I had never thought of Tir as fast. Always carrying the coffin he slept in and strolling leisurely down the road, he looked no different from a turtle. Indeed, outside the Bottomless Pit, he had shown a sluggish appearance.
However, in the Fog Duchy, Tir was astonishingly fast. As if the claim that he shared his darkness to create fog was no empty boast, he manipulated the surrounding fog and moved as though swimming through it. It felt as though I was standing still while the world moved around me.
When I came to my senses, Tir and I had already moved to a quiet pasture. After confirming no one was around, Tir took a small deep breath.
"Whew. What just happened?"
"It's nothing. I merely used the power of the Demon God."
"I don't know what you mean by 'nothing.'"
Since I remained calm, Tir also regained some stability. When I sat down on a suitable rock, Tir sat down beside me and organized his confused thoughts.
'It was Hu's power that revived my heart. He recalled my long-lost memories and reignited the embers. Back then, overwhelmed with joy, and later wanting to stay with them, I didn't pry... But is it okay to ask Hu? What if I ask about the King of Humans and he vanishes like a fairy?'
Now it's fine to ask. Being the King of Humans was a fact I wanted to hide if possible, but since it had already been discovered, there was no reason to hide it.
Everyone's hand was being revealed uncontrollably. It was probably the result of a regressor seeing the future once and stirring everything up, but thanks to that, secrets became meaningless, and everyone was now running at full power in a race racing to the extreme.
If so, it was better to fully reveal this hand and participate in the race than to hide it tightly.
I spoke before Tir could even ask.
"Tir. The Demon God we met in Claudia had a unique power. As you saw, the power to control lightning."
"You mean the power Peru used at the end?"
"Yes. Though the way of using it is completely different."
Since the topic came up, I showed Tir by opening my palm. Currents crackled and flowed from empty air. It wasn't as powerful as Peru or the Thunder Council Lord, but it was a size sufficient for a single person to handle.
Having witnessed the mystery right before his eyes, Tir finally decided what to ask.
"Hu. Can the King of Humans... use the power of the Demon God?"
I had said it once before, but that time it was too vague. Should I tell him properly?
Even if I made him an ally, I needed to put him on the same starting line.
"No. All humans can use the power of the Demon God. Because the Demon God is the principle of the world."
Tir pondered for a long time before answering.
"The principle of the world... It's similar to what the old mages used to say."
"It's exactly the same. The magic mages use is also a fragment granted by the Demon God. It's a matter of how it's used."
Those who truly don't know, don't even know what they don't know. Tir's mind was filled only with such directionless questions. From a teacher's perspective, he would be the most difficult student to handle.
But who am I? I am the King of Humans. I read all of Tir's vague questions and chose an answer that pierced through them all.
"The world existed before humans. Within the great principles and flows, beasts simply lived. However, some beasts read the flow of the world and processed it to their advantage."
"You mean humans?"
"Not necessarily limited to humans. Birds flapping their wings, spiders building webs, beavers constructing dams. All beasts that have flowed along with the world understand and use it in their own ways."
I snapped my fingers, and two cards fluttered like birds. I stood them on the rock to make a card house. After knocking it down once, I attached them seamlessly to make it like a dam.
"Understanding and processing the world isn't exclusively human. All beasts do similar things. Humans are just a bit more proficient. Humans who turned that proficiency into curiosity tried to understand the world even just to use tools better... and after countless attempts, finally reached the fundamental principle."
"The principle of the world?"
"Yes. Not for use as a tool, but reaching the very principle of the world itself. To use an analogy, rather than picking up fire to use it, they learned how to start a fire. The Demon God is the principle refined into law, a gift and power left by the pioneer who awakened to this world."
I pressed down on the rock with my palm. It would be difficult to move with my strength or weight, but using earth arts, it sank in. Beneath my handprint, the rock that had turned to soil remained as is. When I swirled my finger in a circle, a dandelion bloomed from a handful of soil. A seed that had been hiding in a rock crevice and died forced itself to sprout.
"The power to change the world. Using this Demon God through formalized methods is merely magic; fundamentally, it's a power permitted to all beasts."
"...But vampires couldn't use it."
"That's unavoidable due to the nature of vampires. Because the boundary between inside and outside is blurry. To change the world, one must establish themselves as the center, but vampires had no clear distinction of self. Ah, but maybe the current Tir who has reclaimed his heart might be able to."
Controlling that massive power swirling inside the body would come first, but anyway. Tir nodded and moved on to the next question.
"If the Demon God is a power permitted to humans, why did the Seonghwangcheong seal the Demon God?"
"Oh, you figured that out well."
"Isn't it obvious? There was the Seonghwangcheong's scheming both in the Bottomless Pit and in Cloud Village."
I did say he had an uncanny ability to sniff out the Seonghwangcheong. I nodded and said.
"It's not that the Seonghwangcheong sealed the Demon God. They don't have the ability to do so. You'll understand if you look at the Golden Scripture or the Earth Mother Goddess, but they revealed themselves openly to the world, didn't they?"
"They did. Their teachings also spread throughout the world. Then, what was the Seonghwangcheong doing about that?"
"It's simple. They sealed one of the Demon God's knowledge to prevent humans from committing taboos."
Tir reacted to the word taboo. The being closer to taboos than anyone else in the world, a gluttonous vampire who drinks the blood of others, knew taboos well. Tir mentioned taboos with an unpleasant expression.
"You mean the four taboos the Seonghwangcheong arbitrarily established?"
"Yes. You know all four types of taboos, right?"
"Of course I know them. I've heard them so much I'm sick of them, I could list all four right now."
"Please do."
If it's something we both know, there's no need for me to explain. Tir readily accepted the explanation I passed to him.
"First-class taboo, Gluttony. The act of eating evil and terrible things to fill one's body. Those trash slandered and attacked vampires, calling them seeds of gluttony. We merely take blood without taking life."
I didn't mention it explicitly, but usually the evil and terrible things were fellow humans. Tir also frowned and moved on.
"Second-class taboo, Grafting. The act of discarding the body the Creator shaped and changing it to something else. The black magic creations with beast horns or wings grafted onto their bodies are the results of grafting."
"In the Allied Nations, they changed their bodies into mechanical devices, though."
"Yes. That could also be called grafting. For something designated as a taboo, they didn't properly prevent it, though. Anyway. The next third-class taboo is..."
Tir, who had been speaking sternly, suddenly clamped his mouth shut mid-sentence. He was about to mention the third-class taboo but hesitated and trailed off.
"...N-next. The third-class taboo."
"What. You don't know?"
"I know! Th..."
'The third-class taboo is Mating... I know that's a taboo, but how can I spit out such an embarrassing word in front of a man!'
Good grief. Blushing over saying that. At her age, acting like a pubescent girl? If it's that hard to say, I'll say it for her.
"I'll tell you. The third-class taboo is Mating. The taboo of grafting humans with something to conceive something other than human. The methods vary, including bestiality and promiscuity. The Empress Agartha, who mated with all kinds of beasts and shared beds with all the men in a city, is the most famous..."
"Do you have no shame! I know the fact well too, so move on quickly!"
She slaps me with an increasingly reddening face. I wanted to tease her more, but it hurt more than expected, so I quickly moved on to the next taboo.
"Lastly, the fourth-class taboo is Heresy. The taboo of deluding humans with wicked knowledge and making them lose their faith. It condemns and seeks to correct impure spirits and false beliefs."
"That's truly whatever suits their fancy. If it doesn't please them, they consider everything heresy and attack it."
"I think similarly. Now, Tir. We've covered the four taboos. Do you know what the commonality of these four is?"
Though they were called taboos, they were actually not that significant. There were many cases that could easily be seen around secretly. No one would boast about them proudly, but faced with extreme circumstances, anyone would choose to survive even by committing taboos.
As vampires did, as the people of the Allied Nations did, as Agartha did. Taboos clearly existed in reality.
However, there was a reason the Seonghwangcheong designated all this reality as taboos.
"Taboos are things that cause human change."
To protect humans.
"Gluttony makes humans into prey. Grafting makes humans into tools. Mating clouds human purity. Heresy ruins human spirituality. To protect humans as individuals and as a species, the Seonghwangcheong created taboos."
"...To protect humans?"
How do you know that, Tir asked with his eyes as he looked up at me. Tsk, I had nothing to say about that.
I am the King of Humans. I don't have the memories the previous King of Humans had. What was given to me is only a promise from long ago.
That promise... the promise the first saint used to bind the King of Humans is still being passed down. All I know is that promise. There are no memories of the first year. So I have no words to give.
"Now, let's go back to the original point. The Demon God that reached the principle of the world has the power to overturn the world. Even if the Demon God's relics don't use their power, just the spread of their knowledge changes the way people view the world and changes their lives."
Instead, I conveyed the facts I knew for certain.
"But, Tir. Humans are also part of the world."
The Seonghwangcheong tried to hide the Demon God. They tried to kill Tir as soon as they confirmed he had learned blood alchemy, and rejected the existence of vampires. They defined as taboos the acts everyone secretly disapproved of.
All of that, for a single purpose.
To protect 'humans.'
"The power of the Demon God can overturn 'humans.' Not their way of life or actions, but the very concept of 'human' itself."