Chapter 274: Double Edged Sword
"System." Cecilia’s voice was soft, contemplative, her fingers tracing the spine of a new diary she had bought from the Athenaeum’s small shop. "What do I have to do to get out of this harem scenario again?"
[You just need to say it, Cecilia!]
Cecilia’s lips curved slightly. "And theoretically, if I can find a way to magically achieve immortality in this world, I could stay here forever? And ti in the real world would just... pause, for us?"
[Yes!]
She chuckled and opened the diary to its first blank page. The paper was crisp, new, untouched. She lifted her pen, the ink dark against the cream.
"When we get out of this world," she asked, "will it collapse? Disappear? Destroyed...?"
[Yes!]
Her pen stopped.
"Then you’re lying."
The words hung in the air between her and the interface only she could see.
[...]
[...]
[...]
[We don’t lie, though, Cecilia...?]
"You are." Cecilia said gently. "If this world isn’t real, I couldn’t stay here forever. There would be a penalty. A consequence."
She paused, her pen hovering over the page.
"Because this world is as real as the real world. So I can stay here forever." Her gaze drifted to the window, where the Athenaeum’s towers stood dark against the night sky. "Even if this world was created for the purpose of the scenario, it can’t be destroyed just because its purpose is fulfilled. Or at least, it won’t be completely destroyed."
Her pen touched the paper again, the ink flowing.
"A residue will be left."
Even mory was a form of ’world’.
"For this world to sustain itself, to let
live here forever, it must be ’real’ enough." She wrote as she spoke, different words forming in careful, deliberate strokes. "Or ’supported’ enough by the real world."
She set the pen down.
The horizontal scar on her neck stung.
A sharp, sudden prickle, the sa as before, the sa as when she had spoken too lightly of gods.
Cecilia’s hand rose, pressing against the faint line that marked where she had drawn blood in that frozen field, where she had given half of her soul to take back Oathran’s, where she had crossed a line that could never be uncrossed.
"Hm." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Is this a confirmation... or a warning?"
The scar pulsed once more, warm against her fingers.
She sighed. "I’d like to et you two one day, gods."
"Why not now?"
Cecilia flinched.
Her stool clattered to the floor. She was on her feet before she could think, her body moving on pure instinct.
She turned, and saw—
Two beings lounged on her bed.
Two—beings?
One was unmistakably feminine. The one who had spoken, probably. Curves where there should be curves, grace in the way ’she’ reclined against her pillows. Cecilia could still taste this being’s voice in the air, warm... amused.
The other was masculine, his presence sohow both solid and not, like steel dropped into water that refused to sink. Broader, sharper, the angles of ’his’ body cutting through the air like blades.
But Cecilia’s brain, after receiving the information from her eyes, couldn’t process what the heavens they were seeing.
The shapes were there. Her eyes sent signals, defining traits... her brain received them, accepted them. But the details... the colors, the textures, the essence... refused to resolve.
Flowing... hair?
Go...? Gold?
No. Rain... bow? Wait, what spectrum of color was that? Sothing between... sothing that shifted when she tried to focus, sothing that existed in a spectrum of color that human eyes weren’t designed to perceive?
"It’s okay." The female one said, gently. "You don’t need to process what you see. It might give you a headache, Daughter of Tashr."
Cecilia’s gaze flickered to the masculine being.
He was beside the other one. Or under her? Or behind? His position in relation to her kept shifting... no, not shifting. He was sitting in the sa place, and also not. He was solid. Looked more solid than the female one, actually.
"He looks like he’s phasing in and out of reality, huh?" The feminine one’s voice was light, almost teasing. "Burn. Sit properly. You’re confusing her."
Burn.
Cecilia’s mind seized. Were they going to burn this world—?
"It’s his na." The feminine one laughed, a sound like bells and wind chis. "His na is Burn."
Oh.
"Huh?" Cecilia’s voice ca out small. "Wh—"
"And my na is Momo."
Cecilia’s brain short-circuited.
She stared at the two beings lounging on her bed. The goddess of impossible colors and the god who phased in and out of reality like a flickering fla, and the only thought she could form was...
Momo.
Her na is Momo.
"...Oh."
Is that an aesthetic choice?
"RUMBLE-RUMBLE-GROWL-GR-GR-GR-GR—"
Cecilia went pale.
The masculine being, Burn, had split open. His entire face, his neck, his very self had grown a vertical mouth. Massive. Teeth and fangs and depths lined the edges, and the sound that ca from it was not human, not anything that should exist in a space that contained her small, mortal bed.
Yet it also sounded like... laughter!
She stumbled backward, her hand grasping the edge of her desk, hard, her breath gone—m-monst—
"Look at you two." The female one, Momo, scoffed. Her voice was light, unbothered, as if this were an everyday occurrence. "Laughing at my cutesy little na."
The vertical mouth rumbled.
"Alright." Momo’s tone sharpened. "Now you’re scaring her, Burn. Switch your mouth to your eyes. You have pretty eyes."
"Rumble... " The sound was different now. Softer, grumbling. The vertical mouth closed. Seamless. As if it had never been.
And in its place, two eyes opened.
Normal position and normal shape. Golden. Beautiful, even. The kind of eyes that poets wrote about, that artists spent lifetis trying to capture.
Cecilia stared.
"He said sorry." Momo’s voice was warm. "Will you forgive him?"
Cecilia forced herself to speak. Her voice ca out small, breathless.
"...yes." She swallowed. "S-sorry... for being... surprised."
Momo sighed. "No." She shook her head. "I hate his mouth too."
"RUMBLE?!"
"I do."
Burn’s arms moved. Slithered. Shifted. They wrapped around Momo from under—no, behind—no, inside. Cecilia’s brain refused to parse it. He was embracing her from sowhere that shouldn’t exist, sowhere that was here and not here, sowhere that made Cecilia’s vision blur at the edges.
She was speechless.
These two.
Who—what—were they?
"Anyway." Momo’s voice pulled her back. "Daughter of Tashr. It seems it’ll be difficult for us to continue to keep things simple for you."
She shifted, her impossible form settling deeper into the bed.
"You keep correctly guessing the chanics of the system attached to you." A pause. "It’s impressive. But I’m scared for you."
Cecilia understood imdiately. "Is it dangerous to know everything, Goddess?"
"Yes." Momo said, her tone simple. "Because you’re not strong enough yet."
Silence.
So, in a way, they were just trying to protect her.
"Cecilia." Momo leaned forward slightly, her form shifting, blurring, resolving into sothing almost solid. "Can you leave the tedious part for us? Do what you can do, with your level of power now, steadily?"
Cecilia’s jaw tightened. "But I just can’t help but guess when the answer is right there." She said calmly. "Are you telling
to avoid what I’ve already perceived?"
Momo’s eyes, if they were eyes, if she had eyes, if Cecilia was capable of perceiving whatever was looking at her, narrowed.
"You were guessing sothing you shouldn’t have been able to guess." Momo said. "Just from talking to that child, Nikolas. Of course I’m worried."
Her form folded, condensed, focused, until she was close enough that Cecilia could almost see her face, almost understand what she was looking at, almost—
"Have you ever heard of The King in Yellow?"
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