Chapter 27

I stared blankly up at the pitch-black night sky, lost in thought.

At first, I figured I’d croaked from that damn drug and somehow been sent back to Earth. I even thought, huh, dying comes with an afterlife return policy? Pretty generous service, I guess.

But it didn’t take long for me to realize—this wasn’t the Earth I knew.

How did I know?

1. First off, no people.

Not just people—no animals, no insects, nothing.

No matter how far I wandered, no matter how many alleys I poked through, the only living things I ever found were trees and flowers.

2. Next, there were no stars at night.

Even when the sky was crystal clear, not a single star shone overhead.

The only thing in the sky was one full moon, glowing softly, scattering pale light across the ground.

3. And the last one… the clincher.

There were two things here that absolutely shouldn’t exist on Earth.

“Hey…”

I stopped walking down the empty eight-lane road, let out a long sigh, and turned around.

“…Why the hell are you two here?”

-A beautiful girl in a one-piece dress, with translucent blue hair.

-A radiant angel in a peplos gown, five long wings spread wide.

Shia and Yuribel. They’d just shown up at some point and had been following me around ever since.

Even when I looked back at them with a face full of disbelief, neither reacted.

They just smiled sweetly.

“There’s no way the real ones are here. You’re fakes, aren’t you?”

“……”

“What exactly are you supposed to be?”

“……”

I scratched my head with a groan.

“Unbelievable. Can someone please explain? What is this place, and what the hell happened to me…?”

…

And I finally got my answer only after the long night ended, when the morning sun rose.

The golden sun.

“…Holy crap.”

The instant I saw it, I understood. I couldn’t not understand.

That was my soul.

“…Wait. If that’s true…”

Words scrawled on the blackboard by that elf mage flashed through my mind.

-World.
-Soul.
-Imagery.
-Body.

And the terrifying conclusion that followed.

Imagery.

“So you’re saying… this whole fake Earth is my Imagery?”

If the elf mage’s explanation about Imagery was right, then this wasn’t some newly made construct. I hadn’t even tried to make one.

Which meant…

“…This Imagery was already inside me from the start.”

-Rarely, there are people who establish an Imagery even without becoming mages.

Rarely, some people have Imagery even without being mages. Those who’ve overcome immense trials, or lived lives of extraordinary intensity—heroes, saints, kings. Ordinary people don’t fit that category, so you needn’t worry about it.

I remembered her words and slowly nodded.

Heroes? Saints? Kings? Compared to those guys, I’m way above that line. Makes sense, I guess.

“…Still, isn’t this way too big? Why’s it super-sized?”

I climbed the small hill behind my old neighborhood, the one with the mineral spring I always visited to clear my head.

It was more of a hill than a mountain. Lying down on the long bench set up for hikers, I tried to organize my thoughts.

“…If this place is my Imagery, and that sun is my soul… then the moon from last night must’ve been my body. Damn it. Unreal…”

Well, absurd as it was, at least that much I could accept.

But then…

I glanced at the two fake shadows of Shia and Yuribel, sitting quietly by my side with nothing but sweet smiles.

“…So? What are you really?”

“……”

They didn’t answer.

“Can’t talk? Or just won’t?”

“……”

“……”

“You even understand me?”

“……”

“……”

I lifted a hand toward fake Shia.

“Hey. Hand.”

She tilted her head for a moment, then placed her hand in mine with a soft clap.

“…That works? So you can understand.”

Next, I ordered fake Yuribel.

“Hey. Lap pillow.”

She obediently sat by my head and patted her pure-white thighs, exposed beneath her peplos.

Soft.

The plush, lifelike feeling against the back of my head made me marvel.

“…That works too. Wait. Does that mean I can try other things?”

I was still a hot-blooded man, after all.

Looking up at the overwhelming curves that blotted out two-thirds of the sky, the thought hit me—how could I not want to test things with a goddess-tier angel body like that?

Desire leapt at the chance, whispering like a devil in my ear.

-Do it. Go for it.

But then my conscience yanked that thought back by the hair.

-Hey. No matter what, don’t throw away your dignity as a human being.

Desire argued back.

-Dignity, my butt. Do you even know what “Imagery” really means? It’s just a fancy word for imagination—your mind’s picture, nothing more. Sure, it feels real, but it’s still happening inside your head, so what’s there to feel guilty about?

-Precisely because it’s imagination, it’s even more pathetic. You know what’s sadder than anything? An imaginary girlfriend.

-Pathetic, my ass. Show me a guy who never built a harem in his head during puberty.

-And you’re not a middle or high schooler anymore. You’re a grown adult past twenty.

Conscience dropped a sharp truth bomb, and Desire murmured back in a small, wounded voice.

-But we’re… natural-born forever-singles… no one’s ever rewarded us…

-Ah… ahh…

Conscience fell silent for a moment, then finally patted Desire’s bowed shoulder and shot me a thumbs-up. It was the “GO” sign.

“…Thanks, you two.”

With Desire and Conscience reaching a dramatic truce, there was nothing holding me back.

“Hey. Move for a sec. I’ve got something I want to try with her.”

Like it was jealous of the angel’s lap pillow, the fake Shia had somehow plastered herself to my stomach like a blanket; I gently rolled her to the side.

Then I sat up straight, clasped my hands, and prayed devoutly to my Imagery.

“Clothes. Give me clothes. Swimsuits are fine, negligees are fine—just something with decent coverage. If you can create an entire pseudo-planet, this should be nothing…”

About five seconds after that heartfelt plea—

Plop.

Something fell onto my face. A small, soft scrap of fabric.

“…Huh?”

Startled, I looked up at the sky—and witnessed a miracle.

“…Holy crap.”

Like a flurry of cherry blossoms, swimsuits of every color fluttered down from above.

“Wow…”

Out of roughly a thousand swimsuits that poured down over three minutes, I picked one from about the fourth of nine “tiers”: the “not too indecent” range—
-ones “only the honest can see,”
-ones not even usable as strings,
-ones that are usable as strings,
-ones that would get you reported at a public pool,
-ones that are “swimsuits” in name only,
-very daring ones,
-merely daring ones,
-relatively modest ones,
-and harmless to humans and society.

No matter what, I just couldn’t bring myself to hand over anything from tiers 1–3.

“Put this on and give me a lap pillow.”

But fake Yuribel’s reaction was way off from what I expected.

Riiip.

She glanced at the swimsuit… and tore it neatly in half.

“Uh… you don’t like it? I—I mean, yeah, that one was too daring.”

I picked a tier-5 option and held it out.

“Wh-what about this?”

Riiip.

“Th-this one…?”

Riiip!

Smiling angelically the whole time, fake Yuribel shredded each swimsuit I offered.

Clutching my chest at the sight of the confetti-strewn battlefield, I groaned.

“Why are you rejecting them? Are lifelong singles not allowed to be happy even in their imagination? Huh? Is that it? You two are part of my Imagery, right? Why are beings in my head moving without my consent?”

“……”

“Don’t just smile—say something…”

And then it hit me. A spark flashed across my mind.

Wait… what did that damn elf mage say about mana again?

-If you see something “foreign” in your Imagery—something you cannot recognize or comprehend—that is precisely mind mana.

Something foreign that I didn’t understand?

…Inside my Imagery, was anything more foreign than them?

If so… no way… seriously?

I stared at the two with a dumb look.

“Hey. Just to check… are you my mana?”

Then, for the first time, fake Shia—who’d been quietly gripping my hem and watching my antics—gave a proper response.

Nod.

“…Wow. ‘It’s darkest under the lamp’.“¹

Without thinking, I reached out to fake Shia.

She seemed to have been waiting for that; she turned into light and settled softly onto my palm.

A pure, limpid cluster of blue radiance.

“…So this is mind mana.”

It felt distinctly different from the faint residue of body mana still lingering in my memory. If body mana had been clear and glassy, this was deeper, with a vivid personality of its own.

I held out my other hand to fake Yuribel. She, too, dissolved into light and came to rest on my palm—golden this time.

“Huh? Why is this one a different color? I’ve seen this hue before… wait, this isn’t mana—it’s divine power?”

Come to think of it… when I asked Shia where my divine power was, she’d answered:

-It dwells in your Imagery.

I let out a breathless laugh, staring at the twin lights—blue and gold—poised on my palms.

“…Seriously. You could’ve just said so. How was I supposed to guess with you clamping your mouths shut like that?”

…

Thinking back, Shia had clearly been certain I already had a complete Imagery. Otherwise she wouldn’t have spoken with such confidence.

“…You could’ve at least explained the basics, you little…”

Anyway, I’d formed my Imagery and identified my mana. That meant I’d finished everything I needed to do in this Earth-lookalike mental world.

“But… how do I get back to reality? Solve one thing and another pops up.”

The most plausible method was to escape this Imagery.

More precisely, to reach the “moon” floating in the far sky (invisible by day), which I suspected was my body.

‘If the moon is my body, and the body overlaps with reality, then reaching it is the most likely route back. …But how do I get there?’

“……”

“……”

After mulling it over, I finally looked up at the cloud-filled sky and, thinking nothing ventured, nothing gained, shouted with gusto:

“Teleport!”

“……”

“……”

“Fly!!”

“……”

“……”

Back in their human shapes again, fake Shia and fake Yuribel just stared blankly at me—like, what ridiculous stunt are you pulling now?

“…Yeah, I know it’s embarrassing. Don’t look at me like that, okay? This is my Imagery. Honestly, wouldn’t it be weirder if it didn’t work?”

Of course, just because it was my mind didn’t mean I could control everything. The human mind was deep and complicated.

Still, if swimsuits could rain from nowhere, then this world clearly responded—at least somewhat—to my will. So maybe skipping across space or flying through the air could work too…

“Hmm… I can’t tell what the success conditions are. If it doesn’t work, I’ll settle for second best—make do with what I’ve got.”

“Yuribel.”

“……?”

“You can fly, right?”