TOAD – Chapter 60

TOAD – Chapter 60

I looked through his journal with all of my attention, hoping that I could find out answers to that question, and many like it. He seemed to be a philosopher at heart though, and while he could always come up with interesting questions, his answers always left just as many questions. Some of those theories closely reflected my own. He also seemed to think that the mana in this world was dwindling, although he theorized it was being replaced with energy.

I wasn’t so sure about that. I couldn’t imagine a world that didn’t have energy. It was a world where all matter was controlled by the laws of mana. What were the laws of mana? How did they differ from energy other than the existence of magic? He wasn’t able to answer that question. He stated that a world where mana solely existed was unobservable because the world already existed with both mana and energy. It would be as easy as studying the fourth dimension. We could conceptualize it but never see it.

These were the parts of his works that frustrated me. This philosopher hero was kind of an annoying guy, and it was apparent that he thought pretty highly of himself. Well, he was summoned to another world and declared as the most important person who would save that world, so maybe it made sense that he would grow a bit full of himself.

A lot of what he wrote was just a journal though. Although he pondered the nature of this world, he also just explained what happened during his journey. He hadn’t started this journal immediately after coming to this world. He had spent nearly a year merely leveling and learning about this world before encountering a single demon. If I compared that to what I had accomplished after a year of being in this world, he seemed almost lacking.

From what I could tell, he had been in this world for about five years and had chronicled his time in it for the final four. It took him about a year to max the 1st class, another year for the 2nd, and two years to bring him through the third and into the fourth, where he reached level 100 around the time he faced the dragon god.

He had started this journal sometime into his second year, after already experiencing so many hardships. It began with him leaving his country of origin, a country is known as Briarstock. I was familiar with the name of the country thanks to my princess training under Nova, but I didn’t know much more than that it existed, and was far larger than Nidia. The hero seemed to do a tour of the country for the next year, learning things from each country, meeting nobles, and most importantly, forming alliances.

The idea seemed to be that the hero would be used as an idol to encourage the other nations of the human realm to unite. At that time, the humans were still fractured, and there was as much infighting as there was fighting against the demons. There was no surprise that every year, they were losing ground against the united demon realm. With the fear of annihilation and the hope given by the hero, they were able to unite the kingdoms. At that point, he was only around level sixty when he finally went out to fight the demons.

Rather than like the stories, where he easily op’d them all, most of his entries during his third year were discussing the fear, frustration, and anger he felt as he fought alongside his friends, and many of them died. There was much less introspection, and the tone of his entries became much more guarded and depressing. Despite the odds though, he continued to get stronger and fight against the enemy. In the third year of the war, he finally managed to push the demons of the continent, reclaiming it all for the human realm.

Once again, I wasn’t sure if I believed what he was writing about. I absorbed lots of mana. Was I really evil? I didn’t want to hear an answer for that. I decided to keep reading instead.

To save this world, I must stop the mana from flowing. That is the only way. I have determined that the dragon god was the conduit, the method that brings mana to this world. They are right to call him a god, as his presence is what allows this vicious cycle to continue, for this world to be maintained. He’s been growing old and sick though, and the mana has been weakening as a result. Even gods must die one day.

To keep the mana flowing, reports have come that he plans to pass over his godhood to the demon king. The demon king has spent a lifetime sucking up to the dragon god, and now I know why. He wants to become a new god. If they are allowed to succeed, then the demons will gain untold power. They will surge forth, take back what the humans conquered, and the cycle will only repeat itself.

I... hate myself for many of the things I have done. I have killed countless demons, and even slaughtered innocents. It is this world; this world filled with mana is to blame. To fix it, I must ride out and stop the ceremony. No new god can be born. I will break the cycle. The demons will decline and go extinct. The monsters will perish. This will become a human world. If there is some god responsible for my summoning to this world, then I am sorry. This is all I can do for this world.

To whoever reads this, burn it after. I do not have the strength to burn away my history, but these words should burn. No one should know what I did or why I did it. I will call upon all of my resources. Every human who owes me a favor will come and fight in this final battle. They will believe we are fighting to defeat the demons, but I have a far more important battle in mind. I fight for the fate of the world. The dragon god and the demon king must die. No gods must be born. Ever again.

That was the last entry. The rest of the book ended there, and the hero just disappeared from history. All that I knew was that they succeeded in killing the dragon god. Mana didn’t dissipate as quickly as he might have hoped, but we were living in a world that was slowly losing mana. As much as I knew, it left me with so much more I wanted to know. I wanted to know his connection to Nidia, the country that ended up with the dragon god’s cock. I wanted to know why the demon king survived. I wanted to know about that final battle. Most of all, I wanted to know what his fate was. In some ways, I saw his fate and my own as similar.

“Will I have the same fate as him?” I wondered out loud. “Will I change history only to disappear in its wake?”

It was a terrifying thought, but it seemed all too likely, knowing me.

Announcement

Hey Readers! I have recently done a redesign and overhaul on my website. You may prefer reading there now. At the least, check it out, and consider becoming a member. This was all done with the help of my Spanish translator, Kokoadict. He posts many translations, among them my work at /. You can support him at /GAONN. Either way, check out my site, / and become a member if you're interested. Have a great day.



Click Here to read the rest.