WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 699: Man vs. Meteor - 7

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[Bishop Rene was an exceptional scholar. Her coordinate geometry was a great help to me as well. Without her assistance and research, my achievements would have been delayed by more than ten years. The mages of the Babel Society also gave me valuable inspiration, but she and Academia were special. They were the only two beings who ever surprised me.]

Principia spoke as if making excuses, then looked away.

[One of the few people I acknowledged asked me to do it... And what she said was not wrong. Striking the mainland would produce many innocent victims, and the families of the Babel Society's mages might be caught up in it. As she said, perhaps someone in a later generation could formulate the principle of relativity more elegantly. I could not deny that possibility either.]

"Did you love her?"

[It was different from such a simple, primal emotion. I respected her and acknowledged her insight. That was all.]

Saint Rene never knew that. If she had possessed the ability to read memories too, would she have been embarrassed?

[When I meet too many fools, I sometimes begin to doubt my own common sense. I am clearly more capable, and my judgment is correct, yet I feel as though their foolishness and madness drag me along with them. At times like that, I need someone like her or Academia. Someone who can speak with me as an equal, from the same perspective.]

"Your opinion differed from Saint Rene's, though."

[That could not be helped. Bishop Rene was a devout nun. She could offer no option except a peaceful, moral one. It was frustrating and old-fashioned, but should there not be at least one such person in the world? That too is a different perspective. From Bishop Rene's perspective, it was the right choice.]

A perspective. It sounded like the principle of relativity he had explained earlier. Maybe it was because humans were part of the world too.

"Though she ended up being killed by the Gold Duke."

[...Hoo. The Gold Duke.]

I sensed a faint, restrained anger. It seemed Principia had emotions after all.

[If only the Gold Duke had been a little less foolish, with half as much intelligence as greed. Despite my advice, the Gold Duke chose false-gold currency and made the Marigold vassal state a public enemy through provocative remarks. In the end, the Gold Duke killed her and me...]

"The Gold Duke did. The Gold Duke said the meteor would be allowed to fall as it was. Thanks to your final resistance, it still hasn't struck."

Though it was falling now.

[Yes. My final resistance, after following such an idiot and lending my strength to his foolish judgment. It is painful even to watch the foolish, stupid world below. It is better to hold up a star here.]

"Well. I understand that the world is stupid too. Sometimes I think that way. That I'm smart and special, while every other human is like a dim-witted fool."

I nodded, then pointed at him.

"But you're the same to me."

Principia had likely never heard someone call him stupid. Even the founders of the Arcane Federation had conceded his superiority.

Still, he was no different to me.

[Me?]

"You were part of the world too. You were one of the people who made that era. You were an outstanding scholar, but you were used one way or another, and even after realizing the Gold Duke was far too foolish for someone so greedy, you followed the Gold Duke. Why? Weren't you ultimately swept up in the stupidity of your era too?"

[Then are you saying I should have rebelled against him?]

"Yes!"

If I was right and the other party was wrong, I had to see my will through. I had to stand by my principles. Yet he accepted it quietly, designed the false-gold currency, and ultimately cooperated with him. He had contributed to the Counterfeit Gold War too.

Principia had contributed to that era. No, every human being had made that era in the first place. To place the chaos and sins of an era on only a few people? That was even more absurd.

"You didn't know the Gold Duke would be that incompetent. Fine. But once you knew, you should have driven the Gold Duke out when they came to the Arcane Federation. Or killed them at the right time, or sold them out. Instead, you let them in, let them seize power, let them stab Saint Rene in the back at the final moment. What's the point of lamenting now that everyone else was stupid?"

[That is unrealistic. They were one of the seven dukes, among the most powerful people on the continent, and were accompanied by a knightly order. How could I defy them?]

"You're the more capable one, aren't you? The person who says the world is foolish still obeys every rule made by those ignorant masses?"

Society, laws, and norms were made by eras and humans. They were all imperfect, stubborn, and old-fashioned, and often blocked my path.

That was fine. Sometimes following them could not be helped.

But if you were going to complain, you should at least resist.

"The world is wrong. You're right. Then you can do it, can't you? You became a Demon God because you refused to be bound by common sense, yet you suffered tragedy because you were bound by human common sense? Come on. You look just as foolish to me. If you were that certain, shouldn't you have broken the world and its common sense?"

[That is easy to say. There have been revolutionaries who said such things, but none of them got beyond delusions. Can you do it?]

"Yes. That's why I'm smashing everything I don't like! It's doable, you know? Even an ordinary person like me can manage it!"

It was true. I even had a pretty good track record. Things were going well right now too.

"You know, I call people who don't understand their own hearts stupid. In that sense, you weren't quite that stupid, but you were someone who made the people around you stupid. You understood other people's perspectives, but you never wanted them to understand yours."

[You think I should have persuaded them? Explaining things to fools is exhausting.]

"Maybe. But what does it mean to call them stupid when you never tell them anything? What does it mean to turn away without changing anything?"

Just laughing at them for being stupid accomplished nothing. Even if such a person was smarter, they were less useful than someone who acted.

"Saint Rene misunderstood you her whole life. She felt guilty for failing to stop or save you. The Gold Duke misunderstood things as he pleased, then committed a pointless massacre. Well, that was more his problem, really."

Calling down a meteor was closer to summoning magic. It brought something that already existed down to the ground. Even a Demon God could not create a meteor out of empty space.

Then where had Principia brought this meteor from?

"You were stopping a meteor that would fall anyway. You had already been saving the world."

The meteor had already been drawing near. Before long, it would crash, or at least come close enough to do so. Principia and the Demon King discovered the group of meteors heading this way while observing celestial bodies.

So Principia temporarily "stopped" the meteor. It was similar to keeping the floating castle aloft. He trapped the meteor in a trajectory of eternal descent, where it fell forever but never arrived.

"If Saint Rene had known that, wouldn't she have thought of you a little differently? She wouldn't have seen you as someone who could summon a meteor out of nowhere and destroy the world whenever you wished."

[That would only have given her needless worries. The meteor that had entered the trajectory of eternal descent would continue orbiting from then on. There was no reason to concern herself with it.]

"Oh. It was consideration?"

That was "Pride."

The proud yet merciful consideration a Demon God who had saved the world extended to humanity.

"There's one thing I'm curious about. Why stop the meteor instead of throwing it far away? Did you intend to use it as a weapon someday?"

[Of course not. Innate arcane is not omnipotent. Even a Demon God cannot alter a meteor's direction too drastically.]

Even Demon Gods had limits. They were not as omnipotent or powerful as I had thought. Well, that was why he had died when a Master cut off his head.

[The farther away it is, the greater the gravitational anomaly required. If I abused gravitational anomalies like that, I might bring down the moon or lose a continent. Trapping it in orbit was the best option.]

...Or was he too powerful instead?

[This meteor is the same. The Gold Duke's judgment was not entirely wrong. But I was a Demon God. The decision I made just before my death was to agree with Bishop Rene's judgment.]

That was why the innate arcane engraved upon the world followed the Demon God's will. Without bringing down the moon or losing a continent, it held up only this meteor.

The Gold Duke might have truly succeeded if they had killed Principia later or taken Saint Rene hostage. But they were not capable of that much.

"So that was the situation. Still, I think Saint Rene would have understood if you had explained it."

[She would have. But because she was intelligent, she worried too much. She was especially afraid that evil people might misuse my research. She would have held me back for the rest of my life.]

"I understand how you feel. I wish she could understand this feeling too."

[Since we are both dead, that can never happen now.]

Unlike Demon Gods engraved upon the world, Saint Rene existed only as a relic. A relic could not change and would gradually wear away until it disappeared. This voice could not reach the other.

"There is no absolute in this world, though."

Still, space twisted, and something appeared.

Innate arcane was unique. But Demon Gods were not.

After learning alchemy, the guildmasters of the Lesser States acquired innate arcane that affected the properties of matter. They met with the Lord of Gold and were granted personal mounts. That was possible because the roots of their mindscapes lay with Demon Gods.

Ruel, the Holy Maiden of Light, was the same. Her innate arcane was materialization of light, yet she could wield the power of the blessing she received from the First Holy Maiden. Both powers were skilled in alchemy and possessed innate arcane closely tied to it.[1]

Their innate arcane came from learning and studying Demon Gods, and their mindscapes reached the Demon Gods.

Saint Rene's innate arcane was no different.

[Bishop Rene?]

Saint Rene's innate arcane, Sky in a Pocket.

An innate arcane that created imaginary coordinates which did not exist in reality.

Her innate arcane began with the Celestial God but grew through Principia. Space, motion, force, curves. To express principles that existed only inside Principia's mind, because she wanted to understand a human far more capable than herself, because she wanted everyone to know how remarkable he was, Saint Rene threw herself into it desperately.

As a result, in order to express the language of a genius, Saint Rene awakened innate arcane.

"She did understand. She approached you because she wanted to understand. And she came this close."

A relic was a relic. It existed to lend power to a worthy human, not to serve as a means of speaking with the dead.

But I was different. I could speak even with relics. If a human consciousness was there, I could read it.

So I let Saint Rene's relic reach this place.

Conversations did not have to happen only through words.

"You've never seen her innate arcane, have you? Feel it now. Feel what that innate arcane was created for."

Principia paused for a moment. He was someone who understood. He had never been understood throughout his life, but he could see how desperately one nun had struggled to understand him.

I turned around and began walking away.

"Pride" was falling toward the ground. Without a Demon God's power, it would be impossible to overcome.

But the Demon God had no reason to destroy the world, and he had just gained one reason to protect it.

Footnotes:

[1] The Korean gives "two powers" as the subject here, but does not make their connection to alchemy clear.

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