Instant Death

Chapter 10 - Ha?

The Heavenly Record eater that acquired intelligence accomplished invading into the Heavenly Record.

Heavenly Records were covered in a firm shell called the canopy, but for a Heavenly Record eater that had eaten many worlds for each canopy, opening a very small hole and entering inside was easy.

There was no special reason in choosing that Heavenly Record. A nearby Heavenly Record was just selected. The goal of the Heavenly Record eater was to observe the intelligent body, it was basically because an intelligent body existed in the Heavenly Record.

The Heavenly Record eater decided to belong to the most popular social status among the race that was in a dominant position in the invaded Heavenly Record.

It decided to become a human farmer.

It created an embryo that compressed its own information inside of the womb of a random farmer, and made a body as a human.

Like that, the Heavenly Record eater acquired a point of view as a human baby.

At this point in time, the baby was like an other self still. It was like a probe for observing humans, and its real form was left in the space of nothingness which contained the Heavenly Record, refered to as the “Sea”.

The Heavenly Record eater established rules at the time of observing humans. The baby just spent its life as a human. It wouldn’t intervene at all.

The other self of the Heavenly Record eater lived its life as is.

It engaged in farm work since when it was a child, the same as its parents, married a village woman when he was of marriageable age, and had some children. It was a poor yet enjoyable life.

In the beginning, the Heavenly Record eater was observing humans with great interest, but it gradually began to lose interest.

Its life may have been well-balanced as a farmer, but it was because the everyday was just doing the same thing over and over again, which didn’t change much.

The turning point that arrived was winter, when the bad harvests continued and the body huddled up too much.

A group of hooligans came all of a sudden, and occupied the village.

While being chased by someone, it seemed he planned to hide himself. But, without behaving like they were concealing themselves quietly, they uselessly consumed small amounts of food, and killed those who they didn’t like while laughing.

When they left the village behind, they stole his woman, set fire to his house, and scattered poison in the water well.

Then, the other self of the Heavenly Record eater died. His wife robbed, he was killed together with his entire family.

At that time, what did the Heavenly Record eater feel?

It was joy.

The tragedy which arose all of a sudden was very stimulating, something that destroyed its boredom.

Settling down and living its life peacefully wasn’t interesting.

If it tried to shift its attention to the world while thinking that, it was full of a great variety of stimuli.

The Heavenly Record eater decided to go into this world more deeply.

The Heavenly Record eater, which had been acquiring personality, was wanting to fully enjoy this world as a personal experience of itself.

At the time of making the second person, the Heavenly Record eater thought.

The first person who was killed had been a little aggravating.

So, it decided to make a stronger individual this time. No unnecessary rules were established either. Even while relishing the stimulus as a human being everyday, it could wield its power as a Heavenly Record eater when push comes to shove.

Life from a baby would be enough. With a random human being as the yorishiro1, the Heavenly Record eater came into this world once more.

Everything was how it liked it to be.

Around the beginning, it destroyed and killed things that caught its eye at random, but that was only amusing in the beginning. No enemies and the like were its equal from the start. If it continued to a certain extent then it would also feel bored.

So, as the next stage, the Heavenly Record eater began to feel interest in ruling people, controlling them.

Ruling them was easy. People willfully prostrated themselves before it if it displayed its power.

The Heavenly Record eater organized the people he controlled and made them fight.

That was really interesting.

War became the greatest pleasure for the Heavenly Record eater.

Building up an army, overrunning a city, recruiting them and making them fight more.

While things like that continued, the Heavenly Record eater was making his own country.

This was easy, as the Heavenly Record eater had a talent for military affairs. The Heavenly Record eater personally commanded them, leaving things to take their course, but if it seemed they’d be defeated, it used its power as a diety, as a Heavenly Record eater.

The Heavenly Record eater established the Arganda Empire, and began to reign supreme over the world.

It was something just to gain control of the surrounding nations with military force, and there wasn’t any significance in that.

For the Heavenly Record eater, it was just amusement.

So, invading the Mani Kingdom, which was considered to be ‘inviolable’, was nothing more than playing. Them ‘trying to seal a Devil there’ wasn’t worth worrying about. If the Devil revived or something, that would be a more interesting development.

From the beginning, the Heavenly Record eater didn’t use its miraculous power.

It was a last measure, and as a last measure it was used frequently in proportion, but making people argue to the bitter end was amusing.

So, the Heavenly Record eater thought about things like tactics for the time being.

That was ‘to amass troops at the Meld Plains and invade the Kingdom at once’.

The Meld Plains was also called the Crystal Plains.

In that place, a large quantity of monsters called ‘crystal bugs’ were living, and the magic barrier that crystallized everything.

Others wouldn’t think ‘they are stashing a large amount of soldiers here’.

Because, they couldn’t leave soldiers and the like in this plains for an extended period of time if it was normally. The soldiers would be exhausted by the constant attacks of bugs and die. The threads of the bugs floating in air would also crystallize the soldiers sooner or later.

It’d just be stupid if it was normally, but that’s why an attack from here could be a ‘surprise attack’.

The Heavenly Record eater stuck to this strategy.

Putting what it thought of itself to practice was amusing, and for that reason, how many soldiers would die didn’t matter.

First, it seized all of the railroad routes going through the Meld Plains. It was because those were the only safe areas in this place, and they had people.

The Heavenly Record eater was encamped in the center of the plain, and taking command from there.

Everything was progressing favorably.

The Heavenly Record Eater was thinking so, but a report from a certain station didn’t come no matter how much time passed.

The Heavenly Record eater wondered about it, and went towards it to investigate.

The soldiers that were expected to have gained control of that station were dead.

This wasn’t good news. There was no way that ordinary station attendants could do things like turn the tables on the soldiers. Then, someone was in this place. If it considered it reasonably, it was probably an official of the Mani Kingdom.

Before long, there was a report about a car escaping from this place. It appeared to be going towards the Kingdom.

‘It’s impossible to let it escape’, thought the Heavenly Record Eater.

The at-great-pains strategy would be ruined in that case.

The Heavenly Record eater sent orders. There was no choice but to get rid of it, no matter the costs. It ordered its entire army to stop that vehicle.

And, the Heavenly Record eater was thinking ‘It’ll be carried out immediately’.

At any rate, it was because the Arganda Empire had developed a large quantity of strong magical weapons and firearms, which could be said to be ‘over-technology’ in this world.

Those were things that the Heavenly Record eater reproduced from knowledge in the worlds it had eaten so far, and they were things that’d change ordinary soldiers into heroes that were a match for thousands.

But, no matter how long it waited, good news didn’t come. The Heavenly Record eater grew tired of waiting, exercised some of its power, and depicted the current situation in its mind.

The armoured vehicle was continuing to travel.

What behaved as if they were being driven out, were the soldiers of the Arganda Empire—its subordinates. Every one of them were chasing after it riding a horse, dragon, or tank, but they didn’t fire: they lost their strength, and meandered and hit each other, or were crashing into crystal rocks or trees.

It didn’t know what was happening, but it understood that the soldiers were causing a panic.

『Don’t run away. Kill it at all costs!』(Heavenly Record eater)

It sent instructions to the soldiers personally.

At this point already, the normal military operation was deviating, but why it hadn’t wielded its own power against the armoured vehicle was because this was a part of its amusement still.

From the start, the extent of destroying the Mani Kingdom could be done at any time if it thought ‘let’s do it’. It’d be a simple matter if it personally wielded its power as a Heavenly Record eater, but it wouldn’t at all be interesting if he did that. It didn’t intend to lose finally, but it was thinking ‘I want to enjoy the process up until the last moment’.

However, while it was thinking about such a thing, the soldiers were *thud thud* collapsing.

Losing their riders, the horses and dragons were at a loss, the infantry died on the battlefield, and the tanks who lost their controllers were raising flames.

The Heavenly Record eater didn’t understand the meaning.

It didn’t understand in the slightest why it became like this.

But, it was already the limit.

The loss rate had exceeded 40% in the blink of an eye. They were dying one by one, trying to faithfully obey the Heavenly Record eater’s order, but with this, they wouldn’t be able to do a decent military operation and the like anymore.

‘It can’t be helped’, the Heavenly Record eater thought.

The Heavenly Record, which was persisting in a surprise attack from the Meld Plain still, tried to get rid of the armoured vehicle, and reorganize the preparations for the time being.

It changed its point of view to the armoured vehicle. A girl was driving, and a boy was in the passenger’s seat.

Despite being irritated, the Heavenly Record eater thought ‘what should I do’.

Should it kill them by burning them to death, or should it manipulate their minds and make them kill each other? No, such things as killing were lukewarm, how about plucking their limbs and knock them down into collected feces?

And, the Heavenly Record eater realized that it’d die in 10 seconds.

“Ha?” (Heavenly Record eater)

Without being able to understand at all, the Heavenly Record eater just became overcome with surprise, wasting about 2 seconds of the its precious remaining time.

For an existence like the Heavenly Record eater, space-time was a part of itself. The surrounding space and time were within the range that it could be controlled with its own will, and predicting the future and the like were simple, but it had become unable to predict the future of after 10 seconds.

What was ‘death’?

It had understood it objectively and personally experienced a pseudo-that due to the death of its other self, but the Heavenly Record eater hadn’t understood that in an essential meaning.

Even it dying itself was out of its imagination. Even itself couldn’t think of such things like a way to kill itself, which continued to eat Heavenly Records and contain several worlds.

And yet, it knew that it’d die.

It knew that its existence would be annihilated.

Why did it became like this, it didn’t understand anything about the meaning.

Only questions filled its mind, and its thoughts argued in circles with no result.

The Heavenly Record eater didn’t know anything but that that was the decided future.

Five seconds ahead. The future after that couldn’t be seen. Its time was ending there.

The Heavenly Record eater manipulated time. If it was a unit of several seconds, things like going back in time were simple.

Fifteen seconds more until death. Upon going back to 10 seconds, it realized that nothing changed, and noticed an abnormality.

It was 10 seconds ago that the Heavenly Record eater noticed that it’d die.

At this point in time, if a cause that lead to some sort of death had occurred, if it returned to a time before that, being released from the fate of death would be reasonable And yet, the imminent death seized the Heavenly Record eater, and didn’t let go.

The Heavenly Record, for the first time since its self-consciousness woke up, felt fear.

Something it couldn’t see was twining around its own body.

It couldn’t perceive it all, therefore it didn’t know how to shake and untangle it.

It was too irrational, it even was beyond fate. It couldn’t overturn the decided event, to ‘try to go back to the past’.

The Heavenly Record eater abandoned its body as a person.

Throwing away its body as the emperor of the Arganda Empire within the Heavenly Record, it returned its consciousness into its real body.

A build so big that it could swallow even a Heavenly Record. It looked like a fish in some respects. It mostly was a face, a majority of which held its mouth; it was a figure that showed its nature of just eating.

With that real form drifting about in the “Sea”, the Heavenly Record eater woke up.

It trembled at the enormous power hidden in that body.

It quickly realized that it wasn’t a small human or something.

At this moment, the flow of time became fuzzy, and it was filled with an omnipotent sense.

It recognized the size of the existence called ‘itself’, and the lowness of the struggling human beings living on the Heavenly Record.

Thereupon, rage *bubble bubble* welled up.

This itself shamelessly ran away. That couldn’t be forgiven.

The likes of such a Heavenly Record should disappear.

Its heart filled with violent emotions, as if to possibly cover its frightened self.

The Heavenly Record eater decided to release the stockpiled power that ate numerous worlds.

Something like this wasn’t worth eating. Every single piece should be destroyed.

It was something resembling an unreasonable but compulsive idea, and at that moment, the option of escaping from within the Heavenly Record eater vanished.

It spread its enormous mouth widely. It was a mouth certainly big enough to be able to swallow a Heavenly Record.

The depths of that mouth cavity. A light burned there.

A flash of anger that burned everything to nothing.

『Die』

The instant it tried to release it, the Heavenly Record eater returned to itself.

It had a feeling that it heard something.

And, it realized that 10 seconds after now, death would be realized

In the Heavenly Record eater’s final moments, it thought ‘I’d be fine if I didn’t wake up to self-consciousness or something like that’.

At that time, Yogiri and others were having an audience with the king.

The Arganda Empire had been destroyed already.