Ubermensch – Chapter 148

Chapter 148

After that, I wandered the world aimlessly.

I sold violence, getting involved in brawls, and slept in places I had never been before.

As I had done for hundreds of years.

However, it was becoming increasingly difficult.

The world was changing.

Checkpoints began to appear on the borders that were once just lines drawn on the dirt, and people began to have something called identification cards.

Armies were no longer private, but belonged to the state. The frequency of wars decreased, but the blood spilled actually increased compared to before.

There were more changes in the last hundred years than in the past thousand years.

I could no longer openly participate in wars as a warrior. There was no valor, no glory. I had to hide in the underworld and sell cruelty and violence.

Mighty Thor, forgive your fallen servant.

Of course, it’s not that there were no opportunities to wash my hands clean.

There were many chances to settle down, to become an official.

But in a world of identification cards and documents, there was nowhere for a mere werewolf like me to stay.

My heart was empty and my hands were dirty.

To escape from the world of documents and identification cards, I didn’t have many choices. I pretended to be a gypsy and wandered with them, and I traded with Jews who accepted blood-stained money.

War. Wars were getting bigger and bigger.

In the past, even fights involving dozens of people were called wars, but now they were called skirmishes or conflicts. Only fights involving thousands or tens of thousands of people were considered wars.

As administrative power developed, it became increasingly difficult for people to defy the will of the god called nation. Kings could move tens of thousands of people with a single order, a single signature, and conversely, save tens of thousands of people with a single diplomatic document.

That’s how the Seven Years’ War ended.

Russian Emperor Peter III saved Frederick the Great and Prussia with a single diplomatic document, and because of that diplomatic document, he was eventually deposed.

‘If this is the case, why did they fight in the first place?’

I seriously pondered, but I couldn’t understand it at all.

Words like national interest and prestige were like the Christian God, wielding omnipotent power while having no substance.

Those who had abandoned the gods in the name of reason and science now served the god of reason.

Mighty Thor, look at their battlefield. They are stealing your lightning and firing it from gun barrels, stealing your thunder and firing it from cannons. Even if you were alive, you wouldn’t have been able to change this world.

The world was changing rapidly.

Like a wildfire spreading uncontrollably, there were more changes in fifty years than in a thousand years.

There was a trend of revolutionaries beheading kings, and conversely, there was a trend of kings beheading revolutionaries.

Then, war broke out.

Not a war between nation and nation, but a war between nations and nations.

World War I.

When that war, which seemed to spread with the momentum to end everything, finally ended, even I breathed a sigh of relief.

I no longer welcomed war.

War. War had become too big a stage for a mere werewolf to do anything.

It was not easy to escape, let alone make a difference.

War, no matter who won, impoverished society, and after it ended, it left countless casualties, devastated land, and above all, hatred.

It was purely by chance that I was staying in Germany right after World War I. It was because the gypsy group I was with casually wandered into Germany.

Mighty Thor, if it was your revenge, you succeeded.

Because I became a gypsy under Nazi rule.

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No country liked gypsies.

They were stateless, wanderers, a band of thieves and prostitutes. They were also a frequent refuge for people with unclear identities like me and criminals.

However, few people caught and imprisoned gypsies.

Even if they were caught, there was little to confiscate, and above all, if they were imprisoned, they had to be fed.

Unless you were planning to exterminate them, that is.

And the Nazis imprisoned the gypsies.

The situation was not looking good. I tried to be clever and traded with the Jews I had been dealing with before to launder my identity. As a Jew.

Being Jewish was better than being a gypsy.

Just one small step better.

While the gypsies were being dragged away somewhere, the Jews had to live cautiously with the Star of David on their bodies.

Some Jewish leaders said that the Star of David was a sign of safety. Why would they bother to distinguish us if they were going to harm us?

But I couldn’t easily agree with that opinion.

I had heard of gypsies being taken away on trains, but I had never heard of any gypsies returning.

Where is the guarantee that Jews wouldn’t be next?

And above all, the eyes of ‘decent German citizens’ were getting colder and colder.

The newly elected leader was a passionate speaker, a leader who could excite people.

The problem was that the level of his criticism of the Jews was getting higher and higher.

At first, he said that Jews were stealing their wealth, but now he began to say that Prussia’s defeat in the last war was due to a conspiracy by international Jewish forces.

Even I, a well-trained, strong man, was being stoned on the street, so the hardships faced by the elderly, women, and children must have been immense.

Then, one night, a Jewish moneylender was beaten to death by robbers.

I wasn’t worried about that.

It wasn’t uncommon for wealthy foreigners, that is, Jews, to become victims of crime.

What worried me was the attitude of the police.

They didn’t even pretend to investigate.

In the past, they would have at least filed a crime report, but now they were scoffing, saying there was no need to investigate the death of a single Jew.

This was exactly why I should be worried.

Living in a ‘rural German village’ was not a good choice.

I thought the problem was with the ‘rural German village’.

I thought the police were expressing their racial hatred because of the lax administrative power typical of the countryside.

So I decided to gather as much money and influence as possible and head to the city.

But as history has proven, that was a mistake.

I should have thought that ‘Germany’ itself was the problem.

However, I boarded a train bound for Berlin.

Looking back now, I shouldn’t have done that. I should have boarded a train going the other way. To England or America. Or even to Austria or Poland.

But I, with my eye for the war situation and common sense judgment, thought that Austria and Poland would soon become occupied territories.

All of Europe would come under German influence, so if I couldn’t cross the sea, I thought Berlin would be better.

I could understand war.

But I couldn’t understand madness.

That’s why I ended up being dragged to Auschwitz.

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My time in Berlin wasn’t very long.

Travel for Jews was restricted immediately after I arrived in Berlin, and it wasn’t long before Jewish ghettos began to emerge.

I discovered Freyja, dressed in a Nazi uniform, while I was trapped in the Jewish ghetto.

She was in a luxury car, and the car was waiting at a traffic light.

I hesitated for a moment.

The thought of asking for help from a Nazi, especially one who was clearly a high-ranking official, like Freyja.

But the insults I hurled at her in front of Thor’s corpse were also etched in my memory. I momentarily hesitated between life and pride, and as the signal changed, the luxury car drove away.

Thus, I foolishly missed my last chance to avoid Auschwitz.

What happened next was exactly as recorded in history.

The Nazis put us on a train, saying they were going to relocate us, and the train transported us to different places.

Dozens of people were crammed into a single, cramped passenger car.

Drinking water and bread were limited, and there was only one bucket for a toilet, regardless of gender.

The smell of excrement stung my nose all day long, but the stench from each other’s bodies and clothes was even worse.

I was sewing money into my clothes, thinking it was the wisdom of a traveler. Even the devil doesn’t refuse money. Having money wouldn’t hurt. The problem was how to take the money with me while avoiding confiscation and body searches.

My shallow thinking led me to believe that they wouldn’t take even these rags unless they were planning to freeze me to death.

But the Nazis took even those rags and burned them.

I didn’t know the Nazis well enough.

So, after a long train journey, we headed to different places. Husbands separated from wives. Children separated from parents. Their mournful cries were not enough to change the businesslike attitude of the Nazis who routinely carried out their duties.

The hell I was separated into was the infamous Auschwitz.

Mighty Thor, you were lucky.

You returned without seeing Auschwitz.

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The days at Auschwitz were regular.

They treated us in a thoroughly businesslike manner.

They worked us hard, with the attitude that they would kill us only after they had consumed everything we had.

The food was nothing but rotten, or already rotten, potato pieces in a slightly salty broth.

We raised our voices to get even a single drop more, and we didn’t hesitate to use violence to steal potato pieces that had fallen into someone else’s bowl.

How could people do this to each other?

People were constantly dying, but the trains were constantly bringing in new Jews.

This was not an isolated incident.

It was not something that would end after one time. It was not something that would ever end.

This was a place where death was daily life and a constant.

This was a machine of hell, hell itself.

I was dragged to the gas chamber, and I escaped by pretending to be a corpse.

And taking the form of a werewolf, I wandered through the mountains and forests, heading for Berlin.

Even in Nazi Germany, there were still people with human hearts, and with their help, I contacted Freyja.

Freyja appeared at the warehouse where I was hiding.

“It’s been a while, Thorkel.”

She, who was using the alias Evangeline, spoke to me with a generous smile.

“Didn’t you say you would crush me next time we met?”

I was no longer a warrior. I was just a Jew who had spent too much time in a concentration camp.

“Spare my life.”

My voice, begging for my life, was a whisper.

Perhaps it was because of the habit I had developed in Auschwitz, but my voice wouldn’t come out loud. It was a habit I had developed for fear that someone might overhear me, but above all, it was a habit I had developed for fear that the Nazi soldiers might use it as an excuse to beat me up.

“You won. It’s your world now, so I wouldn’t dare to confront you. I’ll do anything if you spare my life.”

“Thorkel…?”

Freyja, no, Evangeline looked at me in bewilderment.

Begging for my life. I knew it wasn’t a sight befitting the strongest warrior of the North Sea, a being comparable to a god.

But, pride couldn’t get me out of Auschwitz. It couldn’t free me from the Nazis. It couldn’t create a hiding place for me from the administrative power of the modern world.

Whether I was a werewolf or anything else, in front of a machine gun, I would just be minced meat, and inside the concentration camp, I would just be a prisoner.

I could even lick their boots.

If I could just avoid going back to Auschwitz.

“You… what have you been through?”

“I was in Auschwitz.”

“What’s Auschwitz?”

It seemed the Nazis didn’t call it by its place name. Then I had no choice but to call it by its official name.

“I was in the No. 1 Labor Camp.”

“What is that?”

I realized then.

The god who had chosen to serve humans… didn’t even know what those she served had done.

I felt a sense of emptiness.

“Look it up yourself.”

A few days later, when I met her again.

Evangeline no longer had a generous and confident expression.

Seeing her like that, I realized.

I, no, the name Auschwitz that I had uttered, had broken her.

I had unintentionally kept my oath.

“I looked up Auschwitz.”

She, with her empty eyes and haggard face, couldn’t even meet my gaze.

“And about places worse than that.”

“There are places worse than Auschwitz?”

“…Yes.”

I had never heard anything more terrifying than that.

She handed me a Nazi uniform.

“From now on, you are Captain Jürgen Grass. If anyone asks, you are from the Supernatural Sorcery Department and a pure-blooded German.”

I would rather die than wear a Nazi uniform. But I would rather wear a Nazi uniform than go back to Auschwitz.

I put on the uniform and followed her to her office.

“These are the documents related to Auschwitz.”

She handed me a stack of papers.

I shook my head.

“I know enough.”

“Read them.”

I read the documents.

And, I was even more shocked.

It was no coincidence that I, who was in Berlin, ended up in Auschwitz, Poland. It was thanks to the well-designed railway network and the transportation plan that efficiently utilized it.

It was also the result of a census on how many Jews were in each ghetto. And how many of them should be moved at a time.

And the labor in Auschwitz was the result of research on how much food should be given to humans to extract the maximum amount of labor at the minimum cost, and it was also the result of multifaceted research on how to dispose of corpses.

“It’s scientific.”

If Auschwitz, as experienced by a victim, was a living hell, Auschwitz, as designed by the perpetrators, was a sophisticated and efficient living hell.

I understood why Evangeline was in despair.

“Your new god has abandoned you.”

High learning does not guarantee high morality.

She believed in the potential of humanity, but at the same time, she overestimated human morality.

The Holocaust was a sin committed not only by Hitler, the individual whom Evangeline had considered a savior, but also by the science and reason she had believed in.

I killed my god with my own hands.

And she… she was as good as strangled to death by her god.

After today, she would be living, but not alive.

Mighty Thor, have mercy on her.

She won’t even have a day of peace.

Evangeline looked at me.

“I’ve included all the information I could find on labor camps and extermination camps.”

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Contact the Rothschilds in England. And other influential Jews. And… give them all this information.”

“It would be a betrayal of Hitler.”

“He betrayed human rights.”

“I understand.”

I became Evangeline’s agent and delivered to influential Jews what was happening to Jews under Nazi rule.

The Jews realized that the world had changed.

They realized that the world, which used to be formed by families, was now beginning to be formed by nations. And they realized what would happen if there was no nation to protect them.

The Freemasons, which had been a loose fraternal organization, were reorganized, and the Jews joined hands with the pseudo-humans.

Jews and pseudo-humans had been indifferent to each other, but the Nazis had made them comrades.

Speaking of which, did I tell you that I met Hitler?

He, who had come to meet Evangeline, his old friend and mentor, praised me, Evangeline’s escort officer, to no end.

“Tall and well-built. Blue eyes and blond hair. You are truly the epitome of a great German!”

I didn’t laugh at him.

Because I had to do my best not to tear Hitler apart.

I could endure the impulse because Evangeline had told me that to truly stop the massacre, we had to end this war, and to end this war, it would be better for Hitler to live and make misjudgments.

Hitler seemed to think I was frozen with the tension of meeting the respected Führer, but well, it’s not like he hadn’t made a misjudgment or two before, right?

While the war intensified, Evangeline did everything she could, and that included getting the US involved in the war.

And, the war ended.

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After the war ended, Evangeline created a new identity named Yekaterina. I also created a new name, Andrei.

Yekaterina began working in the United States, which became the new center of the world, and I, with nowhere else to go, followed her.

So many things happened in America. There was development, there was the Great Depression, and there was further progress. There were more changes in ten years than in a thousand years.

Yekaterina helped the Jews establish their own country and helped Israel take root.

We had to watch them become corrupted and treat the natives more harshly than the Nazis.

It was also around that time that we first met the Elven Queen, who created the alias Liza.

“Give us a country too. Just as you gave Israel to the Jews, create a country to take us in and protect us.”

Liza, as a representative of the suffering people, as a leader of the pseudo-humans, commanded Yekaterina.

“So that we don’t have to experience ethnic cleansing again…”

Yekaterina accepted the command.

“If that can be my atonement…”

“Atonement is impossible.”

Liza looked at Yekaterina.

“Because we will never forgive you.”

Yekaterina had a blank expression.

As she always did when the pain became unbearable.

She looked at me and said,

“You don’t have to serve me anymore. You’re free now.”

“If I am free, I choose the freedom to watch you suffer.”

“You’re cruel.”

“I consider it my right.”

“Of course, it’s your right to hate me. But… isn’t that too cruel to yourself? Every time you see me, you’ll be reminded of the most painful things.”

“I stay by your side to remember.”

I looked at Yekaterina.

“What I did to my god, and what your god did to you.”

“Yes.”

Yekaterina said calmly.

“Even so, change your attitude and tone a little. It’s too soldier-like.”

“Should I act like the young people these days?”

“Do as you please.”

It was around that time that I saw a Harley-Davidson advertisement.

It seemed that riding motorbikes was a trend among young, manly guys these days.

Then I should ride a motorbike too.

…I realized I had made the wrong choice when my ‘manly young guys’ became a social problem as a biker gang.

But what could I do?

It’s not easy for an old man like me to change his way of life once he’s set it.

“Boss.”

“Yes.”

“What are we going to do now?”

“We have to live. We have to live to do what we have to do.”

Yekaterina laughed weakly.

“Until someone comes to save me…”

“Will that day ever come?”

“Won’t it?”

Yekaterina said quietly.

“Thor met you, and I met Hitler. If even a god-killer appears someday, shouldn’t we believe that a god-savior will also appear someday?”

“It will be difficult.”

“I know. But, we have no choice but to believe.”

Yekaterina said quietly.

“If all we can do is wait for a savior.”

She looked at me.

“Thorkel. What about you?”

I was thirsty. A thirst that couldn’t be quenched by water.

It was… a thirst for people.

“I want to have a drink and talk about old times. With a friend who understands everything about me, without having to hide my inner thoughts and circumstances.”

“That’s easy.”

“It might be harder than you think.”

I smiled bitterly.

“I’m too old to make new friends.”