Irresponsible Creator

I put a hand on my forehead and heaved out a deep sigh. I stared at the book sitting on the table and once again felt anxiety rising up.

After that event in the book seller’s stall. The owner was amazed to meet someone who can read ‘ancient language’ so he gave the book for free. I was disoriented from shock around that time so Ollie accepted it.

Then, Ollie guided me to an inn where he dealt with payments needed for our rooms.

Right now, I somehow manage to get over the initial shock and we are now in my room, Ollie was sitting at a chair in front of the table where the book was placed.

“Haah… this is making my head hurt,” I complained. “Ollie-kun, do you know me?”

“Yep, you are Goddess!” Ollie answered without hesitation.

“Is the reason why you’re calling me Goddess is because you know that I am the one who wrote the story of this world?” I asked him firmly.

Ollie nodded.

So that was it. I was kind of slow on the uptake but I finally pieced things together. Ollie is calling me goddess because this world is the world of the story that I wrote in my past life.

The nostalgia that I felt, the reason why I can understand the language…

It was because I am this world’s creator.

I honestly don’t know what to feel after knowing this. A part of me is glad that I got reincarnated to a place that I created, but a part of me is anxious and guilty.

I stared at the window and saw people outside. Each of those people exist because of me, I am fully responsible for them and what will become of them in the future.

[Dream-colored Sky] is a story that I wrote with ten chapters published online before I lost time and energy to continue writing it. That’s right, it was an unfinished novel.

But that’s beside the point, the huge problem here is that [Dream-colored Sky] is an adventure story with many tragic events.

One of those events is the destruction of the kingdom itself, but I haven’t written until that point… so I am also anxious about what will happen.

While I do acknowledge that I really am the creator of this world in my previous life, a mere ten chapters is not enough to say that I know what will unfold in the future and if I could even change it.

Damn it…

When I was writing a tragic story in my past life, it was just for fun, and maybe because readers like emotionally driven stories as well.

Tragedy and Comedy are the best way to bring out emotions after all, but because I have no aptitude for writing comedy, I just focused on writing tragedy. Now it’s biting me back.

I heaved out a sigh once more.

Arcenciel Kingdom… I set it as a prosperous kingdom with ideal living conditions in my story, but it was meant to fall apart once the royals turned against each other. That means that the people that I just talked to earlier, the children, the women, the families… Everyone will suffer in the future.

I clenched my fist tightly. I could feel my nails digging into my palm, but that’s the least of my concern.

Before I died, I regretted that I wasn’t able to continue writing this story. Maybe the reason why I got reincarnated here is to change things.

Yes, that must be it, right?

Yet, something feels off.

“Goddess, what are you thinking so deeply?” Ollie asked in the middle of my train of thoughts.

“Ah, sorry, I’m just thinking about a lot of things.” I tried to sound calm when talking to the boy. “By the way, Ollie. Do you know what will happen to this world?”

“Hmm? Nope. I was just here to be the guide of the Goddess.”

I don’t think Ollie is lying, but he’s not telling the whole truth either.

“Ollie, be honest with me. Who are you?”

The boy tensed up with my question.

As expected, that reaction tells me that he’s hiding something from me that he doesn’t want to reveal.

Ollie looked away anxiously, he started fidgeting while trying to avoid eye contact with me.

I don’t want to use this on a child, but as long as I don’t know who or what exactly is Ollie, it’s too early to say that he is really a clueless child just as he claimed to be.

“Ollie-kun, I am the goddess that created this world, am I not?”

“Y-yes! B-but… Ollie can’t explain it clearly! I’ll speak so please be patient with me!” Ollie frantically spoke.

I sighed, then sat on another chair in front of him.

“Okay, Ollie-kun. Just say what you can, I won’t get angry.”

“U–un!” Ollie lit up right away.

Ollie then started telling his story.

This world is indeed created by me, but the regular people don't know that. The only ones who are aware of that are the gods of this world who govern the humans. The gods know that there is someone who created this world and everything in it, but… because of a tragedy, they had to sacrifice themselves over and over again.

“Ollie is a fragment of one of those gods. I was a lost fragment left in this nameless village to serve as a guide for the Goddess. The moment that the Goddess arrived in this world, I was able to manifest in this form,” Ollie explained. “I was a nameless existence born the moment that the Goddess arrived in this world. I had knowledge from the original god that I came from, but as a fragment, it is incomplete.”

“Ollie-kun, if I didn’t arrive in this world, what would happen?” I worriedly asked.

“Nothing.”

“Eh?”

“Nothing will happen. Nothing at all.”

Hmm. I don’t get it.

So nothing would happen if I hadn’t shown up here?

That sounds absurd, but… something about it feels off.

“Haah,” I heaved out a sigh. “Alright, thank you for being honest with me, Ollie-kun.”

“Eh? Ah? You’re not angry?”

“Why would I? I’m a proper adult, I won’t be as unreasonable as to be angry at a small child.”

I patted his head gently and smiled at him.

“But I’m not really a child… I’m just a fragment of a god…”

Ollie looked down, disheartened.

That might be true, but even if he’s a fragment of a god, the fact that he exists now and stayed by my side in this world is real.

“The moment that I arrived in this world was the moment that you were also able to manifest, right?”

“Un…”

“Then that’s the same as just being born. Ollie-kun is someone who is less than a day old, so that means you’re still a kid. Let this older sister take care of you, okay?”

“Eh? Ah, I can’t possibly impose on the Goddess!” Ollie shook his head intensely.

“At least think of this as getting along with the whims of the goddess. If you think that way, it will definitely work.”

Ollie looked hesitant, but slowly nodded in agreement.

“O-okay… Ollie will do his best! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask me!”

“Hmm…” I pondered for a while.

If there are gods in this world that are aware of me being the creator, surely they might have known me under a different name.

“Ollie-kun, from the memories of the original god, do you know my other name?”

“Yes. Lapis Lazuli-sama, the Creator Goddess!”

As expected, they knew me with my pen name.

Lapis Lazuli, the pen name that I used for posting my stories online.

I wasn’t a famous author in my past life, but the small number of readers that are following me knows that name. And since it was a small community, we were all close with each other and openly interacting like friends… that is until I stopped writing of course.

Back to the point, I cringe at being called a goddess to be honest, but I know that this is how the plot compensates to maintain consistency. In this world, being the creator is equal to being considered as a god.

“Do common people know about Lapis Lazuli?”

“Ah, no… unfortunately, normal people don't know anything about the Creator Goddess.”

That’s actually a good thing.

I don’t need to be treated differently by other people in this world. If I’m lucky, I can blend in to the citizens while observing how the story will unfold.

“Ollie-kun, if you don’t want to call me by my real name, can you just call me Lapis? To be honest, I’m not really used to being called Goddess. It’s not something normal in my previous world after all,” I asked him.

Ollie looks slightly conflicted, but nodded slightly.

“Okay, can I call you ‘Lapis-sama’?”

I was hoping to be called onee-san, but I’ll take it. Given my age, I’m more or less an oba-san anyways.

This is much better than being called Goddess all of the time. At least Lapis is not a name that seems out of place in this world.

“Un. That will do.” I agreed with Ollie.

After that, it was getting late so Ollie excused himself to go to his room. He also told me to get a good night’s rest, which I think is really sweet.

I sent him off with a smile.

As soon as the door closed, I locked it swiftly and threw myself into the bed.

Despite my tiredness, I can’t help but acknowledge how this bed is better than anything that I had in my past life. Even an inn like this that common people could afford is better than an overpriced apartment in my previous world.

The bed is soft, and there is nothing that I can criticize about it.

Despite not having air conditioning, the room has proper ventilation. The temperature is not hot, nor is it cold. Although they were using lamps, it wasn't a fire, but rather a stone that lit up as soon as the sun had set.

This world has magic after all. A fantasy world created by someone like me.

“Haah…”

With Ollie gone, I can’t help but spiral in my own depressing thoughts now that I’m alone.

I blankly stared at the ceiling while lying on the bed. Putting my hand on my forehead and taking another sigh that I’ve lost count of.

A lot of things happened to me.

I just got fired from my job, then out of nowhere, I died due to an earthquake. The next thing that I knew, I woke up in another world and was called a goddess.

I reincarnated into the story that I had long abandoned and never finished.

It sounds absurd, but here I am now.

This is both a dream come true and a nightmare for me.

I am the creator of this world, that much I’m aware of. However, I can’t say with confidence what will happen, and that’s what makes it scary.

I abandoned the story for years. I still remember that I managed to post ten chapters, but as for what happens in those ten chapters… I’m drawing a blank.

I guess that’s what happens if you stop facing your manuscript for years. The details of the story that you once made are fading into oblivion, and the person who wrote it all those years ago feels like a stranger despite being you yourself.

I actually wanted to question how Ollie recognized me as the creator when I myself took a while before acknowledging it.

More than anything, do I have the right to even call it mine?

The creator who abandoned her creation… a ‘Goddess’ who gave up on not just her creation, but also her dreams and herself.

“How pathetic…”

For what reason did I start writing anyway?

I can still roughly remember that I first wrote my first story during grade school.

I liked reading stories, and I always spent my time alone. I was fascinated by the tales that I read in the books so I took a pencil and started writing.

Looking back on it, writing was just a form of escape to me.

A loner kid who’s gloomy that no one wants to play with her, so she lied to herself. Her lies are written on a piece of paper that she called a story.

Her stories are born from lies, the things that she cannot get in reality, she added it in her stories. The affection that she cannot receive, she poured it into words, the dreams that she cannot achieve… she gave it to the characters of her stories.

She was a selfish writer, and writing stories gave her a feeling of superiority.

But she has a sharp intuition, it didn’t take a while before she acknowledged that her works are subpar.

She started writing for others, researching what readers liked… what trends there are…

But the thing is, just writing a trendy story doesn’t guarantee that people will read it. The competition is harsh.

Even after gaining a degree, nothing changed.

Reality is harsh, she wasn’t that special…

She gave up…

…I gave up.

I stopped writing altogether.

Before I knew it, I was already an adult who cannot talk about naive things like “Dreams will come true!” or “I’ll work hard for my dream!”

Even so, maybe deep in my heart, even after giving up… a part of me still held on.

That’s why it was such a huge regret that I had in my dying moments.

While it’s normal to think that reincarnation is a gift like a second chance of sorts… I can't bring myself to think like that.

If there’s something that I learned from my past life, it was…

Life is not that kind.

Being able to live again is not a gift in my opinion… I think it’s fine to call it atonement.

I get the feeling that the reason why I woke up in this world is either a punishment or an atonement.

A punishment for the irresponsible creator who abandoned the world.

Un, that sounds more likely.

At some point in the middle of the night, I got tired after a lot of thinking.

There are still a lot of things that I want to and need to think about, but it seems that my body is telling me to take a rest.

Exerting too much on one’s mentality is indeed draining. I know that too, but being alone like this makes me think about a lot of things, both necessary and unnecessary.

I fell asleep without realizing it.

That night, I did not dream.

I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but maybe a part of me slightly hopes that no tragedy will happen tomorrow.

I hope everything will be fine.

Yet…

…My track record of misfortunes never failed to surprise me.