apropos comparison would be to a blank white canvas. Or perhaps a pitch-black canvas. Nothing meaningful was painted atop it. All the beautiful, warped art that had once been there had been scarred, then lost. Forever. Because of that, she had to carry out her atonement. It wouldn't do for her to simply leave the world blank and empty. To that end, she tried summoning God again. This time, the world had been destroyed, fulfilling the condition for rebuilding, and thus, God descended. On God's orders, Diablo fell asleep. Having wrested back control, she removed Diablo from her body. However, her wish to annul her contract with it and return it to a higher realm went unfulfilled. In order to annul her contract, she needed to give the order to Diablo directly. And as long as God was keeping Diablo in check, God's orders superseded and nullified those of His contractor. And annulling her contract with God first would mean having to give up on the rebuilding. As she agonized over that dilemma, she tried to find a different solution. Could she just renounce both of her contracts after completing the rebuilding? No, that, too, was impossible. Once the new world was complete, God would be freed from the condition on which He had descended and would automatically fall asleep. And because she was sheltering God within her body, so too would she. God operated under a rule where He had to rebuild, then sleep, and she lacked the power necessary to obstruct this for long enough to take any other actions. She couldn't even kill herself by forcibly releasing her contracts. If she had been powerful enough to control God completely, perhaps another option would have presented itself to her. However, that was beyond her. Even so, there remained a method by which she could more or less escape. God desired a contractor so He could maintain His peaceful rest, but He wasn't picky about who that was. As long as there was someone there who wouldn't fall apart the moment the contract was formed, it would be possible to push the burden onto them. Of course, no such person existed in this clean, blank world. At that moment, the only way she could die a human's death would be by abandoning everything. Yet in order to carry out the rebuilding, she chose instead to live forever. At that point, Kaito interjected. "Wait, hold up. You were using God's power to keep Diablo in check? So Diablo was sealed away in the underground tomb, and the only one left in your body while you slept was God?" "Indeed." "Normally, Diablo can only manifest once God has decided the world should be destroyed. And once God rebuilds it, He stops Diablo from immediately destroying it again. Not to mention that unless the conditions are fulfilled, you can't summon Him at all... Even though God's supposed to exist to oppose Diablo, it sounds like He's clearly the superior of the two." "Given my experience, I would have to agree. That's why I was able to remove Diablo from my body with our contract intact but was forced to carry God with me that whole time." And whether or not God was inside her body, the fact remained that she was a peerless sinner. She bore the yoke of grave crimes upon her shoulders. That was why she'd had to build the skies, build the earth, and birth the seas. She had to make vegetation flourish across the land. She had to craft the moon and the stars. She had had to release fish and birds and beasts and livestock out into the world. Then after making humans, beastfolk, and demi-humans, she rested. That was the fate she had imposed upon herself. Fleeing her atonement would have been unforgivable. As she silently rebuilt the world, she had a thought: In the world to come, all would revere her. Unlike the resentful voices of those on the verge of annihilation she'd once heard, she would doubtless be hailed as a "Saint" and be offered countless commendations. She would be the mother of all who existed, after all. She would probably even be prayed to, hailed as the "Suffering Saint" who sacrificed herself for her children. Yet despite the praises she knew she'd receive, she felt neither pride nor gratification. For the rest of eternity, nobody would ever consider what she had truly felt. Without trying to learn what she'd been like before she'd become the Saint and her tale became embellished, they would have no way of even doing so. But she had no intention of condemning them for that fact. That was simply the way the masses were. The same had been true in the world prior. They would hear only what they wanted to hear, see only what they wanted to see. Flocks of sheep were, fundamentally, stupid. And that was the way things ought to be. But at the end of that day, was that truly not a sin? The ignorant had no right to cast blame, did they not? She thought once more in that blank, white world. Why had she tried to save them all? Given how things had turned out, it couldn't have been described as anything other than a flight of fancy driven by a serious case of arrogance and conceit. A fatal mistake, one brought about from the sense of omnipotence that accompanied the possession of great power. Yet in her heart of hearts, she couldn't bring herself to consider what she had tried to do as worthy of scorn or rebuke. It had been clear as day that if she hadn't done anything, the world would have fallen into ruin. And it was just as evident that, even knowing that fact, nobody else had tried to act. "Yet even so... I've been alone for so long." She had fought on her own for so long. She had fought to save them all. She remained unforgiven, yet forgiveness was precisely what they would receive. Therein lay an inescapable contradiction. If that was the case, then didn't that make every person's entire way of life fundamentally wrong? She became obsessed with that notion. After troubling over that fact for quite some time, she created a hideous, adorable attendantâ€”one who would serve only her. She instructed him to build infrastructure for trade so the new world would prosper. She also told him to teach the people basic information about her, God, and Diablo so that no one would ever repeat her mistakes. Then she decided to entrust Diablo's detached form to the people of the new world. Moreover, she also gave him a lump of demon flesh. "However, if the people of this new world choose to learn nothing..." And thus, she sowed the seed of evil, ready to flower if anyone driven by zealotry and greed or anyone who would gladly act as an agent of destruction were to appear. "In the end, I took too long to notice." She had been assailed by profound regrets. After all, what had she been left with after salvation had been carried out? In the end, what of hers, what of anyone's had she been able to save? Nothing. Nothing at all. Just like when she was young, she hadn't been able to save anything. And because of that, it was only natural that nothing of value was born in the new world. After the destruction and restoration, the three races ended up making the same mistakes as before. People who sought power had arisen, swept away all others, and begun walking the path to annihilation. Once again, her conviction was reaffirmed. All living creatures were nothing more than ignorant, stupid animals. "There was nothing in this world worth protecting." And when the solitary prodigy, the Saint, finally realized that factâ€” â€”she chose to set down her burden. That was all. That was all there was to the tragicâ€” No, to the farcical tale. "And they all lived happily ever after." For the third time, a heavy silence descended on the two. However, it was quickly broken by the dry sound of clapping. Kaito had lifted his arms and was clapping his hands together. It wasn't intended in the slightest as an act of blasphemy against the Saint. He was just mutely praising her recounting of the tale. However, his action wasn't meant to demonstrate sympathy or pity, nor was it designed to express criticism. He himself knew an anecdote that the Saint's story reminded him of. Once upon a time, there was a girl. She tried to stop a man whom nobody else could stop. To do so, she became a sinner without peer. Once upon a time, there was a boy. As he obtained immense power in a crumbling world, he decided to save the ignorant, stupid animals. Just as the Saint had said, it was a decision steeped in arrogance. A terrible act of conceit. However, there was one clear difference in the way the Saint and the Mad King thought. Kaito saw the stupid sheep as precious. Humanity, beastfolk, and demi-humans are all equal. Every living creature is ignorant, every living creature is like a stupid animal, and every living creature is precious. Also, the Mad King had a wish he was determined to see granted. He had boasted he'd save everyone, but at the end of the day, that was little more than an afterthought. He would never say it in front of the people who were entrusting their lives to him, but Kaito knew he'd discard the prospect of salvation without a second thought if it got in the way of his true objective. He was well aware of how callous he was being to all but a few, how his unreliability verged on madness. In other words, the salvation I'm trying to bring about isn't for anyone else's sake. It's for my own, and I'm just selfishly doing everything I can to that end. He thought back on what the Torture Princess had said at the World's End. "Bear no conceitsâ€”saving the world and destroying it are but mere matters of personal selfishness." Even if nothing remains, as long as I did everything I could, I won't have any regrets. No matter what fate awaited him. Having the dedication to shoulder everything on one's own for the sake of the weak and the downtrodden was noble, no doubt. But Kaito knew. The world wasn't beautiful enough to accommodate such selfless love. It wasn't worth sacrificing yourself if you would ultimately regret having done so. After all, you wouldn't exactly be rewarded for your troubles. The world was a cold and unfeeling place. Yet contradictorily, it also contained something radiant within it. Because of that, Kaito had sought to dig this item up. His blade had gotten stuck in the swamp, so he'd plunged his hands in instead. And after sustaining countless wounds, he'd grabbed hold of the jewel. There was information he needed to do that, information he couldn't get anywhere else, and he'd just received it. Kaito stood up from his chair, then began speaking to the Saint, who was staring at the wall once more. "Well, sorry for making you tell me that long story. And thanks. I won't ask you for anything else. Various humans, beastfolk, and demi-humans will probably come by with some questions later, though. It sounds like the old world's magic was pretty advanced, so I'd appreciate it if you avoided letting any harmful information slip. It'd probably turn out better for you that way, too. If word got out about how important and dangerous the stuff you know is, your safety might be at risk. Odds are, there are people who'd be willing to use way nastier methods than what I just did to keep that information to themselves." "You say...such foolish things... The bugle has been blown, the roses have bloomed, and the wings