Ch.296Final Act – Atlas Advancing

# Most elves living on Manhattan Island had a restless dawn on December 31st. It wasn’t because the sun hadn’t risen. In late December, at the peak of winter, the sun typically didn’t rise until nine o’clock.

Rather, they sensed noise. An enormous noise. It sounded somewhat like construction site noise—which elves found particularly uncomfortable—but mostly like the rumbling of an earthquake.

Most elves awoke as soon as the first sounds reverberated through the air. The murmuring of elves could be heard. The Industrial Spirit King continued injecting power into the earth.

The Spirit King’s body, the zeitgeist of this Golden Age, was rising. Walls of concrete with meaninglessly embedded pipes and machinery began to emerge. The concrete started rising in structures that shouldn’t be able to support themselves.

What held them up wasn’t rebar and concrete. It certainly wasn’t the pipes and machinery embedded within. What supported it all was the divinity obtained by the zeitgeist of the Golden Age.

The wall tore through the dawn sky. Even the most heroin-addled detective who despised New York’s night sky had never wished for it to disappear. Yet that night sky was now being obscured by masses of concrete.

Rose, who had awakened to the sudden noise and looked out the window, rubbed her eyes. It seemed so unreal that she tried to check if she was dreaming, but something was indeed rising through the night sky.

She tried to turn on the lights to see more clearly, but no electricity flowed into her home. Not just her home—the entire city seemed to have lost power, with not even a streetlight glowing in what should have been an illuminated metropolis.

Instead of a candle, Rose searched for the quartz crystal she had received as a gift. The magic engraved on that quartz would surely be what she needed now. She picked up the crystal from atop her drawer.

She gently infused it with mana. The magic engraved on the pale, transparent stone activated with the mana and began producing a heatless light. Not the hot yellow light of a bulb, but a white glow.

With the small glowing stone in her palm, she walked to the window. She wasn’t sure if she would see anything, but she shone it into the void. The light was too weak to reach whatever was blocking the night sky.

“Ugh… what’s happening… The, the phone…”

Rose, shaking off her drowsiness, placed her hand on the telephone, but it was clearly not working. Had there ever been such a severe blackout before? Anxious voices could be heard through the thin apartment walls.

Voices asking what was happening rang out, disturbing the dawn sleep. They were voices fearful of something that shouldn’t happen in the Golden Age, but could easily occur in an era that was golden only on the surface.

But at that moment, the earth began to rumble again. This time, it wasn’t a brief rumble like when the walls had started rising. A massive, growling sound reverberated throughout Manhattan.

Thinking it might actually be an earthquake, Rose took shelter under her small dining table. The vibrations were quite regular. They rumbled at consistent intervals, almost like someone trying to get out of bed.

The next sound was… footsteps. Something enormous was moving. Vibrations strong enough to make her bump her head against the table she was hiding under kept reverberating. Something was walking.

Some might have thought of dragons. Others might have made the ridiculous conjecture that ogres were marching in formation. But Rose had an ominous premonition.

She hurriedly dressed. Though the walls had risen and blocked the wind, the cold late December air still blew. She needed to find out what was happening.

She wasn’t planning to report it to the press. She just thought it was too much for this to be happening now. With her glowing crystal in hand, she walked out into the apartment hallway.

Several residents had already opened their doors and come out. Some held candles, others floated fireballs above their palms with magic, but Rose’s crystal shone the brightest.

“Has anyone seen what’s happening? I woke up to the sound of stones rising and the ground shaking…”

Rose asked her unfamiliar neighbors. Fortunately, thanks to the light emitted by the crystal in her hand, people could see her clearly. Someone called out from the opposite end of the hallway.

“That’s right! Would someone please tell us what’s going on! Why are walls suddenly… what’s happening?”

No one in the apartment knew what was occurring. If even Rose, who had been closest to the Industrial Spirit King, didn’t know, how could anyone else?

Anxiety began to spread. As fear that some monster might be roaming outside threatened to spread like a plague, Rose raised her light.

“I’ll go outside and check! All of us standing here saying we’re scared and anxious won’t change anything! Anyone want to come with me?”

In the apartment hallway where people could now vaguely see each other’s faces, an orc approached Rose. He smiled, showing his tusks as if it were no big deal.

“Letting an elf go alone wouldn’t sit right with an orc. I’ll go see too. Two or three more would be perfect. Is everyone else going to stay here clucking like hens in a coop?”

Once the large-bodied race stepped forward, two humans and a dwarf also volunteered. With the electricity completely cut off, they descended the stairs, following the light from the crystal in Rose’s hand.

The light was more like a torch than a lantern. Since she had to keep it against her body to infuse it with mana, the light appeared uneven. The orc who had followed her spoke.

“Can’t see the ground… Elf miss, give me your hand.”

Though he was somewhat rude, Rose didn’t mind. When she extended her hand with the crystal, he tied the necklace string attached to the crystal around her wrist and palm so she could illuminate the path more steadily.

But his kindness became somewhat meaningless. The sound of electricity flowing could be heard nearby. Streetlights were turning back on along the road in the distance. It wasn’t normal.

The people who had come out with Rose thought it was a light of hope, but what was there was a machine running on hope as fuel. As the streetlights came on one by one, people’s expressions hardened.

The streetlights weren’t shining horizontally along the road, but vertically along the body of the risen Industrial Spirit King. A part of the city had risen up.

Most New Yorkers were seeing the risen Industrial Spirit King for the first time. Or rather, they didn’t even know he could rise.

It looked as if a piece of the city had risen in human form. It appeared to be supporting the heavy factory district on its body, as if its back were bent under the weight. It looked like Atlas bearing the weight.

But he didn’t endure in a hunched position like Atlas. Knowing that silently bearing the sky would bring about the end, he had decided to rise and move forward.

The Industrial Spirit King’s voice rang out. It was a voice full of affection. A dignified voice. Originally filled only with the voice of machines, it now mixed with the laughter of people that had spread throughout the Golden Age.

Though it was sound, non-language formed language. The zeitgeist of this Golden Age stood tall and roared.

“First, I should say this. I swear by the life I was given, and the love I hold in that life. As a creation, I won’t beg my creator to live for me, but I will gladly live for my creator as a creation. Everything is for that purpose. Not just this city. It’s for all the people of every city, as ugly as they are beautiful!”

The Industrial Spirit King could see a small sparkle. Though it was tiny, it was shining. His little elf was standing on the ground, looking up at him.

He cleared his throat. He decided to dedicate every word spoken here to her. These were words he had to say to the one who had transformed him from a beast raging in fear into a person.

“The end is still approaching. I tried to handle it quietly, but no method worked. I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen. But! I will not tell you to accept fate. The end will come in five years. Everything will collapse, and eventually even life will crumble.”

The Industrial Spirit King spoke as if coughing up blood. For a being born to create, speaking of destruction was this painful. The Industrial Spirit King roared again.

People could now see the vision. They saw the Industrial Spirit King withered and twisted, lying dead in his original place like a frozen mountaineer, clutching his body tightly.

After that, something began to walk out from the Industrial Spirit King. They were the terminals he had received from the Idealists. Most were nearly half-replaced with machinery, giving them a grotesque appearance.

One of the humans who had come outside with Rose also took a stiff posture and began walking forward. He was trying to take a place in the electrical line the Industrial Spirit King was creating.

“I have found a way to avoid the end. By controlling the variables. By putting all that creativity—the creativity that might cause the end like a collapsing sandcastle—in a box until the end passes. I ask you: will you face an inexplicable end, or will you choose a life that has taken a sabbatical?”

People still had an obsession with the terminals. One man who had come out to the street to see what was happening, like Rose, shouted at the Industrial Spirit King looking down at him.

“The Spirit King’s lost his mind too! After seeing some strange vision, he’s making nice-sounding promises about saving us while planning to turn us all into terminals! Did you learn that from those commie bastards?”

Following that one person’s words, others began to speak too. Realizing that the Industrial Spirit King was approaching them with humility, they put him on the same judgment stand where the Idealists had once stood.

“That’s right! I mean, I saw something terrible, but… how could this Golden Age end overnight and turn into that? It’s unrealistic! They say even a ruined rich family can survive for three generations, and wait, why is this era suddenly a ruined rich family? There’s no evidence at all!”

The Industrial Spirit King bellowed at those ignorant words that showed no understanding. Whether it was right or not was unknown. Perhaps both sides were somewhat right and somewhat wrong.

The most common problem New Yorkers had was with their vision. Some were nearsighted and busy mocking those who looked far ahead, while others were farsighted and thought those who focused only on the blurry matters right in front of them were philistines.

“You believe the prophecies of the God-President without evidence, yet you cannot believe me! I… I will preserve you. I’ve even confirmed a way to preserve souls extracted through mind-merging magic! You just need to wait until the end passes, but you can’t understand that! Does hiding in a basement to avoid a storm seem stupid to you?”

The Industrial Spirit King sighed in anger and frustration. He was trying to save people who wouldn’t believe him, and was outraged to see those people blocking him just as they had before.

More terminals than during the previous Idealist uprising began moving toward the people. The voices of people shouting all sorts of things began turning into screams as they tried to escape the approaching terminals.

They didn’t know much about the Industrial Spirit King. They simply thought of him as a part of the city, never considering that he might be a person. It couldn’t be helped.

Too many things had already become too late and inevitable. About her father, about Uncle Leonard. After those words, Rose thought of the Emperor of San Francisco.

If stories of guns, gangsters, bombs, and back alleys were realistic, then stories of swords, warriors, magic, and dragons were also realistic. Rose thought the Emperor had said those words to help her open her mouth.

But that wasn’t it. It was the opposite. It must have been words given so she wouldn’t pour hatred on the Industrial Spirit King here and now. Rose concentrated mana into the quartz crystal in her hand.

Her specialty, amplification magic, began weaving into the magic written on the stone. She mimicked and connected to the structure of the magic that converted mana into light. She modified it to use more mana to produce a greater light.

The Industrial Spirit King could now see that the small sparkle had become a dazzling light. Though still small compared to him, it was enough to turn his gaze as Rose had intended. The two made eye contact after a long time.

This time, there wasn’t the comfortable light of before. The only warmth left in Rose’s eyes was compassion. Rose, who had amplified her volume through mana, shouted.

“It’s too stupid to believe this Golden Age will last forever after already being betrayed once by the Great War! It’s ridiculous. The Industrial Spirit King’s words are actually more realistic. The Industrial Spirit King was originally created to be used as a machine, and if you tell a machine to protect souls until the time comes, the machine will protect those souls. Both the method and the motive might be called realistic!”

The terminals momentarily stopped. The Industrial Spirit King felt déjà vu. He savored how sweet and warm it felt to have even just one person understand him.

Rose took a deep breath. She stalled for a moment to allow people near the Industrial Spirit King to move far enough away from the terminals, then continued speaking.

Rose didn’t know if what the Industrial Spirit King said was right or wrong. She didn’t know whether to believe his promise to preserve souls for five years. The world was always a place where one lived without knowing.

Rose decided to grasp the torch. She resolved to say what she needed to say, not sugar-coated words to calm the Industrial Spirit King. Even the time she took to strengthen her resolve was a precious opportunity for people to escape.

“So, speaking as someone who can understand you and respect your opinion! I cannot agree. In a game of tag, what changes if you close your eyes when the chaser has followed you to your back? The chaser will just wait behind us! Or they’ll grab our clothes, ignoring that we’ve closed our eyes. It’s such a childish idea…”

Rose felt gloomy. The fact that his opinion was so childish meant that all his initial declarations and words about love were completely sincere. That fact made her feel sick to her stomach.

“Even if you hold us for 10 years or 100 years instead of 5, and even if you really release us, the world will still be a world with 5 years left until the end! During that time, we won’t be able to make any preparations, and without any thought or contemplation, we’ll become terminals performing a puppet show! So, I… I reject it. The conclusion that the Industrial Spirit King cried out alone in solitary confinement for so long.”

Rose again inhaled and exhaled with a wheezing breath. She showed the street covered in darkness except where her light shone. She caught her breath again.

Even the darkest night can be traversed with just one torchbearer. Rose picked up a word she had put down long ago. She whispered to the people beside her.

“I’ve only bought us some time. Since the Industrial Spirit King’s goal is to turn us into terminals, he probably won’t crush us with that… body. Let’s hurry back. Lock the doors first so the terminals can’t get in.”

The Industrial Spirit King sighed once more. Even after seeing Rose boldly reject him, he chose unilateral action over dialogue again. The terminals that had momentarily stopped began running again.