“Humans were destroyed by humans.”
She started speaking quietly.
She paused and took a sip of the tea I just brewed, then glared at the clear amber liquid shaking in the tea cup. As if she has some complain about the tea I brewed.
“The taste is horrible.”
She does. How rude.
“I heard that you could at least brew tea.”
“Of course, something like that is easy, but unfortunately I am a weapon and am not made to care for the elderly. Putting effort into brewing tea for them is even more ridiculous. Aberta, did you know? Scissors are meant for cutting. Is there a fool that would use scissors to brew tea? Are you listening to me you fool?”
While responding to her sour look with a smile, I slowly raised my middle finger. It seems it is a historical gesture that was used in the distant past. Whether or not she gets its meaning, I would be glad if Yahime-chan’s sincere feelings gets through.
This Yahime-chan reluctantly allowed you to use me, yet you still complain, who do you think you are. In the first place it is her mistake for asking for the wrong service. It is fine to treasure culture, but that is for humans or those that imitate them. Definitely not my, a weapon’s domain.
“Can’t something be done about that tone of yours.”
“That is wholly unexpected. I have already sugarcoated my words a lot.”
“……what happens if you don’t.”
“Go to hell old hag.”
“Got it. I’ll continue talking.”
Yahime-chan thinks that’s a good idea too.
“The impetus, was a single man.”
Aberta started speaking in a steady tone.
A familiar story.
I heard a similar story in a certain winter, when I was learning many things from Envy. The start of the battle known as the god world war. I was taught that the calamity that burned the world started from a single man.
“That man——came from outside this planet.”
She spoke of the truth of this world that I had always looked for.
In that age when humanity was at their peak of prosperity, when science was at it’s peak, it was at the same time the age when the problem of limited resources was the most severe.The population that grew with the prosperity of science exhausted the resources on the planet, leading to the outbreak of wars all over the world over the remaining few resources.
Above all else, it seems that the fight for water was fiercest. The water that is absolutely necessary for survival was overwhelmingly lacking in that age. The oceans were extinct and the rivers flowing from the polluted mountains could not be used by living things.
“In that nightmarish age, there was someone that came from outside the planet. That man with powers that did not exist on this planet, scattered it throughout the planet for some unknown reason. He was clearly a savior. The miraculous power that could make up for the exhausted resources was equally distributed among humanity.”
“That is the truth behind the magic we use?”
“To be precise, it is the unknown energy we call mana. Although there are individual differences and aptitudes, if one can use it, it is a miraculous power that can produce water out of nothing. That was a powerful gift to humanity. Do you know? How do humans describe power beyond their understanding?”
God.
“The gift granted to them saved humanity.”
The energy of a different dimension brought in from outside the planet. That energy that cannot be analysed on this planet solved the problem of exhausted resources that was killing the planet and removed the reason for wars among humans. An ideal world where everyone can live in peace had arrived.
Or it should have.
“But, more than that, the gift killed humanity.”
——war has made humanity evolve.
Long ago, I read that somewhere in a book. That book described a distant past beyond my imagination, scenery I have never seen and it expressed the wisdom and foolishness of the creature known as humans.
“If something new is born, humans would use it as weapons. Humans are smart. Even if they could not understand it, they could use it. The gift that could erase war was not used to obtained peace, but used as power to conquer war. Thereafter, war showed dramatic evolution and eventually weapons of mass slaughter beyond human understanding was created.”
Weapons of mass slaughter beyond human understanding.
What would humans call those, the answer was given just now.
“Is that the existence we call gods?”
I glanced at Friend next to me.
He is also like us, an existence created by humans. Most of it is as expected. It fits with Friend’s story. But there are still many curious points. And for quite a critical part.
“The existence we……no, humans called god, their true identity is ideal weapons of mass slaughter made in the early stages of the war, designed to continuously seek out and slaughter enemies, even repairing any damage received. In a sense, our prototypes. The war among humans shifted to how they could send these weapons into the enemy country.”
“……no wonder they went extinct.”
Humans that cannot use magic have no way to oppose god. It is not clear how powerful the weapons of old were, but it is doubtful that they worked on gods. And they sent those into the enemy countries, there is already no hope for them. They probably repeated that dozens, hundreds of times. Until there was no one left in the country.
“Which means the machine-like gods currently wandering around the world are remnants of the war?”
“Like I said. The prototypes created in the early stages of the war continuously seek out and slaughter enemies. Thus they have no will and if they are damaged enough to stop functioning, it is possible to take control of them.”
Gods that have received severe wounds do spend a few weeks to repair themselves. With that time, it might be possible to rewrite their programming.
“The Five Emperors, or rather, the transcended ones come about like that?”
“Individuals among us that can defeat gods are rare though.”
I feel like there’s quite a few though.
Anyway, the secret behind the gods rampaging through the world has been revealed.
The reason they attack humans is because they are made for that purpose. It makes sense that they attack us who have the same form as humans. That is also probably one of the reasons we look like humans.
“I have two questions.”
“About Ilveng=Nazgul?”
“Then let us start from that.”
After all this friend never talks about himself.
Even if he tells me about the world in the past, he does not talk about what he was doing then. He does not talk about what happened then. He does not talk about what he felt then. As if there are bitter memories.
“He is the result of the search for more powerful weapons. Humans granted that monster over there and other similar weapons of all things, intelligence. The result is as the humans expected, they instantly destroyed countries. These weapons were a whole different class from previous weapons, it became a new age of war. The monsters with intelligence destroyed. They destroyed countries and people. Enemies, and allies.”
What have you done.
How much do you think Yahime-chan is suffering because there are no humans. Please reflect on your actions a little. You? You are humanity’s enemy? No, but humans were the ones that made you. Humans, they’re quite stupid.
“The abilities of gods with consciousness was terrifying. The older gods stood no chance, to defend their own countries, humans had no choice but to make their own weapons self-conscious. By that time, humans did not have the time nor leisure to be careful. By the time they realised their mistake, it was no longer a war among humans, it had become a war between humans and gods.”
And so it became a situation where humans could not fight among themselves. The gods released into the world went on rampages one after another, the monsters with consciousness hunted humans out of their own will and humans had no means to resist.
So——
“So we were created.”
That smile was one I had never seen before, one of self-ridicule.
That expression that she, the one that stands at the summit of the empire, showed for the first time surprised me a little. A display of emotion by the one who always has an unconcerned look.
“Unlike the gods made in the early stages of the war, we had bodies resembling humans and could not endure the burden of the gift. The most we use it, the more we are worn down and eventually break. Don’t you think we were made well?”
They needed self-conscious weapons to oppose self-conscious gods.
We were made to love humans, so we never questioned it.
But that’s basically what it means.
Once the truth is known, it becomes clear. If gods were made by humans, then we are also weapons made by humans. The reason only we face magic necrosis. The reason only we have human form. And the reason we love humans.
“Humans probably wished for that.”
That we do not survive.
“They learnt. They learnt that power too great cannot be controlled. So we were made to be down-scaled, short-lived and unable to bear the burden of the gift. Made to love humans and to die quickly if by some chance we rampaged. Because the more we use magic, the more we break.”
Basically, yes.
“We are expendable.”
I suddenly recalled the humanoids’ words.
“Yet we still love humans.”
……sad, foolish weapons, huh.
the end
Yahime-chan…….seems like Nanaki but pride as weapon instead of pride as human……?