Chapter 2738: Hollywood Rhapsody (61)

The ashes in the fireplace jumped more heavily than usual, casting dancing flames that brought light and ever-changing shadows. They provided warmth but also made the breeze coming through the cracks of the windows feel colder.

The silver needles of the knitting in hand seemed to be stitching together wounds that were nearly forgotten, those inevitable days that couldn't bleed anymore, leaving only the heavy scabs like the fireplace ashes.

"…I don't know if you've heard of the job called detachment member, it sounds like a position in the Scouts, and indeed it is. They prefer to make children do this, watching them numbly drag bodies out of the gas chambers and burn them without a second thought."

When the lighter clicked open, the red-haired woman had already set down the knitting needles, the man who was speaking turned his head, and his wife smiled at him and said, "I think I can take this opportunity to go upstairs and sleep for a while, can't I?"

"Sure, Magda." he said, "When you wake up, freshly dried daisies will appear at your bedside. Sweet dreams."

"That must be a horrible memory for you." Shiller took the cigarette from his hand and called him by his current name, "Magnus."

As the smoke drifted up, the young Magneto leaned back in his chair and said, "When something happens early enough, it's just a regular way of life, not a disaster. Only when you step out of that environment do you realize you're being harmed and bleeding."

"Is that your experience?"

"Yes, I didn't see all that as cruel. Carrying corpses out of the gas chamber was a job in exchange for food to me, nothing else sinister, and all the notions that defined that act as evil only came to me after I left that place."

"You don't think yourself evil, nor do you intend to repent."

"I haven't even prayed."

"But you're still in search of a god, just not in hopes of being rescued from some plight." Shiller took a puff of his cigarette, made an effort to spread the newspaper out on the table, picked up a cutter, and started to trim out the useful parts.

"Is that what you guys think?" Magneto asked, "Spending three hours every day begging God to save you."

"Most believers do."

"Which means you're not one of them."

"What do you think I am?" Shiller asked.

"You have a very obvious 'God complex'." Magneto said, "Never waiting for deliverance, but rather controlling everything."

"Then in that regard, we're similar."

"I'm not that extreme." Magneto exhaled gently, seeking his daughter's heartbeat amidst the static of the magnetic field that constantly surrounded him, and this beautiful music brought him a sense of peace.

"You're a madman, no doubt, because no sane person would firmly believe as you do that they have the right to judge others."

"Just because I killed them?" Shiller raised an eyebrow and said to Magneto, "Do you think those who pursued you shouldn't be killed?"

"I'm referring to your penchant for turning others into madmen." Magneto said, "You seek out those with potential, get close to them, tell them you have a way to end their suffering for good, and they become crazier than anyone can imagine."

"Very good." Shiller commended, "But you can't say that's evil, because if I am a huge bait myself, then I will only attract my own kind, like you."

"Do you think I'm special in your eyes?"

"Of course." Shiller looked into Magneto's eyes and said, "A child who grew up in a concentration camp, your sense of right and wrong was warped from the beginning. How does it feel to know that what you've witnessed are actually the most evil crimes in the world?"

"I am saddened."

"No, you're not saddened at all." Shiller said, "Not even afraid. You're merely impassioned because those sinners, who have so offended and defied God, have never received the punishment they deserved, and therefore, neither will you."

Magneto's Adam's apple moved, and then he spoke in a hoarse voice, "I can't deny that. I'd rather mark the moment I realized their deeds were crimes as 'the death of God,' because I have seen so much cruelty, yet God never appeared."

"That's why I say we're alike." Shiller looked at the flames in the fireplace with eyes far less grim and even soft, "When I had no concept of the world, I didn't think the things certain people did to me and others were cruel. I just knew that's how I lived."

"But one day, I came into an entirely different environment where everything was different from what I had experienced. Another group of people told me I had a tragic past, and it was only then that I realized, some things could be called cruel."

"But I didn't feel sad at all, I was just excited. Since they could be so cruel to me without paying the price, then I could do the same to others. Secular rules and laws meant nothing to me, and if there was no retribution on an esoteric level, then no one could stop me."

"Does cruelty make you happy?" Magneto asked.

"No, it just makes me feel free."

Magneto furrowed his brow. Pain finally touched his stern and indifferent face, which had remained unchanged for years.

"Freedom, yes, freedom. The concentration camp environment didn't awaken any other notions within me. I would think that's just how the world is, with everyone the same. But there was always a voice telling me I didn't have to listen to them, that I could do things outside the plan, and that would make me genuinely happy. I don't know if that's my nature."

"What outside the plan did you want to do?" Shiller asked sharply, "Find a dagger to thrust into their chests, smash their skulls, or scoop out their livers…"

"No… I didn't want to do those things." Magneto said with some difficulty, "Because I didn't know what they did was cruel, so I didn't hate them, at least not at the time."

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"That can only prove you don't want to do these things solely out of hatred, not entirely because of hatred."

"You sound too empathetic," Magneto keenly sensed something was off and looked at Shiller, asking, "Have you also been to a concentration camp?"

He sat up straight, his fingers constantly tapping on his knee, and said, "Since you saved us, you've never told us your story."

"Maybe it's just a story, who can guarantee the truth?"

"Perhaps what I've said is also just a story," Magneto said. "Maybe everything about the concentration camp is made up by me, but if you're willing to spend the time to make up a story for me, that can't be said to be unfair."

"I'm somewhat special," Shiller stated very succinctly. "But not special in the way you are. Some people realized I was powerful, they thought I could be a good weapon."

"You know these kinds of plans can't only involve me, so if you must describe that place as a concentration camp, it's not inappropriate, overall, it was similar to yours, but I entered there even earlier."

"It means you have even less knowledge of the world," Magneto seemed to understand. He said, "At least I had some happy times with my parents, even though their deaths had such a profound impact on me that it caused some memory loss, I can still recall some fragments occasionally."

"I barely have such experiences," Shiller said. "From the time I became aware, I was raised in an orphanage. If I must speak of any memory fragments, it probably would be some day when someone broke in here, followed by blood, screams, and gunshots."

"I'm sorry."

"You're not sorry at all," Shiller continued bluntly. "You lack the capacity to empathize with such trauma, it's just common courtesy that requires you to offer polite remarks."

Magneto made no comment, offering no response.

"But unfortunately, in the place I was, special people were in the minority, or you could say, I was the only one truly special."

"What makes you special?"

"Born powerful."

Magneto hummed softly with a hint of disdain, but it seemed not directed at Shiller, rather at 'them' who Shiller spoke of.

"Powerful and controllable usually do not go hand in hand," Magneto said. "Otherwise, every country would use mutants as weapons, there'd be no need to put so much effort into developing the atomic bomb."

"Not that powerful," Shiller said. "You could think of it as a society of only ordinary people, and I don't have any special powers, just all-around stronger than an ordinary person."

"Sounds interesting," Magneto turned his head and looked at Shiller, saying, "Is there really such a place?"

"Of course," Shiller nodded, flicked off the ash from his cigarette and continued, "At that time, they also believed that beings like mutants existed in the world, but in reality, there weren't any, nonetheless, they thought if there were, their actions would give them a head start."

"Why would they think that?"

"It might be because of me," Shiller said. "They didn't know I was an anomaly, they thought I was the beginning of some phenomenon, and that more people like me would emerge, but why they were so sure about it remains a mystery to this day."

"Did they capture many people?"

"All children, they believed that to become as strong as I was, it was necessary to unlock potential, and I too could become unprecedentedly strong through the unlocking of potential, even stronger than the atomic bomb, and more clandestine."

"I can imagine," Magneto, clutching his cigarette, said. "Many people, like our current neighbors, those affluent Germans, have a very limited imagination when it comes to cruelty. In their view, Auschwitz was already hell, but that's not actually the case."

"That place was more like a mass carnage station, not many people had the leisure to torture prisoners, they just herded them into the gas chambers, turned on the switches, and then there were only bodies left. Oftentimes, there weren't even any screams of pain, mostly out of fear."

"This is a quite efficient method, everyone performs their duty in their place, without any deliberate element of cruelty, numbingly as if completing a job. This might also be the main reason other adults didn't think they were guilty; the process was alienated to seem like actual labor."

"I will note down what you've said, I hope you don't mind," Shiller said. "As a token of gratitude, you can note down mine, perhaps it will come in handy one day."

Magneto let out a cold laugh.

Inside the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Charles was flipping through his phone, his head far from the screen, his facial expression complex.

The noise coming from the phone finally made Erik lose his patience, and with a bang, a book flew out and knocked Charles's phone out of his hands, although very cleverly without hitting Charles's hand, he still turned his head with slight dissatisfaction to look at Erik.

"If you don't turn off that noise machine, I'll implant it into the latest version of Cerebro. That way, you can binge short videos all day long."

"Don't be like that, Erik," Charles complained softly. He rubbed his bald head and said, "Have you seen the recent variety show? The students are all over it, Mrs. Vist told me the likelihood of the students staying up twice as much increased, all because of this show."

"Stark's collection of follies?"

"It's Stark's romantic wedding journey," Charles retrieved his phone and said. "Logan and the others are also watching it, and they keep asking me, since I'm from about the same era as Shiller, whether I have any information on Shiller."

Erik's brow furrowed slightly, that flash of complex thoughts couldn't be hidden from the psychic.

Charles turned abruptly, looking intently at him and said, "Don't tell me you have."

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