Chapter 52 - The “Beautiful Fellowship” of poverty-stricken traders
Midnight.
On a certain artificial island far from the continent, the sky above is covered with bursts of fireworks.
And there was me, singing and dancing beneath the flashing lights.
「To the end!! To the end!! The era of stagnation has come to its end!! Equal in front of all new humans!! The doors to a new era forcibly pried open!!
You are shackled no longer! You need not fear the demons!!
You are shackled no longer! You need not fear the Goddess Church!!
Hope is spreading in front of you!!
Despair is spreading in front of you!!
Change has been demanded of you! Shackled no longer, You mustn’t stay unmoving!
Ah!! From now on the world will see change!! A drastic change!! An unstoppable change!!
Regardless of how much the Goddess Church resists!
Regardless of how much the current powers resist!
Regardless of anyone’s efforts!
From this point you shall shine even brighter than before!! More beautiful than any jewel!! Pridefully!! Unblemished!!
Come! Show me your brilliance!!
Come! Show me your potential!!
Aaaah!! How wonderful!!
Dance to your heart’s content, new humans!!
Sing to your heart’s content, new humans!!
Open your future through your own power!!!」
Closing off her soliloquy, a large burst of fireworks decorates the night sky.
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「The hell!? Where is this mysterious document coming from!?」
「To dare claim that removing the second heart will prevent monsters from attacking someone!? Sending such a shallow theory to the Goddess Church, this is nothing short of heresy!!」
「Find the rebels immediately!! They must be executed!!」「Those who hide this mysterious document are also guilty!! Execute them all, disregarding any prestige they may wield!!」
「I doubt the Goddess Church!! Yet again the satanic worshipers dressed as saviors are trying to empower Satan!! Do you wish for darkness to fall upon this world!?」
At the great temple of the Goddess Church, the Blessed are locked in a heated debate.
Already, the scholar had finished transferring books to almost every country. Worldwide, the documented experiments are being repeated, and the legitimacy of the book only grows more and more.
It’s no longer possible to suppress it.
The first to request the removal of their second hearts were the poorer traders of each country. Information leaked to them somewhere from those who had close relationships with researchers.
The logistics were restricted by the demons roaming the world, forcing poor traders to do business only within their own small city-state-like countries.
However, in those circumstances, no matter how much effort you put in, it’s impossible to stand against a giant company. Just to trade with other countries, you need lots of goods, a magical transport, and a Blessed to operate it. The poorer traders couldn’t afford such a large sum of money, so international trade was a right only the Goddess Church and giant companies had.
But with a body that demons won’t attack, the story changes. If you were to travel and trade with other countries faster than anyone else, the profits to be had would be immense.
「Somehow!! I want to take advantage of that profit!!」
The poor traders from around the world who held such a wish in their hearts, gave a question to the magical institutions of their homeland,
「Is it true that by removing the second heart, demons won’t attack you!?」
At first, those institutions denied it, but a loose lip is not easily stopped. Information gradually began to leak.
Even among the researchers, those who wished to remove the second heart as a human experiment grew in number.
One such researcher and an interested poor trader came to an agreement. They hid in the darkness and performed a second heart excision, and succeeded in creating an artificial Blessed, who was not attacked by demons.
Upon completion, the trader crossed the ramparts on foot through a magical tunnel while carrying a large baggage. Several researchers held their breaths as they watched over the situation from within the tunnel.
He jumped out of the tunnel, careful not to attract the attention of the guard soldiers, and ran towards the neighboring country. The demons past the ramparts stared at the trader, which made him break out in a cold sweat. But a moment later, they suddenly looked uninterested.
No, as if afraid of the trader who approached them in a desperate manner, the demons even avoided him.
Seeing that, a quiet cheer erupted in the tunnel. The researchers hugged each other in the dusty space, silently celebrating.
A few days later, when the trader returned from the neighboring states, things accelerate.
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The poorer traders in each country have strong bonds with each other because individually we are weak.
If a friend collapses due to illness or injury, someone who’s free helped their store on holidays. When a friend is attacked by a thug, we all gather to confront them. When fires or earthquakes caused damage, we shared money and helped each other.
We built such a beautiful sense of fellowship in order to survive this harsh era.
From this fellowship we noticed that one of our companions couldn’t be seen for the past few days.
A few more days passed. The one that I’ve not seen for a few days was selling goods in an open air market. The vegetables he sold could not be harvested in our country and goods he sold were not manufactured here. With such an array of rare products on display, there is no doubt that customers would all flock to him and ignore the stores. The customers gather in the open air market, and he sells his products with a smile that we’ve never seen before.
…which attracted the glares of some impoverished traders.
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The foreign goods trader, who had cleared his stock in just an hour after opening and now was cleaning up the store with a cheerful face, was abducted by a mob of those traders and taken to a back alley.
「I must dig out this guy’s trade routes!! I want to share his profit’s too!!」
Thoughts like these ran through the abductors.
「I just got this product by chance」
Replied the trader in question, as he tried to cut through them.
But this didn’t work out. Someone with a good grasp on physique twisted his arm from behind. Another who was proficient with chemicals soaked their handkerchief with sedatives. And another running a hardware store brought a rusty saw that went unsold for years.
Their “beautiful fellowship” was nowhere to be seen.
「You will never escape until you confess!! Even in you die, you will vomit out the truth!!」 The trader finally gives up and spills everything.
Just minutes after, impoverished traders from all across the city-state gathered in front of its magic research institute. From its steps a chorus of identical sentiments rang out,
「Quickly!! Please cut off my sh*tty second heart!!」
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