WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 589: A Story from the Past. The Old Testament - 1

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No, she wasn't my older sister. She was already dead. The dead were corpses, and a corpse couldn't be my older sister.

"Huh? You're right. If you exist, I must have died. Why am I alive?"

There were probably several reasons. Nevida's obsession with preserving my sister's corpse for two thousand years was one. The Demon God, which had advanced far enough to create humans, was another.

But none of that mattered as much as one might think. What mattered most was this.

Someone wanted the King of Humanity to return. Plenty of people besides Nevida.

"Huh? Why? That can't be true."

Why not? There was no other explanation.

"Because the reason I died was..."

My sister tried to explain something to me. It was a story with depths too vast to express in language shaped by the tongue. It wasn't the story of one person, but a raging current of immense history born from the consciousness of countless humans. There was no way to explain it neatly.

Even so, one could feel the grandeur of that current without hearing the story. The flow and principles within it weren't things to be explained. They were things to be accepted.

My sister came closer and explained it in the only way I could understand.

Mind met mind.

I read my sister's thoughts.

* * *

There had been such an age.

An age when humans, little different from beasts, sought to claim all things in the world as their own and prosper. They had put down roots in knowledge and sprouted spirituality, standing just before full bloom. The world held its breath as it waited for dawn.

Humans had beings known as Keepers of Lore.

They drew pictures on cave walls to indicate things. They turned those pictures into symbols, transformed them into letters, and wove those letters together like intricate carvings to create meaningful sentences. At last, humans could record their experiences in something other than their bodies.

That was lore. Humanity's inheritance.

Those who gathered countless pieces of lore and protected them from being forgotten were the Keepers of Lore.

"That will be all for today's lesson."

They held the most important role of all, passing lore on to the King of Humanity.

The Keeper of Lore rolled up the open scroll, then wiped the remaining ink clean with paper. As the Keeper prepared to leave, my sister asked in confusion.

"Huh? That's it for today?"

"There is nothing more for me to teach. Your Majesty is far too intelligent."

The Keeper of Lore tucked the scroll into their robes and continued.

"It has only been half a year since the previous King was carried off by the Mountain Lord. We found Your Majesty and began serving you only a month ago. Yet in that time, Your Majesty has learned to read and finished all ninety-nine scrolls."

"I only read them. Letters are fun! They're not hard!"

"Your Majesty is the King of all humanity. If humans can do something, Your Majesty can do it as well. You are our King, but I am also happy to have such an intelligent and eager student."

The Keeper of Lore smiled sincerely.

The sun sank, and the moon waned. Fresh shoots grew, their leaves turned red and fell. Snow that had blanketed the land through winter melted, and seeds that had held their breath began to sprout.

The stars in the night sky completed their cycle and returned to their places, allowing humans to read the heavens and mark the years. They sowed seeds and farmed in rhythm with that vast flow. They made red-hot metal run through furnaces belching heated smoke, hammered it countless times to make blades, then bound them to handles with cord to create weapons.

The King of Humanity learned every kind of knowledge the Keeper of Lore possessed in only a few weeks.

"Even saying that Your Majesty learned it would be an understatement. Your Majesty can put everything you learn into practice."

"Don't you learn things so you can use them?"

"That is what makes it difficult. Humans can only truly learn what they have experienced themselves. No matter how many scrolls they read or how much lore they are taught, they fail to understand it all and often doze off."

The Keeper of Lore grumbled, then looked at my sister as if that was at least some comfort.

"Unlike Your Majesty, of course."

"But everyone made these scrolls together, didn't you?"

My sister lightly opened a scroll of lore. Countless letters spread before her eyes. An ordinary person would have felt something like motion sickness at the sight of all those characters swirling before them, but my sister's eyes quickly swept across every word.

The Beast King was the pinnacle of an individual. Yet what stood out even more was its conceptual nature. Humanity's strength lay not in brute force or tools. Its true strength was in learning and mastering everything in the world.

The King of Humanity excelled at learning as well. Before long, she had mastered every truth and principle known to the Keeper of Lore.

Strong, swift, wise, and intelligent.

"If I'm amazing, then all of you who made amazing things are amazing too! So you can be proud!"

She was kind and merciful as well.

The King of Humanity was too perfect.

So perfect that it seemed impossible for anything greater to ever appear.

What the King of Humanity learned included politics.

Not the kind people usually imagined, where everyone insulted one another while full of personal opinions and ideologies. What the King of Humanity learned was a structural understanding of how humans gathered together and lived.

Most of the northwestern continent was within the King of Humanity's domain.

That was a little different from ruling it. The humans of the northwest lived in loose tribal societies, and the King of Humanity did not interfere with how they chose to live. She forced nothing upon anyone.

Yet the King of Humanity herself was too perfect. People couldn't help but follow her.

Overwhelming strength. Exceptional skill. Outstanding knowledge. And the very concept of the King of Humanity.

Water flowed downhill. The humans who received and drank in the knowledge flowing from the King of Humanity felt rapture and bowed before her of their own accord.

That was how the King of Humanity brought civilization into bloom across the northwestern continent. Her domain took the form of a nation and grew ever more prosperous.

A nation needed a capital at its center. Yet the King of Humanity, the nation's center, was free. Just as she commanded no one, she accepted commands from no one.

The capital had to be able to move with the King of Humanity. Her retainers set out on an endless wandering road, following the King of Humanity they revered.

They were the Warriors of the King. Noble humans who attended the King, followed her, and spread her commands far and wide.

They joined the King on pilgrimages, recruited talented people, and stepped down when they grew old to settle somewhere. Their role was to spread the King's teachings throughout the nation.

The Warriors of the King had another duty as well. They had to find the next King.

If the King died of old age, illness, or something resembling a tiger attack, they held a brief funeral and immediately wandered the continent in search of the next King.

It was a very important task. If they were even slightly late in finding one, the ambitious Warriors of the King would turn against one another and fight, throwing the nation into chaos. To keep from fighting among themselves, the Warriors of the King needed a superhuman.

Fortunately, the Warriors of the King of this generation had found their King quickly.

"Your Majesty!"

A bright, fresh-faced girl, as vibrant as a blade of grass, spotted the King of Humanity and ran over barefoot. She was the child who had brought my sister back and cared for her when she was newly born in a cave somewhere within the Great Forest.

Having lost her parents young, the girl had handled odd jobs under an ill-tempered druid. For caring for my sister, she had earned the right to join the Warriors of the King. My sister warmly welcomed her as well.

"Nevida! Here!"

My sister brought over two scrolls she had prepared and waved them proudly. Enjoying the curiosity and joy sparkling in Nevida's eyes, my sister said,

"They're druid lore. I wrote down what I memorized in a way that's easier to understand."

"D-Druid lore...? You wrote it yourself?"

"Yep. You said you wanted to become a druid, right? I'll make you a druid with these!"

Humans were beasts too. Even the King of Humanity couldn't help feeling more attached to someone who had treated her kindly from the start. Nevida was the person my sister, the King of Humanity of this generation, cared for most.

The Keeper of Lore who had followed my sister out saw the scrolls and hurried over in alarm.

"Your Majesty! Those scrolls..."

"It's fine! I wrote them!"

My sister likely wanted to emphasize that she hadn't stolen them, but that was an even bigger problem for the Keeper of Lore. Superior lore had been created somewhere beyond their knowledge.

"Hm?"

"She is only a child. We will teach her ourselves, so Your Majesty should devote yourself to more important matters."

"More important matters? Like what?"

"Creating treasures, governing the nation, settling disputes in villages, things of that sort."

"None of that is important. Someone else can do it even without me."

Though she had earned the right to become a Warrior of the King, many disliked Nevida, a wandering girl favored only because she had met my sister first. As a result, Nevida was treated coldly even among the Warriors of the King.

"No one but me is going to teach Nevida. This is much more important!"

But this only drew my sister even closer to Nevida. The Warriors of the King never considered that far.

Always accompanying the King and enjoying her strength and knowledge, the Warriors of the King were clearly the people in power in that age. Where there was the fruit of power, corruption grew beside it.

The Warriors of the King became corrupt.

Being a Warrior of the King was an opportunity for growth and experience, and having once stood beside the King was enough to be treated like a sage. They could enter any village, drive out its chief, and control it as they pleased.

Gradually, the Warriors of the King sought to monopolize that power. Troubled by the free-spirited King of Humanity, they tried by any means to control her as they wished.

"Let us revise the lore."

The Keepers of Lore could not escape the tide of corruption either.

"The King gives our knowledge away too freely. Knowledge that we painstakingly gathered and wrote into scrolls is being granted even to a child from who knows where. If this continues, who will go through the trouble of gathering and recording lore? Everyone will lie at the King's side and wait for its fruits to fall."

Other Keepers of Lore nodded in agreement.

"Passing on lore may be our duty, but creating new lore without our consent? Even the King has crossed a line."

The Keepers of Lore, noble even among the Warriors of the King, were respected by all humanity. Unlike other forms of power, lore could be shared. Perhaps that was why they were so possessive of their scrolls.

"Without lore, humans are no different from beasts. Humanity, and the King, can only be special because of our lore. We deserve greater respect."

"That is right! Without us, there might as well be no Warriors of the King!"

"Unfortunately, the current King has already mastered every scroll. We should make this clear in the scrolls of lore we give the next King."

"What if the next King writes scrolls personally, as our King did this time?"

"We will confiscate them. Keeping the scrolls is our duty by right."

With that, a Keeper of Lore opened a scroll. Not a single letter of a scroll of lore was meant to be carelessly erased, yet the Keeper began to write over the text without regard for such tradition.

They covered a sentence calling for lore to be spread widely with white ink made from ground shells, erasing it. They painted black letters over a conscience that had already grown thick. In a scroll that bore the name of lore, they inscribed words asking for knowledge to be hidden.

That was what they had intended to do.

But as though the lore itself resisted, the letters began to dance wildly. The Keeper of Lore's eyes widened.

"No, this is..."

"The Sage of Lore is angered!"

"N-No, that cannot be...! The lore was real?"

A legendary being said to have created the first letters. The Sage of Lore, who had taught humans writing and knowledge, was said to be the guardian of knowledge and lore, personally visiting and punishing anyone who dared defile lore.

Of course, that too had been nothing more than an old tale invented to protect lore.

But she possessed the power to turn a tale into reality.

"Those aren't words you wrote."

The Keepers of Lore were so startled that it seemed their breathing stopped. As if their shame had been exposed, they clutched the scrolls to their chests and trembled.

"Knowledge is the wealth of humanity. Since it comes from humans, it must return to humans. It must not become something exclusive."

With eyes that saw through all creation, the girl rebuked the Keepers of Lore.

Shame and guilt made them lower their heads and hold their breath. Who she was, how she had come here, and what power she possessed no longer mattered much.

"But if lore can be covered over with sin, then that sin can also be covered over with merit. I will give you the chance to cover your wrongs with good deeds."

The girl pushed through the Keepers of Lore's fear and became the new Keeper of Lore.

Footnotes:

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