In the Name of the Goddess 1
My vision was dark.
Was this what an out-of-body experience felt like? Or maybe a lucid dream that hadn't quite finished forming? The whole world was black, and I felt as though I were floating in water. With no sensation of solid ground beneath my feet, up and down had lost all meaning — I hung suspended, stretched between floor and ceiling that no longer existed.
In that darkness, a familiar silhouette appeared.
Han Se-ah's back, turned toward something in the distance.
"Whoa, is this the Goddess? They really nailed the design… She's got that whole majestic, awe-inspiring vibe going on."
She was still streaming, muttering to herself as she gazed up into empty space, and every word landed crystal clear in my ears. In this strange place where nothing else made a sound, her voice rang out with unnatural emphasis. My head was foggy, but listening to her continuously was like slowly waking from sleep — my mind sharpened, and my vision grew clearer.
Han Se-ah floated in the dim void, looking up at some pale, indistinct figure. Judging by her monologue, that washed-out something appeared to her — a player — as the Goddess herself.
And around her, floating quietly like totems or temple pillars, were her companions. Whether this was an event scene reserved solely for the player, everyone else was curled up like unborn children, eyes closed in silence.
Grace, her gray hair drifting gently. Irene, hands clasped tightly as if in prayer. Kayden, one hand resting near her head the way someone might fall asleep at a desk —
And even Roland, arms crossed in an X over his chest like a pharaoh.
…What the hell is this?
I was right here. And Roland was over there.
Only then did I realize I was somewhere else entirely. If Han Se-ah were sealed inside a glass marble, I was the person standing outside it, looking in.
…Why?
Was it because I was an NPC who still remembered a past life, someone who could eavesdrop on streamer Han Se-ah chatting with her viewers? Floating in the dark like a castaway adrift in the deep sea, my chest tightened with a restless, impatient urgency.
But that feeling didn't last. The pale form of the Goddess brightened, and a strange warmth bloomed in my chest. Streams of light poured down over Han Se-ah's head as the event scene wound toward its end, while single threads of radiance sank into each companion's chest.
"I thought this was just some sub-quest, but it feels more like a permanent party lock. Anyone who gets this holy power seal probably can't leave the party. I got here early because of Roland, but regular players would probably clear all their companion quests first before ending up here, right? Like, if you manage to keep your party together all the way to Floor 20, the game makes sure nobody quits after that."
Han Se-ah muttered to herself, receiving the baptism of light with complete nonchalance. Of course, I couldn't see her stream overlay or chat window — only her back. Thrashing around wouldn't return me to my body, so I just hung limp and watched the scene unfold inside.
A story about receiving an explanation of the Tower from the Goddess in the Blessed Forest, and the bonds with existing companions being strengthened. In a way, it was a thoroughly classic epic narrative beat.
I understood that Han Se-ah, as a player, had just received lore breadcrumbs about the Tower and the Goddess. I also understood that the Floor 20 sub-quest was designed to reinforce companion bonds and prevent players from rage-quitting. But how long was I supposed to stay out here?
"Anyway, I've gotten everything there is to get, so can I leave already? The Goddess's processing speed is, uh… not exactly the speed Koreans prefer."
The moment those borderline-blasphemous words left Han Se-ah's mouth, the pale figure unfurled like a curtain or a tent, sweeping over everything.
—The Tower ■■■■ to ■■■ ■■■ ■■■ that ■■■ ■■■ ■■■
—■■■ must ■■■ the ■■■ ■■■
At the same time, a soft voice brushed against my ear. That pure white presence passed right through Han Se-ah and came right up to my face — as if it wanted to say something to me, the one standing outside this strange space.
But the words were crushed and mangled, the way speech sounds through a pane of glass. I couldn't make out a single thing.
How long had it been since I'd felt this exhausted?
My eyelids weighed a thousand pounds, but vitality was gradually returning to my body. The way a meal restores you when you're starving, or coffee and sweets revive a overworked brain — I could feel every fine detail of my body waking up.
"Nnngh, hah— what just happened?"
"Mmm… it feels like I had a dream…"
I wasn't the only one. Groans of recovery rose one by one from my companions. Grace rolled her arms in wide circles, stretching. Irene rose from the ground, rolling her shoulders. Kayden had a hand on her sword hilt, scanning every direction.
Of course, nothing suspicious turned up. The clearing in the Blessed Forest still held its quiet peace, and the party had simply woken from sleep beneath sunlight that poured down like stage lighting.
Nobody seemed to know that the moment Han Se-ah's quest gauge hit 100%, something had flashed and dumped us into that bizarre space. Still, the Goddess's baptism must have ladled out holy power by the bucketful — our physical condition was perfect.
"Could we have received the Goddess's blessing? I feel like holy power is overflowing from my body."
"Right? My body feels languid, but my senses are sharper somehow."
My companions, with no memory of that dark space, each offered a comment as they worked the stiffness from their limbs. I loosened my own shoulders while hurriedly pulling up the stream window to check. During the out-of-body experience, every function I'd received as quest rewards had gone dead.
Fortunately, Han Se-ah's stream came right up. Her chat was in complete chaos. The voluptuous curves that even armor couldn't hide, and the maternal silhouette that had been buried under a thick priestess's habit, had swayed into full view — and the chat was nothing but a wall of flaming heart emojis, not a single word about the story.
Are you kidding me? The world's first lore drop about the game's story just happened, and these bastards aren't talking about it at all. The Goddess descended and dropped breadcrumbs about the Tower, and there's not a single chat message about it?
"Well… no orcs, that's for sure. Scouting's done, so let's head back."
"Should we report this to the knight order?"
"We should at least tell them something. No orcs, but we got knocked out by a baptism of holy power in a forest clearing."
The party rose one by one and naturally began preparing to leave the forest. Something strange had happened, sure — but they'd received a baptism of holy power in a forest blessed by the Goddess, and even after collapsing and waking up, they hadn't been attacked. Concluding that no orcs were present was the natural call.
Han Se-ah, having completed the sub-quest and spoken with the Goddess, quietly joined in, picking up her staff and heading out of the forest with us.
We walked through a forest as peaceful as yesterday, but my head was a tangled mess. Things had been suspicious ever since a quest window popped up and outright ordered me to help Han Se-ah — but who the hell stays calm after being forcibly yanked out of their own body?
"Roland, what are you thinking so hard about?"
"Hmm? Well… how do I put this… I feel like I might have heard the Goddess's voice?"
I cranked my barely-functioning brain as hard as I could, but the only theory that surfaced was that the pale thing shaped like a goddess might be the one who dumped me into this world in the first place. That was the extent of it. Then Grace spoke up beside me, and I gave her a half-formed answer —
"I knew it!"
"Knew what?"
"The Goddess! When I fell asleep like I'd fainted, I felt like someone was holding me so warmly in a dream, stroking me and talking to me. Nobody else said anything, so I just figured it was a dream."
Grace agreed so vigorously she nearly bounced in place, and from behind I could hear Irene and Kayden chiming in as well. I'd just thrown out a convenient cover while fretting over whether the in-game Goddess was a real goddess — and this was how it landed.
Like a cow walking backward and accidentally stepping on a mouse, I'd stumbled into acting exactly like every other NPC. No harm in that. Han Se-ah, still chattering away about the quest content, showed no sign of realizing I'd had a completely different experience from everyone else.
"So when we were in that space earlier, the rest of the party felt like they were dreaming. The player chosen by the Goddess, and her companions… BB Games really knows how to pump that pure fantasy dopamine, huh?"
"Aigh, for fuck's sake. The world's first background lore on the Tower just dropped and you're out here going 'milk tanks' this, 'holy power pouches' that… and what the hell is a 'dick runway,' you — you're getting timed out first. Anyway, if the story just got revealed for the first time, you're supposed to let your imagination run wild about that, not get busy imagining completely different things, all of you."
After Grace, Irene spoke up. After Irene, Kayden. In excited voices, like making a confession of faith, they murmured that they too seemed to have heard the Goddess's voice, that some kind of mission had been bestowed upon them.
And of course, in the middle of that beautiful moment of shared purpose, Han Se-ah was busy smiting the degenerate viewers spamming lewd chat.
To me she'd looked like a pale, washed-out ghost — but apparently on Han Se-ah's stream, the Goddess's appearance had been fully rendered. They must have modeled her on the classic Western beauty archetype: a glamorous blonde with blue eyes, wearing a Greek-style tunic that left her arms, underarms, and cleavage completely exposed.
These absolute degenerates. Not a single word about the story, but the underarms and cleavage and nape of the neck were getting spammed so hard that even I — who hadn't seen her myself — could reconstruct the Goddess's entire appearance just from reading the chat.