Editing Rakuin no Monshou:Volume12 Chapter4 (section)

=== Part 3 ===

''It’s dark.''

The old man gazed at his surroundings with eyes that were as black as night.

He was in the deepest part of the underground of Solon’s Dragon Gods’ temple. Directly beneath the section of a mural that depicted the dragon god Mephius, a long staircase led down to this high-ceilinged room. The floor stretched out in white marble, while huge columns were aligned in orderly rows in the direction that the old man – that Guhl Mephius – was looking in.

The once snow-white silk cloth that he was wearing was slightly stained, exhaustion clung to Guhl’s face like dirt, giving it a slightly dark discolouration, and there was no spark of vitality in his eyes.

From the day that the audience with Crown Prince Gil Mephius had ended, Guhl had tended to stay in his own chambers. He had not shown himself in public, the reason given being that his health had deteriorated.

Then, one night, a short while after Crown Prince Gil had left Solon –

He had been resting in his room when people who claimed to be messengers from Empress Melissa had appeared. They had drawn their swords and, in no time at all, they had mowed down the sentries who were guarding his room. He learned later that Melissa had won over the officer in charge of stationing the guards.

With an attitude that was the very definition of mock courtesy, they had said –

“Please accompany us, Your Majesty. If you remain here, you will be in danger. In order to lead Mephius to its rightful future, please escape from here for now,” and, carrying him on their shoulders, they had borne him off to the Dragon Gods’ temple.

It had been more than ten days since then.

Guhl had been forced into the lowest level of the temple. A meal was brought to him once a day. Their manner was still ostensibly courteous, but it was clear that they had no intention of allowing him to take a single step out of here.

Melissa, the mastermind behind the plot – and the Emperor’s spouse – had not shown herself. He had merely received an oral message from her.

“Your Majesty is exhausted, so I pray that you will wait a while as I take it upon myself to open the path towards the rightful future of Mephius in your stead. Before long, I will, without fail, return you, Your Majesty, to the throne of Mephius, the likes of which has no equal in this world.”

Guhl did not tell her to do as she pleased.

Nor did he try to resist.

All day long, he simply remained within these shadows in which no light shone. When his meal was brought, he ate it mechanically.

During that time, what did he think about? What did he feel?

''Nothing.''

Guhl let out a voice that was not even a whisper.

''I don’t think about anything. I don’t feel anything.''

“That’s a lie,” a voice threw at him.

“What’s a lie?” Guhl glared at a corner of darkness. “A lie, is it? What do you understand about me?”

“I understand. You’re thinking. You never stop thinking. Where did you make a mistake? Or was this actually the correct path after all? Every moment that you are awake… no, even when you fall asleep you still keep questioning yourself over and over again in your dreams.”

“The correct path. A mistake. There are no such things. If you say that what I did was wrong, then ruling through military might cannot be right.”

“That might be so,” the voice’s owner showed no trace of mockery, and his tone was one of utmost sincerity. “If loosening the reins invites chaos, then drawing the reins too tight will cause the appearance of those people who cannot bear the suffocation. Humans cannot become gods, so perhaps they cannot govern over humans after all.”

“I’ve no time for such philosophical views,” Guhl narrowed his eyes, looking as though his gaze could penetrate through the darkness.

Barely any light shone in that underground chamber, but it was currently evening. The view from the highest floor of the palace in Solon, the imperial capital, would spread out far, and to the west, one could surely see the Domick Flats, shining a brilliant red. Lowering one’s gaze and bringing it a little closer, to the manors and granaries in Solon’s surroundings, one would see the specks of human beings who were wiping away the sweat from the last of the day’s toil.

Within the palace’s corridors, soldiers on duty would either be patrolling, or standing guard. Guhl had loved, above all else, looking down onto the valiant sight of armour gleaming in the light of the setting sun.

“You are strong. A strong human being. I know better than anyone that, at the very least, that is what you strove to be.”

“…”
[[Image:Rakuin no Monshou v12 183.jpg|thumb]]
“No… rather than saying that you strove to be strong, maybe it would be better to say that you strove to remove any weakness from yourself. You tried to eradicate all weakness not only from the country or from other people, but especially from yourself. Because you were a strong ruler. Because you were strong, both admirable and imposing, a great ruler who could shoulder the responsibility for everything that happened within the country, and who could lead the way to peace. Because ''you had to be''.”

The shadowy figure remained at a fixed distance from Guhl, neither approaching nor stepping further away. Only the voice oscillated between strong and soft as it spoke, sometimes so fierce that it seemed to hemmer against the old man’s ears, sometimes so gentle that it seemed to tickle them like a breeze.

“But Guhl. It is just as I said before: you are not a god. For all that you claimed that authority, the fact will not change that you are a flesh-and-blood human born from your mother’s womb. Humans cannot incorporate all of the world’s phenomena into their living flesh. So what do you think a human aspiring to be great should do?”

“What should he do?”

“Isn’t that what you were thinking over, Guhl? After being ousted from the throne and brought like a captive from your own room to this cellar, isn’t that what you have constantly, solely, been thinking over?”

Guhl gave a low groan. It was the same, however, as the meaningless words that a child might threaten an opponent with just before getting into a fight.

“Yeah, it’s just as you said. I did ''something'' wrong, and the raised blade which should have protected the people, the blade whose edge should have been bathed in a light that illuminated the world, was smashed. But who can say what that ''something'' is? That’s something for future historians to debate as they sit at their round tables.”

“You are, after all, but one person. Even so. If you could make even a single inference about that ''something'', perhaps you could impart it to your son, Gil Mephius. Even if the life and value of a single human is infinitesimal, as generations pile up one on top of the other, by leaving our words for those who will come after, maybe humans will one day find a path that comes close to the truth. Guhl, don’t religion and history, the tales of legend, the very lives of humans, exist for that sake?”

“…”

At that person’s voice, Guhl no longer answered, no longer got angry, no longer got agitated. No, if it had to be said, he was as unmoving as a statue. Yet the owner of the voice continued, as though he could see through to the very bottom of Guhl’s heart,

“How long has it been since Lady Lana passed away?” He touched upon the part that Guhl least wanted touched, and the old emperor’s eyes, as dark as night itself, suddenly opened wide. “When you lost Lady Lana, you were far more distraught than you had been after the loss of your father and mother. It’s easy to imagine now how you rejected that weakness with all your being. You were different from your father, who had thrown the country into disorder… you were not a weak ruler – so as to convince yourself of that, you firmly shut the lid on your own heart and strove to become strong. One could say that you succeeded splendidly in that. But, at the same time, did you not demand too much strength from others, and from yourself? I think so.”

The instant that the old emperor turned his face away –

“Guhl.”

The shadowy figure, who up until then had maintained a fixed distance from him, was suddenly at Guhl’s side. Close enough to feel breath against his ear.

“You must have already noticed it yourself. The world over which you reigned craves its next era. It hopes and wishes for you to leave. Your eyes are blind. Your ears can barely hear a person’s voice. Be a strong ruler to the end. By willingly admitting your weakness, by accepting defeat, you will become an even stronger ruler, Guhl…”

“Is someone there, Guhl Mephius?”

Another figure approached from beyond the row of columns. One as skinny as a withered tree, yet its steps were firm.

Guhl, whose eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, was immediately able to make him out. Among the elders of the Dragon Gods’ faith, this old man was probably the one considered to be at the very top. Guhl took the time to slowly look around him.

“There doesn’t seem to be anyone here,” he answered in a voice that had gone hoarse. “Or are you saying that your eyes, which excel at discerning the supernatural, can see someone other than me here? Is their heart beating, and does their blood flow?”

“Such nonsense. Emperor Guhl, looking at you like this, you are no different from any other lonely old man. With no luxurious toga, no crystal staff, no crown upon your head, no gallant soldiers standing to protect you, spear in hand, you are just like an elderly man talking to himself because there is no one else around.”

“Did you come all the way here just to say that? I’d heard that you couldn’t even get up anymore, but now that you’ve managed to get better, you have a strange way of entertaining yourself.”

“That’s right, I came here to make a fool of you,” the elder approached Guhl one step at a time. “You who have abandoned your former ideals, dreams and ambitions are no more than the empty husk of ‘Emperor Guhl’. Just like every other human, with the passing of the years, the spirit which maintained your desires has eroded. I once watched the future for you, so seeing you like this is lonely for me too.”

Drawing closer, they were now face-to-face. Yet the elder did not stop.

Emperor Guhl’s eyes once again opened wide. He had felt something. Cold that seemed to pierce his body, heat like a fire that could boil the blood inside him – a strange atmosphere that seemed to have altered the very world around him.

As they faced each other, the elder’s eyes seemed to be emitting a pale light. With the light from beneath his heavy, drooping eyelids came shock great enough to oppress body and mind, and it certainly licked against Guhl’s pale face.

“You bastard,” Guhl’s voice came out hoarse. It was the voice of a man whose throat was being squeezed by someone’s hands, and his expression was twisted with pain.

The elder had finally arrived within a hair’s breadth of Guhl. At that point, he should finally have stopped, but –

“Stop,” howled Guhl. “Don’t come! Don’t come any closer!”

That was how it seemed to Guhl. Even though the elder’s steps had stopped, he was still drawing closer to Guhl. ''Something'', like a hazy flame imperceptible to the naked eye – yet at the same time, he could tell that it was the elder himself, that ''something'' that was like a soul, was being released from within that body that was like a withered tree. As though to prove that it had been released from the fetters of flesh, it continued to advance without stopping even as it came into contact with Guhl’s body.

“Guwaaaah!”

The emperor’s knees hit the floor.

''That'' fit itself perfectly over the emperor’s face, chest, arms and now started encroaching into the inside of him.

“I can no longer choose my means,” the voice seemed to ring from inside Guhl, striking directly against his brain. “I will be taking your body. At the very least, I will turn all of Mephius into my shrine. Every man, woman and child will become offerings to my sorcery. What, at most it will only be a matter of erasing a single country’s name from the map of the world. I have already witnessed such things so many times that I’m bored of it. I only need to do this once more…”



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| Forward to [[Rakuin_no_Monshou:Volume12_Chapter5|Chapter 5]]
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