chapter 232

Chapter 232

Just getting here had taken a truly long time.

“...Uh, h-how long did it take...?”

“Hm, well. About 281 years, I’d say?”

It was such an absurdly long span that you almost wanted to blurt out, “What on earth are you talking about?”—but it wasn’t a lie.

It might be unfamiliar to Seo Gio, who had been an ordinary art teacher, or to Giovanni, who had been a short-lived priest, but for the current Gio, whose sense of self as the evil god Argio was strong, he had spent that neither-short-nor-long stretch of time with this man without much trouble.

Even for an evil god who had lived through several centuries, however, it was still a strange thing to set aside time for the sake of helping a single person. Thanks to that, it was a fairly fresh and enjoyable experience in its own way.

“And even after that, about 2 months and 21 days have passed.”

“...Pardon?”

“Sorry if it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.”

He ended up devoting more time than expected to the man’s rehabilitation exercises, but it wasn’t much of a problem. Whatever the wizards who had used Gio’s house as a laboratory had done, only time in this place had flowed faster.

‘So it wasn’t for nothing that my house stubbornly endured through those harsh years.’

Considering that the man’s condition was more serious than expected, Gio tweaked it a little more there.

Over the span of 281 years, 2 months, and 21 days, the black forest outside these ruins had passed only about 94 years at most, and Earth had passed about three days.

Gio felt proud.

“It’s only because it was me that I could wake you up this quickly. If someone else had helped you, they wouldn’t even have dared attempt it in this span. Just getting this far would’ve taken at least another thousand years, wouldn’t it?”

“Th-thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Gio, of all people, was the one who was deeply grateful to the man who had returned to being “human” again.

‘There were times I wondered if I should give up because he’d gone too far off the rails.’

Fortunately, whether the man had a strong will to live, or some conviction tied to that, or if he had simply been born sturdy, he followed Gio’s guidance all the way to this point.

‘He did ask me to kill him a few times, too...’

Well, he didn’t remember it himself.

“...”

At this point, it almost seemed like he might have forgotten that he was the one who called me, too. I wonder.

‘A shame.’

If his condition had been okay, I would’ve immediately bundled my friend up and carried him off, but no matter how wicked the evil god Argio was, he had no intention of pulling such a horrifying con on someone this mentally and physically fragile.

For now, he had succeeded in making him a person, so next it was time to make him a pig.

And to make a person into a pig, you needed at least a minimum level of trust.

“Say, would it be alright if I spoke with you about a few things?”

“...Ah, of course.”

“I’m curious about your name.”

“...My name...”

“Do you not remember?”

“...No, I do, remember.”

Perhaps because it had been so long since he’d spoken at all, he fumbled a little, but the man continued his words excellently. It was nothing short of a miracle.

“I am Ater.”

“That’s a good name.”

A name written with ‘A,’ meaning firmness, and ‘Ter,’ meaning righteous conviction. He didn’t know who had given him that name, but wasn’t it a name full of sincerity? It seemed likely he had received whole love and faith.

‘We’re not close enough to ask about his family background.’

As he was thinking that, the man asked.

“May I know your name?”

“Mm, yes. You may call me Gio.”

“...Pardon?”

“Gio.”

“That is... a bit...”

“Ahahaha!”

It seemed that to the man, Ater, the name “Gio” sounded strange as well.

“Then you may call me anything you like.”

“No, even so, I don’t think that’s right.”

“Sorry, but I have no name.”

Ater pressed his lips tightly together.

“...”

“Why that expression?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’ve never done anything to apologize to me for. You look like you’ll say whatever you should or shouldn’t, and yet you have an unexpectedly delicate side. I suppose you really can’t judge by a face alone?”

“As if I’d spew filthy curses at my benefactor...?”

“Oh, impressive as expected. How admirable.”

The first impression Gio had felt after turning Ater into something resembling a human was: ‘He seems like he’d be quite a sharp-tongued one.’

Sensitive eyes, stiff lips. He looked like someone with strong convictions, with the resolve to shout that something was not right even with a blade at his throat.

Though it did seem like he might have twisted his own fate with his own hands.

‘Looks like my impression was right.’

Maybe I had talent for physiognomy.

‘Even in this state, being able to answer back like that isn’t ordinary.’

All Gio had done was make the man look human.

Ater would still have memories of that narrow prison—hundreds, perhaps thousands of years’ worth. And yet, being able to converse this smoothly was entirely the man’s own capability.

Thinking of it that way, he clearly wasn’t an ordinary person.

“...”

And the wicked divinity vaguely recognized this face.

‘...Was this one among the leading heroes...?’

A diligent human who, even while screaming in a shrill voice full of edgy temperament, was devoted to looking after his comrades. A hero whom the evil god Argio had taken in with his eyes and faced directly.

Gio recalled it in his 31st year of helping the man’s rehabilitation exercises.

‘Anyway, setting that aside.’

He stared at Ater.

“...”

“...N-no matter how you look at it, no is no. How can you call a person a beast?”

“I really should’ve majored in physiognomy.”

“...Pardon?”

“Let’s see.”

Gio examined the man’s condition.

“Seems like you’d be hungry.”

“...Ah.”

Ater blinked as if the thought had never occurred to him.

“...R-right. A meal...”

“Yes. If you’re human.”

“...”

“Does it repulse you?”

“...Not really.”

“That’s a relief!”

This was a miracle.

It was good news. It had been so long since anything had gone into his stomach that it would have been enough for mold to grow, and yet he felt no aversion to eating. It could only be called astonishing mental strength.

“If you really hated it, I was going to look for another method.”

For a moment, he thought of an IV drip, but a human who had suffered such hardship probably wouldn’t welcome needles in his body, so Gio also had the method of directly breathing energy into his body. Just like he had for 281 years.

But even if you wouldn’t die from an injection of nutrients, you still got hungry.

“I’ve taken quite good care of you. Even on an empty stomach, no matter what food goes in, there shouldn’t be any problems. If any food you want comes to mind, tell me.”

“...If I say what I want to eat, you can make it? No, could it be that while I was in there, the world got better? The wizards, they... said the world was ruined.”

“Ah, don’t worry. It’s properly ruined.”

“...”

Ater looked at Gio as if he was absurd, then groaned.

“...Before the wizards died, they said the world was gradually breaking down and narrowing. May I hear what the world is like now?”

“It isn’t hard to tell you.”

During this time, Gio had not stayed in the “animal kingdom” caring only for the man.

“Do you know the world the court mages forcibly made?”

“...Ah, that fake world? Another ground above the ground?”

“So you do know.”

“While I was trapped inside, I kept hearing the wizards babble. I was out of my mind so I don’t remember much, but when I was a little better... I thought I might be able to escape the prison, so I memorized as much information as I could.”

“That’s impressive.”

Even after being trapped in that terrifying prison, instead of giving up, he could burn with determination like, ‘Just you wait, you sons of bitches.’ There was a reason he recovered this quickly even after being imprisoned for that long.

“Anyway, about that fake world.”

“Yes.”

“A new civilization has taken root there.”

“...Ah...”

“That’s the face you expected?”

“...No, rather than expecting it, it was just something I’d only ever imagined.”

What could Ater have done, trapped in that narrow prison for so long?

“All I could do with all that excess time was dream, see hallucinations... or think deeply. Among those, I also imagined, ‘I wonder what it’s like outside these ruins by now.’”

He laughed hollowly.

“I thought everyone might be dead...”

“Do you resent them?”

“What do you mean?”

“That a civilization rose, and yet they didn’t come save you sooner.”

“...A little.”

After hesitating, the man continued.

“But that isn’t their fault. If a new civilization took root up there, then the world we originally lived in would, conversely, become the fake one—and also underground. In that case, there’s a high chance the history of that time was erased. The existence of these ruins would naturally have been forgotten, too.”

“Good reasoning, but there’s something more I can tell you.”

“Ah, please.”

“The current new civilization hasn’t existed as long as you think. About nineteen years?”

In the gaps of staying in the ruins, Gio went outside from time to time and provided various help so that beasts could survive more easily.

With Gio’s occasional help, the beasts managed the world, and it hadn’t been long since they built a civilization on the level of the previous humans.

“And until then, they were living in the black forest.”

“...How can humans live in the black forest? Even the mighty court mages couldn’t endure it and died...?”

“Sorry, but they’re residents closer to the form of beasts than the humans you know.”

“Ah, ah, aaaaah...”

As if he understood, Ater clutched and tore at his hair.

“...Aaaaargh...”

“Oh dear, are you alright? Is this a situation where I need to calm you down again?”

“...It’s not a seizure, so you don’t have to worry...”

“Poor thing.”

It seemed that for an old-era human, accepting the fact that beasts had pushed humanity out and become a new humanity was, as expected, painful. Seo Gio understood that feeling well enough to sympathize.

‘There was a time I went mad like that too.’

When he first went outside the portrait and saw an office worker breathing fire, how dumbfounded had he been? He even thought perhaps that was how elders who couldn’t keep up with the flow of the times felt.

‘This man is probably worse than me.’

At least Seo Gio’s shape was the same. In contrast, for Ater, the species that had fought humanity like sworn enemies had become the new humanity—how dumbfounded and stifled must that be? He had to be deeply confused.

After being allowed to lose his mind for quite a while under Gio’s tacit permission, Ater asked.

“T-then. What level of civilization is it? Is it similar to the civilization I remember?”

“Uh... I think it’s a little better than that.”

Turning a fake world into another real world had been impossible from the start without Argio’s help.

That meant Argio’s tastes were reflected quite a lot, and it would probably be better than when the hero Ater was alive.

‘Back then, the war had been going on for a long time.’

Wasn’t it an era where they fought by scraping together every resource they had? He had raised it back up to what could be called this dimension’s golden age—before the war—so it might still feel unfamiliar to Ater.

“Well, that’s why you can say anything you want to eat.”

“...How can such a civilization be built in nineteen years?”

“No. Reconstruction itself started ninety-four years ago. What they did wasn’t building everything from nothing—it truly was ‘reconstruction,’ so it was inevitable that the time it took for a proper civilization to form was short. The nineteen years I mentioned refers to the period when the current civilization stabilized.”

“Then they followed the civilization of the era before the war. I don’t know if that would fit the beasts’ standards, but they would have adapted or changed it themselves, and so...”

“Your meal?”

“...Why are you so obsessed with meals?”

“A person has to eat.”

“You’re not wrong, but...”

“...”

“...”

At the sudden silence, Gio laughed lightly as always.

“You look like you have something you want to say. I’ll graciously hear it, so speak.”

“...No, I...”

“What are you so afraid of?”

“...I...”

After hesitating, Ater said,

“...Gio.”

“Yes.”

“...”

No words came out, and his lips only parted and closed. His tongue stiffened with hesitation.

Is this something I can even bring myself to say? Even as Ater worried over that with a dazed mind, he lifted his gaze and stared at the young man’s face, analyzing it.

He bore the form of noble blood. He was adorned with all manner of jewels, and the clothes made by joining fabric and hide had an unknown origin, yet were free and beautiful. And yet at the same time, he looked very strong.

But.

“...”

In this world, in this situation, in this space—how could such a person exist?

‘Moreover, for nearly 300 years, is it even possible to care for just one person?’

It wasn’t. Even if the other party was new humanity that appeared with the advent of a new era, if he was human, there would be limits he could not endure—yet this one had crossed that line by an immeasurable distance.

When he lowered his head, he saw clothing lightly wrapping the body. He saw lumps of minerals that would only be a disadvantage in battle. He saw bare feet, smooth as if it were nothing, standing in this rough labyrinth full of curses and traps.

“...”

From the start, would any humans even remain? A being of that kind of shape, the same shape as him. Thinking of what he had said, probably not.

‘This one explained to me the history of the present era, beyond a human perspective. Without a shred of fluster, as if it were only natural, very naturally...’

Ater knew what concept this was, and the characteristics of such an existence.

In the end, he spoke the name of the being that was taking the form of a polite young man before his eyes.

“...Ar, gio.”

“Excellent.”

“...Ah...”

So it was real.

After staring blankly at the evil god for a long while, Ater bit down hard on his shriveled lips and cried.

“...”

He wore a face as if he didn’t even know why he was crying.

(To be continued in the next part)