Глава 8

The boy in question was his son. Was. His. Son.

It makes no difference if he wasn't.

When that boy comes of age, he'll find you, and he'll take revenge for his father.

Then perhaps you should prepare... prepare for some far-flung moment to take revenge for your own father?

Talulah, the one who killed him is still alive and well, after all.

I've given you this answer before. You must be sufficiently trained to the point you are capable of personally avenging him. Mm. And you currently... are not yet so.

...You can shut up, now, Kashchey!

Ah, excepting that, Talulah, excepting your own personal wants, I do have ever higher hopes that you may become an outstanding individual.

An executioner, a lead gendarmerie, a noble officer, a conspirator, a killing machine of a caster?! When you say 'an outstanding individual,' is that what you mean?!

Talulah, Talulah. No.

I long for an heir.

I never imagined you'd say something so sickening outright.

But, well, *chuckle* I'm sorry, Duke.

Your hopes are all...

Fruitless.

Hmm...

I can see you've gotten fired up. Tell me, then, Talulah, tell me something. What is it you've done that has you so pleased with yourself?

Half a year ago, I got a hold of a small splinter of Originium ore, and can you guess what I did with it...?

I embedded it in my own arm.

...Oh?

With wonderful results.

I am Infected already.

I'm an Infected now, Duke Kashchey. My life is wound short, and your schemes, your plans, your investments, all for naught. You have no way to use me ever again.

Everything I am was by your own design, wasn't it? And now, no longer.

Ah. Truly... an unforeseen method.

Does it taste good? The flavor of your conspiracy bled dry?

Kashchey, I've already become what Ursus and the world at large most reviles. We most despicable Infected... across the cities, the tundras, the barrens, we most depraved, lowly Infected.

And if your sister saw you like this, would she be happy?

Don't you—!

What is it that made you scheme, rebel against me so, my daughter?

—You.

You deceived me. Lied to me, you said Wei Yenwu masterminded the murder of my father. You never told me they confronted you together, drove you out of Lungmen.

You never told me what role you played in my father's death. Even if Wei Yenwu killed him, even if he is guilty, even if he deserves to die for it—

You can't escape blame either.

On the surface, you treat your subjects well, help with settling the villages around the city, give the Infected stable residence...

But in actuality, you have the Infected and your residents living entirely different lives—you let the inhabitants feed their own egos on the Infected.

You've taken this city plundering its own residents and embellished it into a duty! To the point that they push around the Infected and the nomadic non-dwellers to bring themselves comfort!

Is this your dukedom, then? Is this your city and your rule?

You use inequality to mold a facade, and a facade to expand your influence?

I cannot endure this any longer. Even if I didn't fault your hypocritical means and twisted tricks, your pathological lies and false benevolence already had me at wit's end!

I've taught you this before, Talulah.

I've taught you—'In this period of excessive calm, they cannot accept mutual, equal treatment.'

Not unless we draw this period of mediocrity to an end.

You and I may accept their autonomy, just as the Columbians and Siracusans have. But what of themselves?

They will elect their next consul, and their next lord. Because they do not esteem others. They only fear authority and violence.

Not only that. They don't allow for anyone braver than themselves, smarter than themselves. Kinder. More merciful... Not unless you are their duke, or their emperor.

You sympathize with them. You sympathize with my subjects, sympathize with such residents whose backs are forced against the wall by tax collectors and bureaucrats.

That is wonderful.

Moreover, even you continue to force yourself to spit vile slurs that humiliate the Infected so... I do vaguely recall.

You constantly made revisions to my policies, in ever greater attempts to protect them, so much that you didn't even fear arousing the citizens' wrath.

I have spent a great deal of time ironing their moods out, Talulah.

I'm not sympathizing with them!

You certainly do love them.

Why you...?!

I'm very gratified, Talulah, that you should truly care for them. You've come to resemble me more and more, my daughter.

...Who the hell gave you the right to keep saying this crap?!

But your superficial actions will not, and cannot succeed.

And what makes you think you know what I'm going to do? You don't have the power...

No matter should all people in sum desire to reach one single good outcome——those people, as ever, still may fail.

Talulah, Talulah. It is because that golden outcome of theirs, and your daydreams, are fundamentally distinct.

You have no ability to make differing people endorse some identical action. Their disputes will clash and devolve, and that cannot be avoided.

How can a Sarkaz face a Sankta? How can a soul from Kazimierz face a soul from Ursus? How can a sturdy yet toilsome bear face an arrogant yet impotent hippogryph?

You think to let them know how to act? What an arrogant notion, my daughter! You wish to take this appearance and this rank of yours, and appeal to them to do something?

Ah, of course, this I know. You certainly could do so.

Talulah, in time, you will rule those destined to follow you. You have inherited the Black Snake's knowledge, the Red Dragon's blood flows through you, you walk the Bear's land, and you thumb through the Hippogryph's history.

No person should be born to be ruled by another.

But they crave your rule. For all their lives, they've been awaiting someone like you to rule over them. Ursus may well tremble for you, my daughter.

Those who rule others will inevitably be ruled themselves by the stronger, Kashchey.

Ah, now that is a concept close to me, Talulah. Let me give you your final lesson, then.

...Hm?

Talulah, we will come to transcend this sort of transient, worldly rule.

The last Emperor is dead, yet his shadow is still cast upon these great lands of ours. His will, his force of mind, have already passed beyond that era.

He inherited the true Empire of Ursus, sustains Ursus's flourishing lands, lets the people of Ursus live.

Should we lose the sun, the luxuriant branches and stems that Ursus grows will at once wither away, and all that will remain across this world is inferior creatures, ever more putrid, sucking the nutrients from each other.

These people you have seen—

They take pleasure in savagery, widespread slaughter, masochism, and are at once fearful and selfish...

You dream of education and ideology to draw them in, enlighten them. But you don't know that they bear not the slightest interest in what you have to say... Talulah, you deserve to know this.

They have survived across this world of ours for countless years, and have become accustomed to a certain deep-rooted way of life. You are merely but a stranger, crashing in on it.

So-called rulers, so-called nobles, so-called armies... merely the people of strength, the people lapped in luxury, the people who withstood training.

Domains can shift, armies can rebuild, rules can fall to ruin...

No rule can endure, except where the voluntary will of Ursus's people follows. They will never be ruled. They only press forth, forever.

—The small charity you make is exchanged for obedience. For unrealistic expectations.

And how the hell would you know what they're meant to be? It was Ursus that ravaged them to this point!

I am very clear about it. Ah, I am all too clear about it.

And this is why you think they will go with you? For their bread, their potatoes, their clean water and bonfires? Is this how you would promise them?

They will. And then, once they starve, their first thought will be to make a meal of your corpse.

If you carry such unrealistic fantasies of them, you will hate them. You will surely hate them.

Kashchey, I am not you.

I am nothing whatsoever like you.

Yet you are already the same as me. You simply have not been roused from your daydreams yet.

In truth, you can and may leverage all you have at hand.

If you have some goal, then go. Use terror to destroy terror. Use life to rule life. Use sacrifice to guide sacrifice. Use ignorance to breed ignorance. Use suffering to manufacture suffering.

You have learned all of these methods. They are already your arms. All that's left is to learn to make use of them... to get used to them.

Until your beloved people understand, in the truest sense of the word, their country, and the significance of their existence.

I can't even tell what you're spouting all this hell-ridden doctrine for, if anything.

All this is fact. All this, you will confront.

How about this, my daughter. You don't trust me.

So I wish to make a wager with you.

In these many years, the Originium Arts I have cultivated in you have long since budded. Their time to fruit is already now.

...What... did...?