novelraw Chapter 132 : Chapter 132
Chapter 132 : Chapter 132
Chapter 132: Answer Me, Human (1)
“I always thought.”
Monica spoke while resting her hand on the table.
Abel's silhouette was situated within her amber eyes.
“That Teacher is a strange person.”
But, she thought.
Monica continued her words.
The word strange does not seem appropriate.
She harbored such a thought at the same time as she spoke. Is a human residing on a sandy beach with a table and a chair strange? Is he merely a strange human at most? It had been three days since they arrived at Portsmouth, and Monica had not seen Abel eat anything. She had not seen him take sleep either. Abel did not drink a sip of water, nor did he enjoy even a brief nap.
“……But it is a lie, isn't it? Right?”
The words that you have no need to eat,
And that you have become unable to sleep.
Monica whispered like that.
“Because a human like that cannot possibly…….”
“It exists.”
Sit down.
Abel spoke while rising from his chair.
“Sit and listen.”
There was only one chair placed by the table.
Abel yielded it to Monica. He gestured with his chin for her to sit after he stood up from the seat. Monica stood still with her eyes raised, but soon leaned her back against the chair and thought. That not even a slight body heat could be felt.
“I have become having no need to eat.”
Abel spoke with an indifferent expression.
“To be precise, I have become unable to eat. Even if I try to swallow something, I do not feel the taste. Only pain is felt.”
“……Pain?”
Monica's brows narrowed.
She remembered the meals she had with Abel at the dormitory. Foods that looked fine but tasted nasty. Abel's face as he swallowed them came to mind. He looked too silent to be suffering pain.
On the other hand, she thought she didn't quite know. Wondering what kind of pain could disrupt Abel's expression.
“I also became unable to sleep. From a certain moment, it became like that. It always feels like I will fall asleep, but my eyes do not close.”
But it is fine.
Because I am used to it now.
Abel muttered like that.
“……You got used to it?”
How foolish.
To think I can only ask back.
Monica sighed. Abel's words were beyond the scope of Monica's perception. A human who suffers pain every time they eat something, or a human who has become unable to sleep anymore; it felt absurd, like an existence appearing only in a fairy tale.
“Teacher is…….”
Therefore, she harbored another question.
She asked while hugging the children's book based on the Hero's prophecy,
“……You are human, right?”
“Did I not say I am?”
Abel shrugged his shoulders.
Monica was young. She was a young human.
She hadn't lived long, and the breadth of the world she had traversed was narrow. Therefore, she was rather certain. Humans eat something. They seek sleep at times. They know how to savor taste and know how to dream. They must do so. Abel, who came not to know taste and not to dream, had deviated from the category of human that Monica knew. There was no room for imagination for Monica.
“Monica, stand up.”
Abel was different.
He had lived too long, and the breadth of the world he had traversed was vast. Therefore, he rather could not be certain. With what should the race called human be described.
“Come this way.”
He just gestured toward Monica.
Standing in the middle of the sandy beach, telling her to come closer.
“What did you feel looking at Pnakotic's Sensory Stone?”
“I told you.”
Monica rose from the chair.
Standing opposite Abel, she opened her mouth.
“I had the thought that it was a total mess.”
It means it is hard to believe.
Monica added in a small voice.
“It is hard to believe the fact that human sacrifice took place, and the fact that it has been continuing until now. The religion that feeds people to monsters is the same. To think something like this has existed for hundreds of years…….”
It gives me goosebumps.
To the extent that it is hard to say anything…….
Monica spoke like that, and,
“It must be so. It will be hard to say anything.”
Abel nodded once.
Subsequently, he bent his body. He placed his palm on a bulging mound of sand. He swept the sand away just like that to make the surface flat.
“Touch it.”
“Why?”
“I am doing this to teach you.”
Abel held a faint smile.
“What kind of existence a human is?”
“No, I mean…….”
What does that have to do with this?
While muttering quietly, Monica followed Abel's words.
She bent one knee, sat down, and reached out her hand. Monica's hand rose onto the center of the sandy beach that Abel had swept. The still small hand dug into the sand and created a mark. Abel covered such a hand of Monica with his own.
It is really cold.
Staring at Abel, Monica thought.
“Close your eyes.”
“Understood.”
While Monica's eyes closed gently,
“Try flowing your Aura.”
Deep into the ground.
Abel whispered.
“……My Aura?”
“Yes. Just as you put Aura into a sword.”
Monica pursed her lips.
It was an unfamiliar usage method. Although the ways to use Aura were diverse, Monica had only used methods of wrapping Aura around a sword or concentrating it on one part of the body.
What will happen if I pour Aura into the ground? harboring such a question, Monica examined inside her body. She concentrated the strands of Aura extending from her heart to her fingertips. The green Aura was shaped into the form of a grass stem and wrapped around Monica's hand, and,
“Blow it into the ground just like that.”
At the same time Abel spoke,
Monica's Aura dug into the sand, and,
“This is…….”
Monica muttered with her eyes closed.
Something was visible. She was keeping her eyes closed, but all sorts of curves shimmered in the pitch darkness. While whitish thread-like things were entangled haphazardly, a lump of light was wriggling in a very distant place.
“It will be visible.”
Abel whispered.
“The Ley Line, the vein of the land, that is.”
The vein of the land……, she thought.
Monica repeated Abel's words. The Ley Line, the so-called vein of the land. The whitish twisted curves were like blood vessels. The lump of light twinkling beyond the Ley Line was like a heart, and it seemed to be maintaining the ground by beating regularly.
“It means your Aura has made contact with the Ley Line.”
Abel explained like that.
What Monica witnessed was the blood vessel of the World God, and the vein of the land called the Ley Line. Although her eyes were closed, she could observe it through Aura. Then, what is that thing beating wildly like a heart? Abel told her. That it is a Spirit's Nest.
“A Spirit's Nest?”
“That is right.”
Abel nodded.
“A Spirit that has finished growing becomes a natural object. After being entangled with each other, they become rocks and become lakes. Such Spirits are buried deep underground after a long time, become a nest to give birth to new Spirits, and meanwhile breathe vitality into the Ley Line.”
“……It is complicated.”
After a Spirit forms nature,
When time passes, it is buried like a corpse.
Thus, it becomes a nest. While giving birth to new Spirits to add vitality to nature, it becomes an organ supporting the Ley Line and beats for a long time. The world operates as this cycle repeats. Monica understood it like that. Because it was complicated, she couldn't easily organize it.
“You do not have to understand.”
Instead of understanding, try to resonate.
Abel whispered like that.
“Just like digging out soil with your hands, extend your Aura toward a deeper place.”
Monica followed Abel's words.
She poured out the Aura inside her body with all her might. Targeting the Spirit's Nest glowing in the distance.
Abel watched with his eyes open. The stream of Aura Monica shaped was being injected into the sand. It seemed as if the ground shook briefly. For a very short moment, the sandy beach covered with skeletal corpses seemed to squirm. The Spirit's Nest that noticed Monica's existence had convulsed.
“The light is waving.”
Monica watched with her eyes closed. The Spirit's Nest, so to speak, the heart of the land. It was spread out before Monica's eyes.
No, it is different. Shaking her head, Monica thought. She wasn't seeing with her eyes, but seeing with her mind. Monica's conviction had reached the side of the land's heart.
“No, it is different. It is not light.”
Monica muttered quietly.
When viewed from afar, it was nothing more than a lump of light, but looking closely, it was unmistakably a heart. The translucent heart was sucking something in. At the same time, it was spitting it out. It seemed to be holding things from outside the Ley Line and blowing them into the Ley Line.
“And also…….”
Monica tilted her head.
Something was stuck in the Spirit's Nest.
It looked like she was seeing an old grate, and it also looked like she was seeing a rotten branch. There was one certain fact. The Spirit's Nest was overwhelmed with pain. While sucking in all sorts of pitch-black things, it was barely spewing out a faint stream of light into the Ley Line after retching.
“It means Divine Punishment has been brought down.”
Abel muttered like that.
That what is stuck in the Spirit's Nest is a bone fragment of the Mother God,
And malice, resentment, greed. That what the Spirit's Nest is sucking in are human impurities. That the malice of the ancient people remaining in Portsmouth polluted the Spirit's Nest, and furthermore made even the Mother God inflict punishment.
“Humans can make all of this possible.”
SLIP.
Abel clenched strength into his hand.
He wrapped around Monica's hand and lifted it just like that.
Scattering sand grains. The startled Monica opened her eyes wide. Facing Abel, she mumbled with her lips.
“Polluting the whole world…….”
Abel whispered in a dry tone.
“And making even the Main Gods wrathful. If there is no end to goodwill, there must be no end to malice either. This is the possibility the race called human possesses.”
So, wouldn't it be possible.
Even a human like me who became unable to eat and unable to sleep……,
“If one commits too many mistakes, one can exist.”
Abel raised his body.
Because he committed mistakes? Is that really so?
Standing upright following Abel, Monica questioned. Perhaps Abel had received a curse. Since he became unable to enjoy the pleasure of dining and the comfort of sleep. At least Monica was thinking so.
But if she insists on stubbornness, if she thinks about it in a good way, he might have received a blessing. Since the event of starving disappeared, and he became able to utilize more time than others.
‘Either way, it doesn't matter.’
Monica turned her head.
She thought while looking at the seaside where dusk was casting.
‘Whether he received a curse or received a blessing…….’
If he received a curse, how evil was he?
If he received a blessing, how good was he?
Was that why he ended up like that? That was the only question left to Monica.
“How can you return?”
Thus, Monica asked.
While calming her fluttering hair.
“For Teacher to return to a normal person……, what do you have to do?”
“I do not know.”
Abel answered without hesitation.
As if that much was fine whatever happened.
“We must worry about a different problem.”
Not my problem,
But we must worry about this land.
Abel muttered like that.
“How can we silence the Divine Punishment brought down on this land? Can we restore the polluted nature? How can we resolve the old malice? Time is insufficient to even worry about this. So from now on…….”
Abel, who was staring at the sea, turned around.
It was because he noticed a presence. Monica also turned around along with Abel. While the day was setting, footprints were imprinted one by one on the breakwater built on the outskirts of the sandy beach.
“……Let us find the answer.”
Together with everyone.
Abel muttered in a quiet tone.
Above the breakwater,
Demian and Eleanor stood. Roberta and Pnakotic stood. Ernst and Lizer stood.
Along with them, humans stood. People, people, people. The descendants of the ancient people who defiled this land had just arrived. All of them were looking down at Abel. With expressions determined on something.
‘Are the preparations all finished?’
Taking a step forward, Abel thought.
The seawater spread behind his back was stoutly black, but Abel did not look back.
‘It is time to start the hunt.’
He just thought.
That he had finally ensured perfection.