WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 541

──────

You Were Born to Be Blessed

Even within the Sanctum, with its long and storied history, scarcely any being had ever been granted the title of "Heaven." A Holy Maiden even less so. In a Sanctum devoted to the Celestial God, Heaven was the sacred space where the god resided, that an ordinary creature of the earth could presume to claim such a title was simply unthinkable.

And yet she was the Holy Maiden of Heaven. Not one soul raised a question or an objection.

It had always been so. The Holy Maiden of Heaven had been chosen from the very beginning.

The Holy Maiden of Heaven, Maiél. A mysterious being known throughout even the shrouded Sanctum by that title alone. The Holy Maiden closest to the First Holy Maiden, one whose very voice was considered a blessing to hear.

Maiél was not present in this space, yet she watched over us as though she were.

"Sister Yegcheriya. Creating troublesome situations may be your hobby, but this time you have chosen a very difficult person. 'That one' is not a being that distinguishes good from evil the way you imagine."

Before Yegcheriya could reply, Maiél continued.

"I know. You wouldn't make that distinction either. You believed until your dying day that even the most wicked creature could repent and spread goodness. But Sister Yegcheriya, if you know how good a human being can become, then you also know how wicked one can become."

What was that? Was she saying she had seen Yegcheriya's death in the future?

Her manner of speaking was that of someone who had already received the answers and witnessed the outcome. Was it because she was a Holy Maiden who could see the future? Hard to say. Because that presence, not truly existing in this space, was beyond the reach of my mind reading.

Yegcheriya, apparently accustomed to this strange way of speaking, replied.

"Then does that not mean even such a one is a human capable of repentance? No matter how base or wretched a person may be, if they hear my words and follow the teachings, they may stand at the Celestial God's side. That was what the scriptures said. And so the First Holy Maiden blessed all people. She believed that even the wicked would become good if they received the teachings."

"Yes. I liked that about you. But I could not like every part of you. You threw problems at people that humanity was not yet ready for, then looked on without taking any responsibility. Good and savagery are different things, Sister Yegcheriya. Even when one is capable of anything, there are things one must not do."

Maiél cut off as though she had nothing more to say, then turned her gaze toward me.

"King of Humanity. The reason you sought me out would be to ask about the King of Dogs."

"How did you know that... Are you actually a prophet?"

I read minds through mind reading, yet here was a Holy Maiden who had never once met me, somehow knowing a question I hadn't even asked.

I had called the regressor unreasonable, but in truth, within this particular regression, she wasn't all that unreasonable. She simply knew what would happen in the future, and even that could change because of variables.

But there were prophets in this world. And those prophets held fate itself in their hands and twisted it.

Maiél spoke with the certainty of someone who already knew the answer.

"To give you the conclusion first: your guess is correct. The King of Dogs, now perfected, is a being ordained by the First Holy Maiden. A saint... no, a Holy Hound is what we should call her. Either way, it is truly momentous."

Ordained, meaning the First Holy Maiden had foreseen this existence from the distant past. Just like all those other Holy Maidens.

"As I thought. It was your people who made Azzy and Fenrir what they are."

"'Made' is not the right word. The First Holy Maiden saw this scene across that long span of the future, and it is simply coming to pass as it was always meant to. What makes something, in the end, is history and civilization."

Prophets who see the future do not scheme in the shadows. They observe the tangled web of cause and effect and apply only slight adjustments so that a particular future arrives. Their intent is diluted through tens of thousands of links and spreads across all of humanity through that influence.

That is why no one can hold them accountable. They are the ones who see the backs of a deck of cards, who have already seen which card will turn up and who will receive it. They cleverly manipulate the order, dealing the strongest hand to their allies and ruining the enemy's draws, but from the receiving end it is nearly impossible to detect.

A swindle. Compared to me, who can only read someone's mind and peek at their hand, this was far worse. For them, this wasn't even a game. Someone really ought to lock these people up.

While I fumed inwardly about the unfairness of it all, Maiél kept talking.

"Dogs are beasts, yet they are obedient and loyal, and above all, weak. Far weaker than wolves. Except for hunting dogs, they neither harm humans nor have the strength to do so. The First Holy Maiden saw in the dog a trace of order. She saw that if the wolf's savagery were stripped away, leaving the dog perfected, it would become a pillar of this order for eternity."

"Stripping away savagery? How do you strip away something innate?"

"Humans possess a wicked nature. Petty jealousy, filthy envy, base desires. They are born carrying a malicious streak that would harm others to fulfill their own wants. But most endure and hold that wickedness in check. Those who have learned goodness and norms from order struggle and agonize and overcome that darkness and those urges."

Maiél looked past us toward where Azzy was and spoke.

"So the King of Dogs kept fighting her own wickedness, the King of Wolves, and ultimately claimed victory. Thanks to that, the King of Dogs became perfected. the Pact was fulfilled, and an eternal pact was sealed. The King of Dogs has now become a bulwark that humanity can trust and lean on."

Just as I had suspected.

dog and wolf are, at their origin, the same. But over a long time spent passing through human hands, the domesticated dog diverged too far from the wolf. It wasn't strange that separate kings would arise.

Yet there was no reason for the two of them to fight each other. Beasts do not fight that way.

"It was humans who distinguished dogs from wolves, but it was the First Holy Maiden who divided the King of Dogs and the King of Wolves and set them against each other?"

Maiél did not affirm it, but she didn't deny it either.

"It was going to be that way, and so it was left to be that way."

"Just to make one friend for humanity? That seems far too grand a scheme for that."

"Naturally that is not the only reason. It was for a greater order and discipline. That is something that, if I explained it to you now, you would not understand..."

What do you mean I wouldn't understand. Come meet me. Let me read your thoughts this instant, then I'd understand just fine.

...But I absolutely cannot let on that I have mind reading. The moment I do, that fact will be "read" back at me. They would avoid meeting me even more stubbornly, and encountering them at all would become virtually impossible.

The moment I, with my mind reading, read the futures these people have already seen, I can play the same game on equal footing.

I need to wait until the regressor brings me to Holy Mountain Yulim. Ugh. What would be a good thing to say here? Ideally I should pick something that won't raise suspicion. Can't read their thoughts, which makes this tricky.

That was when the regressor, who had been silent, spoke up.

"You're talking about killing the King of Sin that will appear across every future, right? I know that much already. You can just tell me. About the Grand Law."

'I've heard things like this time and again since the eighth regression. Bringing up the King of Sin skips a lot of unnecessary steps, so let me say it first.'

Even the Holy Maiden of Heaven seemed to hesitate briefly, apparently having not foreseen the regressor's move.

Very like her, in moments like this. She had said she received help from the Sanctum until now, hadn't she? I didn't know how much information they had shared, but it seemed the Sanctum had exchanged quite a lot with the regressor. That ought to let the discussion move along quickly.

Maiél looked at the regressor with an expression that carried sorrow even in her incorporeal form.

"...My last hope. Do you intend to help the King of Humanity?"

"Not exactly helping Hughes specifically. We each get what we want. If everyone works together to stop the King of Sin, that's fine, isn't it."

"How idealistic. But that will make a mess of everything. It is a path closer to despair than to hope."

"But it might work out?"

"That is throwing yourself into shallow optimism. No different from standing still and trusting that a collapsing avalanche will part around you. The King of Humanity is a being of savagery who carries even his own malicious nature intact, and the Beast King at that. 'That one' is an enemy we must contend with."

"That's not true. Hughes can be extreme, but he's not evil. He's fully capable of helping you and me."

'Maiél has helped me time and again until now, and has granted blessings more than once, but in the end she always failed to prevent the destruction. I need to find a different approach. If I can neither stop the evil nor kill the King of Sin, using Hughes to keep the King of Sin from appearing at all also seems worth trying.'

All that goodwill I had accumulated was not wasted, it seemed. It moved me, honestly, that she thought of me that way.

Maiél clasped her hands in prayer, her voice carrying a sorrow that bled through even her insubstantial form.

"...That is precisely why you are fated to be my first despair. Oh, First Holy Maiden who blessed me. How is it that you blessed me, and yet...."

The Holy Maiden's devout prayer went on for quite a while. Around the time my body started to fidget, Maiél cleared her throat and spoke again.

"For order and norms to stand firm, the Pact is needed. The promise that the other party will not harm me. The promise that what is mine will be kept safe. The promise that order will protect me. And above all."

Maiél continued, her gaze fixed on me for some reason.

"The promise that if I defy order and spread wickedness, I will be imprisoned in the shackles of sin for eternity and punished. Good answered with good, evil answered with punishment. Only that kind of faith allows humanity to persist without tearing itself apart."

"But a promise like that doesn't actually exist, does it?"

"the Pact does exist. Like the laws and morals and norms that preserve order in this world."

Maiél answered at once, then let out a quiet sigh.

"But, yes. You're right. As you say, human promises are cheap and small. If there are no eyes to watch for transgression and no force to deliver punishment, the Pact can be discarded at any moment. A weak, base, easily-broken promise breeds doubt in the very idea of promises."

She was no fanatic who followed only the Celestial God's will, despite being a Holy Maiden. Well, she couldn't be.

The Farsighted Holy Maiden Yuel had grown worn through witnessing every ugly side of humanity until she became a cynic. A Holy Maiden who could see even what others could not would be incapable of falling into unfounded fanaticism. They had seen and carried too much for that.

"We need a more fundamental pact. One on an entirely different level from the base promises humans make with their tongues and fingers. An immutable, true covenant. An absolute and unchanging compact made by a being of concept, staked on its own concept. The King of Dogs was... a test of whether such a compact could exist."

A being of concept is concept itself given form. The nature a being of concept possesses does not change.

That said, absolute is too strong a word. If the concept itself changes, the being of concept changes along with it, just as wolf-kin were domesticated into dogs and the King of Dogs came to be.

"The King of Dogs fought her own wickedness and ultimately forged it. Now no beast will feel hostility or fear toward the King of Dogs. The King of Dogs has become a being who represents and speaks for the gentleness and mercy of beasts."

Beasts have a gentle side. That too is a natural principle. A predator has no reason to hunt when its belly is full, it needs to save the prey for when it grows hungry again. Prey animals form packs and get along well with other beasts, reducing the odds of being the one picked off when a predator comes.

Azzy had become the incarnation of that quality. Thanks to that, other beasts would not attack her.

"In short, you succeeded in reshaping the Beast King to your liking? Hmm. In that case, the same attempt could be made on the King of Humanity. Perhaps it already has been."

"Your question... ah, is that it. You realized the King of Sin exists, and from that you suspected even that one must be a being ordained by the First Holy Maiden."

What. How did she actually know that?

It was the kind of question I would ask, sure. But knowing it and bringing it up right away like that was strange, as though she had seen the conclusion in advance and was simply answering me.

She was called a prophet, but in any true sense there had been no real prophet since the First Holy Maiden. Even Yuel and Peruel, whom I had actually met, possessed only what might be called fragments of prophecy.

But the Holy Maiden of Heaven seemed to have plucked out the largest, most essential piece from among those fragments. It was unmistakable that she could see the future at a level equal to, or very nearly equal to, the First Holy Maiden.

"King of Humanity. But your thinking is wrong. Even if the King of Sin is what destroys humanity, and even if we encouraged the King of Sin's birth, that cannot be laid at our door."

An evasion of responsibility? But Maiél seemed far too composed to be evading anything. Rather..."Because sin belongs to humanity."

, she looked as though responsibility was trying to flee from her, and she was the one chasing after it, wanting to catch it. Maiél continued with an expression that seemed to carry a cold, bitter laugh.

"It is not the King of Sin who destroys the world. It is humanity's sin. The King of Sin, like every other being of concept, is simply the one who acts as its proxy...."

The King of Wolves can be hostile to humanity. But the King of Wolves cannot destroy humanity.

Because, at its root, wolves now are weaker than humans. You cannot achieve something you lack the capacity for.

But the King of Sin, who acts as proxy for sin, possesses the power to destroy humanity.

And sin is a part of humanity.

Which meant..."All the trouble begins when humans get their hands on the power of the Demon God. When they use that power beyond their station to kill other humans. And when they realize that power is not actually all that special, that anyone who follows the same process can obtain it. The moment that happens, humanity's future ends. Eternal night descends on the world, all the branches that had stretched endlessly outward are severed at once, all of humanity falls asleep and never dreams again. That is how the End comes."

One day, you wake up and see nothing.

Not because your eyes are closed. Not because the lights have gone out. It is simply gone. Light, sensation, pain. The future that flowed like a river, shone like stars, branched like the limbs of a tree, all of it vanishes at once, and the eyes that once saw the future go blind, showing nothing. A devastatingly dreadful End arrives.

That was the future Maiél had seen.

Not through mind reading, and yet the future Maiél had "seen" seemed to appear before my eyes. It was not an illusion. Not only I but the regressor and Yegcheriya as well glimpsed fragments of the End Maiél was describing.

Maiél, her eyes reflecting that darkness, fixed me with a gaze filled with endless emptiness and despair.

"That is why you must not exist, King of Humanity. You, a mere Beast King, cannot overcome this. You cannot overcome the human malice that grows with every passing day. You cannot stop the humans who reach toward the demonic and touch forbidden knowledge that destroys their very foundation."

What was this?

My instincts as a living creature sounded an alarm. Something seemed to press down on me, a force that admitted no resistance. Something, something was hostile to me.

And yet I felt nothing.

Not killing intent, not force. Maiél was not in this space. I, with my mind reading, knew that better than anyone.

But the beast's instincts told me. I could die here.

Not being here, and yet I could die? What was this sensation, as though the entire world was rejecting me?

"You would even affirm them. Rather than save those dying as they roll down the slope toward ruin, you would see them off with a smile. As long as humanity's enemy is humanity itself, your existence is useless. It would be better if you simply ceased to..."

"Stop, Maiél. Hughes has lost all his power."

At that moment, the strange pressure emanating from Maiél vanished in an instant.

I thought perhaps she had pulled back because of the regressor, but something felt off about that. It was as if the moment the regressor intervened, the future that was rejecting me had flipped.

Come to think of it, the Holy Maiden of Causality had said the regressor's causality was twisted. Perhaps the regressor was a hidden card against the prophets.

Maiél looked toward the regressor with something like resentment.

"...Shei. Have you seen hope in this person? But surely you know, even without power, he is dangerous."

"Killing him doesn't do much good either, does it? Hughes has no real capability to do anything. He's weak and easily swept along. So we just keep hold of him so he doesn't get swept in that direction."

The regressor replied without a care, then suddenly seemed to remember something and clapped her hands.

"Oh, right. There's something else I wanted to say. I want to go to Holy Mountain Yulim. I promised to take Hughes to Yulim if he helped with this."

"You never cease to drive me to despair in every possible way. The King of Humanity, at Holy Mountain Yulim. That land is...."

The regressor looked entirely used to making demands like this, as though it were nothing new. Unreasonable requests are usually ignored, but the greatest and most blessed Holy Maiden, Maiél, apparently could not do that.

Looking resigned, Maiél brought her hands together and closed her eyes.

"But you are my first despair and yet my last hope. Shei, I will stake the faintest sliver of hope on you and bestow my blessing. There is one condition, however."

"A condition? Why?"

'Before, you gave me everything without any conditions at all.'

A thought that would have made Maiél's blood boil if she heard it, but there was no way she could know.

"In the lands of the old Kingdom of Ten Thousand, an ancient evil that had been sleeping is trying to awaken. A dark and dreadful malice that brought terror and chaos to this world in the distant days of savagery. If, Shei, you strike down 'that thing,' the remnant of savagery. And if, even through that process, your thoughts about savagery remain unchanged... I will guide you to Holy Mountain Yulim."

"Oh, that? Can I manage it on my own?"

"It should not be too difficult. I will bless you."

Maiél pressed her hands tightly together, closed her eyes, and prayed for the regressor.

"My last hope. And you, savagery. First Holy Maiden who blessed me, and the lofty Celestial God who shelters her, your devoted child prays for their endless glory and blessing to be upon these two."

Maiél's voice grew louder by degrees. What began as little more than a murmur swelled until it was as loud as a shout, then spread through the chapel as a resonant boom. By the end it was no longer sound at all but force, something that seemed as if it might crack the world itself, pouring outward.

『May there be a damned blessing before you all.』

And the world clicked into place. A strange sound reached my very ears, like some enormous mechanism locking into alignment.

The regressor and I received the Holy Maiden's blessing.

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