Ch.95Abaddon (1)

# Abaddon (1)

Lug, who had surrendered quietly, was confined to a cabin for the time being while the hero’s party sorted out their internal affairs.

Yes, they were reusing the same cabin where Garnet had been held captive.

“Are your injuries feeling any better?”

Lug asked Extra, who sat beside him looking swollen like dough that had finished kneading and started to ferment.

When Lug had decided to surrender, Garnet and Extra had chosen to flee, saying they would go their separate ways. And Esmeralda, as if it were the most natural thing, had chased after them.

There was no special reason for it.

Esmeralda had simply acted on animal instinct—when prey runs, you chase it.

So she had caught them, but with nowhere particular to put Extra, she had locked him in the cabin too.

This meant she had expended considerable mental energy subduing Millia and Eirene Saintess. Extra and Garnet had fled in terror at the sight of Esmeralda chasing them like a madwoman.

The reason Extra had been pummeled by Esmeralda was simple.

“If it weren’t for that bitch…”

Garnet had tripped Extra and used him as bait.

It was an act of pure spite from Garnet, who could have subdued Esmeralda on her own.

Her own form of revenge.

Considering everything, one might say Extra got off lightly, no?

That’s what Lug thought.

Of course, the very notion that Garnet would forgive Extra with just this much was absurd to begin with.

Trusting people too easily was a chronic disease of Lug the celestial deity.

“Well, what can we do now that things have turned out this way.”

Extra grumbled for a while but eventually quieted down, perhaps finally accepting the situation.

The cabin fell into silence.

Lug listened to the background chorus of insects in the stillness before turning his head.

“Come to think of it, we’ve never really talked about ourselves, have we?”

“What would you and I have to talk about?”

“I’m still curious though. What is this Abaddon thing?”

“…You’re a celestial deity and you don’t know?”

“This is perfect timing to correct that misconception. Shall I start? Though I was called a celestial deity, I wasn’t a god of particularly high rank. From the beginning, those who should be called gods are the ones above—those like me and La•Pa are only half-measures.”

“For someone like that, the celestial deity sect seems to be the most powerful religious order around.”

“That’s only natural. It’s because I help people more actively than anyone else.”

The celestial deity sect is the most deeply rooted faith in this land, but that wasn’t because Lug was special.

“Those above have little interest in what happens below.”

“Is it some kind of chosen people ideology?”

“No. It’s more like they feel neither sorrow nor compassion, so they feel no need to act.”

Because they’ve transcended the five desires and seven emotions.

Because they’ve shaken off the three poisons.

They became perfect beings but in exchange lost the ability to feel anything.

This was the perspective of the transcendent beings that Lug was so wary of.

To them, all human joy and sorrow were merely ordinary phenomena that simply flowed by.

“Heh, sounds like an interesting conversation. So should I think of the Fire Spirit as one of those gods from above too?”

Extra, who had been listening solemnly to Lug’s description of the transcendent beings’ perspective, turned his head.

There stood Garnet, who had abandoned him as bait and fled.

Because she had been able to escape from Esmeralda, she was now able to come rescue them.

Having barely recovered one stack of Carbuncle Soul, she used a doppelganger to divert Esmeralda’s attention.

She had infiltrated the cabin perfectly, almost without shedding a drop of blood.

“The Fire Spirit is indeed like that. He was a single flame. Most of those we call gods aren’t individual personalities—it might be easier to think of them as manifestations of miraculous phenomena.”

“…Like totemism?”

“Well, I’m not sure about that. Whether it’s merely totemism that we’ve assigned excessive meaning to, or whether totemism is the closest approximation. I was the youngest among them.”

Instead of showing surprise or joy at Garnet’s arrival to rescue him, Lug continued his story.

As if he had wanted to tell this story to Garnet from the beginning.

Garnet shrugged at Lug’s natural demeanor but listened attentively to his words from outside the bars.

“Those who reach that state transcend their physical bodies and become concepts. And the achievements that naturally flow from those concepts are…”

Connected to faith in return.

They had no particular thoughts about those who worshipped them.

Their natural energy simply connected with the faith of their followers.

In other words, they didn’t bestow power with any specific intention.

“So while I was working hard down here, they were just… existing up there.”

“…How foolish. I don’t understand why you’d do something so stupid.”

Looking at Lug’s expression, Garnet could tell he had truly acted out of goodwill.

While others remained idle, Lug had poured himself out for others.

The celestial deity sect had risen to prominence precisely because he had devoted himself to helping people.

She couldn’t understand it.

She had once lived that way too. She had lived such a life until she was betrayed by her companions and died.

That’s why she now despised that way of living.

“Aren’t humans meant to live together? When there are problems that could be easily solved if just one person helped, how could I look away…”

There was so much he could do for them.

Yes, that was all.

The reason Lug went around performing miracles for people.

Lug remembered when he finally reached beyond the sky and met his brother.

He had filled that empty vessel—which had erased even itself—with endless tears.

He had left his name behind.

Because he felt sorry for his brother who had abandoned everything.

Because the nobility of his brother, who had forgotten the smiles of those he had helped and the tears he had shed for them in his quest to become a god, seemed to fade.

“When there are so many calling out to me, how could I not look back? When they fall and shed tears, how could I not reach out my hand?”

That’s why Lug came down.

He had been entangled with far more people than his brother.

Because he was ordinary, because his steps were slow.

That’s why he had lived in the mortal world for a long time and reached transcendence by severing those ties.

And what he found at the end could never be called the utopia he had hoped for.

At least to him, living among people seemed more valuable than having near-omnipotent power.

“Seeing their smiles was more valuable to me than anything else, especially after I had once abandoned them.”

It was because of these connections that he too was able to reach beyond the sky.

During his journey, there was an old man who offered him a cup of water.

There were people who willingly opened their doors so he could take shelter from the pouring rain.

Lug tried not to forget that.

“So, Garnet.”

“Don’t use my name so casually, I told you. Use honorifics.”

“I intend to help you too.”

“What, how are you going to help me? What can you do in your state?”

Garnet sighed incredulously as she looked at Lug, who smiled gently at her.

While being held captive.

What on earth could he possibly do for her?

“That’s true. For instance, I could ease your anxiety. Garnet, what happened to you wasn’t anyone’s curse or divine wrath. You’ve secretly blamed yourself, but that’s not it at all.”

“…”

Words that pierced straight to her core.

Only then could Garnet accept that Lug was truly a celestial deity.

He had been a pervert who only stared at legs and chests before, but now he was different.

He had grasped the lingering attachment she had pushed to a corner of her mind and touched the fear she had hidden even deeper.

Gently, naturally.

“It was an accident born from the greed of foolish people, and you were purely a victim. You just happened to—yes, happened to—be reborn in a new body.”

He had just affirmed Garnet’s existence.

She had been constantly worried.

No longer human.

Whether she, reborn as a sacred object of the Fire Spirit sect, was a rightful being.

What was the intention of the Fire Spirit who had given her a second life?

Were the lingering attachments truly her own resentment?

These questions had never ceased.

How could she be certain that her past self and current self were the same being?

Everything she remembered might be fabricated.

She had that fear.

A fear she never showed or revealed to anyone.

“You…”

That’s why she had joined the Demon King’s army.

As if in rebellion, she tried to fulfill her lingering attachments from the Demon King’s side.

After all, the Fire Spirit might have been using her like a puppet to save humanity.

But that fear was now shattered.

Because right in front of her was someone who had met the Fire Spirit himself.

He might be lying, but she saw sincerity in Lug’s sky-blue eyes.

“No… wait…”

Garnet suddenly covered her face with both hands, trying to hide the tears that began to flow.

But the tears falling one by one between her fingers couldn’t be hidden.

“Ah! I-I think the hero is coming. I-I’ll be going now.”

Whoosh!

Garnet left as if fleeing. She probably didn’t want to show such vulnerability given her usual image.

Lug smiled warmly at her departure, but…

About ten minutes later.

“Have you both been behaving?”

Esmeralda really did appear.

“I thought it might have been real when she seemed almost conquered, but it actually was.”

“That crazy woman? No way.”

Lug scratched his cheek in confusion, while Extra, who had rather negative preconceptions about Garnet, drove the point home.

While Esmeralda was briefly puzzled by their private conversation…

“I’m going to start the interrogation now, so if you don’t want your tongues ripped out, don’t lie. Understood?”

“Of course, Hero. I’ll answer sincerely and thoroughly. Oh, and while you’re at it, please ask the Major about Abaddon too. We were just talking about that.”

“No, this crazy bastard is now…!”

The interrogation began.