Chapter 21
Chapter 21
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 21
Chapter Title: We Are All Flesh
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My Lord commanded: Cherish the potential of humanity.
This does not refer merely to the human race, but to all beings possessed of intellect and reason.
From dawn, I recalled His words and prayed.
My prayers are nothing grand. The prayer text was not bestowed by Him but crafted by me. With my meager talents, I cannot compose prayers as splendid as those of the Triune Faith.
“Lord, You are here, and I am here. Have mercy upon us.”
I merely repeat those simple words.
While praying, it is as if my spirit is unbound; even with eyes closed, I see all around me.
I saw Roca slinking into my room. Rubbing her eyes with her hands, still half-asleep and groggy, she stuck out her tongue at me.
“Yaaawn, praying?”
“What brings you here so early in the morning? Sleep a bit more.”
“I wanted to, but there’s a rotting corpse smell coming from outside.”
Whoosh.
Roca leaped up and clung to my back. I can still carry her if she rides piggyback, but I feel her getting heavier bit by bit. I don’t know if she’s growing or just filling out her once-withered frame.
“Master, I’ll protect you.”
“Thank you. I feel much safer thanks to you.”
Her tail shot straight up at my praise. Such an easy-to-read child.
“With Roca guarding me, I have no worries now.”
“Heehee...”
“Now I can sleep with the door unlocked? Even if a bad person comes, Roca will chase them off.”
“Hehehe...”
She likes it. She loves it.
How could it feel so good?
‘I wish I could see this child grow up, find a mate, and even bear young. Do I have that much time left?’
This moment, too, will pass and become the past,
A memory for both Roca and me.
So Roca strives to be as happy as possible now, and so do I.
No matter how much we reminisce on memories later, we won’t recapture this joy.
—Apostle, come hither.
A voice. But not His.
His words are instantly recognizable upon hearing. Yet He is mostly silent.
This voice is the call of another angel serving Him. I can almost see the angel beckoning me to their side.
—That place is too small for one such as you.
If a human’s end is death,
My end is not death but ascension. I have known this since He chose me.
But to me, it is no different from death.
‘It is not yet time.’
Not yet. It is not time to leave this world for His side. This is my first and last rebellion against the Lord. I want to stay here.
Stay and see the first snow of next winter with Roca. See the sunflowers of the summer after.
See the day she grows and no longer needs me. That will be the time for me to depart.
“Mr. Kyle. Are you there? I know it’s early, and I apologize for the intrusion, but it’s urgent. Could you spare a moment to come out?”
Knowing there is more to come, I do not fear death.
Least of all within this house.
This place, lit by the sanctuary’s candle, is my home but also soon to be the Lord’s palace, a realm under His will.
Here, I have nothing to fear. I opened the door to greet the stranger. Seeing Roca clinging to my back, he stammered.
“Uh, um, uh... H-Hello, Priest Kyle.”
“Oh, Mr. Ralph! Hello. And... that person...”
My gaze turned to the one he was carrying. How amusing. We meet, and both have someone riding our backs.
However, Mr. Ralph did not seem particularly amused.
“They were sleeping so soundly I couldn’t wake them. Um... Priest.”
“Speak freely.”
“Um... well...”
After much hesitation, Mr. Ralph spoke.
“Priest, can you... cure leprosy too?”
“I cannot cure any disease.”
For it is not I who heals. Only the Lord does.
Thus, even if not for the Triune Faith, I would not charge for healing. It is not my merit but merely the Lord’s grace.
“All things depend on the Lord’s will, and I merely serve as His proxy.”
“Um...”
“It’s humble quarters, but come in. Lay that person on my bed.”
I suggested my bed, but both protested.
“Pardon? Even so... are you sure? Putting a leper on your bed...”
Mr. Ralph, worried for me, and Roca, also worried for me...
“No way! If that woman gets Master’s scent on her, rolling in the bed won’t be fun anymore!”
...Huh?
Um... I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Roca.
No wonder I kept finding fur in my bed.
“The Lord watches over me.”
In any case, I had no worries. No reason for them.
Busy with orphanage duties, Mr. Ralph could not stay and left midway. Glancing at the woman sleeping in the bed, I headed to the kitchen to brew tea.
I prepared warm tea and sugar cubes.
Healing the body is easy. Healing the heart is hard.
Thus, tea is needed. Illness is lighter than the wounds of the heart it inflicts.
Even if the sickness is driven out, if heart wounds remain, they can fester anew at any time.
“The trash stinking of corpses is overwriting Master’s scent...”
Placing the teapot on the fire and returning, I saw Roca glaring at the woman and muttering.
She looked at me and said mischievously.
“Master, just say the word—”
No, correction. Not to me.
She bared her teeth at the woman, who had just opened her eyes, narrowing her olive eyes to slits.
A growl seemed mixed in her voice.
“I’ll take out this trash for you.”
I do wish for that child to live freely, but not by trampling another’s dignity.
I silently gazed at Roca. She looked back at me and shrank back greatly.
“Master...?”
“Roca. You mustn’t say such things lightly.”
In the eyes of the Lord above, we are all crippled, incompetent, blind to even a step ahead, irredeemable delinquents.
For such as us to sneer and mock each other—nothing could be more ridiculous.
No one has the right to call another trash. Not even me.
“Apologize. Say you were wrong and sorry. Or I’ll punish you severely.”
“Th...”
“Apologize.”
I stared steadily at Roca. Unable to meet my eyes, she cast her gaze to the floor.
I neither hugged her nor petted her—just watched silently.
“Anyone can make mistakes. But if your mistake harms another, you must apologize, of course. Roca, I know it’s not easy to admit fault. But you must make amends for your wrongs yourself.”
Or do you wish me to bear your fault? Shall I kneel to her in your stead and beg forgiveness?
At my question, Roca frantically shook her head in alarm. Our house wolf apologized in a near-tearful voice.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry...”
“Well, honestly, I wasn’t that bothered...”
The woman spoke with a bemused expression.
“But are you perhaps Priest Kyle?”
“There aren’t many priests named Kyle.”
“I heard you could cure my illness.”
In her eyes, I saw desperation.
Behind her, I saw death lurking. Her body had reached its limit. She could die tomorrow without surprise.
“...Can you? Or did I come all this way chasing vain hope?”
Yet this is a sanctuary,
Where death cannot touch any but the already dead.
“The tea is boiling.”
So I merely smiled.
“Why not have a cup of tea and talk slowly?”
Before the Lord, we are all equal—mere flesh, rotting or not. In His eyes, she and I are no different.
Welcoming a guest to my home is, of course, my duty.
*****
In a storm of bone-chilling cold.
The man merely trudged through the snow piled on the icy plain.
He was one who had fallen from the highest heights to the abyss.
Betrayed by comrades whose names he could no longer recall.
Framed with false charges and abandoned by all. The great scholar Gellie.
“It is time for you to awaken once more, Mother.”
He knelt and brushed away the thick snow with his hand.
The South Pole is a continent. But the North Pole is not. No one knows how shocked he was when he first realized this.
“When will you end this cycle and open the world I desire?”
The man who desired the extinction of all murmured.
“Mother” gave him not even a glance. She merely slumbered deeply, repeating her own cycle. Yet all life in this world arose from that very cycle.
“Mother, now I know why this world is so absurd.”
The truth he never wished to know plunged him into helplessness.
Yet, knowing the end of knowledge is despair, he could not cease pursuing it—for he was born a scholar.
Long ago, this scholar uncovered a truth unknown to others.
He pierced the world’s deepest secret and wept aloud.
“The creator of this world is no god, but a mere lump of flesh.”
Humans and insects. Different species,
Yet humans can eat insects, and insects can eat humans.
They are somewhat compatible.
Humans and beastkin. Different species,
Yet they can interbreed and produce half-breeds.
Higher compatibility. All life in this world is thus. All trace back to a common ancestor, the Primordial Flesh.
“From the start, we are nothing but flesh evolved from your cells.”
If a true divine being gazed down from lofty heavens,
The state of the world would seem utterly ridiculous.
Lumps of flesh split from the same flesh, dividing into “us” and “them,” killing each other.
Unaware that all their comedy and tragedy will vanish like bubbles when the Primordial awakens, they flaunt their wisdom and strut as if superior.
“What else would a world made by flesh be but predictable? Isn’t that right?”
When he learned this,
The ancient demon king Grimudo abandoned his throne.
He returned to being merely the scholar Gellie, as he once was.
Now he serves no god.
The world’s deepest secret had stolen all light from his heart.
“Let us watch this cycle together. When the time comes, you’ll awaken again and reclaim the thriving cells, won’t you? Mother, there is no light left in my heart.”
Having witnessed intellect bloom and fade countless times, he realized he was neither beginning nor end.
That meaningless cycle leaves nothing behind. It merely spins like a hamster wheel.
‘Even those who claim to be gods are born from our flesh’s faith.’
Neither gods nor humans can halt the cycle.
For the Primordial Flesh is the ancestor and source of all life.
‘In the end, they all perish in the cycle, no different from humans.’
The screams of those who deem themselves great, amid crumbling civilizations—
That is his greatest entertainment.
* * *