Chapter 580: When I Grow Up, I'm Going to Be a Divine
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 580: When I Grow Up, I'm Going to Be a Divine
Click, click, click, click. The gear-driven wheelchair glided smoothly down the wooden hallway. It hooked its gears onto small bumps to climb over them, and whenever the incline changed, the gears shifted to keep it level automatically. It had far too many functions to be called a simple wheelchair.
I muttered to myself as I steered the wheelchair someone had gifted me.
“These gears…”
“It must be him. Warforger Maximilien.”
The Regressor’s face soured.
One of the Six Generals of the Military State, Warforger Maximilien.
And an executive of the secret society, The Human Regime. The King of Gears.
The Regressor clicked her tongue as she recalled an old memory.
“The Human Regime… Tch. And of all places, we're at the Tree of Corruption. My mood just soured.”
“When were you ever in a good mood?”
“What did you say?”
The Regressor shot me a sharp glare. Looks like she’d regained some energy after chugging that elixir by the bowlful. Nothing beats good medicine when you're hurting.
“What can you do? A prisoner is supposed to be in a bad mood. But Shei, why are you going by yourself?”
“What? What are you talking about? You're the one pushing. How can I go alone when I can't use my arms?”
“But I'm not pushing the wheelchair right now.”
“Huh? But I'm moving?”
You’re right. I’m not pushing, but you are moving.
I stared blankly at the receding wheelchair before snapping to my senses and chasing after it. The wheelchair was moving on its own, without any power source!
“Shei! Slow down! At this rate, you're going to rush straight to your grave!”
“I'm not doing anything!”
The wheelchair carrying the Regressor navigated the path on its own, even taking curves as it pleased. I hurriedly chased after her. Following the rolling wheelchair around a corner and through a door, I entered a spacious room.
[Squawk! You're here!]
Waiting for us there was a single parrot with red feathers.
“Welcome! I've been waiting!”
And, as expected, there stood Maximilien, one of the Six Generals of the Military State. Able to freely control any gears within his range, he had summoned the Regressor’s gear-driven wheelchair before him and was now inspecting it from all angles.
“You're here too! I heard you lost an arm, but you reattached it? What a waste! If you had left it to me, I could have fitted you with a gear-driven prosthetic that's far more robust, systematic, and sustainable than what you have now!”
“War… forger…!”
“How about it? Shall we take it off and attach a new one now? I'll even teach you how to use it myself! Once you get used to it, it'll be much sturdier than that arm of yours!”
The Warforger threw back his cloak and pulled out a gear-saw. Its sharp teeth whirred with a terrifying sound. Maximilien was just as willful as Nevida, if not more so. With sincere goodwill, the Warforger intended to saw off the Regressor's arm.
As the saw blade looked ready to slice through the Regressor’s shoulder at any moment, I thrust my hand forward.
“Hey! Do you know how much work I put into fixing that? Are you trying to cut it off without permission?”
Splat. Blood spurted from the hand caught in the saw blade. For a moment, crimson splattered everywhere, but then all the blood flowed back into my hand. At the same time, the saw blade stopped with a jolt, as if it had snagged on something.
Unique Magic: Steal. I had stolen Maximilien’s Unique Magic to stop the saw’s rotation. Seeing the motionless blade, Maximilien smiled as if he had been expecting it.
“King of Humans. It's been a while. This is the first time since you and Major General Historia tore my body to shreds, isn't it?”
“If it weren't for Nevida, that would have been our last meeting. What a shame.”
“Thanks to you, I had to replace even more of my body with gears. It was quite an ordeal!”
“You always wanted to replace the human body with gears, didn't you? You got your wish.”
Maximilien retorted to my cold reply.
“My wish? I wanted to change the King of Humans.”
“The King of Humans is a representative of humanity. If you change yourself, you might one day change humanity, and that would be reflected in me. But changing me won't change humanity. What you were doing was no different from manipulating a graph.”
“Hahahaha! Is that how it is? Ah, I think I get the gist of it!”
Whether he was magnanimous or just plain insane, Maximilien laughed it off heartily before pointing a gear at me.
“So, how about it? I hear you're hosting a Divine now. Any interest in trying out some gears while you're at it? I'm asking out of pure curiosity!”
“No.”
“So you won't accept gears? You're quite strict with me.”
“And I can't. My body is already occupied by a Divine.”
After coldly shutting Maximilien down, I placed my hand on the Regressor’s wheelchair. Maximilien’s Unique Magic, Gear Maiden, controlled all gears within his range. In other words, if it wasn't a gear, he couldn't control it. I grabbed one of the gears tightly and then let go. The lump of metal that was once a gear transformed into cards and fluttered to the ground.
“Hoh. What’s that?”
Ignoring Maximilien’s curious gaze, I spoke to the parrot.
“I wasn't told there would be an auditor, Great Witch.”
[I wasn't told either! Squawk! This one threw a fit, insisting he had to see you! So useless!]
The parrot shed some feathers as it shot Maximilien a displeased look. Maximilien replied nonchalantly.
“What does it matter? Let's not be like that, fellow failure.”
[Squawk? Failure?]
“Aren't we both castoffs who failed to reach the Divine? We should be putting our heads together and combining our strength to reach it. Why are you trying to monopolize this chance to speak with the King of Humans?”
[Squawk squawk! I'm not like you! My contribution to creating the Tree of Genesis was significant!]
“If that were truly the case, you would have become the Divine. But wasn't it the Progenitor who became one in the end?”
The moment Maximilien casually mentioned Tyr, a strange, blood-tinged scent filled the air. The parrot’s neck creaked as it turned to glare at Maximilien, its eyes glowing.
[Don't you… dare mention Tyrkanzyaka… in front of… me….]
“An emotional response is not good. The Progenitor is a being who only recently became a Divine. Shouldn't we naturally analyze the case?”
Something glinted between the gasps of rage escaping its beak. It wasn't a trick of the light. Something was slowly creeping up from deep within the parrot's esophagus. It was a slender, white finger. The jutting index finger forcibly pried the beak open. The parrot's beak was stretched to its breaking point.
Through the gap, the slender white hand pointed at Maximilien.
[Silence!]
And at the tip of the pointing finger, a depression the size of a fingertip appeared on Maximilien's chest. Above his heart, blood swirled into a spiral.
Heart destruction. Black magic, and probably a form of high-level black magic I couldn't even imagine. Black magic, which is fundamentally closer to a curse, usually has difficulty exerting physical force, but the darkest and most powerful black magic is a force in itself. The absurd power of the curse pierced Maximilien’s heart.
It was a blow far too fatal to be a joke.
However, the fundamental principle of black magic is identity, and Maximilien’s body had long since deviated from the norm.
Clatter. Dozens of tiny gears fell from the front of Maximilien's shirt. He frowned and said.
“What are you doing? Stop it. I just had this repaired.”
Maximilien, who had replaced a significant portion of his body with gears, was perfectly fine even after taking a fatal blow from black magic. He was damaged, but that was all. The gears still ticked with a steady rhythm.
An unpleasant voice flowed out of the parrot.
[Have you replaced your heart with gears now? Is there any part of you left that's even human?]
“I didn't replace my heart. I merely had gears take over the work the heart does.”
[That's the same thing.]
“It's different. I simply focused more on the functional aspects of the human body. You, who believe in the blind watchmaker that is the Tree of Genesis, may find it disagreeable. But in the end, aren't all the things used here touched by a repairman's hand?”
The fallen gears spun around, righted themselves, and rolled back to Maximilien’s feet. He wove the scattered parts back into his body.
“As the Great Witch, you may be knowledgeable about the Tree of Genesis, but I too have seen and learned much during my time with The Human Regime. As a result, I know just how sloppy and careless a blind watchmaker the great principle that created humanity, the Tree of Genesis, truly is. The Tree of Genesis didn't intentionally create humans. The human body has countless limitations; it's fragile and inefficient.”
Having said that, Maximilien looked at me and asked.
“King of Humans. Am I wrong?”
“No. You're right. This body wasn't intentionally created by a god.”
He was stating the obvious. Maximilien was right. It was something anyone could figure out if they thought about it properly.
“Then why won't you accept gears? I'm asking out of pure curiosity.”
Why? The answer was obvious. I pulled the Regressor’s wheelchair over to one side of a table and replied.
“It's normal for the world not to go your way, Mr. Maximilien. That's why you can't become a Divine.”
[Squawk squawk squawk! Serves you right! Squawk!]
The parrot held its sides and laughed at my remark. A look of doubt appeared on Maximilien’s face.
“What do you mean?”
“It's just as I said. The world doesn't cater to our convenience in the first place. The most efficient and rational method? That's a way to live in accordance with the world's laws, not a way to create them. You're trying to judge things with the cause and effect reversed.”
A Divine is a law of the world. It would be a mistake to think of it as the law of a nation. Unlike a nation made by, of, and for humans, the world simply exists.
“The problem is you're trying to create a new rule by perfectly conforming to the old ones. If you're proud of being good at conforming, you should just keep living that way. The problem arises because you're trying to take this roundabout path.”
I'm not a Divine either. But among all the beasts, only humans have reached the Divine, and thanks to that, I, who can wield the Divine, conceptually understand what it is.
It feels like I'm giving a lecture for the first time in a while. I began my explanation to the audience of one parrot and one gear puppet.