Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint - Chapter 136

WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Chapter 136: The Slanted Ceiling and the Mountain of Smiling Corpses - 8

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‘...It almost sounds like he's blaming me.’

Well, of course it did. I said it to make her feel bad. The first thing Jiseon did when she saw the corpses was pick a fight, after all.

Still, as befitted a highly cultivated Taoist, Jiseon composed herself and made a request.

"That is a keepsake made by the Great Master of the Church of the Earth Mother. This humble one wishes for you to hand it over."

"No. I passed the keepsake's test. By the rule that has existed since the dawn of history, ‘The first person to pick up an ownerless item owns it,’ Jizan belongs to me."

It sounded like either a sudden burst of greed or a legitimate declaration. Naturally, Jiseon only heard the former.

"Do not be unreasonable. Though lacking, this humble one is Jiseon, granted the title of immortal. On behalf of every follower of the Earth Mother, I ask that you return it."

"You're the one being unreasonable, Jiseon. I'm the most ordinary person in the world. On behalf of all humanity, I'm saying this is mine."

Jizan trembled. It felt as though it were shouting at me not to lie.

Dead things had been strange lately. It was making too much noise, so I gave it a tap, but my finger hurt instead.

‘Did the sight of the keepsake stir his greed? This is why a prisoner's character cannot be trusted.’

Jiseon clicked her tongue softly and made one last attempt to persuade me. If that failed, she intended to take it by force.

"This humble one worked for twenty years, a full twenty years, to reach this source. Even Tantalus was made by my hand. I came down to this land myself and overturned the earth. My contribution is the greatest."

"Oh, are we dividing it by shares? That's more like something an adventurer would say than a follower of the Earth Mother!"

Jiseon's eye twitched.

Adventurer. Self-proclaimed treasure hunters, called grave robbers by everyone else. Adventurers dug through remains in search of keepsakes or treasure. Calling a follower of the Earth Mother an adventurer meant one of two things.

Either it was ignorance, or a calculated provocation, a polite invitation to start a dispute.

"You said you wanted to get rid of the Abyss, right? Then that's settled! I'll get rid of the Abyss with Jizan in my hand! And I'll keep this! Hic! Wow, what a windfall! What a windfall!"

"Have you perhaps become drunk?"

"No? I'm not drunk at all. Urk, hic. Ah, I feel great! I never expected to find treasure like this here!"

As I excitedly babbled on, Jiseon shook her head and reached out.

"It seems you are drunk. Then, pardon my discourtesy."

Jiseon tried to snatch the Jizan from my hand.

Just as her fingers were about to close around it.

Whirl.

Jizan turned slightly and pushed Jiseon's hand away in a circle.

She should not have been pushed back.

Jiseon's body was filled with qigong of an extraordinarily high level. With every step, she applied earth arts through her qigong, scattering it into the ground and rooting herself beneath her feet.

That was why she never fell.

She possessed Earth Qi Art that had reached a high realm, as well as Water Qi Art hardened through that training. She was, in every sense, a living ancient tree.

But.

An ancient tree could not exist without the earth.

‘What?!’

Creak.

Jizan, the sword without recoil, effortlessly deflected her arm.

Jizan was light only for me. To anyone else, its weight was comparable to Mount Tai.

That was not a figure of speech. It was literally a sword bearing the weight of the largest rock in the world.

A contest of strength? There was no such thing. Resistance? Impossible.

As long as I held Jizan, I could not be overpowered in strength. Their strength would be swallowed by Jizan's weight.

That was why Jizan was a sword without recoil. Though it was a cane in my hands.

‘Does that mean he has been permitted not merely to carry it, but to wield its strength...? Why?’

When I casually shook off her arm, Jiseon's eyes filled with astonishment and fear.

Not fear of my strength, but fear born of her sense of inadequacy at the possibility that I might truly be Jizan's master.

Jiseon looked at me with her guard fully raised.

"...I do not know how Lord Hughes received the keepsake's choice. Still, I ask you once more. Please hand it over to this humble one."

"Now we're on the same level. So? Are you ready to listen?"

"Please speak. This humble one is always prepared to listen."

"Ahahaha. Don't lie. You think you're the only one qualified, so what do you mean, listen? It would be like preaching scripture to a cow."

She did not get angry even after hearing that. She had realized it now, the qualification I possessed.

Jizan, which could easily push away even a concrete building, felt only slightly heavy to me. It felt about as weighty as a magic cane with a blade hidden inside.

Spinning Jizan like a windmill, I said,

"Magic has advanced so much these days that people don't have to worry about firewood anymore. Even ordinary families just cremate the dead. In an age like this, how many corpses have you buried?"

"...You need not worry. This humble one has buried more than enough."

"For someone who says that, you don't seem used to handling corpses."

"You are being unreasonable. How can you say this humble one is not accustomed to corpses?"

Jiseon spread both arms as though to show me how calm she was even atop this mountain of corpses.

I pointed out that exact thing.

"That is exactly the problem. You're calmly standing on corpses."

Her outstretched arms stiffened. Jiseon replied in a trembling voice.

"...What did you say?"

"How can you calmly stand on corpses? How can you calmly pour qigong into ground made of corpses to support yourself? How can you calmly launch attacks that overturn a mountain of corpses?"

The regressor avoided corpses. She had briefly frozen up when covered in the immortal's remains.

That was why, whenever she stepped, she either kicked off the overturned Tantalus or formed clouds beneath her feet. Until she fell, she had not even thought of collapsing the ground beneath her opponent.

No one found that strange. Avoiding corpses was an instinctive sort of revulsion.

"People hate death. Even another person's death. So we avoid corpses, bury them, and lay them to rest in our hearts. Buriers are apostles who uphold that meaning."

In contrast, Jiseon...

"Haa."

At my sigh, Jiseon flinched like a guilty student. My stern lecture pierced her ears.

"As a burier, you're worse than Shei."

It was a rebuke made of plain truth, without the slightest trace of condemnation.

"You were the first to step onto that mountain of corpses. You failed to notice the restless spirits who still retained their sense of duty. Goodness, you even overturned a grave someone else had made."

"That was..."

Jiseon opened her mouth as though to make an excuse, but could not bring herself to say it. I assessed her calmly.

"As a burier, you are disqualified."

Shame and humiliation rose in her, along with indignation.

Before Jiseon could flare up, I spread both arms and raised my voice.

"But that's fine! What good is being skilled at burying corpses? You've done far more than bury corpses and honor souls!"

That was not a lie. This too was my sincere feeling.

She had probably made a hundred times more concrete fortifications than she had conducted funerals.

She had saved many times more people than she had buried.

The buildings and facilities she had built still supported the foundation of the nation called the military state. I had seen people curse the military state in my life, but I had never seen anyone blame Jiseon.

‘Jiseon should have fixed the country before fixing the dams.’

That sort of playful resentment was all I ever heard.

I showed Jiseon the respect she deserved.

"I respect you, Jiseon. I'm not lying. Making graves for the dead is admirable, but can it compare to building for the living? Would the military engineers buried by your hand be happier, or would the military engineers who lived because of you be happier?"

She had no answer, and her thoughts ran deep. Reading each of them, I continued.

"You said you would erase the Abyss to restore the Church of the Earth Mother's former prosperity, but I'll be honest."

It was a cold truth she might have known already.

"Even if the Abyss disappears, faith in the Earth Mother will not return. No amount of dressing it up can change that. It was the flow of history."

The Sanctum rose to power, wars continued, collective funerals became common, and magic and alchemy advanced enough that people no longer worried as much about firewood.

People gradually chose cremation over burial. Since the Sanctum performed funerals cheaply, poor people who had neither land for graves nor money to make coffins entrusted their funerals to the Sanctum.

Buriers gradually lost demand.

Why did both the Victorious King and the Conquering King avoid the Church of the Earth Mother during that era? It might have been different before, but after the Great Master, the Church of the Earth Mother possessed undeniable miracles.

The Conquering King dismissed it as a bother, but that could not have been the only reason.

"There were simply too many deaths. Land was limited, burial was difficult, and everyone was busy fighting wars. What would they do if unknown people calling themselves buriers wandered around? It certainly would be a bother."

The Church of the Celestial God called that the will of heaven, but it had simply happened that way.

"It only looks as though the Church of the Earth Mother's prosperity has briefly returned because you broke an old stubbornness. You gave up the stubborn refusal to take any nation's side, and instead of making graves for the dead, you laid the foundations of the military state."

When the military state called for them, the followers of the Earth Mother were wary. It had always been taboo for a religion to answer a nation's summons, and the precedent of buriers being summoned by the Conquering King and slaughtered made them even more reluctant.

But Jiseon pushed ahead and led both the military state and the Church of the Earth Mother to prosperity. That rigid military state even pinned stars on her, though it was only an honorary post, and she did not refuse.

Thanks to that, followers of the Earth Mother gradually earned recognition.

"More precisely, it was because you worked so hard, Jiseon. The lives you saved, the facilities you built, the achievements you made, those are prosperity. Prosperity that had vanished did not ‘return.’ It is being ‘created’ anew now."

After praising her to an almost embarrassing extent, I turned slightly and showed her the Great Master.

The Great Master knelt respectfully atop this mountain of corpses, consoling their souls as she died alone in solitude.

Jiseon, who was closer to a builder than a burier, did not look back. She only moved forward. That was why she did not fall.

"You said you inherited the Great Master's will, but did you truly? The Great Master of the Church of the Earth Mother thirteen hundred years ago, and you now. What do you have in common?"

Only the name Church of the Earth Mother was the same, and the power they wielded was similar.

They were far too different. I made her realize that fact.

"So that is what Lord Hughes means."

Jiseon drew in a deep breath and murmured sorrowfully before the Great Master.

"That this humble one has no right to demand Jizan."

I answered with a smile.

"No. You have the same right as every ordinary person."

"So this humble one is not the rightful owner of this keepsake."

"You have to pick it up, just like everyone else."

"Very well."

Jiseon nodded. Through my words, she had truly faced her own desire.

"Lord Hughes is right. Certainly, this humble one made an unseemly display before Jizan. To defile a grave... Now I understand why my teacher warned me against arrogance."

She had become much more honest.

"Yet, this humble one serves Mother Earth. I need the Great Master's keepsake, the proof that contains this secret history, to gather the scattered followers, reveal the truth to the world, and hold the Sanctum accountable for its sins."

In other words, the mask had come off.

"Hand it over."

‘If you refuse, I will take it by force.’

I burst into loud laughter.

"Ahaha! Ahahahaha! Ahahahahaha!"

Naturally. One did not need qualification to act. What else besides a lack of ability could determine one's limits?

Speak for the dead? Who could dare to do that? How could anyone speak for them while knowing nothing about them? Especially events from thirteen hundred years ago.

"Haha. Very good. I really like this kind of honesty! You should have said this from the start!"

"Then. Will you give it to me?"

"Take it!"

I held out the hand carrying Jizan.

Then the regressor, who was groaning beneath corpses and concrete below, opened her eyes wide and shouted.

"Don't give it away!"

Ah, what was that? I suddenly felt wronged.

Because she had yelled that, it looked like I was changing my mind and refusing to give it to Jiseon because I listened to her.

I had not planned to give it away yet, though!

Jiseon's hand closed around empty air. I deftly moved Jizan away from her grasp.

A feeble sound escaped her.

Jiseon's eyes twitched, while my face lit up with delight.