Chapter 286: The Blessed Country and the Cursed Human - 9
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 286: The Blessed Country and the Cursed Human - 9
For a moment, the princess doubted her own ears. While she acknowledged that the Military State was a nation with considerable potential, calling it a blessed country was a leap, both objectively and subjectively.
Yuel looked past the princess to the corpse lying on the floor, her eyes filled with sorrow.
“He dreamed of a country without a king. He said that if everyone could just work together and move toward the future, even without a king, they could create a nation of eternal happiness. That’s why he named this country the Gunguk (群國), the Nation of the People.”
Because soldiers run the country, some jokingly call it the Military State, but its original name is the Nation of the People. Though these days, it was hard to tell which one was the joke.
“He certainly wasn’t a genius. He was so weak he just made everyone worry, and he always tried to wrap his thoughtless actions in a cheerful package. He lacked knowledge and had a narrow worldview; there were times I nearly burst from frustration because he just couldn't understand, no matter how many times I explained. I used to lament, wondering what I was thinking, following him here.”
Even though she’s saying all that… she’s smiling!
Despite her sharp critique, her expression was incredibly gentle. The princess pressed her lips together, afraid her thoughts might slip out. It was a good choice.
“Still, if he had one virtue, it was that he never hesitated to accept something good. Especially the so-called Seven Major Inventions of the Military State. Unprecedented tools, crafted by humans for humans out of goodwill. The creation of all seven inventions was entirely his achievement.”
This surprised the princess.
“The Chimera Beans, the Clothing Packet, the Meta Conveyor Belt…? The Warlord created all of those…?”
“…No, most of them were things that already existed somewhere in the world. All he did was bring the sights I ‘saw’ into reality.”
With her Clairvoyance, Yuel saw everything in the world from where she sat. Among those things were some that the Sanctum considered taboo.
The dilemma that had befallen the declining Order of Gaia.
What humans had built at the waterfall where lightning crashed down.
What fruit grew on the Tree of Corruption, hidden within the southern floodplains.
Yuel had been confident. If she gathered all the beautiful and good things that existed in the world, she was certain a beautiful result, never before seen, would be born.
When that time came, the Saintess of the Sky would see her in a new light. She would see the hope that began with Yuel and change her mind…
“He trusted me completely. Even things that were unbelievable to my own eyes, he would listen to with sparkling eyes, without a shred of doubt. The two of us would talk late into the night. If we used this, how could we use it better? How much should we make, and how should we distribute it to spread its good power more widely? Even as we stood on ashes, we chased the stars. The future was filled with hope.”
The inventions created by the Military State were, without exception, revolutionary. The princess had wondered how they were made, but it turned out the Saintess had been peeping here and there and stealing the ideas.
Then you can’t really call them inventions, can you? I thought to myself.
“We built everything anew. We were gradually moving forward. Today was better than yesterday, and we fell asleep anticipating an even better tomorrow. There were tiring, difficult days, of course. At times like that, he would come to my side and kneel. He’d say he was glad I was there. That he was glad God hadn’t abandoned this country and had sent an angel down. That thanks to me, another day had ended in success…”
“The Warlord’s ambition was truly noble. It would have been wonderful if he were still alive today.”
The princess smoothly steered the drifting conversation back on topic. Yuel’s focus returned.
“Yes. You all should be grateful to him. His will and his efforts were real. They should never be scorned or ignored by you.”
“Lady Yuel. But he’s already dead. We who live in the present don’t know what efforts he made. I don’t know what happened, but the Military State of today is a nation without a trace of kindness.”
Yuel’s brow furrowed.
“Kindness… Is that what you’re chasing?”
“Kindness is necessary! Look at the Military State now. No one is happy, and no one dreams of hope. Where did all his ambitions go? Why are the inventions he distributed used as an excuse to take everything else away, instead of adding to people’s lives?”
Chimera Beans were undoubtedly a brilliant discovery. With them alone, no one would ever suffer from malnutrition.
But they weren’t added to the menu. The Military State gave them Chimera Beans and took away all other flavors. In the Military State, any food other than Chimera Beans became a luxury.
It was the same with everything else. With the introduction of the Clothing Packet, clothes with any aesthetic value vanished. Thanks to canned food, which was highly portable and easy to store, recipes became limited. Luxury and pleasure gradually disappeared.
The princess had grown up in the Military State, but she had been raised and cherished as a princess. Because she knew how precious the occasional moments of joy were, she could affirm the Military State but never fully agree with it.
“There was no need for that! You could have just left everything as it was and added the better things! If his will was so noble, he should have treated people with more kindness!”
“Kindness offered out of goodwill eventually becomes a nuisance that has to be dealt with.”
“What?”
“We had to rebuild a broken country and create the Meta Conveyor Belt. So we accepted the followers of the Order of Gaia.”
“Yes, I heard about that. That it was the best choice the Military State made…”
“What do you think was the first thing we had to do? Can you imagine?”
In that instant, goosebumps broke out on the princess’s skin.
Yuel, who had been cheerfully recounting the past, had seemed lost in nostalgia. That was why the princess had, with a bit of arrogance, chided her. If those memories are so precious, shouldn’t you have protected them better?
No. This person isn’t living in the past… She’s someone who cast the past aside to move forward…!
“We destroyed the temples,” Yuel murmured, her eyes devoid of light.
“All the temples that had lived off the kingdom’s kindness rose up at once. Devout followers united to oppose the Military State. If an accident occurred during construction, they blamed the Order of Gaia. Some temples with close ties even went so far as to help the rebels. I ‘saw’ it all.”
When she said she saw it, she meant she had watched every single detail with her Clairvoyance.
Wow, the Military State. I’d wondered how they managed to stabilize the chaos after destroying the kingdom. I guess it’s doable if you have an overpowered ability like Clairvoyance.
“I didn’t want to do it either. But there was only one way. It was the most rational and fastest… the only path to survival. So I did it. Even if it meant betraying my own faith.”
“I heard the temples were driven out because they didn’t pay taxes…”
“We couldn’t just kick them out, so we came up with all sorts of reasons. The nation must be revived. Pay your taxes. If you don’t want to, then at least make a donation. Show your goodwill toward this country. Naturally, the temples refused. Humans should not demand a price from God, after all.”
“No way.”
“So we pressed them from there. Public opinion was on our side anyway. We just needed a pretext. That’s why I brought the Camarilla… There was also a great deal of resentment toward the gods. A little fanning of the flames was enough. I drove them out with my own hands… Hehe. What do you think? Impressive, isn’t it?”
After such persecution, the temples that believed in the Sky God vanished from the Military State, and the few that remained cooperated with the resistance, barely surviving in the shadows.
It was ironic. The Saintess, the very proof of God’s existence and the idol of all believers, had personally cast them out.
“The gods must have left my side. But it was fine. Because he was with me.”
“Uh…”
“To introduce the Clothing Packet, we destroyed the clothiers. To teach the standard magic, we tore down the magic towers. To the merchants who believed their scarce food supplies would become their weapons, we gave them real weapons. Inside their bodies.”
Yuel calmly confessed her other deeds as well.
To introduce something better, you must first eliminate what already exists. That is the starting point. But the kingdom, which had reigned for over a thousand years, had its old ways deeply rooted, even as the nation was being overturned. The death of a king wasn’t enough to change people.
Ordinarily, the Military State would never have come to be. It would have collapsed, unable to overcome the political chaos of corruption and bribery, non-cooperation and rebellion, where one couldn’t tell friend from foe. A group of people can never solve the problems that arise from the sheer size of that group.
And yet, the Saintess had done it.
“…Even while hiding in the deepest place, I saw everything. I took in all the world’s filth and stained my hands with blood that would never wash away. He stopped asking why we had to kill, or for what crime we had to imprison someone. If I pointed a blood-stained finger in one direction, soldiers with guns and swords would charge there…”
“Yuel…”
“But it was okay. The Military State was still getting better, and he was still by my side. Even if it was different from what I’d imagined, I could endure by looking at him. But… he died. Now I’m alone. There’s no one to set the course straight. If I become the king of this country now… I’ll just be repeating the mistakes of the kingdom. It will never become the Military State…”
Muttering words that sounded like an incantation, Yuel suddenly threw a question at the princess.
“Do you know what’s needed for a nation to last forever?”
Startled by the sudden question, the princess gave a common-sense answer.
“…P-People? If there are no people to live in it, there’s no country.”
“Wrong. It’s the opposite.”
“The opposite? Then… do you need animals?”
“They’d be better than humans. But that’s not it either. For a nation to last forever… it must be ruled by something that is not human.”
That was why Yuel had created beings in her own image. To replace the role of the Saintess with Clairvoyance, she gave golems to the Signallers, who possessed the ability of Synchronization, and sent them throughout the Military State.
At first, the Signallers were not very refined. The ones who began their training at an older age were imperfect, and the system only barely functioned with Yuel’s deep involvement. But as Signallers who were educated from a younger age were commissioned, the Military State gradually became complete.
“A group of humans will not hesitate to make even the most heartless choice. The Signallers are like that. A soldier who, while alone in a dark room, shares her thoughts with the many other Signallers spread across the land. One person, yet a multitude. The essence of the Military State. I entrusted the State to them, and though they may have lacked in ability, they ran it far more systematically. If not for our meeting today, the Military State would have continued on, even without me.”
Perhaps there was a certain weight to the words of someone with experience. Yuel’s words, having ruled a nation, were more persuasive than the fledgling princess’s. Intimidated, the princess hesitated, unable to find the right words.
If she loses her nerve here, all my effort will be for nothing. I spoke in the princess’s stead.
“That’s sophistry. Does stripping the Signallers of their human lives and working them like machines make them non-human?”
At my taunt, Yuel glared at me with all her remaining hostility.
“To create an eternal Military State, such sacrifices must be endured. But you, the Destroyer of Civilization, would never agree.”
“Stop trying to frame me. You people create something strange, claim it’s civilization and that it’s more precious than anything else. Too bad for you, I couldn’t care less if it’s civilization or whatever. It’s something I can’t see or eat, and it doesn’t even really exist.”
Yuel, provoked, shouted back.
“The Military State exists! It has until now, and it will in the future!”
“Even though you, its core, have been checkmated?”
“It’s different from the kingdom. Even if you kill me here and now, the Military State will continue. Because that is what the Military State is! The system is already complete. The Signallers of the other Modules will observe this result, revise their assessments, and make new judgments. That will be the judgment of the Military State, and it will continue to lead the Military State!”
So because everyone believes it, the Military State continues to exist?
Hmm. True enough. If you asked whether the Military State exists, every human would say that it ‘exists.’
“…If this new thing called the Military State exists, if it’s real.”
But what if you demand that the Military State take responsibility? How would it answer?
“Then it can take responsibility, right?”
“Respon… sibility?”
Azzy sought a king to collect the price of a promise made with the Military State. To Azzy, a king was an individual who could exert great influence over a large number of humans. When the individual she found couldn’t fulfill the promise, Azzy gave up and backed down.
Why? Because although it was a promise with the Military State, in reality, there was no such thing as the Military State. That’s why no one in the Military State took responsibility for the promise made to Azzy. Because the Military State was not them.
“Shiati’s wish hit a wall. She hated the Military State, but it was because the Military State didn’t actually exist. So Shiati changed her mind and decided to throw a tantrum with that corpse. Because that’s the only way to release even a little of the resentment left inside her.”
The person who designed the Military State was human. The parts used were human. Human Signallers give orders to human soldiers, and human soldiers rule over human citizens. Humans imprison, force labor upon, and execute other humans.
Humans kill humans. It’s as natural as humans giving birth to humans. Before judging it with embellished words, it is a fact that exists, and it is nature itself.
It can happen. I have no regrets about that fact.
“And yet, you still insist that the ‘Military State’ exists. You said the orders to rule humans come from the ‘Military State.’ If so, isn’t something strange? Isn’t it unfair? A bounced check that exists when it’s time to rule but vanishes when it’s time to take responsibility. Wow. What do we do about this?”
“Wai…”
“This is when you need an enforcer. People who are owed money hire an enforcer to settle things, right? I’ve come to collect as the representative of ‘humanity’.”
But if something isn’t human, yet is very good at killing humans, isn’t that an enemy of humanity?
Oh. Then I guess I have to work.
Geez, being forced to work even after being forcibly retired. What a terrible job.
“There is no king here. Now, step aside.”