Omniscient First-Person’s Viewpoint
Chapter 302: The Gears in My Head

Maximilien took a deep breath, his mind still processing the words I spoke while his body struggled with the wreckage it had become.

The shattered gears inside him started to spin once more.

His joints creaked back into action and the scant blood in his body rallied toward his head, clearing the fog from his thoughts.

｢Did I… try to become a god?｣

Maximilien let out a derisive snort, which gave him a splitting headache.

In his current state, even a scoff would hurt him.

Tick, tick.

The gears inside Maximilien’s head began to turn.

｢I never believed in God. Ever since I was born without both arms, I never relied on something so vague, not for a single moment. I walked my path with my gears and forged it with alchemy. God has never watched over me. There’s only me… Always me.｣

Despite the horrific condition of his body, his mind kept working, ticking away slowly but surely like a broken clock forced to move.

There were gears inside his head, after all.

The device, which he had named the “Gear of Thought,” didn’t exactly do his thinking for him.

Rather, it was more like a whip for his brain.

It channeled blood into his brain and forced it to work, silencing the parts that protested from exhaustion.

Emotions and logic were spliced back together as needed.

As a result, even in states of complete exhaustion, hunger, or pain, his mind remained sharp.

Fear, rage, confusion—nothing could hinder his thoughts.

Even the roars of the Beast King wouldn’t stop his body from moving, and not even the Princess’s power could make him falter.

If necessary, he would act, even if it bordered on the Anathema.

Maximilien had earned his right with this—his right to move solely by his own will, regardless of destiny or limitations.

｢…You’re wrong, Human King. I don’t need to become a god.｣

“I am already the god of my own life!”

With that declaration, Maximilien made use of the rights he had gained.

He thrust his mangled prosthetic arm with ferocious determination.

“I only wanted to give those who lacked power a chance! A chance to become the master of their own destiny!”

Even though his body was in shambles, sheer willpower allowed him to use his Unique Magic.

Focusing his mind, he forced his gears to turn once again.

The Steel Beetle beneath us groaned as it stirred from its long slumber.

I had been suppressing it until now, but with my control released, nothing could stop the colossal war machine—not even the Dog King.

The Steel Beetle creaked, preparing to unleash its full might.

“All that talk about ‘giving people power’ sounds noble, but you’re really just trying to shove gears into other people’s bodies, aren’t you?”

I shrugged.

The Steel Beetle’s creaking stopped, locked in a spasm.

If machines could suffer paralysis, this was exactly what it would look like.

Despite all of Maximilien’s attempts, the Steel Beetle failed to move and the exoskeleton completely jammed.

“I’m just reacting like anyone else would. Who in their right mind would let another person stick gears into their body? They’d resist it with everything they have, and not just out of fear.”

I pointed at the Steel Beetle so Maximilien could see it for himself.

Between the enormous gears that made up the exoskeleton, smaller gears were wedged in.

Two gears can turn smoothly if meshed together properly.

But what if you added a third gear simultaneously in contact with the other two?

With three gears meshed together, what happens?

They would stop. Completely.

If one gear turns clockwise, the meshed gear must turn counterclockwise.

But if the third gear was caught between them, it would have to turn in both directions at once—a paradox.

“Look at the Steel Beetle. When an odd number of gears form a loop, everything halts. A simple trick, but effective. Gears are useless like this. You can use them, but no one else can—or rather, no one will.”

“Ugh…!”

“Just give up already. You’ve got nothing left.”

He had used up all his gear.

He had no mana to use alchemy.

His cloak had been shattered by Historia’s Consensus of Gun and Sword.

Now, all that remained of him was a cripple with a single prosthetic arm, standing on the precipice of death.

I walked towards him, step by step.

A few stray gears littered the ground, but nowhere near to being a threat.

Gears were only useful when put together properly.

He had no means left to stop me.

Any ordinary person would have been crushed by his prosthetic arm, but I wasn’t just any ordinary opponent.

The moment I touched him, I could reverse the direction of every gear in his body—down to the Gear of Thought in his brain.

Maximilien’s head drooped as if he had resigned himself to defeat.

Only two steps remained between us—two steps before his death.

Suddenly, Maximilien grabbed his right arm with his left hand.

The prosthetic arm trembled violently as if it were about to break.

“No! I will not stop!”

Of course not.

The trembling of his prosthetic wasn’t from fear. It was the final death throes of a machine on the brink of destruction.

With a sickening crack, he tore his right arm from his shoulder, ripping the prosthetic from its socket.

With one final desperate roar, Maximilien swung his own arm as a weapon.

｢If there is not enough, I will make more. If it breaks, I will fix it. If it is poor, I will improve it. If it is impossible, I will make it possible! I will not stop!｣

Who would think of swinging their own arm as a weapon?

It was a reckless, desperate attack, exploiting the briefest lapse in my awareness.

Despite his injuries, Maximilien was still a Star General.

The speed at which he swung his own arm was incredible. The gears in the prosthetic snapped and clattered away, ready to tear me apart.

But I am a Mind Reader.

And a meticulously calculated move like that?

I could see it coming a mile away.

Rather than dodging, I reached out with my hand to meet his attack.

Compared to the speed of his prosthetic arm, my movements were pitifully slow.

But speed was relative.

Before the arm could strike my face, my fingers reached the gears.

They intertwined.

Just like that, the battle ended.

Maximilien froze in place as if he’d been turned into a photograph, his prosthetic arm still touching my cheek

Its cold surface pressed against my skin as I muttered under my breath.

“…You managed to stop the gears even when I reversed them. Impressive.”

Just as I could stop a spinning gear, so could he.

The moment he sensed his gears malfunctioning, he brought them to a halt.

It was the best counter he could have mustered, but his efforts changed nothing.

“You’ve spread those gears throughout your entire body. You won’t be able to move. All you’ve done is buy yourself a few extra seconds before death.”

As expected, the strength began to drain from his body.

Stopping the gears meant his body couldn’t support itself anymore.

I wasn’t dismissing his effort.

In fact, I wanted to applaud him for squeezing out every last ounce of fight.

But if I let go now, he would move again, so I clapped for him with my words instead.

“Clap clap clap. You really are incredible. This is genuine admiration, no mockery, no sarcasm. You were remarkable, right up to the very end.”

Realistically, it never made sense for me to lose.

Aside from the prosthetics, Maximilien had packed his body with gears to enhance his strength.

That made him incredibly durable, capable of moving as fluidly as an adept Qi practitioner despite being filled with machinery.

Because of that, he claimed that he had mastered Geon-Gon-Gam-Li and that his ability to turn gears was his Li.

But the truth was, I had the upper hand from the beginning.

I could win just by touching him, and I had Azzy and Historia backing me up.

The fight was hopelessly one-sided in my favor.

Despite that, Maximilien had managed to drag it out this far with sheer skill.

“You just aimed in the wrong direction. Those who touch the power of the Divine bring natural change to humans—they don’t fight against them. You, on the other hand, tried to wage war against every human being, even resorting to this proxy war against me.”

With one hand still holding his prosthetic, I pulled out a card with the other.

Ace of Diamonds, the Pickpocket’s Skewer.

Using the last bit of my energy, I transmuted it, feeling its familiar weight in my hand.

Gripping the spike in reverse, I raised it to Maximilien’s head.

Even though his mind had almost completely shut down, his bloodshot eyes instinctively followed the point of the spike.

In the end, life still fears its end.

“Farewell, Maximilien. I’ll honor your wish by remembering it. Though I can’t fulfill your desire, I’ll make sure it’s written down somewhere in a memorial. The Human King acknowledges you. You weren’t a god, but you were a brave warrior.”

After paying my final respects, I thrust the spike toward his temple.

It struck something hard.

I tilted my head. Though I had aimed for his skull, the spike had hit something else.

A tree had grown in its path.

Somehow, a tree had sprouted from the concrete, right in front of me, blocking my strike.

It gently waved its branches, as if greeting me.

The situation was so jarring that for a moment, I almost believed the tree had been there all along and that I had simply missed it.

But no—that was impossible.

This was the Military State.

A place where every inch of ground was paved over with concrete.

Any trees that might have once stood here had been cut down long ago.

The soil had been replaced by concrete, and bricks now stood where trees might have once grown.

There was no way a tree could exist here.

Even if it could, it wouldn’t be able to push through such thick concrete, let alone grow to a person’s height in mere seconds.

This was clearly the result of an intentional intervention.

Someone had made that tree grow to protect Maximilien.

How that was possible was secondary to the more pressing question: who?

“I beg your pardon, my king.”

The answer came from beneath the ground.At first, it was just a sprout, then a sapling.

In a matter of seconds, what had been a tiny sprout became a towering tree right in front of me.

It was the calmest explosion I had ever witnessed—an explosion of nature, bursting forth with green smoke and brown flames.

It engulfed me in the blink of an eye.