Chapter 64 – From the Ground to the Ground

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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The sea had retreated as the ebb tide.

Together with over 360 missing people whose whereabouts could not be confirmed.

Those who had been almost a thousand in number could now barely maintain around 600.

A small mercy was that the survivors were in relatively good shape.

Aside from being blinded, they had not suffered any significant physical injuries.

That small fact alone lightened somewhat the oppressive weight upon my chest.

I went among them, pointing them out one by one.

The first was a woman whose wept blood had crusted into scabs and sealed her eyelids together.

“Wipe away the tears you’ve cried. Once you do, you should be able to open your eyes.”

“But, but. Your Grace, Star Creation… My, my eyes…”

The woman sat in an awkward crouch and made no move.

A subtle guilt and blossoming distrust had her pinned in place.

Were I to approach, she would only recoil further.

Fortunately, there was a reliable rescue right beside me to close that gap.

I got down on one knee toward the children who had been following me in quick little steps.

“She’s afraid of me. Can you wipe them for her instead?”

“Can we do it?”

“Wipe gently, carefully, as if soothing them, so it doesn’t hurt. It’ll be very easy.”

“Yes!”

Among them were a few more familiar faces.

Shek the coward’s nephew Den, and the child Debra who had nearly been taken for a human sacrifice.

These two moved first and approached the woman first.

All they had in hand were tiny scraps of cloth, but it was enough to wipe the woman’s eyes.

“Oh. Oh?”

“Miss, make sure to wash your face properly from now on!”

“My goodness. How, how is this possible?”

The woman had no spare attention to worry about Debra’s scolding tone.

She rolled her brown eyes this way and that, looking around, and soon fixed her gaze on me.

“Sta… Star Creation! Forgive me for failing to trust in one so magnificent!”

She prostrated herself and began to tremble.

The distrust she had harbored was gone, nowhere to be found.

In its place, bloated guilt… and dreadful fear filled the vacancy.

She was petrified with terror from the mere act of me looking at her, and could only keep begging for forgiveness.

There was nothing I could say to someone like this.

Even the warmest words would be twisted and send her sinking further into fear.

The only thing I could say was.

“If you wish to be forgiven, wipe the eyes of the person beside you. As carefully and gently as this child did, as much as you are able. Debra, pass the cloth in your hand to her.”

“Yes, Star Creation! Here you go, miss!”

It was not comfort I had offered, but rather a task to be done.

She received the cloth that Debra held out with trembling hands.

Unable to shake off the deep shadow of fear beneath her fluttering eyelids.

She murmured and tried to say something, but in the end bowed her head.

There was no way to comfort someone who feared me while standing at their side. The dawn light of Consoling Constellation would handle what I could not.

I took the children and moved on to the next person.

Not that the next was much different.

Each and every one was reluctant toward me and afraid.

Because of why they were blind — that was the part impossible to voice.

Those who, at the moment of the Sun God’s descension, had looked upon and praised the Sun God rather than me.

That was the only criterion separating those whose sight remained intact from those who were blinded.

But the greatest problem was that they had violated my directive, caused chaos, and brought about harm.

As I moved through the crowds, I could hear voices growing gradually louder.

“Why did you let go of their hand? Star Creation was holding the line!”

“Holding the line? Then what happened to the people who got attacked? Does that mean they were left to die on purpose?”

“Oh, these ungrateful..! Couldn’t believe what Star Creation said about the Sun God abandoning the world, had the nerve to doubt them, and now you’re trying to pin this on them?!”

“Speak properly. You’re the ones doing the pinning. Right in front of your faces is the fact that Star Creation couldn’t protect everyone, and you’re making it our fault!”

“You should have thought about violating the directive!”

“If we hadn’t let go, we would have all died right there!”

They understood it in their minds, yet were pointing fingers at one another.

I could only feel a bitterness.

Their nature was not twisted or wicked.

Driven to the extreme, they simply needed someone to blame.

It was the result of all the composure they had painstakingly recovered being swept entirely away by this assault.

At that moment, the children who sensed the increasingly heated voices and darkening mood clustered up close to me.

“Star Creation, why are they fighting?”

Countless words passed through my mind.

If I had wanted to, I could have rambled on for hours with long-winded explanations the children couldn’t understand.

But it could be explained briefly.

“Because I did not give them enough faith.”

Failure was a natural part of the roguelike genre.

It was a game that progressed by failing repeatedly, learning what to do, and putting it into practice.

What distinguished veterans in this game was not how well they laid their plans.

It was how flexibly they could respond when those plans fell through.

And I was already well-accustomed to failure.

“Do not worry. It will not go on for long.”

The star that understood those who were wounded and consoled them, Consoling Constellation, flickered.

The faint, soft dawn light reached all those with their sight intact.

“…Damn.”

…………

The two who had been raising their voices scrunched up their faces and turned away from each other.

They understood that here, pointing fingers at each other and throwing harsh words would not improve anything, but only make it worse.

The children found even this bewildering.

“Why aren’t they making up?”

“My mom always said to shake hands after fighting.”

I shrugged in answer to these troublesome questions.

“It’s embarrassing in front of others. Please understand.”

***

Of course, the source of conflict was not just one thing.

After finishing treatment and returning, what awaited me was a crowd milling and clustering together.

Bartol was working up a cold sweat trying to block the way, but it was to no avail.

“Everyone, rest comes first. I will be the one to carry your petitions to Star Creation.”

“Step aside, Priest! The god is right over there, why go through you?”

“Ahem. Do you have any idea how many people have suffered for approaching a god without proper manners and just…”

“Oh, oh! There they are!”

“It’s Star Creation!”

The old priest was swept aside far too easily.

Even so, the people did not pour forward immediately.

The gathered crowd shuffled and fidgeted for a while, then spat out a familiar face.

Nesaro, representative of the newly joined refugees.

Nesaro looked at the people who had pushed him out, made a teary face, and was barely managing to compose himself.

“St, Star Creation. God… Godfather of Stars.”

It seemed he had simply come out because the others were aware he had some rapport with me.

I could not simply stand by watching someone half-shoved into this position trembling and shaking.

“Speak comfortably. I am listening.”

This did nothing to ease Nesaro’s tension.

In fact, the agitation seemed to be growing.

Cold sweat was trickling steadily down his cheeks, then he even went so far as to squeeze his eyes shut.

I was wondering why he was stalling for so long, when.

“…Th, there are many who are reluctant to remain in Terjaohm. We need to leave this place as soon as possible.”

Understanding the meaning behind those words, I grasped what he was saying.

“Leave. And those who were taken?”

When I pointed this out precisely, Nesaro too clasped both fists tightly as if expecting this.

Eyelids crushed shut so fiercely the crow’s feet wrinkled.

From beneath them, through lips muddling and stumbling, a wrung-out voice seeped through.

“They are… already as good as dead, are they not?”

….

Before I knew it my eyes were closed. I needed time to think.

The many plans laid from the beginning had gone awry in an instant.

The fatal mistake had been not knowing that the Sun God was wary enough of me to personally descend.

The vicious and arrogant Sun God, when facing me specifically, did not hold back any means or method.

Moreover, it kept driving toward extreme choices, cornering me over and over.

If it had done the same to other gods as well, not just to me…

The one god I had encountered who was still alive suddenly came to mind.

[Judge as a god, not as a human. This is a war. Sacrifice is a given in war.]

For Bearing Responsibility, it had been a war.

In contrast, I had never once thought of this as a war.

This journey was a rescue operation, pulling people to safety in a disaster. At least it had been for me.

But there were certain things that had indeed been lacking.

A god was a being fulfilled through faith.

A being completed through the faith directed toward itself and the conviction it held within.

Vaguely wanting to raise a new sun, wishing for them to build a new home — that was not sufficient.

My own creed. My own conviction that I had to uphold.

I felt something that had long been vague beginning to take shape, and returned to reality.

Before me was Nesaro, driven to the very edge of fainting.

“Not all of them will return alive. As you said.”

“…”

“But if even one of them believed in me, I will take responsibility for what comes after their death.”

Nesaro could say nothing and bowed his head deeply.

Then, from the crowd that had been watching silently, a man with a remarkably smooth tongue stepped forward.

“Star Creation, those are truly noble words. However, they are those who did not believe in you from the beginning… if anything, they deserve divine punishment. I fear it will be a decision like sifting through rough gravel to pick up a single smooth pebble.”

I cut this off immediately.

“No one believed in me completely from the start. That was natural, and I had no intention of reproaching anyone for it. When light had not yet revealed itself, how was anyone supposed to see it and believe?”

“Then.”

Still a skeptical tone. The man looked as though he simply could not accept it.

I answered in a somewhat softened tone, as if gently persuading him.

“I will show them again. I will repeat it as many times as it takes until I have earned their complete trust.”

Even if they were non-believers, as long as they had been at the side of someone who trusted in me, that was sufficient.

Thinking of the creed I had to uphold, I looked at the people before me one by one.

In the silence that arrived, eyebrows trembling.

Unable to hold my gaze, they looked away or quietly bowed their heads and shook their shoulders.

There was no such thing as a deserved sacrifice.

One let go not because one wanted to, but because there was no other option.

Even having desperately rationalized it to protect themselves, none of them were free from guilt.

A longing for stars and the heavens… a wish to shine brightly. The longing for light existed in everyone.

And if they carried a longing for light.

“They deserve a better future.”

“Go, gold?”

I breathed out a breath laced with star dust and smiled.

“Be at ease. I will not make any among you blame another.”

***

The Sun God’s descension had been achieved by enduring a powerful penalty of its own accord.

To descend for even a fleeting moment, it had to give me an immense stretch of time.

Thanks to this, there was no need to worry about the Black Sun rising for the foreseeable future.

In particular, having grasped the ability of my first unique miracle, Solar Expulsion, was also significant.

The more the sun moved of its own reckless accord, the stronger Solar Expulsion became.

I passed this information to the gathered people one by one.

“The Sun God made a strained descension. There is no need to worry about assaults from dark radiance on this land for some time.”

“A relief in misfortune. If assaults had continued during this period, the damage would have been…”

Ryugen’s muttered anxiety was shared by everyone.

I waited briefly to allow them to shake off their anxiety, then declared.

“And that is precisely why now is the time I believe we should strike Blood-Soaked Mud.”

“….?!”

“Star Creation, the sea is the creature’s territory. By what means do you intend to face such a treacherous demon?”

Among the general shock, the only one to venture an opinion was the old cleric Bartol.

I tapped my temple with a finger and smiled.

“I have figured out how to use the newly gained authority. It might overhear, so I shall avoid explaining, but know only this: it is a trump card that will send even a great demon into a total panic.”

“Mrrrrm.”

“Old man, Star Creation has said this much. What is there left to worry? If anything, Star Creation should be worrying about your age.”

The sight of a person who wanted to object but had no more grounds to do so.

I watched Hwen consoling Bartol, who was weaving a sound of discomfort, and allowed myself a brief mischievous smile.

But my gaze had at some point drifted toward a strangely empty spot.

‘A, Ad. Ad was taken.’

The empty place of someone who would have spoken a word or two here looked particularly lonely.

I thought of Shek begging with tears streaming down his face and clenched my fist.