Chapter 170 - Origin of Sins (1/2)
King Yama sighed. It was a tough topic. Even when Hades was explaining the logic to him, he didn't fully understand its meaning until many years after he assumed the role as the King of the Purgatory.
The aloof ruler stared at Zero calculatingly. He knew about Zero's origin and in a sense, Zero was the creator of both sins and virtues. Perhaps he would be able to understand the complex theory of how sins were calculated. It took Enma many years to come up with a perfect formula for calculating sins. It was much like accounting and most of the Purgatory's manpower were involved in bookkeeping.
”It's a tough question to answer,” he told Zero honestly. ”I think we should start from the beginning about how Sins were formed.”
Zero leaned forward in interest, the tea was quickly forgotten.
”I'm sure you know a thing or two about how the Divine Entities were created. Sins and Virtues were formed by the Great One. They were the emotions that the Great One wanted to separate from himself. Being the embodiment of everything, the Great One had to be impartial. Emotions were things that got in his way so he let them go. These Divine Entities acted individually on their own. They had the intelligence and power to alter what is known as the natural cycle of life. Some of them weren't concerned with anything that happened to the world. Some of them played active parts in the development of the world. Worlds get created and destroyed constantly and to cope with the cycle of souls, the Great Gods decided to create someone who could manage the Purgatory. I am a child born from Freya, Hades and Gaia for that very reason.”
Zero nodded in understanding. He always thought that while Enma was a child of Gaia, Freya and Hades, they didn't treat him as their child. Perhaps this was how Gods did things. They were different from humans who would care for their offspring and nurture them with love. He knew that Hades was previously in charge of the Purgatory and the Abyss. It made him wonder exactly how busy the God of Death was.
”You know about the existence of souls, right? Every living thing has something called life essence. The weaker ones do not manage to cultivate souls. They become absorbed by stronger ones and fuse with them as mana before returning to the world. Over time when enough life essence gathers at one place, they fuse and form something called a soul. Spirits are the purest form of a soul.”
Zero was surprised. Half Moon village had many spirits. Zoe was one of them and so was Qin Yun.
”Wait, spirits are the purest form of a soul. What about other species like animals, elves and demons? Qin Yun was a spirit, how did she end up becoming a demon?”
Enma smiled. ”That's where virtues and sins come in. The soul that is just born is always pure. They have no sins and no virtues, they grow with experience over time. Virtues are what you can consider a person's kindness and selflessness. Sins are what you can consider a person's ill intentions and malice. The deeds are not as important as their thoughts and intention.”
Zero looked lost and Enma didn't blame him. When he first took over the job, he had a hard time identifying which acts were considered sins and which weren't. There were false sins and sins in his book of souls and the calculation can be complex when a person has false virtues and virtues in the same lifetime. The conversion rate was sometimes difficult to justify and that was when Enma becomes busy with replaying their life records to pass judgement.
”Let's break it down. There are four categories...” Enma drew four quadrants in the air using magic and Zero nodded.
In the upper left quadrant, Enma wrote ”False Sins”. On the bottom left, he wrote ”Actual Sins”. On the opposite side, he wrote ”False Virtue” and ”Actual Virtue”.
”Let's use Kerberos' case as an example,” Enma said and pulled out a thin device. Zero recognised it as the magical reading device he had.
”Is that a tablet?”
Enma nodded. ”Things were different in the past but paper records were difficult to locate after several centuries worth of records so the administrative department had started archiving everything into the digital system. Thank goodness for Steve Job's existence. I don't know why we didn't have a God of Technology before but I hope we never return to that era.”
Zero didn't understand what Enma was talking about but nodded anyway. ”So about Kerberos...?”
Enma tapped something on his tablet and pushed it over to show Zero a document.
”This is confidential information but I'm letting you view this based on trust. In any case, all the above aren't important. You only have to look at this portion in the summary.”
Zero squinted. There was a long list of records below indicating the offences Kerberos did but the summary made things easier to understand. Under the sins column, Kerberos had a grand total of 1,747 sins for the same reason under the category of greed. However, the column beside it explained the reason for his actions and that was what made Zero blink twice.
”He indirectly caused the death of so many individuals for personal gains so that came under the category of Greed. I understood that part but what is this column on the right? All his sins didn't count as sins because they were committed under the assumption of zero casualties?”
Enma grinned. ”Complicated right? There are a few rules we use to determine if a sin is an actual sin or a false sin, the same with false virtue and actual virtue. There is a device in the Purgatory that allows us to extract the records of a soul during their lifetime. It will let us view and action and translate their intention at that point of time. For Kerberos, we reviewed his actions and intentions over the past decade. Throughout the entire period, Kerberos' intention was to rewind time so that he could change his future. He never once thought about intentionally harming all those demons he killed because he thought that once the time was rewound, the deaths he caused in the future would not be a permanent thing. Obviously, he was wrong but in the Purgatory, it is the intention that matters more than the outcome. Granted, if the crime hasn't been committed despite the solidified intention, we give them the benefit of doubt. As such, all of Kerberos' sins were written into false sins. If he was a regular soul, we would refer to the fate table and send him into the reincarnation cycle to some less fortunate life in order to atone for his misdeeds in this life. Fortunately, he is an immortal and can repay his false sins in this life.”
Mind-boggled, Zero tried to digest everything Enma has told him so far. ”How about virtues? What if someone had false virtues... would they be given a more fortunate life? It sounds unfair.”
Enma chuckled. ”False virtues happen when someone does a good thing with the intention of getting repaid. Of course, in this case, we will calculate the number of repayments made to them and subtract it from the total false virtue. naturally, if you help someone, you should be repaid so whatever that was unpaid will be carried forward to their next lives. That is based on the assumption they have no sins and false sins in their record. Often enough, a case like that doesn't exist.”
Zero tried to perform some mathematical calculations based on the example but promptly gave up. Enma then wrote out another equation that Zero couldn't understand.
”The formula after many centuries of doing this job is this.”
Species reincarnation = Actual Virtue - Actual Sin
Fate reincarnation = False Virtue - False Sin