A/n: I'd like to wish you a very happy new year, it's a leisurely turtle updating pace, but I look forward to working with you all again this year.
Augusto Werstein.
He was born into the only ducal family in the Kingdom of Lunamilia, and with his high level of magical power and outstanding combat sense, he was promised a successful future, but his wife's death turned him into a dark fool.
This is a well-known fact among the survivors of the past twelve years.
However, no one knows that the duke was predestined to become such by the absolute existence of God.
He is a character in a role-playing game who is scorned and ridiculed as a chewed pig.
As he sometimes appears as an enemy in the game, he needed to be able to stand up to the heroes and saints to some extent, so he was adjusted to be a powerful being in his own right.
By the time Christia Laureist was seventeen years old, he was so stupid that he could no longer be corrected and had to be executed or buried in the dark.
However, there is no mention of the Duke's past or upbringing in the game or in the setting documents.
None of the creators of the game had any detailed information about him.
He was a character with no substance, created for the sole purpose of stirring up the player's hate by appearing briefly in the story, only to be crushed by the heroes and saints in the end.
The gods have no choice but to set the fate of the world as they see fit.
This world, however, is based on a role-playing game, and although it resembles that world, it is not the same world as the game.
The character in the game, Duke Augusto Werstein, and the Duke Augusto Werstein in the world created by God are completely different people, only with the same name and similar position.
I didn't particularly like him, but on the contrary, I didn't know him well enough to dislike him, and as a result, various irregularities occurred.
With the position of a duke, you can't make him that dumb.
I don't think I'll be able to twist like this, what should I do?
Hmmm... People usually become stupid when they have a hard time, so let's make my wife die.
Then it would be close to the game!
That means I'll have to use a weaker soul.
Oh, and did I mention that you were very understanding before traumatizing Christia?
Then he’ll have to be sane to some extent, that's a pain in the ass.
He’ll have to be the cause of trauma for Christia too, or maybe I'll just have her poisoned at this point and lose her mind all together.
Ah, it's so annoying, I'll just leave the thin part at random.
In this way, contrary to God's intentions, he grew up to be excellent, and his fate was created by God, resulting in a distorted existence full of contradictions.
A weak soul that does not match his strong body.
That is exactly why he could not accept his fate.
His soul was even weaker than God had expected.
One day, twelve years after the death of his wife, he accepted the poison that had been administered to his body, and he died as he had wished, having been manipulated by fate just to make it fit the game.
As he was thinking that he should exchange his soul for a stronger one, when God noticed the soul of Youko Takada.
She was strong enough to stay in this world even after death and maintain the same form as before she was born.
The soul of a dead person enters the circle of reincarnation.
This was the rule in this world controlled by God.
Currently, Augusto Werstein's soul is also preparing for the next life.
The preparation is the purification of the life that has been engraved in his soul.
Forgetting everything in this way and being born as a completely new baby is called reincarnation in this world under God's jurisdiction.
Those who have memories of their previous lives are often souls who have been shocked by their unfulfilled desires, or whose memories were intentionally left behind by God.
As for Youko Takada, she is a soul that failed to enter the circle of reincarnation, so her memories and senses are still the same as when she died.
To top it all off, she was not reincarnated as a baby in this world, but was incarnated in the body of a complete stranger, and a mature one at that.
It is normal in this world for the body to reject the body, resulting in the soul not taking root, and in the worst case, becoming undead.
Miracles such as resuscitation are not supposed to happen.
There is no such thing as a miracle of resurrection, except by the hand of God.
This is because they are within the world.
That's how it's supposed to be.
Until now, the existence of wisemen has been born by God.
Therefore, she has been incorporated into that reason.
As Augusto Werstein, the new sage of this world, with a strong male body and a strong female soul.
God is the absolute, immutable, and fundamental ruler of all.
That is why his every move can change the fate of vulnerable people.
And God laughs.
He smiles happily and innocently, looking at her overly strong body, incarnated with the divine interest of himself.
He smiled at her as she grieved, sorrowed, resented, missed the past, and cursed the fate of Augusto Werstein and his wife Julia, like a child looking at a beautiful bird in a cage.
─── ...... I wonder if she would be upset if I told her that being a wiseman increases all your abilities by at least five times, but I increased yours by 99 times?
In the empty space between time and space, a giggle sounded like that of a small child.
The stuff in my stomach refluxed, spreading a bitter taste in my mouth.
I forced myself to swallow it as it reached the back of my throat.
Desperately fighting the nausea, I continued to scan her as she lay there, as if to burn it into my brain.
No matter how many times I checked, Julia-san, as I understood her, was still the same.
She was pregnant.
That fact made me sad, angry, and painful.
Because my body was already gone and it was Augusto-san's body, I had his memories in my mind as my own.
In other words, I had a clear perception of Julia-san as an important person to me as well, like an illusion, which made it even harder.
Indeed, it was strange to think about it again.
Julia-san is Augusto-san's wife, which means she is a duchess.
She is the wife of the second most powerful person in the country.
In this country, the higher the total amount of magic power, the better.
It's hard to believe that Julia-san, who was introduced to me by Augusto-san's father, has a low total magic power.
This means that she must have been doing a lot of self-defense and other things to avoid becoming a weakness for Augusto-san.
To marry into the Dukedom Werstein's family, you needed to have a certain amount of strength in addition to a high level of education.
According to Augusto-san's knowledge, Julia-san had specialized in magic for Augusto-san's sake.
Since she was a woman, she could not have mastered swordsmanship like a warrior.
As a result, by the time she became a duchess, she was able to fight against even the best wizards, but why did she receive the curse?
I can't believe it was because she was pregnant.
The tears spilled out and fell to the floor, freezing with a small pitter-patter.
All I could do was breathe in and breathe out.
When a woman becomes pregnant, her immune system is weakened.
In this world, the magic power resistance might be lowered as well.
But no matter what, this was not happening.
It was too much.
I wonder if she was aware of it.
I wonder if she was aware that her little life had become a magical stone that would consume her through a curse.
I don't know what she actually thought, because I know that it is absolutely forbidden to look into Julia-san's memories.
But if I could, would it be wrong to wish that she had passed away without even realizing that she was pregnant?
I hadn't even accepted my own death yet, but the fact that I had learned about it as if it were a series of events almost made my head spin.
However, my calm self in the corner of my head thought something out of place, like it was true that when stress reaches its limit, nausea occurs, and that helped me calm down a little.
Once I had calmed down, my next thought was about something else.
I'm sure this is just another way of escaping to reduce stress, but I'm going to try not to worry about it now.
───...... This curse was considered a contagious disease at the time, so it required a medicine made from mistletoe root that had been specially processed in a neighboring country.
Perhaps, this processing is a kind of marking to identify the miasma from which the curse originated.
Since the miasma was used and could only be cured with light-attribute purification magic, this potion would only have the effect of stopping the curse from taking effect.
Still, at the time, this medicine was hope itself.
The memory of Augusto-san's desperate attempt to obtain it suddenly came to mind, so it was probably a well-known fact.
But then I suddenly realized something that made my blood boil.
Perhaps it was Augusto-san's overly keen intuition, but I felt that his prediction was sounding a strange alarm.
It can only be cured by light magic, he said.
That means.
It is possible that the survivors from 12 years ago in this country still have a certain amount of miasma in their bodies.
...... I felt like I was sweating like crazy.
I pull my hand on my forehead to wipe away the tears, but there was no moisture, but I felt my heart was beating unpleasantly.
The miasma that must have been in Auguste's body had disappeared, probably because he had become a wise man.
But what was happening to the rest of the people?
And how many of them are carrying the curse in their bodies that could be triggered at any moment?
With a horrible imagination, I wished that this was just a delusion, but I kneaded the magic power to confirm what had happened back then.
I tried to understand and deploy the magical power that filled my body, even though I didn't know how it was possible to do so.
From a uselessly precise map in his mind, he aimed at a certain entity and delivered a sound through his magic.
The image was a telephone.
"Can you hear me, Spirit King of the Water?
'...... Hmm? What's with all the noise, what the hell does a wise man want?'
I was relieved to hear the dignified voice in my ear, and took a small breath to speak my next words.
"I need to confirm something, I need to borrow your knowledge."
'How? You're in a strange hurry... What is it? I'll tell you.'
Her somewhat quizzical and irreverent tone of voice irritated me a little, though it was selfish of me to be so full of myself at this point.
I tried my best not to show my emotions, but apparently I did.
I felt myself calmly thinking in the corner of my head that I was still inexperienced, and I also felt myself angry, extremely impatient and confused, and I felt my calm self smiling.
"... Twelve years ago."
It was a categorical question that she, as the King of the Water Spirits, could not possibly not be aware of.
’12 years? When was that again?'
"There was a time when the water in my country was drained, right?"
As soon as I gave her the specifics, considering that it must have been very recently for her, I felt the same indignation in her presence.
'I remembered that annoying incident!!
I remember that time when even the spirits were defiled, and all the humans I liked died!'
She shouted at me in a raspy, shaky voice, which frightened me because I'm a coward.
I've never felt anyone's anger, let alone a clear intent to kill, so I can't blame her.
Still, I said to her, as if angrily chastising my weak self for cowering in fear.
"I'm sorry to remind you of something so annoying, but may I ask you a question?"
'...... What is it? I'll tell you.'
Her anger hadn’t subsided, but maybe my question bothered her.
She asked me back in an angry tone of voice, so I asked her straightforwardly.
"Does the stain still linger in the people?"
'......... Hmmm, miasma is an accumulation, once it has been absorbed, it will remain until it is purified.'
She replied in a voice that clearly showed her tense state, as if she was not trying to hide her irritation.
In that case, I wondered where the miasma that was supposed to have accumulated in Augusto-san's body had really gone.
Such a question came to my mind, but I decided to leave it aside for now.
"Then, the water…"
'I couldn't just leave it there forever. I reluctantly asked Light's help and purified it all.;
"...... I see."
I was relieved, but the fact that it was corroborated hurt like hell.
This pain is the kind of bitterness that makes your heart hurt.
But more than that, I had a headache from the resentment I was feeling, and I could feel my brow creasing naturally.
I felt like throwing away both the various realities that I didn't want to know and the reality that I had a lot to think about.
But more than that, I can't forgive them.
I can't forgive the country next door for spreading this curse, for the war.
I'm upset, annoyed, frustrated, and even irritated at myself for calmly thinking that people can be so angry.
It was a terrible anger that made me think I was losing my mind.
'So what? What are you going to do?'
The voice that I heard suddenly startled me so much that I froze for a moment.
It's actually a bad habit of mine to stiffen up when I'm startled, but perhaps it's because of Augusto-san's appearance that it works in the right direction every time, and I'm really grateful for that.
But it doesn't matter now.
I forced my mind to calm down by consciously taking a breath, and then opened my mouth again.
"What do you mean?”
'You can't be that angry and not plan to do anything about it.'
Maybe it was because I tried my best to calm down, even if I had to force myself, but although I was able to calmly ask her back with only words, she gave me a conclusive answer.
I feel like I'm being terribly misunderstood, but maybe it's just my imagination.
I'm not going to do anything that soon, okay?
Because I'm still stuck in this territory, and there's a lot more I need to think about and a lot more I need to do.
And that's why I'm so angry deep down.
I mean.
"...... What does what I do have to do with the Spirit King?"
‘Sure it does, I am the king of the spirits who controls the water and is part of the order of the world.'
I was convinced, but at the same time I thought it was a bit troublesome.
Still, I can't say such a thing, and it wouldn't help if I did, so I decide to say it back in my usual calm voice.
"...... I'm just going to investigate our neighbors."
It's not something I'd actually do, but it's a judgment call, because the first thing I'd have to do would be to gather information.
It's just a prediction, and there may be other agendas, but I do know that our neighbors are targeting this country.
I'm not very smart, but Augusto-san is a very smart person, so he was able to predict a lot of things with just a little thought.
I'm very grateful for that, but it's not something I wanted to know, so I have mixed feelings about it.
... The worst thing that could happen based on Augusto-san's knowledge was that the neighboring country would overrun us and destroy us.
The Prime Minister is connected to the neighboring country.
Assuming this is true, it is highly likely that the neighboring country is using that old bastard.
The old man is probably using the neighboring country for his own advancement.
While using each other, the old man may be trying to get a position in the royal family, and the neighboring country may be trying to get fertile land, since their land is said to be poor.
It's just a guess, but it's possible.
If that's the case, what's the reason for leaving the curse on the people of this country?
What is the reason why the curse, which is like a bomb that can be triggered at any time, has not been triggered yet?
I knew I didn't have enough information.
‘... Hmm, are you curious about what that country is planning to do?'
At that moment, I heard a cool voice with a hint of anger in my ear, and for a moment, I felt as if time had stopped.
//Melki: Come now ＼(￣ヮ￣)／ Join me to curse out this son of a bitch of a god.
Thx for the chapter!
Investigate and then erase them. Thanks for the chapter
Nice! and informant that gathers things from places where there is water would be unavoidable! Thanks for the chapter!!!