Fantasy Starting from the Stone Age - Chapter 33



Only Noblemtl

Episode 33. Down from the Bottom

A desperate struggle has begun. Manum Lapang inscribes the noble names of the dead on the new structure.

The hungry, the sick, and those who are dying from beast attacks are desperately protected by the All-Chaun and Datang Oram, and the Chauns who have received high-ranking spirits make a mad pilgrimage to prevent the collapse of Datang while maintaining communication with healthy villages outside the Holy Land.

Castle Laurent embarks on a truly desperate quest, starting, of course, with the supposed source of all evil, Malangmalang.

“Malangmalang is a creature that is not classified in my museum. I can’t find any evolved creatures or relatives.”

“I don’t even know what they eat. They stick to plants and animals, but they don’t really suck out the life force. But they definitely reproduce by dividing, and sometimes herbivores eat them.”

“Why? What is the reason?”

Laurent, as the ultimate visionary, strives to find the answer.

A long time has passed. Hundreds of thousands of Daton corpses have been piled on top of tens of millions of Daton corpses, thousands of towers of Daton’s remains have been built, and a memorial stone has been erected.

“Okay. Malrangmalrang is neither a plant nor an animal.”

“Their bodies are not made of natural materials, but only of magical structures. And they function by obtaining energy from magical pressure. In other words, just as plants can transform the life force of sunlight into nutrition, they can transform the magical power of the moon into energy.”

“So to speak, the third type of creature. A ‘monster’! A creature that lives solely on magic power! Without magic power, you die, but with magic power, you live.”

“I found another similar creature. Mushrooms are neither plants nor animals! Mushrooms are monsters! Spirits are also monsters! As long as you have magic, you can survive!”

“There are two kinds of diseases. Natural diseases. Diseases that come from small creatures.”

“And illnesses caused by small monsters. Here, the former can be cured with natural herbs, and the latter can be purified with the fire of Datang Oram or the moonlight of Vachat Beram.”

“So. That······. Hanjutamal is a disease with a different cause.”

Again, this encouraging achievement gives Daton hope.

And then again a long time passes······.

Castel Laurent cried. Long life, long study. His emotions, which he had thought were dried up in his naturally calm disposition, now exploded and flowed out all at once.

“That’s ridiculous. Please. Tell me I’m lying. Someone refute what I’m saying!”

“Usually the mortality rate of a disease decreases over time. That’s because if the mortality rate is high, people die before it even spreads!”

“However, Hanjutamal is a disease that parasitizes spirits and Malangmalang, or in other words, ‘demons’, and eventually spreads to humans and animals.”

“But! Hanjutamal is just a parasite that sucks out the magic power of its target and then kills it, spreading small monsters including Malrangmalrang in all directions! In short, even if the fatality rate is high, it doesn’t affect its transmission at all, and in fact, the higher the fatality rate, the better it spreads!”

“To cure Hanjutamal, we have no choice but to suppress the consumption and use of magical power of living beings, but if we do that, all the spirits, including Daton, will die! But if we apply external pressure, this thing will resist using the surrounding magical power, so it can never be eliminated with spirit magic! But it can’t be cured with herbs, stones, or animals! It’s not a natural living thing, it’s a monster!”

“I have proven that Hanjutamal is a disease that cannot be cured with our medicine.”

“Please. Someone, please refute this······. Anyone is fine, please······.”

The Mythical Age begins in 988. Castle Lorran made a great discovery.

The Mythical Age Daton had a population of 2.5 million before the start of the Mythical Age and 20 million at its peak.

The population, which was 3.5 million in just one year after the Hanjuta-mal spread, has shrunk to about 500,000, 108 years after the Hanjuta-mal spread.

Looking at how well it has held up, Datang is truly an amazing country.

It was a great country even after that. In the end, it didn’t fall.

When people get really angry, they surprisingly become calm.

In fact, this is the same for other emotions. When people see something that is excessively cute, they become more aggressive, wanting to bite it or hug it excessively and squeeze it. When you hate something to the extreme, instead of avoiding the object, you develop something like love where you keep thinking about the object.

Because the brain can’t handle too much emotion, it forces itself to suppress the opposite emotion and neutralize it. It’s a kind of defense mechanism.

In other words, when people are extremely sad, they laugh.

“Heh. Heh. Heh······.”

This was the state of affairs for the entire world. Decades. Given enough time for three generations of Datons to live and die, the conclusions these scholars came up with were:

“Can’t fix it······? Haha. Ha. Hahaha! Woohahahahahaha! Can’t fix it? Hahahahahaha!”

Laurent was prepared for Olchan to burn him to death. But his reaction was the opposite.

That made it harder to bear.

“It can’t be fixed. Does that, does that make any sense? Huh?”

“All cold······.”

“You said something before. Every illness has a cause, so if you remove the cause, you can get better. Even if that’s not the case, you can relieve it by solving the symptoms. That’s what you said.”

I know, that’s what I said.

But there were exceptions. Diseases beyond the common sense of disease. There were extremely rare exceptions in the world with mechanisms that were completely different from the common and universal causes of disease.

This also ignores the law that ‘the mortality rate of all diseases decreases over time.’

And ignore the saying, ‘spirits don’t get sick.’

‘Strong magical pressure eliminates the tiny creatures that cause all diseases.’ is also ignored.

They also ignored the common sense that ‘any disease can be cured in nature.’

In the old days, Daton called the scaled hippopotamus a devil, and the name of the creature was soon synonymous with the devil.

By subduing the swamp demon and taming the scaly hippopotamus, it remained just an etymology.

The scaled hippopotamus was nothing. It’s ridiculous that such a spherical creature, so kind and gentle and capable of killing, could be a demon.

The devil has two cat ears, is invisible and cannot be killed.

The scaled hippopotamus will attack intruders to defend its territory, but this one kills just because it wants to kill them. It has already passed the lethality required for efficient reproduction, but this one maintains a lethality rate of nearly 100%.

“What is the solution?”

“In the south where this disease came from, there may be creatures that have adapted to this disease, or tribes that have a cure······.”

“Aha. And all those who go there will be caught in a one-week trap and left behind. They will go into a low-magic zone where it is difficult to breathe with your bare body and without spirits.”

“······.”

“Kekekekekeke······. Uhehehe. Ehehehehe! Ah~ That makes so much sense! Right? Oh! It makes so much sense that I can’t help but laugh!”

Laurent knelt down. So did the other scholars representing her.

For the first time in his life, much longer than any other Daton, Laurent was afraid of another person, so he rubbed his palms and prayed for help.

Never before or since have I wished so much for myself to be wrong.

Instead of chastising the innocent scholars, All Chaun knelt down and prayed to the heavens.

“Ah! Moon! Mother of all life! Progenitor of all monsters who created this damned life form!”

Boom! And hit the floor. The jewel floor of Mainilun. Hit it until blood spurts out, and sigh.

“Why do you give us such trials! Why! Why did you give birth to such things! What on earth is the reason! Do you hate our progress and prosperity so much! Moon!!!”

I scream. I scream until my throat is hoarse. I cry, get angry, laugh, and lament.

I wish I could just die, but that was impossible. I wouldn’t grow old or get sick. But I couldn’t even think about killing myself irresponsibly.

But that’s not all he can do. All Chaun stood up, staggering.

“Okay. Now, we really have no other option but to resort to last resort.”

“All cold?”

Laurent didn’t know what he was thinking of. In fact, Olchaun didn’t want to suggest this as the answer.

“Let us pray to heaven.”

This is the answer. The point where no medicine, no theory, no effort is proven to be meaningless and where people reach.

It’s faith healing. They hold rituals and go to churches and temples. Even pseudo-religions are good. As long as it can cure any illness, it’s okay.

Laurent thought Olchan was crazy.

“All cold?”

“In the very beginning, before the Mainirun was built, when the moon was worshipped, the moon sent down the Vachat Beram.”

“······.”

“I just pray now that the moon will send down its light to heal this disease. I’m sure it will be heard······.”

No basis. No theory.

The logic in his brain, which existed only through expectations and delusions, existed in that whole world.

“Oh, no! If the moon’s magic power goes wild, what might happen······.”

“Can it get any worse?”

“Perhaps, Hanjutamal will run wild and even Mine Nirun will be infected······!”

All Chaun turns to Laurent. His eyes are almost resigned.

“It’s not any worse than it is now. Damn.”

Laurent seemed to accept it somehow. When I thought about it, it really didn’t seem that bad.

Anyway, it’s better for them all to die together than for them all to die and only the three of them to live.

Call all the people gathered in the Holy Land. There are still close to a hundred thousand people in the Holy Land. In other words, those who are severely infected. They are close to 20% of the entire population.

Their will is conveyed to the moon. Will the all-nighter succeed? Will Daton be able to welcome the new hero of the moon?

In a serious atmosphere, they prepare for what may be their last sacrifice.

The message from Mainilun spreads throughout Dator. They kneel before the altar in preparation for the coming sacrifice day, and the healthy ones seek to drive away the aging of the moonlight with fire, and the sick ones seek to be purified by the power of the moonlight.

All Chaun stretches out his hands to the open-mouthed moon and prays in front of a crowd of a hundred thousand people, just as he had called out to the moon the previous day.

“Great mother of all things, the moon! Please! Save my people! Save our Daton with your power to create life!”

First, the most important premise. Are the celestial bodies sensitive?

It worked. The celestial body unleashed its power as before. Much more than before. Datang Oram endured the pouring moonlight bombardment, burning his body.

“Goooooooooooooooo!”

I get older by decades, and I get younger by decades. I endure it.

And Mainilun receives the moonlight and transmits it to the temples and altars all over Dator. The transmitted moonlight eventually forms a crescent moon on the high altar and radiates light in all directions.

People from all over the altars also want to overcome it with fire.

“Moon! I beg you! I pray! Please share with us your infinite life! Your great power!!!”

Before we talk about the results, let’s talk about this vicious disease called Hanjutamal and the impact this terrible disease has had on the world.

As it turned out, outside the continent where Daton was, beyond where the Bark tribe came from, there were many different kinds of monsters. They were vicious monsters that lived off of magic power and would attack people with great force. At the bottom of the food chain were the soft······. Well, you could say, the creatures that were collectively called ‘slimes’.

By the way, there are none on the continent of the Daton tribe. Do you know why?

They all went extinct because of Hanjutamal.

And the Hanjutamal only remained in the south and disappeared in the north. In the south, only the Malrangmalangs adapted and survived in an infected state, but in the north, everything died out without a single one remaining, so even the Hanjutamal went extinct because it could not find a host.

The influence of the Hanjuta Mal was so overwhelming that it completely changed the mainstream species. As the Daton tribe invaded the southern part of the continent beyond the center, it began to spread to the north as well.

In later generations, in addition to Datang, various countries were established based on mysteries. A magical nation based on magic. A harsh class-based independent nation based on spiritism. In addition, a nation centered on monsters. Things like that.

Countries that built their civilizations based on magic power in this way mostly perished because of the Hanjutamal, or this was one of the reasons for their demise.

No civilization that relied on magic power could withstand a single attack. Even for a non-mystic, it was extremely lethal.

This disease was not created intentionally by the devil or anything. It was a normal life form that evolved naturally within the laws of this world. What I’m saying is that since the first Hanjutamal appeared 20,000 years ago when civilization was born, or even tens of millions of years ago in geological units before that, there has been no life form that has fundamentally solved this problem.

Meanwhile, the fact that Datang was the first country to experience this disease had a huge impact on the world map thereafter.

In other words, Datang started out by being hit by a single bullet. The country almost went through a crisis that could have destroyed it······. However, other countries did not know about the existence of this disease or underestimated it. Because Datang did not reveal it to the world.

So, from then on, Datang did not rely solely on the mystical power of spiritism to develop his civilization, but instead increased his national power in various ways.

It is clear that in the environment of Datang, spirit magic is the most efficient, but such inefficient distributed investment due to one Hanjutamal was actually beneficial to the overall national power.

This is also why no country has been able to conquer and rule Datang for a very long time, even if they have been invading it. Even if they win the war and occupy it, after a few months, the Hanjutamal will spread and cause mass deaths, or it will become a drain on the entire conquered country’s human and financial resources.

This is a disease that literally changed history. If it had started on the other side of Datang, and spread while Datang was at its peak, the Daton people could have gone extinct less than a century after contact.

In that sense, you could say I was lucky.

Anyway, I guess we’ll have to go and see what results Ol Chaun’s actions of praying to the moon brought about.

Actually, you all can guess the result. I failed. I couldn’t cure Hanjutamal.

But if that were the case, Daton would have been destroyed and Datang would not have been able to become the mainstream of the world. However, Daton eventually recovered and enjoyed a longer golden age than other races, and wielded hegemony in the world.

In the end, it wasn’t that All Chaun’s actions were meaningless. After all, the form of failure is more important than the fact that he failed.

The form of that failure. Let’s check it out for yourself now.