I am God LSLCCF

Chapter 510: The First Witch Doctor of the Second Era

It was a strange city, its buildings steeped in shadow.

A gloomy canopy loomed overhead, letting through only a faint glimmer of starlight and moonlight.

A closer look revealed that the central avenue ran all the way to the foot of the trunk. From there, a second road spiraled up the great tree, a long stairway winding round and round the wood.

Strange houses of every kind nestled among the branches. Door after door stood open, lending the place a wondrous air.

Tap, tap, tap, tap!

Flagstones paved the city, and even the lightest footstep made a faint sound.

Soft voices murmured nearby.

The plump boy shuddered.

"This place is terrifying!"

"What's so scary about it? Doesn't this feel like a real adventure?"

The pigtailed girl nodded eagerly.

"Exactly, what could be scarier than the Medical Fortress?"

The strange city had caught the short-haired boy's imagination too.

"There might be treasure in here!"

Clutching at the others' clothes, little Matafus spoke in a small, faltering voice.

"I think we should hurry up and find a way home," she whispered.

"This place feels strange. Something's not right."

In the wavering light, shadows stretched across the ground as several comically proportioned skulls peeked from an alley.

One look was enough to send them ducking back out of sight.

A strange shadow approached from far off, accompanied by an equally strange sound, as though something were hopping closer with a thud at every landing.

Thump... thump... thump...

Before long, a fork soldier hopped into view. Bent forward at the waist, it used the fork's handle as its lower body.

"Quick, quick, quick!"

"Someone who isn't a Spirit of Old Things has broken in!"

"The city lord says to catch them, quick!"

"The city lord wants to see what they look like!"

A troop of fork and spoon soldiers hurried past. Frightened, the children shrank back and huddled together.

"Are they after us?"

"Who else could it be?"

"Wait, were those forks and spoons?"

"Giant forks and spoons! What kind of soldiers are those?"

Once the fork and spoon soldiers had passed, the children emerged to continue exploring the city.

They had barely rounded the next corner when they ran straight into another resident.

An exquisite ring imp swayed from side to side as it walked. The red gem set into its band seemed to pulse like a beating heart.

The ring imp stopped short and turned toward them. For a moment, it too seemed frozen.

Then came a shrill cry.

"They're over..."

The short-haired boy pounced before it could finish, seizing the shouting ring imp and calling the others over to help. Fair play never entered into it.

"Come on, help!"

"Pin it down!"

"Don't let it get away!"

Pinned down and scraped back and forth across the ground, the ring imp cried out in panic.

"Stop!"

"You'll scratch my gem!"

A look passed between the short-haired boy and the others. They had found the ring imp's weak point.

"You'll do what we say, and you won't yell again."

The ring imp tried to shout again.

"I'm not taking orders from you!"

The short-haired boy leaned in close.

"Don't do what I say and we'll scratch that gem all over."

The threat frightened the ring imp into silence.

Only then did the children release it. The short-haired boy perched it on his head, where it felt rather like a crown.

The bald boy eyed the ring imp.

"Where are we?"

The ring imp sounded aggrieved.

"This is the City of Old Things. It's also called the imp city."

The short-haired boy wearing it tipped his head back a little.

"Imps?"

The ring imp explained, "We're imps, living things born from old objects."

Little Matafus asked the ring imp, "We came from the Oracle Kingdom, and we don't know why we ended up like this. Do you know what happened to us?"

She followed up at once.

"And do you know how we can get back?"

The ring imp explained, "You came through the Gate of the Divine Kingdom. Leave before dawn, when the gate opens, and you'll go back to the mortal world and change into your old shapes again."

"But if you're still here when dawn comes..."

The children blurted out together, "What happens then?"

The ring imp admitted, "I don't know. You're the first mortals who've ever broken in here. Maybe you'll be stuck here forever."

After looking the group over, the ring imp spoke with open glee.

"Then you'll all turn into little bone-figure imps!"

Little Matafus caught hold of one phrase.

"The Gate of the Divine Kingdom? Is this a divine kingdom? Aren't we in the mortal world anymore?"

The ring imp nodded.

"This is a garden inside the divine kingdom. It's a divine being's botanical garden."

The other children gaped.

"Does that mean we might see a divine being here?"

Thrilled by the idea, the children clearly wanted to see what a divine being looked like.

Little Matafus hurriedly caught hold of them and repeated in a low voice what her father had taught her.

"Divine beings aren't always what we imagine, and we don't even know which divine being this place belongs to. They might not favor winged people, either."

"My father also told me that a divine being's power is much too strong and dangerous for mortals. We're not allowed to touch it. The ancient Abyss became a disaster because mortals touched a divine being's power."

"We should hurry home."

After putting their heads together, the children finally decided to follow the avenue up the towering tree and search for the Gate of the Divine Kingdom.

"Up the tree! First we find the gate."

"If we get through it before dawn, we'll change back."

"How do we know this thing's telling the truth?"

"Easy. We make it go through the gate first."

The ring imp cried out, "No way am I going through that gate! I'm staying here!"

The short-haired boy shot back, "Then prove you aren't lying. Otherwise, you're coming through with us."

"Ask any of the other imps. They'll tell you," the ring imp said.

The pigtailed girl saw through it at once.

"It's sneaky! It wants us to wake the other imps so someone will come rescue it."

The ring imp bristled.

"You little brats always think the worst of everyone! I never lie."

The children set out.

"Careful," one child whispered. Moving in fits and starts, they slipped along the avenue toward the main road deep within the city, skirting every place its residents came and went.

"Don't let them see us." Whenever another resident appeared, they hid with painstaking care.

The journey remained uneventful, and none of the other imps noticed them.

Partway there, they encountered a towering quill pen imp. It stood higher than the wall itself and peered down at the children huddled against it.

The quill pen imp peered down.

"Want to write a letter?"

The children shook their heads together. The bald boy screwed up his courage.

"Not right now."

The quill pen imp nodded.

"Then I'll wait a little longer."

After that single question, the quill pen imp left, muttering to itself.

"This sentence should go like this."

"Should I call you 'you,' or 'your honor'?"

Only after it had passed did the shaken children whisper, "Why didn't it grab us?"

The ring imp told them, "The quill pen's muddleheaded. It's so wrapped up in writing letters that it doesn't care about anything else."

Farther on, they even caught sight of a plump pocket watch imp general.

At the head of the spoon and fork soldiers, the pocket watch imp was circling the city again and again in search of them.

"Hey, ring, don't yell, or we'll scratch up your gem." Even then, they remembered to threaten the ring imp.

"I said I wouldn't yell, and I won't. I keep my word," the ring imp insisted.

Whoosh!

Something came drifting down from above and gave the children a fright.

Slower than the rest, the plump boy was buried beneath it and could only cry for help in a muffled voice.

Together, the children heaved the object aside and pulled the terrified plump boy to his feet.

Only then did they discover that the thing drifting down was a leaf, one large enough to cover several of them at once.

"It's a leaf!"

"A leaf that big?"

Little Matafus had sensed something wrong with this place all along. Spoons and forks that towered over them. A ring large enough to wear as a hat.

Until then, they had simply assumed the city's inhabitants were enormous.

The leaf made them wonder if the truth was something else entirely.

Little Matafus looked from face to face.

"What if the things here aren't huge? What if we're the ones who shrank?"

The children nodded slowly.

"So this is actually a tiny city, and everything here is the same size as the things we normally see?"

Just then, wind howled down from the sky, threaded with the beat of wings.

Looking up, the children saw a colossal thing circling far overhead.

It stayed hidden beneath the dark canopy, leaving them able to make out nothing but a pair of wings beating against the sky.

The leaf had fallen because of it.

"What's that?"

"It looks scary."

"Looks like it's searching for something."

The shadow swept across the city as though hunting for something.

The children did not emerge again until it had passed.

The ring imp told them, "That's the strongest imp in the city. It's mysterious, it's strange, and now it's the city lord."

The bald boy asked, "Did it send those fork and spoon soldiers after us?"

The ring imp replied, "You fell out of the sky with that huge racket. Lots of people saw you."

The children could not understand why it wanted them.

"What does it want with us?"

The ring imp replied, "No idea. I barely know it myself."

The words had scarcely been spoken before the ring imp added teasingly.

"Maybe it wants to eat you!"

Hearing the mockery in its voice, the children glared at the ring imp.

Even so, they could not quite shake their fear and kept hiding from the dark shape circling overhead.

Beneath the towering tree, the pocket watch imp general gathered his spoon and fork soldiers and called out.

"Found them yet?"

"Not a sign of them!"

"Those kids just vanished!"

"Where'd they run off to?"

"They've got to be somewhere in the city!"

"Hurry up and find them!"

The general and the soldiers of the Spirits of Old Things split into several parties and spread through the city, hunting the mortals who had broken into the kingdom in the sky.

A moment later, heads began popping up one after another from a nearby wall.

"They're gone!"

"They didn't see us!"

"There's still one up there."

"Its back's turned and it's busy with something else. Stay careful and it shouldn't see us."

The soldiers were gone, but a powder box imp still sat sideways at the entrance, on the stairway leading upward, her back to the passage.

This imp had grown not only a face but a pair of hands. Both her strength and her talent seemed formidable.

Utterly absorbed in her appearance, she used both hands to comb through the thick lashes over her eyes while painting her face.

"Do it like this and I'll be beautiful~"

"I'm going to look so pretty."

Carefully, the children began climbing toward the heights.

Unlike the other imps, this one proved unusually sharp. She turned her head and spotted them at once.

The children's hearts lurched. They were finished.

What they had never expected was that, despite those enormous eyes, she was terribly nearsighted.

Perhaps she had smeared far too much on her eyelids!

Even with the children right before her, the powder box imp mistook them for fellow imps.

She even greeted them.

"Hello!"

Her voice was that of a lovely woman.

Guilt prickling at them, the children looked up at the huge figure.

"Hello!"

The powder box imp leaned closer.

"Need any help?"

The children shook their heads in perfect unison.

"Not right now."

Awkward smiles on their faces, they waved stiffly.

Then they darted around the powder box imp and hurried up the steps toward the tree.

The powder box imp suddenly started moving too, swaying from side to side as she climbed and speaking in a weary voice.

"It's late."

"I should head home."

The children found themselves climbing beside the powder box imp. The steep stairway consisted of little more than narrow wooden boards driven into the trunk, and every step higher made the climb more frightening.

Winged people, even their children, knew nothing of a fear of heights.

After a while, the powder box imp stopped and blinked hard.

"My eyes are so dry. They sting."

The pigtailed girl spoke up.

"That's because you put on way too much. Face powder doesn't go on your eyelids like that."

The powder box imp turned to her.

"You know how to use face powder?"

The pigtailed girl nodded.

"My mom taught me."

"Will you help me?" the powder box imp asked.

The pigtailed girl hesitated and glanced at the others. They answered at once, "Dawn's still a while away, and the gate won't open until then. We've got to wait anyway."

Without further hesitation, the pigtailed girl stepped forward and wiped the excess powder from the imp's eyelids.

Remembering how her mother applied face powder, she opened the box and studied the different materials arranged in its compartments, then began doing the powder box imp's makeup.

Soon, a beautiful face emerged.

Unable to see herself, the powder box spirit asked the pigtailed girl, "Am I pretty?"

The pigtailed girl nodded firmly.

"Very pretty."

Overjoyed, the powder box imp swayed back and forth where she stood.

The ring imp spoke up.

"Never thought you lot would turn out to be so decent!"

The children answered at once, "Of course, we love helping people."

Once they had climbed this high, however, there was nowhere left to hide. The soldiers searching below spotted them at once.

"Look, quick!"

"There they are!"

"Catch them, quick!"

"Hurry!"

Up the stairs came the pocket watch general and the spoon and fork soldiers, hurtling toward children who had yet to notice them.

The ring imp suddenly called out a warning.

"The pocket watch and the forks and spoons are coming after you!"

At the ring imp's warning, they became faintly aware of the commotion below.

Their pursuers were closing fast. In a panic, the children scrambled upward.

"Aah!"

"They're coming after us!"

"Run!"

Behind them charged a fierce line of rusted spoon and fork soldiers. Ahead, a handful of comically proportioned little bone figures fled wildly, filling the stairway with shouts and cries.

For a time, noise and excitement swept through the whole City of Old Things, the imp city.

The soldiers knew the city far better and covered ground with every great hop. Soon they were gaining on the children.

"I see them!"

"I found them!"

"I found them first!"

"No, I found them first!"

"It was obviously me!"

Whooping with delight, the soldiers were just about to seize the children.

Pfft!

At that moment, the powder box beside them burst open. A thick cloud of powder engulfed the pocket watch general and the spoon and fork soldiers, blinding them completely.

"What happened?"

"Aah, we can't see anything!"

"Where'd they go?"

"Which way do we chase them?"

"Don't move! You'll fall off!"

Seizing their chance, the children raced higher.

Then another obstacle appeared on the path ahead.

A massive burl had grown across the path, surrounded by scaly bark twisted together into spikes.

"What do we do?" The children tried to clamber over it at once.

"We can't get past!" They discovered at once that there was no way through.

"They're going to catch us!" A commotion erupted behind them once more. Their pursuers had apparently escaped the powder cloud and resumed the chase, plunging the children back into danger.

Just then, a gust of wind swept past.

A feather drifted in on the breeze, turning lazily through the air until it came to rest before the children.

It was the quill pen imp from before, and once again it asked them a question.

"It's been a little while now."

"Want to write a letter?"

At a time like this, no one had the slightest need for a letter.

The bald boy asked at once, "What else can you do besides writing letters?"

The quill pen imp considered.

"I can blot out wrong words and fix them."

The bald boy sagged.

"Too bad you can't blot out that burl blocking our way."

The moment it heard him, light streamed from the quill pen imp's nib and blotted the burl and scaly bark out of existence.

Beneath that light, every trace of the burl and bark vanished, leaving the surface flat and smooth.

The children stared open-mouthed. None of them had imagined the quill pen imp possessed such power.

"Whoa!"

"You're incredible!"

The quill pen imp sounded puzzled.

"But that wasn't writing a letter. Does it still count as incredible?"

The bald boy praised it warmly.

"Of course. You're amazing at everything, not just letters."

The quill pen imp murmured to itself.

"Not letters. Amazing at everything else."

As it listened to the bald boy, a memory surfaced in the quill pen imp's mind, a memory of the master it had once served.

Its master had been a winged person who wrote letters for a living. He spent his whole life putting other people's words on paper, and when death finally came, he spoke with regret.

"I have written so many other people's stories, yet never once written a story of my own."

"Always writing letters for other people while my own life fell to pieces. In the end, I did not even have anyone I wanted to write to."

The quill pen imp drifted away, its voice carrying back through the air.

"Write... a story of my own!"

The children had no idea what the quill pen imp meant. To them, it was simply a strange creature.

The children carried on upward.

Little by little, the Gate of the Divine Kingdom came into view high above.

Two vast, heavy wooden doors rose before them, their surfaces carved with beautiful patterns and brimming with the power of life.

"Look, quick!"

"There's the gate!"

At last, they had found the great gate leading back to the mortal world. The children leaped and cheered.

Their joy died almost at once. Just above them, the road ended abruptly, and the stairway beneath their feet went no closer to the Gate of the Divine Kingdom.

A considerable distance and height still separated them from the gate.

The boy wearing the ring glanced back at their bone wings.

"Can these things really fly?"

Standing together, the pigtailed girl and little Matafus shook their heads.

"They don't have feathers. How could they ever get off the ground?"

The bald boy rushed forward without a second thought.

"Let's try it!"

He sprang from the edge and hurled himself toward the heights.

His wings beat with all their strength, but at first he only fell.

The others covered their eyes in terror.

"He's done for!"

Before long, however, the bald boy steadied himself and began flying smoothly.

With every flap he climbed higher, until he hovered before the others.

The bald boy whooped.

"I'm flying! Look, I'm really flying!"

"Once you get the hang of it, you can fly too!"

The others cried out in delight, "It really works!"

Just then, the commotion behind them swelled again.

Most of the soldiers had fallen behind. Only the pocket watch general and two soldiers, one spoon and one fork, remained at the head of the chase.

"There they are!"

"I see them!"

"We've found them!"

At the sight of the children, the pocket watch general and the two soldiers charged in wild delight.

They never expected every child but little Matafus, who crouched against the bark, to spring from the edge and soar into the sky.

A few beats later, the children found their balance and flew.

For the plump pocket watch general and the two soldiers, delight turned abruptly to disaster. They had charged ahead so hard that the ground vanished beneath their feet.

All three tried to stop. Instead, they slammed into one another and tumbled over the edge together.

"We're done for!"

"We're going to break!"

"I was made by a famous alchemist!"

The children exchanged a look in midair, then reached out one after another and caught the falling imps.

The plump boy caught the pocket watch general while the other three joined forces to catch the spoon and fork soldiers.

"So heavy!"

"Way too heavy!"

They could barely keep themselves aloft, let alone carry anyone else.

Still clutching the pocket watch and the spoon and fork, the children began to sink. A moment later they smashed through part of the stairway and crashed onto the ground.

At least the pocket watch and the fork remained unbroken, though both looked rather battered.

The proud pocket watch general rolled to its feet and addressed the plump boy hovering nearby.

"Thank you."

The plump boy replied, "Just quit chasing us and we'll call it even."

The pocket watch general answered haughtily, "My orders are to catch you, and I'll never give up! Wherever you run, I'll catch you. That's a general's honor!"

Hovering in the air, the plump boy was about to answer.

At that moment, a thread of light like the sun descended from the sky.

Along with it came the low, grinding groan of a door opening.

The children knew at once what was happening.

"Oh no..."

"It's almost dawn!"

"The Gate of the Divine Kingdom is opening! We're going home!"

Every one of them threw their remaining strength into the climb and raced for the Gate of the Divine Kingdom.

The ordeal had nearly exhausted them. By the end, their flight had grown unsteady, and they were close to falling.

Even so, they reached the Gate of the Divine Kingdom, though it cost them their last scraps of strength.

Before the Gate of the Divine Kingdom, the four children realized someone was missing.

"What happened?"

"Why are there only four of us?"

"Where's Matafus?"

Far below, a pitiful little bone figure stood at the end of the steps, hopping, waving, and shouting up at them.

"I'm down here!"

From before the Gate of the Divine Kingdom, the four shouted down to little Matafus.

"Matafus!"

"The gate's opening! Hurry!"

All the others could fly. Little Matafus alone could not.

She had never told them that her fall was not the only thing wrong with her.

Born with an illness, she was a winged person who could not fly.

At last, her voice trembling with tears, little Matafus told them of the illness she had always kept secret.

"But I... I can't fly."

"My wings won't grow. They're broken. I can't fly."

Anxiety seized the children above, and they seemed ready to fly down and carry Matafus back with them.

But the struggle had left them exhausted and already proved that none of them could carry another person in flight.

"That's not true, Matafus! You can fly!"

"Don't be scared! Just go for it!"

"You've got wings! You can fly!"

"This is another world! It's different here!"

Little Matafus had tried to fly only a short while before, and the attempt had landed her in the Medical Fortress. Now a nameless fear of flight gripped her heart.

She crept to the end of the steps and looked down, only to recoil, shaking her head again and again.

"I can't. I can't get off the ground."

"I can't fly."

Together, the children shouted to her.

The short-haired boy cupped his hands.

"Matafus, there's no time!"

The plump boy called down, "We're all going home together!"

The pigtailed girl waved both arms.

"We're going home, Matafus!"

The bald boy leaned out over the edge.

"Be brave, Matafus!"

Whether it was the longing for home or those two words, be brave, something stirred a memory in Matafus's heart.

Suddenly clenching her fists, she heard her great-grandfather's words in her ears once more.

Once again, he sat in his chair with her cradled gently in his arms.

"Matafus, you must be a brave person."

Hesitation gave way. Little Matafus closed her eyes, flung herself from the height, and leaped with all her strength.

At that very moment, a shaft of light pierced a gap in the leaves and fell across her.

She wanted to try once more. She wanted to fly.

Little Matafus beat her wings with all her might and spent every scrap of strength she had, but nothing helped.

"It's still not working!"

Looking up, little Matafus heard her companions cry out in alarm, yet she could only drift farther and farther from them.

In her daze, she thought that perhaps falling was not so terrible. The girl who could not fly might as well stay here and become a little bone figure!

And yet little Matafus was overcome with sorrow.

She could not bear to leave her father and mother. She wanted to go home with everyone else.

"I want to go home."

"I want to go back with everyone."

"I want to play with everyone."

Once more she struggled and beat her wings, but the wind stirred by those tiny bone wings held no force at all.

Just then, the rustle of turning pages filled the air.

The vast shadow that had circled the sky plunged down and caught little Matafus before she struck the ground.

Little Matafus landed sprawled across the immense dark shape.

A familiar scent seemed to rise from beneath her.

Ink and paper. She knew that scent.

Light from the sky washed over the shadow beneath her and revealed it completely.

Little Matafus stared wide-eyed at the words Round Earth Theory printed on the cover.

"Aah!"

"You're..."

At last, the terrible monster behind everything revealed its true form, and she discovered the truth.

The monster they had spent so long hiding from was the very book she had lost.

It was the book her great-grandfather, Grandpa Ose, had clung to even in death.

Little Matafus relaxed. Sprawled across the book imp's back and breathing in the scent of ink, she felt utterly safe.

"So this is where you went when you disappeared!"

"I found you again, great-grandfather's book!"

The book imp gave no answer.

It simply flew higher, slowly dissolving into light.

At last, it became a single beam that entered Matafus's back and melted into her wings.

Her tiny wings unfurled, transforming into a pair of white feathered wings like those of a sky messenger.

They were long, full, and strong.

Almost without meaning to, little Matafus beat her wings and shot toward the sky, toward the friends waiting for her.

"Whoa!" Her friends had been watching anxiously, ready to fly down after her. Now they cried out one after another.

"White wings!" They pointed at little Matafus's wings, utterly stunned.

"Those are a sky messenger's wings!" Only a sky messenger's wings were pure white.

At the last possible moment, little Matafus stood before the Gate of the Divine Kingdom.

The Gate of the Divine Kingdom swung open, and golden radiance poured down from the sky.

Light flooded the shadowed world, and cheers rose to meet it.

The gate's opening seemed to mark not only a way out, but the end of some grand ceremony.

The Gate of the Divine Kingdom opened wide.

Brilliant light streamed from on high, from within the gate.

One after another, the shadows of imps rushed upward and floated around the great tree, offering their congratulations.

"Whoa!"

"They all got chosen!"

"Every one of them made it! They passed the trial!"

"Amazing!"

Four beams of light shot into the children before the Gate of the Divine Kingdom. They were the ring imp, the quill pen imp, the powder box imp, and the pocket watch imp.

As the imps' power melted into their bodies, an eternal contract was sealed.

Knowledge flooded their minds. Only then did the children understand that everything they had just endured was a game and a trial.

By passing it, they had earned the recognition of their imp companions.

"That was a trial!"

"The god chose us!"

"We've become witch doctors, and the divine beings' blessing will heal all our illnesses?"

"Thank you... thank you... thank you..." Overjoyed, the children waved again and again at all the other imps.

"Goodbye!" the imps shouted back just as loudly. Their city had never before been so lively or so much fun.

"That was fun!" A spoon soldier nodded to them.

The light of the Gate of the Divine Kingdom swallowed the children little by little as they turned and walked toward the mortal world.

At the very last moment, little Matafus heard a voice behind her.

"Little Matafus!"

The little girl froze. The voice sounded somehow familiar.

Turning back, she caught the faint outline of a familiar figure. She could not see it clearly, yet she knew at once who stood there.

The little girl stared in astonishment.

"Grandpa Ose!"

The old man smiled and winked, just as he had when he held her in his arms.

"Be brave and steadfast!"

At those words, little Matafus began to tremble before the Gate of the Divine Kingdom. In an instant, her voice broke with tears.

Even in the waking world, one could faintly hear her nose running as she sniffled and nodded again and again.

"Mm!"

Fighting down her sobs, she seemed to be telling her great-grandfather that she would be strong and brave.

A force pulled her and her friends all the way back into the mortal world.