Chapter 683: A Tale of Stopped Time. The Saintess’s Teatime (Part 2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 683: A Tale of Stopped Time. The Saintess’s Teatime (Part 2)
[You trust him? What about him do you trust? He refuses to take responsibility for anything.]
“I know Hughes. I’ve watched him for so long. We’ve been through countless situations together.”
Smiling as if she were happy just to watch the King of Humans, she looked less like a Saintess and more like a girl in love.
“He isn’t kind, nor is he cruel. He’s just… ordinary. He’s cowardly, honest, compassionate, and ruthless. Just as he always says, he’s an ordinary King of Humans.”
[Ordinary he may be, but he is still the King of Humans. He became an agent of savagery and challenged the order of all nations—the Military State, the Fallen Dominion, the Duchy. He attacked the flawed systems on the fringes of the Empire. I can accept that. The problem is what came next.]
There was a prophecy.
A prophecy made by the Saintess of Origin, who blessed all. It spoke of a beautiful and dignified order that would allow humanity to exist in perpetuity, where today would be like yesterday, and tomorrow like today.
It had no name, for no one had yet found it. Even the Saintess of Origin had only seen its possibility, without knowing how it worked or why it was possible.
But it most certainly existed.
A sacred order where all were happy, where no inequality existed, and where the sounds of laughter and song echoed without end.
It was prophesied to appear with the King of Humans.
[He could have become the leader of the Military State. He could have become the Golden Lord of the Fallen Dominion. He was qualified to ascend as the Archduke of the Duchy. Or perhaps he could have simply become the King of Humans, uniting the people of the savage lands and establishing order. We waited for that, too.]
Nevida was not the only one who had waited for the King of Humans. The Saintesses had waited for him as well. Because Nevida had preserved the King of Humans who died in the age of savagery, they foresaw the birth of a King of Civilization who would come after.
He was a king born in a world where humanity and civilization were one. Unlike the kings of other beasts, who were not bound by nations or societies, he was born within civilization itself. Just as a fish swims in water and a bird soars on the wind, he would breathe within civilization.
[But he established no order at all.]
However, great expectations only led to greater disappointment.
[He simply left Signaller Abbey, the Witherarch, and Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka as they were and vanished. He broke down fences, raised a flag, and gathered people, but he never took responsibility.]
The King of Humans does not establish order.
The Military State could have had an unprecedentedly stable transition of power. No one knew the true nature of the Command Center or understood the Signaller System. The King of Humans, who had single-handedly contacted the Signaller System and Yuel, could have become the king of the Military State if he had so desired. He could have absorbed and developed the system his predecessor had prepared and led the nation to perfection.
But he didn’t. He just left Signaller Abbey behind in that dark place underground and disappeared.
The same was true for the Fallen Dominion. It was a cursed land, a power vacuum held together only by the massive shadow of the Golden Lord. Having obtained the power of the Golden Lord’s Divine, he was the king and god of the Fallen Dominion. He could have painted anything he wished upon that blank slate of a land, which had no order, no civilization, nothing.
But he didn’t. Instead, he attacked the Village of Clouds, Claudia, and unleashed the Divine he had hidden there. Then he vanished, heading for the Duchy.
In the Duchy, he didn’t even need to take responsibility. Favored by Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka, he could have become her consort and ruled the nation. With the devoted affection and absolute support of a being as powerful as a god, he could have advanced the stagnant Duchy. Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka would have likely granted his every wish. All except one: his request to leave her side.
And that was the one request he made.
It was irrational. Even if one lacked a thirst for power, anyone with desire would prefer to be the one giving orders. The authority to sway a nation, the power of a Divine that could recreate all of creation, or the affection of a beautiful ruler. He willingly forsook what anyone would covet and left.
It was as if he were wary of it.
[If he had taken his place and established order…!]
The order that no one had ever seen would have manifested in the world, just as the prophecy foretold. As Ruel was denouncing the King of Humans, Shei spoke.
“You’re right. If Hughes truly committed to establishing an order, it would become a paradise.”
Shei smiled faintly, recalling a happy memory.
“It was a paradise. No one was unhappy, no one committed any crimes, those who worked hard were rewarded, and after endlessly exploring their potential, everyone achieved happiness. It was the final renaissance of a humanity facing its end. Hughes suffered a lot, but considering how he usually lazed around, it served him right.”
[You saw that future?]
“Yes. It was truly… enjoyable. Happy, beautiful. It was fantastic. I had always wished for death, but in that place, I wanted to live for a thousand, ten thousand years.”
The King of Humans reads minds.
Shei knew this without any proof, without any particular reason. She knew it by intuition.
And she also realized how that ‘perfect order’ was achieved.
To read minds is to distinguish between goodwill and malice—something order itself could never do. That was how the King of Humans created a perfect order.
There was once a merchant. He made a fortune by lying about the origin of his products but was soon reported. Before the King of Humans, he pleaded his innocence. He claimed he knew nothing, that he too had been deceived, and that he had no money left.
Uncovering the truth would have been an arduous process: tracking down the traders he met, gathering testimonies, cross-examining them, interrogating him, finding evidence, and recovering the money. The amount of labor required to prevent even one innocent person from being wrongly accused was immense.
But the King of Humans knew the answer.
He recovered all the unjust gains and distributed them to those who had been deceived. That was all. There was no need to make an example of the merchant with harsh punishment. Having lost his credibility, the merchant was criticized and suffered a great loss. He vowed never to do it again. Everyone wanted the merchant to be judged, but the King of Humans didn’t need to dirty his hands.
Because no one could deceive the King of Humans.
When you know the answer, you can find it. Malice is judged, and goodwill is rewarded. The loopholes in the law vanish completely. Cutting ties, shifting blame, remaining silent, buying silence… no method works when the ‘intent’ itself is being judged.
By closing all the gaps in the order, the King of Humans guarantees ‘goodwill.’ ‘Malice’ disappears on its own. Since the profit gained from deceiving, defrauding, and harming others drops past zero into the negatives, no human needs to choose ‘malice’ as a survival strategy. Goodwill becomes the rational and utilitarian choice.
Naturally, only ‘goodwill’ remains in the world. Humans now trust one another. Being wary of ‘malice’ is, in itself, a loss. In a world without suspicion, people share acceptance.
“Order exists by not trusting humans. But Hughes trusts humans. The final piece that order lacks is trust. Hughes’s order has that.”
An order of trust, ruled by the King of Humans.
It was a miracle made possible because the King of Humans could read human minds.
[You saw that, and yet, why…?]
At Ruel’s question, a hint of sadness touched Shei’s blissfully smiling face.
“But… if he truly trusts humans, Hughes cannot become the order.”
[What do you mean?]
“If you trust humans, you have to leave them be. The reason Hughes leaves people behind is because he trusts them. He entrusts things to them because he believes in the will of those with goodwill. To be unable to entrust is to not believe in their will. That contradiction will eventually kill Hughes. It will make humanity abandon him.”
The world was not yet ready to accept a king who could read minds. People cannot bear having the ugliness in their hearts read by another. The wicked fear it, and the good are ashamed by it. The comfort of ‘it’s okay because no one knows’ no longer applies.
Because the King of Humans reads minds.
It doesn’t matter if they are good or evil. Humanity will ultimately reject the King of Humans, and the King of Humans will accept that rejection.
It was the same, no matter if it was repeated dozens or hundreds of times. Unless the human species itself changes, even if Hughes leads the order, it will end in catastrophe.
“We can’t just entrust everything to Hughes without trusting humanity. Because Hughes is the King of Humans.”
So Shei hid her memories. There was no point in going further.
Even if Shei and Hughes were to achieve enlightenment and become superhumans, as long as humanity remained the same, and as long as Hughes was the King of Humans, there would be no conclusion.
“Please, trust Hughes. As much as he trusts humanity.”
[Trust… him?]
Was there any word as irresponsible as trust? To tell one who sees the future to have faith was like telling them to simply watch a child walk toward the water’s edge. And for those words to come from a Saintess who had seen the future of the apocalypse…
[Arrogance ends the moment it falls. Humanity has no more chances. The moment that Divine is revealed to the world, ‘she’ will also become aware of that arrogance and learn to wield it!]
“No. There is a chance. As long as I’m here. As long as I… am with Hughes.”
Shei, the Regressor, returns when the world ends. When humanity brings about its own destruction, when the King of Sins annihilates them, or when Hughes meets his death. Shei uses her own death as a trigger to return.
How many times? Dozens? Hundreds? She couldn’t remember. It was countless. Thousands of tragedies had torn Shei’s heart to shreds, leaving nothing behind.
“I am the Saintess of Opportunity. As long as I watch over ‘opportunity,’ humanity will not end.”
But her torn heart is pieced back together every time. Death is not the end. A familiar yet new meeting awaits. Whenever she goes down into the Abyss, pausing for a moment to choose her words, he falls from the sky like a gift.
Hughes reads Shei’s mind and understands her past. Comforted by him, Shei begins the next cycle. That was why Shei never broke. Even if she failed, she could still be with him.
“As long as Hughes is here, I will continue to be that chance.”
…Though, perhaps, the fact that I’ve been deceiving him all this time will soon be discovered.