Chapter 61 – Human? (7)
[Translator – Night]
[Proofreader – Gun]
Chapter 61 – Human? (7)
“Explanation?”
This isn’t a battle.
“Does that mean you’ve come to talk?”
“For now, yes.”
Adamanth said this as he looked at Elene.
“I knew you were a mischievous princess, but this is a bit much.”
“...Adamanth. Even you have come to stop me.”
Adamanth Lagesh.
The kingdom’s chief magician.
Lutein Kingdom’s only superhuman-level strongman.
[TL/N: Superhumans are also transcendents.]
Adamanth shook his head.
“I didn’t come to stop you. I came to explain. It seems the knights were too ignorant to speak sensibly.”
“If explanations don’t work, you’ll stop me, won’t you?”
“That’s true.”
Elene bit her lip.
“Right. The King of the Denian Kingdom’s possible Declaration of Humanity. That’s frightening, isn’t it? For you to come, it must be urgent.”
“No. That doesn’t matter.”
Adamanth spoke calmly in response to Elene’s words.
Elene was momentarily taken aback.
“What?”
“I know he can make the Declaration of Humanity, but that’s not the important part. I came here because you, the princess, tried to cross into another country without notifying the royal family.”
Adamanth sighed.
“You are the noble first princess of the Lutein Kingdom. The weight of your blood is never light. If you cross into another country without permission, it becomes a diplomatic issue.”
He pressed his forehead as if it was troublesome.
“If you talk to His Majesty and officially move, I won’t stop you, but you can’t act like this. You need to realize your position a bit more.”
“.......”
It made sense.
A very ordinary point.
That’s why it was strange.
Adamanth spoke.
“Princess. What exactly are you dissatisfied with?”
“Dissatisfied? What am I dissatisfied with?”
Elene’s eyes flickered with anger.
“You all aren’t the ones I know! You’ve all changed! At some point, you became something that doesn’t know death!”
“Yes.”
Adamanth nodded.
His overly calm demeanor made Elene, who was about to explode in anger, hesitate.
“I know as well. That we’ve changed in some way.”
“Really...!”
She glared at the bound knight.
The knight flinched.
“No! It’s not true! I don’t know anything!”
“Farman’s words aren’t lies. He really doesn’t know. Not just him, but probably everyone in the royal family doesn’t know.”
Adamanth lightly waved his staff.
“It seems this conversation will get tiresome, so let’s put him to sleep.”
“Ah....”
Farman bowed his head.
As Elene watched in momentary puzzlement, her eyes widened as something came to mind.
“Adamanth. Could it be you...”
“If there were such a spell, I’d like to learn it too. Only the Master of the Magic Tower might know, but it’s impossible for someone like me.”
Adamanth tapped the ground with the end of his staff as if to summarize his words.
“Your and Aaron’s suspicions are correct. We’ve changed. But we haven’t turned into the kind of monsters you think. We’re still human.”
“What nonsense! How can something that doesn’t die be human!”
“That point has merit. This is quite a strange situation, making it difficult to explain.”
After pondering for a moment, Adamanth spoke.
“Ten years ago, the princess didn’t even reach my waist, but now you’ve grown so beautifully. It’s nothing short of a divine miracle.”
“I don’t need flattery.”
“It’s not that. Do you know how you grew and developed?”
Elene frowned.
“...What do you mean?”
“Human growth is highly complex and systematic. A body that starts off small and wrinkled gradually grows over time. It’s a miracle so amazing it’s called divine. But no one questions or finds it strange.”
Hair grows day by day.
So do nails.
The skin loses its elasticity.
Height increases.
“This is fascinating.”
“K-Ketal?”
Elene looked at Ketal in confusion.
Ketal was looking at her with a strange expression.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Elene, after we met and you became afraid of me, you refused to eat my food. You sustained yourself on dried jerky. If I remember correctly....”
Ketal brought his fingers together, indicating a small size.
“For three days, you ate just this one piece.”
“Yes. So I was very hungry.”
“If you eat that little, hunger won’t be your only problem. You’ll develop other issues.”
They walked continuously every day, except for very brief breaks.
Even a well-trained man would struggle with such a relentless march.
A piece of jerky the size of a palm couldn’t possibly provide enough nutrition to sustain someone for three days.
“But you had no problems.”
Even if she struggled, she never stopped walking.
It wasn’t something that could be done on sheer willpower alone.
“What, what?”
At first, he didn’t think much of it.
He figured it was okay since this was a fantasy world.
After all, some of his companions had survived for a month eating nothing but ice after being isolated in the wilderness.
But listening to Adamanth’s story, it seemed that wasn’t the case.
Elene’s eyes filled with confusion.
“I am.”
“A human.”
“...”
Elene fell silent.
Those were the words Farman had been saying all along.
“It doesn’t make sense for only the two of you to remain unaffected after devouring the entire royal castle.”
Adamanth smiled bitterly.
“You call us monsters? You are the same. Only the form is different.”
* * *
The princess tried to protest.
‘No, I am human. I am not a monster like you. What about me is strange?’
But every time she tried to say those words, she remembered what she had said to Farman.
It was exactly the same.
What had she said?
She had ignored all of Farman’s words while pressing a sword to his neck, insisting that she was human.
Only then did she realize.
Her belief held no value or meaning.
“...Ah.”
A sound like something breaking echoed.
She hung her head.
Aaron did the same.
Seeing that the conversation had come to an end, Adamanth looked at Elene with sympathetic eyes.
“Don’t worry. You are not a monster. You are human, just like me. Return to the castle and calm yourself.”
As he approached the princess, someone blocked his path.
It was Ketal.
Adamanth frowned.
“I thought you were smart, but in the end, you’re just a barbarian. It seems you didn’t understand the conversation.”
“I understood. It’s like the Ship of Theseus.”
“Hmm?”
“Is that a paradox unknown here?”
Ketal began to explain.
Long ago, there was a ship of Theseus that led a war to victory.
The people of that country treasured the ship.
But eventually, the wooden ship rotted and decayed.
So they replaced the deck, changed the sails, and repainted it.
As time passed, every part of the ship was replaced.
Could it still be called the Ship of Theseus?
Adamanth’s eyes showed surprise after hearing the explanation.
“...Did you come up with that? It’s a different approach from the homunculus dilemma. It’s a new concept.”
“Homunculus, huh.”
Is there something like that?
Ketal laughed.
‘This world never ceases to amaze me.’
Ketal realized.
The kingdom of Lutein was a massive Ship of Theseus.
[Translator – Night]
[Proofreader – Gun]