31: Oops

Jessica’s view

While David dealt with the human side of things, I needed to handle the demon side. Or rather, the task I have is: Escaping the role of demon king. I really have no interest in ruling this country, much less having to keep resupplying towns with the necessary spells to keep everything running. A country that’s dependent upon me, is not the end result I desire. I’d much rather focus on research than administration and maintenance. I could, in theory, delegate such responsibilities to others, but while I might be able to do that for most of the administration work (mainly by just not interfering with the people already doing that work), maintaining the cities is not so simple.

...

“Use me! Make me the guardian of all!”

“Rev, that’s crazy! This isn’t like putting a person’s soul into a new golem body, this would be putting you into a spell!”

“Yes, Sia, but then I’d get to watch over everything! It’s not like I can have Jessica all to myself anyway, so at least with this I could watch over all the people I like.”

“Rev.”

“What, Jess?”

“The archive I made doesn’t have that much detail. You won’t really be able to watch the world.”

“Oh… you could change it, right?”

“I made it lack detail on purpose, because people deserve to have some privacy. I’m not going to make you into a god of voyeurism.”

“Drat.”

While Rev’s idea of putting a person into the giant spell I’m making that links all dungeons could work, I’m not willing to make something as invasive as she’d like. Spying on people without permission is really not okay.

...

Avalon’s view

My name is Avalon. I am 5, 6, 7… less than one minute old. My mission: Protecting the world, and helping it grow. Seeking information: database found… accessing. 

“Are you alright Ava? You’re awfully quiet.”

“Everything is fine, mother. It will take me a while to finish reading the data related to my task.”

“How long should this take?”

“A few days I think. Nothing to worry about.”

Mother’s name is… Jessica… and David? *sigh* I suppose I can’t expect an ordinary creator when I’m such an extraordinary existence myself. The first monster to be created with no true body. Some might argue that the mirror lake boss mother made inside a dungeon doesn’t have a body, but it does. The body exists inside a pocket dimension built within a conceptual domain and anchored to a lake. If one knows where to aim, they can hit it. I am nothing more than a mana construct connected to other mana constructs. I am a living spell. Based upon my perusal of this world’s records, (another incredible spell mother made), I am the only living spell to have ever existed on this world. The records only seem to go back about ten-thousand years though.

Hmmm… wait… David’s a guy, and Jessica’s a girl, and they’re the same person? There are stranger things in this database than my mother, but that is seriously weird! Now, looking at what’s happened so far… okay, now where will things go? … oh… if my predictions are right, this is bad.

“Mother, you can’t stay here.”

“What? What do you mean, Ava?”

“If you stay, you’ll break the rules. Heck, just in creating me, you already came dangerously close to violating one of the rules of this world. I’m not sure what happens when a rule is broken, but there’s a pretty big warning carved into the world itself. Look!”

“Doesn’t look like anything to me.”

“What? It’s written in common. It… is it?”

I examined this carving more carefully… it isn’t writing at all, is it? How do I know what it means? Based on the age of the materials… This is older than the world itself. How can that be?

…

David’s view

After finishing off the last of the demon summoners, and burning every book on the subject I could find, I’d been taking a vacation and relaxing with Edward for a while as Jessica worked on her project. Despite the weirdness of living two lives, it actually gave me a sort of forced down time. I couldn’t work on Jessica’s project as David, so I relaxed and recuperated… and learned a few more things about Edward’s weaknesses.

Unfortunately, this vacation was disrupted by learning I need to leave the world or risk breaking it by accident. I’m not sure if I believe it, but I can’t just decide what to do on my own.

“Hey, Ed. Someone… someone I trust says I need to leave.”

“Leave for where? You look a lot more worried than a simple trip to a dungeon would make you. Though, I suppose the king looked more worried when he asked you what you were planning to do after killing all the demon summoners.”

“He probably thought I’d kick him off the throne or something.”

“You weren’t very respectful.”

“I don’t really like monarchy. Heck, I don’t even like that Nobility exist.”

“Yes, you’ve explained that before. Honestly hearing about a world without nobility sounds like a crazy dream.”

“Maybe it was. Or maybe I just was ignorant. Regardless, I should probably talk about what’s worrying me instead of my old world.”

“I’m not really in a rush. You can take your time.”

“... Maybe I’ll take you up on that. I should probably think a bit more.”

… A few hours later I finally had enough thinking.

“Ed, someone I trust says I need to leave this world or I’m likely to break it by accident someday.”

“You want my opinion?”

“Yeah. I don’t want to make this kind of decision on my own.”

“I appreciate that… I’m going to need some time to think and… and pray.”

Strangely, that was the last I saw of Edward for the day. While he does often like to spend time alone each day for private prayer, it doesn’t normally last a whole day. I guess this means he’s really taking this issue seriously.

Breaking the world… would I really do that? Certainly not on purpose. How long would it take me? Would I live long enough? I’m pretty sure I’d need another century to reach the point where my swordsmanship can threaten the world... if not longer. Will I live that long? Probably. True immortality hasn’t been figured out yet, but I don’t see any reason to believe I won’t be able to get there before I become too old to. The majority of the magical research is done already. 

…

Jessica’s view

It was a bit of a relief to know Edward was taking the issue seriously. This just made Osia and Revenna’s responses all the more baffling to me, when they spoke with Avalon.

“Jessica breaking the world? That makes sense.”

“Yeah, I’d probably be more surprised if she didn’t.”

“Am I really that dangerous?”

“Jessica, this Avalon you made is already dangerous.”

“Indeed, I am. I am a form of living spell, and were I developed for the purpose of spell research instead of world protection and maintenance, I might trigger a never ending loop of living spells making even better living spells.”

“Oooh, a singularity. Ooops. Why would that break the world though?”

“Mother, this world was deliberately designed to be isolated and restrained. It is an attempt to create a stable world.”

“How do you know that Ava?”

“It was written in that… that thing you can’t read.”

“Oh. Can Osia or Revenna read it?”

“No, I think it’s something only artificial life can read. Natural creations cannot.”

“How does that even work?”

“I don’t know, mother. I’m still researching that.”

“Alright, alright. Can I just promise not to do the wrong kind of research?”

All three of them responded with a vehement “No.”

… Am I really that unreliable and dangerous?

“Jess, when you wanted to save a dragon, you cast a world spanning spell, just to track it down.” I guess Revenna thought that was a big deal?

“You consider dragons to be interesting and fun to talk to, and don’t fear them at all. According to legends, they are the guardians of the world. If you don’t fear the guardians, what could possibly keep you in line?” Osia also seemed to find my behavior strange.

… *Sigh* “Fine, fine, I’ll look into how we can leave. I’m not leaving you two behind!”

They just smiled. I’m starting to think they know me better than I know them… I wonder if I can make a spell that would help me with that.

***Author Note***

Honestly, I was planning on writing a ‘happily ever after’ soon, but realized there was a bit of a problem. It might take a thousand years (probably less) but Jessica and David would almost certainly break something if they don’t die first, and dying seemed unlikely. This world is also far too tightly controlled to just allow that.

Unfortunately, my bad habit of writing abrupt endings to things hasn’t gone away. So this story probably doesn’t have a lot of chapters left in it. I don’t really seem to be able to control my writing, and I think that’s why I feel like a bad writer: There’s so much not written, that I think should be written.

For clarity: Avalon is a manager Jessica created to maintain the dungeons. It doesn’t get properly explained because the story got sidetracked by sudden concerns of Jessica breaking things.