Chapter 301: A World That Cannot Be Made with Gears
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 301: A World That Cannot Be Made with Gears
Maximilien was from the Fallen Dominion. In that nation, where to be born is to be cursed, failure to solve the constant stream of problems in time meant being eliminated.
Fortunately, aside from the minor issue of having no arms, Maximilien’s talents were exceptional, and he wisely handled the many problems life threw at him.
He remained rational even when the elites of the Fallen Dominion conspired to execute him. Two companies were crushed beneath his steel gears after he awakened his Unique Magic, and Maximilien calmly departed the Fallen Dominion.
Though he had overcome the greatest crisis of his life, Maximilien was not satisfied. An immense problem still remained.
A problem so large that even he, a man who was practically the God of Gears, could see no way to solve it.
The world Maximilien lived in was not perfect.
To him, the world was a broken masterpiece. A creaking, damaged thing rolling precariously onward, a cacophony of dissonant noise.
Some things could be improved. Inefficient structures could be reformed. Broken machinery could be repaired.
But humans alone could not be fixed.
Humans were irrational. Blinded by greed, they rejected superior creations like gears, only to grow jealous and envious. They looked at the same thing and understood it differently, and sometimes, they attacked for no reason at all. Just like the fools in the Fallen Dominion.
These defective parts, with their jagged, uneven teeth, were the world’s greatest problem. Because of them, ‘qualified individuals’ like Maximilien were forced to live with needless friction.
It had to be fixed. But how?
He had identified the problem and even had a solution. But he lacked the means.
To realize his ideals, he needed to create a community on the scale of a nation or a city, but as a fugitive from the Fallen Dominion, he had no foundation to undertake such a task.
It was when Maximilien’s worries were at their deepest that the heavens suddenly parted, and an angel descended. The angel, who claimed to have been watching him, made Maximilien a proposition.
Would he like to build a nation?
Maximilien did not believe in God. After all, God had not given him two hands to clasp.
But the angel before him was no god. It was merely a weapon of the sanctum, corrupted and fallen by worldly affairs.
He didn't trust in God, but he could trust in a weapon. Maximilien took the angel’s hand.
The Envoy was the sovereign. She saw all from his seat, evaluating and issuing commands.
The Camarilla was the executioner. She, who was closest to the Envoy, was her blade—a ruthless gardener who pruned the Military State as needed.
And the Warforger was the designer.
The Military State’s various facilities, inventions, and policies all sprang from his mind. From the automaton carriages he personally designed to the large-scale alchemic steel refineries, there was nothing his hand had not touched. Even the Meta Conveyor Belt, hailed as the masterpiece of the Military State, was created from Maximilien’s proposal.
His original plan had been to encircle the Military State not with Earth Art, but with tens of millions of gears. One might tilt their head at the feasibility of such a plan, but his achievements were to be highly praised nonetheless.
Of the three of the Six Generals who came from the outside, the one who worked the most was none other than Maximilien. It wasn't a matter of diligence; Maximilien simply enjoyed the work. To him, the Military State was the largest, most intricate toy, as well as a laboratory to test his ideals. Taking advantage of the chaos typical of a newly founded nation, Maximilien pushed through even some rather radical projects.
Hatred for the old kingdom, the hope that bloomed from the land scorched by that hatred, an outstanding leader in the Warlord, and the three he brought with him. Amidst this miraculous confluence of fate, the Military State flourished. Some were left behind, but there were always more gears to slot into place. To Maximilien, it mattered little.
By all accounts, Maximilien had succeeded.
But fundamentally, he had failed.
He tried to use humans like components, but the components refused to move as he intended. When forced, they would spring back like coils, and they committed all sorts of absurdities despite being told they would be discarded if they strayed. No matter how meticulously he polished them, defective parts would hide their jagged edges, slip into the machinery, and cause catastrophic malfunctions, resulting in immense losses.
Maximilien could not tolerate such losses. As long as they existed, the ideal machine he envisioned could never be built.
Not unless he could fix ‘humanity’ itself.
“Congratulations, Maximilien. You found me splendidly. To think you’d create a patch of solid ground in the Abyss and place the Dog King there to lure me in. I was completely hooked.”
Ugh. Finally, he's done watching his life flash before his eyes. Took him long enough.
Though the phrasing is a bit odd, Maximilien had been ‘skewered’ by Historia’s bullet and thrown back. He was, quite literally, at death’s door.
But he was still alive, and he was a master capable of killing me with the flick of a finger.
I had to go and confirm the kill. But Historia had collapsed from exhaustion. I was the only one left to do it.
I peered down from the edge of the Steel Beetle. It stood four meters tall. The ground below was littered with broken concrete, making a simple jump look far too dangerous.
If I were in perfect condition, I could use all my items and breakfall techniques to land stylishly. But I was a wreck myself.
The ‘earth’ is the greatest magnet. I had used that principle to maximize the magnetism of the Eight of Clubs. The force was strong enough to bend the trajectory of the incoming steel, but there was one problem.
I could imbue the steel with magnetism to attract it, but I couldn't repel it.
In other words, every single one of those blades had flown toward the card in my hand. Even though I’d wrapped my arm tightly with the Queen of Fabric, dozens of blades had grazed it, leaving both my arm and the fabric in tatters.
I was lucky that most of them had arced away and missed. If something like a spear had hit me directly, I would have had to ask Maximilien to make me a prosthetic arm.
It looked like I wouldn't be able to use my left hand for a while. After tying the Queen of Fabric tightly to stanch the bleeding, I carefully descended, stepping on the gears that formed a makeshift staircase.
“Which makes this all the more regrettable. Your wish is intense and fascinating, but unfortunately, I cannot grant it. I am the King of Humans. The representative of all humanity… or I was, anyway. Now I have no power, nor do I represent them. All that’s left for me is to grant the wish of the one person before me.”
Maximilien blinked. His condition was wretched.
A large hole was torn in his chest. Through it, the blood-soaked gears he had carefully placed beneath his skin were gruesomely exposed. Even now, the gears turned without rest, though most were horribly mangled. Some were so bent that they gouged his flesh with every rotation.
“Compared to that, your wish targets all of humanity, doesn’t it? But since you can’t persuade every human, you sought to persuade the one being who represents them—the King of Humans. That’s why you needed me, right?”
No matter how he commanded them, his muscles wouldn't move. Instead, only the gears spread throughout his body obeyed his will. Click. His prosthetic arm forced his broken body to rise. He ignored the screaming muscles and the blood veering from its proper course, brutally forcing himself up.
“It seems you’re closer to being the King of Humans than my incompetent self. Would you like to be king in my stead?”
Maximilien opened his mouth. He first coughed up a glob of frothy blood, then spoke with great difficulty.
“…If you can give it, cough, I will gladly take it.”
“Haha. I’m joking. You can’t be king. Setting aside the fact that I can’t give it to you, what you’re trying to become isn’t a king, but a god. A god who would change the human race to his whim.”
“Deception… What you used just now… was clearly the power of the Divine. Are you not, cough, a god yourself?”
“No. This is the Unique Magic of the Order of Gaia. I told you, didn’t I? I can steal and use the Unique Magic of others.”
“Is that not… what a god is?”
“I told you, it’s not.”
I swung my cloth-wrapped arm up and down. Blood seeped through the fabric at the sharp movement. Considering my injury, it was something I absolutely shouldn't have done, but what did it matter? The man before me had forced himself to stand in that state. I had to show some effort, too.
“Some Unique Magics can reach the level of the Divine. They give a reverent name to a god that did not exist before and bind it to reality. The named god then watches over this world, and humans enjoy its grace. That’s why it’s called a Unique Magic, but also the Divine. It is truly a god, for it brings about an irreversible change to all of humanity.”
At the bottom of the Abyss, in a land untouched not only by light but also by logic, I had discovered the memories of the Grand Master, sealed away by the sanctum.
Before the Grand Master, Mother Earth was just one branch of folk belief. But after the Grand Master, she became a god who heard the call of humanity. Because the sanctum sealed this secret, only followers of Mother Earth could use Earth Art, but it was still a human technology. The existence of Earth Art changed human life.
“That’s why you’re ordinary, Maximilien. Your gears cannot change humanity.”
But what about gears?
They are certainly useful. Depending on their design, they can multiply force or achieve movements of greater precision. They can convert force into rotation, and vice versa.
Useful. That’s all.
“Your prosthetic arm replaces a human arm, and your Steel Beetle is modeled after an insect, just as its name implies. Launching a spear with a launcher, drawing a bow with a winch—all of these are functions that humans discovered first. Imitation. That is the essence of your ability.”
I mercilessly poked at his sore spot.
“Your ability to assemble tiny gears into something tremendous is exceptional. It’s truly admirable. But you didn’t create gears. They already existed. The principle of the gear is not something new to the world. You are simply the best at using it.”
He is a giant standing on the shoulders of giants. He is large, powerful, and can see farther than anyone else.
But he will never reach godhood. He, more than anyone, must know this painful truth.
There are times when a truth, obvious to both parties, must be spoken aloud. Now was such a time.
“You are a giant, but you can never be a god. Know your place, beast.”