Chapter 66
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 66
Chapter Title: 8th Floor - Lv. 55 Disciple (1)
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A sense of exhaustion settled over his entire body.
His limbs felt so limp that he couldn't imagine doing anything else.
Normally, he'd force himself to his feet, but this time, he decided to just collapse right there.
Thanks to sharing the load, the burden on his body wasn't as heavy as he'd feared.
The penalties from charging straight at the Spirit King at the last moment seemed to have been mostly offset by the emergence of an even greater power.
[The God of Nature marvels at you.]
"I'm truly relieved. The jaws of hell were just about to open."
Those were the words of a Grove Fairy who had stayed to witness the contract ceremony to the very end.
That was pretty chilling. The Spirit King's arrival had sealed it shut, but they'd nearly unleashed a disaster worse than the Greenskins.
The persistent [Jaws of Hell] spewed forth demons without end.
High-ranking demons that were playable, like Demons or Devils, were unlikely to appear.
But the demon race itself was absurdly powerful, so it could have led to a dramatic truce with the Greenskins and a united front out of nowhere.
"No, that's exactly the kind of crap they dumped on me. Ugh, I'm gonna die."
The Goddess of Chaos was to blame.
Anyway, that was that.
Well, well.
Even he had to admit that what he'd just pulled off was pretty damn impressive.
Honestly, he wasn't sure if he could do it again if asked.
That final sprint had been pure, unadulterated gamble—no blueprint, no plan.
Sure, it was a game where you had to roll the dice sometimes, but it wasn't his style. He didn't like it.
He needed to be more thorough.
[The God of Nature conveys that the God of Magic is likewise impressed, despite the other's nagging.]
The God of Magic must have been watching through the fairy mage's eyes. That explained the clearer view.
Even these little clues were important.
God of Nature and God of Magic are on friendly terms. Note to self.
Wonder who our goddess is buddies with. Even if she had friends, her lack of influence now might mean she's been cut off.
First things first: track down the party members and grill the goddess.
From the looks of his current status, it didn't seem like forced conversion or anything drastic.
Faith affects the mind map. It influences the appearance of faith-related skills and various probability adjustments.
The background color was slightly different too.
There was no green aura symbolizing the God of Nature rippling in the background.
The mottled purple light of chaos still softly illuminated the mind map.
So, she must have lent him to the God of Nature temporarily—like a middleman deal.
It was a pretty irregular method. Risky, too; for a goddess with few followers, it could deal a serious blow to her divinity.
The gods of the Labyrinth were prisoners. Their thrones were their shackles.
Powers, restrictions, and the pain of resisting the throne—all stemmed from it.
Enduring it came down to weight class, and for gods, that meant the scale of their faith.
As he let out a sigh, a couple of Grove Fairies approached.
One male, one female, both with the refined beauty typical of their kind.
Judging by their attire and gear, they weren't from a huge village, but perhaps leaders from one with deep traditions.
Grove Fairies didn't combine religious leaders with secular ones.
Difference between settlers and nomads, maybe.
"Thank you once again for aiding our fairies."
"Huh?"
He raised an eyebrow at the male fairy's familiar, almost chummy demeanor.
"Last time we met, the timing was off. Exiles are such tricky beings."
"Ah... Wait, what? Explain that again."
[The God of Nature chuckles wheezily.]
Damn it all.
Too many thoughts racing through his head right now.
Did the Goddess of Chaos know?
No, had future-him given her a heads-up without her realizing?
And this would be good news for the Hunter.
Oh my god.
What the hell was even going on?
He hadn't considered it before because he'd never been caught in such a chaotic probability storm.
His mistake. He'd misjudged.
Time to change his mindset.
With someone tied to the God of Luck in their party, the probabilities he knew didn't apply normally.
Exclusion wasn't the way.
He needed to account for impossible odds too.
A lamentable blunder. If he'd known—or rather, acknowledged what he knew—he could have handled it better.
35,000 hours wasted.
Sigh. What a moronic bastard he was.
The disciple stared in dismay at the garrison reduced to a field of devastation.
Her master had been right after all. The resentment she'd harbored melted away into reverence.
Shamans see far ahead, he'd said.
Just how far had he seen?
But did shamanism even include divination or future sight?
Even she, at the pinnacle as a cleric, had never known such a thing.
She could resurrect the dead, but peering into the future was always taboo, with no methods available.
"Hmph, way stronger than I expected. If not for you, I'd have been a goner."
"How did you know such an attack was coming?"
"I heard it too."
"...?"
Heard it from whom?
Her master just laughed heartily and stood, brushing off his seat.
Myriad barrages from the sky—yes, barrages was the right word.
She recognized them; she'd handled them before. Even tougher Greenskins were still flesh and blood.
The shockwaves from air-ripping explosions tore through anything connected to the atmosphere indiscriminately.
Nearby, they'd shred you alive into chunks of meat. Farther off, ruptured organs meant death.
Countless corpses—no, things that had been corpses—now littered the ground.
The barrage lasted a good ten seconds, grinding down half the garrison forces.
Grinding them literally. More mangled remains than intact bodies.
In a way, that might have limited the damage. Such attacks kill reliably but lack wide area.
The scattered air blasts were spotty accordingly, sparing those lucky enough to be in the gaps.
Trdongt wasn't one of them. Without his disciple there, he'd have been obliterated.
"Let's go see the Brigade Leader."
"But you're a criminal, aren't you?"
"They say you led a cult, yet you're still so naive. After this mess, who cares? Half my rivals are probably dead too."
"..."
Indeed, so the disciple held her tongue.
Before moving, Trdongt checked if the vampire was still alive. She was—burned by sunlight amid the wreckage.
He gently covered her with cloth and lifted her up.
The little one couldn't steady herself. Her hollow eyes stared blankly ahead.
"Healing... No, pointless."
Healing undead was fatal instead.
"No other survivors?"
"There were plenty of other Exiles captured nearby."
Most had taken their own lives afterward.
Having multiple lives was the problem. Who knew what they'd do.
Bound tight to prevent suicide, yet in the chaos, they'd ended it anyway.
He found a clumsily failed one still breathing and healed him.
"Urgh. Damn orc bastards."
Per his master's orders, she brought the vampire and offered the man's arm.
The vampire just stared blankly.
"Master, this little one doesn't seem to want to live."
"We have to keep her alive. That's the condition."
"Condition?"
"He'll tell you himself. Wait a bit. I promised to speak then."
He? When Orc hero Karkrish died, she hadn't been there—far away, in fact.
The Exile from the ruins, the veteran who'd baffled even her seasoned master and toyed with him.
The disciple sighed and decided not to dwell.
The past year had been too cruel. She hadn't wanted to think at all for ages.
Just go with the flow.
The little vampire wouldn't touch the blood.
Starving, yet refusing. Was she like this child?
No will to live, no reason for it.
Why, then, did pity well up at the sight?
After becoming inhuman, did she start feeling this for other nonhumans?
"Still, you've got to live, little one."
She forced blood from her own veins into the child's mouth. Not much went down, but her condition seemed slightly better. Or maybe not. Hard to tell.
Her work was animating undead, not reviving them.
Reviving mere moving corpses was absurd.
She draped a sackcloth over her, then hoisted her onto her back. Master led; disciple followed.
She didn't know why this chance-captured vampire mattered, but orders were orders.
With no reason left to live, all she had was a sliver of survival instinct and gratitude toward the old orc who'd taken her in.
Perhaps a habit ingrained from years as a saintess.
The Stormhowl Brigade Leader wasn't far.
Another aged orc.
The old warrior surveyed the devastation in bewilderment.
After awkwardly receiving thanks from a few Grove Fairies for things yet undone, he went to find his party.
The castle humans had been in chaos at first but were now organizing.
No time to clear bodies; prepping for the next assault.
A guard captain approached.
"I have no idea what's happening. Do you? You're an Exile, right?"
He almost said yes, then hesitated.
The inner keep looked... off. A bit.
Top half caved in badly.
Why'd that get wrecked? Him? In the rush, he'd locked on indiscriminately—not just ogres or wyverns mixed in.
Judging by altitude alone, the keep's spires...
"The God of Nature helped. You saw the fairy army arrive, right?"
"Oh... yeah, but. Were you...?"
"Ah, I've got the God of Nature's favor."
"No way."
[The God of Nature finds your shamelessness refreshing.]
'It's the truth.'
[The God of Nature appreciates your consistency, past and future alike.]
This guy knew from the start too.
Frowning, he searched for his party. The Girl came scampering over.
"That was so cool earlier!"
"You know I did it?"
"Who else?"
More like the Hunter.
The Hunter stared at him with utmost seriousness.
Looked like the goddess had tipped him off.
"Leader, is the Temple of Time at the end of this run?"
"That what you've been after? Seems like it. Future-me set up a lot."
Temple of Time.
An altar with an extremely low spawn rate right before the kingdom gate.
The sole chance to serve the God of Time—and a powerhouse encounter in itself.
Let you temporarily revisit passed even floors.
Labyrinth rule: cross the stairs, no going back.
And even floors spanning a continent's chronicle made it a cheat key.
Redo missed farming, reforge unfinished ties.
Fixed 0.1% spawn, checked only once upon kingdom arrival.
1,000 kingdom runs for one shot. Rare as hell.
The Hunter's legs gave out; he sank to the ground.
"Finally... finally...!"
He gave a bitter smile and grabbed the Girl's hand beside him.
She startled and tried to pull away.
He held tight and yanked her close.
Touching a devotee let the goddess speak to him.
「I knew you'd pull it off.」
'Don't play coy. I'm pissed.'
「So? You're switching to the God of Time anyway.」
'God of Time sounds great. But future-me wasn't his follower. Right, God of Nature?'
[The God of Nature affirms reluctantly.]
The goddess fell silent briefly.
Her response was curt.
「Why?」
'I've planned to milk you dry too much. A goddess who can't survive without me? How precious. Gotta squeeze every drop.'
High gods like Time, Abyss, Luck? No communion, not even messages.
Dubious if they even had personalities.
Post-kingdom, he needed a god who'd once topped Exile ranks.
'Got it? Even your dissolution needs my say-so.'
The goddess chuckled shortly.
「Ha, what a devotee who knows no reverence for gods.」