WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 301: A World That Cannot Be Made with Gears

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Maximilien came from the Lesser States. In that country, where birth itself was a curse, anyone who failed to solve the problems constantly closing in on them in time was weeded out.

Fortunately, aside from the minor problem of having no arms, Maximilien possessed extraordinary talent and handled the countless problems life presented with wisdom.

Maximilien remained rational even when the Lesser States' vested interests joined forces to eliminate him. Two companies were destroyed beneath the steel wheels of Maximilien's awakened innate arcane, and Maximilien calmly left the Lesser States.

Maximilien had overcome the greatest crisis of life, yet still was not satisfied. One enormous problem remained.

A problem so great that even someone who was practically a god of gears showed no sign of being able to solve it.

The world Maximilien lived in was imperfect.

To Maximilien, the world was a broken creation. A mass of noise filled with discord, creaking and damaged as it rolled precariously onward.

Some things could be improved. Inefficient structures could be refined. Broken machinery could be repaired.

Humans, however, could not be fixed.

Humans were irrational. Blinded by greed, they rejected excellent inventions like gears, envied them, and resented them. They saw the same thing and understood it differently, sometimes even attacking one another for no reason at all. Just like the fools of the Lesser States.

Defective products with uneven gear teeth were the world's greatest problem. Because they existed, “qualified people” like Maximilien had to live amid needless friction.

They had to be fixed. But how?

The problem was clear, and so was the solution. There simply was no way to carry it out.

To realize that ideal, Maximilien needed to create a community on the scale of a country or city. Yet a wanderer who had fled the Lesser States had no foundation for such an undertaking.

It was around the time Maximilien's concerns had grown deep.

The sky suddenly opened, and an angel descended. Saying it had watched Maximilien all along, the angel made an offer.

Would Maximilien like to build a country?

Maximilien did not believe in gods. A god had not given Maximilien two hands to clasp together.

The angel before Maximilien was not a god, though. It was merely a weapon of the Sanctum, tainted by the secular world and fallen into corruption.

Maximilien did not believe in gods, but weapons could be trusted. Maximilien took the angel's hand.

Heavenly Link was a ruler. From one place, Heavenly Link watched, judged, and issued orders over everything.

Shadow Casket was an executioner. Closest to Heavenly Link, she was Heavenly Link's blade and a ruthless gardener who pruned the military state as needed.

The Halberdier was a designer.

The military state's facilities, inventions, policies, and everything else came from the Halberdier's mind. From the automated carriage he personally designed to the massive alchemical steel smelteries, there was nothing untouched by his hand. Even the Meta Conveyor Belt, praised as the military state's masterpiece, had been built at Maximilien's suggestion.

The original proposal had been to surround the military state with tens of millions of gears rather than earth arts. Whether that was realistic was another question, but the achievement still deserved high praise.

Of the three Six Generals who came from outside, none worked more than Maximilien. It was not a matter of diligence. Maximilien simply enjoyed working. To Maximilien, the military state was both the largest and most elaborate toy imaginable, as well as a testing ground for realizing those ideals. Taking advantage of the chaos unique to a newly founded country, Maximilien pushed through even some fairly extreme measures.

Hatred for the Kingdom, hope blooming from land scorched by that hatred, an outstanding leader called the Hero, and the three people brought along. Amid such miraculous strokes of fortune, the military state prospered greatly. Some were discarded, but there were always plenty of replacement gears to put in their place. Maximilien did not care much about that.

Maximilien had undoubtedly succeeded.

But in essence, Maximilien had failed.

Humans were meant to be used like components, but the components refused to move as intended. When pressed down, they tried to spring back. Even after being told that straying would mean disposal, they committed every sort of aberrant act. No matter how carefully they were polished, defective products concealed their jagged edges, slipped into the machine, and caused fatal malfunctions. The losses were immense.

Maximilien could not endure such losses. As long as they continued, the ideal machine Maximilien sought could never be made.

Not unless “humans” themselves were fixed.

“Congratulations, Maximilien. You found me splendidly. To think you would create ground to stand on in the Abyss, then decide to put the King of Dogs there. I fell for your trap completely.”

Whew. This person had finally finished watching his life flash before his eyes. That took a while.

The phrasing was a little odd, but Maximilien had been “skewered” by Historia's bullet and sent flying. Literally one step from death.

Still alive, though, and powerful enough to kill me with a flick of a finger.

I needed to get over there and finish Maximilien off quickly. Historia had collapsed from exhaustion. There was no one else who could do it.

I looked down from the edge of the steel beetle. It stood four meters tall. Jumping onto the ground below, littered with broken chunks of concrete, looked far too dangerous.

If I had been in perfect condition, I could have used every item and landing technique at my disposal to make a stylish landing. I was in tatters too, though.

“Earth” was the greatest magnet. Using that, I maximized the magnetism of the Clover 8. It was powerful enough to bend the path of incoming steel, but there was one problem.

I could magnetize steel and pull it toward me, but I could not push it away.

In other words, all those blades had flown toward the card in my hand. Even though I had tightly wrapped my arm in the Queen of Cloth, dozens of blades grazed past it, turning both my arm and the Queen of Cloth into rags.

At least most of them had missed in wide arcs. If a spear or something similar had hit me head-on, I might have needed to ask Maximilien to make me a prosthetic arm.

It looked like I would not be able to use my left hand for a while. After tightly binding the Queen of Cloth to stop the bleeding, I carefully made my way down the stair-like gears.

“That is why it is all the more regrettable. Your wish is intense and interesting, but unfortunately, I cannot grant it. I am the King of Humanity. The representative of all humanity... Though I used to be one, I have no power now and represent no one. All that remains to me is granting the wish of the one person before me.”

Maximilien blinked. The condition was dreadful.

There was a large hole in Maximilien's chest. Blood-soaked gears, carefully packed beneath the skin, were exposed in grotesque fashion. The gears continued turning without rest, but most were horribly damaged. Some had been dented and dug into flesh with every rotation.

“By contrast, your wish concerns all of humanity, doesn't it? But since you cannot persuade every human, you wanted to persuade the single being called the King of Humanity. That's why you needed me, right?”

No matter how much Maximilien commanded them, the muscles would not move. Only the gears spread throughout the body obeyed. Click. A prosthetic arm forcibly hauled the ruined body upright. Muscles screamed and blood strayed from its proper course, but Maximilien ignored it all and rose through brute force.

“Compared to an incompetent person like me, you are closer to the King of Humanity. Want to be king in my place?”

Maximilien opened his mouth. A lump of foamy blood came out first, followed by a strained reply.

“...If you can give it to me, cough, I will gladly accept.”

“Haha. I'm joking. You can't be king. Setting aside the fact that I can't give it to you, what you want to become isn't a king, but a god. A god who changes the human species however he pleases.”

“So it was deception.... What you used earlier was... certainly the power of the Demon God. You are the one who is, cough, a god.”

“No. This is the innate arcane of the Church of the Earth Mother. I told you, didn't I? I can steal and use other people's innate arcane.”

“Is that not... a god?”

“I told you it isn't.”

I swung my arm, wrapped round and round in cloth, up and down. Blood seeped from the violent movement. It was something I absolutely should not have done with my injuries, but so what? Maximilien had forced himself upright despite looking like that. I should show some sincerity too.

“Some innate arcane reaches godhood. It gives a reverent name to a god that had never existed and binds it to reality. The named god watches over this world, and humans enjoy its grace. That is why it is innate arcane while also being called a Demon God. It truly is a god because it causes irreversible change in all humanity.”

At the bottom of the Abyss, deep underground where neither light nor logic could reach, I found the memories of the Great Master sealed away by the Sanctum.

Before the Great Master, the Earth Mother had been no more than one branch of folk belief. After the Great Master, she became a god who heard humanity's calls. Because the Sanctum sealed this secret away, only followers of the Earth Mother could use earth arts, but it was still a human technique. With earth arts, human life changed.

“That is why you are ordinary, Maximilien. Your gears cannot change humans.”

But what about gears?

They were certainly useful. Depending on their design, they could produce several times the force or make movements several times more precise. They could turn force into rotation, and rotation back into force.

Useful. That was all.

“Your prosthetic arms replace human arms, and the steel beetle imitates a beetle, just as its name suggests. Throwing spears with a spear launcher, drawing bows with a winch. They are all functions humans discovered first. Imitation. That is the essence of your ability.”

Without mercy, I struck where it hurt.

“Your ability to assemble small gears into something tremendous is extraordinary. It is impressive enough to inspire admiration. But you did not create gears. They already existed. The principles behind gears were not something new that had never existed in the world, either. They are simply what you handle best.”

Maximilien was a giant standing on the shoulders of giants. Great, strong, and capable of seeing farther than anyone else.

But never capable of reaching godhood. More than anyone, Maximilien must have understood that fact painfully well.

Even if it was something we both plainly knew, there were times when it had to be said aloud.

This was one of those times.

“You are a giant, but you cannot become a god. Know your place, beast.”

Footnotes:

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