Chapter 1: The Collapse Creeps Upon

Chapter 1: The Collapse Creeps Upon Us, Bringing Silence

Translated by narumonster on Vocaloid Otaku.
How should the world be?
What was the shape of the world?
What is the reason for the current state of world?
In a world containing such distortion, is eternal prosperity....?

As he carried and placed back several luxuriously binded books, the scholar breathed a sigh as he brushed his hair off his grim face.
The bookshelf in front of his eyes couldn’t possibly hold any more books, being so tightly packed already. Some spines of the books sorted out according to fixed rules were faded and burnt by the sun due to their constant use, while others were swept over and taken out and read only halfway. He inhaled the characteristic air mixed with some mustiness and without hesitating placed his hand on volume placed on the shelf.
In there, only documents that contained what the empire validated as “the correct way” for how the world ought to be were stored. On the flipside, the libraries containing the underside of history were deeply hidden, only few people being able to gaze upon them.
The prosperity and good harvests of this world were brought along by a miracle that came to rest on this land. That was the being called “dragon”, for which the people living in this chosen land elevated songs in order to offer their prayers and gratitude for his existence. That was the accepted view of society on how the Divas originated. As a story that one would be told repeatedly since childhood it became effectively imprinted and no one questioned the state of the world.
Which was a technique well suited to instill a sense of being the chosen people.
They were granted the sense of being “the chosen” by the god called “dragon” and with the pre-established notion of the Divas as revered beings that existed for his sake, and with anyone who raised an objection rejected as a heretic.
And such, the condition of the ideology had become completely warped. The world he lived in and the people around him were quick to bare their fangs when one objected the answer given from the start, that doing things like questioning the state of the world was pointless.
“...Truly, everything is warped.”
In the room dominated by silence, those words uttered with a sigh were loud.
The scholar knew. In this warped earth, if one uttered something other than the instilled structure of the world, the closer that statement was to reality, the quicker that risk factor was going to be rejected. Buried in the darkness along that hard to reach theory.
Calmly, the scholar brushed his long fingers along the side of the tome he was holding under his arm. Only that volume had its binding ruined on the edges.
The writings of the scholar’s grandfather filled completely the pages turned yellow and faded with the sun.
Those words, which couldn’t avoid eliciting a bitter smile when he thought of them as skilled writings despite being scribbles, were the proof his grandfather had lived, and close to a final opposition to the world that had erased him.
Among the many things that had being disposed of, only this had escaped. It also represented the will entrusted as the last cleverness of his grandfather.
How is the world?
The cognizance of the world trough the doctrine, the danger of causing irritation, and the blind faith of the dragon; those allowed the distortion of the world and its inhabitants, even leading to the recognition of that as the usual state of things. In this world gradually losing its balance, the people didn’t doubt that the temporary public peace would continue.
The scholar calmly raised his eyes. He probably wouldn’t doubt as well, if his circumstances were different.
If he didn’t even have the words of his mother, who laughed despite feeling disgraced. If he didn’t have the will his grandfather left behind.