Chapter 1507
Willing or Unwilling?
Hope is flowing in.
At first, it was a trickle, originating from the first faint breath of the gray fungus cap at the bottom of the abyss as it faded from gray; then it spread into a stream, from the straightened spines of the jihadist soldiers beside the broken spear shafts; finally, it converged into a mighty river, from the campfires that had been extinguished and rekindled in countless wilderness tribes... all rushing in together, vast and mighty.
They flowed across the cracked earth, through the stagnant swamps, surging and roaring in the invisible dimension, finally pouring into that form constructed of knowledge and starlight—the mysterious kingship, who at this moment was also Atorica's only god.
Ovira floated above the reversed ocean, both a torrential downpour from the sky and a shower of light on the ground. Within the rain, the girl's figure didn't grow larger, yet she seemed to become the center of the entire world. The hope that flowed towards her was actually the power of faith, tempered by despair and reaching an extremely pure state in a short time. Around her, it manifested as countless flowing images and phantoms: ancient healing totems, the distillation pathways of herbs, the network of human bloodlines, the lineages passed down through generations, the orbits of the stars… All knowledge of combating disease and sustaining life was ignited by faith at this moment, transforming into a warm and omnipresent light.
Where the light reached, the grayish-white mycelium faded back to a warm brown, the coughing blood in the chest subsided into steady breathing, and healthy granulation tissue sprouted from the festering wounds. Despair receded like the tide, leaving behind not ruins, but a resilient vitality born of survival.
Pere watched quietly.
Her tattered butterfly wings, reflecting life and death, fluttered slowly in the mournful rain of water and light. The scattered scales, before even touching the ground, were wiped away by the warm light. She could sense that the despair she released, rooted in the weakness of the human heart and the shadows of civilization, was being erased by a greater yet gentler force. No, perhaps "erased" is not quite right, after all, knowledge never erases anything; in fact, it is the most indelible thing in the world. Even if the words on paper are erased, the records in books are burned, or even oral discussion is forbidden, it will still be passed down in people's hearts.
Its essence is interpretation, analysis, and creation; once understood by it, it automatically becomes part of knowledge.
“…I see.” A soft sigh echoed along with the sound of rain, and Ovira heard the melancholy and regret in it.
This method is not complicated in essence. As Perec said, despair is the most difficult disease to cure in the world because anyone can be infected with it but does not know or is unwilling to admit that they have already contracted an incurable disease. As a doctor, or at least was once, Perec knew better than anyone else that what truly hinders the treatment process is never the danger of the disease itself, but rather the stubbornness, ignorance, and self-abandonment of the patient.
Conversely, it's also true that everyone can be infected with a disease, and therefore everyone has a chance to recover, provided they see hope. However, this is a false premise. Hope is intangible; it has no concrete form and cannot prove anything. Therefore, once a patient develops doubts, no matter how meticulous the plan, how skilled the doctor, or how precious the medicine, nothing can provide them with any sense of security.
Pereira had witnessed more than once how patients suspected doctors of neglecting their duties, even plotting to murder them, preferring to throw prescriptions and medical orders into the fire rather than trust their ethics and conscience as healers. Generally speaking, the higher a person's position and power, the deeper their illness and the more likely they were to exhibit these tendencies. This is why she later preferred to establish the Knights Hospitaller and the Red Cross rather than continue dealing with so-called high society figures; at least, those who needed to rely on charitable medical services to cling to their last glimmer of hope had a stronger will to live than anyone else.
Pereira admired those who fought desperately to survive even in dire straits, acknowledging their love of life and will to live. Perhaps it was because such people reminded her of a figure from many years ago, now blurred in her memory—the wood elf boy lying on the teacher's lab table. He must have died eventually, had he? After becoming the teacher's experimental subject, he contracted several different illnesses and saw no hope of survival. So, even though none of the illnesses were actually fatal, and the teacher didn't want to lose a valuable piece of experimental equipment, he still died from his illness in the end.
That was the moment when Pereira first realized that despair could be a disease, and hope could be the cure. However, people are always more likely to be infected by despair than to be cured by hope. After all, that's the way the world works: it's always easier to fall than to climb, and it's always easier to give up than to persevere.
If that's the case, how does Ovira bring hope?
The answer is actually quite simple: This is Atorica.
A land called Heroes.
Here, legends and miracles are real and have never ceased. In the dark and ignorant ages, dragons and heroes descended upon this land, fighting for their respective ambitions or ideals, plunging the world into calamity while also saving countless lives from suffering. Heroes did not fight for themselves, but for the requests of their friends, for the justice in their hearts, and even for innocent lives. Those who bowed and prayed on the ground then, yearning for her to overcome darkness and bring light, their blessings and longings may have been passed down to this day, still flowing in the blood of the people.
After the evil dragon was beheaded, its blood crystallized, forging a long-lasting prosperity for the land, but also sowing the seeds of future conflict. The hero, moved by the hardships of the people, left behind a sword as a token of his approval. Thereafter, new souls often inherited the hero's beliefs, wielding the fairy's sword to bring order and peace to the chaotic Atorica. Until a tyrannical king brought ruin to the kingdom, and internal and external troubles piled up, the people yearned even more for a hero to appear, to cut through the long night and restore the day. This intense desire was even exploited by an evil god, who created the most blasphemous yet greatest treasure in Atorica's history: the Holy Grail.
As the empire's iron hooves trampled the dust, countless souls were reduced to ashes, and the glorious history of the past was buried by the sands of time, leaving only endless suffering and oppression to await on the road ahead. People endured their hardships in the mines and dust, yet yearned for new heroes to inherit the great deeds of their predecessors. Perhaps fate had foreshadowed this, for the dusty sword was drawn once more, this time raised by a young man with a burning flame in his eyes, eight thousand meters below the surface of the mine. Thus, in a momentous upheaval, tens of thousands surged from the earth into the sky, seeing the long-lost sunlight once more.
Even now, the young man's sister continues to fight tirelessly for the deceased's great cause. Her driving force comes not only from her brother's entrustment and those lofty ideals, but also from the silent dedication of those who support her. Perhaps it was the one-winged winged elf hero Italos who set a fine example for those who followed. The heroes of this land are always willing to use their power to protect the weak, and the people protected by these heroes entrust their trust to them without reservation. This relationship is similar to that between believers and their gods, but it is more steadfast and purer. At least, there is still suspicion and exploitation between believers and gods, while heroes and people are like water and an oasis, mutually supportive.
Otherwise, the long history of Atorica spanning millennia wouldn't have been devoid of a native religion. What the gods can give, heroes can give too, even without expecting anything in return. It wasn't until the spirits of Assyria, the land of paradise, brought the faith of the Goddess of Creation, whose idealistic doctrines inadvertently resonated with the history of this land, that it was accepted by its people. There has been no other example. If history were to repeat itself, with a being wielding a demonic sword descending to offer aid in times of disaster, demanding only temporary faith, how could the people of Atorica refuse? This is simply the story they have always experienced, the plot they are most familiar with. At least in this land, hope is within reach, and as long as someone is willing to give, living beings are not hesitant to accept.
Forged from this pure and noble hope is the most unique deity in the world.
Pereira slowly turned her eyes—eyes that would instantly cloud even a nebula falling into them—and gazed at the girl at the center of the rain of light. Ovira's figure remained slender, even smaller than her butterfly-transformed self. But behind her, it seemed, stood the silhouettes of countless civilizations: the ancient people drawing herbs on cave walls with torches, the monks diligently recording symptoms in plague-stricken cities, the scholars seeing bacteria for the first time under a microscope… They surrounded her, just as they surrounded their own efforts and perseverance throughout the ages.
How dazzling, how magnificent, how...it's almost unbearable to look at!
Both awakened from faith, but Ovira was entrusted with trust, expectation, and flawless hope, while Perec was filled with fear, numbness, and greedy ambition. The only pure thing she possessed was the wish of the prototype machine god, Taikong, before its demise. She did not want to be despised, did not want her existence to be merely a source of dust in the hangar, and did not want to be denied the only thing she had learned, or perhaps was innate, in her life: fighting. So even in death, she wanted to prove that she was no less than any enemy in the world. That strong and obsessive belief shone brighter than that of ordinary people. Isn't that ironic?
A chasm as vast as the ocean, a difference as stark as heaven and earth—they lived in the same world yet seemed separated by a stark contrast between reality and illusion. The witch of the plague couldn't help but sigh, whispering, "You are truly a lucky person, Ovira..."
They were fortunate to have chosen this battlefield, fortunate to have received the hero's sword, and fortunate to have gained the approval of all the people on this land... Without this good fortune, this battle would have been even more suspenseful.
"Lucky? I don't think so."
Ovira finally spoke, her tone calm. What Perec considered mere luck, she considered the result of countless calculations, deductions, and schemes. It was easy for her to speak her mind, but Perec couldn't see the solitary struggles she endured late at night, the agonizing pain she felt lying to those who trusted her, or the immense resolve she had to betray her own kind nature, placing salvation and faith on a bargaining scale, engaging in cold, calculating maneuvering.
She became a true Mysterious Kingdom not after awakening, but from the moment she decided to embark on this path and painstakingly paved the way for herself using all the knowledge she had acquired. Possessing knowledge is something everyone can do; even possessing all of it doesn't make one particularly unique. However, only those who understand the weight of that knowledge, realize the heavy responsibility it represents, and still have the courage to shoulder the future, are qualified to call themselves one of the fourteen young princesses who wield the laws of creation.
Knowledge is neither a curse nor a power, but a mission.
Of course, it wouldn't be entirely accurate to say that she was unlucky, but Ovira's understanding of luck is different from that of Pereira.
“If,” her gaze softened slightly, “I have had any lucky experiences along the way, it’s probably meeting Ling and Alice.”
If she hadn't met them, Ovira might still be living a blissful, ignorant life in the castle. They were the starting point of this journey, the beginning of this story. As a creator, Ovira valued the beginning far more than the process or the outcome, because without a beginning, this story would never exist.
Perec was silent for a moment, and after a long while, just when Ovira thought she had nothing more to say, she suddenly spoke up: "In that case, perhaps I am lucky too?"
Because she never regretted meeting Tantis and Carabosse, never regretted joining the Witches' Society, and certainly didn't regret standing here now, facing her destined ending. Her only regret lay in things from a long time ago, but tracing the past was neither advisable nor necessary.
“But—” she asked again, “If we are all lucky, why are we fighting here?”
Why fight, why kill, why abandon each other? This must be the most unfortunate thing in the world, right? If so, could this be considered an unfortunate battle between two lucky people in the world? You, wise and intelligent, all-knowing and mysterious king, do you know the answer to this question?
"Of course, it's because luck or misfortune is never a prerequisite for choice."
Ovira knew the answer, and therefore could reply decisively, without the slightest hesitation or confusion: "Whether one is willing or unwilling is the basis of the battle." (End of Chapter)