WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 365

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A Tale of the Past: The Fall of the Gold State

When gold became too plentiful, gold lost its value.

Before it happened, people hadn't even known it was possible. The old saying about regarding gold as you would a stone was meant as a caution against becoming enslaved to gold's worth, not as any genuine prediction that it would one day equal the value of an actual stone.

Only after living through it did people attach names like the Gold Curse or inflation and scramble to explain the phenomenon. The Sanctum, once it grasped the situation, rushed to consecrate "clean" gold to guarantee its value, and until alchemy spread and alchemic coins came into wide use, sanctified gold became the continent's sole trusted currency.

Other nations watched the Gold State collapse, put their own systems in order, and devised countermeasures. Specialists who studied economics as a dedicated field began to appear. Humanity had thus learned of one more thing the world did not naturally permit.

All of it, though, was built on the ruins of the Gold State.

Months after Demo's execution, the chaos inside the Gold State spun beyond all control.

Craftsmen who had been pushed out of power took up arms and rose in revolt. They joined forces with regional factions, supplied them with high-quality weapons, and pushed inward toward the capital to reclaim their authority. Nobody seemed able to stop them as they marched forward, executing alchemists on sight.

But after Demo's death, the alchemists were no longer willing to sit still.

They made weapons with alchemy, weapons designed to kill. Not necessarily swords or spears. Poisons, explosives, mechanical devices, traps. To survive, and to kill their enemies, alchemists kept advancing.

War breeds technology. Alchemy, which for years had been used for nothing but producing gold, gradually widened its scope. All manner of strange and unimaginable tools emerged, most of them designed to kill people. Alchemists who could build mechanical devices without forges or workshops carried out every kind of sabotage and threw the Gold State into deeper chaos.

The technological gap was clear. But how could craftsmen ever accept alchemy? They went after alchemists with classical methods, and the alchemists, comparatively weaker as a faction, evaded them in bizarre ways and kept resisting.

Battle, destruction, death, chaos. It didn't take long for the Gold State to be drowned in blood and fire.

The entire nation became the enemy of alchemists, yet the alchemists clung on and kept themselves alive. That was partly a testament to their ability, but more than anything it was because of a single ghost wandering the Gold State.

"King Elik! Stop him, I beg you!"

The craftsmen who had driven out the alchemists and reclaimed power no longer respected the king as they once had. However excellent her craft, it fell short beside alchemy. Those who had witnessed a greater wonder found little to admire in mere technical mastery.

Above all else, this was an age of force. What King Elik made was excellent, but it wasn't powerful. What does the sharpest sword in the world mean if the person swinging it is weak? The warlords held real power, and the king was treated as a puppet.

Had she not possessed the ability to comprehend a complex alchemic device simply by looking at it, the warlords wouldn't have granted her even that much.

"The traitor Demo is supposed to be dead! And yet he is still walking freely through the Gold State and using alchemy!"

Even calling it that much was a stretch.

Elik, who had spent the previous day grinding through an overloaded schedule, rubbed the corners of her eyes and answered the general's demand.

"Is he not restoring collapsed buildings and reclaiming contaminated land? There are more pressing matters to deal with right now."

"Ha. Even the king's patience has run out, I see! Do you truly think that?"

She had no strength left to rebuke the insolence. The most powerful figure in the Gold State at this point was the Grand General, and King Elik had been reduced to nothing more than the crown sitting on her head. She waited for him to continue, exhaustion written across her face.

"It is alchemy. He is using alchemy right now! The common people, who understand nothing, are thanking him for restoring their buildings. Some fools go so far as to praise alchemists, even helping them! The whole country ended up like this because of them, and yet these people believe only what their eyes show them, heaping praise on the man without knowing they are glorifying a cursed power!"

Of course the people are grateful when he restores their buildings. If the general finds that so offensive, he is welcome to go build them something himself.

She swallowed the sarcasm and replied.

"Then go and stop Demo yourself. That should settle it."

"Well, the thing is..."

The general trailed off.

Nothing worked on Demo. No weapon could wound him, no poison could kill him. He ignored anyone who spoke to him and simply wandered the Gold State, always making something.

Once, one of the general's subordinate commanders had swung a blade at him, hoping to kill Demo a second time and make an example of him.

What followed was the sight of the obstacle being disassembled.

The general's eyes clenched shut as the memory surfaced.

"...He has stepped outside the natural order. The man is possessed by a devil."

There was no other way to put it. Blades worthy of being called the finest of a generation appeared in an instant and took a human apart. Watching a renowned commander come undone piece by piece and scatter across the ground went beyond fear into something that made the flesh crawl.

Even the priests who had come from the Sanctum muttered things like "Demon God" and retreated. For those who were supposed to stand against alchemy, this was more than an irritant. That was precisely why the general was now pressing King Elik.

From Elik's perspective, of course, the demand was laughable. If she had power, the first thing she would do with it was sweep away the predators competing for control.

And here he was telling her, out of nowhere, to go handle a ghost. She swallowed a string of curses and sighed.

"And what exactly am I supposed to do about it?"

"Isn't resolving things like this what a king is for? The royal line has always had its mysterious gifts."

He couldn't solve it himself, yet he held the baseless conviction that a king could somehow manage it. Did he believe in her, or didn't he?

King Elik let out a hollow laugh and decided to go along with it.

"I will go. Make preparations."

The general hadn't expected her to agree so easily. He paused a moment, then called out.

"His Majesty departs. Everyone, make ready!"

Riding in her palanquin, Elik turned the problem over in her mind.

As king of the Gold State, she had no way to deal with Demo either. More to the point, she had no real desire to. Even in death, he was trying to restore the Gold State.

The country was full of thugs who claimed loyalty while exploiting the king, who swore to protect it while tearing it apart. The broken economy showed no sign of recovering, and what craftsmen remained were too busy forging weapons to do anything productive. Meanwhile their leader was dead, and alchemists consumed by bitterness were launching indiscriminate attacks across the entire Gold State.

If King Elik dealt with Demo in the middle of all this, things would only get worse.

So why was she going to him? The reason was simple.

She would rather see Demo than the general.

After a full day of searching, word came that he had been found in a secluded mountain village. On her way to find him, Elik spent a while picking through words.

Thinking she would rather see Demo than the general had been a terrible delusion. He was the disciple she had taught, raised, and killed. He had died branded a traitor, and yet here he was, risen again, fixing what was broken. What was she supposed to say to him?

When he was alive she had seen him as hateful, as the root of every problem. Now he was the person she missed most.

If it had been Demo, if he were still alive, perhaps he would have found some outlandish method no one had imagined, the way he had turned those bells into gold, and saved the Gold State.

But that was past. Demo was dead. Nothing remained but a ghost clinging to an unburied body, wandering the Gold State. That he was still using alchemy was surprising, but perhaps that too was a miracle his obsession had made possible.

King Elik lowered her head. What face could she show him now? She found herself quietly wishing she would never arrive.

Her wishes meant nothing. The palanquin carrying her reached Demo's side. King Elik steadied her breath inside the stopped palanquin, then pushed the door open.

Far ahead, she could see him finishing repairs on a crumbled house. Uriaa Elik swallowed her grief and longing and called his name.

"...Demo."

No answer. Demo did not react. His face was as pale as a corpse's, and his hands kept moving. Crumbled roofing fitted itself back together.

She had thought she would have no face to show him, but now that she was actually here, all the agonizing she had done on the way vanished like a mirage. Uriaa walked toward him, warmth in her step, and spoke.

"Your teacher comes to see you and you won't even greet me. You deserve a scolding."

Driven by nothing but lingering will, he couldn't hear her voice. Knowing this, Uriaa felt no disappointment. She simply watched him, quietly.

His pale face had no color in it. The old sharpness was gone from his eyes. He ignored every other stimulus and drifted toward whatever was broken. When he found something ruined, he undid the ruin with alchemy.

The village that had been a ruin was slowly becoming something new. In a Gold State steeped in destruction and death, how long had it been since she had seen anything like this? She had watched him do exactly this countless times, and yet seeing it again now stirred something unexpected in her. Uriaa stood there, half lost in watching, before she finally spoke.

"What grievance is keeping your eyes open... does the country that killed you still hold you that fast?"

No need to say it aloud. Even in death, he had worried less about hating the king and more about the broken Gold State. Uriaa pressed down the feeling swelling in her chest, grabbed Demo by the shoulders, and let out a small, broken sound.

"You are the only one. You are the only one who cares for the Gold State even in death. Everyone else thinks only of their own safety, rather than... how to fix any of this."

Then something strange happened.

Demo stopped moving. As though he recognized his king, he went still and looked at Uriaa.

In truth, from the Golden Mirror's perspective it was simply a matter of not yet being able to determine whether she was an obstacle or not, but Uriaa didn't know that. Believing some fragment of feeling had reached him, she pulled him into a tighter embrace.

"...I went too far. How can I, no, how can I ever repay what I owe you..."

She was speaking aloud, in a voice close to breaking, the apology she had never managed while he was alive.

A sharp sound. Something sliced across Uriaa's back. Her back blazed as though seared by fire, and the unexpected impact sent her lurching badly. A cold voice followed the blade.

"I knew it would come to this. The alchemists haven't disappeared because the king has been too soft."

As she crumpled helplessly, the general appeared behind her, lifting a blood-slicked sword. He looked down at the dying king with cold eyes and murmured.

"If Your Majesty is found here as a corpse, everyone will think she was killed in an alchemist attack. That will move the self-styled loyalists who swear allegiance to a hollow crown."

Only then did Uriaa understand she had walked into a trap.

The general had intended to kill her from the start. He had known Demo was out in a distant region and had pushed Elik to seek him out. His plan was to kill her and pin the crime on the alchemists.

King Elik's power was one passed down since ancient times. No matter how deep the Gold State's chaos had grown, no matter how clearly the king's weakness had shown itself, many people still held the unbroken royal line in reverence. The general meant to use them.

"To root out the alchemists hiding across the country, the nation must move as one. Your Majesty's life will be put to good use."

As the general turned away without looking back, Demo, who had been standing still, moved.

Death is the dissolution of the boundary between self and world. Uriaa was dying, becoming an object, and alchemy reached her body too.

When a person dies, they become an object. Or rather, they were always objects even while alive. It is only the resistance of the living that makes external forces difficult to apply.

Demo registered Uriaa as something damaged and began the procedure to fix her.

Without any consideration. From a purely mechanical point of view.

"Ggh...!"

It could not work. Parts of her body that had lost their vitality had become subjects of alchemy, and they occupied the space that was her body while no longer fully being her body. Severed muscles were knotted back together by force. Broken bones were plastered over like cracks filled in a wall. Each time she twisted in terrible pain, the improvised repairs took even greater damage.

Every time he tried again, Uriaa felt as though another part of her was being torn away whole.

Long after this, the Golden Mirror, who had learned to create crops with alchemy, would come to understand how bodies were assembled. But the Golden Mirror whose collection was still incomplete was not yet that omnipotent. The King of Steel, Uriaa Elik, screamed in agony as she was disassembled alive.

And yet.

Even in that horrific pain, Uriaa felt something like relief. Even this suffering, which no one could quite put into words, felt like something she had always deserved to receive. His power moved through every corner of her body, remaking it without asking, and what came first was not revulsion but a perverse, guilty kind of ease.

"...If it comes to this anyway."

Better to become a part of him, perhaps, than to go on suffering as a king in name only.

Her existence dissolved inward. The Demon God took her in. The King of Steel, who had once mastered every craft, had the very substance of her being transformed into alchemic material, and became the stuff from which the Golden Mirror was made.

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