltage was in the current, but there was no doubt that it reached an astronomically impossible value. As she had said, it could incinerate even stars. It was evident there was enough power to erase them.

I raised my hand over my head and deployed a shield to block the lightning. It was an insulator that created a layer of air which did not conduct electricity. Naturally, it was immediately destroyed. This wasn’t something that could be defended against using rubber, pure water, or a layer of air.

Physical truths, rationale, common sense, reasoning, theories, and laws…were all sadly invalid. They were completely meaningless. However, if the other side was pushing forward with raw power, I would just have to reciprocate in kind. I raised the output of the shield to an irrational level, blocking the lightning that ignored rationality.

The lightning scattered light across the sky. Despite a reduction of the number of stars shining in the sky, Midgard itself was still extant.

“Cut her down, Winter of Swords!”

This time, I went on the offensive. This was completely different from the half-actualized Winter of Swords that I had previously used against Benet. It was a full-scale skill activation.

Countless blades sprang up at the feet of the Goddess (Dina), penetrating the sky above. The Goddess (Dina) jumped further away with a smile, while I moved my arm to pursue her. The blades moved and cornered the Goddess (Dina) once again.

However, she slipped through the cage of blades, jumping higher up without suffering any wounds. I jumped after her as she escaped, facing her in mid-air.

“You, incarnate of destruction, the one with a thousand names, the ultimate being that will destroy all things…Mahakala²!”

With the Goddess (Dina) as the center, flames scattered in all directions. I had a premonition of absolute death. Even though it might have seemed somewhat timid, I was forced to retreat. But it soon became obvious that my premonition was right.

The blades that I had transmuted were destroyed without exception, disintegrating into charcoal. It was obvious that this wasn’t just normal heat.

“Absolute destruction, huh?”

“No, it’s instant death for both living and nonliving things.”

Hearing the words of the Goddess (Dina), I muttered, “I see.”

It would most likely penetrate any resistance as well. What a horrifying skill…if one was actually struck by it. However, the actual effect aside, the flames were actually not a big deal. At least, it was fairly mild when compared to the heat of the Sun…It was a weak flame that could be snuffed by blowing at it.

I lightly punched forward and snuffed out the flames using the resulting wind pressure. Then, I flew right in front of the Goddess (Dina).

“Aldebaran!”

My fist struck the Goddess (Dina) in the belly and blew her away.

Sorry, Dina. I’ll heal you later, so please forgive me.

If I had used this on Pollux back then, it would have restored her consciousness. Aldebaran could destroy and nullify all powers.

However, the Goddess…was still possessing Dina. Well, that was natural, since the Goddess wasn’t controlling Dina using a skill. She was merely controlling someone who had originally been created to be her avatar. There wasn’t any power at work here.

Based on what I had heard from Dina, the Goddess had to use a skill to possess her. But it wasn’t an ongoing effect. Once it was used, the skill wasn’t considered to still be active.

“It’s useless,” the Goddess (Dina) mocked me and used another skill.

“You, queen of the underworld, divine progenitor of the gods, come forth. Izanami!”

At the command of the Goddess (Dina), the surrounding mana began to coalesce into the shapes of people. They took the forms/appearance of Japanese-styled men and women holding weapons, and gave off a sense of being rather formidable. They promptly surrounded me.

How lukewarm. What is this? Are they asking to be beaten up?

She should have known by now that this amount of enemies wouldn’t be enough to deal with me. In that case, let me clean this up with a skill. The divine gatekeeper would eliminate those who weren’t fit to be in this battlefield…by using the Selection Scales.

“Brachium!”

A destructive light swirled around me, turning the manifesting people back into dust. Brachium was a skill with a fixed damage value, and my current damage value was 999,999,999…which was almost a billion.

Caught up in the attack, the Goddess (Dina) received enormous damage. The surrounding area was completely cleared away. Even then, this much damage was merely one-thousandth of her HP. It might not be my place to say this, but her status was truly ridiculous.

“The first was from Greek mythology, then followed by something from Indian mythology. This time, it’s Japanese mythology? You really are shameless. All of them are taken from myths from the other world.”

“Oh, yes. Now that I think about it, you’d know about them, wouldn’t you? And you’re right. The world over there is full of stories, and they’re all so interesting. I’m amazed by the people’s creative freedom.”

The Goddess (Dina) smiled as she spread out her hands. She was like a kid who was talking about a toy that she was proud of. I got a glimpse of her innocence tainted by insanity.

“So which mythology would you like to experience next? Egyptian mythology, Chinese mythology, Babylonian mythology, Norse mythology, or whatever else you’d like. Pick whatever you want, I don’t mind. Or do you prefer the gods from comics and novels instead of mythologies?”

“Oh my, that’s quite a big proposition. So you’re suggesting that if you feel like it, you can use all of the fantastic abilities from the myths and stories of the other world?”

“I wouldn’t say everything, but I can use whatever people can imagine.”

That reply from the Goddess (Dina) answered one of the questions that I had been pondering about. Monkey see, monkey do…Furthermore, the forms of the gods who had been born earlier were rather ambiguous. There was no doubt about it. She…

“You cannot use your power to create life again, right?”

When I confidently asked my question, the smug look on the Goddess (Dina) froze. Her reaction suggested that I had said something that shouldn’t have been said.

“That’s the limitation of imitating things like a monkey. It’s too obvious and easy to know what you cannot do. This world itself is a distorted product made by merging various myths from the other world. This is also true for the native creatures. There’s nothing truly original here. Although there are many creatures that have undergone their own evolutions and mutations, their roots can still be traced back to creatures from Earth.”

For example, there were dog-like magical beasts and cat-like creatures. There were reptilian demihumans and insectoid monsters. There were people who lived like the fish in the sea and people like us who had bird-like features.

“Somewhat alike”, “similar”, “look-alike”…All living things in this world could be described using those terms. However, one wouldn’t say that a dog was like a dog or a cat was like a cat. This was because they were the original to begin with. A biologist who knew all living creatures on Earth would not think that there were any truly unknown creatures in this world, because everything here was simply a pirated copy.

“You can do everything that people can imagine? That’s wrong. You can only do what people can imagine. You don’t have the power to create what is truly unknown.”

All the roots of Midgard originated from Earth. Perhaps she actually had the power to produce the unknown, but she simply didn’t have the imagination. Because all of her ideas originated from Earth, there would always be some parts that resembled what was found on Earth.

All these meant only one thing. I couldn’t be certain, but my intuition shouted that my inference was correct. In the first place, it was weird that she could not create life despite claiming to be the goddess of creation or the goddess who created the world.

“Alovenus, you are not the deity who created the world. Before you became a goddess, the world already existed…Am I wrong?”

“…That’s an interesting thing to say. I see, I see. This development is not bad. The true deity of creation is the mastermind who’s manipulating the events from behind me…Hehe, is that what you want to say?”

“That’s not the case. Are you stupid?”

“Wha—!?”

The Goddess (Dina) attempted to confuse me with an impossible idea, but that was utterly pointless. Without a doubt, she was the true mastermind and the pinnacle existence of the world. There was nobody pulling the strings behind her nor anyone superior to her. At the same time, there was also no doubt that, other than Alovenus, there had existed another deity who had created the world.

The problem was that this deity probably no longer existed. I didn’t have any idea why something like that had happened nor did I have a way of verifying my theory. But there was one thing that I was sure of.

“Alovenus, you were probably someone just like us. But for some reason, you were brought here from your original world. And also, for some reason, you challenged the original deity and took its place.”

Yes, this was the only conclusion one could make at this point. The distorted world of Midgard and the creatures in it were a patchwork of myths. Everything from its civilization to its food culture was an imitation of the other world.

Above all else, there was also the fact that, despite doing whatever she wanted to whenever she wanted, Alovenus had left Earth alone up until now. It was as if Earth was an inviolable sanctuary or something. She hadn’t even noticed that Dina had been lurking there…She must have considered Earth to be a special world. Therefore, she wanted to use humans from the other world as the protagonists of her story. Consider why she would bring over a youth who might be unsuitable for battle and give that person preferential treatment.

Why? …It was easy to guess the reason.

“That’s right. You are a human from Earth, Alovenus. You are neither omnipotent nor omniscient. You are not a god. You are just a third-rate scriptwriter who replaced the original deity. This is your true identity.”

She must surely be as close to immortality as possible. There’s no doubt that she could live agelessly for nearly forever. Her power was so overwhelming that she could destroy this universe.

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed fitting to consider her a deity. At least, she was powerful enough to be considered one. But her origin was no different from us. Despite being a deity, she was too human and had too many faults.

“………”

After I revealed her true identity, there was a momentary void in the heart of the Goddess (Dina). She probably didn’t expect me to hit the bull’s eye. It was no wonder, since I was someone who had been completely born and raised in Midgard. I should never have gained knowledge of the other world, so I should never have been able to reach the truth.

After being stunned for a while, she smiled dryly.

“Ha, hahaha…Hahahaha…How long has it been since someone called me a human? It must have been at least several hundred million years. I can’t remember clearly anymore…It sounds rather nostalgic. Certainly, I had been called one in the past. …How long ago was that? I can’t even remember it myself.”

As she said this, the Goddess (Dina) stopped smiling and looked at me. Unlike before, she no longer looked like she was just playing a game. For the first time ever, she finally recognized me as an enemy.

“The game ends here. You have gone a bit too far into territory that you should not be in. …It’s time for the curtains to be lowered by the hands of the protagonist (hero).”

The Goddess (Dina) moved her arm. The mana which made up the ouroboroses quickly flew over and coalesced in a single spot. Its destination was the Ark…No, it should be the young man within it, right?

Even the mana that had been gathered by Aigokeros was forcefully taken away. All of it was flowing into the young man Sei as experience points. Even the Fire Ouroboros and Wood Ouroboros had probably become experience points as well. Only Orm, who was under my control, barely escaped after some difficulties. But even then, the young man Sei should have enough power to challenge me.

“Ah. The curtains will indeed be lowered soon…by the hands of the hero.”

I responded by agreeing with the Goddess and looked at the Ark. Naturally, what I meant when I said the curtains would be lowered was completely different from what the Goddess had meant.

Alovenus, you still don’t understand. That young man is not the protagonist. He’s someone who seeks the right path even at the cost of stepping down from the seat of the protagonist.

The curtains would indeed be lowered soon. It would be the curtain call for a comedy.

And at that time, the fights behind the scenes that couldn’t be shown to the audience would begin.

Image from Volume 9 of the Light Novel.

1. Ceraunus (ケラウノス) is the anglicized form of Κεραυνός, which is Greek for “lightning”. Lightning, in the form of a thunderbolt, is the primary weapon of the Greek god Zeus. An individual, such as Ptolemy Ceraunus, may have been given the epithet for his impatient, impetuous, and destructive character.
2. Mahakala (マハーカーラ) is a manifestation of Shiva the Destroyer in Hinduism. The name means “great time or death”. On a related note, Sahasranama (Sanskrit, “a thousand names”) is a devotional literature that contains hymns relating to a thousand names of the gods, although they do not all necessarily refer to the same god.