Chapter 230: The Heavenly Goldmine of Answers (Patreon)

She fell from that height and faceplanted into the grass with all the grace of a sack of potatoes, arms flailing uselessly.

That must have hurt, judging by the impact.

After all, whether one could actually be hurt here was entirely up to Lotte's whims. And speaking of Lotte… where the hell was she?!?

She had simply dumped her here and vanished without a trace. I had a guess why. I remembered when Alice intruded upon my dreamscape, when she'd glanced at Lotte and promptly combusted and exploded on the spot. Lotte had to rebuild her from scratch. Perhaps the same principle applied here. Entities from outside the dreamscape— or anything unconnected to me— might suffer an adverse existential reaction upon laying eyes on that gargantuan dragon-shaped "curse" lounging about.

I shrugged, manifested my wings, handed sleeping Belle to Alice who was a bit confused and flew down. The doppelganger followed close behind. She'd manifested wings of pitch black with a faint prismatic sheen, which were a stark contrast to my golden ones. They were rather ornate, adorned with what looked like molten chains and ruby clasps. I wondered what she must have looked like at the end of her thousand-year lifespan, after all the changes and evolutions she'd undergone. I knew that appearance must have been awe-inspiring and glorious. But that was mere idle curiosity.

The main attraction, however, was the one currently sprawled— or rather, now fallen— right in front of me.

She had long platinum hair, from which two ornate horns sprouted. As for her face, she averted it the moment we approached, but I'd glimpsed enough to know it was eerily perfect, sculpted to an almost unsettling degree. Inhumanely beautiful, to the point that the perfection bordered on alien.

She kept her face turned away, so I couldn't properly read her expression. I opened my mouth to speak, but she beat me to it.

"Well, I certainly wasn't expecting to meet you this way… Master. Well, Masters… I didn't expect both of you to be here. But it's rather fun to be surprised, isn't it? After all, it's no amusement when you already know everything. Master certainly knows how to keep things unpredictable and interesting."

Huh… did she just call me Master? I shot a glance at the doppelganger, who seemed thoroughly amused by the heavenly leviathan's reaction.

Well, I couldn't say I was entirely surprised. I'd had an inkling, though it depended on how aware she was of her own origins and whether she knew she'd been created by one of my past incarnations. Given what the stories said about her, it made sense.

"What else were you expecting?"

"Is that your question, Master?"

Hmm. So the rules about her answers having a price applied to me as well.

"Yes, that is my question."

"Ah, then thank you so much for answering that. Consider that the payment for your answer, Master. I apologize, I never ask for the answer first before giving one, but these circumstances are peculiar! Would you be so gracious as to forgive this insolent one?" she said, still having her back to me, though I could detect a hint of fluster in her tone.

I blinked a few times. Uh… whatever image I'd held of her, this cold mastermind pulling the strings, was shattering piece by piece.

"I, uh… yes?" I had no idea what to say, but that seemed to perk her up.

"Ahh, Master, then consider that the payment for the next question you were about to ask."

I was genuinely baffled at this point. I'd heard her questions were all about extracting the deepest, most embarrassing secrets from people, designed to make the asker squirm with caution. Yet here she was, practically handing out free answers.

Well, whatever.

"As for the answer to your question, I had something rather grand prepared for you once this whole facade was over. I was packing supplies for your next step, after all. Something tells me you've already deduced what's going to happen."

Ah. Well, she wasn't wrong. I knew what was going to happen here. And that was precisely the question I wanted to ask.

"Yes, as a matter of fact. That question is the whole reason you're here, after all. So tell me, oh great leviathan, how long would the water leviathan survive once she wins this trial and gets out?"

The heavenly leviathan was silent for a moment. But when she spoke, her voice was stripped of its usual stammer and shyness.

"Twelve seconds. Rounded up."

A chill ran down my spine at those words. There was a certain finality in her tone, like an absolute certainty I couldn't quite put my finger on. Normally, when someone makes a claim like that, you instinctively question it, measure it against your own doubts. But for some reason, suspicion didn't arise when I heard her voice. It was as if something deep within me simply knew she was incapable of fabrication or deceit.

"What about me, then? What would happen if I were to win the trial? How long would I survive?"

She fell silent once more, as if the very question pained her. But she forced herself to answer.

"Five seconds," she said, her voice rigid. "And for your question, Master, may I ask why you are posing such grim inquiries? Surely you cannot be considering that path. No, there is no way. No way at all. It will never work out that way. No waynowaynowayIwillnotloseyouagainnononononono—"

She was spiraling as her composure cracked like thin ice. For a moment, even I felt a phantom dread creep up my spine, but it vanished as quickly as it came, and she regained herself with visible effort.

"Because it matters to me," I answered, hoping she'd accept vague responses. But I couldn't ignore that glimpse of raw desperation. It wasn't hard to piece together: to her, I was the reincarnation of her creator, of a being long gone, yet one who had clearly left an indelible mark. The mere thought of losing me again had shattered her composure in an instant. I couldn't gauge the full depth of her bond with the Divine Dragon, but something achingly profound lingered there. Nor did I know how long she had waited for "me."

She seemed to accept my answer, nodding faintly. I still couldn't see her face. "Well, Master, for your next question, may I request something as payment?"

I nodded. "Go ahead."

"Please, never ask me such a question again. For that future will never come to pass. Never."

I stared at her back for a long moment before answering. "Alright." Then I steered the conversation back on course. I didn't want to dance around with her further, so I simply began recounting what I had pieced together.

"So, next one is a simple yes or no, though feel free to elaborate or correct as needed." She nodded, and I pressed on. I started with the water leviathan, how could someone like her have possibly known about it all? Based on what I knew of the trial and my own suspicions, I asked directly: was she the one who had set it all in motion? Was she the one who made the water leviathan realize the truth of this place, who told her of a way out? Was that true or not?

She seemed to shrug at the question. "It is indeed true, Master. But not quite the way you imagine. She was designed from the very start attuned to the concept of reflection, so she was always a curious little thing. So much so that one fateful day, she sought me out after feeling a certain existential dread about her purpose. I merely did what I always do. I never interfered directly in her growth or understanding."

"And she just happened to stumble upon such existential dread without any hand of yours in the process?"

She stiffened like a cat caught with cream, instantly alert. "Well, perhaps I nudged a few events to sow vague seeds of doubt, but nothing more, Master. As for your question, was my answer to your liking?"

This cunt.

Maybe she couldn't lie, but she was clearly adept at crafting convenient narratives from half-truths.

Ah, well. Time to shift to the present. I asked her this time why she had kidnapped all the other trial participants. If she wanted the water leviathan to win, she could have simply left them be. Her answer was that she was merely waiting for the right moment. Her question in return followed the same thematic pattern.

"For the question, Master, what was the last meal you had?"

Last meal, huh. I glanced at my doppelganger, who suddenly looked rather shifty. "I ate some tortured fish people. Not really I as in 'me' but I did taste it, so it counts. If not that, then some charred wraiths." I sighed, my annoyance flaring. "Also, could you please turn your face and talk to me directly instead of keeping your back turned?"

She seemed to shiver a bit, but appeared not to have it in her to decline my rather polite request.

She did turn her face, perfect sculpted and all, but instead of the pale complexion I'd glimpsed, I was met with flushed crimson. "A-ah, w-well, it's a-a bit harder to t-talk like this, but I-I'll try for you, Master." That was all the composure she had; she immediately ducked her head low. "I can't possibly look straight at you… would you grant me permission to keep my head lowered?"

I… was having a harder time fully understanding, even though I knew the reason why she was like this. I didn't want to force her into anything she didn't want, and I certainly didn't have time for therapy.

And well, she was a goldmine of answers. Earlier, I'd worried about what the supposed great heavenly leviathan would demand in return for her answers, never in my wildest dreams did I expect it to turn out like this.

For my next question, it was straightforward enough. Until now, I'd only asked about immediate matters or the distant past. But now it was time to test my hypothesis, about what it meant to lose the trial and survive afterward.

From what I knew, I couldn't escape through the usual exit this time. And this place was rooted in the spirit plane, so it was obvious what would happen once the trial concluded.

Once the trial concluded, I would have only one escape: jumping headlong into the spirit plane itself. I knew I could use my divinity to coat myself, resisting its innate effect, that tendency to reduce a physical self to scattered motes, but it would be a different, no less horrifying way to die.

I had already felt it from a distance when I finished Phase 1 of the Colosseum trial. The innate terror that gripped my physical self and instincts when the world crumbled and the spirit world gaped open. I had sworn I'd do anything but fall into that plane, for it felt that much terrorizing to my very existence.

I had jinxed it all once again it seemed. The very thing that filled me with such dread might now be my only option to survive what was coming.

I wished to know if that was the only path, and if so, how effective that divinity coating would be before I found a way back.

She had mentioned packing "supplies" for my "next step." Part of me hoped that wouldn't be the path I'd have to take but that was the hopeful part. The "anything that can go horribly wrong will go horribly wrong" part of me was about to be proven right once again.