WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 592: A Story from the Past. The Old Testament - 4

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A passing traveler brought peace to the snowy mountains. The long winter had ended, and spring would soon reach even those distant peaks at the edge of the world.

Countless women who had been held captive by the giants wept in gratitude. For the first time, the humans of the snowy mountains, freed from the giants, built great fires, danced, and sang.

She had stripped away the layers of sin piled upon this land and promised it a future, but "Big Sis" did not care much about it. The Warriors of the King were happier than she was.

Amid everyone's cheers, "Big Sis" left the snowy mountains behind, leaving behind the great achievement of wiping out the wicked giants.

Their next destination was the jungle. A treasure trove of countless living things, it held tremendous potential, but that potential did not belong to humans alone. In the land of the World Tree, every kind of beast lived amid fierce competition.

Competition meant eating and being eaten. The jungle was full of fruit, roots, insects, and small animals, and humans were common enough to be encountered often as well. Even among the same species, no, especially among the same species, they were dangerous competitors. In the jungle, it was perfectly natural for humans to kill and eat one another.

After countless people had eaten and been eaten, one victor had emerged: Ankra, the thousand-eater of the Ankha tribe.

Ankra ate humans to eliminate competitors. After doing it long enough, Ankra developed a knack for it and learned how to claim the life force of those consumed as their own. Thanks to Ankra's methods of preparation, the Ankha tribe prospered with every passing day.

Yet even as their numbers grew, the Ankha tribe tried to maintain the number of humans they ate out of habit. Eating a thousand people meant that even more than that had to be born, but even that was not enough to meet the Ankha tribe's demand.

The powerful, beautiful, wise, and merciful King of Humanity visited the jungle. Humans fleeing Ankra ran to the one who had come from beyond the plains and pleaded with her. They begged her to kill Ankra, to defeat that wicked cannibal. "Big Sis" went to meet Ankra herself.

Having heard rumors of the King of Humanity, Ankra decided to strike first. Ankra intended to deceive her, lure her in, surround her, and devour her.

But that much gluttony was nowhere near enough. Ankra was defeated disgracefully by "Big Sis." She had clearly spared Ankra out of mercy, yet Ankra vanished from the jungle for reasons "Big Sis" did not know.

Legends of the one who came from beyond the plains spread throughout the jungle. Blessings would now settle over this land watched by the great ginkgo tree.

In the desert where Baphomet, the Mother of Magic Beasts, dwelled, black water containing the life force of creation welled up from the ground.

Primeval behemoths. Ancient beasts that had ruled this land in an age so distant that humans could not even imagine it.

Black water was the essence of life formed as the primeval behemoths sleeping in Earth Mother's embrace crumbled and melted away over time.

Drinking black water granted immense life force, but that rampant power consumed the body and caused mutations. It was poison and medicine, curse and blessing. Whether I used it or someone else did, black water was a resource to fear.

Still, humans were the ones best able to use such a resource.

Baphomet, the Mother of Magic Beasts, was a human who had luckily discovered a hidden black pond inside a cave and claimed it for herself. After curing her chronic illness with black water, she worried over how to keep this resource from being taken by other beasts or humans. She was weak and had no one to rely on, so she used her wits to make traps.

Beasts drawn in as though enchanted by the scent of black water were caught in her traps, butchered, and used as materials. Their flesh became food, their tendons became cords, and their bones were ground fine.

As she processed beasts one by one, Baphomet stepped into black magic. It was a primitive sorcery that took life itself as its subject, later known as black magic.

Having learned black magic through black water, Baphomet grafted beasts together and created magic beasts. The black pond became a spawning pool that birthed monsters. The magic beasts hunted animals, dragged them back, tore off their limbs, and threw them into the black spawning pool to turn them into magic beasts.

Unfortunately, the finest material for humans to handle was other humans. The magic beasts actively hunted humans, and the humans had to hide as quietly as the dead to survive.

The magic beasts were powerful and terrifying, but even they could not measure up to the King of Humanity.

The King of Humanity and the Warriors of the King reached the desert and hunted the magic beasts with ease. Magic beasts were not human, and "Big Sis" showed no mercy to those that attacked without knowing their place. Made with stronger instincts for battle than survival, the magic beasts shattered like eggs striking boulders.

The desert humans liberated from the magic beasts carved praise for "Big Sis" into stone and sand. They treated the noble visitor from the east with utmost respect, sang tales of her heroism, and engraved her stories among the constellations.

Having lost most of her magic beasts, Baphomet knelt before "Big Sis." Unlike Yotun or Ankra, she sincerely submitted and presented black water to "Big Sis." It was a token of obedience and tribute for the king.

Rather than drink the mysterious black water, "Big Sis" learned how to refine and handle it. She left Baphomet alive and departed from the desert.

...Of course, a mere Mother of Magic Beasts, bereft of her magic beasts, soon disappeared.

The journey lasted nearly ten years. Several Warriors of the King died or left during that harsh journey, while new warriors joined them. The group changed over time.

Unfallen Mountain, the towering mountain that seemed to hold up the sky.

The World Tree, a ginkgo tree blessed by earth and sky.

Black water, the legacy left behind by primeval behemoths and held within Earth Mother's embrace.

The Warriors of the King grew greatly after seeing and experiencing so much. The Keepers of Lore, who dealt in knowledge, wrote hundreds more new scrolls, while the warriors gained the power to wield life force through repeated battles. The technique later called energy arts spread among them.

It was around then that the Great Druid Nevida came to a realization as well.

When "Big Sis," who had achieved such great feats, returned, she and the warriors were greeted by a kind of "country" they had never seen before.

Over ten years, the "country" had prospered enormously.

The Warriors of the King who had been unable to follow "Big Sis" returned to their respective homelands and built settlements. Strong and wise Warriors of the King became rulers and governed people.

Those rulers first worked to make their villages prosper. They settled wanderers, cultivated land, established laws, and created order. Villages became cities, and the cities constantly expanded by swallowing nearby villages in their drive to grow larger, until they collided with other territories.

The other side was also ruled by a Warrior of the King like themselves. Warriors could not fight one another, so the cities stopped expanding and looked elsewhere. By then, though, there was no land left to claim. Everywhere they looked, there were only cities claiming the land as their own.

The pressure to expand outward could not find an outlet and began creating friction with other cities. Warriors who had once served the same king now regarded one another as enemies.

Thus, the "country" became a vast empire ruled by several hundred lords.

The Warriors of the King, who had expected a warm welcome, were bewildered by the unfamiliar response. It was nothing like the past, when they had been welcomed wherever they went. Whenever they tried to pass through a great fence, armed humans rushed out in droves and leveled spears at them.

How could they dare point spears at the King of Humanity? Dumbfounded, the warriors grabbed a Keeper of Lore and asked.

"What happened while Her Majesty was away?"

"...It has become a Sea Calamity that crawled onto land."

As always, the Keeper of Lore gave an answer that fit, whether the listener understood it or not.

A Sea Calamity could only live in the sea. If one crawled onto land, it would be unable to support its own massive body and would slowly die from exhaustion.

The new "country" was a Sea Calamity that had crawled onto land. It was an order too immense for humans of that time to bear, yet it barely managed to sustain its own bulk through knowledge and strength beyond its means.

"The only reason they have not yet been crushed to death beneath their own weight is because Her Majesty is here. Her grace, as vast as the sea, still remains and supports them, so they do not have to kill one another."

There was only one reason war had not broken out between the opposing cities.

The King of Humanity.

They called themselves rulers, but loyalty to the King of Humanity remained in their hearts. Conscious of the existence of "Big Sis," who was clearly greater and wiser than they were, they restrained their actions.

Even as they antagonized one another and fought over territory, they waited for the king's return. They believed that if "Big Sis" returned, she would resolve all these conflicts and judge rightly.

It was a situation that made no sense at all. El, the Keeper of Lore, knelt before "Big Sis."

"Your Majesty. Please hear my final plea."

The Keeper of Lore clutched "Big Sis's" trouser leg. El kissed the top of her foot and held tightly to her ankle. Throwing away even the detached attitude El had always maintained, the Keeper of Lore pleaded with the King of Humanity.

"Your Majesty. This is our last chance. You must restore order. Now, at the end of Year One, when civilization has reached its singularity, humanity's only enemy is humanity itself. Giants, cannibals, and magic beasts have shown what is coming. Now humans will use their strength and wisdom to kill other humans."

The Keeper of Lore did not fear giants, cannibals, or magic beasts. El feared how they treated humans.

Through the succession of journeys, "Big Sis" had also begun to vaguely understand what El wanted.

"Your Majesty, I, El, beg you as your warrior. Give me an order. Allow me to end all these conflicts in the king's name and restore order. If I have your command, I can do it."

A Warrior of the King could not dare try to control the king. The King of Humanity was perfect. An incomplete being had no right to find fault with a perfect one.

But a king could issue orders to a warrior.

The right to demand that the king give them an order. The Keeper of Lore exercised the precious right the Warriors of the King had earned through painstaking effort.

El asked to be allowed to eliminate the conflict that would soon arise, to establish order in the king's name and rule the empire.

Though she understood El's feelings well, "Big Sis" answered.

"You do it yourself."

Footnotes:

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