After the Elden Beast died, the surroundings returned to normal, becoming a stone platform. Only Neck and I remained, while at its center lay a fragment of Marika—or rather, her body—with its head severed and the rest barely holding together.
"Wait!"
?
Just as I approached Marika and prepared to destroy her body, Neck called out to stop me. I tilted my head in puzzlement and looked at him.
"...What is your goal? Who are you in the first place?"
...Should I kill him?
After a silence that was both brief and interminable, a blue summon sign appeared beneath Neck. Then Marika's adopted daughter, Ranni, was summoned.
That ring.
I had been wondering where I'd seen it before. So she was the Moon Princess.
"It's over for everyone. No... is this the true beginning? As expected of the Knight of Eternity. I knew you would appear here. So what is your goal now? You've killed and absorbed every Outer God. There shouldn't be any left."
"Ranni, who is that?"
"That man?"
Ranni immediately assumed a combat stance, and Neck drew his sword and pointed it at me. I could ignore most things, but if I ignored the three rules engraved upon me, I would lose my purpose and cease to be myself.
Normally, I would have called down lightning and destroyed them, but that last technique had exhausted all my mental strength. At most, I could produce static.
"He is a bug the Eternal Queen Marika happened to discover. A parasite who lost his own world, could not return to it, and clings to another's. The incarnation of greed that slaughtered and absorbed every Outer God in these lands."
Huh? What kind of slander is that?
Is that what you two whispered about while I was gone?
I lost my world?
This isn't my story, is it?
...No, is it my story?
This is annoying. Should I just blow them away?
I wanted to subdue them, but they were both sorcerers, so that would be difficult. Besides, Marika said they were interesting and told me to keep them alive if possible.
"One of the failed works made by a sage from another world. In your world, are you called a Lost One?"
"A Lost One? Isn't that an NPC from Dark Souls 2? Is that why he's wearing Farnam's Armor? Does he even have free will? He hasn't said a word this whole time."
...
"A manufactured artificial god, discovered by the Eternal Queen Marika and dyed completely in her colors, yet now incapable of communicating with her. Since he came from outside, you could call him an artificial god from beyond."
"Then he's... a god too? Like the one from before?"
"Yes. A god formed from multiple beings like that Elden incarnation from before. No... he is a monster that has devoured countless divinities."
"Then... it isn't over yet."
"His master, Marika, has fallen into that eternal slumber, and the rule within his Elden Ring—'Obey only Marika's orders'—has ceased to function properly. I still haven't figured out the other two rules. I need to leave with my king, yet things have become far more complicated than expected."
These two... I was going to ask Marika about it after this was over, but they're revealing my identity among themselves.
What am I supposed to do about that?
I exist here, in this place, as myself. What does it matter what I am?
The threshold has already been crossed.
Ranni watched me hesitate because the sorcerer couple was standing before Marika's statue, preventing me from destroying it, and took that as proof that her suspicions were correct.
Ranni's goal was to leave this land with the gods and their order. To achieve that, she and her consort would kill the gods and depart, ending the age of gods in these lands.
But the Knight of Eternity before them had killed a god and absorbed all its divinity. He might become a second Elden Beast, so they could not leave. He had seemed worse than a monster from the start, and now he had even absorbed the Elden Ring. If this continued...
He's difficult to read because of the vast runes within him, but he's severely exhausted. I can't sense any mental strength from him. Perhaps this is when he is at his weakest.
Unlike Ranni, who had reached that conclusion, the self-proclaimed monster before her used what little brain he had to realize that Ranni's goal was to destroy Marika's body. He planted his longsword in the ground.
"...What is your goal?"
Ranni remained on guard, while the monster pointed at Marika and gestured for her to hurry up and destroy her. It only looked more suspicious, and she refused to move. Just as it seemed a battle was about to break out...
"No, Ranni. We should yield here. It is a necessary step for us to leave as well. Besides, even if a battle breaks out here, we cannot win."
Only then did Ranni check on Neck—or rather, her consort. His catalyst had already been reduced to powder, and not a single piece of his armor was intact. Only the sword he had used when fighting Radagon remained whole. Realizing that, she finally backed away from before Marika's statue.
"I'm sorry... my king."
"It's all right. Let's watch and see what he does now."
Neck was so effortlessly cool that I was moved by how anticlimactically the conversation ended. I quickly sent a vacuum blade flying at Marika with a wave of my hand. Marika turned to ash, and a familiar voice began to echo in my mind.
"Why did you take so long? And why were you so rough? Even if I asked you to save me, did you have to make me look like that? That's why my children have such a poor opinion of you. Godfrey would be better."
I'm already feeling that painfully, so stop.
If only you hadn't made that rule forbidding me from talking to you, this wouldn't have happened.
"...That's because you started speaking so crudely from the beginning. Blame your usual way of talking."
So they know what I am now. What are you going to do?
"I was going to tell you, but did Ranni do it first? She must have been spying on us. It doesn't matter. Now that the one who ruled this world is dead, we'll be cast out into another world as well."
As I spoke with Marika, golden letters were engraved into the ground beneath Ranni and Neck. They each came to their own understanding. Beyond the earth split apart by my vacuum blade, a Dark Moon appeared, and they vanished along with it.
"My moon is watching, so be careful. Still, thank you for taking care of me when I was young."
"Let's go, Ranni. Thank you for giving me courage."
After they disappeared, I was alone on the stone platform. Marika kept talking to me, and my body began to fade as I too prepared to leave this land.
"This is my first time leaving like this as well, so I don't know. You killed the master of this world, so the shackles binding you have been released. You could disappear at any moment. You're only barely being held here because you transcended the system and became divine as an Outer God. You cannot refuse this either. Shall we leave together, then?"
I'll go, but is it really all right to leave like this?
"This is why I had you kill every Outer God in these lands. Absorbing them was an unforeseen development, but congratulations on becoming a true god. However, now that there is a newcomer, every Outer God in the universe will turn their attention to you. That will become troublesome, so I will separate only your incarnation. Your true body will exist in a pocket dimension, but what will you call it?"
I'll think about it when the time comes. It's annoying.
"Even after becoming a god, your head is just as empty. No amount of teaching can fix that. I'll support you in that area. Since I'm connected to you, my own divinity has risen as well. I think I'll be able to do many more things now."
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