“…And why?”
The flash of genuine shock faded barely a second after Ryota read and understood what was written.
Apathy and indifference washed over him.
“Why what?” Kalli smiled slyly.
“Why did you come?” Ryota raised his chilling, cold-to-the-bone gaze to his interlocutor.
“Your words… they killed everything. Motivation, meaning, purpose. Nothing’s left.”
His throat, unaccustomed to talking, began to sting slightly.
But he didn’t show it.
“If that were the case, it would be very sad,” the goddess answered, still smiling.
“…and I wouldn’t have come. You still don’t get it? When I took you from the original world, I placed your soul into the world of MHA. One of many embodied worlds. But now… you’re no longer in it.”
“… ” The answer was a gloomy, thoughtful silence.
“Come on, little mouse. You’re smart.”
Ryota didn’t answer.
Instead, he sharply turned back to the computer and scrolled to the bottom of the page with the mouse.
“The prologue came out after I arrived here,” he whispered to himself.
“‘What came first, the chicken or the egg?'”
“I see you’ve understood something,” the girl said approvingly.
“So far, I’m just even more confused. Not to mention that your appearance in this fanfic is also described. Something tells me you wouldn’t be so pleased if you knew your entire existence was just some writer’s fantasy.” Kalli silently nodded, keeping her satisfied smile.
“But don’t forget, I’m the goddess of Lies and Deceit. All my emotions could be simple pretense.”
“…’The Liar’s Paradox,’ right?” Ryota sighed in defeat, tilted his head toward the ceiling, and lowered his eyelids.
“‘I am lying.’ If a person says that and lies, then they are lying about being a liar. If they tell the truth, then their statement is true, which means they couldn’t have told the truth.” He opened one eye.
“Wasn’t it enough for you to confuse me with all that world stuff? You had to add a little more Chaos with your words and behavior?”
“That’s just how I am,” the goddess shrugged carelessly.
“Consider it the essence of my existence. My, so to speak, semantic load.”
“Haaaa… Let’s pretend for a second that I’m a gullible fool who will believe everything you say, and get back to the topic of the world.”
“Whatever you want,” she raised her hands in surrender.
“So… let’s take it as an axiom that the world I’m in right now is neither the world of MHA nor a fanfic based on it. The only evidence for this is the words and reactions of the goddess of deceit. But let’s be honest, it’s easier for me to believe you right now than to doubt every word of your story.” Ryota cut off Kalli, who was about to speak.
“True,” the girl ignored his attempt.
“Before coming to visit you, I looked at the world of MHA. It seems to have restarted. Your world has become something new.”
“I can understand why that happened,” the guy whispered, thinking a little.
“But I still don’t understand the full background.”
“…The world we’re in right now, according to my observations, is no longer embodied,” Kalli squinted.
“At the same time, it isn’t the original world either.
It’s gone beyond classification.
And this fanfic,” she waved her hand toward the monitor, “is just an attempt by the original world to somehow smooth over what’s happening.”
“…’The original world.’ I’ve thought about that before, but… If secondary, embodied, worlds can influence the people who enter them and have certain mechanisms for doing so, can the original one also do something?”
“‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'”
“…A goddess quoting Hamlet?” Ryota raised his eyebrows in surprise, turning to Kalli.
“You humans have always been inventive. Especially when it comes to writing books. But I’m surprised. I didn’t think you’d read Shakespeare.”
“…I’ve always loved reading, even if I wasn’t a fan of the classics. And in the army, there was a fellow soldier who loved all that stuff. He often got books sent to him, and Hamlet was his favorite. So I asked to borrow it.” Ryota shrugged.
“Hmm… Anyway, don’t stress yourself out too much. This world… right now it stands on the threshold of becoming something greater. I don’t know what that will lead to yet, but I have a feeling the result will be interesting.”
For a couple of minutes, silence fell.
Ryota was completely immersed in his thoughts, reflecting on the goddess’s words.
“…Should I expect surprises from other gods?” he broke the silence.
“If they notice the appearance of a strange phenomenon?”
“I don’t think so. For the most part, gods are too self-absorbed and pay too little attention to the outside world. And in our case, you’d also need to know what to look for.”
“Got it. And, by the way, I have a question. You lied about being able to read human hearts, didn’t you? You just knew my thoughts because you read the last chapter of this… epic.”
Kalli grinned mischievously at these words.
Every detail of her expression practically radiated a kind of playful merriment.
“Maybe yes, maybe no. Who knows?” Her smile became even more mischievous.
“You can think about that at your leisure. And I should probably go.”
Ryota only frowned slightly at the goddess’s remark but didn’t say anything.
He wanted to.
He still had a whole bunch of questions, half of which were leading, designed to find out how much truth and how much lies were in her words.
But he was afraid the goddess would deliberately make it all even more complicated.
“One last thing.” Kalli’s hand reached for her slender neck.
Ryota remembered the day of his first meeting with the goddess down to the smallest detail.
Even after eight years, he instantly recognized the very same medallion that had hung around Kalli’s neck that day.
“Here.” She held out the removed necklace.
“Right now, this world literally revolves around you. You’re the main character of this story. And I’m dying to know what happens if, while it’s being written, you’re accompanied by a piece of my power. It won’t give you any special bonuses. Just put it around your neck, and it will instantly become invisible and intangible, even to you.”
“…And why would I want that?”
“Don’t be a grump,” the devil pouted.
“Wear it in good health.”
“…Huh?”
Ryota didn’t have time to understand or notice anything.
Again, the complete absence of special effects and just a moment.
But the goddess managed to bypass his vector shield somehow and hang the necklace around his neck.
A couple of seconds later, it silently disappeared, and Ryota stopped feeling any weight.
“Hey, you! What is this…?” The guy looked around the empty room in shock.
“She ran away. Damn brat!”
*Bam!*
“Shhh…”
Ryota stared in shock at the brass basin lying on the floor that had just hit him on the head.
On the inside was written:
“You’re one too :P”
At that moment, the usually cold-blooded and imperturbable guy’s eye twitched nervously.
***
The guy couldn’t stay in a state of shock and melancholy for long.
It wasn’t in his character.
The new information was understood, processed, subjected to the most paranoid doubts, but ultimately accepted.
After the goddess left, the computer returned to normal and no longer showed the familiar site, no matter how much Ryota searched.
His nervous state subsided after about ten minutes.
Then he just started thinking.
In essence, the goddess’s appearance and her story changed nothing.
Everything remained within the old framework.
Except now Ryota had a kind of foothold, and hundreds of different options had turned into just a couple of dozen.
Every line of information the goddess had provided had to be carefully considered and verified in the already familiar way.
Yes, by poking a stick into the hornet’s nest.
Except before meeting Kalli, Ryota had been afraid of running into some kind of mutants when he stirred up the nest.
Now he could quite reasonably expect ordinary bees.
After getting his thoughts in order and finally calming down completely, the guy began the most tedious and annoying activity any teenager could face.
Waiting.
Ryota had no doubt about the results of his entrance exam to U.A.
So he wasn’t nervous at all.
But he really needed those results.
He had worked hard for eight years.
He had played the role of a non-conflictual, slightly withdrawn good boy.
He had followed almost all lawful instructions and regulations.
He had been the very model of an obedient child.
But the greatest form of personal freedom he had achieved was a place in the dormitory.
But enrolling in the academy?
Not just any academy, but the best hero academy in the country.
Ryota could reasonably expect his own apartment.
Years of freelance programming work, with his brainpower, had given him a very substantial financial cushion.
If necessary, the guy was more than ready to shut up complaining mouths with money.
Enough depending on others.
***
“…Thank you,” Ryota nodded slightly to the guy standing in the doorway, taking the letter from his hands.
“Don’t mention it, Arai-san. And, uh, this is… a letter from U.A.?”
“Yes.”
“You got in?” Genuine curiosity showed on the short guy’s face. Find the original chapter at g.com.
“Yeah.”
“Cool! Just as expected, Arai-san! Oh, I almost forgot! Shimizu-senpai asked you to get in touch when you can.”
“Hmm. Okay.”
“Well, I won’t keep you any longer. Good luck!”
With those words, the boy briskly trotted off down the hall, holding his bag of mail tightly.
Ten seconds later, he could be heard energetically pounding on another door.
“Your newspaper!”
“…YOSHINO, GODDAMN IT, IT’S ONLY SEVEN IN THE MORNING!”
Not bothering to listen to the now-familiar argument, Ryota calmly closed the door and headed to his computer desk.
Every morning during this energetic boy’s shift, exactly this happened.
Fortunately, the shift was voluntary and, moreover, paid.
Perfect for earning a little pocket money.
So the younger students didn’t turn down such opportunities.
Throwing the letter on the table, Ryota stared at it thoughtfully for a couple of seconds.
Then, sighing in annoyance, he went to take off his sports uniform.
He had no desire to run.
One day wouldn’t hurt.
After changing, he returned to the table and, after a moment’s hesitation, tore open the envelope.
Inside was a miniature, palm-sized projector.
Ryota had even tinkered with one a few months ago out of curiosity.
Pointing the beam at a flat wall, he pressed the single button.
*”Ahem…
Aralara…
Huh?!
We’re already recording?
Ahem!
Good time of day, Arai Ryota-san!”* The oddly coiffed head of Present Mic appeared on the projected image.
*”I want to congratulate you!
You!”* He raised his hands up.
*”Passed!”* He put them behind his head.
*”The entrance!”* He spread them wide.
*”Exaaaaam!”* He thrust them forward with his thumbs up.*
‘Still just as overly energetic,’ Ryota chuckled to himself.
For a few more minutes, the guy warbled like a nightingale, dumping a continuous stream of information on the guy’s unprepared brain and ears.
But only a couple of drops of it were really valuable.
So Ryota couldn’t just cut the sound on the thing and go about his business.
He had to filter everything and separate the important from the unnecessary.
*”That’s it!
We’ll be waiting for you at our academy in a week!”*
The image went out, and the guy exhaled in annoyance.
It was for those damned words that he had listened to the hero’s flow of eloquence.
And it all fit into a short phrase!
Watching individuals like this, it was hard to accept the inhabitants of the MHA world as simple NPC statists, as Kalli had portrayed them in her speech.
This still caused some dissonance and an itching under his skull.
But Ryota was already quite calmly enduring it.
Until this moment, he hadn’t had any particular goal.
Just live life to the fullest, enjoying his gifted abilities.
Live for the sake of living.
Exist for the sake of existing.
Just like before.
Just like in his past world.
But now… why not believe at least part of the goddess’s story and try to create something incredible?
For example…
Create another full-fledged world!