Come to think of it, I’d entered Pandemonium in exactly this posture. I didn’t know how much time had passed in reality, but it seemed Carla had been stuck being held by me the whole time.
"Ah, I’m sorry."
I let go of her face and stepped back. I did feel genuinely sorry. I hadn’t known what state Carla would end up in.
'Atena, who laid the curse on Carla, enters Pandemonium with me, but Carla herself isn’t affected at all, huh.'
I’d thought Carla herself might at least faint, but apparently not.
'While I’m inside Pandemonium, I’m completely defenseless. I need to factor this in.'
If an enemy of mine has Divine Power, then I can’t just use Pandemonium recklessly. The god who owns the power will go into Pandemonium with me, but the human who received that Divine Power remains unaffected. They could just slice my neck while Pandemonium has hijacked my consciousness.
Something occurred to me and I asked Carla,
"You could have just pried me off. That must’ve been an extremely awkward situation."
"It really was awkward! It was so awkward! I nearly died from how awkward it was!"
People can die from awkwardness?
Carla sounded genuinely aggrieved.
"If you think I wanted to stay like that, that’s a real misunderstanding! Nothing moved! Your body! Even with all my strength I couldn’t peel off even a fingertip! It’s not that I wasn’t using strength! It’s not that I wanted to keep staring into your eyes!"
"Yes, I won’t misunderstand that."
I see. It doesn’t move. So that’s a property when I enter Pandemonium. Good intel.
"And so I—I thought you’d turned to stone......"
Right there, the tears that had already been brimming finally spilled from Carla’s eyes.
"It didn’t go gray, but your body wouldn’t budge, so I thought it was another form of petrification, and I—I thought it was my fault. I thought I’d killed you."
Carla covered her eyes with both hands and sobbed. With that already delicate frame of hers, she looked pitiful. I almost apologized without thinking.
"But what is this!"
Instead, Carla snapped up to glare at me and shouted. There was no room to apologize.
"All of a sudden your eyes came back to life, the focus returned, then you looked at me and greeted me like, ‘Is something the matter?’ And you were still holding my face while you did it! How can anyone do that? No, a human can’t do that! You’re a demon! You awful human!"
"Am I a demon, or an awful human?"
"To think you were alive when I thought you were dead!"
"Why are you angry about that?"
"A-and also, and—!"
Carla, who’d been shouting at full force, paused with puzzlement on her face before the next words came. She looked at me as if I were suddenly very strange.
"......And, my petrification doesn’t work on you......?"
Truly an after-the-fact remark.
Even Carla herself sounded unconvinced; her voice trailed upward into a question.
The curse of petrification. Carla can control it to a degree, but depending on certain conditions, it becomes hard to control. I judged that to be emotional agitation, and that seems roughly right—since Carla believes she fired petrification at me.
Carla asked,
"What happened?"
In a sense, the most proper question.
I was about to kindly explain, when—
"......Oh, right."
I remembered Atena was still trapped.
"One moment. There’s one last thing I have to do. Once that’s done, I’ll explain everything."
I opened my Sixth Sense, to search for the fabricated Pandemonium the way Bael had done.
Carla didn’t know what I was doing, but she could tell I was concentrating, so she stepped back a little and watched me quietly.
Then, suddenly, she asked,
"......Um, you know."
"Yes."
"Is it only you that petrification doesn’t work on?"
Only me?
At the slightly odd phrasing, I tilted my head.
Carla continued,
"My petrification has never failed on objects or living things. Are you an exception?"
So that’s how it looks to Carla. The petrification ability continues to function, but I’m the exception.
I looked at Carla.
......There was a trace of expectation on her face.
"No."
I said,
"It’s not that I’m the exception. It’s that you have reached the moment you’ll become the exception."
"......What do you mean?"
"If this goes well, you won’t be able to use anything like petrification anymore."
As I said that, I found it. Pandemonium.
As expected, it was right where Carla and I had met eyes. I’d done this before, but detecting and seeing what doesn’t belong to this world is, sensorially, far from easy.
I approached the front of Pandemonium. Of course, Carla wouldn’t be able to see it.
"So,"
I said, feeling a bit mischievous,
"You’re going to become ordinary. With no powers at all. You may resent me if you like."
***
And once again, Frondier stood perfectly still.
Carla knew at a glance. It was the same as when their eyes had met.
"......."
Carla stepped up to Frondier. He stood without the slightest movement.
Step, step. Carla circled him, looked at his face, then poked his shoulder, his back, his cheek.
'Just like before. Hard as stone. As if he were petrified.'
The difference was that he hadn’t actually become stone; to the naked eye he simply looked like someone standing still. And surely, he would be far harder than any stone she produced.
When Frondier had grabbed her face and then become like this, she was too shocked and flustered for her brain to work. Now, at least, she could think more calmly.
'Petrification didn’t work.'
Frondier had clearly taken her power and yet moved about just fine. Not even the hem of his clothes had changed.
Is that because Frondier is different from other people? She had thought so, but Frondier had said something else.
That her power would disappear.
That she would become an ordinary person.
"What on earth are you?"
Carla asked the unresponsive Frondier.
From their very first meeting, he had been strange. The moment she saw his face, her heart lifted. The sensation was so unfamiliar and sudden that she panicked. Affection, romance, perhaps love. She had never so literally felt what people call “love at first sight.”
But thinking back now, she felt a little differently.
The emotion she felt could indeed have been that sweet sense of first love, but—
'......Maybe I felt something entirely different.'
Something alien she felt from Frondier. A power impossible to sense from ordinary humans, something only a being classed among monsters could perceive.
Instinctively, Carla knew Frondier was different from other humans. And perhaps, because of that, she had allowed herself to hope.
That he would solve her situation.
That if Frondier would only take her side, the circumstances she now faced, the curse—he could sweep all of it away at once.
In short, what she felt upon seeing Frondier was similar to love at first sight, and yet different.
It might be closer to what one feels when meeting a white-horse prince or hero out of a fairy tale.
However—
"What are you doing here?"
"!"
—she knew at the same time.
This world is not a fairy tale, and even if it were, the prince on the white horse does not approach monsters.
"Medusa."
Carla pressed her lips together and watched the approaching figure—who spoke her true name—from a distance.
***
When I entered Pandemonium and found Atena—
"Hey."
"......."
Atena was in worse shape than Bael had been.
"Hey, get up."
Even when I called, Atena didn’t answer; she stared blankly into space.
What makes this feel so strange is that this is proof I beat my opponent. In other words, under the power of my soul, Atena ended up like this.
Having the other side look like this after only a few minutes—how am I supposed to feel about that, as the “host”?
'Still, she doesn’t look completely broken yet.'
Atena was at least standing upright, and though her focus was hazy, it felt like she was looking at something.
If it gets worse than this, you can’t even stand properly in here. You won’t even know whether you’re standing.
"Get up."
I called a bit louder, but there was no response.
Atena stared at a single point for a long time, as if she didn’t even know I was here.
And then, very slowly, her mouth opened, and what came out was—
"......Mother."
What goddess calls for her mother.
And if you’re calling for your mother, that does a number on mythology.
"Hey, that’s enough—let’s go."
I grabbed Atena and shook her, tapped her cheek lightly, but still no response.
This might be a bigger problem than I thought.
To be troubled about breaking a god’s mind—this is deception of the highest order for a human to indulge in.
"So, you can’t see anything, huh?"
I nodded to myself.
I understood that Atena could neither see nor hear anything right now.
So there was nothing else for it.
I hadn’t planned to experiment with this. Not unless things got like this.
But as things are like this, it isn’t my fault.
"If anything, it’s your fault, mm."
Having thus prepared the perfect rationalization—
Creak, creeeak.
—I took out the formula of “Pause,” which slept in my workshop.
"Light, like the unlookable sun, like exploding starlight."
Light Magic, Form 1
Pause
Chant, Verse 1
"Light, like the unlookable sun, like exploding starlight."
Formula complete
Will-o’-the-Wisp
"Will-o’-the-Wisp."
A Wisp with both chant and trigger included.
Of course, its purpose was the exact opposite of what I did in the gym.
A single flame was born between me and Atena.
Last time, controlling this had been a pain, but this time, there was no such burden.
Because I had no intention of controlling it.
Vwoooom!
And the Wisp began to operate.
From the first flame born, more flames /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ continued to bloom in that same spot, in countless succession.
With not even a one-millimeter deviation, flames born exactly there collided, exploded, died, and were born again.
I held that right up before Atena’s eyes.
Ordinary people might go blind—not a matter of being touched by fire or not—but, well, Atena’s a god, and she refuses to get up.
Not my problem.
Fsssh!
KWOoooooom!!!
The flames shifted from red to blue, then to white.
And then, to blue-white.
An absurd intensity of light was thrust before Atena.
"Come on—wake up, Atena."
Of course, since she was in the process of being swallowed by the fake, this might do nothing.
But if she was holding on to even the thinnest sliver of the “real,” there’s no way she could ignore this level of luminosity—
"......My—"
"My—?"
I cocked my head, thinking I’d heard Atena make a sound.
Immediately after, Atena shouted,
"MY EYYYYEEEEEEEES!!!!!"
