The Festival Begins (1)
"Ahem..."
Antonio's face settled into a heavy, grim expression.
The Soul Ocean was a subject treated as a hot potato even within the Pantheon itself.
Some insisted that when humans died, their souls returned to the Soul Ocean; others claimed it was nothing more than a blasphemous, terrible, and incomprehensible sea.
Paladins and other warriors who tempered body and spirit claimed that once they broke past a certain wall, they had seen that ocean with their own eyes—yet the definitions they offered of the Soul Ocean were every bit as varied.
A hundred warriors meant a hundred definitions.
This isn't something I can decide alone.
He would need to discuss the revelation with the other Great Priests.
Antonio gathered up Demonic's report and hurried from the room. Urgent footsteps filled the corridor with a steady tramp.
First I should summon Paladin Demonic and speak with him about the Soul Ocean. And—
—KRA-BOOOOM!!!
"Ugh!"
A violent tremor shook the earth and roared through the air. Antonio staggered and went down hard; the report fluttered loose and scattered across the floor.
The ground beneath his feet rumbled and shuddered madly. Startled, Antonio was scrambling to get clear when the shaking cut off all at once—and everything went still.
As if the uproar moments before had been a lie, not a single vibration remained.
"W-was that an earthquake just now?"
Antonio got to his feet in a daze and looked around.
The shock had been strong enough to drop a man in an instant, yet nothing—not the building, not the portraits and ornaments hanging on the walls—had been damaged in the slightest.
Truly, the gods must have been watching over them.
"Blast it—I need to hurry."
Still half-dazed, Antonio set off at a brisk pace. He walked for some time; just as his old legs began to ache, he spotted other Great Priests bursting out in a frantic rush.
White eyebrows streaming in the wind as they ran. Antonio lunged and caught hold of one of them.
"Great Priest Lexor! Great Priest Lexor! What is going on?"
"Great Priest Antonio! There is no time! Come—hurry!"
"What? Where are we goi—"
"What!! Holy power of that magnitude moved and you didn't even notice?"
"What? Holy power?"
Caught off guard with his arm seized, Antonio found himself being dragged along. As they passed through the market quarter, cut across the commercial streets, and entered the residential district, his expression grew steadily grimmer.
This is...
It was an aura so vast he could scarcely believe he had failed to sense it. So immense, so overwhelming, that he felt no larger than an ant.
Antonio began to run under his own power.
The closer he drew, the more it pressed against his skin.
Vast. Heavy. Like standing before a mountain. Holy power that simply was, dense and absolute, encompassing everything around it.
Antonio had felt holy power like this before.
When the gods had raised the gate leading to the Holy Land, power of this same scale had stirred. His heart hammered in his chest.
"Hah— huff—"
In his twilight years he whipped his heavy body onward at a desperate run. Ahead, a colossal structure began to come into view.
Mysteriously, the houses that had stood there had been pushed aside to form a vast empty lot, and upon that lot rose a great oval building.
It looked for all the world as if the structure itself had shoved the earth aside and thrust up from the ground.
"O-oh..."
Antonio's eyes trembled violently. His thin fingers quivered, groping at something invisible in the air.
The building that had surged up was, in itself, like gazing upon a work of art.
The arches that formed the outer wall braced one another in a great ring—twenty times twenty of them.
The arched gates of the inner wall numbered eighteen times eighteen.
The interior was an even greater spectacle.
The view opened wide onto a vast oval arena; giant torches set along the inner walls rose so high one had to crane one's neck for a long moment simply to see them.
Upon one of those torches a sacred flame billowed; on the remaining ninety-eight, only faint embers crackled.
Surrounding the arena, countless tiers of seating rose in five packed levels. Even a rough count put the seats in the tens of thousands—its majesty was overwhelming.
And among those seats, at the highest place of all—the loftiest vantage with the finest view of the arena—six enormous thrones looked down upon them all.
"Ah—ah...!!"
Thick tears spilled from Antonio's eyes.
Even a blind man would have known what those six thrones symbolized.
Antonio staggered to his knees and clasped his hands in prayer. Tears poured and scattered between his ragged breaths.
At last the glorious thrones of the gods had descended from heaven to earth.
Praise. Pray.
And devote yourselves.
Every soul in the arena knelt and prayed.
A long silence held; here and there soft sobs broke through, but no one rebuked them.
Only when the sun was sinking low did the long prayer end, and from somewhere a voice called Antonio's name.
"Great Priest Antonio! Great Priest Antonio!"
"Great Priest Lexor? What is it? And lower your voice—this is a sacred space."
"Ah—forgive me. First, look at this..."
Great Priest Lexor pulled Antonio along. The place he made for was the largest of the many gates leading into the arena.
Above it, a phrase had been scrawled in huge, ornate lettering.
Antonio narrowed his eyes and stepped back several paces. The characters were too large to take in at a glance.
"This is... the ancient tongue?"
It was a phrase written in the ancient language believed to have been used centuries ago, in the days when Saint Kenelm still lived. Very few now could read those characters.
Of course, every Great Priest—Lexor and Antonio included—could read and write the ancient tongue freely, so that was no obstacle.
"Fight... Conquer. For honor and glory."
Antonio and Lexor tilted their heads. Fight what? Darkness? Demons? Or the temptations of the heart?
They sank into thought. Then, suddenly, Antonio recalled the revelation he had received. Lights scattered across the continent, gathering into one place.
Gathering. The lights were gathering.
Fight... Victory... Honor...
...
...Yes! That was it!
Antonio slapped his knee. The revelation and this building, the countless seats and the fighting—and honor!
All of it converged into a single word.
"Haha!! Ahahaha!! That's it—that's it! Great Priest Lexor!! That's exactly it!!"
"Y-yes? Antonio? What do you mean..."
"A festival—a festival! Hahahaha!! Great Priest Lexor, a festival the gods themselves are opening!!"
"...A festival?"
"Yes—a festival!!"
Antonio laughed aloud.
"We must send carrier pigeons to the Hero! Let us dispatch pigeons and messengers across the entire continent! In the name of the Six Gods, a festival shall be held!!"
Duels—a festival of duels in the name of the gods!
Outstanding warriors from every corner of the continent would gather, and a grand stage to elevate honor and glory would open!
Like the gathering lights, countless warriors would flock to the Holy City!
Under the name of the gods, to become the most outstanding and honorable warrior of all!
The gods had prepared duels attended by honor and glory—who, then, would stand as the model for every warrior?
Antonio danced about, laughing at the top of his lungs, and until late into the night messengers and carrier pigeons streamed busily out of the Holy City.
Pure and Chaste Fairy Horse has been registered as a prize!
"Oh—so that works."
No matter how you looked at it, it was a unicorn—but when I moved the horse labeled "Fairy Horse" onto the prize list, it registered without a hitch. Using it as a prize like this seemed far better than gifting the thing to someone outright.
Of ninety-nine total prizes, one was registered. Ninety-eight to go.
A long road ahead.
I stared blankly at the screen, turning it over in my head. The Mystery Shop only put out five items at a time. Even if I bought all five every single day to fill the prize pool, a hundred would take a full twenty days or so.
"How am I supposed to wait that long."
Sit on an event for twenty days? I'd rather quit the game. There was every chance the event would end in the meantime—absolutely not.
This was the first event I'd run since starting this game. If the period closed while I was still scraping prizes together, nothing would feel more unfair.
"...Just one more time?"
It was a truly unavoidable situation—should I just spend, just once more?
No. This time it really was unavoidable. Collect items for twenty days only for the event to end? There'd be nothing I could do. I had to open the event first, didn't I?
Truly unavoidable.
Muttering that to myself, I sneakily moved my hand and entered the shop.
That was life.
Money didn't solve every problem—but most problems were solved with money.
If it still wasn't solved, you simply didn't have enough money.
Cheerful music and packages sparkling gorgeously, tempting my eyes. Sale tags flashed; contents scaled to match the eye-watering prices, dazzling the vision.
"I want to look around the gift-item section."
Forcing my gaze away from every other package it kept drifting toward, I stubbornly scrolled down the shop list. Halfway through, I found the gift package I'd been looking for.
Deliver a different gift every day to the adventurer of your choice! For 10 days, 5 per day—a variety of high-grade gifts appear at random!
◈ Contents: High-Grade Gift Items ×50 (random from 15 types)
◈ Mystery Gift Items ×5
◈ Random Weapon Crafting Recipe ×1
This was truly unavoidable. My spending was justified. Truly rational consumption. An event that pulled hero-grade adventurers was not something I could afford to miss...
My finger was already heading for the pay button, but I squinted one last time at the package price.
I pressed pay with a light heart.
This was a real steal.