Chapter 408: Sermon on the Sea of Consciousness
I wake up lying on the ground, feeling the black mud clinging to my body, and see Pandora Yandere sitting on my stomach.
"My arm is screwed, you did this," she says, showing the arm that has nothing visible, but which answers my question about the damage before I even ask about it.
"Does the Monster Pandora and the Tiny Pandora also have this problem?" I ask, feeling her weight on my body.
"Uh-huh, we all received permanent damage to the arm, we are the same being, we share the same existence, so we receive the same damage, fortunately it’s not like we all need to fight here, so it doesn’t matter to us," she says, holding my arms.
"...I was going to die..." I say, but she interrupts me.
"I know," she says with a strange smile.
"The Monster Pandora felt a lot of pain when you compressed the body into an egg, she was sharing sensations at that moment, the Tiny Pandora desperately cried and buried herself in the black mud," she begins to explain how they were acting in that situation.
"And you, what did you do?" I’m quite interested.
"Nothing, I’m the body, I’m the one closest to what you are, my reactions are your reactions, I watched and analyzed where we went wrong, where we got it right, and why we almost died," she speaks as if I had made many mistakes.
"I didn’t err that much, I did well," I defend myself here, I did the best I could and may have almost died a few times, but I don’t think I could have done much better than that.
"Of course, Pandora, you ’did well’, but still, your ’well’ wasn’t that good, after all, we came out with permanent damage, isn’t that humiliating? We’re like the absolute race, we have the best body, the greatest adaptation, and one of the highest regenerations compared to any species."
"Even so, you came out with permanent damage to your body, what’s the point of adaptation, resilience, regeneration, and an efficient body if you can still break it?" She speaks as if my body were a commodity.
"Don’t talk about me that way, I did my best in that fight! And I won! What does it matter if I received damage that I can’t heal for now?" I say indignantly with the complaints, I thought she would support me, not criticize me.
"What does it matter? It’s simple, Pandora, it matters because it shows that this is not just an isolated case, will you continue to sacrifice pieces of me in every difficult fight you have? First, it was just the mobility and magical control of an arm, but what then?"
"Will you sacrifice the other arm? The legs? Maybe you’ll sacrifice the functionality of the brain to use a spell and win a fight? I understand, you had to use an unstable spell to survive."
"You were exhausted, injured, and caught in a trap, you thought quickly and survived, great, but sacrificing our body should not become the standard, sacrificing parts of us should be an absolute last resort."
"You could have tried to explode your own body, we could have regenerated from that, maybe... but who knows if it would have worked at the time? And yet you preferred to sacrifice the arm. Do you understand what you’re doing to us?"
"I WAS TIRED!!" I yell angrily.
"You can’t judge me and try to act like a know-it-all! Explode myself? Seriously? Did you want me, without mana, injured, with low regeneration, and mentally exhausted, to explode myself and rely on chance to maybe regenerate from that?"
"Okay, exploding myself could have made me not lose anything permanent at the time of regeneration, or maybe, who knows... just maybe... KILL ME!" I say indignantly, my tone dripping with irony.
"...Okay then, Pandora, think what you want, but learn not to sacrifice more pieces of me, do you know how I feel when I realize that my arm will never recover?"
"I feel humiliated, Pandora. We are the race with regeneration capable of restoring lost limbs instantly, we border on immortality, and in our true form, as long as we have mana, our body can continue to regenerate."
"Knowing that something like us received permanent damage is an unparalleled humiliation, what’s the point of our perfect body if you’re going to cause irreparable damage to it?" She speaks with hatred and venom in her voice.
"..."
"This is not the first time, Pandora, it’s natural considering our regeneration that you don’t mind receiving damage and even let yourself get hit on purpose so you can hit enemies."
"But this is not the first time you’ve been willing to receive unrecoverable damage, this is the fourth time you’ve done this," she says, leaving me surprised.
"W-What? I’ve never..."
"There were three other times you did this, one was when you let Zephyra become ’immortal’ now any damage Zephyra receives is transmitted to you, that means one day she may receive damage that even you can’t heal."
"You stupidly created a weak point for yourself, if someone knows about this fact, they can just focus on killing Zephyra to kill you, but I understand, it was love and obsession."
"It’s natural, we’re like that, you did it to preserve what’s yours forever, so I accept it... but... the other two times... honestly, it makes me wonder if you even consider the future consequences."
"The other time was with Mikael, you fought against him and almost died, in that fight you had a good chance of having damage you could never recover from, Mikael’s sword is no ordinary sword."
"Without Violet, you could have lost that fight because you wouldn’t have been able to defend against Mesumari’s blows, again this action was driven by love... so I understand, I really do and I can let it pass with some trepidation."
"But then comes the stupidest thing of all, you challenged the goddess of dragons at that meeting in exchange for her arm if you won."
"You could really have died because of a stupid game, which you only won by cheating and making an arm inside your belly, without even considering that the goddess could have seen that somehow."
"..." I bite my lips, thinking about everything she said, hatefully she is right, if I think about it, this is far from the first time I risk permanent damage.
The fight against the heroes was just the first time I received permanent damage, but there have been other times when I could have had permanent damage and I didn’t think about it.
"..."
"Blind trust, that’s our problem, Pandora, we have power, we have strength, and we have blind trust in our power and regeneration, but you forgot one fact."
"Regeneration has limits, and our adaptation won’t fix problems in the mana path, because there’s no point to be fixed, the mana path should have smaller damage so our adaptation would recognize the problem."
"You were so... confident, that you forgot that even our adaptation has limits, it’s true that we can adapt infinitely to everything and keep getting stronger without stopping."
"Pandora, you can’t drown because your body adapts, you can’t die of heat, thirst or hunger because you adapt, and you can theoretically survive anything as long as you have time because you’ll always adapt."
"But... you forgot that our adaptation doesn’t cover all the areas that exist, it’s true that you get stronger and adjust to any environment or damage you receive over time."
"And it’s also true that you’re capable of learning anything over time..." She has a sneer of disgust on her face.
"However, this has always been our greatest limit, Pandora, time, if the damage to your mana path was something dangerous, but small, the regeneration and adaptation would have taken care of it."
"But sacrificing your arm in a spell caused great damage all at once, you didn’t have time to adapt before the damage became a part of you..." She speaks with sadness.
"...Damn it... you’re such a bitch," I curse her for throwing in my face how irresponsible I’ve been.
"I know I have limits... damn it... I really didn’t need your fucking sermon..." She hit the sore spot, my adaptation won’t save me this time, I still had a glimmer of hope that adaptation might get me out of this problem.
I trusted too much in the abilities and body I have, I guess it’s always been like that, I’m kind of reckless because I’ve never suffered a real and lasting consequence before, all the damage I’ve received has always healed, and that has made me arrogant.
I know that arrogance and pride lead to failure, but I had the power to sustain my arrogance, but it turns out I let my arrogance accumulate too much and now it’s come back to hit me hard.
"How do you feel, Pandora?" She asks, even though she knows.
"Frustrated... full of hatred... and very angry... but I’m also happy, happy to have killed the heroes, unfortunately I barely had time to enjoy it, but when I go to my universe to torture them, I’ll feel even better," I say with an immense devilish smile.
"..."
"At least you know you were wrong, don’t come to me with more permanent injuries, we have a deal, Pandora, I gave you more real control over what we are, but in return, in here, you’re mine."
"I’m not helping you to see you slowly kill yourself, next time you come to me with some permanent damage, I swear that in here I’ll make you bitterly regret that choice," she threatens, looking directly into my eyes.
’It’s so... disturbing...’ I avert my gaze, her eyes are really creepy, she shows me exactly what others feel when they face my eyes, it’s kind of strange to see those spirals that seem to delve into infinity in her gaze.
"Pandora Yandere, I want... to rest a bit, so I’ll stay here for a few hours..." I say, yawning sleepily, it’s been a long time since I’ve felt real sleepiness.
"Of course, you can sleep, while that happens I’ll take the opportunity to clean you of the impurities we gained in the fight against the heroes," she says something I don’t understand.
"...?"
"Pandora, you bit and even tasted the flesh and blood of the heroes, honestly, how disgusting, it’s like eating garbage, you were so focused on the fight that you just did it, and now I can’t let it go," she says as I shudder with disgust.
’Damn, I had promised not to eat their flesh before because it was garbage... desperate situations call for desperate measures, unfortunately.’ I decide to just close my eyes and forget about it, trying to sleep.
Meanwhile, I feel Pandora Yandere starting to lick my body, while I remain still without responding.
"You’ve always had enough power to sustain your pride and arrogance... but you let that arrogance grow more than you could protect. And now you’re paying the price. So stay quiet," Pandora Yandere speaks as she gives a long lick on my belly.