Omniscient First-Person’s Viewpoint - Chapter 601



A Tale of the Past. The Old Testament – Conclusion

The first saintess wanted to create a framework where humans could live peacefully. She dreamed of ending an era where barbarism and taboos surged like a flood, and of living in an era where norms were upheld under order.

“But I was just a mere human. I couldn’t fix the framework from within.”

“Don’t be disheartened. Everyone experiences the realization of their limits. The more talented, the later it comes.”

“Even if I faced limits in countless futures and returned, I couldn’t overcome the great wall. To truly achieve this order, only…”

She looked at me and ‘sister’ with desperate eyes, as if clinging to us.

“Only you.”

With the powerful authority of foresight, she had gained near-omniscient power. She didn’t have to be so deeply involved with the human king. She could have dealt with the three monsters as she wished and built a great force.

But the first saintess also moved the world as the king’s warrior.

“The human king is perfect. Beautiful, intelligent, strong, and merciful. But that’s not the only qualification. The human king has the true qualification.”

She had been targeting the human king from the beginning. Because it was necessary.

“The human king. That itself.”

“Special. Unique. And… always existing without the worry of being lost.”

The human king is a conceptual being. He strongly manifests the characteristics of the human species. And if we talk about human characteristics, it’s exceptional intelligence, delicate craftsmanship, strong shoulder strength, and the ability to learn by observing knowledge. The human king was promised to be a superhuman.

Moreover, when you die, you are reborn somewhere in the world, so you become a perfect superhuman without even the worry of disappearing or losing anything.

Thus, the first saint served the human king.

Not only did she master all kinds of knowledge, but she also taught the human king.

Instead of dealing with the three forbidden monsters herself, she had the human king exterminate them.

And in the end, she knelt and pleaded.

To become the guardian of order and destroy evil.

But as far as I saw, she failed spectacularly.

“‘Sister’ would have refused that in every future. This is the best future you chose.”

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime gamble with everything I have. If we are to reach the end anyway, it’s a glimmer of hope in the unknown possibility.”

“What?”

“It’s an ending chosen in the hope of an uncertain chance, rather than the best future.”

The first saint, who murmured, looked at me precisely. She pierced through time, space, and even my heart and asked.

“What do you think, my lord?”

“What?”

“If you lost all your power and stepped down from the throne. If you were left as just an ordinary human. If you realized the fear of death and pain. If you knew the fear that ordinary humans go to sleep with every day.”

I had one promise. It wasn’t mine, but ‘sister’s’ who was stabbed to death here. It was a promise made with the concept of the human king, not with me or sister.

Some powerful being tore the power of the human king and forcibly made a promise.

“If you knew those who can’t believe that today will come unchanged as tomorrow.”

“Are you entrusting it to me?”

“At the end of the future I saw, you are there. It means that even the five qualified people I chose eventually couldn’t represent humanity. Order has become a laughingstock, and the era where humans are swayed by power. Now, the human king will soon regain full power.”

From the beginning, the goal was to become the king of humans.

Either ‘sister’ or me. Or both.

“Would you become the true king and establish order in the world?”

The first saintess made such a request to me. Just as she had done to my sister, solely to protect humanity.

But the answer was already decided.

“I’m sorry.”

My stance remains unchanged.

The focus of the first saintess’s eyes slightly shifts. Is it time for the foresight to end? Moving my body to the distance where the focus aligns, I spoke.

“I cannot let order stand above humans. So, I will refuse the request to maintain order. To me, order is a tool, and if necessary, I will fix or change it.”

This must be a scene the first saintess did not wish for. The foresight is faltering. At the same time, her pupils slightly tremble.

“The order I desire is not so rough and strict.”

“I know. But the framework will eventually break. A demon might appear and twist the rules, or the world might change unexpectedly. A calamity might suddenly dive in and sink a corner of the continent.”

“But, there are values that do not change even in such moments.”

“Such values must prove their usefulness. It is not you or I who decide the value, but the people who need that tool.”

It is not only humans who are challenged. Values and order must always be challenged.

If humans are not perfect, the values and order created by humans are also not perfect. If you live thinking they are perfect, someday they will go wrong.

“Even if you set rules, they will eventually collide. Even if you establish order, it will collapse at some point. There are no unchanging values. Because the world changes.”

Now, the first saintess has become as faint as drizzle. Is the past I am seeing being affected? Or is the past changing?

The first saintess murmured bitterly.

“…Then, the order I will establish even by committing treason will ultimately end in failure.”

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“What? Why is that a failure?”

Everyone sees me as a complete barbarian.

When did I ever say that order is useless? I said that order is just a tool. And I like tools. I carry a variety of them.

I’ve never broken or destroyed order from the start in any city. I just exploited the gaps. I used it a bit more skillfully than others, and even if the result was the collapse of order, I acknowledged and followed it.

“They say living a hundred years is a good life. If you live about a hundred years, you’ve probably done a lot of good and made quite a few enemies. But if you’re about to die, who cares? You embrace all those graces and grudges, leave your descendants in the world, and then return to the embrace of the Earth Mother.”

If humans are mortal, then order is also mortal. Isn’t it strange to expect something grand from a mortal being?

“If an order has been maintained for over a thousand years, and despite some complaints, it has been fairly well-regarded. It might creak a bit due to old age and then be abolished, disappearing into the annals of history. Perhaps that order will become the foundation for a better and superior order.”

You can just replace it as needed. There’s no need to give it too much meaning.

“In the end, whether someone is oppressed or saved, it’s because humans used it as a tool.”

Just because a craftsman makes a knife, doesn’t mean they are responsible for all the deaths caused by that knife.

It’s the same. Just because you create order, doesn’t mean you bear all the harm it causes. That’s the responsibility of the human who wields the tool. It can’t be the responsibility of order.

“In that sense, I also support your wish. The tool you dream of, eternally beautiful and beneficial to humans, may not exist. But it will be durable and useful enough to achieve the future you desire.”

A Holy Office is being created? An order that will eventually collapse is being established?

So what. Build it. Create it. Pile up a sandcastle that will soon collapse. Assemble a frame that will eventually become ruins.

You can do anything. Because you have that power. Because you have that wish.

Whether what you leave behind will be used or not, will be decided by those who remain.

“Even if the goal can only be achieved by killing an innocent, noble, beautiful, and pure human king. If that’s what it takes to change the world.”

It might be a sorry thing to say to ‘sister’. It might be unfair to the tragic protagonist.

But a world where no one can commit treason is worse than a world where treason is possible.

“Not to me. Ask yourself. Fulfill your desire. Just as your sister let another monster go, just as you watched until the moment before committing treason.”

It might not be the future she wants, but I still cheered for her. I don’t intend to follow it, but I do intend to let her follow her heart.

I placed my hand on the shoulder of the first saint. My hand passed through her shoulder, but I patted her appropriately and sincerely cheered for her.

“Ah. Personally. I don’t dislike the order you created that much. Why, it wasn’t made with bad intentions, was it? It’s useful too. Although it seems the order you created dislikes me.”

I suddenly became curious.

Did the first saint foresee these words I spoke in my mind? Or is this a conversation we’re having before she foresaw it?

Will this conversation be conveyed to the past? Or is the result already determined, and as we exchange these Zen dialogues, will this scene remain as one of the fleeting foresights for the first saint?

The first saint spoke as if it were an unexpected remark, but already resigned.

“…You are asking me to create an order that you will not accept.”

“I told you, order is just a tool. The order of the human king is the same.”

Even the existence of such a concept can be a tool for someone. The demon god is the same.

How to use what already exists is up to the person. Freedom and responsibility lie with them.

“It’s the king’s command. I permit it, so if you want to, go ahead.”

A halo of light flickers. The vision of ‘sister’ wrapped in light gradually fades away.

‘Sister’s’ memory is coming to an end. The prophecy concludes here. The conversation that transcended the time between me, who sees the past, and the first saint, who sees the future, ultimately brought no change.

“…However. I still believe. There are immutable values in the world that we must believe and follow.”

But we both achieved significant results.

The first saint no longer hesitated.

She couldn’t cling to me or ‘sister’. Because she refused.

But she couldn’t give up either. Because she didn’t say it was wrong.

“What I thought was a duty to uphold, even if it was merely a barbarism forced by my power.”

It is an age of barbarism. Knowledge does not spread easily, and human malevolence bares its teeth everywhere. Malevolence is contagious. The methods of killing others will be learned and developed more quickly, spreading further.

Thus, the first saintess tried to establish a great rule with the corpse of her ‘sister.’

“For all the future humans I have seen. I will, just with faith, move forward.”

Even if this sin, paved with good intentions, grows into something unknown later, it is to save the ‘nation’ and the people of the frontier from conflict for now.

The first saintess clasped her hands tightly and prayed. With all her strength, as if clinging with her whole body.

“If this prayer reaches you, my Lord, please.”

Please, at least, keep my wish.

The last voice was buried in the pouring light and disappeared.

*

After a long prayer, El opened her eyes. The faint light of Yulim seeped through her stiff eyelids. Too dim to be hopeful, but too full to be despairing.

This faint light must be El’s essence. Somehow, it feels like tears will come. In sorrow, El moved her stiff body.

“…Moved!”

It was a voice exhausted from long waiting. Only then did El notice the king’s warriors surrounding the altar. The king’s warriors were filled with anger, yet enveloped in a strange fear.

“For fifteen days, without eating or sleeping….”

“What, what is this… strange occurrence….”

It was a scene of rebellion.

El’s five warriors ambushed the human king. Taking advantage of a completely unguarded moment, they blinded him with light, trapped him in an illusion, and attacked the human king with the pinnacle of their martial arts.

It was a fatal wound. However, the ‘sister’ also counterattacked at the moment of being attacked. The weapon and body wrapped in martial arts were broken and shattered in an instant.

If it weren’t for the revelation El sent, some of them might have died. But foresight was such a powerful authority. Avoiding the future of death through revelation, they were able to survive with great injuries.

They had to run. After pulling out the weapon that stabbed the king, they fought against the warriors and fled.

As planned, while the five warriors were escaping, El knelt beside ‘Nuna’ and quietly prayed. When she clasped her hands and closed her eyes, a faint halo enveloped them both.

“Guardian of Victory!! You wretch!!”

The warriors, enraged by Im’s death, approached. To interrogate her about Im’s death, they roughly, no, very roughly, dragged El away.

But El remained still.

No matter how hard they pulled, kicked, or struck with swords. Not a single scratch. As if promised to be there at that time, in that space. As if existing as an immutable truth like the past.

No matter how much the king’s warriors vented their emotions, cursed, and attacked, El quietly prayed.

For fifteen days, without eating or drinking, until the exhausted warriors fell away.

A miracle.

A power so miraculous that it defied reason.

The miracles she performed would be recorded in detail, remaining as evidence that gods exist in this world. Her enemies would be the ones to write it down.

“…From now on, I too will have to endure countless sufferings that I have foreseen.”

The moment she chose this path, El became a traitor to the king, and those who followed her would be persecuted. El’s teachings would not be written on scrolls covered in silk but inscribed on half-baked bricks, passed down sporadically. El would have her eyes gouged out and be dragged around nailed to a cross.

But El’s teachings would spread to all. While the king’s warriors, who had tasted power, fought among themselves and tormented the people, justice and morality would flow along the wounds. When it reached its limit, the five warriors who stabbed the human king would return, inheriting part of the power. Then, the order of the heavens created by El would be established.

In the meantime, El had only one task.

To fill that empty sky with gods.

As El turned her gaze to the sky, she suddenly saw Nevda. Even though fifteen days had passed since the king’s death, she still showed deep sorrow and burning anger. El looked at Nevda, who had become an incarnation of rage, and muttered bitterly.

“It will be worth it…”