Did the fate of an entire group of fantastical people—heck, of the entire world, even—rest upon my shoulders?

  One could easily argue it did. But the moment I found myself inside the sacred shrine, that thought didn’t cross my mind. As if I were the star of some cheap, B-grade movie, the doors closed behind me on their own.

  That was rather ominous. Hopefully not a sign of things to come.

  First, I had to get my bearings in this place. Thanks to the small orb of light Hikari had conjured, the small room was brightly illuminated.

  Considering the importance of the place, the Shrine was a simple room—frankly a bit deflating. The centerpiece was an altar with the floor raised in front of it. The indentations on the raised step seemed as though they were made for angels to kneel on to deliver their prayers. The remaining space on the circular wall was adorned with intricate patterns and abstract decorations. Frosted glass windows were high up near the ceiling, but no light shone through them because of the darkness outside.

  In summary, there was nothing obvious here that could be that famous Controller.

  There must be a secret room, most likely under the floor.

  With no clues to go on, I began investigating the most suspicious item in the room—the altar at its center. However, a quick glance at it yielded nothing of interest; it was literally just an altar, and its function was obvious.

  I guess the only way out of this is to pray at the altar.

  I felt a bit awkward about praying to a god I knew did not in fact exist, but there wasn’t enough time to diddle-daddle about it. I knelt down in front of the altar, copied the same praying gesture Shiina had made back on Earth, and closed my eyes.

  I let my mind wander for a bit, thinking that I actually had to pray, but fortunately, that wasn’t necessary. Out of nowhere, I heard a female voice in my mind.

  ?You, who wishes to see our most sacred treasure, answer this question from the bottom of your heart. What is the most important thing in the world??

  Well, that one’s easy.

  The answer was obvious. And so I responded aloud.

  “God.”

  I was so confident in my answer that it took me a while to realize nothing had happened.

  I tried again a few times, but it wasn’t working.

  Wait, what’s going on here?

  After all, to an angel, the most important thing in the whole world was indeed God. Shiina talked about God just like any religious fanatic would, and their whole society was built around their existence.

  Maybe only an angel or even an archangel can answer? No, that doesn’t make sense. Otherwise, the archangels wouldn’t have been so worried about us getting inside. And plus, the voice still talked to me and I’m just a human.

  So what was the answer?

  I racked my brain, trying to figure out what it could be. And then I realized something.

  Wait. This answer supposedly gives access to the Controller, something normal angels shouldn’t even know exists. So whatever the answer is, it must be something they wouldn’t figure out if they ever came across this place.

  That train of thought was, however, quite dangerous. After all, the answer could literally just be a random codeword, or not even a word at all.

  But the voice spoke to me. It said “answer this question from the bottom of your heart.” So maybe the answer truly is my own unique answer.

  So I thought about it, long and hard. What was the most important thing in the world to me? I thought about my friends. I thought about my family, my mom, my dad, my sister, my grandparents, and everyone else. I thought about my favorite games, novels, manga, and movies. I thought about everything I could.

  But no matter how much I thought, there really was only one possible answer.

  So I smiled.

  What was the most important thing in the world to me?

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Obviously, that was the person who had saved me eight years prior.

  And who is still saving me right now. The person I want to reach so badly I literally came to another world to bring her back.

  “Ayumi.”

  I wasn’t surprised when the ground rumbled in front of me. I opened my eyes and got up. Where there was once just a marble floor was now a spiral staircase, leading to depths unknown.

  * * *

  Without missing a beat, I immediately made my way down the staircase. Unfortunately, Hikari’s light wasn’t smart enough to follow me; the more I climbed down, the darker it got. The light bouncing from the reflective walls got dimmer as I descended. Darkness consumed me from all sides. With no source of light from above, I became aware of a dim, mechanical-blue ambiance creeping from below. As the light became stronger, I could feel my heart rate spike.

  What lay beneath the Shrine, the most sacred place for angels?

  What was the shape of this Controller the archangel mentioned?

  And, more importantly, could I even do anything with it? Could I figure out a way to bring Ayumi back?

  To be honest, at the beginning of this saga, I didn’t care about angels. When my memories were returned, Ayumi’s passion didn’t move me. My only objective was to bring her back to normal.

  That goal just so happened to line up with her goal of saving the angels. And that also lined up with Hikari’s new goal of seeing what was beyond the lies of her society.

  Still, after learning of the disregard the archangels had for the life of their subjects, I had finally understood Ayumi’s wrath.

  After all, what was so different between angels and humans in this virtual world?

  Weren’t we also being lied to? Weren’t we also subject to the same danger of being deleted on a whim? Of a rogue individual unplugging us out of existence?

  At some point, I had come to care about them. Even if our paths would have never crossed if not for this crisis, now that they were intertwined, I couldn’t abandon them and return to my quiet life.

  During my musings, the room below the Shrine had come into view. And right in the center of it, the only possible object that could have been here had indeed been here all along.

  A computer.

  A large, curved monitor, almost completing half a circle. A table made from an unidentifiable material. A single keyboard and mouse. A chair in front of the table, also made from an unknown material.

  There were no visible cables. The monitor was an ethereal object, not connected to the world. In a peculiar way, it made sense that this was the object controlling the world.

  The aptly named Controller.

  The ambient blue light came from stripes on the walls. As soon as I took a step inside the room, they transmuted into strong cream-colored lights.

  With no hesitation, I sat on the chair, which lit up the computer monitor. On the right side, there were a myriad of graphs. They reminded me of real-time performance graphs on debug menus of games.

  Judging by the sheer amount of red, warning-like message boxes, I could tell the situation wasn’t good. On the opposite side was a big progress bar, and it was about three-fourths completed. There was a digital clock below it, which I assumed was the time remaining; it currently sat at twenty-seven minutes. The center was a sterile desktop space with an equally sterile gray wallpaper with several icons arranged near the top.

  I scoured through the various graphs on the right, the progress bar on the left, and the various menu options in the center, but I was faced with a major hurdle—the entire UI was written in English.

  I knew the basics of the language, but after messing with it for a while, I decided that the options seemed way too important. I couldn’t just go pressing buttons at random.

  There was, however, a very familiar icon on the top row of the screen: the help button. I clicked on it in what seemed like a last-ditch attempt to save the situation. Much to my surprise, a cutesy, humanoid figure materialized on the bottom corner of the screen.

  What’s this, a mascot character?

  “Do you need my assistance?” It was the same immaterial female voice from before.

  “Ehhh… I can’t understand anything on this computer. Can you… help me somehow?”

  Why am I speaking so formally? This is probably a dumb AI or something along those lines. It’s not like it can understand me.

  “Certainly. Changing the display language to Japanese.”

  As the AI promised, all words on the display were changed to Japanese. At least now I wasn’t completely adrift.

  But still, do I want to poke around on my own when there’s such a capable assistant right here?

  “Um, can you stop what’s happening right now? The installation of the new AI system or whatever it is?”

  The voice took a while to answer. “The installation of the new firmware cannot be stopped without significant risks of corruption of the simulation.”

  “Then what about stopping the Illumination itself?”

  The voice responded immediately. “The Illumination protocol can only be stopped by the archangels or someone with higher permissions.”

  Tsk. So stopping the Illumination is also a no-go?

  “Damn, this sucks. In that case, I need to put someone on the list of people allowed to enter this world. Can you do that?”

  The AI responded without missing a beat. “Yes. Please name the individual you wish to add to the whitelist.”

  “Ayumi Toyosaki. She had been removed from the list a week ago. I need you to add her back and then bring her here.”

  “Certainly. User identified by the name Ayumi Toyosaki has been reintroduced to the whitelist of Divers and notified of the change to the whitelist.” And a beat later. “The user logged in the closest available location, approximately fifteen meters in linear distance from the Controller.”

  “Where exactly is she?”

  “Outside this structure, on the surface.”

  Logged in? So is Ayumi…

  Without another glance at the monitors, I dashed outside the room.

  “Thanks, Miss AI Assistant! You saved the day,” I shouted as I made my way outside.

  I don’t know if the AI replied or not. If she did, her voice was too low for me to hear among the heavy steps I took up the spiral staircase.