WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 700: Man vs. Meteor - Finale

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I did nothing. I only let the Demon God and Saint Rene meet. I demanded nothing and intended nothing. I had already achieved my goal. I had no more business here.

Still, the Demon God willingly lent us power.

Innate arcane, Causality of All Things.

Humanity built the Tower of Babel to peer into the heavens, and the Celestial God, angered by this, scattered the world's languages. Unable to understand one another after their languages were mixed, people scattered.

Yet after a long time, the Tower of Babel was finally completed.

Metaphors and rhetoric were no longer necessary to understand the world. There was no reason to struggle to explain what could not be seen.

A language made of mathematics. That was what explained this world. The barrier of language was gone. Only the barrier of understanding remained, testing humanity's intellect.

The Demon God granted the Cyan Tower Master's wish. No one knew why, but if I had to guess, it was because the Cyan Tower Master was the human most similar to Saint Rene.

The floating castle, pierced by "Pride," descended in a gentle arc. Like a feather, it finally settled softly on the earth, all sense of speed gone. It had split in two and was spilling everything inside, but it still landed safely in Celsius territory.

Except.

The fallen half received no such grace. Unrestrained by any anomaly, it fell freely. Even I could not immediately tell where the other half of "Pride" had gone.

"Pride" had been stopped, but mountains of problems remained. The shattered floating castle, the knowledge and property lost inside it, the mages scattered throughout the Arcane Federation while escaping. The losses were so enormous that one had to wonder whether they could ever be repaid within this century.

There were so many problems that it was difficult to decide where to begin. Still, those who had survived painfully pulled themselves together. The Cyan Tower Master had finished the calculations and landed the floating castle, and she was just letting out a sigh of relief.

"Ah, Master."

The Demon King slowly walked into the interior of "Pride." The floating castle had been destroyed, yet he showed no sign of regret as he looked around. Then he noticed the red apple in the Cyan Tower Master's hand.

"Was it the Cyan Tower Master who used the professor's relic?"

"Yes. This person is..."

"My master, Professor Principia, left this behind. Unlike Saint Rene, Professor was a true Demon God."

"But I only knew Professor as a member of the Babel Society."

"That is understandable. Saint Rene took most of Professor's achievements."

The Demon King naturally held out a hand. When her revered master reached out, the Cyan Tower Master unknowingly handed over the apple. Holding the relic of the master he respected, the Demon King fell silent for a moment before speaking.

"After stopping the war, laying the foundations of the Arcane Federation, and designing the floating castle, I went to the Lord of Gold to build it. While I was doing so, most of the achievements Professor submitted to the Babel Society became Saint Rene's. It was absurd. Saint Rene was only a disciple striving to reach Professor."

"If you had corrected it..."

"Unfortunately, I cannot disparage Saint Rene. It would be a betrayal of Professor."

It was probably because of the relationship between Principia and Saint Rene. The Demon King, who had watched them closely, would know better than anyone.

"The achievements went to Saint Rene. The magic was given to all humanity. The relics were distributed to 'Pride.' Professor had no descendants, so the line ended. Now no one remembers Professor, despite how Professor should have been praised for generations."

The Demon King quietly stared at and turned the Demon God's relic in his hand. The atmosphere grew a little strange. The Demon King had only just arrived, yet treated the relic as though it belonged to him.

"The world still has not caught up to Professor. I was told that someday a talent would emerge who surpassed Professor, but humanity is still nowhere close."

"Wait, Master."

"The world must improve. It must advance. It must build ever higher. That is our duty, standing upon the shoulders of giants. It is how we repay the knowledge built by those who came before us. Yet the world has not repaid anything at all..."

It was the same thing the Demon King had told me before. That the world below had not advanced at all. The Cyan Tower Master seemed to realize something.

"Could it be that you intended to bring down 'Pride' in order to obtain the Demon God's relic?"

"Obtain it? This relic was mine from the beginning."

"A relic does not belong to the living. It belongs to the deceased. Unless you are acknowledged by the deceased, you cannot draw out a relic's power!"

"Who do you think placed it on that meteor?"

"What?"

An apple could not have grown on a meteor. Someone had placed the Demon God's relic there. And there was only one person who could have done it.

"I put it there. I had been managing Professor's possessions from the beginning."

The person closest to the Demon God Principia had been Academia, the professor's assistant and the Demon King. The Demon King was the human closest to the Demon God.

"Saint Rene tried to persuade Professor. She pointed out a flaw in Professor's theory and argued that there might be someone, somewhere, who could overcome it. Arrogantly."

"The Demon God agreed with that argument!"

"You are mistaken. Professor mercifully let it pass. The flaw in Professor's theory had been addressed long ago, and not a single human has reached Professor's realm on their own. Nothing Saint Rene said came true."

Saint Rene's words had been false. The Demon God had simply taken her side. Their decision had ended with both of them dying, but one person had survived. The Demon King remembered the promise they had made.

"The time limit of that promise ended long ago. So I intended to bring Professor down to the ground. Preferably, I intended to entrust the relic to someone who had realized gravity magic. That was why I scattered the scrolls, to test the knowledge needed to find 'Pride,' the mana required to wield the magic, and the passion for truth."

"Even if tens of millions of people died for it?!"

"If someone still brings down 'Pride' despite that, it means they possess an intense longing for truth. That longing is more important than those incompetent tens of millions."

It was true. The Demon King seemed to feel no guilt despite causing an incident that might have destroyed the world. The Cyan Tower Master saw a side of her revered master and felt a dizzying shock.

'Master... No, Demon King. He truly is the Demon King. Someone who does not care about any sacrifice, someone devoted only to his goal... I cannot hand this power over to the Demon King.'

"Give it back. I was the one who passed that test."

Prepared to fight if necessary, the Cyan Tower Master demanded it from the Demon King. The Demon King nodded and readily returned the apple.

"Though he was the one who tore up the scroll, you were the one who ultimately obtained Professor's relic. Here. Take it."

"...What?"

The Cyan Tower Master was the one surprised instead. The Demon King had just coldly said that tens of millions of lives meant nothing, yet he handed over the relic so easily. Looking at the apple returned to her hand, the Cyan Tower Master was confused.

"Did I not say it? My goal was to bring Professor's relic back to the ground. The King of Humanity pushed you into it and paid the floating castle as the price, but you still obtained the relic in the end. That makes you qualified."

He meant it. Tens of millions of lives truly meant nothing. Since they meant nothing, it did not matter whether they were protected or not.

The Demon King spoke in a gentle yet stern manner.

"You may use it however you like. The more you use it, the more Professor's knowledge will spread throughout the world. It will become a spark of enlightenment. If ignorant fools ever run wild without knowing their place, you may drop a meteor on them."

"We are not you, Master. We will never do something so barbaric."

The Cyan Tower Master coldly turned her back on her master. Perhaps her bold attitude pleased the Demon King, because he nodded before suddenly speaking.

"Barbaric? Cyan Tower Master, there is still something I need to teach you."

"I have nothing left to learn from you."

"No. This is another matter. You have already been used by a barbarian, have you not?"

A barbarian? The Cyan Tower Master did not know who the Demon King meant. Shei, though, flinched and looked at me. She remembered the title the Holy Maiden had used for me countless times.

"You stopped 'Pride' in exchange for the floating castle. You had no choice, and events naturally led there. But think about it. Was there not always someone at the center of it all?"

There was. Though she was not sure who it was, for some reason the Cyan Tower Master slowly turned toward me.

'Hughes? But it could not be helped. Hughes is the King of Humanity. Of course he would be involved in all of this... Ah.'

'Ever since he escaped after being captured by the Green Tower Master. Ever since Lankart introduced him. Ever since he naturally joined the Crystal Tower and learned magic there.

After that, he fell into Celsius territory. He climbed the Dragon Gate. He reached Babel. He tore up the scroll that brought down "Pride."'

'Wait... Since when?'

"From the beginning. His goal had been one thing from the start."

The Demon King wrapped space around his body, so I could not read his mind. Still, he had continued to act detached from the world, and I had been too busy with my own work to pay much attention. Not that it would have changed much even if I had.

But it seemed the Demon King had been watching me quite closely.

"To bring the floating castle down to the ground."

Footnotes:

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