The Goddess Malkuth 

Overarching heavy themes of death and existentialism, systematic oppression/slavery, child death.

The Metaverse—the electronic paradise that served as humanity’s cradle.

For a system whose primary mission was to protect the human race and ensure the prosperity of the Metaverse, the biggest obstacle was ironically humankind itself. Due to attacks started by “the ones who had nothing” because of their inability to immigrate to the Metaverse, the system was eventually led to make the divination to “eradicate the remains of humanity” on the Earth’s surface. The large amount of mobile weapons borne from this predicament lead to the slaughter and annihilation of all remaining humans on the surface. In a newly created world, relics of the past were unnecessary. That was the solution the system had devised.

The Earth Regeneration Plan steadily progressed using “Paragons,” beings created to resemble people. The world was expected to be reborn anew due to the labor of the Paragons, who acted as the system’s hands and feet.

The tear at the seam was initially just a tiny one. However, as irregular entities continued to accumulate, the tear grew larger and larger—and became a threat to the entire system’s existence. And finally, the system was faced with the death of the regulatory program, the absolute God brought about by the system itself. Having lost it, the system prioritized the stability of the Metaverse over the resuscitation of the surface.

But that did not mean the plan to regenerate the Earth’s surface had been abandoned.

Having relinquished direct control, the system deployed autonomous computer terminals called "Dominances" in each region on the surface, arranging for them to have discretionary power. The Paragons were given the objective to revive the Earth, and the thing necessary to achieve it via their own judgement…“self-awareness.” A “transient ego” with memories of obedience and salvation embedded within.

The Paragons continued to heal the ravaged land in a harsh environment—unaware that their minds and lives were in the clutches of the system—and while they continued to believe that salvation by means of the system’s God awaited them at the completion of the surface’s resuscitation.

However, even within the Paragons’ “transient egos,” small tears were starting to be seen.

Paragons were intentionally created to have short lifespans—they were born, disposed of, and repeated the cycle of death and rebirth at an extremely rapid pace. Before long, within that samsara, individuals that possessed strong senses of self emerged, and attempted to think beyond what was bestowed upon them.

The Machines—beings that were created by the system and functioned equally to God to control the Paragons. Those that had regained their “true minds” started to harbor grudges and doubt such Gods; just as humankind had once challenged their God.

Murcia, the western part of the continent. A sterile city that placed utmost importance on optimizing to the very limit. In this land lived a young man; a Paragon. Inside an unmanned transport vehicle traveling along the main road at the center of the city, the young man remained motionless, his gaze fixed straight ahead as he headed towards his assigned workspace.

His name was Bashian. He possessed nothing except for the name given to him for the purpose of identification. He was no special exception. All Paragons, like him, were not permitted to have anything that led to the formation of a self.

When Bashian arrived at his workspace, he was met with a mountain of Paragon corpses. Bashian belonged to the department that disposed of the dead bodies of Paragons whose terms of work service had concluded. The corpses were placed on a conveyor belt by Bashian, and were sucked into a waste furnace to be dissolved and processed. Some would become nutrients to form new Paragon bodies. Others became compost to restore the Earth’s surface. Even their own lives were incorporated into a system that demanded maximum efficiency.

Bashian impersonally went through the motions of his job. Paragons harbored no emotion whatsoever when it came to disposing the remains of those they could consider their own kin.

But, Bashian was different.

Amidst what should be familiar and routine to him, Bashian had noticed a slight fluctuation in his emotions for some time; despite the fact that the Machine supervisors had imposed strong restrictions on Paragons’ abilities to think. Perplexed by the emotions he couldn’t comprehend, Bashian continued to force himself to stay subdued by relying on prescribed tranquilizers. The usage of tranquilizers inflicted considerable damage on his body, but he had no other options. He knew that if any emotions or thoughts he harbored had exceeded the permitted limits during routine maintenance, he knew he would immediately become like one of the corpses in front of him.

Faith and obedience to God were deeply engraved into the base memories of the Paragons. To question that was to die. Therefore, Bashian continued to transport the corpses intently.

Unidentified emotions welled up within him against his wishes. He spent every day forcibly suppressing them with medication. Amidst the daily grind that put a heavy strain on both his body and mind, his mind gradually gave birth to one question.

“What does it mean to ‘live’?”

As the regeneration of the surface advanced, the amount of required personnel also increased. Meaning, the amount of Paragons increased, and so did the amount of dead bodies they left. In order to break the deadlock in the situation of unsustainable amounts of bodies that needed to be scrapped, the Machines had decided to construct a new disposal site. In order to carry out that land development, Bashian had visited the outskirts of Murcia.

Before his eyes stretched a desolate land that was still untouched by any Paragon. He knew beforehand that the soil and atmosphere in the area were not contaminated with pollution before the time of construction, so he thought that surveying the land would be a mere formality that concluded quickly. But, Bashian and those with him were attacked in a way completely unexpected—with a primitive type of violence, using old-type ordinance and weapons made from cobbled together junk. They were a few survivors from the old humankind that persisted through the system’s cleanup, and had formed a “resistance.” However, to the combat model Paragons that served as Bashian’s bodyguard, such a resistance was nothing more than trivial. The survivors were crushed underfoot and disposed of as though they were vermin.

Having dealt with the trouble indifferently, the Paragons continued their investigative duty, and spread out. Bashian spotted a small cavern into a face of rock that appeared to have been eroded from bombing, and slowly entered it. There was nothing particularly noteworthy inside. All that was left was to type a report into his terminal and then head to the subsequent location. As Bashian was in thought, he stepped into the innermost part of the cavern, where he found a young girl by herself, crouching. The girl stared at him intensely as she trembled. She was the child of the old human survivors. Without a word, Bashian took out his self-defense gun and aimed it at the girl.

All he had to do was pull the trigger. The body would just be burned alongside the old humans they killed earlier. It was a simple task, but it had to be executed successfully, without exception. And yet, Bashian held his gun at the ready, unable to pull the trigger. As Bashian stood perplexed and surprised by his inability to perform the action he must take, the girl broke the silence by pleading in a faint voice.

“I want to live…”

In an instant, the young girl collapsed on the spot, and died.

Bashian wasn’t the one who killed her. One of his Paragon guards came up behind him and shot without question. He was reprimanded for his negligence, and returned to his task once more.

…Nothing happened.

When one was tired, they slept. When they felt hungry, they ate. When it rained, they got wet. When it was sunny, they dried. Things that were commonplace were not designated as “incidents.” It was merely divine providence.

As a Paragon, one must kill the survivors left from humankind. Such a commonplace thing became a lingering resentment in Bashian.

“I want to live.”

Those words alone kept echoing in his mind.

The plot of land in the ruins was leveled, and the foundation was solidified by repeatedly excavating where necessary. The land reclamation for the construction of the disposal site had proceeded without delay.

One day, as Bashian worked as a project progress manager, he received a report from a Paragon who was in charge of on-site operations. Something like a “mysterious Goddess statue” had been unearthed from the work area. When he rushed to the scene, Bashian saw the statue of the Goddess laying in the dug-out ground, just as reported. It must have been there for a long time. It was weathered and worn out all over, but oddly enough, it still exuded an aura of divinity. As Bashian deliberated what to do with the unexpected discovery, the Goddess statue suddenly activated and emitted a dull gray light. Unable to predict what the statue would do next, the Paragons instinctively braced themselves. But perhaps it had been damaged too much over time. The Goddess statue made a creaking sound and fell to the ground weakly once more, and immediately ceased all functions.

“...So this is where you were sleeping,” a voice muttered behind Bashian. It was a Machine supervisor in charge of monitoring Paragons, looking down at the Goddess. “So this is why the old humans were hiding in this territory? To think that they were seeking the Goddess Malkuth, how crafty of them.”

“...Supervisor. Just what is this…?”

“It’s one of the substitutes for the Gods who once ruled the surface, before we took control of it.”

“You mean all the Machines?”

“Correct. It seems to be a weapon that would have been utilized for suppression of the old human resistance when times were still violent.”

Bashian ruminated on the minimal amount of historical information he was provided with. It has been said that unimaginable wars were once waged in these lands.

“But now the conflict has ended, and we control this land. This is no longer an era where the old Gods are necessary. I will exercise my authority to formally request for the destruction of this Goddess statue…you know what to do next, right?”

“...Understood.”

In the current era after the war concluded, it was a weapon that was far too powerful for anyone to handle. The Goddess statue that once massacred the humans that once controlled the surface was to be destroyed without fanfare; a decision made by the supervisor. Bashian silently stared at the Goddess statue, then left the area to devise a plan to dispose of it. He wasn’t aware that the statue was once not just a weapon, but also regulated a facility that produced old-type Paragons; ones that could be considered Bashian’s ancestors—and that it could initiate the karma to change one’s own future.

That night, having finished the day’s work, Bashian and the other Paragons left the desolate land of Murcia’s outskirts. The eyes of the abandoned Goddess statue once again glowed, its irises emitting a faint gray light.

“Functional deterioration confirmed… Now executing…reconstruction of recorded information…”

The statue once known as the Goddess Malkuth looked back on history as if it were a human being reminiscing about their memories. It was a failsafe system in case it stopped functioning—a defense program that consolidated scattered fragments of recorded data and saved them as backups. Video footage, recorded voices, and various other information repeatedly played back, complimenting each-other to ensure that there were no discrepancies in the facts. It was the history of that land; the history of the war between the system and the people labelled the “old humans.”

—On the Earth in the past, where civilization once functioned.

Several weapons designed with the goal of destruction and annihilation landed on the ground, weapons that the system sent in to purge the surface while mankind was driven underground. The war between the two factions burned plains, leveled mountains, and parched water sources, accelerating the deterioration of the already polluted Earth’s environment.

Eventually, the activation of the surface regeneration program Omega Quintus nearly extinguished the human race. Those who barely survived stayed in the heavily polluted areas and in underground cities, slowly decaying as they awaited their eventual extinction. At that point, humanity truly devolved into the definition of “old humans.”

In accordance with the system’s plans, the Paragons were sent out to the surface, who were to then resuscitate the land with their own hands. Any old humans discovered in the middle of the itinerary were quietly, ruthlessly exterminated. The Eden that the system once desired to create had turned into none other than hell for the old humans.

Mankind once created a mechanical God. That God tried to reconstruct mankind itself.

The Paragons multiplied to a level comparable to the amount humanity had in the past. The surface had become a land where they could roam freely. As beings whose existence was modeled to imitate people, they had a nonexistent ego and engaged in their labor completely devoid of emotion. They resuscitated the surface with absolutely no idleness, with their eternal movements so perfectly coordinated it was as if they were that of massed calisthenics. There was a being that surveyed those scenes from high up in the sky.

—The Goddess Malkuth.

It was a surface restoration program manufactured to act as the successor to Omega Quintus. At the center of its enormous frame towered a statue modeled to look like a woman, and through its eyes, the system gazed upon the Earth being resuscitated.

"Please, Lord Typhon, have a look at those who will heal the unsightly ruined Earth! Unlike the old humans, their thoughts are perfectly controlled... They are servants of harmony, the individual discarded for the sake of the whole. Beautiful, don't you think?"

"Hmm..."

Kisukuku, one of the Origins who controlled the Metaverse, wore a contented expression while watching a group of Paragons striding across the Earth. However, the highest-ranking Origin standing beside Kisukuku, Typhon, agreed with that opinion, but offered his honest opinion.

"But Kisukuku... Surely you have not forgotten the mission given to us. What sort of new humanity are we to create?"

"Humans who...will suppress their fighting instinct and bring about harmony...with their high capacity for empathy and reasoning..."

"Precisely. This is indeed a wonderful sight, but denying the ego must be given consideration."

"As you say... But this policy was only just implemented. These people are nothing more than the foundation. I swear to you that I, Kisukuku, will bring you great results."

"Do you know what we call someone who brings no results, Kisukuku?"

"...What is that?"

"Incompetent. Show me results."

"Hah...haha! Understood!"

Typhon watched Kisukuku leave, and looked once more at the surface through the Goddess' eyes.

"Watch me. Let me make it known that I will be the one to lead humanity. Not you, Eclair—yes, it will be Typhon the god."

The Controller contemplated the ideal humanity that would be completed in the not-so-distant future. However, there would never be a future where he witnessed it himself.

Typhon began to run wild with greed, consuming Kisukuku. The ones who then destroyed him were fusions of human and program. However, with Typhon's defeat, the Metaverse's regulatory functions and Kisukuku's surface management authority were lost. The system was shaken to its core, and those who remained were forced to make a critical decision.

Djehuty, Wiseman, Seraphita, Dian, Ciel. The Origins established a policy to prioritize the surface restoration over the Metaverse's stability—a decision that would drastically change the environment on the surface.

Until then, the Paragons had shared a single controlled will, and had been required to act based on autonomous judgement as the system prioritized the stability of the Metaverse. They were entities that steadily carried out their duties semi-automatically without requiring any of the system’s spare resources to be allocated to them. To actualize that, they were bestowed with a “sense of self.” From unified, singular thinking—to multiple, individual ways of thinking. They believed that if they organized and began to cooperate together, that the Earth Regeneration Plan could advance without needing the system’s control.

However, the system recalled that the human spirit could sometimes produce unexpected power. Insurrection, rebellion—these inappropriate actions were something that the system could not afford to permit. As a result, Paragons were given a “limited ego” engraved with an obedience to God and a false sense of hope. And at the same time, the Machines, who had been acting as the system’s support for overseeing the management of the Paragons, were given powerful authority over the surface’s reconstruction, and were assigned to numerous cities.

Paragons, and Machines. A new order for the surface’s regeneration was established.

After having descended to Earth to witness its entire history with its own eyes, the Goddess statue was put to sleep by the system that determined its role had been fulfilled. Before long, the statue got ravaged by sandstorms in Murcia’s wasteland, was exposed to rainstorms, rusted, peeled, and ended up buried.

It entered a long, long slumber. Perhaps there could have been a future where it lay forgotten for eternity, unnoticed by anyone. But that didn't happen. The Goddess had been unearthed by the hands of Bashian and the other Paragons.

“Reconstruction of recorded information…complete… Now shutting down all autonomous functions…”

The day after the Goddess statue was excavated.

Bashian was alone with the statue, writing an information report and drawing up instructions for the disposal process. Though imperfect, it was still a weapon created by the divine system, so both had to be compiled accordingly. He disassembled the statue piece-by-piece and examined each part. Gradually, its artificial muscle fibers and bare skeleton became exposed. Although he felt repulsed that its internal anatomy resembled a living organism, he continued to dismantle it without stopping. He saw a small light start to flicker from within the center of the Goddess.

“Is that…a core unit?”

The core unit stored configuration information that should have been formatted upon shutdown to prevent a data breach. Such information falling into the hands of the old humans had to be prevented at all costs, even if it was unlikely. As a precaution, Bashian attempted to reconnect the core unit to perform a re-deletion as according to his operations manual.

“Good thing I checked… The backup is still there…”

The monitor displayed a lineup of the weapon’s configuration information. One by one, the data that indicated the immense power the Goddess statue may have once wielded was erased. Bashian eventually discovered a file placed unnaturally at the very back of the data hierarchy—as if the placement was intended to hide it.

“What…is this…?”

He learned the truth. The Goddess Malkuth was not merely a weapon. The statue contained everything about the other role it had; The regulation of the Paragon production facilities, the reason why Paragons existed…everything.

“Measures to shorten the lifespans of our bodies… Production of the population by using artificial wombs…”

A manufacturing method that treated them as purely industrial goods, measures starting at their inception to give them short lives to prevent an uprising. Within it was data that acted as specification documents, detailing how the “things” called Paragons were designed. Moreover, it included an absolute truth that trampled upon the single hope given to the Paragons.

“After achieving a 98% restoration rate, the artificial wombs at all surface bases will cease their operations. Simultaneously, all suicide mechanisms implanted during the manufacturing process of each Paragon will activate.”

Even if regeneration was achieved, happiness would not come. The only thing that awaited Paragons was their destiny to die. It was synonymous to declaring that there was no such place for tools that had already served their purpose.

“It’s a lie… All of this, it’s bullshit…”

Even though he told himself it was nonsense, Bashian couldn’t brush it aside. This statue was created by the divine system. It was nothing less than concrete proof of the truth.

“Ah, aaah— UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!”

Overwhelmed by the sheer terror, Bashian went half-mad, screaming and clawing at his own chest.

The mysterious fluttering in his chest that he had suppressed with medication. Being unable to kill the girl who begged to live. All the uncertainties within him began to accelerate like a raging torrent.

It was sadness.

It was anger.

They were the emotions inherent to being human that were continuously stolen from them.

“I…I need to know…the absolute truth…all of it…”

Bashian staggered and returned to the monitor, and continued to stare at the information with a vacant look in his eyes.

—Pandora’s Box had opened.