In the Name of the Goddess 5
Even with my eyes closed for prayer, my vision remained perfectly clear. What stood out sharpest was a beautiful woman draped in pure white cloth. Flawless pale skin, long golden hair cascading smooth as a waterfall — it was the Goddess herself, a face I'd seen to death in the Heroes Chronicle galleries.
With that airy, Greek-and-Roman-myth-style dress that left her arms and cleavage bare, her image got slapped onto every trash post imaginable, so failing to recognize her would have been harder than spotting her.
The problem was what she was doing.
What the hell is going on right now?
In a vast space that looked like a temple, the Goddess stood with a gentle smile, both hands clasped together. No matter how I looked at it, she appeared to be offering a prayer to someone.
The religion of Heroes Chronicle had been built on motifs of monotheistic faiths like Christianity and Catholicism. This was a world that claimed the Goddess was the creator of all things, that even monsters like orcs had been fashioned by her omnipotent hand. And yet here she was, praying to someone. What was that supposed to mean?
It was like claiming that in the Bible, God hadn't said "Let there be light" at the beginning — He'd prayed to the Universe instead. What would you even think of that?
"…Sir? Sir Roland?"
"Ah — huh?!"
A worried tap on my shoulder snapped me back. The temple hall and the statue of the Goddess filled my sight. Beside me, Irene was watching with a faintly anxious look. Eyes open, I saw the statue; eyes closed, I saw the Goddess herself. For a moment, my head spun.
"Are you dizzy? Or tired? You kept your eyes closed longer than I expected, and you wouldn't get up…"
"No, I was just thinking."
Everyone here was an Upper-grade adventurer — superhuman enough that two days in a carriage wouldn't leave them sick — so the looks flying my way held more curiosity than concern. But with my head still swimming, I couldn't invent a proper excuse, so I just made something up.
I could hardly claim that the Fragment of Information I'd gotten as a quest reward had auto-activated and now I was seeing the Goddess.
Either they'd brand me a lunatic, or they'd revere me as a holy knight who'd received a divine revelation. Considering how tangled the Temple was with politics in this fantasy world, neither option seemed particularly helpful for a journey to the top of the Tower.
Fragment of Unknown Information confirmed.
A portion of the mana dwelling in your body is being replaced with Holy Power.
…Was this supposed to help?
"If nothing's wrong, the day's getting late. How about we all break for now and meet at the guild tomorrow morning?"
"That sounds good. Roland, so starting tomorrow we're heading to the twenty-first floor?"
"Ah, yeah… Right. We'll go to the twenty-first floor and train until we're used to the caves."
I parted ways with my companions, who were growing a little tense at the word caves, and headed for the inn. Han Se-ah, disappointed that praying at the temple hadn't triggered any extra event, had vanished with Grace and the camera in tow. Kayden had slipped away just as quietly, as if fretting I might try to talk to her.
Walking the dim evening streets alone — no camera, no party — I felt a strange itch in my chest, warm and faintly ticklish all at once.
If my mana felt like it forged my body into cold, hard steel, this faint holy power felt like fuel burning inside an engine, heating my flesh from within. Of course, that was only a sensation. I still had no idea how to actually use it.
Ten years of mana training, and now holy power shows up…
What would a modern-day discharged soldier and returning college student know about mana circulation or dantian breathing? Gathering mana and reinforcing my body and gear with it was something I'd hammered into myself the way you train muscle through exercise. That was how I fought.
On top of that, this was a game world with clear class distinctions — the same crude traps a 1-star maid like Mary could spot at a glance took a 4-star Grace longer to notice. Feeling the nature of the energy was one thing; grasping how to wield a force that felt similar yet completely opposite the moment I got it was beyond me.
Which left only one method.
Learn it with my body.
Training through the night… been a long time since I've done that.
Part of me wanted to flop onto a bed and open a browser window, but I couldn't just ignore holy power now that I had it. Of course, "handling" it didn't mean picking a fight with someone in the city at this hour, and charging into the Tower alone felt murky, so all I could really do was practice the feel of it.
Elise had already clocked out. I headed for the darkened guild building, hopped the wall, and slipped into the training yard. No one had used it today — the guild yard sat empty, free of clutter.
I took a spot in the center, raised my shield, and drew a deep breath. The one silver lining was that mana and holy power felt completely different, so I could sense them easily. And for something granted by a divine being, at least it hadn't wrecked my body.
If I collect every quest reward, does all my mana turn into holy power? Or does that happen when I rank up to 7-star?
I moved holy power instead of mana, reinforcing my body, reinforcing my shield. I didn't know any sacred arts anyway. Mana or holy power, in the end I only used either to strengthen my flesh and my gear.
Pulling the holy power out as hard as I could — like a right-hander trying to write with their left — left my shield wreathed in pure white light. I couldn't get a solid read on efficiency or stats yet, but visually, the color difference was unmistakable.
…Surely the difference between mana and holy power wasn't just a paint job?
Han Se-ah's stream has started!
Han Se-ah_World's First 21st Floor Run! Start of the Cave Expedition?
I'd swung my shield around trying this and that until the moon sank, then caught a couple hours of sleep — and Han Se-ah's stream notification woke me up.
"From the twenty-first floor it's caves, so my time to shine as a mage is finally coming."
I washed off the night's sweat and headed to the guild. My party was already seated at a table. Between hearing the Goddess's voice and making their first push into the twenty-first floor, they must have woken early from sheer excitement.
Fair enough — receiving a revelation from a real, living goddess and not getting worked up would have been closer to psychopathy. Even Katie Wellesley, still playing the silent, stoic mercenary swordsman, couldn't hide the flush in her cheeks.
"Today, like I said before, we're going to the twenty-first floor. Completely different from grasslands or forests — it's a cave-type floor."
"If it's caves, are the monsters totally different?"
"Not entirely. Instead of moss wolves and helmet deer you get cave spiders and vampire bats, but kobolds and goblins still show up."
"Those things really do spawn everywhere, huh."
"They do outside the Tower too, so the Tower just copies that."
Goblins and kobolds were basically cockroaches. They cleaned up the garbage at the bottom of the food chain and adapted to survive anywhere — forest roaches, house roaches, same idea. Still, hearing about goblins and kobolds wasn't a reason to relax.
Obviously, the ones from the forest were stronger than the ones from the grasslands, and the ones from the caves were stronger than the ones from the forest. Enemies getting tougher the higher you climbed the Tower was just common sense.
On top of that, the little hazards — stalactites, stalagmites, all that clutter — made every step unstable, and that was a major problem in its own right. Far more annoying than tree roots in a forest, and you could practically say there was no flat ground at all.
"Goblins and kobolds move in packs like always, so as long as you're careful about the cave terrain, they're nothing to worry about. Stronger than the ones below, sure, but still roughly the same tier. The real problems are the cave spiders and vampire bats."
"…Bats mean they fly, right?"
"Exactly. Cave spiders crawl the walls and ceilings in three dimensions, and vampire bats just straight-up fly. They're fundamentally different from beast-type monsters that run on four legs."
I nodded at Han Se-ah's murmur, and the party's mood turned a little more serious. If hunting the tenth-floor Full Moon Wolf marked the line between beginner and Intermediate-grade, then hunting twenty-first-floor monsters was the line for veterans.
Against giant cave spiders skittering across walls and vampire bats diving out of the dark, just holding formation was completely different from the lower floors — never mind swinging a sword.
"The good news is our party has a mage, so we don't have to worry about the frontliner's hands being tied up holding a torch."
"So I just have to keep Light magic going the whole time?"
"No. Mana isn't infinite, so we're bringing torches. Your job is lighting up the field for the party during combat."
"You keep running your mouths like that and every fight I'm just following Roland's backside with the camera. You want a first-person view of nothing but Roland's back and cave walls?"
Everything else was better felt firsthand in the caves. How the damp, stifling air made breathing different. How walking in the dark kept your nerves on edge and wore you out faster. Small things, but important ones.
Those were the kinds of lessons best learned with your body.
Just like me.