Ch.218014 Investigation Record – Enemy, Slanderer, and Adversary (3)

I originally enjoyed strong drinks, but this one was sweet enough to suit even an elf’s palate.

In truth, drinks that suited elven tastes were common, but they were usually so mild that the demon before me wouldn’t have enjoyed them. Yet he seemed to be enjoying this… beverage made from unknown fruits.

Perhaps it was the perfect drink. Perhaps the person serving such a perfect drink might be a decent person too, if not quite as perfect as the drink itself. I tried not to lower my guard, but maintaining suspicion felt like stubborn prejudice.

The demon swirled his glass, which sparkled as if sprinkled with gold dust, before emptying it. When he spoke, his voice was polite.

“Since we’re both curious about each other, let’s ask questions in turn. What do you say? One question, one answer, and we repeat.”

This was actually quite reasonable. Perhaps I had been overly cautious because of his name. I nodded lightly.

“A journalist couldn’t ask for better terms. You go first.”

Yielding the first question to him, he poured another glass of golden liquor for himself and said:

“As I mentioned earlier… I’d like you to tell me about Sol Invictus. What kind of god was he? How did you see him then, and how do you see him now?”

Since I’d been thinking about this all day, I could answer without needing to organize my thoughts. Anyone who had read the evening paper would know this already.

“At first… I thought he was like a strong, kind grandfather who didn’t quite understand modern ways. Someone who took immense pride in the era he lived in. But then…”

“But then?”

He prompted me to continue. I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.

“When I asked him to show me the symbol of that proud era, out popped the Confederate flag. You know what that feels like, right? You can imagine what I thought seeing that.”

He burst into light laughter. His laugh was cheerful but not so prolonged as to make me uncomfortable. He nodded with a smile.

“You’re not a journalist for nothing. Of course I understand. You felt betrayed. You realized all his kindness had purpose and discrimination behind it, that he was only nice because he liked you. Isn’t that right? You must have been furious. It’s perfectly reasonable to be angry. Don’t tell me that’s wrong.”

He seemed to be trying to tempt me. Fortunately, I now knew how to use anger productively.

“So I channeled that into writing my article. What you just said, but phrased more politely, is what you’ll find in the evening paper. I already know it’s not wrong. Now it’s my turn to ask, right? I’ll repeat my earlier question. Why are you the leader of the Anti-Deity Party?”

He knew why I was asking the same question twice. He stood up with his glass of golden liquor and headed toward the window. He didn’t gesture for me to follow, but I joined him at Eden’s window anyway.

Eden is a bright place. Eden is a high place. From Eden, New York looked incredibly low. This is why I never liked looking down at cities from high places.

He lightly tapped the thick window typical of high-rise buildings. He could probably break it with force, but a demon wouldn’t be so ill-mannered.

“If I were to melt this window with fire magic and throw you outside, do you think an angel would fly in from somewhere to save you?”

I didn’t let myself imagine it and become frightened. Among the people I knew, only Michael was someone who could easily accomplish whatever he said he would do.

“I’d hope so, but that won’t happen. The God-President has decided not to interfere to that extent. And I don’t think you’re trying to test the God-President with my life.”

He spoke casually, frankly revealing that he had tried this before.

“I’ve already failed at that once. But yes, that’s my reason. He decided to withdraw his hand, but… since he naturally loves short-lived species, he maintains this ambiguous state of neither interfering nor completely withdrawing. Problems that could be solved with one swing of his mighty right hand are neglected, while he only intervenes in matters where you wonder if it’s even necessary.”

He spoke as if he understood the God-President perfectly. And certainly, he wouldn’t have done more about Sol Invictus than sending Michael.

If he used omniscience to send Michael, couldn’t he have used omnipotence to erase Sol Invictus a bit earlier? I found myself thinking impiously, allowing my thoughts to venture beyond reverence.

“The reason he straddles that ambiguous line is precisely because he’s the God-President. Our actions are partly intended to relieve him of responsibility. We want to say that what happens to us is our responsibility, not his. There’s nothing wrong with helping someone who can neither take responsibility nor offer help, is there?”

His words were quite persuasive. Or perhaps they just seemed that way. Demons’ words were always overflowing with persuasiveness. No, honestly, they were persuasive.

Though confused, he was generally making sense. First my sense of good and evil wavered, then my family bonds, and now my faith seemed to be shaking. Nothing seemed fixed anymore.

“Well, now it’s my turn. Do you think Sol Invictus was also a slave to worship? Did you think he was someone who lost his dignity, using any means necessary to be worshipped? We’re offering you an opportunity. If you’re someone we can reason with, we could give you an exclusive, and people would buy your article even if just to criticize it.”

He didn’t explain how righteous this cause was. He only spoke about how much fame and money it would bring. That kind of persuasion didn’t work well on me.

I had a vision similar to his. I wanted people stuck in the quagmire of the past to pull themselves free. If everyone could live in the present, if they could stand on solid ground rather than having their feet buried, they could dream of tomorrow. They could see the stars.

Stars are beautiful things. Stars are distant things. Stars are probably unnecessary for our survival. But no one wants to live looking at a dark sky without stars. That’s why they’re somewhat necessary.

I looked at the city landscape, surrounded by sea yet as barren as a desert, and answered the demon.

“Does the Anti-Deity Party hate gods so much that starting a smear campaign before the re-election vote is such a big deal that people would buy newspapers just to criticize? It seems rather ordinary to me. Besides, all the articles you commission follow similar patterns, and people quickly tire of repetition. So, I’ll write the article, but I’ll write it my way.”

After calling me all the way here only to test me and subtly try to persuade me, this source deserved a bit of pushback. I was receiving information, not begging him for an exclusive.

I’d already been humiliated by accepting a scoop as charity from Giuseppina. I knew what the air in the newspaper office smelled like that day. Still, I gave him a clear answer.

“And yes, I did think that. I thought Sol Invictus was a sad being. After all, he’s someone who has to bow to others’ wills, submitting and submitting until his body crumbles. That’s sad, isn’t it?”

He is a murderer. That fact doesn’t prevent him from being a sad being. He is a sad being. That doesn’t make him any less of a murderer.

The demon before me took a step back. Unlike most people who try to commission articles and tend to be quite persistent, this demon humbly—and it was somewhat amusing that a demon could be humble—backed off.

“Thanks to you, I think I have my next question. And it seems articles written by the Anti-Deity Party should only appear in our own newspaper. Now it’s your turn.”

“Well, you already know I’m going to keep asking the same thing. Why are you a member of the Anti-Deity Party?”

The article title would probably be as he wrote: “Meeting the Enemy, Slanderer, and Adversary.” I felt I could write an article that would sell better than simply recording opinions for the Anti-Deity Party’s newsletter.

He looked out the window again. Before, the only important thing was how high up this window was, but now the important thing was the view outside.

The lying serpent gazed at Manhattan. He swept his eyes across all of New York. Holding his golden glass in one hand, he gestured at the view with the other.

“I’m glad I brought you somewhere high enough to see all of New York. All of this was offered to him by people. You dedicated it to a god who can no longer help himself. Why should you? This is your city. All kingdoms, authority, and glory ultimately belong to you. In the end, it’s you who fill the gods’ mangers.”

It was quite a provocative statement, but… I decided to remain silent for now. The God-President alone was not a god who needed worship. Perhaps that’s what made him different.

Perhaps we’ve been offering worship he doesn’t need and dedicating things that an omnipotent being who doesn’t mind solitude wouldn’t require. Maybe the Anti-Deity Party is right.

Why hasn’t the Anti-Deity Party been telling people these things all along? If they had, the number of people voting for no confidence would have at least tripled.

The God-President’s reign might have become unstable. No, is “unstable” the right word? Perhaps it’s strange that one person has been in charge for over two hundred years.

Then perhaps there would have been more natural vitality. Unprotected, but more natural. I couldn’t tell if that would be good or bad.

Whether my mind was having a revelation or being deceived by an unbeliever’s words… I couldn’t answer yet. I could only be certain that the demon’s voice was full of vitality.

It felt like I was taking notes at some great historical turning point. The Anti-Deity Party didn’t tell everyone these things. They only shared after testing and proving.

Yet it was amusing that they were trying to influence everyone while doing this. Elitists could only change other elites.

Nothing is ever absolutely right. The world isn’t black and white but a palette, and every color changes with just a 1-lux difference in light.

Even colors that seem absolutely right can become less right after ten minutes when the sun moves slightly. I decided not to worship someone who tells me not to worship.

“It feels somehow… unfair that I think you’re not such a bad person. I expected you to be unpleasant, but you’re more reasonable, more witty, and more rational than I expected. Why don’t you go around telling everyone these things? Not many people would fail to understand.”

He snorted and showed me his right arm. Rolling up his dress shirt sleeve revealed a line on his forearm. It was the mark where the angels’ gold-crafted hand had been removed and a flesh hand regenerated.

“If that were true, why would there be so few angels among demons that you could count them, including me? Only those who can understand these words will understand. It can’t be helped.”

He wasn’t perfectly rational. His attitude showed a love-hate relationship with the angels who hadn’t supported him. Normally I would have seen this as a flaw, but I couldn’t.

It was human. Humanity often manifests as flaws. The fact that even this demon was human-like actually made his story more believable.

The demon naturally continued. When I talked about Sol Invictus, I used the word “privileged” mockingly, but now he was being contradictory again.

“Isn’t it amusing that someone who can pay any price to do what they believe is right finds our Anti-Deity Party’s methods strange? Did you make all the victims of the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn rise up and change the world? Or did you gather capable people to drive a dagger into Charles Clichy’s armor gap, Miss Rose Clichy?”

He knew my name. It’s not a shameful name. Contradictorily and amusingly, if I hadn’t lived as a Clichy, I couldn’t have brought down the Forest’s Firstborn.

And he was speaking the truth. I had beside me perhaps not New York’s best operator, but certainly one of its strongest; a capitalist who supplied mythril to the military; and a great demon who won people’s hearts with sweetness. Without their abilities, it would have been impossible. But that wasn’t the whole story.

I decided to speak a bit like him. Not by staring with a fatherly gaze and rambling, but by speaking politely.

“Unfortunately, you seem not to have heard about the retired detective, the broadcaster who nearly died at the hands of the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn and lost his will, or the elves who joined the Followers but ultimately repented. Without those ordinary people, I couldn’t have done it. It seems I was right to write the article myself, even if it became like my autobiography. No one knows the behind-the-scenes story.”

It was a refreshing, pleasant moment. Half of my father’s blood flowed in me, and I hadn’t filtered out only the good parts of him to put in my body.

I have my stubborn side. I too tried to live with a head full of flowers and, as the detective said, didn’t know when to stop. But that wasn’t all I inherited.

About my father, it would be better to say I had a mix of guilt, pride, love, hatred… probably every emotion a person can feel. So I borrowed my father’s words to confront the demon.

The demon spoke as if tired of my attitude. Beyond that, there was no malice; rather, his words sounded friendly.

“With a mask on, you could have been the successor to the Forest’s Firstborn.”

Responding to his unusually casual tone with a bright smile, I answered:

“Since I didn’t wear that mask, I’m here as journalist Rose Leafman, pointing out your flaws! I’m not part of the privileged class who can understand your words. I’m just a journalist who came to hear a few things. You’ve spent too much on entertaining a journalist!”

With those words, I raised my glass of golden liquor. He raised his in return, and I felt the pleasant, luxurious sweetness of the Tree of Life liquor spread in my mouth. After taking a sip himself, the demon smirked.

“Indeed. Watching you drink a liquor that costs at least two hundred dollars a bottle makes me think that.”

Unlike my stylish confrontation earlier, learning the price of the drink made me feel like I was drinking gold coins. It made me queasy… I could never get used to spending other people’s money.