Chapter 542

It is him again. The one who could have been anyone, but gradually became someone he could no longer be.

Beneath the evening glow, he sees the morning sunlight. He sees the pure white light that once spread through his eyes in hundreds of different hues, and draws farther away from the misguided clergy who claim that only they are the light, and from the countless minds that claim he must be killed because he is their light. From the innocent minds spread across the continent.

He remembers something a great writer once conveyed to him through his words, something he had come to understand for himself.

Only God resists the world.

The reason those words reached him, despite his refusing to entertain even the slightest notion of an omniscient God in human form, was that he understood they had nothing to do with the earthly dispute over whether God exists or not. Some truths transcend all distinctions and reach one another regardless of how they are divided.

He does not worship God. He does not even believe God exists. Yet he reached out toward those words written by a religious person because he understood them beyond all the classifications and distinctions of the world.

The God of that great writer does not mean an absolute being in human form, standing firmly with both feet against the heavens. The God here was the lowest of the low.

That God was not some supreme being meant to be worshipped, but was found among the lowest of the low—those whom humanity refused to recognize as human, those who were therefore discriminated against and killed, those beaten to death by people whose minds were childish enough to throw stones, and those burned alive simply because they had lived lives free from the prejudices and pressures of others.

Those were the ones who truly resisted the world. Not religion. Not intellectuals.

I am suffering in the world you have made.

I am being burned alive in your world.

I am trapped here, starving to death.

A voice that shatters the peace of a world built by those who refuse to think, making everyone uncomfortable.

A cry that makes everyone cover their ears and calls forth everyone’s stones.

The true God made manifest in the lowest place.

In the lives of those people lies the Logos called God, a certain truth called the Logos. The truth that they must not be ignored.

And so, despite being an atheist whose beliefs would enrage the religious establishment, he finds himself reaching toward the words of that great writer—the person who believed that humans existed first, and that God was born afterward.

Among people, he had always been slow to understand. But today, after reaching the end of countless questions, he had finally become capable of shedding tears for them. He grieved for the dead and those who killed them in different ways, feeling sorrow for both.

Perhaps, as some had said, the reason he had never shed a tear even while grieving his own death was because he had been born with a defective brain. Or perhaps it was because, having experienced his own death, he had finally become able to hear the deaths of those lower than himself and their cries of grief. Sometimes, certain hardships open a new path.

He had always known better than anyone that, despite being born seemingly wrapped in everything the world considered desirable, he had never truly been among the lowest. And so now he wanted to descend to the lowest place himself.

He would pity the murderers who were certain to fall to the lowest places and die there, accept that he could not change their foolishness all at once, and thereby accept fate. Even without knowing what would come afterward, he would do what he could from where he stood.

But the person before him said that the way he was descending was wrong.

Perhaps that was why the person before him would ultimately allow him to transcend even further. That was what he meant by becoming someone who resisted. It was not a call to stop lowering his head. Quite the opposite—it was a call to descend even farther, to an even lower place.

But he said this: descending in the way you did today is an injustice.

A cry to resist fate tore through the heavy air.

Resist the injustice inflicted upon a single human being when the thoughtlessness fundamentally identical to what the world had inflicted upon those at the bottom, and the tens of thousands of years of injustice it had allowed, came full circle.

Even though he had grown up in a poverty of spirit where it was difficult to know what affection was, he had never gone hungry, never lacked someone at his side, and had never had his personhood worn away by severe discrimination. He had not been among the lowest.

But wherever you are, your death is an injustice!

The person before him cried out with all his strength.

Because it was a killing born from the very same root as the deaths of those at the bottom.

This was the injustice committed by fate. And so he could not remain silent here.

I’ll make sure your voice is heard by everyone. So go and cry out…

He thought of the future that accepting this death would bring. He knew it would lead to the endless deaths of those even lower than himself. And so, for a moment, he came to his senses.

The next moment that would awaken his soul came soon after.

「So if I were to ask you to be angry instead of letting you devote your whole self to having compassion for everyone.」 He listens to the words of the person before him, whom he feels a tender affection for, almost as though he were his own descendant. 「Then I would be committing an injustice that would endure for generations.」

At that moment, he sees the twisted expression on the face of the person named Leonard Wittelsbach. It is the face of someone forcing down, through sheer will, the fear of the unknown stretching before him like an endless sea, the terror that makes him hesitate to take another step.

He discovers in him not the pleasurable, self-satisfied justice he had seen on the faces of those who reached out toward him, but a justice born of grueling hardship. He can already see the resignation and longing of someone breaking away from the past he once knew.

Ah.

The moment he realizes this, the crack widens beyond control.

He knows what resolve Leonard Wittelsbach has governed his life with, and he knows the path he has walked. And yet, now, he has made his friend choose to commit an injustice that would endure for generations.

No.

His friend has declared that he will commit an injustice that would endure for generations—for his sake.

Once, he had wanted to preserve his innocence¹.

That resolve was wrong.

You shine even as you are broken.

Because an undying fervor and determination remain within you, you walk into the mud of your own accord, no one asking you to, and break yourself apart only to remake yourself once more. I realize that even if I lock you away in a beautiful world, you would still break and remake yourself again and again.

He does not grow angry with those who are poor in spirit, just as an old man does not grow angry when a child strikes him with a fist.

What is thought? What is contemplation? What is reflection? What is waiting, and when should all these things take place?

A foolish farmer who hastily sets their fields on fire because their crops will not grow, only to discover later that the sprouts had already taken root, is not foolish the moment they recognise their mistake.

But the moment they decided to believe that there was nothing wrong with them for striking the earth with a torch in their hand—that the fault lay in the dry soil, in the sky that withheld its rain, in all things that had made them mistake the proper time, and that these were the reasons they had needed to set the field ablaze—they became endlessly, helplessly young.

Having lost their harvest, their land, and their wisdom, they cling only to the body that continues to age toward death even now, crying out to everything around them about how indifferent the earth and sky have been. Farmers who share their convictions gather together, spitting on the earth and shouting beneath the heavens.

One who cannot reflect on their own rashness will continue to make the same mistakes until the day they die.

And because no one else can change this for them, all he can do is look upon such people and pity them.

Yet he witnesses someone throwing stones at himself. The one who has ceased to be foolish thus becomes a wise person. Unable to stand by and watch the injustice unfolding before them, this wise person strikes down the very self that clings to their ankles, breaking themself apart with stones as they reach out a hand. He is startled because that hand has reached for him, but even before that, he feels something beginning to sprout as this person destroys themself piece by piece.

Perhaps only then does he see, for the first time, a kind of light he has never seen in those heads before. A brilliance like the first light of dawn—a radiance formed by a person carving away at themself.

And so, his own face twists. You said.

「There’s a difference between being emptied after filling yourself with love and being emptied against your will as you tumble down through suffering. Those are two entirely different things to me. The radiance and teachings you give off after being emptied by that fall, the life and character worthy of respect that allows you to pity and grieve for anyone at all—they may make the world more just. But before that could happen, there was injustice. Injustice that I could have stopped. So how could I not hold on to you…」

Perhaps this is the end of the first stage of learning the love that the world had never given him, and that he himself had never been ready to receive from the world.

He wanted to receive the light from the person before him, fill himself with it, and spread it throughout the world. So he answered in kind.

「How could I possibly leave you behind after this?」

For the first time, he becomes conscious of his vocal cords, which until now had let sound pass through them as freely as air. He feels his throat closing despite his will.

He knows that a new light of understanding is spreading through the moisture in the eyes before him. Could he see this sight for a little longer? Could he watch a person’s entire life unfold? Rather than doing so from high above the heavens, could he laugh and cry alongside him, close enough to reach out and touch him…?

A deeply human desire raises its head.

His body will become ashes and return to the earth. The matter he borrowed from the universe for a brief while will return to the universe. What remains will be memories, and the words that record the story of a wise person to be passed down for generations. But those words will never be the Leonard he watched at his side through every moment—

One day, when the brain that holds those memories has disappeared entirely, he too will be forgotten.

To cling to something so transient is what it means to be one of the unenlightened. And so, as one of them, he does not shake off the hand holding him. He plants his feet firmly on the earth and stands.

Before emptying himself without ever having truly been filled, he finally becomes himself.

“Every ray of light you give off tells me there’s still so much I want to see…”

I speak. I feel the vibration of my vocal cords, the tension in my cheeks, and the muscles in my body that refuse to move as I will them to. I feel the warmth of the sunset spreading over us.

I caress the eyes before me and embrace the person in front of me. The pulse beating beside my ear fills me with joy. Even that joy becomes light, holding me fast.

Breathing in the scent of earth and plants, I whisper, “An injustice that would endure for generations.”

Whether it is true or not, to recognize something like that and still make such a choice is not something just anyone can bring themself to do. Leonard Wittelsbach must surely feel the pain of grinding himself to dust.

I understand now.

The clear-smiling student whom I loved, and whom he loved, chose today to leave his homeland behind of his own accord and become an adult.

The first major event in Leonard Wittelsbach’s life was meeting Elias. If the Leonard Wittelsbach I know is the person he became after that, then the first event that truly changed him was Luka’s death. He became an adult through the death of his classmate. The change in how the world treated him during that same period, along with the change in his relationship with Elias, cemented him into adulthood.

He grew up years too early. No—that isn’t quite right. His direction changed.

That Leonard Wittelsbach still shone, but his light was like the quietness of the moon. The Leonard of today is nothing less than the dawn.

Even after seeing how both a person’s pace and direction had been changed because of me, I had no way to refuse to look upon the light of this person.

That light reaches me in its entirety.

Ah, now I understand what Leonard meant.

Only after filling oneself with light, only after truly being immersed in light itself, could one pour it out to everyone else.

If the heart that pities everyone and embraces them all is called nothing but compassion, then perhaps it is not compassion for the endless suffering of a radiant life made of pain upon pain. Perhaps it can also be compassion for joy.

Compassion that wants to share this joy even with you, who are suffering.

At that moment, my eyebrows twitch.

He wanted to do the same thing I had done, and he truly succeeded.

Time comes to a stop.

I realize that I have been saved by my own God.

“You defeated God.”

I say it as I quietly tremble within that frozen moment.

I should have been the one to say that I was glad to have been chosen by you. On the day my one and only God reached out that hand to me. Because that was the day you became my one and only.

Only the wind answers.

But I knew Leonard would have smiled despite his exhaustion.

Leonard, who had spoken with such determination all this time, now speaks faintly.

“You too.”

I could hear the joy spreading faintly through his voice. The arm he had wrapped around me conveyed his warmth as he continued.

“It definitely won’t be easy. But look at us. How much has happened in this short month of April? We’re already in the midst of a trial. The kind where we have to struggle every day just to survive as whole human beings, without a moment’s rest… There won’t be any trial worse than this. And even if there is, we’ll overcome that one too, just as we’ve overcome everything so far.”

“Yes. You’re right.”

“For a while, the people of this world won’t leave us alone.”

“You mean me.”

“No. Us. Your suffering is no different from my own.”

Leonard slowly loosened his arms from around my back. Facing me, he gave me a confident smile. It was the same kind of smile I had once worn myself—a smile I had never expected to see on Leonard.

“But let’s give it another try this time. Even if this fate won’t leave you alone, it’s only a process. And it’s a process that’s nearing its end. We should see clearly who will be the one laughing at the end, shouldn’t we?”

Yes. He was right.

And so I stood up for the third time. Even if a fourth bitter cup awaited me, there was nothing I could do about it. I chose it anyway. As usual, I lifted the corners of my mouth into a grin. Leo smiled the same way, showing his teeth through his closed-lipped grin.

“Thank you.”

“You’re saying what I should be saying.”

Leo answered with a smile, then slowly lay down on the rooftop. I did the same. The smile never left his face. As he closed his eyes and let the wind wash over him, I turned my head toward him and opened my mouth.

“Leo.”

“Hmm?”

“There’s something I want to tell you…”

Thud—

I opened my mouth at the sound of someone vaulting onto the roof. Leonard sat up, his expression completely unsurprised. Elias came into view, his hair still black.

“Luka.”

I saw the immense fear etched across his face, then watched his deep-blue, sea-like eyes roll toward Leonard. When they returned to me, Elias opened his mouth, then tilted his eyebrows and smiled. Before I could even take in the profound relief and emotion on his face, Elias puckered his lips like a duck and charged straight at Leo’s head.

With the sharp reflexes of a battle mage, Leo caught Elias’s face in one hand. Even though Elias hadn’t even touched him, Leo expressionlessly wiped his hand across his hair.

Elias screamed at the strength of Leo’s grip, then wriggled free and snickered.

Elias stopped laughing and came over to me, wrapping his arms around me without a word. I smiled and held him, gently rubbing his back. He spoke without showing me his face.

“Y-You know, right?”

His voice was heavier than usual. He was talking about what lay ahead—about who would remain by my side, and how he himself would treat me from then on. Elias already knew how things would unfold, and he already knew how I would feel each time they did. I felt my heart tremble in resonance with his emotions. His worry and resolve reached me as well, and I felt more full than ever.

“Of course.”

“I’ll always be on your side. Even if the heavens are turned upside down because of you.”

His heartbeat fell into step with mine. Elias’s emotions had always been conveyed to me exactly as he felt them, and I didn’t know what to do with such immense love resonating on the same wavelength as mine. There was nothing I could do but give it back to him just as it was.

“Me too, Eli. I don’t know how I could ever convey this boundless joy.”

“You don’t have to worry about it. I can feel it even if you don’t say it.”

Elias pulled away and smiled at me with eyes that seemed to look at me as though he were looking at himself, yet at the same time held the deep respect he would show an entirely separate individual. I knew how to smile that way too, just as he did, so I smiled back. Perhaps happy to have found proof that we understood one another so deeply, Elias beamed before turning his head toward Leo.

“And, Leo.”

Leo had maintained a calm smile the entire time. He tilted his head slightly, as if to tell Elias to go on. Elias spoke in a composed voice. His short, dyed hair, made slightly stiff by the treatment, fluttered in the wind like a curtain of ebony beads. His eyes, partly shadowed by his hair, gleamed with intelligence.

“I owe you so much.”

“…….”

“Starting with your very existence, and even our other friend.”

“Thank you for saying you owe me even for my existence.”

Leo replied with a radiant smile. There was a different kind of joy on his face from the one he had shown when he and I were alone. It was the kind of abundance one felt when facing the peace and stability of many long years, or a family that had been by one’s side for a lifetime, like a hometown.

Elias’s reaction was not all that different. There was still a hint of wariness on his face toward the difficulties ahead, but then he grinned mischievously and pointed toward the ground.

“Let’s go down! We have to get back now.”

“Yeah.”

I got to my feet and followed after him. Elias snapped his fingers and landed on the ground without hesitation. While I was trying to think of a more peaceful way to get down, Leo spoke quietly.

“What were you going to say earlier?”

I turned toward him and thought for a moment before answering calmly.

“Can I save it for later? Once all of this is over, I’ll tell you then.”

Leo raised an eyebrow for a moment. Then he quietly looked at me before giving a small smile.

“That certainly gives me something to look forward to.”

“Co―me― down―! No, wait―come down slowly―!”

Elias’s voice rang out from below. Leo let out a hollow laugh at that and gave a bitter smile. We could guess why he was telling us to come down slowly. Time was passing.

But soon, his expression returned, filled with the resolve to win.

Leo gave me a composed smile and held out his hand.

“Let’s go down.”

“Extra! The Imperial Dailies are out! The French Imperial Dailies has just released breaking news!”

An old woman passing through the square in front of the Imperial Second Academy in Berlin handed a coin to a child carrying a bag full of newspapers and received a copy of the latest issue. The newspaper in her hands was the Imperial Dailies’s transcription of the breaking news that the French Imperial Dailies had announced just five minutes earlier.

The sky on Easter evening was overcast. A bitter wind, so fierce and sharp that it might have been whipped into a blade between rocky cliffs, tore the hats from people’s heads in the feeble city streets and forced them to pull tight the coats they had thrown open in the spring weather.

The old woman pushed up her glasses and smoothed the thick hem of her skirt, heavy as it had been in winter, as she read the newspaper. Her dimming eyes, their sight nearly gone, slowly read through the grave news.

Translator Note

1. Referring to Chapter 335, where Lukas had to turn back time several times, he took back the artifact he had given him so that Leo wouldn’t return to the past with him, because he wanted to spare Leo the trauma and burdens he had been carrying through all those timelines. ↩︎