Chapter 60
Evil God Beliar (4)
Hephaestus groaned and barely managed to open his eyes.
“Are you conscious?”
“Saintess... why are you here?”
Eve stood before him.
She was the dwarves’ saintess, someone who should have been on the front lines rather than in the command tower where he was stationed. The moment Hephaestus saw her, he hurriedly tried to sit up.
“Ugh...”
“Don’t move. You’re in no condition to do that.”
But his body refused to obey him.
There was no strength in his limbs. His hand slipped against the ground, and he fell clumsily, striking his head against the floor.
Only after collapsing did Hephaestus finally notice what was happening around him.
“Cough! Cough!”
“Water... Someone, please give me water....”
“It hurts. It hurts so much....”
The dwarves had been burning with fighting spirit only moments ago.
Those warriors who had shown no fear whatsoever were now lying on the ground, screaming in agony. Some vomited blood, while others sobbed as they clutched their decaying bodies.
Hephaestus was in much the same condition.
Only then did the little blacksmith realize that the area around his mouth was unnaturally wet. He also realized that the overpowering, nauseating stench of blood was coming from his own body.
What is happening...?
Victory had been within reach.
Their enemies had been trembling in fear, while the dwarves who had always fled were finally moving forward instead of retreating.
At last, the end of this war had been in sight.
So why...?
“It was like this before too.”
Hephaestus’s grandfather, Vulcanos, spoke bitterly.
“In an unreasonable, incomprehensible way that no one could possibly accept....”
“The enemy’s Evil God... has become enraged.”
Hephaestus’s eyes trembled at those words.
...The Evil God became angry?
What was that supposed to mean?
“For such a trivial reason... everything we built is going to collapse so meaninglessly?”
Was everything they had painstakingly built no more than a castle of sand?
They had worked so hard.
They had struggled to prove that although they were small, they were not insignificant. They had worked to prove to those who had once shackled and violated them that they had not been born to live as slaves.
They had worked to prove that they were not so worthless.
And yet, had everything they created been nothing more than something insignificant and pathetic—something that could collapse beneath a single wave or shatter in an instant at someone else’s whim?
“That... shouldn’t be allowed.”
Desperate screams rang out.
He could not only hear them—he could see them.
People writhed in agony. Others trembled in fear as tears of blood streamed down their faces.
The approaching destruction was no longer imaginary.
It was real.
“What... did we work so hard for...?”
They had worked.
They had studied the history of an unfamiliar world and completed this fortress so that they would no longer be forced to run, so that they could defend their land with their own hands.
They had worked toward the goal of making anyone who tried to harm them pay the price.
They had worked to prove to the beings who once shackled and violated them that they had not been born to live as slaves.
They had worked to prove that they were not so insignificant.
They had worked.
They had forged weapons and devised strategies. Even when overcome by exhaustion, they had refused to bury themselves in their beds. Sometimes they ignored even the desire to rest beneath the warm sunlight and continued swinging their hammers.
Their efforts had undeniably produced results.
Victory had been right before them.
So how could everything disappear so futilely?
Had their dream been nothing more than a mirage in the desert?
If so, what had all their efforts been for?
No—what had his efforts been for...?
“Ah....”
Those who had burned with fighting spirit were dying.
The embers that had begun to flare were losing their light.
The life that had begun to stir was fading away.
The world was dying.
Everything was disappearing.
So utterly and meaninglessly.
“You said that sometimes, small things can change everything.”
It was infuriating.
Something that might have been tears or blood flowed down Hephaestus’s cheeks.
He could not endure the indignation welling inside him without letting it out.
“It was all a lie.”
“There was never anything we could change. This world is far too unreasonable and filled with far too many incomprehensible things for insignificant little creatures like us to change it.”
“Heh... They were right. We’re no different from insects. What difference does it make if ants build a great kingdom or raise a sturdy castle out of sand? Just as ants cannot change the world, insignificant little things like us were never capable of changing anything.”
Hephaestus remembered the kingdom of ants he had seen as a child.
Someone had once dropped bread crumbs on the ground, drawing a swarm of ants. Hephaestus had followed them and discovered thousands upon thousands of ants.
There had been an enormous, magnificent anthill.
It was the ants’ tiny kingdom.
The young Hephaestus had wondered whether those ants might someday conquer the world.
But the following evening, as the sun sank toward the horizon, Hephaestus witnessed an unexpected sight.
Three young dwarf boys stood around the enormous anthill.
They did not stop at merely observing the ants. Driven by the curiosity unique to young boys, they poured all the water from their bottles into the entrance of the anthill.
Hephaestus saw the drowned bodies of the ants floating in the water.
He also saw the anthill reduced to a miserable ruin.
The ants’ kingdom had been effortlessly destroyed by the boys’ prank. A kingdom the ants themselves might have considered a glorious civilization had vanished just like that.
Insignificantly and meaninglessly.
To Hephaestus, the present situation was no different.
This tiny world, created by insignificant little beings, was collapsing beneath water poured down by someone else.
It was being destroyed like the ants that had drowned, like the anthill that had become soaked and crumbled apart.
“Hephaestus, my young friend.”
Then a voice reached the ears of the despairing Hephaestus.
It was the dry, cracked voice of an old man.
“Abandoning hope is foolish.”
Coughing.
Screaming.
Groaning.
Footsteps cut through all those sounds.
“I believe it is a sin.”
Hephaestus turned toward the voice.
As expected, an old man stood there.
He belonged to a world resembling the setting sun.
Like a world approaching twilight, the old man had also reached the twilight of his life. He was a man who had already endured the destruction of one world and had once abandoned his own life.
“That’s simply how the world is. And not just the world—our lives are the same. Has there always been a clear reason behind our despair? Whenever we lost something, was there always an explanation we could accept?”
“That isn’t what matters.”
Santiago.
“All we can do is fight back.”
While everyone else lay fallen, the old man stood upright as always, gripping his long harpoon and fishing line.
His worn-out body trembled like an aspen tree, and blood drenched the corners of his wrinkled mouth.
Nevertheless, he remained standing.
As though none of this mattered.
“Get up, young man. Finding new paths has always been the duty of the young, hasn’t it? Old and dull men like me inevitably become set in our ways. That is why, instead of searching for something new, we stubbornly repeat what we have always done.”
“What you’ve always done...?”
“Fight back until this body breaks.”
Santiago swept back his hair.
As the old man walked forward with quiet composure, Eve spoke.
“Wait! It’s far too dangerous to go alone—”
Santiago stopped at Eve’s words.
The old man glanced back.
“You’re right. An old man shouldn’t be alone.”
Then he answered in a dry voice.
“But ultimately, this is something I cannot avoid.”
***
The dwarves’ strategy had been wise.
The Great One had called them cowards and creatures without honor, but Mars, at least, did not agree.
The dwarves had been extraordinarily cautious of the Iron Men.
They had used their blessing—the protection that made them beloved by steel—with remarkable efficiency. They had placed traps capable of restraining the Iron Men throughout the vast fortress zone. Unless a priest capable of controlling iron was present, they always retreated, even when the situation favored them.
They could immobilize the Iron Men.
Whenever they lacked that advantage, they unconditionally avoided a direct confrontation.
It had been an exceptionally wise decision.
Because of that, the Iron Men had never once been able to display their true combat power during the [World Collision]. Most of the fighting had been conducted as guerrilla warfare using soldiers from the other races.
Mars possessed such an outstanding ability to read the battlefield that they had still inflicted considerable damage upon the opposing world. But in a sense, the [World of Chains and Shackles] had been fighting while keeping its most essential military force sealed away.
Now the Iron Men’s feet had been unshackled.
And the wisdom of the dwarves’ choices was being demonstrated in real time.
“Fi...re....”
The fortress zone in the Land of Steel.
The dwarves holding their positions were struggling even to breathe. But physical ability had never been particularly important when using the dwarves’ weapons.
As long as they could curl a finger around a trigger and pull it, those weapons could unleash their full power.
Their firepower had hardly diminished.
Only one thing had changed.
The Iron Men’s “feet” were no longer restrained.
“You held your ground instead of fleeing.”
That alone changed everything.
“You may be my enemies, but such resolve deserves respect.”
A thunderous volley of gunfire erupted.
Countless bullets simultaneously hammered against Mars’s body. Yet not even the smallest scratch appeared on the Steel General’s body.
Clink, clink, clink....
Deformed bullets merely rolled across the ground with feeble metallic sounds.
Mars strode through the center of the battlefield as though taking a leisurely walk after a meal. Neither the hail of bullets, the land mines, nor even their painstakingly prepared bombardment could wound him.
Nothing could stop Mars’s indifferent advance.
Absolutely nothing.
“You cannot pass... beyond this point....”
Several dwarves occasionally appeared to block Mars’s path. Instead of firearms, they charged with hammers in hand, but the outcome of that battle had already been decided.
Crack!
A single dwarf died beneath Mars’s fist.
Whoosh!
The dwarves’ hammers sliced through empty air. Despite his massive appearance, the Steel General’s movements were terrifyingly agile.
Mars spun and kicked at the air as though striking something invisible. The metal around his shin writhed, then contracted and shot outward like a long spike.
Thrust!
The iron spike buried itself in a dwarf’s chest.
The instant the dwarf groaned, the embedded spike exploded like a grenade, scattering fragments in every direction. Each piece moved as though it were a living creature. They pierced the dwarves’ vital points, tore through the organs inside their bodies, then returned to Mars’s shin and reassembled themselves.
Four dwarves died.
The entire exchange took 0.7 seconds.
“Ah....”
The undefeated commander.
Among the bloodthirsty warrior races that fought continuously from birth until death, Mars stood at the pinnacle of the Iron Men.
He was not only a commander proficient in strategy and tactics, but also the most powerful Iron Man in the [World of Chains and Shackles].
...At least they died gloriously.
But victories like these brought Mars no joy.
Unlike the soldiers of our world, who died for nothing.
What had it been like when they destroyed the dwarven civilization in the past?
Mars could no longer clearly remember the process.
But one thing was certain.
He had not felt this empty back then.
Why?
Because there was glory.
In those days, they had gained something after every grueling war.
By subjugating the dwarves of the small world, Mars’s world had acquired their technology and precious resources. It had also brought some of the finest blacksmiths in the World of Stars beneath its heel.
Had Mars not acquired his current body through that conquest as well?
No matter how brutal or dishonorable the war had been, Mars’s world had undeniably moved forward.
The filth of being a commander who mercilessly slaughtered small and weak beings had not counted as a blemish when it had been done for the glory and radiant future of his world.
A better world.
A better future.
If he could obtain even a single handful of light, Mars had been willing to descend as deeply into the abyss as necessary.
But were the Iron Men truly moving toward the light now?
Were they becoming greater through all of this?
In the end, what meaning did any of it possess?
Why did a war in which nothing could be gained continue?
If no one would become happy, why was he fighting?
The more they fought, the more miserable everyone became.
It made no difference whether they were enemies or allies.
If so, was the only thing awaiting them at the end a future in which everyone became miserable and fell into a dark abyss?
Would everyone someday share the emptiness Mars felt now?
Once those doubts began to burn, they could not be extinguished.
They only blazed more fiercely.
...But what will change merely because I ask so many questions?
What could he possibly change?
In essence, Mars was no different from those dwarves.
Compared to this vast and boundless universe, he was an infinitely small and insignificant being—a mere fragment swept along by the will of great and omnipotent entities.
If countless questions could not be voiced, they would simply disappear.
The Iron Men had been created to fight. They were merely beings born for the Great One’s amusement and pleasure, for His honor and pride.
In a world filled with things he did not understand, the general clad in a shell of steel could do nothing but follow his purpose.
A purpose even he had begun to doubt.
And then....
The voice that rang out did not belong to the living.
“Rise!”
At the boy’s shout, the dwarves whose lives Mars had ended rose and seized his body.
Mars turned his head and saw a small skeleton.
He knew its identity.
The necromancer of the small world.
“....”
Mars’s advancing feet came to a halt.
Looking back, he saw the withered hand gripping his ankle.
It belonged to a dwarf who had fallen while bleeding....
Yet its grasp contained strength that seemed impossible for a dwarf.
There was no need for introductions.
Crunch!
Mars swung his arm and tore himself free of the undead’s grasp. Then he charged forward with tremendous force.
For the moment, he decided to bury the questions rising within him.
They were not what mattered right now.
The distance between the charging Mars and the small skeleton, Jude, vanished in an instant. Just as the two were about to collide, the ground shook and countless spears of bone erupted from beneath it.
The instant the bone spears halted Mars’s charge, Jude’s concealed legion emerged.
Our world’s....
There were more undead than Mars could possibly count.
Among them were figures familiar even to him.
The necromancer who had crossed into Mars’s world had resurrected the dead there and brought them back with him.
Mars did not marvel at the small skeleton’s tremendous power.
Instead, he remained trapped in that same inexplicable emotion.
So many of them died.
Perhaps everyone was already dead.
Perhaps not a single person remained.
The undead army was so overwhelming that Mars could not help thinking so.
“Hold him—!”
An enormous number of undead grabbed Mars’s body and refused to release him.
Then something rose into the air behind Jude.
It was a dragon made of bone.
It was Partmos, Governor Johan’s former partner, now a Bone Dragon serving a new master.
With the colossal Bone Dragon joining the battle, Mars’s body was buried and crushed beneath the army of bones.
It was combat power truly worthy of the title one-man army.
“Heavy.”
But the same could be said of Mars.
“It’s almost too heavy to bear.”
Thrust!
A long spike shot out from between the ranks of undead. It pierced Jude’s chest, then opened like an umbrella and shattered his body into pieces.
As Jude’s disassembled body tumbled across the ground, Mars instantly threw off the undead and walked free.
Mars’s entire body had transformed into something resembling a mass of saw blades. Any undead that approached him was inevitably ground to pieces.
A living weapon.
He could transform his body into whatever form best suited the situation, and unless he was killed through magical means, his life could never be extinguished.
With his own body, the immortal Iron Man demonstrated precisely why the dwarves had been so wary of confronting his kind head-on.
“I feel like casting everything aside.”
“....”
“It is all too heavy for me to bear.”
Even after throwing off every undead creature, Mars continued complaining of the weight.
He felt as though something were constantly crushing him.
Mars could not tell whether it was the weight of his enormous body, an undead creature he had failed to remove, or something invisible.
Indeed, he simply could not understand it.
And then....
Mars saw a faint light.
Something transparent and gleaming.
After staring blankly for a moment, Mars realized that it was a fishing line.
It was an object completely out of place on such a fierce battlefield.
Before he knew it, that fishing line had wound itself tightly around his entire body.
At that moment—
“I’ve caught quite the big one.”
Mars’s body shot into the air with a whoosh.
“I’m not sure these old wrists of mine can handle this.”
***
The most influential soul.
The Evil God’s most loyal servant, who had never once been defeated, yet whose faith was now wavering.
It was not difficult to determine whose soul that was. After all, among all the Iron Men currently capable of moving, there was only one whose soul remained clear.
Mars, the Iron Man.
The moment that soul betrays Beliar, the apocalypse will end.
Rejecting his god and abandoning his faith.
The status window had described that as betrayal.
And even if Lee Shin did nothing, it seemed destined to happen eventually.
The soul of Mars, as seen through Lee Shin’s eyes, was constantly trembling.
If left alone, that soul would soon continue wandering until it collapsed on its own.
Then it would disappear alongside its god and its world.
Everything would vanish as though it had never existed.
Just as no trace remained upon a beach after the waves swept across it.
Of course, Lee Shin had no intention of allowing that.
Had the status window not said so itself?
In this dark and boundless ocean of a universe, there were beings who became lights.
There were beings who showed the way to those who wandered lost and offered them a place upon which they could rely.
The worlds called those beings gods.
[...God.]
A voice reached Lee Shin’s ears.
It was a feeble voice.
But it was not hollow.
[...Would you help me just this once?]
A red-haired dwarf stood there.
Hephaestus.
The final heir to the Eternal Flame.
The Blacksmith of Flame.
「The promotion requirements have been fulfilled.」
And then—
「A new Hero has appeared in Earth No. 444, the Small but Deadly World.」
A Hero Candidate.