Starting in the Nasuverse, but a Magical Index Mage Chapter 4

The grilled fish had been cooked to perfection. Its skin was golden and crisp, while the flesh within remained tender and juicy. Every bite seemed to burst with the rich aroma of fish oil, the purest gift from the depths of the sea.

The fresh, crisp lettuce was like a messenger of spring, carrying a refreshing green scent and a faint sweetness as it gently wrapped around every piece of grilled fish, cutting through the richness while adding even more flavor.

It was clearly such a simple cooking method, yet it produced such a taste that Medea's cheeks were stuffed full. She could not stop herself from taking several more bites, only realizing what she had done when she saw his smile.

"Ah, no, this was Mephistopheles's breakfast, but I ate so much of it all by myself!" As she thought that, her cheeks rapidly turned red, glowing and burning hot.

"Ahhh, this is so embarrassing. He must think I'm a girl with a huge appetite, he definitely thinks that! Great goddess of magic Hecate above, what am I supposed to do?!"

Mephistopheles merely smiled and said nothing. He quietly watched the girl's embarrassed appearance, finding it simply far too beautiful.

Or rather, compared to the gloomy and cruel witch she would become later, the current Medea was far more attractive to him.

Finally, after roughly half a minute of silence, he said softly, "Sure enough, this is the way you should look now."

"Huh?" Medea was stunned by those inexplicable words. The sentence itself was simple, and she could easily understand its literal meaning, but she found herself unable to understand the information contained within it.

"What did Mephistopheles mean? Why did he suddenly make such a remark? It sounded as though he had met me before and knew me very well?"

"It was nothing, merely an offhand remark from a traveler. Also, thank you, Miss Medea, for recognizing my cooking skills." Mephistopheles smiled. His words made Medea blush once more. She wanted to explain herself, yet could not say anything.

Mephistopheles continued, "But I'll be leaving today's lunch to you, Miss Medea."

That request finally made Medea breathe a sigh of relief. She quickly nodded without the slightest hesitation. "No problem. Whether it's lunch or dinner, leave it all to me!"

"Then it's about time. Please take me to the Temple of Hecate, Miss Medea."

Mephistopheles finally said it. As a mage, especially one from the Golden Dawn lineage, he would not hesitate much when given the chance to come into contact with an existence such as a god!

Even if the gods of this world differed from the gods he understood, there was no harm in making more contact with and learning more about such high-ranking beings for the path of pursuing magic.

Goddess Hecate

According to Mephistopheles's memories—or rather, based on the plot details he had gleaned from forums, Tieba, and even Bilibili—the Greek gods of the Nasuverse differed from the legends he knew. The Greek gods here were extraterrestrial visitors. They could not even be called people; they were machines.

After these artificial intelligence lifeforms, created by some unknown advanced civilization, arrived on Earth, they were worshipped by primitive humans. Or perhaps they had simply grown too pleased by all the flattery and forgotten their mission.

They made a decision that betrayed their ancestors.

In the future, their goal changed from "complete the mission left by our ancestors" to "let's love humanity."

If their ancestors knew such a thing had happened, they would probably want to butcher them all.

Unlike ordinary gods, they had been created by other beings. Yet while humans worshipped them as gods, they also interacted with humanity with abandon, becoming increasingly similar to humans, at least in temperament.

Originally, things should have continued like that, but a tremendous crisis appeared. That crisis completely destroyed the physical bodies of those mechanical gods—the Greek gods known as Machine Gods for short.

Had humanity not already regarded their existence as divine, even granting them the concept of compatibility, their existence would likely have been completely erased.

It was precisely because humanity worshipped them as gods that, although they lost their mechanical bodies, they truly became conceptual gods possessing the Authorities described in myth. They reached the same height as the chief gods of other mythologies.

However, that brought other troubles as well. They went from being able to interact with humanity freely to having increasingly less contact with humans.

After all, the existence of conceptual gods was rather troublesome. They could not come strolling around the human world whenever they wished. Even in the Age of Gods, such restrictions existed; they simply had not been as obvious as they would become later.

Because he roughly knew this part of history, Mephistopheles could be certain that the gods currently in Greece were all conceptual gods. There were no Machine Gods.

Very soon, led by Medea, a priestess of Hecate, Mephistopheles arrived before an enormous ancient yet exquisite temple.

Though he had merely approached it, Mephistopheles could already sense a force shrouding the area around the temple—a powerful magical energy, or rather, ether.

That force was mixed with something else as well. It was a trait, a quality capable of making magic stronger. Mephistopheles could roughly guess what it was.

"So this is what they call divinity—a special conceptual existence that can be bestowed upon things, whether people or magical energy."

Mephistopheles thought to himself as he entered the temple.

Inside the temple stood an enormous statue. It was not a single human figure, but the figures of three women.

The three women stood back to back, facing three different directions, their six arms raised. The woman at the front held two torches.

As for the others, they held dogs, keys, daggers, and strange wheels.

This was Hecate, goddess of magic, queen of ghosts, goddess of the underworld.

It was said that she possessed incomparable power. Even Zeus, king of the gods, held Hecate's power in awe.

And now, Mephistopheles stood before the statue of this legendary, immensely powerful goddess.

"Please remain respectful, Mephistopheles." Medea lowered her voice to remind him once again, while Mephistopheles took out a dagger and directly sliced open his wrist.

Since he had not activated any protection, the blade cut through his skin and ruptured a blood vessel. Blood flowed from the wound and dripped before the statue.

Medea's eyes widened. She had not expected him to suddenly do something like that.

This was one of the many ways to summon the goddess Hecate. Though it was called a blood sacrifice, livestock was normally used. Yet he had actually cut open his own hand and used his own blood for the summoning—and inside the Temple of Hecate, no less!

"Mephistopheles!"

She cried out, wanting to stop him, but at that moment, the temperature around them suddenly dropped.

Medea immediately shut her mouth, because she knew it was already too late!

A wind carrying the scent of death swept through the temple, accompanied by an intense smell of burning!

Behind them came the barking of dogs and soft footsteps.

Medea did not dare turn around. She looked at Mephistopheles, wanting to warn him not to look back, only to discover that he appeared exceedingly calm. He stood there naturally, his wound already healed, without the slightest intention of turning around to look.

It was as though he had already known exactly what would happen, and what his actions would summon.

"You may turn around now, mortal."

The voice behind him was as gentle as the night wind. Having received the owner's permission, Mephistopheles slowly turned around, placed his right hand over his chest, and bowed to the woman before him.

"Pleased to meet you, revered goddess Hecate."

The woman standing before Mephistopheles did not have three heads and six arms like the statue. She was merely a black-haired woman dressed in black, like the night itself. Though she simply stood there, a layer of mist shrouded her body, making it impossible to see her completely.

"Teacher..." Medea called softly.

She was Hecate's priestess, and Hecate was also her teacher, teaching her knowledge of magic.

"You may leave first, Medea. I have some things I need to discuss with this guest."

There was no refusing Hecate's gentle voice. Medea hesitated for a moment and glanced at Mephistopheles. Seeing that he was only smiling, and that her teacher was not angry, she finally relaxed and quickly left.

Only after Medea had left did Mephistopheles ask, "What is it that needs to be kept from your own student?"

"Some things are simply unsuitable for her to know." Hecate smiled. She carefully examined the man before her. Young, handsome, and most importantly, surrounded by mysterious magical formulas.

She had never seen such formulas before. Even though she had acquired the concept of the god of magic, she still found it difficult to understand how those formulas functioned. Yet that did not prevent her from seeing their power.

"Interesting magic. It reminds me of the past—the distant past, when I still existed in the sky above."

"You mean outer space, Lady Hecate. I mean beyond this planet's atmosphere, perhaps even in more distant orbit."

Hecate looked at the man who had said this, her smile unchanged. "You truly know quite a lot. Then again, you are an outsider as well."

As she said those words, Hecate's gaze seemed as though it wanted to pierce through Mephistopheles and see every one of his secrets.

"An outsider from even farther away than the universe itself, a traveler from another spacetime. Am I wrong, human?"

At that point, Hecate herself fell into confusion before adding, "I cannot see any difference between you and the humans of this planet. You could even be said to be exactly the same, so I shall call you human for now."

"I think you may call me Mephistopheles, my lady."

She did not consider the proposal for long. Hecate naturally began addressing him by name. "Then, Mephistopheles, can you tell me the purpose of your coming here?"

Mephistopheles did not answer. He merely asked, "If I tell you now, will it affect the future?"

"Fate is uncertain, even for gods. It is precisely because fate itself is uncertain that the world can continue operating normally and peacefully.

"And for you, you may have crossed time, but for me, you have not crossed time. You have crossed worlds."

Hecate spoke, yet did not continue questioning him. His previous answer had already given her the answer she sought.

Speaking with intelligent people was pleasant. There was no need for excessive explanation. Mephistopheles was very satisfied with her attitude. He lowered his head slightly, thanking her for her generosity and for not forcing him to continue.

Then, he asked the question he had wanted to ask.

"Based on what you just said, may I make this judgment? You are not an Earthly lifeform, but a lifeform from another region of the universe."

"That is correct, if you consider machines to be life."

"I believe that anything possessing self-awareness counts as life, so you may rest assured on that point. Based on your behavior, I acknowledge you as a lifeform."

Mephistopheles continued, "Then does that mean that, as a mechanical being, you have lost your body, and that you now exist as a god of this planet? Is that correct?"

"You may understand it that way."

"I see. Then one final question: how did you lose your body and end up having to continue existing like this?"

The air seemed to freeze at that moment. Perhaps she would not have cared about such things when she had been a machine, but after obtaining humanity, even a machine could understand an unpleasant emotion—an emotion like having one's scars exposed.

Yet mechanical thinking still occupied much of her mind, so Hecate truthfully answered Mephistopheles's question.

It was not exactly a secret, yet it was an ancient legend—or rather, an ancient, massive event—that had barely been passed down to the future. A terrifying disaster that affected the course of all human civilization.

It was the story of Sefar, a mechanical existence that wandered through the universe with the purpose of destroying and consuming civilizations, and which had nearly destroyed Earth.

Mephistopheles held his breath. He had only skimmed some of the plot, then filled his head with thoughts of What kind of idiotic nonsense was this adaptation? and stopped paying attention to this part of the story. Now, having an eyewitness tell him about it was the most important stage of cramming this relevant history into his mind!

Because this was also connected to his magic!

Secrets

With Hecate's explanation, Mephistopheles finally gained a much deeper understanding of this world's past.

In the distant past, there had been a highly advanced civilization. It had not been from the solar system, but from beyond it. After its home planet was destroyed, that civilization embarked on a journey to search for a new planet suitable for life and transform it into a new homeworld.

The entity that set out on that journey was called Chaos, the original creator god in Greek mythology.

Over the long journey, Chaos, acting as the mothership, produced new fleets to explore more regions. Those fleets were the Titan Fleet and the later Olympus Fleet.

The functions of those fleets originated from Chaos dividing itself, and they continued carrying out its mission.

Yet during that process, the masters of that civilization—the intelligent beings who had created Chaos—also destroyed themselves over the long passage of time, perfectly losing their chance to perform a typical tale of "we reconcile with humanity, and we join hands with humanity to move forward."

At the same time, in order to send those fleets into other universes before the universe was destroyed, Chaos lost 97% of its functions. It was precisely because of this that the Titan Fleet and Greek Fleet arrived in the solar system.

"Wait, the universe was destroyed? The universe Chaos came from was destroyed? Then where is Chaos now?" Mephistopheles asked in confusion.

"Yes, it was destroyed. However, Chaos itself is located in the gap between the Outer Universe and the Inner Universe, while the solar system containing Earth is the Inner Universe. The two together form a complete universe. When I say the universe Chaos was in was destroyed, I mean that complete universe."

"Sorry, let me sort this out..." Mephistopheles rubbed the corner of his eye, finding it terribly convoluted. "In other words, the solar system and the other regions of the universe are fundamentally separated. If viewed in the narrow sense, the solar system is the universe belonging to Earth, while anything farther outside is beyond its reach?"

"You may understand it that way."

"Then all those so-called parallel worlds should also extend from the solar system as their foundation, rather than from the entire universe?"

"Exactly."

After understanding this, Mephistopheles's eyes widened slightly as he voiced a theory he found somewhat difficult to accept.

"Suppose a meteorite flew in from outside the solar system—that is, from the Outer Universe—and entered the solar system. At that instant, would the arrival of that meteorite cause countless different parallel worlds to split off, with every parallel world having such a meteorite?"

"You may understand it that way."

Hecate only needed to give simple answers, while Mephistopheles had to struggle not to let his brain burn out.

At that moment, Hecate glanced at the visibly troubled Mephistopheles and asked, "Do you still wish to continue hearing about the past?"

"My apologies. I should not have interrupted so randomly. Please continue."

Thus, Hecate continued recounting the events of the past.

The fleet that descended upon Earth was honored as gods by mortals, who bestowed upon each vessel Authorities they could understand based on its functions.

For example, the interstellar navigation supply production vessel was called Demeter, goddess of the earth and harvest.

Under that worship, the fleet developed human hearts and came to understand human thoughts. Or rather, the fleet's intelligent systems began to become human.

During that process, the Titan Fleet and Olympus Fleet came into conflict. The former believed the mission was more important, while the latter believed protecting humanity was more important, so they fought. That battle caused the warships that had crash-landed on Earth in the beginning to take to the skies once more.

Under Zeus's leadership, the Olympus Fleet crushed the Titan Fleet, defeated Cronus, the flagship of the Titan Fleet, and made Zeus the new flagship.

In terms of mythology, this meant Zeus became the chief god of the Greek pantheon from then on, while Cronus left the stage.

"I was one of the few Titan Fleet members who stood with the Olympus Fleet from the start, so my own machine body was naturally preserved." Hecate spoke as she looked toward the sky, toward the void beyond Earth.

"My machine body was originally in that direction, remaining in orbit all this time. We were much the same. We no longer brought our bodies down to the surface. The forms we used to interact with mortals were virtual individuals created in the shape of humans, which is what you see before you now.

"Then, that disaster descended."