Chapter 2393: Seers

"...Master?!" Jabba was so stunned by the sudden outburst that he could practically feel every hair across his body standing on end at that moment.

His Master was not someone accustomed to cursing in the first place, certainly not openly and with this kind of genuine hostility behind his words.

And his Master’s body language had changed just as noticeably, to such a shocking degree that Jabba could hardly reconcile the man before him with Robin’s usual appearance.

His left leg had begun moving restlessly in small, tense motions, while the eyes staring toward the distant horizon had become unusually sharp and focused, as though instead of empty space he were looking directly at his most hated enemy. His left hand had also risen to cover his mouth and press firmly against it, almost as though he were physically trying to stop himself from saying anything more... or perhaps he was simply squeezing his own face in an attempt to relieve some of the anger building inside him.

"...." Robin maintained that harsh, distant stare for several long seconds without moving, then finally turned toward Jabba and forced a small, obviously artificial smile onto his face. "I apologize... These matters involve people who are beyond my reach. I have nothing else I can do except act like an idiot and ruin my image in front of you so I can calm myself down a little." Then he turned his gaze toward the horizon once again, his fake smile gradually disappearing. "...At least for now."

"....." Jabba wisely remained silent, deliberately giving Robin enough time to try to bring his bodily functions back under control after the obvious effects of his anger had begun showing so clearly, and only after waiting for a while did he finally speak again, carefully returning to the most important part of what he had just heard. "...You said someone did this before the beginning of the... cycle?"

"I’ll give you the short version." Robin spoke while continuing to stare into the distance, clearly having no intention of explaining every detail from the beginning. "You know the Seer?"

"Of course." Jabba nodded immediately. "The hand behind the curtain, the most mysterious figure in history."

The matter of Robin’s candidacy had already become widely known, and Jabba knew very well that it was not merely another rumor circulating among the people because he had personally heard the name from his Master’s own mouth before. Because of that, he had taken a particular interest in the matter and made sure to learn every recorded legend and piece of information he could find about the Seer throughout the past several years.

"Mmm, more or less." Robin had no desire to argue over that description or correct it at the moment. "It turns out there are a few other Seers who hate our Seer and are conspiring against him, and for some reason, the way they chose to do that is by bullying us. I heard him say it himself."

"Other Seers are conspiring against us?!" Jabba jolted visibly at the revelation, his expression changing immediately.

"Mhm." Robin nodded. "They’re called the Transcendents. They’re the ones who were behind the first invasion of the Space Beasts, and they’re also the ones behind the support given to all the major powers currently destroying the universe... And I’m one hundred percent certain that one of them—or perhaps all of them together—did something to cripple humanity 97.8 million years ago. They’re the ones who tampered with the Heavenly Laws and killed the variable particles inside human bodies!"

"To that extent?!" Jabba forced an incredulous smile onto his face as he tried to absorb what he had just heard. If Robin’s conclusion was correct, then the sheer scale of the damage inflicted upon humanity was almost impossible to properly describe, and the amount of hatred required to deliberately do something of this magnitude was simply horrifying to contemplate.

"...I’ve heard too much and seen too much over the past few months." Robin began tapping his fingers angrily against his seat as the irritation he had tried to suppress gradually resurfaced. "Any dark tunnel, they’re waiting at the end of it. Any corpse, they’re the ones holding the knife. Any missing piece of cheese, you’ll eventually find out they were the ones who ate it."

Then he slowly shook his head, his expression remaining grim. "I don’t know what the Seer did to bring this kind of oppression and hatred down upon himself... and upon all of us along with him."

Then his voice rose slightly as the frustration behind his words became increasingly difficult to contain. "Why was I born in some filthy universe that had already been rigged from the very beginning, only to be forced to spend my life fixing things that the inhabitants of other universes simply take for granted? What did I do, what did you do, that we should be the ones stuck paying the tab for the Seer’s problems with his enemies?!"

He slammed his hand hard against the seat as his anger finally spilled openly into his voice. "What kind of justice is that? Why are we forced into a position of weakness because of a feud we know absolutely nothing about between people we don’t even know? And in the end, we’ll be crushed when the cycle reaches its end because of this exact disadvantage!"

"...Please, calm down." Jabba raised both hands in front of himself and repeatedly gestured downward with his palms, trying to get Robin to restrain the anger that was clearly beginning to overwhelm him. "Just what happened? What exactly did you hear?"

"Tsk." Robin clicked his tongue before pulling a glowing sphere of concentrated information directly from his head. "In here, you’ll find my battle with the Executioner and the Seer’s appearance. You’ll also find excerpts containing everything I know about this matter, along with what happened after the battle." Without wasting another moment explaining, he tossed the sphere directly toward Jabba.

Jabba did not resist the soul sphere as it entered him. "Ah!" However, the instant the information began pouring into his mind, he did not look particularly well either.

His entire expression stiffened almost immediately, his pupils rolled upward until they disappeared into his head, and his mouth fell open as his consciousness became completely occupied with what he had just received.

Clearly, such an enormous amount of information could not simply be absorbed in an instant and required some proper digestion before he could even begin responding to it.

Silence descended over the place—

But that silence did not last for more than a few seconds.

"Mmm..." Sakar began letting out a low, pained sound as his body barely stirred, evidently beginning to regain consciousness. He tried to raise one arm toward his chest, wanting to press it against his hearts as the intense pain still coursing through him made even that simple movement difficult.

"Aha, you’re alive." Robin casually pulled out another soul sphere and tossed it toward Sakar without giving him any time to properly recover. "Here, you take this too. You’ll need this information."

"Ugh!!" Sakar’s rising hand immediately froze midway through its movement as the information entered him, and then his body fell still once again.

As for Robin, after dealing with the two of them, he simply returned his gaze toward the distant horizon and allowed his thoughts to continue from where they had stopped...

A conspiracy? Probably not.

The Seer could not possibly have been so oblivious that he failed to notice something of this magnitude happening to an entire universe. If this had truly been some illegal conspiracy carried out behind his back, then even if he could not directly prevent it, he could at least have taught the people about what had happened and given them some means to overcome the resulting restrictions.

Right before Robin’s own eyes, the Seer had threatened to go to the Court and summon the Transcendents because of the problem involving the Executioner, so how could someone willing to take such measures over that matter simply overlook something as enormous as this?

No... this was one hundred percent legal.

So completely legal, in fact, that the Seer had apparently watched everything happen and then remained silent about it for almost an entire cycle without ever opening his mouth to mention the matter.

But what kind of law could possibly condemn an entire universe to weakness and failure from the very moment that universe began its current cycle?

...A punishment?

"..." Robin’s eyes trembled slightly as that possibility surfaced in his mind.

The Seer had previously spoken about the glory the universe had once possessed and about its subsequent fall, but why would punishments of such an enormous magnitude be imposed upon an entire universe? And why would they interfere with something as fundamental as its inhabitants in such an outrageous manner?

Was it because of the Seer himself? ...Or was there something else entirely behind it?

"...." Robin raised one hand and slowly began rubbing his forehead as the questions continued piling up without giving him any reliable answers.

Dealing with matters of this kind always gave him a headache, and attempting to understand the thinking of those higher beings without first understanding either their goals or their history would accomplish nothing useful. Anything he came up with now would amount to little more than guesses and hypotheses built upon incomplete information, and such reasoning would most likely end in failure regardless of how much he thought about it.

"Hmm?"

At that moment, Robin suddenly felt someone’s eyes fixed intensely upon him. When he brought his attention back to his surroundings and looked forward again, he found Jabba staring directly at him with a mixture of fear and awe, like a helpless lamb watching a hungry lion from dangerously close range, his eyes bulging so widely that they looked as though they were on the verge of falling out of their sockets.

Even Sakar had awakened by then. He still could not straighten his body enough to sit properly after what had happened to him, but he was unmistakably conscious, staring intently at Robin with every one of his senses focused upon him, his entire attention fixed on his lord while he did not dare make even the slightest movement.

"...What?!" Robin asked in genuine bewilderment.