Chapter 195
Chapter 195
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 195
Chapter Title: The Art of Anecdote (4)
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Peope's face froze at Shirone's words.
She couldn't understand what was happening inside her. The moment a sliver of hope for survival appeared, the powerful emotions that had dominated her began to vanish like bubbles.
"Are... are you mocking me? What do you gain by humiliating me?"
"Mocking you? Don't be ridiculous. It's only natural to save someone who asks to be saved. Because I want to live, too. I know how precious another's life is because my own is precious to me."
Shirone hadn't decided to let Peope go. It was still uncertain what judgment he would make in the final moment.
However, he thought of Kanya and Lena. He couldn't let them die like this.
"I'll count to three. One."
His grip on Peope tightened.
"Two."
"S-save me."
Peope said in a small voice.
As if he hadn't heard, Shirone didn't relax his stance. Just as he was about to shout "three," Peope, who had squeezed her eyes shut, screamed.
"Save me! Save me! I don't want to die!"
Shirone let Peope go.
Freed, she fluttered her wings and flew up. Her face, red as a sunset, she huffed and snapped.
"Do you think you can get away with this?"
"What did I do?"
"You tried to kill me!"
"I did. And that's exactly what you did to Kanya and Lena."
Peope couldn't argue.
As an enforcer of the law since birth, she had never deeply considered the lifespan of the citizens.
But finding her life in someone else's hands made it a complicated issue.
Death is fearsome, and life is sweet. It was the same even for a fairy who lived for ten thousand years.
"I think what happened to Kanya's mother was wrong, too. Restore her lifespan."
Pressured before she could even gather her thoughts, Peope grew irritated.
"I told you already! Only the upper echelons of the 72 fairy classes can touch the lifespan register. A verdict that's already been passed can't be reversed."
"Then start by rejudging Kanya and Lena's case. You can do that, can't you?"
Peope, chin in hand, lost in thought, said.
"Well... I'll reduce it to a one-year lifespan deduction."
Shirone let out a hollow laugh.
It was a relief that Kanya and Lena's sentences were lightened, but the disparity in judgment was too great. It seemed there had been no standard from the start.
"Are you a junk dealer? Can you just pass judgment so arbitrarily?"
"You complain even when I reduce it! Should I just raise it back to twenty years?"
"That's not what I'm talking about. Isn't it strange? There should be a standard for applying the law."
"That's why I am the standard. I'm the enforcer of the law! You're pretty ignorant, aren't you?"
Shirone gave up. He had to admit that fairies were a different species, branched off from humans at some point.
A fairy's thought process was more holistic than a human's. While humans could break down love into countless concepts, to a fairy, love was just love.
Peope was an enforcer of the law, and so she never doubted her own thoughts. She now understood how terrifying death was, hence the one-year deduction.
He could also understand why she couldn't make detailed judgments like two years and three months, or seven years and six months.
After a few thousand years, her thinking might deepen, but right now, she was only one year old.
"Are we done now? I'm leaving. Fairies have a lot of work to do."
"Where do you think you're going? You still have to resolve Kanya's mother's case."
Peope turned back to Shirone, her eyes glaring.
"How am I supposed to resolve that? I wasn't even born back then. Besides, my rank is the lowest of the 72 fairy classes, so I don't have the authority to edit the lifespan register."
"Then at least tell me how. You're a fairy, you must know something, right? I'm not letting you go until you tell me."
Peope, true to her nature as a spiral spirit, had a crooked temper, but perhaps because she was young, she wasn't difficult to handle. If he could get information out of her, he might find a way to save Kanya's mother.
"Hmph, you think you can stop me? And no one can interfere in the affairs of the fairy realm. It's written in the law."
"I don't know what that law is, but you know this is unreasonable, don't you? Life is precious. Are you saying it's okay to just arbitrarily cut twenty years off someone's life?"
Peope's eyes welled up with tears.
In truth, she didn't know either. To judge the right and wrong of the law by her own standards, she'd probably need to live for at least six hundred years.
"Why do you keep picking on me? I'm just doing what I'm told!"
"Weren't you the enforcer of the law just a moment ago? Where's all that confidence now? Are you trying to run away?"
"Ugh, seriously! What do you want me to do? What is it you want to know?"
"First, tell me what the Art of Anecdote is."
"The Art of Anecdote? It's a sacred art. It refines the laws of the citizens and allows them to be reborn as new life."
Peope answered without hesitation, as if she was finally on familiar ground.
But Shirone could sense nothing in her words but a sugarcoated version of justice.
"How am I supposed to understand that? Be specific. What's its purpose, how is it performed, what are the components of the art, things like that."
"Ugh, you're so annoying..."
Peope clutched her head with both hands.
The Art of Anecdote was just the Art of Anecdote. She had never reflected on the information she knew as source knowledge.
There was only one option left.
Thinking of memory transfer, her eyes lit up.
"If you really want to know, there's a surefire way to explain. It's by using mental resonance. Fairies can transfer memories to others. I'll show you my memory of experiencing the Art of Anecdote. That should work, right?"
Mental resonance was dangerous. It didn't seem like Peope would do anything malicious, but she wasn't an ally either.
Arin spoke through the mental channel.
-It's fine. I can control someone at Peope's level.
-Are you sure? No matter how strong your defense is, there's still the Out-of-Spec, right?
-Peope is emotionally immature, so I should be able to read the unique patterns of the Out-of-Spec with Precognition. Then I can knock her out with a mental shock before it activates.
It seemed Canis's group had also experienced the Out-of-Spec.
Acknowledging how incredible Precognition was, Shirone conveyed his consent to Peope.
"Alright. Show me your memory of the Art of Anecdote."
"Okay. Here we go."
Peope cast the memory transfer spell.
Shirone's group's minds were sucked into the memory, and the scene of a plaza from a year ago appeared. A giant's statue stood there, and the citizens were holding their breath.
When Shirone called out to his friends, who had arrived at different spots, they passed through the citizens like ghosts and approached him.
It was someone else's memory, but it was as vivid as reality.
Existing as a memory-form, Shirone could examine anything he wanted. It was strange how he could shove his face right in front of a citizen, and they wouldn't notice.
Shirone's group headed toward the statue.
As the barrier of the crowd disappeared, an astonishing scene unfolded.
Several hoses were connected to the giant's statue, leading to eight glass spheres placed around it. The spheres were large enough for a person to enter.
The citizens were silent, but a few were weeping. The mixture of reverence and despair in the scene created a sense of unease.
Kergoin people ran around the statue, preparing the ritual. Eight citizens stepped out from the crowd. Their ages were similar, from their fifties to sixties, but one was a young woman.
Shirone saw tears in their smiles.
Wavering pupils, trembling lips, cold sweat beading on their foreheads.
They were clearly thinking of death.
The subjects entered the glass spheres, completely naked.
As black water filled the spheres, their families ran forward, wailing. In contrast, the other citizens prostrated themselves on the ground and began to chant, "Anke La."
The Kergoin dragged away the family members who were pounding on the glass, crying out for their mothers, fathers, and grandfathers.
Submerged in the rising water, the subjects smiled.
Drowning?
It was a cruel affair.
With that thought, Shirone peered inside the glass sphere and recoiled in horror.
It wasn't drowning. Inside the liquid, their bodies were dissolving.
It was the most grotesque sight he had ever witnessed.
He wondered about the liquid's composition and thought he understood why it was black. If the families had been able to see this process, they might have gone mad.
The liquid in the glass spheres was sucked into the hoses. It made an unpleasant sound, like excrement pouring from intestines.
The voices of the citizens chanting "La" grew louder.
As the water level in the spheres lowered, their transparent interiors were revealed again, without a single trace of residue.
There was nothing.
The people who had been smiling just moments ago had vanished through the hoses.
Shirone turned his gaze to where the hoses were connected. His body was already trembling. Nevertheless, he had to see it with his own eyes.
The giant's statue.
There, into the base of the statue, eight people were being poured.
Then what in the world was it? What was filling the statue right now?
The immortal La.
The sound of praise for Anke La pierced the heavens.
Suddenly, the giant's statue began to vibrate violently.
At that point, the citizens fell silent.
Not a single drop of water remained in the glass spheres. It had all been filled into the giant's statue.
Like a mold.
Shirone shook his head. It couldn't be. But once the thought occurred, he couldn't stop it.
A mold for melting humans and pouring them in. If so, what was being created inside...?
The giant's statue opened up, revealing a cross-section.
A massive foot pushed out, shaking the ground.
Shirone shuddered at the sight of the giant, which looked as if it were covered in jelly. Its expression was too distorted to be called human.
Through the mental channel, Arin murmured. The reason she couldn't mentally connect with the giant was because multiple minds were mixed within a single body.
So, what state were the minds within that body in?
Were they the eight individual minds, or had they become something else entirely?
The citizens begged for mercy.
Born of the law, keeper of the law. The giant.
Therefore, the giant had the right to punish those who broke the law.
If someone were to be trampled under the giant's foot at this moment, it would not be the giant's fault.
Those who met the giant's gaze foamed at the mouth and collapsed. It was the eye technique, Pressing.
Ah.
Shirone trembled.
The origin of Schema. The primeval Schema was the phenomenon of overlapping human schematics, mixed together by the Art of Anecdote.
Following the giant, he overheard the citizens' conversations.
The giant would leave Heaven and enter Purgatory. There, it would eliminate the heretics threatening Heaven and then, upon La's call, return to the Fifth Heaven, Matei.
The families cried out, tears streaming down their faces.
"Mom! Dad! Grandpa!"
The giant flinched as if reacting to the voices. But it didn't look back and resumed its steps toward the castle gate as if nothing had happened.
***
The scene from Peope's memory burned away like ignited paper, and the view of the house returned.
Shirone's group looked around.
Peope was nowhere to be seen. It seemed she had fled while the memory was playing.
But having learned what the Art of Anecdote was, they had no time to worry about her.
The subjects of the Art of Anecdote are dissolved in a liquid. Then, they are poured into a mold and undergo a special transformation process to be reborn as a giant. Their minds are mixed, and in that process, Schema is generated.
That was the meaning behind the stimulants Kanya had bought.
It was a hope to remain conscious, even for a moment, in the unknown darkness.
Gadrak had been right. It was no different from giving an anesthetic to a patient dying in agony.
"It can't be..."
Tess's face was deathly pale.
The giant's ability, Schema. And her own ability, Schema.
The thought made her run to a corner and retch. The food she had eaten just a while ago came pouring out.
No one chided Tess.
Everyone felt nauseous.
As Rian approached, Tess held up a hand to stop him.
Of course, Peope's memory wasn't more revolting than a battlefield scene. But a wave of mental revulsion washed over them.
Schema was the giant's technique. So why could she use Schema? Was she of a separate giant bloodline, like the Nephilim? But the giant had no reproductive organs.
"Now you see why I didn't say anything, right?"
Kanya murmured with a sad expression.
Some call it a blessing, others a curse.
No one wanted to speak of this event, which was a point of contention even between the citizens and the heretics.
"According to the law, humans were born from giants. Therefore, to return to being a giant... that is the Art of Anecdote."
Even if what Kanya said was true, it was impossible to accept. The Art of Anecdote Shirone had witnessed was a monstrosity that no amount of dressing up could hide.
In the end, he realized.
The Art of Anecdote practiced in Heaven was a ritual that used human flesh and viscera as raw materials to manufacture giants.
(End of Volume 8)