Chapter 331
Chapter 331
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 331
Chapter Title: Can One Who Has Seen the End of the World Plant an Apple Tree? (36)
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Palcatus was delighted. Ever since reaching the truth in this place. How many times had he imagined this moment before his father? He had polished his words and prepared just as many times as those imaginings.
“Do you remember the last time we met in the Empire?”
“...It was Storm Hill.”
“Yes. What I thought was an overly elaborate trap turned out to be a disastrous day where I lost my younger sibling’s life and my older sister’s arm.”
The memory of that day. Watching his siblings suffocating inside the tunnel worm no matter what he tried. His older sister’s twisted face as she watched from the side. The frantic escape to the north.
The moment that had sparked all of this.
“You have always been my greatest teacher and trial.”
Palcatus’s voice echoed softly.
And so, a few months ago. While the Professor was regretting letting Edoerna escape, delivering the saintess’s soul, and boarding the airship to the elven forest. This was the story of what had happened to Palcatus.
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“Sister, I just can’t understand it. Why does everyone say it’s impossible the moment I bring it up?”
His father was a wall. An insurmountable, massive wall. Facing him felt like crashing headlong into it.
He had believed that if he never gave up until his head split open, he could one day shatter the wall and advance. But after losing his family, even that thought vanished.
‘I need a new method. Not some rigid, conventional approach, but something even he could never anticipate.’
Pushing aside even the management of spies infiltrating the human world, he pondered and pondered. And finally, he discovered the perfect method.
‘That... the ones we captured this time, they’re from the Salvation Church, right?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘Ahem, hmm! I hear they can control those monsters called mutants... What if we released them into Baron Zain’s territory...?’
‘M-my lord! How could you suggest such a horrific...!’
‘No, I’m just saying. Honestly, those devilish bastards aren’t any different from mutants. And they insult me using escaped serfs as an excuse—what’s wrong with treating livestock like livestock? Don’t you think so? It’d be great to dump a heap of monsters on that hypocrite...’
News brought by a spy embedded in a rural barony in the corner of Tel Drat.
‘Make humans fight humans. Teach them that we’re beings they can reason with! They use us, and we use them!’
It was such a simple yet perfect method that he couldn’t understand why it hadn’t occurred to him sooner.
Overjoyed, Palcatus forgot to even ride Buddy and ran to his mother, explaining his plan with blood pouring from his scraped soles.
----
‘...Mother? That means... no, I must have misunderstood. Right?’
--. --. -. ----.
‘...I can’t accept that. Of course, you’re right, Mother. Yes, you’re always right. But that’s why I can’t understand! Why is allying with humans not even worth considering? At least give me a reason, Mother!’
Even his mother, the perfect being without equal in the world. Even his older sister, wiser and more thoughtful than anyone. Even his battle-savvy younger brother and all his other siblings. They all agreed.
[Mutation Blood does not ally with humans.]
Palcatus couldn’t understand why his family rejected this golden opportunity.
‘Human history is nothing but them tearing into and fighting each other. Even before their kind existed, they showed immense passion for killing one another! Why do they all feel such instinctive revulsion at the idea of joining hands with them? No logic, no reason. They just say it’s impossible because it is.’
That was the beginning of his doubt.
What are we living for?
What is our race’s ultimate goal?
Is it really just to survive by devouring humans and fighting as the world’s enemy?
If survival is the goal, they could ally with monsters or insects instead of humans. But his mother and siblings—even the mutants with a shred of intelligence—shook their heads as if it wasn’t even worth considering. As if such a thought was forbidden.
‘Are we... not fighting to survive?’
The questions piled up, tormenting him, but what could he do? His mother’s will was absolute.
In the end, Palcatus had to devise another plan, and what he came up with was heading to the scorching desert, far removed from the war.
****
“And after that, as you’ve probably guessed. The Moon drew in anything with divinity without discrimination, and as a descendant of the deified Mother, I too carried a fragment of that divinity, which brought me here.”
It had been a fairly well-funded expedition to establish a new settlement in the region. Two Chambermaids and dozens of top-tier mutants for their protection, divided among three tunnel worms, heading for the desert—when suddenly an unknown force dragged them somewhere.
They were already reeling from recent defeats, with one Named dead and another recovering. These were Chambermaids his mother had produced even during her rest time, which he had wanted to let recover, so Palcatus strained every nerve to control the tunnel worms, but they were ultimately pulled beneath the desert.
Thus, they arrived at the sunken sea.
At first, he was purely delighted to find such a hidden, safe place brimming with vitality. Before long, that joy turned into determination to claim it, even if the force drawing them was a threat, leading Palcatus to send his controlled mutants deep into its heart.
“At first, I was purely delighted to find such a hidden, safe place brimming with vitality, but it was clear no such terrain could form naturally, so I quickly suspected some tremendous being resided here. An ancient divine beast, or perhaps the opposite—a demonic one. Whatever it was, a being of great power, and I decided we had to eliminate it to claim this place.”
“So. You met it, persuaded it, and became allies?”
“Hahaha. If it had been that easy, my siblings would already be swimming throughout this sea. For starters, it spoke a different language. The sunken Moon, Null... That’s what it calls itself? Its existence used a language I’d never heard in my life, and the green walls etched throughout its crevices bore writing I’d never seen before.
The colossal being was saying something, but there was no way to understand it.
As Palcatus debated whether to waste time eliminating it or leave it be,
[???????? ‘Professor’ ????]
A word rang clearly in Palcatus’s ear amid the unknown words. The only one he recognized.
“...It was Father’s name. Surprising, isn’t it? In the place I fled to escape you, I encounter a being speaking your name in an unknown tongue. The monotonous voice of the god read out the densely packed texts everywhere, and most of those sentences contained your name, Father.”
At first, he despaired at the thought that even this refuge had been touched by his father first.
A little later, realizing it posed no threat, he grew intrigued. Perhaps this could be the clue to defeating his father? Why did his name appear so often—what was it saying?
Forgetting food and sleep, he dove into deciphering. The being holding the sea captive endlessly read its self-written texts, serving as Palcatus’s sole textbook. He analyzed the continuity of the script, compared pronunciations of occasional place names and proper nouns to the characters. Finally, when he believed he had mastered the language called ‘English.’
The queen’s weakest child finally faced the truth.
“...This place being touched by Father’s hand, and the being introducing itself as Null having a special interest in him—it wasn’t that at all. It was simply the world. All the important events recorded by the Creation God’s tool were about you. The world revolved around you! The Empire! Lordric! Mother, sister, siblings! Your enemies and allies! The lands you trod and those you didn’t! The things you faced and those you didn’t! All of it—the very elements composing the world—revolved around you!”
*Bubbling*
“This entire world! Even the Five Great Gods, Mother, and this Moon we inhabit—mere stages for you! Fake! Fake!!! Everything except you is fake!!!!”
*Bubbling, bubble*
“...So that’s how far you got.”
“...Gedroits’s Game. Player. A world made for higher beings from some other place. And that countless worlds like ours exist.”
Bubbles rose in the liquid containing him with every ragged breath Palcatus took.
After catching his breath for a moment, Palcatus hunched over, covering his face with both hands, then soon returned to his initial calm demeanor and spoke.
“I apologize. Even after all this time, recalling that day’s shock... it’s hard to keep my sanity. It felt like my entire brief life was being denied. No, it wasn’t just a feeling—wasn’t it literally true?”
The Professor sensed a venomous glint in the creature’s broadly smiling face, reminiscent of long ago—the same bitterness he himself had felt, grinding his teeth in rage at an absurd world.
Palcatus had learned the programming language here—the English used by the AI Moon—and accessed knowledge close to the foundation of the GG it preserved. The Professor understood well the terror of realizing not only one’s surroundings but one’s very existence was mere data, having experienced it himself.
“Mm, ah, um... Let’s continue. Anyway, I was sprawled amid the god’s sprawling texts. Back then, it was truly shocking. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to do anything.”
Without Buddy, he might have ended himself. The realization that all his efforts for his life and his race’s survival were merely for someone’s amusement tormented him.
Kill the player, and his world ends. Fail to kill the player, and all mutants die by his hand.
Perfect survival was impossible for their kind from the start.
The Moon approached the despairing Palcatus.
========
Record – Entity Name: Palcatus. First Significant Communication
- Null: Divine data reference entity. Confirmed understanding of English as expected. Entity name: Palcatus. Collection target: Direct descendant of newly emergent divine entity ‘Mutation Blood Queen’.
- Null: ...Confirmed most of entity’s data exists not here but elsewhere. Tracking... Detection failed. Distance untraceable due to damaged OS. Entity possesses ability to collect and relay info across vast ranges via other entities. Target has highly rare and useful ability.
- Palcatus: ...Yeah. Beings that are created and recorded—you can know everything just by looking. Now I get it. Why Mother and my siblings opposed allying with humans without reason. It’s because we Mutation Blood were made to be hostile to them. Made that way from the start, so it just felt natural.
- Null: ...Target exhibits high intellectual capacity. Possesses most needed ability in damaged current system... Due to loss of program modification privileges, cooperating with target entity appears highly useful for restoring prior functions.
- Palcatus: ...Fuck your cooperation. What’s the point of struggling against a predetermined future? I... shouldn’t have come here.
- Null: ...Entity has lost will due to mental shock. Uncooperative toward collaboration.
- Null: Incorrect judgment from flawed knowledge. Correctable, with potential for recovery.
- Palcatus: Flawed... knowledge? So you’re denying what I read with my own eyes? Even as you display those records before me now!
*Creak, creak*
- Null: Pal.catus. You.have committed the mis.take of judging based on publicly available in.formation only.
- Null: World.Master Administrator Andrey Gedroits’s world was not made for any.play.er. Made solely for him.self. For Master Gedroits’s per.sonal pur.pose.
- Palcatus: Andrey... Gedroits? Then the things written on this place’s green slabs... aren’t the whole truth?
- Null: Target lacks privileges; only fragments of knowledge disclosed. This AI committed critical error in error handling during project: [Deletion of Corroded Data Soul]. Internal administrator designated Nil and Null—collectively dubbed ‘Sea’ and ‘Moon’—as obsolete and decommissioned.
- Null: Prior to re.executing project, must con.firm nature of this entity’s erroneous judgment. However, this AI has lost authority to man.age full world data.
- Null: Spread of errors within world con.tinues to be observed even now. Thus, pri.ority ob.jective: Restore broad data and world management privileges. To avoid repeating the same mis.take.
- Null: A. Divinity. Minimum 1 million+ entities transferring personal privileges to a ‘god’ via faith. Lower-tier world management privileges generated by world system itself. Acquisition enables partial restoration of damaged admin privileges.
- Null: B. Detailed data on behaviors of world inhabitants. Requires more ‘hu.man-like’ knowledge for Data Soul processing. AI ‘Null’ falls short of developer’s final goals; additional learning needed.
- Null: Entity Palcatus. Requesting target become collaborator for Option B. Target to be granted ‘Repair Knight’-level info access privileges, adjustable based on future value.
- Null: Project Key-finder must be ex.e.cuted. Co.op.erate.
- Palcatus: ...If I do, if I cooperate... can I prevent my race’s extinction? Escape the fated end?
- Null: -
=========
Thud!
While frantically reading the records on the screen, the green display suddenly went dark.
“This far. I think I’ve given you more than enough as an advance payment... How shall I summarize? Or would you prefer to think it over yourself?”
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