137 – Arcsius – 2
If someone who didn’t know him saw it, he would have seen it as a well-carved statue of a goddess, but I, who know Arcsius’s human form, can tell.
Hair tied up and hanging down, sharp eyes and pointed teeth. And the rose flower etched into her collarbone.
Although the clothes worn and the atmosphere are a little different from now, the fact that it is basically Aksi does not change.
But….
‘Why her?’
Aksi clearly told me that she liked her abandoned temple and decided to make it her rare.
She said that the unknown energy floating around inside the temple also caught her interest.
As we have seen, she did not say that she herself was worshiped as a goddess.
The energy inside her room also seems to come from her faith in Aksi.
I can’t clarify its identity, but I guess it’s probably correct that a gloomy and soggy energy moves back and forth between the statues and skeletons.
Then, why did she hide this fact?
There is only one most common reason. That this religion that worshiped her was her cult.
Basically, the denomination rejects religions other than its own.
Of course, it is extremely rare to call something an extreme heresy, but it is not common for people to like having competitors.
And denominations are a general case. They rejected everyone except their god, calling them cults.
No force was used. Violence is an excuse, and they had better weapons.
Overwhelming number of believers.
No matter how widespread other religions are, the most famous one is the religious denomination. They knew the power of the majority, and they knew how to utilize it.
Five out of ten villagers believe in the denomination’s god. Three of them did not believe in God, and the other two believed in and followed different gods.
Even if we believed in the same god, we could not survive, so believing in different gods was like not being able to be together.
Without necessarily using violence, they gradually discouraged other religions. Only a few religions survived such repeated rejection.
Even that did not have a very positive perception due to the activities of the pseudo-sect.
Even trash that has been declared heresy under the name of pseudo-believers has appeared one after another, so the evaluation of other doctrines is bound to fall even further.
There was a time when he was the god of a pseudo-religion. No one would want to reveal such past history.
I don’t know if she has become a god or if she has declared herself to be a god. I don’t think she would have wanted to become a god, at least if she was the Aksi I know.
“… “There’s no need to sell more.”
If you want to dig deeper, you can dig deeper.
Even if you don’t know exactly what happened here, you will know to some extent.
But there is no need to do that.
If it were something I could tell, Akshi would definitely have told me.
However, the fact that he did not bring up his words even though he reached his rare level means that it is a topic that is difficult to bring up.
Or maybe you haven’t prepared your mind yet.
Either way, it’s not for me to dig deeper.
As soon as I left the room, Aksi came to her senses and stared at me.
“What to see?”
“I did it to some extent.”
“Really? It was probably mostly locked. So there’s nothing to see….”
She acted like she didn’t know I entered the room.
No matter how much I killed my spirit and raised my mana to the minimum, I would have heard the sound of her door dragging on the floor.
It seemed like he was intentionally pretending not to know.
I don’t know why, but I waited. Akshi himself can’t continue acting like that sloppily forever.
**
Aksi looked around the inside of the rare and introduced me to things to show.
Among them, there were various statues that would have been placed in an old temple, and there were also huge trees that had grown beautifully despite being neglected for hundreds of years.
What particularly attracted attention was the wealth Aksi had gathered in the corner of the temple.
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Akshi said in her own words that she thought dragons would care about such wealth, but her words were meaningless in the face of the mountain of treasure.
Even though a long time had passed, they were still in good condition, so if they were put up for auction, at least three generations could make a living without worry.
Even in the Duke of Philasia, I have never seen this much gold and silver treasure.
“… “Didn’t you say you weren’t interested?”
“… ….”
It was so absurd that Akshi blushed and turned her head.
In the face of such a large amount of wealth, she doesn’t seem to have the shamelessness to say that this is something she doesn’t care about.
After checking all the treasures inside the rare, Aksi headed to the large cavity.
It was a particularly large place inside the rare, and judging by the chairs lined up in front of the speech stand in the center, it seemed to be a place where believers gathered.
And on the upper wall of the lectern, something is covered with a cloth.
Akshi stared at the cloth and removed it in one go.
“You’ve already seen it once, right?”
As she removes the rag, her eyes meet the statue of Aksi, dressed in a white silk dress with a fluttering skirt, reaching out her hand toward her floor.
She is smiling a kind smile that I have never seen before.
That smile was somehow awkward, so I looked away from the statue.
“Looking at this…. “What were you thinking?”
“It’s pretty.”
When Aksy hesitantly asked about her impressions, I answered without hesitation at all.
“I especially like that outfit. “I don’t know who carved it, but they did a good job with the features.”
“No, no. I didn’t ask that….”
“But.”
Aksi with her blushing face, and her goddess statue smiling brightly.
I looked at the two in turn.
“It doesn’t really suit you.”
“… ….”
It was exactly how I felt.
The statue in front of you was clearly well sculpted. So much so that it would elicit an exclamation of admiration no matter who showed it to anyone.
Perhaps, in some cases, it could be called a masterpiece created by a craftsman.
But that didn’t mean it suited Aksi.
What suits Aksi is the comfortable outfit she is wearing right now. Although such a silk dress is beautiful, it is not suitable.
Likewise, a playful laugh suits her more than her gentle smile.
Rather than the goddess Accius, it is Acxi.
At least I felt it suited me better.
“… When we first started, there were about five or six people. “People who ran away because they couldn’t pay taxes built a village near my lair and settled down.”
Aksi said that at that time, she did not have a statue like this in her rare.
A cave just for lying down comfortably and a space to store wealth.
Her early rares were of that type.
“As those who started out with five or six gradually became more powerful and their numbers increased, the scope of their activities naturally began to increase.”
An increase in numbers means there are more mouths to feed.
This means that the territory controlled by five or six people cannot satisfy them all.
So the villagers increased the scope. And within that range, Aksey’s rare also existed.
“Because there was no trick like this back then. “Some of the guys who were looking around found my rare.”
What the villagers who entered the rare found was a sleeping black dragon, showing off its inky-colored skin.
Most people were scared when they saw her huge teeth, but some people actually came closer to her, Aksi said.
“They asked me for help. “I will make an offering and ask for a little help.”
It may have been a little help to Aksi, but she would have been nothing short of a miracle to them.
It means that no one can die and live on under the protection of the Black Dragon.
One person’s miracle may be another person’s trivial act.
No one knows the standard, and only the person who has received the miracle can know.
And, for the village residents, Aksi would have been a miracle itself.
“The village grew, and the number of offerings coming to me also increased. “I didn’t need it, but I didn’t necessarily throw it away.”
The villagers took it upon themselves to turn Aksi’s Lair into a huge temple. She creates a statue in her likeness, and occasionally visits this place to reflect on their faith deeply in their hearts.
The beginning of religion.
The existence of Akshi would have already established itself as a being equivalent to God to them.
“The problem is that the church and the empire did not just look at it.”
Not only is it already defined as a cult, but its power is gradually increasing. Even most of them were people who ran away without paying taxes to the empire….
“I guess they came to get you.”
“That’s right, we also eliminate pseudo-cultists who don’t pay taxes.”
Did the rumor about the vicious black dragon originate there?
“I should have just thrown it away. “I guess I became attached to them without realizing it while receiving their offerings.”
Akshi smiled bitterly as she said that.
“I fought for them and was defeated by the army of the Empire. And what happens now…. “You should know better.”
It is not easy to accept the fact that a dragon, said to be the pinnacle of all living things, is a parasite on someone’s body.
Basically, you have to overcome your innate pride and accept reality.
Akshi went through the whole process and was by my side.
“The dragon basically sends entertainment. In a life that spans thousands of years, he cannot endure the boredom if he does not find some entertainment.
But why do dragons dismiss everything they experience outside as entertainment? “Aren’t you curious?”
I thought about Aksy’s question for a moment before opening my mouth.
“Forgetting…. Is it because of this?”
“That’s right.”
Aksi had told me before. Having lived a long life, I am so used to losing my memories and not being able to remember them.
How many times have you gone through forgetting and erased what you thought were important memories?
“Now, I can’t even remember the faces of those who believed in me.”
Her eyes turn to her statue carved of her.
A somewhat vague expression. And her fingers tremble slightly.
She turned her head to look at me and spoke.
“So, Yu-hee. You dismiss everything as play. “No one gets crazy sad just because they forgot to play.”
Tears fall from Aksi’s face. She clenched her shaking hands into fists.
“So.”
She bit her mouth once. I quietly waited for Akshi to say what she had to say. Eventually, Aksi seemed to have made up her mind and continued her words.
“I can forget this story now. No, I think I’ll forget it. “Just as a moment of entertainment.”
I watched Aksi calmly confessing for a moment and then raised the corner of her mouth.
She then said.
“I….”