EP.295 A World Made of Gears - 2
Maximilian was born in Yeolguk.
A country where all creation is false due to alchemy. Even a pebble rolling by the roadside is an artificial construct created by someone. The land where the Golden Mirrors roam is both a blessing and a curse in itself. Humans live crushed beneath gold.
It took less than a hundred years for the nature created by the Earth Mother over hundreds of millions of years to be covered by human traces. In that country, where even the enticingly ripened crops contained iron poison, humans themselves were used as materials.
Thanks to being born in such a country, Yeolguk, Maximilian survived.
Maximilian had no arms. Neither Maximilian nor his parents were too surprised. A person born without arms does not know why there are four limbs. Moreover, Yeolguk was originally a peculiar country where one out of three births produced a deformed child.
If there is something lacking in Yeolguk, it is filled with alchemy. That held true even for the arms of a child who hadn't fully grown. His parents, who were moderately capable alchemists, decided to make prosthetic arms for their child.
Overly ambitiously compared to their abilities.
Yeolguk was a country where one out of three births came with madness. Maximilian's parents were such cases. From a young age, Maximilian received his parents' fervent attention and underwent all sorts of modifications.
Was it love, obsession, or else the mindset of a scholar burning with fighting spirit toward a difficult problem?
Anyway, thanks to his parents' utmost effort and the endless pain he endured, Maximilian awakened to alchemy. With that knowledge, he made his own prosthetic arms.
Wandering Yeolguk with gear prosthetics, he quickly became famous.
No matter how outstanding an alchemist is, it is difficult to implement the necessary functions on the spot. However, for Maximilian, whose gears were practically his own body, he built sturdy mechanical devices even with low-quality materials. People were ecstatic about his works, which were different from the ground up.
Alchemy is honest. According to the law of equivalent exchange, no matter how hard one tries to cut costs, one cannot exceed the absolute amount of alchemical value. Sticking to conventional methods couldn't compete with Maximilian.
Maximilian, equipped with competitiveness, practically scraped together money from all over Yeolguk. In Yeolguk, where alchemical value was the truth, money was power. With an enormous amount of capital, Maximilian founded a company and emerged as a new rising power in Yeolguk....
Until the Golden Palace rejected him.
Once the approval was given, the jackals rushed in. Maximilian was an outstanding alchemist and had expertise in combat, but Yeolguk was a country of alchemy. A miracle where the scale tips the other way when the other side is heavier does not occur.
After a long chase, Maximilian had to flee across the border.
Then one day, news arrived that Maximilian's parents were looking for him. They were clearly taken hostage. Ignoring it would be rational, but to Maximilian, his parents were his teachers and benefactors. He couldn't leave them to die. He returned to Yeolguk on his own two feet.
Meeting his parents under strict surveillance, Maximilian took out a gear from his pocket.
It is said that in Yeolguk, out of three births, one is a deformed child, one is a madman, and one is a genius.
Sometimes, all three are born at once.
Maximilian terribly hated his parents' incompetence and neurotic personalities. Taking out their frustration on their child over a failed experiment was utterly incomprehensible to Maximilian's common sense. However, excluding that, they were somewhat loving towards their family.
In Yeolguk, if there is something lacking, it is filled with alchemy. Just as his parents did with Maximilian's arms, Maximilian also tried to 'fix' his parents' heads.
His parents could no longer get angry. If you can't think, you can't get angry.
Unlike his parents, Maximilian didn't shift the blame for his failure. Calmly admitting his own inadequacy, he cleaned up his surroundings and left.
***
Just before the sharp sawblade tore me to shreds, a brown shadow fell beside me like a meteor. It was Azi, who had been hiding until now. The King of Dogs, who could freely vent his anger against gears, leaped fiercely aiming for the sawblade.
"Woof!"
Even Azi isn't stupid enough to sink his teeth into a sharp sawblade. Azi's target was not the blade, but the shaft connected to it. Burrowing inside the Steel Beetle in an instant, Azi bit the rotary shaft and shook his head. He intended to rip the shaft out.
"Grr! Grrrrr!"
And he whined while hanging on.
Size doesn't always equate to strength, but the Steel Beetle demonstrated the sheer difference in weight class firsthand. Azi spun round and round along with the sawblade.
"Azi. Even with your strength, that won't work."
Humans are not strong. Objectively speaking, physically, there is no aspect in which they are superior to other beasts. Their skin is thin, their claws are round, and their bones are fragile. One wonders how they survived at all.
However, humanity's true strength lies in the ability to bring strength from elsewhere.
Skin another animal and wrap it around my body. Crack stones, pull out horns, and use them as claws. Cut trees, twist ropes, and use them as a frame. The strength gained in this way is not one's own, so it can be handled recklessly. Because if a tool breaks, you just have to make it again.
Humans became the rulers of the earth by using tools.
The Steel Beetle, greedily utilizing the principle of the wheel and axle, multiplies its strength arithmetically by hundreds or thousands of times. Before the violence of numbers, even the king of beasts cannot endure.
Ah, of course, excluding the King of Humans.
I reached out my hand toward the falling sawblade that Azi was hanging onto. My hand covered the side of the sawblade that would tear everything in the world apart at once.
Naturally, my hand should be torn to shreds.
Clack.
The meeting of the sawblade and me ended with a quiet sound. The sawblade, which had been thrashing like an angry storm, became perfectly still the moment it touched my hand.
"Mmmm..."
I heard Azi's silly whine as he hung dangling with the iron bar in his mouth. Maximilian opened his mouth in the silence.
"...It wasn't a baseless provocation. To think you can even handle the Steel Beetle."
"If you can do it, so can I."
Unlike the auto-carriage that uses the Thunder Wheel as its power source, the Steel Beetle moves solely by Maximilian's ability. The rolling wheels, the rotating sawblades, and even the joints connecting the gears are all under his authority.
Therefore, I, who use the same power, also exercise the same level of dominance.
Maximilian snapped his fingers. A motion like scratching the air with his fingernails, and every time he did, the Steel Beetle twitched. It tried to escape my hand and move according to its true master's intent.
However, as long as I am holding it, it doesn't move. Because I am moving exactly in opposition to Maximilian.
'It's a stalemate. I can't completely steal control. Is this the extent of it...? I have a chance.'
Tch. He figures it out fast.
He should have lost his reason after being provoked this much, but maybe it's because he drove gears into his own head. His emotions and reason operate separately.
"Isn't it too unsightly to get angry after being hit right on the mark?"
"I am not angry. You have the right to say such things to me."
Don't lie. You are angry. You're just spinning the thinking gears in your head hard and barely holding onto your reason!
"You attacked me without a word and now you say you're not angry. It's very hard to trust you."
"It can't be helped. You have no intention of following me. But I need you. Since our opinions don't mesh, we have no choice but to determine whose opinion is stronger."
"Even if you drag me along, if I don't cooperate, that's that."
"You might not cooperate. However, what about the King of Humans?"
That is indeed a problem.
I am the King of Humans, and even if I regain my power, my personality won't be twisted nor my character changed.
However, the reason I can't help but feel threatened is because humans have a history of driving out their king with their own hands, and...
"Perhaps, the King of Sins might be more cooperative."
No matter how I think about it, the King of Sins that the regressor saw in the future is definitely the King of Humans.
I am a human. I am a beast. Beasts do not do things that would destroy the world. No, it's impossible in the first place. Because beasts are also a part of the world.
To destroy the world, one must first commit suicide, but if one commits suicide, one cannot destroy the world. What a contradiction is this.
Yet they accomplished it. Amazing, you humans.
"I too don't know well the inner thoughts of the lord of all creation. Actually, I didn't need to know. My goal was to meet the King of Humans, that was all. However... if you don't acknowledge me, I must resort to other methods!"
Maximilian raised his right arm.
Gears crawling out from somewhere rolled down his body. Without even needing assembly, the gears moved and found their places on their own. Steel meshed together heavily. A giant arm of steel completed in an instant.
Maximilian swung the steel arm, aiming at me. I screamed.
"You said you'd take me with you!"
"Don't worry. Even if your limbs are ruined, I'll fix them for you."
"I don't need that!"