The Soul Flows High (3)
The telepathy was full of despair and fear. He was trembling in fear with his view blocked. Even while being treated like this, he never attempted to commit suicide in a normal state of mind. It is said that people could kill themselves by bursting their circulatory system with their own will even if their hands and feet were tied together due to their physical structure. Nevertheless, I made him regain consciousness because I knew he wouldn’t be able to try.
=…What else are you going to ask today?=
The Fake God, who managed to settle his mind, closed his emotions and asked , but I noticed the extre tension he couldn’t completely hide. If you were a contractor of the demons, you would be crushed by the weight of the fear of death that couldn’t be avoided. After the day that I suppressed the Fake God, I woke him up like this once a day, interrogated him, and knocked him out again.
=…There is nothing more to say. Until when will…=
“…”
The suggestion to tell everything you know didn’t work. Concerned about so of the truths that hadn’t yet been revealed to , I continued to interrogate him and kept adding new questions for nearly two months. As ti went by, the Fake God beca more terrified. At first, he groaned in front of on the hillside and burst into anger, but gradually he realized his situation.
The Fake God must have been afraid every day when he fell asleep in the tank. He wondered if I would take his life while he was unconscious. Would he be able to open his eyes again? By the ti his freedom of thinking ca back, he would already be dead, and his soul would be in the hands of the demon. And now, after I had finished talking to Parvache, it seed that almost all the information I could get from him had been taken.
=…!=
The Fake God’s eyes trembled; his anxiety rose when there was no answer. I carried two mory crystals in my hand. Initially, I planned to use only the mory crystal for the organization those people belonged to. Still, there was no reason not to use all the other mories that had been obtained. I believe that Yodmo had skillfully cut out the mories. Still, I thought there was a possibility that there could be so useful information in the big crystal.
So how did I use these crystals? I stretched out my palms and lifted the two beads into the air. Slowly, it flew towards the head of the Fake God. I wasn’t a Yodmo. I couldn’t eat the crystals to check this mory’s content or plant it in my mind. If I did that, it would be mixed with my earliest mories, and I would stop existing as my original self.
“You said that you just have to touch it near the brain, right?”
[Yes.]
My mories of a dozen years and the lives of 29 people. Even if the balance wasn’t right, it didn’t fit well. But just in ti, I had already secured an existence that already had over a thousand years of mory. If you were familiar with that amount of mory, you could likely withstand it even if you were injected with dozens of additional human mories. Moreover, there was a suggestion that the truth should be told.
I looked at Yusu. He had already heard my request and wasn’t taking his eyes off the Fake God. The two opaque beads were soon absorbed into his head.
=Aaah, aaaaaaaah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahskdyigdlaj!=
My head seed to be broken by the telepathic scream from the Fake God, who had accepted the mories. I waited for a while with the receiver system circuit closed. The Fake God constantly twitched and trembled. The feeling that the mories of 29 people’s lives were absorbed all at once would be insufficient to express as re pain. Violet essence flowed from eight gill-like organs on his stomach. It said that when transparent body fluid ca out, it was really a sign of death.
=asdfgsaaaaahpleaseenotagainqwtywrwy!=
Although I prepared my mind, it wasn’t a comfortable sight. No matter if he was an alien, seeing him in front of , tightened my heart. However, overcoming the urge to avert my gaze, I gave strength to my eyes and looked at the scene. I asked Yusu to observe the soul, but I also kept my eyes on him. In that state, his cramps gradually cald down after so ti, fortunately, without any concerns. His trembling stopped, and I sighed with relief. After confirming that his breathing had stabilized to so extent, I spoke.
“Who are you?”
The Fake God, who sensed the telepathy delivered by Parvache, barely raised his head and answered. Even though the mories of dozens of people raged inside him, the planted suggestion continued to apply.
=…, I…, asfdfjhgjkd…=
“My na is Brendon Elliot…”
=What are you talking about?! What? These mories?=
“I’m Tamim Al-Hammad… no, Anna Hawkins…”
=What did you do to ?!=
“Umberto Bellomo!”
=Noisy! I’m asdkjgkjh…=
“…Chris O’Neill… no, David Moriyama…”
=Stop!=
“I… I… aaaaahhhh!”
He used telepathy and his voice at the sa ti and began to pour out nurous nas. In each mory, he spat out the truth. Many of the nas he spoke of voice didn’t match the passports. It seed that they were fake IDs. All 29 people whose mories were absorbed were from English-speaking countries, and the language that the Fake God spat out was English. Hearing that, I infused Mana into the Speech Dissolving Beads that I had prepared in advance. Who knew that I’d be using this for an alien interrogation. Having confird that the mory was absorbed, I decided to move on to my question.
“Okay, I’ll ask.”
Now, even if the mory inside him was answered in English, I could understand it. I checked what I was most curious about. I wanted to hear a definite answer through the mories of those who actually belonged to that organization.
“Is your group working on a plan to resurrect the Dragon?”
The Fake God’s mories gave the original answers he could, through telepathy.
=…I have no group to which I belong… Ah? This…you planted their mories in !=
Suggestion affected all mories, and 29 of them answered my questions with force, even when they were confused. Perhaps because the sa answer was derived from all the mories, they answered , which was a standard speech thod for those mories, without any confrontation with each other.
“…Yes.”
As expected. Damn it! I asked one after another.
“What is the na of the organization?”
The telepathy answered because of coercion, even though he knew it wasn’t a question asked to the mory of Fake God.
=I’ve been independent and alone for hundreds of years…!=
And, the information I wanted to hear ca out through his voice.
“We are…Guardians of the Great Convention.”
That’s it. My eyes shone at the thought of finding a clue to focus on.
“What is the purpose of the organization?”
He answered.
=I don’t know more about the organization of these guys beyond what I said the other day.=
“We are ordained to defend the Great Convention as those chosen by Him. Becoming his limbs, we pursue, recover, dispose of humans who use the power of miracles, guard the continental borders, and monitor those who have crossed the wall to implent the Convention.”
Calling Yusu here today was also to make him a witness. If I checked the mories of those 29 people alone and conveyed them in words, White Deer’s decision-makers might not believe it. Yusu, who was listening closely to the words, nodded and spoke.
“Continental borders…I see what the Great Convention is. It seems to be referring to the agreent that the Dragon made after the war with the beings who crossed all the walls of the world. As a result, we were restricted from entering the land at the ethnic level and interacting with humans.”
This was a story I had already heard of.
“Even if so individuals enter the land or co into contact with humans, it has been forbidden to pass on magic techniques or reveal their identity. I guessed they were the Dragon’s eyes and limbs to monitor this, but I didn’t know it was a human organization.”
Then he tilted his head.
“But, that’s weird. The Dragon has already died, and it has been confird that the agreent has returned to nothing. Why do you want to protect it?”
As he conveyed his questions, the Fake God’s mories answered.
=I don’t know.=
“…We do not recognize the termination of the Convention. Until the day of His resurrection, we will continue to carry out his mission. At the sa ti as He will rise again, the coercion of the Convention will also be restored.”
That’s as if it were natural to be resurrected.
“How on the earth is the group called Guardians of the Great Convention trying to save the Dragon?”
The answer was disappointing.
=I don’t know.=
“We do not know.”
Of course, the mories of the Fake God wouldn’t know about it, but why do mories of those 29 people say they didn’t know the answer to their organization’s existential purpose? Was this knowledge that only a few of them guarded closely? When I asked about it, the answer ca back.
=I don’t know.=
“Only the executives know the plan in detail. This was information that wasn’t allowed for apprentices like us.”
I questioned again, “Tell all the nas and whereabouts of the executives you know!”
Then their mories borrowed Fake God’s mouth and spat out several nas and places. Most of them were closer to nicknas than real nas, and the site wasn’t in the proper address. It was roughly said to be sowhere. The more I continued to interrogate, the more I learned. The Guardians of the Great Convention’s rank and file seed to be made up of a thorough point organization. These guys, called apprentices, had little knowledge of the useful information.
After the ritual of baptism (which was more of a magic brainwashing), it seed that only repeated training and mission execution was perford according to the commands from above. They didn’t even know where the headquarters was located, and they were only quick about the organization’s injected ideals and goals. I continued to ask about the part that kept bothering . What did they do with humans using the power of miracles? There was a strong conviction that this organization might have been involved in terrorism in the United States.
“You said you were disposing of the human wizards? Did you really kill them all?”
The Fake God responded with a low, suppressed voice.
“The apprentice retrieves the human wizard. The disposition after that is the responsibility of the executives…we do not know.”
“Why are you doing that?”
“Because exercising the power of miracles is the sa thing as a sin for humans. As human beings, only the Guardians of the Great Convention, whom He acknowledged and directly controlled the number of, were allowed to use magic!”
In the end, they said that they could beco one, but others couldn’t. It was possible to presu that human wizards were already mixed in their organization ranks.
“Why is it a sin to learn magic?”
“The practice of magic grows the soul and expands the spirituality.”
“…?”
I didn’t expect that word to co out of his mouth. That was the basic common sense that any wizard knew.
“…That’s right, but what?”
“Growing the soul is sothing that is not allowed for the human race.”
…I was gradually falling into a labyrinth.
“We stop it. One of the sacred missions that have been around for many years.”
[That’s a little weird.]
“Yeah. It couldn’t have been a long ti…it’s like there wasn’t a human wizard before the Channel opened.”
“…Not like that. A significant number of human wizards have existed in the world for a long ti since the Great Convention. A few human beings born with talent despite the shackles of the species.”
He flinched as if he tried to resist coercion, but he couldn’t win and continued to talk.
“Most of them end their lives without awakening their magic, but very few of them radiate their power with strong origins without a proper spell.”
It seed rare for being a wizard only with talent before the Channel opened. But what he was specifying now appeared to be a case like , who succeeded in actually implenting magic.
“Dangerous people use magic instinctively without teaching. They can create miracles unconsciously.”
Right. There were a handful of geniuses who opened the Mana circuit with their own power. Co to think of it, it was weird. Was I the only one in this long history who was born with such qualities? The Fake God continued to answer after receiving my question.
“The strange phenona, such as the body floating in the air while sleeping, or the burning of a healthy tree while screaming. They spread easily and soon beca our targets.”
“Oh, my God.”
That wasn’t soone else’s story.
“And they disappeared, quarantined and concealed, even before they were even recorded in human history. We have played a role in filling the voids where the species’ shackles did not reach their power.”
[Min-joon, it was fortunate that the magic you triggered when you were a child summoned in a room where no one was present. If by any chance it was seen outside…]
In my heart, I agreed with Parvache. What if my first summon took place in front of people instead of sleeping? And what if the one summoned wasn’t a ntal body but a flesh body? It didn’t stop there. The danger has always been around. When I had no concept, and Parvache lacked information about the world, what would have happened if the words I was talking about at school weren’t treated as a child’s delusions? From the ti Parvache was able to move its body, it also had knowledge of this world, and it forbade to say and do such things. But by any chance, what if I broke its words and exposed it to the outside?
Eventually, I would have been recovered by them, too. In the end, it ant that they had prevented the creation of proper wizards among humankind in that way. I cald my mind and pointed out that I couldn’t understand the aning of the words he said.
“What do you an by the species’ shackles?”
He responded with his voice.
“After the Great Convention, the races that crossed the wall were expelled from the continent. At that ti, most of the islands were poorly populated and did not et the conditions as the birthplace of civilization…”
The voice began to twist.
“He forbade those expelled from passing on magic to humans. And he withdrew all the magical knowledge from humankind.”
Now gradually, I felt like a picture of what happened in this world was being completed.
“And finally…by using direct power, he put magic-repressing shackles in the genes of the human species. And the shackles have continued until recently.”
The Truth-Seeker’s power was to suppress magic. There was sothing I could guess as soon as I heard it. However, with the knowledge I had so far, it was rely the power to deny and destroy the magic that was activated. I couldn’t even imagine that it would be possible to suppress the human race’s magical possibilities.
No, wait. If he had used power on such a ridiculous scale, he would have been beaten up by a trendous reaction…what made him do that?
[…What the Truth-Seeker had to bear would have been a trendous reaction indeed. The penalties will be weaker for the power to nullify the entire planet’s magic, which we were worried about before. While doing that, what did the Dragon want to do with the humans in this world?]
Parvache was right. In the end, it was said that the Truth-Seeker of the Earth had been trying to prevent the spread of magic in human civilization for a long ti, even at the expense of such damage.
‘No, but Parvache, isn’t it possible to detect the power of echo of the Truth-Seeker? If sothing like that was planted in human blood, why didn’t we know about it?’
[I do not know. Maybe it’s because it’s a tiny fragnt of power plant in a gene…anyway, I’m sure I’ve been connected to your mind many tis and shared sensations, but I never felt that there was such a thing in your body. Now that the Truth-Seeker is dead, of course, there will be none.]
This world where the talents of wizards were scarce. It seed that I could now understand why the situation suddenly changed after the Truth-Seeker’s death. It was because power was extinguished upon his death.
The “power of anti-magic” that he sowed upon humanity ages ago.
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