Chapter 278: King
The Origin Universe had already converged into one.
Each different facet appeared independent on the surface, yet in truth all of them were merely derivations of the Main Body that existed within the Origin Universe.
The earlier Artoria, the wielder of the Holy Sword and an aspect of the King of Knights, had been exactly that kind of existence.
But this girl, who was also named Artoria, was different.
She was an aspect of the King of Knights that had never been assimilated. She was a version of herself from another world that remained wholly separate.
The reason was not that she could not be absorbed.
It was simply that she had refused.
"She is not like me."
That had been what Artoria said after sensing the Sorceress facet of herself through the connection established by the Chaldeas of the Origin Universe.
At that time, the Origin Universe had already encompassed the vast Sea of Stars. It could not yet truly be called the radiance of human order illuminating the galaxy, but it had long since spread far beyond the Solar System.
All visible stars had already come under control, and the universe no longer possessed the same mystery it once had.
Yet when faced with that endless stellar sea, the expression Rowe saw on Artoria's face had been strangely complicated.
So of course he asked.
"Different?"
In Artoria's eyes he saw the girl who looked almost exactly like her, yet wore a magus robe and had grown up as a sorceress.
"Different indeed."
Artoria as a king was awe inspiring and sacred.
Artoria as a knight was noble and humble.
Artoria as a swordsman was spirited and upright.
But all of them shared one common trait.
Restraint.
To learn restraint was the path required to become a king and a knight.
And to learn restraint was also to lose innocence.
But the sorceress girl did not possess that restraint.
She remained pure and kind.
"She truly is different from you," Rowe had said with a smile. "So that is why you refused to absorb her?"
"Mm."
Starlight fell across the heroic beauty of the King of Knights. Her sky blue eyes shimmered like a rotating nebula.
She stood at the very top of the tree, while the wind of the universe stirred her brilliant golden hair and the green mantle on her shoulders. Beneath that cloak, her graceful and agile body stood upright and steady as a pine tree, composed and serene.
"She is not like me."
"She was born into a world full of despair, yet she still preserved the purity and beauty she began with. That is something I once wished for, but could never achieve."
"Lord Rowe, I hope you can take her to the world where she was born."
"Ah. That also happens to be a promise I made to that fellow."
Rowe naturally had no intention of refusing.
The world where Artoria had been born as a sorceress was the very world he had once promised to save. It was the world Cernunnos, the Celtic supreme god, had entrusted to him in the final moment of that dead land.
And it was also precisely one of the branches of the doomed world Rowe had now arrived in.
Still, in truth, was it not simply because she represented the purity you once possessed?
At the time, Rowe looked at Artoria's face, and what he saw in those sky blue eyes was far more than the surface.
What Artoria wanted to save was not herself.
Nor was it merely that world.
It was someone who should have remained closest to her, but in the end had walked a different path.
Morgan le Fay.
The elder sister of King Arthur.
"Lord Rowe, what are you thinking about?"
The voice from the present pulled Rowe back from his memories.
It was now the year 2016.
Outside Chaldeas, perched atop the Arctic mountains, snowstorms still raged without cease. Beyond those storms, the world itself was blank, a completely collapsed spacetime left behind after human order had been incinerated and all things had been burned away.
And yet within Chaldeas, inside the steel wrapped greenhouse, that voice still rang clear.
Rowe looked at the girl before him.
Artoria, dressed in a magus robe, stared at him with a trace of confusion in her sky blue eyes. Her long skirt swayed lightly, supported by black clad legs. Seeing him lost in thought, she leaned forward in worry.
Then, before he could say anything, she stood on her toes and placed a hand against his forehead.
The girl was only a hair's breadth away. Her hair brushed against his face. His gaze dropped, almost involuntarily, to the soft curve of her raised hips. The faint warmth of that touch stirred his heart, but Rowe quickly steadied himself.
"I am fine. I was only remembering something."
"Mm... are you really all right?"
The worry in Artoria's eyes did not fade.
The world she had been born into was a Lostbelt derived from the current one, a world split from the timeline before it had been pruned away.
That world had no legends of Rowe.
No tales of the Holy Son.
So Artoria did not know what Rowe truly was.
In her eyes, Rowe was simply someone who had always treated her kindly.
The person closest to her.
Nothing more.
"You do not feel feverish either..."
Only then did the girl pull her hand back, her delicate brows still slightly furrowed.
For Rowe, the situation was almost amusing.
This was, after all, the first time anyone had ever worried that he might catch a cold.
"I really am fine."
"No. You just came back from a Singularity. You need proper rest!"
The sorceress girl grabbed Rowe by the hand with an almost unquestionable firmness and pulled him toward the bed.
He sat down atop her sheets, where the faint fragrance of the girl still lingered. Then she planted both hands on his shoulders and announced with complete seriousness,
"From now on, I will make sure you rest properly."
"I would like to rest," Rowe said, pointing toward the door, "but there is someone outside."
"Ahem. Ahem."
The moment he gestured, several awkward coughs came from the hallway.
Artoria instantly drew back her hands, a blush appearing on her face at once.
She turned toward the door.
A head poked in.
"If you two are busy, we can come back later..."
"You. Get in here."
Rowe waved a hand, and the figure outside was dragged in at once.
Short red hair fluttered in the air as Ritsuka, still dressed in her combat outfit, stumbled into the room.
Seeing the intimate posture the two had just been in, she scratched her head awkwardly.
"If I said I was not deliberately eavesdropping, would anyone believe me?"
"Senpai... I told you, we should knock first."
Mashu, who entered behind her, wore an utterly helpless expression.
"Fou!"
Even Fou protested.
Ritsuka's smile only became more awkward.
Fortunately, Da Vinci stepped in to rescue her.
"Oh my. It is lively in here, is it not?"
The genius artist of medieval Europe, appearing in the body of a young woman and dressed in a court gown, walked in with a porcelain cup in her hand. Her long black hair traced a graceful curve through the air.
"Still, I did not think I would meet you in person like this."
After offering a slight bow, Da Vinci lifted her gaze to Rowe, her expression containing a meaning difficult to read.
As one of the greatest artists in human history and one of the three great figures who helped usher Europe into the Renaissance, Leonardo Da Vinci had, during life, opposed the Church openly enough that the Church would not have been wrong to call her an antichrist.
"Anything distorted deserves to be opposed."
Rowe seemed unconcerned.
"By that standard, I am an antichrist too."
After all, what the Christ of the early Common Era had once done, once all singular contradictions were stripped away, was to liberate the human mind and teach people to become the lords of their own hearts.
Later generations had twisted that teaching into a shackle.
Breaking those chains was, in truth, no different from continuing his work.
"Of course I know that."
Da Vinci smiled with easy politeness.
"That is why I only ever opposed the Church."
"I once read the manuscripts you left behind, and I still have some questions..."
Any final trace of prejudice vanished immediately. Da Vinci began asking Rowe one question after another, most of them related to philosophy, thought, and theory.
And very quickly she discovered something surprising.
This Saint before her, though he had lived in the early Common Era, possessed a thorough grasp not only of religious philosophy, but of social development, the course of civilization, and even principles that modern science had only recently formalized.
No matter the field, Rowe answered with effortless ease.
Beside him, Artoria tilted her head and watched.
She said nothing.
She merely sat down quietly at his side.
Ritsuka and Mashu exchanged a glance as well. Neither spoke, but the happiness in their eyes was impossible to hide.
They were happy that Rowe had truly come here.
They had not known him for an especially long time, yet both had already developed an excellent impression of this Saint, and every exchange with him had felt strangely natural and comfortable.
To be able to continue that friendship was something worth being happy about.
"Yes..."
Rowe suddenly lifted his gaze.
"So is the man hiding in the dark finally going to come out?"
Da Vinci blinked, then came back to herself as well.
"Mm. I nearly forgot."
"Romani Archaman..."
"Ahaha. You all can keep talking. I still need to supervise the control room..."
Romani, who had been lurking outside ever since, poked his head in through the doorway, but before he could finish trying to flee, Rowe dragged him in as well.
"Why are you running? I am not going to eat you."
Romani Archaman trembled.
"Do not worry."
Rowe patted him on the shoulder.
"I will not eat you. I will not hit you. I will not scold you."
"Really?"
A flicker of hope appeared in Roman's eyes.
"When have I ever lied?" Rowe asked. "At most, I will punish you by banning strawberry shortcake."
"You may as well kill me!"
Roman's expression collapsed on the spot. If he could not eat cake, then what meaning did life even have?
"Then perhaps I should change the punishment. For example, I could stop you from playing those gal games you like so much. The new one that just came out, perhaps..."
"I am sorry. I will never do it again. Please punish me!"
Roman dropped to the floor at once and smashed his forehead down before Rowe could continue.
Under the strange gazes of Ritsuka, Mashu, and Da Vinci, his surrender was absolute.
If this went on, he felt like he was going to die.
Social death was more terrifying than anything else.
"Forget it. I am not going to tease you any further."
Rowe waved it off.
"In any case, this was your choice, and I did not come here to punish you."
"But there are things you should not do, and things you must not do."
For example, sacrificing your own life in order to stop Goetia, the one who called himself Solomon, but was in truth only a composite of the Seventy Two Demon Gods, from incinerating human order.
I have not died.
So what right do you have to die first?
At the thought of it, Rowe felt a faint irritation again.
Romani Archaman, on the other hand, breathed out in obvious relief.
Back when he had still been the King of Israel, the revelation he had received from the Lord at the moment he took the throne had already left a psychological scar that lasted a lifetime. Even years later, the memory of that reprimand still echoed in his ears from time to time.
Terrifying.
Absolutely terrifying.
"Let us set him aside for the moment."
Rowe turned his gaze toward Ritsuka.
"Although I helped you once, I will not interfere too heavily in the coming Incineration of Humanity."
"I am not suited to interfere too much. You should understand why."
Ritsuka understood, of course.
Just like what had happened in the French Singularity.
Although it was Rowe who had defeated Cthulhu, the one who had truly played the essential role at the critical moment had been Ritsuka.
The living people of this era, the people represented by Ritsuka, those still standing in the time of the Incineration of Human Order, were the true actors of the present.
For this world, Rowe was a savior from the past.
But the past was always fated to remain the past.
Those still alive, those ordinary people who seemed powerless, were the true saviors of the present.
"Do you have confidence?"
"Of course."
Ritsuka grinned.
The red haired girl's face was clear and firm as she answered.
"I may just be an ordinary person, but I am carrying a lot too, Mr. Rowe."
"Then good luck."
Rowe looked at her, then at Mashu.
"Ritsuka. Mashu."
"Yes."
"I understand."
"Fou."
The last cry sounded very much like a protest at being ignored.
At the beginning of the Common Era,
within the Roman Empire,
in a desert swept by wind and sand,
a magnificent grand theatre stood filled to the brim.
Every seat was occupied.
The audience shifted and writhed in place, while black and viscous yellow mist rolled from their forms. Countless aquatic tentacles spread through the theatre like roots.
At the center of the stage stood the Roman Emperor in golden dress and crimson skirt. She spread her arms as she spun, letting out a bright cry.
"Umu umu..."
"Welcome to my stage!"
"To my glorious grand theatre!"
Her skirt flared outward, and a burst of crimson brilliance blossomed around her like rose petals sweeping through the air.
The audience howled.
No, not an audience.
They were Old Ones from beyond the world.
And what they faced was the true king of the world.
Nero Claudius.
"My song truly is something that only my Adjutant should appreciate."
"And since my Adjutant is not coming..."
"Then I shall simply go and find him myself. After crushing all of you first."
Her beautiful eyes lifted.
"So tell me..."
"What say you, Hastur?"
The girl looked out over the glorious city of Rome.
And above Rome itself,
perched like a god upon the empire,
there stood the robed figure of the indescribable being in yellow.
The King in Yellow.
Hastur.
.....
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