"Ahhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! Ahhhh-"

" ______________________________ "

Finally, there was no more noise, proof that Death had done its work. Why did everyone have to scream in despair in their despair? At least for those who had the time. Even though we'd done it dozens of times before, we were still lukewarm. Indeed, once you've begun to reflect on the consequences of your choices and actions, it's hard to remain in denial.

After all, choosing murder out of all possible options was not a neutral choice. It was an opinion that carried a solid moral choice. However, I still didn't know why this bothered me since morality was foreign. It didn't matter because I could always ignore these thoughts.

At least, I thought so at first. Escaping from the grip of one's mind is never easy since thoughts would increase their influence whenever a choice evoking their origins was selected. Thus, those unfortunate enough not to dare curb their curiosity about their nature would end up beset by haunting ideas reminiscent of their own darkness. So this time, it was my turn.

I was a prisoner of my own mind. Moreover, I knew nothing about myself or my personality, and I felt incapable of discovering more about myself. Above all, no matter how many people died, I was given no answers. At first, I was indifferent to death, but more and more, I felt strange, as if my being was a little emptier than usual. But an emptiness that poisoned rather than an emptiness that slowly consumed.

In other words, it was a lousy emotion that contained no beauty in the destruction of my own existence. I could only feel even more weary in the face of this realization. Why was I even having these thoughts when I wanted to stop? Why had I even asked myself this question when I knew the answer?

After all, I couldn't chase away thoughts that could point the way to a complete understanding of my true personality and, in the long term, of my Ideal. A path I wanted to follow, even if it could destroy me. Nothing could be more regular, for seeing one's existence return to the eternal, unchanging Void prematurely was more desirable than remaining happy and ignorant.

Knowledge was worth everything, and that's why I was here and now, slaughtering mercenaries from every organization that might have been ordered to capture me. Or almost everything since the Void was superior to knowledge. The latter was merely a means to an end, whatever end I might have decided. Whatever end I would choose soon once the story of our lives was entirely told.

In any case, seeing the extent of one's ignorance in retrospect was painful. It was so vexing and pleasurable because at least my past self lived a peaceful life. Admittedly, it is a life that forced her to commit murder for her own ends, but it is a serene and enviable life nonetheless. Wouldn't you agree, my dear System? I see... So you're sulking a bit... At least I tried.

I looked at the corpses in front of me and their seemingly universal expressions of agony. Now that I had enough energy to create new skills, I could finally test my new scrolls and Skills, I thought happily. I was particularly proud of the scrolls, as we'd designed them ourselves.

In fact, we'd need help; otherwise, we'd never have progressed in learning the art of magic and program creation. We owed it all to these fabulous treasures. I remembered that long-ago day when we had discovered one of the secrets of the Tree of Heaven.

Or rather, the Trees of Heaven, for we could now teleport to the other rooms accessible with my level of Authorization, thanks to the machinery in the bowels of the Trees of Heaven. Teleportation was a real boon to our exploration.

While in some rooms, it had taken months to walk from one end of the room to the other, we could now travel instantly to any accessible room, no matter how remote. Thanks to this state of affairs, an investigation of the Refuge's various rooms was finally possible.

In fact, during our excursion, we'd come across other artifacts resembling the one I'd touched. We touched them again and again, but nothing happened. At least, almost nothing... because when I opened The Book after having already touched several of them, I was utterly overwhelmed by the new information displayed.

Contrary to what I had first assumed, no new rooms were accessible, only information about what they contained. How did the Refuge know about the rooms' contents, even if only approximately? I was increasingly suspicious... The System didn't have access to this place, did it?

Of course, with all my data on the Refuge, the World, and the System, I could only answer in the negative, even if that still left me with potentially dangerous unanswered questions. For the time being, I had to watch for any oddities I detected in the Refuge. On the other hand, the information on the map could have been more beneficial.

What was the point of having more precise information about the objects in the rooms if you couldn't use them? Especially as the books were still indecipherable. Well, almost all of them. This was where the element that had enabled me to massively increase my understanding of magic came into play.

However, the more I learned, the more I grasped the fabulous potential of magic and programs and contemplated the complexity of the world around me. While part of me already knew that the top of the World would be a long way off, I had never really begun to glimpse the chasm that separated me from the Masters of this World until the day of my first magic lesson.

On that day, I decided to create skills of analysis and experience enhancement at all costs. Speed of learning was paramount in this World, and the ability to develop skills myself was an invaluable advantage. Of course, I had other projects to further accelerate my ascent, such as creating a skill that could copy skills, improve them, and evolve on its own.

However, these projects would have to wait until my skills were sufficient to design such a skill. At least, I could only hope so, as part of me didn't believe that I would ever be able to obtain enough knowledge to produce such masterpieces unless I received help from a third party.

Even though these thoughts kept coming back, it was my duty to push them from my mind and concentrate on the precious knowledge the works inside the Tree of Heaven showed me. Sometimes, I could only think wearily that I was cursed. After all, the thoughts that nagged at me only increased with time. If one day I were to die, how many would I have accumulated by then?

Fortunately, as always, my mind refocused on my teaching, accompanied by a Void exhilarated by the ancestral knowledge contained in the sweet fragrance of these Time-aged, burnt-edged pages. The fact that these books contained no sophisticated magical technology other than that used to counteract Time itself testified to the importance of their preservation from Entropy.

Just the fact that these books were located in such unique places, in a place whose symbolism I didn't yet fully understand, was a testament to their importance to my predecessors and the wisdom of their contents.

If my predecessors had decided to put them in such a place, setting them apart from other books, the esoteric knowledge contained in their thick, fragile pages must have been crucial to understanding the World. Forbidden knowledge that I would gladly absorb and make my own. But for now, I had to name these books that pleased my Void.

In short, these books taught me magic and algorithm design, or in other words, the pillars of the World and, I instinctively sensed, of the System. That's why the first name that came to mind was "Grimoire". There could be no better name for the first texts to have so imbued me with their wisdom. I wouldn't lie if I said I was ecstatic at sighting their pages.

In any case, thanks to the Grimoires, I'd discovered a passion for reading, a passion fortunately shared by my sister. And so I spent most of my days devouring as many of the vast libraries of Grimoires contained in the Trees of Heaven as I could. And with so many of them I could teleport to, it would take me an eternity to read them all.

Unless I invented a skill to increase the pace of reading and memorization. On the other hand, I was a bit attached to the atmosphere of reading by traditional means. So, I was conflicted about using a skill and risking altering my reading experience.

After all, this was the first experience where I felt peace within myself, not in a passive way, as if simply contemplating something beyond me, but more actively through my own initiative in creating this feeling. I had provoked this emotion for the first time instead of letting it seep into me. Thus, I had allowed my mind to be corrupted of my own accord by ephemeral contentment.

But my reveries ended when humans suddenly appeared in this calm sea of corpses. Why did my tranquility have to be constantly disturbed every time I recalled positive memories? Was it a sign of fate that I should never dare to dream of happiness? In any case, it wasn't as if I ever wanted to be happy.

Whether at this event or when I was writing these lines, I had no interest in a concept as elusive as happiness. Even suffering was a more exciting concept. At least, I appreciated pain, grief, and alienation far more than the insipid happiness so many people sought. In fact, I even desired all the suffering that made me come alive.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

On the other hand, this may seem contradictory to you, as I've already told you that I hate pain and suffering. My point of view has remained unchanged, even though months have passed between viewing these different memories. Indeed, while it's true that I prefer suffering to happiness, my idyllic ending is always the Void and its absolute neutrality.

Since, for me, suffering is synonymous with life and happiness with death, I can only desire with all my soul the Void that lies between the two. The Void that lies between being and nothingness. Like the Void, my desire to belong to it, to conform to it, even to be it, is eternal and unchanging. Even if I were to be reincarnated, it's a vow I'd keep tirelessly until the end of time, beyond all eternity.

Unfortunately, I was quickly snapped out of my reflections when Systalia asked me what plan I should adopt. That's right, I forgot that little detail," I mused in exasperation. I scanned my surroundings again, looking for hidden enemies. But I didn't see any, which meant that these three people were brave enough to come without a proper "escort". So, they would only last briefly for the tests I had in mind.

But that didn't matter; I could always find test subjects elsewhere. After all, all we had to do was wander the streets randomly, and we'd either be picked up by organizations in pursuit or randomly mugged by shady people who only wanted to do unspeakable things to us that the morals of the Ascendants would disapprove of.

But, had I known about the world of the Ascendants at that time, I would surely have regretted that we were hardly in the Ascendants but in a city filled with substandard housing and unsavory people around every corner.

The scene was quite amusing as our opponents, now standing before us, kept alternating their gaze between my apostle and the scattered corpses. What's more, their faces betrayed the confusion and dismay that was growing by the second. Quietly, in the heavy silence, we moved forward.

Step by step, second by second, meter by meter, we drew closer to our future prey. Each time we closed the distance, they backed off, proving they were smart enough to be wary of us. Unfortunately, they hadn't the wisdom to lose us as quickly as possible. Although I had to admit that, even if such an idea had occurred to them, we'd never have given them the time.

Judgment had been rendered, and the outcome decided: Death. Immediately, I thought, the humans in front of us coughed up blood and collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath as one muscle after another gave out. They'd obviously never learned what had happened to them since their last expression was one of profound perplexity.

At least they hadn't died with fear on their faces, I thought with mild satisfaction. What had they died of? I'm sure you've been asking yourself that question all along. And to that, I have only one answer: spells are undoubtedly fantastic... Long live Grimoires! Long live Magic! On a more serious note, I had poisoned our enemies via the air.

This may surprise you, but the spell did not create the poison. Indeed, creating toxins would have cost me far more mana than I currently had. You may argue that the scrolls that created flames could be activated, but I can only reply that these scrolls already contained a lot of mana in their papers.

Mana was only used to activate the scrolls' spells, not to power them. However, activation could consume insane amounts of mana if the magic was too powerful. As far as we were concerned, Systalia and I possessed the talent to create scrolls with built-in mana storage.

In any case, we still need to create spells of sufficient complexity, such as flame, wind, or water. Even after all these years of reading, we were still at the beginning of our training as magicians. Or witches, as the Grimoires called those who diligently read their pages. Besides, the type of magic we were learning was runic magic.

To my great regret, I didn't find any other information or clarification on the subject. So, I learned how rare this type of magic was and the names of the other kinds of magic. Moreover, it reminded me of another mystery: we could read Grimoires, unlike all other books.

Of course, this enigma could be partly solved if we considered that the Grimoires were written in runic language. They were written in the same language as the magic they taught. It was astonishing and, frankly, fascinating when you thought about it. I could only bow my head in respect to the creators of the Grimoires.

Nevertheless, it only raised more questions. Why could we read the runic language? Why could we decipher runes when used as words but not when used as spells? Why this type of magic and not another? Why had the Grimoires been written? All this questioning promised more investigation.

I hoped I wouldn't end up in situations that were too much for me to handle and that I wouldn't dig up any sensitive secrets at the risk of being noticed and hunted down by the World. How naive I was back then; it was almost laughable. How could I fail to see that my actions would, hundreds of years later, cause worldwide upheaval? Hmmm... Curiosity? Who knows... But never mind.

In any case, one thing was sure: spells were not usually transcribed with runes. The difference between a scroll taken from one of the corpses and our own left no room for doubt. The magical language was essentially different, and no similarities could be found. It was impossible to decipher the unknown spell from my meager knowledge of runes. So, for the time being, I had to concede defeat.

Returning to our spell, it simply drew poisons into the air. The air in the surrounding area was purified, while the air close to the humans gradually became loaded with toxins. The only problem with this spell is that it doesn't work quickly, and the exact effects of the noxious substances in the air are unpredictable.

As for the first difficulty, we had already activated it a few minutes earlier when we heard the noisy arrival of these peace breakers. All we had to do was move the air close to them. Unlike converting mana into toxic particles, the cost of controlling a mass of air was negligible by comparison. Especially as our poisoned air was the size of large marbles.

But appearances were deceiving. While small, they had amassed dubious substances from over 100 m³ of air. Once noxious enough, the beads of air had been divided into three and sent into the bodies of the humans during one of their breaths. They couldn't sense that the air was any different, except perhaps for a slight odor, as only the concentration of toxins increased radically.

The density of the air itself changed little, and even if the concentration of dangerous substances increased the weight of the air ball, these remained so diluted that the difference in weight remained undetectable as they breathed. In the end, as you can see – or rather, read – they died within ten seconds without even realizing it.

At the time, I was frankly taken aback by the result. After all, who could have expected that even a concentration of unknown substances, which remained infinitesimal despite their extraction from the entire vicinity of the air, would have such an intense and rapid impact? I had to face the facts: even if the air in this world wasn't heavily polluted, the particles were absurdly toxic.

All in all, this spell had been a success for the time being. Indeed, even though I'd said it consumed less mana than spells that converted mana into other particles, it was no less energy-intensive. So gluttonous that I could only cast it once before running out of mana. So all we could do to get out of here was rest in this old, abandoned building.

We stared determinedly at the doors leading into the lair of the organization that had targeted us this time. At last, we could begin our investigation to find out who wanted to capture us. But before investigating these dreary, insalubrious rooms, I still had to feed on my prey. With a single activation of my skill, it was instantly over.

No trace was left of the mercenaries' past existence... or almost. Yes, we, their executors, could bear witness, until the end of Our Time, to the ephemeral passage of these beings in the world of the living. Although, if the System was omnipresent, at least outside the Refuge, could it know of the outrage I had just caused the World? What was I like in the eyes of the System?

Unfortunately, the only one who could satisfy this request... was none other than the System itself. Even then, there was no guarantee that the System could pronounce my case. Even as I looked at these corpses, I kept coming back to my demons, even if I didn't know why? What was tormenting me? I would have accepted anyone's answer. However, nobody in this World was omniscient. Nobody, not even my Void, not even Us.

I pulled myself together, refocusing on the mission as my apostle began her stroll through the sizzling streetlamps. Strange, I could have sworn the last time this happened was in the vast building where I woke up, I thought, intrigued. Shaking off these unsettling similarities, I refocused on the room... and there wasn't much helpful there.

There was plenty of scribbled paper, but they were all illegible. Too bad no books were teaching the language of this World if there was even one, I mused ruefully. In fact, there were also sheets of paper and printed books, as evidenced by the printers and computers on the tables at the back of the room.

Each time, for some reason that escaped me, I could only suddenly remember these complex machines I'd never seen before. In itself, with my amnesia, this wasn't so strange. However, if you consider that I'd never had any recollection of the System or the organization of society in this World, it was abnormal.

After all, the latter must have existed much longer than my coming to this World. Before my amnesia, I'd been in contact with the System and its inhabitants for a hundred years. The bloody corpses that formed the first memories of my awakening were ample proof of this. So why was I unable to remember the World and the System? Why was that? Why? Why!? Why!!! Wh–

"My Goddess, are you all right?"

It's true, I wasn't supposed to worry my sister. I quickly reassured her while I calmed myself inwardly. I had to be careful; I became increasingly agitated and anxious these days. I just hoped it wouldn't get any worse. It wasn't, was it? Who was I trying to convince? I could only distractedly observe these rooms' dusty, dilapidated landscape for answers.

I huffed inwardly, then reviewed all the other insignificant items in the room. Apart from instruments and tools of all kinds, there was nothing of interest. All we had to do was move on to the next room. That's how we spent those hours while my mana regeneration and bad feeling told me to leave.

However, it was not in my power to leave this place, as I had to get a clue from my enemies at any cost. It was all for my own safety. So I wouldn't have a hindrance to my ascent. As I resolved to face any danger, my apostle opened the last room and...

Something called to me from the depths of the room. Something so frightening and disconcerting... It was clearly different from my Void, yet not alien to me. Whatever it was, I was sure it would help me. I concentrated on my surroundings, trying to determine where this incongruous sensation originated. After a few long minutes, seconds, or hours, I wasn't sure; I was confident.

I pointed my sister toward the place I was so excited about, the fateful spot of the first important decision of my life. Or so I thought for a long time. In the middle of this room, half-submerged in the most ominous darkness and oppressive silence, interspersed only by the haunting sound of water droplets falling on the floor, I rejoiced at the sight of legible writing.

At last, I could understand a book from this World. But that wasn't even the craziest part of the situation. No, the most disturbing thing was the language: runic characters adorned the pages of this spellbinding work. Why was I encountering such a mysterious object now? Why did this organization possess such an object? Above all, why...

[What do you desire in this World, dear Void?]

I could only inwardly show my incomprehension at what my apostle's eyes were staring at. It could only be a dream, could it not? How could I believe such a thing, such a crazy element in my journey? After all, I was the one and only recipient of this text.

Beyond all my questioning, I was so confused by the current situation that I could only laugh hysterically in response, while my sister seemed perplexed by my reaction. Yet, despite her likely judgment of me, I wouldn't stop laughing any time soon. I couldn't stop. Who could remain indifferent to such a stranger unexpectedly added to my ascent?

And so I discovered a new object that would become an essential part of my quest... and a new person to ask about my past. What thrilling and agonizing mysteries to uncover, I imagined. But that research was for another time.

Indeed, at the moment, my mind could only be absorbed by this book's blackened pages and glittering runes, which exuded such a sinister and fascinating aura. The same atmosphere and language as the Grimoires... What did runes symbolize in this World?

With this question far more significant than anything I could have imagined at the time, my first encounter outside the Refuge with the extraordinary magic of runes began. It was indeed a singular magic...