Ultimately Human (1)
Amy and Nane had built a small campfire.
Fish from a nearby river sizzled on a wooden skewer, browning nicely.
"Looks delicious."
Amy's stomach growled, a response from her brain.
"Oh."
Nane smiled. "Looks like it was a modest meal."
Compared to the high-calorie army rations Amy had been eating, Nane's fare was certainly meager.
"Talk to me like equals. We're about the same age, after all."
"I'm two years younger."
If one were a buddha of the age, talent would be beyond question, but hearing her age still left a bitter taste.
"Just turned an adult? You're a real prodigy."
"It's not about time."
"No, it is. The faster your thought, the slower time feels."
When Nane used her brain to its fullest, time barely flowed—almost frozen.
"Don't flatter me. Shirone's insight isn't small either. His thinking goes beyond mere logic."
Amy's expression softened.
Hearing Nane acknowledge Shirone brought an inexplicable relief.
"Can't they stop fighting?"
The world was barreling toward catastrophe, but she had the feeling the answer might be closer than everyone thought.
"Can't Shirone be reasoned with? He's a rational man. He could surely find another answer."
"I know."
Nane felt the same. "But there's no need. Right now, countless Shirones and countless Nanes are arguing across this world."
It was a world overflowing with every conceivable opinion.
"In that process, countless people suffer. Dialogue won't cut it. It's time to enforce a course."
"I don't get it."
She understood it intellectually, but—
"The reason I fight for humanity is simple: I want to be happy. I can't see why Shirone or you would try to shoulder so much."
"Yes. That is precisely what it means to be human."
"You're human, too."
Nane fell silent.
"You said you'd love me so you could understand Shirone. I can't really grasp that either, but maybe I understand one thing."
Amy spoke with a pitying look. "This person is truly lonely." Nane's eyes trembled.
"No one will ever understand your enlightenment. So you carry everything on your shoulders... much like Shirone."
"At least I can acknowledge that you're fighting a lonely fight. So—when it's too hard, you can quit. When you're sad, you can cry. You're human before you're a buddha."
At that moment, a single tear rolled down Nane's cheek.
Poor thing.
There was no surprise at Nane's tear—Shirone's tears had already been seen. This was not the buddha's tear, but the tear of Nane the human.
"I'm sorry... this—"
Just as Nane reached to wipe it away, Amy moved closer and gently extended her hand.
"I really can't understand it."
Her thumb brushed the tear from beneath Nane's eye.
"We're so different... truly two different people. But the way we cry is the same."
The instant Amy looked at Nane with the same gaze she used for Shirone, Nane's heart began to pound.
Gaold came to.
"Where am I?"
He lay sprawled in the middle of a dense forest, with no sign of human life anywhere.
"How long has it been?"
He tried to ask himself, but his mind—already emptied of memories—gave no answer.
"Kruuuugh!"
Another wave of pain crashed over him; a nauseating spasm crawled along Gaold's nerves.
"It's coming again."
Life surged back.
"Arrghhh!"
Because he was alive.
That single fact forced him to endure a horror that numbed reason.
"Kukuku! Kukuku!"
Even as blood flowed from his eyes, laughter escaped Gaold's lungs.
"Want to hear something interesting?"
No matter how much it hurt. "I don't die."
What had made this Gaold was not the pain of the self-cannibalizing mutation but the endurance to withstand it.
"Ugh."
As the pain began to subside, Gaold crawled into a crouch and leaned his back against a tree.
"Haaah..."
Pleasure swelling at the end of pain blurred his vision; strange apparitions came and went. To blunt the shock, his brain had started spewing endorphins far beyond normal levels.
"Hehehe."
Drowned in that pleasure, Gaold trembled and let out a foolish laugh.
He had chased Gannang and Juluma away and was now alone because he didn't want them to see him like this.
"Miro."
In the flickering scenes, a vision of Miro crying with a sorrowful face appeared.
"Don't cry."
That's how life goes.
"Don't cry."
Gaold's pupils slackened and his memory began to slide back toward oblivion.
"There."
Minerva, with Taeseong aboard the world wheel's jet, pointed at the ghastly scene below.
"My God..."
The traces of Gaold's amnesiac rampage.
Like falling meteors, Creators had formed one after another along a hundred-kilometer stretch.
Fried, riding the world wheel with Amanta, muttered, his face drawn. "Planetary-scale power. How could anything withstand that?"
Minerva turned to the ashen Taeseong. "Just hold on a bit longer. We'll catch up soon."
Sing said, "Gaold's rampage cost us time. If he won't cooperate, dealing with him is an option."
The Ivory Tower's Five Great Stars, which had been heading straight for Rian, hurriedly changed course at the sudden apostasy.
We'd intended to ignore him and go, but if we didn't stop a half-mad Gaold's magic, the planet itself would be destroyed first.
"There. It ends there."
They passed through a zone where forest and river had become wasteland, then found a patch of dense woods.
"Found him."
When Sing used the Law to lock onto Gaold and altered course, the others followed.
"Hah. Hah."
By the time they reached the trees, Gaold was shaking and covered in every sort of filth.
"Damn it."
The apostate mage who'd been battering the world had, contrary to expectation, been reduced to little more than a lump of meat in human form.
"Totally wrecked."
"Kekekeke."
For a moment Gaold's focus returned; he laughed when he saw Taeseong and the four Great Stars.
Their authority remained, but his mind was already soaked in endorphins.
"Hey, where's the Central Continent?"
No one answered.
"I need to be at the battlefield, but as you can see my brain's fried. Where the hell is this place?"
In truth, Gaold had been heading for the Central Continent, but Minerva didn't want to say it aloud.
"Micae Gaold, former chairman of the Tormia Magic Association."
Even at the long-unused title, Gaold only blinked dully and cleared his throat.
"We are the Ivory Tower's Five Great Stars. And this is the Ivory Tower's pinnacle and the planet's avatar, Taeseong."
Gaold's gaze flicked to the pale Taeseong.
"Pleasure to meet you."
Taeseong forced a smile despite the strain, but Gaold's look returned indifferent.
"So what do you want me to do about it?"
Fried stepped forward, hand on his sword hilt, but Minerva stopped him. "I respect you as a mage who reached apostasy. But if you're uncontrollable, you also pose a threat to Taeseong."
Gaold listened in silence.
"Going to the Central Continent means you still have the will to fight. So I'll ask: the precepts of good and evil—what are you fighting for among them?"
"Kik."
A contemptuous laugh rose from deep inside Gaold. "You're talking bullshit."
Minerva, having shown the utmost courtesy, couldn't help frowning now.
Gaold lifted his chin. "You lot really love your convictions. You set something and follow it, and then you act like you've become some great being because of that?"
Amanta spun the world wheel. "Watch your words."
It was a clear threat, but Gaold only split his mouth into a grin and compressed the air before him.
"How's one supposed to live? Just breathing each day is a struggle—so what?"
"The precepts of good and evil?"
As tremendous pressure barreled down on the fist-sized air mass, the atmosphere shivered violently.
"What do I care about that crap!"
KRAAAANG!
The compressed air burst out with a thunderous roar, and the four Great Stars were thrown back.
"Puu!"
Fried, sword drawn, planted his hand in the ground dozens of meters away.
If that hit, they'd be finished.
"Hah. Hah."
Gaold breathed raggedly, eyes wild.
"Arrghhh!" Another wave of pain hit; his nerves screamed and his limbs flailed.
"Poor human."
Minerva, with Taeseong slung over her shoulders, returned to her place and regarded Gaold. "Don't strain yourself. You've already done what you could, right? You're the reason this world was saved. That means you can rest now. After all, the woman you loved—"
Minerva hesitated. "—has already forgotten you and become a true pole of virtue."
"Become a pole of virtue...?" He'd left believing that, so it wasn't much of a shock.
But—
"You don't understand Miro."
Gaold would not stop. "No, you never will..."
Another flood of pleasure chemicals hit, and the image of Miro crying shimmered before him.
"Ahhh."
Filth seeped between Gaold's legs; Sing pinched his nose in disgust. "Shouldn't we deal with this here? He's lost his mind. You can't really call him human anymore."
They couldn't leave a mad apostate before an important battle.
"Can't call him... human?"
Gaold smiled faintly at Sing. "Eat."
His gaze slid to Fried. "Sleep."
Then to Minerva. "Piss."
Legs trembling from the pleasure striking his brain, Gaold sneered. "What makes you think you're any different? Answer me, stars of the Ivory Tower. Do you think you're some great beings because you sit at the top of the world? Sitting in your seats, taking a dump, and talking about the universe and good and evil... uhohoho!"
Minerva's face tightened.
He's completely lost it.
Gaold's laughter cut off suddenly.
"That's enlightenment. What you think is farthest from you is right inside your belly. Got it, you machines who take the world's most expensive dumps?"
"Decided."
Fried gripped his sword and advanced. "We'll handle him here and move on." As if waiting for that, Gaold weakly twitched the back of his hand on the ground.
"Kek, bring it on."
He sagged against the tree, showing no sign of combat readiness—
Is this really Gaold?
None of the Ivory Tower's Five Great Stars dared to rush in recklessly.
"What, you gonna just attack?"
Gaold's grin turned vicious, and behind him an endless, superheated hellscape unfurled.