Rise of the OtherGod Apostle: Not a Cult Leader, but a Serf?!
#199
T/N: Thanks for the coffee Anon125, Simi, Praxis! Sorry about the slow updates. This year has been good, hell, crazy, busy? I have a lot going on, but hopefully my schedule should look less busy soon. Love yah!
#199
“Damn it! I never asked for this!”
The curse was out of my mouth before I could catch it.
Goosebumps swept down my whole body as the situation fully hit me. Apparently, without my consent or even the decency of a heads-up, I’d been declared the goddamned chairman of the ‘Anything Is Possible’ lunatic cult. No ceremony, no warning, definitely no “Hey just checking, you good with this?”
And that’s what made it so horrifying. One stupid rumor was all it took. A hairline crack of doubt, and anybody without ironclad mental defenses got folded right into the lunacy, no questions asked.
My thoughts turned razor-sharp with panic. I needed to change my name immediately!
Because what was stopping Nyapoleon from running his mouth? Nothing. What if he went around announcing that Fabio, the newbie god, was the long-prophesied figurehead of Mother Aelusia’s creepy cult? I could see the whole future from here. The chaos. A lifetime of hearing horrifying prayers addressed to me…
「 Pandomonium: What if I refuse? 」
「 Nyapoleon: Refusal is not an option. In time, Mother will embrace the whole world, and you along with it. 」
…He didn’t even entertain the possibility of Mother God losing.
The arrogance of this man. Did he not know the golden rule of every story ever told? Cocky bastards like him always lose.
「 Nyapoleon: Of course, it would serve everyone better if you returned before the Starry Sky opens. 」
「 Pandomonium: You can’t do a thing without a contract. So how, exactly, are you pulling this off without me? 」
「 Nyapoleon: Simple. I’ll act as your proxy and spread your faith to every corner of the world. 」
A proxy….
Something clicked into place.
「 Pandomonium: The Firstborn. His name wouldn’t happen to be “Insanity,” would it? 」
If they were already building a religion around some rookie god who hadn’t even shown up yet, they’d need a name to hang the whole thing on. A figurehead to rally behind.
And whose name were they already passing around…?
Is this the true identity of “Insanity”?
「 Nyapoleon: That’s right. A prenatal name, you might say. 」
「 Pandomonium: For fuck’s sake. You’re out here waiting on some cosmic newborn, and the best you came up with is “crazy bastard”? Seriously? There are so many better picks. Messiah. Maitreya. Hell, throw a dart at any holy book and you’d land on something better. 」
「 Nyapoleon: I thought it suited you quite well. Do you dislike it? 」
I stared at the message, dumbfounded. This bastard had the gall to call me Insanity when he was clearly 10 levels more insane than I could ever hope to be.
「 Pandomonium: You do realize you can’t just swap out the Cult Leader. That’s a locked role. You know that, right? 」
「 Pandomonium: Or did that change from how it worked in the game? 」
「 Nyapoleon: I will become one with you. 」
I stopped.
Read it once.
Blinked.
Read it again.
“…What??”
「 Pandomonium: What the hell are you talking about? 」
「 Nyapoleon: Our vessel simply needs to be remade. We’ll become inseparable twins, you and I. You’ll use all that is mine, however you please. And I will sleep. And as I sleep, I’ll melt into you. Until, at last, we are one. 」
I read the message one more time, and felt another load-bearing piece of my sanity quietly give way.
「 Pandomonium: What the actual fuck…? 」
So. Let me walk through this slowly, for my own sake. His endgame wasn’t the usual riches. Wasn’t glory or eternal life. Wasn’t even the classic, crowd-pleasing world domination special. No. This man’s deepest, truest aspiration was to become a fungus.
A goddamn cordyceps! That was the dream.
I always knew the ‘Anything Is Possible’ freaks were… well, freaks. With desires so warped they belonged in a subreddit that gets quarantined. But at least they were desires. Some guy dreams of a world where everyone’s got cat ears? A bit strange, but whatever. Some random weirdo wants to be reborn as a sea slug? Gross, but hey, you do you. The point is, they at least wanted something, and they needed Mother God to make it come true.
But this? This wasn’t even a warped desire. This was straight-up self-deletion. Nyapoleon wanted to dissolve into me, drift off to sleep, and simply… not be there anymore. He wanted to vanish without leaving so much as a stain.
What do you even call an ambition like that?
「 Pandomonium: So your big plan is to… what, exactly? Disappear? Nobody actually wants that. 」
「 Nyapoleon: And yet, here I am. 」
「 Pandomonium: Then just kill yourself. Why make it complicated? 」
「 Nyapoleon: You misunderstand me. It’s not about disappearing. I want to become a part of you. To stay with you forever. 」
A chill shot straight down my spine.
Holy shit.
「 Pandomonium: Listen. No matter how I look at it, you’re the one who’s insane here. Not me. You. You’ve seen my mental defense trait, right? If you try something like that, you won’t merge with me. You’ll just get stuck. Lodged. Like a human-faced boil somewhere on my body. A sentient, fully conscious pimple with your exact face, dangling off my elbow or my knee for all eternity. 」
「 Pandomonium: A grotesque little tumor that knows it’s a tumor. Is that really the future you want? 」
「 Pandomonium: Seriously, take a second. Think this through. Instead of speedrunning the tumor route, just be the Cult Leader yourself. When the eldest is absent, it’s the second eldest’s job to step up. That’s just how the chain of command works. 」
「 Nyapoleon: Hmm… so I’d be stuck as a mere tumor? Never truly merging with you? That’s a little… 」
「 Nyapoleon: …exciting! : ) I could stick close to you and watch over you from the nearest possible vantage point. 」
I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose.
「 Pandomonium: I am begging you to take this seriously. A tumor, Nyapoleon. A fucking tumor. Not my foremost Apostle. Not my right-hand man. A cancerous lump. What does a tumor DO all day? What is it contributing? 」
「 Nyapoleon: Well, if you wanted, you could simply separate tumor-state me and give me a fresh body to contribute with. 」
「 Nyapoleon: Then you’d become my biological mother! : ) 」
“…….”
I stared at the screen, utterly speechless.
There’s a specific moment when the human mind runs into something so nonsensical, so far past the bounds of comprehension, that it simply… freezes. The mental equivalent of a loading screen, where your brain just stands there, glances around the room, and wonders how it got here.
That exact thing was happening to me right now.
「 Nyapoleon: Oh, but that might make the titles a bit confusing. Darn! 」
「 Nyapoleon: After all, “Mother” is spoken for. That title belongs to the Great Mother herself. 」
「 Nyapoleon: So as my biological mother, I suppose I’d be calling you… Mommy. : ) Thoughts? 」
“Urgh….”
“N-noooooooo!!!”
Aaaargh!!
Die. Die! You fucker, just DIE already —
The specific arrangement of words I had just been forced to read was so aggressively vile that my brain refused to form a single coherent thought. All I could do was scream, internally, at full volume.
Fucking hell! If I was Roklem, I’d have hit him with Divine Punishment at least 150 times by now.
Fried him to a crisp. Die! Disappear!
I didn’t even want to keep arguing with this guy anymore. Talking to this creep felt worse than gargling acid. Under normal circumstances, I’d just take the L, close the chat, and devote the rest of my life to scrubbing his existence from my memory.
…But closing the chat wouldn’t make him go away.
I gritted my teeth.
Also Forced Persuasion would only work if I kept him talking. No matter how much it made my skin crawl, I had to power through. Holding back a full-body shudder, I forced myself to keep typing.
「 Pandomonium: Nyapoleon. You were human once, weren’t you? 」
「 Pandomonium: You had a whole life back on Earth. Parents. Siblings. Friends, maybe? Anyway, you had people who called you by your real name, who knew you before all of… this. Before Qwerasdf. Before even Conclude. 」
「 Pandomonium: So let’s go back. When you were ten years old. You had a dream, right? Something you wanted to be when you grew up? 」
「 Pandomonium: And I would bet everything I own that the dream was not, and I quote, “becoming a sentient tumor riding around on a stranger’s elbow!” 」
「 Pandomonium: Which means one of two things. Either you’re saying all this horrifying shit purely to get a rise out of me or you’re serious. And if you’re serious, then something is deeply wrong with you 」
「 Pandomonium: Because nobody is born dreaming of becoming a part of someone else. 」
「 Nyapoleon: I understand your revulsion. I do. 」
「 Nyapoleon: But you’re still living in the past. Back in our world where gods didn’t exist, humans had to invent things like “natural rights” just to justify treating each other with basic decency. Deep down, though, we all knew those ideas were nothing more than lies we told ourselves. Haha. I can see you’re still struggling to adjust. You’re still clinging to that tired, old-world way of thinking. 」
「 Nyapoleon: But I believe you have the insight to rise above that initial feeling of disgust, so I’m going to be completely honest with you. 」
「 Nyapoleon: Everything I’ve told you is sincere. I mean every word of it. 」
「 Nyapoleon: Mother can save you from that inherent emptiness that comes with being human. From the quiet despair of knowing you were born without a purpose. 」
「 Nyapoleon: I was created to find you. To serve you. To care for you. 」
「 Nyapoleon: I have no intention of coveting your position. I wouldn’t dare! My only joy is in serving you, there’s nothing to doubt here. 」
「 Nyapoleon: If everyone simply embraced their role, there would be no pointless wars. No schisms. No splintering, no sects tearing each other apart. Doesn’t that sound like a better world? A more peaceful, advanced world? 」
Advanced, my ass. It felt less like progress and more like someone had grabbed civilization and hit rewind. This was Sumerian-era thinking, back when people genuinely believed some humans were born to be slaves.
「 Pandomonium: Holy shit man! Are you telling me you actually agreed to a contract like this back on Earth?? You read those terms and thought, “Yeah, let me just lock that in”? No. Absolutely not. No fucking way. You must’ve clicked it on a whim, right? Maybe you thought it was just some flavor text for a game event. 」
「 Pandomonium: Do you understand how insane this is? This is the single most lopsided, predatory garbage contract I have ever heard in my life. You’ve clearly been brainwashed! 」
「 Pandomonium: I’m telling you, if the version of you back on Earth could see what you’ve turned into, he’d be losing his goddamn mind with horror. 」
「 Nyapoleon: Do you hate my obedience to you that much? 」
「 Nyapoleon: I suppose I can understand. Some parents always find troublesome children cuter than the well-behaved ones. 」
「 Nyapoleon: So if what you truly want is for me to suffer… if you’d prefer someone who doubts you, who longs to stay separate, who’s crushed by feelings of inferiority for not being chosen as the Firstborn… then you need only mold me that way. 」
「 Nyapoleon: I’ll be born exactly as you wish. : ) 」
“…Holy fuck, that’s creepy as hell.”
“Yeah. Seriously.”
Seeing Pandomonium recoil with the exact same full-body disgust I was feeling, I felt an unexpected wave of relief.
Good. At least some of the original him is still in there.
Sure, he still had that one specific flaw of not seeing most people as human. But honestly, lots of humans had the same problem. Pandomonium was clearly human. Unmistakably, provably, recoiling-at-creepy-things human.
Nyapoleon, on the other hand…
I glanced back at the chat window. At the little smiley face at the end of his last message.
Something like him shouldn’t exist.
And suddenly, I finally understood why Mother God had epithets like “Producer of Deformities” or “One Who Defiles the Order of Life.” Because when you meet someone who truly believes her doctrines, who takes her vision to heart, they turn out to be so disgusting that you don’t fucking want to share a room, a table, or a species with them.
That heaven of hers. What does it look like, really?
Slaves beaming with joy while they’re worked to the bone. Animals lining up willingly for the slaughter, dreaming of the honor of becoming someone’s dinner. A heaven built on one reasonable-sounding little premise: suffering’s only a problem if the sufferer objects. So you don’t fix the suffering. You fix the objecting. Snip out the part that screams, and—there. Peace. Look how peaceful.
And if anyone called that horrifying, Nyapoleon would smile that smile of his and say: “So your alternative is slaves who suffer while being exploited? Animals who are eaten against their will?”
He’d say it like it was some kind of gotcha. Like that little point of his made everything okay. Because the part of him that could recognize those things as wrong, the part that had been human, simply wasn’t there anymore.
…Order’s hell. Divine punishment, eternal, the full package. I’d take all of it before I spent a single day in that heaven of hers and called it paradise.
Mother God had to be stopped somehow.
But how?
My fury at Roklem came roaring back up.
Dammit! Deal with this crazy mess first before you go wandering off to dig up lost memories!
「 Nyapoleon: Now then. While we’ve been having this lovely conversation, I’ve already managed to gain a certain degree of control. 」
「 Nyapoleon: So what will you do now? 」
I looked down.
The ‘Arms’ were changing. Not breaking down, but… morphing. A strange, glossy sheen crept across their surface, spreading like oil over still water. As it spread, the texture of the flesh shifted, turning slick, sticky, almost slimy.
As if they were becoming slugs…
…No.
And if it stopped being the Swarm, if it wasn’t Colomba anymore, then it would no longer obey my commands.
If it slipped out of my control now…
Shit.
「 Pandomonium: If you actually care about me as much as you keep insisting you do 」
「 Pandomonium: then why are you getting in the way of what I’m trying to do right now? 」
「 Pandomonium: I’m the eldest, aren’t I? 」
「 Pandomonium: Doesn’t that mean you’re supposed to cooperate with me unconditionally? 」
「 Nyapoleon: You’re not the eldest. Not yet. 」
「 Nyapoleon: But if you were to return to Mother at this very moment, I’d follow your every command without hesitation. 」
「 Nyapoleon: That being said… what you’re doing right now? It isn’t really for Mother’s sake, is it? 」
「 Pandomonium: How is it not for Mother’s sake? 」
「 Pandomonium: You’re just too dim-witted to realize the bigger picture! 」
「 Pandomonium: I’m draining Order’s points. 」
「 Pandomonium: The plan is to bankrupt Order completely. 」
「 Nyapoleon: Ah. So that was the aim. 」
「 Nyapoleon: But even if you manage to drain Order’s massive stores of points, isn’t the impact going to be short-lived? It’ll only matter for as long as the Emergency Rescue System stays active. 」
「 Nyapoleon: Sure, you could temporarily drop Order’s points to zero. But by the next round? Order will just bounce back and earn roughly ten times what every player combined could collect in a single turn. Of course, compared to what Order has accumulated over time, that’s just a tiny fraction. But still, it’s hardly going to be a fatal blow. 」
「 Nyapoleon: Looking at it that way… wouldn’t my plan of taking this “Ledeia” and devouring as many people as possible do far more damage to Order in the end? : ) 」
Tch.
Damn it. Think.
I turned the argument over in my head, hunting for any weak point I could refute.
「 Pandomonium: Why not do both? Drain the points first, then go after Ledeia. 」
「 Nyapoleon: “Fabio.” You should always be honest with your Mother.」
「 Nyapoleon: It’s disappointing to see you using excuses instead of admitting your real intentions. : ( 」