WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 486: A Stage for All (2)

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The world is a stage for all people.

This vast world cannot be a stage prepared for one person alone. Each person is the master of their own life, the protagonist of their own stage. The stage, therefore, is open to everyone. History simply does not shine its light on them.

Ordinary people.

Those who live quiet, uneventful lives.

The many human beings lumped together under the name "the masses."

History does not depict such people. History illuminates the exceptional. Only heroes who overturn history single-handedly carve their names into it. Everyone else is simply grouped under the label "the masses" and left out.

Even if this world were a single book, and their stories were written in it as well......

「The world cheered Najin's name.」

「The masses were enraptured by Najin's achievements.」

「Many died or were wounded in the chaos the Carnival King stirred up, but the Empire remains the Empire.」

「The soldiers who fell in the subjugation campaign met honorable deaths. The Empire will not forget them.」

「The citizens of the Empire.」

「The spectators.」

「The countless people watching it all unfold.」

That is how they are omitted. Their lives, their daily routines, even their deaths, none of it feels worth the space on the page to describe.

They cannot be the protagonist.

Not until God turns the light on them.

『You have eyes that can see, ears that can hear, and mouths that can speak.』

『Why are you keeping them shut?』

『Scream, cry out, wail, and resent.』

『Claim the rights that are yours to claim.』

God personally shone a light on them, whispered in their ears, and lifted them up onto the stage. The world, then, must hear their voices. God desires it, after all.

"......"

Najin saw it.

"......Ah."

He saw the world dying.

2.

The world was dying.

The sky had gone black.

No sunlight reached the earth. No starlight either. The whole world had taken on the look of the Underground City, no, something worse than Artman. At least the ceiling of Artman had been studded with glowing stones.

Kreek, kreeeek.

What was embedded in the sky now was the Blight Star. Its dark red eye blinked open at regular intervals, and every time that gaze swept across the ground below, people screamed and crumpled. Blood streamed from their eyes and noses as they fell into a sleep they would never wake from.

A sleep you cannot wake from is no different from death. Everywhere there were people whose souls had been shattered, leaving nothing but hollow bodies behind. As people collapsed one by one, administrative functions seized up, cities fell apart, and beyond that, the very survival of nations began to fracture.

Thud.

Najin walked. With each step he looked out at the transformed world, and looking at it, he could no longer call any of this an illusion or a false stage.

Because.

This was a future Najin had imagined before.

"......"

His steps slowed to a stop. Rain was falling. The droplets hammering his body were black. Patter, patter. Standing in that rain, Najin was silent.

'At one point, I had thought, maybe.'

No matter how clear Najin's goal was, even he could not avoid thinking about it.

Thinking about what?

A future in which he failed.

'If I fail, or if the aftermath of the battle against the Witch spreads across the entire Continent......'

He had imagined what would follow from that. Perhaps "imagined" is too light a word. He had run the calculations again and again, turned it over in his mind again and again, and forced himself to ask the same question again and again.

Is this truly the best path?

The Najin of the past had answered yes. He said it was something that had to be done. It was a decision he reached after long and careful deliberation, but that did not mean the decision was necessarily right.

Patter.

The rain fell.

Drip, patter, patter......

Raindrops struck the earth and hammered against Najin's body. Standing in the downpour, he looked out at the world.

'The end.'

The world was drawing closer to its end with every passing moment.

It was reverting to the chaotic age that had existed a thousand years ago, before Arthur appeared. No, something harsher than that was coming for humanity. The Witch had learned from both Arthur and Najin, and she would be more thorough this time.

'And this is only the beginning.'

Najin had not lost yet. But if he truly lost, he would become something like Leviathan. Every achievement he had accumulated, every youngest-ever record he had shattered again and again, would become a massive wall standing in humanity's way.

The futures he had once imagined were becoming real, one by one.

Najin steadied his breathing.

Then he walked on.

'There will be a gap.'

Somewhere in this world there would be a crack. He just had to drive something into it. Break the stage. Everyone was dancing in the Witch's palm. A way to shatter the stage had to exist.

Clench.

It had to exist.

"Because of you."

Voices reached him with every step. There were so many people clutching those whose souls had been destroyed and left with nothing but hollow bodies, screaming. They looked at Najin's face and their eyes went wide. Their teeth ground together.

"Why."

And then they said it, like spitting something foul.

"Why......"

Why did you do this?

"Why did you make that choice?"

"How dare you show your face here! You, of all people!"

"Annihilated. Yes, the Special Unit has been annihilated. This is my final report to you."

"They're dead. They're dead......"

The voices kept coming.

"You're looking for the Marquess? You? What gives you the right?"

"Please leave."

"Get out of here."

"Ha......"

"The imperial family has been asking for you. It sounds like the Emperor has quite a lot to say to you."

Voices full of resentment and blame washed over him.

"AAAAAAHHHHH!"

"Its eye, its eye is opening!"

"Don't look at the sky! Keep your heads down! Right now! Anyone who looks up, I will cut them down myself. Please. I'm begging you. Keep your heads down. Don't look at the sky...!"

"I said keep your heads down, damn it!"

"Please, God."

"Ah, haha, ahahahahahahaha!"

Every time the Blight Star blinked, mad laughter burst out somewhere. The grinding of teeth from knights cutting down those who had lost their minds. And despite it all, the screams kept spreading because the chaos could not be contained. All of those sounds reached Najin's ears.

"I won't ask many questions."

"......"

"Someone told me. No, I suppose there's no point hiding the source now. Many scholars, stars, Constellations who had pledged to work with you, they all said this."

The Emperor spoke.

"That the seal King Arthur left behind could have held a little longer. That the seal was broken sooner because you acquired stars. That story is making the rounds, and those rumors have spread across the entire Continent."

He looked at Najin.

"Is that true?"

"It is true."

"......I see. Sooner, by how much?"

There was no way to know precisely. But Najin had run the calculation: if he had not grown stronger, if he had not pulled Excalibur, if he had not gathered so many stars, if he had not put extra strain on the binding seal, how much time would there have been?

The answer was nearly a hundred years.

Najin said the number aloud, and the Emperor went silent.

"A hundred years."

The Emperor closed his eyes.

"For Transcendents that may not be so long, but for ordinary people it is a great deal of time. An enormous amount. Enough to call an entire lifetime."

That was the truth.

"The world would end in a hundred years even if nothing were done, you say. But the other way of reading that is that the world was not supposed to end for at least a hundred years."

That too was the truth.

"......"

The Emperor was quiet, and after a long silence he spoke.

"Speaking first as Eldwin the individual... I do not resent you. Who could resent someone who challenged the impossible to stop the destruction of humanity? I have no desire to blame you for that."

Najin looked at the Emperor, caught off guard. Was the whole world not blaming him under the Witch's influence? Why was the Emperor different? His thoughts were still tangled when Eldwin continued.

"But as Eldwin Pendragon, Emperor of this land, I have no choice but to take a different position. Leave the Empire. If you can, leave while you are still seen as a hero."

He could not tell what was real anymore.

"The end will come in a hundred years regardless, but the anger that ordinary people feel toward the one who brought that end forward to today, that is not something I can simply suppress. Not everyone lives for a greater cause."

"That's..."

"So please go. I have no wish to watch the citizens of the Empire hurl stones at their own Empire's hero."

Without understanding any of it clearly, Najin left.

Some people showed perfectly rational reactions. They did not seem unhinged. They answered as though the Witch had never incited them at all, yet their conclusions were no different.

Fact and fiction were mixed together.

In truth, it was impossible to tell which was which anymore. Were they really being stirred up by the Witch? Or was this simply the anger of people watching the world end? Was this even a stage to begin with? Everyone was still alive. Then who was the fake here? Who was real, and who was not?

Questions tangled into more questions and refused to let go.

"It's a lie."

Najin muttered.

"They're being manipulated. This is all a fabrication the Witch constructed. The Witch is simply playing with everyone however she pleases. Because the Witch sees humans as toys, and so all of this is......"

It is all a lie, that was what Najin tried to say.

Because right now, in this place, the only one free from the Witch's touch was Najin himself. Everyone else could not escape her interference; they were being puppeted like dolls. That was what Najin tried to say.

"All of this is......"

He tried to say it.

"......"

But he could not.

He could not be certain. He wanted to believe it was all a lie, but his reason ruled otherwise. This was not only possible, but highly likely. Najin had gambled with the fate of humanity.

Humanity would perish in a hundred years. But the one who had moved that hundred years to today was, without question, Najin's own choice. The hundred years during which the ordinary people alive now could have lived out their natural lives and died in peace, Najin had cut that short.

He had challenged the Witch with the fate of humanity as the stakes.

If he lost like this.

No, even if he won, if he did not win decisively.

All of this would become reality.

He had steeled himself for it, but the scene unfolding before him seemed to ask the question again. A whisper echoed at the edge of his hearing.

'Can you win?'

Against that thing. An existence of that magnitude.

'Can you win, for certain?'

Najin could not answer immediately.

3.

At some point, Najin had started moving for a greater cause.

He could not say exactly when.

He just looked up one day and found himself there.

He discovered he was acting with grand ideals on his lips. He had not set out from the beginning to become a hero. He had only wanted to get outside the Underground City, nothing more. But at some point, Najin had become one.

Patter, patter......

He became a hero naturally.

Part of it was that he could not easily look away from other people's suffering. But through the countless heroes he met in the Outland, Najin had taken that spirit into himself without even trying. He had felt their lives deeply, and standing witness to their final moments had changed him.

He saved people.

He protected people.

In saving and protecting people, he naturally saved the Empire, and beyond that, he was saving humanity.

「Hero!」

「Dawn Horn, the proud hero of the Empire!」

「Follow the Dawning Star!」

「For humanity, for humanity!」

He was called a hero. Once people started calling him that, Najin began to think of himself that way too. Looking back, there were always many people following him. Looking to either side, there were always many people walking with him.

A hero who embodied humanity's will.

Humanity's hope, like Arthur.

Hearing those words, receiving those evaluations, being watched by those eyes, his star naturally shone brighter and brighter. In most situations Najin's will and humanity's will were one and the same. From a broader perspective, the two had never diverged.

But what about now?

The wishes of all people and Najin's wishes did not align.

To them, a hundred years held a different value than it did to Najin. Rather than shouldering tomorrow's risk to stop a destruction that might come someday, they wanted to meet tomorrow in peace.

Because in a hundred years, most of them would be gone.

If Najin had not drawn the sword.

If Najin had not gained stars.

If Najin, if Najin, if Najin.

If he had never become a hero.

They could have lived out their natural lives. That fact planted doubt in countless people, doubt about this situation itself. The Witch laughed with threads draped over their minds, as though nothing in the world could be more delightful.

『It is the masses who make a hero a hero.』

A hero is a being who is judged by others, after all.

Then who is it that kills a hero?

The Witch answered with a laugh.

『It is all people who kill a hero.』

On a stage for all, there is no place for a hero.

Footnotes:

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