It fascinates me how simple the Tartarian and Paraideisian mindsets are. To think that these creatures, capable of bringing down so much power on our world, with societies so advanced, have such a base and fundamental understanding of how our world views things. We wage war against Arascus, thus we have to hate him. We ally with them, thus we have to love them. We are on the same side in the White Pantheon, thus we have to agree with each other. It is almost a childish mindset on how alliances are formed, kept and maintained. I have nothing else to add on the topic.

Tartarus, at the very least, operates under a sense of utilitarianism that borders on psychopathic. One should not love their enemy, so they naturally decide to hate them. One should be family with their own troops, so they seemingly align themselves to call each other family. I do not know how much a relationship is worth in their lands, although from seeing how they act when they are on Arda, it cannot be expensive. Paraideisius on the other hand is beyond infuriating in the endless moralizations about how we should act. It is not even that they disagree with our methods, we could score the grandest victory, we could force their army to surrender and have no one die on the field in fact, and they would still find a way to wag their finger at us for being too violent.

Arda is a world that houses both the Goddesses of Love and of Hatred, of War and of Peace, of Darkness and of Light. Of Disease and Of Health. It is not a contradictory mindset, even though both of those worlds assume so, and it is as natural to anyone raised here as it is to breath. Light and Darkness are not independent forces, they exist to balance each other out. I am here and I am what I am because I am the opposite to Malam. Because when that Goddess makes a revelation, it pushes me forward as much as it does herself. Kavaa only exists because are Divines that cause harm, for if everyone was in pristine health all the time, she would not have needed to incarnate. Everywhere we go, we see this on Arda.

It is the highs that make the lows, and it is the lows that make the highs. It is the fact that we are able to hold mutually contradicting positions, and synthesize them together, that we have not peaked like their worlds.

But just as they are baffled by us, I am baffled by them. Paraideisius has supposedly had its system of governance for thousands of years, with no want to change. Tartarus has been in a permanent crisis since its beginning, and in that permanent crisis, they have decided not to try any solutions bar scaling the ideas they already have.

I cannot be too boastful though. They do have some things right. On Arda, we cannot even agree what the essence of humanity is.

– Excerpt from the autobiography: “Roses, Blades & Blood”, written by Goddess Helenna, of Love.

Kassandora sat and stared at the men who had filtered into her office. Some of the greatest minds of Empire, supposedly at least. Whether that was true, it was her job to figure out. The only thing she knew for certain was that they weren’t great minds of engineering or military theory, else they would have proven already. The lights of the office. Philosophers and lawyers, professors and experts in morality all. It was the sort of men, who brought the sort of debates, that she spent her lifetime avoiding. Thinkers who argued about the definitions of words and nothing more.

They sat down around the huge round table, One seat left open for Kassandora, a massive throne of an office chair that would make a grown adult into a child. Coffee had been prepared, and jugs of water. No drink though, Kassandora had nothing but disdain for this type of creature. She made one circle around the table and inspected the soldiers that would fight on this front of meaning and definition. At the very least, they had come professionally dressed. Everyone was a suit, some had brought ties. Hair was cut short or bald entirely. Two of the men wore glasses.

That alone was farcical enough that they wore glasses when any Imperial citizen could turn up to any hospital that had clerics and fix their vision for the price of an administrative fee. Kassandora smoothed down her coat and flicked a strand of red hair away from her gaze. The ceremonial blade on her belt patted her leg with each unhurried step. The rotation ended, the room was silent. Very obviously civilians, and very obviously nervous. Several of them were leaning forwards, using the large table for support on their elbows. Others made themselves so straight, they must have replaced their spines for a street-sign.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” Kassandora began, standing in front of her white board and staring the men down. “Today, the Empire faces a threat.” She looked at them. “And you will help me defeat it.” And now, how would she explain the concept of Pax to these fools?

“Goddess, what are we defeating?” One of the men spoke up before she could think of an eloquent summary.

“A demon who must be killed, yet who cannot be harmed.” She said and stared at them. Then turned around and walked to her white board. This would need an explanation. She drew a stick figure with a tail and horns, then underlined it with its name. “This is Pax, Tartarus’ Prince of Peace.” She said, she tapped the board, then quickly made a few lines which resembled a man with a gun. “When one tries to hurt Pax, something, whether Pax or whether the universe or whatever it is, forces the body to stop moving. We have tried with shooting him.” She drew a line to cross out the figure. “We have tried launching missiles at him.” A quick doodle of a missile was made, then swiftly crossed out. “I know he cannot be harmed through the blade.” Another figure, this one with a single line to indicate a sword, was created only to be dashed through. “ And then, she drew an explosion and raised a hand. “BUT!” She said. “And this is a large BUT! He can be harmed. When shelled in the immediate vicinity, we have seen shrapnel bounce off him. I have tested the hypothesis. It goes generally like this, a single shot.”

She drew a huge circle around Pax. “Will not be fired, whatsoever. Two, likewise. But a volley.” She peppered the outside of the circle. This was all the realm of speculation. She had no proof, no evidence, utterly nothing. But it was the sole way that a logical explanation could be applied to the situation and that was enough. “Shrapnel is launched into the air by one explosion.” Another line, not at Pax, not even through the circle around him. “It could be torn or ripped apart, or it rides the shockwave.” More lines, all with sharp corners. “Until it eventually happens to hit Pax by pure accident.”

“To sum up, this is the issue. Now.” She looked at them. “I believe he cannot be harmed consciously. And that is what we are here for today. What is killing, ladies and gentlemen? How far can we stretch the definition, and how far can go before a death has no killer?” She looked at them, they weren’t her soldiers though, they wouldn’t get that what she had said was already the permission to discuss. She tapped the board. “How can we consciously create an accidental death with no killer?”

One man held up his arm, in a suit and a scarf. From a university, Kassandora had just gotten the best she could, their names weren’t important. “To answer the first question Goddess, It is the taking of life.” Kassandora nodded.

“Then a man who falls and cracks his head is killed?” She asked. That shot got them going. From the men who had been pilfered from philosophy departments of Imperial universities. And from the lawyers. “Just speak, I am not your mother to be teaching you manners.”

One of the lawyers, definitely because of the silver watch and the white suit, leapt into action. “In that case, the legal argument for the murder would be a health and safety review. Was it an accident, or was it negligence?”

From the other side of the table: “That is a matter of legality and suing, nothing more. No one has physically killed someone.”

And back across. “If a doctor refuses to prescribe the correct dosage, they are held liable.”

“And if a Cleric?” Another lawyer asked. The whole table turned.

“Clerics have legal immunity from prosecution relating to their craft.” A woman said, her hair plush and brown and silky, it almost caught in the light. “And a doctor is not held liable for murder but rather negligence once again.”

“But it is a killing by all means, is it not?” Someone else asked. “As much as this is a table, in a situation like that-“ Kassandora interrupted this train of logic.

“If I could get into a situation were the way to kill Pax would be to deny him healing, then I would do it. That has been thought of already.” The room fell silent at her first word. “You are here because killing to me is as simple as removing a head from a body. If you shoot someone, they die and you killed them. You’ve never touched them, but that still happens.” She looked back to the diagram. “That is the case here. Let us say this piece of shrapnel tore Pax’s head off, who would be the killer?”

“The unit as a whole.” Bald fellow this time, legal advice again.

Then the man next to him disagreed immediately. “There would be none individual.”

“Unless you could prove it.” Brown-hair lady again. “A piece of the shell.”

“And if it’s a rock?”

“Then the commander who gave the order.” She said. “But that is merely a legal treaty, not reality.”

“Unless we recorded the event, played it frame-by-frame.” Bald again.

“There is no killer.” The other side of the table finally joined in. Kassandora remained silent. The legal arguments weren’t important, laws were based off spirit and morality and ideals, rarely did those match reality. “Because none of them individually could have done that.”

“I disagree friend.” Another from the same side, in a purple shawl. From Rancais, Kassandora did not know the university but that accent gave it away. “And I do not even need semantics to prove you wrong, a castle is built and has builders. In the Goddess’ scenario, it is not that we have eliminated the killer, it is that we have turned the singular into the plural.”

Kassandora smiled and nodded. That was a good catch, now that it was voiced, she saw the logic immediately. She filtered the idea back into a spare corner of her mind. It would be useful. Someone else raised their hand, the table as a whole turned to them. “No, here, in the scenario, take the conscience round. If we assume this demon’s aura is supernatural, then would the shooter with the round not be able to fire?”

“I have tested it with fully automatic fire.” Kassandora said. “Blanks interspersed with live rounds. Soldiers just let go of the trigger or are unable to press it down. Even when tricked into thinking they have only blanks, they can’t shoot when they get to the real one.”

The man nodded. “That does reveal a lot.” Kassandora wanted to sigh, but she let the games of semantics continue. What did it reveal exactly? That Pax’s power operated beyond clear visibility?”

“We if he was tied to train tracks?” Someone asked. Kassandora rolled her eyes.

“If that could be done, we would not be in this situation right now.” What a stupid idea. Why not just catch him and throw him in the ocean then? The demon could swim, and he wasn’t strong, but not strong in her terms was still easily as powerful as a minor Divine.

“What if he got trapped?” One of the lawyers asked. She brought lawyers and philosophers here because she wanted total solutions to end the problem, not these time-buying games. What if he got trapped? Well what if he did? He’d still be alive, wouldn’t he?

“That would make the problem worse.” One of the philosophers said. “To try and fling anything into that cage then could be construed as harm.”

From the other side of the table, a lawyer backed him up. “In the same fashion that a spillage into a pool will have a responsible actor, even if it simply flows in after being spilled on the ground.” Good. This wasn’t a good-enough problem, if she wanted that sort of solution, she would have called engineers.

“Would it be killing to throw snow in the air and start an avalanche?” One of the philosophers said. The table fell silent for a moment.

The legal spoke up first, the woman with the brown hair. “That depends on location and intent. Was it accidental? Does it roll over a structure? Or is it just over other hikers that weren’t seen?”

The original thinker shook his head as Kassandora listened in. “Then let me rephrase the scenario. Let us say that one released a bird, the bird flew, it knocked off snow from a branch, then that snow caused the avalanche. What then? May we call the original keeper of the bird a killer?”

The woman just stared at him, eyes squinted as if she had to process what was being heard. Kassandora just stood and listened. If someone had proposed that to her, she would tell them to just shut up. The bird was the killer, obviously. Another person from the legal side spoke up. “That is so far-fetched I don’t think it’s ever happened.”

“It is a hypothetical, the purpose is to be far-fetched.”

“Is the bird trained to cause avalanches?” Someone asked. “That changes things.”

“The bird is just a bird.” Kassandora smiled at the response. The bird was just a bird, the sword was just a sword. She saw how this was going. Now.

“No.” One of the philosophers, one of the ones with glasses this time, said. “Unless we ascribe the kill to the bird, the chain of events is too far.”

“Is it?”

“Are you responsible for every death you inadvertently cause?” Glasses-man said. “Assume another is chosen to be executed. Do you kill them if you do not volunteer for their place? The bird was released and the bird caused the event.”

“But are birds capable of being killers?” The one who thought up of the scenario asked. And now Kassandora lost the plot. What did the bird’s proficiency at killing have anything to do it?

“I have seen eagles trained to hunt mice, are they not killers?” She asked. That shut the line of questioning down. It was stupid anyway, just mind games. These fools could debate it in their own time.

“But it was your action that fundamentally caused the landslide.” Another said. “The fact of the matter remains that if that bird had not been released, then the landslide would have not happened and so whoever got crushed would still be alive.”

“We circle back to reasonable responsibility.” The other side of the table now. “Assume I shoot a gun into the air, everyone knows that guns are dangerous, bullets fly back down to the ground, even if the probability of striking someone is low. That is reasonable. Releasing a bird which then inadvertently causes a landslide is not.” The lawyer who spoke crossed his arms. “Under no definition is it killing, one could just as well say that the dog which takes a leak on an ant nest kills.”

Kassandora saw the logic in his words, she turned back to the bored. Under Pax’s rules… Well, she wouldn’t know unless it was tested but that bird could be released. The dog would be unable to leak though if Pax was an ant. She narrowed her eyes. That was another gap in the logic, it had to be uncertain. The chain of logic could not be simple, chance had to play a part. Her smile grew. She may have hated this lot, but they did bring perspectives that the military mind did not. She filed this factor of chance right next to the original idea, to hide the singular killer in the mass.

From behind her, a short shouting match started. Kassandora let them get the anger out, sitting too long wasn’t good for people after all. It ended when she was still looking at the board. “SILENCE!” One man shouted. Kassandora turned to see an arm raised. “Goddess, if I may.”

“You may.” Kassandora said. May what though?

“When you said Pax was harmed by shrapnel, it was by a volley, yes?”

“It was by a volley, an artillery one.” Kassandora said.

“But was any of the volley targeting him?”

“The guns aimed close to him could not fire. Upon calculation by our troops, it was the extent of the blast radius.”

“What about individual shells?”

“The effect is the same. We have tried replicating the shrapnel effect before. That is why I mentioned the theory of shell blast affecting rock trajectory. When we fire single shells, the effect cannot be replicated and we have tried. Likewise with gas shells and napalm. Airburst, for example, just won’t work in his general direction.” To think she was reporting the information to a human, and to a civilian at that.

“So you have to change the trajectory after the shell is already in the air then. And the shell cannot be aimed at him.”

“Without intention to harm Pax.” Kassandora said.

“Could you not have the weather do it?”

Kassandora stared at the man for a few moments. She heard a sword clash against a sword in her heard. A glorious charge of cavalry break a shieldwall. Catapult rocks break down castles. She heard the victory horn blow.

Genius.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep