Chương 20: Deconstructed
Both Max and Nami stared at Leo wide-eyed. Out of all the possible scenarios they could've come up with regarding why The Revolutionaries were super against the government, having an entirely non-human race perching atop the whole country was definitely not within their scope of imagination!
Leo smiled again seeing their reaction. This just gave her further proof that they had nothing to do with the other fairies. Although, she was still curious as to how they met and how come Nami didn't seem to be informed about the current state of her own race.
"Not lying?" Nami finally spoke after the longest time, a look of disbelief written on her tiny face. She found it hard to accept that her fellow fairies had become the very thing they hated most back in The Ancient Ruins. Just the thought of it repulsed her.
Max didn't know what she was thinking; his only thought was that even though she had finally started to understand speeches in Elysian, her speaking skill still left much to be desired.
Leo firmly shook her head. "I wasn't lying at all. And I know this for a fact, given that I was in very close contact with those evil fairies for years. I was one of their victims, after all."
Max furrowed his brows. He wanted her to elaborate on what she just said, but first, he had to know if he was being played for a fool. [You don't seem to hesitate telling us about yourself. I've got to be honest, you don't strike me as someone who's willing to share her past secrets so easily. How do I know you're not fabricating some lies to take advantage of us?]
Max didn't realize this, but Nami was slightly surprised at Max's last word, 'us'. Both of them had only known each other for just one day, but in his mind, they were already a team.
Even though she had been sincere in helping him all this time, deep down, there was still a small part of her that held a slight reluctance to associate with him. Maybe it was her trauma and distrust toward humans that had been causing this feeling. But after hearing what he just said, it seemed to her that she really could trust him.
Perhaps it was partly because he was a bit naïve. But in a way, so was she. They were a bit similar in that regard.
Leo had somewhat expected Max's question. It was only natural that someone would think that way in this situation. "Honestly, I have no definite way to prove to you that I'm not lying. But if my knowledge about fairies was anything to go by, it might tell you that I was being truthful when I said I had been their victim. Let me tell you everything you need to know first, and then you can choose whether you'll believe it or not after that. How about it?"
Max and Nami looked at each other for a moment, before the former shrugged. [Sounds good.]
That caused a smile to appear on Leo's lips before she took a deep breath and started with a question. "Have you ever heard the term artificial mages?"
Max instantly looked at his fairy friend. There was no way he'd ever heard about it; he had only found out about mages that very day, after all. But maybe it wasn't the case for Nami, who seemed to have been exposed to the knowledge regarding magic and mages for longer than—
"No," Nami answered after thinking for a bit.
Well, that meant both of them were in the dark about this.
"Was young fairy in my world, haven't known much things," she explained. "Then trapped for long time, until Max freed me. All those years, haven't heard about anything, fairies or mages."
In other words, she hadn't been up to date about...pretty much everything.
Leo raised an eyebrow. She finally understood why Nami seemed to be clueless even when it came to her own race. "I see. Well, artificial mage is actually not a new concept. It dates as far back as the first appearance of natural mages in this world. At the time, though, artificial mages were but an idea."
She suddenly fell into thought. "But maybe I'm jumping ahead here. My bad, I should probably tell you first about how it all started. Tell me, what have you learned about The Gatemaker?"
Max tried to recall what he'd studied during his early academic years. [Some explorer found the machine buried in some underground tunnel. And after thorough inspections by scientists, they concluded that it was a machine that creates a portal to another world.
So they switched it on and a portal to The Ancient Ruins was finally formed, allowing the first humans to venture into that new, ruined world, where it seemed that the people had been completely exterminated.
The scientists eventually found old records about how the societies there had been built on the usage of magic. The portal also made way for mana from The Ancient Ruins to pour through, which resulted in Ardeim's atmosphere being exposed to mana for the first time. That's how the humans on this planet discovered the existence of magic.]
Leo nodded along, finding Max's words to match the common knowledge taught in every school in not only Prime Elysia, but also all other countries in Ardeim. "It's good that you still remember what they taught you in school." Her expression then turned glum. "But you see, none of that is true. All that information on your textbooks, they were nothing but a false story, made so that nobody would suspect a thing about the fact that even though the people in The Ancient Ruins have gone extinct, there is still one race that survived."
Max immediately understood what she meant. [Fairies.]
"That's right. These survivors were the ones responsible for creating a way to escape what they call The Great Disaster. This way, a huge populace of fairies were able to live through the mass extinction to tell the tale.
"And yes, when I said 'a way to escape', I meant that they were the ones who first used The Gatemaker. The machine wasn't just randomly discovered by an explorer; the fairies were the ones bringing it to this world. Though whether they were the ones who built it is still up for debate.
"Using the portal, they evacuated into Ardeim and took refuge for a time, before learning about this world and trying to live in it while hiding their existence.
"I heard that at first, fairies were quite generous. They were a kind bunch who were willing to share their knowledge and access to The Gatemaker, allowing humans to harvest mana stones from the ruined planet. But after a while, they started to take advantage of Ardeim humans' lack of cultivation. Although, I'm not sure as to why exactly they had done a 180 like that.
"In the end, many countries are now effectively under their control. Well, Prime Elysia especially, since this was where they first set foot after passing through the portal."
Reading the transcriptions of all this new and mind blowing knowledge, Max was left stumped. He hadn't even known fairies were a thing before today, and now he kept being bombarded with information after information related to them.
It was even to the point where he felt like his years of academic studies had been all for naught. A lot of things he had come to accept as the truth had been deconstructed.
It was as if his meeting with Nami had opened up a whole new reality for him.
Nami, too, felt the same way. She had heard rumors about escaping her world back when talks about The Great Disaster started. However, being sheltered—or trapped—inside the wooden chest, there was no way for her to know whether her fellow fairies had actually survived and evacuated the world.
When she sensed that the wooden chest had been transferred to a place where the mana in the atmosphere felt different, she suspected that a way to another world had turned out to not be mere fiction. Someone or some group had truly managed to make it happen!
However, she was still doubtful whether fairies were the ones responsible for it, and if they had truly gone over to this new world. Fairies were weak, after all. There was no way they could achieve such a feat.
Yet, here she was, listening to a human giving her history lesson about how her race had done what she had believed to be impossible! A part of her felt proud of her kin, but another part of her was disappointed to hear that they ended up succumbing to greed, just like how the humans back in her world had been.
Leo was understanding enough to give them time to digest this information. After it seemed like they were ready to find out more, she continued. "Like I said, it was good and all at first. Fairies coexisting with humans who were willing to keep their existence a secret. I heard that fairies were even there celebrating the birth of the first mage. Of course, it wasn't a literal birth; it was the moment where a preteen boy suddenly Awakened, making him Ardeim's first mage. After that, fairies were even kind enough to teach him and other humans all about mages and their cultivation stages.
"However, when fairies' attitude toward humans changed, everything turned for the worse. For humans, at least. Long story short, the fairies found out how to exploit newly Awakened humans. They started employing their mind control ability to enslave these people who had just begun their path of cultivation. After all, it's basically a piece of cake if their cultivation is still so weak.
"But after a while, they realized that the number of natural mages being born in Ardeim is too low for their liking. If they wanted to take over humans' society, they need to have a lot more mages under their control. Because after all, they can't do much on their own. They need humans to make up for what they lack, and that is the ability to grow stronger. The problem is that natural mages are just too few for them to use.
"Which is how they came up with the idea to develop artificial mages. And to realize this concept, they had to do all kinds of cruel experiments on humans."
Leo then took a deep breath. Her eyes grew somber. "And I'm one of these artificial mages. Perhaps the only one who managed to escape."
SUY NGHĨ CỦA NGƯỜI SÁNG TẠO 
silvery
silvery Ah, history lesson. Hope I didn't mess it up.
And to the two people who blessed me with power stones, thank you so much! I actually don't know a way how to directly thank people on this platform, so I ended up using Author's Note.
Tình trạng nguồn điện hàng tuần
-- Xếp hạng
Quyền lực 
-- Đá
Quyền lực