“Cairens!”
In contrast to his appearance full of inferiority complex, he looked overflowing with confidence. At his triumphant appearance, the gazes of the crow and Abrisius moved to him.
“What on earth is going on?”
At the sight of him calling for him loudly, Cairens appeared from behind the garden.
The flower crown he had said he would make for Abrisius was held in his hands.
“Aha, so you were here!”
The moment he saw Cairens, the corners of Ricarkos’s eyes curved up with such eerie joy.
An eerie premonition arose that something was terribly wrong.
“Hahahaha.”
—That bastard, his eyes have gone mad, haven’t they?
Lily cawed from the side. Abrisius also strongly agreed with those words. His eyes looking at Cairens were bizarre enough to make one instinctively avoid them. Should he say they were like the eyes of a murderer one shouldn’t carelessly touch?
A nauseating fear struck. The frightened Abrisius stepped backward.
Had he laughed like that for a while? Soon, completely wiping away his laughter, he stared at Cairens coldly.
“How nice that you’re acting so superior. What are you doing? Hurry up and take him away.”
‘Huh?’
As soon as the words ended, guards from behind him surrounded and restrained Cairens.
Abrisius, confused about what on earth this situation was, beeped while looking around.
Just until yesterday, those who had revered Cairens as the precious son of a god had all turned cold without exception.
‘What? Why is this happening?’
“Beep……beep.”
At the ominous feeling, Abrisius cried pitifully. Guards holding rattling helmets and spears surrounded Cairens in a circle, encircling him.
“Please don’t move, Cairens-nim.”
Inside the tightening encirclement, Cairens’s expression hardened. So that he couldn’t escape, they didn’t allow even a small gap.
“Why on earth are you doing this?”
Toward those who looked ready to point their spears at him at any moment, he wasn’t intimidated at all.
Though he clearly looked flustered by their attitude that had changed overnight like flipping a palm. Rather, without losing his dignity, he was calmly dealing with the situation fearlessly, unlike a child. Even at Cairens’s question, the guards hardened their expressions and kept their mouths shut.
“Move aside.”
Pushing away the guards blocking his path, Ricarkos stood in front of Cairens. Even in the midst of everyone’s serious atmosphere, he was raising the corners of his mouth and sneering at Cairens.
“It’s an order. Father’s order.”
“……The King’s order? What does that mean?”
“You still don’t know anything, Cairens. What kind of oracle came from your half-bloodline.”
What on earth was he trying to say? At his excited expression, Cairens’s eyebrows twitched. On the other hand, as if relieving the inferiority complex he had built up until now, Ricarkos burst into a fishy laugh.
“You, you know, are to be offered as a sacrifice.”
At the shocking words coming from his mouth next, Cairens and Abrisius exclaimed simultaneously.
—That’s absurd! Cairens as a sacrifice!
It was absurd at such nonsensical words. Killing Cairens, who bore the destiny of a hero, like this? He was the protagonist of this story and the one who would defeat the Dark Divine Race and Ircadeon.
To suddenly kill such a kid. Wasn’t this insane?
“It’s exactly as I said. This time, an oracle came from Zeyaom’s temple to offer you.”
Nonsensical words burst from Ricarkos’s mouth. At the increasingly shocking words, Abrisius was at a loss for words.
Cairens also seemed unable to believe this reality. Beyond shock and absurdity, the fear of death—that he might actually die—cast over the still young boy like a shadow.
“……How can I believe those words?”
“Whether you believe it or not doesn’t matter. But the important thing is that everyone is desperate enough to believe an oracle with little credibility, as you say.”
The dying earth, famine, and death by starvation from it. Watching their dying families and neighbors, countless humans were engulfed in despair. Even if they lit fires on temple altars, even if they killed and offered their only livestock, no answer came.
As if even they didn’t know.
In the midst of that, only one temple barely responded to their despair. It wasn’t strange that everyone blindly clung to the words of the god who extended a hand of salvation to the dying humans.
“The very precious life possessed by the son of a god. At the time the sun rises tomorrow, lay it down on the altar. How about it? Quite a simple solution, right? If not the son of god himself, what else could be the precious life possessed by the son of a god?”
With a fishy smile, at Ricarkos’s last words, Cairens’s pupils shook.
Making a gesture of drawing a line across his throat with his finger, he substituted his last words. At the words that what he had hoped wasn’t true was the truth, Cairens’s entire body stiffened rigidly.
“Beep! Beeeep!”
‘What kind of oracle is that!’
Bullshit. All of it, bullshit.
Only Abrisius, who knew what kind of existence Cairens would become in the future, was alone crying out that it was nonsensical.
Clearly, there must be some scheme or conspiracy they didn’t know about. If it were truly a real god, they would never have issued such an oracle against Cairens.
—Such an oracle? Well…… I’m not interested in what kind of existence that kid is. But as long as they say a god spoke, isn’t it the most important story to humans?
At Abrisius’s intense outcry, Lily, who had been quietly watching the situation, cawed.
—In a situation they can’t solve themselves, humans seek gods. Even if gods spout truly nonsensical words, desperate humans will jump into a pit of fire themselves at those words.
“Beeeep!”
‘That’s a foolish thing to do!’
—Originally, when you’re desperate, you become a fool. That’s the same for both gods and humans.
The more desperate and cornered humans become, the more overwhelmed by the situation they become and act irrationally. In extreme situations, individuals can’t properly judge the situation. And they try to follow transcendent beings.
The more fear and anxiety intensify, the more religious faith strengthens.
Even in the previous world where the existence of gods was uncertain, countless humans showed such tendencies, so how much more so in this place where the existence of gods was certain? They would believe in gods even more and try to unconditionally follow their words.
In that process, even if someone resists and struggles, as long as gods definitely exist, the humans who try to blindly follow their will don’t change.
“That can’t be.”
Cairens was an example of that right now. Praised as the son of a god, he was placed in a situation where, for the reason that it was the will of a god, he had to directly offer his one and only friend to the altar with his own hands.
No matter how much he refused and tried to deny it, if it was the will of a god, he had no choice but to accept it.
“Are you angry now that your lifeline is at stake? When did you maintain your dignity and tell me to calm down? But for you to show such a state, it’s not even funny.”
As if fanning the flames in a burning house. As if bursting out the inferiority complex he had built up, Ricarkos didn’t spare his mockery toward Cairens.
Acting mature, acting superior, always acting like he knew everything in front of him—to think Cairens had such a reaction. Where else could there be a more pleasant situation than this?
“……”
At the action that provoked him to the end, Cairens’s eyes rippled with anger. Like flames spreading across a calm sea, blazing brilliantly, he glared at Ricarkos as if to kill him.
“Your father was so moved by your noble sacrifice, you know?”
More force entered Cairens’s clenched fist. The image of the king praising him by giving meaning to his actions passed over his head. It was obvious that this incident would be revered as Cairens’s noble sacrifice and heroic spirit.
In that process, Cairens’s heart and feelings didn’t matter.
In their eyes, it was something Cairens chose knowing everything, and even if it was cruel and terrible, they praised him, seeing it as a sacred action.
Whatever the inner truth was didn’t matter. Even if Cairens cherished the deer terribly, even that action was considered his pre-calculated behavior to them.
