The Primarch, the Librarian, and I entered a lavish room the size of a barracks that could house a hundred ordinary Guardsmen.
It was probably the Primarch's private quarters.
I had not only been granted an audience with a demigod Primarch, but invited into his private chambers.
This was surely an honor beyond any properly enjoyed by any citizen of the Imperium.
The Primarch brought me an enormous cup that could have held several pints, personally took a drink from the refrigerator, and poured it into the cup.
Even the Librarian looked overwhelmed with gratitude as the Primarch personally poured him a drink as well.
Once the Primarch had poured a drink for himself and taken a sip, the Librarian and I followed suit.
Sweet, tart, and fizzing—a refreshing sensation I had never once tasted since being reborn into this world.
I was enraptured by the sensation, delighted at the thought that Mother would now be able to drink such beverages to her heart's content as well.
Watching me, the Primarch brought out something else.
Cookies.
Unlike those hard, flavorless things like planks that we were issued as rations, these were made with real wheat.
They were covered in something dark that looked like chocolate, topped with nuts like almonds and baked fruit. Real cookies.
I accepted the cookie the Primarch offered with both hands and gingerly bit off the edge.
Sweet. Rich. Delicious.
The sublime taste flooding my mouth was enough to make my body tremble.
"Guardsman Radian. Just who are you?"
At that voice, I felt I had no choice but to confess everything.
I opened my mouth.
"I swear upon His Majesty the Emperor that everything I say from this moment onward contains not a single shred of falsehood. It is all the truth."
And so I told them what I had never told anyone before.
I was Korean.
I told them everything, beginning with the fact that in my previous life I had been an ordinary citizen who liked a game called Warhammer 40K, right up to the present.
I spoke for an hour.
At first, the Primarch wore an expression of disbelief. But when I personally wrote and read Hangul and Hanja—scripts used in ancient times but no longer in use—his expression became inscrutable.
Then I told him of Terra during the third millennium, and of the creatures of Earth that had now gone extinct.
I told him about the game Warhammer 40K, and how the Primarch had gone to sleep before being resurrected.
I told him all of it.
"...It is all true."
This young mortal Guardsman, Radian, had told an astonishing tale.
Instinctively, I knew that there was not a single lie in his words.
He knew of two of my brothers whom the One Who Must Not Be Trusted and Must Not Be Loved—the Emperor—had personally purged, brothers of whom surely no one could know.
He knew how I had died, and how I had been resurrected.
A mere Guardsman could not possibly know all of that, yet he did.
"There is one more thing I can tell you... I know where Lion El'Jonson, the eldest of the Primarchs and currently missing, is."
"!"
I was astonished.
My brothers who had vanished.
Of them, he knew where Lion was—one of the brothers I had respected most.
"Then do you know where my other brothers are?"
"I do not. At the point when I was reborn, the whereabouts of the other Primarchs were not known."
So in the end—
We had been no more than pieces on the board of a game made for mere amusement and entertainment.
And background lore meant to make that game more interesting; this Guardsman simply knew some of that lore.
Then why?
Why did that Guardsman have faith in the One Who Must Not Be Loved?
Shocked and stunned beyond words, Tigurius was ordered to leave the room for a while.
Tigurius staggered from the room, and I asked what I most wanted to know.
"Why do you... have faith in that cruel being? You know the truth, do you not?"
"...My Primarch. If one were born into this world as a mere mortal, knowing everything... how could one not have faith in His Majesty the Emperor?"
"...That is..."
"Forgive me for saying this... but this world is mad. There is nothing but war... death, poverty, persecution, and oppression stain every corner of it. Have you ever been to a hive world? Is that truly a place where humans can live as humans? Unless they rely upon His Majesty the Emperor, every human soul becomes prey for those things that have never been born—the Neverborn—and only an extinction more miserable than anything suffered in life awaits them. The only way I had to protect my soul was to have faith in His Majesty the Emperor."
"..."
He had a point.
If I had known everything and been born not as a Primarch, but as a mere subject of the Imperium—
I, too, would have had faith in that cruel being to protect my soul.
"This world is irrational. In a land of one-eyed people, the man with both eyes is the one rejected. If he wishes not to be rejected and to somehow live among them, he must carve out one of his own eyes. That is the kind of world it is. My previous life and this place are both worlds where people live."
Then Radian spoke with a lamenting voice.
"I likely know better than you, Primarch, just how cruel He is. But... He sacrificed everything for humanity. I am truly sorry to say this, but... He sees individuals as no more than tools for humanity. The Primarchs are no different. If the citizens of the Imperium are small screws and armor plates that make up the vast vessel called humanity, then you Primarchs are merely Warp engines and void shields. That is your place. And more importantly..."
Radian took a gulp of his drink before continuing.
"He is more of a tool than anyone else. He is bound to a throne that is no different from the most agonizing instrument of torture in the entire galaxy and the Immaterium, one so horrific that even those cruel Drukhari xenos would marvel at it, and He guards humanity from there. The fact that He does so means He does not even see Himself as anything more than a tool."
Radian's words made me realize something else.
That cruel being had sacrificed not only my brothers, but even Himself, solely for humanity.
I understood it with painful clarity.
No. Perhaps I had known it already.
But sickened by His cruelty, I—
Had turned my eyes away from that truth.
I decided to take this Guardsman to Terra.
If I had him face that cruel being, surely He would do something for humanity.
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