WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 289

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The Blessed Nation, the Cursed Human - 12

No matter how obvious an answer is, the time it takes to reach it differs from person to person. People call those with a very short delay rational, and those with a long delay emotional. But when the thing at stake is as heavy as a nation, anyone becomes emotional.

It took a long while. Yuel spoke, resentment thick in her voice.

"…Was this country really that wrong? Wrong enough that you had to break it yourself?"

"There is no absolute right or wrong in this world. Things just turned out this way."

"I only wanted a nation led by the masses... to fulfill his dream.... There was nothing wrong with that...."

"I told you, this is not about right and wrong. Oh, and one more thing."

You keep talking about a nation led by everyone, so I am saying this because you seem to truly believe it.

What part of the Military State was a nation of the masses?

"The Military State was not a nation led by everyone. It was a nation no one could lead. Out of everyone I saw, not one person was leading this country. They were being crushed, sure, but not leading."

"...That is."

"Do not talk like that was the only way. You just could not trust anyone. Not soldiers, not civilians, not even yourself."

If the masses are to lead, then the masses must be the masters. But the masses are not ideal. If anything, the larger the group, the more easily people choose cruel options that no individual could even imagine.

Unable to trust people, Yuel created a virtual entity: the Military State. The Military State watched them, monitored them, and judged them.

Just like a god.

Maybe because she used to be a saintess, even what she copied was steeped in faith. The only difference was that the Military State passed judgment in this life, not the next.

"I do not really know what kind of person that 'he' was, but one thing is certain. He would not have wanted a country like this. Unlike you, he probably trusted people more. Otherwise, he never would have dreamed something that foolish."

What he wanted to build was a beautiful sandcastle, not a cruel fortress of eternal steel.

My words, packed with nothing but facts, made Yuel cry out.

"How could I trust them! I 'saw' everything! They came to me smiling, and behind my back, what they were doing! I watched all of it...!"

Even while the kingdom collapsed and the Military State rose again, selfish people still existed. Those who only chased personal gain, those who longed for the old order, those trying to replace the fallen and become the new elite.

Then again, to the Farseeing Saintess, who had only ever seen the most beautiful things in the world, the ugliness of human society must have felt alien. Did she want to carve freedom, responsibility, and sin out of them like diseased flesh?

"What could we do? That is what humans are."

Still, what could we do? All of that was human too.

Her sobbing voice cut off. Yuel lowered her head, fist clenched tight. Her downward mutter bounced off the stone floor and came back to my ears.

"...AB. You will break the Military State. Or it will break you."

"I have no intention of that."

"Would it not be nice if everything went as planned? But it will not. If you are incompetent, outside pressure will crush you. If you are competent, it will eat you from the inside. Every sin born in this country will become yours. Even tragedies unrelated to you will become your responsibility, and careless resentment will turn into daggers that stab your heart. You will not endure it. Even less so if you can see more."

Most of the time, advice from the experienced looks like stale gatekeeping to the inexperienced, but this time it got through, almost miraculously. Probably thanks to Captain AB's empathy. Pure empathy, unrelated to synchronization magic.

Captain AB steeled herself and said,

"I am prepared to be resented. I will only do what I must."

"What you must do, huh. AB, what will you do first? Do you intend to stop a war that has already begun, just as that child demanded?"

The regressor's surface-level goal had been to stop the war between the Military State and the Lesser States. I never believed the Military State would accept that in the first place, but that was the claim.

Captain AB glanced at me, then nodded.

"War is a tactical action with extreme consumption costs. Even more so if a powerful being carries out raids to stop it. If this situation can be resolved without waging war, there is no reason to continue."

"There is a reason. You were cut off from communications then, so you did not hear it. But the reason is clear."

"What is it?"

Yuel watched Captain AB ask, then answered with a pained expression.

"The problem with war is that it happens if either side intends it. Even if the Military State does not start it, if the Lesser States are willing, war begins."

"So your intent is to strike first before they attack? That itself is irrational. Something that has not even happened yet...."

"No. I 'saw' it. The Lesser States already started the war. Without a declaration, they gathered troops and are heading for the wasteland where the Abyss used to be."

"What?"

Thinking about it again now, Clairvoyance really was broken.

If the Military State had a weakness, it was its short history and lack of mystery. So when asymmetric forces with mystery, like Tyr or the regressor, swept through, it had few counters. This weakness showed especially in intelligence warfare, because without the ability to catch the enemy off guard, espionage was practically impossible.

...But if a saintess with Clairvoyance had been feeding information to communications officers, that changed everything. So she had been hiding here, peering into every corner of the world. That was the Military State's real strength.

"A people of late-formed nomads. One of the few strengths of the Lesser States, abandoned by the land, is mobility. The only thing we surpass them in is system. Thanks to the communications officers urgently mobilizing troops, a probing battle should already be underway in the Abyss wasteland."

Yuel recalled what she had "seen" through Clairvoyance.

While we headed for Headquarters, legions gathered via the Meta-Conveyor Belt and marched north. While the heavily armed main force advanced, the vanguard had already established positions in the wasteland before we even reached Headquarters.

Then the Lesser States' cavalry arrived. On land once abandoned by Mother Earth and shunned by all, the armies of two nations faced each other. One spark away from war.

Even as the raid on Headquarters unfolded, Yuel could not take her eyes off that front. No matter how much a small force tore through the Military State, that was still guerrilla action, while a full-scale war carrying the fate of nations was about to erupt on the battlefield. She could not spare much attention for us because she was watching the Lesser States' movements.

Maybe the reason we got into even the Military State's Headquarters so easily was that most of its forces were pointed that way.

"This was not a one-sided war started by us. It was a full-scale war with both sides' interests entangled. The Lesser States desperately need land they can settle. While the Abyss existed, it was useless land, but now that Mother Earth's curse is lifted, it is ripe prey. While you were bewitched by him, I 'saw' all of that and relayed it to the communications officers. Through cross-verification, every communications officer confirmed it and judged war unavoidable. Then an unidentified armed force suddenly appears and tells us to stop the war, and we should stop?"

With this late-arriving information, Captain AB felt she needed to reevaluate every judgment she had made so far.

When Captain AB made contact with the regressor, she heard the demand to stop the war. Cut off from other communications officers, Captain AB accepted the regressor's proposal as-is. In her mind, a truce must have seemed like the only way to stop this assault.

But the war had already begun. The regressor's demand could never have been accepted in the first place. That left only two choices: repel or persuade.

"If you had explained that, would the other side not have accepted it?"

"How could I prove something that had not happened yet at that point? Should I reveal myself directly? Should I stand in front of the Progenitor and explain everything? Say that I was once a saintess, and that I saw a future not yet reached!"

So she reveals she is a saintess here. I stayed calm since I already knew, but the princess looked genuinely shocked. A saintess is not someone you see everywhere like a neighborhood pastor.

There were no secrets left now. Yuel snapped,

"Ha! I guarantee that would have been many times more dangerous! What guarantee did we have that the Progenitor would not call the duchy?! Could you handle the full military strength of the Fog Duchy charging in with darkness?! If we were going to repel her, this moment, while the Progenitor was alone, was our first and last chance! Though by now it is probably already too late!"

It was truly a difficult situation. Captain AB acknowledged it.

'Yuel is correct. At this point, stopping the war is impossible. Shei's demand is irrational and impossible, so the only response available to the Military State is repulsion....'

But that was not the only difference between Captain AB and Yuel.

Captain AB had been the Abyss's administrator, and she had interacted with the regressor quite often. Through me in particular, they had exchanged all kinds of words.

After seeing the regressor's overwhelming power, Yuel seemed to define her as a kind of phenomenon. Like a typhoon or lightning, or the Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka. From the perspective of someone who "sees," that may have been the most rational judgment.

But Captain AB, even if she did not know the future, knew the person named "Shei." She knew Shei was sharp and blunt, yet unexpectedly rational, with odd gaps in her guard.

Humans are small compared to phenomena. Hard to trust.

But the ones who answer wishes are not phenomena. They are humans.

"It is not too late. I still judge there is room for compromise. In fact, compromise can produce a better result."

"Compromise? How?"

"If her demand is sincere, and if she is truly willing to make several efforts for that goal, there is a way to project this power now aimed at the Military State into diplomacy."

Captain AB brought up a proposal the old Military State would never have made.

"Appoint her as a special envoy and dispatch her to the Lesser States. If she truly wants to stop the war, and if she is willing to project force for that goal as she did against the Military State, then she will be the most efficient means of breaking the Lesser States' will to fight."

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