Chapter 386
Chapter Title: The Gluttony King
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386.
“Alright, let’s head to the Elven Forest first and meet Luna. It’s the closest to Gardsrone.”
Lisinas said.
“Okay. After that, we go to Leisar to meet Ar-on, right?”
“Right.”
At Leo’s words, Lisinas nodded while looking at the map.
“And finally, we should go see Dweno.”
They had planned the order and route to meet their comrades.
“Well then. We’ve talked enough, so shall we call it a night?”
Lisinas folded the map and rose from his seat.
“Kyle, are you going to drink more?”
“I need to rest today, too.”
Leo and Lisinas got up and headed to the second floor.
They parted in the second-floor hallway and went to their respective rooms.
Before entering his room.
Lisinas smiled at Leo and said.
“I’m looking forward to working with you, Kyle.”
With those words, Lisinas entered his room.
“Lisinas.”
“Hm?”
Leo called out, stopping Lisinas.
Peeking his head out of his room with a curious expression, Lisinas looked at Leo, who spoke.
“You are not a fool.”
Lisinas’s eyes widened at the sudden remark.
At this time, Lisinas was being ridiculed as a fool.
A foolish lizard chasing an absurd hope, spouting unattainable ideals.
The Kyle of this era had judged him the same way.
Even so, Lisinas had persistently tried to recruit Kyle into his party.
He never gave up, pulling Kyle, whose heart had been consumed by darkness, out from the shadows.
The moment he had taken Lisinas’s hand.
It was the beginning of the path to saving the world, but it was also the beginning of his own salvation.
‘If it hadn’t been for him, I would have rotted away like that for the rest of my life.’
He would have had to watch the world end without any hope.
He knew now.
How much pain the wise king, who sincerely tried to save the world, must have felt during the days he was mocked as a fool.
“You are wiser than anyone.”
“Flattering me all of a sudden just because we’re in the same party?”
Lisinas grinned.
“Well, it’s a good attitude. Unlike yesterday, your eyes today are clearly looking toward hope.”
The wise dragon looked into Leo’s eyes and said.
“That’s definitely a positive sign.”
Smiling, Lisinas went back into his room.
Watching him go, Leo entered his own room and smiled bitterly.
‘Looking forward to working with you, he says…’
Trudging over to the bed, Leo flopped down and stared out the window.
‘Words like that are hardly enough.’
They were comrades who had overcome endless life-or-death situations together.
Leo looked down at his hands.
The Great Heroes were each other's saviors.
They had saved each other’s lives countless times.
‘If even one of us had been missing… we never would have made it.’
He had met Ar-on, and he had met Luna and Dweno.
He thought he had grown accustomed to meeting comrades he could no longer be with.
‘I guess not.’
While he felt boundless joy at being able to grasp the hand that had pulled him from the darkness long ago, the fact that they could never truly be together now weighed heavily on his heart.
Suddenly, the faces of his comrades came to mind.
The very beginning.
Was it because he had returned to the starting point?
Today, for some reason, he missed his departed comrades even more.
As he thought of Luna, Ar-on, and Dweno, Leo slapped his cheeks.
Then, he took a deep breath.
‘This isn’t the time to be lost in thought. I need to assess the situation first.’
The current situation was completely unexpected.
‘I definitely entered Rodia’s world.’
Rodia’s world was not a Hero Dungeon but an officially opened world.
It was even a world that Leo could leave whenever he wished.
But right now, Leo was in Lisinas’s world.
‘What on earth?’
Leo narrowed his eyes and tried to close the World of Heroes mentally.
But no message appeared.
Leo knew this phenomenon all too well.
‘A Hero Dungeon.’
A situation where a Hero Record had run rampant within the World of Heroes.
Just as Leo furrowed his brow.
*Tap- tap-*
A tapping sound came from the window.
When he turned his head, Rodia was there.
As Leo went over and opened the window, Rodia asked cautiously.
“You’re… the Kyle from the future, right?”
“Yes.”
At Leo’s answer, Rodia let out a sigh of relief and entered the room.
“I was so surprised. This is a possession-type world, but you came in your original form, so I thought you were the Kyle of this era.”
Hearing Rodia’s words, Leo said.
“I’ve heard this kind of error can happen in Hero Dungeons.”
The World of Heroes originally has a set capacity for entry.
But in the case of a Hero Dungeon, the capacity limit sometimes disappears.
‘Hero Dungeons themselves are created by a system overload.’
“A Hero Dungeon?”
Rodia looked slightly bewildered by the unfamiliar term.
Seeing her, Leo paused and then nodded.
“You wouldn’t know about it.”
The Heroes of the Beginning had sealed Erebos within the Hero Record and then entered their own worlds after splitting the record to completely block the entrance.
As such, they had never experienced the side effect of the split Hero Record, the ‘Hero Dungeon.’
Over the past few thousand years, there had been those who challenged the worlds of the Heroes of the Beginning and met them, but there would have been no time to discuss the various problems that had arisen in the present era.
After hearing Leo’s brief explanation of Hero Dungeons, Rodia wore a troubled expression.
“I never imagined such a thing was happening.”
“The heroes of the later generations are handling it well, so you don’t need to worry too much about that.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s get back to the main point. Why are you and I here? I’ve never even seen Lisinas’s Hero Record in the present. That raises a question.”
Leo’s expression turned serious.
“Back when the Hero Record was whole, was it possible to open a record within the World of Heroes?”
“No. It wasn’t.”
Rodia shook her head firmly.
“When it was discovered that one could overcome the trials of past heroes and gain rewards through the Hero Record in the… World of Heroes, the world’s most renowned mages and scholars tested the possibilities of the Hero Record. Powerful warriors and exceptional summoners were mobilized in the process.”
Leo had learned about that in his history class at Lumerne.
“Opening a Hero Record within the World of Heroes. That would be the start of another infinite set of possibilities. That’s why countless experiments were conducted, but not once has a Hero Record ever been opened from within the World of Heroes.”
Hearing that, Leo fell into thought.
“The difference between then and now is the state of the Hero Record, and whether I, its owner, am present or not.”
Leo formed a hypothesis.
‘I caused something impossible to happen.’
The Hero Record was in an unstable state.
It was an object created by the power of a god, but it imprisoned the primordial evil, a natural enemy to the gods.
And the current Hero Record was created by gathering the pages that had been scattered across the world after the original was destroyed.
“So, its functions work, but they don’t work properly. And in the midst of that, I, the owner of the Hero Record, was reincarnated in the present day.”
“You’re saying that because of the anomaly that is you, Kyle, something that should have been impossible occurred.”
“Yes.”
“This has become a real headache.”
Rodia sighed.
Looking at her, Leo said.
“No, this might actually be a good thing.”
“Pardon?”
“Rodia. You just said that this record of Lisinas we’re in now was the first World of Heroes, right?”
“Yes.”
“From what I’ve read in the history books, you failed to clear this first World of Heroes.”
“Yes. I tried to clear this page several times after that, but… I failed every time.”
“Right. And then you entered your own final chapter to stop the fragments of Erebos. Normally, your body can no longer enter the World of Heroes.”
“That’s… wait.”
Rodia’s eyes widened as she was about to reply.
Leo smiled meaningfully at her.
“That’s right, Rodia. You are now inside the ‘World of Heroes.’ Do you understand what that means?”
“...If I clear it… it means I will inherit Lord Lisinas’s power. Which means.”
“Exactly. It means your power, which has been stagnant for thousands of years, can advance.”
With each loop, the flames of Erebos grew stronger.
In contrast, the Heroes of the Beginning remained at a standstill.
That was why time was running out for the Heroes of the Beginning, who had endured for 3000 years.
But if Rodia could clear Lisinas’s world here and obtain the reward, she could take a step forward.
“Of course, clearing it won’t be easy.”
Leo and Rodia looked at the message floating before them.
[Clear Objective: -]
Hero Dungeons do not have a clear objective.
You have to find the objective.
Like putting together a puzzle.
The moment the objective is recognized, a new message appears.
But Leo and Rodia didn’t need to search for it.
Rodia had already challenged this record numerous times.
And Leo was the one who had accomplished this record’s great feat.
Rodia’s lips trembled.
“The Gluttony King… Jörmungandr.”
[Clear Objective: Subjugate the Gluttony King.]
The clear objective was updated.
Lisinas and Kyle.
The very first great feat they had accomplished on their page.
And even now, after having subjugated Erebos, Leo could say it.
The battle against the Gluttony King Jörmungandr was among the most memorable of all their numerous feats and trials.
It was one of the most desperate fights.
Rodia swallowed hard.
Leo stared intently at the clear objective.
The Gluttony King, Jörmungandr.
The Necromancer King, Hel Kaiser, is the supreme commander of Tartaros.
He possesses a mighty power that puts him in a different league from the other Legion Commanders.
He was grouped with the Monster Queen Silatuna and the Giant King Gias as one of the three great Legion Commanders, but that was only because they were the only commanders to have survived since the Age of Calamity.
In terms of power alone, both the Monster Queen Silatuna and the Giant King Gias were considered to be a step below the Necromancer King Hel Kaiser.
He was, in the truest sense, the terrifying ruler of Tartaros.
The vilest of threats, who commanded death, was more insidious than any other, and controlled an endless legion.
But the Gluttony King Jörmungandr was more dangerous than Hel Kaiser in a different way.
“The true terror of a Legion Commander is the legion they lead.”
The demonic forces led by a Legion Commander are immense.
“But Jörmungandr is different.”
Leo recalled Jörmungandr.
“That bastard doesn't lead a legion.”
Despite holding the title of Legion Commander, he has no legion.
No, he devoured even his own legion.
“Tartaros was home to countless monstrous aberrations. But among them all, he was by far the most terrifying.”
The reason Jörmungandr was called the Gluttony King.
He devours everything.
Like a starving fiend.
A monster that eats everything in sight.
A monster that devours all and scatters darkness.
“A monster who doesn't even need a legion, despite being a Legion Commander. No, a monster who could be called a legion unto himself.”
Rodia said in a trembling voice.
The reason for her endless failures.
It was because the Gluttony King Jörmungandr was the ‘strongest’ of the demonkin.
Recalling how she had failed time and again before his terrifying power, Rodia asked.
“Can we do it?”
“We have to.”
Leo said, looking down at his palm.
“It’s the only way.”