Chapter 389: Lightning Did Not Fall From the Sky - 8
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 389: Lightning Did Not Fall From the Sky - 8
Perhaps I had been thinking about this all wrong from the very beginning.
Claudia is the City of Clouds. A land where clouds cascade down slopes like waterfalls and lightning strikes like rain. It is a harsh place, flowing not with milk and honey but with a damp, dreary atmosphere. Unless you were a vampire with a congenital hatred for sunlight, there was no reason to seek it out.
Long ago, when Tyr led the vampires over the mountains, this place was not a city but a mere mountain village with a rather peculiar natural landscape. Naturally, not many people lived there. Animals, after all, fear lightning.
Perhaps it was a blessing that the lightning kept the tigers away, allowing a village to form at all. If the twin scourges of tigers and smallpox had descended upon this already arduous land, it would have been impossible to survive.
In any case, it was this fear that turned the lightning into the Thunder God… or so the Regressor had said, and so others believed. But that was likely not the truth.
On the contrary, it was because the Thunder God heralded the arrival of lightning that the bolts, which could suddenly strike and claim lives and property, became less dangerous. People had even begun to regard the Thunder God with a certain fondness.
“…A weather alarm?”
“Yes. It seems we’ve misunderstood the Thunder God. He wasn’t a being that summoned lightning… but one that came to warn us on days when lightning would strike.”
A giant that roared with the sound of thunder and hurled lightning bolts at the ground. He seemed so immensely powerful and divine that the title of ‘god’ felt fitting, but if you stripped away all the context and looked purely at what he did…
Isn’t that just lightning? Lightning is inherently loud, makes the sound of thunder, and scatters bolts across the ground.
“And seeing its broken form now, it seems it was an artificial creation. Other gods were made by humans, true, but the Thunder God appears to have been created in a more literal sense.”
“…A god?”
“And a being more helpful to humans than any other god. Peru, was the Thunder God always visible on days with lightning?”
“…Come to think of it, the Thunder God was always there when lightning struck.”
“Has there ever been a time when lightning struck without the Thunder God appearing first?”
Peru searched her memory at my question, then shook her head.
“…No. A bolt striking before the alarm sounded… I don’t think that’s ever happened. Unless it was thunder from far away.”
“Lightning is a purely natural phenomenon, right? If the Thunder God were truly a capricious deity, there should have been times when lightning struck even when he didn’t appear. The fact that it didn’t seems to confirm that the Thunder God was indeed an alarm. A very effective one, at that.”
To think that the Thunder God, long believed to hunt down humans who stole lightning, was actually a tool created by humans to predict its approach.
Peru, having learned this unexpected truth, murmured.
“…Who would make something like this?”
“It’s written right here. ‘Franc, the Lightning Thief.’ A man with a grandiose name. Judging by the signature, he didn’t seem to have any intention of hiding himself.”
“…I’ve never heard of him.”
“Which means his identity isn’t what’s important.”
The knowledge itself was eventually passed down to all of humanity. The knowledge itself is not the secret. The real secret is…
“Who hid his identity. At this point, that’s the more important question. Because whoever hid it would inevitably know a great deal about the object they concealed.”
“…Do you know?”
“I’m just as clueless as you, Peru, but I know something else. When something so clearly artificial has occurred, it’s easy to figure things out if you just consider who gained the most from it.”
I already knew the answer, but for Peru’s sake, I pretended not to and continued the conversation.
“You know the story of the Lightning Thief, don’t you?”
“…Yes.”
It was a story that the people of the Fallen Dominion, of all people, would know best. The legend of the Lightning Thief and the Thunder God.
There are many fairy tales in the world about stealing treasure from a giant living in a magnificent palace. But the story of the Lightning Thief is the only one where a giant made of lightning personally descends from the clouds to exact revenge. Fiction cannot beat reality. Only the story of the Lightning Thief, which began in Claudia, survived to be passed down through the generations.
“But the Thunder God was actually a lightning alarm, and the Lightning Thief was his creator. This truth was cleverly distorted, piggybacking on the existing fairy tale. In this process, only one being profited.”
“…Who?”
“The Sky God.”
I had a rough idea. Why else would the Thunderarch go so far as to reveal a valuable card like herself just to attack me? There had to be a reason.
“When the Lightning Thief stole the lightning, the Thunder God, having been robbed, received permission from the Sky God to punish the humans on the surface. Though he was outsmarted by the Lightning Thief a few times, the thief was eventually caught, had a change of heart, and returned the lightning. After that, the stories diverge—some say he forgave humanity, others say the Thunder God was still burning with rage but returned beyond the sky because the Sky God ordered him back.”
Peru pondered this for a moment before asking.
“…How is that profitable?”
“Of course it is. He made the Thunder God his subordinate without lifting a finger. That’s a huge profit.”
“…Huh?”
While Peru paused, taken aback by my words, I grunted and heaved up the Thunder God’s ribcage to look inside. I had expected to find complex machinery, but I was wrong. The interior was almost completely empty. There was a small device inside, but it was only a tiny part of the whole. I’d wondered why it fell so slowly; it was like a balloon, large in volume but light in weight.
Was the Thunder God just an alarm? But I could feel something… The true relic, the one with a trace of the Divine left on it, was…
This must be it.
“The lightning didn’t fall from the sky.”
If it was all for show, there had to be a reason. I moved past the Thunder God’s empty torso. If the restored, skeletal Thunder God could be said to have skin, it was the wide sheet of cloth attached to its back.
“It was sent up from the ground. The lightning never belonged to the sky in the first place.”
It was a kite.
A toy that tries to rise into the sky on the wind, only to be held back by a string. Attached to the Thunder God’s body was a kite with its string cut. It was torn and frayed, but thanks to the Golden Lord’s power of restoration, its function and form were still clearly recognizable.
The Thunder God had been launched from the ground and sent into the sky, entrusted with the crucial task of announcing when lightning would arrive.
“…The Thunder God, a tool to protect Claudia…”
“It probably wasn’t just the Thunder God. Most of what makes up Claudia is likely a useful tool, just like him.”
“…I wonder why the Thunderarch wanted to destroy the Thunder God.”
“Who knows? Maybe the alarm wasn’t needed anymore?”
I answered nonchalantly, but Peru nodded in understanding.
“…That’s right. After the Lightning Towers were built and the Thundermills were installed in Claudia, there was no longer any need to fear the Thunder God.”
“Then it all falls into place. Until now, people feared and revered the Thunder God, so it was fine to leave him be. But if people no longer fear him, their reverence for the Sky God would also fade. So, they would want to get rid of him now.”
“…Did the Thunderarch know all of this?”
“I can’t say for sure, but probably not, don’t you think?”
The Thunderarch herself didn’t know. But since her entire being, from her values to her powers, had been observed by the Saintess, even her most rational judgments would ultimately move in a direction that benefited the Sanctum.
“In any case, this is also a relic of the Divine, so it’s clear that even if the Thunderarch didn’t know, someone else did.”
This relic didn’t emanate the kind of lingering regret I felt from the Golden Lord or the Grand Master just before their deaths. It seems this one had a peaceful end. Not every Divine must have died with unfulfilled wishes.
But this, too, was a relic. A mark the Divine had carved upon the world, and it still remained.
“Even fiction reflects a certain amount of reality. The ‘lightning’ that the Lightning Thief was said to have returned probably refers to this. Otherwise, there would be no reason to mention returning it at all.”
“…Are you going to take it?”
“I might, depending on the circumstances, but I’m content just to have a look. I’m not a materialistic person.”
“…?”
Don’t give me that suspicious look. Is there anyone less materialistic than me? If I wanted money, I would have been living the high life, sucking up to some noble.
I simply want to catch up to humanity. To the footprints of humans who have journeyed so far while I was without my strength.
Now, then. Let’s see what the Sanctum went to such lengths to hide, even returning it to the sky. Shall we? It was the moment I reached for the relic, my heart pounding with anticipation.
For a moment, it felt as if the world had stopped. Separate from my mind-reading, a beastly instinct sensed danger and seized my senses. In a world that had stretched into infinity, a massive, sharp presence swelled up behind my back.
[I did warn you.]
A flash of light.
I had no time to react. I couldn’t have reacted. My vision was blurred by the mist, there were few people around me, and the weakened Peru was less sensitive than I was. There was no one whose mind I could read in advance.
Still… this is… far too fatal.
I lower my head. I see a sharp blade. The hilt is nowhere to be seen; only the blade juts out, having emerged from my abdomen.
Huh. My mind-reading didn’t pick that up.
A searing pain followed, as if my insides were being scoured with sandpaper and the debris poured down my throat. The taste of blood filled my mouth.
I tried to grab the blade, but it wouldn’t move. It only cut my palm, drawing more blood. In the midst of the excruciating pain, I turned my head. There stood the Thunderarch, gazing at me with empty eyes.
A halo of electricity floated above her head, and wings of lightning fluttered behind her back. The Thunderarch, manifested as an angel, thrust the blade in deeper.