Chapter 42 - Episode 7. Master of Gorgon (4)
Chapter 42: Episode 7. Master of Gorgon (4)
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Two days had passed since Jaehwan inherited the position of Fortress Lord.
A great deal had happened in the Inner Fortress during those two days. Officials had nearly come to blows over new appointments, and the heads of countless clans knocked on the Inner Fortress's doors under the pretext of paying their respects to the new Fortress Lord.
And Yulhen, the Chief Internal Administrator, had refused every last one of those visits. Which made sense, because personnel appointments and courtesy calls were hardly the real problem right now.
For two straight days, the same conversation had been repeating inside a side chamber of the Inner Fortress, while Jaehwan, perched on the Fortress Lord's seat, leisurely fed Dokbul.
Crunch, crunch.
Yulhen opened their mouth.
"Fortress Lord."
"I'm not a Fortress Lord."
"You are now."
"I told you, I'm not doing it."
"That is not what we agreed on."
"Agreed? You're the ones who should be keeping the promise. I kept everything on my end."
"It seems you have forgotten the contents of that promise, so I will remind you."
Yulhen had apparently gone so far as to write it down. They pulled out a small slip of paper from inside their clothes and showed it to Jaehwan.
+
〈What Jaehwan Promised〉
* Save the Fortress Lord.
* Kill the traitors.
〈What Yulhen Promised〉
* Help recruit the Abyss Expedition.
+
Jaehwan frowned as he looked at the note.
"...So because the Fortress Lord died, you're telling me I have to pay for it?"
"More or less."
That left him with nothing to say. It was true that he had failed to keep the promise. After thinking for a moment, Jaehwan spoke.
"Wait. But you just said I'm the Fortress Lord now."
"That is correct."
"The first Fortress Lord died, but now there's a new Fortress Lord, me, so doesn't that mean that part is settled?"
At those words, Yulhen smiled faintly.
"Yes. It is settled."
Jaehwan replied in a dubious tone.
"Then that means I kept the promise."
"That is correct. And you will need to keep doing so."
"...What are you talking about?"
"Did you not say with your own mouth that you are the Fortress Lord?"
"I did."
Without a word, Yulhen pointed at the paper.
+
* Save the Fortress Lord.
+
Jaehwan stared at the paper in silence, then frowned.
Damn it, so that was how this worked.
Strictly speaking, Jaehwan had failed to keep that promise, because the Fortress Lord he had needed to save was dead.
So he had tried to force the logic. The person called the Fortress Lord had died, sure, but the position called Fortress Lord had survived, so shouldn't that count?
It had backfired on him.
In order to keep those words true, Jaehwan himself now had to continue existing as a living Fortress Lord.
In other words, from now on, Jaehwan had to carry out the duties of the Fortress Lord.
"I don't have time to be tied down to a place like this."
Jaehwan had no interest in power or honor.
"I have to go to the 《Abyss》."
To settle down was to grow weak, and what grew weak decayed.
In the end, it made it impossible to leave.
"I'll give the position of Fortress Lord to you."
"That cannot be done."
Unexpectedly, Yulhen shook their head with absolute firmness.
"No one except you can become the Fortress Lord."
"Why?"
"Because Gorgon will not acknowledge anyone else."
Jaehwan realized that the Gorgon Yulhen meant was not the fortress.
The black snake crest engraved into his left arm was writhing. Yulhen had once referred to that crest as Gorgon.
...This thing chose me?
Yulhen continued.
"The Fortress Lord of Gorgon changes only when the Fortress Lord reaches the end of their life. It is not a position that can be handed over just because someone wishes to."
Jaehwan wanted to bolt out of the Inner Fortress that very instant. But he could not. The moment he inherited Gorgon's crest, part of the former Fortress Lord's memories had entered him. Jaehwan now knew all too well what happened to a fortress that lost its Fortress Lord.
Damn it.
Even so, he could not simply accept the office of Fortress Lord either.
Jaehwan blankly looked down at the piles of Gorgon law books and approval documents Yulhen had stacked in front of him. They were absurd things for someone who had spent thirty years doing nothing but using Stab to deal with.
"These are the documents that must be approved today. And this..."
Yulhen started explaining one thing after another. Of course, Jaehwan did not listen to a single word. He picked up one of the law books in front of him, opened it, and flipped through it. Every page was filled with maddening content.
Article 11, Clause 43 of the Gorgon Special Act. If someone insults the Fortress Lord on the street, they shall be punished by flogging.
Article 11, Clause 44 of the Gorgon Special Act. If someone insults the Fortress Lord on the street twice, they shall be sentenced to have their soul severed.
Article 11, Clause 45 of the Gorgon Special Act. If someone insults the Fortress Lord on the street three times, they shall be sentenced to soul extinction.
The Special Act contained an especially large number of provisions related to the Fortress Lord. The fact that this kind of law existed at all made it easy to see just how sensitive the past Fortress Lords had been to insults.
...Maybe that was why everyone only ever said good things about the Fortress Lord.
If insulting the Fortress Lord got you killed, then of course you would call the Fortress Lord a good person.
Jaehwan also looked through the advice left behind by the previous Fortress Lords.
After browsing for a while, the one he picked up was a book left by Arbat, the seventeenth Fortress Lord, titled 『101 Ways to Become a Good Fortress Lord』.
For a book that claimed to contain 101 methods, it was awfully thin.
Even allowing for a bit of exaggeration, Jaehwan doubted it was as thick as a fingernail. He opened the book.
"Congratulations! If you have picked up this book, that must mean you have become the new Fortress Lord!"
That was how the book began.
"Ah, I sympathize deeply with your troubles. How can you make this Gorgon an even finer fortress? Surely you are spending your days and nights in agony over exactly that question."
He was not thinking about anything of the sort.
"But rest easy! In truth, you have seized astonishing good fortune. Because there is only one thing that a person who becomes Fortress Lord must do."
It was starting to get interesting, so Jaehwan turned another page.
"That one thing is to indulge in pleasure."
Jaehwan's fingers froze in midair for a moment.
"In other words, a good Fortress Lord is a Fortress Lord who knows how to enjoy life."
What kind of nonsense was this now?
"You will find my words strange. But remember this well. There is only one thing you need to do. Enjoy the perks. Leave the laws to the Legal Department, and public order to the Enforcement Bureau. Choose a secretary and have them handle approvals in your place. Leave the Inner Horn to the Chief Internal Administrator, and the outer sector to the Outer Chief Administrator. They will take care of the rest just fine."
The writing continued.
"You will find it odd. Why would I offer such bizarre advice to someone who has become Fortress Lord? But I ask you to understand this. This advice is not something I am recommending for the first time. It is wise counsel handed down from countless Fortress Lords before me."
...Were all the past Fortress Lords lazy good-for-nothings?
"Excessive passion in Chaos brings sickness. Half of the Fortress Lords in history ended their lives by suicide. According to statistics from 「Big Brother」, Fortress Lord is one of the professions with the highest suicide rate in Chaos. And what did the other half die from, you ask? The other half died of overwork. More precisely, because of the soul contamination caused by overwork. As you know, excessive overwork accelerates the contamination of the soul."
The tone of the playful opening gradually turned sincere.
"So this advice is for your sake, and for Gorgon's sake as well. Please do not be greedy. Do not try to change anything. Do not consume yourself."
Jaehwan could feel the profound exhaustion of the seventeenth Fortress Lord. The Fortress Lord had probably suffered the whole time they wrote this book.
"《Chaos》 is far older than you think. As one who has risen as far as the office of Fortress Lord, you should know this well. How futile change is in this place. Everyone here already knows. This world cannot change. That is why what this world needs is not change, but mere survival."
The book was already moving into its final page.
"That is what it means to be a Fortress Lord. Not change, but mere survival. An existence that must remain still for the survival of the many, not for the change of the few. People will be grateful to you for your mere existence. They will feel secure simply because you are there, and relieved simply because you exist. Of course, you will live tedious days, but who could condemn that as a bad thing?"
There were traces showing that the writer had lingered over the last paragraph for quite a long time.
"So remain still. Do nothing, and simply stay alive. This work is more important than you think. There is no such thing as 101 ways to become a good Fortress Lord. In Chaos, the only good Fortress Lord is one who stays still. Survive. Do nothing, and survive again and again until Fate finally takes your soul. That is all the advice I wish to give you."
And with that, the book ended. Jaehwan understood what the seventeenth Fortress Lord had wanted to say.
So that was what a Fortress Lord was in this place.
A being that cut away hope in order to prolong life.
A being that blocked change for the sake of the many.
But could that really be called life?
Jaehwan felt that he could now understand, at least a little, the despair deeply rooted in the people of Chaos. Even the Fortress Lords were like this. Of course, they could not have been this way from the beginning.
Once, they must have had hope. They must have had passion.
But then, at some point, they had encountered it. The existence of an immense wall that could never be crossed, no matter what they did, no matter what they tried. They had despaired before that wall, and despaired again, until they ended up like this.
"Fortress Lord?"
Yulhen frowned slightly.
"Fortress Lord. Are you listening?"
"I am."
"...What in the world are you thinking so hard about?"
"What can be done for this fortress?"
That caught Yulhen completely off guard. Their eyes widened.
"Have you decided to take being Fortress Lord seriously?"
"Not that. But I did feel like seriously trying something."
Jaehwan snapped shut the book left by the seventeenth Fortress Lord and continued.
"Let me say this again. I have no intention of becoming Gorgon's Fortress Lord."
Yulhen looked at Jaehwan with an expression that seemed to say, What declaration is this now?
"Instead, I'll do this for you."
Jaehwan paused briefly, then went on.
"I will get rid of Gorgon's 'Fortress Lord.'"
For a moment, Yulhen looked as though they could not process what they had just heard.
"...What?"
Their expression grew conflicted.
What in the world was that supposed to mean?
"Surely you do not mean that you intend to kill yourself?"
Yulhen looked completely unable to understand.
What kind of human would kill themselves just because they did not want to be Fortress Lord?
No, if it was this person...
Yulhen studied Jaehwan carefully as they thought.
Jaehwan was unlike anyone they had ever seen. There was no knowing what he was thinking, or where he might leap next. A man who hated restraint and despised the world. If it was someone like this, then perhaps he really might try to kill himself for a reason that trivial...
"What nonsense are you talking about?"
"...Of course not. My apologies, but I do not understand in the slightest what you mean."
Jaehwan looked at them as if to say, You still didn't get that? Yulhen's pride was stung, and just as they were about to shoot something back, Jaehwan opened his mouth.
"The position of Fortress Lord exists because there is a 'fortress.'"
"Yes, well... no, pardon?"
As Yulhen wondered what that was supposed to mean, they suddenly asked in a startled voice.
"...Unless I misheard, that sounded like you were saying you intend to get rid of Gorgon Fortress. You do not mean to massacre the people of Gorgon, do you?"
It was an absurd thought. Normally, Yulhen would have thought so too. The problem was that the man in front of them was not a normal being. If it was this man, he might truly do it.
Jaehwan frowned.
"What, do I look like some kind of devil to you?"
"Then what exactly are you trying to say?"
Instead of answering right away, Jaehwan asked a question of his own.
"Yulhen, do you know what a fortress is?"
What a fortress was?
It was a ridiculous question. They had spent two hundred years in this fortress. Search all of Gorgon, and there would not be many who understood what a fortress was better than Yulhen.
Yulhen answered at once.
"A fortress is a fortress."
"Then what is a fortress?"
"A military facility."
"And what is a military facility?"
At the string of questions that kept chasing every answer by the tail, Yulhen frowned. What in the world was the Fortress Lord trying to say? In a displeased mood, they answered.
"It is a structure that protects allied forces from enemy forces."
Jaehwan nodded and continued.
"So if I sum up what you just said, a fortress is, in the end, a structure that protects allies from enemy forces."
"...That would be correct."
"Then what if those 'enemy forces' no longer existed?"
"What?"
"I'm asking what would happen if no one invaded that fortress anymore."
"Well..."
If there were no enemies, then a military facility no longer needed to continue existing. A fortress that had lost its value as a military facility was no longer a fortress, and a fortress that had lost the function of a fortress could no longer be called a fortress.
In other words, the very reason for the fortress's existence would disappear.
Those who no longer needed those massive walls would be released from the fortress's restraints and wander 《Chaos》 freely.
Yulhen, who had followed that line of thought, suddenly stopped.
"That is impossible."
"No, it is possible."
Yulhen stared blankly at Jaehwan. Did the Fortress Lord truly understand what he was saying right now?
As though answering that doubt with the utmost ease, Jaehwan replied in a low voice.
"Because I'm going to unite Chaos."
Footnotes:
Chapter discussion