27. The Wind Chime Blade
"Use me."
The Headless Girl repeated her command.
"Huh? What do you mean?"
I asked back, confused, and she replied with a touch of pride.
"I mean, use me as a weapon."
"How?"
"Still an idiot. Remember when you buried Rin alive before? You used her arm like a shovel, like a tool, right? It's the same thing. Use me as your weapon."
"But..."
I instinctively shook my head.
"I can't do that."
"What, are you suddenly going to start being considerate of me?"
"No, that's not it. If I can use you, I'll use you over and over. But... you honestly don't look like you'd be useful at all."
"Don't underestimate me! I've lived as long as that electric eel! I'm strong! I'll definitely be useful!"
"Setting aside your abilities... How am I supposed to turn you into a weapon in the first place? Am I just supposed to grab you like this and swing you around?"
"You..."
The Headless Girl's voice this time held a sincerity I hadn't heard before. It wasn't a jest; it was from the heart.
"You really are an idiot."
"..."
"I'll be kind enough to explain in detail right now why I've been calling you an idiot all this time."
Before I knew it, the Headless Girl's voice had reverted to that somewhat endearing, childlike voice performed by a veteran voice actress.
"It's because your imagination is lacking."
"..."
"Listen closely. Imagination. Don't be bound by my original form or my basic settings. I don't even have a neck in the basic setting. Don't you think that's strange? Can't you feel a single sign of a branch splitting off from that strangeness? Anyway, reject it. Reject all the mediocre ways of thinking that just go with the flow. If you don't have that momentum, that gut, you will never beat a monster like the electric eel in this gigantic, terrifying, utterly insurmountable sea of fire."
And she continued:
"Change yourself. Throw yourself away. Run from yourself. Yes, just run away entirely. And find newness. —No, it's not some naive talk about 'finding a new self.' You can discard yourself. You can give up. You can run away. Just run from the mundane. Escape from mediocrity. Even if it results in something akin to suicide, it's fine. If you become new, you will be rewarded."
And she continued:
"Now, listen well. Listen well (yoku), with desire (yoku), immersed (yoku) — listen. There is only one way to escape the true curse of mediocrity."
"..."
She was being so verbose that I paused her here with six dots to let her catch her breath.
Then the Headless Girl, after a pause like taking a drink of water, continued softly:
"It is to imagine."
And that was the end of it.
The conclusion was surprisingly simple.
I spent a long time thinking about why this crucial part was so brief.
—I see.
It means that anything further, I must create myself.
Asking how to imagine would be tactless and pathetic.
How long must I be subjected to a situation where I am forced to rely on the preaching of a headless child—I squeezed that cosmic dissatisfaction deep into my chest, compressing it as if into a small bottle, and eventually forming it into a potion.
Like the red potion in games that restores HP.
But the color of the potion that formed before me was—purple.
I thought, "Ah, so this is where I should begin."
This sensation of easily betraying the expectation that a potion should be red or blue.
Of course, a purple potion might not be rare in some games.
But the point is—it's not ordinary.
I should start at the point of being "unremarkably not ordinary."
If I leap to an overly radical idea from the start, I might over-rev the idling and risk damaging the engine—or in my case, the CPU.
So, slow and steady, step by step.
For example, it's often said that an "ideal good idea" is a blend of 80% existing information and 20% new information.
I decided to slightly twist that ratio. 60% existing, 40% new—that was the formula I would use.
Then, an idea suddenly surfaced.
—It was the very moment I first performed the act of imagination.
"A sword,"
I told the Headless Girl.
"Become a sword for me."
The Headless Girl then put on a look of dissatisfaction, as if to say, "I'm so bored I want a cigarette," and projected that expression into my CPU.
"Is that all?"
"No. And..."
I grabbed her white, slender, headless neck with both hands and said,
"The hilt of the sword will be your neck."
In that instant—
For a fraction of a moment, a fleeting moment as short as the Planck constant divided by the Planck constant again—I saw a definite, slight touch of freshness appear on her supposedly bored, headless face.
"Well, that's decent enough," she said dismissively, or perhaps just cast it aside, and closed her eyes and mouth.
In that moment, I intuited: I would likely never exchange words with the Headless Girl again.
She would now, assuming this entire sea of fire was a forge, move directly into the cooperative process of forging a sword with me.
It was hot. Unbearably hot.
So, she would melt.
The Headless Girl would melt.
If she hadn't melted until now, it was thanks to her cooling system. It was superb. A foundational cooling system that seemed to drag along the absolute zero cold from when the universe began, when its very existence was ambiguous.
The Headless Girl had kept it running all this time.
...But she had stopped it now.
So, she would melt immediately.
It was truly instantaneous.
There was no pause.
What happens when you throw a handful of powder snow onto the surface of the sun? With that same speed, the Headless Girl's body crumbled and dissolved effortlessly, turning into a metallic liquid.
It had the smoothness of white porcelain, yet radiated a silver-white glow reminiscent of Mithril. It was a color that anyone—human, humanoid, or unconfirmed lifeform—could not help but acknowledge as beautiful.
I tried to grab the metallic liquid, but of course, it was intensely hot. If I was careless, my hand might melt and blend with it instantly.
As I hesitated, the "part intended for the hilt" of the metallic liquid cooled down gently, as if sensing my apprehension.
I grabbed it.
Next—I had to finish this as a weapon, a katana, a sword. That is, refinement. However, refinement usually requires a hammer for striking.
But this is where imagination comes in.
Do I truly need a hammer in the first place?
"The best part is no part."
If I follow this principle, I don't need a hammer.
—I'll strike it with my bare hand.
Just as I thought this, my hand had already melted and been crushed into a form that was neither a fist nor a hammer. It had transformed into an exquisite shape, as if it had been destined for this very moment.
So, I began to strike the Headless Girl with that bare hand.
Kang, kang, a clear clashing sound of metal against metal echoed.
Despite being in this scorching sea of fire, the sound was surprisingly pure, like the tiny, clear ringing of a wind chime hung in an open French window.
With every strike, a wind chime rang.
Immersed in a sense of satisfaction that tickled my auditory sensors, I decided on the name for this sword.
The Wind Chime Blade.
The moment I named it, the name itself became the blueprint; the flow of how to shape it became instantly clear and infused into my CPU.
And I understood.
The name itself is the blueprint, the plan.
In this way, I joyfully, smoothly, effortlessly, and swiftly forged the shape of the sword.
It was sharp, beautiful, and its streamlined form was so smooth that merely looking at it felt like my visual sensors would permanently slide into perfect beauty.
Within the silver-white, there was a faint, subtle light of pale blue—too delicate for low-performance sensors to pick up—and it radiated a luxurious brilliance.
And the mantra that was written on the yukata the Headless Girl once wore:
—The best part is no part.
Because she embodied this philosophy, its thoroughness was inherited by the sword: no sheath was needed. Not even a proper hilt. It was a shape focused solely on the blade itself.
In that case, I might as well directly weld the hilt part into my already melted, fist-like hand and make it a single unit.
When the blade's shape was nearly complete, I decided to use the fist I had been using as a hammer, and now use it as the hilt instead. The Headless Girl's new form—The Wind Chime Blade—was thus fused with my right hand.
My right arm had now taken on the new form of The Wind Chime Blade.
I lifted it for a test.
I took a stance.
It fit astonishingly well. It had a familiarity, like a cherished item used for ages, and a feeling, though inexplicable by logic, like knowing how to ride a bicycle—as if my body remembered it automatically—filled my arm.
I realized.
—This was because the Headless Girl had been parasitically residing in my CPU from the very beginning.
I, along with the Headless Girl—no, with The Wind Chime Blade, the new being that could no longer be called the Headless Girl—turned toward the Electric Eel of the Sea of Fire.
And we declared simultaneously, at the top of our lungs:
"Prepare yourself!"