[V3C28] The Crystal Church
Translated by Jodas 3: The Fateful BrothersThe forest where everything in sight was made of crystals, the Crystal Territory. — There, there was one unusual building that stuck out from the its surroundings.
— A church.
Just as the forest around it, every part of it had turned into crystals, but it was otherwise a church built in the old style of construction with a nave, a reliquary, and several more rooms and storerooms.
Due to the extremely high mana density throughout the Crystal Territory, humans cannot survive here for long — that meant it was impossible for human workers to stay for long enough to erect a building.
This church had been here prior to the land becoming the Crystal Territory, and remained as the only building standing in the Crystal Territory, serving as a meeting spot for Greater Monsters.
Ordinarily this church would have long crumbled away, but the reason it still stood to this day was precisely because it had crystalized.
In one of the church’s rooms, a Monster laid collapsed onto a crystal table.
The Monster that took the form of a handsome young man with brilliant blond hair, Jill, twisted his perfect face and mumbled weakly.
“Poppo……”
“I haven’t seen such an ugly mug on you before. Has your head melted, Jill, you bastard?”
Jill groggily lifted his head when he heard a voice from the doorway.
“You’re as foul-mouthed as always, grandpa.”
Jill muttered as he directed his gaze towards a wolf with silver fur.
The wolf plodded into the room, then curled up in a spot where the sun shone through the window.
“This is my bedroom. If you don’t want me to bite your windpipe out, then leave. Whenever you’re here, the smell of perfume makes my nose shrivel.”
“This smell brings out the heights of my charm. I pity old fogies like you who know nothing about the latest trends.”
Regardless of the atmosphere, Jill unbuttoned the chest of his shirt and lifted his head up to the ceiling.
The silver-furred wolf snorted a puff of air from his nose.
“…….Amazing that you can chase after trends when you can’t even leave one room.”
“That’s all thanks to my cute little thralls. …….Oh, my apologies, did you have any thralls of your own, grandpa? I’ve heard most of the Primordial Beast’s descendants have already forgotten about him. How sa~d!”
The silver wolf — the Primordial Beast — paid him no mind and closed his eyes.
Usually, Monsters in the form of beasts who couldn’t mimic humans were categorized as Lesser types. However, that was only when it came to ones who were born from a mother’s womb or hatched from an egg.
Long ago, just like the Greater Monsters, the original magic beasts were born from the darkness of the Abyss.
Those were the Primordial Beasts.
Once upon a time, there was a first for all of the other lesser species of Monsters as well.
But now, this silver wolf was the only one of them still alive, so the term ‘Primordial Beast’ has come to refer specifically to this wolf.
“Who’s the ‘grandpa’ here? As far as the humans are concerned, you’re pretty old yourself, you geezer.”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t compare me, with my daily skincare routine, to some old dirty dog with matted fur, okay? I’m more beauty-conscious. I’m not like some barbarian who always resorts to violence, got it?”
As Jill ran his mouth with one complaint after another, someone knocked softly on the room’s door.
There weren’t many in the Crystal Territory who would ever do something so humanlike.
Wrapped in a hooded cloak, a young man entered the room. The man looked at Jill, then bowed his head deeply.
“Welcome back, Lord Jill. Is Lord Jack not with you?”
“………..”
Jill stood up wordlessly, grabbed the young man by the collar, then slammed his head into a nearby wall.
He heard a wet squashing noise, but Jill paid it no heed.
“You know, Chancellor, the Crystal Rivets you made are the worst. They started cracking halfway through and everything.”
Jill grabbed the young man’s — the Chancellor’s — head and squished it against the wall.
The Chancellor wheezed in pain.
“My….. deep…..est…..apolo….gies…….”
“You were trying to kill me, weren’t you?”
Jill whispered in a low, sweet voice.
A thin smile formed beneath the Chancellor’s hood.
“……Not in the slightest.”
“Then I bet you were thinking ‘if he just so happens to die, oh well~,’ weren’t you?”
“……….”
“Why don’t you head off and fix those Crystal Rivets for me? When Jack makes it back, we’re going to go out together again. So you better make them more comfortable to wear to the point we forget we’re even wearing them at all, got it?”
“…………”
“Your response is?”
“Yes, as you wish.”
Jill tossed the Chancellor on the floor with all the care of littering a piece of garbage onto the ground. The red blood coughed up from the Chancellor’s mouth stained the crystal flooring.
Jill walked through the crystal corridor towards the room furthest in the back of the church.
It was an unadorned, lonely little room without any furniture inside other than a single painting hung on the wall.
And one individual stood in front of that painting.
Its appearance looked to be an older teenager. It had a beautiful face that could be taken as a boy’s or a girl’s — but this Monster had no gender.
Its snow-white hair was cut neatly to the length of its chin.
It wore a jet-black robe with slits cut in it from place to place, contrasting starkly with the white of its skin.
Whenever this monster shifted its body slightly, the hem of its robe would sway, allowing an observer to peek through the slits in its robe. — beneath the robe, there was only a black darkness.
A deep, deep darkness, far blacker and darker than the robe it wore.
This creature, neither he nor she, was the King of this era’s Monsters.
It was the one humans would call the Demon King.
Jill considered himself to be beautiful. He researched the latest trends, constantly updated his appearance to take whatever form was thought of as the most beautiful for the time period, and chose his clothing and accessories very carefully.
Whereas Jill’s beauty was the result of careful attention and diligence, the King of Monsters held a mysterious, sacred beauty that no one would ever be able to imitate.
It was the beauty of fresh, untrodden snow amidst the biting cold of winter.
It was the beauty of a silver moon shining against the dark blackness of night.
If that sort of beauty had taken a humanoid form, that just might compare to its beauty. However, if one were to attempt to behold this beauty, they would also come face-to-face with the fear of death.
“Excuse me, your majesty. I’m a little pissed off thanks to a certain barbaric wolf and a shifty Chancellor, so I came to see something pretty. Do you mind if I accompany you?”
“I’ll allow it. The joy granted by beauty only becomes a greater joy when that beauty is shared.”
“Is it not just as joyful to monopolize something beautiful for yourself?”
“I hold deep respect for the sharing of joy. Especially now that our comrades have dwindled so much.”
The age when Monsters could roam the continent freely had come to an end, and those humans who were unaware of the Crystal Territory believed that Monsters had been completely wiped out.
And even though Monsters remained, they were nonetheless dying out.
Almost no new monsters were born from the depths of the Abyss.
The separation between humans and the territory of Monsters pushed further, and Monsters that consumed or reproduced with humans continued to decline.
— The end of Monsters was near.
For precisely that reason, the King of Monsters cherished those comrades it had left to share in its joy.
” — We are the children of the Abyss. That which was born from the works of humanity. Thus, we cannot help but desire them. Our wish will rot us, our wish will end us. Even if we are the last one remaining. Even if we are the last one remaining……”
Muttering the poem under its breath as if to taste it, the King of Monsters stared at the painting.
In the painting, a human woman known as a ‘Saint’ held her hands in prayer.
Above her head, light shone down on her, and humans with wings on their backs watched her from above. These were not Harpies. They were servants of God known as ‘Angels.’
The soft light falling from the heavens along with the Angels blessed her — this painting, drawn with a delicate touch, was what was called a ‘devotional piece.’
The King of Monsters very much liked this painting, and often came here to study it.
Jill did as well. Jill loved all forms of art made by humans.
This painting, which had not crystalized, was something the humans had given him through one of his thralls.
While Monsters could occasionally imitate human forms or cultures, they nevertheless lacked any creativity.
While they could imitate, they were incapable of creating anything from scratch in the way the human who made this painting had.
“The Chancellor has succeeded in mass-producing Crystal Rivets.”
The King of Monsters muttered as it stared at the painting.
Jill stroked the place on his chest where the Crystal Rivet had been embedded a few days earlier, then stuck out his tongue.
“It’s capabilities are still half-baked. Will you have the magic beasts use them?”
“I will.”
“If a ton of Monsters flooded down the mountain at once……hehe. I’m sure the humans will be surprised.”
If the King made a move, terror would follow. The lament and despair of the people would serve as food for the King.
“In the meantime, we should do as planned. Is that right, your majesty?”
In a dark place known as the Abyss, the negative emotions of humanity are bound together with mana to take the form of Monsters. So, in a sense, one could say they were creatures born from humanity itself.
Perhaps as a result of that, unlike other magical beings, they relied on and were obsessed with humans.
Just as Jill was obsessed with human blood and art, the King of Monsters was also obsessed.
The eyes of the King gleamed silently.
Its beautiful silver eyes, with a rainbow glint deep inside.
“Our long-held dreams shall soon come to fruition.”
Thus, the King of Monsters looked up at the religious artwork.
Its silver eyes filled with admiration.
Even though it was the King of Monsters who spread terror wherever it went, it appeared now as innocent and beautiful as the Saint in the painting.