Teogonia: Volume 1 (Premium)

by Tsukasa Tanimai

  **

  All had gone quiet.

  Silence filled the forest, and the soft sounds of insects that had held their breath until now were then heard once more. The silence across the night forest made it hard to imagine that this had been where the battle had reached its gruesome finale.

  “***...” The low voice melted into the forest air.

  She slowly climbed to her feet and brushed away the blades of grass that were still on her head.

  “**, ***”

  She tilted her head to the side to relieve the stiffness in her neck, and it caused a dry sound as she became caught in the branches of the low tree above her head. Her horns were her pride, but at times like this they could be a nuisance.

  Nirun looked back at what had once been a village and clenched her fists.

  There was no one there now. Even Nirun had come to accept that they had all been slaughtered.

  It was more than likely that almost every uzelle had been killed.

  The orgs had massacred the uzelle with the intention of completely stealing the blessings of their land god.

  Nirun and her fellow uzelles had sought help from their masters, the macaques, on the basis of the ancient contract between them. They had resisted and fought to the death, but in the end, they had lost. The macaques had not been as dependable as their reputation had suggested.

  The uzelles had sworn devotion to the macaque guardian bearer, making it their protector. However, the macaque guardian bearer had been no match for the fearsome armored soldier of the orgs.

  Nirun had lost them all in her attempt to live on. Her mother, the head of the village, had protected the land god from the orgs by drawing the army away from the village and giving up her own life. She had ordered her daughter, Nirun, to remain hidden in the secret room by the gravesite. Nirun was told to claim the land god as her guardian and then run. It was a final act of revenge by a powerless species.

  It was necessary for Nirun to evade capture if this plan of revenge was to be carried out successfully.

  I can’t count on macaques anymore.

  The macaques that should have honored the contract had run off in fear of the org army. Though the armored soldier may have been too strong for them to handle regardless.

  And then there was their greed.

  After being rescued from the orgs they were told to hand over 100 uzelle horns. Even the horns of uzelles killed in the battle with the orgs were cut off and carried away as an advance payment with no respect given to the dead.

  Her own horns would no doubt be taken too.

  More importantly...

  Nirun grimaced at the rotten smell that hung in the air as she examined the pile of org corpses in front of her.

  Within the gruesome pile of dead flesh slept the small warrior who had defeated the armored soldier.

  He seemed as though he could be relied upon to enact vengeance on the mighty orgs.

  He was likely one of the humans who had disturbed the gravesite and given Nirun a chance to escape. Nirun had jumped to the conclusion that this boy must be the leader of a powerful herd.

  But she did find it unusual to see a human who could sleep so soundly while crushed beneath such an incredible amount of bodies.

  She was deep in thought as she sat down on the ground nearby and left the boy to his rest.

  38

  “This is for you, Truthseeker.”

  “...”

  “Truthseeker?”

  To Manso’s relief, the priest stirred when he heard Manso call him. Manso had brought him a wooden bowl filled with soup made from cured meat. He’d worried that he might be waking the priest from his sleep.

  The priest broke his silence by politely saying, “Thank you very much,” and then he took the bowl.

  He drew back his hood and put the bowl to his mouth, then he looked back at Manso. “Are you worried?” he asked Manso.

  Manso knew exactly what the priest thought he was worrying about, so he simply said, “Yes” in response.

  It was only natural to be worried about Kai’s safety while he was gone looking for the missing soldiers.

  Although the soup was made from cured meat, it was a simple thing made by boiling a few pieces of meat in enough water to go around, so it was watery and far from delicious. The priest drank it without complaint and then gave back the bowl with a smile.

  “If it’s Kai you’re worried about, I expect he’ll be just fine.”

  The whole party knew now that this priest hadn’t just advanced to the level of doi sigil without needing the blessings of a land god, he’d also learned some secret art that allowed him to see things happening far away. Manso took this into consideration when he accepted the priest’s words.

  “I see. Well, if you say so, Truthseeker, I won’t worry.”

  “You’d be surprised to know Kai’s...”

  “Truthseeker?”

  Manso had been about to walk away when the priest’s unfinished sentence made him turn back. But the priest’s face had disappeared under his hood once again.

  Manso looked at him curiously, but the priest said nothing more. The priest had sat up and was no longer looking at Manso, as if whatever he had started saying wasn’t important enough to be worth finishing. Manso thought no more of it.

  The priest then looked back at Manso and told him, “We’re no longer being pursued. Let’s wait until tomorrow morning for the search party to return. I’m sure everyone is tired. Tell them it’s safe for them to sleep.”

  With the four squad leaders absent, it was Manso who took charge of the soldiers.

  He nodded and went to pass the message on to the soldiers who were gathered elsewhere. Now that the priest, with his mysterious abilities, had given them assurance, the soldiers were ready to start cheering in a way that was far from appropriate for the depths of the forest. Manso put a stop to that. The soldiers were exhausted and couldn’t have been more thankful for the permission to sleep.

  Meanwhile, the priest continued to sit in silent meditation at the edge of the camp.

  For a short time, Manso watched the priest as he meditated, but eventually fatigue caused him to sigh, and he let himself fall into a shallow sleep with his arms wrapped around his knees.

  Afterword

  Truth be told, this isn’t the first time I’ve written a story with the same title.

  It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this work was 10 years in the making because there was a past work, some old, low-quality writings that were left on my computer, that served as a precursor to this work.

  Back when I was a young writer who neglected his studies, I had no idea that there was a literary great whose work had the same title as mine. It was something I happened to find out later, and the coincidence presented an excuse for me to look into the world of Hesiod. Needless to say, the story I was writing back then was very different from this one. That story was a full-on chuunibyou tale of world conquest with a young elf as the protagonist.

  What’s that you say? The story hasn’t changed much? You’ll have to forgive me. I am only human, and humans seldom change.

  Moving on, the approach used in this work is different from Hesiod’s attempt to summarize the births of the gods and their genealogies (it’s different at its very core); this work takes the literal meaning of the kanji used to spell the Theogony (神流記) and is a record of another world controlled by gods. I ask that you forgive me for this.

  Many gods appear in this work. But up to now it hasn’t been the gods themselves, but those chosen to receive their blessings and act as a god’s host vessel.

  The idea to use “kumadori” as the name for the markings that appear when gods provide power to the host vessel was, of course, inspired by the stage makeup of the same name worn by kabuki actors. It’s a form of makeup used to establish the characters that emphasizes things like blood vessels and muscles. Red generally means “virtuous” while blue generally means “evil.” The concept also includes
the difference between the dead and the living, which likely comes from differences in complexion. Chinese theater also features a type of kumadori known as renpu. These methods of expressing things through appearance are very easy for the audience to understand, so they must have easily become aspects of theater production know-how. Likewise, in this work, some way of visually representing changes in the host vessels was needed so that the work could deal with the unseen gods.

  To give some history to the many formless gods, “gravesites of land gods” became a mainstay when writing. These also symbolize the “true form” of the gods.

  The “godstone” was conceived as a way to link the gods with the lower-ranking living creatures. The divinity residing in the body of the host vessel is sealed inside this special part of the bone structure, thus turning a metaphysical concept into a physical one.

  With these three concepts relating to the gods, I was able to start writing this work.

  As an author who was lost and unsure where to go, I decided to return to my starting point by reading through my past works, and this caused me to discover a treasured work written when the world was still alive and shining to me — this became the basis of Teogonia. It felt like I was reading through my childhood diaries. A lot of the content made me cringe. But that’s a good thing in some ways. It makes things interesting. Even as people grow older, their deep-rooted sensibilities are probably not something that changes easily.

  I can’t give you any evidence to support this statement, but I think this work is going to get more interesting as it goes. That’s my feeling. That’s what the God of the Valley is telling me.

  I’d like to thank Kawano-sensei from the bottom of my heart for the beautiful illustrations. Those illustrations represented things accurately in a way that really touched my heartstrings, and they stimulated me in a good way that made me half-jealous.

  I’d also like to thank my editor for being there to support a naive author like myself. Their guidance was invaluable because it allowed me to look back on my own writings with a clear head.

  And to the readers who have decided to pick up this work, I’m deeply grateful to you for spending your precious time on it, and I bow my head and ask that you stay with me until this printed edition of Teogonia reaches the end of its run.

  -Tsukasa Tanimai, March 2018

  Bonus Short Story

  Belmezzo, the Head of the Workshop

  “Quality’s not what it used to be, is it?”

  “Well... about that...”

  “I’ll give you two ginsatsu.”

  “Y-You must be making an insane profit! Give me a break, or my master’ll give me hell for this.”

  “Well why don’t you go bring your damned master here with you. I’ll tell him myself that if he thinks he can pull one over on me, he’s got another thing coming.”

  Belmezzo, the head of the Oni’s Anvil workshop, was known to everyone in the metalworking district called chimney road, itself a famous feature of the orgish capital of Mesa. He had long traded with royalty and the heads of powerful clans, and these connections meant that many of the axes swung by orgs had been forged by the workers of the Oni’s Anvil. Belmezzo was the face of the Oni’s Anvil, and some said that if he ever sneezed, every furnace in the metalworking district would be blown out at once.

  The largest buyer of the ingots and other products that smelters exported to the capital en masse was the Oni’s Anvil. As the leader of the workshop, Belmezzo could maintain a stranglehold on the smelter’s guild without even trying. Even stubborn old smelters who fancied themselves artisans of fire were reduced to smiling meekly like talentless miao merchants.

  “I’m not trying to be difficult here. But look at this thing. You can see the impurities. It was never melted down properly.”

  Belmezzo casually tapped his hammer against the iron ingot he was holding. The ingot cracked down the middle with a dull thud, as if it were a piece of rotten wood.

  The apprentice smelter struggled to come up with an excuse as Belmezzo glared at him. Firewood had become ridiculously expensive, heating to the usual temperature would put them over budget, they’d had to use cheap, ill-burning peat as an alternative, they’d already tried every trick they knew, and other such excuses...

  “Oh, shut up,” Belmezzo said with a slam of his rock-like fist. “You used peat? If you’ve forgotten how to make iron then why don’t you just change the sign out front and call yourself a pickle seller.”

  “Now you’re going too far. It’s the heartless metalworking guild that’s forcing the prices way up...”

  “Are you saying that my metalworking association is trying to rip people off?” Belmezzo asked sourly.

  Over the course of many years, the orgish country had been cleanly stripped of all trees. They had quite literally all been cut down to be fuel for producing iron, leaving the country filled with bare mountains. As a result, the winds would carry away the sandy soil, and the rains would trigger mudslides and flooding. More than once, the king had ordered that attempts be made to plant trees on these bare mountains. Those saplings were intended to be harvested after 10 years, but instead they were pulled up by clueless peasants for use as firewood, making it hard to believe the situation would improve.

  The purses of the clans that bought the iron arms the workshop produced had been emptied by continued fighting. Far from driving up prices, the Oni’s Anvil were finding it increasingly difficult to collect payments, and the workshop was on a straight path to bankruptcy.

  “Instead of making excuses, go cut down trees from the great forests and all will be well. There are more good-burning trees there than anyone could use.” Belmezzo threw down the shoddy ingot while massaging his shoulders by striking them with the hammer. The apprentice smelter picked up the ingot unhappily.

  “Orgs are stronger than anything. There isn’t a species that can stand against us when we go all-out. Something’s not quite right about this world.”

  “If you ask me, Master Belmezzo’s cruelty isn’t quite right either.”

  “And what about your smelters? What was it you sell there?”

  “I-I was just joking, master.”

  It was no exaggeration to say that the war-potential of the orgs was superior to that of every species that surrounded them, but in practice, the level of cooperation between members of the species was lacking. Their tendency to follow their feelings and start fights with each other meant that all of the major clans were embroiled in long-standing feuds and were unwilling to help one another.

  The Foss clan to the east was attacking the macaques in the eastern forest region, and the strength of the Brach clan in the south was enough to suppress and enslave all the various small clans in the great forest. And there were rumors that some had gone so far as to attack the humans who ruled the plains to the south, just to show them the power of the orgs.

  “Forget all that. Just do a better job at getting rid of these impurities. Otherwise it’s useless junk that’ll break the second something strikes it.”

  “I’ll pass the message on to my master.”

  Belmezzo watched the apprentice smelter leave and then returned to the workshop filled with the noise of busy hammers. The workshop was slammed due to an order of weapons bigger than any they’d received before. The workshop leader had no energy to spare for anything else. He was in the middle of making an axe known as a gandr, from a secret compound of hard steel no less, to fulfill a special order made by Dohd Adohra-kahn, the leader of the eastern Foss clan.

  Dohd Adohra wore weapons and armor made by Belmezzo over his entire body. His steel armor offered protection against any attack and it was one of Belmezzo’s finest works.

  In the constant din that drowned out all else, Belmezzo could hear his apprentices improving day by day. These young artisans kept their large backs stooped over anvils and efficiently turned iron ingots into iron products using their superior orgish strength. The workshop’s stockpiles were always depleted
quickly, so keeping his workers supplied was a big part of Belmezzo’s job.

  It was sad to learn that the new shipment of iron was of such poor quality, but a severe shortage of firewood was a problem that had an impact on every metalworker in the district.

  Whether it be the Foss clan or the Brach clan, he wanted someone to secure a forest quickly. For that reason, the workshop’s main priority was to supply weapons to both of these clans.

  Dohd Adohra was always rough with his weapons and would render even the highest quality steel unusable after two or three fights. That very minute, Dohd Adohra was carrying Belmezzo’s work into the battlefield. Though it was hard to imagine Dohd Adohra ever being wounded or defeated, even if he’d leaped into the midst of the enemy empty-handed.

  The large axe being forged now would be a masterpiece.

  Belmezzo snorted happily to himself as he imagined how pleased Dohd Adohra was going to be.

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  Copyright

  Teogonia: Volume 1

  by Tsukasa Tanimai

  Translated by Shaun Cook

  Edited by Michael Perge

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 Tsukasa Tanimai

  Illustrations by Kouichiro Kawano

  Cover illustration by Kouichiro Kawano

  All rights reserved.

  Original Japanese edition published in 2018 by PASH! Books

  This English edition is published by arrangement with PASH! Books, Tokyo

  English translation © 2020 J-Novel Club LLC