Chapter 71: The Village Chief's Version of History
The female teacher followed the direction of his pointing finger.
When she finally registered what the murals actually depicted, she was so furious that tears streamed down her face. Mountain god? This was clearly just Ultraman fighting monsters—scenes straight from a television program!
"Are you all blind? This isn't some mountain god! These are scenes from a TV show! Tokusatsu—special effects entertainment made for children!"
"What you're worshipping is nothing but modern fiction created by people in rubber monster suits! Even three-year-olds know it's fake, yet you're treating it like a deity?"
"There's no such thing as mountain gods or monsters in this world! Please, I'm begging you—let the children go! We can discuss money, anything you want!"
The teacher frantically pulled out her phone, offering to show video evidence proving that all of this was nothing more than modern entertainment programming. She pleaded with the villagers to release them and let them leave.
However, this rational, scientific explanation didn't produce any moment of enlightenment among the cultists.
Instead, the village chief's expression instantly turned dark. Those murky old eyes of his ignited with a rage born of blasphemy.
"Ignorance? Fiction?"
"What do you know? This is divine revelation! Sacred truth passed down by our ancestors! What 'tokusatsu drama'? That's nothing but outsiders catching a glimpse of reality they couldn't comprehend, so they twisted it into entertainment to cover up the truth—but does that erase the fact that the mountain god once ruled this land?"
"Truth? What truth?"
To ensure this foolish outsider understood before dying, the village chief pointed at the murals and launched into a fanatical explanation of the story behind them.
"Long ago, the mountain god descended upon this land. Yes, it brought disaster. Yes, it devoured humans. Yes, it destroyed homes. But that era was humanity's golden age!"
"What kind of insane nonsense are you spouting?!"
The teacher's eyes widened in disbelief. She couldn't comprehend this old lunatic's twisted logic.
"You don't understand!"
The village chief waved his arms, his expression contorting with fervent ecstasy, as if lost in some sacred memory.
"Back then, everyone lived in terror. But precisely because of that terror, we were united! Equal! There were no poor, no rich, no treachery or schemes! Before the mountain god's absolute horror, all humans were equal!"
"We had only one purpose—to survive! For survival, we would share our last morsel of food with neighbors! For survival, we could help each other without a shred of selfishness!"
"That kind of unity, that society without ulterior motives or calculations, where only pure survival instinct existed... that was true paradise! The nobility that humanity—this vile species—can only display when facing extinction!"
His voice grew louder and louder, echoing through the cavern.
The teacher was clearly stunned by this warped philosophy, but she instinctively argued back:
"That's only because everyone was about to be slaughtered! You were forced into it! And besides, didn't that Light Giant defeat the monster? He saved humanity!"
"Saved humanity? Hahaha!"
The village chief burst into laughter as if he'd heard the funniest joke imaginable. He laughed so hard he nearly cried.
"That was a curse! That giant is the source of all evil!"
The old man's finger shot toward the mural depicting Ultraman in his signature beam-firing pose, his eyes filled with venom.
"He arrogantly sealed away the mountain god, stealing away the absolute violence that maintained order! Then what? He left! Just walked away! And what did he leave us with?"
"Comfort! Peace—that poisonous drug!"
"Without the man-eating monster, humans started eating each other! Over a few acres of farmland, over a few women, brothers who'd fought side by side for survival yesterday would slaughter each other today over a plot of land or a mouthful of water!"
"Village fought village! Nation fought nation! Parents ate their children's flesh! Brothers killed brothers in their own homes... Wasn't that hellish nightmare more terrifying than the mountain god devouring a few people?!"
The old man whirled around, fixing the female teacher with an intense stare.
"So the giant didn't bring peace—he brought destruction! He unleashed the beast of greed that lurks in every human heart!"
The teacher recoiled from this sudden roar.
But she'd received higher education and tried to counter with historical materialism.
"You're twisting logic!"
"War stems from unequal resource distribution! From insufficient productive forces! It has nothing to do with whether monsters exist or not! Even with monsters, humans would still fight among themselves! That's human nature! Blaming everything on a... a fictional giant is like refusing to eat for fear of choking!"
"Human nature? Nonsense!"
The village chief sneered.
"What resources? What human nature? Under the mountain god's rule, none of that chaotic garbage existed! Everyone shared the same fear, the same humility, and therefore the same equality!"
"As long as we kept it fed, it would sleep! As long as we offered sacrifices at regular intervals, the rest could enjoy peace! Isn't that calculated sacrifice infinitely better than endless, limitless mutual slaughter?!"
"But what about humanity now? Do your wars have limits? Is there any count to how many you kill for so-called profit? The weapons you've created kill people a thousand times—ten thousand times—more efficiently than the mountain god ever did!"
"In comparison, the mountain god was the embodiment of mercy itself!"
"..."
This barrage of twisted logic left the teacher completely speechless.
When facing a group of zealots who had utterly abandoned the logic of modern civilization, she felt an absurd sense of helplessness.
These people were beyond saving.
It was like trying to communicate across species on completely different frequencies.
Their minds contained a self-consistent closed-loop logic. Any external thought was a virus to them—heresy that had to be purged.
Because in this isolated, extreme environment, among these villagers who'd been indoctrinated for thousands of years, this was their truth.
"I see you have nothing left to say."
The village chief snorted coldly, apparently losing interest in further preaching.
He turned around, clasping his hands behind his back, returning to that sinister demeanor.
"Since you understand now, go to your death obediently. Being fuel to awaken the great order is an honor for you people."
He raised his hand and made a downward cutting gesture to the villagers who were already eager to act.
"Begin the ritual. Throw that foolish woman down first. Give the mountain god an appetizer."
"Yes!"
Several burly men grinned viciously as they closed in.
Kazama Chiba, suspended from the ceiling, watched all of this and nearly laughed out loud.
Good grief—this was textbook Stockholm syndrome for the entire village, wasn't it?
Following the old man's logic, as long as everyone became slaves together, there'd be no class oppression, right?
That mental gymnastics routine... what a waste not putting him in multilevel marketing.
Although the logic seemed riddled with holes to Kazama, in that specific historical context, it probably could fool quite a few people.
It was like that classic trolley problem—do you divert the train to kill one person and save five, or do nothing and watch five people die?
The village chief was clearly a firm believer in sacrificing the minority.
"Though I didn't expect them to pin it all on Tiga. If Daigo knew he'd been branded as the source of all evil thousands of years ago, he'd probably cry himself unconscious in the bathroom."