Ishura - Volume 3 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Uhak the Silent

It was the day after a heavy snowfall, a very unusual event in Alimo Row.

Opening up the door, I discovered that the almshouse plaza was completely covered in white. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before; the sheer brilliance of the snowy landscape was too much for these elderly eyes.

Even now, the memories of that day are still fresh in my mind.

I woke up shortly before sunrise, but by that point, there was already a single path made in the white garden. A long, continuous path into town, shoveled out of the snow.

I’ve seen a great many types in my time, including gigants and dwarves, but as far I as knew, there was only one person who could manage such perseverance and strength-testing, yet honest, work. The heavy piles of snow reflected the depths of his martyrdom.

I could see the gray-skinned ogre come into view, walking into town down the road he had cleared all by himself.

Uhak. The sole family I had.

“Ah, thank you, Uhak. Were you cold?”

I always spoke to Uhak.

Though, even now, I wasn’t sure if that was the correct thing to do.

Coming home, he carried a white wolf pup in his arms. A tiny life, eyes closed and trembling.

“I see… You found this little one, did you? Fantastic work, Uhak. I’m sure anyone afraid of wolves will be relieved with this.”

I offered admiration at the justness of his deeds and took the pup from his large palms…

…so that I could dash it against the stone steps, killing it instantly.

I remember the sight of warm blood pouring from its split skull, melting the white snow behind.

To this day, I haven’t been able to get the look in Uhak’s eyes out of my head.

Why was Uhak mourning it? It was something I’ve continued to ponder.

It should have been the obvious outcome, extinguishing the life that would surely grow to threaten the lives of others one day.

I simply did what anyone else in this world would have done, without showing an ounce of mercy.

It was just…a soulless beast, totally unlike those of us blessed with Word Arts, so why……?

I met Uhak during the season when the air grew dry.

Everything must have started when I responded to the Alimo Row villagers’ request for counsel during service.

“…Priest. I beg you, Cunodey the Ring Seat. We ask that you grant them the blessing of Word Arts in our stead.”

“Of course, anything for the neighbors you’ve gathered together. Can I ask you to fill me in on the details?”

“An ogre appeared in the forest on the main road—a man-eating monster twice as tall as any human. We’ve gathered up the brave and willing, and tomorrow morning they’re heading to put the ogre down. Mother Cunodey… May I ask you to use the power of the Order’s Word Arts to ensure these precious lives are not lost?”

Of course, the priests of the Order studied Word Arts intimately to learn the miracles of the Word-Maker, who brought them the language universally understood by all—and not to instead use their power for combat or protection.

However, I couldn’t expound on this to followers seeking my aid. During the age of the True Demon King, no one was able to escape from war and bloodshed, and everyone used this power, bested to live a moral life, for battle. The members of the Order were no exception.

This village, the closest to The Land of The End, where the Demon King perished, had been deeply scarred by the age of darkness. Priests fell amid the war and the Demon King’s induced madness, the lively voices of the almshouse children went silent, and I alone remained as the only official priest in this small hamlet’s church.

For the church followers, this poor old woman was their sole means of spiritual support, while for myself, their presence was the only light I had to tether my own faith.

“I understand. I don’t know if these old bones can aid everyone like you all, or even I myself, hope to. However, if it will provide even the tiniest peace of mind, then I see no reason not to go.”

“Oh, thank you… Thank you so much, Mother Cunodey.”

Ogres. The largest, strongest, and scariest of all the monstrous races.

When I was little, I saw one up close just once. Within the forest where we were climbing trees to play, a large monster with dark-brown skin crossed entered our field of vision. It was filled with hunger and rage, enough to clearly tell from our spot up in the tree branches. If it happened to find us, its thick arms could’ve easily snapped our arboreal hiding place.

There was something dangling out of the sides of the ogre’s mouth, and my friend hiding next to me whispered that maybe it was the hunter Jokza who had gone missing two days prior. I…simply watched the predator disappear deeper into the forest, dyed red in the setting sun, experiencing for the first time in my life the fear of imminent death.

It wasn’t an evening sky back then. The morning sun cast its rays into the forest around the main road, with wild rabbits and deer off somewhere grazing on grass.

The hunters didn’t seem to fear what awaited them, and I was surprised by their quick and nimble steps as they bounded over fallen trees and small streams.

For me, simply getting solid footing in the dirt without falling over took everything I had, and matching their quick gait was all but impossible.

“Ogres are really intelligent, you see.”

One of the hunters appealed to his compatriots with words of warning.

“It might be waiting to ambush us. I’ve heard stories of some pouncing down on people from up in the trees.”

The warning was unnecessary, as the hunters were paying close attention to the whole area around us and guarded me, their priest escort, from being exposed to any danger.

Thus, it was not I who first laid eyes on the figure, but one of the hunters. When I followed the hunter’s sights, urging everyone to take notice, I spied a gray ogre sitting beneath a large tree.

The ogre seemed to be in the middle of a meal, sitting with their back to us.

While they looked somewhat smaller than the red ogre from my youth, even when seated, they were taller than anyone of us, and casually lying beside them was a well-worn wooden club.

“We’ll shoot from here and use that tree as cover. A few of you go around to the other side to stop them from running behind the tree. Mother Cunodey… Can you protect us with Word Arts when it comes dashing our way?”

“…I can. But there’s something a little bit strange about that ogre.”

“What do you mean?”

“Is that really an ogre that terrorizes people?”

An ogre that terrorized the people. Even remembering my own words, I was clearly in a terrible state of confusion. After all, the word ogre itself was synonymous with murder.

Indeed, that was why even I couldn’t explain the strange feeling I had.

I should’ve been just as frightened of the man-eating ogre, but at that moment, for some reason, I felt that something was off.

“Wait a moment. If I could just get a little bit closer…”

“Mother Cunodey! It’s too dangerous; it’ll see you!”

It was surely foolish of me to approach an ogre just to try confirming this uneasy feeling I had. I realized later that my conduct might’ve led the courageous villagers to sacrifice their lives to help me. It was shameful.

However, if I didn’t follow my hunch in that moment, I might’ve never noticed.

He was eating nuts and berries. I didn’t know ogres ate anything other than meat.

After all was said and done, I remembered getting glimpses of wild rabbits and deer upon entering the forest. The animals’ behavior was not that of prey being pursued by a predator. That realization, though subconscious at the time, might’ve been what guided me to my hunch.

Unlike the ogre I saw in my youth, this one wasn’t enveloped by the scent of blood and death. In fact, there were even rabbits coming and going from the burrow near where he sat.

“…He’s already noticed us.”

He was calm and quiet, and his back was stock-still, enough to believe he might’ve been sleeping, but I was confident in my hunch.

“The reason he hasn’t harmed us is because we haven’t harmed him. Please call back the ones you send around to the other side immediately.”

“But Mother Cunodey… That thing’s still an ogre. The monstrous races eat minia! It’s been that way since the beginning of time.”

“Nevertheless, it still has a soul.”

The Orders said as much. That this was the reason the Word-Maker bestowed the miracle of Word Arts to the races of the world.

Thanks to this wonderful blessing, none of us were alone anymore. All creatures with a soul were a member of one big family.

Before I knew it, I had left the villagers behind and was now within arm’s length of the ogre.

His extremely pale, almost white pupils stared back at me.

Frightened and bewildered by my own actions, I mustered up the best smile I could and addressed the ogre.

“Good day to you, our new neighbor. I’m a priest in the village just up the road from here. I, Cunodey the Ring Seat, w-wish to…to save you.”

I wanted to save him. Though, at that moment, which one of us was really the one who needed to be saved?

There was no answer. The ogre didn’t try to harm me, nor did he ignore me… He simply sat there in silence.

Even when I continued to speak, the only answer that came to me was silence and his watchful eyes.

The ogre tried reaching out his hand but immediately lowered it.

Almost as if my thoughts were reaching him, but he was unable to find the means to return them.

“It can’t be… Can you…”

This was Uhak.

An ogre, all alone, born into the world shouldering an entirely inconceivable disability.

“…not hear me?”

The first thing I attempted was explaining to everyone that no villagers had gone missing in the past big month, and there hadn’t been any direct accounts of someone being attacked by an ogre.

It was not an easy course of events to make everyone trust a minia-eating ogre—especially when he couldn’t understand speech or offer his own defense. Though there were examples of the monstrous races mixing in with minian society, it was almost always as either blood-drenched mercenaries or assassins. Most people couldn’t possibly believe an ogre was capable of living a life totally divorced from evil and maliciousness.

Nevertheless, through the doctrine that the villagers and I followed, I patiently preached that a hand of charity should be outstretched to anyone lost and in pain, regardless of their sins, and I was able to convince them to allow him to be sheltered—or in the words of the villagers, “placed under observation”—at the almshouse.

Mysteriously, there was nothing abnormal about his sense of hearing itself, and the only thing inaudible to him was the language of Word Arts.

“Uhak. If you’ve lived without language all this time, then I’m going to grant you a second name right now. You shall henceforth be Uhak the Silent.”

Silent. In the days of old, among a group of brothers, arrogant due to their Word Arts’ abilities gifted by the Word-Maker, one of the siblings refrained from speech and was able to prevent conflict between many of the races without saying a word. His name was Melyugre the Silent. The First Party, renowned by all, including myself, also contained an individual, Fralik the Heaven, who was said to have had his throat crushed at a young age, and so he never spoke.

We had all known the essence of the Word Arts’ power. That their true nature wasn’t something being said, but Word Arts were used to communicate exactly what was in our thoughts.

“I’m sure. I’m sure there’ll come a day when they’ll accept it. Both that you can’t speak and that you can’t hear.”

Just as his second name suggested, he didn’t use the strength he was born with for conflict, but he faithfully helped me, handling the various jobs that an elderly woman like myself couldn’t manage.

Even without being able to use language, it didn’t take long for me to understand he was an ogre that showed no desire for futile conflict and was able to exhibit consideration for the hearts of others.

Citing sheltering Uhak as the excuse, the number of villagers who visited the church dropped drastically, but I wondered how many of the villagers knew that whenever someone would come to offer their prayers, Uhak would make sure to hide away somewhere, to keep from frightening them.

“You need to learn how to write. If you can’t speak with your mouth, you need to learn a way to express your thoughts and feelings to others.”

Teaching the Order’s script to him, unable to convey anything with words, was a difficult task, unlike anything else I had experienced in my long life.

I started with silver coins. The characters for silver coins themselves, the characters to show how many of them to use at the market, as well as the character of silver itself and the one to express a circular shape. From the beginning, it was a very difficult journey.

Soaking tree bark in liquid ink and spreading old children’s clothes, no longer in use, over a plank, I remember trying to teach him the script every day late into the night.

Speechless though he was, Uhak was neither stupid nor lazy, and he diligently focused on learning this new knowledge. The speed of his progress was marvelous, and he had worked through all the Order script I was able to teach him within the first three small months.

Somewhere along the way, the silent ogre had turned into the valuable family member I needed in my life.

Ina. Nofelt. Rivieh. Kuze. Imos. Nerka… The children—breaking windows every time they played, making a mess of the shrubbery and plantings the day after my pruning, always causing me headaches, making me laugh—were all gone.

The other priests who devoted themselves to their work in the Order with me, benevolently helping people in times of need, were also all asleep beneath the earth.

This eccentric ogre that showed up in my lonesome daily life was like a son to me in some ways, as well as a compatriot protecting the faith together with me.

Uhak was able to subsist without ever eating meat, having plain beans and nuts for every meal.

On the first day of every big month, he would go into the forest to gather just enough food for his own nourishment—no more, no less.

First thing every morning, he would finish cleaning the almshouse and the chapel, offer a wordless prayer to the Word-Maker, and bring in firewood and sheep’s milk, always performing his tasks alone.

After he learned script, he’d get absorbed in the books left behind by the other priests, and whenever I used script to quiz him, he’d be able to immediately search for and produce the answer no matter which passage of the Word-Maker’s teaching was in question.

“…You understand why exactly we all study the teachings of the Word-Maker, right?”

There was one occasion where Uhak saved a child who fell from a cliff and twisted his ankle.

However, his ogre physique terrified the child, and while he lived in this church, Uhak was ultimately never able to receive the trust and gratitude he deserved.

Whenever I’d write in script to express myself to him, I would always speak to him, too. Much like how we can speak to the wind and earth, I believed that, though he might be unable to hear me, there was a definitive power held in Word Arts spoken from the heart.

Was even that truly the right thing to do? Looking back, I wasn’t sure anymore.

“Priests are people who dispel curses. Sometimes we are able to clear away the shadows that sink into a person’s heart through our words…through our will. That’s why language is so sacred, and Word Arts are our blessing… But, Uhak. You alone……were born without the gift of language. Despite your throat and ears working just fine.”

Uhak remained bowed to the ground. I’d heard that ogres were a much more delicate race than the minia took them for. Perhaps this was true for that red ogre, too. Even on that day of my childhood, perhaps there was someone, somewhere who could’ve saved his soul.

If only ogres could have been recognized as priests. Why, there wasn’t any follower more modest and pious than he was.

“I don’t know if that was Word-Maker’s will or atonement for some sin. But even without any speech, you have a desire to help others. No one can ever take that away from you.”

I was happy. I was always being soothed and comforted by the warmth in your heart.

That’s why there wasn’t any need to consider any of what you did as sinful.

“Uhak. You have a soul inside you. A soul just the same as anyone else’s.”

No matter what terrible things the embers of the Demon King brought about on that windy day.

Even if, from that day on, I lost the meaning of my own faith.

You were my precious family.

Recording the events that happened that day could have served to damage Uhak’s honor.

However, I knew very well that Uhak himself didn’t wish to lie or cover up what happened. Furthermore, in order to leave behind a nugget of truth I accidently witnessed that day to someone, it was impossible to avoid touching on that blood-drenched incident.

Around the time the sun had progressed past its zenith, a small set of clouds had closed in on the far-off mountain outlines.

I was in the midst of drawing water from the well, when I saw a thin wisp of smoke rising off in the direction of the village.

“Uhak. Uhak, look.”

Although he couldn’t hear my words, he surmised something had happened by the tone and rhythm of my footsteps—the only thing Uhak couldn’t hear was Word Arts speech—and immediately came out into the church courtyard.

Was it a fire or a signal? I prayed that it was simply children playfully making a bonfire as a prank. I hastened to the village, Uhak pulling my carriage along.

As we approached, the disquieting atmosphere on the main road grew denser and denser.

Birds in every direction, feathers and flesh getting caught in branches and torn off.

None of the wild rabbits were hidden in their holes, instead standing stock-still in the middle of the road, gazing at the sky.

I had seen animals in a similar state before. Back when the True Demon King was alive. That vague terror, making absolutely anything and everything go mad.

When we drew closer to the village, a stretch of bloodstains spanned across the area, as if drawn by a thick finger, and I could see the smears continue all the way into the village.

I strongly wanted to avoid thinking about what had come to the village and what was happening there, but I couldn’t communicate to Uhak to stop the carriage.

“Mother Cunodey! You can’t go into the village right now!”

One of the villagers who had escaped blocked the carriage, their face growing pale.

Their clothes were stained with someone’s blood and flecks of soot, and they gave an account of the situation.

“I—I… I know that woman! It’s Belka the Rending Quake! No one can beat her! Even she’s gone mad! It’s the Demon King… That’s for sure…”

“…Please try to calm down. In times of distress, we all need to help each other. I have the sacred protection of Word Arts, and Uhak is with me as well. What is going on?”

“Belka… Belka the Rending Quake. The champion who went to slay the Demon King… I thought all of them had died…”

The elderly craftsman’s lips trembled, and he tightly shut his eyes.

“She lied. She couldn’t just die. She came back, back from The Land of The End… She came back, and now she’s gone mad. She’s nothing but a monster now.”

I patted him on the back, and after speaking some words of comfort to calm him down, I urged Uhak to hurry with the carriage.

The dreadful spectacle came into view soon after. The blue storehouse roofs that always greeted me at the village entrance were being smashed by a palm from above, scattering into splinters.

The owner of the ginormous hand stretched up high into the sky, towering over all the buildings in the village.

Belka the Rending Quake. If the craftsman’s story was right, she was a gigant who traveled to slay the True Demon King……now a shadow of her former self.

They say there were only two people to ever return alive from an encounter with the True Demon King.

“H-help. Help. I can hear it…! I can still hear that voice! It’s awful! Help! Aaaaugh!!”

Her insane bellowing alone was enough to torment my ears and mind, and her colossal straight cleaver, appearing to have been used several times on Belka herself, was smeared with the crushed villagers’ blood and entrails, glistening with a red luster.

“B-bbberruka io arr.” (F-from Belka to Alimo earth.) “Welllln mmetttt.” (Wriggling swarming shadow.) “…Help…” “llllosse aanettt.” (Origin of steel.) “Nooorstems.” (Smashing wave.) “…I-I’m scared… I can’t take the terror…!” “Uiomtestop!” (Hatch!)

At Belka’s feet, a number of small anthill-like mounds thrust up from out of the ground.

I felt a foreboding about her frightening Word Arts and immediately hid behind the general store building…before realizing I hadn’t brought Uhak with me.

“Uhak!”

No matter how desperately I shouted, words were the only thing Uhak couldn’t hear.

He was standing near a crushed water mill…and was enveloped in the mound’s destruction, exploding in horrible flames and light.

Horse corpses were easily sent flying, and the frame of the watchtower was broken and collapsed in half. The pools of blood went bone-dry in an instant, and the wooden outer wall burst into flames on its own just from the heat of the aftermath.

I didn’t understand what sort of Word Arts Belka the Rending Quake used, but I was sure it was some sort of Life Arts, generating something from the ground that exploded in a mix of thunder and flames.

“Uhak! Oh my… Impossible…!”

Uhak was safe. At the very middle of the destructive wave, he was totally unharmed.

Not a single scratch.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was nothing around to shield him, and Uhak hadn’t moved a single inch, yet there wasn’t a single scratch, a single singe on his gray skin.

No matter how sturdy his body may have been, was such a thing even possible? I believed I had at least an understanding of what was and wasn’t possible in this world.

“A-augh… Hnaaaugh… The voice… Make it stop… Help me…!”

The crazed gigant looked out over the survivors with murky, unfocused eyes and picked up a mother, gasping her final breaths, half her body blown off, and chewed on her.

Each time she bit down on the thing gigants generally weren’t supposed to eat, she’d cough, spilling blood from her lips, and the fact that even this didn’t faze Belka spoke to the depths of her madness.

“Enough! Belka the Rending Quake! The True Demon King is no longer in these lands! The thing you fear, the thing tormenting you, doesn’t exist anywhere anymore!”

“…………………Lies,” the gigant answered as the bones of the ground-up villagers gashed the inside of her own throat.

At that moment……deep down, I could barely contain my desire to run away. Unlike my dead comrades, in truth, I was not a fine, upstanding priest in the depths of my soul.

It was simply the fact that, if Uhak stood there without running away, it compelled me to do the same myself.

“Then, this voice… Inside my head, it’s still there. I can s-sense…the Demon King…! Th-they’re…still alive!”

“No! There is no voice! We need to fight against the fear in our own hearts! If you doubt, fear, hate, and kill everything, then even with the True Demon King’s death, it’s like that era never ended! Please, you need to take back that heart of a champion! Belka!”

Belka was next to speak. They were words of murder.

“F-from Belka to Alimo earth… Wriggling swarming shadow…origin of steel. Smashing—”

“From Cunodey to Alimo wind. Waterfall flow, shadow of the eye, breaking twig! Contain!”

Before her Word Arts of destruction finished, I needed to invoke Power Arts to protect myself.

We both changed our Word Arts at the same time—and then.

Then…nothing happened at all.

I couldn’t use Word Arts—an absolutely impossible, completely inconceivable occurrence.

Our Word Arts incantations hadn’t failed. However, neither Belka’s ground transformation nor my attempt to weave a wind force field resulted in anything. The words we both spoke were nothing more than sounds.

The fear I felt in that moment might have been difficult to explain. But…within the teachings of our Order, these Word Arts themselves served as proof of our mind’s existence.

It was as if I was being confronted with the fact that nothing like that ever existed to begin with.

Belka’s eyes widened, as if witnessing something unbelievable… And then she collapsed to her knees.

“…Belka?”

Belka didn’t respond to me, trying to compel her body up again, still stirred by fright.

I watched her from nearby—watched her shoulders dislocate the more she struggled, her bones being crushed and snapped, and her flesh splitting and tearing. As if I was being shown that such a large creature like a gigant, living on land, had all been nothing but an elaborate lie.

Belka raised her head, her expression one of blood, agony, and terror. Uhak was there.

“F-from Cunodey to Alimo winds—”

I went to chant Word Arts, to protect Uhak. Or rather…because I thought my earlier failure had been some sort of mistake.

The wind didn’t answer my call. My words failed to reach not only Uhak but also Belka. Solitude, as if cut off from everything else in the world, seemed to exist as a hard fact.

“Mnnrgghh. Hnggh…ngh…”

Belka croaked out an inarticulate groan. She had wanted help.

Even if she had been saying something, it was almost wholly indistinguishable from the growls of a mindless beast.

Uhak kept his eyes fixed on Belka, picking up a large piece of debris, a section of a broken stone fence.

He used it to smash the gigant’s drooping head.

She let out a scream of grief and anger. She uttered words without meaning. Uhak raised the stone up in the air once again. Then he brought it down on her head a second time.

He looked just as diligent as always, like taking care of a necessary duty of his, as he smashed the gigant’s head, and continued to smash it—breaking it open.

The gigant champion, unable to use any Word Arts, unable even to rise from the ground, was slain.

None of the villagers circling the area and watching from afar were able to stop it. Including myself.

“…Uhak?”

After everything ended, I at least realized I had regained proper speech.

Uhak didn’t answer. He lived in a world without Word Arts.

…And now he was having a meal.

He quietly sat down like usual and silently picked out the insides of the gigant’s crushed head and ate them.

Everyone in the village, including myself, understood it for the first time—

Uhak wasn’t an ogre who couldn’t eat people.

He simply didn’t.

The situation from there gradually grew worse.

The terror that Belka brought to the village infected the residents, and they all looked at Uhak with fear and suspicion. Though he had simply been wrapped up in it all, even if he had only done it to save someone…and even if it was an outcome no one had wished for, everyone knew that any tragedy born from the Demon King would be enough to lead to the absolute worst situation.

I had traveled back and forth to the village hoping to save those who lost family and neighbors in any way I could, but I was unable to lift the curse they harbored. Who would be next to show up, how exactly were they going to die off…and was the True Demon King actually alive somewhere?

It was exactly as the villagers had said. The sights of the people racked with fear, futures sealed in despair, these were the very sights I had witnessed during the era of the True Demon King.

As long as this terror was etched into the people’s minds, the Demon King would continue to be brought back to life over and over again, filling their hearts with terror. Though they were long dead, just like they had in the past, they’d bring about misery in the future.

The clear stream of Alimo Row, walking steadily on the road to restoration now that the world was saved from the True Demon King, was muddied red.

Those without homes wandered the town with empty eyes, and those with homes conversely shut their doors tight, to ensure no one would pass through.

If anyone, no longer able to bear the constant tension and fear, caused a violent incident, that person and their whole family would suffer a public execution administered by the rest of the village, and if any of their corpses stayed intact, they’d be hung on display at the village entrance.

Please, I asked for forgiveness. Forgiveness for being powerless, unable to save a single person as I watched them tumble down back into the era of despair.

Everyone believed that faith in the Word-Maker was powerless before the fear of the True Demon King. They were unable to accept an ogre like me. They feared they’d be carried off to the church to serve as ogre food.

This result was likely the obvious outcome. They had the right to begrudge me for being unable to save them.

Torches lit, the villagers drew close to the church, gathering to execute Uhak and me.

—These were the events of the night prior.

“Kill the Ogre.” “Kill the man-eating monster.” Those were the voices I heard. Cunodey the Ring Seat, for all of them, was now a vague enemy of theirs, under the blanket name of the Order.

As we studied letters together in the candlelight, I called his name.

“Uhak, nothing you did was wrong. You saved a great number of lives. Even eating Belka’s corpse… That wasn’t wrong, either. Monstrous races eat the flesh of minian races. It’s been a fact since the beginning of our world. Despite that, you…you considered our feelings and went without eating any all this time…”

Uhak had continuously fought. A battle between his ogre-born sin and his starvation. How much faith and temperance was needed to make that possible? It was something a minia like myself couldn’t begin to imagine. If one of us was destined to die, I thought it should be me, unable to save anyone and powerless as a believer.

I wrote down the words to convey them to Uhak.

“Slip through the forest and immediately cross the river… Then, in some other village somewhere, look for the Order’s help. This letter I wrote should help you out somewhat. I have speech, words. I need to dispel the shadow that’s fallen over the hearts of the people… The curse of fear.”

Uhak took the letter and seemed to give the faintest nod. However, he pushed me aside as I went to leave the church and seek out the villagers.

“…Uhak! Don’t!”

My words didn’t reach Uhak. None could.

Cries of rage and fear rose up among the villagers I was supposed to protect.

They all had their own respective weapons set on Uhak. Every single one of them, down to the arrows in the air, were fended off with a flash of his club.

The bewilderment at being unable to converse with each other, at their Word Arts not performing their functions, spread through the gathered mob.

There was one who tried to flee, in fear. Uhak grabbed them on the back of their neck. Snapping it like a twig, he used the club swung over his shoulder to crush a different villager’s head. A simple punch of his fist, and the villager twisted like a cloth doll and died.

When Uhak fought, nothing around him happened.

Almost as if the monolithic size of a gigant was a nonfactor.

As if Word Arts capable of calling out and communicating with the people and things of the world had been wholly impossible from the start.

Before Uhak, all the people of the world were nothing but mindless beasts, bereft of any of life’s mysteries, while he himself was nothing more than a gargantuan ogre.

Not a single difference between anyone, villager or champion.

He swung his club, diligent and solemn, slowly turning the villagers into bloodstains.

“…Uhak. What was it…? What was I supposed to do…?”

The one causing the tragedy before me was my son. My comrade. My only family.

I must’ve wanted to run from the reality in front of me, and thus I fled alone into the woods… And then right as I felt my foot get caught on some thread, an arrow pierced my side.

The villagers had set up booby traps to kill us.

And I was caught, as if I were a beast being hunted.

My own mistake and foolishness filled me with more regret than I could bear. I had brought the trap on myself with my weak heart, trying to abandon Uhak to escape and survive on my own.

A number of villagers who were lurking in the forest started to encircle me, sticks and hammers in their hands. This time, for sure, I was going to steel my mind and accept my fate, but I was unable to, with the terror bubbling up inside me, when…I saw one of the villagers fall to the ground.

Almost as though a path was being opened up between them, the villagers brandished their weapons at my feet one by one, without showing any sign of waking up.

Finally, once all the villagers present had collapsed—a familiar face came into view from among them. A face I could never forget.

“…Hey, Teach.”

It was one of my former pupils, Kuze the Passing Disaster.

“Mother Cunodey. You still alive?”

With the heat from my arrow wound circulating through my body, his cold hand slapping against my cheeks felt pleasant.

There were many other, more important things I wanted to tell him, but with my consciousness fading, the only thing I could get out of my mouth was a simple observation.

“…You’re all grown up, Kuze.”

“Sorry. It’s always like this for me. I’m always too late. It’s my fault.”

“……”

“…Don’t worry, just wait there, Teach. I’ll be sure to send everyone packing. All of it… I’ll clean up this bad dream.”

Then Kuze wrapped me up in his overcoat and laid me down in my quarters.

He tried to cheer me up, but with this wound, I wasn’t going to make it to the morning.

In which case, something, anything… I wanted to try to record my thoughts like this to express my final thoughts to poor Uhak, unable to comprehend speech.

I’ve never been able to forget the wolf pup I killed that day.

I knew that, even now, in a corner of the garden, there was a grave for the pup, a small collection of stones surrounded with a great many flowers.

We were all born bestowed with the blessing of Word Arts. Thus, before birth, just what sort of difference was there between us and those beasts not bestowed the same gift?

Although he couldn’t speak, Uhak had a heart. Considerate of others, able to endure hardships, devoted to his faith… An undeniable heart, just like our own.

Several scenes, ones I had casually witnessed from a young age, circled in my mind.

I had seen horses no longer capable of pulling carriages get butchered with axes and turned into meat.

When the children once kicked a small cat and killed it, I had simply warned them not to get too close to wild animals.

…Without showing any respect or affection to the livestock that continued to be sacrificed for us, we consumed lives like it was our natural right.

Within a world where anyone who possessed Word Arts—including beastfolk and monstrous races—was capable of expressing their minds, creatures without such a gift were nothing but tools or enemies.

Things weren’t this way in the Beyond. In fact, it was possible this world was a particularly cruel one… Why had I forgotten these things, things that a traveling visitor had told my father when I was eleven years old, up until now?

Could that wolf pup have been the same as Uhak?

Possessing a clearly established heart but simply without any method to communicate its words?

If that was indeed the case, what a truly terrible and awful sin it would be.

As long as we continued to live in this world, we were sure to continue piling more and more on this horrifying sin of ours.

Ever since that day, I’ve been tormented by thoughts unbecoming a priest.

Were Word Arts an absolute law of nature?

Dragons fly, gigants walk, minia communicate with words, and Word Arts give birth to phenomena.

Do all these things we take for granted really just exist without any reason behind them?

…Uhak. In your eyes, you must have always looked at us mindless beasts as one and the same. You were the only one capable of loving everything equally, judging all things impartially, and confronting life on your own.

I was sure that eating a life you killed was your way of taking responsibility for the life you took.

You stole the lives of many of the villagers. Much like how I killed that wolf pup.

But that isn’t your sin to bear.

We’re the ones who’re wrong. We’re exactly like Melyugre the Silent’s siblings, addicted to their Word Arts and destroyed.

I taught you this at some point, I’m sure.

Priests needed to be people who can lift curses.

Uhak the Silent. From tomorrow on, I want you to throw away all the teachings I gave you.

Without being bound by the morals the minian races created, I want you to live as you feel is right, treating all lives as equal.

…I cannot endure the sins of living any longer. I don’t think I’ll be able to atone for them. It’s far too much for a single person to bear.

If I die, I want you to eat my flesh.

The Sixteenth General of Aureatia, Nofelt the Somber Wind, and his troops arrived the next morning, after the tragedy had passed.

The villagers who attacked the church were all smashed to a pulp, pieces of them bitten off and eaten. Additionally, they discovered others hiding in the forest who were now all corpses, with their vitals gouged out by some small dagger. Nofelt was readily able to discover the ogre responsible for the massacre.

Nofelt put down the farewell testament the old woman had left behind.

“Funny.”

Everything was too late. It was always like this with incidents related to the Order. Even when it concerned the very almshouse he was born in, it took a day’s time for military personnel to get permission to save it.

“…How stupid. Granny Cunodey’s definitely got some screws loose… Even went and croaked on me without a word to me about it.”

The heart of the abnormally tall swordsman was filled with hatred, in contrast to the flippant smile on his lips.

Aureatia abandoning his birthplace. The Word-Maker, unable to save anyone. A world manipulated by the True Demon King.

Neither the Hero nor the nobility, not a single one, gave a damn about the weak who continued to die.

“Yo, Uhak. So if you’re one of Granny’s disciples, see, that basically means you’re my junior, right? That’s enough, don’cha think? I don’t really care. Let’s ruin everything.”

The ogre was silently sitting with his back turned, facing the altar.

He didn’t express it with words, but he was performing his daily prayers.

“All right, Uhak. Hero time.”

A mountain of flowers was placed at her body, lying in the cathedral.

He perceived the world even though he could not comprehend Word Arts.

He possessed the true power of disenchantment, thrusting the same reality he saw on others.

He commanded, as the strongest of all minian-shaped creatures, strength and size that existed as authoritative reality.

An axiom-denying monster, ever in uncommunicative silence, that overturned the basic premise of the world.

Oracle. Ogre.

Uhak the Silent.