Chapter 28
Chapter 28
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 28
Chapter Title: The Celestial Observatory
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Star Reader blinked.
"This is..."
He had thought he was endlessly sleepy, but upon opening his eyes, his body felt refreshed.
Stretching out his arms, legs, and tail as he pleased, they extended just as he wished.
Star Reader had suffered constant aches in every joint for so long that he had never even imagined in his dreams that something like this could happen.
"...So it's not a dream."
Then, lying spread-eagled, Star Reader sat up.
As he did so, an even more absurd sight unfolded before him.
"Heh..."
It was a green meadow.
A gentle breeze swept across the meadow once, and moist, cool air tapped at Star Reader's nose before passing by. His nose felt chilled for a moment, but the warmth of the sunlight pouring down on the meadow soon enveloped his head.
Everything was perfect.
Star Reader easily recalled his last conversation with Rakrak.
It felt distant like a dream, yet also like it had happened just moments ago.
"Rakrak, you were right. It's the meadow we envisioned together. ...Though there are no stars or stone houses."
One couldn't ask for everything.
Perhaps no house was even needed here.
Star Reader wasn't alone in this place.
Here and there on the meadow, Lizardmen lay with eyes closed, sleeping with the sky as their ceiling and the meadow as their floor.
"They haven't awakened yet?"
Star Reader wandered around, hesitating several times over whether to wake the Lizardmen.
They seemed to be in such deep slumber that disturbing their sleep felt like an imposition.
Among them were familiar faces.
'Ah, this one...'
It was one of the warriors.
There had been a time when the Black Scale tribe was ambushed by goblin tribes in the mountains.
Four times their number, the goblins had severed the formation in two places, with two allied goblin tribes pouring in.
Rakrak at the front and Yur at the rear had each reorganized their lines to fight back, but the children and elderly in the middle of the group had no chance to prepare.
'...Some of the Black Scale tribe's warriors would disobey the chieftain's orders if they deemed it necessary.'
A few warriors, taking care not to break the formation, apologized to their comrades on either side and charged into the midst of dozens of goblins.
Even if they were mere goblins, no matter how elite the Black Scale warriors were, everyone knew it was an adventure that could cost their lives.
Thanks to that unwanted heroic sacrifice, they had repelled the goblin tribes with minimal losses.
Some survived, but others did not.
This Lizardman was one who had not survived.
Rakrak had cursed and fumed not only at the survivors but even during the funerals for the fallen warriors.
He had even done so to Star Reader.
'It's all because of that damned arithmetic. Didn't you teach that to the warriors?'
'No, was it because of arithmetic?'
'Yes. This time, the smart ones who could count well ignored my orders and charged in. Stupid fools!'
'Why blame arithmetic for that?'
Rakrak had answered.
'Saving two lives with one life. They thought it was good arithmetic.'
'...Ah.'
'But the elderly and children can't protect others. Warriors can.'
'So... do you think the warriors who charged in this time were wrong?'
After a long silence, Rakrak spoke.
'No.'
'Then why get angry?'
'That's why I'm angry. Because they weren't wrong. Because all I can do is get angry.'
What happened afterward had only further irritated Rakrak's nerves.
Someone must have overheard the conversation between Rakrak and Star Reader, because even warriors who had no interest in arithmetic before came seeking lessons from Star Reader.
In tough battles, those skilled at counting died first.
And then someone would come to learn arithmetic.
Star Reader had taught them in hushed tones, secretly, taking care not to irk Rakrak.
The soundly sleeping warrior before him was the one who had led many of the tribe's warriors to learn arithmetic.
Star Reader happily placed a hand on the warrior's shoulder but withdrew it without shaking him awake.
'Yes. Let's let him sleep more deeply and wake him later. There's no particular urgent business here.'
Perhaps Star Reader had awakened quickly because he had only recently died and revived, while the others hadn't yet shaken off the lingering echoes of death, he thought.
"That said... Is the god not here?"
He tried speaking aloud, but his voice shattered and scattered across the lush green meadow.
"There's something I'd like to ask..."
Star Reader trailed off.
He wasn't the bold type like Rakrak or the other warriors, and thinking that someone might actually be listening made him embarrassed. Even when Rakrak had declared him chosen, he hadn't known what to do with himself.
'Why us?'
Star Reader couldn't quite understand.
'Why did the Blue Insect God take in the Lizardmen, protect them, and perform miracles to aid us?'
'Yur said it was because Lizardmen are superior to other races. But is that true? Some races seem to have lost simply because they had no god, or their god wasn't as strong as ours.'
Star Reader pondered as he walked slowly.
'Owen said it's because the god is benevolent. But what makes us better than other races? Are other races less benevolent than us?'
The sun's warmth was starting to make him hot after prolonged exposure, but fortunately, a shaded forest lay not far off in the meadow. It truly was a place where everything was provided.
'Jaol said the god chose us because we're useful to him. Then can we rely on such a god? What if that usefulness disappears one day?'
The answer Star Reader found most satisfactory was Rakrak's.
Not an answer, but from a man who gave satisfying responses.
'Rakrak said it might be coincidence. An unavoidable choice, perhaps. Like how we couldn't be in better lands with better races. Maybe the god simply did his best.'
It might sound irreverent, but Star Reader thought it wasn't bad.
'It means we're the best outcome.'
As he entered the shade, Star Reader's body gradually cooled.
Feeling good, he leaned against a tree and hummed a tune.
It was the rhythm the Black Scale tribe had sung while rebuilding the village after repelling the Froglin.
Everyone liked the good rhythm, but since Star Reader couldn't sing well, he always hummed it softly.
Even that he only did when no one was around, out of embarrassment.
-Rustle.
Star Reader blushed and turned around.
"Wh-who's there?"
As Star Reader turned, a Lizardman tail poked out from between the trees.
No answer came; the tail just swayed and vanished.
"Someone's awake! Who is it? Do I know you?"
With no response, Star Reader walked into the forest.
Before long, the tail appeared between distant trees.
"Hey!"
As Star Reader called out, the tail disappeared.
Thinking he wouldn't catch up, Star Reader quickened his pace.
In truth, 'quick steps' had been impossible until recently, so it felt awkward.
But soon he was jogging lightly, and before long, he could run to catch the tail that kept appearing and vanishing rapidly.
"Hey!"
Star Reader remembered enjoying such running long ago.
When he was a boy, he had done this kind of frolicking with a friend whose name and face he no longer recalled.
"Stop! Where are you going!"
Star Reader shouted that, yet he didn't feel bad at all.
That tail was leading Star Reader somewhere.
Finally, pushing through the underbrush, a small clearing appeared.
There was a stone building.
It was a style Star Reader had never seen before.
Cylindrical, built of rectangular stones, with a domed ceiling.
The tail swayed at the entrance before being sucked inside like it was pulled.
"You won't escape now that you've gone inside."
With his warmed body, Star Reader walked into the building.
At the end of the dark corridor, a blue light was glowing.
It was a light familiar to Star Reader.
'This light...'
As Star Reader walked down the corridor, what he faced was the night sky.
The ceiling projected the night sky of the world Star Reader already knew.
These weren't mere drawings on the ceiling; the stars shone on their own, and the depth of the black, dark sky was just as real.
"No... Rakrak, you were right. Stone houses and stars too."
Star Reader looked around for the tail's owner, but the inside of the building was empty.
"Heh, what is all this..."
But Star Reader's attention had already shifted from the tail to the night sky.
Gazing from this position, then that one for a long time, he even realized the sky was moving just as he remembered.
"The god has transplanted the night sky itself."
And that wasn't all.
In the center of the room stood a bizarre mechanical device one might see in ancient ruins.
A cylinder embedded front and back with several bronze-like yellowish rings and round crystals, with a chair on a platform to peer into it.
Star Reader paced for a while, wondering if he should touch it, then thought it was fine since no one was stopping him.
Star Reader fiddled with the device here and there, then brought his eye to the crystal.
"Good heavens."
Star Reader repeatedly pulled his eye from the crystal to view the night sky with the naked eye, loosening and tightening the handle on the cylindrical rod.
"Is this the true form of the stars? ...So that's it. That's how it is. That star moves there, this one here. ...My calculations were right. But I need to verify again... What's that one?"
Star Reader peered into the device endlessly without tiring, then suddenly thought.
'If I could pass this knowledge to the living, it would be truly amazing.'
To Star Reader, knowledge of the stars was essentially arithmetic, and knowing arithmetic meant knowing the size and position of all things in the world, thus foreseeing future events.
But as far as Star Reader remembered, no dead had ever returned.
'Then... if the dead truly can't return, why did the god create this space? Just to see this old Lizardman rejoice?'
Star Reader knew that wasn't the case.
Star Reader stroked the device.
'The god always does his best. He never does anything carelessly. This knowledge will surely be useful someday.'
The nebula that Star Reader so longed to see was right behind him now.
'You followed well, Star Reader.'
Star Reader's guess was correct.
The afterlife ultimately reflects the afterlife worldview and the values of those who believe in that god.
Stuff warriors into the afterlife, and the race dreams of Valhalla; stuff immortals in, and they dream of a paradise garden.
'Then what if you stuff scholars in?'
Since afterlives can change due to other players' attacks or other variables, unintended results can occur, but at least the starting point was perfect.
Nebula watched Star Reader's back, then descended the platform and exited the first observatory.
Star Reader sank into thought.
'I need to wake the others and teach them star-reading and arithmetic. There might even be smarter Lizardmen with more knowledge among the newly dead. I should learn from them. But before that... just a bit more...'
Star Reader brought his eye back to the crystal.
That night sky was captured in the pupil of the first astronomer.
Owen grabbed a passing Lizardman and asked who had died, soon learning the answer.
"Star Reader has passed."
Hwi said,
"I've heard of him. Seems today isn't my day, so I'll take my leave..."
Owen cut him off.
"It's fine. We don't mind travelers at funerals. We consider it a good omen."
"Why?"
"Isn't it fortunate to have one more person to share the grief? We'll stay up all night talking about Star Reader. By tomorrow's dawn, you'll understand our sorrow too, so just come in."
Hwi pondered briefly, then nodded.
Owen and Hwi walked through the tents toward the funeral site.
All the Black Scale tribe Lizardmen recognized Owen, so the two reached the funeral site without interruption.
As Hwi saw the Lizardmen between the tents, he spotted a corpse on the platform, laid straight and tightly wrapped in white silk.
In front of it stood a sturdy Lizardman wearing water buffalo horns. He wore no ornate clothes or flashy decorative threads, but the way the surrounding Lizardmen treated him revealed his high status.
Hwi guessed correctly.
"Is that man Chieftain Rakrak?"
"Yes."
"Hm, even if the chieftain sheds tears... is that alright?"
At those words, Owen widened his eyes as if he couldn't comprehend.
"Don't humans do that? Refuse to cry even in sorrow?"