“So what were you doing again?”
Jio answered Yu Seongun’s question.
“We were discussing what would be the wisest course of action for me.”
“It didn’t look like anything quite that productive.”
Just look: Ju-hyeon was already sprawled on the sofa, utterly drained. For an upstanding fellow who had yet to adjust to the way mysteries thought, spending time between two evil gods had apparently been exhausting.
Yu Seongun took Ju-hyeon’s place at the dining table.
“So, to summarize...”
Arjio, long notorious as an “evil god,” wanted to know how to befriend the inhabitants of the Animal Kingdom.
“Is that right?”
“That’s right.”
Jio nodded.
“When I had only met the wolf folk, I had no sense that anything was wrong. I thought Gargal was afraid of me because he was rather cowardly.”
“That’s really unfair to him...”
“Yes, I was mistaken. Gargal wasn’t a coward. The wolf folk were simply exceptionally tough. They accepted my presence so readily that I became arrogant about my social skills...”
“And the result was terrified fox folk?”
“Had I known, I would have concealed everything thoroughly from the start.”
Despite those words, both Yu Seongun and Jio knew that Jio would never have made that choice. This was less regret than simple complaining.
“Hmm...”
Yu Seongun’s eyes shifted as he thought.
“What about your signature move? Feeding them?”
“O gods of heaven and earth, it availed me not.”
“So your belief that a meal fixes everything finally comes crashing down. I knew it would come back to bite you someday.”
“Perhaps my cooking wasn’t good enough, or perhaps I chose the wrong menu. No matter how I tried to coax and soothe them, the fox folk only grew more frightened. They couldn’t let go of their fear of me.”
“That is the normal reaction...”
Yu Seongun was accustomed to mysteries, and Ju-hyeon was unusually bold, but most intelligent life ought to fear a terrifying evil god out of history. Jio felt deeply wronged by that remark.
“When I fed young Yi-sol’s sister, the student Cha A-ra, she clearly became much less wary of me. I trusted my culinary abilities, only to be betrayed.”
“No, that was when she knew absolutely nothing about you. From the fox folk’s perspective, they’ve encountered a living natural disaster that ate people long ago, made rivers of blood, and committed every evil deed imaginable... Would you lower your guard just because someone like that gave you a delicious meal?”
“It’s unfair.”
“Aren’t the wolf folk the ones getting the rawest deal here?”
They had been so tough that they had made Jio think, ‘Oh, this much is fine. Hehe.’
Even they, supposedly the least fazed by him, surely had no idea that Jio had never intended to threaten them at all. They probably thought it was a sliver of mercy an evil god had granted for his own amusement.
“...”
“...”
Sankalut spoke into the silence, which bordered on a standoff.
“Give up.”
“Says who?”
“Even I, who know little of how to interact with intelligent life, would consider it quite shamelessly tyrannical to expect insignificant creatures not to fear an evil Divinity whose nature has been established across a dimension’s history.”
“Strange how your vocabulary improves whenever you disparage someone. Is it because your interests align with your talents, Sankalut?”
“Yes. It’s fun.”
“You wicked Divinity.”
“Right back at you.”
All smiles and laughter. What a harmonious gathering.
‘Scary.’
Uncomfortable though the two Divinities’ exchange made him, Yu Seongun sided with Sankalut.
“I think you’re asking too much, too. You don’t even need to bring Divinities into it. It’s the same between people. Unless you use brainwashing or a charm skill, you can’t put someone who fears you deep down at ease in a short time. Especially when history gives them grounds for it.”
“You think so too, Seongun?”
“If you get impatient and push closer without giving them enough space, you’ll only make them more afraid. I keep thinking this, Jio, but you’re a little... greedy.”
“Surely it’s better to be able to enjoy everything?”
“You can do whatever you want. But unless you resort to something evil like manipulating their minds, the fact remains that it won’t be easy.”
“... So time really is the only answer...”
“You’re unusually impatient.”
Yu Seongun folded his arms and asked,
“Is there a reason? You’ve never been one to force friendship on people. If they were afraid, you let them be afraid. If they warmed up to you, you welcomed it...”
“As you said, Seongun, it’s simply my own greed.”
Arjio heaved a sigh.
“It’s my fault for letting them remind me of my family.”
“... Ah. So that’s why.”
Yu Seongun had heard Arjio’s story, too.
‘He grew up in the Black Forest and shared loving times with his beast family, didn’t he?’
Even if they hadn’t been able to speak to one another back then, of course he had loved them. And the races in the Animal Kingdom apparently regarded the evil god as a sort of parent deity. Put simply, he must have felt an enormous, one-sided sense of closeness.
‘In human terms, would it be like an old man who thought he’d lost his entire family discovering he had a distant relative? And if that relative was a boy supporting a family, I suppose I can see why he’d be so desperate to dote on him...’
Except that old man was a loan-shark kingpin, wasn’t he? It was far more natural to interpret his kindness as a passing whim than genuine love.
Strictly speaking, their relationship was so distant that calling him “family” went beyond awkward and seemed outright impossible. Of course they would beg for merciful charity. They would imagine they were being treated more like pets than family or friends.
Even so, they had to fill their starving families’ bellies, hence the desperate attempts to ingratiate themselves. How dearly must they love the families who had barely survived in that barren world?
“Uh... Maybe it’s even more pronounced because they’re animals at their core. Even if they’ve gained human-level intelligence, they’re still wolves and foxes, right? Their reasoning and emotions might be much more instinctive than ours.”
“Considering that the world ended and humans alone were wiped out entirely, that does seem to be the case. It’s quite strange. They can do so much, yet the smarter they are, the stupider their choices... Honestly.”
Clicking his tongue, Arjio straightened up from his slouch in the chair.
“... I feel bad about continually frightening them, so I’ll rein in my greed. A frightening old man they don’t even consider family acting overly familiar would only burden them. They would never grow close to him.”
“Did you read my mind?”
“Oh, it seems we think very much alike. How delightful.”
“That feels a little unsettling.”
In any case, Yu Seongun nodded.
“Try looking at yourself objectively. I understand what you’re saying, but ultimately, you’re an evil god to them, not family or a friend. Maybe you can become that someday, but not right away.”
“I will.”
Jio, too, acknowledged that he had been hasty.
* * *
The crows were wise.
They remembered the longest history. They excelled at strategy, wielded magic with the greatest proficiency, and invented all manner of devices, including equipment to protect their frail, lightweight bodies.
There was no way they could be unaware of the evil god’s presence.
“...”
Perched on a branch, scarcely breathing, he watched the being.
‘Why take human form when he is not human?’
Valf, chief of the crow folk, had been the first of the three to notice Jio’s presence. He flew tirelessly through the Black Forest, trying somehow to sustain this world as it steadily fell apart.
Unfortunately, crows lacked the keen noses of wolves and foxes. But their eyesight was excellent. He knew that the small, black-cloaked human who held sunlight and death within the shadows was no human at all.
‘He looks no different from a human, and yet...’
Valf had seen it.
“...”
A hue steeped in the reek of blood.
He had seen the vast mystery within that noble hide imitating human flesh.
‘Ah, he is a god.’
An unexpected visitor to this broken world.
The thick scent of blood, discernible even to his poor nose, and the fierce wrath filling him to the very tips of his red hair. Yet such a gentle voice. Such benevolent gestures. Those deliberately light footsteps...
Valf, a 114-year-old crow who remembered so much history, realized that he was the “Erased Wrath.”
‘He will be the end, or the beginning.’
Death, or an opportunity.
‘What should I choose?’
No, would he even have a choice?
Valf knew more about the Erased Wrath than anyone else. He was said not only to chew up living creatures alive, but to have regularly accepted living sacrifices from humans, capriciously setting out to hunt whenever the mood struck and throwing the world into chaos.
A cruel beast and a monster who supposedly delighted in taking human form. And the battlefields he created were said to be just as exquisite and beautiful. Valf felt afraid.
‘We are children born of his wrath, but there is no guarantee that he sees us that way. It is very likely he never even noticed us. What attachment could he feel to lives born of a single footstep?’
If there was any hope, it lay in the fact that Jio had shown a fairly sustained interest in creatures with the forms of beasts. What amused him so? That beasts could speak?
“...”
But even that was worth enduring.
‘... Even if it means becoming an evil god’s slaves, the living need mercy now. Even if that mercy mortgages their future, what matters is gaining a chance. Gargal seems to understand that well.’
But that was the lesser evil, not the best outcome.
‘With luck, we may be guaranteed a decent future. But we may yet find ourselves leashed to an evil Divinity as his slaves. Even if our generation has no choice, when I think of the descendants yet to be born, this too is a sin.’
Gargal, chief of the wolf folk, had said that he would place his trust in Jio because Jio had treated him as a friend. But the crow folk were not as steadfast as the wolves. There was no need to cower prematurely like the foxes, but they did need to be more cautious.
“...”
“You there.”
The evil god beneath the tree called to him.
“Yes, you.”
“Caw.”
“You certainly have a great deal on your mind.”
“...”
“I don’t know why everyone thinks so much.”
“... What do you want?”
“I want you to be my friend.”
The words felt sincere, but...
‘What could I see in a god that would let me know he speaks the truth?’
He could not.
A god was a vast mystery no mortal could defy. Whether he knew or not, everything would ultimately come to pass as the god wished. Valf understood that, yet he still worried. He thought and brooded.
For the evil god could extinguish their feeble light with a single gesture.
“The word ‘friend’ is so very empty.”
“Then what are you waiting to hear me say?”
“You seem to find pleasure in everything, and that frightens me. You take human form, yet you are not human, and that frightened us. The words from your mouth are no different from fate, and so they make the world tremble.”
“Well, what if I gave you my word? That I wouldn’t harm you.”
“This insignificant creature cannot trust even that. Forgive me.”
That kindly expression and touch could be fabricated at will. In the end, they had no right to choose. Their ordained fate would come, and the lives that remained had to prepare accordingly.
And so the crow dared to make a proposal.
“Make us your subjects.”
“How is that any different from slavery?”
“Bind us to your soul. Rule us with your tongue, crush us with your hands. Bind us in a contract so that a single glance from you will fill us with joy and rapture.”
“What frightening things you say...”
“I beg for a bargain, not mercy.”
“Oh, you poor thing. You truly consider that a bargain.”
The evil god’s smile deepened.
“I understand your concerns. Yes, inexplicable kindness only makes its recipient more afraid. If I name a price you can understand, timid souls like you will feel reassured.”
For he was merciful wrath.
“And so I refuse.”
“...”
“We have so much time, don’t we, Valf?”
“... You are saying we may rely on you entirely.”
“I was born arrogant, and I know nothing of doing things I dislike. I know I will win in the end, so why should I make a losing move?”
“Your Divinity, have you come to rule this place?”
“I came because I know this place can be better.”
The evil god’s eyes curved into narrow crescents.
“But yes, if you are so anxious, I shall ask a favor of you. That will put me in your debt. Even if the disaster you fear comes to pass someday, won’t you at least have something to plead your case with?”
“Please tell me. I will do as you wish.”
“Find the one who called me.”
It was the voice of a ruler.
“Find the one who called me back to this desolate, silent homeland. It may be a beast, a human you have never seen, or something holding its breath and playing dead.”
Who on earth had summoned this evil god back into the world?
‘... That means someone knows this evil god’s True Name.’
The name of the cruel beast, unknown even to an old crow who had lived 114 years. Someone who knew it had summoned the evil god of war and wrath. And the evil god had answered that summons, standing here now in human form.
Was this the end, or the beginning?
“...”
Now that the god had set him a trial, there was no choice.
“... I will find them.”
“I look forward to it.”
Sensing the beginning of a calamity, Valf took flight.
* * *
“...”
Jio kneaded his face.
‘I suppose I do look rather frightening.’
This damn face of his.
(To be continued)
