Chapter 35
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 35
Chapter Title: Kuncan's Gift
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“Go on.”
Ulrich asked as he stood up.
“What happened after the sacrament was performed?”
He turned his back to Tapio inside the house and scanned the surroundings. Nearly twenty people were pressed against the wall, listening to the two men's conversation. Tension was etched in all their eyes.
“First, I checked the mana dwelling within the children's bodies. It was no different from a case where the Infant Sacrament was properly performed. Their names had been entered into the register.”
Not all the children were like that, Tapio began to say, then hesitated. A memory had surfaced. The memory of the moment he had bestowed the sacrament. He recalled the life that had crumbled in his arms.
“...Though there were less than half, I thought a miracle had occurred. That our desperation had reached the heavens.”
A miracle? Utter nonsense. With the heavenly throne empty, who would grant a miracle? But at the time, Tapio had not doubted. It was like a ray of light shining down in pitch-black darkness.
Famine had struck amidst an endless civil war. A plague also spread. They were desperate enough to hunt defeated soldiers. It was then that new life took root in the village.
He had no choice but to believe. If it wasn't a miracle, what else could it be?
“That it was an illusion... I admitted it far too late.”
Tapio let out a hollow laugh, mocking himself.
“When was it that the effects of the sacrament began to show?”
“It started when the children were seven or eight years old.”
The evil god’s power revealed itself after a long wait.
Skin peeling away to grow scales, snouts protruding like a fox’s, legs twisting to become those of a goat—most of the children who had received the sacrament underwent a change.
“The initial changes were minor, but the subjects were too specific. If it were the swamp’s influence, the adults should have changed too, but only the children who received the sacrament did.”
The sacrament had summoned an evil god, Tapio asserted.
“I had performed a false sacrament.”
Though he had only been an apprentice, he had once walked the path of a clergyman. The Ecumenical Church’s Infant Sacrament was not accompanied by physical changes. The transformation was the influence of an evil god. That was the characteristic of an evil god who rejected order.
“I put them on the register to save the children, but the register belonged to an evil god. I hadn’t saved the children... I had sent them to hell.”
“Do you believe in the existence of an afterlife?”
Ulrich turned to face Tapio.
“Of course. Why wouldn't I?”
The Ecumenical Church posits that humans and various other races possess souls. The moment the body perishes, the soul goes to the master of the register. Then, based on the good and evil committed in life, it goes to either heaven or hell.
However, as an exception, if a name is on an evil god's register, they go to hell regardless of their deeds. According to the Ecumenical Church’s teachings, the moment Tapio performed the false sacrament, the children were destined for hell after death.
“Yes. You would have no choice but to believe. Even if the gods are gone from our world and do not return, if there is an afterlife, you can believe the bond between creator and creation persists.”
His tone held a hint of skepticism, Tapio suddenly thought.
“But then, why have you not atoned for your sin?”
“What... do you mean?”
Extending his right hand, Ulrich pointed to the group standing behind him. He didn't need to say a word; the meaning was unmistakable. Everyone listening to their conversation understood.
“Do you not wish to go to heaven? After your life is over, on the judgment seat of deeds you believe in, what will you answer when asked about these children?”
Before he could answer, Ulrich continued.
“Tapio, you once walked the path of a clergyman. You cannot be ignorant. You know what sin you have committed and what you must do to wash it away. So why have you postponed it for so long?”
His tone had changed. The young man was speaking down to Tapio. Yet, he didn’t realize it. It felt natural for the young man to address him that way.
“To me, they are not monsters.”
Tapio looked Ulrich straight in the eye and declared.
“I have watched these children since they first cried. Though they have now almost lost their human forms, I watched them from when they were fully human, slowly, until they became what they are now.”
He looked at the group pressed against the wall, watching the conversation. With the exception of just two, their forms could not be called human. Any benevolent person brought here would call them monsters.
But Tapio saw each and every one of them as human. To him, that group was his children. As he had told Ulrich, it was because he had watched over them for his entire life.
It was also because the change had been slow.
Transformations in fairy tales happened with a wave of a hand, but the change brought by the sacrament was a lifelong current. Little by little, it blossomed, like a child growing into an adult.
If they had changed in an instant, Tapio and the parents might have felt differently. For in a moment, their children would have become another species. The sense of alienation would have been immense.
But for skin to peel and scales to grow—one, two, three—took five years; for two legs to merge and become a snake also took five years. The change was too slow and too long.
That was why, even though the children had turned from human to monster, Tapio and the parents could not see them as monsters.
“How could I lay a hand on such children? I am the one who sinned, so what sin have the children committed? If I were to kill innocent children to wash away my sin, would that not be committing another sin?”
He had inadvertently raised his voice in agitation.
After speaking, Tapio glanced at Ulrich, worried that he might have offended him.
“You are right. Children are inherently without sin.”
His expression was calm. No, rather, it seemed as if he were smiling. He had that fleeting impression. That he had smiled faintly.
“But what about now? There are stories of a monster hunting people. Is that not the work of a child upon whom you bestowed the sacrament?”
“That child... is one who could not withstand the change.”
“That would be so. Body and mind are one. That you have become something other than human means your nature has also become something other than human.”
“The children here are fine. Though they look like this, their natures are not so different from when they were human. They know how to suppress their urges, even when they feel them.”
Ulrich shook his head.
“For now, perhaps.”
Knowing what would come next, Tapio remained silent.
“As long as you are on Kuncan's register, the change will not stop. If there are those among you who harbor wildness, it will continue to grow. If there are those whose intellect has diminished, they will eventually forget even their own names.”
“That is…”
“The instincts you possess as non-human beings will try to tear down the reason you built as humans. It will continue until death arrives. Tapio, can you handle such a group?”
Hadn't the monster of the swamp been born precisely because he couldn't handle it? Ulrich pointed out. He could not refute it. He was right.
No matter how much they suppressed their instincts with reason, children who eventually succumbed to them began to appear, one by one. And once reason yielded to instinct even once, it never returned.
A child who had truly become a monster could no longer recognize even their own family. They only distinguished between prey and not prey. Tapio had taken the lives of such children himself, but sometimes he missed one. That child was the monster of the swamp.
“Even so... who else would handle it?”
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In the silence, punctuated only by breathing, Ulrich watched Tapio bite his dry lips and avert his gaze. He seemed to have nothing more to say, so Ulrich also fell silent and shifted his gaze.
“…”
Carvings came into his view. All around the house lay toppled sculptures carved from wood. When Ulrich had entered, the group had knocked them over as they recoiled in surprise.
The carvings varied in size from palm-sized to as large as a person. The craftsmanship was unskilled, each one crude. They took human form, but only in shape; the proportions were off, and none were finely detailed.
The children who received the false sacrament must have carved them, Ulrich surmised. With fingers of varying number and shape, their work was bound to be crude.
It was clear what they had tried to carve. The heavenly gods, the masters of the register the children had tried but failed to reach. It was a way to reach them, even like this.
He bent down and picked one of them up.
It was a man with a benevolent smile, holding a torch in his right hand. It was Hestio.
“Tapio, you have nothing more to say to me, I presume.”
“What is there to say?”
His voice was thick with exhaustion. It wasn't resignation. He was simply tired. His spirit was being worn down day by day. He was, after all, fighting Kuncan's blessing.
No, ‘enduring’ would be more accurate than ‘fighting.’ He was not the recipient of the blessing, and he was a mere human. A weak human for whom the blessing of a being called a god was no different from a curse.
All he could do was delay and delay the moment the children born as humans became monsters. He had no means to remove the blessing or overcome it.
“However, you said at the beginning that punishing the monster was not a matter of course for you. If you still think so... please, show us mercy.”
His head bowed low.
Ulrich still looked at the carving in his hand.
“And after that?”
“…”
“Do you intend to hide again after I leave?”
“I will simply do as I have always done.”
“And the child in the swamp?”
Tapio looked up and met Ulrich’s gaze.
“I must attend to that one myself.”
I see, Ulrich murmured, placing the carving on the table. Then he scanned his surroundings once more.
His gaze took in each of the humans who had received the false sacrament, and also the four eyes peering through the crack in the window. He met the gaze of the female pair for a moment.
“Tapio, why do you pity the children so much? Is it for the sake of the afterlife? To avoid being judged for your deeds at the seat that decides heaven and hell?”
The unexpected question made Tapio pause to think.
“I cannot say that's not part of it. But... it's not only for that reason. Even if my actions now have no bearing on my judgment, I will continue.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I believe I must.”
Ulrich met Tapio’s gaze again.
“I can't put it into precise words, but if one has done wrong, is it not natural to take responsibility? Even if it affects neither heaven nor hell.”
“…”
“Of course, according to the scriptures, all actions are brought before the judgment seat, so such a hypothesis is meaningless. Furthermore, my actions will not be able to save the children. It is a futile effort.”
Because their names were on Kuncan's register, there was no way to save the children, Tapio said. He added that all he could do was lessen their suffering in the next life.
“No, it is not futile.”
Ulrich shook his head.
“It is certainly your fault that these children have become what they are now. But all humans make mistakes. It can't be helped. Humans are not perfect. What's important is what you do after making a mistake. To regret, to mend, and to rise again—that is what it means to be human, I think.”
“…”
“I prefer a human like you over the Ecumenical Church's logic of rewards and punishments like heaven and hell. That is why I do not wish for you and these children to suffer any longer.”
Placing his right hand on Tapio's shoulder, Ulrich spoke as if whispering.
“This is my gift to you and the children. I cannot turn back time and undo everything, but I can give you the one thing you desire most.”
Tapio's eyes widened at the words that followed.
“Now, your names have been erased from Kuncan's register.”