Upon hearing Shirone's words, Peope's face froze.
She could not understand what was happening in her heart. The moment hopes of survival emerged, the strong emotions that had dominated her began to dissipate like bubbles.
Peope: "Are you mocking me? What do you gain by humiliating me?"
Shirone: "Mocking? Do not talk nonsense. It is only natural to spare someone who asks for their life. Because I, too, want to live. My life is precious, so I understand how precious others' lives are."
Shirone had not decided to let Peope go just yet. What judgment he would make at the final moment was still unknown.
But he thought of Kanya and Rena. He could not let them die like this.
Shirone: "I will count to three. One."
Shirone's grip tightened.
Shirone: "Two."
Peope: "S-spare me."
Peope whispered softly.
As if he had not heard, Shirone did not relax his stance. Just as he was about to say "three," Peope, with her eyes tightly shut, screamed.
Peope: "Spare me! I beg you! I do not want to die!"
Shirone released Peope.
Freed, she fluttered her wings and flew up. Her face flushed like a sunset, and she glared at him.
Peope: "Do you think you can get away with this?"
Shirone: "What did I do?"
Peope: "You tried to kill me!"
Shirone: "That is right. And that is exactly what you did to Kanya and Rena."
Peope could not refute that.
Born as an enforcer of the law, she had never deeply considered the lifespans of mortals.
But now that her life was in someone else's hands, it was a complicated matter.
Death was terrifying, and life was sweet. Even for a fairy who could live for ten thousand years.
Shirone: "what happened to Kanya's mother was wrong. Restore her lifespan too."
Before she could gather her thoughts, Shirone pressed further, and Peope grew annoyed.
Peope: "I already told you! Only the upper echelons of the 72 Orders can alter the lifespan records. Once a judgment is made, it cannot be undone."
Shirone: "Then at least redo the judgment for Kanya and Rena. You can do that, right?"
Peope, resting her chin in her hand, thought for a moment.
Peope: "Well… I will reduce their sentence to one year."
Shirone let out a hollow laugh.
While it was good that Kanya and Rena's punishment was lightened, the gap in judgment was too wide. It seemed like there was no standard to begin with.
Shirone: "Are you some kind of junk dealer? Can you just make judgments so arbitrarily?"
Peope: "This is already a reduction! Should I increase it to 20 years instead?"
Shirone: "That is not the point. Isn't it strange? There should be a standard for applying punishment."
Peope: "That is why I am the standard. I am the enforcer of the law! You are really ignorant, aren't you?"
Shirone bit his tongue. He had no choice but to acknowledge that fairies were a distinct species, diverging from humans at some point.
Fairy thought is more holistic than human thought. While humans can divide love into countless concepts, for fairies, love is just love.
Peope was an enforcer of the law, and thus, she never doubted her own judgment. Knowing how terrifying death was, she reduced the sentence to one year.
It was understandable that she could not make detailed judgments like two years and three months or seven years and six months.
After thousands of years, her thinking might deepen, but currently, she was only one year old.
Peope: "Are we done now? Then I will be going. Fairies have a lot of work to do."
Shirone: "Go? Where do you think you are going? You still need to resolve the issue with Kanya's mother."
Peope turned to Shirone and glared.
Peope: "How am I supposed to resolve that? I was not even born when that happened. Besides, my position is at the bottom of the 72 Orders, so I do not have the authority to modify lifespan records."
Shirone: "Then at least tell me how. You are a fairy, so you must know something. I will not let you go until you tell me."
Peope, being a spiral spirit, was naturally stubborn, but perhaps because of her early age, she wasn't too difficult to handle. If he could extract information from her, there might be a way to save Kanya's mother.
Peope: "Hmph, do you think you can stop me from leaving? And no one can interfere with fairy affairs. That is the law."
Shirone: "I do not know what that law is, but you know it is unreasonable, right? Life is precious. How can you just cut someone's lifespan by 20 years like that?"
Peope's eyes welled up with tears.
Truthfully, she did not know. To judge the rights and wrongs of the law by personal standards, she would need to live at least six hundred years.
Peope: "Why do you keep pushing me? I am just doing what I am told!"
Shirone: "Weren't you so confident as the enforcer of the law? Now you are running away?"
Peope: "Ugh, seriously! What do you want me to do? What do you want to know?"
Shirone: "First, tell me what the Tale of the Elixir is."
Peope: "The Tale of the Elixir? It is a sacred ritual. It refines the laws of mortals and allows them to be reborn as new life."
Peope answered smoothly, as if she finally knew something.
But Shirone could not sense anything beyond the packaged definition in her words.
Shirone: "How am I supposed to understand that? Be more specific. What is its purpose, how is it conducted, what are the components of the ritual, things like that."
Peope: "Ugh, you're so annoying…"
Peope clutched her head with both hands.
The Tale of the Elixir was just the Tale of the Elixir. She had never reflected on the information she knew as primordial knowledge.
There was only one way left.
Remembering memory transfer, her eyes lit up.
Peope: "If you really want to know, there is a way to explain it clearly. It is through mental resonance. Fairies can transfer memories to others. I will show you my memories of the Tale of the Elixir. Will that suffice?"
Mental resonance is dangerous. Peope did not seem like she would do anything bad, but she was not an ally either.
Arin (through mental channel): "It is fine. I can control someone like Peope."
Shirone (through mental channel): "Are you sure? Even with strong defenses, there is still the possibility of irregular patterns."
Arin (through mental channel): "Peope is emotionally immature, so I can read the unique patterns of irregulars at the initial stage. If necessary, I can knock her out with a mental shock before she activates anything."
Canis and the others had also experienced irregulars.
Thinking that the initial stage was indeed formidable, Shirone conveyed his consent to Peope.
Shirone: "Alright. Show me your memories of the Tale of the Elixir."
Peope: "Okay. Then let us begin."
Peope cast the memory transfer spell.
As Shirone and his companions were drawn into the memory, the scene of a plaza from a year ago appeared. A giant statue stood there, and the mortals were so quiet they did not even breathe.
Shirone called out to his friends who had arrived at different points, and they approached, passing through the mortals like ghosts.
Though it was someone else's memory, it felt as vivid as reality.
Existing as a memory entity, Shirone could examine anything he wanted. It was fascinating that he could stick his face right in front of a mortal's nose without them noticing.
Shirone and his companions headed toward the statue.
As the crowd's barrier disappeared, an astonishing sight unfolded.
Multiple hoses were connected to the giant's statue, linked to eight glass orbs placed around it. The orbs were large enough for a person to enter.
The mortals were silent, but a few were crying. The mix of reverence and despair created an unsettling atmosphere.
Kergoin ran around the statue, preparing for the ritual. Eight mortals stepped out from the crowd. Their ages ranged from 50s to 60s, but one was a young woman.
Shirone saw tears in their smiles.
Trembling pupils, quivering lips, cold sweat on their foreheads.
They were clearly thinking of death.
The subjects entered the glass orbs, completely naked.
As black liquid filled the orbs, their families rushed forward, weeping. Meanwhile, the other mortals prostrated themselves on the ground, chanting "Anke Ra."
Kergoin pulled away the families who were pounding on the glass, crying out for their mothers, fathers, and grandfathers.
The subjects submerged in the rising liquid smiled.
Was this drowning?
It was cruel.
As Shirone thought this, he peered inside the orbs and recoiled in horror.
It was not drowning. Their bodies were dissolving in the liquid.
It was the most grotesque sight he had ever seen.
He wondered what the liquid was made of, and why it was black. If the families had seen this process, they might have gone mad.
The liquid in the orbs were sucked through the hoses. A disgusting sound, like intestines expelling waste, echoed.
The mortals' chants of "Ra" grew louder.
As the liquid level dropped, the orbs' interiors became transparent again, devoid of any residue.
There was nothing left.
The people who had been smiling just moments ago had been sucked away through the hoses.
Shirone turned his gaze to where the hoses led. His body was already trembling. Yet, he had to see it with his own eyes.
There, at the base of the statue, eight people were pouring in.
What could it be? What was rising up the statue now?
The Eternal Ra.
The chants of "Anke Ra" pierced the sky.
Suddenly, the giant's statue vibrated intensely.
At that moment, the mortals fell silent.
Not a single drop of liquid remained in the glass orbs. It had all been poured into the giant's statue.
Like a mold.
Shirone shook his head. It could not be. But once the thought had entered his mind, he could not stop it.
A mold filled with melted humans. If that was the case, then what was being created inside was…
The giant's statue opened, revealing a cross-section.
A massive foot pushed out, shaking the ground.
Shirone shuddered at the sight of the giant, covered in a gelatinous substance. Its expression was too distorted to call it human.
Through the mental channel, Arin muttered. The reason they could not establish a mental connection with the giant was that multiple minds were mixed within a single body.
So, what state were the minds within the body in?
Were they the minds of the eight people, or something entirely different?
The mortals begged for mercy.
Born from the law and bound by the law. The giant.
Thus, the giant had the authority to punish those who broke the law.
At this moment, even if someone were crushed under the giant's foot, it would not be the giant's fault.
Those who met the giant's eyes collapsed. It was the eye technique, Pressure.
Ah.
Shirone shuddered.
The origin of Schema. The primordial Schema was a phenomenon where the human diagrams, mixed through the Tale of the Elixir, overlapped.
Following the giant, Shirone eavesdropped on the mortals' conversation.
The giant would leave heaven and enter purgatory. There, it would eliminate heretics threatening heaven and, upon Ra's call, return to the Fifth Heaven, Mathe.
Families cried out, tears streaming down their faces.
"Mom! Dad! Grandpa!"
As if responding to the voices, the giant flinched. But it did not look back. Instead, it continued walking toward the gates as if nothing had happened.
The scenery in Peope's memory burned like ignited paper, and the house's interior reappeared.
Shirone and his companions looked around.
Peope was nowhere to be seen. She had fled while the memory was replaying.
But now that they knew what the Tale of the Elixir was, they had no time to worry about her.
The subjects of the Tale of the Elixir dissolved in the liquid. Then, they entered the mold and underwent a special transformation process, being reborn as giants. The minds of the people mixed, and in that process, Schema was born.
The stimulant Kanya had purchased was meant for that purpose.
It was a desperate hope to regain even a sliver of consciousness in the unknown darkness.
Gardrak had been right. It was no different from administering anesthesia to a patient dying in agony.
Tess: "This can't be…"
Tess's face was pale, drained of color.
The giant's ability, Schema. And her own ability, Schema.
When her thoughts reached that point, she ran to the corner and vomited. The food she had eaten earlier came pouring out.
No one scolded Tess.
Everyone felt nauseous.
Rian approached, but Tess raised her hand to stop him.
Of course, Peope's memory was not more gruesome than a battlefield. But the mental nausea was overwhelming.
Schema was the technique of the giants. So why could she use Schema? Did she have giant blood like the Nephilim? But giants had no reproductive organs.
Kanya: "Do you understand now why I didn't tell you?"
Kanya muttered with a sad expression.
Some called it a blessing, others a curse.
No one wanted to talk about this event, which was hotly debated even among mortals and heretics.
Kanya: "According to the law, humans were born from giants. So, returning to being a giant is what the Tale of the Elixir is."
Even if Kanya's words were true, it was hard to accept. The Tale of the Elixir Shirone had witnessed was a monster that no amount of embellishment could hide.
Finally, he realized.
The Tale of the Elixir, conducted in heaven, was a ritual that used human flesh and organs as raw materials to create giants.