WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 392: Lightning Did Not Fall from the Sky - 15

──────

I told the Lightning Thief about the chaos outside and continued.

"Fighting for faith is for faith. Fighting for the Progenitor or your species is, quite literally, for the Progenitor and your species. How can killing humans for those reasons be for humanity? A small sacrifice? Only those who survive today get to enjoy another day like yesterday tomorrow. The people who die today have no tomorrow."

Before the Lightning Thief could say anything else, I hurriedly added,

"Ah, I'm not criticizing anyone. Animals killing each other is natural. Whether it's for food, mates, or territory, killing another for what they need has always happened. There's nothing particularly new about it."

"You approve even of a massacre like that?"

"Would denying it make it disappear? Would anything change if you yelled at me while dead? The ones stopping that massacre aren't the Sanctum or the vampires. They're neither you, already dead, nor me, sitting here and chatting. Only the animal who loves humans is desperately trying to stop the fight."

Who was better, who was worse, what ought to be done. That was far too unbeastlike a way of thinking. Even a hermit crab living in the mudflats could foam at the mouth and insist that something which had already happened should not have happened.

"You want to save humanity? Then prove it. Stake everything and use your power here. You're dead, but the Demon God's trace has been engraved upon the world. You can still use your power, can't you?"

"There's no need. Claudia has defensive functions for times like this. Once they activate..."

"The power the Thunder Lord can use? Who do you think she'll use it on? Will she use it for the 'humanity' you have in mind?"

The Thunder Lord would most likely fire at Perru and me first. Elders could only die if someone killed them in what amounted to suicide, so she would obviously kill me first, since I was easier to kill.

"If that's your will, I'll accept it. But don't claim you're doing it for humanity afterward. I won't acknowledge it."

"I don't need your acknowledgment."

"Then I'll put it differently. If you abandon them, even you, as a human, won't be able to acknowledge yourself."

Azzy and the regressor were one thing, but Perru would certainly die if left alone. Verdigris's power would eat away at the body the Lord of Gold had regenerated for her. Every human was living on borrowed time, but Perru's end was far closer than most. Now, that cruel clock was ticking several times faster.

There wasn't much time left. It was time for the Lightning Thief to choose. Realizing that he was being tested in turn, the Lightning Thief clenched the kite string.

"Are you testing me?"

"The dead sure have a lot to say. Decide quickly. I want to know what the humanity you kept crying out for really is."

It did not matter what he chose. It was simply that sort of thing.

Still, the Lightning Thief before me was his mental image engraved upon the world. A mental image read through mind-reading could neither lie nor turn away from its true feelings.

If he truly intended to choose faith, then I hoped he would hurry to the Celestial God's side.

"...What is your goal, King of Humanity? Are you trying to return this world to an age of savagery? To that horrific time before Year One?"

"Do I look like someone who can turn back time? How would I even do that?"

"Then why? Why are you seeking out Demon Gods and knowledge that might ruin humanity? What are you trying to do?"

Of course, I couldn't lie here either. That was no problem. I'd been an honest person from the start.

"To remind humanity that humans are animals."

I calmly conveyed my true feelings to the Lightning Thief.

"Ideals, justice, truth, great causes, morality. No matter how beautiful and grand they seem, they're only tools humans made to use as they please. They create reasons to kill others with those tools, then use those reasons as an excuse to kill humans. If those things were real, I should fight them on humanity's behalf. Sadly, they're in human hearts, so I can't see or kill them. Should I split open their heads and pull them out? Or should I kill every human to get rid of those things? I can't do that, can I?"

Or could I? Wasn't the King of Sin precisely such a case?

Well, it was neither something I had done nor something I would do, so it was none of my concern. In any case.

"We aren't such great beings. We're merely equally insignificant, lowly animals. We haven't been chosen by God, nor have we been granted the right to handle all things as we please. What we do is no different in essence from an animal rolling in mud beneath the blazing midday sun. I want to convince myself of that, and through me, make all humans accept it too."

That was why I was still the Beast King.

I murmured quietly as I looked at the Lightning Thief. His face was covered in contempt, disgust, and unease.

It didn't feel bad.

That expression wasn't directed at me.

"...As expected, I cannot agree with you."

"It doesn't matter whether you agree. I already know what you wanted to hide. The moment you came here, your secret was exposed anyway."

Why was he here in the first place?

He had entrusted himself to faith and volunteered to become its underling. He had agreed to return lightning to the sky and declare it the Celestial God's property. He had even agreed to turn the Lightning Thief's tale into a foolish story about stealing the great Celestial God's treasure.

Yet his mental image was here.

What did that mean?

"When lightning struck you, when it flowed through your body along the kite string, what happened?"

"...!"

"What did you feel in that lightning that made you so afraid of others learning its power? Why did you guard against the Lesser States' homunculi, who didn't even exist yet, and prevent them from being born?"

The truth the Lightning Thief wanted to hide.

He had not feared even a falling bolt of lightning, yet he trembled after being struck by one. That was because he had glimpsed a secret terrifying even to recall, a truth that should never have been glimpsed.

"The lightning you stole and bestowed upon humanity literally came from the sky. But that was only a tiny part of it. The real lightning had been on the ground from the beginning."

Lightning had not fallen from the sky.

It had been here from the start.

The Lightning Thief, Frang, had been struck by lightning. Amid a shock like lightning splitting his mind apart, he realized something.

When the hand and arm gripping the kite string trembled uncontrollably, when his knees buckled regardless of his extraordinary wisdom and cold reason, when his bladder loosened and filthy liquid ran down his entire body. When this body disgraced itself, making a mockery of the sage who had tempered both mind and flesh to their limits.

Frang realized it.

The Lightning Thief's miserable state lay beyond his will, faith, and resolve. Lightning was touching a part of his body more fundamental than pain.

As though it were pulling strings attached to every corner of his body and controlling him...

He realized that lightning was moving his body.

So that was why he wanted to hide it. If the Lord of Gold created bodies through alchemy, the sensations and mind needed to move those bodies could perhaps be infused through lightning. Of course, lightning alone would not be enough. Still, a sage who believed in purity of mind more than anyone would have been repulsed even by the possibility.

"Don't feel wronged. It was a truth that would be revealed eventually. The idea of running lightning directly through a body can't be yours alone. Well, no one but you would willingly do it."

"...As expected, I cannot follow you."

Frang glared at me as though he wanted to kill me, then wound the kite string around his hand a couple of times and pulled.

It was as though he had pulled down lightning hidden within the clouds. The distant bolt was dragged closer. The innocent kite, having met the wrong master, was sacrificed to the lightning first. The current running down its string burned Frang's entire body. The current that seeped in through his fingertips crushed him mercilessly.

A normal human would have died dozens of times over from such a shock, but Frang was unaffected. It was not simply because this place existed within a mental image.

The two had been one from the beginning.

"King of Humanity. I don't agree with your thoughts, but this time, I'll act as you wish."

Now an incarnation of lightning, he reached out his hand.

What did the Progenitor mean to an Elder?

The beginning and the end. A savior who had rescued them at the brink of death, and the master of their second lives who would one day take those lives away. A king they had to love and serve with all the blood in their bodies, and a racial god they had to revere and worship.

That was why vampires did not believe in gods. No fool would choose heresy when a true god that actually moved and acted stood before them.

"Do not act rashly. Tyrkanzyaka will be here soon."

In that sense, Shei was an unbeliever, mere livestock invoking a god's name. Valdamir wondered whether he should be angered that Shei had casually spoken of the Progenitor as though she were a friend, or watch and wait because she might truly be a friend. He postponed his judgment for the moment. It would not be too late to decide after learning more.

Valdamir turned his head and looked into the distance. A structure as large as a hill towered near Claudia.

Shei had no way to stop the fight between the Steel Maiden and Tyrkanzyaka. No one could restrain two people who were so close to invincible.

So she separated them.

Using Jizan, Shei raised the ground and sent both of them sliding in opposite directions. Tyrkanzyaka and Peruel were monsters who could shatter even the earth, but even they could not stand without anything beneath their feet. Bound by an unavoidable law of nature, they slid away from each other.

That was how Tyrkanzyaka arrived here.

Tyrkanzyaka scanned the surroundings with sharp eyes, then suddenly spotted a familiar figure collapsed on the ground and hurried over.

"...Hyu?"

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried