836 Eich
Countless beams of light poured out from the dimensional doors to reveal numerous metal airship fleets.
There were circular, square, cylindrical, small, and large airships of all shapes and sizes. The majority were made of metal, but there were also large strange living creatures.
“Who summoned this fleet… Isn’t there something wrong with the style!?”
I rubbed my eyes, not daring to believe what I just saw. I could clearly see that small black dots which were human individuals were flying amongst the airships.
“Individuals capable of crossing dimensions? Magical girls with staves? I think I need some medicine that can cure nearsightedness… System, give me two bottles of alcohol, and is there anything you want to say?”
[…The universe is truly large.]
I fell silent as this was doubtlessly something useless to say. Nobody knew what existed in the other universes when the dimensional barrier was opened. Naturally, the universe was quite large.
The battle in the sky had yet to end.
Thanks to the Star Devourer Demon God’s gigantic body, everybody in the world could see this battle.
However, even a creature as gigantic as a planet like him didn’t have the power to directly resist the beams of light pouring from the airship fleet.
He started turning around and running away right when the tremendous airship fleet appeared. Judging from how well-practiced the assorted airships were at working together, perhaps this wasn’t their first time hunting him.
What I paid the most attention to was the attributes of some of the airships.
“Isn’t this a Gundam? Even if it’s obviously an imitation. Ah, it exploded from the enemy’s attack, and there are actually people inside. Isn’t this just a gigantic mecha Gundam that can fly across dimensions? Why does that airship look so familiar? It’s the Enterprise? …It seems that I’ve come across my old home planet.”
Eich had been sealed off from other universes for countless years already. Sometimes, there would be an individual here or there who found a method to leave by themselves, but there had never been any stories of anyone from outside successfully coming in. Was it really true that there were no visitors from outside?
Not entirely.
I, Roland, was someone who had transmigrated here with memories of Earth. According to my memories, these airships’ appearances were copied from famous science fiction manga and anime from my original world.
Rather than saying that my original world had developed just like anime or manga, I much rather believed that the nerdy engineers who successfully developed airships for dimensional travel had designed the airships based on their favorite stories, just as how they might start from building tiny plastic models, and then finally constructing real Gundams which were as tall as skyscrapers. In that case, there was only one possibility…
“…Earth has actually developed so much in just a few hundred years.”
Now that I thought about it, this seemed to be reasonable. I recalled that I left Earth in the year 201X, and by now, Earth’s technology had already reached the point of exploring the endless universe.
With the speed of technological developments from 201X plus another 400ish years of development and 20ish generations, it would now be the year 24XX on Earth, and it was quite possible that Earth had developed starships like in anime and manga… The prerequisite would be that people didn’t go too overboard with nuclear weapons and laying waste to the entire world.
Judging by how more than half of the airships had designs from anime and manga from Earth, it seemed likely that my old home of Earth was actually quite close to Eich.
[…This is really…]
Even the System was rendered speechless. I had previously considered the possibility that the Earth universe was close to the Eich universe, but even the Goddess of Order herself had been unable to explain how I arrived in this world. It would be impossible to know the distance between Earth and Eich without opening the dimensional barrier.
Since this airship fleet had come here after receiving Karolan’s request for aid, then I could pretty much guess at what happened.
Where there was light, there would be darkness. Where there were thieves, there would be police. Where there were wolves, there would be sheep… I didn’t get the order wrong here, as in this day and age, sheep were far more powerful than wolves. A wolf trying to eat some prey would be like an Epic Quest. A certain undying Wile E. Coyote [1]was unable to obtain a single meal even after thousands of episodes.
Ahem, I meant that even though Karolan’s way of thinking was really mechanical, his mechanical logic would be completely based on logic and possibility. Since the outside universes were filled with hungry “wolves”, then perhaps there were “sheep” who would hunt down and manage these predators… That would seem like the best possibility of saving the Eich universe.
“With so many having arrived, maybe Karolan died from self-destructing himself after not being able to defeat countless enemies. For any God, their physical body is power, and power is will, and their divine shards can be transformed into light that can perhaps be used as the best way in the world to summon help…”
I felt that my guess was on the mark. However, my System then rejected my inference in an abnormally heavy tone.
[That’s impossible. Actually, I already knew the reason for Karolan’s death two weeks ago, but I didn’t tell you, because it was really embarrassing…]
Embarrassing? Heroically blocking the door and fighting against countless gigantic Gods and monsters until the final moment, then self-destructing, and sending a message for help? How could that be embarrassing? Even I had a better opinion of Karolan now.
[No, there probably wasn’t any battle. You know that Karolan is a God of Order, a God who ascended purely with the power of belief. Outside the dimensional barrier is outside the service area for his power of belief…]
“What?”
I thought about it for a moment, and then had a sudden realization.
“He rushed out and didn’t even meet an enemy when he discovered… that his cell phone had no signal?”
[…]
Although my System was silent, silence was also a way of tacit admittance. In a way, this was indeed… quite stupid.
“…Although we were enemies in the past, I think that it’ll seem like he tried to save Eich in his final moments, meaning that he’ll be recorded in history as a true hero of light who saved the world, and future people will worship him… For the sake of all of Eich’s honor, I think that we should probably pretend to know nothing.”
I could already imagine how awkward Karolan must have been feeling back then. A God who ascended with the power of belief wouldn’t be able to leave their source of belief. Karolan’s very body was the amalgamation of a countless amount of belief. The moment Karolan rushed out of the Eich universe, that meant cutting off his own source of power of belief, meaning that he became like a kite that had its string cut. He was unable to return. He was like a cell phone with no more signal. He became powerless.
When he discovered that he was rapidly weakening and nearing death, he then… probably discovered that he was unable to survive no matter what he did, so he unhesitatingly chose to self-destruct himself. No wonder he had died so quickly.
Due to how quickly he had perished after stepping outside the Eich universe, we had inferred that the average power level in the other universes was extremely high. It seemed that we had overestimated this…
[Now that I take a closer look, this Star Devourer is far smaller than the one that I met back then. Perhaps this one is only a baby, so it shouldn’t be that hard to deal with. As long as it descends upon Eich, it will have to modify itself according to Eich’s rules. According to our calculations from back then, although it will cause severe destruction with its descent, you two brothers should be able to deal with it after it’s weakened by Eich’s dimensional laws.]
We two brothers? Just two Main Gods would be enough?
Alright, so the Star Devourer was weaker than expected. Did that also mean that the random assortment of airships that needed to team up in order to beat the Star Devourer was also weaker than I had thought? Judging from how chaotic and disorderly they appeared, they indeed seemed like a temporary alliance of a ragtag army.
I performed some silent calculations. For science and magical engineering, as long as the basic theories were completed, that would lead to a rapid period of development afterwards. With the progress of Eich’s current magical engineering technology, it seemed like our airships would soon be able to leave the atmosphere. Perhaps our airships would also be able to enter other universes in just a few hundred years. We would then be able to spread the seeds of our civilization amongst the stars and become a true star civilization.
At this moment, the Star Devourer was completely defeated and was running away, but it seemed that the airship fleet had no intentions of chasing it. They hovered in midair, giving off invisible pressure to the Gods and mortals of Eich.
“Announcement, we have chased away the interstellar bandit Silver Star Destroyer whose threat level is 15623. We have carried out the mission of protecting intelligent beings as according to the Overwatch Contract. We discovered that your civilization has already developed to the point where individuals are capable of leaving planets, which meets the lowest criteria to become a level B member civilization. According to regulation 3 of the contract, we level B contractors invite your civilization to join the Overwatch Contract…”
A contract for mutual assistance and protection? What a familiar system this was. Was this an interstellar version of the United Nations?
“Ha, it seems that every place is the same. If there are wolves, there are sheep hunting them and a society. The small world of Eich has been opened up, but the world outside is just the same in a bigger version.”
Mysterious runes were projected in midair. However, everyone, no matter what species they were or even if they were illiterate, was capable of understanding this ancient yet serious contract without any problems.
“Overwatch Contract between intelligent beings.
“1, you are not alone, you aren’t the only one out there. Every time that intelligent beings meet in the endless universe, it’s always a miracle that’s worthy of praise. Please set down the butcher knives in your hands and heart, and search for the possibility of communication…
“12, watching over, protecting, and assisting each other is the duty of all intelligent beings…
“17, all power originates from the soul. There are no fundamental differences between soul energy, magic, science, and wisdom. Please never discriminate against other individuals or civilizations…”
Various regulations of the contract attracted my attention. There was quite a lot of information and knowledge to take in. However, my vision was now getting hazy. It seemed that I had relaxed too much after feeling that there was no danger for the time being, and that this relaxation in my stubbornness meant it was time for me to report to my death at the River Styx.
I hesitated for a moment, but then I thought about how troublesome it would be to communicate with humans and aliens from other universes. I then became rather happy that I could leave all the trouble to others instead.
“Do I count as being the type who would rather die than go to work…?”
[This… impossible! Mommy! It’s actually Mommy!]
What? What would possibly make the “grand and venerated Goddess of Order” be shocked enough to call Mommy? Could it be a new anime edition of a Goddess’s mother… ahem, ahem, maybe I was having too much fun with memes before my death.
I forced myself to concentrate, and then was almost shocked enough to call Mommy myself.
On the very bottom of the contract were 12 ancient signatures. They were probably the first existences who signed the Overwatch Contract, which was why their names had been left on the original version of the contract.
Their names were just like physical Concepts where merely reading the names could help one to understand how inconceivably powerful they were. The fifth name on the list was quite familiar to me.
“Eich…”
[1] Road Runner reference if you didn’t get it
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