WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 561

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The Ash-Covered Sin and the Skin-Stitched God - 1

The immortals' will to fight was swelling. Not out of obedience to their god's command, but out of a raw, instinctive drive to protect themselves from the crisis threatening their village. A desire as primal as breathing.

I stood before that sharp, hostile air and let my thoughts drift for a moment.

Even if that fighting spirit was pure instinct, its spark had started from their faith. On nothing more than a thin, threadbare devotion to that pathetic deity, the entire village was ready to stake their lives against me, a powerful enemy.

...I'm not actually a powerful enemy at all, but that's how they saw it.

Which made me a little more curious. If these people were truly faced with the annihilation of their tribe, would they still cling to their faith and traditions? Would they throw away their lives for the very tools meant to sustain those lives?

I didn't know. Honestly, it would probably depend on the situation. Nobody could say for certain.

Not without putting it to the test.

"So you really are prepared to die. Shall I actually kill you, then?"

"You'll be the one dying. We are bodies blessed by the patron deity. As long as the patron deity stands, we cannot die!"

"Same goes for me. I don't particularly plan on dying. I'd have to fight back rather than just roll over."

I had the Demon God on my side, so it would be difficult, but not impossible. And if it was possible, I could try. It would be worth taking a swing at just how solid their wish really was, how firm that wind at their backs.

All right, let's give it a go. I steeled myself and began to gather my strength. That was the moment it happened.

Thump. My heart lurched in a strange, sudden way.

Against the backdrop of a dim cathedral, a single nun knelt alone in prayer. Fine hands folded softly together, and above her, sunlight filtered through red stained glass and fell across her shoulders.

The Fallen Nun, Sister Yegcheriya, had blessed someone at the Blood Monastery.

"My blessing is infinitely humble and powerless compared to the Holy Maiden of Heaven's. Even so, I shall bless you."

The vampire nun had turned her back on God. Once a prioress brimming with faith, admired by all, she had blasphemed the Celestial God and became an Elder of the Progenitor.

"The Holy Maiden of Heaven has ordained a future for you. Set foot on this path, and you will ride the current of causality upstream, seizing the future she has blessed."

Cathedral and nun. Words that ought to be sacred, yet they sat ill at ease on the Blood Monastery and the Fallen Nun Yegcheriya.

She performed sacraments that should be holy using blood. The confessions people brought her she turned not toward the heavens but back upon themselves. The newborn children she washed not in oil but in blood.

"Yet even the wicked perform acts of kindness, and even the righteous stumble into wrongdoing without meaning to. That is because humans are imperfect."

Yegcheriya had not turned her back on God. She had simply looked for the God who dwells within the human body and heart, rather than the God who lives far away.

"My blessing is a small whim. A slight tremor that may or may not stir at all. Yet it is a seed of chaos, capable of turning a villain into a saint for one instant, or sending a saint tumbling into villainy."

When she blessed me and the regressor, Yegcheriya had planted a very small seed. At the destined end of a fixed future, at some moment under the Holy Maiden's watch, a trivial impulse that would act upon the flow of blood.

"The Holy Maiden of Heaven sets the future. It is the end of inevitability, the conclusion that will arrive through reason and causality. But because what she judges is human, and because she measures imperfect humans against a perfect standard, things go crooked and tangled and twisted."

A cool wind, a lightness in the body, something catching the eye at random. An impulse just strong enough to make a person feel like doing something differently had brushed against me. Not enough to control me, but enough to make me pause for a moment.

"God dwells within our hearts. I, Yegcheriya, bless you."

Bloodcraft: Baptismal Blood Thread.

The power of Yegcheriya's blessing was a tiny whim, planting inside a person's body a small impulse capable of shifting their attitude or behavior in a passing moment. Nothing compared to the Holy Maiden's blessing, but a wild card capable of throwing it off course.

The blessing she had reconstructed through bloodcraft had indeed exerted its power inside my body. There was just one small problem: I had already known of its existence through mind reading.

An impulse only works as an impulse when you don't know it's there. Knowing perfectly well what it is makes the whole thing a bit awkward. It was supposed to be a trump card of sorts.

Hmm. But.

There's no reason not to act on a whim, is there?

I pressed my hands together and bent at the waist in a deep bow.

"I'm truly sorry. I owe all of you an apology."

The immortals who had been advancing with their fighting spirit at a boil faltered at my sudden show of humility. I pressed the opening and apologized even more aggressively.

"I'm sorry for barging in uninvited and causing a scene. But please try to see it from my perspective. If they were telling me to offer people up to the patron deity, I couldn't just leave that unchecked, could I? Those people were meant to be sacrificed to an evil god, and then I was told to make offerings of them, naturally that gave me some unpleasant ideas. What if the patron deity was just as malicious as the dark arts master? What if it was trying to devour them all and replenish its strength? I only went in to check. And in the process, I admit I showed a lack of consideration toward all of you."

"Ugh, hold on. My head."

Left Arm hammered her own temple with her fist to deal with a headache that had come on without warning, an immortal's approach to medicine. Once it passed, she scrunched her face up hard.

"You stir up all this trouble, attack us on top of it, and now you want to apologize? What kind of sudden change of heart is this?"

"It is a change of heart, yes, but it's also true I overstepped a little, isn't it? I wanted to say sorry for that part first."

"If you're going to apologize, hand over one of your arms first. Apologizing with nothing but words is shameless!"

"Well, that's a separate matter from the fact that I lacked consideration. It's not like I did something unforgivable. What were you going to do if the patron deity really had been eating people?"

I wasn't sure what effect this change of heart would have, but then again, are words ever said purely because they'll be effective?

"That said, if the patron deity sees fit to forgive me in their mercy, I'll stop fighting too."

***

[Yegcheriya. You actually went ahead and...]

The future had changed. The Holy Maiden of Heaven sensed the shadow of the nun stretching out behind the chain of events and let out a low breath.

No, in truth the future hadn't changed at all. Without the Holy Maiden's intervention, the King of Humanity would challenge the order. The patron deity wouldn't bend its desires either, so a collision between the two was inevitable.

That tiny impulse had done nothing more than slightly twist the path leading toward that future.

And yet, even a difference this small.

Changes the 'sin.'

"He apologized! Look at that. Hughes yielded first. Isn't that enough?"

Shei stood up, looking relieved.

Even if the causal chain changed not at all, the standard by which those actions were judged shifted. Through a small whim, through a slight difference, the weight of fault could tip over to the other side.

The King of Humanity was what he was, and the patron deity was what it was. And yet because of that small change, the line between good and evil blurred. Gray spread outward from the border between black and white.

[Nothing actually changes with this. That thing will still come...]

"It changed, didn't it? The way we look at Hughes!"

Shei answered back, looking unburdened.

***

"You're saying you'll stop the fight here?"

"Suspicious. There has to be some scheme behind this."

"Left Arm. What do you intend to do now?"

"Why are you asking Left Arm, Thigh! The patron deity has already issued a command! Are you thinking of defying it!"

"Hasn't the situation changed? Perhaps the patron deity will issue a different command."

"No new command has come since then! Then we follow the previous one!"

"But they apologized, didn't they?"

Throwing cold water on all that boiling fighting spirit split opinion among the immortals. Some disliked using force against mortals, some feared the strength I had displayed, and some simply believed what I had said and honestly wanted to know what the problem was now.

A small clash of opinions broke out. Left Arm, who had endured the bickering as long as she could, bellowed.

"Quiet! My head hurts, stop yammering!"

"But still..."

"I said my head hurts!"

One immortal kept talking even after that, and Left Arm brought a fist down on the offender's head. The immortal crumpled to the ground with a dented skull, then looked around anxiously and quietly shut their mouth.

"Just restrain them for now! Can't we lock them up until the patron deity gives a new command! The young ones have less flexibility than I do, I swear!"

"Oh, that's an option!"

"Don't make an old woman with a failing memory work her brain on top of everything else!"

Lock me up?

Should I lean into the whim a little further and let myself get captured without a fuss? I could break out of whatever the immortals cobbled together for a cell easily enough. But I'd rather not give that much ground.

All right. This one I'll fight. If they were going to wait for the patron deity's command, there was no reason to keep indulging their wishes.

"Wait! Everyone, stop fighting!"

At that moment, a massive figure thrust itself between me and the immortals. Comparable to Left Arm in sheer size, with a distinctly prominent right arm, the immortal village's greatest fighting force. It was Right-Arm, Rashy. He came forward with a bewildered expression and looked back and forth between me and Left Arm.

"What in the world is going on here? Why are you suddenly brawling with our guest?"

"Right-Arm? What are you doing here? I'm sure I buried you and your bride in the earth during the wedding ceremony!"

Rashy rolled his eyes. He was supposed to be buried underground after the ceremony, but he had dug a tunnel in advance and slipped out carefully once night fell. He had found a place to lie low where the other immortals wouldn't spot him, and only then had he responded to the patron deity's summons and arrived late.

"My patron deity suddenly started moving with great urgency. It had to be something pressing, so I asked my wife's understanding and came running!"

"This boy is nowhere near ready to be a husband! Running straight to a fight right after the ceremony, leaving your brand-new wife behind!"

"Ah, we can always do the wedding ceremony again another time! So what's happening? Why are you fighting the teacher? Did the patron deity give an order to cut him down?"

"You received the revelation too, so don't play ignorant!"

"Ah. Found out."

Rashy scratched his head, looked back and forth between me and Left Arm, and sighed.

"Let it go, Aunt Left Arm. There's no reason to fight."

"What?"

"The boy travelling with the teacher is an extremely powerful warrior. Even the great Jiseon was ultimately defeated and lost her arm. And the teacher stands at least equal to that. Going into this with anything less than full resolve would be reckless."

"You're telling me to avoid a fight just because the enemy is strong? Rashy! Is that how I raised you?"

"Of course not, Aunt Left Arm. I'm an immortal too, fighting holds no fear for me. But I spent time with these people beyond the plains in the military state. I received kindness from them. I welcomed them as guests to our village myself. How could I give everything I have against guests I personally invited?"

Rashy was still young, but he had received the patron deity's right arm. Right-Arm and Left Arm were the patron deity's two equal limbs. With their opinions in conflict, Left Arm couldn't push back further and let out a pained groan.

"Ugh. I'm not saying you're wrong. But the patron deity gave a command. How am I supposed to just sit on my hands?"

"Let's go back and ask the patron deity again!"

While Left Arm was tying herself in knots, Rashy reached a clean conclusion.

"Clearly something went wrong with the revelation! Surely the patron deity wouldn't issue a command so reckless and abrupt. We should call the shamans and ask them to divine the patron deity's true intent!"

A god that could be wrong, not exactly the attitude encouraged among believers. But Rashy was right this time. The patron deity possessed godlike power without actually being a true god.

I hadn't really been looking to avoid a fight with the immortals, but if a small change of heart had managed to sidestep one, that was fine too. So the fight with the immortals ended here. What remained was...

[Just as I thought. A body that will not heed its head is nothing but a rabble.]

Rrrumble. A tremendous tremor rolled out from the patron deity's cave. As though the cave itself had grown too small to contain it, something pressed a hand against the ceiling and walked slowly out.

A grotesque body stitched together from skin. The patron deity, which had assembled a form for itself from the flesh offered by the immortals and claimed it as its own, stirred from its long seclusion.

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