"How did it go?" Kaito asked in the throne room once everyone stood before him, he didn't need to explain what he meant.
Kirito stepped forward, his conflicted expression was enough for Kaito to guess that things had not gone the best way.
Kirito spent a while explaining the entire course of the battle, once he finished, Kaito understood and, beyond that, he noticed some strange things.
First of all, monsters. Although Kaito already knew of their existence, the battle showed that there is most likely not a hidden supernatural side in the world concealed by the government, but rather a supernatural side completely under the government's control.
From this, two things surprised Kaito, first of all, they were excessively weak. Taking into account that the Shinomiya group, for example, would give up their entire fortune just to enter that world, he expected them to be more powerful.
Secondly, vampires, it may sound irrelevant, but the number of supernatural entities Kirito mentioned was truly immense, at least hundreds of different species. However, among them, there was not a single vampire, and while it may seem normal, Kaito had not forgotten one specific detail, whether it was the current Earth, which is a crossover of several slice of life anime, or all the other worlds accessible through the tower of worlds, they were originally created for mere entertainment.
And knowing that these creators, just like him, know about the existence of vampires, why not include them?
They are immortal, attractive, powerful, noble, elegant and countless other traits that would appeal to many. So if they are going to add monsters, why not add vampires as well?
Of course, there is the possibility that they simply chose not to deploy vampires, but Kaito did not really believe that, given the quantity, it seemed they decided to use everything they had.
Especially since among the hundreds of monsters Kirito mentioned, there were other species such as werewolves, mermaids or wendigos, all of which should require special environments to survive or exist, yet they were perfectly adapted, so Kaito did not believe they were missing just because it was daytime.
"How strange, why wouldn't there be vampires?" Kaito murmured, even thinking he might be giving too much importance to something so mundane, but his mind, the one that had received numerous enhancements and level ups, told him it was something important, so he could not simply ignore it.
"Vampires?" Kirito asked in confusion, making Kaito widen his eyes with an idea.
"It could be... do you not know what a vampire is?" he said, looking at everyone, who almost in unison shook their heads, not knowing what Kaito was talking about.
"What about the rest? All those who appeared here?"
Some denied, not knowing any of them, others recognized only a few, since they were not experts or avid readers of monster stories.
Of course, there was one exception.
"I know them, every single entity Kirito mentioned exists in fiction, whether books, movies, ancient stories, urban legends or myths. However, I do not know what a vampire is" Kaguya said.
The reason she knew this was, of course, because after learning that a supernatural side existed, with likely non human species, she devoted herself to thoroughly researching possible future enemies.
With Kaguya's confirmation, Kaito confirmed that vampires did not exist within that world.
But Kaito had a theory, a theory about why vampires do not exist, and more importantly, why the rest of the monsters do, after all, anyone could realize that their current world, a fusion of several romantic or slice of life anime, is not meant for fighting but rather to be a kind of romantic conquest game.
Thus, Kaito realized that perhaps the creators of this world never added them, but that someone else did.
'System, when I fused several abilities, creating "Demon King Body" and with it "Impenetrable Mind", you said there was a kind of mental suggestion, right? A sort of guide that nudged me toward some objective. Can you tell me when that started? Was it when Gaia began?'
[No. It was when you were born] the system responded immediately as if it had been waiting for that question.
Just like before, it could not explicitly reveal that information, but answering Kaito's doubts did not break the rules.
'I knew it' Kaito thought with satisfaction, realizing he was right.
He had already discovered before that the god of Earth is actually a god of the planet Earth and not of the earth element, which means he does not originate from Gaia.
The god of Earth is an important god in Gaia, being a creator god, but even so, he is from Earth.
Just with that, he knows there must be some connection with the Gaia system.
Now it turns out that Earth's monsters should not be there, but were created and forcibly added, suspecting this god of Earth or the other beings behind Gaia should not be too crazy, right?
Not only that, these monsters, Kaguya recognized every single one of them, which suggests that the order of things was reversed, meaning those monsters existed first in fiction and then in reality.
Kaito believes this because, even if monsters had been sighted throughout history and myths originated from that, with so many species it would be impossible that they had seen all of them, right? It is more likely that the beings behind Gaia were inspired by these stories to create the monsters.
As for monsters appearing thousands of years before their myths, well, even Kaito, a mortal, has interfered with time three times already, it would not be strange for a god to do the same.
Furthermore, such a god should know about whatever is destroying the worlds, right?
Then there is the final point, the massive mental suggestion in everyone's mind from birth, a low level suggestion that does not try to order you to do something, but simply subtly guides you, as if they do not want to command you, but want you to fulfill a specific role.
A god capable of moving through time goes back to the past for some reason and changes history, creating a more difficult world. Then, his companions make everyone behave in a certain way.
These two, setting and characters, are what is needed to tell a story.
At one point, Kaito believed Gaia was a kind of Noah's Ark, designed for survivors of other worlds, or alternatively, for them to unite and resist the threat.
Now, Kaito is almost certain it is just a whetstone.
With the goal of ending the threat destroying all worlds, these gods decided to modify the entire history of one world.
Whether by making the world more difficult from the start, creating a system to make them stronger or making everyone act like characters, this is nothing more than a grand story woven by others.
And if the final enemy is already decided, then the story can only be about the growth of the protagonist.
Out there, somewhere, there exists a person, a person around whom the world literally revolves, a person who is not being guided like the rest, but can act freely, growing within this scenario prepared for him, a person in whom the gods placed all their hope to stop the current threat.
'...at least, that is what I think' Kaito thought.
This was not a sudden idea, but a deduction based on several pieces of information he had gathered over time, even so, it was still just an idea.
[...You are correct]
The system, although it could not display emotions, was quite surprised that Kaito had guessed around 80% of everything classified within its data.
Kaito already knew before why his world was created, now, knowing the reason behind those changes, the cause of everything and even the final objective, it is not an exaggeration to say that Kaito had stumbled upon the truth of the world.
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Author's Note: After nearly two hundred chapters, we officially enter the main plot. I must say this was planned from the beginning, so every piece of lore revealed earlier simply fits into this, there shouldn't be any inconsistencies unless I made a mistake. You may like the lore or not, but within the world, it makes sense
+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)