Chapter 232
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 232
It had taken an incredibly long time just to get to this point.
“…H-how long did it take…?”
“Hmm, let’s see. About 281 years?”
It was an absurdly long time, enough to make anyone blurt out, What in the world does that mean? But it was no lie.
While it might have been a foreign concept to Seo Gio, the ordinary art teacher, or Giovanni, the short-lived priest, the current Gio—now dominated by his identity as the Evil God Arjio—had spent that considerable span of time with this man without much issue.
Yet, even for an Evil God who had lived through centuries, dedicating so much time to helping a single person was an unfamiliar experience. As a result, it had been rather fresh and enjoyable.
“And on top of that, about two months and twenty-one days have passed.”
“…Pardon?”
“I’m sorry if it’s hard to believe, but it’s the truth.”
Although he had spent far more time on the man’s rehabilitation than expected, it wasn’t a major issue. Whatever the mages who used Gio’s house as a research lab had done, time flowed quite slowly here.
My house weathered all those turbulent years for a reason, after all.
Considering the man’s condition was more severe than anticipated, Gio had tweaked things just a little further.
While 281 years, two months, and twenty-one days passed inside, only about 94 years had gone by in the Black Forest outside the ruins. On Earth, a mere three days had passed.
Gio felt a swell of pride.
“It’s only because it was me that you woke up this quickly. If anyone else had helped you, they wouldn’t have even dreamed of succeeding in this timeframe. It probably would have taken at least another thousand years just to get you to this point.”
“T-thank you.”
“No need for thanks.”
In truth, Gio was the one who was deeply grateful to the man for becoming ‘human’ again.
There were times he was so far gone I wondered if I should just give up.
Fortunately, whether it was because the man had a powerful will to live, some conviction tied to it, or was simply born incredibly resilient, he had followed Gio’s guidance all the way to the end.
Though he did beg me to kill him a few times…
Well, not that he remembered any of it now.
“……”
At this rate, he might have even forgotten that he was the one who summoned me. What a shame.
If the man had been in better shape, Gio would have immediately spirited him away to be his friend. But no matter how wicked the Evil God Arjio was, he had no intention of pulling such a terrifying scam on someone this mentally and physically fragile.
Now that he had succeeded in turning him back into a human, it was time to turn him into a pig.
And to turn a human into a pig, a baseline level of trust was required.
“Say, would you mind if I had a little chat with you?”
“…Ah, of course.”
“I’m curious about your name.”
“…My name…”
“Do you not remember?”
“…No, I do. I remember.”
Perhaps because it had been so long since he last spoke, he stumbled slightly, but the man managed to carry on the conversation remarkably well. It was nothing short of a miracle.
“It’s Ater.”
“That is a fine name.”
A name combining ‘A,’ for steadfastness, and ‘ter,’ for righteous conviction. He didn’t know who had named him, but it was a name filled with deep affection. He must have been raised with absolute love and trust.
Though we aren’t close enough for me to ask about his family background.
Just as Gio thought this, the man asked a question.
“May I know your name?”
“Ah, yes. You can call me Gio.”
“…Pardon?”
“Gio.”
“That’s… a bit…”
“Ahaha!”
It seemed the name ‘Gio’ sounded strange to Ater as well.
“Then you can call me whatever you like.”
“No, still, that doesn’t seem right, does it?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have a name.”
Ater shut his mouth tight.
“……”
“Why that look?”
“I am sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize to me for. You seem like the type to blurt out whatever’s on your mind, yet you’re surprisingly delicate. I suppose one really shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”
“Do you think I’m crazy enough to curse out my savior…?”
“Oh, impressive. How admirable.”
Gio’s first impression, now that Ater resembled a human again, was that he would probably be quite sharp-tongued.
His sharp eyes and firmly set lips gave him the look of someone with strong convictions—someone with the grit to scream “no” even with a blade at his throat.
That was likely how he had twisted his own fate in the first place.
Looks like my assessment was spot on.
Maybe I have a talent for physiognomy.
To be able to talk back like that even after going through all this is no ordinary feat.
All Gio had done was restore the man to a human form.
Ater must still carry the memories of that cramped prison, which probably felt like hundreds or thousands of years to him. Yet, the fact that he could converse so smoothly was entirely due to his own mental fortitude.
Thinking about it that way, he was clearly no ordinary person.
“……”
And Gio’s wicked divinity vaguely recognized this face.
…Was this man among the vanguard of heroes…?
He had been a prickly but diligent man, utterly devoted to looking after his comrades, always shouting at the top of his lungs. He was a hero whom the Evil God Arjio had personally observed and fought against.
Gio had remembered this during the thirty-first year of the man’s rehabilitation.
Anyway, putting that aside.
He stared intently at Ater.
“……”
“…E-even if you look at me like that, wrong is wrong. How can I call a person a beast?”
“I really should have majored in physiognomy.”
“Pardon?”
“Let’s see.”
Gio examined the man’s condition.
“You must be hungry.”
“…Ah.”
Ater blinked, looking as if the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind.
“…I suppose… so. A meal…”
“You must eat, if you’re human.”
“……”
“Do you feel any aversion to it?”
“…Not particularly.”
“Well, that’s a relief!”
This was the real miracle.
It was wonderful news. It had been so long since any food had entered his stomach that it might as well have grown mold, yet he felt no aversion to eating. His mental strength was truly admirable.
“If you really hated the idea, I was going to look for another way.”
He briefly thought of an IV drip, but a human who had suffered such torment was unlikely to welcome needles being stuck into his body. Alternatively, Gio could have directly infused energy into him, just as he had done for the past 281 years.
But even if nutritional injections kept him from dying, he would still feel hungry.
“I’ve taken quite good care of you in the meantime. Even though your stomach is empty, you won’t have any trouble digesting whatever you eat. If you think of something you want, just let me know.”
“…If I tell you what I want to eat, can you actually make it? No, wait… did the world get better while I was trapped in there? Those… those bastards definitely said the world was ruined.”
“Ah, don’t worry. It is indeed thoroughly ruined.”
“……”
Ater, staring at Gio in utter disbelief, let out a groan.
“…Before the mages died, they said the world was gradually breaking down and shrinking. Could you tell me what the state of the world is like now?”
“It’s not hard to tell you.”
During his stay in the ‘Animal Kingdom,’ Gio hadn’t just been looking after the man.
“Are you familiar with the world the Court Mages forced into existence?”
“…Ah, that Fake World? Another surface above the surface?”
“So you do know.”
“While I was locked up in there, I kept hearing the mages babbling. My mind was a mess, so I don’t remember much, but when my condition was slightly better… I memorized as much information as possible, thinking I might be able to escape.”
“That’s incredible.”
To not give up even after being thrown into such a horrific prison, but instead burn with the determination of ‘Just you wait till I get out, you bastards’—there was a reason he had recovered so quickly despite being locked up for so long.
“Anyway, about that Fake World.”
“Yes.”
“A new civilization has taken root there.”
“…Ah…”
“You look like you expected it.”
“…No, rather than expecting it, it was just something I had imagined.”
Locked in that cramped prison for all that time, what else could Ater have done?
“With all that spare time, the only things I could do were dream, hallucinate… or think deeply. Among those thoughts was imagining what the outside of these ruins would look like by now.”
He let out a hollow laugh.
“I thought everyone might have died…”
“Do you feel resentful?”
“About what?”
“That they didn’t come to rescue you sooner, even though a civilization had been established.”
“…A little, yes.”
The man hesitated before continuing.
“But it’s not their fault. If a new civilization was built up there, the world we originally lived in would have become the fake one—the underground. If so, there’s a high probability that the history of our time was erased. The existence of these ruins would have naturally been forgotten as well.”
“That’s a good deduction, but there’s something I should add.”
“Ah, I’m listening.”
“The current new civilization hasn’t been around as long as you might think. Only about nineteen years.”
In between his stays at the ruins, Gio had occasionally gone outside to provide various forms of assistance to make survival easier for the beasts.
With the help of Gio, who appeared from time to time, the beasts had managed to build a world. It had not been long since they established a civilization on par with that of the former humans.
“And before that, they were living in the Black Forest.”
“…How can humans live in the Black Forest? Even those great Court Mages couldn’t endure it and died…?”
“I’m sorry, but they are residents closer to the form of beasts than the humans you know.”
“Ah, ah, ah…”
Ater clutched his head as if it finally made sense.
“…Argh…”
“Oh dear, are you alright? Do I need to comfort you again?”
“…I’m not having a fit, so you don’t need to worry…”
“Poor thing.”
Accepting that beasts had ultimately pushed humanity aside to become the New Humanity was clearly a painful truth for a human of the old era. Since Seo Gio knew that feeling all too well, he could fully empathize.
I had my own moments of utter bewilderment, too.
How absurd had it been when he first stepped out of the portrait and saw an office worker breathing fire? He had wondered if this was how elderly folks felt when they couldn’t keep up with the times.
And this man must feel it even more than I did.
At least Seo Gio shared the same physical form as the people of the new era. In contrast, Ater had to face the fact that the very species humanity had fought as mortal enemies had now become the New Humanity. How absurd and suffocating must that be? He was bound to be incredibly confused.
After spending a long moment in silent despair under Gio’s quiet watch, Ater asked,
“T-then… what level of civilization is it? Is it similar to the civilization I remember?”
“Uh… I’d say it’s slightly better than that.”
Turning the Fake World into another real world would have been impossible in the first place without Arjio’s help.
As such, it heavily reflected Arjio’s personal tastes, so it was likely better than the world Ater had lived in as a hero.
They were in the midst of a prolonged war back then, after all.
It had been an era where they fought while scraping together every last resource. Since Gio had elevated the new world to the level of the pre-war era—what could be called the golden age of this dimension—it would probably feel quite unfamiliar to Ater.
“Well, so as I said, you can ask for whatever you want to eat.”
“…How could a civilization of that scale be built in just nineteen years?”
“No, the reconstruction itself began ninety-four years ago. They weren’t building from scratch but truly ‘reconstructing,’ so it was natural that establishing a proper civilization took less time. The nineteen years I mentioned refers to the period during which the current civilization stabilized.”
“Then they must have modeled it after the pre-war civilization. I don’t know if that would fit the standards of beasts, but they would have adapted or made changes on their own, so…”
“And your meal?”
“…Why are you so obsessed with my meal?”
“A human has to eat.”
“That’s not wrong, but…”
“……”
“……”
At the sudden silence, Gio gave a light chuckle, as he always did.
“You look like you have something to say. I shall graciously listen, so speak up.”
“…No, I…”
“What are you so afraid of?”
“…I…”
Ater hesitated before speaking.
“…Gio.”
“Yes.”
“……”
His lips parted, but no words came out. His tongue was frozen with hesitation.
Is this something I am even allowed to speak aloud? Even as Ater pondered this with a dazed mind, he raised his gaze to analyze the young man’s face.
He had the appearance of nobility. His clothes, a free-flowing and beautiful mix of woven cloth and leather of unknown origin, were adorned with all kinds of jewels. At the same time, he looked like an incredibly powerful person.
But.
“……”
How could such a person exist in this world, in this situation, in this space?
Moreover, is it really possible for a human to look after just one person for nearly three hundred years?
The answer was no. Even if the other party were a member of the New Humanity that appeared with the dawn of a new era, there were limits a human simply could not endure. Yet, this being had crossed that line by a vast margin.
Looking down, he saw the clothes lightly wrapping the being’s body. He saw the chunks of minerals that would be nothing but a disadvantage in a fight. He saw the bare feet standing smoothly, as if it were nothing, in this harsh labyrinth filled with curses and traps.
“……”
Were there even any humans left in the first place? An existence of that form, of the same form as himself. Recalling what the being had said, the possibility seemed nonexistent.
This being explained the history of the current era to me from a perspective completely detached from humanity. Without a hint of fluster, as if it were only natural, so very casually…
Ater knew what kind of concept, what kind of existence, possessed such traits.
Finally, he uttered the name of the entity who stood before him in the guise of a polite young man.
“…Ar… jio.”
“Excellent.”
“…Ah…”
It was true.
After staring blankly at the Evil God for a long moment, Ater bit his dry, cracked lips and wept.
“……”
His face looked as though he didn’t even know why he was crying.