Hakai no Miko

It was on a protruding rock about in the middle of the mountain that Shemr brought him.

When Shemr asked me to stand next to him standing on a rock, I could see the surrounding landscape from there.

A forest of deciduous trees that waves along the ridges of the mountains. From the hemline of the mountain if you look far south, the plains stretched far away.

Shemr pointed to the plain and said.

"Look, Soma. That's where the Sorbiant Plains and the humans call it. And it is also the land of our fathers who lived in Zoan"

If you ask me that, the Ethereal Horse had something in mind, too. The stage of the story passed down to Zoan by the nocturnal Shemr let me tell it was of the plain, to say the least.

"But a few decades ago, soldiers came from a nearby human country and began to drive us off the plains. Of course, our fathers resisted. But the power was not extended, and he was driven to the mountains, and he finally began to hide in them."

"Why did humans drive Zoan off the plains?

"Of course, to get the land"

In front of the same person, the Ethereal Horse, Shemr, who spoke as he pushed his emotions to death, but his voice was wet with immaculate sorrow.

"Humans burn down the grass on the plains and sow them there to grow imos and such. But they say using the same place for years makes crops poorly grown. Then humans move elsewhere and repeat the same thing. To do this, we're going to need a lot of land. That's where I laid my eyes on the plains where we lived."

What Shemr is saying is about old yakitori farming.

When it comes to farming, which modern Japanese evoke, it means plowing fields, adding fertilizer to them, and growing crops.

Yakitori farming, by contrast, is what turns it into a short period of arable land by burning down plants native to the land. Yakitori farming is not simply a method of fertilizing plant-burned ash, as many people think. Neutralizing acid-biased soils with ash not only creates suitable soils for the cultivation of crops, but also improves the soil by burning the soil and prevents germs, parasites and other effects. It is also an extremely labour-saving and efficient method of farming.

But the act of setting fire to the meadows that we use as a place of life if we take it to Zoan was very unforgivable.

"I resent humans so much because they kicked me out of the land"

It is understandable that humans also need land to get food. But it's only natural that Zoan, who was expelled from the land for that matter, resents humans.

He was a pale horse who thought so, but Shemr shook his neck to the side.

"That's not all, Soma"

The next time the Ethereal Horse was brought was on a cliff.

"Take care, take a peek down there"

Shemr said with his mouth in his ear, sneaking his voice. The Ethereal Horse, who felt her nagging nervousness coming through, slowly peered down as she swallowed.

I looked down there and it was just a flat ground shaped like a stomach.

Perhaps river streams used to snake more than they do now. Its serpentine river water had sharpened its mountain skin greatly over the years, but then the river flow changed and the sharpened mountain skin remained intact even as the water pulled, making it just as flat as a stomach bag.

If you stomach the flat ground, the mountain path that leads from the hem of the mountain to the flat ground will hit your bowels. It is not in the memory of the Ethereal Horse, but it is the path that was climbed with the Shemru along the way. From here it can be seen that on the left hand side of the road there is a mountain and on the right there is a rapidity across a small forest.

Conversely, what hits the esophagus raised from the stomach to the top is a narrow ramp sandwiched between a chopped cliff and a rapids. Through there, trees are felled over a wide area and the mountain skins go out onto the peeking slopes. On the slopes, there were multiple wooden fences.

The Ethereal Horse, who had surprisingly looked around the flatlands, asked Shemr, lurking his voice.

"A human village?

There is no reason why the Ethereal Horse thought so.

It was not Zoan, but man, who was in the plain. I don't know the exact number of people because they are in the building or behind it, but will there be nearly a hundred people? A few of us are sitting in the square gambling with painting bills, surrounding fireworks and bickering, drinking something like booze and making noise from day to day.

But if you look closely, they are all soldiers wearing armor with metal fragments candlesticking on thick cloths and a sword hanging from their hips.

When Shemr shook his head sideways with a small next door, he pointed toward the end of the square.

Zoan's tent, which has recently also been familiar with the Ethereal Horse, has been piled up as a wreck.

To the pale horse, who looked back in surprise, Shemr tells him to gesture back. And turning back to where it's safe, Shemr said.

"That's where our village was just a little while ago"

It was in those narrow flats that the Zoans, who lived in the vast plains, fled in. It is an unthinkable cramped life from the life of a wide plain. Tents and tents were erected to touch each other, and troubling each other's families living in adjacent tents was also unusual.

But for Shemr, who was a toddler whose self was unclear when he was chased down the plain, it was the home where that plain was born and raised, spilling stupidity that the adults were as cramped as clichés.

"All of a sudden, the human soldiers who attacked us burned down everyone's tents, and then they built their own camps, and they're our faces."

Shemr breathed small and said the following words:

"Trying to eradicate us Zoan,"

For a moment, the Ethereal Horse could not understand the meaning of the word.

The pale horses who had lived in peaceful Japan could not understand the idea of eradicating the species who spoke the same language in this way, even if their appearance was different.

"Eradicating, no way?! Why, such a terrible thing!

"For humans, the other six species, including Zoan, are inferior species that should be eliminated."

"You should be eliminated, what is that?! What inferior race, like that?!"

Shemr narrowed her eyes to see the eyelids to the pale horse who was outraged as if about me.

Yeah, I knew you'd be no different to Soma, humans or Zoan.

As I thought. No, that's why I'm hesitant to talk to you now about the reaction of the Ethereal Horse as I hoped it would be. But I knew it wasn't something I could hide, so I decided to let my emotions out as much as possible and just tell them the facts.

"Long ago, it was because of a human-inspired sacrament called Innocent"

When Shemr became a son, he was taught by his father Garguz and his mother-in-law about human and ecclesiastical matters, for one day when he would lead all the Zoan clans.

"The one who said Innocent seemed to hate non-human species at all. He said that the human God is the rightful successor to the Creator God and that man is the chosen race. And other races can't do dirty people."

Innocent lived at a time when he respected each other as a race worshipping the same seven-pillar god, although there was some clarity between the races. Instead, Innocent's claim was considered more heretical, even on the side of persecution.

"But Innocent was obsessive. You could call it paranoia."

When Innocent found out that his thoughts were unacceptable to man, what a climb to the mountain where the gods were said to dwell, and after two months of suffering there, he finally met the human God and succeeded in dialogue for three days.

And what a son of Innocent was the God of man, who heard Innocent's claim there? It was the birth of Innocent, the savior of man, who sold himself into God and became his son, unparalleled in the history of the continent.

But just because you became your son doesn't mean all of a sudden humans supported Innocent's idea. On the contrary, Innocent, who repeated his radical words and actions, was finally captured by the city's eunuchs and sentenced to apostasy. Since the same man executed those who were his sons, how extraordinary was the act.

"And the madman is dead, congratulations. - It didn't."

Innocent's claims were secretly conveyed by his disciples and were never interrupted. But it was people's perception that Innocent's teachings were only heretical.

"That changed dramatically about two hundred years ago now. It was a small country, near the centre of the continent"

That small country had kings burning with ambition, but it was surrounded by countries with a wider territory and more soldiers than its own, with no place to extend its territory. The livelihood found by the king of a small country, who still cannot give up, is the mountains and vast forests that were nearby. It was already known that there was abundant mineral and forest resources sleeping there. If we can take advantage of that, we can strengthen our own soldiers and cover the cost of war.

But I haven't handed it out before knowing that such resources are asleep, because Dwarves and Elves lived there. At the time, no matter how many other races we fought for for no reason, there was no way we could be convinced by the people.

"So the country laid eyes on the ecclesiastical religion,"

At the time, the ecclesiastical religion that was persecuted as heresy and a small country that wanted a reason to fight Dwarves and elves. The interests of both sides were unanimous.

"Both Dwarves and Elves are filthy inferior races, and it is God's will to attack and destroy this. That's how the country attacked."

Dwarves living in the mountains and elves living in the woods have lived in peace quite apart living areas, even if there have been some skirmishes until then, against humans living in flatlands. He said that Dwarves, Elves and the army of humans who had broken through and invaded such implicit understandings were destroyed before they could remain ready to fight.

And when the small nations that dominated the Dwarves and Elves augmented their own soldiers based on all the mineral and forest resources that were there or the enormous funds obtained by selling off the many Dwarves and Elves they had taken captive as slaves, they waged war on the countries around them.

When was the small country that attacked and destroyed one neighbouring country after another, invaded the territory of other races and rapidly expanded its territory, it only named the empire and finally came to dominate the central part of the continent?

The expansion of the Empire was at the same time an expansion of the ecclesiastical religion.

Only then did they begin to incorporate the Sacred Church one after the other, so that small nations in the empire and likewise human nations targeting lands of other races might become empires.

And now the ecclesiastical religion was the most believed religion in all of this continent.

"In the Continent of Cerdeas, other races continue to be taken away by man even now. Land, property, life, honor. Parents, brothers, lovers, children. Everything.

Being killed is better yet. If they are captured alive, they are collared like livestock, burned, flogged and dropped into slavery where they are put to work until they die.

If it's a woman, it's even more tragic. A woman of a beautiful race, even from the human who said elves and marmans, is toyed with by human men and forced to behave differently in her mouth. I hear that many people cannot stand to be offended by other races, and die for themselves, and their hearts are broken. That's not often the case with us Zoan women, who look a lot different from humans. "

Shemr creases his nose to mock himself.

"Best of all, it can sometimes be substituted for hunting prey, so is that good or bad..."

"Instead of hunting prey...?

"It means the way it is. It seems to be an epidemic in the Empire to unleash the slaves of living Zoan into the wild in a hunt hosted by the human nobles and to end it using horses and bows and arrows. And everything, they say, is embellished with fine Zoan fur between the sights of some country."

Words that pushed and killed emotions and spoke pale struck the hearts of the pale horses with good authenticity.

It's crazy.

No longer, I just thought so for the Ethereal Horse.

However, these massacres are not uncommon from the world's history. Humans are barbaric enough to revive nausea with just a little research, including the First Crusader's strategy of Jerusalem, the massacre of indigenous Prussians by the German Knights, the ethnic cleansing of the Nazis, and the American Indian War.

Of course, the Ethereal Horse knew that. But it is completely different from what we know as knowledge and what is heard from the mouth of its party, Shemr. Every word of Shemr beats the heart of a pale horse as heavy as a fist of lead.

"Instead of reclaiming the land of his fathers, even the village where he lived in hiding was taken away, and neither can it be taken back. This is what Zoan used to call the grassland champion."

Ethereal horses, who are the same people (although it is unclear whether they are biologically the same species as humans in this world), could not find a word to be spoken to Shemr.

Shemru's ears moved picklessly as silence dominated her earaches.

"What's the matter, Shemr?

"Will you shut up for a second?"

When I cleared my ears, I heard a drum pounding from somewhere.

Go on, go on, go on, go on. Go on, go on, go on, go on.

Shemr changed her complexion to the sound of a drum that repeatedly struck a certain clap.

"Isn't this the drum of battle!?"

It was the clap of drums slapped to inspire the warriors when the Fang Clan began the battle.

"Humans have attacked?!"

The first thing I came up with was that a human raided compatriot went out to fight back. But when I gazed at the human camp, it was the humans who were in a panic.

Following the sound of a drum clinging to the mountains, it was the slope of the mountain just up the hill north from the camp. More than a dozen Zoan figures were visible, either to build the camp building or where trees were felled over a wide area and mountain skin protruded.

Out of that group, when one Zoan came forward, he gave him a high name.

"I am Gajeta, son of Unuka, one of the twelve families of Zoan! People who invade our land! Fight me if you still have a piece of courage to fight, even if it equals a monster who relieves you of manure in hell!

It was Cajeta.

Zoan, who was around him, shook up the mountain sword in his hand in unison and raised his roar.

"What does this mean?!?"

Shemr was surprised. It is Zoan's battle to raise his name before the battle, but it is what the greatest man on the spot does as a delegate. Originally in the role of chief Galam or warrior chief, it's not something that a young man's gajeta can do.

"No way, Gajeta guy!!"