WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 595: A Story from the Past. The Old Testament - 7

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What? What kind of nonsense was that?

This had happened in the past, hadn't it? Inside "Big Sister's" memories? Then how had she found me?

Had she foreseen my existence?

"This is what I offer to the King of Humanity. I do not know whether you will reach this place... but if you are seeing this scene, it must surely be you."

She did not know whether I would come, but she knew that only the King of Humanity could see this scene. The First Holy Maiden had foreseen my existence.

"Then you must have foreseen that I possess mind-reading as well."

"Light is the element of knowledge and understanding, but observing and comprehending are humanity's roles. I am the Demon God of light and knowledge. I do not know what circumstances you may be in, but if this scene is observed, then I may know it as well."

"What kind of scam ability is that?"

She could see me because I was observing this memory? Even if it were true, it was far too strange. It made no sense.

"Wait a moment. I still can't believe it. Isn't this some kind of trick? Could it be an image hidden within "Big Sister's" memories?"

"And you, who perceive humanity, will also know that this is the truth."

"Tch."

She was right. This was "Big Sister's" memory. I could sense her emotions, but I could not read the First Holy Maiden's thoughts.

In other words, this was a scene that had existed only in the past.

Was it really true? Was someone from thousands of years ago speaking to me? No, I could not believe it. Prove it.

"Then shall we play rock-paper-scissors, so I can believe you more firmly? If you really can read the future, beat me at rock-paper-scissors."

"I'm sorry, but I cannot answer such a request. The future is like a reflection on the water's surface. Dip your hand into it, and it ripples violently. The more observers there are, the more uncertain and blurred the future becomes. That is why prophecies are difficult to share with others."

"What? Are you avoiding it? That's a pretty cowardly excuse."

Still, I could guess what she meant. If that truly was an image from the past, she could not respond to my every impulsive move. The past would not change.

What a shame. I had planned to throw scissors, then shamelessly change my move after seeing what the First Holy Maiden played. Proposing rock-paper-scissors in the first place had been an impulsive action, so it would have been difficult for her to foresee.

Then the First Holy Maiden answered as though it were nothing.

"And I will throw scissors. You may decide the outcome however you wish."

...She got me.

She could not beat me at rock-paper-scissors, yet she had beaten me anyway. Deliberately making it a draw was downright vicious.

"Tch. Fine. I'm not the kind of man who desperately claws out a victory against a woman."

Because even if I tried, I didn't think I could win. Her authority was far too unfair.

Pretending I had graciously conceded defeat, I looked around and asked.

"What about Big Sister?"

The First Holy Maiden gave a sorrowful smile. That expression told me more than words could.

"So it was an ambush. Did you blind her with light and stab her in the back? Even so, it couldn't have been easy."

"My warriors mastered qi arts. They are stronger than anyone else in this age."

Qi arts appeared suddenly in "Big Sister's" memories, like a sunshower. At first, no one knew of them, but before long, everyone had learned them.

Knowledge that even the Warriors of the King, standing at civilization's forefront, had not known suddenly spread everywhere. It could only have been artificial.

When I stared at her as though demanding an answer, the First Holy Maiden nodded.

"Yes. I am the one who discovered qi arts."

"Why qi arts?"

"It is a power gained without a Demon God's intervention, through humans purely refining their own abilities. The ultimate state of enlightenment found within oneself. To gain power, one needs no means other than self-sacrifice."

The origin of qi arts was the vitality of life. It was processed inside the body into a form called qi, then consciously used.

The First Holy Maiden gathered every tradition and piece of knowledge to turn into a single technique what would otherwise be no more than a fragment of a miracle that might emerge only through a talented person's immersion in something meaningless.

"Then people won't have to risk danger and commit taboos to gain power."

"There will always be those who seek power. They are filled with desire, but if there is a better path, they will not go out of their way to commit taboos. Of course, hundreds of millions will die because of the qi arts I created... Even so, I believe there are things that must be protected."

The order gained through mating humans desecrated birth. A newborn's cry would no longer be a cry to the world, but a test that determined whether that fragile life lived or died.

The order gained through devouring humans made humanity its enemy. From then on, humanity would fall into an ouroboros cycle where people had to consume one another just to avoid being consumed.

The order gained through grafting humans denied humanity. The boundaries between species would blur, and humans would no longer find a reason to protect themselves.

So the First Holy Maiden erased them all.

She spread qi arts and designated all opposing sorcery as taboo.

I scratched my head and answered.

"Don't worry about it. A tool is only a tool. Qi arts were useful tools, and more people were probably saved by them than killed. They must have been far more useful than the other taboos."

If more people had died from qi arts than remained alive, humanity would not still exist.

I tried to comfort the First Holy Maiden, but sadly, my words did not seem to reach her. She still looked sorrowful.

"You still say that. What I created is not a principle, but a tool, and how it is used is up to the user."

No, had they reached her too well? I scratched my head and continued.

"Was that not comforting? Uh, I said it for your sake."

"The Celestial God, principles, and qi arts. Are they all nothing but tools? Even now?"

"What do you mean, even now? They were made that way, and that is how they are used, so they are tools. No matter what anyone says, their nature does not change."

Why was I even having this conversation? In front of the person who created them.

"You made them in the first place. You, of all people, should know that best. Why ask me?"

The First Holy Maiden answered sadly.

"Do you know of the fourth taboo?"

"You mean heresy?"

"Yes. When many people see, feel, learn, and grow through the same things, then come to observe the world with the same way of thinking... they become different from others. They share power through a strong bond. The Church of Light gained such exceptional knowledge and insight by sharing sight through a ritual in which its members plucked out their own eyes."

The Church of Light had also shared their vision and knowledge through that method. The First Holy Maiden admitted it plainly.

It sounded grotesque, but it was not all that surprising. I had already witnessed something similar.

The military state's communications officers possessed a single innate arcane shared among many people. That was a representative product of heresy.

And it was not just heresy. They had also researched devouring and grafting, so the military state could truly be called a nation of taboos.

"I, too, received precognition from the future Luminous Heavenly Venerable. Having become a Keeper of Lore through that knowledge, I realized that taboos would change humanity. The three taboos of devouring, grafting, and mating would only make humanity miserable and cause it suffering in the future. Yet the last one... is different."

Still, it would be a little unfair to call the military state "an axis of evil that commits taboos on a national scale!"

What had Yuel, the Holy Maiden who built the military state, seen and learned? A convent that raised diligent nuns through strict rules and systematic discipline. Communications officers were simply that, adjusted slightly to suit the military state.

"Do not harm one another. Do not envy one another. Do not covet. Do not deceive. Do not torment one another. Precepts that everyone can accept, rules through which humans protect one another. If every human believed in them, kept them, and followed them. If they acted and believed with a shared consciousness. I believed that one day, it could change all humanity into nobler beings."

That was right.

The greatest heresy in the world was the religion of the Celestial God. Those who shared the vast consciousness called the Celestial God and believed in it.

Those who shunned taboos and kept the precepts left by the First Holy Maiden were believers, and they were the Sanctum's strength.

Even that strange power called sacred power was drawn through the non-exclusive innate arcane known as the Celestial God.

"If a consciousness shared by all came into being, then all humanity would change, and the King of Humanity would change as well."

The First Holy Maiden had ambushed Big Sister, then stood where the fallen king had been and waited. She waited for my existence to arrive as the result.

"Yet no matter how far I searched the future, it seems impossible for all humanity to embrace the ideal I desired."

She had dreamed of something truly vast. A wish to change humanity itself. No one had ever dared imagine such a thing. Even the most reckless person I had seen had tried to change the King of Humanity rather than humanity.

"Yes. Humans are still the same. They make precepts, order, laws, and ideologies into tools for their own actions. Whether sharing goodwill or showing hatred, they attach reasons to it. As though that alone makes them rational, higher beings."

"Even though they are still no more than beasts?"

"Yes. Even though they are still no more than beasts."

No, had she nearly succeeded? In the future Shei saw, the King of Sin was born. I did not know whether that was the future the First Holy Maiden wanted to prevent, or whether the future she sought had been twisted.

"Demon Gods change the framework of the world. My observations are distorted by Demon Gods. An ending I believed ideal becomes the right course of action under a Demon God."

"You foresaw even your failure?"

"That is not precognition. It is within the realm of prediction. I cannot understand the other Demon Gods either. If the world's framework changes greatly, if the future I saw was tilted from the very beginning, then I cannot recognize that tilt."

Even if she saw the future, she saw it through human eyes. In an age where humanity's very perspective had changed, she could not judge right from wrong. The First Holy Maiden might have seemed like a god, but her vision had limits too.

"You were human in the end."

At my words, the First Holy Maiden smiled.

"I was from the beginning, my king."

Footnotes:

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