Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 14 - Chapter 19

19. The Naked King [streaking]

Once upon a time, there was a very clever boy.

This boy was born with an exceptionally good head on his shoulders, so the people around him looked like incredible fools.

The adults didn’t understand what it meant to be clever. They would praise the sort of quiz king who was only good at remembering things as a genius, so there was no helping them. They were, after all, fools, so who could really blame them?

There was no way such fools could understand the richness and depth of intelligence, its sharpness, its height. If they could, they wouldn’t be fools to begin with.

Still, the boy thought there must be those out there who were as clever as he was, or perhaps even more so.

There were so many people infesting this planet, and the world advanced every day, so there had to be a lot of clever people out there. If there weren’t, that would be strange.

But what was he to make of this? The parents who had given birth to such a clever boy were incorrigible fools, and every single person the boy met was more foolish than he.

For the clever boy, every thought the fools had was easy to see. And yet, the fools could not understand the boy. No one could understand the boy.

Perhaps the boy was unfortunate. He may have simply happened to have been born into an environment full of nothing but fools. If he’d been born somewhere else, the boy might have been blessed with people who understood him, and thus been able to live a proper life.

The boy found it hard to recognize the fools around him as even being human. He didn’t hate them, or think they were evil. He simply was sad.

Why were they not the same as him? It would have been fine if he was the same as them, too. They didn’t set out to be fools, and the boy himself had never chosen to be born clever.

We can’t choose anything before being born. Once we are born, we can only live the lives we’ve been given.

The boy knew time would go by, and he would grow up, grow old, and then he would eventually die.

Death is the cessation of life functions. In the case of humans, their consciousness vanishes, and when all hope of recovering it is lost completely, we say they have died.

There is no meaning in life and death. There is no significance in life reproducing to leave descendants. It’s what living creatures do, so they do it, that’s all.

Thinking about it, it may have been logical for the fools to be fools. If they were foolish, then none of it could crush them: this unbearable lack of meaning, the weakness of a life that will disappear in a poof if left alone, and the feeling of emptiness from being unable to resist this fate.

This must be the misfortune of a chosen one, the boy thought.

The clever boy was a special being, and he was made to bear a special sorrow.

The understanding that he was special helped to comfort the boy’s wounded heart. It helped him bear the empty-headed laughter, and the boisterous ruckus of the fools who were simply that way because that was the kind of creatures they were.

He was not of their kind, and if he thought, I’m different from you people, he could still bear it.

I’m special, unlike all of you, and someday I’ll do something to get my name carved in history, like become a bestselling author and win international prizes, or set records at international sporting competitions, or something like that. Maybe no one will notice how special I am before then. They’re all idiots, and I’m special, so who can blame them? I’ve always been different from everyone, and always will be. No matter how far we go, we will never meet, like parallel lines.

That was how the boy saw it, but looking back now, how had it been, really?

Naturally, he’d had an inborn aptitude from his genetics. Not just anyone could run the 100 meter dash in the nine second range, even with sufficient practice. However, the fact was, talent was not just a gift from the heavens; it was a result. Those who gained something, or reached someplace, they were regarded highly, and recognized to have talent. In that sense, those born with some sort of gift, what we would call geniuses, didn’t exist.

The boy thought himself special, and a genius, but he was completely wrong. That was because, if you asked if the boy had accomplished even one earthshaking feat, he had not. He was just more clever than those around him, not understood by idiots, and thought of himself as a tragically isolated special being.

The boy was an avid reader. His parents had less than stellar academic histories, but books were the one thing they were willing to buy him a lot of.

While kids his age inattentively read fictional stories and comic books that were not even good enough to be called foolish, the boy read deeply out of high-minded literature and specialist manuals.

Thanks to that, by the time the boy was ten, there was no text he could not read. He had gained knowledge on many things, from the names of birds and plants, to the movements of the stars, to how to solve quadratic equations, to the basic fundamentals of music.

It was true that the boy was clever. However, that basically meant he had worked to read and understand more books than other people, had observed many things, and had analyzed them.

The boy had not been born clever. He had followed a path to becoming clever, and the result was that he became clever.

They say that without one percent of inspiration, the ninety-nine percent perspiration will go to waste, but we must not lose sight of this. That one percent inspiration comes from unceasing hard work. Those who achieve success first spend their every moment, waking or sleeping, deep in thought in order to find that one percent inspiration.

In the end, talent is that which we have worked to build up, taking a form that others are capable of recognizing.

The boy was ten years old at the time. He was a very clever boy, but only ten years old, and he was suddenly cast into a world completely different from the one in which he’d been born. It made no sense, and it was incredibly frightening, so it was all he could do just to survive.

If the boy had not been clever, he’d surely have been gobbled up by monsters in no time. He might have failed to see through the laws of this world, and made some mistake he could not undo.

That said, thanks to the boy only being ten, he was able to get out of trouble countless times.

In this world, the boy met many people. Most worked with him for a time, and then they parted. It was not infrequent for death to be the cause of that parting.

Or rather, in almost all cases, it was death.

When danger approached, the boy’s special privilege as a ten-year-old was that people would protect him. There were some who claimed that a child would only get in the way, but there were surprisingly few of them.

A number of people were caught by monsters in front of the boy’s eyes. When one man who had been his self-proclaimed big brother had his arms torn off by a monster, he had shouted to the boy, Leave me and go!

Crying, the boy had abandoned the man and fled.

One middle-aged woman who adored the boy like he was her own child had had a monster open its big mouth and chomp her head. Figuring she wasn’t going to make it, the boy had run away.

The number of people accompanying him went up, and went down. Each time someone died, the boy learned. The clever boy grew more clever.

Still, the boy was only ten. Though he was more clever, more experienced than any of those with him, he was underestimated because he was a child.

Even if they tried to pretend to like him on the surface, inside they were dissatisfied, and it was not at all uncommon for adults to insult the boy behind his back.

“Sure, he’s useful. But he’s just a kid. Why is he so full of himself? We’re just using him because he has some convenient magic, so what is he misunderstanding?”

“You don’t have to be so harsh, do you? He’s just a kid. Let him feel a little good about himself. If we overlook it, he’s sure to keep being useful. We’ve just got to use him well. In the end, he’s a child, so if it comes down to it, we can handle him however we like.”

At some point, the boy the adults had defended was put in a position where he had to protect the adults.

When a great horde of monsters attacked, and he looked at the backs of the adults scrambling to get away, the boy decided he was fed up with it.

Why should the boy have to stand on the front line for idiots like them?

Those guys, they can all die. They can all get eaten by monsters. I’m through being a child, the boy decided. I’m not a child anymore. I’m not a ten-year-old boy. I’ll be an adult. I’m not letting them look down on me. I’ll be the king, and the others will be my vassals. Each and every one of them will serve me, working themselves to the bone for my benefit. This is my world. I decide the rules, and I rule it.

The adults who had known the boy eventually died off. The new people he met did not know the boy’s true identity.

In this world, everyone could use magic. The boy used magic to show others a form for himself befitting a king.

When he encountered insolents who would not follow his orders, or conniving individuals who could not be trusted, he finished them off, or sucked the life out of them and left them as shadowy husks. That life he sucked out became the king’s power.

He figured out the types of magic. Magic came in thousands of different varieties, but if someone with an incredible magic appeared, they might become a threat.

Human thought works in an interesting way. If someone only had words for red, blue, and yellow, they might see orange as a bright red, black as a dark blue, and so on. They would try to divide every color into one of those three categories.

To that person, there are only three colors. The world’s colors are reduced to three.

Due to the nature of magic, it was heavily influenced by the user’s psyche, so if the knowledge that there was only three types of magic spread, the number of types would naturally be reduced to three.

If they defied the king, their lives would be taken immediately. Everyone came to understand that fact. Not many would deliberately oppose the king.

That said, the wise king knew that not all had submitted to him down to the depths of their hearts. Still, if he was not harsh with them, they would look down upon the king. There were undoubtedly those who would plot to kill the king, too.

There were those loyal to the king, too. Not many, of course.

The sincere but foolish knight Bayard was captured by Haname. The king considered taking down Haname with his own power, but tricksters like her were free of the king’s principle that there were three types of magic, making them dangerous opponents.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t win, but he might be stabbed in the back by a traitor while fighting against Haname. Bayard was such a fool that the boy had found him unpleasant anyway, so he decided to let Haname have him.

His second best vassal was quieter than anyone, and honest, but he was a very clever man. He had a ready wit, you could say. The king had never seen a man who could react so quickly to a changing situation.

Not only did he show no sign of betraying the king, he never once even offended him, and at times, he would soothe and help the king relax.

However, the king was suspicious of him. He allowed the man to care for him, but it seemed he allowed the man to learn too much.

Besides, when the man massaged his arms and legs, the king felt his magic changing. That magic was not one of the three that the king had determined. The king called it Resonance, and if the man had a fourth type of magic that should not exist, he would have to bury him.

If the man had not been so clever, the king might have done it himself. The man asked the king for permission and set out for the Iron Tower of Heaven. The king knew he would never return. And he, too, knew the king’s feelings.

Had he not chosen to remain at the Iron Tower of Heaven until he rusted fully, the king would likely have sucked the life from him eventually.

Those like Rainbow Mole and Sleeping Man, who had been in this world for a long time, each served the king in their own ways. However, they did not remain to serve at his side, either.

They worked for the king, with loyalty and sincerity. If they did not, the king would have killed them. However, they did not trust the king. Neither did the king trust them.

No, that wasn’t it; because the king did not trust them, they were unable to trust the king.

Whichever it was, the result was the same.

I’m all alone, the king reflected. Even though I’m always naked like this, no one will say that the king has no clothes.

Nobody even realizes I’m naked.

(It’s not nobody.)

...Who?

You who see me, who are you?

That magic, could it be... Resonance?

Didn’t you rust at the Iron Tower of Heaven?

(I’m not him.)

You saw? Saw me. You saw through me. With that magic, you understood me?

(I

...am me.

And you.

...Niiyama

Reon.)

Niiyama Reon.

My name.

In that case...

If you know that, you must know.

What I’ve done.

Everything I’ve done in this place.

When the monsters, that horde of dream monsters attacked, I... I didn’t abandon the adults who ran. I...

I joined the dream monsters, devoured them.

Every last one.

If they’d survived, they’d have been in my way. Even one. I mean, they knew me. Knew my weaknesses.

I’m a ten-year-old kid.

The fact is, I was the leader, but I still had to make them laugh, had to sing and dance, to make them like me.

Because I was ten, and weak. I figured, no matter what, I wasn’t going to make it alone. I felt lonely. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be useful to everyone. I wanted to help them. But they used me.

I was always desperate, doing my very best. But they, they spoke about me behind my back, and they were always having sex. Didn’t they have anything better to be doing? But I was a child, so I pretended not to see. I was a brat. Just a kid. How could I help it? I was ten. An honest-to-goodness child.

I regret nothing. I was always right. It was for the best this way. I’m fine with this. I won’t open the door. I won’t go anywhere. I’m staying here. I won’t go home.

(You’re scared.)

Yeah, I’m scared.

How many people do you think I’ve killed? How many have I sucked the life from?

I’ve committed no crime, of course. This is my country. I am the king. Parano is my kingdom. I decide what justice is, and what crimes are. I did what was right. Because everything I do is right. Here, at least. For as long as I’m in Parano, I can’t be wrong.

I don’t know who you are, but I sucked the life from your comrade, too. I made it mine.

It’s no sin. I won’t be judged for it. I did nothing wrong.

In fact, I did a good thing. I want to praise myself, tell myself I did well.

I will be the great king, now and forever.

(But you’re alone.)

Not a problem. I was always alone. In the end, there is only one king. Rulers are isolated by nature. I’ll get by. I mean, I’ve got time. It will probably never run out. I’ll always be here. I may feel a little restrained, and there are inconveniences, but I’ll work them out with time.

I know. I know I can’t trust you people. It’s folly to trust anyone to begin with. Once we’ve played a bit, I can kill you, or I can suck your life out. Your husks won’t be anything of value, but I’ll make them act as lookouts with my magic.

I know. That’s right. If you’re not limited by the principle of three types, the possibilities of magic are endless. It’s not that my magic was always like this. The things I could do grew little by little, and I got stronger. It may take time, but I can sort anything out with magic. I have all the time in the world. I only need myself. I don’t need anyone else. The only mage there needs to be... is me.

(You’re not alone.)

I—

(You are not alone.)

Not... alone?

(Yeah.

You’re not alone.

I’m here.)

No.

Don’t lie.

You’ll never forgive me. I can’t be forgiven.

I was ten.

I was a child.

Just a ten-year-old child. But still...

I killed.

For my own sake.

I killed so many.

(I know.)

(Because I am you.)

(Not someone else.)

(I am you, too.)

But,

I

Find myself

So very...

Repulsive.

I’m scared.

Of myself, more than anything.

The things I’ve done. The things I’d do. I’d do anything.

I had no choice. It was to protect myself. Everyone puts themselves first. It’s just how we are.

But, really? Is it really?

Like, what about the people who put themselves in the way to protect me?

They were older than me. I acted as charming as I could, in order to make them like me. They fell for my trap.

They were good people. Putting me before themselves. They helped me. I was saved by them. Again and again, they saved my life.

Using those good people as stepping stones, I became the king.

A lonely king. One who’s naked, but nobody realizes it.

I’m afraid of me.

That’s why I shouldn’t open the door.

I have to stay here.

I’ll stay king forever.

No one can open the door.

Don’t go anywhere.

Don’t leave me alone.

I don’t want to be alone.

I’m lonely.

But I need to stay alone.

(You’re not alone.)

(Niiyama Reon.)

(There’s someone here.)

(Me.)

(Come out.)

(Because, I...)

(...am here.)

Here.

(Next to you.)

(Look.)

(I...)

(...am holding your hand.)

This hand...

It’s warm.