章 32: Chapter 30: Future
Aiz And Ai Bilberry XIII had always thought that the balance between light and darkness was terrible. For instance, the dark ages created by the witch stretched on much longer than the periods of peace earned by the saint.
The next saint could only be born after the previous saint had fully turned into a witch. This meant the saint would naturally need a long time to grow up until she was ready to face the witch. How long was it, you ask? No matter how much they rushed the saint's education, it still took fifteen to twenty years until she could rival the witch. Saints were all born with their powers, but they needed at least fifteen years to become able to wield them properly. Most weren't able to wield their saintly powers from childhood like Ellize could; they needed time.
It wasn't like anyone had arbitrarily picked their fifteenth birthday as the deadline—that was just how things were. Perhaps a child's body was too weak to handle the full brunt of their powers, perhaps not. No one really knew why.
When boys grew up, they became more manly, while girls matured into women. Just like them, saints needed some time to come into their own. The royals called this moment "awakening." Until saints awakened, they were pretty much regular girls—the only notable difference being that they couldn't be hurt by anything but dark magic.
In the meantime, the witch was free to do whatever she liked, which meant her dominion over the world always lasted for at least fifteen years. On the other hand, the peace created by saints was fleeting, to say the least. The records did not mention any stretch of peace longer than five years, which appeared to be the upper limit.
How could the gap be so large?
Mending took so much longer than destroying, and yet the side that did nothing but destroy was given a head start. The effort it took to burn down a tree could never compare to the vast amount of time and effort needed for a new tree to grow and mature in its place. And yet, the witch and her monsters were given all the time in the world to raze to their heart's content, while the people were barely given any to nurture new lives.
The same went for monsters and archmonsters. All the witch needed to do to create new monsters was to give wild animals a bit of her power. They would then remain loyal to her under any circumstances. If the witch died, they'd immediately side with the next witch. That was how Alexia had been able to escape the saint's castle.
Aiz couldn't help but think it was all absurd. Why could the witch create as many deadly weapons to use against the saint as she wanted, when no one but the saint could kill the witch?
In the end, while saints very much risked dying before they could accomplish their duty, witches would go on living eternally until a saint managed to slay them.
The sheer difference in numbers was yet another disadvantage.
Whenever a witch died, monsters stopped attacking people for a while. Instead, they'd go into hiding. As soon as the next witch had taken over, they went back to assaulting people.
Thanks to the dark powers bestowed upon them by the witch, monsters were infinitely harder to kill than regular beasts. Unlike their normal animal counterparts, they didn't grow weak and senile with age. That same dark power, however, took a toll on their bodies and reduced their life span; unlike the witch, they were not immortal. Still, that wasn't enough to diminish their numbers. Even if their monster counterparts were to die a few years earlier, some animals had a life span of several decades—shaving a few years off wouldn't change much. That meant the witch could steadily grow her army. In other words, the number of monsters roaming the land increased with each generation.
Needless to say, if there were more monsters, there were also more people that suffered from their attacks. People had no choice but to give up entire areas to the monsters and flee to safer zones, which were gradually shrinking with the years.
With all the disadvantages they faced, how could the world move forward? How could civilization advance?
Aiz had three sons, although he thought they were still too young to inherit his throne. He'd had other sons in the past who would've been older and more mature by now...had they survived. They'd been slaughtered by monsters years ago. As a result, Aiz had become very protective of his younger sons, but their soft upbringing had turned them into fools.
How vexing, Aiz thought.
Either way, the risk of being killed by monsters was growing by the day—no, it had been growing by the day.
Ellize's birth had tipped the balance to the other side.
She'd exterminated thousands of monsters and reclaimed land from them. She'd worked so hard over the past seven years that the territory of the monsters had been reduced by over ninety percent.
She'd also revived the natural areas that had been destroyed by previous witches. The wastelands, barren forests, and dried-up rivers had been transformed. Ellize made flowers bloom in the cracked soil and turned deserts into plains where fauna could gather again. She entirely deserved her title as the greatest saint in history.
She also had a convenient personality: Ellize had no interest in politics. She let the people in place govern without ever trying to butt in. She stood at the very top, but she held no political power or any interest in gaining any. She was a perfect figurehead, simply content to go around defeating monsters and healing the land. The royalty and nobility also had little to complain about. They reaped the benefits and continued to rule over their people while using Ellize as a symbol.
There was still one issue, though: Ellize was eager to carry out her duty and rid the world of the witch. That didn't sit well with Aiz. Letting such a perfect saint fall for a mere five years—at best—of true peace was ridiculous!
He knew they'd never be blessed with such a golden age again. If they lost Ellize, the balance of the world would once again favor darkness.
He'd made up his mind: the best thing to do was to make this blessing last as long as possible. With Ellize around, they could increase humanity's territory even further! They could cut down the number of monsters and allow nature to heal!
All Ellize needed to do was weaken the dark side as much as possible so that the next saint would have a head start. Her successor could kill the witch; there was no need for Ellize to do that herself.
That was why he'd confined her.
From now on, he'd be the one to decide which group of monsters she fought and who she saved. If he allowed her to roam around freely and she ran into the witch, the worst would come to pass. He'd investigate and make sure the witch was nowhere near the places he allowed Ellize to visit.
Aiz was well aware that his plan was flawed.
No matter how he chose to present things, locking up the saint was a great sin. He'd decided to allow her to keep her authority—that was, to let her remain as a symbolic leader—in order to avoid invoking the people's wrath. Still, he had no doubt his name would go down as one of the worst sinners in history. He wouldn't be surprised if, eventually, everyone turned against him and brought him to the gallows.
He accepted that. He'd already lived long enough and didn't fear death. If anything, he'd gladly give up his life to give hope—however little it was—to the next generation.
The witches' eras were always hellish. Monsters ran rampant, forcing the people to live in constant fear. They burned and destroyed fields and forests, creating terrible food shortages. No matter how hard the people worked to make up for it, famine would spread, killing thousands in its wake.
Even Aiz himself had no idea how many soldiers had died in futile efforts to regain farming land.
Sometimes, he'd been forced to give up on those who were doomed in order to make sure others would survive...
He remembered the emaciated faces of the peasants who'd gone crazy. He'd seen the despair in their eyes. They could no longer even hope that a better future would come anymore. After all, even if the saint succeeded in defeating the witch, they'd only get a short break at best.
The witch will destroy it all again anyway, they thought.
Five years was too little to recover what had been lost... Far too little...
People celebrated peace, of course, but they couldn't truly rejoice from the bottom of their hearts. And...they turned against one another.
They wanted to make reserves before the next dark age started. They wanted to ensure they were better off than their neighbors, to ensure they would survive. And so, people robbed, brawled over resources, and killed one another. When such conflicts escalated to a national level, wars started.
That was just how badly the future scared them.
Aiz himself had taken part in such conflicts many times. What else could he have done? With the livestock dead and both the forests and fields burnt to a crisp, his people would've died of hunger if he'd stayed passive.
It wasn't like they could all get along and share what little food and resources remained after a dark age. Had they done so, they wouldn't have been able to sustain anyone at all. There simply wasn't enough to go around.
Such situations invariably gave birth to hoarders—idiotic nobles in most cases. They took and took from their subjects, leaving them with nothing.
It was a vicious cycle. People would get scared and try to secure enough food to last them a long time, fearing there soon wouldn't be enough on the market. As soon as that started happening, even those who had no intention to hoard were forced to do so. Oh no, I have to get my share before everything runs out, they'd think. Soon enough, the supplies would truly run out, and those who hadn't managed to get their hands on anything would be left to die.
Aiz, as the king, would then be forced to make a choice—to decide who to give up on. He would fabricate evidence, framing the selected nobles and destroying their houses. He'd then redistribute the food to the commoners to save as many of them as possible. Obviously, there was never enough to feed everyone. He had to give up on some villages while he sent relief to others.
A few times, he'd received reports that his relief carriages had been attacked by bandits. He'd sat on the news long enough for these villages to be decimated by hunger before sending his soldiers to arrest the thieves and seize every last bit of food they could find to redistribute elsewhere.
He'd also endured hunger himself, as had his children and his deceased wife. While Turmeric had grown fat in recent years, he'd been a scrawny boy for most of his childhood.
Aiz knew he was a terrible man. He'd been told to go to hell more times than he could count. He knew that hundreds resented him. But even so, what he'd done hadn't been enough.
He'd become scum. He'd used any and every means to save his people. Regardless, they still died during poverty and fought each other during peaceful eras as they prepared for a grim future.
Aiz had learned the hard way that kindness and compassion could only bloom when people were secure enough in their own lives. Only when you had enough for yourself could you share with your neighbor. How could you be expected to care for others if you already had your hands full with your own survival?
Aiz had learned to accept that this didn't mean these people were evil. It was simply human nature. You couldn't give what you didn't have in the first place.
Ellize's endeavors over the past seven years had changed everything, though.
The fields yielded plenty of crops, and people could take what they needed from Mother Nature. Their needs were met, allowing them to care for others.
Aiz had felt it too. He was finally able to let his children eat as much as they wanted.
That was why he didn't want this era to end. He wanted to preserve this beautiful, gentle world and pass it along to the next generation. He wanted to give them a future where they wouldn't be ruled by their fear of the witch.
If that meant he had to be walked to the gallows while the people threw stones at him, he'd accept it. If that meant he had to be known as the treacherous king who betrayed the greatest saint in history forevermore, he'd accept it. He didn't mind becoming the biggest scum in the world and earning the ire of future generations.
All he wanted was to give his children a future where they didn't need to cry from hunger, one where they got to eat their fill. He wanted to leave behind a world where no one would need to fight over food scraps.
◇
For some reason, a super huge fight had broken out, and everyone was totally ignoring me.
I rolled around in my bed, listening to the sounds of battle and people pouring their hearts out just outside my doors.
So, uh, the thing is...you know I can totally hear you guys, right?
Okay, I miiight have been using a teeny tiny bit of wind magic to amp the air vibration and deliver the sounds straight to my ears.
I had a feeling that if I refined this spell a bit more and threw some thunder magic into the mix, I'd be able to turn sound waves into electric signals. That way, I could make the sound travel across hundreds of miles. I wasn't quite there yet, though. This needs some fine-tuning.
"I'll turn into a sinner to protect this peace! This is my duty as much as yours!"
"Nonsense! You decided that all on your own! You're pushing your narrative onto her!"
King Aiz—who'd ordered my confinement—and Verner—who was here to save me—were going at it. I could also hear the occasional clang of swords clashing, but I knew the king wasn't fighting Verner—Scotterbrain was.
To think I'd end up triggering the Scotterbrain betrayal event like this. Guess there's no skipping it no matter what, huh?
I could also hear Four-Eyed Pervert blabbing about Verner and the others' fighting styles, as well as their weaknesses, to a group of knights.
And I guess we have the kidnapping and confinement arc here, huh? I'm starting to think this is fate—a very annoying one! Since Verner and his friends came for me, I should probably escape with them, right?
To be honest, I wanted to chill and enjoy my NEET life a little longer. I was worried that if I stayed put for too long, though, the witch might take advantage of my absence and walk out of the academy. She'd only remained holed up in the basement (despite the risks) because teleportation was a dangerous spell to use. Even in the game, using teleportation had taken a toll on her and seriously weakened her.
To be fair, it had mostly been used as a plot device then. In some routes, you'd take on the witch much earlier. The whole "dangerous spell" thing was how the devs had found a way to justify the huge level discrepancy. After all, the player had to be able to beat her with weaker characters.
Let's just assume she loses a few particles along the way.
Anyway, point was, the witch would most likely try to avoid using teleportation if she could.
Since I was always at the academy, she couldn't really sneak out. She'd remained cooped up in the basement this whole time—she couldn't risk running into me, after all. As soon as she heard of my current predicament, though, there was a big chance she'd make a run for it.
Obviously, I'd been feeding her false intel to avoid that, but the one in charge of that had been Four-Eyed Pervert. Now that he was clearly siding with the people who'd trapped me here, I couldn't trust him anymore.
Anyway, that was the main reason I'd had a change of heart just now. I wasn't entirely unhappy about Verner and his friends coming to save me.
"Layla, throw these impudent children in jail," I heard the king command.
"Yes..."
I almost thought they'd resolve their argument without fighting, but in the end, King Aiz had managed to convince Layla to do his bidding. Verner didn't hold a candle to her. She managed to capture him in just a few seconds.
Scotterbrain's just that strong.
Before long, the rest of his friends were also overpowered by the knights and soldiers and they joined him in jail. Even Eterna was caught by Scotterbrain—game over.
Did they mess up the event? Guys... Why'd you even come here?
I had half a mind to let them rot in jail because of their shitty performance, but I couldn't really do that—they'd be charged with treason and exiled, or worse, sentenced to death.
I guess I need to step in, huh?
I'd learned that Layla wasn't their hostage—she was literally working with them!—so there was no reason for me to keep a low profile anymore.
Now that that's all settled... Let's blast the door with magic! BOOOM! Time to speedrun this rescue arc!
(2.9k word count)
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