Brain bloom

Now that she had come this far, she had no reason to question the answer she had discovered with her own hands.

So… before her stood the first Pope, with whom she had countless karmic entanglements. Everything was connected to this man. Like a pebble sinking into a lake, ripples spread through Sen Shi's heart, lingering for a long time.

"I once met a girl; wasn't she the first Pope?"

“A girl?” Olster pondered for a moment. “From an artistic point of view, she is the true first pope, because religion was born from her. And I am just a boring proxy… But the reality we experience clearly doesn’t see it that way.”

"Then...who is she?"

Olster sat atop the tower, arms folded. At that moment, he didn't look like the so-called master craftsman, but rather someone who should be playing the lute, greeting the world with melodies and chants—like a white bird doing at every dawn.

He seemed to need time to answer the question. Fortunately, time is the least valuable thing in this world.

After a long silence, Olster asked, "Then who are you?"

"I……"

"You are the interest rate of Eden Bank."

"Maybe……"

"So, you still want to know that question that's no longer important?"

"That girl..."

“You accepted her invitation, didn’t you?” Olster crossed his arms, tilted his head, and looked at her with a hint of helplessness. “But we failed. Our invitation… failed.”

After saying that, he jumped down from the clock tower and walked toward Senshi with each unruly step.

But he didn't look at Sen Shi's face; instead, he gazed at everything above her head—the lush green plants, which were probably the only signs of life in the City of Clocks.

"She is waiting for you... for an incredibly long time."

"That girl is actually the Rose... Queen?" Mori doubted every word he uttered.

“The answer is already in your heart.” Olster stopped two meters away. “Besides the terrifying, damned darkness, who else would be willing to wait for you? The interest from Eden Bank.”

Sen was a little unsteady on his feet, feeling as if he had missed something incredibly important.

Suddenly, Olster gritted his teeth: "You accepted the invitation... however, we failed. I told you, we failed. Damn failure, I hate it."

"what?"

"What is needed to free the soul from its shackles and bonds? Death! The destruction of the dull body. The stars came to greet you, didn't they? That was our invitation—but...but...damn it, that damned, affectionate banshee."

"A banshee?!"

"She also extended an invitation to you, successfully intercepting a portion of your soul, so we failed. The interest from Eden Bank... no, Coffin Bearer. How long have you been asleep since we extended the invitation?"

Sen was startled by Olster's impassioned speech, but more importantly, her soul trembled violently at every word he spoke.

With his mind blank as a sheet of paper, Mori subconsciously answered the question: "About a hundred years... uh, a hundred and twenty years?"

"Yes, almost... This is the extra suffering we have to endure. I used all my power to summon you, but I failed... Darkness is dying, on its last breath, what can I do? But... hahaha, you saved her."

"What, what and what?"

“Well, let’s start from the beginning.” He looked around, calming his overly excited voice. “I’d forgotten that time in this world has long since frozen for you… We have infinite time, yes… Let’s start from the beginning.”

"Why are you always so easily startled?"

"Because this trip was just too torturous for me... from the moment she approached me."

Volume 1, Chapter 384: The Man Waiting for Interest (Part 2)

It wasn't a long story; Olster started telling it, and it didn't actually take long.

But all of this still took a long time to explain. Mori thought she had spent at least a whole day in the City of Clocks... or maybe not? In any case, every time Olster finished speaking, she had to raise her hand to interrupt and then try to understand it herself.

This is the continuation—and the end—of everything the ancient Demon King spoke of.

After the Rose Queen deposited her remaining hope into that universe, she awaited the interest payments from the Eden Bank. But the passage of time inevitably brought boredom, and she too grew weary.

So, when human civilization was just beginning to take shape, she found a true god to help her, namely the God of Craftsmen standing before Mori.

"So, you were coerced and tempted into making the pocket watch."

“Pocket watch, oh yes… but you should describe it as—I created this world!” Olster seemed a little out of his mind, but he still smiled as he described his great creation. “Look, countless moments of time have stopped in my hands, all of this was created for you.”

"Because the Rose Queen is here?"

"What you said... well, you're right."

At this moment, Olster was like an extremely obsessive and demanding person, constantly smoothing out the wrinkles on his white clothes. Although his expression was dazed, he did not forget to speak to Mori.

“She grew weary of waiting, so she seized the innocent me and forged this world for her… to prevent her soul from decaying with time. What a clever move, and a wiser choice; only I in this world could accomplish this! And so she has been sleeping in this world ever since, awaiting your visit.”

Sen Shi realized that in a world where time had frozen, this was indeed the only purpose.

She reached out her hand, and a shy Shan slowly emerged from her sleeve.

"The gravedigger." Mori felt that this also needed explanation.

"Yes, that damned...hateful, utterly evil darkness has been sleeping ever since, and I've had to guard her...but I've secretly called myself the gravedigger. Doesn't that sound like the Rose Queen is dead? Sleeping in her grave? Ahahaha, how wise I am! This is my curse!"

"Looks like you've really been through a lot." After a soft sigh, Mori Toki responded with a helpless laugh, "Hahaha...sigh."

But... that's what a gravedigger is like.

She was no longer surprised; she took it all for granted. Having experienced so many strange things, she had become numb. But the crucial point was that she had found the gravedigger.

A sense of relief welled up inside her, because one thing was done and the father and daughter could be reunited.

Strictly speaking, Shan wasn't set up by the gravedigger before her. Rather, she was deliberately captured from somewhere and locked up in the Clock City before the Rose Queen stopped time. Her sole purpose was to tell the Rose Queen what time it was and how much time had passed once she awoke or the clock was turned back.

Shan's mission is simply to record time.

Mori Toki was the one who turned the clock.

To let stagnant time flow again, to awaken the Rose Queen... at least that was the original intention.

Olster continued—

“We’ve waited a very, very long time. The Rose Queen can sleep in the City of Clocks, but I can’t… You wouldn’t understand how distressing this is.”

"So you're just bored out of your mind."

"It's a miracle that I was able to stay rational."

"That……"

"To wait for you, we left behind many clues—all of which I did, of course. For example, boxes scattered all over the world, which I threw away because I didn't need them or thought they were too heavy. Oh, I mean, we even left clues specifically to find you, to call out to you, and to get your response!"

Having gained a considerable understanding of the situation, Mori responded to the invitation after discovering the "Gravekeeper's Legacy" and triggering the so-called hidden quest. The quest itself was quite simple, consisting mainly of questions and investigations.

Is that an exploration of the soul?

But she herself didn't know that the soul beneath her body came from the original primordial god of this world.

"So, Gravediggers. You created this so-called game? Like, a window or something, giving life from all over the universe a chance to access the silent world."

This was the first time Olster had shown a blank expression, as if a jumble of thoughts were swirling in his mind.

After a long silence, he slowly answered—

“A game? I don’t know. But there is a window. After all, the Rose Queen is silently waiting for a miracle to happen in the silent world, in this clock city where time is frozen. I didn’t set it up, so I don’t know what it looks like. You found the window? That’s not surprising.”

Sen Shi fell silent. It turned out that it was just a small window connecting to this world.

Perhaps, in ancient times, this window was a book? A song? And as time went on, it evolved into various forms that were easier to understand? The world before birth was merely a virtual testing ground, so it's not surprising that it was interfered with in this way. In the universe, they are all supreme creators.

Mori Toki discovered and passed through the window, thus being able to respond to the invitation.

As Olster looked at Sen, his voice struggled: "As I said, one hundred and twenty years ago, the Rose Queen awoke. We happily extended an invitation to you, that she could have her dream fulfilled, and that I could be liberated... Ah, that's how it should have been."

“A female demon…” Mori murmured.

"That silly banshee."

Olster felt like he had bitten into a large pebble while eating, and his tooth broke.

"The Rose Garden has withered and become desolate after the passage of time. Just as our true god was born from the remains of the primordial god, so too was the banshee, who was born in the desolate Rose Garden. In any case, she also summoned your soul."

"I'm really popular."

"As a result, she managed to steal a piece of your soul, and we were unprepared, and our power had weakened because we had lived for too long... Well, we failed." He was more composed now, but his sullen and disappointed look wasn't very appealing. "And there was the backlash; the Rose Queen almost died, and so did I."

After saying that, Olster suddenly looked at himself blankly and asked himself a question.

"It's all for some trivial ancient agreement. Tell me, why should I keep helping her?"

"like?"

Olster scoffed, "If that's the case, I'd be a fool to have gone through all this trouble just to get you into her arms."

"So you're afraid of her?"

He suddenly realized, “…Oh, right! Right, I was afraid she would kill me, sigh. In the end, I still died. I should have known better than to help.”

Mori asked in a low voice, "Because of the backlash from the failed summoning?"

Olster did not give any clear answer, but simply recounted what happened next.

The Rose Queen possesses a divine status equal to that of the Primordial God, while Olster himself possesses the qualities of a true god. Repairing oneself is not as simple as chanting one or two high-level healing spells.

The Rose Queen, in particular, was already on the verge of collapse after the defeat, and even lost the ability to open the Clock City to rest. But they unintentionally amassed an astonishingly large fortune in a deserted wilderness.

A nostalgic smile appeared on Olster's lips; his previous madness had vanished.

"Faith is a good thing. Although humans are weak, ignorant, and foolish... there are enough of them to be numerous and they can reproduce very well. They can provide countless faiths and do many things for us... such as self-salvation."

"So...you created...religion!" Mori's teeth chattered, utterly shocked, as if a thousand silver bells were ringing simultaneously in his soul.

Olster nodded.

"The Coffin Carrier—a beautiful name. Want to know how your divine name was chosen? Then I'll tell you, it's because of a joke from back then."

"Teasing?"

"Looking at the mountain of treasure, I felt as if my bones were melting. The Rose Queen smiled and said, 'I really don't know which kind person left this money. Even if we are really doomed, we don't have to worry. At least we won't have to worry about not being able to afford a coffin.'"

But this was just a joke. As a true god who has traversed countless years, Olster knows what to do.

Impoverished people pray to gods, simply in their pursuit of happiness.

As countless sums of money flow through the world, what converges into an ocean is countless faiths. They intercepted these faiths to mend their broken souls, and then preserved the Queen of the Rose's sarcastic remark.