Free Web Novel“Now, are you willing to join me?”
The old man bearing the name of salvation turned back once more and looked at Muen.
“...”
Muen did not answer. His thoughts were still churning. He was still digesting all of it.
Many things had been explained, yet many more questions had surfaced in his mind.
Those questions could not be answered, because Gaius could not answer them either.
But the cruelest side of it had already been laid bare before him, dripping with blood.
This was not some simple philosophical question of who lived and who died. It was the ultimate choice concerning humanity, the world, and the future.
If sacrificing humanity could save the world, would you do it?
Would you?
Would you?
Muen’s answer was...
“Ptui.”
He spat at Gaius.
“I won’t.”
Fuck your savior.
You make it sound so grand and righteous. What does that have to do with me?
“...”
Gaius’s face was expressionless. Before the spit could splash onto his face, it had already broken apart.
“Why?”
“Because things still haven’t reached that point of despair. There must be another way. If anything, you’re the one who’s been acting like a coward this whole time.”
“Heh. Ridiculous. If there truly were another way to solve it, the world’s wailing would not have continued for an entire thousand years.”
“But the old loli, and the Pope...”
“I told you, the one behind you is far too naïve. Her path is a dead end that can never be completed. As for my senior brother...”
Gaius chuckled softly. “How is he any different from me?”
“...”
Muen was silent.
It seemed that over this thousand years, humanity had not done nothing.
They had simply failed.
And now, with chaos breaking out more and more often and the Evil Gods on every side moving with increasing intensity, did that mean the apocalypse... was truly about to arrive?
“But no matter what, abandoning humanity is absolutely impossible...” Muen shook his head.
“What is there that cannot be abandoned?”
Gaius’s voice suddenly filled with fury.
“You think humanity cannot be abandoned? How are they different from all the other living things in this world? No, they are worse than insects, birds, and beasts. After all, insects, birds, and beasts do not possess such great sin.”
The scene changed again.
Muen and Gaius returned to where they had been before.
He lowered his head and saw that Saint Peron V’s corpse was still there.
Afrella was also there. She had been following behind Muen all along, and had likewise seen those images from before.
Gaius pointed at Saint Peron V. “Do you think he has any value in living?”
“No.”
Muen shook his head. “It’s better that he’s dead.”
“What about them?”
The image changed again. This time, it was an ordinary small village.
The village’s long-standing peace had been shattered. A squad of soldiers had attacked it, raping, looting, and committing every evil imaginable. Muen could tell they were remnants of the Kingdom’s army.
War affected more than soldiers and national strength. In corners no one noticed, unimaginable atrocities were happening every moment.
“Do they have any value in living?” Gaius demanded.
Several soldiers were violating a woman. Her husband had been hanged nearby. Her child was in the pot, boiling along with the soup.
“Nor do they,” Muen sighed.
The image changed again.
This time, it was Saint Blancfazesiya.
The royal capital was still in the midst of disaster.
Yet even amid this disaster, some people were looting in the chaos. The flames had not all been set by controlled soldiers. Potbellied nobles commanded their private troops to smash open house after house, greedily plundering property.
There were still people hiding inside those houses. Those pitiful people were thrown out without hesitation, shivering as they faced cruel blades.
They cried and wailed without end, but no one cared.
“What about them?”
“Naturally not.”
Muen shook his head. “Just a pack of human trash.”
“And this?”
Gaius pointed toward another slaughter.
“No.”
“And this?”
Flesh and blood turned against one another.
“No.”
“This, this, this, this... and what about here?”
Death, sin, filth...
As Gaius shifted the images, everything was exposed without concealment.
“None of them.”
Muen answered, “It would be better if they all died.”
“See? This is humanity’s rotten nature!”
Gaius laughed loudly. “If this rotten nature is not eradicated in time, it will only lead to more disasters! Disaster arises from humanity. Calamity is born from the human heart. Has this war not already proven everything?”
Countless images flickered behind Gaius. They were humanity’s filthiest, most sinful side, unbearable to look at directly.
“...Proven? What can this prove?”
Yet Muen asked in return.
“Hm?”
“I’m asking you, what can this prove?”
Muen looked into Gaius’s eyes, and his expression gradually calmed.
In truth, he understood what Gaius had been trying to prove to him all along.
But he did not agree.
“It proves humanity’s sin!” Gaius said. “And this is only a very small part of it, Muen Campbell. I was once the Church’s Archbishop of Judgment. I have witnessed countless filthy things. On this subject, I have more right to speak than anyone.”
“You certainly do have that right. Humanity is indeed guilty.”
Muen retorted:
“But if there is guilt, then it should be faced, not escaped from... Besides, Gaius, isn’t what you have seen far too one-sided?”
“One-sided?”
Gaius raised a brow.
“Is it not?”
Muen pointed at himself, then at Gaius.
“You {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} and I were both once audience members. We both experienced this war, this disaster. But what I saw was completely different from what you saw.”
One image after another surfaced in Muen’s mind.
Name after name surged into his heart.
Beck.
One-Eye.
Baron Derik.
Marquis Tern.
Tyron.
Kore.
Pero.
Aurier...
The same war. The same disaster.
The same, too, in that both of them had been “audience members” at first.
Gaius saw soldiers running rampant.
Muen saw people fighting to defend their homes.
Gaius saw greed, lust, and human hearts sinking into corruption.
Muen saw small, ordinary people standing at the very front when the city was about to be destroyed.
Gaius saw that ignorant, arrogant, foolish old thing holding power and about to push this country into the abyss.
But Muen saw many, many people striving to overthrow him and make this country better, even at the cost of bleeding and losing their heads.
So it was two sides of the same whole.
A person could not stare at only one side while ignoring the other.
That was unfair.
Whether to the world, or to humanity itself.
“I think it was the same a thousand years ago.”
Muen lifted his head and gazed toward the sky.
Although he could not see the sky at all.
“Even if some people were steeped in sin and caused this irreversible disaster, there were still many who chose to face that sin directly.”
“Humans are complicated. The world is complicated too. You can’t simply divide everything into guilty and innocent. In fact... how can you be certain that the sound of weeping means the world hates us?”
“If it hates us... then why is the one bearing destiny... a young woman?”
Muen coldly pointed out the key.
Ariel had not come here. Perhaps, just as Gaius had said, it was because the world had not allowed her to come, because this time the world stood on the Salvation Society’s side.
But how was that not also a kind of expectation placed upon humanity itself?
The child of destiny, Ariel, was human.
Even Gaius, who took salvation as his duty and claimed destiny for himself... was also human.
“Shut up!”
Gaius’s expression changed violently.
“The one bearing destiny and duty is me! Muen Campbell, you still understand nothing! The great cause of saving the world is right before you, yet like those people, you cast it aside because of your own selfishness! Do you not feel ashamed?”
“That’s right. I am selfish!”
Muen said.
That decisive certainty instead made Gaius freeze slightly.
“Who said I wasn’t selfish? You should know that when I first came to this world, I only had one thought.”
...Survive.
Muen still remembered it. That had been his thought when he first came to this world.
Back then, he had been so weak and powerless that any random enemy could have forced him into a miserable state.
Yet he had still wanted to live.
Simply to live.
Until later, as he formed connections with more and more people, that desire became more and more extravagant.
Many people entered his life and became part of it.
He no longer wanted only to survive. He wanted to live better, happily.
That was also why, back then, he had chosen this desperate gamble so decisively, even though it brought him no real benefit.
Not because some sudden kindness had seized him, but because he did not want the things he valued to turn into dust for nothing.
It was the same now.
If saving the world truly required killing humanity, just as Gaius said...
Then...
Fuck that.
Whoever wants to kill can kill. Whoever wants to die can die.
He wasn’t doing it.
He was selfish. So what?
“Gaius, in a certain sense, you really are a good person.”
“A tremendously good person, without a trace of selfishness.”
“But I am not!”
Muen stared into Gaius’s eyes, speaking word by word as though nailing each word into his soul.
“I, Muen Campbell... am a pure villain!”
That was right. His position had always been exactly that, from beginning to end.
The original book could testify. It was truer than gold.
So Gaius could never persuade him!
No matter how logically self-consistent his fallacies were, and no matter what great cause he carried.
So.
Black flame ignited.
It burned outward from Muen’s body in a surging blaze.
This long conversation had finally created enough time for Muen to break free from his restraints. He could feel his body’s sensations returning, and his consciousness was rapidly sinking deeper, about to touch his mental world.
Everything happened in an instant.
“What a pity.”
Gaius sighed, his face full of disappointment.
“I thought you would be able to understand me.”
“You overestimated me. Do you think someone whose head is full of women’s black stockings and long legs could do something this great?” Muen said, looking cool as hell.
“True. After searching for so long, it seems this world is indeed mostly filled with foolish and selfish mediocrities.”
Gaius said, “You are merely one of them.”
“Sounds like you’re insulting yourself too.”
Muen sneered. “Everyone under you is exactly the kind of sinful person you hated most just now!”
“They are only tools I use to achieve my goal. To this day, they still believe the so-called New World is a free world where they can do whatever they please, without restraint. Stupid beyond belief.”
Gaius said, “I was sincerely inviting you. But now, it seems you are no different from them.”
“And I am sincerely refusing!”
Dong!
Muen’s consciousness finally sensed the existence of his mental space. As black flame leapt, the faint sound of a booming bell echoed through the void.
The Eternal Bell resonated with Muen once again, stirring a tiny ripple upon the river of time!
Clang—
Muen swung his blade directly at Gaius, intending to buy himself even the smallest sliver of time before the Black Sun began to grind forward.
But Gaius’s palm had arrived too.
It was even a hair faster than the bell.
“Then die, Muen Campbell!”
Gaius said coldly, “Since you are the same as those ignorant fools, I absolutely cannot allow you to block my path!”
The ancient bell had only just begun to ring when it was interrupted by a piercing shriek. Gaius casually grabbed, and the entire space seemed to be seized into his palm.
How could he not know that Muen had been seeking an opportunity to draw upon the power of time again all along?
But he did not care.
Because the absolute difference in strength meant that his reaction speed was far more than an entire level faster than this little fifth-rank brat’s.
The power of time was indeed incomparably profound.
But the one using it was still far too weak.
“Repent in hell, child.”
Gaius gazed at his palm. Muen was frozen within that space, his expression still holding that same resolve from a moment ago, as though he had not noticed death was already upon him.
And so, Gaius squeezed without hesitation.
Along with a crisp shattering sound, he finally killed this uncertain factor who had caused him a little trouble...
Completely.
