Chapter 119
“Let’s walk for a bit.”
The goddess, Misra, turned her back on me with eyes thick with suspicion and started walking slowly. It was obvious she wasn’t going to wait, so after staring at her retreating figure for a moment, I strode up and fell into step beside her.
I quickly matched her pace, but the problem came from an unexpected place. Compared to my height over 180 cm, the goddess was petite, under 160 cm. Naturally, our strides differed, so I quietly slowed mine to match hers.
“Hmph. You’ve got consideration in the strangest places.”
“……If someone’s quietly being considerate, the polite thing is to pretend you don’t notice.”
I’d matched her steps so she wouldn’t feel embarrassed in front of me, and yet here she was making me feel awkward. Plus, it looked weird for me to walk ahead of the goddess anyway.
“Well, well. Speaking your mind boldly even before a god. What an extraordinary man.”
“I say what needs saying.”
“For someone like that, you couldn’t even speak properly to those women, could you?”
“……”
This goddess was playing dirty, hitting me with facts.
“A truly pathetic sight. It’s wrong to deceive others, but even worse is deceiving yourself. Tch. Making such lovely women pine away like that. I should’ve struck you down with divine punishment.”
……Should I punch her?
Her face was the spitting image of Polo’s, but her snide tone made my fist clench on instinct. After a dozen seconds of what wasn’t quite nagging but felt like it, my temper flared, and I slyly raised my fist.
“Kukuku. What a ridiculous outsider.”
But her next words made my fist, aimed at her head, freeze mid-air.
Out……sider?
If my ears weren’t clogged, that meant she knew I was an outsider—an invader, a possessor.
I stared straight at the goddess, who’d dropped that bombshell so casually, and said, “You…… knew who I was from the start?”
“What’s to tell? Would a parent not recognize their own child?”
According to Misra’s explanation, she could sense the life force of every being born in this world. As the primordial creator goddess who’d made the humans of this world, all humanity were like her children. Just as parents could distinguish their blood kin, she could tell her descendants at a glance.
The only ones she couldn’t distinguish were two types: her little sister’s demons, and beings not of this world.
“The former I can sense through her faint power, but in your case, there was no power, no scent, no trace at all. You were truly an extra through and through.”
“……”
From her light, nonchalant attitude, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was an existence not even worth remembering.
The child who’d wanted to become great realized he was just an extra, a half-baked outsider who shouldn’t even exist in this world…… Just as that thought crystallized—
Smack!!
“Ow!!”
“I figured you were making that idiotic face, and sure enough……”
“This is seriously—!!”
Already rattled, the pain fueled my irritation, and I raised my fist again—but her next words rooted me to the spot.
“You still believe you’re just an extra, don’t you?”
“Ugh……”
“Haa…… What to do with this clueless fool.”
Her words struck home, leaving me speechless as I slowly lowered my raised fist. She approached my sullen side and gently wrapped her small hands around my still-clenched ones.
“……Do you know why your friend looks so much like me?”
“……”
“Truth is…… that boy was my avatar, destined to die alongside the sub-cult leader.”
“……What?!”
“I’m no fool. Even after so long, I knew it wasn’t normal for my sister’s power to crawl out and wander the world. But I’d weakened. After the war with her, my power had rapidly declined, and though I had the faith of my followers, it wasn’t what it used to be as time passed.”
Gods couldn’t directly intervene in human affairs. That universal law bound even Misra, and on top of that, she’d poured even more power into hiding the heavenly punishments against demons and sealing records. Like a leaky jar, she’d been losing strength and slowly aging.
Meanwhile, the Heaven God Cult created by the sub-cult leader had grown stronger, becoming a massive threat to her children at any moment.
“So you came up with self-sacrifice?”
“A body that wouldn’t last long anyway. I thought I had to finish my karma myself. It was cruel to the boy…… but.”
It would’ve happened if I hadn’t been there. Polo was her vessel, made as her incarnation. In the battle against the sub-cult leader and the Heaven God Cult, he would’ve descended as her avatar, used all his power, and died heroically.
“That’s why I didn’t grow attached to him. He was meant to perish after fulfilling the greater good. However……”
The goddess looked at me with subtle eyes.
“Then you appeared.”
“Me……”
“I was shocked at first. An outsider, belonging nowhere, showing up in my world.”
But that was it. She’d been certain I, an outsider, would die without adapting. Like a freshwater fish in the ocean, normal life in this altered world would’ve been impossible for me.
“Yet you survived. And not only that—you ruined my plan to use the avatar entirely.”
Originally, Polo, born into a Lord’s house, should’ve been blindly trained into the perfect vessel for her descent. But the outsider’s arrival turned him into a normal boy his age, far from a weapon.
“Luckily, you had more talent than expected, so it worked out. Otherwise, there’d have been no one to oppose the Heaven God Cult.”
“You didn’t give me that talent?”
“I told you, I’d never seen you before. That sword talent was yours from the start.”
My talent.
I’d always wondered if even my sword skills were granted by someone—how could an ordinary person suddenly gain such power?
My…… talent.
A warm sensation trickled down my spine from that short phrase.
“Well, I think it’s fortunate now.”
“Why’s that?”
“Taking an innocent life with my own hands…… I’ve experienced enough of that.”
Misra looked sadly at her hands. Her eyes seemed calm, but somehow, I felt she was crying.
“For the future…… sounds like an excuse, but in the end, it was a child’s selfish tantrum, not wanting to lose what was mine. So when you became friends with my avatar, I felt relieved in many ways.”
Her gaze, like a mother’s loving eyes, made it awkward to say thanks or it’s fine.
“But…… I’m just an extra. Even without me, someone else could’ve filled that role. I’m not anything special.”
“Does that matter?”
“Pardon?”
“Whether you’re an extra or the protagonist—does that really matter?”
“What do you—”
“Extra or protagonist, what’s the difference? The world could use one or two extras to save it, no?”
Not an extra anymore by that point, the goddess muttered.
“Think what you want. But we’ll think what we want too.”
“The man who shielded and saved a kidnapped woman, avenged a father and daughter, understood the unjustly accused like no one else, stronger than anyone yet hopelessly dense—”
“You’re the protagonist.”
……Ha.
“Kuh…… Kuhahaha!!!”
Insane. Absurd.
But—nothing had ever warmed me more.
Yeah. Extra, protagonist—none of that mattered from the start.
What mattered was…… that I was alive and breathing in this world right now—
And that I’d come to love this second life, this world.
“How’s that, self-proclaimed extra? Feeling better?”
“The best.”
“Good. Glad to hear it. And right on time—it’s time to go back.”
“?”
Thud—
She lightly pushed my shoulder, and I lost balance, tumbling backward. Something pulled at me irresistibly, dragging me away without resistance.
“This will be our last meeting. Oh, when you see that sub-cult leader…… tell him I’m sorry. And……”
—May happiness follow this extra from here on.
In my fading consciousness, her blessing brought a soft smile to my lips.
* * *
“Hah!!”
The sensation of rocketing from deep ocean to surface hit me, lungs burning as I gulped massive breaths, chest heaving like it might explode. I’d forgotten to breathe entirely.
Clang!!Ka-clang!Clang!!
“Ugh! How the hell……! Ah, Mars!!”
Polo, clashing swords with an executive, saw me rise and rushed over.
“Mars! You can’t get up yet!! Your wounds……”
“I’m fine. My body’s healed.”
“What?”
It was true. She’d fixed my wrecked body as a final gift, the cheeky goddess right to the end.
“Polo. Sword.”
“B-but—!”
“I’m fine.”
I stared at him steadily, and he hesitated, mouth opening and closing before handing over his sheathed blade with resolve.
……Remember? Long ago, I severed the soul of that Heaven God Cult doctor making chimeras. Back then, it was a villain’s soul—I didn’t care if it vanished. But now, these chimeras were innocent people turned monstrous by the cult’s Drak corrupting their souls.
The old me wouldn’t have dared risk harming innocents’ souls. But now…… something told me I should use that technique.
It’s okay.
My inner voice said I could do it. My sword would save people. It could sever suffering souls.
I gripped the hilt. Closed my eyes.
……I felt it.
The cries of tormented souls. Screams. Monstrous howls echoing everywhere.
To others, horrific monster noise—but to me, faint desperate pleas for survival amid it all.
I slowly drew the blade.
Shing—
Invisible, but the sharp ring told how well-maintained it was.
Not severing.
Rescuing. From the deep, sticky abyss, pulling flailing souls.
Slowly, tenderly, like embracing them from that mire.
Saving the pain-ensnared souls.
Soul Severing True: Soul Salvation
“……What is this?”
The sub-cult leader, gleefully watching the chaos, froze mid-laugh. He clutched his chest frantically.
No slash. No flame strike.
Yet—
“Warm……”
The hollow ache from losing his son filled with something unknown, warmth flooding his body.
“What is this scene……”
Drak corrupted souls, burrowing into dark voids, rooting deep until blackening the whole. Flesh followed the soul’s fall.
That was the principle—yet he watched chimeras’ bodies collapse, reverting to humans.
“Impossible…… How did you sever it!! That parasite clinging to the soul!! How did you excise it in one go—that thing rooted deep, devouring the soul—?!”
“I didn’t sever.”
“?!”
I smiled, watching people return to normal around us.
“I filled it instead.”
“Filled…… it?”
“Yeah. If it burrowed into the void, fill the void again. Then the parasite gets pushed out, right?”
“Heh.”
The sub-cult leader staggered, speechless, collapsing to the ground. His face showed shock, but his hands fondled his chest, marveling at the long-lost warmth.
“How’s it feel? That sensation after so long.”
“What…… is this?”
“Love…… I know, it’s cliché as hell, but nothing beats it as medicine.”
So what if it’s a cliché? It works.
“Empty hearts are all the same. Despair, betrayal, bad upbringings—but they all share one thing: ‘not loving themselves.’”
I was the same. Unfamiliar world. Talent I thought borrowed. Unaccustomed kindness. Refusing others’ feelings stemmed from not loving myself.
I just poured the new feeling from self-love into my sword.
“……Honestly, getting this from you disgusts and annoys me……”
…….
“But it’s not bad.”
Shhh—
“Whoa. My body—!”
“Don’t fuss. It’s natural. I sustained this wretched husk on revenge alone. Did you think a human taking godly power lives forever? Black magic and grudge kept me going.”
“Then……”
“Thanks to you, that emotion’s gone, so I’ve no anchor left. This body, lived too long, can’t hold. It’ll crumble to dust.”
As he said, his body powdered away like ash, scattering in the air. He accepted his end calmly.
“……You’ve worked hard.”
“Madman. That’s what you say to an enemy? Kuhuhu……”
“The goddess asked me to pass a message.”
“……What?”
“She’s sorry.”
“……”
His eyes widened in shock, then he scoffed in disbelief.
“Is that so…… At the very end, I get an apology from the goddess. Ha…… Haha.”
His body had vanished below the neck.
“One last thing……”
He asked with a hollow smile.
“……Will my family…… welcome me?”
“Yeah. They’ll run to you on both feet the moment you arrive.”
I meant it. Sensing my sincerity, he closed his eyes, chuckling wetly. It sounded like laughter, but also like stifled sobs—probably just my imagination.
“I must pay for my sins. This massive karma might take eons of retribution.”
“But if the day comes when it’s all lifted……”
“I hope it turns out as you say……”