Chapter 32 - Gods and Demons

Simon pauses for a moment to consider the Elf's words before shaking his head, "My view is a bit more complicated than that. While it is true that I hate the idea of these 'gods' using others' lives as pawns, it's not just the gods doing this that I hate. No one regardless of status should be able to act in such a manner." he takes a deep breath before continuing. "Prior to my arrival here, I didn't believe that gods actually existed. In the world I'm from, the concepts of gods and devils, angels and demons, did exist. However, no proof of their existence was ever found, despite what some religious 'scholars' might argue.

While we did have religions dedicated to gods, none of 'our' gods ever took a proactive approach like yours seems to do. No proof was ever given to their existence. Instead, the religions were built upon the sole concept of 'faith'. Faith that their god was real, faith that their god was right, faith that they were right, and faith that those who thought differently were wrong. Naturally, a religion built upon faith is fundamentally incompatible with other religions like it. How can one believe that their god is the one true God when the person next to them believes the same of their own, different god? They can't. All throughout our history wars were fought in a futile attempt to prove which religions’ gods were real." Simon shakes his head with a grimace "Entire populations and cultures were destroyed for which of their cultures’ fairy tail creations were real. So many lives wasted.

If our gods ever did exist, if they ever were real, we either killed them at some point or they saw what we had become and decided to leave us to our fate. If I had to choose one or the other, I'd choose the former. Mankind was great at many things, but killing, most of all."

Nina gasps in astonishment, "G-gods didn't exist? You killed them?", she shakes her head rapidly, not believing it, "That's not possible."

Suavi chimes in with a grimacing expression, "It is. I've seen his world and the 'things' that invaded there. That world had no god."

Nina glances at the blue-haired girl and back towards the plate, "A spirit?"

Suavi nods with glowing eyes.

What happened to keeping it a secret?

Suavi notices Simon's questioning gaze, "Elves by their very nature are intuned with spirits. Anyone that saw me would have known instantly. This woman has willingly severed her connection to the World Tree, so she has lost most of what made her an elf. To the Elves, She is even more of an abomination than you are to humanity. She rejected her god and turned her back on her people. She's a creature of hatred and rage. She desires only revenge. Do not trust her."

Nina eyed the girl with a frown, "I always despised spirits. Your kind always claims to understand a person's heart just from what you can see in their soul. You only see the events that happened but nothing beyond that. You know nothing you glorified construct!"

Suavi sticks her tongue out at the Elf, "You would say that you silver-haired heretic."

Simon starts to hold up a hand to break up the spat, but Suavi continues before he can, "Her hair turned silver after she severed her connection to the world tree. She may appear young, but she's well over a thousand years old. Elves don't age like the rest of the races. Unless they are killed, or their connection to the world tree is severed, they are effectively immortal. But this bitch here barely has another seventy years left in her, at the most."

Nina grinds her teeth and is clearly about to attack.

Not good. I'd rather not kill her.

"Suavi, Stop. Nina, Don't. You'd never leave that chair alive."

Suavi stares at the woman while Nina puts her weight back into the chair.

"I'm not going to apologize for Suavi's words, but Suavi, Nina has a point. When you first looked at me, you understood nothing, and even now, after all, you've seen, you've still barely scratched the surface. You would do well to remember that."

Suavi bites her lip and stares at the floor while Kayae pats her small shoulder.

Simon's words surprise Nina, clearly not expecting him to have defended her, "So now you know things about me that were better left unsaid. It's fair game now. How did you kill the gods of your world? Can you do it again?"

Simon shrugs his shoulders, "I don't know. As I said, I don't know if gods ever existed, and if they ever did, we, no, mankind killed them long before I existed. So I can't tell you how they were killed or if this world's gods can be killed. But I will say after all the things I've seen, after all the things I've done, I will say that this world needs gods despite how much you hate them. If for no other reason, then to keep 'them' out of it."

Nina raises an eyebrow, "Them?"

Suavi turns towards Simon and sighs, "I can show her, but I can't promise she will survive. She may die from shock or go insane."

Nina smiles evilly, "So she saw your old world?"

Simon's entire body turns towards Suavi, "What? You can do something like that?"

Suavi puffs her chest out with pride while Kayae pats her head, only for both girls to cower at his next words.

"That is not a good thing. Nina, I need to amend our agreement. I need the strongest enslavement spell available. One that can affect spirits as well, if such a thing is even possible. If you wish to see 'them' do this for me, and I'll allow it."

Nina smiles savagely at the spirit, "With utmost pleasure." She slams the desk, and the man from earlier appears and nods his head.

"I-I don't suppose I can take back what I said earlier?" Suavi lowers her head and approaches Nina walking behind the desk. "I warned you, but for what it's worth, I hope you die, witch." The Elf returns the cold gaze and smiles. "And I hope you enjoy your enslavement, mutt."

Suavi's eyes glow as she stares into Nina’s. The temperature in the room starts to drop slightly while Simon covers Kayae's eyes with his hands. The small girl fidgets quietly on his lap for a moment before her tail coils around his arm in a comforting gesture.

Images of the events of Saturn flash into Simon's mind, but he ignores them. It's all happened before, after all.

Suddenly Suavi collapses onto the desk and breathes hard, causing Simon to slide Kayae off his lap and run over to her. Beside the collapsed girl, Nina the Elf is staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, her mouth open wide, as spittle drips from her chin. He watches her for a moment while returning to the chair and hugging the two girls close to his chest.

So. Let's see which side of the coin fate lands on.

Nina's eyes tremble and start to shift in the shade along with her hair. The change is over in a moment. Instead of her previous silver hair, her hair is now snowy white with blond streaks running through it, while her eyes are now two different colors. One Silver, and one Green.

Suavi lifts her head staring at the Elf and scoffs, "Damned Tree was always too forgiving."

Nina's eyes close as she straightens herself out in the chair before wiping her chin and speaking, "A few minutes ago, I would have agreed with you, but as they say, time's change."

Simon nods once. He has no idea what is going on. Still, judging by Suavi's words, Nina was able to reconnect herself to the World Tree after it forgave her transgressions. Still, just by looking at her odd appearance, she was not wholly forgiven, "Judging by your appearance, you saw them?"

Nina nods her head solemnly, "I did. And I saw what you did. Please forgive my earlier actions. I see now that I was acting out of malice. Do not worry, I will tell no one of what I saw, not that they would believe me anyway. Flying cities and buildings taller than the World Tree? I'd be called insane as well as a heretic."

He nods his head at her words, "What about the doorman? I'm not sure when he reappeared but that might be an issue."

Nina glances at the door, "Hector? He's mute and took the Archivist’s Vow. It's a vow made to the System that prevents them from ever communicating through any means aside from the written word outside of less complex gestures, like say, nodding, or bowing. Certain hand gestures are allowed as well however complex ones like sign language are not."

"Why would someone take that vow?"

"Simple, in exchange, the archivist's senses are heightened. They obtain a photographic memory and are capable of recalling anything they have ever experienced whenever they desire. In addition, anything that they record in written form is magically encrypted and becomes nearly indecipherable to anyone except those they wish to share the information with. Attempting to extort information out of an archivist is impossible as the vow will simply kill them if they try and anything they wrote in life will remain magically encrypted for a set period even after their death. This period is defined by the skill level of the vow, for each level of the vow an archivist has, an additional year of encryption will be added. Even after this protection runs out the text will remain encrypted but will no longer change. It's the primary reason historians and archivists hate each other. Nearly all ancient records were written by an archivist once upon a time and thus had to be decrypted before they could be read."

"May I have an example? A small sample will suffice"

Nina nods before tapping on the desk. Hector appears shortly after with paper and quill in hand and presents a single line of text to Simon. The text in front of him seems to shift in an otherworldly manner, changing in both length and letting. One moment the text is all symbols, the next it's numbers. A rolling polymorphic encryption? No. Not quite. He continued to study the encryption in silence. Each time a hmm or an ah escaped his lips the two girls would giggle softly while Nina looked on interested and Hector looked concerned. After what seemed like an eternity Simon smiled before sitting up, "Something."

The two girls and Nina looked at him in confusion while the Hector turned white as a sheet.

"It says Something, right?"

The pale man nodded once, clearly terrified of the monster in front of him.

"That encryption is pretty much impossible to decipher in its entirety. I only managed to capture a single letter at a time before it shifted again. I can see why historians would hate you. Also, good job on not writing the actual word down on the paper and instead writing down a cipher that would have to be decrypted as well. That really threw me off for a bit."

Nina's eyes widened while Suavi and Kayae looked on in confusion, "Y-you broke Hector’s encryption? That isn't supposed to be possible, at least not while it's still being encrypted by the vow."

Simon simply shrugs with a smile, "Improbable? Yes. Impossible? No. Regardless, " he says before turning to the man in question, "I have no qualms with you assuming everything else Nina said about your vow is correct. Thank you for the demonstration. Now then, Nina. Do you know what 'they' are?"

"Yes. They are creatures of the Abyss. While it is true that gods and demons are constantly fighting against each other, the Abyss is their mutual enemy. They are the enemy of all immortal and mortal alike, seeking only to consume and destroy. The gods and demons, despite their differences and mutual hatred of one another, join together each time an incursion from the Abyss occurs. But, what happened to your world has never been seen. Even here, the only monsters of the Abyss exist within the farthest reaches of the labyrinthian prisons created by the gods."

Simon stiffens before asking his next question, "Why would they place them there instead of destroying them?"

"Because they can't. People think that gods and demons are the polar opposites of each other, and they are, but the Abyss is the opposite of that relationship as well. Any being with divinity in them will ultimately be corrupted or consumed by the Abyss. This is why we believe the System and to a lesser extent, dungeons exist. To create mortals capable of defeating the imprisoned monsters of the Abyss in the divines’ stead as they cannot face them directly without fear of corruption. Since mortals lack divinity, they are not affected by the corrupting nature of the Abyss, at least not in the same sense as the divines are."

Simon grits his teeth, "So, the System exists so that the gods can use mortals as a shield to protect themselves from an enemy they can't defeat."

Nina nods her head solemnly, "Just like mankind did with you."

Suavi and Kayae shoot up at her biting words and try to head to the closed door. They don't make it before the door is frozen solid.

Simon stares at the icy breath coming out of his mouth and focuses on breathing in deeply. The temperature slowly rises as he does so, and the ice dissipates. He turns towards the two terrified girls and smiles. "Sorry. I'm fine now." The two girls slowly approach him at a snail's pace before being grabbed gently and placed on each of his knees. He then looks up at the shocked Nina, "Please choose your words more carefully." to which the wide-eyed Elf nods rapidly, "Regardless of why they use mortals, do you have a theory as to why an 'incursion' as you call it, of that scale affected my world?"

Simon thought about asking her why he wasn't affected by this 'corrupting' influence despite having Divinity in him. But figured he wouldn't get any other answer aside from 'ask god.'

Nina shifts into a thinking posture and mumbles softly to herself for a few minutes before replying, "This is just a guess but going off of what I know and what I saw just now. I would say that the gods’ presence in our world prevents such a thing from happening here. Perhaps they're erecting a barrier to keep them out. Your world, according to your own words, had no gods left. As such, the Abyss was not prevented from fully invading."

Artoria's words from before ring loudly in his head, 'God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?'

A sad smile covers his face, "In the end, we couldn't become gods, and it cost us everything." Simon bursts out laughing, "How poetic. We killed our gods and ourselves in the process."

All eyes stare at Simon while Nina speaks quickly, "T-That was just a guess."

"No. I believe that was the truth. I had already thought as much after meeting Suavi and going over the events on Saturn. Your guess merely confirmed it. Humanity gave everything they had to atone for the sin of killing a god, but it wasn't enough. You believe it as well, or you wouldn't have gone crying back to your God for ‘forgiveness’."

A familiar sad smile appears across Nina's face as she observes the white and blond hair in her hand, "Indeed."

Simon strokes Suavi and Kayae's ears while shaking his head, "Still, that doesn't explain how I have titles from Earth much less Divinity. As you saw, Earth didn't have a World System, so me having titles makes no sense. Divinity-wise, I have never entered a temple in this world and I somehow doubt I have the Blessing from a dead god on Earth. I did burn down the last church after all."

Nina smiles savagely at Simon's mentioning of burning down the last church. Despite embracing her God, her previous hatred for gods still burns bright. She gives him a quick shrug, "Who knows. Go visit a temple and ask, but they'll likely try to execute you, so I can't advise that."

Simon glances at the plate and snorts, "Aye. I guess one look at that plate, and they'd certainly try."

"They might succeed too, depending on the temple."

Simon raises an eyebrow, "Oh?"

"Normally, gods cannot descend to the world. Their temple is an exception, however. It's seen as an extension of their territory, thus if it was ever attacked, the god in question might choose to deal with the attacker themselves."

Simon strokes his chin thoughtfully while recalling the events on earth, "I'd rather not kill a god if I can help it."

Suavi looks at Simon in horror while Kayae simply shakes her head, Nina on the other hand, is smiling widely.

"If you ever get the urge, I can provide a list of 'Gods' that the world would be better off without. A few dozen shouldn't hurt the rest of them in maintaining whatever barrier they have in place. But it might cause them to interfere in our world less."

Simon thinks back to Earth's ancient history. In the early days, there seemed to be many gods written about, but in the end, there was only one. Then there were none. No one had even heard of the creatures of the Abyss until long after religion had been outlawed. Nina's words seem to carry weight.

"So it would seem."

Simon and Nina gave a savage grin to each other, ignoring the small girls on his lap.