Haman Mercenaries...
Kas searched his untainted mind and recalled what he knew about the Haman people.
There were all kinds of barbarians in the world: cannibals, people who ate dried sheep, nomads... The Haman were a typical nomadic tribe, surviving as mercenaries in the gaps between civilized nations.
Unlike the Rishiman people, who were attached to their land and only raided south in winter, the Haman rushed into chaotic wars like wild dogs, eager to tear fresh flesh from civilized nations.
The Haman had a terrible reputation. At least the Rishiman looked down on them, considering them a pack of homeless strays who would wag their tails for a bone.
"Was Stad Haman?"
"No, he was Bashkui." Isidore fell silent, as if he didn't want to remember the unpleasant past.
"Fine, fine. Another miserable memory. Sure enough, every corner of this damned world is full of sorrowful pasts."
Kas pushed himself up with a hand on his knee. His enormous shadow loomed over Isidore, like a monster about to devour the helpless man.
He grinned menacingly. "I need you to do a few things for me..."
Isidore's pupils suddenly contracted. He had a bad feeling about this.
Breathless, Isidore sat on a bench, enduring the pain as if his body had been torn apart while concentrating on Kas's words.
He had no idea what this savage Rishiman was trying to accomplish. He'd made Isidore carry rocks, run endless laps around the cabin, and play a little game of stabbing between his fingers with a fast knife.
There had even been a floating skull in the cabin, its eye sockets flickering with ghostly fire, and a terrifying werewolf capable of biting off half his head in one chomp.
Isidore considered himself fairly well-traveled, yet he'd never encountered such bizarre tortures.
"Listen. Can an omnipotent god create a rock he can't lift?"
The Barbarian's mysterious smile sent a chill down Isidore's spine. Frowning, he pondered this blasphemous question, tracing shapes on the tabletop with his bloodied finger.
Kas was secretly pleased. He wasn't just bored and looking for ways to torment Isidore. He wanted to test a plan he'd never had the chance to think through.
[Plan: I figure I need a status panel, because that would be really cool Status: In progress Inspiration: Use an average adult human male as a baseline and create a personalized attribute panel. I don't know the first thing about systems. I'm my own cheat ability. As for why I'm not using the Rishiman as a baseline, I figure these barbarians are all muscle monsters, so they're useless as a reference!] [Name: Kas Race: Human/Rishiman Faction: Hell Tribe/Zagwell Clan Strength: 40 Rugged, savage muscles; intimidates and threatens others. Constitution: 45 Unafraid of pain and injury; faces the world's malice head-on. Agility: 28 Coordinates mind, eyes, hands, and feet; observes every detail. Intelligence: ?? Uses logical reasoning and knowledge to understand the world. Spirit: 22 Lets intuition roam freely while keeping a clear mind.]
These were rough figures he'd gotten by using Isidore's physical abilities as a reference. Southerners were generally weaker than barbarians, with an average of 10 across the three attributes of strength, constitution, and agility.
A strength of 40, constitution of 45, and agility of 28 were enough to show that he was a muscle monster.
Strength meant lifting rocks, constitution meant running, and agility meant stabbing between one's fingers with a fast knife. As for whether these tests accurately reflected one's abilities—
Kas didn't care. If he figured it worked, then it worked.
Testing spirit was a little more complicated. He thought it was a complex ability, encompassing the reach of one's thoughts and one's capacity to withstand unexpected events...
But those two things were actually at odds. Assessing spirit by Isidore's ability to bear the sight of the werewolf and the skull couldn't possibly reflect his perceptiveness.
The simplest example was the ability to sense "spirits."
Shamans had to have high spiritual power because they could sense "spirits," but their mental fortitude might not match that of battle-hardened warriors.
Ultimately, anything involving thought and consciousness was difficult to measure with numbers. A brain controlled by the interplay of emotion and reason was far more complex than one might imagine.
To test intelligence, he'd given Isidore a logical reasoning problem. The paradox of whether God could lift a rock looked like an attack on religion.
But anyone with even a little understanding of logic knew it was a linguistic trap.
The absurdity of "omnipotent" and "a rock he can't lift" existing in the same context was like asking whether an ant could climb a cylinder on a two-dimensional plane.
The limitations of human language led to the misuse of all kinds of concepts. To be omnipotent yet unable to lift something was, in essence, an empty and meaningless combination of words.
Strip away the theological context, and the paradox of God could be stated as: "Can omnipotence do something it cannot do?"
As far as human reason was concerned, the concept of "omnipotence" couldn't be explained. Wittgenstein had already laid this question to rest: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
Kas lifted his head and proudly awaited Isidore's wrong answer. He was sure Isidore would get trapped in the question of God's omnipotence. I may be a Barbarian, but my intelligence is high.
"That's a linguistic trap. Whether I discuss God's omnipotence or the rock he can't lift, I'll end up in a contradiction either way.
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
Isidore's cautious answer made Kas's throat bob with difficulty. He stared at the two question marks in his mind as they turned into a single one, his IQ plunging into a crystal-clear abyss.
[Intelligence: 5 Uses logical reasoning and knowledge to understand the world.]
So I really am a fucking Barbarian?!
My IQ's only half that of a normal person?
No way. I'm—I'm...
He looked at the conspicuous physical attributes and silently deleted the intelligence row. As long as I can't see my intelligence, I'm a Great Wise One.
Well, sometimes it pays to be a little muddleheaded. Being too clever can be a bad thing.
Like, why was my right hand suddenly squeezing Isidore's neck...?
"My lord..." Isidore's dust-covered face grew redder and redder under Kas's massive hand.
He cursed the devil-infested mountains in his heart. Even someone who could ask such a profound question might kill him at any moment.
"All right, I got carried away." Kas let go, feeling he might have found a treasure.
He was a proper office worker who'd received a higher education. His grades hadn't been great, but he'd still learned to analyze things rationally.
The panel measured intelligence against Isidore, whose baseline was 10. An intelligence of 5 meant Isidore was smart enough to be a teacher, not that Kas was stupid.
After all, Kas knew that the panel he'd thought up could only serve as a reference.
Judging solely by his ability to reason logically, Isidore deserved an intelligence of 10. He'd worked out the solution to the God paradox in just a few minutes.
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