Chapter 26: The Rubik's Cube
The light in the sacred ground was as soft as ever, as though time had lost all meaning here.
Lucian stood where he was, aware of that hand moving gently across the top of his head. Zetsumei's touch was light, the way one might stroke a well-behaved pet rather than a "Master of Gods."
"So. You can't use your previous power right now."
Antirin withdrew her hand. Those mismatched eyes looked down at Lucian from above. Her address had shifted somewhere along the way from the formal to the casual, as though confirming something too minor to require ceremony.
Something tightened faintly in Lucian's chest.
Was Zetsumei doubting him? He had a vague recollection that her reasoning ability was nothing to dismiss.
But his expression gave nothing away. He simply nodded and repeated the cover story he had already given the Supreme Pontiff — the World Item's side effect, his true body held in a state of suspended time, this body weak but serving indirectly to extend his lifespan.
Antirin listened, her face showing nothing.
When he finished, she spoke. "I see."
Then she reached out and patted his head again.
"The God of Judgment isn't as terrifying as the Lady of Death's records made him out to be."
The corner of Lucian's mouth twitched.
He stepped out from under her hand and looked up at her. "Can everyone in the Theocracy read Silshana's records?"
"That's one of the Theocracy's highest secrets." Antirin's tone remained its usual unhurried self. "Only the high priests, and awakened Godkin, are permitted to know."
Lucian nodded thoughtfully, then asked the question he actually wanted answered. "So what exactly was Silshana's assessment of me? Just 'terrifying'?"
Antirin tilted her head as though consulting some internal record.
"There's more, certainly."
She paused, then counted on her fingers. "Cowardly. Greedy. Stingy..."
Three fingers. She stopped, considered, and added a fourth. "I think there might also have been... a bad temper?"
Lucian's eyebrow twitched.
"There's probably quite a bit more." Antirin lowered her hand, expression unchanged. "But I rarely read through those files. They're too thick."
Lucian was quiet for a second.
Then he drew a slow breath.
"That damn Silshana!"
His voice rang through the wide, empty sacred ground, carrying exactly the right measure of genuine outrage.
Only he knew how much of it was real and how much was performance.
The misdirection had worked. That was what he needed — from here he could use the roasting of Silshana as an opening to demonstrate his familiarity with matters of the "divine world," and gradually ease Zetsumei's suspicion.
His gaze moved to the large scythe standing behind Antirin.
"That scythe," Lucian walked toward it and extended his hand, stopping a finger's width from the blade, "Silshana named it 'Charon's Guidance.' Charon is the ferryman of the dead from the mythology of our world — the one who carries souls across the river of the dead."
Antirin followed his gaze to her weapon without moving to stop him.
She knew this scythe better than anything. As the Theocracy's hidden trump card, she bore an EX-class innate ability — [Contact Resonance] — that allowed her to copy and wield the signature techniques left behind by a weapon's original master. It was this ability that had given her command of the Lady of Death Silshana's ultimate technique: "Death is the End of All Life."
"This was a chuunibyou phase product." Lucian continued, not bothering to conceal the contempt in his voice. "Clearly nothing but a skeleton running around in there, and yet he had to dress the whole thing up so dramatically. If you'd seen him running around the game in whatever ridiculous gear he had on at any given time, I expect your faith would have collapsed entirely."
He turned his head and looked at Antirin.
"Do you know what he loved to do most?"
Antirin blinked and said nothing.
"He loved to do a very stupid dance in the Grim Reaper getup." Lucian made a brief demonstration with his hands. "You know the kind — a skeleton twisting and flailing about. And then after every single performance he would ask everyone: 'Was that cool? Be honest.'"
Antirin's expression remained blank. But something stirred in those mismatched eyes — a faint flicker of something.
"And the scythe." Lucian pressed on. "He absolutely insisted on adding a glowing effect, said something like 'the Grim Reaper's scythe has to have the radiance of souls.' First time he actually used it in the field, the glow was so blinding it stunned him, and he nearly got killed by a boss. The effect was removed after that."
As he spoke, a genuine laugh came out of him.
The smile that went with it carried, undeniably, a trace of real nostalgia.
Antirin watched him. Then she spoke. "Little Lucian certainly knows a great deal about divine affairs."
Lucian straightened, and nodded as a matter of course. "Naturally."
"Then..."
Antirin reached into her robes and drew something out.
"Can little Lucian help me finish this?"
Lucian looked down.
It was a Rubik's Cube.
A standard three-by-three, all six faces scrambled — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and white jumbled together with no pattern he could make out.
Antirin held it out toward him. In those mismatched eyes, something like the faintest hint of anticipation.
Lucian stared.
A Rubik's Cube.
This was something Silshana and the others had brought into the New World.
The problem was that Lucian had never had much experience with Rubik's Cubes across any of his lives.
Two lifetimes ago, he had no interest in them and had never bothered memorizing the algorithms. In his previous life, he was too busy working, too busy spending everything he had on YGGDRASIL, to think about it. And since transmigrating, these six years had gone entirely into planning for the future. A Rubik's Cube had not been on the list.
He took it from her and turned it in his hands.
The colored squares rotated under his fingers with no pattern he could identify.
"I..."
His voice paused.
Antirin's gaze settled on his face, those mismatched eyes unblinking.
"I can only solve one face."
Having said it, Lucian felt vaguely embarrassed by his own answer.
The mighty God of Judgment, defeated by a Rubik's Cube.
Antirin was quiet for a second.
Then she spoke, in the same cool, even tone as always, but Lucian could distinctly hear something in it — something like amusement.
"I can do two."
Lucian's hands went still.
He looked up at the girl in front of him, who appeared to be somewhere between fifteen and sixteen.
Nearly two hundred years old.
Two faces.
And she was proud of this.
"You..." Lucian opened his mouth and found he had no idea what to say.
"Would little Lucian like to learn?" Antirin took a step closer, and something like genuine interest — rarer, from her, than it might have been — moved through those mismatched eyes. "I can teach you how to do two faces."
Lucian looked at her. Three seconds of silence.
Then, carefully: "How long did it take you?"
"A little over a hundred years."
Antirin's expression did not change at all. She only tilted her head slightly.
"Is there a problem?"
Lucian drew a long breath.
"No problem."
He was beginning to think Zetsumei was a little much to deal with.
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