Chapter 136 – In which one must confront their feelings (4)

  There was a momentary pause between two men and then…

  “Hahahaha! That’s true. Huh, I never thought about it before… yes, I guess I’m nineteen…”

  The Saint burst out laughing, his strange crystal-like eyes shining with reinvigorated inner light.

  For a split-second the mask of elegance and mysticism was gone, replaced by true youthfulness.

  Sangria felt a pang of pity.

  He was reminded of his Lord, Crimo, also thrust into a position of power at a young age.

  It was probably a strange thought for someone who was much younger than Crimo, but Sangria always felt there was something very sad about it.

  Now, faced with a person actually younger than him by two or three years, he was struck by it again.

  Why were all of them so young? With the old lord of Yellow Throne dead, there would be another young and largely inexperienced ruler.

  It was so strange… why so young…?

  “Ah, Master Sangria, please don’t descend into dark thoughts. The night is beautiful and the wine is good, it would be a pity to waste it.”

  The Saint poured him another cup.

  Sangria, feeling it would be impolite to refuse, bashfully accepted it.

  “What other question aimlessly wanders in your mind, Master Sangria?”

  The list of questions Scarlen prepared for him to go through if he managed to talk with the Saint in secret flashed in Sangria’s mind.

  But looking at Amara’s face, with his eyes so soft and eager to answer anything he might ask, Sangria bit him lip.

  Unable just ignore the gaze directed at him though, he spit out the first question that slipped on his tongue:

  “Are there actually any gods in this world?”

  He almost smacked his face into the table the next second.

  This is it.

  He had done it.

  His ultimate protection be damned, he is going to be banished from Purplus now.

  Questioning the base of their entire worldview!?

  Are there actually gods in this world!?

  He couldn’t ask a more heretical question than this.

  He fearfully glanced at the Saint, ready to see just how bad he fucked up – but Amara was just stroking his chin in a deep thought.

  “Maybe… Not the kind that is willing to speak with us though… or perhaps can speak with us.”

  Sangria stared.

  The mouth agape.

  “Master Sangria?”

  “… Aren’t you a Saint? The Saint?”

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  “That I am.”

  Amara nodded calmly.

  “Don’t you hold rites for gods? Pass their words to believers?”

  “If we’re to consider the spiritual beings that like to throw chickens on people gods, sure.”

  He picked a single grape from a basket and began to examine it.

  “… Do you personally not consider them gods?”

  “It’s a bit hard to hold a bunch of guys squabbling in your head in revere.”

  “They talk in your head?”

  “Yeah… Does this look more like a duck or a chicken to you?”

  He suddenly showed him the grape.

  There was a small blemish on it that didn’t resemble much of anything, but Sangria squinted and gave his best shot.

  “Duck.”

  “Huh. I thought it was more like a chicken…” He examined the grape with great focus again. Then glanced up at the confused Sangria. “Sorry, they were actually arguing whether this resembles more of a duck or a chicken. It started to get annoying.”

  “… … Is there anything special about this grape?”

  For Sangria it looked like the most ordinary grape in the world.

  “No. Spiritual beings just tend to find the material world really strange and they love to argue about it.”

  Both fell silent.

  Amara still examining the grape, Sangria frantically trying to organize his chaotic thoughts.

  “Then how you… why… I mean…”

  He didn’t know what to ask first.

  How to ask.

  And even the concept of a question seemed to slip him.

  Still, Amara answered with the same calmness and clarity as before, as if he saw through all the disarray in his mind.

  “Why am I still a Saint? Well, I didn’t exactly have a say here…”

  Only then Sangria remembered that the Saint was ‘found’ and he felt sorry for asking.

  But even that little island of stability in his pity was thrown into storm by Amara’s next words:

  “Still… If I had a choice I would still choose to do it.”

  “… Why?”

  “Master Sangria, what do you think is inside this orange?”

  Amara showed him a perfectly normal orange.

  Thinking it’s another question steaming from gods’ arguments, Sangria answered without thinking:

  “Fruit flesh, pulp.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve opened an orange before…”

  It wasn’t one of gods’ arguments, Sangria recognized that now, Amara was presenting him with a thought experiment.

  “But it’s not the same orange. How can you be certain that you will find flesh inside and not sand? You can’t see inside of it.”

  Amara rolled the orange on a table with his long fingers.

  “I can’t, I’m just holding a belief that all oranges have flesh inside.”

  “Indeed, then comes the question. Do you hold that belief because flesh inside of orange is a fact engraved on the fabric of reality – and therefore your assertion ‘orange has fruit flesh inside’ is just a casual observation. Or perhaps the flesh inside oranges only exists because you believe it does? Rather than laws of the world being prewritten, it’s you who etches ‘facts’ and ‘standards’ onto the reality?

  Gods are the true personification of this problem. We can see them reflecting our beliefs, responding to them and morphing. But unable to see anything beyond what we believe is real, we cannot tell if it’s us who created gods, or did we make a simple observation of their existence.

  Master Sangria, were you to imagine a creature, would it be a murder to stop imaging it? No, you don’t have to answer that, don’t worry. That’s a rhetorical question.

  But whether we assume our responsibility for calling gods into existence or not, we know that once we stop believing and forget a god, they fall silent and never answer again. We don’t know whether we killed it, or did it simply return to its primordial uncertain self, only to take on a new form.

  However if there is a possibility of killing them, just the slightest possibility, then I believe they deserve to be saved, strengthened and cared for. In my humble opinion, I’m quite good with words. I would make for a good peddler, I think. So if I can use those words, those few sell pitches to save them from possibility of annihilation, then why not do that? I simply believe it’s a nice thing to do. Even if they’re just a bunch of mimics trying to trick us into worshiping them.”

  Amara cut the orange in half.

  “Look at that, there is indeed flesh inside.”

  But Sangria didn’t look at the orange.

  From the moment Amara started the monologue to its very end, Sangria’s eyes didn’t leave him.

  It seemed like he forgot how to breathe for a moment, his heart beating fast with exhilaration.

  “That’s fascinating…”

  Sangria suddenly wanted to grab this man called ‘Saint’ by the seams and open him up, see what was making him tick and move.

  This man was effectively scamming millions of people to save ‘lives’ of creatures from a different plane of existence?

  It was absurd. And amazing. And utterly crazy.

  It was indeed a man, who after saving the life of Crimo would tell him about his gods’ dietary choices.

  ‘What a beautiful madness!’

  Sangria wondered if could manage to get his hands on Amara’s brain after he died.

  “Um, yes, thank you.”

  Amara turned his eyes away, a bit abashed by the personal interest Sangria showed towards him for the first time.

  He pulled himself together very quickly though.

  “But Master Sangria, you still didn’t ask me any questions that you were ordered to ask.”

  And Sangria had to scramble to follow him on that.

  “… Why do you think I was ordered anything?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? Your superior, Grandmaster Scarlen, doesn’t look like a man, who would miss an opportunity to get the upper hand.”

  “That’s true… I mean, um…”

  Sangria clenched his hands under the table.

  He looked down at the cup of dark red wine.

  “If I may be honest, I cannot bear to exploit your generous affection, when I cannot repay you…”

  He mumbled, glancing up at Amara, who stared at him blankly.

  Amara covered his lips for a moment, a whirl of emotions flashing in his eyes.

  When he lifted his hand, his smile was genuinely grateful….

  “You’re truly kind, Master Sangria.”

  … and remorseful for some reason.

  “But now I feel awful for trying to use you in my political plot.”

  *~*~*