The Scripture Lost to the Casino
But Pelmas paid no attention and shouted, “Tae-hyun. There is no need for you to concern yourself with some shabby little room like this.”
“How am I not supposed to care? Every so-called believer you mentioned is weird in one way or another. Even the place you gather is weird.”
Tae-hyun smacked Pelmas with plain, undeniable facts.
But Pelmas was no pushover either. It was like he had plated his face with iron. He ignored Tae-hyun’s criticism completely and pressed on with what he wanted to say.
“Tae-hyun, you must gather strength. The strength of a god, I mean.”
Tae-hyun understood him immediately. If he meant strength as a god, there was only one thing that could mean.
Divinity.
He was telling him to raise his Divinity stat.
“And if I do?”
“You may be an Incarnation, Tae-hyun, but that alone does not solve everything. You must gather power as a god and obtain Archisus’s Authority. If you do that, your divine power will naturally rise as well.”
Raise Divinity, and gain Archisus’s Authority…
A class-exclusive skill?
That was about what he got from it. Tae-hyun nodded.
Seeing that, Pelmas asked in a serious voice.
This was an important moment. A brand-new religion and order were about to be born here and now.
An order gathered around the Incarnation of a god.
Even among the many religious orders, very few possessed an Incarnation who was, in effect, the god itself.
For now it was weak and small, but Pelmas firmly believed it would one day grow into something immense.
“Tae-hyun. May I found your order and lead its believers?”
“Huh? No. I don’t think so.”
“……”
Tae-hyun rejected him without even one second of thought.
“W-why not?!”
“Well… if we’re going to found an order and appoint a pope, I’d rather pick someone a little more decent and convincing.”
Tae-hyun didn’t soften it. He just said it outright.
Pelmas looked like he might burst into tears on the spot.
Grab!
“?!”
“Aigoo, Tae-hyun! You can’t do this! Do you know how much eeeeffort I put into gathering believers?!”
Pelmas threw himself down, clutched Tae-hyun’s ankle, and started bawling loudly.
“If effort alone made the world work, life would be easy. It doesn’t, which is why it’s the world. You should’ve put in eveeeeeen more effort! Let go, you idiot!”
“Aigoo! Aigoo! Tae-hyun, you can’t do this!”
Tae-hyun tried shaking him off, but Pelmas clung on to the bitter end.
“Do you seriously want to be pope that badly? Can’t you just do something else? Let’s put someone more respectable in as pope.”
“Are you saying I’m not respectable?”
“Yeah.”
“……”
Pelmas changed his approach. Tae-hyun was not the sort of man who spared people’s feelings by phrasing things gently.
“Then who are you planning to appoint instead of me?!”
“No idea. But there’s probably someone better than you. Honestly, I think it’d be better to wait than to stick you in the pope’s seat just because there’s no one else.”
“You can’t do this! Do you know how much I’ve contributed?!”
“You call rounding up a bunch of beggars a contribution? Huh?”
Clunk—
“……What exactly are you doing?”
The one who entered was an old man in full armor.
It was fairly respectable armor too. No gaudy ornamentation, but solid silver heavy plate. The sword at his hip looked decent as well, even if the scabbard wasn’t decorated.
“Nekdon! Tell him! Tae-hyun says he’s going to appoint someone else as pope instead of me!”
“Really? Well, that could happen.”
“Nekdon!”
“Isn’t that a matter for Archisus to decide? Ah. This really is the Incarnation of Archisus, yes?”
“Yes.”
Tae-hyun answered for Pelmas.
Hearing that, Nekdon bowed his head.
“It is an honor to meet you, Tae-hyun. My name is Nekdon.”
“You were the… what was it… knight who got kicked out for being caught gambling?”
Nekdon turned his head and looked at Pelmas.
Pelmas avoided his gaze.
Apparently that had been a secret.
“Ahem. A mistake from my younger days.”
“Looking at your age, that doesn’t seem like a mistake from your younger days… but whatever. Fine.”
It looked less like a youthful mistake and more like an old man’s mistake.
Nekdon cleared his throat again and said,
“If Tae-hyun wishes to appoint someone else as pope, is that not Tae-hyun’s right? We will merely follow.”
“Nekdon, you bastard!”
“That said, I do hope you’ll recognize that no one worked harder than Pelmas to find you, Tae-hyun, and no one worked harder to gather believers.”
“Sure. Then just give him some honorary position. What, uh… Temple caretaker or something. We’ll make up a title.”
“……”
“……”
The two men stared at Tae-hyun.
With a sigh, he said, “Fine. I’ll think more about the pope thing. But that’s not what matters right now, is it? You call it a religion, but right now we don’t have a temple, we don’t have an order, and the believers… how many are there anyway? More than ten?”
“Haha. Numbers aren’t import—”
Tae-hyun kicked Pelmas in the shin.
“Ack!”
“He is correct, Tae-hyun. At present, it would be laughable to even call us a religion. Just look at the Demer Order. They lead countless holy knights and priests, and they have temples in every kingdom.”
Demer, known as the Goddess of Earth, was one of the more popular gods thanks to her characteristic healing abilities.
The Choi Ha-jun and Choi Ha-yeong duo he’d met at the fortress before had also been a paladin and priest who believed in Demer.
“So we must gather strength little by little.”
“Hmm. How?”
“You must increase your Divinity, raise your strength, and learn Archisus’s Authorities. Tae-hyun—did you know there was once another person who appeared as the Incarnation of Archisus?”
“……?”
Come to think of it, that made sense.
If no Incarnation of Archisus had ever appeared in the past, there would be no reason these people would have been searching for one now.
“Long, long ago, it seems there were quite a few people who believed in Archisus. There was an order, and there was even an Incarnation. That order has long since vanished, and no one now believes in him seriously… but Pelmas and I discovered a prophecy in an ancient manuscript.”
“A prophecy?”
“Yes. A prophecy that the Incarnation of Archisus would return, lead the faithful, and establish an order!”
“Have you two ever fallen for pyramid schemes too? Looking at your gambling addiction, it feels likely…”
“……”
Startled, Nekdon looked at Pelmas, but Pelmas shot him a look that clearly said:
Ignore that and keep talking!
If you let Tae-hyun throw you off, you’d never get a word out.
“In any case! We gathered those ancient documents while searching everywhere for Archisus. Among them were records about the Authorities used by the previous Incarnation of Archisus.”
“Oh-ho. Really?”
Tae-hyun perked up at once.
A skill exclusive to a Legendary Class.
How could he not be interested?
What kind of skill was it?
“Now that you have arrived, Tae-hyun, you must obtain the Authorities described in those records. It will surely be a difficult and arduous road, but we will help you!”
“……”
Tae-hyun hesitated for a moment.
Will these people actually help?
“Sure. I’m counting on you.”
“I feel like you hesitated just now…?”
“Must’ve been your imagination.”
You have completed the class quest — Incarnation of Archisus.
Divinity has increased by 50.
The affinity of Archisus’s believers has risen to the maximum.
You have obtained the title: Founder of the Order.
This is the first time this title has been acquired on the server. All stats increase by 10.
Because of your Divinity, followers of other religions may recognize you.
Other people struggled to get even one server-first title, but Tae-hyun already had several.
Since I can’t level up properly, I need to get stats like this however I can…
As he skimmed the window, something caught his eye, and he tilted his head.
Followers of other religions may recognize me because of my Divinity?
That sounded… ominous.
What exactly does “recognize” mean?
People from different religions were rarely friendly with one another.
Most of the time, they insulted each other and kept one another in check.
Tae-hyun stopped thinking about it for the moment and checked his stats.
Name:Kim Tae-hyun
Level:27
Class:Incarnation of Archisus
HP:1325
MP:1325
Strength:145 (+20)
Agility:145
Stamina:145 (+25)
Wisdom:160
Luck:2585
Bonus Stats:0
That’s a lot.
A stat window so bizarre that if he took a screenshot and uploaded it, it would instantly win first place for Most Absurdly Built Character.
Only his level was strangely low. If you looked at his stats alone, he could stand against even a level 50 or 60 player without falling behind.
And once you factored in Luck…
Tae-hyun himself was honestly curious how strong he was right now.
Judging from what he’d seen of the Red Zone Guild Master, if the class matchup worked in his favor, there were probably still a few rankers he could beat right now.
This Luck stat really is something…
Unless the enemy had some kind of skill that ignored evasion entirely and guaranteed damage, or something that sealed evasion in the first place, dealing damage to Tae-hyun was extremely difficult.
And now he had Divine Authority on top of that…
Reduces damage according to Divinity.
“Show additional stats.”
Terror:60
Fame:500
Divinity:50
Divinity at 50, Fame at 500. And even Terror.
Stats most people couldn’t raise properly even if they tried—he was raising them just fine.
Skills…
• Beginner Swordsmanship 5 (95%)
• Beginner Cooking 9 (45%)
• Beginner Engineering 1 (15%)
• Intermediate Blacksmithing 6 (4%)
Stopping the skill list there, Tae-hyun fell into thought.
First, I need to push swordsmanship up to Intermediate.
Right now Tae-hyun was inflating his attack power through Luck, sure—but he couldn’t rely on that forever.
Melee classes like warriors and holy knights had combat skills. Tae-hyun couldn’t expect anything like that.
The only thing he could really trust was his basic swordsmanship skill.
He needed to level it. Again and again.
And if I’m going to raise swordsmanship, grinding is mandatory…
He had to swing a lot and hit a lot. That was the only way it would go up.
And I need to raise cooking and engineering too. And blacksmithing…
What Tae-hyun wanted was an all-rounder.
A true all-purpose character who could handle anything, no matter the situation.
If he was going to play solo, he had no choice but to raise himself into an all-rounder.
Otherwise, he’d eventually hit a wall.
The problem was that a true all-rounder couldn’t be built through ordinary grinding.
Well. One thing at a time.
Once Tae-hyun set a goal, he was the sort of man who didn’t care how much grinding it took.
“Right. Nekdon. Pelmas. So where’s this manuscript?”
“It’s been scattered about, but…”
“You don’t have a single one with you?”
“There is one fairly close at hand.”
“……What? Where?”
“In the casino next door…”
“……?”
Tae-hyun tilted his head, unable to understand.
“Why would an ancient manuscript connected to a god be in a casino?”
“Well…”
“……We bet it and lost it.”
“……”
Tae-hyun stood up, hammer in hand.
“Sure. That can happen. I already knew what kind of people you were.”
“Tae-hyun! We are not normally that kind of people!”
“Shut it.”
Tae-hyun glanced out the window.
That flashy mansion he’d seen on the way in had apparently been a casino.
“So you bet the manuscript in that casino and lost it?”
“Yes……”
From what he heard, the place was one of those establishments frequented by Genoma City’s nobles and great merchants—a place common peddlers weren’t even allowed to enter.
Which naturally meant the guards inside were on a whole different level.
Even at a glance, the bodyguard knights inside had to be over level 100.
“Hmm. Can’t we just buy it back with money?”
“The thing is…”
“We tried that too…”
“And?”
“The owner refused. I think he took a liking to the manuscript.”
“What exactly are you two useful for?”
Both of them lowered their heads miserably.
With a sigh, Tae-hyun rose from his seat.
“Let’s go.”
“Pardon? Where?”
“The casino. I’ll show you how gambling is really done.”