WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 569

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tag:selfcest

An ordinary Beast King has no chance to meet the previous Beast King. The structure of things is that the previous Beast King dies, and then the next one pops up somewhere in the world afterward.

But humans, that strange exception to everything, had apparently been running experiments on their own King and stumbled into something significant. I watched the girl lying still before me.

She had the look of an ordinary Beast King, her face was guileless and free of worry. She must have been that lively when she was alive. Hard to say now, with her eyes closed.

'No consciousness. But my mind reading is generating echoes. It isn't intact, but the power of the King of Humanity is still there. What's missing is consciousness. In other words, the will that speaks for humanity has vanished and left an empty shell behind. For a Beast King, the collective will of the beasts is the consciousness itself.'

Her dirty grey hair trailed all the way down past her hips. Two thousand years without care had left it long and tangled. Her bare body was packed dense with small scratches and scars.

Five wounds stood out among the rest. One along the edge of her eye, one crossing her wrist, one crossing her ankle, one crossing her throat. And one through the center of her chest. Even mostly healed, they were bad enough to make me look away without thinking.

'These are the marks of the Five Lords consuming the King of Humanity. The act of eating mattered less than the ritual significance of it. Even so, they only took a portion of the power.'

So what was I supposed to do now? I glanced up at Nevida.

"Hey, Nevida-ssi. So what exactly am I supposed to do here?"

Nevida had stepped into the lotus after me. She looked at the sleeping King of Humanity, then made her request.

"The one before you is the Imm of the past. Present Imm. Please open the eyes of the past Imm."

"Sorry? You want me to wake someone who's lost consciousness? Me? How?"

"Are you not the other half of the Imm? Do you feel nothing?"

"Of course not. I'm not some cure-all, and I'm not exactly a prince come to rescue a princess. How am I supposed to wake her?"

'If I use mind reading the way I did with Tyr, deep enough to achieve synchronization, I could probably restore her consciousness. The previous King of Humanity would read the me that has synchronized with her and remember herself. But it would be more dangerous this time. If our mind readings echo off each other several times over, the weaker vessel breaks first.'

Wake her, right. Even I can't do anything about someone whose mind is gone. I'm the King of Humanity, not a miracle cure.

Hang on. Wait.

"It's old-fashioned, but what if I tried a kiss? Maybe she'd wake up like something out of a fairy tale?"

"That jest has gone too far. I cannot ask something so irreverent."

"I'm not joking. It's fine. I don't particularly mind kissing someone. And I've always wanted to be the prince waking the princess, at least once."

'To grant Nevida's wish I'll need to grow my vessel a little. That will take time. In that case, I might as well grant someone else's wish first.'

I knelt naturally and brought my face down toward the girl. Hmm. Doing it, I was struck by the thought that princes are a more barbaric lot than I'd imagined. Just planting a kiss on someone while they're unconscious? Is that romance, or savagery?

My lips were almost there when ivy shot out from somewhere and seized my arm and body. Nothing but ivy, and yet it squeezed with enough pressure to burst my arm open. I gave up fast, before my body actually did burst.

"Come to think of it, the King of Humanity is basically another me, isn't she? Kissing myself does feel a little off. Narcissistic."

"You know better than anyone that it is not the right method."

True. A kiss wouldn't wake her. I know that. Reality isn't a fairy tale. But still.

"You can't tell me the right method either! The only ways to merge different powers into one are the Four Taboos!"

The Four Taboos: Gluttony, Grafting, Coupling, and Heresy. Called the origin and essence of black magic, these immoral acts named four methods of merging separate powers into one.

"You're not planning to grind me up and feed me to her as some kind of Gluttony offering, are you?"

"No. Gluttony ultimately requires the one eating to claim the power. That is also not the right method."

"The way you said that, it sounds like you considered it!"

Saying something that horrifying to someone's face! I almost became a special tonic brewed for the King of Humanity!

"Wait. Hold on. So does that mean I have to eat her? Savoring the taste of the King of Humanity, swallowing every inch from head to toe, is that what you were hoping for?"

"Could you bear it?"

"...Probably not. I mean, who eats a person. I don't have some strange taste for wanting to eat a beautiful girl, in the culinary sense rather than, well, the other sense."

'Either way, you need me, Nevida. Then you need to hear my demands too. Don't mistake polite speech for being ignored.'

That said, if it was the other sense, that was a different story entirely. I calmly knelt again and placed both hands on the girl's shoulders. I gently pressed those soft shoulders down, took her curled arms and opened them out. Through the vines blanketing her body, the girl's chest made its presence known beneath what looked like a suffocating tangle.

Hmm. Is it the King of Humanity thing? She definitely overflows with vitality. I reached out to free her chest from its cage of vines and, again, felt a force that seemed about to crush me. Ivy and kudzu vines lifted me up like a toy.

Nevida spoke with a quietly terrifying edge.

"What do you think you are doing."

"Hm? If not Gluttony, then Grafting or Coupling. You surely don't want a King of Humanity with two heads. That leaves Coupling, doesn't it? Is my process of elimination wrong?"

Coupling meant sowing a seed to create a mixed existence. In name it was a taboo, but in truth it was something every species did to preserve itself. Coupling as a taboo involved something a bit more ritualistic on top of that, but at its core it was no different.

So then. If a half-formed King of Humanity impregnated a King of Humanity who was nothing but an empty shell, could that Coupling produce a King of Humanity?

"Aah, I really, really don't want to be treated like a stud horse, but I suppose I have no choice. I am at least male, and I have been building up a bit, so."

"If you require a woman, I will provide as many as you wish."

"No. Looking at her again, doing it with a female version of myself has a certain appeal. Isn't this a rather particular kind of self-indulgence? The kiss felt a bit off, but maybe Coupling would be fine?"

Nevida, who had been on the verge of bristling at the suggestion of violating her King right in front of her, paused and sank into thought. Joking as it sounded, the proposal was unexpectedly realistic.

"That could be one method."

"Maybe this is actually the answer! We're both the King of Humanity, so why was I born male and her female? This is the harmony of opposites! It means the two should mingle and become whole! Heheh!"

'Not quite. To be precise, the female was left in the world, so I was born male, to speak for the remaining half. Dog and wolf are essentially different faces of the same being, but I am the being that formed from everything the previous King of Humanity lost. Coupling could be one method, but it would be far harder.'

Nevida assessed the possibilities coolly and decided to hold that method in reserve for now.

"That method could also be a path. I will keep it in mind."

"Sorry? Keep it in mind? Can't we just try it once?"

"You must not treat the Imm's sacred person carelessly. Please restrain yourself. If you require a woman, I will bring something else."

"Oh? Would that something else be Nevida-ssi?"

At the joke offered as an icebreaker, Nevida spread both arms with an expressionless look that was somehow terrifying.

"Do you require it?"

"I'm joking. Joking. Too frightening, I can't."

Cold sweat ran down my back. I waved a hand and turned my head away like nothing had happened. Damn, what a waste. That could have been my chance to find out what being with myself felt like.

'This gives me a reason to meet the other humans, the great witch, or Shei. Nevida, I understand what you're wary of, but... don't worry. Your wish will come true somehow.'

I clicked my tongue and looked away from the girl.

"If it's not Gluttony, Grafting, or Coupling. The remaining method among the Four Taboos is Heresy, but that one's just too difficult. A miraculous manifestation through a mindscape shared by many? There's no way to even attempt something like that."

Heresy operated on a different level from the other taboos. A far more elevated and spiritual means of achieving the union of power, many humans sharing a single mindscape and reaching through it to access the power that mindscape holds. The union of minds rather than bodies: the fourth of the Four Taboos, Heresy.

Indoctrination bordering on brainwashing. Unshakeable faith among its members. And a tangible power to gather that consciousness together. All three had to align before Heresy became possible.

Honestly, the effort involved is almost admirable. But when things go wrong, it tends to kill more people than the other three taboos combined. You can see that in how cult groups commit mass suicide or massacres whenever the mood strikes them.

Things like the earth arts of the Church of the Earth Mother, or druidism, that was why ordinary humans could use the power of a Demon God before they ever understood what a Demon God was, and why druidism and hexes existed even then.

Oh. The faith of patron deities, or the communications officers of the military states, could also be called a form of Heresy.

"But this girl has no consciousness right now. How can you share a mindscape with someone who isn't conscious?"

"The two Imms originally share a single mindscape. The collective will of humanity, the most unshakeable mindscape there is."

"Oh?"

Huh. Is that right? If both of us are the King of Humanity, we share the same mindscape, don't we? Wow, Nevida. That's actually impressive. I hadn't even imagined it.

'Exactly right. I'm not sure how Nevida figured out the method, but at this point she might as well have spelled out the entire answer.'

"As I understand it, the two Imms are two halves divided from one. I reasoned that if both Imms were brought to the same space, something would stir on either side."

The reasoning itself was fine, but something about it felt slightly lacking. I pressed my fingers to my temple and frowned.

"Hmm. For resonance to work... she and I are a little different."

"In what way?"

"Hard to say exactly. Hmm, my body is weak but my mind is clear, while she has no mind but a body in good condition. There's that gap, for one thing."

Nevida fell into thought after hearing my explanation.

'The Imm is asking me to grow the vessel. This is the land of the World Tree. Growing a vessel with the abundant energy here is not difficult, but... the Imm will want to do something with the power gained. Transparent as a move, but...'

No, I wasn't trying to lead you! And I'm weak as a worm anyway, so a little growth in my vessel shouldn't be asking much! So suspicious.

'It isn't a lie, Nevida. My vessel is far weaker, so there is a higher chance it breaks first, and if I break, reviving your King will be difficult as well. For your wish's sake, my vessel needs to grow. Why the suspicion? But if you want something, you have to put something on the table too.'

"And whatever you call it, consciousness or otherwise, I get a slightly disconnected feeling between myself and her. Hard to explain exactly, but even setting aside the difference in sex, there's something that doesn't mesh. Like feeling a generational gap..."

At my mumbling, Nevida looked up as if something had clicked.

"...A gap of two thousand years. The Layer of Spirits has also changed in that time. The Layer of Spirits must be expanded to bridge that gap. I am deeply grateful, Imm. Thanks to the guidance you offered, I have found the answer."

"Sorry? What exactly did I teach you?"

She figured it out herself and calls it guidance. That's why prodigies are infuriating. My mind reading can't keep up with the leaps.

'I gave a hint. You moved one step closer to your wish, and I gained free time. A satisfying trade, isn't it?'

Nevida wrapped the girl back in vines and opened the lotus petals. The lotus spread wide again. This time, Nevida bowed to me with genuine feeling.

"Then please make your way down."

Right. I should go. I have to go. And yet I looked at the girl with a faintly reluctant gaze. Hard not to feel like something had been snatched from me at the last moment.

"W-well, before I go, just once..."

"Please go."

Vines seized me and dragged me away. I couldn't resist, and I watched the lotus petals close in the distance. Damn. What a waste. I could have done something no one else has ever done.

'Next is... Shei, and that's urgent. If she loses her arm for good, the wish of this life will be broken. I can't let that happen.'

For a while, I wouldn't need to use mind reading here. That was probably for the best.

'My own thoughts echoing back and being read again isn't great for fooling myself either.'

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