Fantasy Starting from the Stone Age - Chapter 34



Only Noblemtl

Episode 34. Down from the Bottom 2

All the tea was good, because the evil plague that had been circulating in the tea house recently had finally disappeared completely.

“As expected, the power of the moon is great. There is no disease it cannot cure.”

The plague has come and gone many times. And it has been defeated many times. And it will be defeated again. If the moon has its power, and if Daton has the will to advance.

“Hey. Are you cold?”

“Oh. Manum Lapang. What’s going on?”

All Chaun respectfully greets the architect of Mainilun who created this sacred moonlight. Manum Lapang’s eyes twitch at the sight of All Chaun.

“Are you okay?”

“What? The plague has all been cured.”

Silence falls.

“Over there. Come here.”

“Laurent. Don’t do it.”

Castloran came out from behind Lapin. This was Ol Chaun’s reaction to that sight.

“Huh! What is this? It’s the third mine run!”

“All cold.”

“How did a third mine run happen? It hasn’t happened in hundreds of seasons.”

“All right. It’s been hundreds of seasons since I became a main runner.”

“what?”

Instead of looking at the cold wind, Laurent looks at the fireball stuck behind him.

“Datang Oram. Did you erase the memories of the previous year?”

“?”

All Chaun turns his head. His friend. Datang Oram frowns.

“Haha.”

“What the heck? Datang Oram. What happened? Did you eat my memories?”

“Goooosh.”

“Give it back. What are you doing? Why don’t you want to give it to me?”

“Haha. Haha.”

“I’m going to eat it! I’m going to eat it!”

In response to the command of the sympathetic order to vomit everything out, Datang Oram eventually did as he wished.

His friend, who had spent the entire night replaying the memory of his people overcoming the plague thousands of times in order to forget his suffering, ended up passing it on to his friend, who was buried in those memories.

And the reaction is.

“······.”

“All cold?”

“no.”

“All cold!”

“You’re lying! You’re deceiving me!”

All of this ran out of Mainilun.

What he witnessed was a very cold reality.

A hundred thousand jewel statues frozen in a praying posture on the altar of Mainirun.

There were horrible fossils there, with only the parts that were infected, such as Daton’s remains, internal organs, muscles, skin, and face, crystallized into gems here and there, and the parts that were not, all worn away by the strong magical pressure.

“Ah. Ah. Ah······.”

A magical pressure thousands of times greater than what nature allows. Hanjutamal could not withstand the powerful moonlight applied to it.

Unable to bear it, I just froze, accepting the magic. Along with the infected parts. I became like a moon spirit, so beautiful and cruel.

The whole of Dator was like that. All the infected people in Hanjutamal were turned into jewel mummies.

The population of Daton was 500,000 until yesterday.

Now, it’s less than 130,000. We’ve completely quarantined the Hanju Ta-mal that has spread through Datang by bailing out all the infected.

All Chaun killed 370,000 people in one day. All Chaun killed more people than all other Datons combined since the beginning of time. The current population is only slightly larger than the primitive era.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!”

He screams. He’s so sad, so angry, so resentful, that he can’t stand the laughter that comes as a counter-argument.

He goes berserk, blood gushing from every pore of his face.

“This is nonsense! This is nonsense! Moon! Why are you putting us through such a cruel ordeal! What have I done! What crime have I committed that my people, my descendants, must suffer like this!”

Banging his head on the floor, flailing his arms and legs until they break, screaming, and.

This is something absolutely indescribable.

He thinks he is being punished for his sins. He tries to figure out what the sin is.

It’s a ridiculous idea. The world is just the world. It doesn’t judge who is right or wrong. It’s as pointless to blame yourself for a disaster as it is to blame others.

“This is ridiculous! This can’t be real! Life can’t be this harsh. Life, the world can’t be this cruel! The world can’t be this cruel! Aaaah!”

This is true. The world is not cruel.

The world doesn’t care about cruelty. It just goes with the flow. How you perceive it is up to you.

Although quarantine efforts have been successful, focusing on the village altar and the scattered symbols, countless Hanjutamals still remain in the grasslands where the light from the altar cannot reach. The threat has not yet disappeared.

From this point on, the connection between Mainilun and the various villages is completely cut off.

Ol Chaun, Manum Lapang, and Castle Laurent. In addition, Ol Chaun gathers the remaining Chauns and the people who were transporting supplies to form a pilgrimage group again.

“We will start the Pilgrimage of Fire again. We will visit all the villages in each region and rebuild Datang.”

All Chaun declared with a withered face. Now only a sense of duty weighing on his heart moved him.

There is no point in expanding any further. Naturally, there is no point in remaining in Mainnirune either.

The period from when the Mythical Age just began to open until the time when Hanjutamal was met is called the Mythical Age’s Prosperity Period. The current period, when All Chaun left Mainilun and began his pilgrimage to the grasslands again because of Hanjutamal, is called the Mythical Age’s Stagnation Period, when he engaged in endless battles with Hanjutamal.

It took a whopping 3,600 years for the population to recover from this period of stagnation to its peak of 20 million.

When we look at this enormous time span, which requires geological units, we realize anew just how devastating a disease Hanjutamal was.

There was no innovation or achievement during this period. Even Castel Laurent was focused on making a pilgrimage and succeeding Daton rather than on research and innovation.

Let’s take a quick look back at life in that era.

The stagnation period begins with a pilgrimage. And does it end with a pilgrimage? No. There is no end. It is a pilgrimage forever.

It’s a terrible pilgrimage. It’s almost like a punishment.

It was fortunate that the three of them were able to split up and form a pilgrimage group. The three of them had no trouble using the power of the spirits.

However, unlike the Paradise Era, Datang had expanded. Many villages were built not only in the swamps but also in the forests and plains between them. In the end, the three were not enough and they had to form another pilgrimage group.

It was a very difficult pilgrimage, as the lions and leopards ate the weakened Datons, who had to use as little spirit power as possible, and their numbers had grown significantly.

They risk their lives as they move. They might get infected with a stray dog ​​along the way. If not, they have to fight off a pride of leopards and lions with their bare hands.

I miss it. During the pilgrimage, when dozens or hundreds of people fought with the All-Chaun, there was no living creature that could not be defeated on the grassland if they shot fireballs. Later, during the Paradise Era or the Prosperity Era, it was not difficult for five Datons to chase away a pride of lions.

But now I can’t use the power of the spirit. That’s because if I throw a fireball somewhere and there’s a Hanjutamal there, I’ll get infected and die right away.

So, we’ve gone back to the Stone Age. Stone blocks. Tree branches. Spears made by joining the two together. That’s not enough.

“I thought the weapon-making method that Bark Maja taught me long ago would be helpful here.”

Since there are fire spirits anyway, bows, slingshots, and javelins were nothing more than toys or sports equipment. The memories of these advanced civilizations still remain. Daton quickly arms himself with realistic weapons instead of the mysterious fire.

Fortunately, although Daton was weak in strength, he was skilled enough to quickly master the difficult weapon called the bow.

So over the next few hundred years, connections between villages had to be reestablished, weapons were given to them, and they were taught again how to live a dangerous hunter-gatherer life without fire.

In a sense, it’s a return to tradition. We’ve returned to tradition so much that we’ve regressed to the level of the Stone Age.

Anyway, we can’t say that everything is old. There is a clear difference between the prehistoric era and the primitive era.

First of all, no one knew of that way of life except for Ol Chaun. Even the oldest man, Manum Lapang, was from the Paradise Age.

And the suffering they endured was not much different from that of people living in modern society who have been deprived of electronic products and various cultural items.

The population of 130,000 in 800 years was reduced to only about 6 million. Each community had about 1,500 people. Pilgrims formed a prehistoric network that averaged about 1,000 people per community.

Manum Lapin, who had been carving stones like crazy to mark administrative areas, safe zones, and danger zones, came up with a system that would allow Castle Laurent to run this crude system.

It was a blessing for Daton that All Chaun (or more accurately, Datang Oram) remembered all the technologies that had been developed previously. It was possible to restore the prehistoric era, not a complete return to the primitive era.

The Hanjutamal was terrible, but apart from the occasional outbreak, it subsided and everyone knew how to deal with it. Those who got it… were simply banished and sent to wander the plains forever.

However, it was impossible to regain the former prosperity with this system. The population support capacity of the grasslands was poor, and civilization was barely maintained with the cultural artifact called spirit magic, so it was inevitable that spirit magic would be used again.

However, the trend of giving spirits to everyone had to change.

“The existing system cannot cope with Hanjutamal, so we will reorganize the datang.”

First, there is the ‘Ol Datun’, the royal family of Datang, at the top. The ‘Chaun’, the leader of the Mainiran and the spirit beasts, belongs to Ol Datun, and the leader of the entire Datang is Ol Chaun. In principle, they are equal.

Each Chaun has the authority to speak directly with the Mainiruns, and each Chaun has its own direct unit of spirits named after them, such as Dasul Datun, Bokabor Datun, etc. They are purely proportional to the population, and they are given a set amount of spirits to each region as spirit beast units and strictly managed to avoid Hanjutamal and rebuild civilization.

There are also Manum Datun and Kasul Datun, and of course, these are not all under the same authority, but are directly under each Mainiran.

Those who have the authority to meet Ol Chaun directly but do not live with him are called ‘Dutan’. They are the nobles of Datang. They meet Ol Chaun directly, receive the spirit directly, and control Daton.

And those who are blessed directly by Dutan and have some of the power of the spirits used are called ‘Dit’. In other words, if Dutan is a local official, Dit is a lower-level official under him. You could say that it is the gentry or gentleman class of Datang.

‘Dot’ is a commoner. They know of the existence of All Chaun, but All Chaun doesn’t know them. They don’t receive the power of the spirits. If they want to protect themselves, they have to rely on their weapons and physical abilities.

The biggest change from the previous system is that the power of the spirit is not shared with everyone, but controlled. Only the talented and capable are granted the power of the spirit. Or the adults who have received the Baptism of Youth for the first time. Only after receiving it a second time can they decide their course.

It’s not because there aren’t enough resources to share. In the past, everyone would share their spirits once they became adults.

But if a dot-type character gets caught in a one-week attack and starts spreading it during the incubation period, it’s unmanageable.

So, they divided the classes and the higher classes controlled the people they came into contact with and related to in order to somehow block the spread of Hanjutamal.

Eventually, Datang changed from a completely equal spirit state based on race to a completely class-based state. It became difficult for different classes to even get along with each other.

Is it healthy that at this point in time, high ranks are not considered so good? First of all, in order to prevent disorderly transmission, sexual behavior is strictly controlled and meetings are also controlled. It is a role that is thoroughly monitored and has a lot of responsibility.

That’s why it’s always older people who do it, not younger people. It just happened that way. It’s not used for power or social advancement yet, but… I wonder?

Oh, and there are the lowly. Not just any lowly, but the untouchables.

Those who live in the Holy Land with the help of the Mainiran are called ‘Hanjutamen’. They are those who cannot leave the Holy Land because of the Hanjutamal. They live in the Holy Land their entire lives, gather food from the Mainiran, and make their own supplies to survive.

All Datons can become Hanjutamun if they are unlucky, so the pity and sympathy for them is great. Their situation is not bad. It seems that the caste system is still functioning properly······.

This quarantine system, reminiscent of the wartime system, lasted for a whopping 3,600 years. It took that long for the population to recover to its peak.

The population did not grow easily. Without the power of the spirits, they could no longer wash their bodies with fire, which they had done naturally in the past, and eventually they became vulnerable to other diseases instead of the Hanjutamal.

If the Paradise Age was a time when everyone was given an abundance of spirits and resources, and the population grew naturally, the stagnant period of the Mythical Age could be said to be a time when everyone was given insufficient resources, but the population steadily grew due to the development of social infrastructure and technology.

When will this period end? Castle Laurent is trying every means necessary to find a cure, but it is not easy.

The opportunity for a reversal came unexpectedly on its own. If not a cure, then a way out of this damned deadlock was found.

By the way, everyone. Do you know about sickle cell syndrome, even though it’s sudden?

In simple terms, it is a genetic disease that makes breathing inefficient, but makes people resistant to a disease called malaria. To be precise, people with this serious disability have an advantage in survival because of the terrible disease called malaria.

So to speak, the next mine run was for the disabled.