Chapter 124

"..."

"... Hmm..."

Jio nodded.

"If you're finished, may I leave?"

"Why not hear more?"

"It's heavy enough already. I feel suffocated."

"What an incredible amount of whining."

"My capacity for violence ends at friendship quarrels and lovers' spats."

"The main point is not over, so wait."

"I'm good at that."

"How very diligent of you."

Pleased by his admirable listener, "Arjio" continued explaining about himself.

"And so the evil god known as 'Arjio' was born, and the world moved even faster toward ruin. The vengeful spirits of countless saints, too many to count, gained divinity... and how could that possibly be docile?"

Humans said the evil god tormented them by commanding wicked monsters, and in truth, that was what happened.

"To put it in a way you can understand, perhaps I should call him something like a demon king?"

"I'll understand him as the demon king from a fairy tale where a kidnapped princess or a brave hero appears."

"That is not so different, since it is an equally rough, flattened description."

A once peaceful world, with one ominous region that alone existed there. From that place, the demon king began scheming, spreading plagues and commanding monsters to torment humans.

That continued for such a very long time that it could well be recorded in history books. Humans began to live with bated breath beneath the demon king's tyranny, and the world came to be ruled by terrible monsters.

"The demon king's tyranny reached its peak, so what should appear now?"

"A hero?"

"As time passed after the evil god appeared, people began to emerge who would seal this wicked beast away."

"I suppose I should call that a truly typical response..."

"In the end, they succeeded in sealing this 'Arjio.'"

In the process, the heroes did learn the truth of the Black Forest, but, well.

"It is not such an important part."

In the end, they hid the secret story of the evil god's birth.

"Perhaps they simply could not accept the foolish mistake committed by their ancestors, whom they had believed to be good. The being they had believed was the evil of the world had actually been created by human hands, so how could that shock have been ordinary?"

"Do you resent them?"

"No. To begin with, they were not the madmen who burned my home and family. They are not the targets of my anger. Above all, a life in which I had to go on carrying anger I did not even want, crushed beneath countless vengeful spirits, was not something I could welcome either..."

"Arjio" said calmly.

"I am grateful."

Anger had to be wholly his own.

"Do you know how terrible it is to express anger that is not even mine? Do you know how foolish it feels to be angry over something that has no value at all? I understood why an evil god is called an evil god. To think I had to enjoy massacres I had never wanted."

It made no sense.

"I know I did not live so virtuously as to receive a god's mercy and grace, but I am saying this is a bit much. Slaughtering those without fighting spirit and without sin is not my joy. What meaning is there in killing a terrified child who knows nothing?"

"You are saying something unexpectedly normal..."

"Anger is something whose value and enjoyment can only be felt when it is equal. But the saints' pain and despair were too great for me alone to block. The anger of those who had to die horribly in the darkness without knowing why was far too enormous."

But to him, anger was not such a shoddy thing.

"I affirm myself. I affirm everything about myself, so life is enjoyable and there is nothing to hold me back. Thus, the anger I feel must also have value worthy of it..."

In that sense, he was grateful.

"Hero sounds nice, but they were no different from sacrifices. For no reason other than that they were strong and full of talent, they were dragged into a battlefield for which they bore no responsibility, forced to seal the demon king, and had to endure much pain and sorrow in the process."

"..."

"They did not want to fight. They were not warriors, but individual humans, someone's family, and someone's friends. And in order to regain the happy everyday lives they had shared with them, in order to clean up a mistake that was not even their own fault, they had to suffer so much."

How contrary to reason that was.

"But in the end, the world was destroyed. Is that not natural? This evil god was created by humans in the first place, so would sealing him make the anger of the remaining beasts disappear?"

"Then how was your world destroyed, Mr. Arjio?"

"It was destroyed after humans and beasts fought so wretchedly and basely that there was no meaning in distinguishing between them. It was a very childish fight. Those who remain have likely long since degenerated into monsters..."

Tsk, "Arjio" clicked his tongue.

"Humans committed so many evil deeds while using me as their excuse. If their lover had an affair, they babbled that the evil god had tempted them; even after killing a person themselves, they said the evil god had led them down that wicked path; and every reason they quarreled with the neighbors and went to war with the neighboring village was all supposedly the fault of this cruel beast, was it not?"

In the end, their shifting of responsibility gave birth to an evil god and made him even stronger.

"They do not seem to have realized that such laziness would also become something that encouraged the evil god's ferocity. Thanks to that, the tale of 'Arjio' was recorded in history in an even more terrible form, and in step with those records and memories, 'Arjio' became an utterly cruel monster."

"They had it returned to them, then."

"So they should have stopped using me as their excuse. Would you not agree? They swelled and raised the size of us, and even made our temper worse. If they had not been ashamed of the beast born from their own bellies and had revealed the secret of the saints, perhaps something might have been all right."

Then "Arjio" asked.

"Listen, Jio. My friend who resembles me so very much."

"I'm listening."

"I wish to feel only the anger that is mine."

That was what "Arjio" wanted.

"Those who wish to fight can fight me, and those who have sinned against me can offer me blood. I am an honorable warrior together with my family, and a greedy man who is satisfied only when he accomplishes every last thing he desires."

That was his wish.

"I will give myself to you, so look after the descendants of my family."

"These people named 'Jio' keep talking about their families."

"The one before me, the man called Giovanni, wished for you to support his father, did he not? I am similar."

"In what way should I look after them?"

"Go to the Animal Kingdom you painted and show mercy to the poor beasts."

"I don't think I am in any position to show mercy."

"No, you are qualified enough."

And.

"Above all, please stop this... this mad evil god's venting."

"Pardon? Me?"

"I believe you will be able to accomplish it sufficiently."

"Good heavens above."

"Does that refer to The Root? How very reassuring."

"There has been a misunderstanding. I do not know how to deal with dangerous beings like evil gods."

"I will also let that pass as a very witty joke."

"You really only hear what you want to hear. You are definitely a 'Jio' too."

"This narrow hearing is one of the skills that allowed me to survive in the Black Forest."

"Arjio" laughed as if it were absurd and said.

"Do not worry. Your vessel is larger than this 'Arjio's' vessel, so there is no way you cannot handle it. I, the personality who died last, simply came out here; if you wish to become one with 'Arjio,' then in the end you will become one with those countless madmen."

"Can I really not back out after all? I don't feel confident."

"Did I not say it was venting? In the end, the ghosts of the Black Forest are only children a little over ten years old at most. No matter how long they lived, they never passed thirty. I am asking you to brush off the venting of immature things with an adult heart."

"..."

Jio, who had a question for a moment, asked.

"Then how old are you?"

"I died at the age of twenty-four."

"Because your face is covered by the mask, I didn't realize you were that young."

So he had died at basically college age.

"For your age, you are quite... mature."

"Is it not that the culture of the Earthlings you remember is far slower?"

"Arjio" tilted his head.

"In Seo Jio's memories, Earthlings whined and threw tantrums even after passing the age of twenty. Their culture differs in many ways from my dimension, where one is treated as an adult responsible for a household from the age of fifteen."

"At fifteen, you're in middle school, Mr. Arjio."

"You can think of it as a cultural difference. Since it is a matter of an entirely different dimension, the very structure of the brain being different cannot be helped, can it? In any case, you are older than me, so I believe you will manage well on your own."

He smiled.

"In the end, I will be with you too."

"... I don't want to develop an antisocial personality."

"I think you are already antisocial enough as you are."

"What are you saying, when I'm such a model student?"

"On Earth, do they not have a saying about there being a limit to delusions?"

"..."

The possessed portrait wilted.

"... You are right, Mr. Arjio."

"I am quite happy to have beaten you at this."

"..."

"I feel... rather unpleasant."

"To think there is a world this quiet."

"Coo?"

"Yes, I don't like it."

"It feels like I've gone and drunk myself sick on some bad liquor..."

"Exactly."

"Peep."

"This could be fun too."

"Coo-roo-roo?"

"And I have a cute son as well."

Jio, who had been lying on the bed, abruptly pulled the small water bird into his arms.

"Peace is not as bad as I thought."

There were no more fools screaming in rage by his ear now.

"..."

"..."

"Is there nowhere to fight?"

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP!!!

"Ow, ow..."

He had failed to come to his senses and got scolded by his son.

Around the time Jio was in the middle of sorting out his mind as "Arjio."

"What are you doing?"

"Drawing."

"You know how to draw too?"

"Wanna see?"

"Yeah."

The youngest of the Cha family, Cha Yisol, was chatting with his partner.

"Ta-da."

"... Well, you did say you were drawing, not that you were good at it."

"At this level, didn't I draw it well enough that everything that's supposed to be attached is attached?"

"I can't tell what's attached to what."

"Look, this is the cloak..."

"Ah."

Cha Yisol's partner, Iru-da, nodded.

"Are you drawing Black Cloak, by any chance?"

"Yeah. Now that you know, it looks pretty plausible, right?"

"It definitely looks plausible in the sense that it's black."

"Ruda, tell me I drew it well, even if it's just empty praise."

"You drew it so well."

"I've never met a friend so bad at empty praise."

Cha Yisol roared with laughter.

"Now, look again."

"I don't think I need to."

"This is the arm. This is the leg, and this is the torso..."

"Uh-huh, sure. I see."

"This is the eye."

"..."

Iru-da tilted her head.

"... Eye?"

"Yeah, eye."

"... You mean a person's eyeball, right?"

"Did I draw it that badly?"

"That isn't the problem..."

The eye was too large.

"..."

So large it extended far beyond the human face and body and was drawn behind them.

"... I thought it was something like a halo."

"Huh? Does it look that way?"

"When people usually say eye, it's attached to a person's face, like ours."

"Apparently some people aren't like that."

"Some people aren't..."

Iru-da looked again at the picture stained black.

"... Is he even a person?"

"Black Cloak is a person too."

"I don't think he is."

Not the Black Cloak in the rumors, and not the Black Cloak in this picture either.

"... Hmm."

Until just a moment ago, she had thought it was simply a badly drawn picture.

But when she saw the huge, intricately tangled multitude of eyes, it became a little chilling.

"Cha Yisol, you... said you don't have a god you serve right now, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I don't. I still don't know what I should do, so I don't have confidence either."

"Really?"

For someone like that.

"I see."

She could feel a "gaze" from that ugly picture.

It was an ominous gaze, with a temperature colder than the one she was receiving.