The Shaman Desires Transcendence

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The people are wailing about the rapture.

What adorns their faces is a belief in fanaticism.

Living in a ruined world is pain in itself.

Countless people have already sacrificed, and the civilization they took for granted has collapsed into barbarism, leaving them in anguish. Thus, instead of choosing to strive and live in this harsh world, they fled with the futile hope that a supreme being would save them.

They are those who have chosen to escape.

Desperate fugitives turning their eyes away from reality.

But perhaps those who flee could be more desperate.

What chases them is fear, the very thing they most want to avoid.

In a frantic attempt to face that fear, they act desperately to escape it.

They reach out.

They shout.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah.

“Take me to the heavens.

Take me to the thousand-year kingdom.

Then, someone answered their fervent pleas, weeping for their faithfulness and pledging to cradle them in God’s embrace, assuring that they would not be swept away in the final judgment; they would become the ark that saves them.

You must raise your hands to the heavens so that He may take hold of you…

“Wow.”

Anastasia clicked her tongue, looking on as if it was all quite impressive.

As if a spider or a centipede had clung to her hair.

And with a disdainful tone, she muttered.

“Such a vile thought.”

A thought that naturally leads one to affirm the rapture and sympathize with their actions. It feels as if a cult leader is preaching to mesmerize the people.

Without realizing it, Anastasia felt a deep loathing for the “something” that crawled into her mind, trying to control her thoughts, and she shifted her gaze to the sky, where countless eyes were focused.

There stood a man dressed in purple priest robes.

A priestly robe reminiscent of a bishop.

He wore a cross around his neck, expressing his class with a stark black adornment.

On his head was a crown of thorns made of barbed wire, and he loomed over the wailing masses from above.

Suspended in the air.

As if unaffected by gravity.

It was as though he had been summoned by God but couldn’t forsake the devout so he lingered, seemingly choosing those who would ascend to the heavens with him.

Thus, he gazed down at them, playing the role of both God and Angel, from that midpoint between heaven and earth.

His face bore a benevolent smile.

There was no sense of arrogance in selecting those worthy of salvation.

What possible selfishness could there be in taking those deserving along with him?

Even if they brought along an unworthy soul, they would only fall from the door, and should that happen, they’d be better off leaving them behind. Anyone he takes should be devout and worthy of salvation in this new era of Sodom and Gomorrah he has created. And thus, like the righteous Lot, they would continue their lineage in the thousand-year kingdom, becoming the ancestors of those reborn. What greater glory could there be?

We must believe in that man….

Anastasia gazes at the man suspended in the air.

She looks at the man in priest robes.

Staring into his face.

Finally, her eyes meet his….

“What the hell, why is this little brat here! Hey! Snap out of it!”

…But just then, someone grabbed Anastasia by the shoulder.

Before she could even react, they began to drag her away roughly.

What Anastasia saw was the vanishing church and the man.

The scenery switched in a blur.

And then…. a huge man with dark skin.

How many times did the scenery shift?

Only when they entered what appeared to be a bunker did it finally stop.

A space surrounded by concrete and thick iron doors.

Anastasia’s red eyes met the brown eyes of the bear-like man.

“Tsk, you almost got yourself killed. You know that?”

The man, perhaps relieved that she was unharmed, briefly softened his face but soon hardened it like an adult scolding a child.

“You might be curious, but you’ve got to know where you should and shouldn’t go. Even when I was a kid, I ran around all crazy, but I never went to such an obviously dangerous place. Got it?”

Nagging.

Clearly, nagging.

Anastasia momentarily scrunched her face as if to say she didn’t want to hear it, but then she blinked as if realizing something.

“I don’t get a bad vibe from this guy, huh?”

Unlike the repulsive and disgusting feeling she had from those people she saw earlier.

There was no sense of danger; in fact, she felt an inexplicable familiarity.

Anastasia briefly suspected that perhaps the strange man she saw in the church was manipulating her thoughts through “ideas,” but concluded that she simply felt a normal closeness.

“And if it were some kind of trap or I was in real danger, Grandpa would’ve stepped in!”

The conclusion was reached.

The man in front of her was trustworthy.

His nagging was a bit annoying, but it was bearable!

She arrived at that conclusion and, beaming, said, “Thank you.”

In response, the man clicked his tongue and gave a brief lecture telling her, “Don’t go to such dangerous places anymore.”

“But, mister, why was that place dangerous?”

“No way, after that scolding, you’re still curious about it?”

“But I have to know why it’s dangerous so I won’t go there again, right?”

“Yeah, that’s true….”

The man pondered for a moment before slowly starting to speak.

“Have you ever heard of the Seven Great Horrors of the World?”

The Seven Great Horrors of the World.

At first glance, it sounds like a silly name that might come up in children’s ghost stories.

The prefix “Seven Great of the World” ironically makes it sound less serious.

It seems like a name dreamed up by parents to scare their kids….

“I can tell you haven’t heard of them. Then what about the Seven Great Monsters, Great Spirits, or Great Beasts…?”

Anastasia shook her head, indicating she hadn’t heard of any, gazing intently at the man.

It was an unspoken demand for him to explain further.

However, was it that the man’s annoyance overcame her pressure?

He succinctly summarized the Seven Great Horrors without much elaboration by saying, “They’re just a name for the most dangerous humans in the world.”

“Basically, there are seven extremely dangerous people who are incomparably more dangerous than cannibals or murdering robbers. The guy you just saw was one of them.”

“…Really?”

Anastasia widened her eyes again, looking straight at the man.

She was asking for more details.

But even faced with her shining eyes, the man lightly ignored her and continued speaking.

“What you just saw was a cult leader, a human reaper, a crazy cult bastard, a rapture scammer, and so on. A lunatic who lures people, claiming he can send them to the heavens through something called ‘rapture.'”

The man began explaining the ‘rapture scammer’ slowly.

“What’s funny? All the humans he sent high into the sky ended up freezing to death or suffocating. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Why would the thousand-year kingdom be up in the sky? It’s obvious there’s just the stratosphere and thermosphere up there.”

That bastard disguised floating magic as a miracle from God.

He muttered that.

“And he didn’t care about the ones that died; it’s as if he doesn’t think they’re worth his attention anymore, severing their mana, and what happens then? The frozen humans would plummet from the sky. People fall like hail; it’s quite a headache. It’s not like they’re meteor showers or anything.”

“…Hmm.”

“Even the humans he sent up there, those that got smashed by the frozen humans he dropped, make the numbers quite substantial. He’s quite an evil bastard.”

Evil.

As the man finished explaining, that brief sentence passed through her mind.

“…Why does he do that?”

“Don’t know?”

The man shrugged as if to say, how could a sane person understand a madman’s thoughts.

“But he’s definitely a crazy dude. I’ve heard he used to be a professor researching the mind.”

“….”

“Isn’t that a funny story? A guy researching the mind ends up being a psychopath.”

He said that and stared intently at Anastasia.

For quite a while.

His face displayed various emotions as if deep in thought.

“Did you hear all that?”

“Yes!”

“Then get lost…. No, go.”

What came from the man’s mouth was a clear dismissal.

Like he was telling her to leave the shelter where he was.

“…Um. Okay, I’ll go~”

“Oh, sure, sure. Go on.”

Anastasia had an unexpectedly calm response to his dismissal.

Having grown accustomed to the suddenly shifting dream-like environment, she accepted getting chased away in a pleasant atmosphere as if to say, ‘It’s just a dream.’

Actually, this kind of environment felt more familiar to her.

Because she had spent more time living in dreams than in reality.

Thus, the man’s actions were received as something ‘perfectly normal’ for Anastasia.

“Grandpa, I got some good info. But do you know about the Seven Great Horrors? Great Spirits?”

The sounds from the shelter faded away.

The voice of the girl laughing while claiming she got good information began to wane.

Silence enveloped the concrete-closed shelter once more, as the man sat idly in a chair, seemingly waiting for someone.

Time passed, just how much, it’s hard to tell.

Click—

Was that the sound of the footsteps he had been waiting for?

The distinct sound of something hard hitting the floor reached his ears.

At that sound, the man slowly raised his head to look at the shelter door.

And then he spoke, observing something approaching him.

“…Ah, seems like we have a lot of guests today.”

And one.

Two.

Three.

…

…

He closed his eyes.

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