Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint - Chapter 123

WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Chapter 123: Every Epithet Has a Reason

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When an honored guest arrived, even a modest feast was in order. Easing a traveler's tension and welcoming news from afar was an ancient human custom.

After bringing Jiseon to the dining hall, I took out every scrap of food we had left. I did not know what she liked, so I set everything on the table to welcome her.

I cheerfully called out a toast.

"Everyone, please give her your attention! An honored guest has come to the Abyss! The goddess of the Engineering Battalion, Guardian of Shoveling, Reverse Undertaker, Flowing Earth, The Unfallen! This is Jiseon, the owner of all those titles!"

Jiseon nodded in acknowledgment, though she did not look particularly pleased by the introduction. Especially when she heard the last two titles.

‘...I wish he would leave out the last two. Still, this introduction should end here.’

But there was a curious twelve-century-old girl in this room. Tyr asked with innocent interest.

"You have many titles. How did you earn all of them?"

"Haha. They are not such remarkable things."

Jiseon tactfully declined to answer. But even if she did not answer, someone else would.

That someone was me!

"Not remarkable? Every single one is incredible!"

I could not treat someone as famous and impressive as Jiseon as a mere “Passing Traveler No. 1.”

Someone else might have accepted that, but I could not. I sprang to my feet.

"It's absurd that anyone here does not realize how great Jiseon is! For those who don't know, let me explain briefly!"

"No, there is no need."

"You don't have to hold back! Tyr isn't familiar with news from outside. If I don't tell her beforehand, she'll sulk because she can't follow the conversation!"

‘...He speaks of the Progenitor, a being from ancient times, sulking? This man is no ordinary person either.’

Jiseon reluctantly conceded. Once I had permission, I introduced her like a host welcoming an esteemed guest.

"Jiseon participated in most of the national civil-engineering projects led by the military state. But nothing the state did ever worked properly! Back then, the Engineering Battalion did little more than dig trenches and put up wooden palisades. Projects that large could have turned into mass slaughter, burying alive as many people as were sent in! It was enough to make people worry that the Conquering King had returned! Then, like a comet, there appeared!"

I respectfully raised a hand and pointed at Jiseon.

"Jiseon! Thanks to her joining the projects with the earth arts practitioners under her command, the military state built sturdy roads, dams, and buildings!

"And that was not all! She taught them how to make concrete several times stronger, how to handle it, how to lay foundations, how to find underground waterways, and even how to choose soil! To the Engineering Battalion, Jiseon and the earth arts practitioners who taught them all that were no different from Mother Earth herself! That is why she is called the goddess of the Engineering Battalion!"

"Oh? An apostle of the Earth Mother becoming a carpenter. How interesting."

Tyr listened with sparkling eyes, and Jiseon could no longer refuse my introduction. I continued with even greater enthusiasm.

"Guardian of Shoveling and Reverse Undertaker also come from related stories! One day, an engineer was digging and got buried in the ground. It happened often enough at construction sites, but some citizens were afraid, saying Mother Earth had grown angry because they had torn into her flesh. Then! Jiseon displayed her earth arts! Like a volcano erupting, like a well bursting forth! She pulled the engineer out from deep underground!"

Exclamations rose from all around. Tyr's reaction in particular pleased me.

"Oh. I have seen Daoists do similar things. And then?"

"From that day on, the Engineering Battalion no longer feared shoveling! Thus, Guardian of Shoveling. And unlike an undertaker who buries the dead, she pulled the living out of the ground, earning the title of an inverted undertaker! That is the Reverse Undertaker!"

"Wonderful!"

Tyr exclaimed in admiration and looked at Jiseon again. Jiseon moved her lips for a moment, then answered with a smile.

"It is only a rumor that has grown exaggerated on its own."

‘...Mother Earth. Grant this poor daughter the strength to endure this humiliation.’

No matter how famous Jiseon was, she was a child compared to Tyr, who had twelve centuries of history behind her. Tyr, whose age was close to the Abyss's own, was so interested that Jiseon could not bring herself to cut me off.

Having used my trump card, I continued.

"Flowing Earth means that when Jiseon uses her power, the earth flows like a river!"

"The ground flows like a river?"

"That's right. There is something called cement! Using Jiseon's expertise, the military state mass-produced high-quality cement. But while they were wondering how to transport it, Jiseon appeared once again! She used the power of her earth arts to make the cement flow! It is said that the cement she set flowing did not stop for an entire week!"

I had heard that, at one point, Jiseon and a single platoon of mage officers moved more cement than the entire military state transported.

Using the knowledge they gained then, they also created the Meta Conveyor Belt, one of the military state's seven great inventions.

"That being possible makes no sense at all...."

"That is why she is Jiseon! She surpasses common sense! Fame is not earned easily!"

She calmly accomplished things ordinary people considered impossible. That was why people revered her.

The faith of the Earth Mother had steadily declined ever since the Sanctum appeared. It would not have been an exaggeration to say that Jiseon was the reason an old faith, barely holding on, could revive and bloom in this age.

As it began to look as though the introduction was over, Jiseon secretly felt relieved.

Not so fast. One remained.

"Then what is The Unfallen?"

Jiseon flinched slightly at the immortal's question.

I grinned and explained as though I had been waiting for it.

"It means one who does not fall."

"Does not fall?"

"Nobody in the Engineering Battalion has ever seen Jiseon fall. Whether it was a slope, a rocky mountain, or ground turned into thick mud by rain, Jiseon always walked on two legs."

The Engineering Battalion members and laborers who worked on those projects had never seen Jiseon's knees touch the ground.

When people who walked on two feet suffered every hardship imaginable and began moving on all fours like beasts,

she always stood on two feet and walked on two feet. She completed every task with both legs planted like an old tree.

"One day, a dam began to give way during construction. A weakened crack broke apart, and water began pouring madly through the gap. If things continued like that, the dam would burst, and a tremendous amount of river water would sweep over everyone downstream. It was a terrible disaster. Then."

By now, everyone expected what came next.

At the same time, they could hardly believe it.

It was an accomplishment that could be described in words, yet too magnificent to believe a human body had achieved.

"If Jiseon, who appeared then, had not planted both feet firmly and plugged the breach in the embankment with her entire body, that surely would have happened."

"Good heavens."

Tyr covered her mouth, and the immortal gasped as well.

It was something they expected yet found hard to believe. The catharsis that came when a human entered the realm of the impossible.

Reading everyone's emotions, I shouted as though I had accomplished it myself.

"Even then, she did not fall! Blocking the water with her body, she ordered them to make repairs while she held out. If she had fallen, it would have been dangerous enough to sweep away everyone making repairs!"

Yet those who had taken part in that construction project told that story over and over whenever they drank.

Nobody who had been there could imagine her falling.

"But the Engineering Battalion and the laborers climbed down and repaired the dam without the slightest doubt. During the full day she became the dam, everyone completed the work without eating or sleeping."

As I shouted, my eyes were wet with tears of emotion.

Ah, even my account of Jiseon's achievements, which felt as though they could be explained forever, eventually had to end. Why was human history so short and regrettable?

I finished the story in a fading voice.

"From that day on, they became an elite force that faced the earth itself. The legendary Engineering Battalion. The battalion that never fell, the Unfallen Engineering Battalion."

The moment I finished speaking, the deeply moved immortal sprang to his feet and cheered.

"The Unfallen Engineering Battalion! What an excellent name!"

"Right? I hear the military state holds that meaning in high regard, so they're naming newly made equipment after The Unfallen."

"Kuh. People seek a place where they can leave their names behind. Even if it is only a title! Jiseon has achieved something tremendous!"

The person who had heard the story of the Engineering Battalion, which had become legend, once more,

‘Even after twenty years... I still could not shake it off.’

drank bitterly from her cup, with thoughts that would sadden any reader.

‘If I had known this would happen, I should have fallen at least once.’

For the sake of The Unfallen, no, Jiseon, who wanted to deny her own legend, I raised my cup high.

"Fight! Win! The Unfallen!"

"The Unfallen, what a wonderful name...."

"The Unfallen! The Unfallen!"

Tyr and the immortal, both deeply impressed, kept cheering. Even Azzy bounced in place amid the uproar, shouting, "Woof! Fallen!"

Receiving respect and encouragement from every direction,

‘Perhaps I should have fallen five times....’

The one who never fell thought so.

In any case, the banquet continued. Except whenever the title The Unfallen came up, Jiseon gladly answered the questions directed at her.

What she had done after leaving the Engineering Battalion, how much effort she had put into training the next generation, and what the doctrines of the Earth Mother were like.

We began with seemingly unrelated questions, as though adjusting a sight, then gradually approached the main subject.

I took the lead and opened fire.

"But why has someone as esteemed as you come to such a shabby place, Jiseon?"

It was the subject everyone had been waiting for. Tyr found every story interesting, but even the immortal and Callis had been dying to know.

...And so had the regressor, who was not joining us and was only listening from outside.

Tap.

Having reached the main point, Jiseon set down her cup with a sharp sound and spoke gravely.

"I came to fulfill the wish of all followers of the Earth Mother."

"The wish of all followers of the Earth Mother?"

"That is correct. The Abyss, the trace left by Mother Earth's anger, the shameful self-portrait of all her followers. The ugly side of the buriers, buried by the Conquering King's deeds."

As she spoke, Jiseon lightly stamped her foot.

Boom.

Geon, pushed to its utmost limit. The pinnacle of energy arts, which sends all the force it is given into the ground, spread throughout Tantalus.

The source of that artificial earthquake spoke with firm resolve.

"The Abyss, Mother Earth's hell that made this land a wasteland. I have come here to erase it."

"Erase the Abyss?"

Yes. It was certain.

The person the regressor had said would come to erase the Abyss was Jiseon.

I did not know why, upon seeing someone this famous, she had talked about an earth serpent dreaming of defying heaven or a nightmare of the Sanctum.

Still, Jiseon had arrived at Tantalus several months earlier than expected!

"It sounds impossible.... But since you are the person who created the legend of The Unfallen, I somehow feel like you can do it!"

"...Could you stop calling me by that title now?"