# Chapter 62
“Oh my, what a joy.”
It was Artalis, the first king of Artalis and the god of the sun. Arden wouldn’t believe it if he heard. Just thinking about it made the corners of my mouth lift involuntarily.
“This will be a quick conversation. Usually when people meet me, I’m busy making them understand that I’m the real Artalis. Isn’t that funny? I’m a being who receives faith, but when people actually meet me, they can’t believe it and stare at me like this?”
Artalis spoke while narrowing her eyes sharply. After grumbling playfully, she soon returned to her original expression, giving an impression that was both languid and compassionate.
“But you show no reaction. Normally, people are busy chattering away when they meet me.”
“That’s because I didn’t come to meet you; you came to meet me.”
“Your speech is somewhat irreverent too.”
Continuing the conversation felt awkward. Having spent a long time repeatedly grabbing and choking the necks of beasts that charged with bared teeth, or striking them against hard surfaces, I found my own human-like behavior strange. I hoped she would realize how ridiculous it was to demand politeness from a monster who had wandered the forest for a long time.
“Where should I begin? How much did Arden tell you?”
“…”
“Your expression changed.”
She had said Arden.
“You know Arden?”
“He’s a person of Artalis too. Not that I know all Artalis people, but he’s a bit special, isn’t he?”
“Why.”
For what reason are you also special to him? What reason does Arden have to be special to someone else? My jaw tensed automatically, and my sharp teeth ground against each other.
“He saved you when you were nearly dead. A kind of benefactor? Isn’t that what you usually call such a person?”
“My benefactor. Not yours.”
“No. He’s mine too.”
Though she must have known I was being hostile, Artalis genuinely seemed to be enjoying this conversation. She seemed to lack the dignity one would expect from the sole deity of an empire with a long history.
“Because you are my child.”
“…”
“Though I borrowed someone else’s body, you are my child because I created you.”
A hollow laugh escaped me. By that logic, all people of Artalis were Artalis’s children. No, seeing that I was included, not just humans but all the monsters and trees living in the forest as well.
“I planted you in the Emperor’s body. Carrying and feeling the life that would kill him, waiting for the day of his death. A sufficient punishment. Enough to drive that arrogant man mad.”
“…”
“The Emperor was destined to die, trembling with pain and fear, the moment you tore through his body and were born.”
Her voice, which had been almost singing, abruptly stopped. The face that had only appeared kind transformed in an instant. With a face distorted by anger, she looked up somewhere in the sky.
“But he actually tore himself open.”
I followed her gaze upward. The sun floating in the sky was hazy. This was common, as the sky here was always this murky.
“It’s alright. That man still probably spends every night dreaming of your return.”
“…”
“So the Emperor abandoned you, a newborn, in the forest, and that traitor found you, and in the end, you’re alive like this.”
“…”
“Thanks to that, I get to see you grown up like this. The Emperor is gradually going mad. Not bad. Really.”
Artalis’s face had returned to tranquility.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s simple. You were born with the destiny to kill the Emperor.”
Artalis raised her hand and waved it gently. At her direction, golden powder rose into the air and formed a shape. A small baby with horns on its head was placed in a basket.
“Now that everything is prepared, you just need to carry it out.”
When she waved her hand once more, this time a horned monster beheaded a crowned figure.
As Artalis lowered her hand, the powder that had been floating and changing its appearance in the air plummeted to the ground in an instant.
The golden powder that had spilled onto the snow sparkled a few times before melting the snow and disappearing.
“Me?”
“You have a mission more noble and sacred than anyone.”
“Ha… me.”
It was ridiculous. To summarize the unbelievable story, I was merely a monster created to kill the Emperor. A monster that even failed at that.
“All beings in the world are born committing sins. They parasitize by sucking nutrients from those who conceived them, and they tear the flesh of those who carried them to be born into the world.”
Of course, me too, Artalis added in a light tone.
“But you’re different, Rite. Since I planted you in a body that couldn’t get pregnant, you couldn’t suck nutrients, so I personally helped you grow. The Emperor himself tore his own flesh, so you are the only being born without sin.”
“…”
“Not born to commit sins, but born to punish sins, a clean and noble being.”
I tried to trace my earliest memory, now dim. It’s a memory that may have been distorted after so much time. It was very hot, and there were various other sounds, but all I remember is a man’s scream. Could the owner of that scream be the Emperor that Artalis was talking about?
But none of that mattered. No matter how I was born, whether I was a noble being or whatever, that wasn’t what was important.
“Noble?”
The goddess was talking as if I were some chosen sacred being, but the reality was different. No matter how I was born, whose blood I inherited, I was a monster. A strange existence that couldn’t blend with people, made Arden bow his head, and was avoided even by the monsters of the Winter Forest.
“I’m not interested in destiny or anything like that. What do I care if an Emperor I’ve never even seen lives or dies? If you want to kill him so badly, do it yourself.”
“How can you say it doesn’t matter? Killing directly is only effective once or twice. When a mother or father dies, their child. Their child’s child. It’s such a headache. So this time, I intend to engrave it firmly in that bloodline. So they never dare to do anything foolish again. That’s all you have to do for me, and that’s why I created you. So it does matter.”
“If you were going to say things like that, you shouldn’t have made me in this form.”
A boiling sound came from my throat. Watching someone who knew nothing and was just spouting prettily packaged words made my insides feel stifled. The reason I was born as this kind of being was entirely because of this person. The reason I had to leave Arden’s side on my own feet was entirely this person’s fault.
“You make me in this monstrous form and then spout such nonsense?”
I wouldn’t have cared if I had been abandoned a hundred or a thousand times. If only it meant I could meet Arden. But in the end, didn’t I have to leave on my own?
The very person who made me feel that deep blue sadness of having to leave even when truly in love was standing before me. My aimless resentment now had somewhere to go. The unfairness and despair I had felt all this time overflowed.
“You probably don’t even know how I lived, what kind of humiliation Arden endured and tolerated. You probably don’t want to know either. How much I cursed my appearance every night!”
“…”
“I always had to live in hiding. I had to live trembling with anxiety. I had to put a hat on in a corner without being able to stand up in front of people who took or tried to take what was mine! I had to endure even when rocks were thrown at me calling me a monster, and I had to leave without even saying hello for fear that Arden might be driven out again because of me. Do you know all that when you’re talking?”
My anger couldn’t be controlled. When I kicked the ground hard with my foot, snow flew up. The snow that sprayed around Artalis melted and disappeared instantly, without even keeping its form. That sight made me even more heated.
Artalis, even while watching me like this, only tilted her head slightly with a calm face.
“What are you saying?”
“Have your ears gone deaf from living too long?”
“You resemble the most sacred being. Even though you’re neither god nor human, you can’t possibly be a monster.”
Artalis murmured once more, tilting her head. How strange.
Then she brought up something out of the blue.
“How much do you know about my husband?”
The protagonist of the Artalis founding myth was Artalis, but of course, she wasn’t the only one. Equally important was Artalis’s companion, the dragon Noah. Artalis symbolizing the sun and Noah symbolizing the night. The two were always a pair.
“My husband’s eyes were purple.”
“…”
“Like yours.”
Artalis smiled brightly once more. It was a smile full of affection. Looking at that face, I thought of Arden.
