66 – To Die or Not, That is the Question
{ Ahh – To die or not, that is truly the question. }
I sighed as I looked at the dot characters that appeared before my eyes.
“Looks like I really died.”
I looked around. The vast space seemed completely white, with no end in sight. The floor looked like it was made of clouds and was incredibly soft.
I was well aware of this place.
“A place like the afterlife.”
“The afterlife? The word ‘heaven’ suits it better, meow!”
The person who heard my thoughts in my head and then had a seizure was something like…a god?
“You’re treating me too casually, meow!”
I got up from the floor and looked at the winking god. A woman with short maid attire, wearing large cat paw gloves and black long hair, was striking a cute pose.
Above her head, black cat ears, the same color as her hair, twitched. There was a harness on her thighs, with a dagger or a gun hanging on the outside of her thigh. Probably a BB gun and a rubber knife.
“So…am I dead again?”
“It could be said that way, or it could not, meow!”
“Excuse me?”
“Well…! In short, I’m going to resurrect you, meow!”
“Can’t you drop the ‘meow’?”
“No! Meow!”
As she said that, she waved her large cat paw in the air and winked, making my fist clench. Why do I feel like hitting her every time I see her?
“hehehehe. Have you fallen for me, meow? Sorry, but it’s very difficult to connect with a god! Shall I call myself a hidden heroine?”
From her tone, appearance, and actions, I could tell. The god in front of me was the epitome of eccentricity.
“To think that such a person is a god. The end of the world indeed. The end.”
I sighed, remembering the first time I met that person.
“Heh, it seems like you have a lot of questions!”
“I haven’t asked anything?”
“I can’t help but wonder if suddenly becoming ‘possessed by a villain who dies miserably’ is happening to me!”
“You could have just said that without the ‘meow’!”
“Oh, meow!”
As if blinking as if they forgot, their eyes widened roundly, and they winked while twisting their body, causing my fist to tremble once again. The reason I didn’t want to hit them was because I felt like that god would even enjoy it, being a perverted god.
When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
I didn’t want to face a god like the abyss.
“Okay, just say what you want to say.”
Since they’re not going to listen to me anyway and only say what they want, I roughly waved my hand and said, ‘god’ chuckled and put their hand in the pocket of their maid skirt.
Even though the pocket was very small, a large cat-shaped glove slipped right in.
Thump.
With a sound like uncorking a bottle, they took out something round the size of an adult man’s head from the pocket. They tilted their head at the object that looked soft like slime.
“Ta-da! This is… no, this guy is the god of the world you’ve been possessed by! Meow!”
“Ah…?”
“hehehehe, heehee… heeeyaaah!”
The sound of a child’s crying spread loudly from the white lump-like thing. At the same time, a transparent liquid splashed down. It was assumed to be tears.
“Meow! It feels bad, meow!”
“Ugh…!”
Like throwing a ball, the god threw the round thing to the floor. The thing that seemed to be the god of a different world curled up on the floor and cried with tears streaming down.
“Boo hoo, boooo hoooo.”
“This guy kidnapped you because he wants to save his own world, meow!”
“Kid…napping…?”
As I responded with a dazed expression, the lump that was stuck to the floor shivered and slowly raised itself. More accurately, it rolled.
“Peek…hello?”
The white lump had chocolate ball-like eyes poking out and a small bird’s beak attached. It cautiously greeted me, resembling a giant crow doll.
“Yes…”
Reluctantly accepting the greeting, the crow doll stood up straight. Its two legs… thin and very short, like chopsticks. But it was definitely standing.
Chirp chirp chirp.
The crow approached me and circled around me. Ignoring the crow doll, I spoke to the god who had taken out his phone and was playing a game.
“So, what do you mean I’ve been kidnapped?”
“That guy’s world started collapsing and he began to be invaded by foreign media. He said he couldn’t win, so he sought help from the outside and wandered around. But since no one helped, he randomly kidnapped beings from another dimension! That’s you!”
The god showed me the game screen that said VICTORY and bragged.
“If it were someone else, they wouldn’t have been kidnapped… But you, who have already crossed dimensions once, were kidnapped just like that!”
“No… me leaving wouldn’t have prevented the destruction, right? Why me…?”
“I have already seen it. Beings from other dimensions who save countless worlds!”
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The crow doll spoke with a solemn voice. But it only made it seem funny, like a little child’s voice.
“Dimensional travel, reincarnation, and possession novels make you like this.”
The god looked back at his phone and started moving his hands at an incredible speed. Maybe he was playing a rhythm game. The crow blinked its eyes and looked at me.
“And you, on top of being experienced in dimensional travel and reincarnation! You can definitely prevent the world’s destruction and massacre the foreign media!”
The crow flapped its wings. Compared to its body, it was incredibly small.
“I’m counting on you…koo-ack!”
Before the magpie could finish speaking, a god suddenly approached and stepped on the magpie’s foot.
“You kidnapped someone else’s child, and that’s all you have to say?”
“Ple-please…”
I was surprised by the sight.
“But still, she’s angry?”
At that moment, my liking for the god increased slightly.
“Where is it acceptable to take something without paying? If you don’t properly compensate, it’s theft. And instead of asking for mercy, you should say ‘thank you for the reward’! That’s the rule in this world!”
My liking for the god went back to negative.
“So, what will happen to me?”
I asked the god.
“You can choose as you wish. If you want to go back right away, you can go back, or you can stay there. If you go to that world, you can live until natural death. If you die there, you will come back to this world and be put back into your original body. Oh, you can go back to the original world right away, but ‘Lian’ in that world will die as a result!”
“…”
“What will you do?”
“P-please, please save our world… kkuueak…”
“Be quiet!”
Ignoring the gods who lacked seriousness, I got lost in thought.
“Going back… that’s probably the right choice.”
Why did I treat Iris and the children well in the first place? It was all to survive.
I also wanted to find a way to go back to the original world if possible.
If I say I want to go back to the original world now, I can not only escape the threat but also go back home. But…
‘Noah, Jess, Iris -…’
The sight of children laughing in a cruel world caught my attention.
“They said that destruction was underway, for sure.”
The probability of things not following the story I knew was high. The sound soon meant that the children would not be strange no matter when they died.
“Um… is there any way to bring the children from that world here?”
“It’s impossible, meow!”
I felt disheartened by the firm answer. After rolling my eyes for a moment, I held another question in my mouth.
“Then what happens if I die over there like this time?”
“You’ll probably come back here again, meow? And you’ll resurrect again, meow!”
“Hmm…? So, does that mean I’ll never die?”
“Unless it’s something special, you won’t have any reason to die, meow. You just died because your heart was pierced by a peculiar guy, meow!”
“Peculiar…? Iris?”
“That’s right, meow. The power that opposes the gods? She has something like that. That’s why she broke through my authority, meow!”
Authority?
As I had doubts, the god immediately explained.
“Because of this guy, who kidnapped you without permission, errors occurred in the world, meow. To resolve that, I needed some of my authority, and luckily you have plenty of causal efficiency… Ah, no, I lent it to you because I was worried about you being kidnapped, meow!”
“What kind of authority is it?”
Authority! My eyes sparkled at the word that seemed to grant some extraordinary ability. Then the god rolled his eyes and said.
“It’s the ability to apply the laws of this place, meow!”
“The… laws?”
“If we were to put it in your terms, it’s like a ‘comedy filter.’ That’s its power, meow!”
“That’s…?”
“With that ability, no matter how stabbed with a knife, you won’t die and can survive, and you can escape from any danger, meow! If something threatening approaches you, the power activates to eliminate the danger, meow! Where else can you find such a miraculous power?”
As I listened, it felt like a pretty useful ability. I nodded my head, and the god let out a fart and made a sound of surprise, “Oops!”
“By the way, it’s time for ‘Love makes a meow sound at the Jonggajip hamburger restaurant – Am I the cat at the Jonggajip hamburger restaurant? Impossible! It wasn’t impossible?’ meow!”
The god, who had listed a series of dizzying titles, rushed to one side and summoned something. A large TV appeared.
