WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 390

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Lightning Did Not Fall from the Sky - 13

"Vampires cannot mix with humans. They drink blood."

Those words landed with extra weight, given that vampires were at that very moment sweeping through the humans outside. Whether or not the lightning thief knew what was happening beyond these walls, he passed his words along to me all the same.

"Obvious, isn't it? No matter how well they communicate, who can sleep soundly with a monster that treats your blood as a staple food living right next door? It's sheep and wolves in the same pen. Those who have changed inevitably clash with those who haven't."

"Hearing that from someone on the Sanctum's side doesn't exactly inspire confidence."

"You think vampires being shunned is entirely the Sanctum's fault?"

Well, not entirely. People get anxious when someone covets their money, and money is just money. When someone covets your blood, your only option is to run. You don't die from having no money, but you die just fine without blood.

"The King of Humanity can't afford to be as thick as an ordinary human. Difference is fracture. There are only two ways humans and vampires can coexist: vampires get pushed out, like everywhere else, or humans become livestock, like in the Fog Duchy. If they live together, a hierarchy has to be made to keep them separate."

"Fine. What does any of that have to do with the Lesser States?"

"The Lesser States were on track to produce something very similar to vampires. Homunculi, alchemical humans with perfect physical structures."

My thoughts went to the Golden Mirror's homunculi. Ordinary homunculi had no selfhood, and you needed one built from the homunculus of a lord with innate arcane before you could hold a real conversation with it. That was because those who had awakened innate arcane through alchemy had been restored, within the Golden Mirror's domain, to something close to their originals.

But homunculi were puppets the Golden Mirror had made, not real humans. I couldn't read their thoughts.

"The Golden Mirror's Demon God power is the force that disassembles the world and reassembles it. The world naturally includes humans. This is closely guarded, but the Golden Mirror can alchemize even human beings. Fortunately, all it can produce are husks, but even that is frightening enough. Picture it. Humans with bodies that are healthy, strong, and functionally perfect."

There had been one exception, though. The Thunder Lord alone had thoughts I could read. The same material as a homunculus, but a human who had spent enough time perfecting herself.

"Like the Thunder Lord?"

"Exactly. If humans like that gathered in numbers, they might come to rule over ordinary humans the way vampires do. Worse than vampires, actually. Vampires are limited in number and despised because of their blood-drinking, but these people would be barely distinguishable from ordinary humans. They'd be admired the way the Thunder Lord is admired. Every ordinary human who possibly could would want to become like her."

"Isn't the Thunder Lord already admired?"

"That's fine. She's 'special.'"

Special. The Thunder Lord believed with absolute certainty that she was special. Every time I read her thoughts, that conviction rang out so loud I had made a mental note: this one has a particularly powerful sense of identity.

But as it turned out, the Thunder Lord's idea of "special" and my idea of "ordinary" were closer in meaning than I had thought.

"Because she's special, she's allowed to be different. Everyone else tells themselves it isn't that they're lacking, it's that she is special, and that's how they make peace with it. The Thunder Lord believes the same thing about herself. So she managed Claudia to make sure no one else like her would appear. Thanks to her, the Lesser States remained land ruled by a Demon God without ever quite crossing the line."

"So that's what it means to keep the Demon God hidden?"

"Yes. Demon Gods transform the world. That transformation includes humans. But no matter when, 'humanity' itself must not change. It has to continue with its dignity and purity intact. A today that is the same as yesterday guarantees a tomorrow that will never end. Whatever forbidden knowledge you lay hands on, you have to protect yourself as you move forward."

The lightning thief's conviction looked like something that would hold even through a storm. With rain and wind hammering down and lightning striking close enough to feel, he had never let go of the kite string, and now he gave me this warning.

"Savage. You, the Beast King, would probably accept even that kind of change as the natural order of things. We're different. We will protect humanity in the truest sense of the word."

A note of faith in the Celestial God ran through every word. Demon God or not, they were still human. Once, perhaps, a devout believer. There are people in the world who are this uncooperative with me. Not everything goes the way I want.

Still, I am the King of Humanity. There is no one I cannot understand. Not even a Demon God. Not even a person of faith.

"But you know it too, don't you? That you, having become a Demon God, have no standing to say any of that."

"That's a stretch. What was I supposed to do about being too exceptional? At this level, 'special' doesn't even enter into it. It was just bad luck. I never asked for this."

"That's not what I'm talking about. Why did someone who wanted today to be the same as yesterday do what you did?"

The lightning thief misread my meaning and answered.

"You mean building Claudia? That couldn't be helped. It was for the sake of humans too, if I hadn't built a city worth living in, the people of the Lesser States who had lost their country would have entrusted their lives to the Golden Mirror."

That wasn't it. He had, certainly, built Claudia from the ground up. He had helped the Sanctum's apostle establish order. He wouldn't have gone by the name Thunder Lord back then, but even so, the lightning thief had devoted himself to the Sanctum the way a member of the sages would. I wasn't talking about the city he built, though. His faith wasn't the point either. I was nothing but a Beast, with no particular interest in concepts like order or belief. There was only one thing I wanted to know.

"Why did you fly a kite? That wasn't something yesterday had."

"What? What kind of a nitpick is that? What's wrong with flying a kite?"

Because it's fun. There was probably no deeper reason than that.

That was enough for me. Sometimes the only reason to do something is that you can.

"Why did you want to make a kite that could fly even on a rainy day? A strong wind is one thing, but there was no particular reason to get it soaked. You could just not fly the kite when it rains."

"Sometimes you just feel like it, don't you? Rainy days especially. Sometimes you want to stand in the rain for no reason at all."

"And on days with thunder and lightning?"

The lightning thief fell silent. As if to speak for what was in his heart, thunder and lightning came crashing down hard. This one missed, but the next time, lightning would not let a helplessly fluttering kite escape.

This was a mindscape, but like those of the other Demon Gods, it was a scene drawn from his own experience and memory. The lightning thief had gone outside with a kite on a day when lightning was striking. It wasn't purely a matter of mood. Even while being lashed by cold rain and wind, his face had been flushed with hot exhilaration.

"Even knowing the lightning would come down on the kite, knowing it would run through you, why did you hold on and refuse to let go?"

"...I simply wanted to."

"Why did you try something you hadn't done before? What were you looking to prove by testing lightning's patience?"

"To help the people living in Claudia. If there was a way to avoid lightning, they'd prosper more."

"That's a pretty cover. You just wanted to do something you hadn't been able to do yesterday. You didn't hesitate for a single moment about taking that step forward."

Humans can deceive themselves about their own feelings. They can distort their own memories and make excuses. But in front of me, a lie with any room for doubt doesn't hold. I may have lost most of my strength, but I'm still the King of Humanity.

"Some sage you are, acting so recklessly. The reason today can't be the same as yesterday is humans like you. Because you take one step forward every single day, the rest of us change."

The lightning thief squeezed his eyes shut and shouted.

"...Fine! But I did it as a member of the sages, for the people of the Lesser States! If I used lightning that killed people to save people instead, that's the most human thing you can do!"

So we've arrived here at last. The intentions were good. It was done with good will. The moment those words come out, the argument stops having any meaning.

"Who said otherwise? I'll grant you that. You contributed enough. Built the Lightning Rod Towers, built a watermill that ran on lightning, built the fields. Whatever brought you to become a Demon God, everything you did with that power was for the sake of humans. You even, though it was an ideology instilled by the Sanctum, turned away from all that enormous fame and accomplishment to keep the Demon God hidden."

"Tch, you already know all this..."

"Even so, is it only yours? Since when did goodwill become your personal property?"

That's what savagery is.

Intent. Feeling. Sincerity. Great glory, devout faith, lofty justice, noble morality. Even those grand, sweeping things get swung around as weapons by small humans. How savage is that?

"You had goodwill. I won't deny that. Even if you looked down on lesser people and felt superior to them, the love you had for those poor souls was real. That's what matters. So the tool matters less."

"...The tool?"

"Yes. The Thunder Lord drove a blade into a total stranger the moment she laid eyes on me. She used faith as a tool and swung it like a weapon. The vampires sensed the Celestial God's breath on the Thunder Lord and her subordinates and tried to kill them all. Both sides are the same. No matter how grand a purpose you drape it in, no matter how much common sense you dress it up as, you're still stabbing other humans with a weapon at the end of it. In that sense, the Celestial God and the vampires are no different."

"Sophistry. How can you compare the Celestial God, which seeks to preserve humanity, with vampires who have strayed beyond it?"

The lightning thief objected, but I had something to say too. I showed him the wound on my stomach and pushed back.

"The Celestial God's messenger, the one who wants to preserve humanity, stabbed me."

"That's because you're a savage."

"So any 'human' that doesn't meet your standards gets killed? Doesn't sound any different from vampires, really."

With the victim standing right there in front of him, and my words being nothing but the truth, the lightning thief couldn't argue back. He might have had something to say, but I got there first.

"Let me show you. Among all the humans killing each other for every reason imaginable, I'll show you what it truly looks like to be on humanity's side."

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