Chapter Two Hundred and Five: The Stage for Assertion 5
The audience was either starting to get bored or looked like they wanted to shout heckles. They were just silenced by having their momentum broken when Ahim shouted, but if Karen earned the audience’s displeasure any further, she could easily have been dragged off the stage in disgrace.
Karen had already expected that the conclusion would be, after all, that people without magical power should not exist. She knew the mood was cold and hostile, and she had believed that nothing could truly be changed here today. Even so, she wanted time to think about the principles of the world.
That was why Karen looked toward a man in the audience who was just about to shout something with a scowl on his face. When Karen stared at him, the man swallowed his words, his mouth still hanging open. Perhaps he had seen the magical power beginning to stir within Karen’s body.
“The reason my disciple grew so quickly was not because of my teaching.”
Perhaps the lessons born of her past life knowledge had played some role, but Karen’s own growth rate didn’t match Harald’s.
“The defining trait of this disciple, of course, was that he was formerly magicless.”
“Karen, are you saying that those without magical power can climb the tiers more easily than those of us who have it? If that’s the case, wouldn’t that mean the magicless who fail to climb are simply lazy?”
“That’s wrong.”
It was not something she said to defend them; Karen had simply stated it because it was incorrect.
“They’re not lazy. For people without magical power, this world is a painful place just to exist in. Just by being clad in magical power, this world becomes a very easy place to breathe in.”
“Is that true?”
“…Yes, it’s true. Just as Lady Karen says, after climbing the ranks, my magical power increased, and breathing became much easier. So much so that I never want to go back.”
Harald answered Ahim’s question.
After hearing the answer, Ahim scratched his head in irritation.
“How do you even know something like that…!”
Leaving Harald aside, Ahim could not comprehend how Karen herself could know such things, how she could reach “understanding”. Ahim was irritated by what he couldn’t comprehend. One could only come to understand either by being born without magical power or by using up all one’s magical power.
But unlike when she had irresponsibly recommended it to Yuluyana before, she couldn’t casually recommend it to people. The miserable state of the adventurers who had their magical power forcibly stolen in the dungeon investigation team was fresh in memory.
Karen hadn’t even been able to imagine the consequences of stripping magical power from people who could not comprehend that life without it was possible.
“So even if what people without magical power do looks easy to us, it’s incredibly difficult for them. They’re not slacking off. It must have been an unimaginably severe trial for Harald as well.”
…However, when Karen turned her gaze to him, Harald smiled brightly. It seemed he had no intention of showing Karen even a trace of his hardships.
“Everything is difficult, so for such people, just living is a series of trials, I suppose. That’s why they have many opportunities to climb the ranks.”
“And yet, does that mean the other magicless are throwing away the precious opportunities the goddess has granted them? Doesn’t that mean they’re wasting them?”
“They can’t overcome them because the trials are too hard, Marian. It’s far more difficult for someone without magical power to climb the ranks than it is for me—or for you.”
A prickling sensation crept toward the nape of her neck, as though the sky itself were closing in.
Perhaps because it was so close now, the murmur spreading through those who sensed something amiss began to change in tone.
Just how many people present here had ever climbed the ranks?
“Perhaps because it’s so difficult, the amount they rise when they overcome it once is greater… no.”
Sensing that something was just slightly off, Karen swallowed a sigh.
She had actually already thought of what seemed to be the reason. But Karen had been taking a roundabout path because she wanted to think it might be a different reason.
However, the sky pressed in relentlessly, urging Karen toward the correct answer. At that oppressive feeling, Karen broke into a cold sweat.
It seemed no one but Karen was feeling the pressure from heaven.
Still, if there was a person right before them who was on the verge of climbing the ranks, people seemed able to recognize it.
“Don’t tell me, the goddess’s stairway is descending…?”
“No way, it’s my first time seeing it!”
“To think the day would come in my life when I could see the goddess’s stairway.”
Apparently, far from climbing the ranks themselves, even people who had seen someone climbing the ranks were rare. So even the people who had been looking at Karen as if to say "what nonsense are you spouting," now straightened their backs and watched Karen intently, swallowing hard. Ordinary people were just like that.
Still, it was strange. The matter Karen was on the verge of understanding wasn’t such a difficult topic. So why was the goddess evaluating this as understanding worthy of climbing the ranks?
The High Priest had said it. The souls of the dead climbed the stairway through the goddess’s mercy and love. If the same were true for the living, then…
“—Precisely because the trials are so difficult, I think the goddess loves those who overcome trials starting with almost no magical power even more.”
The moment Karen confessed, unable to withstand the goddess’s pressure, rainbow particles descended as if to say "correct.”
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