Chapter 36
The human lifespan is roughly a hundred years, but those who live to see their hundredth birthday are few and far between.
People fall ill, suffer unfortunate accidents, or, overwhelmed by the weight of life, choose to end it themselves.
Long-lived races, with life spans several times that of humans, rarely reached old age.
If a mere fifty years of life held countless sufferings, how much more pain awaited in a life several times longer?
Usually, long-lived races died in accidents or took their own lives before reaching old age.
They didn't want to spend what little time they had left in a body that was no longer whole.
That's why I had rarely seen elderly demons even in the Demon Realm. Who would have thought I'd encounter an elderly demon here in the human world?
"...If you don't mind, I'd be happy to keep you company. I've got time to spare."
"Hee hee hee! You're a kind one, coming from the outside! If only we had some booze..."
The old woman lamented that she couldn't drink, as she was soon to become a sacrifice.
"...Is it disrespectful to offer an alcohol-soaked body to the Mountain God?"
"Nah, it's 'cause we might die. It's happened before. Folks getting drunk, passing out, and cracking their skulls. So..."
"So?"
"So they picked someone new."
The new sacrifice, chosen to replace the one who died from a cracked skull, was a young man who had been lame since birth.
He wasn't old, but he was sacrificed because disabilities were seen as a burden on the village.
"It was my brother. There's a one-eyed fellow in the village now. When this old hag kicks the bucket, it might be his turn."
"...That's terrible."
"At this age, everyone's got a story or two. Don't you have any tales, young sir?"
"I'd rather not add to the gloom. But there is something I'd like to ask."
I'd been curious ever since the hunting party leader mentioned hearing stories about the flatlands from the elders in his childhood.
I wondered if there might be an elf old enough to remember when the ruins we now stood in were still intact.
"Do I look that old to you, sir?"
"I've been taught that it's ungentlemanly to comment on a lady's age. I'm afraid I can't answer that."
"Well said! You ask if I remember the old days? Ah, I do, though it's not a pleasant tale."
"If you don't mind, may I try to guess the story?"
"Guess?"
"...Was an elf born among humans?"
The old woman hadn't lost her smile even when talking about her brother being sacrificed.
But when I brought up the elves, for the first time, her smile faded.
At first, her eyes widened in surprise, but then they began to tremble as if a long-buried nightmare had resurfaced.
Her breathing became ragged, and she had to take a moment to calm herself.
As I was about to feel guilty for making an elderly person with a frail body recall painful memories, she spoke.
"...I tried to cover for the young priestess, but I've gone and made a mess of things. Is this the Mountain God's punishment? Yes, it's just as you thought."
"When did it start?"
"I don't know when it first began. Nobody knows! It just happened one day."
It was such a long time ago, and so many records had been lost, that no one knew exactly when the first elf child was born.
I glossed over that part, as it wasn't particularly important.
The real issue wasn't when it started, but how it led to the city's downfall.
"The law said that elf children like me were to be executed at birth. My mother told me that back then, everyone feared elves because of a terrifying elf Demon King who had crossed over from the Demon Realm."
So when an elf child was born, parents would either raise them secretly in cellars or cover their ears with hoods to make them look like ordinary babies.
Some even went as far as to cut their ears a little, but that was so long ago that even among the elderly, it was rare to find someone with cut ears.
"At first, everyone raised them in secret. No matter what the law said, how could you kill your own child?"
The city's leadership tried to prevent elf children from being born, but without knowing the cause, they made no significant progress as time passed.
They might have learned something if they had consulted the temple or magic tower, but they didn't dare.
If this fact became known outside, it was clear as day that the entire city would be branded as heretical.
At that time, the temple was even more powerful than it is now, and with the right justification, they could purge an entire city in the name of divine justice.
"As the years went by, elf children were born more and more frequently, and soon human babies became the rare ones. We couldn't keep telling people to kill elf children anymore. There were hardly any families without an elf child."
"...So the positions of humans and elves were reversed?"
"You could say that. As I remember it, human children were so rare you'd see maybe one in ten."
Elves no longer had to hide in cellars or cover their faces with thick cloth.
They walked the streets proudly, which the leadership didn't like, but what could they do?
The knights and soldiers who served them were also heads of households and fathers.
There were countless soldiers with elf children, so they couldn't bring themselves to order them to kill all the elves.
Elf births were no longer something to hide.
Instead, families with ordinary human children became the targets of discrimination, as ridiculous as it sounds.
The old woman laughed nostalgically, remembering how she used to tease human children, calling them "short-ears."
"...We got too cocky. If we'd just shown a little restraint, things might not have ended up like that."
"Was there a rebellion?"
"If only! At least then we could have handled it internally. The purebloods... ah, that's what we called them back then. They claimed to have pure blood or something."
Calling themselves purebloods was inaccurate since no outside blood had been introduced.
Anyway, the purebloods didn't like the current situation, with elves daring to walk the streets freely.
But they knew that starting a rebellion when they had become the minority wouldn't succeed, so they made the worst possible choice.
"Heresy Inquisitors... those devils from the temple came. At first, we didn't even know what that meant. Elves weren't accepted in the temple, so I didn't even know what a god was."
Someone had informed them about elves being born in this land.
Despite the area being known for its magical borders in the El Berg Mountains, the Heresy Inquisitors and Holy Knights of that time rushed over in one go to execute the goddess's justice.
What the purebloods had overlooked was that it wasn't just the elves who were judged as heretics, but everyone living in that land.
They slaughtered indiscriminately, human or elf, destroying everything in sight.
When things got this bad, both humans and elves had no choice but to abandon the city and flee to the mountains.
"So there were humans at first, too?"
"Of course. They killed humans and elves alike, so they came with us into the mountains."
Life in the mountains was terrible at first.
Many died, not knowing when monsters might attack from all sides, and without proper shelter.
But with hundreds, thousands of humans gathered, pooling their wisdom, there was nothing they couldn't do.
Among the refugees were many former knights and soldiers who had fled, as well as hunters, so after about a year, a village formed on the mountainside.
The Heresy Inquisitors and knights had long since left, but no one thought of returning to the flatlands.
Everyone was paralyzed with fear, not knowing when they might attack again.
And even if they did return, the city walls had long since crumbled, so there wasn't much point.
"We started to adapt to our new life. But it was such a dangerous place, and dangerous monsters from higher up the mountain would come down, drawn by the human scent. We were starting to reach our limits."
"...Is that when the Mountain God appeared?"
"That's right... That's when... they came."
As everyone was suffering from the constant monster attacks, a massive mountain rose up.
To the terrified villagers, the majesty emanating from that enormous figure was truly godlike.
When the Mountain God waved its hand, the monsters charging down the mountain were swept away by landslides, never to surface again.
After trampling all the approaching monsters, the Mountain God approached the frightened villagers and said:
"I like you."
The old woman remembered the Mountain God's voice as delicate and frail, reminiscent of a child's, in stark contrast to its massive appearance.
The villagers still didn't understand what the Mountain God was or what it wanted, but they at least understood that it wasn't hostile to them.
After that, the coexistence between the Mountain God and the elves began.
It was more like parasitism than coexistence, as the elves relied heavily on the Mountain God.
No, it went beyond reliance; it was more like dependence.
They lived on through the Mountain God's power, which drove away the monsters and established a new home for them.
Then one day, when the village population had grown considerably, the Mountain God suddenly said something.
It wanted to become one with them.
At first, they didn't understand what that meant.
But when someone who approached the Mountain God, saying they would become one, was absorbed into its body...
They finally understood.
Becoming one meant literally becoming a part of the Mountain God.
"That's when the sacrificial ritual began. The Mountain God seemed to want to become one with all of us, but we begged and managed to reduce it to 20 people a year."
"...That's—"
Being well-versed in spirits, I could guess what had happened that day.
The elves, ignorant about spirits, probably didn't fully understand what becoming one meant.
Likely even the Mountain God itself didn't know what becoming one truly meant, so we couldn't entirely blame the elves.
"What's wrong, young sir?"
"It's nothing... Please continue."
I decided it wasn't the right time to explain, so I let it pass.
After the sacrificial ritual was established, the main issues were deciding who would be sacrificed and who would choose the sacrifices.
Choosing the sacrifices was simple.
Since the Mountain God hadn't made any specific requests, it was fine to send the elderly or the sick.
The problem was who would make this judgment.
The high priest was the village's most powerful figure, but also the most hated.
No matter how little time someone had left, no one would look kindly on a person who sacrificed their family members.
The one who stepped forward to take on this job that everyone avoided was Pina's great-grandmother.
At the same time, to prevent potential backlash from the villagers in the future, she came up with a clever idea.
"What was this idea?"
"...The next priestess must sacrifice the previous priestess or a family member."
"...What?"
"Think about it. If someone with both arms tells a person with one arm that they can live without an arm, how do you think they'd react? They'd say, 'What do you know?'"
But if someone who's suffered a worse injury says the same thing, it might offer some comfort.
The words of someone who knows pain and someone who doesn't are fundamentally different, even if they're saying the same thing.
To prove the legitimacy of selecting sacrifices, the priestess sacrifices her own family members generation after generation.
If the previous priestess died for some reason and couldn't be sacrificed, another family member must be offered instead.
"Pina sacrificed her mother last year and became the priestess. That's the priestess's duty. Since then, she's always alone wherever she goes. Partly because she distances herself, but more so because everyone fears her."
"......"
"They're afraid of becoming sacrifices if they offend her. They don't want to associate with a child who sacrificed her own mother. We've dumped all the burdens that we should bear together onto that child."
Pina is both the leader who guides the village and the scapegoat who bears everyone's resentment.
My heart ached thinking about how that small child must have felt sacrificing someone, and how she's lived since then.
"Except for when a nosy old woman like me talks to her, no one speaks to her. So please, don't hate her too much. She's actually the kindest child in the village."
With those words, the old woman stood up.
I could only watch silently as she slowly walked towards the lights and blended into the crowd.
It wouldn't be difficult to stop the sacrificial ritual in this village. It's a simple problem that could be solved with just a few words, without even using magic.
But what happens after solving the problem?
My biggest concern was how the elves would feel after everything was over.