Chapter 592: Never Think of a Pink Elephant
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 592: Never Think of a Pink Elephant
A stroll on a deer isn't so bad. I enjoyed it. I set Shei down and dismounted. It might be better for Shei to run off and act freely, but there's no real merit in that for me.
“I've heard enough. I'll be on my way now.”
Just as I was about to leave with a light wave, someone grabbed the hem of my clothes. Who’s being so clingy?
“…Huh? Hughes, are you really leaving?”
I turned to see Shei staring at me with wide eyes, her hand on my clothes. Her trembling hand had no strength in it, but held more by her heart than her grip, I changed my mind and kindly explained.
“Yes. I've heard everything I needed to hear and learned everything I needed to know. Now, I must act according to all of your desires.”
“Desires…? These people came to stop Nevida.”
“Yes! That's exactly it. They came to ruin Nevida's plan. In other words, for their goal to be achieved, Nevida's plan must exist in the first place.”
Extending one's life by transforming into a tree is not a recommended practice, even for druids. It goes against the natural order.
Not only that. Treason is a historically forbidden act, and burning the World Tree is the worst sin a druid can commit.
“Humans sprouting from fruit. For that one reason, they betrayed their sovereign, destroyed a nation, burned the World Tree, and made the Great Witch who helped them in good faith suffer from guilt. Are any of those not Anathemas? Would anyone be praised for such actions?”
Who decides what is and isn't allowed? Humans do. And the druids made their decision. Treason? Acceptable. Burning the World Tree? A worthy price.
As long as they could prevent humans from growing on trees, the druids decided to cast aside all those Anathemas.
“They're all practically Anathemas! They are all the same, yet the druids committed all those atrocities. All to prevent one thing: humans being born from fruit of flesh! They threw everything else away for that one single purpose!”
After raising my voice, I feigned a somber tone for a moment.
“…But Nevida is too powerful, no one will listen to the truth, and even after abandoning everything they held dear, the Tree of Corruption still stands. So they hid beyond time, waiting for this very day.”
“This day…”
“Yes! This very moment, when Nevida is about to resurrect the King of Humans! They waited to interfere just as her grand plan was about to bear its greatest fruit!”
They were waiting for me. Though our goals may differ, these people were also eagerly awaiting the King of Humans. Perhaps they've been waiting for me even more desperately than most of the Human Regime.
“Now that I've appeared, their pathetic struggle for survival has been rewarded. But if I succeed in escaping with them, what will become of them? If we get away, they'll lose their purpose and wander aimlessly. If we fail, they'll die for nothing. I'm sorry, but that's neither your desire nor mine. For that matter, it's not Nevida's desire either, who waits for the King of Humans over there.”
Shei looked a little confused. Not because she couldn't rationally understand my words, but because she found them emotionally difficult to accept.
“Does… that mean, Hughes, you're going to.”
“Yes! It's no fun if a wish comes true too easily, is it? Besides, taking me and running isn't your true desire. It's just a stopgap measure! Shouldn't it be achieved in a more dramatic, more fundamental way?”
“What are you going to do?”
The answer is simple. Their desire and her desire. Nevida and the Human Regime, who wish for the king's return, and these druids, who want to prevent that one thing from happening.
There is only one way to grant all of their wishes.
“I declare it here and now! I, as the King of Humans, empowered by your desires, will go straight to the top of the Tree of Corruption!”
I thrust one hand high above my head and shouted, my voice ringing loud enough to shake the entire forest.
“Those who would stop me, stop me! Those who would help me, help me! There isn't much time left. The moment I reach the very top, the true King of Humans will be resurrected!”
The druids who brought me here, the Great Witch who blocked my path with her Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, and even Shei, who was with me just moments ago, were all speechless. Shei seemed to be in the greatest shock of all. Her fingers, which had only been able to twitch, were now moving quite well.
Nenyaphh was the first to move. He approached me, his face a mask of disbelief.
“How can you say such a thing? Though we may have betrayed our sovereign, it was to uphold the duties of humanity. How can you, the King of Humans, compare that to mere treason?”
“The duties of humanity? And who decides what those are?”
“We humans do. As humans, there are duties we must uphold, even without spoken promises or overt actions. The former king conceiving a beastkin child within the countless fruits of flesh was an Anathema that twisted the very nature of the human race! It was something that must never happen!”
“Yes. That's what you wished for. And you're acting according to what you decided. You did the right thing according to your convictions, so there's no problem, is there?”
I gave Nenyaphh a cheerful smile.
Don't misunderstand. I'm not admonishing you. On the contrary, I'm praising you.
To protect one thing you decided on, you destroyed countless other forms of order, didn't you? If that's not savagery, what is? I like that sort of thing, too.
“You can't fulfill the wish of not thinking about a pink elephant. Because for that wish to even exist, you first have to think of a pink elephant. It's the same principle. If you want to stop an Anathema, the Anathema must first be about to happen!”
“Sophistry! Our wish is only made perfect when the Anathema is gone!”
“Is that really so? When the Tree of Corruption grew, when you heard the rumors that the King of Humans had appeared, when the Anathema was about to repeat itself… were you truly not happy? Weren't you overcome with the feeling that the time had finally come?”
“That…!”
Nenyaphh and the other druids couldn't give me a straight answer. They were forest keepers who had waited with a single purpose as their reason for being. The sense of fulfillment they would feel at the moment they could finally act on that purpose was also the truth.
But Nenyaphh couldn't bring himself to admit it.
“Then what of our wish? To prevent this insult to humanity, we turned to wood and endured hundreds of years of hardship and pain. Where has our wish gone? Is it something that can never be fulfilled?”
“It's right there. In your hearts. In the bows and arrows you hold in your hands.”
If you want to stop me, shoot me with your arrows. If you can kill me, Nevida's plan will be delayed for quite some time.
Nenyaphh's eyes wavered for a moment as he understood my meaning. I grinned and tapped my chest over my heart.
“As long as I'm alive, the resurrection of the King of Humans is always possible. The surest way is to drag me off to some secluded spot, kill me, and bury me where I can't be found. Ah, it would have been better to just turn me into a tree.”
“We had no such intention.”
“No such intention, you say? I'm sure you didn't. If you had, there would have been no need to go to the trouble of bringing me all the way here. But if you were pushed into a corner, would that option truly not cross your minds? Don't tell me it wouldn't. You've already destroyed a nation and even burned the World Tree.”
Well, his claim that they didn't intend to kill me was probably true. Escaping with me would waste more of Nevida's time than simply killing me would.
Though I couldn't ignore the moral influence of these druids.
“This is also a courtesy to you, Nenyaphh. I may be on the side of ordinary people, but I won't be killed by you.”
At my assertion, Nenyaphh clutched his chest tightly and said.
“…On that point, opinions may differ.”
Oh-ho. You seem confident. But the situation isn't looking good for the druids.
Amidst the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, a jet-black jaguar leaped from the shadows and pounced on a druid. At the same time, Shei kicked a druid with her foot while the druid was quietly nocking an arrow.
A series of short, sharp impacts sounded out. Then, the voices of the parrot and Shei followed.
[I will not stop you from leaving, Nenyaphh. But know that this is my final act of mercy.]
“Lay so much as a finger on Hughes, and I'll kill you.”
A tense silence flowed through the darkness. Nenyaphh still had some kind of ‘certainty’ left, but… there was no hope of killing me before Nevida arrived while simultaneously dealing with the Great Witch's Night Parade and Shei. And he didn't seem too keen on it anyway.
His calculations complete, Nenyaphh gave a hand signal to stop. The druids who had been preparing to attack saw the signal and halted.
“Stand down. The King of Humans has decided not to join us.”
“Nenyaphh! What are you saying! If we leave him, we cannot stop the Great Druid's sin!”
“Exactly. Our fight is with the Great Druid's sin, not the King of Humans. Moreover, if we fight them both at once, we will die a miserable death.”
“We are not afraid to die!”
“Nor am I. I do not fear death. But I do fear being unable to stop the sin the Great Druid is about to commit. If that happens, we will not be able to rest at the roots of the World Tree even in death.”
The druids weren't convinced, but regardless, they couldn't stop me in this atmosphere. The Night Parade looked ready to tear them to shreds at any moment. The druids, still unconvinced, slowly began to move away.
Meanwhile, Shei unconsciously steered her deer over to my side. It was so natural that I almost mounted the deer myself without thinking.
“No, Shei-ssi. You should go with them.”
“Why?”
Why? Because there's nothing for you to do at the Tree of Genesis. I'm going to resurrect the King of Humans, and you're not going to just stand by and watch, are you? You'll just act out again, get your arm torn off, and die.
“So that you can come and stop me too, Shei-ssi.”
“…Can't you just… not resurrect him? You can do that, can't you?”
…Is she asking why I have to resurrect the King of Humans? Certainly, if my desire were the same as Shei's, I might have tried to resist, too.
But Nevida will resurrect the King of Humans no matter what it takes. She could threaten me with force or control me against my will. In that case, I can't resist. If the desire is that strong, I have no choice but to move.
“I don't think that's possible. I don't have something like regression, you know. To survive, I have to do as Nevida says.”
Whether I like it or not, I'm a being who moves according to desires. I'll end up obeying eventually. Especially when so many desires have gathered like this.
And crucially… this is the only way to break through this situation.
“Now, go.”
I gave Shei's back a push.
Shei glanced back at me several times, but she had no choice either. The option of killing me if things went south had now vanished from her mind.
“…I'll be back.”
“Don't come back with half-hearted resolve.”
I waved and turned around, feeling refreshed. I didn't look back. Instead, I strode forward, deliberately stomping my feet so the sound echoed through the jungle.
The Great Witch's Night Parade of a Hundred Demons didn't chase the druids; instead, they gathered around me. They surrounded me as if to escort me and walked in step with me.
As I walked slowly through the middle of the beasts, I felt a strange presence. Identifying the person with my mind-reading, I raised my voice and called out their name.
“Did you hear that, Nevida?”
The forest shimmered. A section of the densely packed trees seemed to step aside, and just like that, Nevida appeared as if she had been there with the trees all along.
The parrot flying beside me spoke grudgingly.
[…It wasn't me who told her. Nevida figured it out on her own.]
“I know. It's not like I betrayed her or ran away, so I have nothing to be nervous about.”
And this way, Nevida won't chase after them. To her, they're nothing more or less than annoying bugs. Nevida has only one desire: the resurrection of the King of Humans. Everything else is just a bonus.
She couldn't risk missing the long-awaited return of her king just to swat some bugs, so she had no choice but to follow me. That's why Nevida understood my intentions better than anyone.
“My Lord. Did you wish to protect that wench so dearly?”
“Hmm? Why do you ask?”
“Had you not made such a declaration, your humble servant would have killed them all. Did you not do so to stop me?”
“Oh, of course not. If I really wanted to protect Shei-ssi, I would have begged and pleaded with you to at least spare her life.”
Nevida looked at me with an expression that was too monotonous to read. She spoke slowly.
“…Your humble servant can still kill them all, even now.”
“Really? Well, do as you wish.”
“Are you truly alright with that?”
“Why wouldn't I be? If that's the conclusion you've reached after thinking it over and over, after speculating on my intentions and expanding your thoughts, then I have neither the reason nor the power to stop you. Things will simply flow as desire dictates.”
Do whatever you want. As if I can stop a Divine and the strongest being in this world. Stop trying to tempt me as if you'll change your mind if I cling to you. It's already out of my hands.
As I quickened my pace toward the Tree of Genesis, Nevida turned her head away from the outside world as if giving up.
“However, if that is my Lord's will, then your humble servant shall not do so.”
“Wow, thank you for your mercy. To repay your grace, I'll work even harder!”
It seems I don't look very trustworthy. But, Nevida.
“Don't you trust me? Are you curious about my scheme? Oh dear, but you can't read my mind. So, what must you do? Control me? It's up to you whether you accept that.”
In the end, you'll get what you want. If that desire is true.