I heard voices.
Distant, distant voices.
"Wof!"
"Wake up. Just once is fine. You!"
The voices—huh? What… the wind is strong…?
Wait, no, it's way too strong? Where on earth am I… and what's with this sensation of falling through the air?
"…Huh…?"
I opened my eyes and froze.
It was sky. An overwhelming expanse of blue sky and white clouds. I was right in the middle of it.
"!?"
Wh-why is it all sky!? And I'm falling!?
"Calm down. It's only natural, but calm down."
"Now that you've awakened, the Sage and I have slowed your descent. You won't hit the ground anytime soon."
Th-that was a relief.
Okay… I was saved… The Sage and the Royal, huh? Who are those?
"Now that you're awake, come this way, won't you?"
"Mm. Do come over here."
Wait, come where?
Huh?
I stood — without any warning — in a place of endless white clouds and blue sky.
When I looked up, a boundless blue-purple starry sky stretched overhead, and the ground beneath my feet had become the sky itself.
"?"
A giant knife was driven deep into the sky-ground at an angle.
From its shadow, a black table and chair emerged as if they had grown right out of it.
The chair had five legs, all of them buried in the ground.
"......"
It was quite a strange sight.
Even a nightmare wouldn't be this bizarre.
A white male silhouette.
A blue female silhouette.
Four octopus tentacles, no matter how you looked at it.
A small animal — or rather, a dagaa — wearing an aristocratic, ornately decorated wide-brimmed hat.
And a softly floating, white sphere with a faint glow.
Not a single normal-looking one among them. In fact, not a single human.
Oh, I get it.
"I'm dead."
This is the world of the dead. Huh — so it's the afterlife.
"Well, I can understand the feeling."
"Dying isn't entirely wrong, I suppose."
"Nyoronuru betaune."
The octopus's four tentacles moved.
"Na!"
"But you are not dead."
"No, I'm pretty sure I'm dead. No matter how you look at it."
So that's it. I'm dead. I don't know how, but I'm dead.
"Na?"
"No, no, you're not dead. I died ages and ages ago, but—"
"I too was executed, but Wof is still alive."
"Nyoro beta nurune."
The octopus's four tentacles squirmed.
"Right. Um, I'm not dead yet. But if the black one dies, then..."
"????"
Wof was confused.
More than half of them were definitely dead.
"Well, I'll answer one at a time. First, this place is the Chamber of the Stars. It's inside Wof's heart."
"To be precise, it's the vessel of the soul itself. Created within it. Yes, yes. A mental landscape. Memories from your past life are quite convenient."
"Inside my heart...?"
"Nurbeta nyorone."
The octopus's four tentacles spun around.
"From my past life's memories, this is what they'd call a spiritual world. You... probably don't really like this kind of thing in Western games, huh?"
"...Because it's a common plot device."
Pretty much every Western game has one, don't they? The "inside your heart" kind of event.
It shows up in movies and dramas all the time too, so I guess they do like it.
What are they even talking about?
"This sovereign believes that reflecting upon oneself is a good thing. Had I been able to do so, I would not have been executed."
"You were way too slow at reflecting, though."
"Na?"
"Nurbeta nyorone."
The octopus's four tentacles waver.
"I think... I should have talked things through properly with Kuro."
"That's impossible. That thing was the dungeon's anomaly itself."
"If it had simply been evil thoughts, I think we could have reasoned with it. Hmm-hmm. Right, right. What you'd call an angel and devil in past life terms."
"What are you even talking about? And before that... um, is this the world inside my heart?"
A blue-purple starlit sky.
The ground is a blue sky.
A massive knife, plunged into the earth.
It feels vaguely familiar, but also not.
But it's peaceful.
"Indeed."
"Yes."
"Na!"
"Nwrlgh... squelch... blub..."
The octopus's four tentacles waved.
"What a beautiful place. It's wonderful. So this is the inside of a human heart..."
The white sphere of light spoke as if enchanted.
So I was being praised, right?
I was too flustered to accept it gracefully.
"...So, what about you two? I could barely make out Dagaa. And the octopus tentacles too... I'd rather not understand them, but I do, so it's fine."
"Na!"
"Squelch... blub... nmmgh..."
The octopus's four tentacles formed an OK sign. Handy little things.
The rest I couldn't understand. Not at all.
"I'm on your left arm."
"And I am the right arm."
"Right arm and left arm... Wait, could it be... a gauntlet... the 'Azure Saint's Gauntlet'!?"
I had a hazy memory of it, so it clicked right away.
"Indeed."
"That's right."
So... the witch. It really did have a will of its own after all!
Not to mention two separate instances of self-awareness!
"A-And the white sphere over there... who might that be?"
"A spider."
"Huh?"
"Wof. I am the consciousness of the giant spider you are currently fighting."
"............"
I had absolutely no idea what any of that meant.
Also, why is there some incomprehensible entity living inside my head!?
Wait — there are familiar-looking cards on the table up there.
Are these guys playing a card game inside a person's heart!?
"Well, be that as it may, try talking to this spider's heart."
"Be that as it may" — I don't understand a single thing about this situation!
"We are in the middle of a game, you know."
"Na!"
"Nyorouenu rubeta."
"Oh, right, it was your turn."
The octopus's four tentacles shot straight up.
Hey.
Don't just casually resume a card game inside someone's mind.
Also, the tentacles are a player too!?
"I'm sorry. I've caused you so much trouble because of me."
The ball of light looked genuinely apologetic.
Well, I thought, this is still better than those guys playing card games inside someone's mind.
"...Oh, wait... Was it you who said we should talk it out?"
"That was me. I'm sorry. I got emotional back then. I truly am sorry."
"Well, we were able to talk in the end, so there's that. As for the black stuff — I heard about it from Gwene, so I know about it. Is that black thing negative emotions or something like that?"
It's like the whole good heart versus evil heart thing from my past life memories.
"...I was a queen. I understand that now. I was the queen of a kingdom of creatures called humans."
"You were a queen?"
I knew she was a queen spider, but that didn't match the records.
She was worshipped, sure, but there was no mention of her being a queen.
"At the very least, that's what I believed. Creatures with different forms and appearances, whose words I couldn't understand. Even so, I accepted them as my subjects and served as their queen for the sake of this kingdom."
"............"
There was something I'd always wondered about. The giant spider was considered dangerous, yes.
But there wasn't a single record of it rampaging through towns or harming anyone.
I always figured something was restraining or controlling it.
So that was it. She wasn't doing anything at all.
And so the spider had truly believed the humans were her subjects, as their queen?
She was probably fulfilling her role as queen on a purely instinctual level.
And beyond all that, I think it was simply part of this spider's personality.
Different in form, and I can't understand her words, but she causes no harm and silently contributes to the town.
Because her form is different, the instinctive fear doesn't go away.
Because I can't understand her words, I can't read her heart.
And yet she's been working for the town this whole time.
No wonder the people's unease only grows.
I can understand why they'd view her as dangerous, and why three factions formed.
"But as time passed, the nation was increasingly engulfed in unrest, and the people split into three. I knew my existence was the cause, but there was nothing I could do about it. So I was sealed away and fell into a long sleep. Being sealed… put me at ease."
"At ease?"
"Yes. Because it meant the people would stop fighting over me. As a queen, nothing matters more than the people. If sacrificing myself would bring them happiness, I wouldn't even mind losing my life."
"…"
"I believe this — even though words couldn't reach between us, it was precisely because I was like this that the people understood and chose to seal me rather than kill me… That's why I don't bear any grudge against the people."
"Then why…"
"I slept for a very long time. But just recently, intruders appeared in the forbidden land where I slumbered. Yes, that's right. Laada and the man in the red mask."
"Those two, huh."
Somehow I already felt like I knew how this was going to end.
"I don't know what exactly they did. But they were the ones who triggered my awakening, and Kuro had settled into my heart. That wasn't the queen. That was… I'm embarrassed to say it, but that was just me as a single spider. Not the queen — just me."
"…And so, um, to get to the point…"
"Right now, the only one inside my body is Kuro. I was driven out, and before I could return to the sea of souls, I was lured here. That's why I've been causing you so much trouble even now."
"What do you mean by…"
"The reason there's something in the sky right now is because of me."
"Um, first of all, why am I in the... sky?"
I had absolutely no idea what was going on.
"That, well. It's partly Mineha's fault."
"Mineha?"
The man-shaped shadow named Sei took a drag on his cigarette, still holding the card in his hand. "Hey, you."
Don't smoke inside someone's mind!?
"The dungeon couldn't withstand the energy that suddenly appeared and started destroying dimensions. It caused a temporary collapse. You remember, right? After you got the Elixir's sacred egg, the dungeon shook and then you were transferred. That's the one."
"Ah, that! So that's why I'm in the sky? No, wait. How do you know that?"
The 'Blue Saint's Gauntlet' had only just been created.
"Well, I looked at the memories inside your mind."
"......"
That's a violation of privacy.
"That's right. *Gulp*... *Phew*... It's because there's the soul of a Spider Queen that I summoned inside Wof. It seems it threw the balance off significantly. That's why it only affected you."
The woman-shaped shadow named Ao drank some sake while shuffling a card.
Please don't drink alcohol inside someone's mind.
And please don't go inviting souls into someone's mind without permission.
I had a million things I wanted to say.
Was it Mineha's fault that Heinzen was about to collapse?
And I got caught up in it and was transferred into the sky?
What kind of power was that?
Even though my firepower had been lacking, the power I obtained was way beyond what I'd expected.
"Why am I up in the sky?"
"Well, there's nothing underground. The only open space was up above."
"It's a dungeon, so you'd have been stuck inside the walls. Good thing that didn't happen."
That would've been instant death. No joke.
"Nyoro-nuru-beta-u-ne!"
Hm? The tentacles disappeared for just an instant.
But they came right back. No—don't come back.
"What happened?"
"Nuru-beta-u-ne-nyoro"
The octopus's four tentacles flailed about separately, as if trying to explain.
"Huh, that was a close one."
"Well done. I shall bestow my praise upon you."
"Na!"
"Thank you. I'm sorry—this was my fault."
"Wh-what just happened?"
I asked cautiously.
Even though this was happening inside my own mind, I felt completely left out of the loop.
A man's silhouette spoke, a cigarette hanging from his lips.
"Right, Nabel took down the spider, but nearly got killed by the spider's last fart. So I saved him."
"Um, please don't say things like 'last fart'… that's embarrassing…"
The white ball of light turned bright red and said in a small voice.
"You need to learn some consideration for women."
"Sorry, sorry."
Nabel was in danger!?
Well, if he was saved, that's fine. Thanks, tentacle.
It moved on its own again, but I'm not even going to bother addressing that anymore.
"Also, Wof. We're about to reach the ground."
"Huh?"
"Don't worry. You'll be landing on the spider queen's corpse."
"Whaaaat!?"
The corpse, right. So Nabel took it down.
The spider-cutter. That one had a dedicated Relic that could take down any spider.
As the price, the spider-cutter was lost.
"Did I… die?"
"More precisely, it was the black thing that did it. That's how the spider queen went down. Now you're free. That favor you were talking about earlier — no, wait. Your wish, your dream. Wof will grant it for you."
"Huh?"
"Are you sure about this? I think it would be better for me to simply return to the sea of souls. Besides, for someone like me who caused so much trouble to try and have Wof grant a wish… that would be far too arrogant."
"What's wrong with that? You're a queen. Be arrogant."
"You were too arrogant, that's why. And besides… Wof, it doesn't matter. Granting a woman's wish — that's just not something this guy would ever refuse. He'll grant it no matter what. Because he's the Night King."
"You're the Night King, right?"
"Na!"
"Nyoronorubetaune!"
The octopus's four tentacles bowed in greeting.
He wasn't the Night King. And he had no idea what that even meant!
"How disappointing. A life saved by a chance encounter — don't waste that miracle. You have every right to enjoy it. Besides, I was executed, so that wish cannot be granted. Not that I have any intention of leaving this prison of the soul."
Please don't call someone's heart a prison.
"Na!"
"Wait. Daga. That's the card I was after!"
"Nyoro bettaune nuru."
The octopus's four tentacles high-fived Daga.
"Wh— Don't tell me you two plotted against me?!"
"Not bad, huh."
"Grrrrgh!"
Don't "grrrrgh" me.
Don't get all excited playing card games inside someone's heart!
Haa...
"Um, Spider Queen. I don't know if it's something someone like me could grant, but could you still tell me your wish? If someone like me will do."
They'd encountered all sorts of things along the way, and yeah, he'd been put in some difficult spots, but he'd been able to talk it out with Gwene.
Or rather — how to put it. It was a thank you. For showing him that talking things through was an option.
But whether I could actually grant it was completely unclear. This might just end up being me listening to a story.
Well, that's probably how it would go.
"...Thank you. My wish is—"
When I heard that wish, it just clicked.
Ah, right. Of course. That makes sense.
In a way, I felt a sense of closure. Yeah. It's impossible. It really is impossible.
That's quite the... Wait. Hold on. Wait, wait. Wait.
I can do it. Huh, I can actually do this.
I can do it! I can totally do this!
I have that thing! And I have that other thing! Oh, they're all here.
I can do this. Absolutely, it's possible.
"I can do it."
"Wh-what!?"
"I can do it."
"Huh!?"
I can. I can totally do this.
There's one that's just right.
But first, I need to consult the witch.
Then we can. But I think her wish can mostly be granted.
Because.
"Wof. It's time."
At the sound of the male figure's voice, I suddenly lost consciousness.
And then I woke up in bed.
It was four days after the Forest Wave had ended.