Weird Stories: Gothic Lolita Begins

Dark territory.

Lenari stretched out his essential body and listened attentively to the intermittent and vague voice that sounded like a bad signal.

After a while, Lenari was finally able to confirm that the voice was saying:

"Help me--"

emmm...

The upper body of the human figure protruded from a group of abstract limbs. Lenari stretched out a tentacle and touched his chin, wondering what was going on.

After a moment, she gave up thinking and decided to go and see first.

After all, under the premise of insufficient information, no matter how much you guess, it can only be guessing.

...

Chaos, nothingness.

This was Lenari's first feeling when he followed the weak connection provided by the "voice" to the other end.

Well, it was his home court, and the environment was as comfortable as going home.

At this point, the "voice" finally became clear, and Lenari was finally able to tell who the "voice" belonged to. - To be honest, this gave her a real shock.

That was Talos, the real Talos, the "God of Death" in the ghost story.

…

Lenari found Talos in a shabby bus that was silently driving in the void.

She shrank her body and clung to the roof of the "Yellow Spring Bus". She lowered one of her tentacles to transform into a human upper body. Through the old window without glass, she asked Talos, who was sitting in the driver's seat and steering the wheel, in surprise:

"Why did you get into trouble with this thing?"

"... Accident." Talos' hoarse, mechanical voice sounded muffled, and a little embarrassment could be heard if you listened carefully.

Lenari raised his eyebrows: "Tell me?"

"Didn't my clone open a restaurant? Not long ago... Well, the sense of time is very vague here, and I don't know exactly how long it has been... Anyway, there is a chef under my command who I admire very much. When he was going home from get off work one day, he mistakenly entered the "Yellow Spring Bus" and was taken away..."

"... So, do you want to find him or her back?" Lenari said in surprise.

"No, I know very well what will happen to the mortals who are taken away by the 'Yellow Springs Bus'." Talos denied.

"Then..."

Talos hesitated for a moment, and said more and more awkwardly: "I just... well, I'm just angry..."

"...As a result, you are stuck with each other, no one can kill each other, no one can break free, and can only wander endlessly in this place where there is nothing?" Lenari confirmed somewhat speechlessly.

"Yes..." Taras said weakly in a hoarse, mechanical and heterogeneous voice.

"..." Lenari was silent for a moment, and said slowly, "I am curious, your character should not be so 'impulsive' and 'reckless'."

"...It's really not."

"So, what caused your current predicament?" Lenari asked.

Unexpectedly, Talos was silent for a long time, so long that Lenari thought he would not answer, and then the highly recognizable unique voice murmured:

"The more I complete myself, the more I realize that I am a 'mistake'."

"And an existence born based on the wrong underlying rules, the more it evolves, the further away from the 'correct'..."

"'Mistakes' have no 'future'." Talos said bitterly, "The Green Star will not allow it, and all orderly existences will not allow it... The multiverse is almost infinite, but there is no place for me."

"...So, you gave up on yourself?" Lenari sighed.

"It's a bit interesting..." Talos said sullenly, "But I don't want to die after all..."

Outside the car window, Lenari, who was hanging upside down, nodded: "It's easy if you don't want to die. Wait a minute, I'll ask for you."

"......?" A confused emotion emanated from Talos's skull.

...

Deep in Lenari's sea of ​​consciousness.

Lenari called out, "Glorious! Glorious! Light--"

"I'm here." The idea of ​​the Radiant Principle rose from the depths of the sea of ​​consciousness.

"Do you see the situation?"

"Yes."

"Can you help?"

"No."

"...Huh?"

"His self was born from the accumulation of mistakes and grew up in the ever-expanding mistakes. His entire existence is based on mistakes. All means of correcting mistakes are killing him. I can't help him."

"...What about Wang Bao?"

"I can't help him either."

"..." Lenari was silent.

After a moment, Lenari said, "Hey, Glorious, what's the situation with my 'strange talk'?"

"You are not really a mistake, you are just wearing a wrong coat."

"...Can't I really help them? I have so many strange talks under my command..."

"Those 'strange talks' are essentially an extension of your power. Like you, they are just wearing a wrong coat."

"But...”

“Wang Bao’s fear of you has never stopped, has it?”

“…”

“What about pruning? If you slowly prune and replace…”

“There is no difference, it just prolongs the process of killing Them infinitely.”

“…”

After a long silence, Lenari asked again unwillingly: “Is there really no hope?”

“If it’s just ‘hope’, it naturally exists.”

“? !”

“Self-transformation, bearing the right fruit from the wrong flower, this is their only hope.”

“Bearing the right fruit from the wrong flower… It’s too slim…”

“In addition, there are two secondary hopes that can’t be called hope.”

“What is it?”

“One is to surrender to you, and regenerate with the residue after destruction, similar to Lucas.”

“What about the second?”

“The second is to surrender to me, and reassemble after being torn apart.”

“What’s the difference between this and surrendering to me? ”

“I hold the power of creation, and can piece together their consciousnesses to be almost exactly the same as before.”

“Finally, it comes back to the philosophical question…”

“The so-called ‘self’ is something ambiguous and blurred.”

“…It’s a pity that with our status, it’s too clear what is and what isn’t…There’s no way to deceive ourselves.”

“But they themselves don’t think there is a difference…Why do you care so much whether their ‘self’ is still the same? Everything will belong to you, right?”

“…It’s because everything will belong to me that I care more.” Lenari murmured, “After all, everything will belong to me. "

...

It didn't take Lenari too long to communicate with the Radiant Truth in the sea of ​​consciousness.

Knowing the unexpected knowledge, Lenari conveyed the answer of the Radiant Truth to Talos who was waiting quietly in a depressed mood.

"'The right fruit grows from the wrong flower'..." Talos repeated to himself.

"Sorry, I can't help you..." Lenari said apologetically.

Talos shook his head: "You are the 'darkness that will eventually devour everything'! To be honest, when I first met you, I was almost scared to death..."

"..." Lenari pulled the corner of his mouth, but couldn't laugh.

"To be honest, the fact that 'hope does exist' is enough to encourage me..." Talos said softly, "Even if that hope is extremely slim, as long as it does exist, I have the courage to keep going. "