He and It Chapter 96: Dark Sky Sanctuary (31)

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Chapter 96: Dark Sky Sanctuary (31)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

 

In the peace conference room, the atmosphere was awkward….Actually, even awkward was a euphemism.

The two sides were divided into two distinct factions: one led by Radiant Angel and Deathstar, while on the other side, due to Falchion’s absence, Catastrophe was anxious, Crusade was in a daze, Iron Scepter was silent, and Ether was still basking in the joy of the pie in the sky. Only Striker took the responsibility for confrontation and glared at the other side.

A few moments passed. With Falchion in the back and Yu Mengzhou in the front, they finally entered the door of the peace conference room. For the first time in a long time, the herd was together in one place. When they faced Yu Mengzhou, their faces would show a smile, and their eyes would have a glow, but the rest of the time, they all looked as if they were on the verge of attacking an enemy.

Yu Mengzhou patted Falchion’s horse back, but when the Demon Realm’s Emperor looked down at him, his eyes became dull again, and his expression was very confused.

Yu Mengzhou, “…”

“Fine! I’ll do the talking then.” Yu Mengzhou jumped onto the long hollowed out conference table and casually sat down. “Everyone, feel free to do the same. Don’t stand.”

The herd looked at each other, and coincidentally chose to lie down in place, with a posture of good behavior, around in a circle. Blasphe, as the only neutral faction, was sandwiched at the junction, and acting as a buffer zone. Falchion was lying behind Yu Mengzhou, just like a resolute mountain.

After a moment of silence, Yu Mengzhou softly said, “Actually, this isn’t quite the reunion I envisioned.”

Hearing his words, the centaurs fell silent as well. He looked around and sighed again, “Forget it. Things have come to this point, so it’s quite pointless for me to be an afterthought…It’s just as well. There are some things that we’d better deal with one by one.”

Yu Mengzhou snapped his fingers. “First thing. I promised The Weaver that if he would lend me magic power to speed up my return to human form, so I need to convince you guys to give him a piece of Hell to retire in…”

“No problem.” Crusade immediately stepped up. “I’ll carve out whatever territory I want for him. I won’t be able to use it anyway.”

“In that case, it doesn’t even matter if the palace is allocated to him, no one can use it anyway,” Noel snarked.

When he saw that there was going to be another dispute, Yu Mengzhou hurriedly said, “Good! In that case, everyone has no opinion on this matter, right?”

The herd was quiet once again. Everyone just nodded their heads, no one wanted to rush out in front of their longtime rivals and express the same stance as the other party.

...Similar to a group of middle schoolers who bet on their best friends to chill out, Yu Mengzhou thought to himself.

“Second thing.” He held up one more finger. “You’ve all fought with your opposite blood relatives, right?”

The herd coveted him surreptitiously with their eyes, while this time the nods were much smaller.

“Good,” Yu Mengzhou said. “Now…talk to me. No, don’t look at me, look across the room! It doesn’t matter whose eyes you look straight into, you have to look straight across anyway! And then, say it with me–“

He said, word for word, “–I’m sorry.”

“Sorry…”

They parroted the words halfway through, with everyone responding in unison and then they immediately refused to speak.

Striker panicked and whispered, “It’s been a long time since we’ve been fighting each other to the death, so just saying sorry won’t do much good…”

“Don’t argue!” Yu Mengzhou exclaimed, causing Striker to shrink his tail, his eyes terrified.

“Words have power, and every frankly spoken word is an oath. An apology buried in your heart, even if it’s buried for the rest of your life, is false self-congratulation, because your apology can only be heard by you. That’s why my elders told me from a young age that when you’ve done something wrong, you should first say sorry out loud, and then only after that, can you take your turn to make amends in tangible action!”

Deathstar’s eyes twinkled with stars and murmured yearningly, “…He’s so mean. I love it.”

Sevenfold Eyes, “…”

Sevenfold Eyes wanted to kick him again.

“Now,” Yu Mengzhou re-emphasized. “Say it with me – I’m sorry.”

The room was stubbornly quiet for a moment. Yu Mengzhou narrowed his eyes. The Princes of one faction cried bitterly in their hearts that the human was so cute but so mean, while the other faction snickered in their hearts that the human was so mean but so cute. Under the strong psychological pressure, they finally looked into the eyes of their compatriots, and anemically said “I’m sorry.”

Strange as it may seem, after saying that sentence, the rigid atmosphere between them, which had been stagnant for hundreds of years, actually loosened up. Actually, if they thought about it, the first split in the herd was caused by the Chief’s radical behavior after the death of the human…

…Wait a minute.

Deathstar was suddenly startled and blurted out, “That’s not right. Why are we the only ones who said sorry when there’s another one?”

Yu Mengzhou turned his head, “He said it. Falchion?”

Falchion nodded silently as he stood up and stepped forward, so that he enveloped Yu Mengzhou entirely within his shadow.

“As the human said, I am the one who should apologize the most.” He faced his herd. “I chose the most radical approach to prepare to save his life. I do not regret my choices or intentions. I did what I did, all by my own independent will, without interference from any other individual. “

“But I will say to you that I am sorry, because as the chief of the herd, I have failed to curb my compatriots who are as radical as I am, and I have failed by leaving behind the members of the herd who still had their sanity intact, and I feel…I’m sorry.”

The centaurs froze. They didn’t expect him to be so honest.

“Therefore, I will give up this throne, abdicate, resign…Call it what you will. I have lost too much for this crown, and so have you.” Falchion removed the bone crown from his head. “Let’s get out of here when all the chores are taken care of.”

Bloody Butcher hadn’t absorbed all of that yet and asked in a daze, “…Leave here and go where?”

“Home with the human, of course, idiot!” Ether was so moved his eyes reddened, but he still didn’t forget to sneer at his nemesis.

Bloody Butcher was furious. He rushed up and started to fight with his old rival. Yu Mengzhou was about to go over and pull them apart, then give them each a blow to the head, but Falchion pulled him back and whispered, “There are no hard feelings. Let them fight a little, and this will be over.”

Yu Mengzhou’s head was filled with black lines. You guys look like middle schoolers when you’re in a cold war, and high schoolers when you’re in a fight.

At the beginning, just Ether and Bloody Butcher fought fiercely, but the size of the centaurs was huge and the battle’s arena was too wide, so in the end, it was almost a messy melee. It was a good thing they didn’t use weapons and spells, it was all based on the physical savagery of swinging fists, and wantonly stomping with hooves.

Yu Mengzhou watched with blurred eyes as the high, open hall shook with gold and dust, while the huge chandelier in the ceiling trembled dangerously at the same time. He hid under Falchion’s belly and watched the battle with awe, when he suddenly saw Iron Scepter leave the herd, and run out alone onto the terrace.

When he remembered Iron Scepter’s uncharacteristic silence, he patted Falchion’s leg and slipped out with a bow.

Iron Scepter was looking off into the distance beyond the royal capital. Like Blasphe, he was dressed in immense splendor, so that the glow of his jeweled headband masked his handsome face.

Only…he looked truly melancholy.

“I should be staying here.” He heard Yu Mengzhou’s footsteps, but he didn’t turn around. “I’m really glad to see you again.”

“Stay here?” Yu Mengzhou was taken aback. “Why would you voluntarily stay here?”

Only then did the Iron Scepter turn around and gaze at him sadly.

“Voluntary or not, it’s not for me to decide,” the centaur whispered. “In truth, I would have loved to follow Radiant Angel to his Golden Palace, or remain neutral like Blasphe, but sadly, of all my fellow brothers, my function was almost born for that throne.”

“I am the Royalty of Hell, and from the moment I came to this earth, I was the Demon Horse most deeply attached to the Demon Realm.” His gaze was almost sad. “So if I followed you to earth, what use would I be to you? I have no power, no authority…”

“But you’re still my horse!” Yu Mengzhou exclaimed incredulously. “Do I need you for anything? I don’t! I’m a farrier, and my wish is to have my own ponies and calves, though you’re not ponies and I don’t know where to get calves…But I’ve said I’m going to raise you. All I want is for you all to be happy and blessed, and that’s enough. I don’t need you to do anything for me!”

Iron Scepter said in a daze, “But without a Prince to stay behind, the order of the Demon Realm–”

“Never mind the order of the Demon Realm,” Yu Mengzhou interrupted. “Like Falchion said, haven’t you sacrificed enough for it? Go to earth. I can buy a mountain, or buy many mountains for you to run in. You don’t have to care about anything, just be responsible for being a happy centaur.”

He wrapped his arms around Iron Scepter’s waist and pointed towards the distant, sprawling horizon. “What is this? It’s Hell. It’s a world. It has its own rules that hold it together, so it won’t be destroyed without you. In fact, no matter who’s missing, today will still pass, tomorrow will still come, and the world won’t stop spinning. Are you its named Prince, and are you indispensable here? No, the one who truly cannot do without you is me, your fellow man, not this strange hell!”

Iron Scepter gazed at him in amazement, then asked in a small voice, “Really?”

Yu Mengzhou stroked his back and whispered, “You’re so stupid. It must be true! Well…To put it bluntly, I love you all very much. Now that I’m Falchion’s rider, you’re equally my responsibility, so how could I possibly leave any of you behind?”

Iron Scepter’s touching smile of joy suddenly faltered as he asked in confusion, “Wait, rider?”

“Yes,” Yu Mengzhou chuckled. “To a demon, touching horns is tantamount to creating a master-servant contract, correct? Although I’m not willing to be Falchion’s master, since I’ve said I’ll take you all to earth, in order to put his mind at ease, I’ll be his rider for the time being.”

I don’t know where the rule of “touching the horns is to create a master-servant contract” came from, but I’m sure it’s not the demonic rule of this hell of ours. Iron Scepter propped up his chin, pondered for a moment, and murmured in realization, “Hmm, interesting.”

“So why don’t you stop thinking about it?” Yu Mengzhou said. “Take care of what needs to be taken care of in the next few days, and then we’ll get going, okay?”

Iron Scepter was coaxed by the cunning human to be smooth and sweet. There was nothing more to worry about, so he rubbed his head on top of Yu Mengzhou’s head contentedly.

In the evening, after a long day of commotion, the centaurs finally settled down in the palace, while Falchion led Yu Mengzhou to his own bedchamber. With just a few hours’ work, the originally empty and dead room had been greatly transformed; with bright light, and a warm, soft, thick, woolen blanket on the floor, and a cluster of pillows on the blanket. The blanket was laying on a plush bird’s nest like a big fluffy nest. With centaurs physiological structure, they decided that they could not sleep on a bed.

Yu Mengzhou said, “That mess on your…I’ll remove it for you, okay?”

Falchion jerked, then nodded tenderly. ” Okay.”

The youth fetched his tools and found a clear space for the centaur. He’d seen in his old life the way those hard, unyielding instruments of torture that were the sharp-edged, bone-piercing saddle blankets, had long ago become so deeply embedded in the flesh and blood that they had grown into the hide, so that they would need to be crushed piece by piece in a vice, and be removed in a gradual manner. 

“You…” Yu Mengzhou was about to say something. “Forget it. I’m not going to ask you to endure the pain. After so many years, you must be used to the pain…I’ll try to make it quick, okay?”

As long as he says so, what’s not good enough? Falchion nodded meekly and stood motionless as a mountain.

 

Author’s Note: 

Iron Scepter: *Low, defeated, disillusioned, low self-esteem* Leaving here, I’m nothing, I can’t do anything…

Yu Mengzhou: *hundred meter sprint over and punches him in the face for his lowliness, failure, decrepitude, and low self-esteem* I won’t allow you to talk about yourself like that, so I’m going to punch you in the face!

 

Iron Scepter: *All negativity is gone, only surprise remains* Ouch?