World Three, Incantation

World Three: Incantation

"Godhood is a position, and divine power is a tool. That's how I see it."

Si Ming cradled his teacup and answered offhandedly. "Life worships a god into existence through its prayers. The god then appears in the world and endures in order to fulfill those prayers. In other words, if a god who has appeared in the world truly fulfills the prayers that brought it into being, then it deserves to be worshipped. You could see it as a simple exchange, with the god's power naturally serving as the tool it uses to fulfill its duties."

"You think gods should be worshipped?"

"If they fulfill the wishes of those who expect them to do so, yes. I think the people who worship them should worship them. After all, they can't do what they want on their own, so they have to leave it to the gods, don't they? Worship is the payment, miracles are the results. It's a perfectly fair transaction. What's the problem?"

"Don't you think that since gods are born from people's worship, they owe people a great debt? Shouldn't they take the initiative to do something in return?"

"You're using human morality to define a tool?" Si Ming smiled. "Or do you think gods are children and humans are their parents? Then which one of them is the one pleading with the other during birth?"

"Looks like we do have some differences." Jacob poured himself a glass of water.

But Si Ming only waved a hand.

"Do we really have differences?" He poured himself a glass, too. "You stand in the position of usurping divine power, and justify your reasons for doing so. I stand in the position of inheriting divine power, and find myself an excuse to shirk responsibility. Aren't both you and I simply more inclined toward pragmatism?"

Jacob laughed, too. He raised his glass and clinked it against Si Ming's from across the table.

"Death Divinity?" He could sense the peculiar quality in Si Ming's power.

"Yeah, death." Si Ming didn't deny it, though he didn't directly mention Death Divinity either. "Beneath the ruins in the first Alien vs. Predator movie, deep inside that ancient pyramid, was a gathering place for an ancient civilization's worship of death itself. I gained the right to activate it after exchanging for an undead-type enhancement, and after a trial, I obtained it."

He paused.

"'Revere death, follow death, and in the end, we shall all return to death.' That was the creed born from the ancient civilization under the guidance of the Yautja. If I really had to inherit that 'great debt of birth' along with this power..."

He set down his glass. "Wouldn't I have to go somewhere and slaughter people every day?"

"When aren't we Reincarnators slaughtering people..." Yu Zhiwei muttered under her breath from one side, her voice just quiet enough for everyone to hear.

"Settling things peacefully is obviously better than killing people..." Valentina nodded in agreement with Si Ming's argument from the other side.

Both voices stopped at once. Yu Zhiwei had done it on purpose; Valentina had genuinely choked. The former smiled sweetly, while the latter turned her face away as if she'd seen something disgusting.

"It's still better to avoid fighting if we can." Jacob glanced at the two women. "I think I'm fairly good at reasoning with people."

Unfortunately, he hadn't managed to get the Reincarnators of Sandbar Team to understand his reasoning.

"Unless you run into things that can't be reasoned with." Si Ming nodded. "For example, in the last world, I went to I Am Legend. Except for a handful of survivors, everyone I met was a Night Demon, and there was no reasoning with them. So I had to spend a bit of effort explaining things to them with physics."

"There's really no reasoning with nonhuman creatures." Song Tian, who had been quiet up to then, spoke up. "My last world was The Descent. Before that, it was Day of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead. All I could do was swing my blade."

"Three worlds fighting zombies, huh? That must've been tough, Song Tian."

"I don't think The Descent was about fighting zombies..." Valentina, ever the stickler, corrected him without thinking, then immediately added, "But those cave-dwelling monsters really weren't much different from zombies."

She paused, then began to talk about her own experiences.

"My first world was True Lies, and the second was Mission: Impossible. They were mostly about dealing with people, and the missions could be completed with very little fighting. My third was Kingdom of Heaven. I helped the blacksmith Balian hold the Holy City, which was harder to defend than in the original story. But the others in Forest Team thought they could betray Balian to get a side quest... That was when I parted ways with the others."

So that was why she liked reasoning so much. All three worlds had been set in civilized societies, where you could clear the missions smoothly as long as you stuck to your path.

Then...

Everyone turned their eyes to Yu Zhiwei, who was sprawled languidly across the table.

"What are you looking at? Oh... I'm the only one left, huh?" She tilted her head, wearing an expression of feigned realization.

"Nothing special. My first world was The Thing, some inexplicable American horror movie. My second was Event Horizon, some inexplicable British horror movie. My third was One Missed Call, some inexplicable Japanese horror movie. I made it through the first two, but there was no way I could survive the third. But before I died, the Guide paused time, so I became the captain, and then came here to Celestial Team."

"...Those movies sound pretty difficult."

Si Ming had heard of all three movies, and could imagine what they'd be like at the lowest difficulty. Even without any extra elements added, the original versions would be far from easy for an ordinary person to clear.

"Who knows? Maybe Main God saw how many rookies from India Team I'd killed and was in a hurry to send me on my way." Yu Zhiwei still looked as languid as ever. "No one can be trusted. Anyone could suddenly turn into a monster or get possessed by a ghost. Someone who was smiling one second could open a mouth with eight flaps and suddenly lunge at you. A rookie or story character you'd just barely saved could suddenly burst into a pool of poisonous blood right in front of you..."

"After thinking it over, killing everyone really was more convenient. The living, the dead, the ones who looked like corpses, the ones still breathing, the ones smiling, the ones terrified—only Main God's score deductions and announcements counted as proof... Ah, but sometimes even Main God's announcements could be wrong. Ghosts and monsters were one thing, but nerve gas could make you hear things that weren't there."

"...Maybe it wasn't your fault." Valentina frowned. "There could have been other reasons."

"Maybe." Yu Zhiwei stretched. "Maybe it was just a random combination of factors. Maybe India Team was just unlucky. Maybe those three worlds weren't actually that difficult, and I made things worse by using the wrong approach. But it's all over now."

Maybe it was.

Si Ming studied her, suddenly recalling a setting that might not even exist.

"Mystic Eyes of Death Perception," he said. "Back in the real world, I heard about a setting. Using an ability from the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception family caused your luck to plummet. The more you used it, the worse your luck got. Only a sufficiently massive body of power could suppress your own luck, allowing you to break free from that wretched fate."

"The real world? Where did you hear about a setting like that?" Yu Zhiwei furrowed her brows slightly.

"Some kind of fan creation, fanfic, or something like that. I can't remember."

The person who'd gotten interested clicked her tongue.

"I don't usually read novels."

"But I'll give it a try... I won't live much longer anyway if I can't do it."

The mood grew a little sour, so Jacob reached out again and exchanged for a glass of grape juice and a glass of wine.

"Anyone want one?" he asked the others.

The first Celestial Team afternoon meeting came to an end. The team atmosphere had gone from nonexistent to something, and the Reincarnators had learned a little more about one another. Si Ming had no idea how many of them had achieved their own goals, but for him, having orchestrated it all, this was a good start. All he needed was for the meeting to take place and for it not to fall apart.

So it went on the first day.

And so it went on every day afterward.

However, unlike the in-depth conversation on the first day, from the second day onward, the Reincarnators' discussions drifted toward topics that didn't touch on their personal lives. Song Tian finally found another time to spar with Si Ming. Unfortunately, he still couldn't force Si Ming to reveal his close-combat abilities. Meanwhile, Valentina had several more bouts with Yu Zhiwei, and really did stab her with her sword a few more times.

Women really were hard to understand. After stabbing Yu Zhiwei a few times, Valentina no longer seemed as hostile toward her as before. Of course, that could also have been because Yu Zhiwei's earlier sob story had worked.

Si Ming would bet five cents that she'd been playing the victim.

But it wasn't a big deal.

Celestial Team gradually went from a scattered handful of sand to a pile of sand. It was still nowhere near an alliance, let alone a proper team, but at least the five Reincarnators, who had never known one another before, no longer got in each other's way.

That was enough.

Soon, when the seventh afternoon meeting began, everyone was at a loss for words. They even had to dig up boring topics like "nice weather today" to pass the time. At last, the privilege belonging to the holder of the captain's authority successfully activated.

"Let's see what the next world is..."

All five of them were looking, but Yu Zhiwei was the first to speak.

"Incantation? What kind of movie is that? Another supernatural horror film?"