Chapter 76
Chapter 76
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 76
Chapter Title: Mortal Flesh
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"Goddess... is that you?"
The woman who'd been bound in the grand cathedral earlier couldn't be seen clearly amid the darkness filling the interior.
And our final conversation with the goddess had been voice alone, so there was no proof anywhere that the bruised and battered woman before my eyes was her.
But my gut told me she was Lunia, the goddess of this world—the same one I'd been speaking with up until moments ago.
Her expression betrayed little emotion, yet she carried an inexplicably mystical air about her.
She had the kind of appearance that would leave me oddly disappointed if someone claimed she wasn't the goddess.
The woman—presumed to be the goddess—quietly gazed up at me as I rose to my feet and replied.
"It depends on one's perspective. A god is a being brought to completion by the collective adoration and reverence of all, wielding omnipotent power thereby. Can one who holds no authority whatsoever, who receives no reverence from anyone, truly be called a god? From the viewpoint of this era's creations, one might say 'no'."
...Why is she talking like this?
"So you're saying you're not Goddess Lunia? Then who are you?"
"It is true that I was once called by the name Lunia."
This woman.
"Then you are the goddess."
"As I said once more, it depends on the—"
"Forget that talk. Where are we? Did I make it out safely? Where'd the other three go? How'd my wounds heal up like this? You're not about to say I got flung back to the past or forward to the future again, are you?"
"Direct interference in the past or future stands as an absolute law of this world, forbidden even to gods. All I could manage was to reflect fragments of bygone eras and reveal possibilities from futures yet unfixed. Thus, translocation to past or future is impossible."
Her stilted way of speaking was so frustrating that just sitting there listening made irritation bubble up unbidden.
"How much time has passed? And where the hell is this place?"
"While you lay unconscious, the heavens completed two full cycles. From the site where your peril began, following the moon's path at a pilgrim's pace for thirty thousand steps—"
Two days?
"Can't you just speak plainly?"
"Two days have passed. This location lies roughly twenty-five kilometers to the west of the place where you first crossed into this realm."
Damn, we've drifted pretty far.
Not too far, so reuniting with the other three should still be feasible—but the risk of us heading in opposite directions was the real issue.
...Hold on a second.
"If you can talk normally, then do it! Your voice back in the cathedral was fine—why the cryptic bullshit now?!"
"As one who once bore divinity—"
"S-Stop!"
Sensing the onset of tedious, highfalutin discourse, I raised a hand to cut Lunia off and fired off only the questions whose answers I actually needed from my side.
Through exchanges with this maddeningly frustrating, rage-inducing Lunia—piecing it together with the prior intel she'd relayed via voice alone—I arrived at several conclusions.
First: Long ago, the Underground Vermin—who held various exalted posts in the Lunia Church, from high priest to shaman and beyond—betrayed the goddess. They'd bound her with curse-wrought chains, overpowered her in battle, and siphoned her power to claim near-immortal lifespans for themselves.
Second: Though they extracted and exploited her power, they couldn't wield the goddess's pure essence directly upon themselves. Thus, they devised a sort of refinement process.
That process entailed bestowing the siphoned goddess-force upon Holy Warriors of prior generations, goading those warriors into all manner of foul deeds to corrupt the power, then pumping the tainted essence back into the goddess herself—slowly eroding her strength bit by bit.
In this fashion, they'd gradually subsumed her power under their influence and made it their own. This generation's Holy Warrior was set to mark the bitter end of it all.
Third: The instant the Underground Vermin injected that final batch of corrupted power into themselves to complete their scheme, the goddess made her desperate last stand. She'd summoned me—the entity from another world most profoundly linked in spirit to this one—and transferred every last drop of her power into my keeping.
As a result, the goddess was left a powerless husk, bereft of any means to resist—which explained why Holy Warrior Brayden's sacred blade had lost its luster.
Fourth...
"So you're saying you're no longer a goddess?"
"That depends on per—"
"Simply."
"Yes."
Goddess Lunia had truly lost every shred of her power, reduced to an utterly ordinary human.
By her account, the divinity she'd entrusted to me was her true essence; her flesh had been little more than a vessel to contain it.
The moment vessel met essence, she'd chosen self-absorption into me as her path to liberation from those binding chains. In turn, I'd gained authority equal to the divinity I now held—enough to spirit us all to safety.
Weakened by endless eons of captivity, even her original owner couldn't wield that power fluidly on the spot.
One question occurred to me there.
"So after I arrived in this world, all those quests you dropped on me, those messages popping up in front of my eyes—that was your will all along, right, Goddess?"
"Indeed."
At those words, fury boiled over. I hiked up my sleeves and closed in on her.
"You really stepped in it this time. If you dragged me here to do your dirty work, the least you could've done was help—instead you threw every obstacle in my path? Do you have any idea how many times I nearly died in those fights because of you?! How much it hurt? No—you got betrayed by the Underground Vermin and suffered for thousands of years—yet you still sabotaged me when I was battling them? What the hell do you even want?!"
All my pent-up grievances from past ordeals came flooding back. I bellowed right in her face, and Lunia—startled—tucked her shoulders ever so slightly. Yet she held my gaze without flinching, blinking once before replying.
"That... was not my doing."
Blaming others, here?
"Whose fault was it, then?"
"I told you how the betrayers would extract my power, corrupt it, then reinject it into me—perpetually weakening me in the process."
I nodded by way of response.
"That cycle dragged on across endless ages. Unbeknownst even to the betrayers themselves, fragments of their will—a sort of lingering intent—somehow mingled within me. Not direct commands or outright control, but remnants of their volition that haunted the fringes of my divinity. I only learned of it myself in the instant you absorbed me."
"So that was the Underground Vermin's will?"
"Yes. That other voice you heard through prayer... it was their wicked intent incarnate, concerned solely for themselves. When I sent my divinity to you, those remnants tagged along unbidden. You're fortunate your judgments stayed true. Had you yielded to it even once, my final gambit would have crumbled—and this world fallen into their hands."
Realizing it hadn't been the goddess's will at all, but inadvertent echoes of the Underground Vermin's lingering malice, eased my anger somewhat.
"Uh... so now that you've been absorbed by me and emerged, those lingering thoughts are purified, right?"
"No."
"Why!!!"
Fresh anger flared up.
"Those remnants mingled in epochs ago... to the point where even I can no longer cleanly separate my pure divinity from them. All I could do was suppress them to the utmost, minimizing their sway over you."
"So now, in the heat of battle, that urge to slaughter everyone—is it gone for good?"
"There may still be attempts, but their influence won't be as potent as before."
"Then why not just wipe them out entirely from the start?"
"It might have been feasible given enough time—but had I left my divinity within you without emerging as this empty shell, you would no longer belong to this world."
Lunia's eyes drifted to my flank, where half my ribs had once been pulverized.
I reflexively touched the large, luminous scar that remained there.
"Uh... thanks? Look, that outburst earlier wasn't because I hate you or anything—"
"It's fine. Betrayed by those I deemed faithful devotees, stripped of power and freedom alike across millennia—now bereft of all strength. Whatever treatment I receive henceforth matters little. I've lost everything, after all. Even if you hurl insults, scream in my face, or strike me—it's all too familiar to one as powerless as I. Think nothing of it. Treat me however you please. I sacrificed all my power to save you, after all."
......Is she mad?
Lunia turned her back and began to walk away—only to suddenly falter, lose her balance, and collapse sideways.
"Ah..."
"Hey? Goddess! You alright?"
As I caught her crumpling form, the sheer extent of her frailty hit me at once.
Her body was already a map of bruises and wounds—but now topped by emaciation so severe she looked skeletal. Her lips were parched and cracked, utterly devoid of moisture.
Lunia shut her eyes softly and murmured in exhaustion.
"It seems... I must bid you farewell here. After endless exploitation across the ages... I appear to have no strength left to endure."
Her odd, frustrating manner of speech had gotten under my skin midway through, sure—but I'd never wished any harm upon the goddess.
She was our collective lifesaver, and to this world's people, their very creator besides.
In her debilitated state, expending so much just to get us out had left her teetering on death's doorstep.
"Hey, you can't just die like this! I've still got questions, and I haven't even begun to repay you for saving our lives..."
"Hehe... If we're speaking of debts, mine came first. You freed me from that lightless abyss beneath the cathedral—and granted me this final glimpse of light. Thus, I can now... entrust all to you and return as one with this star."
"No way..."
I clenched back the tears welling up and pulled the dying goddess into a tight embrace.
Grrrrrrumble—
And from the stomach of the goddess on the brink of death came a thunderous rumble...
Hm?
"......Goddess? You said it's been two days since I passed out, right?"
"Yes."
"Did you eat anything in that time? Drink any water?"
"......?"
"You didn't?"
"......"
"Do you even know what food and water are?"
"Of course I grasp the concepts—but they are mere abstractions of this world, hardly relevant to—"
"What a blockhead."
About an hour later.
"Thanks to you, the day I return as one with the star has been postponed somewhat. Only upon becoming flesh of mortality did I comprehend the vast chasm between abstract knowledge and lived reality. Henceforth, I must firmly etch into my own mind the necessity of one to two liters of fluids daily, alongside two to three meals."
Watching the former goddess brazenly wipe her meat-smeared lips after guzzling stream water, I couldn't shake the sense that something had gone awry in a whole new way.