While normal archeologists had to rely on excavations and old documents to unlock the secrets to the past, Ryou had been handed the golden opportunity to study Ancient Egypt up close and in person. He got to see an ancient palace, the cities, the ruins of an abandoned village, and the burial sites of kings and queens all at the height of Egypt's glory. He was the luckiest kid in the world no doubt. This was every history enthusiast's dream come true!
At least, that's what Ryou thought at first. But he quickly learned that life wasn't all that glamorous during ancient times. People died in the streets all the time, slavery was common, and the penalties for committing crimes were often excruciatingly brutal. And the worst part of it was, Ryou couldn't do anything except watch from the sidelines.
Still, he persevered. He genuinely wanted to make the diorama and he wasn't going to give up no matter what. Whenever there was violence, he could simply leave until things settled down.
During the course of the next two weeks, Ryou produced over a hundred rough sketches of the people and their surroundings. Since he did not have a photographic memory, he often had to return to the Spirit's soulroom over and over in order to accurately render his drawings. To an outsider it would have looked like he was falling in and out of sleep sporadically.
The process of building the diorama was not easy, as each and every individual piece had to be assembled in a total of four major steps. Step one was to draw a sketch. Step two was to make a model out of clay. Step three was to cover the clay model with silicone rubber and make a mold that would take one or two days to dry. Then finally, step four was to pour resin into the mold and create the plastic figure that would be used in the diorama. Each figure had to be sanded down and hand-painted as well, so it was all very time-consuming.
However Ryou never found the work boring and the hours passed away like a breeze. Whenever he did something related to creativity, he didn't know how to stop. Sometimes he was so absorbed in his work that he skipped meals and neglected to sleep, and the Spirit eventually had to step in to make sure his physical health didn't deteriorate too much.
For the first week, Ryou spent hours upon hours exploring this world. There was so much to see, but the place he visited most often was the Pharaoh's palace.
Within the walls of the Pharaoh's palace, there lived a young Prince who looked exactly like Yugi but with darker skin. This was very obviously Yami Yugi's past life. Ryou spent hours at the palace watching the ten or eleven-year-old Prince run around and play games with a girl who looked oddly similar to the Dark Magician Girl. The little Prince was a very adorable child who resembled the regular Yugi more than Yami Yugi. Ryou was itching to tell both of the Yugi's about this, but that would involve telling them that he'd been wearing the Millennium Ring again. Perhaps someday he would be able to reveal everything to his friends, but not yet.
Some of the members of the Pharaoh's court looked strangely familiar, such as the advisor who looked like Yugi's grandpa, the priest who looked like Kaiba, the priestess who looked like Ishizu, and the other priest who looked like the Dark Magician. All of them bore Millennium Items, and it looked like they were about to have a ceremony or something. Ryou was never completely sure what they were doing because he couldn't understand what anyone was saying.
The next day, Ryou went to the marketplace to watch the townspeople go about their lives. Merchants showed off their wares and civilians bargained with the street vendors. Everything was relatively peaceful.
But all of a sudden, people started screaming, and everyone ran into their homes and barricaded their doors and windows. The streets became deserted and eerily quiet.
Then the sound of galloping horses rang out as a group of men on horseback came riding closer. Ryou momentarily forgot that he was invisible and looked around for a place to hide. Once he remembered, he slapped himself in the face for his own stupidity and floated several meters into the air so that he could watch from above.
The leader of the group of horseback men was a man with white hair and a scar on his face. The ancients clearly regarded him as an adult, but if one were to measure his age by modern standards, this man would be considered barely a teenager.
The group dismounted from their horses and raided a nearby shop, stealing food and other merchandise. They're a band of thieves, Ryou realized for the first time. Once they were finished they remounted their horses and disappeared into the desert, and the townspeople came out of their homes and resumed business as usual.
Ryou followed the thieves around for the next couple of days. Watching them was even more interesting than watching the Prince, and the leader of the thieves was definitely one of the most fascinating and complex individuals Ryou had ever met.
The man was ruthlessly skilled and always got what he wanted, but he never did things the easy way. Whenever he stole something, he always had to leave a trail or a sign of some sort to let everybody know that he was the one who had done the job. He also had a complicated moral code; he only stole from extremely wealthy upper-class or from individuals who had done abhorrent deeds. He usually spared innocents unless they got in his way.
On another day, Ryou happened to notice a woman with pale skin wandering into Egypt. She was attacked by a group of people who were clearly scared of her because of her skin color. Then the Priest who looked like Kaiba showed up and saved her, and started to take her away.
"I guess in a city where everyone has dark skin, the light-skinned people are now the ones to be discriminated against," Ryou mused aloud. He sat down on a rooftop and began to sketch.
"Situation makes a lot of difference," the Spirit agreed sitting down on the rooftop next to Ryou.
"Most of the time when we think of racism, we think of light-skinned people persecuting those with dark skin. But I wonder, have there been times in history when the opposite has happened?" Ryou wondered.
"Oh yes, many times. I've seen it happen, especially to white indigenous people," the Spirit said.
"White people can be indigenous?"
"Of course they can. Look at the Circassians for instance. They have tribes. They have old rituals and are native to their land. Circassians are one of THE oldest indigenous people of northwest Caucasia. And Circassians are white. Skin tone doesn't determine whether you're capable of being native to a place or not. The Circassians used to live in Circassia until the Russians genocided them, exiled them, and took their land. Circassian women were specifically sold into slavery and it was targeted towards the looks and exploitation of a race with no money and no place to go. And the Circassian genocide wasn't even that long ago. It happened in the 19th century. Almost the entire nation was wiped out. Right now most of the survivors live in Turkey and are being assimilated. Also look at the Saami people for instance. While having some Mongolian heritage and having people who are tan, they are a white indigenous peoples, and they were persecuted beyond belief. Not allowed to speak their language, not allowed to have Saami names, and so on. And look at Scandinavia. They only had white slaves."
Ryou nodded but didn't say a word. He concentrated on drawing for a while. Then he said, "I've noticed when genocide is talked about, a lot of important things are swept under the rug or overly generalized."
"There's many genocides barely spoken of, it's true," the Spirit agreed. "Of course everyone's heard of the Holocaust, but you gotta realize the amount of attention the Holocaust got is super abnormal. That's not how most people and nations react to genocide. It's because Germany lost. If they'd won, their past would've been kept hush hush because they'd be a more prominent political power. Like the Chinese genocide of Uyghurs came up several times and was promptly forgotten because they're still influential and people don't want to push it. If Russia and America lost we'd be talking about the Circassians and Natives. Most countries only care about the Holocaust because it makes it seem as if their actions in World War 2 were justified despite the fact that people didn't really know about it until after. The world doesn't care about humanitarian crises unless the country is relevant but also weak enough to bully."
Ryou raised an eyebrow and looked at the Spirit curiously. "You really do know a lot about history."
"Hey, well, I'm three-thousand years old. I've lived through quite a lot."
"What do you remember about your past life?"
"I remember I was a thief, and I hated the Pharaoh. And that's about it."
"Why were you a thief?"
The Spirit shrugged. "I don't know? I guess I enjoyed stealing stuff."
"Why did you hate the Pharaoh?"
"I don't remember. But I tend to hate authority figures in general, so it was probably nothing personal."
Ryou chucked under his breath and went back to drawing. He was nearly finished. "Well since you're so wise and experienced, maybe you can share some of your wisdom with me. What do you think is the secret to world peace?"
"That's easy. Get rid of the oligarchy."
"What's the oligarchy?" Ryou asked.
"An oligarchy is a society ruled by the rich," the Spirit answered. "You want to know why things like racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry exist? They do exist for a reason. They serve a purpose. They're just distractions that rich people use as a way to preserve classism. Rich people want to make society as toxic and dangerous as possible so that the middle and lower classes are too busy wallowing in misery and fighting each other to wonder why the upper elite aren't paying their fair share of taxes. You can try to find all kinds of ways to try to combat bigotry, but the core of the issue is always classism. Racism justifies slavery, colonialism, and genocide. Every problem you name can be connected to economics one way or another. Privileged people don't want to support the people they're profiting on the backs of because then they might be slightly less rich. Who's the most selfish, lazy, entitled, and ignorant? It's rich people. It's always rich people who ruin things for everybody. Once they're in a position of power they'll do everything they possibly can to justify and maintain their social status, such as inflating the price of healthcare and education, weaponizing the police against the civilians, and above all, facism. They single out marginalized minority groups to blame for all of society's problems, most commonly on the basis of race and ethnicity, though it can also be on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation, physical and mental disabilities, and so on. They don't care who it is, as long as someone is there to deflect the blame. It all depends on who's the most acceptable target at the moment. That way, poor people get brainwashed into scapegoating the wrong groups of people, and rich people avoid facing responsibility. I've been around for three-thousand years and from what I've seen, humans never change. Rich people only care about serving their own interests. Ignorance keeps the lower classes divided so they don't start a revolution against the oppressive government. When society starts to fall apart as a result of rich people hoarding all the wealth, they turn to facism as a way to maintain their power, and that's when wars and genocide break out. Nothing compares to the evils of insatiable human greed."
"Do good rich people exist, though? Like, what about philanthropists?" asked Ryou.
The Spirit shook his head. "Nah, philanthropy is a scam. Any amount of money rich people donate to the poor is such a tiny percentage of their income that it makes no lasting difference. If rich people actually cared about fixing society, they'd give up being rich. I'm not saying you have to give it all up. Having a moderate amount of excess wealth is fine. However, if it gets so extreme that you have to rely on oppression as a means to maintain it, that's when you have a problem. Imagine how much of society's problems would get solved if rich people would simply pay their goddamn taxes? They literally will commit genocide just to avoid paying taxes. That's how greedy they are."
"Is it really that simple?" Ryou wondered.
"I am overgeneralizing things quite a lot but that's basically how things work. This is how humanity has typically operated. It's been like this way back since feudalism. Society is ruled by the rich, and the only thing rich people care about is staying rich. It never lasts long. The inevitable outcome is that society collapses. The lower classes eventually rise up and overthrow the government, but it comes at a high price. Many, many lives are lost or ruined in the process. There are no winners. Everyone collectively loses as a whole."
"What's the solution then? Should I become an activist?"
"You could, but what's the point? Nothing you do alone is ever going to be enough, and it'll all become meaningless in the long run because humanity is inevitably going to repeat the same mistakes again. Anyways, you're upper middle class. You have enough to be comfortable, but you're not part of the wealthy elite. Who cares about anyone else as long as you can live comfortably? You have no obligation to get involved. Focus on issues that affect you and only you specifically. Eat the rich, but also fuck the poor."
Ryou looked shocked. "Hey! That's terrible advice! How can you say something like that? I have friends who are poor, like Jounouchi for instance. You expect me to just not care about him?"
The Spirit sniffed condescendingly. "You have to be careful about interacting with the lower classes, Yadonoushi. Many of them will absolutely try to take advantage of you for your money."
"None of my friends would do that."
"You don't know for sure."
"But they wouldn't!" Ryou gaped.
The Spirit sneered. "You're too trusting, and you're obsessed with pleasing people. Nothing good ever comes from that. Worry about yourself first. Have you seen what poor people are like? They're worthless scum, easily brainwashed and always punching down at one another for their tiny slice of the pie. Don't bother worrying about them. Do whatever pleases you and fuck everybody else is my life-philosophy."
Ryou looked skeptical. "I thought you said rich people were the evil ones."
"They are. Both rich people and poor people are vile but in different ways. All humans are scum. Don't bother with them."
"I think this is probably the reason why you haven't been able to make any friends in the past three thousand years," Ryou said with narrowing eyes.
The Spirit looked away into the distance.
"Whatever path you took when you were alive, I'm not going to follow them," Ryou said. "It's not like things ended well for you. You ended up imprisoned in an inanimate object for three thousand years. Whatever choices you made that got you in this situation definitely weren't good choices. I don't want to follow in your footsteps."
The Spirit shrugged and said, "Fair enough."
Ryou scowled but decided not to say anything further. Talking to the Spirit could be so irritating sometimes.
The Spirit did have a point. It was no good to be too obsessed with pleasing others. At the same time, however, it was no good to just do whatever you wanted whenever you wanted without any consideration for others at all. There has to be a balance.
Ryou had enough sense to know that the Ring Spirit wasn't the best role model. The Thief King had been a horrible person when he was alive. Perhaps not completely horrible, because he did things that were both good and bad. He was controversial.
Of all the people to be sharing a body with, it had to be with an ex-criminal. Ah well. More than half of all of Ryou's current friends were ex-criminals; Jounouchi, Honda, Otogi, Malik, and the Ring Spirit. He wasn't going to hold it against any of them.
Ryou and the Spirit didn't talk much for the rest of the day. Ryou concentrated on his work, and the Spirit simply lay around supervising his host. Ryou got a lot of work done that day, and for that he was proud.