WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 687: Story of the Past. Witch Hunt - Finale

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Some time later, a pursuing force followed the remnants of the Marigold vassal state into the lands of the Arcane Federation.

The Empire and the six vassal states were the victors. They had overcome the economic collapse caused by alchemy through the Counterfeit Gold War, then torn the Marigold vassal state apart and devoured it.

Yet war alone could not resolve a collapsed economy. They needed another means of restoring trust. Around the time the Golden Holy Maiden blessed true gold and the Holy Maiden of Contracts selected seven merchant guilds to receive the baptism of contracts, the remaining six vassal states did what they did best.

"The alchemists have fled north. The Marigold vassal state is trying to rise again on that land. Kill every last one of them!"

The Arcane Federation was still a nation of refugees. The vassal states' armies trampled it mercilessly and slaughtered its people. A few mages resisted heroically, but those were merely individual victories. If anything, they only brought even larger armies upon them.

The armies of the six vassal states spread out and advanced. They were even larger than the forces that had destroyed the Marigold vassal state.

"They are jackals. They have no sense of justice. All they want is to plunder and take. Just as they destroyed my country, they will destroy this place too."

The Gold Duke sneered at them and gave the order.

"Now, Principia. Show them magic."

It might have been impossible to predict an individual's movements, but an army's movements were easy enough to predict. Principia calculated their speed and summoned a meteor.

Then, exactly two days later, a meteor fell over the army's heads. Those who had dared invade the land of mages experienced what it was like to have a meteor descend upon them...

"What have you done, Principia?!"

The Gold Duke burst through the door after receiving the report. Taken aback by his murderous presence, Principia asked,

"Was there a problem with the impact coordinates?"

"The coordinates aren't the problem. Its power is! Only seventeen people died. Seventeen!"

Principia looked genuinely surprised.

"Huh? How did as many as seventeen die? I deliberately chose one small enough to burn up before reaching the ground."

"They were trampled to death by panicked horses! That's the problem. Why didn't you drop something larger? You could have crushed that entire army!"

"Isn't this enough? They're not fools. They'll know magic was used. Something larger will fall next time, so surely they'll be frightened and run away."

Rather than respond to Principia's calm answer, the Gold Duke turned to Rene, who happened to be standing before him. Before Rene could even greet him, he strode over and barked at her.

"So it was you, bitch! You filled Principia's head with nonsense!"

"Please wait, Your Grace. She offered her opinion, and I merely accepted it. I thought it was reasonable."

"Reasonable? Principia, if you truly cared about your homeland, you should have eliminated them at once! If that army retreats, it will return with a larger force. If it keeps advancing, we'll have to face them at closer range! Either way, we'll be in danger! The only way forward is to wipe them out quickly and completely!"

The Gold Duke, who had lost both his country and his power, had bloodshot eyes. He shouted in a furious rage.

"This is war, Principia! It is a fight where people kill and are killed! They have already slaughtered countless civilians. Now it's their turn to die! I will not tolerate disobedience!"

Principia, who found conflict with people exhausting, reluctantly agreed.

"...Sigh. All right. If they come any closer, I'll wipe them out quickly. By then, I won't have any choice."

This country still had no proper military or political system. Its only strength was Principia's powerful innate arcane. Principia had been a renowned scholar even in the days of the vassal states, so the Gold Duke could not treat him carelessly.

Instead, the Gold Duke found someone else to mistreat.

"And you, Bishop. I will hold you accountable here for interfering with military operations."

Clear killing intent radiated from the Gold Duke as he drew his sword. Rene stepped back in terror, but the sword was far too close.

"Please wait, Your Grace."

However, the Demon God did not simply stand by and watch.

The Gold Duke collapsed to the floor. He tried desperately to endure, but before the Demon God, he could not even get to his knees. The laws of the world bore down upon him.

In this world, the Gold Duke was no duke. He was a carpet laid on the floor, or burnt scraps stuck to the bottom of a pot. Blood rushed through his body. It felt as though every organ would tear free and fall to the ground. Pressed flat against the cold floor, he let out a pained groan.

"Oh, excuse me. I was trying to stop you quickly, and..."

A flustered voice rang out, and the enormous force vanished as though it had never been there. The Gold Duke gagged and gasped like a dying man.

Principia showed a little regret before speaking.

"Bishop Rene is our patron and Babel's chairwoman. If you harm her, the entire association will turn its back on us. That would be a far greater loss. Your Grace, make a wise decision."

The Gold Duke could not say a word.

Unfortunately, the war unfolded exactly as the Gold Duke had predicted.

The allied armies of the vassal states pressed onward even harder. They seemed to believe that running faster would let them avoid meteors. Principia had no choice but to drop a few meteors and wipe out two armies, but the casualties remained on an entirely human scale. They assumed Principia's magic was something like an exceptional siege weapon.

"Do they really not understand? If I drop something a little bigger here, they'll all die."

Was madness born from stupidity? Or was it a trait that existed apart from reason? Even rational Principia grew impatient as reports continued to arrive.

"I even sent them a warning through Bishop Rene."

"...Most things in war are bluffs. They must have dismissed your letter as one too."

"Why would they call it a bluff after seeing things fall from the sky above them?"

As Principia irritably scratched his head, the assistant arrived with news.

"Professor! A western village was attacked!"

"...Again?"

"Professor Pascal blocked the army with wind magic, so I managed to bring all the surviving refugees here, but... We couldn't save the village that was attacked."

"A village was attacked? How many survived?"

"No one. They were all hunted down. I took revenge, but the dead were already..."

It was an age when alchemists were hunted. Mages were treated no differently from alchemists, hunted simply because they understood magic.

The assistant clenched a fist in frustration. Principia's expression was different. His brow had been furrowed, but then his face relaxed as though he had finally found an answer.

"Hm. I found the answer."

"You have?"

"Yes. My mistake was trying to understand madness. I've dragged this nuisance out for too long. I can't waste any more time if I want to solve the secret of ether."

What Rene had feared had come to pass. The madness of war had made the rational Demon God give up on them. Principia selected several points on a round map. Meteors too large to use before. Stars of destruction that would recreate part of a great extinction...

Rene was an exceptional scholar as well and had known Principia for a long time. She knew what would happen if those stars fell.

"Professor Principia. You can't. That is..."

"If they don't understand, they'll have to be hit to understand. If they do understand, they can't complain after being hit. It's logically perfect. Assistant, let's prepare."

"Yes, Professor!"

Accompanied by the assistant, Principia passed Rene by.

After that, precisely dropped meteors wiped out several armies. Their destructive power was still within purely "common sense" limits, but it was not because Principia hesitated.

"We can't ruin the Federation's land. Who would that help?"

Being suddenly struck by a stone would make anyone angry, but seeing the person beside you die from one should change your thinking. The armies finally began to come to their senses.

It was difficult to live in this frozen land without magic. What if mages who controlled every kind of natural phenomenon became hostile toward them? Life itself would become an ordeal.

The mages were clever, and they quickly learned how to fight armies. Rather than confronting energy practitioners face-to-face, they harassed them from afar and withdrew again and again. Skin-cutting cold blocked their path, while fierce winds slowed their advance.

Morale gradually fell, and the soldiers suffered from hunger and cold.

Still, the armies did not retreat. News arrived that they were instead reorganizing their forces and sending reinforcements. It was a full-scale war. The six vassal states, which had always been eager to tear one another apart, had even unified their chain of command to form a combined army.

"The combined army of the six vassal states? The Empire would never sit by and allow that... Ah."

The Empire had instigated it. Principia's sharp mind quickly grasped the truth.

The Empire. The strongest nation on the continent. The very hegemon of the world, one that even the united six vassal states could not defeat.

Why? Principia did not know the precise reason. Perhaps the Empire needed a war as well, or perhaps it coveted the Arcane Federation's magic. It might have been a mixture of reasons.

But one thing was certain. The Empire was the Arcane Federation's enemy.

"Then we'll drop the one we decided was too large to use on the Empire's heartland. Assistant, prepare it."

"Yes!"

The moment Principia recognized something as an obstacle, it no longer mattered.

"Yes! Principia, that's it!"

Meteors would fall across the Empire and the six vassal states, targeting the imperial capital and their capitals. The Gold Duke was ecstatic when he heard the news.

"This is war! We kill each other! Give the same despair to those enemies who took everything from me, then were not satisfied and coveted even what remained!"

Had Principia's plan been influenced by the Gold Duke? Or had it simply been a "reasonable" decision?

No one knew. Yet it was something Rene, a devout cleric, could not accept.

"Professor. People who have nothing to do with this will die and be hurt."

"Many are already being hurt."

"They will die without knowing what they did wrong or why they must die."

"I'm trying to tell them."

"Those who die will not even have the chance to know."

"The time they spent alive until now was their chance."

Principia's answer was colder than ice.

That was the kind of person Principia had always been. He avoided conflict because he found it bothersome, but he was armed with cold logic and reason. The one-sided war and violence had changed how he responded.

From ending conflict by accepting the other side's demands,

to ending conflict by eliminating the other side.

Still, Principia was not driven by coldness alone. Rene knew that. Founding Babel, helping mages, creating magic, and defeating enemies had all come from kindness and gentleness.

"There are countless people in the imperial capital and the other capitals. Teachers who educate others, students who study hard, children who are growing up. Tens of thousands of innocent people with potential are gathered there."

Principia scratched his head as if annoyed. Begging for compassion would not persuade him now. After all, he had not applied the same logic to the people of the Arcane Federation.

This too was the Empire's, and humanity's, original sin. But...

"Perhaps one of them will solve the error in your work."

"...You knew?"

Rene's words drew a little interest from Principia.

"The paths your meteors take. They always deviate slightly from your calculations. The error isn't large, but it is always there. There is an error in your theory."

Only Principia and the assistant knew this.

Rene would never have discovered it if the newly born Holy Maiden of Heaven had not overheard their conversation and tipped her off, and if Rene had not desperately investigated it under the Holy Maiden's blessing.

Of course, it was not something anyone could understand simply because they had been told. Without being a scholar as exceptional as Rene, they would not even know what it was or what it meant.

"That is why you're searching for ether. The blessed substance that fills the entire world. The pure energy that allows light and space to exist. Once it's found, everything will be resolved."

"...It will all be over once I find ether."

"As long as you cannot find ether, your theory is not complete."

Rene's words carried two meanings. She was not merely pointing out a flaw in the theory. She was suggesting that the reasonable conclusion Principia had reached through calculation might itself be wrong.

Principia sighed.

"I really can't beat you. Bishop Rene only chooses fights she cannot lose... So what do you want?"

At last, Principia's attitude changed. Feeling a faint sense of accomplishment, Rene said,

"Please change where the meteors will fall. Not on the imperial capital and the other capitals, but on empty land nearby."

"Empty land? Will they understand if a meteor doesn't fall over their heads?"

"The Holy Maiden is watching over this matter as well. If meteors fall in those places, the entire continent will receive it as a revelation ordering the war to end. Even if they fall on empty land, their power and damage will be immense. It will be more than enough as an example."

"The Holy Maiden? She's finally taking action?"

"The Holy Maiden has been working day and night to clean up the aftermath of the Demon God. This is also a considerable burden for her. She is effectively allowing meteors to fall in the heart of the Empire."

"Sigh."

Having witnessed the madness of war firsthand, Principia did not seem very convinced. Yet his goal was to end the war itself. As long as a method seemed realistic, he could change approaches as often as needed.

Rene continued her earnest persuasion.

"The same phenomenon looks different depending on the observer. But neither side is necessarily the only correct answer. Your method may not be wrong, Professor... but I believe mine isn't wrong either."

It was done. The Demon God had changed his mind. The Demon God of Universal Gravitation would no longer bear that vast and terrible sin. He would enjoy glory beside the Celestial God.

Then Rene would become a saint and lie beside him. That was enough. Rene could have been satisfied with that...

"I knew this would happen."

Cold metal drove into her.

Rene's consciousness dimmed. As she collapsed bleeding, a group of knights walked in behind her. The Gold Duke and his guard knights. Even the commander of the guard knights, who had reached the level of Master.

"You think you can pull out now? That will not do. Principia, the stars of disaster must fall upon the imperial capital and the six capitals as planned."

"What are you doing...?!"

Enraged, Principia briefly glanced at Rene. It was likely to make sure the Demon God's power avoided Rene alone. Yet that calculation took a little time, and the Master who had touched upon the laws of the world split that instant apart and swung a sword.

The law of universal gravitation applied fairly to all things. A head unlike any in human history separated from its neck and fell, as if the body were no longer needed.

"Principia, I was not such a good student. But I was still your student."

Roll, roll.

The head, reeling from shock, rolled across the ground. Spraying blood and staining the floor red, it came to a stop before Rene's eyes.

"I may not understand the principle, but I understand well enough how to use the weapon. You change the path of the falling stars. If you don't interfere, that star will fall upon the imperial capital."

The madness of war had already consumed the Gold Duke. Principia's omnipotent power had intoxicated him. Before his former teacher, the benefactor who had taken him in when he fled, the Gold Duke laughed madly.

"This is the judgment I deliver! Empire, receive it!"

She had thought they would be together beside the Celestial God. She had thought history would judge them. Had it become too late? Should she simply not have stopped Principia?

Still, Rene could not let the stars fall. Even as she died, she desperately wished to stop it.

She had to...

"Professor! The coordinates you mentioned last time... Professor!"

The assistant rushed in, shocked and frantic.

That was where Rene's memory ended.

Footnotes:

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