Ubermensch – Chapter 168

Chapter 168

Mason looked at the others and said,

“Everyone. Go home. Forget you saw me.”

“Yes.”

Mason’s power teleported them all. Except for one person. Michael Fieldman.

“You follow me.”

Mason teleported with his hand on Michael’s shoulder.

“Oh my god!”

The coordinates he teleported to were Yooha’s house.

A giant in massive armor and a suspicious cultist. Yooha was so startled that she fell on her butt.

Izzet pulled out her cat claw weapon, and Randy sipped his coffee with an indifferent expression.

“You’re here?”

“…”

Maybe Randy is a big shot after all. Mason shook his head.

Izzet asked with a wary look,

“Isn’t he Michael Fieldman?”

“That’s right.”

“He’s the bishop of the Destroyer cult’s North American branch. Why did you bring him here?”

“Because it’s the safest place.”

Thanks to the barrier Izzet had set up, the goddess Bastet’s protection was in place, and above all, Mason himself was using this place as his base.

Unless the Destroyer descended directly, it would be impossible to break through the protective barrier here.

“I’m going to talk to him.”

“Talk? Talk to him? The Destroyer cult’s madmen are beyond reason.”

Izzet hissed like a cat, glaring at Michael Fieldman.

“If you don’t want to get your hands dirty, leave it to me. I’ll take care of it.”

“That’s not my way.”

“I’m not saying I’ll kill him. I’ll just cut out the festering parts of his soul so he can’t have bad thoughts.”

“That’s even less my way.”

Mason looked at Michael.

“Michael.”

“Yes.”

“What is the Destroyer thinking?”

“I’m just a mortal, I don’t know all of his plans. I only know the part I’m in charge of.”

“What’s your part?”

“To condense thoughts and malice, to meticulously and delicately sculpt them into an evil god. The god our dimension is in charge of is Cthulhu. The first god and protagonist of the Cthulhu mythos.”

“Sculpting a god. So it doesn’t exist yet?”

“We don’t know.”

“How can you create something you don’t even know exists?”

“We don’t believe in a god because it exists. A god exists because we believe in it. The actual existence of a god is not that important in faith.”

Mason frowned.

If the mortal Mason had gained the power of a god by gaining people’s gratitude and trust, the Destroyer was doing the opposite. He was creating a god from people’s malice and thoughts.

‘It’s the exact opposite of Nodens’ way.’

While Nodens rescued survivors and surviving gods, helping them grow in power, the Destroyer was creating evil gods who would become his subordinates.

Is it because there are so few who would sympathize with his destructive malice? Or does he find it uncomfortable to interact with beings of his own level?

Mason couldn’t understand what the Destroyer was thinking.

“Alright. Then let’s talk about you.”

Just as he couldn’t understand what the man in front of him, Michael, was thinking.

“Michael. Why do you want this world to disappear?”

“I’d rather ask you that.”

Despite being within Mason’s power, Michael’s face contorted with anger and hatred.

“Why does this shitty world even exist?”

“You hate the world.”

Mason asked with a serious expression,

“Why is that?”

“Because the world hated me.”

Izzet then opened a file containing information about Michael. As the bishop of the Destroyer cult’s North American branch, he was a big shot among big shots. The Bastet cult, which waged various religious wars with cultists, had already investigated him.

Mason read about his past and career.

Born in Detroit, he had to grow up in the city’s slums since he was young, and due to the state’s poor welfare system, he could only receive minimal education.

Michael was bright and talented in philosophy, so his teachers recommended he receive higher education, but his parents, who worked at a car factory, lost their jobs and couldn’t fully support his tuition.

His teachers, who felt sorry for Michael’s wasted talent, looked for scholarship foundations and welfare organizations so he could receive higher education, but as a ‘white male’, he was pushed back in priority every time, losing out to people of color and women, who were the main beneficiaries of welfare programs.

He ended up unable to get a decent job, living off his parents’ unemployment benefits and occasional legal or illegal part-time jobs.

He grew up as a social misfit filled with anger and hatred towards society, but in the end, he was just another common white trash.

The problem was that he came into contact with the Destroyer cult, which was rapidly gaining power in the cult market.

The Destroyer cult gave him the opportunity he had longed for. The opportunity to do something great, and Michael’s philosophical talent, which had not shone in academia, was a great help in filling in the missing pieces of the Destroyer’s faith.

He absorbed other cultists with money, drugs, violence, and doctrinal debates, and rose to the top of the North American Destroyer cult.

That’s how the boy from the Detroit slums became one of the most dangerous people in the world…

“…”

Mason looked at Izzet before Michael. Izzet’s eyes looking at Michael were cold and indifferent.

Izzet, a person of color and a woman, was walking a shining path as an apostle of the goddess Bastet, and Michael, a white trash and bishop of the Destroyer, was sending a look of contempt and hatred as if to confront her cold eyes.

“Izzet.”

Mason asked Izzet,

“Are you from this dimension?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I want to know about you.”

Izzet hesitated.

“I’m not that special.”

“Then you have even less to hide.”

“Why are you curious about me while asking about Michael?”

Izzet reluctantly opened her mouth.

“I was born in the slums of Egypt. Because my tribe was a pseudo-human race, we couldn’t have proper identification or property, and had to wander around to survive. Then one day, the goddess Bastet looked upon me, and took me in to train as an apostle.”

“Why you?”

“The goddess Bastet favors Egyptians, women, and those who care for cats. I think it’s probably because I saved food to raise cats.”

“I see. That’s right.”

Izzet glared at Michael.

“He says he was unfortunate, but the amount of money he spends in a week would have been more than what my tribe spent in a month. He says he didn’t have enough opportunities, but I couldn’t even read until I became an apostle.”

Izzet looked at Michael with contemptuous eyes.

“If he had truly experienced the word misfortune, he wouldn’t have become so twisted. He wouldn’t have even had the luxury to become twisted!”

Mason looked at Izzet and Michael.

Izzet was able to get an opportunity because she was an Egyptian woman, and Michael couldn’t get an opportunity because he was an American man.

But it was also true that Michael’s life, which he claimed had no opportunities, was more stable and higher level than Izzet’s life as a desert wanderer.

‘This is complicated.’

Mason was from the 28th century. He was from a world where everyone could choose everything.

Therefore, he could only superficially understand the words discrimination and hatred.

So now, Mason could only make a complicated expression as he looked at these two people.

Izzet was speaking.

She said that Michael wouldn’t change, so they should resolve it with violence.

What really worried Mason was… that her words were likely true.

Just as Michael was actually here, there was a possibility that millions of Michaels were being born and raised at this very moment.

People who wouldn’t become winners, who wouldn’t be protected. Losers and the defeated.

Would he have to kill or brainwash them all to solve this problem?

No. Could he really call it a solution if he solved it that way?

‘What should I do?’

Mason was a god.

He could do things that humans couldn’t.

But even a god couldn’t do things he didn’t know how to do…

Michael looked at Mason.

“Can I ask you one thing?”

“Of course.”

“Why don’t you brainwash me?”

It wasn’t something he couldn’t do. Not only Izzet, the apostle of Bastet, but a word from Mason with his power would be enough. He could cut out his malice and make him a model citizen who would abide by law and order for the rest of his life.

Mason said with a serious expression,

“Because it wouldn’t be right to change you into a righteous person.”

Michael scoffed.

“Only violence and greed can change a person. Oztalon, you have no choice.”

“Maybe so.”

Mason said in a calm tone,

“But I want to at least think about it.”

“It’s a waste of time.”

“Your hatred and loathing are the crystallization of decades of pent-up resentment. It wouldn’t be respectful to you to decide your fate without even giving it a few minutes of thought.”

Michael stared at Mason.

Without hostility or hatred. He just looked at him with curious eyes, as if he were looking at a creature he had never seen before.

“Do you really want to understand me?”

“I’m trying.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a person.”

Mason looked at Michael.

“The love of man creates a god, and the hatred of man creates an evil god. The creation and destruction of gods depend solely on the hearts of men, so what greater victory is there than changing the heart of one man?”

Michael’s eyes wavered.

The fact that there was a god who loved people.

The very fact that such a god was thinking about him was no different from breaking his worldview. The cold and heartless worldview that the world was filled with only hatred and loathing.

But it was only for a moment.

Michael’s eyes were frozen cold.

“Then, Oztalon, you will lose.”

Even if it was warm, it was just a single ember. It was ridiculously insufficient to melt his hatred and loathing that had frozen like a glacier.

“Because my malice will create Cthulhu.”