Just as Sel finished wiping the last streaks of tears from her eyes, a soft shimmer pulsed in front of him. A faint glow rippled through the air, warping the space before him until a single crystalline object materialized—quietly, effortlessly.
The crystal hovered at chest height, rotating slowly. It was no larger than a tea mug, yet clearer and more pristine than anything he had ever seen or heard of. It wasn't simply reflecting light; it was refracting entire starfields. Deep within the crystal, he could see an unending stretch of space—nebulae, galaxies, and clusters drifting in an impossible void.
He tried to focus, squinting as he leaned forward, but no matter how hard he stared, all he could see was infinite emptiness.
"Ugh… Sel? What is this?" he asked, baffled.
"That," Sel said as she rose to her feet, her voice steady now that her tears had dried, "is the universe we were just in."
He blinked. Hard.
What do you mean this is a universe? His mind stalled. The idea wasn't just absurd—it was incomprehensible.
"What do you mean this is a universe?" he asked out loud, still staring at the crystal as if it might suddenly explain itself.
Sel tilted her head, confused by his confusion. "Huh? Why are you surprised? You were literally told you're a god and this is what surprises you?"
Why am I surprised?
He stared at her, dumbfounded.
"Why am I surprised?" he repeated out loud. "Who wouldn't be!?"
Sel shrugged, seemingly uninterested in the emotional complexity of mortals. "Well, it doesn't matter for now. Just look at what happened."
"Look at what exactly…" he muttered, already giving up on trying to understand any of this.
"Oh—right. I need to rewind time to the moment everything happened." Sel stepped toward the crystal.
"You know what? I'm not even going to ask about your abilities anymore. Nothing makes sense anyway," he said, lifting his hands in resignation.
"Okay, look." Sel pointed at the crystal.
He leaned closer, expecting something to happen—images, sounds, anything. But all he saw was the same endless expanse of space.
"You're not… trying to pull a prank, right?" he said flatly.
"What are you talking about?" Sel asked, genuinely perplexed.
"You said 'look.' I am looking. But I can't see anything," he said, staring at her with a blank expression.
Sel sighed deeply. "The human body is so troublesome. You can't even navigate infinite space?"
"Huh? What the hell do you think humans are? I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that this entire thing is a universe!"
"Ugh… Fine. This is it."
In an instant, the crystal's interior changed. Space folded, twisted, and rewound itself as if someone were fast-forwarding and reversing the cosmos. Stars blurred into streaks. Colors inverted. Time unraveled.
Then the scene stabilized:
––––––
Sel launched herself at Kael at high speed, her fist pulled back for a final, decisive strike.
But Kael had anticipated her desperation, a metallic flash tore through the air.
"Ghk—!" Sel's body jerked violently as a dagger pierced straight through her abdomen, the blade punching out through her back.
Blood sprayed across the ground.
"You're too predictable, missy," Kael said with a twisted grin. "Didn't think you'd be stupid enough to rush me head-on."
He lifted her off the ground by the embedded dagger, Sel's feet dangling limply.
"I guess I overestimated you. Huh?"
"…F-ool…" Sel whispered, her voice drenched in contempt.
"Hm? Didn't quite catch that. Was that a plea for mercy?" Kael taunted.
"I said…" Sel's eyes sharpened, "…you truly are the one deserving the name 'meat,' you fool."
Kael's expression shifted instantly—mockery melting into suspicion.
"Hey. What did you do?"
"It's already too late, idiot," Sel said as her entire body began to glow with rising intensity.
Kael panicked. He threw her to the ground with a horrified shout.
"You bitch! You plan on taking me with you to the afterlife!?"
"Pathetic. You're so afraid to die," Sel said coldly. "But don't get it twisted. You're the only one dying here."
She looked over at reiji's lifeless body crumpled on the stone floor.
"And understand this, death doesn't apply to beings like me. I could've wiped out this entire world… but the people here don't deserve that kind of ending because of you."
"W-Wait—please stop!" Kael's voice cracked as he dropped to his knees. "I didn't want to do this—I was sent! Someone ordered me to kill you! Please! Spare my life!"
But Sel ignored him.
Kael suddenly screamed toward the ceiling.
"HEY YOU!! I KNOW YOU'RE WATCHING!! SAVE ME!! I DID WHAT YOU ASKED, NOW HELP ME!!"
Who is he talking to? Sel wondered. No matter. I'll find out soon enough.
A blinding white light swallowed the entire throne room.
––––––
"And that's what happened," Sel said as the crystal dissolved into nothingness.
He exhaled slowly, processing it all. "I see…"
Then a thought struck him, and his expression twisted with concern.
"But you didn't, you know… destroy the entire universe, right?"
Sel puffed her cheeks, offended. "What? No. Who do you think I am? That world considers me their goddess. What kind of goddess destroys her own world over one piece of meat?"
"Heh… I just wanted to make sure," he said with a small laugh. "Anyway… it feels quieter here. Did you do something?" He said while looking around the endless expanse of the void.
"Yeah. I stabilized this place a bit, you remember how I said this void was going to destroy the world and consume us both?"
"Yeah… Wait—you mean were not in immediate danger anymore?" he asked, suddenly hopeful.
"Yeah no. were still in a lot of trouble, just not the kind we thought it was" Sel said with clinical bluntness.
His face fell instantly, hope evaporating.
Sel continued. "I've figured out why this void is hunting us. Why it wants both of us dead." She took a slow breath before speaking, "and I think it's because someone wants us gone."
"W-Wait… what?" he asked, his voice trembling slightly.
Sel's voice cut through the lingering silence.
"You saw Kael's reaction, right? He was clearly talking to someone. We had just arrived, and yet it felt like someone already knew we existed beyond the borders of Grimholde. That shouldn't be possible."
He shifted his weight slightly, eyes narrowing.
"Hmm… you might be right about that. But how do you know the one Kael spoke of was even outside the kingdom?" he asked, genuinely curious.
Sel crossed her arms, her expression sharpening.
"Kael is considered the strongest figure in all of Grimholde. I refuse to believe he would place his hope in someone weaker than himself—especially after I said I could destroy the world." Her voice held a steady seriousness.
"Yeah… that's true," he murmured, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Which means whatever this thing is, it's strong enough to survive an entire universe collapsing."
Sel's eyes narrowed further, her thoughts sharpening into something more dangerous.
"No," she said slowly. "I don't think it ends there."
He looked at her, waiting.
Sel exhaled, then spoke the words she had been holding back. "I think a god wanted both me and you dead."
"What? Why would they do that?" His confusion was clear, shock briefly tightening his voice. "Wouldn't the world be destroyed if they tried something like that?"
"It's not about risking anything," Sel answered. "To them, we are anomalies—illogicalities in their world."
He blinked. "Illogicalities? What does that mean?"
"It means our existence contradicts the logic of the 'perfect' world they believe they crafted."
She paused.
"Perfect world?.. that world is anything but perfect," he muttered angrily.
Sel gave a slow sigh. "That is true… and somehow still false."
"What do you mean?" he asked, eyes narrowing.
Sel rubbed her chin, thinking, then finally spoke.
"I need to show you."
Before he could protest, she reached out and grabbed his hand.
"Huh? Show me what—"
But the question died as the void vanished. A blinding, indescribable brilliance swallowed everything. The ground formed beneath his feet, solid and warm, wind brushing gently across his skin. He opened his eyes.
A sky of impossible beauty stretched above him. Trees swayed, radiant with a life so pure that language failed to capture it. Every color felt richer, every breeze deliberate, every inch of the world too beautiful to have been shaped by mundane hands.
"I-is this a perfect world?" he asked softly.
"It is… and it isn't," Sel replied.
"What do you mean?"
Sel took a moment, lifting her gaze toward the sky.
"Perfection, as most conceive it, is not absolute. It is a construct crafted by whoever designs a world. Their perception dictates every criterion. Their logic shapes every boundary. Whatever they create becomes 'perfect' only because the framework they built defines it so."
She raised her hand slightly. "If, in their universe, gravity pulled upward instead of downward—"
Instantly, both of them drifted off the ground. He flailed slightly before adjusting, balancing on open air.
"—or if humans breathed water instead of air."
The landscape dissolved into an endless ocean. Water filled the world. It wrapped around him like silk, yet he breathed effortlessly, as if it had always been natural.
Sel continued speaking as though nothing had changed.
"The conditions would still be perfect—because the creator's logic makes them so. They set the laws. That's why anything inside those laws can be rationalized as perfect."
She let the world return to its original form.
"But that is a shallow form of perfection. Contained. Dependent. It is merely the perfection of a craftsman—consistent within its own rules, but never beyond them."
Her eyes turned colder, sharper.
"True perfection does not depend on perception, intention, or design. It does not stem from creation or require logic to justify it. True perfection simply is. It exists without needing to be defined, validated, or witnessed. It is what remains when causality, thought, and systems collapse."
Her gaze lowered.
"What the gods call perfection is only the best they can conceive. True perfection is absolute—untouched, unconditional. No god can manufacture it."
He listened without moving. Her displays—floating worlds, rewritten laws—barely phased him. Logic had long stopped being something he trusted. Everything he understood about the world had begun to unravel the moment he met her.
'Sel's aura feels different here… sharper, heavier. No… that's not it. The truth is I never knew Sel to begin with. The version I compare her to is nothing more than fragments stitched together from the short time we spent. She truly is—'
She cut into his thoughts.
"Is what?"
"Huh?" He stiffened, realizing too late that she had heard him.
"I already told you," she said with a soft smile. "You know me, master."
"Well… you say that, but I don't really think I do. I just can't wrap my head around how someone like me was… your master." His tone carried embarrassment and disbelief.
"'Once'?" she repeated, eyes narrowing.
"Well…" He hesitated. His thoughts were dangerous—he knew that much. Saying them aloud felt like stepping on thin ice.
Sel stared at him, expression blank.
"I can read your thoughts," she said plainly.
"Heh… yeah, I know." His laughter was awkward.
"I can do all this even while I am not at full strength," she said coldly. "And I call you my master. Do you truly believe I would call someone weaker than me my master?"
He paused, absorbing her words.
"Hmm… yeah, you're right. Sorry. It's just… a lot. I'm overwhelmed." His voice steadied slightly, resolve returning.
She then spoke a name. "Reiji moriyama."
He blinked. "Huh?" Her sudden use of that name caught him off guard.
"Alex Hunter. Akio Watanabe. Just a few of the names you have carried throughout your journey across countless worlds."
"Yeah… I still find—"
"Who are you?" Sel asked, her gaze piercing straight through him.
"Well… you already said I was your master, so—"
"You are not answering the question." Her voice sharpened.
"Who are you?"
'Who am I? I am Reiji Moriyama. No… Alex Hunter. But I also remember being Akio Watanabe. And now that she's asked it—more memories keep coming. More lives. More selves. The answer should be that I am her master… but she already dismissed that.'
His thoughts spun endlessly, the silence stretching so long that the world itself seemed to mute.
Sel grew impatient.
"Hah… it's okay. You don't have to think muc—"
"I am all of them."
The words cut through her sentence.
He met her gaze directly.
"I don't want to forget a single life I've lived. Not one. They're all part of me. I already remember most of them… and the rest—"
His eyes closed briefly. Something inside him stirred—ancient, distant, awakening.
"—the rest will return in time."
When he opened his eyes again, something fundamental had shifted.
No fragmentation.
No hesitation.
No searching.
A multitude of selves, accepted in unison.
Sel smiled faintly.
"Eighty percent correct. But I am satisfied knowing you've gained some resolve."
"Is that so? Well… we still have time before all of that." He paused, expression sharpening into confidence. "And I think I finally know what to do about the gods after me… and what they want."