Chapter 88
Chapter 88
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 88
Chapter Title: The Price of Power
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Shielder knew about the two-story house and the dead women. His master must have known as well. The iron bars stained with blood flickered before his eyes.
It wasn’t power without a price. The women had paid that price. Power obtained easily through the lives of others, without personal effort or sacrifice.
This couldn’t be the “righteous world” Shielder had spoken of.
“This seems like a good spot.”
Gilliard halted his steps.
“Shielder…”
It was then that she began to speak. Gilliard pulled out a scroll. He said it was magic to confuse the eyes of the watchers.
The scroll tore open. Soon after, small animals hidden in various places revealed themselves. They seemed unable to perceive the two of them due to the magic.
“Now we can talk freely.”
“Did Shielder know everything? Even what happened in the two-story house?”
“I know that a great many people were sacrificed there.”
“That’s impossible. Shielder wouldn’t tolerate something like that.”
“You mustn’t lie to yourself. You’ve realized that everything happening before your eyes is real. If you didn’t believe my words and judged them false, you would have jumped down from the tree and confronted Shielder right then. Why didn’t you?”
“That’s…”
“People believe what they want to believe. Even when they know it’s not the truth. What about you? Faith is convenient. It requires no verification or refutation.”
“The Shielder I’ve seen wasn’t like that. He was someone who truly cared for others and understood the meaning of self-sacrifice!”
“I won’t deny it. Shielder is indeed that kind of person. He knows mercy, compassion, and generosity. He knows how to embrace people with open arms. But the number of people he can embrace with those arms is limited, and inevitably, there are areas his hands can’t reach. It’s unavoidable.”
Unavoidable. Inebil imagined it despite herself.
The image of Shielder choosing sacrifice “unavoidably” to protect those in his embrace.
“No one is one-dimensional. Everyone has dual aspects. The Shielder you saw is surely a good lord. A righteous ruler who cherishes his territory’s people and ponders how to live together with them. At the same time, exploiting others’ lives for the sake of his own is another side of Shielder.”
“Choices are inevitable. There’s no way to satisfy everyone.”
She tried to make excuses despite knowing it was wrong.
“You’re right. It’s a choice. There was a woman named Wille. She had two sons and lived diligently in a small village outside the territory. One day, Wille was kidnapped and brought to this mansion. Solely because she was deemed suitable as an offering.”
Gilliard’s voice burrowed into her ears. She wanted to cover them with her hands.
“Wille didn’t know why she’d been kidnapped. So she screamed. Begging to be spared, saying she’d do anything if they let her go. But soon her voice faded. She sensed it instinctively. That she couldn’t leave this place alive.”
“Stop.”
“Wille saw, one night, another woman locked in the iron bars with her being dragged away. Silence fell, then screams followed. Horrific screams that lasted until dawn. Wille, who spent the sleepless night wide-eyed, saw the dragged-away woman thrown back into the opposite iron bars. The woman had gone mad. She smeared feces on her lips, laughed vacantly, and scratched at the walls with her nails. All while smiling innocently.”
Inebil recalled the basement of the two-story house. She remembered the bloodstained walls. A forgotten terror writhed in her lower abdomen.
It was the fear that had built up layer by layer when she was kicked by the noble. The women trapped underground must have lived in even greater terror.
“Then it was Wille’s turn. Begging for her life, saying her children were waiting, was futile. Laid upon the altar, Wille met a man there who was weeping. The man apologized. Sincerely. Wille made one final plea to him. To please spare her. The man grasped Wille’s hand and said that her sacrifice would form the foundation for a better world.”
Inebil flinched and looked at her own hand. Before she knew it, Gilliard had taken hold of it.
It felt repulsive, as if she’d touched filth, yet for some reason she couldn’t shake it off. Her eyes met Gilliard’s.
She felt as if she were lying on the altar where Wille had lain.
“The man, Shielder, prayed for Wille. That her sacrifice not be in vain, that her pain be used for a meaningful purpose. The altar opened, and the magic began, using Wille’s blood as the medium. Do you know what Wille’s last words were amid the pain that burned through her entire body?”
She couldn’t answer. She merely panted, staring at Gilliard’s eerily black pupils.
“I’ll kill you all. I’ll kill everyone in this place. That was Wille’s dying words. For the record, countless ‘Willes’ were placed on that altar. There were very young Willes and Willes nearly forty years old. Willes of different names, but what does that matter? In Shielder’s eyes, they were all just one offering.”
Inebil wrenched her hand free and drew her sword. Rough breaths escaped her open mouth. Saliva dripped down. It felt as if she’d been ensnared by vicious magic.
“I won’t believe anything until I see it with my own eyes.”
Gilliard held out a piece of paper.
“It’s the way from the office to the basement. Security Magic is active, but my disciple will handle it. So go see for yourself.”
“Why tell me this? What the hell do you want?”
She wanted to tear up the paper in her hand. She wanted to ask Shielder directly, openly, without sneaking around like a thief.
What’s in the basement? How do you know about the two-story house? Is it true you performed magic with human lives?
Then Shielder would smile kindly and tell her the truth. With a valid reason and an explanation of the situation she could accept.
She would probably nod along, saying it was unavoidable.
Gilliard was right. She believed in Shielder. She believed in her master. Faith required no proof. It only needed belief.
That was why she couldn’t tear up the paper. She had to verify the reality of her faith.
“Because your actions will aid my cause.”
“What does that mean?”
Gilliard interlaced his fingers and slowly moved to the left, tracing a small circle around her at the center.
“The past is the path we’ve walked. The future is the path we must take. So the future can only be glimpsed vaguely; no one can predict it precisely. But what if the future is determined, and you’ve seen it? How would that feel?”
“Seeing the future? That’s impossible.”
“It’s just my story, so you don’t have to believe it. Anyway, I came to know the future. It was regrettable. If I’d gained foresight a little earlier, I could have saved my family.”
Suddenly, the logbook she’d seen in the two-story house came to mind. She listened intently to Gilliard’s words.
“Those people killed my son and wife, collected their blood, and forced it down my throat. It was horrific. My mind and body crumbled in an instant. Why is this happening to me? Why did they kill my family? In that moment, I thought I would die. That was when I crossed into the Realm.”
“The Realm?”
Her master had said crossing the Realm allowed one to obtain a new body.
“It was a mysterious place. There, I learned the future. I glimpsed the principles of the world, however imperfectly. An immense shock overwhelmed me.
It was so vast it even made me forget the deaths of my wife and child. I flailed amid the flood of knowledge and escaped the Realm. Those who had used me as an offering were all dead. It must have been beyond their expectations. That the sacrifice they offered would cross the Realm.”
Ecstasy flickered across Gilliard’s corpse-like face. His lips curved high, his eyes crinkled.
But soon it returned to expressionlessness. Gilliard continued in a calm tone.
“The Realm is a place beyond rules. At the same time, it’s where all the laws that bind us originate. I learned that everything is decided there and reflected in this world. Even this moment of conversation with you is not coincidence, but inevitability.”
“Everything is determined? Nonsense. This life is something I earned.”
Looking back on her past, it had been a series of hardships. Events that tried to break her will had assailed her time and again.
If she’d given up when sold, or submitted the day the noble kicked her, she wouldn’t be here now. Everything was the result of enduring and persevering.
And that was predetermined? To Inebil, those words were an unbearable insult.
“I thought the same. That I was a being with free will, and not even a god could interfere with my choices. But as I told you, the Realm is where all laws originate. Whatever I do, it happens within those laws. Escaping the rigid framework is impossible. That’s the limit of humans bound to the Realm.”
“Don’t spew such filth. Nothing is set in stone. My survival is proof.”
“As I said, I’m not asking for your agreement or begging you to believe. I’m merely conveying what I saw.”
Gilliard turned his head. Toward the mansion.
“Time’s approaching. You asked my purpose? My life has two goals. One is proof. Proving the structure of the Realm. The second is dismantling that structure. Whether a god created the Realm, or even that god is contained within it. If I keep advancing toward the future I saw, I’ll naturally learn.”
“Crude sophistry. Every choice was mine, made in each moment. It was purely my will. Unrelated to any structure—my thoughts and heart!”
“Everyone says that. That life is autonomous, and the future holds no certainties. I want to believe it too. That’s why I’ll prove it.”
She glared at Gilliard and asked.
“If you’ve seen the future and know everything, why orchestrate this? What do you hope to learn through me? I won’t be your plaything.”
“I respect your will and choices. So continue acting without wavering, as you intend. That alone is enough for me.”
Gilliard looked toward the mansion again. He checked the time on the pocket watch he pulled from his breast pocket. Unease swept through her body.
Faster than she thought, her arm moved. She swung her sword to subdue Gilliard.
Boom. A earth-shaking roar erupted from the mansion’s direction. The vibration climbed up through her feet. Gilliard looked at her and said.
“Act with your free will.”
His voice sounded like the whisper of a devil.
(To be continued)