Breaking the brief silence, one of the children spoke up.
Unlike Yumtus or Del, their tone carried little surprise.
=What kind of game... is it?=
Minjun did not understand what they meant.
“A game?”
=If it’s a game where the king is the seeker, I don't want to play... But if the king gets to pick the seeker, I guess being king would be okay... It would be best if it's a game where the king gets to do whatever they want.=
He realized there had been a miscommunication.
“No, we aren't playing a game right now. I am going to choose a real king. From among you.”
=Us?=
This time, the children did not understand. They wiggled their tentacles in all directions, looking confused.
Del still looked dumbfounded, but she seemed willing to hear Minjun out.
‘Is that why he made that proposal to me first? But why are those kids the second choice?’
Perhaps the one here who most accurately grasped the god's intentions was the priest, Yumtus.
‘I see. The avatar intends to establish an entirely new dynasty!’
What was the best way to teach god to a race that had come to deny him?
Starting over completely from the very beginning would be the most surefire method.
=So you mean you're picking a leader from among us?=
Yumtus suspected the child's concept of ‘us’ was much narrower than the god's intention. They likely thought it merely meant being the representative of these 168 individuals.
=Then, hold on a second.=
The children pulled the tentacles they had stretched over Yumtus's shoulders back behind themselves and began to whisper. It took a few minutes for the three of them to reach a consensus.
Minjun waited patiently.
A moment later.
=Can't we talk about this with the other kids too?=
=Some of them might want to be the leader too.=
=Right. I feel like everyone should get an equal chance...=
Minjun shook his head firmly.
“This opportunity is granted only to you. The king I speak of isn't some mere symbolic ornament to represent you. It is a position where you might have to do things no one else wants to do depending on the situation, and work alone when no one else will. The cowardly temperament hidden in the blood of the Endelion hinders the birth of a great king. You three are the individuals in whom those genes are the weakest. That is why I plan to choose from among you.”
The answer that followed seemed to surprise even Minjun.
=Then... all three of us will do it.=
The god's eyebrows twitched.
“What?”
=Does the king have to be just one person?=
That was the orthodox view, but still.
Instead of immediately denying it, Minjun tilted his chin, silently urging them to explain.
At that, the child who had spoken first gestured with a tentacle at themselves and then at their friends in turn.
=I'm meticulous and remember things well. This one here comes up with brilliant ideas that no one else can think of. And that one next to them always makes the other kids laugh. We're all good at different things. So if we lead together, things will be easier.=
Minjun stroked his chin and muttered.
“...An oligarchy. Well, not bad.”
A triumvirate.
It was practically a scaled-down version of the current Committee system led by three races.
The one thing that bothered him was...
“There is a concern that the succession will become complicated. The bloodline will be split into three.”
Hearing those words, Yumtus unconsciously tensed his back muscles.
Knowing the avatar's nature, he half-expected him to follow up with something like, ‘I should sort this out before it becomes a nuisance. Should I extract their three brains and transplant them into a single body? Then there would be three heads but only one bloodline, making the succession problem neat and clean.’
However, Minjun didn't seem to have any intention of resorting to such extreme measures. Fortunately for the children.
And probably for Yumtus as well.
“We can just cement it as a coalition political structure between three families. I think there was an era like that once... Alright, understood.”
As if his business was finished, Minjun sent the children away.
Yumtus felt relieved that the kids had avoided becoming conjoined triplets, then felt a strange dissonance as he wondered why he was so anxious about the safety of these young tentacles.
A slight sense of anticipation even crept into his chest once the crisis had passed. Anticipation for the future of these children.
‘These three have literally secured a tremendous backer.’
Minjun had declared that he would personally bestow the power of the king upon them. Those who defied the god's choice would also have to bear the god's wrath.
Furthermore, the legitimacy recognized by god would rationalize the power the kings wielded over their subjects. There was no need to seek further justification or go through formal procedures. A single phrase was enough.
‘Because god willed it and was pleased by it.’
Because they were leaders touched by the hand of heaven, everyone would have to follow them regardless of their qualifications.
At the very least, Yumtus considered that logic flawless.
‘People often praise royal bloodlines with words like a thousand-year dynasty, but the families these children will build are literally guaranteed immortality.’
With the founders of the royal family clinging to his back like barnacles, the priest left the room.
“...Cain!”
Del poured out the words she had been holding back.
“Why does it have to be from those kids? I didn't think you would let the existing dynasty survive after the war ended, but... wouldn't it at least be better to entrust it to grown adults?”
The moment she was searching for more words to persuade him...
Whoosh!
Her head snapped in one direction. Del instantly realized what had happened in a place she couldn't see.
“He's back.”
The moment she said that.
Flash!
A long-haired man appeared with a flash of light in the space where only the two of them had been.
A cheerful voice rang out.
“Well! I've finally retur—! Wait, Mother?!”
It was Asiph-1, who had safely returned after completing his mission.
His eyes widened in shock.
“What happened to your body?”
To Asiph-1's eyes, which could see souls, the traces of the soul and flesh having been separated and then reattached were fully visible.
Furthermore, focusing a little more, he easily noticed that the flesh wasn't the result of a Polymorph, but a ‘doll’ composed of an entirely different material.
Its structure was very similar to Asiph-1's new body, yet slightly different.
“Ah, well...”
After hearing what had happened, Asiph-1's face turned pale, then distorted, then flushed red with utter shock, repeating the cycle.
In the end, he muttered with a gloomy complexion.
“If I had known, I would have caused a lot more havoc before coming back.”
Del noticed that he had returned alone.
The most important objective Asiph-1 had to accomplish in this operation was the terror attack itself, but right before he left, Minjun and Del had each given him separate instructions.
Unfortunately, the holy son failed to meet his mother's expectations.
“The children in the factory I visited were not in a state to be rescued. As you expected, Mother, they were all in hibernation... but not only was brainwashing impossible, they even had aggressive suggestions implanted in them. It would have taken too long to handle them one by one, so I had no choice.”
Del put on a look of regret.
At that moment, Asiph-1 smiled brightly and spoke.
“But I didn't completely fail.”
Asiph-1 pulled a Coffin shimmering with light out of his subspace. He then offered it to his creator with a reverent gesture.
“Fortunately, I was able to retrieve what you asked for, Father.”
“Is that?!”
Del reacted even faster than Minjun. “Why did you bring that?”
Asiph-1 tilted his head. “Huh? Did you not know, Mother?”
Asiph-1 and Del exchanged glances before both of them turned to look at Minjun.
The god silently accepted their gazes before speaking.
“Yes, I ordered him to bring it.”
It seemed the time had come for the explanation he had been putting off.
Minjun stared quietly at Del and said,
“Del, I made you two promises.”
The Endelion would not go extinct.
And Minjun would not massacre the Endelion.
“This is how I keep the first promise.”
“The promise that the Endelion wouldn't go extinct...”
As she chewed over those words, Del's face turned pale.
“Don't tell me?!”
Even though she was still unaccustomed to her current body, she shot up roughly from her seat. Stiffening her whole body, she cried out.
“Are you saying you're going to kill all the existing Endelion and replace them with the embryos you just brought?!”
“Of course not. I told you I decided not to massacre them.”
“Then why do you need that? And insisting on choosing the king from those three children is...”
Del realized a little belatedly what Yumtus had noticed early on.
She muttered the words in her head with a trembling voice.
“A generational... shift?”
“Yes. The Endelion who have led civilization until now, the old generation, will be quarantined from that planet after the war. The quarantine zone will by no means be a comfortable place for them to live in. The old generation will be trapped there until they die, never able to step foot on the homeland they love so much again.”
“Then what about the children? Not the ones from the body renewal factories, but the children conceived and born through natural means? The kids born the exact same way I was!”
“They will be separated from their parents as soon as they are born and raised on their home planet. But I don't expect that to happen frequently. It will decrease as time goes by and eventually stop completely.”
Del could guess the reason for that as well.
“Because the Endelion trapped in the quarantine zone will fall into a state of extreme stress? To the point where a normal life is impossible?”
“Yes. To compare it to the most recent memory...”
Minjun quickly found the answer.
“A phenomenon similar to what the goblins who migrated to Earth are experiencing will occur.”
A semi-involuntary plummet in the birth rate caused by a hostile environment.
As they reached the end of their lifespans, their numbers would sharply decrease until they completely disappeared. It was as if the Endelion were receiving the exact same repercussions from the experiments they had conducted on the goblins.
That void left by the old generation would be filled by the new generation. The ones originating from the embryos Asiph-1 had seized.
Minjun considered this to be a very mild form of punishment. Also, he still hadn't bothered telling Del what would happen to them after they died.
Nevertheless, Del couldn't hide her agitation.
“Why do you have to go that far? Not all the Endelion supported the war. And they aren't all involved in the conspiracy related to the primordial race. So, why?”
Minjun gazed quietly at Del.
The companion who had once shared a life with him was able to find the answer to her question in his eyes.
“...Could it be because they are all absolute atheists?”
The Endelion were a race just as far removed from faith as the Dragons.
People completely unsuited for the new world the god would rule.
Minjun spoke.
“The civilizations of the old and new generations must not mix. And there is no separation as absolute as death.”
What Minjun was planning couldn't be considered genocide. He had no intention of committing systematic murder, and his criteria for weeding them out wasn't based on race.
Instead, the god intended to induce the ‘culling of a specific generation.’
Because their clones would continue to exist—albeit harboring disparate beliefs and ethics compared to the originals—it couldn't be viewed as a genetic culling either.
If one had to name it, it was a spiritual culling, or an ideological culling.
“Even the Endelion who didn't support the war still cooperated with body renewal. That vile act you yourself recognize as a sin.”
“Is there any chance.”
Del forced her voice out with difficulty.
“Can't even a few of them be saved?”
She was asking about their qualifications to seek the god's forgiveness.
Del had never once denied Minjun's right until now. His right to exact revenge on his enemies.
But today, for the first time, she asked.
“If they truly regret their mistakes and beg for mercy... can't even a small number of them be forgiven?”
Del reflected on the fact that there was a certain rule to what Minjun had done so far.
In the world where he served as an enforcer, crime and punishment were always mirrors of each other.
Del imagined setting up two mirrors to face each other. An unbroken chain, repeatedly copying each other's reflections an infinite number of times.
“Is someone who tried to stab you in the neck doomed to always be punished in the exact same way?”
Hearing Del's question, Minjun fell into thought for a moment.
It was as if the miserable screams of a prisoner from the past were ringing in his ears.
“Del, did you want to kill me? Then I'll give you a chance. Kill me! Kill me right here, right now!”
“Isn't that the only way? To kill me, I mean. Come on, right here. Aim carefully. Stab me in the neck! And slice it wide open!”
In the end, he did not answer Del.
It was two days later that the Committee attacked Minjun's fleet.
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