Please Take Care of Aria
Please take care of Aria.
And then, within that dazzling wave of light, a voice seeped into my mind.
Please take care of Aria... and the pitiful children of Eden. Oh, unknown patron, our last hope.
It was not a sound heard by the ears, but a wave etched directly into the brain. A voice of unknown gender, endlessly warm yet steeped in eternal sorrow and lament.
Our arrogance and carelessness have brought about this horrific outcome, and innocent mortals are suffering. Please, with your chosen authority...
The voice cut off abruptly. Paah! The piercing light that had filled the room faded like a lie, and the original view of the dark corner returned.
"What... was that just now?"
I lowered my arm and blinked. Someone had definitely spoken to me in my head, but the content felt hazy like fog. It was a strange sensation, as if someone had tried to gently force something into my brain but failed due to a connection error.
Yet it didn't feel unpleasant. "Huh? My eyes aren't dry anymore."
The dry eye syndrome I'd carried from staring at monitors for thousands of hours had completely vanished, and even the shoulder stiffness from staying up all night felt refreshingly light.
But now wasn't the time to worry about minor healing effects on my body. The basement CCTV on screen was slowly resuming its broadcast in slow motion as the light explosion subsided.
On screen, Aria had foolishly tried to grab the glowing holy relic with her bare hands, suffering a terrible burn on her palm. She collapsed onto the stone floor and burst into mad laughter like someone who had lost her mind.
At the same time, golden notification windows popped up one after another in the center of the monitor.
The final blessing of the God of Light Lumen has temporarily formed a barrier in the basement space, blocking all external intervention and vision except for 'friendly targets'!
Friendly target confirmed: Selected as the great basement Outer God 'you'!
"So that being called Lumen chose me as a friendly target..."
However, there was no time or leisure for prolonged deliberation. With the barrier in place, this fleeting slow-motion timing was the perfect opportunity to slip the contract under the nose of the Seven Calamities.
Without hesitation, I clicked the Apostle Contract and dragged it to the basement floor.
Beep-! But just as I was about to release the mouse, a crimson warning window blocked the screen.
The current space is an unstable 'sacrifice ritual' condensed with extreme despair and madness! It is not a suitable location to perform a proper Apostle contract ceremony.
Forced contract may cause fatal side effects.
Side effects list: Removal of the 'affection stat upper limit' toward the Outer God for the Apostle candidate (Aria) and a surge in 'fanatical obsession'.
I snorted and clicked the [Ignore and Proceed] button on the warning window.
"Side effect is increased obsession? Heh. So what if she gets a little obsessed. It's not like she'll crawl out of the monitor to meet me in person, right? If the affection limit breaks, she'll probably bring in even more points, which is great."
It was a complacent and arrogant misconception. Click.
The contract fell onto the basement floor. And the moment Aria received the parchment and stamped her blood-and-pus-covered palm without hesitation, a brilliant fireworks display began exploding in the center of the screen.
Congratulations! You have successfully concluded the Apostle Contract (Aria)!
Initial contract bonus: 3,000 Divine Points have been immediately granted!
"Kahaha! 3,000 points, sweet! That's more than enough to pay off the loan interest!"
But the feast of notifications didn't end there.
◈ An ancient holy relic once bestowed by the God of Light Lumen upon his followers in Eden, lost through war or theft over the ages.
◈ This object, which transcends time and space to convey Lumen's will and power, has ironically found its way back into the hands of a saintess through the Outer Gods who brought about the world's destruction.
◈ Whether this is divine providence or cruel coincidence, no one knows.
Guide: This item is a powerful divine medium. It can be fused and processed into a 'special item' of the form the player desires.
You have obtained direct control rights over the Apostle 'Aria' (issuing commands and sharing vision, among other functions)!
"What the hell. Notifications are pouring in nonstop like I'm opening a spam inbox that's been neglected for days."
But I had no time to leisurely close the notification windows and ponder item processing options. In the gallery window, which couldn't see inside the basement at all due to Lumen's barrier, the Seven Calamities' insane chat messages began flooding in.
The gallery chat window was plastered with the Seven Calamities' screams. But as if that wasn't enough, the being continued spamming new messages in horrific fonts.
"Ohoho. You're so frustrated that you'd rather play as a player in the arena yourself instead of spectating?"
I grinned as I looked at the gallery window. My blood, as a veteran survival game master who had mentally crushed countless opponent users over thousands of hours, began to boil.
"Tsk, he'll be charging into the basement soon. Well, it's time to show off my rotten water survival skills. And against that guy, no less."
Meanwhile, in the orchard shrouded in the thick fog of the sacrifice ritual, the killer Jong-gu was fiercely pursuing the fleeing prisoners while constantly assessing the surrounding situation with his characteristic cold killer instincts.
'Hmm... The situation isn't looking good.'
With a bone club slung over his shoulder, the transparent figure cut through the fog and thought. The mage he'd impaled on a pillar seemed to have been secretly freed by other vermin, as only bloodstains remained on the empty pillar. Moreover, a massive metallic sound had echoed three times from afar. It meant that three of the eight waterwheels had already begun perfectly rotating and supplying blood to the gate.
'Those rat-like mortal bastards. They're moving quite diligently.'
Jong-gu's crimson pupils flashed. To achieve a perfect 'total kill' operation where not a single one escaped, he needed to stop the pursuit of the fleeing prisoners at this point and instead intensely patrol and restrain the remaining waterwheels that hadn't returned yet.
But just as he was about to raise his bone club toward the prisoners once more, it happened.
A grotesque, horrific high-frequency howl that seemed to tear apart Jong-gu's eardrums directly struck his mind. It was the voice of his employer, the Seven Calamities.
'Ah, damn it. Which bitch dared to sneak in there and free her?'
Jong-gu stopped in his tracks and irritably looked up. As he rang the bell, his transparency lifted and his grotesque true form came to a halt in the middle of the forest.
'Please calm down for a moment, employer. The escape gate absolutely cannot open until all the waterwheels have turned. They're just rats in a trap, so if I strictly control the remaining waterwheels while narrowing their movement routes, I can capture them one by one for certain.'
Jong-gu reported a rational and cold strategy befitting a veteran assassin champion toward the sky.
But the Seven Calamities was unreasonable.
The Seven Calamities threw a tantrum like a stubborn child who'd had a toy taken away.
'Right now? But there's no need for you to step in personally... And if the waterwheel restraint timing gets disrupted...'
Jong-gu tried to dissuade him, but what returned was only a curse-filled, horrific rebuke and overwhelming spiritual pressure from the Outer God.
Thud-! A powerful dimensional pressure crushed Jong-gu's brain matter.
'Haa... Sigh. A wage slave's life is shit no matter the dimension. When the higher-ups tell you to jump, you jump. What can you do.'
Jong-gu let out a deep, resigned sigh. He closed his bloodshot eyes that had been gleaming with killing intent and lowered the skull bell and bone club he had been holding. He pulled his self dwelling in his flesh down to the bottom of a cold abyss and willingly handed over control of his body to that arrogant and foolish employer Outer God.
Crackle crackle-!
A few seconds later. The killer's massive frame, eyes flashing open once more, grotesquely swelled. Though it was control rather than possession, because it was an Outer God, Jong-gu's body was affected. His crimson pupils no longer held the cold killing intent of an assassin, but only a perverted and mad possessiveness toward the saintess, boiling furiously.
"Kuhahaha! I'm coming, my mommy! Just wait for me!"
The Seven Calamities-possessed Jong-gu madly rang the skull bell. Ding ding ding ding ding-!
Before the aftersound of the bell even faded, the now-transparent killer completely abandoned basic operations like waterwheel restraint and began charging like a beast toward the direction of the old basement where Aria was, kicking up clouds of dust.