Kelvin Celsius's consciousness is the oldest. Now even its functions creak, and without the assistance of other relics, it cannot properly manifest phenomena.
But among memories, there are those that remain particularly vivid. Memories of being humiliated in front of everyone, or events so sudden and shocking, remain like stains in the mind, surfacing from time to time.
"Please... stop..."
Even for Kelvin Celsius whose consciousness was faint, that was a subject she simply couldn't let pass.
"I'm... not as great a person as you all think!"
"Pardon?"
Shame.
Even after death, she still harbored shame. Enough to wake up spasmodically at words praising her.
"What do you mean? Excessive humility just becomes tasteless, Kelvin."
"I didn't expect to see you like this, but it's an honor just to be able to see you even this way."
However, all the consciousnesses here were those who became relics carrying pride toward Celsius. They all looked up to Kelvin with unified reverence.
Kelvin trembled violently. While all the other relics were praising her, she who was trembling in the center of the Heirloom Hall felt as if she were being subjected to group bullying.
It looked fun, so I decided to join in.
"Everything I heard and saw from the Celsius family was only about your greatness! You were even attacked for ruining the temperature scales. Strange. Even if only half of those achievements were true, you'd be a great enough figure."
"No. That's... Everything I did..."
"Why? Surely no one would have impersonated you to do things? If not..."
I tilted my head and asked.
"Did you impersonate someone else?"
I asked with a "surely not" feeling, but Kelvin couldn't readily answer. Shaking her head this way and that, she spoke as if sobbing.
"It wasn't my will. By the time I noticed, people were praising it as my achievement. But that's not my accomplishment..."
"Pardon? That can't be. If it's not your achievement, whose is it?"
Kelvin's consciousness shook greatly. Her consciousness that had been sleeping within the relic was trying to show something.
Centered on the Heirloom Hall, her memories unfold. Barren plains, pitch-black night sky, and countless twinkling small stars.
Just before flowing into Celsius's past, Kelvin confessed softly.
"Fahrenheit."
The time when the Magic Federation wasn't even a nation, let alone a place fit for human habitation. The not-so-distant past when refugees built huts and barely scraped by without any proper civilization.
There was a missionary named Rene.
She was a respected missionary who became an apostate for embezzling the knowledge gathered by the missionary society. However, the reason she was still respected even after becoming an apostate was because she didn't use that knowledge for herself. Rene wandered through refugee villages, took in orphans, and taught children how to make a living.
How to obtain water.
How to start a fire.
How to read a map.
How to count stars and read the sky.
And, how to live among people.
Even as her fair face grew rough from the biting wind, and wrinkles formed with time. She never stopped her work. Believing that knowledge had the power to make everyone abundant, she spread it widely to all people.
Celsius was one of those countless disciples.
Without any particular talent.
Rene had countless disciples. They had learned enough but still thirsted for knowledge, remaining by Rene's side seeking more outstanding knowledge. Named Magi after the first saintess and the wise men who blessed her, it later became the origin of the word "magician."
Indeed, naming them after the wise men of the Bible was not unwarranted. They were truly exceedingly brilliant, and with that knowledge, they changed the world.
They say there's no finger that doesn't hurt when bitten, but there is an order. Among them, there was a particularly capable disciple.
His name was Fahrenheit.
He was the Magi of Flame, the most needed even in this cold and dry north.
He was a man like a flame. He blazed up quickly and shone brilliantly. Though he cooled just as quickly, no human refuses fire just because it lacks persistence. Even among Rene's disciples, Fahrenheit sparkled like starlight and stood before everyone.
Flames are coveted by all but equally dangerous. Many came seeking or trying to coax Fahrenheit for his unique magic, and kidnapping or threat attempts were frequent.
Though everyone who attempted that did burn to ashes.
Fahrenheit was not only skilled in combat. He was also dexterous and even used that in his research.
"Heat? Warmth? That too can be represented numerically. See the mercury contained in the glass? It rose more than before. This is a measure of how much heat has entered the mercury."
His footsteps left flames, and civilization blossomed from melting ice. Perhaps he couldn't be called the smartest or the greatest, but the most powerful magician was Fahrenheit.
"If you're going to copy me, do it properly, Celsius."
And Celsius was a disciple who picked up his byproducts, or rather, closer to a follower.
Fahrenheit used flame to melt sand and make glass. He had the power to delicately handle destructive flames, and crafted glass to create various tools. Celsius could understand a few of them, but beyond those, she couldn't even guess the intent behind the other tools.
"The scale went below 0? What's the problem? Just write a value below 0. Why make such a fuss about that?"
"I told you to be careful because there's boiling oil in that flask. You didn't know it was hot? Do you only know something is hot when you can see it boiling before your eyes?"
"Think of warmth as sand piled high! It's natural for it to flow from high to low!"
It was too difficult. It was overwhelming just to follow. When he exerted his power, even approaching him required risking one's life, and to understand, one had to study day and night. When she absolutely couldn't understand and sought his teaching, Fahrenheit would sigh heavily and teach her.
She was no match from the start, but at some point, Celsius even gave up competing. Instead, Celsius changed her mind and decided to become a translator.
The tools Fahrenheit made were too complex and esoteric. If even Celsius, who was at least a prodigy, found them so, what about others? Ordinary people were too busy breaking them, let alone using them, and even when they read them, they couldn't understand.
The language of genius is different from the language of the common masses. Celsius muttered self-deprecatingly as she proceeded with the "translation."
Fahrenheit, who handled fire, melted sand to make glass and use it. But glass was easily broken, and only Fahrenheit could craft delicate tools from it. Celsius converted the useful glass inventions Fahrenheit made into easily obtainable materials and delivered them to people.
"There's such a thing in the world! Celsius, you're quite dexterous too!"
Fahrenheit drew scales to his own standards, but that was only easy to read for him, whose calculations happened automatically in his head. Celsius redrew the scales and adjusted the units. Ordinary people went wild for the easily drawn scales.
"In honor of you, we shall call this Celsius from now on!"
Fahrenheit always looked to high places, but falling from a high place is more dangerous. Celsius headed to low places. From boiling point to freezing point, because cold is less dangerous than hot. Unlike him who stored heat with boiling alcohol and mercury, Celsius found a stable method of storing heat.
"It's warm... thank you..."
All of that was Fahrenheit's byproduct, and all Celsius did was translate his achievements more easily into the language of the common masses. It's nothing great.
But everyone without exception praised Celsius.
As if people are more fanatic about a saintess than a god.
"I just gave it a name. I didn't discover it."
The recollection ended. Even so, the shouts cheering Celsius still ring in her ears.
The common masses didn't recognize the genius and upheld the first Celsius who merely brought their language. Each time, Kelvin Celsius hid herself in shame.
That's the whole story.
A much more trivial and insignificant story than I expected. I said.
"You've become a relic, so you have a unique magic, right?"
If you have a unique magic, that means you're at least mage level. In that era, it would have been even more precious.
"My unique magic came about to handle Fahrenheit. To observe his research up close, I had to protect myself. It's not even a consciousness great enough to boast about... Rather, those other relics are more remarkable."
"From what I heard, you compressed tremendous heat into a tiny crystal."
"That heat was Fahrenheit's. My power was only receiving that heat. Everyone misunderstood... and called me the Sorceress of Burning Ice..."
She even got a fancy nickname. Though the person herself seems like she wants to die of embarrassment. Well, she's already dead, actually.
"Anyway, that's unexpected. So this was Celsius's true nature."
Having heard the whole story, I was disappointed.
The Celsius territory. Magicians with superior chosen-people consciousness above anyone else. The relic and rule they try to protect above all else.
I could understand, but seeing a slightly twisted consciousness, I thought there might be some great reversal hidden.
"There's no reversal at all."
Then Kelvin shrank further and said.
"...Right. There's no reversal that exceeds your expectations. I'm..."
"You are a great person, right? Tch. Wasted my time."
I thought there would be a heartbreaking story, but after hearing it all, it was just her boasting. After hearing it all, it was just self-praise.
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"You had a teacher, friends, people who revered you. You achieved results. Later you even managed a territory and lived well. Even after death, you're still revered. That's a completely satisfying life, isn't it? I don't understand why you became a relic."
Kelvin answered, not realizing it was sarcasm.
"Yes. Objectively, I was lucky. I received treatment disproportionate to my abilities... I decided to remain as a relic because I wanted to repay that if I was going to stay anyway."
"Ugh, annoying."
I just have nothing to say. Nothing she wants to change, no wish she wants to fulfill. She just became a relic harboring unnecessary shame.
"Why are you annoyed?"
"I thought someone would come out claiming that commoners who don't know magic are nothing but pigs and dogs. That would be much more exciting."
Then Kelvin answered in horror.
"What a terrifying thing to say. That can't be, right? We learned from Father Rene. She was closer to the truth than anyone, but I've never seen a person as humble as her. Naturally, we should follow her."
"Magic is the power of special people. Foolish people can't even dare to imitate it."
"That's true."
Huh? Until just now she was speaking without confidence, and now she's taking the opposite stance?
"It's the power of special people. Like Fahrenheit or Father Rene. Truly special people accomplish great things with that power. Not common masses like us..."
"Common masses?"
"Yeah. When I was under Father Rene, there were many other ordinary disciples like me. We used to call each other common masses among ourselves."
Wasn't "common masses" originally a term magicians used to look down on civilians? Its usage has changed a bit now.
"What is specialness? Why don't we have such talent? We despaired and self-deprecated. There were many who gave up learning simply out of inferiority complex."
"There's no need to go that far, though."
"I'm also one of those who gave up. Rather than pursuing lofty truths, I translate the answers geniuses have produced. Even though those achievements aren't actually mine."
"That's not called giving up. You found your path. You achieved accomplishments."
It wasn't fun, but the purpose was fully achieved. I closed the consciousness Kelvin was projecting and said.
"You also wanted to become special. You wanted to understand geniuses. You wanted to stand alongside them."
"Right. But I failed."
"But you succeeded. You gave the masses, who are far more lacking than you, the opportunity to understand geniuses. Thanks to you, other people didn't have to feel despair."
She delivered knowledge that would never have been conveyed otherwise. Isn't that enough to say she did her job?
"It's not my achievement. I merely conveyed someone else's achievement."
"That is an achievement."
"Fahrenheit's achievement."
"Conveying his achievement is the achievement. Saying a saintess is nothing just because she only conveyed God's words is blasphemy, isn't it?"
Kelvin grasped the nuance of my words but muttered as if something was unsatisfying.
"No matter how great Fahrenheit was, he's not a god..."
To point that out even in this situation. Was it inferiority complex rather than admiration?
But that's the important point.
"Right. He too would have been just an ordinary human. If it weren't for you."
"...Me?"
"If it weren't for you, he would have almost become a god. You treated him as human when he could have been forgotten without anyone understanding him or being understood. His achievements, techniques, and knowledge all became human things thanks to you."
She always says she's ordinary. That's not humility or modesty. Being ordinary means being human. It means being within that category.
Rather, it's more problematic for my side to call her special. That means not treating her as human.
"You didn't fail to catch up to the genius named Fahrenheit; you grabbed his pant legs and pulled him down to being human. You kept him from becoming distant from humanity. That's a sufficiently great deed. Don't you think?"
"Saying it like that makes it sound like I did something bad..."
"It's a good deed. Your intentions matched each other, right? Things that help both sides are usually called good deeds, aren't they?"
"Each other?"
I nodded.
"Fahrenheit would have wanted you to do that too."
"Fahrenheit?"
"If not, he wouldn't have shown you his life's research, right? He even explained it fairly kindly, didn't he? Surprisingly, he also relied on you. Even if he could solve the problems himself, easily explaining the solved problems is another domain entirely."
Thanks to Celsius, Fahrenheit was able to not become special. She brought his discoveries, which were distant from the masses, into reality. It may seem like nothing, but that's everything.
"Making the special into the ordinary. Spreading that to everyone. That is your achievement."
The Celsius family tries to make the rule itself special, though.
Kelvin thought deeply and asked.
"Fahrenheit too, even though he had a bad personality and looked down on people. Did he actually want to be understood?"
"Everyone does."
"How foolish. It's not that difficult."
"Fahrenheit probably thought the same thing about you. Why can't they do this? It's not even difficult."
Kelvin laughed with relief. I could see the knots in her consciousness unraveling completely.
Kelvin Celsius again hugged her knees and sat down in the center of the Heirloom Hall. Her form was still faint, but she was sparkling exceptionally.
"Still, I'll remain as long as possible."
"You do that."
"What about you? You can leave whenever you want, King of Humans."
Well, that's true.
I can't read the thoughts of relics, but you don't need to read thoughts to use tools, right? You just use them.
"Goodbye, Kelvin Celsius. It's nice to see a properly concluded book after a long time, it leaves an aftertaste. Though it's a bit lacking in dopamine."
"Farewell, King of Humans."
Kelvin fell asleep again in the midst of the other relics. She muttered in a hazy voice as she entered a long dream.
"I'm glad I remained even like this. As long as I stay, who knows what kind of encounters there might be..."