The Outer God Needs Warmth-Chapter 195: Beauty and the Beast (5)

"Now, there is no one blocking Victoria's path.

Victoria is crossing the city. The reason she’s heading towards the center of the city seems to be that she’s probably aiming for the eastern part of the city.

The address the letter came from was in the eastern part of the city. Referring to the memories of the harvest season, the eastern part of the city is a place where the lower class lives, among the four classes: the rich, the middle class, the working class, and the poor.

High-density buildings stand here and there, and along the larger roads, there are commercial buildings. With modernization, it seems the buildings were unified as one, and almost identical buildings stretch along the roads, interwoven in a tangled manner.

It seems that no urban planning was done, and they just built buildings uniformly.

However, the direction is spreading in one direction.

To the east, upstream of the river.

The city is being expanded haphazardly as it flows westward along the massive river.

To make the geography easier to explain, based on the location of what used to be the city hall of Vern City, the river flows to the north.

To the west is the old downtown, now slumified, where the poor and the working class live. And to the south, people of the middle class or higher lived. Or, they used to live there.

Victoria is from the south.

Beatrice is the manager of a branch of a large company in Vern City, and Morris, before retiring, worked as a researcher at a subsidiary of the large corporation Gan and Rufou Company.

Anyway.

Finally, the eastern part of the city is a residential area that has grown as people drawn to the light of Vern City came here to find jobs and settle.

And Morris and Beatrice moved to that area.

It seems like Victoria is heading there.

I share everything Victoria sees and feels, but it’s a bit frustrating not knowing what she’s thinking.

Meanwhile, during the harvest season in Vern City.

The ones who held power started grumbling as soon as Victoria disappeared from sight.

Unlike what was reported in the newspapers, they called her a witch pretending to be a good girl, a trashy human, someone the royal family would know about, or that everything the media says is fake, and so on.

Desperately trying to shake off the filth on their faces, they spewed out words in a fit of hysteria, as though they feared for their own safety if they didn’t tarnish Victoria’s image somehow.

The square was quickly filled with curses.

That was the moment.

Creeeek

The sound of steel twisting made people look up.

It was the sound of a lightning rod, which had risen high on the building, tearing as it touched the sea in the sky. Unlike the Nant from before, which was lower than the ceiling of a first-floor building, the sea here was considerably higher. But objects that rose high like the lightning rod reached the sea.

At that moment, the heartbeat of the harvest season loudly thumped, which was rather funny.

It’s truly a disaster. Especially considering that Victoria did not do this intentionally.

However, the fear that was created didn’t last long. Perhaps to forget the fear, they shouted even stronger words. Like a scared dog barking louder, their words grew harsher.

At some point, the condemnation turned into a cry to take care of it. The story even shifted so that Victoria was the main culprit in what was happening now.

It’s amazing how quickly things can twist when malice is behind them. Using the harvest season's gaze, I check that person. Not running quickly, just walking slowly, adding a word here and there.

If the harvest season isn’t focused enough, I can’t understand what they’re saying. It’s not even loud.

It’s like a plague; where they’ve passed, people repeat their words as if chanting.

Isn’t there some kind of brainwashing magic going on?

No.

No, there’s no magic in Vern City yet. Some harvesters are standing where power devices are gathered.

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If you listen to their conversation, they say that if the proper amount of magical power is increased, only the distorted magic remains and the machine is adjusted to work until it malfunctions and then stops.

That’s right.

Among the harvesters, there were many like Morris who could handle clockwork machines.

Half of the harvesters who were at the level of being able to teach at a lab or institute had already died, but they are still moving.

Those who questioned and pointed out what might have been wrong with the clockwork machines were all assassinated.

The protests escalated, and as some of the citizens of Vern City began to flee the city, it stopped.

I didn’t know why that was until now, but now I understand.

At that time, Marquis Gaston, after taking out the intellectual labeled as the leader of the protest, pushed the protesters into the city and tried to kill them all.

If a space were created where magic couldn’t be used, and there was no one who could use psychic powers in that space, Gaston would have succeeded.

Or even if magic could be used, Gaston’s army is strong. Armed with clockwork devices, they would have successfully subdued the people.

But it failed because the harvesters were the cause. Then, hearing that the corporations would stop funding unless things changed, Gaston became anxious and set up a command post in Nant, preparing for a full-scale attack on the city.

Thus, people inside the Vern City jar began to fall apart one by one.

Ah.

Now I understand.

I now know why someone, presumably from the corporations, made the Purple Twilight Association violent. And also that their plan was nearly successful.

It’s treason.

Anyone in a monarchy would know what treason means.

Even if Gaston failed, he created a reason for the people of Vern City to never set foot in this country again, searching for and killing the survivors.

No matter what the traitors say, it will be buried.

In fact, they would want to ensure that nothing remains of what they said.

It’s clever. But since it’s based on a fundamental flaw, it will happen in other cities eventually.

I don’t understand why they are blocking things this much.

Or maybe they don’t even have that big of a plan.

When people get drunk on power, they do surprisingly foolish things. Just look at the former president of a great nation who made crude remarks or the CEO of a giant corporation running wild on social media.

Social skills are made to survive against someone who can smack your head in. If no one can hit you, social skills naturally collapse.

Because it’s unnecessary. Thinking takes up a lot of calories. In other words, it’s a painful task. And the human body hates actions that require a lot of calories. For example, if you stop exercising even a little, your muscles disappear quickly.

Thinking is the same.

Rather than restraining yourself while weighing this and that, it’s much easier to just do whatever you feel like doing. It’s not about right or wrong; it’s about energy consumption.

Ordinary people would be punished for acting like that, but once you stand on top of that violence, there’s no need to fix it. With no threat to life, there’s no need to think about it.

It sounds illogical, but biologically, it makes sense.

Do you know what this means?

It means I was right.

If you give power, people will kill others without hesitation. Victoria and many harvesters ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) are showing me that.

From now on, when I make harvesters, it might be better to make people who have fallen into more extreme situations where psychic powers manifest.

Hehe.

While I’m making future plans, the sky in the distance is starting to brighten.

As the sun rises, the harvesters rush into the buildings like insects living inside. Huge stones or metal shells are coming from a distance.

By the way, the metal shells don’t contain gunpowder. They are just solid metal. Even if magic has weirdly mutated, physical laws like inertia still hold, so they’re shooting stones or metals from afar.

Although their destructive power is smaller than bombs, objects accelerated enormously using magic have enough power to gradually chip away at the city.

So after the soldiers enter and are wiped out, they surrounded the area outside the no-magic zone and hammered with artillery.

But today, no magic is flying.

It’s likely that someone who survived in Nant, the site of Gaston’s command post, contacted us. A lot of warmth came from Nant, but that doesn’t mean everyone was wiped out.

If you are reading this translation anywhere other than Novelight.net or SilkRoadTL, it has been stolen.

The surviving harvesters in Nant don’t know that what happened there was done by a human. If you listen to what the person who survived there says through the harvesters' gaze, they never say Victoria did it.

The story spread that the sea god, enraged by the order to kill the protesters, sent divine punishment.

The sea descended from the sky.

No one is saying it was a human act.

At that time, most of the protesters and soldiers vanished or fainted due to the bombardment, and it seems the story after that is unknown.

Or maybe they knew but didn’t say anything.

"Ugh, it’s already morning? How much time is left until school?" Polaris’ gaze lifted from the bed. Then, she stretched. Technically, it was early morning, so there was quite some time until school, but she woke up early?

I also woke up and got out of bed.

"It’s morning."

"Who? Oh? Bell? What’s this blanket... I wasn’t covering with this... Ah."

She seemed to have completely woken up and looked around with a dazed expression.

"Where is this..."

"It’s Victoria’s house. This is the guest room."

"Ah, yeah. That’s right."

Looking at the remaining things inside, it’s clear she hasn’t completely moved in. Most of the things Victoria’s family used are still left.

Morris and Beatrice probably moved east and sent the letter.

So I have no idea where they are right now.

Since Victoria is checking the address, she seems to be heading towards the address where the letter was sent, so we should be able to confirm the location there.

I got up from my seat, pulled the blanket off, and quickly fixed it back. Then, I took Polaris, who was still standing in the corner of the room with a confused expression, to the bathroom.

Though the water didn’t come out, I lightly manipulated reality to bring some water, quickly washed her up, and went down to the kitchen.

Ah, right. There were no ingredients.

"Looks like the infrastructure is still working..."

Polaris murmured as she followed me around. It wasn’t alive; it was reality that I molded. Unlike the second world, it was surprisingly easily twisted.

There, water would cause cracks, but there’s nothing like that here. I wonder if it’s because of the world difference or if it’s because this place naturally has water, or if my abilities have improved.

But if it works, then it’s fine.

So I seated Polaris at the table, took out some warm bread from a heating device similar to a microwave, and retrieved fruit juice from the fridge.

At first, I was going to use milk, but oddly enough, reality felt solid, so it was difficult. I thought it might crack if I used force, so I switched to fruit juice. Did that mean it could change easily if it was something simple?

I placed it on the table.

"Is this it?"

"Seems like it."

"Well, bread and juice, at least."

Polaris, tearing off the bread and putting it in her mouth, was complaining. But then she suddenly stopped and her face turned pale. Huh? Looking at Polaris’ senses, it doesn’t seem like her throat is blocked?

"Yesterday, everything here was looted... Ugh. Right. At least this is something."

With an expression like closing her eyes to something terrifying, Polaris silently ate. While I also ate something lightly, I looked outside with Victoria’s gaze.

Right now, Victoria is contemplating how to break through the military’s barricade in front of her.

Once I finish eating, I’ll have to head that way."