From the New World (新世界より)

FROM THE NEW WORLD

I've always had this doubt.

What do you mean, she's not a Fiend?

I have very good reasons for thinking so.

What reasons?

Why doesn't she attack Yakomaru and his men?

Aren't they controlling her with drugs?

If that were possible, Tomiko-san and the other leaders would've used that method long ago.

But her attack inhibition and death feedback aren't activating.

That's not it.

The queerats likely took her from her parents right after birth and raised her.

She must think she's a queerat.

So her death feedback applies not to humans...

...but to queerats?

I'm sure of it.

There's something I must ask of you.

I will do anything in my power to help you.

Once this is over, I believe everyone in the villages will call for the complete eradication of the queerat species.

But please, spare the queen of the Giant Hornet colony.

She is the life and hope of every member of our colony.

Save our mother.

Very well.

I can promise you that.

Thank you.

I'm not killing her! I'm not killing her!

I'm not killing her!

Saki!

You did great.

You're amazing. You really are.

No, Shun told me.

Shun? Who's Shun?

It's okay now.

If she had been born in the villages like the rest of us, I'm sure she would've grown into a lovely and talented girl.

Though I know it was not meant to be,

I still wish she could have breathed her last as a human being.

She had done no wrong.

Yakomaru, do you know who we are?

I do.

You are the ones who killed our Messiah and captured me.

We didn't kill her.

You know that, don't you?

You'll be put on trial soon.

Before that, there's something I want to ask you.

Why did you do all that?

All that?

Why did you ruthlessly murder so many innocent people?

I want to know the reason.

It was all simply part of the strategy.

Once hostilities commenced, we had to do everything we could to win.

Why did you revolt against mankind, then?

Because we are not your slaves.

What do you mean?

We've always acknowledged your complete autonomy!

Only when you are in a good mood, my masters.

However, should we invoke your wrath for the tiniest of reasons, our entire colony would be instantly eradicated.

But we had no way of telling when the winds of fortune would change.

We are perhaps less than slaves.

The elimination of a colony is the heaviest penalty.

It's reserved only for the heaviest offenses.

If you hadn't killed human beings or revolted against us, we wouldn't...

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Either way, we are like bubbles on the surface of a pond.

Is it not natural to wish to escape that fate?

We are highly intelligent beings.

We are not inferior to you in any way.

The only difference is that you possess the wicked power called Cantus, and we do not.

What you just said was more than enough to earn you the death penalty.

My fate would not change either way.

You say you acted for the good of your colony, but Kiroumaru thought otherwise.

How do you justify the dethroning of your queens and the terrible things you did to them afterwards?

Kiroumaru was a relic who clung to the old ways of thinking and could not see the truth.

As long as the queens hold power, reform is impossible!

Kiroumaru saw no need for reform.

I did not try to enact reforms for the sake of my own colony!

Was it to satiate your own lust for power?

It was all for the sake of my kind!

That's rich!

You sent your soldiers to die and didn't even bat an eyelid!

It was all part of the strategy.

It's pointless unless we win.

Once we won, all the sacrifices would have been worth it.

But you lost.

Yes.

That is why I deserve to die.

I held the all-powerful trump card, the Messiah,

but succumbed to a simple trick and lost everything.

We could have changed history.

An opportunity like this may never come again.

Let's go.

It's a waste of time to talk any further.

Yakomaru—

My name is Squealer!

Squealer, then.

There's something I want you to do.

I want you to apologize to all the people you killed from the bottom of your heart.

Absolutely.

If you apologize first, that is.

Apologize to all of my kind that you crushed mercilessly like worms beneath your feet!

I learned of my parents' fate from the people who had witnessed it.

By the time they returned to town, the war had reached a critical phase.

Kaburagi Shisei's corpse was hung on the Holy Barrier.

Everyone who saw it was seized with an overwhelming fear.

They lost all will to resist and ran in helpless panic.

My parents went to the schools and other facilities to release the Tainted Cats.

While they could not stop the Fiend, they did manage to slow her down.

Meanwhile, my parents went to the library and successfully burned all the documents that might prove dangerous in enemy hands.

But the smoke drew the attention of the enemy.

I believe my parents did not die in vain.

However, it quickly became clear who had the upper hand.

As we had no way of fighting the Fiend, all we could do was lament our imminent defeat.

But all of a sudden, the Fiend began acting strangely, as if distracted.

The prayers to exorcise the Fiend seemed to be taking effect.

Yakomaru reacted swiftly.

Just when everyone thought that they had retreated from the villages, they burned down the Temple of Purity.

Head Priest Mushin, Administrator Gyousha, and all the monks under them shared the fate of the temple.

There was nobody left to stop the Fiend.

They then came after us, presumably using information they had gotten at the Temple of Purity.

Now then, Yakomaru.

This is your chance to explain yourself.

My name is Squealer!

You insolently reject the name graciously bestowed upon you by the villages, little beast?

We are not beasts or slaves!

If you aren't beasts, then what are you?

We are humans!

Laugh all you want!

No evil goes unpunished forever!

Even if I die, one day another will carry on my cause!

And that day shall be the end of your tyranny!

Listen, everyone!

Simply killing him would be too kind.

We'd only be granting him peace.

I propose the sentence of Eternal Hell on this filth!

He got what he deserved.

You think so?

What are you saying?

Your parents, my family, and so many people in the villages died because of him.

Yes, but is there a point to such cruel revenge?

I don't know what's right anymore.

It involved sending signals of extreme pain from every nerve cell in his body

while constantly regenerating all damage sustained using Cantus, denying him the salvation of death.

It was the ultimate punishment.

I vow to subject him to agony no living being has ever suffered before

as he dies a slow, protracted death.

Those words became reality.

The Department of Exospecies Control became a direct subdivision of the Ethics Committee

and I served as both a member of the Ethics Committee and the Exospecies Department Chief.

My first job was to prevent the total extermination of all queerats.

If nothing else, I had to at least save the queen of the Giant Hornet colony.

Saki.

Hey.

I found another strange document.

What is it?

It's about the scientific name of queerats.

Their ancestors, the naked molerats, were named "Heterocephalus glaber."

Heterocephalus means "different head" and glaber means "bald."

What about it?

Humans are "Homo sapiens," right?

Homo and hetero are direct opposites.

Isn't that just a coincidence?

Both names were given by the ancient civilization.

Yeah, but this document proposes "Homocephalus glaber" as the scientific name for the queerats.

It's as if they mixed humans and molerats.

Don't you think that's weird?

Did they use that scientific name in the end?

No idea. I'd need to look at library documents for that.

Oh, and here's the document that proposes the name "queerat."

I can't read the date, but it must be a few hundred years old.

They must be from around the time the queerats appeared.

This cites an ancient kanji dictionary concerning the etymology of the character for "queer."

"By combining the symbol for 'man' with an inverted 'man,'

it expresses 'man changing form' or simply 'change.'"

I checked one of our kanji dictionaries, but it was gone.

It was classified under "sinister."

What's wrong?

It's nothing.

What?

I didn't want to tell you...

What?

I looked into their genes.

Of the queerats?

I couldn't get Squealer's words out of my head.

Me neither.

We are humans!

The Code of Virtue forbids all research and analysis of the queerat genome.

I didn't know the reason until now.

I didn't even have to parse the DNA to find out.

The queerats have 23 pairs of chromosomes, including the sex chromosomes.

Explain it in layman's terms.

The naked molerats, their supposed ancestors, have 30 pairs of chromosomes.

They are fundamentally different organisms.

I think the characteristic features of the queerats come from the molerat genes inserted into their genome.

But that means the base organism is something else.

No way...

We have 23 pairs of chromosomes too.

The only other species that fits the bill is the olive tree.

I doubt that queerats were created from trees.

The empires' commoners and the hunter-gatherer tribes couldn't use Cantus—PK, right?

What happened to them?

I am afraid I cannot answer your question.

But... How...