WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 357: The King Who Kills Others, the God Who Kills Himself - 15

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Ding. The bell rang in my hand.

Bells had long been used to wake people from sleep. The Lord of Gold's relic did the same, its clear chime pulling me from where I had been submerged beneath his mindscape and dragging me back to reality.

My deeply submerged consciousness rose to the surface. When I came to my senses, I was back at the moment I had rung the Lord of Gold's bell.

No matter how much time passed inside a mindscape, only an instant passed in reality. I had spoken with the Lord of Gold for quite some time in there, but to anyone else, I must have looked like I was playing some sort of game to see how fast I could ring a bell.

My mind may have been elsewhere, but my body had frozen for a moment as it tried to process everything that had happened. Did I read too much? I needed to get my head together quickly.

"Demo!"

That was when Elik, still moving at full speed from her charge, shoved me aside. Unable to read her thoughts, I couldn't react and tumbled roughly across the ground. A heavy pain shot through my back and waist.

Pain really was proof that I was alive. It hurt enough to clear my head, at least. Not that I'd wanted it to.

"You bastard, what did you do to Demo...!"

Elik glared at me with furious eyes, then suddenly stopped.

Her eyes widened as she turned her trembling head toward the Lord of Gold. Shock, fear, and an unfamiliar terror filled her face as she called his name.

"De...mo?"

There was no answer to the ruler's call.

Instead, the Lord of Gold moved with a far clearer will than before. When the small boy took a step, a roar sounded as though a giant were leveling the earth.

He didn't walk somewhere because there was a road. A road appeared wherever he walked.

Rather than follow the world as it already was, he cut, reshaped, and remade it into the world he wanted. There was no more fitting being to call a Demon God.

With a rush, the world before the Lord of Gold transformed. When he took another step, the dirt was finely packed and leveled, while rocks were cut into square blocks and laid over it. That instantaneous creation seemed as though time itself had been turned back.

Having made a broad road, the Lord of Gold strode forward proudly. The homunculus soldiers and weapons behind him began to march after him. So did Elik, the Golden Lord who had overseen the Golden Palace.

The Lord of Gold was the relic of Demo, the Demon God. It was the final work Demo had created just before dying, driven by the wish to rebuild the Golden Kingdom.

The strange part was that it had spent all this time happily playing house inside the Golden Palace. It wouldn't have been strange if it had acted this way from the beginning. The Lord of Gold's wish had always been the same.

Still, guilt-ridden as he was, the Lord of Gold had hesitated when creation required destruction. That was why he had wandered through the Lesser States, repeating futile acts of creation.

Now that he had recognized his inner self and escaped his restraints, there was nothing left to stop him.

Things shattered and crumbled. Objects turned into raw materials soon took new forms and descended upon this land as parts of the Golden Kingdom.

To achieve true creation, the Lord of Gold advanced while bringing certain destruction.

The legion surrounding us withdrew. No, had the legion really withdrawn? The Golden Palace itself was moving, and it felt as though the world were advancing before us.

Once it had moved far enough away, Hilde let out a relieved sigh and reverted to her original form. Then she skipped over to my side with a lively expression.

"Just as I thought, Father! 'I' believed in you!"

'Oh my? You actually pulled it off? I thought you'd only stir up his anger!'

Her thoughts and words were completely different. How dare she lie to my face? I pushed myself up and answered.

"You believed in me? Really?"

"Of course. If 'I' don't believe in you, who will? 'I' know you better than anyone, Father!"

"What do you know? At least wet your lips before you lie."

"Lick. I did!"

"That just means you're lying."

"Ah! You caught me!"

Hilde hadn't trusted me completely. It wasn't that she doubted my ability, but that she had hoped this plan would go wrong. Still, she had followed me here and helped with the plan anyway. She really wasn't right in the head.

Maybe she had a gambler's mindset. Or maybe she was simply too immersed in her acting.

Either way, as Hilde had said, the mission had succeeded. There would be no war.

The problem was the side effects this would bring about. How was I supposed to explain this? I needed to think it over.

More than anyone else...

"...What happened? Where is the Lord of Gold going?"

I needed to seriously consider how to explain it to Perru. For the sake of my life, if nothing else.

First, I should explain it quickly. Maybe listing it out would make it easier to understand.

"Everyone. I have good news and bad news."

Hilde responded in a theatrical tone.

"Why am I suddenly getting scared? If even Father thinks it's bad news, will the world end tomorrow?"

"No. The world won't end."

"...?"

'What does that mean? Does something else end? No, surely not!'

She understood it perfectly. Why wasn't she reacting to that part? I might miss my window of opportunity if I dragged this out, so I spoke a little faster.

"I'll tell you the good news first."

"So I don't get a choice? 'I' wanted to hear the bad news first."

"Forget that. After having a serious talk with the Lord of Gold, I don't think a war with the military state will happen!"

Huh? Why was their reaction so cold? It was clearly good news, but the response was smaller than I'd expected. Hilde whined reluctantly at what I had told them.

"That isn't very good news for 'me.' I'd rather there be a war. Once we get rid of the Lord of Gold, the Lesser States are nothing much."

"...What is the bad news?"

Perru cut Hilde off and urged me to continue.

Ugh. Had I failed to soften the blow with the good news? My attitude was important from here on. Clearing my throat, I delivered the bad news with as much regret as I could manage.

"The Lord of Gold intends to destroy the Lesser States."

It was a simple fact, with nothing added or omitted.

Maybe it was too plain. Neither Perru nor Hilde understood immediately, and they spent a moment turning my words over in their minds.

Hilde recovered first and tilted her head.

"Huh? That is good news for 'me.'"

Good news for one person could be terrible news for another. I learned a truth of life here.

Perru asked again with an unbelieving expression.

"...What?"

'...What? What did he do? There is no reason for the Lord of Gold to do that.'

"I'll explain briefly. Perru, the Golden Bell is a relic of the Lord of Gold. I was going to undergo a test to earn the relic's recognition. But instead of giving me a test like a proper relic, it kept going on about rebuilding the Golden Kingdom. So I criticized it, asking whether something that would be picked clean by jackals in two days and leave nothing behind could even be called a country. And then, would you believe it?"

Technically, the Lord of Gold had undergone my test, but close enough. I'd let that slide. Wetting my lips, I continued.

"I barely said anything, and it declared that it would kill every jackal to give lasting stability to the Golden Kingdom!"

"...A lie. That cannot be."

"I wish it were a lie too. Go see for yourself. There probably isn't much time, because the Lord of Gold is moving to burn down the jackals' nest."

At the last moment, the Lord of Gold had thought of somewhere. Before I was thrown back into reality, I read that location.

The Lesser States had become a half-nomadic country because the Lord of Gold moved constantly. Its people had to avoid him as he carried out destruction for the sake of creation, while scavenging the byproducts he left behind. That was why no one could establish a permanent home and they were forced to wander.

There was only one exception.

A village at the foot of a mountain had never been touched by the Lord of Gold. It had become the only permanent settlement in the Lesser States.

A city ruled by the greatest Lord, the Thunder Lord. A city that taught alchemy to children and provided proper food so people could escape the Lord of Gold's curse.

"Claudia. The only settled land in the Lesser States, and the city with the largest population."

Until now, the Lord of Gold had only created things to rebuild the Golden Kingdom. He had changed his approach.

A Golden Kingdom left without people would become food for jackals. So wouldn't it kill two birds with one stone to kill the jackals and use them as homunculi to protect the Golden Kingdom? That was the conclusion he had reached. He was moving to capture the jackals and use them as watchdogs.

As a relic, the Lord of Gold would seek to kill the jackals through rational, practical means. He wouldn't overlook the simplest method. Morality? That was for the living. The Lord of Gold, who had already died horribly, wouldn't care about such things.

"The Lord of Gold will destroy that place first, then turn everyone who lives there into homunculi. Homunculi who will protect the Golden Kingdom forever!"

The homunculi the Lord of Gold would create now would be on an entirely different level from the current ones. Deeply disappointed in humanity, he had never sincerely “designed” humans until I freed him from his restraints.

How far could the Lord of Gold go if he put his heart into creating humans? At what point would they cease to be human?

I was curious as the King of Humanity, but Perru grabbed my collar and pulled me close before I could think further. My waist bent on its own.

"...What have you done...?"

Perru glared at me fiercely, as though she would kill me, filled with the strongest emotion I had seen lately.

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