WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 607: A Story of a Place Left Behind - The King of Humanity Wants to Know the Human Heart

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It was a self-destructive blow. If the King of Humanity merely dodged or deflected it, Maximilien's attempt would come to nothing, and they would be shattered by their own power.

"Mm. I understand. Your gears."

Even knowing that perfectly well, the King of Humanity reached out to meet it.

"It's interesting, but that's all."

The flaming gear collided with her pale, delicate hand. Against that enormous mechanism, a human hand looked far too fragile. The gear bore down on the King of Humanity as if it would crush her in an instant.

The result was the complete opposite.

Sparks flew between her fist and the gear. The teeth ground away as though scraped against sandpaper. The crushed, mangled pieces of iron became gunpowder and erupted in small explosions.

Iron melted under pressure. Shattered metal fragments. Flames and sparks. Even as she gripped all of it in her hand, the King of Humanity remained calm. Without shaking in the slightest, she endured the barrage of gear teeth and spoke.

"No matter how powerful the strength you imagine in your mind may be, it is useless if it has no foundation capable of supporting it."

In theory, the force generated by the connected gears approached that of the sun. Not even the Beast King would dare withstand it.

Yet that strength existed only in Maximilien's fantasy. It was nothing but a delusion born from greed, one that ignored the limits of reality.

"It won't work. You knew it wouldn't, so why do something so reckless and make yourself sad?"

Murmuring as if saddened, the King of Humanity applied a little force and pushed away the wheel of the sun.

That was all.

The King of Humanity was cold reality. Maximilien might have been the master of gears, but they could never become the master of the world. The wall of reality collided with everything they had.

The immense force surged backward. The gears that had reached their limits broke all at once. Gathering the strength of every gear also meant that the impact was transmitted to every gear.

Hundreds of gears lost their connections and scattered. Bloodstained fragments poured down like rain.

"Aaaaaaagh!"

Bones shattered, gear fragments burrowed into their body, and rotational force turned into searing heat that crushed them.

The unbearable force surged back and destroyed Maximilien. Collapsing to their knees, Maximilien spewed blood from every opening in their body and muttered.

"Ki arts... So that technique was chosen too..."

The King of Humanity withdrew the ki arts spread across her hand.

"Useful. Unlike gears."

Maximilien had suffered grave damage in the previous battle and converted their body into gears. Now that all of them had broken, they were as good as dead.

The only reason they could still speak was that the few remaining gears moved in place of bones. If their consciousness broke for even a moment, they would fall asleep and never wake again.

Realizing this was the end, Maximilien painstakingly formed each word.

"...Heh. Hah. Honest and powerful. Unlike that one."

Though they did not say whom they meant, the King of Humanity understood and nodded.

"Perhaps my younger sibling was. That child was weak and ordinary, so they had to use everything available to them."

Those without strength had no time to be selective about their methods. They needed to observe, understand, and analyze thoroughly, conceal everything until the end, then catch their opponent off guard at the final moment to stand a chance.

But that was the perspective of the weak.

"...You are far too strong. Strong enough not to need what I have."

The truly powerful were not bound by such things.

He was the Halberdier, one of the military state's Six Generals, an alchemist once considered for a Lord's position in the Lesser States, and an executive of the Lords of All Creation.

Even Maximilien, one of the strongest around, was no more than an ordinary person before the King of Humanity.

"You knew, so why did you do it? You can't change me. You surely knew that."

It was a gentle yet emotionless question, the sort a parent who could not understand their child might ask. Maximilien met her gaze and slowly raised their head.

"...Do you truly not know why? Even though you are the King of Humanity?"

"I don't. The person who could tell me has left."

"Kehaha! Then even my death will have meaning."

Maximilien laughed as they vomited blood. Their life flickered weakly like a candle before the wind, but having found something to burn at the end, Maximilien gathered their last strength and opened their mouth.

"Listen, King of Humanity who does not know humanity. Humans live to leave themselves behind."

A human facing death did not lie. As they cast off the shell of life, there was no need to weave a burial shroud out of falsehoods.

Maximilien had always been honest, but before death, they became even more honest.

"Whether it is children, achievements, teachings, or works. Humans live to leave something in the world, to carve proof that they once lived. Life is short, but what I leave behind will remain even after I am gone."

Someone might disagree. Or they might say those words were too broad to mean much.

But to Maximilien, it was the truth, the fuel that drove them.

"But that alone is not enough. Everything has an end. My descendants will one day die out, my works will wear away and vanish in the flow of history. Teachings will someday be forgotten, and achievements will be buried in the sand."

Maximilien gripped the heart gear hanging from their chest. Forcibly pulling out the core that moved their whole body, they felt themselves crumble and squeezed out the last of their strength to hold the gear out.

"Only an achievement comparable to the Demon God will remain forever, becoming the foundation of the world and bringing me praise."

The silver gear, drenched in blood, spun by itself like a waterwheel. Holding out the gear that contained everything they were, Maximilien spat out bloodstained words.

"Take it, King of Humanity. This wish you cannot know. The human desire you have never understood...! Even if I die here, even if I fail to carve gears into you...! I will at least leave the mark of a gear upon your heart...!"

The gear containing all their strength never reached the King of Humanity.

But the gear containing all their emotions certainly reached her. As if enchanted, the King of Humanity accepted it.

"Remember... me..."

With those words, Maximilien's body collapsed. The way it scattered into pieces seemed less like death than a breakdown, a dismantling. It was an ending fitting for Maximilien, the Halberdier.

The King of Humanity looked at Maximilien for a moment, then turned away. Red flames immediately consumed the body. With a gentleness unlike fire, as though warmly embracing it, the flames cremated the remains.

Silently, the King of Humanity looked at the gear Maximilien had given her. Though its owner had drawn their final breath, the memento continued to spin. If another gear were connected to this one, it too would likely keep turning.

It was the memento of Maximilien, the mage of gears.

"You didn't need to say that. I would remember everyone."

She was the world's smallest columbarium, a library that mourned the forgotten.

She read, remembered, and kept every human.

Having made herself from all of that, she was the Beast King who remembered in loneliness.

A columbarium did not know the resentment of its ashes, and a library could not read the words in its books. It only kept and held them.

There was no librarian to read the books aloud. The library could only leave them unopened upon their shelves.

Holding the gear, the King of Humanity headed where she needed to go.

A butterfly that had flown in from somewhere landed atop Nevida's corpse. Mistaking it for a flower, it felt around Nevida's eyes, then spread its wings when it noticed the strange taste. It considered drinking the dew that tasted of blood, but showed restraint and flew away.

The clear eyes left behind after the butterfly departed held no light. The flame of the stars had cut down Nevida's life along with the Demon God. The burned lower half of her body had disappeared somewhere, leaving only her upper body sprawled across the ground.

Even the death of a Demon God was no different from an ordinary death...

Except it was.

Roots stretched from the severed cross-section. Roots that had grown by consuming the corpse felt through the ground with ferocious speed. They burrowed deep into the earth, spread farther and farther, and touched the roots of countless plants.

After feeling through the earth for a long while, Nevida's roots eventually reached the Tree of Origin.

At that moment.

A flower bloomed from Nevida's corpse. Like a flower blooming from a corpse, or cordyceps, it fed on Nevida's body and grew until it swallowed her entirely. Once the corpse had been covered, melted away, and become one with the world, the flower shed its leaves and bore a large fruit.

It looked exactly like the fruit from which humans were born.

How much time passed? Connected to the Tree of Origin, nourished by its vital energy, and feeding on Nevida's corpse, the flesh fruit gradually grew until it ripened fully.

Crack. The skin of the flesh fruit split, and pulp no different from amniotic fluid spilled out. Something squirmed within, and a small girl rolled free.

It was what Nevida would have looked like as a girl just reaching adulthood. The horns on her head were as small as fingers, while her arms and legs were as thin as winter branches. Coughing as though she were suffocating, the girl babbled foolishly.

"Cough, cough. Ah. Ah."

The newly born Nevida stood on trembling legs. Looking blankly at the fruit from which she had been born, she muttered.

"Did I... die...?"

Root Return. Nevida's technique that cast an immortal being into the vast cycle of nature, making them lose themselves forever. A mortal authority that had killed even the immortal Sacrificial Demon God.

Nevida used that authority in reverse and restored herself from death.

The Tree of Origin was both the Demon God and Nevida's innate arcane. It was possible because her consciousness remained within it. Even if Nevida died, she could contact the Tree of Origin and reconstruct her body.

"What happened? Who... Urgh."

Nevida was no exception to losing herself.

Memories resided in the body. Even memories inscribed into the Tree of Origin could not be as active and sensitive as a beast's senses. Nevida tried to recall the memories she had accumulated before dying, but it was like trying to make leaves sprout from a withered old tree.

Even so, there were things an old tree could not forget. Nevida remembered the wish she had carved into the Demon God.

"...My lord. I must see my lord again."

Nevida's everything, Nevida's wish, and Nevida's lingering attachment and past.

Even after her body had been reconstructed once, it remained and moved Nevida.

"Where could my lord be? I definitely served my lord. I cannot lose my lord again. I..."

"Nevida. It's been a long time. Did you sleep well?"

A gentle voice drifted to her as if from a dream. Nevida was so startled that her breath nearly stopped. Merely hearing that voice brought dew to the corners of her eyes, which had dried up like an old tree.

The one Nevida had missed even in dreams stood where the voice came from.

"Ah, ah..."

"You've grown younger. Were you born again from this tree? It seems you have had many things happen to you that cannot be put into words."

"My lord..."

"But Nevida, I am curious."

Nevida's king was still gentle and curious. Still cold and indifferent, too. She did not wipe away Nevida's tears or embrace the joyful Nevida. She only watched kindly and asked.

"Was bringing me back to life something worth turning your body into a tree, passing through every kind of life and death, and enduring ages beyond measure?"

Yet that was the lord Nevida had wished to see. Nevida wept as she answered.

"...Yes! It was! This humble one lived every moment for that alone!"

"I see."

It was sincere, which made it true. A person's heart needed no understanding beyond that.

"I kept you waiting a long time. I will not say I am sorry. If I apologized every time I failed to grant a wish, I would become a doll that did nothing but apologize."

"Perish the thought. How could this humble one dare wish for such a thing? This humble one only wished for my lord's return."

"And?"

And? She had never considered what came after. Seeing the King of Humanity again had been an impossibly distant, unreal wish even for Nevida. She had never had the chance to think about what would come after it was granted.

But human greed had no end, and a wish did not stop after blowing once.

"This is an order, Nevida. Tell me what you want."

At the command given by the King of Humanity, Nevida let out the great knot lodged in her heart.

"...May all humanity look up to my lord. May you reign so that none dare condemn, murder, or humiliate you!"

"Reign!"

"Reign!"

"Reign!"

Members of the Baskerville Family. The Lords of All Creation. And countless ordinary citizens who had waited for their king's return.

Drawn together by the king's presence, they all raised their voices in unison at Nevida's words.

Footnotes:

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