How fragile is the human body.
Even the slightest touch of a magical projectile was enough to shatter it, scattering limbs like broken twigs.
Crack.
The blood mist sprayed from Muria-17-06’s disintegrated body, coating the girl’s face in a crimson veil.
“A... ah...”
The girl’s mind froze.
Her mouth hung open, her expression vacant, as if her entire consciousness had shut down.
This must be a dream, she thought.
A reality this cruel, this grotesque, could not possibly exist.
“...What a nuisance.”
The Director frowned.
One girl was a mindless husk. The other had foolishly thrown her life away.
Now he had no choice but to use the most troublesome one as the host.
He had preferred the body of the one who had just perished.
“Tch, I suppose there’s no other way.”
It wouldn’t matter once divinity was achieved. He’d place restrictions on her, just in case.
With a flick of his hand, an invisible force dragged the stunned girl toward him, her body limp as a doll.
“Her mind has completely shut down from the shock.”
The Director removed his gloves and placed a bare hand on her head.
Hum.
Magic pulsed through his fingers, penetrating her skull like jelly, as he began probing her brain.
“This is perfect. Her condition makes it easy to imprint the restrictions.”
The massive magic circle that filled the sector began to contract, its intricate runes shrinking as they etched themselves onto her body.
Simultaneously, a stream of blood erupted from Muria-17-06’s mutilated remains, surging into the girl.
“Aaaaaaaaah!”
Her screams echoed as the extreme magic carved into her very soul, like a brand embedding itself into her flesh.
“It hurts! Stop, it hurts!”
She had endured countless experiments before, but even she couldn’t withstand the agony of her soul being twisted and engraved.
“That one’s no longer useful either. She’ll make good material,” the Director muttered, stretching his hand toward Muria-25-03, who had fallen to the ground and was weakly crawling.
“No! Stop! Don’t! Please, don’t!”
Despite the unbearable pain coursing through her, the girl desperately reached out, trying to protect her friend.
Crunch!
Even with her destroyed brain, Muria-25-03’s body had remained intact—until now. She dissolved into a pool of blood, becoming nothing more than ink for the engraving process.
“S-Three-Three! No... not Three-Three too... This can’t be...”
The girl couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
They were all dead.
Everyone was gone because she had tried to escape.
If they had stayed in the cage, this wouldn’t have happened.
Everything was her fault.
“No. If you had stayed, I would’ve incinerated all of you and moved on to the next batch of experiments. So, thank you for stepping out of that cage. My time is running short.”
“You... you monster! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”
“Rejoice, and be grateful, you vermin. You are about to become a god.”
The Director plunged both hands into the girl’s head, laughing as if her rage was his greatest delight.
“The first god created by humanity! A god of wisdom, no less!”
Rumble.
The ground quaked as a mystical energy enveloped her, seeping into her being.
“All the conditions for ascension have been met!”
The conditions for creating a god, as determined by his research, were twofold:
“Completing the narrative through the triumph over hardship.”
“Die!”
Crack!
At that moment, her telekinesis crushed the Director’s head, shattering it into pieces. Blood and brain matter splattered across the room.
...He was dead.
The monster who had turned her into an experiment, who had tormented her since childhood, who had mercilessly killed and tortured her friends—was dead.
“...Is he really?”
The magic circle halted as the Director’s headless corpse crumpled to the ground.
Was he truly gone?
The girl stared, disbelief etched across her face.
But no matter how she looked at it, the body before her was lifeless, devoid of any activity.
“He’s dead... He’s really dead... He’s dead!”
Tears began to fall, one drop at a time.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
She collapsed onto the floor, wailing.
It’s all my fault.
If I hadn’t been there—no, if only I had died instead—then none of them would have disappeared without a trace!
If they had never met me...
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, everyone! Aaaaaaaah!”
Her cries echoed in the empty space, unanswered.
And then—
Whirr.
The mystical energy that had vanished now surged back, flooding the area and wrapping around the girl.
“W-what...!?”
Blood rose from the Director’s corpse, streaming into her.
“No... no!”
The girl realized too late why the Director had died so easily.
He had planned this all along.
He had intended for her to kill him, casting himself as the villain in her narrative to complete the final condition for her ascension.
Her revenge wasn’t a victory.
She had played perfectly into his plan.
“I don’t want this... Stop it! Stop!”
As the divine clouds thickened, her body began to rise, lifting her higher and higher.
She struggled against the radiant power enveloping her, but it was futile.
The conditions had been fulfilled. The narrative was complete.
The girl ascended as a Constellation.
***
The girl regained consciousness and found herself seated somewhere in a dark, quiet room.
The power she now possessed as a god was extraordinary.
It allowed her to perceive everything on the continent of Reiphania and internalize all knowledge belonging to it.
Thanks to this power, she realized where she was: the celestial realm.
She was stunned. The Director’s research had been focused on artificially creating a god.
He had sacrificed the laboratory, himself, and everyone else to achieve this goal.
She had lost everything—her beloved friends, her target for revenge—and yet the Director’s dream had been realized.
Sitting there, dazed, she could only think about the cruel irony of it all.
But then, a thought struck her.
With the power of a god...
Couldn’t she bring back Three-Three and Six-Six?
Determined, she scoured the depths of her newfound divine knowledge, searching for a way to resurrect her friends.
Necromancy to raise the undead.
It was a common practice across the continent.
No, this won’t do. Their bodies are gone, and I could never bring them back as undead.
The power of otherworldly gods to turn illusions into reality.
There were records of such feats occurring during the mythic era.
This won’t work either. Who knows what an otherworldly god might demand in return? The historical accounts of those who contracted with them always ended in tragedy.
The faith of the forgotten, gathered to create a Constellation.
This... might be possible.
Many Constellations had risen to divinity through posthumous veneration and epic narratives.
If she created stories of Three-Three and Six-Six, spreading their legacy, they could potentially be reborn!
Overwhelmed with hope, the girl sprang to her feet.
But—
Thud!
You must not waste the power of a Constellation on meaningless pursuits.
"Ah!"
Something struck her mind with the force of a hammer, causing her to collapse with a scream.
“W-What was that...?”
You are a god of my creation. Obey my commands.
The Director’s voice echoed in her mind, layered and distorted, as if a hundred versions of him were speaking at once.
“You... You’re dead! How can you still...?”
The Director’s voice persisted, suppressing her actions.
Whenever she tried to do something that might defy or harm him, the voice restrained her, as though certain actions were forbidden.
She was barred from leaving her domain, from interacting with other gods, and from countless other acts.
The only things she was allowed to do were to wield her power of wisdom and knowledge and to accumulate divinity through her Apostles.
Even if she complied, the voice still tormented her, endlessly whispering in her mind, tightening its grip on her sanity.
The dead man’s voice echoed without pause, tormenting the living god.
Through her divine knowledge, she discovered the nature of this curse.
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The Director had designed her as his greatest masterpiece, an artificial Constellation, and had left behind a shackle in the form of a curse.
This curse, specifically engineered to restrain a god, operated on intricate conditions and restrictions.
The curse drew its power from her knowledge.
The more she knew about the continent, the stronger the curse became.
For an ordinary human or even a sage, the curse would have been negligible.
But for her—a god endowed with the power of knowledge and wisdom, inherently aware of all things on the continent—the curse was overwhelmingly potent, enough to imprison even a deity.
Her divine power, rooted in knowledge, was also the reason she couldn’t break free.
To dispel the curse, she needed knowledge not of the continent, but from another dimension—an otherworldly realm.
“I... I can’t take this anymore...”
But the curse’s repetitive whispers and the Director’s oppressive voice wouldn’t allow her to seek out such knowledge.
And so, the girl could do nothing but clutch her head in despair, fighting to forget the torment.
She began to cling to remnants of happy memories from her past, trying to lose herself in them.
She hoped that someone—anyone—would come from another world, bringing with them the knowledge needed to break her curse.
And, somewhere in her heart, she wished that the prince she had dreamed of would appear and save her.
Rustle.
It was then that the nightmare binding her splintered.
“I’m sorry, Constellation.”
Through the cracks in her prison, a boy with jet-black hair reached out a hand to her.
“I’m truly sorry for making you relive such painful memories.”
In a daze, the girl took his hand.
“I think I can break these chains.”
With a firm pull, the boy lifted her beyond the domain that had confined her for what felt like an eternity.
“Would you mind giving me a moment? I’ll smash these shackles right now.”
The surreal world shifted.
A dreamlike realm emerged—a dazzling labyrinth of neon signs and towering concrete forests.
It was a world she had never seen before, not even through the divine powers of her omniscience.
And in this world, beyond her long-standing curse, lay the knowledge to set her free.