Omniscient First-Person’s Viewpoint
Chapter 358: The King Who Kills Others, The God Who Kills Himself (12)

It was all for the Golden Empire.

It was all for Her Majesty.

It was all… for the beautiful, awkward smile of his strict and rigid King.

But how did it come to this?

A blade hung at his throat and shackles bound his feet.

The heavy iron ball attached to the end of the blade was agony itself.

His arm felt like it might tear off under the weight, yet he couldn’t let go.

If he did, the weight that threatened to rip his arm off would move to his neck instead.

A sharp needle pierced his back and his body reacted to the pain before his mind could even process it.

Even while he was exhausted, Demo took another step to avoid the pain.

The spike trailed behind him, stabbing him again as he moved.

Demo walked barefoot across the land of the Golden Empire, dragging instruments of torture behind him.

Curses filled the air.

Stones were hurled at him.

People shouted accusations and stabbed him with daggers.

The soldiers escorting him only tried to block the attacks half-heartedly. They simply watched as his injuries grew.

By then, Demo was little more than a walking corpse.

He was too exhausted to even cry out in pain.

After several hours, he could no longer distinguish himself from the suffering.

Perhaps he had been one with pain since the moment he was born.

He longed for relief, to be free of it all.

To escape through death, to finally find peace.

But Demo couldn’t allow himself that escape.

After all, he was the one responsible for reducing the Golden Empire to its current state.

Money may not buy happiness, but without it, happiness is impossible.

To create happiness, one needed even a small margin of comfort.

And in a harsh, competitive world, money was the only way to secure that comfort.

To make the empire happy, Demo created gold.

Enough gold to bring happiness to all.

Or so he thought.

That’s what he believed.

Demo looked around with dim eyes.

Collapsed walls, burning homes, and screams filled the air.

Fields once overturned under the weight of gold’s value were now tilled laboriously by an old farmer with a worn hoe.

But the soil, poisoned by steel, lay barren and unresponsive to the farmer’s care.

Beggars filled the streets, no better off than Demo himself.

They held out cracked bowls with parched voices, begging for mercy.

These bowls, made of gold, promised no meals.

A single grain of rice was now worth more than a gold coin.

A mother clutched her dead child’s body, wailing.

Did she still love the child as her offspring, or as a few meager meals’ worth of sustenance?

The poverty amidst the overabundance of gold had wrought the greatest tragedy in the history of the Golden Empire.

The worst part was that there seemed to be no solution in sight.

There was no future.

The past had been erased.

They had signed a contract with the devil, trading their radiant past for an eternal curse.

The Golden Empire had become a hell built of gold.

And the creator of this hell… was alchemy.

If only he had never invented alchemy, this tragedy might never have occurred.

The horrifying truth that his great discovery was knowledge born of the devil tormented even his heart.

- Thud.

Something struck Demo’s temple, momentarily making his head reel.

It didn’t hurt—his body was so drained that it had grown numb to pain.

Demo’s vacant eyes fell on the object that had hit him.

Small compared to its weight, it sparkled brilliantly, its light inflating its value far beyond its worth.

It was gold.

A name given to a hue so radiant that no other word could capture it.

A gold coin rolled across the dirt.

As Demo stared at it, defeated, a gaunt woman approached him, shouting.

“It’s your fault…! If not for you…!”

Gold had become utterly useless.

It couldn’t provide even a single meal for the starving woman, who threw it like a stone.

It wasn’t even effective as a weapon. A jagged rock would have inflicted more pain.

Gold, which could neither be eaten nor used, was now no better than trash that polluted the earth.

Then what had he been making all this time?

Had he not created wealth for all? But instead poverty for everyone?

“Give it back! Give it all back!”

The woman’s cries were meaningless accusations.

What was done could never be undone, no matter how much she screamed or wailed.

But then, a memory flashed through Demo’s mind like a reel of images.

‘Return it with the gold you’ve made.’

The Golden Lord’s second challenge.

The trial that had birthed alchemy.

Undoing something was far harder than creating it.

The words of the beloved king were engraved deeply in his heart.

A dying ember of vitality returned to Demo’s failing body as he repeated his task in his mind.

…Return it.

Return the Golden Empire.

For our king.

It wasn’t impossible.

He had done it once before.

Alchemy was created to return things to their original state.

But could he truly do it?

Could he return this hell to the beautiful and prosperous Golden Empire it once was?

Could he bring it back to a land of artisans and technology, all united under the great king?

Demo’s time was running out.

He was dying.

Even if he used every moment left to him, pouring out his last reserves of strength, he could only create one thing.

Then, if he could only make one thing, why not alchemize something that could restore this empire to its former glory?

Demo stopped walking and closed his eyes.

Death loomed closer.

He could sense it.

His time was limited.

Kneeling, he began shaping an image in his mind.

Everything was made out of small blocks.

Gold, steel, grains of sand—they all shared the same fundamental building blocks.

Only the way they were assembled made them different.

Those blocks were built and stacked differently. Thus, the world became filled with countless objects, all appearing unique.

But at their core, they were one and the same.

The house, the earth, the solitary tree, the stream flowing beneath it, the wild animals drinking from the water, and even humanity itself.

What form it would take, Demo didn’t know.

But it would roam this cursed land endlessly, undoing the damage and returning the Golden Empire to its former glory.

A beautiful nation to be presented once again to its king.

And to become the king’s loyal servant once more.

To become the Golden Lord that served the King of Gold eternally.

The image swelled within him like a monster.

The power to alter all things reached out from its master, answering his final wish.

Unique Magic: Elixir.

***

When I came to my senses, I found myself in a small workshop.

Once, Elric, the King of the Golden Empire, had many disciples.

She had a space within the palace for them.

In the rooms connected to the small workshop, her disciples honed their abilities.

It was a room filled with memories for the Golden Lord.

Above all, it was the place that had once been filled entirely with a single golden coin.

In the center of that space, a young man sat in front of a golden bell.

He looked slightly older than when I saw him outside.

The Golden Lord, still bound with a blade at his neck and shackles on his ankles, was as he had been in death.

Considering this was a Spiritual World, it seemed even in death, he still saw himself as a sinner.

“…Who are you?”

The Golden Lord spoke slowly, without even lifting his head. I shrugged and sat across from him.

“Just an ordinary thief. I’m here to steal a relic. So, no trials or tests here?”

“…There are no such things. I have no lingering attachments.”

Even as he spoke, the Golden Lord continued to gaze intently at the golden bell.

A steel bell transmuted entirely into gold—a symbol of his most radiant memories.

It was the first gift that connected him and her, symbolizing their relationship.

Saying he had no lingering attachments?

What a blatant lie.

“If you truly had none, you wouldn’t have left behind a vestige of your thoughts. Why don’t you open up about it?”

“… I misspoke. My lingering attachments are something no one can resolve. Even if you were to bring someone who resembled Her Majesty, it would make no difference. The real King cannot return.”

Yet, he spilled his thoughts anyway.

Well I can’t blame him. That’s what the remnants of peoples’ consciousness exist for—to be understood.

If someone reaches this point, they’ll inevitably uncover everything in time.

I calmly continued the conversation, letting the thought sink in.

“If you know she can’t return, why guard this palace? There’s no reason to protect an empty palace, is there?”

“Because I must atone for all my sins.”

“Sins?”

“Yes. Sins. I lead a radiant nation into ruins, creating a poverty of gold and causing suffering for everyone.”

The Golden Lord spoke like a sinner, his tone heavy.

“The Golden Empire was a paradise. Under the reign of the great King Elric, skilled artisans thrived across the land—a nation of steel and vitality. It was I who plunged that bright and lively nation into the abyss. If not for me, it never would have happened.”

“By creating gold?”

“…Yes. Gold is valuable only because it is rare. But I, ignorant of that simple truth, created gold. Over and over. Not only with my own hands but by training other alchemists to do the same.”

Had there been only one Golden Lord, the disaster might not have grown so vast.

But the Golden Lord sincerely believed that gold would bring prosperity to the nation.

With that conviction, he generously shared his precious knowledge.

That, too, had been an imitation of Elric.

However, unlike a king’s Authority which was limited to an individual, alchemy was a Divine.

Gold spread uncontrollably.

With a haggard face, the Golden Lord stared at the golden bell as he continued.

“I am the great sinner who brought ruin to the nation. To atone for my sins, I must remember the Golden Empire. I must recreate it. I must restore it. Even if it is nothing more than a memorandum.”

Thus, the Golden Lord recreated the Golden Empire within his reach, reconstructing it as the radiant empire he had envisioned at its peak.

The grand castle.

The flourishing city.

The fertile fields.

Even if the Golden Empire had disappeared from history, it still existed within the Golden Palace.

However, it was a nation built by one person, riddled with flaws.

So that was it. Golden Lord, your wish was to recreate the Golden Empire.

Fine, I get it.

But… is that all?

Is this really your best?

Your most heartfelt desire?

Before diving into the main issue, I decided to lighten the mood with some mild consolation.

“It’s not your fault. No one could have predicted that more gold would lead to greater poverty.”

“Spare me your insincere comfort. Ignorance is no excuse. I deserve all the blame.”

Insincere comfort?

What nonsense.

I might bluff, but I never say something I don’t mean.

I’m someone who’s honest with himself.

“Do I sound like I’m spouting nonsense? Not at all. I don’t blame you. In fact, I’m grateful to you.”

I mean it.

This outcome is far better.

The Golden Lord is a thousand, no, tens of thousands of times better than a certain Grand Master who was stuck in the Abyss wasting time and lost everything.

Because he tried.

He didn’t hesitate and lose his options, leaving behind only regret like that Divine.

Instead, he achieved something through human effort.

“Thanks to you creating gold, humanity gained one more thing it could do!”