Even his voice was like a group of instruments of different registers playing a dissonant harmony. Yet at the same time, it felt strange, like a multitude of voices speaking one after the other.
“What do you mean?” Belle frowned at the lower face. “You’re saying that if I have this ‘means and method,’ I’ll be able to coincidentally play the Key?”
The king’s lower face scoffed at her loudly, his low rumbling voice turning into a beautiful tone. “A means is but a tool to manifest that which is within. A method is but a way to accept that which is without. A means is a road to the method, a manner with which to achieve your goal. That is what brings up the curse of those who exist outside the gods—and what turns that curse into a blessing… Without that, one cannot so much as reach the Key.”
“If that’s the case, then I already have this ‘means and method.’ I mean, I’m sitting in front of the Key right now, and I played the first tone…”
“But you must know what it is, in and of itself,” the top face said. “Otherwise, you will not know where your path will lead you and will wander forever, unaware. That is what we call humanity.”
“Humanity…?”
It was a completely unfamiliar word to Belle.
“Humanity refers to all things that possess gestalt, a shape to their heart. It can refer to anything, even trees and rocks. All things that possess gestalt—or in other words, all things with a personality—are considered part of humanity.”
Belle thought back to the time she was attacked by a gnome in the Quartz Forest, where O’crocks are produced. The guardian spirit of the forest didn’t have a proper body, but it changed its physical form according to the shape of its will.
“…Humanity,” Belle said, still confused. “So what you’re saying is this: In understanding humanity, I’ll be able to find the means and method, which I can use to meet coincidence… And after all that, the Key will play…?”
The more she talked, the less sense it made. But oddly enough, she wasn’t annoyed.
I think the king is trying to convey one major, fundamental thing, but he can’t say it directly. So he keeps alluding to it and burying it underneath everything else, hoping I’ll get the gist of it…
Feeling that this explained the king’s behavior, Belle made an effort not to get annoyed with the dizzying flurry of words and terms, and she just put up with them.
But then the lower face brought up another term.
“However, hear this, ye without kin. To understand humanity, you must first grasp its nature—something called ‘Now Here.’”
There’s more…?
But as Belle whispered that to herself, exhausted, something clicked into place. Her eyes lit up as she waited for the king to keep going.
“Now Here is the name of the Spell of Journey. In exiling yourself from God’s law, you take on a grand curse, condemning yourself to believe that it will one day become a blessing. Wherever you go, the spell will force on you the loneliness of being here and now—”
“Durchbohren—drill through the world!” Belle shouted, cutting off the king. “Howl out in my own pitch… When I do that, I’ll carve out a hole in the earth. I will carve the spell that is my name into the world. Only then will my existence truly bloom. This is what my sword taught me. Ah, so this is what you meant… It’s a lot like what you’re saying, King Rawhide.”
This time, the king went silent, awaiting Belle’s words. But Belle, too, went speechless, realizing what conclusion her words had led her to. Belle was confused and unusually flustered, and she turned her eyes to the Key, like she was asking for help.
The black instrument stood silent, as if indicating what she must do next.
Belle bit her lip.
“But I… I don’t know what that is yet… No. I get the feeling I shouldn’t understand…”
And only once she said that did Belle realize the situation she was in. It was too early. The instrument she was now touching was asking her what that silence meant, and Belle only had a vague understanding. Yet in it, Belle sensed a deep abyss that made her unconsciously pull away from the question. In the face of that abyss, she felt like all she could do was stand stock-still in fear.
“When I first played the Key, I thought the instrument was playing on its own. And it probably was. All I did was place my fingers on the Key… No, not even that; I only wished for it. If I truly wanted to, even me swinging my sword down on this instrument would have made this instrument play itself. The Key permits everything… But even so…”
Despite this, Belle couldn’t play the Key any longer. She couldn’t bring the Key to play and express who she was.
“I can’t… Not yet…”
This was the vast solitude she learned of when she had danced with Kitty the All during the ball. It was a definitive sense of who she was, a despairing loneliness brought upon by the fact that her existence was independent and isolated from the world.
“Right now…I can’t see the freedom this instrument offers as ‘freedom.’ It’s lonely… So lonely it would make me lose my mind.”
In that moment, she realized the Key had gone completely silent.
“In that case, Little One, do you forfeit this trial…?” the king’s two faces asked solemnly.
The hint of disappointment in his voice hurt Belle, but even so, she couldn’t do anything different.
“Well, I mean…”
With doubt and dread—as well as a certain resignation—Belle pressed her finger down on the keys. But the only sound it made was a hollow clunk, like a stone thrown into a still lake. The noise was soon swallowed by silence, scattering meaninglessly into the air.
Such a heavy sound…, Belle thought, feeling it in its entirety.
It was the shock of having to contain the endless possibilities hidden within the abyssal silence inside her one body—a shock so inexplicable that Belle came to the realization that this was far too premature for her. That depth of possibility was the melody of the spell that would be performed by the Key, and at the same time, it was Belle’s life. And no matter how multifaceted and nigh infinite that life may have been, Belle would be all alone.
Just her, singularly, contrasted against infinity—her existence, diminutive to the point of being nearly null. The comparison weighed heavily on Belle’s heart, leaving her terrified. But despite that shock, she wasn’t one to simply give it all up for Park or God or a Thema. She knew she had to bear that weight on her own. Leaving on a journey meant being sustained by one’s own Thema, and so long as that was her aspiration, no one but her could bear the weight of the silence that was her life.
In a sense, that weight was her mental preparation, the conviction of where her soul was. And unable to support this weight she had picked up, Belle chose to give up and put it down.
I get the feeling this has been happening to me a lot lately…, Belle thought, letting out a deep sigh.
Opening this door again didn’t strike her as completely impossible—but it would be terribly hard. If nothing else, she couldn’t do it as she was now.
She turned a reproachful gaze at the Key, but the black instrument simply stood there indifferently, tacitly implying that not playing this was also a part of freedom.