The snake came a little closer to Cybel.
That alone filled Cybel’s entire field of vision with the snake’s face.
[You say you’re lucky...?]
It was hard to read the snake’s face. Strictly speaking, it didn’t really have expressions.
But within those eyes, Cybel read a childlike curiosity.
[You truly cannot use Ecleksis?]
"Yeees. I only learned about it not long ago."
Cybel said with a bright smile.
Honestly speaking, smiling in front of this enormous snake was not an easy thing. At this distance, if it opened its jaws and tried to swallow her, there would be no way to dodge it.
Originally, a snake’s striking speed is not something an ordinary human can react to. Cybel, as a seasoned warrior, could react. But the problem was this overwhelming size. Even if she reacted and moved her body, she felt like some part of her would still end up in those jaws.
That tension and pressure—she accepted all of it and smiled.
[...No. That’s impossible.]
The snake tilted its head. Its head turned completely to the side and then slowly circled around Cybel, as if trying to see her from every angle.
As the snake coiled around her, Cybel asked,
"By the way, what’s your name? I wanted to ask you that earlier too."
[I am Jormungandr.]
Jormungandr.
Cybel pursed her lips.
In truth, she had more or less guessed from the very first moment she saw it. A snake this enormous—who else could it be but Jormungandr.
'To meet a divine beast I’d only heard about in stories like this...'
A snake said to have grown so huge it wrapped around the world and bit its own tail. Of course there was exaggeration in that tale, but seeing it in person, she understood why people would say such things.
If this snake really was Jormungandr, there was something she had to confirm.
"Then are you... on the giants’ side?"
[What did you say?]
The snake stopped circling her and brought its head back in front of Cybel’s face.
"From what I learned, you were abandoned by Odin."
Odin is the one who received the prophecy that Ragnarok would come and struggles desperately to escape it. Among those who would bring about Ragnarok, Jormungandr was included.
So Odin abandoned Jormungandr.
[...That couldn’t be helped.]
But the snake spoke, tilting its head slightly.
[It’s true that Odin abandoned me. I do resent him for that. But it was prophecy. It was something that had to be kept.]
Cybel looked into the snake’s eyes again. In them there truly did not seem to be anything like a thirst for revenge.
"Because it was prophecy, you understand? Even if it meant you would be sacrificed?"
[Prophecy is absolute. If I had been Odin, I would have done the same. Odin cast me away because he feared I would bring about Ragnarok. For someone like that to then start Ragnarok out of revenge—what could be more foolish?]
Cybel was a little taken aback by the snake’s words.
It was slightly different from what she had heard.
She had been told Fenrir and Jormungandr were always grinding their blades of revenge to kill the gods.
Frondier had gone off to fight the gods. She had thought Jormungandr would become an ally to him.
'...No, maybe this is actually the normal stance. If Jormungandr truly understands Odin’s situation completely.'
Cybel changed how she thought about it.
Right now, Jormungandr felt no desire for revenge against the gods. In other words, he had no intention of starting Ragnarok.
But Jormungandr had already said something contradictory.
Prophecy is absolute.
If that was true, then Ragnarok would happen someday.
'If so, something is missing here. Something that would make Jormungandr hostile toward the gods. Something that hasn’t reached him yet. What is it?'
Cybel’s thoughts deepened.
And whenever that happened, as always—
Krrrk.
Krrriik.
As always, she heard the sound of gears.
'Ah, that habit again.'
Cybel frowned slightly. This damned hallucination showed no sign of getting better. Even though her heart had changed thanks to Frondier, it was still there. At least it didn’t keep her up at night anymore, echoing while she slept.
[...]
Just then, Jormungandr lifted his head.
[What is that sound?]
"Ah, that’s, you see... huh?"
Cybel started to explain, then raised her head.
She had heard something that should never be heard.
"...What sound are you talking about?"
[You can hear it, can’t you. The krrrk-krrik sound. Like a machine device turning.]
Jormungandr said it.
He said there was a creaking sound.
Cybel’s expression went blank.
No one else should be able to hear this sound.
There was no way they could.
Because this was Cybel’s hallucination.
The hallucination that rang when fate was being arranged to suit her.
"...You can hear this sound?"
[What do you mean by that...]
This time, it was [N O V E L I G H T] Jormungandr whose expression changed. No, he was a snake, so his face hardly changed, but the atmosphere around him flipped entirely.
[I see. This is your sound! Of course no one else could have heard it in reality!]
"M-my sound? What do you mean?"
[You still don’t know? The reason you can enter Pandemonium!]
Cybel’s eyes grew wide at that.
"...Don’t tell me, this sound is—"
[That’s right, it is your Ecleksis.]
At that, Cybel lost her words for a moment.
—A child beloved by fate.
—The word ‘unprecedented genius’ is far too lacking.
—An intuition that always advances toward the correct answer.
There had always been extravagant descriptions attached to her.
In truth, most of those excessive phrases were Frondier’s evaluation of her, and Cybel had only heard about them later.
Frondier was the one who evaluated Cybel highest, and at the same time, the one most on guard against her.
That wariness had made her a little sad, and she had thought his evaluation was exaggerated.
But looking at it this way—
In the end, Cybel had been using Ecleksis ahead of anyone else.
[My mind is made up.]
"Made up about what?"
[At first, I was merely intrigued that you were here and wanted to know what you were.]
Killing intent rose in the snake’s eyes.
[But after all, killing you is the right decision.]
"...Ah."
Ssshhk—!
The snake opened its jaws and lunged at Cybel.
Just as she had thought at the very beginning, it was an attack she herself could never respond to.
However—
Kugugugug!!
Before Cybel could try to dodge, a strange sound rang out.
Crunch!
Immediately after, there was a sound like the air being bitten through.
The snake’s closed jaws were right in front of Cybel’s eyes.
[...]
Jormungandr was shocked, and Cybel felt like her heart was going to drop.
'Wow, if that had bitten me, my body would have been split clean in two. Vertically.'
The snake looked at Cybel again.
He had definitely lunged with the intent to swallow her. But he had missed.
It did not look like Cybel had moved. Nor did it seem the snake had blundered or misjudged his movement.
It was simply that—
'We’re farther apart.'
Both of them had the same thought at once.
Cybel and Jormungandr. The distance between them had grown. At the very instant Jormungandr had tried to swallow her.
Jormungandr could not accept this situation.
'What is this? No matter if this is Pandemonium, for something like this to happen... This is the realm of spatial magic!'
Among humans, the only one who could pull off something even remotely similar was Ospreet. And even he needed thorough preparation. It was not magic you would use in response to a snake’s sudden attack.
Krrrk, krrriik!
Cybel’s “hallucination” was now louder than ever.
No, she now knew it wasn’t a hallucination.
Jormungandr had told her.
'So this is my Ecleksis...'
Ssshhk—!
Krrrk!
Once more, the snake tried to bite Cybel, but still could not reach her.
"Are you really going to kill me? We don’t even have any grudges against each other!"
[This isn’t about grudges. It’s a matter of necessity!]
"Necessity?"
[Yes. From the moment you lit the King of Palma’s wick, you and I have been enemies!]
Whoooom—
The snake lifted its tail. That alone took a long time. His long tail rose as if it would touch the far end of the sky. Cybel stared at it for a moment, dumbfounded.
Fwish!
Kwoooooom—!!
At last, the tail slammed down onto the sea. The sea rose like a tidal wave that crashed down toward Cybel.
The sea was Jormungandr’s domain. This entire place was his Ecleksis.
"How unfair, I don’t even have a weapon!"
Cybel could not mount any real countermeasure against the approaching tsunami and simply hunched her body.
'Come to think of it, something similar happened before.'
She recalled the past.
Back when Poseidon had raised a waterspout and sent Cybel flying.
Poseidon had wanted to see how Cybel would respond, but she had just taken it head on and been flung into the sky. It had turned out well in the end, but still.
In Pandemonium, you cannot use mana or aura.
For Cybel, whose specialty was the combination of those two things, this was practically the worst possible space.
The only thing she could rely on was Ecleksis.
Only by clashing soul against soul could you win inside Pandemonium.
'I still don’t really know what my Ecleksis is.'
She had never consciously grasped something like a soul.
But if, as Jormungandr said, the sound of these gears was her Ecleksis—
'Until now, I’ve just left it alone.'
If making this sound louder was her Ecleksis—
Cybel stretched her hand toward the tsunami.
This entire sea was Jormungandr’s domain.
Conversely—
Cybel had yet to reveal her own domain.
Cybel Forte
Ecleksis
Harvest Time
Thoom!
In an instant, the tidal wave Jormungandr had raised scattered into spray and flew into the sky.
Cybel stood upon solid ground. Her domain expanded without limits, pushing the sea back and making countless things grow upon that land.
Beside Cybel, a wheat field sprouted, and flowers bloomed beneath her feet. Trees grew, and fruit appeared at the ends of their branches.
It was an utterly natural landscape, and at the same time, a human one.
And before Cybel’s eyes—
"Huh?"
A huge scythe was floating in the air.
Cybel reflexively grasped it. It was a scythe as big as she was tall. It was lighter than it looked, but still burdensome to swing around freely.
'...Isn’t this the kind of thing a grim reaper usually carries around.'
Cybel’s expression became awkward. It felt oddly like someone was calling her a grim reaper.
Cybel looked around.
It was a domain she herself had created, yet somehow she couldn’t accept it.
She had always heard the sound of gears in her ears.
So where had the gears gone, for this idyllic scene to appear instead?
[...No.]
But Jormungandr was different.
[No, no. This can’t be. There’s no way!]
Looking at Cybel, Jormungandr seemed to have realized something.
[You really have! You’ve actually taken root in her!]
Jormungandr suddenly shouted.
It did not sound like words meant for Cybel.
Even so, his gaze was fixed on her.
'Taken root...?'
Cybel tilted her head.
It was the very question she had been wrestling with for a long time.
'Is he talking about divine power?'
—I thought I had received divine power.
Not only Cybel, but everyone who saw her had thought so.
Her shining talent was believed to come from a god’s power.
Yet unlike everyone else who knew which god had blessed them, Cybel did not.
—Am I someone beloved by a shy god? Or am I really just lucky?
—...Or else, maybe...
—I’m a demon.
Cybel looked at Jormungandr.
Did that snake know who she really was?
"Mr. Jormungandr. What do you mean? Are you saying my power is divine power?"
The moment Cybel said that and took a step forward, Jormungandr flinched and cried out.
[Divine power? Divine power? No, that’s not it! Your existence isn’t something like that!]
My existence?
Cybel narrowed her eyes at those words, and Jormungandr spoke.
[You have had a god’s blood flowing in you from the very beginning! You are a demigod!]
A demigod? Cybel frowned at that.
That couldn’t be.
My dad is just an ordinary craftsman who carves magic circles into weapons. He’s well-known for his skill, sure, but that’s all.
And my mom...
...My mom...
"...No way."
Cybel’s brows drew tightly together.
