Chapter 18: A true god

"Have a seat.", I heard the director's cold raspy voice say. He sounded like he hadn't had a wink of sleep for the last few days.

I obliged.

"Do you know why you are here?", he asked, looking at me this time, instead of his desk. That unfortunately made it worse, and I could already feel the beads of sweat start to form all over my face and back.

"… Not really.", I said.

"Do you wish to stay here for a minimum of 2 months, or would you rather go to your relative's house?", he asked, still looking at me.

"Uhm… Uh… I would like to stay here…", I said. The remnant back in the forest was all that was needed to convince me that staying near my aunt's house was suicide. If anything even close to that appears near me, I would be six feet under before I knew it.

And I get free food.

"You will get a beginners and intermediate lesson on nihilism before being put in any of the four batches. Batches are just like school classes you are so familiar with. There are no seniors or juniors, old people and young people alike belong to the same batch. That's it.", he said, in a single breath.

"W-wha…? I-I see.", I said, slightly confused.

"Your beginner nihilism lessons will begin at 10 am every morning. Daphne will be the professor responsible for teaching you for the first few days after which I will assign you a batch. If you have any questions, ask, or else you are now dismissed.", he finished.

What? I understood the gist of it, but I was most surprised at the fact that he didn't mention David even once. Nor did he show even a single ounce of spite in his voice. I thought he would murder me for basically 'killing' the director's beloved David.

I wanted to get out of the room as soon as possible. I should have gotten out of the room. But curiosity got the better of me. I asked him a question.

"Could I ask you a question unrelated to this?", I said, mustering every little bit of courage I had.

"Go on.", he said, intrigued.

I calmed myself down before asking "Why did you send me to an investigation even though I didn't know an ounce of nihilism at that time?", I asked. I am sure I made it sound more aggressive than it should be, but it is what it is.

"You are different from most other people, and I wanted to see how different you are. It was supposed to be a safe investigation, but we made a blunder in calculating the difficulty of the investigation, resulting in casualties. For that we are truly sorry.", he said, sounding like a spokesperson speaking on behalf of someone.

"Uh-huh. When do I start attending these nihilism classes?", I asked, trying to change the topic. I shouldn't have asked the question. The tension in the room was now almost palpable. The director might have sounded apologetic, but I knew better.

"You have a holiday for the next two days. Explore this place as much as you want. Daphne will pick up at 10 am in the morning"

"I see… thank you.", I replied. What did he mean when he said 'special' earlier? Like disability special or talented special?

Well, that was a question for another time. I exited the room as fast as I could.

I went over to the dormitory room, opened the door to my bedroom, and crashed on the bed again. I didn't really know what to do. I opened the wardrobes and noticed there was an empty wardrobe.

I started to unpack my battered suitcase, arranging everything onto their shelves. Had to kill the time somehow…

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That girl again. Her water-like aura felt more refined than before, and it felt especially concentrated around her eyes. Could it be that Daphne's hypothesis was true…?

As much as I wanted to know more about it, I had bigger problems. Notably, David's death.

He was an important asset, being one of the few people who could use a form of light nihilism.

I pulled my hair in frustration. My plans for the future would need a bit of a rework. David was not only a valuable asset to us but also to other people. He was quite a good bargaining chip for the other branches too, but now that plan was thrown down the drain.

It is what it is, I thought to myself, trying not to dwell on it any further. I went outside my office for the first time in a long time to take a walk.

The meeting coming up in 2 weeks will be a massive pain to deal with. No one had ever taken me even remotely seriously. And the fact that David was dead piqued my suspicion.

Something was amiss. The remnants were getting stronger exponentially. They were evolving, to put it mildly. Most people didn't notice as they didn't evolve the way most people thought they would. They weren't that much stronger than before.

Instead, they were smarter than before. This made them exponentially harder to beat. The remnants seemed to be hiding their intellect, but I knew better.

The last expedition I went on personally led to the deaths of 14 people, with the only survivors being me, Daphne, and one other person.

The remnant we encountered back then had the ability to communicate with humans.

If things don't change this year, we were screwed.

Argh… I came outside to relax not to think about this shit again.

That's when I remembered there was a plane in ash about 2 kilometers away from this place. I had to see it for myself.

I arrived there in virtually no time at all. I took a good look at the wreckage.

Kenji was right. This was less a wreckage and more just a pile of ash.

I dug through the ash to see if there was something missing.

The texture was… like that of burnt paper… not like that of metal ash…

What was even more suspicious was the fact that it was black in color. I am pretty sure aluminum was supposed to have grey-colored ash…

The ash was coating my hand. This definitely wasn't the remains of the plane. Other than the wing being there, there was little proof that this was a plane to begin with.

Just then I heard the slight rustle of wings. I turned around as fast as possible, and found a giant red bird, the size of a bus, roosting atop a tree.

I jumped away from it as fast as possible.

That thing… it was ridiculously powerful. R-1 to R-3 was the rating given to remnants.

Anything stronger than an R-1 was considered to be a god.

This thing was easily a G-2. A god. If remnants are children, gods are the adults. Remnants come from gods, and as such they are unfathomably more powerful than a remnant.

The aura around it was majestic but threatening at the same time. It felt like being in front of a king, having to bow down, while you yourself are a criminal. Even air around it moved to obey it. I could feel the air grow warmer around me, and the sun's rays solidified into glitter.

It felt like I was in the palm of its hands. Fighting it simply wasn't an option. I ran like my life depended on it. It was the second time I had run away from something like this, and I felt pathetic for it. But I didn't have a choice in that matter.

I didn't want to look behind, but I did, against my better judgment. The bird was now taking off into the skies. It looked… beautiful beyond all measure. A truly majestic being. Every time it flapped its wings, gold-like sun rays fell from its wings, illuminating the area around it.

I just stood there in awe, wondering how the hell I was even alive.

Should I have attacked? I was one of the strongest nihilism users in this area. Why didn't I go for the kill? Why didn't I at least try to go for the kill?

But my rational brain knew better. There was no chance of me surviving that. My gut knew it, my brain knew, and my body knew it. I would have either been burnt alive or clawed to death before I could even use my nihilist realm.

The giant bird was probably responsible for the destruction of the plane, seeing as how it was so close to the wreckage, even now, multiple days later. Why was it still here anyway?

I went back to the base, in somewhat of a hurry. My heart was pumping out of my chest. If I had those types of encounters more often, I would be dead from cardiac arrest.

I went over to my office, and sat down on the chair, looking at the ceiling.

'Why was a god responsible for the plane anyway?', I thought to myself, as I fell asleep in the comfort of the chair.

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Once I was done arranging all my stuff into the new wardrobes, I crashed on the bed. There was nothing to do.