After the queen's story ended, silence filled the ruined hall.
The sunlight from above had shifted, painting long shadows across the ancient stage.
I looked at her for a long moment before speaking.
"Then why did you make the same mistake?"
The queen blinked.
"Why did you let me in?" I asked.
Her two daughters immediately became cautious again.
The queen, however, only smiled.
A tired smile.
She looked around the underground hall.
The stone walls.
The old torches.
The patched animal pelts.
The handmade furniture.
"What could an old-world survivor like yourself possibly want from this mud hole?" she asked softly.
Her eyes moved across the chamber.
"There's nothing here."
She laughed quietly.
"I've survived for hundreds of years for the sake of my daughters."
She lowered her gaze.
"But honestly..."
"I don't mind if I die today."
The words came out so calmly that they were more painful than if she had cried.
"I've had enough."
She placed a hand over her chest.
"This isn't living."
"It's surviving."
She looked up toward the shaft of sunlight.
"It's just an extension of the nightmare I never woke up from."
Her voice trembled.
"To keep living like this is more painful than dying today."
The hall fell silent again.
I let her words settle before asking another question.
"I need more details."
She looked at me.
"The people who attacked your mansion… did they wear gas masks? Filters? Any kind of protection from Pandora?"
The queen frowned and thought for a while.
Then she slowly shook her head.
"If my memory serves me right… they didn't."
I froze.
No filters.
No protective suits.
No breathing equipment.
Pandora had become airborne.
Normal people should have needed protection.
Unless...
My thoughts accelerated.
The original theory had always been that Pandora mutated accidentally into an airborne form, perhaps due to radiation or uncontrolled evolution.
But another possibility existed.
Someone had done it deliberately.
Spread Pandora intentionally.
Vaccinated their own people in advance.
Then allowed the world to collapse.
A perfect conquest.
No armies.
No long wars.
Just a plague.
The survivors who remained would become easy to control.
I slowly clenched my fist.
A hundred years later and I still did not know who had pushed the world into the abyss.
The queen watched my expression.
"Are you ok?"
I looked up.
I had almost forgotten that she did not know.
There was no reason to hide it anymore.
I took a slow breath.
"I suppose I should properly introduce myself."
The queen tilted her head.
"I am the creator of Eden."
Silence.
"I am the doctor they once called the miracle doctor."
The queen stared at me.
For several seconds she did not move.
Then her eyes widened.
Tears immediately filled them.
Before I could react, she lunged forward.
Her arms wrapped around me.
Her tail coiled around my lower body.
"Doctor..."
Her voice trembled.
"Doctor... are you really that doctor?"
She began crying.
Not like a queen.
Not like a hundred-year-old survivor.
Like a frightened little girl.
"Please fix me."
She buried her face into my chest.
"I want to live like a normal person."
"Please help me."
"Please help my daughters."
"They've done nothing wrong."
"Please let them live normally too."
Her shoulders shook.
"I can't do this anymore."
"Even after a hundred years..."
She looked around the hall.
"Look at how we live."
"It's miserable."
"I'm too stupid to teach them anything more advanced."
"I couldn't give them a better life."
I slowly raised my hand and patted her head.
Her hair was soft.
For all her age and responsibilities, she had never really grown beyond the frightened fifteen-year-old girl who lost everything in one terrible day.
She simply cried.
For a long time.
Eventually she calmed down.
She finally realized she was clinging to me.
Her face turned red.
She released me and quickly moved back.
"I-I'm sorry."
She looked away.
"And please forgive my behavior."
Her tail twisted left and right nervously.
I almost smiled.
Even after a century, she still had the mannerisms of a sheltered girl.
Then she looked back at me.
"What happened to you, Doctor?"
She gently coiled the tip of her tail around my leg.
"How did you become... this?"
I looked at my artificial body.
So I told her.
I told her about the final days.
About becoming infected.
About dying.
About awakening as data inside a machine.
About existing inside a datacenter like a ghost.
The queen listened quietly.
When I finished, she looked at me with pity.
"You had it tough too, Doctor."
She lowered her eyes.
"I'm sorry for asking you to help me."
"Please forget about it."
She slowly released my leg.
There was a long silence.
Then I spoke.
"No."
She looked up.
"If that is your wish..."
I looked into her eyes.
"...then I have a responsibility to grant it."
The queen froze.
I reached into my backpack and removed a mana crystal.
The crystal floated up towards sunlight that poured down via transparent glass
The three lamia watched silently.
I gave the command.
The crystal rose toward the center of the hall.
Mana began pouring from it.
The crystal spun slowly.
More and more mana filled the chamber like glowing mist.
The air itself became brighter.
The queen's eyes widened.
The two eldest daughters stepped protectively in front of her.
Then they stopped.
Because nothing dangerous happened.
The mana particles gathered.
Silica.
Carbon.
Trace metals.
Old wiring material hidden inside the ruin.
Tiny amounts of matter floated upward and assembled themselves.
An illuminated crystal slowly grew.
Then another.
And another.
Crystal lamps bloomed across the ancient hall.
One by one they awakened.
The underground chamber, once lit only by torches, became filled with soft white light.
The queen covered her mouth.
The two eldest daughters stared upward in disbelief.
It looked like stars had appeared underground.
Then I snapped my fingers.
A sudden wind swept through the hall.
Every torch went out.
Darkness tried to return.
It failed.
The crystal lights remained.
The hall stayed bright.
The queen looked around in complete astonishment.
The light reflected in her golden eyes.
"Impossible..."
I looked at the three lamia.
At the mother who had endured a hundred years of suffering.
At her daughters who had never known anything except survival.
At the ruined hall that had become their home.
I finally understood.
I had spent all this time thinking of myself as a ghost.
The last remnant of a dead world.
A scientist who failed.
A man who died.
But perhaps I was wrong.
I slowly stood.
"As of today..."
The crystal lights illuminated the stage behind me.
"I am no longer merely the ghost of the old world's miracle doctor."
The mana particles drifted around me like fireflies.
I looked into the queen's eyes.
"To you..."
"To your daughters..."
"And to the people who will come after..."
I spread my hand.
"I shall become a god of the new world."