EP.13 A Fragment of the End
Hunting and gathering are ancient human instincts, and the psychological reward obtained upon achieving results through them is a time-honored kind passed down from antiquity.
I was no exception. Having obtained something incredibly precious through exploration, I felt as if I could fly into the sky. Not even the fact that this place was the Abyss, the deepest chasm furthest from the sky, could contain my joy.
Moreover, it didn't take much effort. I got them with the exact amount of effort it takes to go for a quick morning walk and have a dog fetch something.
It's lucky that it's still there. It's a Level 3 state secret, so it should be at the very top of the disposal priority list.
Feeling refreshed and overjoyed, I grabbed Aji, the number one contributor to this harvest, and ruffled her hair.
"Aww, you're so cute! How can you be this cute!"
"Woof! Woof!"
A normal person would be on guard, wondering what schemes someone might be plotting if they suddenly hugged them and called them cute.
But Aji is a dog incapable of doubt. Aji, the King of Dogs, rejoiced purely even at baseless praise.
Barking joyfully, Aji suddenly turned to look at me and spoke.
"Now, do you like walks?"
"Just for today, it's lovely."
"Woof? Love?"
"It means I like it a whole lot."
"Woof! Me too! I love walks!"
...Love?
Didn't they say generosity comes from a full granary? With my pockets full, I've become much more forgiving. This food-obsessed dog looks especially cute today.
The two of us chattered happily as we walked out of the ruins.
"Right. Keep being this good from now on."
"I'm originally good!"
"Good my foot. Whenever you didn't like something so far, you immediately bared your teeth. Growling like, 'Grrr.'"
"Growl?"
As if she had never done such a thing, Aji feigned innocence. Or rather, maybe she didn't just feign innocence but actually deleted the disadvantageous memory. Dogs have no shame.
As if. This human remembers it clearly.
I bared my teeth at Aji and made a growling sound. Then Aji tilted her head, raised her tail, and copied me.
"Grrr, rl?"
"Right. Don't go 'grrr.' Don't raise this from now on. Don't try to bite, either. Even if you're dissatisfied, just use your tongue for now. Got it?"
"Woof!"
"I'll take that as a yes."
'Don't raise this... Just use the tongue... Surely not.'
As I was having this serious conversation with the dog and stepped outside,
a chilling murderous intent flew in from somewhere and struck me.
'Light clothing. Don't tell me, already? No, I came down right after her, so there wasn't enough time.'
The Regressor was glaring at me with a frigid expression.
Huh? Murderous intent? Why?
While I was flustered and failed to react, the Regressor raised her hand to the back of her head. With a flick, an invisible sword was grasped in her fingers.
'Anyway, this is an attempted murderer, right? Alright. Let's kill her.'
"Wait, wait, wait!"
I grabbed Aji's shoulder and pushed her forward. Unaware that I was using her as a shield, Aji stared blankly at the Regressor.
Hiding behind Aji, I shouted desperately.
"I don't know what you're thinking, but it's all a misunderstanding!"
"What's a misunderstanding?"
"Everything! Starting from your shameless thoughts to the very end of them!"
"Shameless? Me? Aren't you talking about yourself?"
"Yes! You, whose head is full of nothing but obscenity!"
Shring.
Ah, she finally drew Cheon-aeng. I pressed myself tightly against Aji's back and yelled.
"They say you see what you want to see, but your thoughts are the most impure from the start! What exactly do you think I am?"
The Regressor answered with cold eyes.
"A beast."
"That's what's strange!"
Right now, the Regressor is genuinely harboring a severe delusion. It's so preposterous that rather than feeling wronged, I'm just bewildered.
No, dear god. I've taken quite a few false accusations in my life, but a charge of bestiality is a first. And she's trying to execute me for a charge that anyone else would despise or laugh off! From suspect to verdict, this is worse than Gunguk!
Facing the Regressor, who was approaching with a vicious expression, I shouted with desperate sincerity.
"With a dog? Don't make me laugh. What kind of person in the world has relations with a dog!"
The Regressor brought a few people to mind. Reading her roughly, they were probably guys who had attempted love with a dog in some past timeline.
Dammit, does humanity even lose its human nature in a future close to the end? What shames to the human race. I pressed my forehead and cried out.
"I know too! I know that there are humans in this world who simply cannot be understood by common sense! But at the very least, I'm not one of them! I am a person with perfectly ordinary tastes!"
"...You keep treating Aji like a dog."
The Regressor pointed her Cheon-aeng at Aji's shoulder, which I was grabbing.
"Are you doing it on purpose, or do you really think that way?"
"What else?"
"Aji is not a dog. She is the King of Dogs, the King of Beasts in human form."
Aji was looking back and forth between me and the Regressor with a blank expression. A face full of curiosity in her large eyes. Heavy breathing as if she had just sprinted. A girl with messy blonde hair.
Outwardly, she's a somewhat lively, energetic girl full of healthy charm. Outwardly, that is.
However.
"Trainee Shei."
"Do you understand now? You've been constantly treating Aji like a dog. Aji is..."
"Are you out of your mind?"
When the Regressor flinched at my stern shout, I pushed Aji as far forward as I could and yelled. Aji just opened her eyes wide and moved as I guided her.
"Trainee Shei, answer me! Is Aji a human?"
"What? What kind of..."
"Answer me! Is Aji a human? Is she beautiful?"
"Uh, well."
Faced with my relentless questioning, the Regressor muttered in a somewhat defensive posture.
"She, she has a human form, right?"
"Did I ask that? I asked how you feel when you look at her! Do you get turned on looking at Aji?"
"Turned on! T-That's impossible!"
"You feel the same way, so why are you only spouting that kind of nonsense to me? Are you ignoring my dignity?"
"T-That's because..."
'You're overly close to Aji, and on top of that, you're the only guy...'
You suspect me just because I'm a guy? It's so preposterous I'm speechless. Aji is a dog before she's a female, a dog!
Wait. Come to think of it, you're cross-dressing right now too!
I was so bewildered that it made me angry. With my passive and weak disposition, I usually just take it when I'm pushed around, but I can't stand having my human morality and dignity questioned. I pride myself on not falling outside the bounds of a normal human, yet she's comparing me to that kind of scum.
"Trainee Shei, listen carefully."
When anger reaches its peak, there comes a moment when the head cools down and reason returns. For me, that time was now.
Exhaling deeply the breath that surged from deep within my heart, I began to speak calmly to the Regressor.
"Between someone who throws a ball to a person and tells them to fetch it, and someone who greets a person in the morning and asks if they had a good meal. Which one is normal?"
"T-That would be... the one who gives a morning greeting."
"You know that well. Then, between someone who throws a ball to a dog and tells it to fetch, and someone who gives a morning greeting to a dog and asks if it had a good meal. Which one is normal?"
"T-That's..."
'She is a dog, but...'
You just confessed your own crime. You know it yourself, so why are you picking on me?
I glared at the Regressor with bloodshot eyes and roared.
"That's right! Treating a dog like a dog is normal! The one who awkwardly greets it with a 'Hello' and asks if it had a good breakfast is the weird one!"
"B-But."
"Aji is in a human form? Oh ho. Then I suppose it's fine for me to consider that you see Aji as a human? That with those shameless and lustful eyes, you're pretending to treat Aji as an individual while constantly coveting her!"
"N-No! I'm not!"
"You're a guy too! Just like me! Actually, you're more suspicious than I am. Why do you always treat Aji like a human, stalk her, and constantly suspect there's some kind of relationship going on! Are you perhaps jealous?!"
"That's impossible!"
"Just words! Look back at your own actions!"
'Ugh, if only I wasn't cross-dressing...!'
The cross-dressing Regressor couldn't bring herself to rebut. Emboldened, I took a step forward and pressed her further. Aji, whose shoulder I was holding, seemed to think it was a fun prank and walked along as I led her, smiling brightly.
"Got it? You're the weird one here!"
Reason knows the answer. The Regressor knows it too. Logically, whose words are right, and whose attitude is more rational.
Against my attack using only pure logic, the Regressor stumbled backward.
"Woof?"
Of course, Aji, who can't understand more than two words regardless of logic or whatever, was just looking back and forth between me and the Regressor with a puzzled expression. This is exactly the proof that Aji is a dog.
A dog is a dog. I delivered a stern rebuke to the Regressor, who had overlooked this obvious fact and gotten too overly invested.
"Empty words spoken to a mere dog. You're the weird one for assigning meaning to them! Got it? I can say 'I love you' a thousand times, ten thousand times! Because I don't actually have any feelings for her!"
But I momentarily missed a crucial point.
Aji is a dog, but at the same time, she is the King of Beasts, a being bestowed by the world to communicate with humans.
She might not understand the meaning of the words well, but she could hear my words.
"Woof?! You don't like me?"
"Huh?"
Aji looked up at me, her large eyes filled with doubt. Her tail, which was always wagging, drooped powerlessly, and her always perked ears drooped down.
Before I could even think, 'Uh-oh,' Aji spoke tearfully.
"You hate me?"
"Ah, well. Aji, there's a lot to explain here."
"Woof?"
Wait.
Hmm, wait a second. Let me think about this.
The King of Dogs is a dog. I can't explain it with complicated words. Even if I try to say let's talk about it later, she probably won't listen.
In other words, whatever I say here to back the Regressor into a corner, Aji will take it seriously.
Alright, it's a matter of choice. Will I lower Aji's favorability to drive the Regressor further into a corner and mock her? Or will I maintain her favorability and let the Regressor go?
...It can't be helped. A moment of pleasure, or the future?
There's no choice. I can't ruin the grand plan over a trivial amusement right now.
Having made my decision, I spread my arms and flashed a beaming smile at Aji.
"Of course it was a lie. I actually like you a whole lot, Aji."
"A whole lot?"
"Yeah. A whole lot. Where else would you find a kid as kind and cute as you around here."
It's not exactly a lie. Compared to a terrifying vampire and a seemingly insane Regressor, she's much more helpful. She's also reliable.
If only she could read the mood a little, if only she could be a little more patient... It would have been much better.
But I suppose this is also a trait of a dog. I have no choice but to accept it.
"You like me?"
"I said I like you."
Whether she's naive or foolish, her mood changes drastically with just a single word.
Ah, maybe she's both.
But humans feel a sense of stability from such deficiencies, so it can only be called ironic.
As I let out a hollow laugh,
"Woof! Do you love me?"
...Love?
Why ask this of all things when someone is watching? Did someone provoke you?
No, who did she even learn the word "love" from in the first place? Who taught a dog such a useless word?
Oh my, it was me both times!
Damn it. Crushed by a disaster I brought upon myself. It can't be helped. Since it's a disaster I called for, I have to clean it up myself.
Desperately ignoring the cold gaze of the Regressor who had regained her composure, I slowly nodded.
"Yeah... That's right."
You can say "I love you" to a dog a hundred times. There are many people in the world who love their pets more than their fellow humans.
However, saying it in front of the Regressor, who was glaring at me with freezing eyes... was incredibly burdensome.
Still, it was an unavoidable situation. I swallowed hard, and in an atmosphere that had somehow turned serious, I forced my reluctant lips to move and barely shaped the words.
"I love you..."
Then her tail fluttered. They say words have no weight, but to Aji, who receives even such trivial emotions so grandly, it was akin to everything.
Aji smiled radiantly and held out her arms toward me. Leaning her body against mine, she entrusted her entire weight to me.
It was a sign of trust that a dog only shows to those it is close to, completely surrendering its body.
Pure goodwill filled her face. Smiling like a fool, Aji let the corners of her eyes droop softly.
"Woof! I like you too! I love you!"
"Yeah..."
I never knew I'd be whispering words of love with a dog in my life. Sigh.
Aji jumped up and leapt into my arms. With trembling hands, I stroked Aji's fur.
And as always.
'Seriously... I can't let my guard down.'
The Regressor is guarding against me even more strictly.
Ah. Stop. Don't look at me with those eyes. Don't fiddle with your sword handle wondering whether to kill me or not. I'm not that kind of person.
I only like her as a pet.
'If that guy is a Gunguk instructor as I assumed, and if he volunteered to come to this Tantalos. Then his power can be explained. That's precisely why I have to be even more careful.'
Ah, and honestly. I understand your feelings too, you know. If someone proudly claimed they had relations with a beast, I would despise them too.
I don't have the intention or the ability for that, but even if I did, you shouldn't try to kill someone. The death penalty for loving a beast? The sentencing itself is weird.
No matter how I think about it, I can't shake the feeling that this is an overreaction...
'...An organization under Gunguk's Special Forces. A secret society that sought the downfall of enemy nations by controlling the Kings of Beasts according to Gunguk's will.'
Uh, wait.
What? A secret society?
'The Masters of All Creation. A gathering of beast-handling specialists and discriminationists who despise beastmen more than anyone else. There's a high chance he belongs to them.'
Various images flashed through the Regressor's mind.
In an unrecorded past, she stood on a plain. A sword lighter than the wind was gripped in her hand, but her heart was heavy.
The guilt of failing to prevent the end. The helplessness of knowing she couldn't change anything alone. She had failed in this lifetime too. Everyone beside her would die. But she would eventually defy death and open her eyes, setting out to find a different future.
Beside the Regressor, thoroughly terrified people stood in a line. Cold sweat flowed from their palms, and their eyes trembled with fear, but they dared not even think of running away.
If the opponent were fellow humans, they could have begged for mercy. Even if they were to die, they could have pleaded to at least spare their families.
But the ones coming to kill them this time were not bound by the rules created by humans. Because they had human shapes, but were not human.
The horizon shook. The ground trembled. A frenzied dash, with a few points at the vanguard, thousands of beasts rushed in like a curtain being dragged forward.
Their kinds were different. There were four-legged beasts and two-legged beasts. Some were in human forms, but had beast ears or long tails swinging by their waists. Beastmen, the sons and daughters of the sins humanity committed in the past. The beastly bloodlines, born human but not treated as such, used what they gained from humans to kill humans.
And before them, there were humans exuding an alien aura.
The Kings of Beasts.
Those who speak for a race.
The Kings of Beasts are strong, but they do not project their power. They are, to the end, the spokespersons of their races. Those who convey the will of their race to humans as representatives.
However, if the will of the race is to rebel against humans. If the race's resolve is firm.
The Kings of Beasts execute the will of their subjects.
And among the subjects, the beastmen who couldn't endure persecution and harbored hatred took the lead.
Blood, flames, smoke.
Beasts clad in iron and flames attacked humans... Wielding weapons with unleashed savagery, they were no different from a disaster.
And, the ones with the greatest numbers among the beastmen who betrayed humanity were.
Leading the absolute majority of the rebel army, the King of Beasts who stood at their forefront was—
The clattering past faded away, and reality returned to me. What I had just read was so vivid that the scenery seemed to still be etched onto my retina.
That was both the past and the future. A fragment of the end that the Regressor experienced, and one that I would also experience if there were no other variables.
With a trembling hand, I placed my hand on the head of Aji, who was nuzzling her face in my arms. Her broad ears, fluttering like paper on a desk, perked up slightly before settling down.
The King of Dogs, clamping her mouth shut and leaning her weight on me.
Loyal to humans, and yet the darling of a lovable pet.
In the future that would someday come, she was smiling, drenched in blood from head to toe.
'The King of Beasts is a being appointed by the world. Even if I kill her here, the next generation's king will be born somewhere in the world.'
Why did I overlook it?
The Regressor's worry couldn't just be unfounded.
'As long as Aji is relying on him like that, I can't rashly dispose of that man. It's also hard to be certain that he belongs to the Masters of All Creation. But in this current situation, that man has the highest probability of becoming the catalyst for a rampage. There's no reason not to keep watching him.'
That's true.
Aji's body was warm and soft. Her hands, slightly curled up so her claws wouldn't show, revealed a consideration to not hurt me. She couldn't have done that thinking about it, so it must have been an instinctive act to avoid hurting someone.
Just what kind of events occurred that made those curled-up hands become soaked in blood?
It seems the future is much harsher than I thought.