Ch.350Sanctuary of Wisdom. The Library (4)

Year 1203, 55th day of the 17th month.

The 18th and 1st months consisted of 60 days each, not 40.

No one knows why it was established this way. The calendar had been set this way since the Imperial era, and due to the first-mover advantage, this calendar system has been passed down until now.

Perhaps scholars didn’t want to include the awkward number of 19 months in the calendar, but people generally accepted that the 18th month represented an end and the 1st month a beginning, attributing special meaning to them.

Thirty-six hours in a day. One hundred and sixty days in a year. Not particularly long periods of time.

Yet, as they say, gathering dust makes a mountain—these not-so-long periods accumulate to form a person’s life.

It had been 55 days since Simon set up a temporary building at the entrance of the Library and began his lectures.

With only five days remaining in his lecture series, students were fighting each other with guns and knives to attend. Contrary to Viktor’s prediction that infantry would be sufficient, they had to resort to extreme measures, using tank treads to turn aspiring attendees into rare hamburgers.

By this point, one might question why these people were so frantically pursuing knowledge, but Viktor didn’t particularly wonder about it.

Everyone harbors different thoughts in their hearts. Considering that adventure was the major premise maintaining his own spirit, he could empathize with others whose spirits might be maintained by the premise of “knowledge.”

Above all, people need something to pursue. It’s not exactly common, but don’t we occasionally see it? Stories of elderly people who attend their grandchild’s or great-grandchild’s first birthday celebration and then pass away peacefully afterward…

If you asked people whether they’d prefer to leave behind the words “I die with no regrets” or “How bitter to die without achieving this,” a hundred out of a hundred would choose the former.

For this reason, Viktor could understand the desperation of those gathered at the Library.

“My lord, the frontline soldiers tasked with crowd control are expressing distress. They say crushing unarmed scholars alive is unethical.”

Sadly, the fact that not everyone could possess such mental fortitude was something Viktor experienced firsthand.

When he discovered he was the only one at Parsifal who worked 240 hours a week, he was quite shocked.

“Then from now on, kill them with guns and cannons.”

But Viktor is a strong per… being. Even setting aside his status as a god, he had the ability to understand others’ perspectives.

That didn’t mean, however, that he would accommodate those perspectives.

“Understood, my lord.”

Five more days. There were still 180 hours remaining until the last day of the year 1203.

*

The four gathered in one place.

Three sat in the space created by Logos, the god of wisdom and knowledge, while the fourth, Moneta, barely managed to take her seat, awkwardly moving her blackened leg.

“We’re all here.”

Logos’s gaze was fixed on Moneta’s right leg.

The blackened area, resembling a fourth-degree burn, was still oozing fluid, and her right leg was wrapped in black lesions that looked like tree roots coiling around it.

“This damned bastard has made me disabled…”

Moneta bit her lips repeatedly as she expressed her pain.

Normally, a god’s body reconstructs according to their mind, but that only applies to ordinary injuries.

An injury inflicted by the Sun, who was far superior to them—no, so vastly different in rank that it would be impossible to even call them the same type of god—could not be healed by her power alone. That would contradict the principles of the world.

“Tsk. You should have been more careful with your conduct. I haven’t had any problems with him.”

“If problems arose between you and him, that would be terrifying in its own way, Medina. Among us, you’re the only one who hasn’t been harmed.”

Aside from the fact that the Yang-wol and Medina denominations were putting bullets and knives into each other’s heads, conflicts between Viktor and Medina were strangely minimal.

Perhaps because his adventures were undertaken for his own happiness, which aligned with her domain of happiness and pleasure on a higher level. But the two men who had been humiliated in their own homes and the woman who had become disabled looked at her with disdain.

“Anyway… we’ve gathered to discuss the Sun’s whereabouts. I assume everyone knows that?”

However, now was not the time for internal strife among the four. Logos, still suffering from the aftereffects of terrible burning pain, trembled as he prevented discord and reminded them of why they had gathered today.

“Discuss… What meaning does our discussion have? He’s already stronger than me. That means he can overwhelm all four of us.”

“…”

At Karil’s words, the four fell silent again.

It was true. Logos himself had experienced no response, reaction, or rebuttal—only the pain of realizing their era had ended. Karil had been overwhelmed in strength, his everything. Moneta had been rendered incapacitated, pierced by her own contradiction that for her prosperity and abundance to exist, someone else must starve and be destitute.

“Then is giving up truly the only answer?”

“Isn’t that something you should tell us, God of Wisdom?”

It could have been cause for anger, but the heavy atmosphere pulled them down like a swamp.

They hadn’t driven away the Sun.

They had merely dug into people’s devastated hearts, making them pursue power, wealth, knowledge, and pleasure.

But now civilization was recovering once more, technology being rediscovered and restored, and 1,200 years had passed since the war that took everything away.

Compared to the Sun’s era, which lasted 400,000 years including the eclipse period, it was a pathetically short time, but perhaps it was evidence that humans could overcome their own nature.

If humanity had pursued only power, they would have fought each other to extinction; if only wealth, they would have been crushed under gold; if only knowledge, they would have gone blind; if only pleasure, they would have become beasts.

But look—humanity still walks on two feet, touches with two hands, sees with two eyes, smells with one nose, eats with one mouth, and hears with two ears.

“Perhaps we were… merely usurpers from the beginning.”

“…”

The gloomy prediction soon became reality.

What the Sun symbolizes is humanity, civilization, and the world.

This trinity, which cannot be filtered out in vulgar terms, explained why the four could not withstand the one.

While they gain power from human actions, he gains power from human existence.

While they gain power by destroying and parasitizing civilization, he gains power from civilization’s continuation.

While they gain power by enjoying the world, he gains power from the world’s perpetuity.

It was such overwhelming superiority that even calling it an upgrade would be inadequate. The four had no choice but to fear the one.

He cannot kill them, but he can indefinitely demote them.

Once the unified government of the 13 continents is established, it won’t take long to clear away the impurities under the Sun.

“So in the end, must we step down from our divine thrones and wear the halos of angels?”

Karil said.

“Perhaps we never ascended to divine thrones in the first place. Like mistaking the seats of subjects placed below the throne for the throne itself, we failed to see the immeasurably high throne above.”

Logos said.

“If we cannot oppose, then submission is the only answer.”

Moneta said.

“People are happy. They say the Sun has begun to shine on this world again.”

Medina said.

They were not the creators of the world, nor the spiritual sovereigns of humanity, nor did they have the power to protect human souls from indescribable terrors and transcendent unknown temptations from other worlds.

They were merely like blessing vending machines, dispensing power in exchange for faith. Like the saying “when the tiger is away, the fox is king,” they were just pitiful remnants of ascension who received worship by burning the darkened sky.

If they realized this after 51,200 years, were they dull-witted or wise?

What this meeting produced was resignation.

The four would take no further action regarding the Sun’s whereabouts.

Because there was nothing more they could do.

The Empire would be established, the Emperor would ascend the throne, and they would pay the price.