novelraw Chapter 289
Chapter 289
Chapter 289
There were no mages waiting at the Small Mage Tower.
It was partly because Aphoom-Zhah had been revealed as Eibon's successor,
And above all, they were busy recovering the people who had gone mad, and also had to investigate what had happened at the Mage Tower as he, Aphoom-Zhah, and Yurik had testified.
In short, it was a disaster brought on by extreme manpower shortage.
He thought Aphoom-Zhah was just a god, but he could also play the role of a disaster.
[Believer. What is this?]
"It's called a Small Mage Tower. I heard it's a kind of convenience facility modeled after the Mage Tower Eibon built."
[Is that so? So from here we can go to the tiny country you mentioned?]
"Yes."He climbed onto the stone platform of the Small Mage Tower where faint traces remained.
Aphoom-Zhah also followed and climbed up beside him.
They stood there for a moment, staring blankly at each other.
"What are you doing?"
[Wasn't I supposed to get on?]
"No. We need to use magic to move. You're the only one who can operate magical power."
[Believer. What are you talking about? To use magic, you need to chant incantations or perform rituals. Didn't you hear what I taught Eibon?]
"I remember. But you're a god, and I thought something like teleportation magic would be simple."
[Of course going to another place is child's play for this body. But do I have to use the magic formula drawn on the Small Mage Tower? Or can this body just go wherever I want?]
"Uh..."
He was flustered because Aphoom-Zhah asked about more detailed aspects than expected.
How would he know? Until just a few days ago, he had been a body melted and stuck together with Shub-Niggurath.
There was no way he could now understand things like the connection between teleportation magic and Small Mage Towers.
"Well, I think since humans don't have as much magical power as you or Eibon, they put magic formulas and such in Small Mage Towers in advance. Or should I say offerings to supplement insufficient magical power, anyway I think they add such things?"
[Are you certain, believer?]
"...It's a guess."
[An uncertain fact, also known as brain speculation.]
"Don't talk like a modern Korean! You're a god. The god of ice!"
[Are you annoyed? This body will do as it pleases. Anyway, I understand. If I don't necessarily have to use this thing.]
Aphoom-Zhah left the Small Mage Tower with its collapsed roof and went to a spot a few steps away.
This time he followed Aphoom-Zhah and asked.
"You'll do it? Will it be okay?"
[What wouldn't be okay? This country is truly pleasant for this body to move in. How refreshing and cold the wind is.]
"Normal people would freeze to death?"
[Don't nitpick, unbeliever. The snow and ice accumulated nearby are my power, and I can also use the unbeliever's magical power. Come here.]
When he clasped Aphoom-Zhah's cold hand, he felt chills.
Wind rippled at their feet. Snow flew up and swirled around them.
To be able to use it immediately without any preparation process for using magic.
Indeed, a god was a god. Then with just Aphoom-Zhah, they could go anywhere they wanted from any country.
While thinking this and recalling his first teleportation magic experience at Aquilonia's Small Mage Tower,
He vaguely remembered what the Small Mage Tower's resident mage had said.
-Spacetime cross-verification number, confirmed. Next year is the renewal date, so be careful.
-Royal castle teleportation magic coordinates?
-Ah! Here they are. If the destination coordinates are designated as planetary year 34...
Oh, wait.
Could it be that when teleporting to another space, things like destination coordinates were needed?
What would happen without coordinates? Wait, and he had only told Aphoom-Zhah they needed to go to 'Aquilonia.'
Could this be...
"Aphoom-Zhah, wait! Stop, sto-"
Before he could finish speaking, he felt the ground drop out from under his feet,
At the same time, familiar nausea and dizziness rushed in, making him squeeze his eyes shut.
* * *
-Baaaa.
-Baaa.
Goats swarmed throughout the small mountain village.
Black goats, white goats, gray goats.
Mixed together regardless of fur color, the goats carelessly ransacked the village.
Goats that found good grass to eat began plucking tender leaves without moving from that spot,
While those that couldn't sat in the shade, ruminating something while watching other goats.
-Baaaaa.
-Baaaaaa.
Jingle, jingle.
Clear bell sounds rang out.
The goats stopped eating grass or dozing and all began staring in one direction at once.
And when one started going that way,
Other goats joined in, forming a huge livestock herd.
The goat herd marched through the center of the village.
They passed collapsed houses, broken fences, half-destroyed doors, mules tied up and foaming at the mouth in fright, and several corpses looking at the sky with unfocused eyes.
Like innocent children going on their first picnic,
The goats also followed the bell sound, chorusing happily with their cries as they passed through the ruined village.
The bell sound was coming from a livestock pen attached to an ordinary hut where smoke was rising thinly.
On the floor messily covered with straw, several villagers were unable to control their bodies.
Standing before them was a female form wearing not a single thread.
Her hands and feet were stained with red blood, and with her shoulders and back straight, she looked majestic as if she knew no shame despite people being in front of her.
She observed her hand and five fingers as if interested, wiggling them, then turned her eyes to the people staggering as if drunk.
[Why don't you give birth?]
The voice fashioned by borrowing the vocal cords of a once-living human was rough and scratchy.
The people couldn't even raise their heads at the overlapping voice that sounded like two or more voices.
[Why don't you give birth. There are males and females here. Mate and give birth to offspring.]
At first hearing, it might sound simply like a madwoman with a deranged mind,
But to the people in the livestock pen, it came with a different meaning.
It came as meaning to mate in the pen like animals, stimulating their shame,
And at the same time, they got chills knowing it was said sincerely.
Among them, someone gathered courage and shouted.
"L-let us go! We're going to leave here, once we get out and people from other villages come!"
[Let you go?]
"Yes! Evil thing! We're not animals! Let us out of here!"
To the villagers, she was a terrible murderer without any context or reason.
They had been enjoying a peaceful and boring day as always,
When one naked woman who brought hundreds of goats destroyed the entire village and kidnapped people, throwing them into the pen.
If it were bandits or thieves, they could at least understand,
But there was no reason for her actions.
Conversely, the female entity also didn't understand the people.
The animals outside, when males and females were put together, naturally mated and had offspring.
What was different between these things and the animals outside?
The animals she encountered for only the second time after acquiring divine status were quite troublesome and violent.
The female entity didn't understand the difference between humans and animals,
And began looking for the cause of things not going as she wanted in her own existence.
She wanted life. She wanted to bless new births. She wanted to watch the permanence created by these short lives intertwining.
Prosperity, and prosperity, abundance filling this planet.
While the female entity stood blankly, the villagers were watching carefully.
Though the suddenly silent female entity was unsettling, conversely, some change might be happening.
One villager huddled among the people glanced at the female entity.
While doing so, with sweaty hands, he quietly grasped a rusty piece of metal buried under the straw.
The female entity had a blank, spaced-out expression, her gaze directed half into the air.
Now. If it's now!
"Die!"
It was a moment no one expected.
The person who jumped out from among the people and charged at the female entity,
Finally stabbed the piece of metal he was holding into the female entity's stomach.
For a normal person, it would surely be a fatal wound.
The person let go of the metal piece with trembling hands. What had dug deep into the flesh wouldn't fall out.
He had done it. Now they were saved.
The moment the person barely moved his facial muscles to smile,
A hand as strong as a hook grabbed his neck and lifted him into the air.
"Kh, khuk!"
[Blessing.]
The female entity muttered.
The female entity's eyes seen up close flickered like green smoke swirling in pitch-black darkness.
[I gave blessings to those things. They don't give birth to offspring because they don't have blessings. I understand.]
She had found the answer. The female entity carefully laid down the weak, old human, the animal she had been holding.
Even the behavior of struggling and scratching arms or backs was interpreted as sufficient vitality for bearing offspring.
The female entity tore and threw away the villager's clothes and began looking for a suitable space to conceive offspring.
Blood-soaked hands left red traces as they passed from the person's forehead to nose bridge, lips, chin, neck, chest, and solar plexus.
The place where the hand finally stopped was the flat, smooth stomach.
This bipedal animal was a bit different from quadrupedal animals.
But still, the process of conceiving offspring and the organ that held them might be the same.
Even if not, it would be solved by creating an organ that could hold offspring.
The female entity swung her hand without any hesitation and split the skin.
Tearing screams and blood splattered everywhere. A black goat walked slowly over the rotting straw, jumping over the pen's fence.
-Baaa.
[Good one.]
The glossy black goat was by no means small in size.
The female entity stroked the goat's head, then kissed it, promising a new life to her child.
The flesh shall be discarded but the spirit shall be whole. I shall show a new world to your thousands of spirits.
The goat was likewise caught in the female entity's grasp. But this animal was a faithful beast that absolutely obeyed her.
The female entity began kneading the goat. Literally, until that large body could fit in both palms.
Until it shrank to a modest size, she continued kneading the living muscles and bone fragments.
The villagers who saw this scene screamed and fainted,
Or vomited at the too disgusting sight and cried, or began laughing madly with their eyes open.
The sounds of scratching the floor, laughter, and crying were chaotic. The stench of vomit and fishy smell mixed to irritate the nasal passages.
This reality couldn't be happening.
This was a dream. A nightmare. A nightmare that would surely disappear when they woke up.
Everyone gave up thoughts of escaping, even gave up hope that people from other villages would come.
Blood splattered with splashing sounds. The female entity stood up, preciously holding what had been a goat.
[Here.]
"S-save me, no. No, noooo!"
But an animal with its stomach split had no right to refuse.
The female entity who had planted the seed of a subspecies in human intestines put her ear to the stomach of the dying, bleeding human.
Pulse. Wriggling movement. Her child nestled in the cooling muscles and organs.
[Be born.]
Quickly, quickly be born. Reveal yourself to the world.
In an animal's body wearing another animal's body, and when that animal mates with another animal to give birth to offspring.
In the distant future, fill the planet and eventually all rot and decay.
All of you shall become the foundation for other life to be born.
The sacrifice's entire body bulged up. The violent movements under all the skin became intense,
Then there was a 'child' that broke through the briefly inhabited body and revealed itself.
A huge monster born bleeding black blood from its forehead.
The appearance of a half-human half-beast with multiple horns resembled both the goat that had been female and the human that had been male.
What shook off the blood-soaked, clinging fur used hooves and fingers strangely.
The monster born with a bent back in a posture that couldn't crawl or stand breathed roughly.
The female entity placed her hand on its foreleg.
The hot, damp body temperature was that of newly born life.
She personally wiped the lowered head of the half-human half-beast's forehead with her hand. Then the black blood stopped flowing.
The female entity was pleased with it. When the goat lowered its body, the female entity climbed onto the back of its neck.
The female entity who sat with her legs together to one side felt her eye level gradually rising as the goat raised its head.
Refreshing wind, my creatures, my children.
A land of joy where all life wriggles.
She who held one of the monster goat's horns in one hand and a bell calling her children in the other.
Her body stained red looked as if wearing red clothes.
A divine being that belonged to nothing, desiring only life to be born in the future.
She rang the bell and said.
[My children, you shall now escape the vessels of beasts and prosper. Since you and humans are not greatly different, mix with humans and come as my kin.]
Screams rang from below. The unpleasant noise of flesh and joints being torn and broken was the gateway to becoming her children.
The female entity continued speaking.
[An old story calls to me from afar. I am the one who gives birth to you. As the 'Great Mother,' I shall embrace them.]
The huge monster began moving slowly while carrying her.
Jingle, jingle.
Among the shouts and pained groans, screams and wails, only the bell sound rang clearly and gradually faded away.
It was one and a half days before the savior came to Aquilonia.