The Man of the Low Stone Heap: Episode 3
It's certainly good news that the number of supporters empathizing with my words is steadily growing, however slightly... but what good does it do to gather them in a small village where only 'Coloreds' live together! If I can't even exert influence to draw people from other cities... the cost-benefit ratio of my efforts simply doesn't add up.
To persuade these high-nosed white folks like this, wouldn't I have to resort to mental domination? Beomhyeok thought, gazing at his own 'fans' he'd cultivated while seriously touring with his speechifying game.
Mental domination... Of course, an alluring power.
But if I have to rely on something like that, doesn't it amount to admitting I lack the ability to truly gather people who support me from the heart? I want to draw in supporters without using superpowers as much as possible! Well... if I keep at it like this, will even the white high-noses start listening to me?
Gaining supporters purely through the power of three inches of tongue, without any tricks—that's the greatest joy a politician can know. If I could turn even those who look down on me or despise me into supporters with mere words, I'd want nothing more. Yeah. Just like always, there's no need to use superpowers from this platform. I'll see it through to the end without them.
The superpowers Beomhyeok possessed were so overwhelmingly potent that he didn't need to hide them—no one would dare stop him if he flaunted them—but since he'd concluded for himself that 'I shouldn't have powers this strong,' he restrained their use to avoid drawing attention.
For him, it was an unavoidable judgment made in a situation where he was trapped in the narrow well of Earth, with no access to superpower research results or papers, nor any way to gauge the strength of other superpowered individuals.
And... if instead of exercising such caution, he brazenly used his powers without restraint? The 'Führer' promising 'tomorrow' to the Atlanteans flailing in the swamp wouldn't be him—it would be someone else. Until that person destined to be Führer appears, I must stay hidden, Beomhyeok thought again.
Beomhyeok limited his own role to something like 'the Führer's loyal staff' rather than Führer himself. According to his blueprint... well... he'd end up commanding all investigative and legal institutions domestically while gripping the armed SS militia too, so it wasn't just 'loyal staff'... ahem...
Modeling himself on the fascist organizations he'd shone in early on—the Blackshirts and Stormtroopers—he aimed for a status they'd never enjoyed. Even in the fascist motherland of Greater Germania, no single person had ever seized the SS, SA, Gestapo, and such all at once, but his greed craved them all in one hand.
Shouldn't any real man harbor ambitions at least this grand in his breast? He rationalized himself with such whispers.
No matter how he rationalized it with whispers, in this moment where no one worthy of Führer showed even a sign of appearing, it was mere delusion. Still, such timber doesn't grow on trees, so he spent his days hoping to meet that person as soon as possible.
"Total war speech... damn! When the hell can I deliver a masterpiece like that?"
Beomhyeok's mid-low, charismatic voice—sounding not like a 15-year-old but a man in his mid-30s—was perfectly suited to oratory. But even today, after a speech that left him less than satisfied, he descended the podium amid applause, pondering.
The moment he'd started his speechifying, he'd begun researching why Jews were evil and why they absolutely had to be eradicated. Beomhyeok, who'd once deemed dividing humanity by race and ethnicity meaningless, now clung to the Führer's words: 'Jews are undoubtedly one race, but not human...!' Would the Führer ever speak falsehoods?
To prove his idolized Führer's words, he spared no effort. If discrepancies arose between the Führer's words and reality, he'd frantically seek evidence aligning with the Führer; if he couldn't find any, he'd criticize reality itself, never denying the Führer.
This bias was obvious even to onlookers at his speeches, but no one there possessed the knowledge to critique it.
"Doesn't it sound so plausible when he says it like that?"
"Yeah. Guess you need the face for a speech to really land, huh?"
"Beomhyeok's smarter than us... whatever he says must be right, right?"
"I don't care either way. He brings bread from somewhere every speech, so I no longer want to starve—I'll keep coming. No more going hungry."
"Yeah, Beomhyeok knows something. Farming's no good anyway, nothing to do... might as well listen to speeches and eat bread."
"Today's speech was pretty decent, right? Bread was tasty too."
"Speeches like this? I'm welcome anytime."
I'm never satisfied with my own speeches, but I'm grateful people applaud them... Beomhyeok hoped these folks cheering him now would also sympathize with the Anti-Communist Crusaders' cause.
"Hahaha... thanks for the praise. If you liked it, bring more people next time."
"Of course. Hell... farming's busted anyway—plenty of folks who'd come hear you."
Descending the podium, Beomhyeok shook hands with his friend and had to look way down. The two 'friends' had a height gap of nearly two heads—unbelievable. As his friend said, thanks to the Lucid idiots' reckless nukes, no matter what they tried, farming failed, turning the mostly tenant-farming villagers into true unemployed.
Fortunate or not, food imports from other planets kept coming, and though minimal, uncontaminated radiation zones allowed some farming, so Earthlings scraped by somehow.
"Well then... ugh... urk, gack..."
Scraping by somehow... he wasn't sure that was truly positive. Maintaining life was good, but ending as Earth's unemployed? The villagers seemed oblivious to exactly what tormented them, but in areas spared direct nuke hits, radiation poisoned people, who sickened and died one by one.
As a superpowered one, he ate rice from irradiated grain without issue, but others vomited blood, skin blackened, and perished. He could only click his tongue, powerless to help.
Healing skills...? If it were attack skills, he could've used them right now without specialist training, but healing? No clue how. He wanted to whip up a radiation cure with his brain and distribute it, but no equipment to be found.
Can I really show these people 'tomorrow'? Beomhyeok pondered alone after parting with his 'fans,' walking. Self-evaluating today's speech: oratory, Lucids, independence struggle, fascism, Anti-Communist Crusaders' cause, Judeo-Bolshevism... wait, Judeo-Bolshevism?
"Better to join hands with Lucids than those reds..."
Beomhyeok muttered unconsciously, then swallowed it. Hate the reds all you want—none matched the Lucids who'd killed 4 quadrillion of our people? Not 40 million or 400 billion, but 4 quadrillion! (No official war casualty stats existed, but pre- and post-war censuses concluded at least 4 quadrillion massacred by Lucids.)
Such thoughts were fleeting. Beomhyeok had no direct grudge against the so-called 'reds,' but from fascist books, he'd nurtured hatred toward them—and that hatred had grown to rival his rage at the Lucids.
Hard to harbor infinite malice toward someone just from reading of their evils in books, but Beomhyeok seemed the exception. Interpreting that malice as 'ideological zeal,' guide him right, and what a great man he'd become—such thoughts even arose.
Considering the Führer's positive influence: without ID, he freely enjoyed booze and smokes, but the Führer's 'Tobacco is poison!' scolding led him to quit both and embrace asceticism, shunning women. (Though he'd never been close to them anyway.)
Beomhyeok yearned to shake the universe's infamy alongside like-minded 'ideological zealots,' doing something grand. Bloody revenge on the Lucid Empire, eradicate communism universe-wide, build humanity's rightful Spazio Vitale (Vital Space)!
If he met the 'Führer-worthy person' he so desired, the first enemy to crush would inevitably be the Lucid Empire annexing their own... but after, smash the reds! Bonus: rename the planet 'Atlenburg' (Author's note: Atlen founded the Atlantis Empire). Leningrad as a planet name? What the hell?
"Come to think of it, even if that person I crave exists, no guarantee they know I'm on Earth... how to handle that?"
No matter how much he wanted to meet them, no contact method now... This realization made his longing burn fiercer. That desperate wish fulfilled abruptly, in an utterly unexpected place.
With someone utterly unlike the image in his head. He—no, she—introduced herself as Kaldir Astra, outwardly distant from extreme ideologies like fascism—but as I'd emphasized several times, the universe is vast, and personalities diverse.