WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 344: The King Who Kills Others, the God Who Kills Himself - 4

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It was a swift, covert ambush. Had I come alone, I might have lost my life before I even realized what was happening. But why else had I brought Tyr? When it came to protecting me from humans, Tyr was the most dependable companion I had.

Azzy protected me too, but she was not much use against humans. The regressor was good against humans, but she did not protect me.

Darkness surged from beneath Tyr's pitch-black parasol. The shadow that had attacked me was swallowed by the darkness and slammed into the ground. When I turned around, Tyr had one fist clenched.

She really was reliable. I had backed the right horse.

"Is it all right to use darkness when there's sunlight?"

"A little is no problem. This is shaded too."

As Tyr and I chatted amicably, a voice came from the attacker wrapped in darkness.

"I warn you. I say this for your sake."

Despite being pinned to the ground, the attacker spoke without a trace of agitation.

"If you wish to protect yourself, turn around and leave at once. Forget what you saw, erase what you heard, and leave. Never seek this place again. Your curiosity will kill you."

"Isn't that an unreasonable request? How am I supposed not to be curious?"

The attacker wore a thick robe and a golden mask, as though trying to conceal both their face and build completely.

Yet all that effort was pointless. Even beneath the robe, the bulging hump on their back made its presence painfully clear.

A hunchback. I had seen only one hunchback in the Lesser States.

I slowly approached, placed a hand on the golden mask, and spoke.

"You should certainly be dead, yet here you are alive."

Click.

I undid the clasp and lifted the golden mask, calling out to the face beneath it.

"Isn't that right, Lord Rowkett?"

The Heatblast Lord, Rowkett. The Lord of the Lesser States who had clearly lost their life to Hilde at the camp stood before me.

With the Heatblast Lord's identity exposed, the homunculus muttered in an emotionless voice.

"So the original died. As expected, the original was not meant to live long."

"Thanks to that, I'm certain you're a homunculus. Then this must be the Golden Palace after all?"

"You know this is the Golden Palace, yet you still intend to approach it? Is your life not precious? No."

The Heatblast Lord looked up at me from the ground.

"Are you not afraid of the soul that will be tainted here, the dignity that will be desecrated, the existence that will be violated?"

"I don't care about souls, dignity, or uniqueness. The only thing I treasure is my life."

"Impressive."

"What are you talking about? You're much more well-mannered than the original."

Warmth blossomed amid our exchanged compliments. Who would have thought we could have such a normal conversation? Did turning a completely deranged human into a homunculus produce something sane?

I had expected to find something similar, but it was lucky that it had appeared so quickly. It saved me the trouble of explaining.

"Hughes... Could it be...?"

Someone who had died once stood before us. Tyr was unusually shocked to witness such an unbelievable sight. She had lived for twelve hundred years and was not easily surprised, but even she had every reason to be startled by the truth revealed before her.

"What you mean is... the Lord of Gold can create humans...?"

It was a reasonable guess, and close to the answer. Still, the Lord of Gold had not reached that level. I shook my head and pointed at the Heatblast Lord.

"It can't create humans in the truest sense. If it could create them perfectly, it wouldn't need to imitate the Heatblast Lord. And if it did, the copy would have the original's personality."

If the Lord of Gold could create humans, it ought to be the King of Humanity. No, come to think of it, even the King of Humanity could not create humans except by having children. It should be called a god, surpassing even a king.

Yet the Lord of Gold had not reached the realm of gods. If it had become a god, it would have no need to collect humans.

"But at the very least... it has created a nearly perfect human 'body.' Isn't that right, Heatblast Lord?"

The Heatblast Lord shook their head.

"Perfect? No. Ideal. The body created by the Lord of Gold is an extreme no imperfect human can ever reach. Had the original been intact, this body would have had no flaws at all."

"Oh. So it's a machine made of flesh and blood. Then are the crops cursed by the Lord of Gold the same?"

"The crops made by the Lord of Gold are not cursed. Rather, their creations are 'ideal.' They are crops, yet their alchemical affinity is exceptional."

Alchemical affinity was a substance's tendency to respond to alchemy. Trees and grass were known to have low alchemical affinity because of their irregular structures, but the Lord of Gold's crops were different.

Was that why those whose bodies had been filled with the Lord of Gold's crops resonated with the Lord of Gold?

"And... it isn't only the 'body.' If one is a Lord who understands even a fraction of the Lord of Gold's great principle, then even their mental image..."

The moment the Heatblast Lord spoke those words, localized explosions burst across their entire body.

Explosions were the release of heat and light. The darkness burst apart, and the Heatblast Lord's restraints weakened for an instant. Steel wings sprang out through that opening. Before I could say anything, the Heatblast Lord shot high into the sky.

"The Lords' mental images are rooted in the Lord of Gold at their core. Even innate arcane is no more than a technique the Lord of Gold can reproduce."

Rowkett's Juggernaut, Dragonhawk, appeared before us in a far more vicious and powerful form than before. The Heatblast Lord covered Dragonhawk in flames and roared at us.

"I am a guardian of the Golden Palace! Die regretting that you came here...!"

Tch. That idiot. It was acting as though it were a real human. If it had been human, I would have read its thoughts and stolen its innate arcane.

But I could not read that thing's thoughts. I could not steal its innate arcane either. No matter how I thought about it, that thing was...

[Let them be.]

A voice came from somewhere. The Heatblast Lord, who had been about to charge at us while scattering flames, stopped sharply in midair.

"Golden Lord...!"

As though answering them, the voice of the woman called the Golden Lord echoed calmly.

[Let them come. The Lord of Gold requires inspiration.]

"Urgh...!"

The Heatblast Lord grimaced and withdrew their flames. Dragonhawk, robbed of its propulsion, immediately fell to the ground. The Heatblast Lord landed on both feet with a heavy thud, glared at me, and shouted.

"You...! You will regret not dying here...!"

Was it showing us consideration despite being nothing but lingering thoughts? What a corpse.

Amused, I gave a faint smile and patted the Heatblast Lord's shoulder.

"That won't happen. I won't regret a thing until I die."

The Heatblast Lord glared at me before putting the golden mask back on. Leaving them behind as they turned away, I headed for the Golden Palace.

I was almost there. I could feel it.

The Lord of Gold. The thoughts of a Demon God capable of creating all things.

* * *

Uriaa Elik, King of the Golden Kingdom who possessed all the wealth in the world and Steel King who had mastered every form of knowledge and technique, sharply struck the desk with the fan in her hand, seemingly dissatisfied.

Having reproduced every technique in the world and learned countless forms of knowledge, she now suffered from terrible boredom.

Born with a king's authority, she could create anything except what could not be created. When the line between possibility and impossibility was so clear, what meaning was there in a challenge? Unable to feel the joy of pushing through the unknown, Elik found the world as stale and monotonous as a textbook.

The only thing she devoted herself to was raising disciples.

Humans were creatures who contained chaos. Even Elik, who understood everything, could not predict humans. Their techniques did not even reach her feet, but their insignificant imaginations could at least become sparks of inspiration. Like every other Elik, Uriaa Elik had many disciples.

Lately, even that had grown tiresome.

It began with an assignment Elik had given as a joke.

Fill this room with a single gold coin.

It was widely known as a test of wisdom and ingenuity, but that was not true.

If someone used one gold coin as seed money and invested it well, they could fill this room. At least, Elik could.

A sword sharper and sturdier than any other could sell for many times the price of an ordinary sword.

An alloy made by combining certain metals in specific proportions could be called a legendary metal and sold for whatever price one wished.

It could be done by displaying only a tiny fraction of Elik's many skills.

That was what Elik wanted. She wanted her disciples to rack their inadequate brains and try every possible method to multiply one gold coin as much as they could.

Then someone played a cheap trick.

"I filled the room with candlelight. Even the splendor of gold fades before true light, so is light not the only thing that can truly fill this room?"

It was childish, but among countless failures, it was a fairly original answer. Elik praised the disciple lavishly. It was not the direction she had wanted, but it was still enough to inspire her.

The problem came afterward.

"A torch!"

"Scented candles!"

"Smoke!"

After that, everyone began giving the same answer, as if it were the correct one.

Even an original answer grew stale through repetition. If it was nothing but a shortcut, it became irritating. So Elik prepared a second question.

"Turn what you filled it with back into gold."

Everyone would go blank and tear at their hair.

There was no profound meaning behind the question. Elik was simply being spiteful. Light and fragrance lost their value once spread, and she only wanted to torment those who had dared play tricks before the Steel King.

Elik's scheme worked perfectly, and the number of disciples using cheap tricks gradually dwindled.

Then one disciple, apparently slow to hear the news, arrived with a small bell.

"A bell! I filled this room with its ringing!"

As always, Elik gave the second assignment.

"Turn this into gold."

"Y-Yes? Into gold?"

The disciple panicked. Elik clicked her tongue loudly, having guessed the disciple's thoughts.

There were craftsmen like that. They knew how to buy things and make them, but not how to sell them. No matter how skilled they were, if they had no talent for business, they were fated to be overworked all their lives and die far from home. Elik deliberately frowned.

"Are you saying you cannot?"

"I... I'm sorry. I can't think of any way... Please teach me..."

Anger surged within her.

Many had brought candles or incense. Elik had spitefully told them to turn it back into gold because she hated seeing them proudly present a shortcut that would not last. Those idle fools who copied someone else's trick without thinking would turn pale.

Yet unlike things that lost value over time, a bell preserved its value. It was not the answer Elik wanted, but the bell made by the disciple was of fine quality, its clear sound ringing from the depths of one's heart. Selling it as it was would easily earn back the gold that had been spent on it.

And the disciple claimed that even this was impossible?

When Elik had praised the ingenuity of filling the room with candlelight, she had given high marks for flexible thinking and shameless eloquence. Yet this fool repeated a shortcut heard somewhere else like a parrot, had no business sense at all, and now asked for instruction.

Elik's face twisted horribly.

"You turned gold into worthless metal, yet you don't even know how to turn metal into gold! You turn gold into trash, yet you wish to become the king's disciple?! Get out! Do not return until you have turned that into gold!"

At Elik's roar, the disciple withdrew in terror. Having driven away the pathetic disciple in one stroke, Elik sat down with a click of her tongue.

The sound of the bell was nice. The sound of the bell.

But such a technique was far too trivial for Elik, who possessed the authority of understanding. The moment she understood it, it became too easy...

No technique could move Elik anyway. If that was the case, should a disciple not at least have some ingenuity, like the shameless one who had brought candles?

If she had known it would turn out like this, she should never have praised that disciple in the first place. Lamenting this, Elik called for the next visitor.

A day passed.

Then two days.

Over three days, Elik attended to countless disciples and received guests who had come from afar. Just as the memory of the disciple who had made the fine bell began to fade amid her daily routine...

"I-I did it! Eternal Elik, I have accomplished what Your Majesty commanded!"

The disciple had kept the promise to turn the bell into gold.

The method, however, went far beyond even the imagination of Elik, who had mastered every technique and form of knowledge.

Before Elik sat a brilliantly shining golden bell.

Footnotes:

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