WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 558

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A Story from the Past. Man and Sin - Finale

Ankra survived.

How that was possible, even Ankra didn't know. The truth was he had been in no condition to think. He had wandered this vast jungle torn to pieces.

He had eaten a thousand people every year, and the number he had killed surpassed ten thousand. Every year he scattered his overflowing vitality as though flaunting it. The ragged soldiers of the Anka tribe drank in his flesh and blood, and his flesh and blood were treated as sacred relics by the Anka tribe.

He had never given it much thought, but Ankra was a master of dark arts, and he had already scattered his overflowing vitality across the entire jungle. Defeated though he was, his power had been godlike.

His fierce life force barely kept the thread of his existence alive even as he was torn every which way... until at some moment, he opened his eyes as though waking from sleep.

He was parasitizing some savage tribe living in the jungle.

Having already lost his physical body and scattered most of his power, he had no strength left of his own. Not even enough to seize a host's body. He simply borrowed a body to maintain his consciousness. Grateful just to exist, he survived by hiding and parasitizing.

But a problem arose. The host was in danger of dying.

The reason was absurd. Pushing through the undergrowth, the host had gotten its entire body raked by a thorn thicket. The host bled and bled and did nothing but wait to die.

Death in the jungle was too common to need a reason. Excessive blood loss, infection, or a beast catching the scent of blood and wandering over, too common even to be worth mentioning.

For him, though, it was a dire situation.

If the host died, he died too. He had barely regained consciousness, and now he would disappear again like this, left with nothing but scattered power, forced to wander once more. That could not happen. He had to survive. He didn't know why, but the only thing moving him was a pure craving to live.

Taking advantage of the host's weakened state, he seized part of the host's body and restored it with his power. The host's fatal wound healed in an unexpected miracle. It fell to its knees and called out the names of great spirits, nature sprites, and Mother Earth.

That was the moment a mere parasite became a god. His will twisted into divine will and moved the host. He didn't have the dominion or the will to control the host completely, but he didn't feel any particular need to. The host accepted his intentions as divine revelation and followed them.

Borrowing the host's strength, he gathered the scattered pieces of himself from throughout the jungle. Fruit from trees that had grown eating his strewn flesh. Fragments that had flowed into the bodies of other animals. Bones that still remained. Under the single-minded drive to survive, he sought out and collected the remnants scattered across the jungle.

He gathered, and gathered, and gathered again. Cut and stitched and accumulated strength.

And Ankra was resurrected, spanning hundreds of years.

When he opened his eyes, he was being called a god, and the humans who had received his power had become immortals. Finally having a physical form again, he gathered the bodies of his thralls and shaped a body for himself.

That was the true nature of the patron deity.

Having read every last bit of this human-turned-god's past, I was so caught off guard by the unexpected information that I couldn't even feel pleased about it, just stunned.

I have mind reading, and with it I read the present of humans. I can read an individual human's past, but for ancient history or the broad sweep of events, I have no choice but to learn from books like anyone else.

Fitting for the Beast King. Those who claim to represent an entire species don't concern themselves with the dead and vanished past.

Anyway. Because of that, there had been almost no chance for me, who had lost my power through some incident, to learn that forgotten past. But this time, reading Ankra, I had gained quite a lot of information. The Five Lords, the prophet, and even the King of Humanity from ages past.

More useful than I expected. I hadn't thought an opportunity like this would come along.

While I sorted through what I had read, the patron deity's priestesses were flustered by my revelation.

"Ankra? That should be the name of the ancient evil ruler passed down through oral tradition in this land."

"What blasphemy against the patron deity!"

Then the patron deity raised a hand. Clumps of flesh stitched together here and there moved bizarrely, each piece carrying different force and speed. The flesh seemed to be forcibly holding together a body that wanted to explode and scatter, and amid that instability the patron deity gestured with a movement that radiated overwhelming power.

[This body does not consume humans. It only receives them and nurtures them.]

The patron deity rose from his seat. The body lacked balance, but somehow managed to hold itself upright.

[This body does not rule the jungle. It only watches over and guards it.]

Standing roughly three meters tall and wider than that, the pressure given off by the wounds and stitching all over his body was terrifying.

[This body is not Ankra. Now that his flesh has been scattered across the land and his blood has seeped into the rivers, there is no such thing as Ankra. This body is only the patron deity of the immortals.]

The patron deity spoke with a voice full of dignity.

Well, that much is true. Having experienced death, having actually nearly died and come back, having survived by gathering the bodies of others and barely holding on, the patron deity was different from before.

But that doesn't make the past as Ankra disappear. And above all, I'm reading your thoughts right now, so there's nowhere to hide.

"You're just not doing it now. The source of that power and those dark arts is still Ankra's, isn't it."

[You who came from beyond the plains. This body has spoken to you directly. Do you dare doubt it?]

Going to keep denying it to the last. And there was even a reason behind the lie. Ankra had a history of defeat at the hands of the King of Humanity and the First Holy Maiden. If someone suddenly came prying into his identity, he had no choice but to deflect.

I hesitated for a moment. Right now, I had a way to expose his lie cleanly and make him tell the truth. A very certain way.

The question was whether I should. To reveal his identity, I would have to reveal my own as well. And that could be dangerous.

Hmm. What to do. Press him on it? Or keep things agreeable for both of us?

[Get out at once. If you do not leave this place immediately, this body will make you part of itself.]

"Oh really? So I'm free to just leave right now?"

[What was that?]

"Aren't you curious how I figured out who you are? How I recognized you the moment I saw you?"

[A trivial matter to this body.]

"I wouldn't say that. You never know who might come next. Better to hear it from me, someone who came with goodwill and curiosity."

[...]

Oh, forget it. Honestly, it's not really a secret anymore, is it? Let's just go for it.

I confessed openly in front of the patron deity.

"I am the King of Humanity. The king who drove a hatchet into your head."

Worth the risk.

A hatchet. The King of Humanity. Too specific to disbelieve. In that impossibly distant past, the memory of being defeated by the King of Humanity existed only within the patron deity. Nothing worth bragging about, never recorded as history. A truly lost past.

If there was anyone who could mention that memory, it could only be one of two things. The patron deity, or the King of Humanity.

And since I wasn't the patron deity, that left the King of Humanity.

[Impossible!]

The mention of that ancient time made the patron deity react violently. The face that had maintained its dignity despite its grotesque form twisted without restraint.

[Why! Why have you come to find this body as it is now!]

The faces of the priestesses moved on their own to match it. The bodies offered up to the patron deity, more precisely, the offered bodies, began to resonate with his emotions. The priestesses looked at their god in confusion, unsettled by feelings that weren't their own.

The patron deity cried out, seized with fear and fury.

[This body has governed humans since becoming a god! Cared for them instead of oppressing them, saved them instead of killing them, fed them instead of consuming them! After doing all of that, why do you torment this body!]

"Torment? I don't think I've particularly tormented you."

[Then why have you come now? This body has not challenged you! Has not eaten humans, has not killed them! Built an altar with this body's own blood and flesh instead of bones! In this patch of land no bigger than a footprint, this body has merely divided itself among its thralls to maintain this physical body!]

The immortals were the patron deity's limbs. Part of the great body that was the patron deity. Just as excitement makes hands tense and eyelids flutter, the priestesses received the patron deity's emotions and fell into confusion.

'The patron deity...'

'Is afraid?'

Inferiority, defeat, despair, anger. And beneath all of it, a quiet undercurrent of fear writhed like a whirlpool. Half curled in on himself and half swelling outward, the patron deity cried out.

[With this power, this body has done nothing but keep the lives of those feeble subjects hanging on! And yet, why have you come agaaaaain!]

That worked almost too well. I hadn't expected a reaction this intense. Should I calm him down a little?

"Ah, well, to say this upfront. Coming here was purely a coincidence. I only happened to pass by, ran into someone I recognized, and helped out for a bit."

[Right-Arm?]

"That's right. I didn't come with any bad intentions."

To be precise, the Holy Maiden's blessing had guided me here, and the ancient evil the Holy Maiden had spoken of handling was probably this patron deity. But I had no particular intention of killing the patron deity. That was exactly why I had separated the regressor from the group beforehand.

"And the reason I spoke to you was simply to say hello. Not many people who remember the King of Humanity from that time are still around."

[A social call? That can't be.]

"Really. The King of Humanity who split open your head back then didn't come looking for you with a reason either, did he? You were openly plotting rebellion, so he simply gave you what you were asking for."

Even at that calm remark, the patron deity still wouldn't let go of his tension.

[This body has plotted nothing this time!]

"I know. That's true. After being defeated by the King of Humanity, you've been keeping quiet and living low. I don't particularly intend to do anything to you either."

Your memories were the goal, and now that I've read them all, there's no business left. I could have just left quietly and that would have been the end of it.

But something felt unsatisfying, so.

"And besides, I don't have the power for it anyway."

[...What?]

Ankra, who had once harbored ambitions of toppling the King of Humanity and blanketing the world, had a change of heart after dying once and was now living quietly as the god of a small settlement. Well, that much is a common enough story. Giving up on dreams when hard reality hits you is something everyone goes through.

I thought that was fine.

But there was something I was a little curious about.

"What do I mean? Power. Even a patron deity like you didn't recognize me at first glance. If I were a King of Humanity with true power, you should have known the instant you saw me."

The King of Humanity was a being that made the concept of a species tangible. Even in that distant past, there was no equal on the face of the earth. With power like that, recognition should have been instant.

But the me of now was a hollow husk with no presence to speak of. An ordinary human that even the patron deity couldn't identify at first glance. The patron deity looked at the power he could sense from me and replied slowly.

[...What happened to you?]

"Something similar to you. I was betrayed by the prophet and those five, and my power was stripped away and scattered among them. The current me is just a shell. I managed to come back somehow, but compared to those days, it's an insect's life."

In the past, he had been without question an evil. But now, having swallowed his fear and set himself up as a god here, it was hard to call him an absolute evil. He might sustain himself on the flesh of his thralls, but he promised them immortality and kept them alive, judging only by his actions, wasn't he closer to a benevolent deity? Or was he an evil god for parasitizing their bodies with power gained by devouring humans?

Whether the patron deity was an evil god or a benevolent one, whether having his head split by a hatchet had truly reformed him or he was simply staying quiet out of fear, nobody knew. Not even me, who could read minds.

You don't know until the situation comes. And if you don't know, you can't judge. To judge, you have to know.

"It looks like you've recovered some of your power. Hah, I don't really have a way to reclaim mine."

[...You're saying the prophet betrayed you as well?]

"Yes. Apparently something about me didn't sit right with them. They stabbed my body, tore it apart, ripped my power to pieces and divided it among themselves. The days of power and glory are nothing but the past now, and I'm just a hollow shell running around hiding."

[The King of Humanity, running and hiding. From whom?]

"The prophet's descendants. The Sanctum, you might know it. Hah. What did I ever do to deserve living like this. They could have just taken the power and left, so what more were they after."

I was muttering to myself as though lamenting my lot in life, and from the patron deity's direction came a small quickening.

Fear, shame, anger, helplessness, defeat. But despair, the certainty that he could never win against them, pressed down on all of it and held him under. And so the patron deity had buried himself in this dark cave, waking at intervals, peering at the outside world through his thralls in the most limited of ways.

Afraid the King of Humanity might come looking. Afraid the prophet might find him. Like an insect that had burrowed into the ground in fright.

But the words I had murmured touched a wish buried deep inside him. The patron deity went cold and still, then spoke.

[...Then. If this body simply devours you. This body need never be afraid again.]

"What? Where is that coming from."

The patron deity pointed a finger at me.

[You who are this body's thralls. Kill that one.]

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