Chapter 20. Patriot (22)
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Hampton City Hall, Elsa Central and South Region National Unification Force Commander’s Office.
After signing the last document, Virginia Helford put down her fountain pen. I finished work 20 minutes earlier than expected.
Now, if you ring the call bell and call the dedicated deputy, he will take all the documents that Virginia has processed and then place the pile of documents that need to be resolved on the desk with a thud.
But Virginia did not ring the call bell. It wasn’t because I wanted to rest even for just 20 minutes. Virginia was a person who knew how to work hard to fulfill her great ambitions.
So, I stood straight in front of the world map. She was a map intricately connected with colorful pins and threads that she had sewn.
‘All maps in the world are inaccurate.’
Virginia was reminded of her grandfather. Unlike her father, her grandfather cared for her quite a bit. In fact, she may have treated her other siblings the same way, but it didn’t matter to her. Because the only person in her Helford family who treated her like her own person was her grandfather.
‘The traffic map doesn’t show where the beds are at home. The treasure map doesn’t say how many monsters there are. Although the forest is mentioned in the guidebook for hikers, there is no information about the amanita mushrooms located under the spruce trees.’
Maps cover, shape, and edit the world. Thus revealing the only truth. The only information that people need to know is by cutting away unnecessary things.
“Good.”
Virginia approached the bookshelf and took out one of her old books.
It was published by Römer Honors University Press under the title “The Belief in the Goddess of Hunger and Analysis of Her Symbols.” Virginia had to hold the bottom of her pages to turn them, as the tattered pages were torn when pulled with even the slightest force.
The hand stopped. A photo of a goddess statue fills one page. Below that is ‘Illustration a.41. The description was written, “An ancient goddess statue taken out from an excavation site.”
The naked woman, with every bone in her body exposed, opened her mouth wide in the shape of a letter. She seemed to be singing, she seemed to be protesting, and she had a strange expression, as if she was crying out in pain.
But it wasn’t the picture Virginia was looking for.
The picture on the back of her page was truly what she was looking for. A precise figure carved into the lower part of an ancient goddess statue. It looks like two six-pointed stars stacked on top of each other. It was identical to the shape created by the pins and threads embedded in the world map. And that thread is the border crossing between human protected areas and non-protected areas.
Virginia held up a white and black pin. This time she inserted white and black pins into the area surrounded by the thread. It didn’t take her that long.
“… “It wasn’t a coincidence after all.”
Black pins indicate non-human protection areas. White pins are human protection areas. Sometimes black and white pins were stuck in the same area, which was initially a protected area but was later designated as a non-protected area.
Once she visualized it, what Virginia wanted to know became clear.
At the beginning of the incident, before a non-protected area was established by the Elsa government. The ‘unabated hunger’ syndrome has become a major social problem. At that time, everything on the ground suddenly felt hungry, and bizarre things happened, such as pets attacking humans when they ran out of food, or neighbors on bad terms eating each other’s flesh.
Although there were differences in severity, the ‘hunger’ syndrome spread to a wider area. At the same time, zombies appeared everywhere. The Elsa government finally went so far as to establish a ‘human non-protection zone’.
Everyone knows this up to this point.
But Virginia’s judgment went one step further.
The area where unabated hunger was reported the most was a place deeply associated with the belief in the goddess of hunger. An ancient goddess statue had been unearthed, excavation work was in full swing, or it was a martyrdom shrine. A martyrdom shrine means a place where the western or eastern countries dragged out the Elsa people who believed in the goddess and committed mass murder.
In this way, the white pin gradually gained strength, and eventually settled in the central core of the human non-protection zone.
Virginia lifted the book again. This time, I flicked to the front page. I found and read the verses I had marked in advance.
『In that year, a star fell from the sky, and a third of the sky burned, a third of the earth withered and died, and a third of the water tasted bitter. The earth writhed and cried out in pain…
The Buried Goddess tore through her underground, and she willingly chewed and swallowed the stars that had tried to take root in the ground. The star quickly passed through the goddess’ body and tried to come out into the world again. Then the goddess stretched and bent her body and placed her mouth on the genitals, making her look like a snake biting its own tail.
‘Look, my followers! Look! This pain is mine. This suffering is mine alone. This is what heaven has prepared for me, and I will eat it willingly.
It stings the inside of my mouth, makes my tongue dry and cracked and causes fever, scratches my throat, and twists my internal organs like a burning ball rolling around, but this is only my responsibility. I will not hand over a single thing to you, not even a speck of dust!”
At first glance, they seem like greedy parents, but in reality, it is quite the opposite. The goddess did not want to see her ‘children’ suffer by eating the star, so she locked them inside her body.
It seems like a noble sacrifice, as he would rather suffer alone than pass on harm to his children. Maybe it is possible because it is a divine being.
Virginia sat down in her chair. Her long, shiny silver hair hid her snake-like eyes. Like the curtains that were drawn in her grandfather’s study when she was young.
Back in the days when her hair was black and she knew how to smile, she used to surprise her grandfather by hiding behind her curtains. Except she did once.
Her grandfather brought her a guest that day. Because her mood was so heavy, Virginia was in no hurry to step out of the curtain.
But, the conversation was very interesting. Even though her legs were numb and she needed to go to the bathroom, the conversation was so fascinating that Virginia can still recall it.
‘Then Professor Halford, do you think that this record is not just a legend?’
‘That’s right. Goddess statues, not those made these days, but old ones excavated from the ground, contain a lot of meteorite elements. A meteorite made people sick, so they made a statue of a goddess and buried it in the ground, and they got better… ‘An explanation like this is also possible.’
‘But Römer and Minsk don’t even have similar traditions. ‘You’re not saying that the meteorite only fell on Erza’s land, right?’
‘Well, I don’t know that much either. But in that sense, the belief in the goddess of hunger was not that widespread in Römer and Minsk. The faith of the Goddess of Hunger is like the last spiritual stronghold of a people who suffer only through life.’
‘The last soul fortress?’
‘Since we cannot overcome difficulties and suffering in this life, we imagine and believe in some greater order that humans cannot understand. Then, I feel at ease.’
‘It is the sadness of a weak country caught between powerful countries like Römer and Minsk.’
‘Oh, you know what? It takes dozens of trucks to get to the excavation site of the ancient Goddess of Hunger statue. There are a lot of grave goods. It looks like a very large ancestral rite was held. ‘It’s a human sacrifice.’
In the end, Virginia wasn’t caught that day. Actually, in the end, I wanted to go out on my own. I wanted to ask what she was talking about, where on earth did she exist in such a world? Anyway, there was no place for her in Römer back then.
Her father urged her to go to Minsk….
“No. No.”
Virginia took out a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard and poured half of it into a cup. The other half was filled with water. Even though she didn’t have any ice, it was enough to clear her mind.
“Concentrate.”
Again, she looked at the map. One thing is certain. An ancient goddess statue excavation site, a place they call a sacred place… These places were excavated under the leadership of the Elsa Archaeological Department. And that too under the leadership of one woman. Virginia also printed out the person’s personal information in advance.
“Joanna Mustaine, Professor of Archeology.”
A young, confident-looking woman wearing round glasses.
The woman traveled all over Erza and dug up the ground. Naturally, she visited unprotected areas and early hunger zones. Of course, she was before the incident occurred. She said that in some places there was no harvest, in others it was pouring. The important thing is that she moved around quite diligently.
“What kind of trick did they use?”
Virginia was displeased, so she clicked her tongue. But there was absolutely no clue as to whether there was any connection between the two. Even if a clue is found, it would have to involve a huge leap in logic.
A woman named Joanna Mustaine dug up the zombie virus that was buried deep in the ground. Does this make sense?
No, isn’t this all oversensitivity? Virginia pursed her brows. Maybe I was oversensitive, I thought.
‘Out of desire and revenge, clinging to things that don’t make sense….’
Booooong.
A sudden vibration disrupted Virginia’s thoughts. Annoyed at having her deep thoughts interrupted for the first time in a long time, Virginia grabbed her phone roughly.
“What is this?”
– A message has arrived.
Title: Virginia’s expression of ignorance (video file) / Sender: Leticia