WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 406: The Demon God and the Taboo

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I had never thought Tyr was fast.

She always strolled along at a leisurely pace with the coffin she slept in, looking no different from a turtle. Outside the Abyss, she had indeed been rather sluggish.

Yet Tyr was astonishingly quick in the Fog Duchy. Perhaps her claim that she had divided her darkness to create the mist was not an exaggeration. She controlled the fog around us and moved through it as if swimming. I remained still, but it felt as though the world itself were moving.

By the time I came to my senses, Tyr and I had arrived at a secluded pasture. After confirming no one was nearby, Tyr took a small breath.

"Hyu. What happened just now?"

"It was nothing much. I only used the Demon God's power."

"I have no idea what you consider nothing much."

Since I remained calm, Tyr settled down a little as well. I perched on a suitable rock, and Tyr followed suit, sitting beside me as she sorted through the chaos in her mind.

'Reviving my heart was Hyu's power too. He remembered memories I had lost long ago and rekindled the spark. I was too overwhelmed with joy then, and later I simply wanted to stay with them, so I never pressed him for answers... Would it be all right to ask Hyu? If I pry into the King of Humanity, will he vanish like a fairy?'

She could ask now. I had wanted to hide the fact that I was the King of Humanity if possible, but now that she had found out, there was no real reason to conceal it.

Everyone's cards were being laid bare beyond control. It was probably because the regressor had seen the future once and stirred things up, but as a result, secrets had become meaningless. Everyone was now running at full speed in a race hurtling toward the extreme.

In that case, it was better to reveal my hand completely and join the race than keep it hidden away.

Before Tyr could ask, I spoke first.

"Tyr. The Demon God I met in Claudia possessed a unique power. As you saw, it is the power to control lightning."

"The power Perru used at the end?"

"Yes. Though the way we use it is entirely different."

Since it had come up, I opened my palm for Tyr to see. Electricity crackled through the empty air. It was not as powerful as Perru or the Thunder Lord, but it was enough for one person to wield.

Having witnessed the mystery before her eyes, Tyr finally decided what to ask.

"Hyu. Can the King of Humanity... use the Demon God's power?"

I had told her once before, but it had been too vague back then. Should I explain it properly?

If I was going to make her an ally, I had to put her on the same starting line.

"No. Every human can use the Demon God's power. The Demon God is a principle of the world."

Tyr thought for a long time before answering.

"A principle of the world... That sounds similar to something ancient mages used to say."

"It is probably the same thing. The magic mages use is also a fragment bestowed by the Demon God. It is only a matter of how it is used."

Someone who truly knew nothing did not even know what they did not know. Tyr's mind was filled only with vague, directionless questions. From a teacher's perspective, she would have been the hardest kind of student to deal with.

But who was I? I was the King of Humanity. I read all of Tyr's ambiguous questions and chose the one answer that pierced through them all.

"The world existed before humans did. Within its great principles and currents, beasts simply lived. But some beasts read the flow of the world and shaped it to their advantage."

"Humans?"

"Not only humans. Birds that flap their wings, spiders that build homes, beavers that raise dams. Every beast that has flowed along with the world understands and uses it in its own way."

With a flick of my finger, two cards fluttered like birds. I stood them on the rock and made a house of cards. After knocking it down, I pressed the cards together without a gap and made a dam.

"Understanding and shaping the world is not exclusive to humans. All beasts do something similar. Humans are simply a little better at it. Humans who turned that skill into curiosity tried to understand the world so they could use tools better... and after countless attempts, they eventually reached its fundamental principles."

"The principles of the world?"

"Yes. They reached the principles of the world itself, rather than merely using them as tools. To put it another way, instead of picking up fire and using it, they learned how to make fire. The Demon God is what happens when principles are refined into laws, a gift and power left to humanity by an enlightened one who understood this world."

I pressed my palm firmly against the rock. It would have been difficult to move with my own strength or weight, but when I used earth magic, it caved in. Beneath my handprint, the rock had turned into soil.

When I circled my finger, a dandelion bloomed from a handful of dirt. A seed that had lain hidden in a crack in the rock and died from drying out was forcibly made to sprout.

"The power to change the world. Magic is simply the use of this Demon God through standardized methods. At its core, it is a power allowed to every beast."

"...Vampires could not use it."

"That could not be helped because of the nature of vampires. The boundary between outside and inside is vague for you. To change the world, you need to establish yourself as the center, but vampires had no clear boundary between themselves and the outside world. Ah, though Tyr might be able to now that she has regained her heart."

First, she would need to control the immense power circulating inside her body, but still.

Tyr nodded and moved on to her next question.

"If the Demon God is a power allowed to humans, why did the Sanctum seal it away?"

"Oh, you figured that out."

"Was it not obvious? The Sanctum had a hand in things both in the Abyss and Cloud Village."

She could sniff out the Sanctum's involvement remarkably well. I nodded.

"The Sanctum did not actually seal away the Demon Gods themselves. They do not have that ability. As you saw with the Lord of Gold and Mother Earth, they openly revealed themselves to the world."

"They did. Their teachings spread through the world as well. Then what was the Sanctum doing about it?"

"Simple. They sealed away one piece of the Demon God's knowledge to keep humans from committing taboos."

Tyr reacted to the word taboo. As a vampire of gluttony who drank the blood of others, she was closer to taboos than anyone else in the world. With an unpleasant expression, Tyr mentioned them.

"You mean the Four Taboos the Sanctum decided on by itself?"

"Yes. You know all Four Taboos, right?"

"Of course I do. I have heard them so often that I could list all four right now."

"Please do."

There was no reason for me to explain something we both knew. Tyr gladly accepted the task I passed to her.

"Class-1 Taboo, Gluttony. The act of consuming something wicked and horrific to fill one's body. Those vermin saw vampires and condemned us as the spawn of gluttony before attacking us. We only take blood without claiming lives."

She did not say it outright, but the wicked and horrific thing was usually another human. Tyr frowned and continued.

"Class-2 Taboo, Grafting. The act of discarding the body made by the Creator and changing it into something else. The creations of black magic with the horns or wings of beasts sewn onto their bodies are the result of grafting."

"In the Lesser States, they replaced their bodies with machinery."

"Yes. That could be called grafting as well. For something they declared taboo, they have not done much to stop it. In any case, the next Class-3 Taboo is..."

Tyr, who had been speaking primly, suddenly clamped her mouth shut. She had started to mention the next Class-3 Taboo, then vaguely trailed off.

"...N-next is the Class-3 Taboo."

"What is it? Do you not know?"

"I do! It is..."

'The Class-3 Taboo is coupling... I know it is taboo, but how could I say such an embarrassing word in front of a man?!'

Good grief. She was blushing just from saying that? How old was she, acting like an adolescent girl? If it was so difficult for her, I would say it for her.

"I will tell you. The Class-3 Taboo is Coupling. It is the taboo of joining humans with something else and conceiving something other than human. There are many methods, such as bestiality and orgies. The most famous example is Queen Agartha, who supposedly mated with every kind of beast and slept with every man in a city..."

"Have you no shame?! I already know all of that, so quickly move on to the next one!"

Her face growing redder, Tyr smacked me. I had wanted to tease her more, but it hurt more than expected, so I hurriedly moved on to the next taboo.

"Lastly, the Class-4 Taboo is Heresy. It is the taboo of using wicked knowledge to mislead humans and make them lose faith. It seeks to condemn and correct corrupt minds and false beliefs."

"It is exactly the sort of thing that can mean anything they want it to mean. If they do not like something, they deem it heresy and attack it."

"I think similarly. Now, Tyr. We have listed the four taboos. Do you know what they have in common?"

They were called taboos, but none of them were all that extraordinary in reality. Many were surprisingly easy to find nearby. No one would proudly boast about them, but when pushed to the limit, anyone would choose to commit a taboo if it meant surviving.

Vampires had done so. The people of the Lesser States had done so. Agartha had done so. Taboos openly existed in reality.

Yet there was a reason the Sanctum had designated all these realities as taboos.

"Taboos are things that bring about changes in humans."

To protect humanity.

"Gluttony turns humans into prey. Grafting turns humans into tools. Coupling clouds human purity. Heresy damages human spirituality. The Sanctum created taboos to protect humans, both as individuals and as a species."

"...Protect humans?"

Tyr looked up at me, asking with her eyes how I could know that.

Well, I had nothing to say about that.

I was the King of Humanity. I had none of the memories held by the previous King of Humanity. All I had been given was an ancient promise.

That promise... the promise by which the First Holy Maiden had bound the King of Humanity, was still being passed down even now. That promise was all I knew. I had no memories of Year One.

So there was nothing I could tell her.

"Now, let us return to the original point. The Demon God that reached the principles of the world possesses the power to overturn the world. Even if the Demon God's relics never use their power, simply spreading the Demon Gods' knowledge changes the way people see the world and transforms their lives."

Instead, I told her what I knew for certain.

"But Tyr, humans are part of the world as well."

The Sanctum had tried to hide the Demon God. The moment they confirmed that Tyr had learned bloodcraft, they tried to kill her, and they rejected the existence of vampires. They designated acts everyone privately shunned as taboos.

All for a single purpose.

To protect "humanity."

"The Demon God's power can change 'humans.' Not their way of life or their actions, but the very concept of what a 'human' is."

Footnotes:

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