Ch.243015 Investigation Record – The Day the Great War Ended (2)

How old was I during the Great War? I think I was ten when it started and fourteen when it ended. I was four years younger than Mr. Michael.

While I lived as the daughter of the Clichy Corporation president by day and as a child favored by the Forest’s Firstborn by night, Mr. Michael was screaming in the Argonne Forest, gaining cursed powers.

How many people in this city could know that fact? How many could explain why those people did what they did, with what feelings in their hearts?

Perhaps besides them, I might be the only one. I didn’t consider myself an insider. I couldn’t be among the Argonne Invincibles as they licked each other’s wounds. But I had to share their obligation.

To keep silent at all costs. And if a story seemed likely to leak, to ensure that whoever leaked it would also follow this principle. It was a simple rule, but as simple as it was, it was heavy.

It was a responsibility that brought nothing in return, but I was the one who had so desperately wanted to hear that story. I had to take responsibility for my choices. Just as they were doing.

I made excuses until I pulled the trigger on my father, but afterward, I made no excuses at all—that too I learned from him. Choices are heavy. The trigger I pulled then was far too light compared to the choice.

That’s why I couldn’t call him this morning, even though we drank together last evening. He would still be trying to turn his clock—frozen in the time of the Great War—forward to November 11, 1924.

But his clock was quite stiff. It wouldn’t turn with just a day or two of effort. All efforts seemed meaningless. Kill a god, kill a person, kill whatever—he remained fixed in place.

Will our clocks ever point to the same time? Could I arrive at today a little earlier than him and welcome him to the present?

As always, I set aside questions without answers, just as I hadn’t stopped taking his photograph.

There was one more practical reason I couldn’t call him this morning. I had to go to work today.

I didn’t complain—it would have been the same even if Armistice Day were a holiday. At least today I didn’t need to call all my sources looking for a story.

I had been invited somewhere. When I first heard I was invited to the God-President’s speech, I thought it was probably the Half-God Party chairman who had invited me, but surprisingly, it wasn’t him.

Besides him, the only people who might invite me to such an event were my father’s connections… but I had cut contact with those people almost half a year ago. I had no idea who the inviter could be.

The God-President’s speeches were often broadcast on radio, but He always felt that communicating by voice alone was insufficient. On days like this, He would appear simultaneously in each state.

He is One who takes precedence over all laws. For One who could easily exist in multiple spaces at the same time, He was humble before the law, casually ignoring the authority of time and space.

Perhaps because I had met the Half-God Party chairman, I found myself having somewhat irreverent thoughts, but still, the God-President was the God-President. Among gods, He is the best god.

So I should consider myself fortunate just to be able to sit and listen to such a being’s speech. I consciously flexed my ear tips a couple of times, then nodded.

It was meant to help me focus, but it must have looked like nervousness. The editor-in-chief approached me as I fidgeted with my ear tips while holding my camera.

“If you worry that much, you’ll make me worry too, Rose. They probably invited you because you’re something of a big shot in your own right.”

The editor-in-chief is a good person. He showed me a scrapbook of the best articles I’d written so far. They were memories, difficult experiences, accomplishments, and regrets.

Still, they were choices I would make again if the same situations arose. The threatening letters I received just had a few more with “commie bitch” added to them. Nothing worth worrying about.

“You brought down the Forest’s Firstborn, were the last to interview Sol Invictus before he died at the hands of the Holy Guardian State, and now you’ve precisely pinpointed what those New York City Spirit Management Department bastards were up to. In my view, you belong in that audience. Just go, relax, and listen to the speech. You know.”

Have I really become a journalist important enough to be called a big shot? Not much had changed. All I ever did was meet sources, expand my network of contacts… meet more, expand more, over and over.

Maybe the people around me had raised my standards too high. The person always by my side used to be Paulina, and now it was Willem or Michael. All of them were people who could change the game single-handedly.

I… certainly hadn’t reached that level. It always felt like I was just waiting for someone to do things for me. Is incompetence also an excuse? I’m not sure. There’s so much I don’t know.

Perhaps twenty is too young an age to be called a big shot somewhere. Maybe I aged too much the moment I pulled the trigger on my father.

I should just be grateful that I can do my job properly once I get an assignment. I swallowed the thoughts I had been ruminating on while looking at the scrapbook of articles.

“But I still need to write a proper article! If I were just going to transcribe the speech, I could take a nap here, wake up, and then listen to what the other journalists heard! I’ll be back!”

The speech venue was right in front of New York City Hall. It wouldn’t have been prepared yet. The God-President knew how to create political performances.

He could act not as a god establishing authority to receive worship, but as a politician demonstrating ability to gain approval ratings. That was probably what set Him apart from other gods.

I was glad I had bought and read a book by a political theology professor from New York University after failing to get political theology advice last time. Now I could even explain the reasons.

I headed toward New York City Hall. The speech was to be held in front, but nothing had been prepared yet. As expected, it was as expected. The air around was quite thick with the smell of ozone.

Many other journalists had already arrived, and crowds of people eager to see the face of God filled the small green space in front of City Hall with their murmuring.

Most of the journalists were communicating via chlorine magic, which seemed to be the source of the ozone smell. I felt dizzy but endured it.

Elven senses were like precision instruments—as high-performing as they were sensitive. I suppressed the slight nausea rising within me. The surrounding murmurs constantly stimulated my hearing as well.

Only then did I notice a journalist beside me. He was covering one ear as if trying to use chlorine magic, but perhaps due to insufficient mana, the sound didn’t seem to be transmitting properly. I approached him.

I shouted loud enough not to be drowned out by the surrounding noise. Since Golden Age Press was a small newspaper, I had come alone and had no one to use mana with anyway.

“Would you like to borrow some mana? I came alone!”

With one ear covered, he didn’t seem to hear me properly, so he removed his hand. I shouted once more.

“Your reception seems poor! I was asking if you’d like help boosting your signal strength!”

“Oh? Yes? Thank you! It’s so noisy around here, and with the chlorine interference, I can’t hear properly!”

He covered one ear again, and I placed my hand over his to transfer mana. Mana was a catalyst. A catalyst that amplified all phenomena, including the same magic. I shared my mana.

I might not have been a genius like my father, but I could certainly do this much. He now seemed to receive the chlorine transmission properly, as he waved to someone who had set up a camera in the distance.

It was about time for the speech to begin. In the middle of the small green space guarded by angels, a small podium and chairs for journalists were being prepared. Nothing else seemed to be in preparation.

There were no separate seats for the mayor or city council members. The reason for gathering journalists was probably simply because there were people who couldn’t attend in person or listen to the radio but who did read newspapers.

The God-President didn’t appear immediately. The chairs, each labeled with a journalist’s name, were arranged by species height. I was in the front row, close enough to take photos while seated.

As journalists began taking their seats and onlookers and passersby gathered nearby, a figure made of pure light descended from the sky, flapping wings.

It looked like a white dove, but a thick halo shone behind it, and although I didn’t take my eyes off it until it flew to the podium and landed, it instantly transformed into a silhouette.

A silhouette resembling a human. Or perhaps humans had come to resemble that silhouette. The figure in a neat suit stood before the podium, looking at the gathered crowd, and cleared its throat.

There was power in that voice. It had conviction and certainty, yet also the wisdom to listen to believers. It was more than a voice—it was the Word. It felt like authority itself.

“Thank you for gathering on such a cold day. Let there be light. Don’t slack off because it’s late autumn or early winter. Don’t endure the cold for politicians’ speeches. Do so for our heroes.”

At His command, the sun intensified its heat. Despite being early November, warm light poured down, making people remove their coats. Only then did the God-President begin His speech with satisfaction.

“From the time of my Abraham to the time of your Abraham, or from then until now, there has been only one thing unchanged throughout human history. People wage war. From using fists, stones, and divine power to the terrible battlefields of the Great War with machine guns, trenches, and artillery—you have always waged war.”

He made a gesture, and statues rose from the small green area arching around New York City Hall. They were soldiers from the Revolutionary War period. Soldiers from the Civil War and… the Invincibles from the Great War.

These figures, looking as if they might pull their triggers at any moment, glared at the people. Their expressions seemed to ask why wars were started. They were expressions fitting for a memorial.

“And we have suffered countless losses through those wars. Loss of stability, loss of unity, and now… even loss of hope. Were all those wars worth all those losses?”

Now He didn’t even gesture. From beneath the Revolutionary War soldier statues, a wide, smooth stone rose like a pedestal. The same happened beneath all the other statues.

“There was meaning in abandoning the stable life of livestock to conceive this nation with the mindset of free people. There was value in performing major surgery, cutting open our own belly and pulling out our entrails, to firmly preserve that mindset. Even the Great War had meaning in showing that we would willingly rise if anyone touched this nation we built.”

He gestured once more. All those statues crumbled. They didn’t shatter but turned to sand and ash at once, scattering in the wind. The God-President spoke as if about to pour rain.

“But for all the lives lost in those wars, meaning is too light. Even if one sacrifices life for freedom, death is unfree. Even if one sacrifices life for the future, death remains in the past. What about dying for glory? Neither the living nor the dead possess glory, and glory itself disappears somewhere.”

I was too overwhelmed to take even a single note. I was the second person in this city to know the pain of the Argonne Invincibles and keep silent. He was the first. An omniscient being could not fail to understand suffering.

He continued speaking sadly. He was a god with perfect divinity and perfect humanity. But that made Him awkward. Humanity was never meant to be perfect in the first place.

“That is why you called me to consecrate. To sanctify, to divinize, or if I do not use divine power, to dedicate, and if dedication is impossible, you gathered here hoping for recognition.”

His eloquence was perfectly tailored. His timing for showing each emotion was perfect. It might sound strange to say this, but He spoke with a somewhat powerless voice.

“But I cannot. If your choices had been purely unfree, I would gladly have overturned everything, but otherwise, I cannot. I cannot add to or subtract from the meaning of the traces they left by burning their own lives by their own choice, with my insignificant power. What they left behind is an unfinished task, and I have a deficiency regarding the unfinished and imperfect.”

His voice gradually grew stronger again. Only after declaring that even He, the Almighty, could not do something, did strength return to His voice. It couldn’t have been impossible. He was doing it right now.

“That unfinished task is not a cause. It is not freedom, not justice, not an ideal. All those unfinished tasks are life. Do not remember the war. Do not remember hatred. Remember the people who could sacrifice even life itself for life. Remember only that the war ended on pools of their blood. Complete their unfinished task.”

He was not a politician who spoke at length. Or was He? Reading His scriptures, it seemed He had become quite verbose lately. His voice, which had been regaining strength, now moved forward with perfect power.

“You can do it. No, now I will use this word. We can do it. God blesses this nation. I bless this nation!”

The context was the same this time too. Not life for struggle, but struggle for life. What matters is life. There are no people who sacrificed their lives for struggle, only those who sacrificed their lives for life.

But somehow… knowing the story of the Argonne Invincibles, that speech sounded like a heartfelt appeal to them. I didn’t think it was just my imagination.

Thunderous applause poured forth. His expression remained invisible. Though it might be irreverent, I hoped that hope rather than sorrow was rising in His expression.

I hoped that a smile of expectation and joy adorned that divine countenance within that silhouette, knowing through omniscience that the Argonne Invincibles would someday be liberated.

Six years ago today, the Great War ended. No. It hasn’t ended yet. It was slowly moving toward its end. Walking in place means there’s still strength in one’s legs.