Chapter 34
Chapter 34
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 34
Chapter Title: Savior of the Pagans
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The devil must have gone mad.
Kneel? A god?
He must have used some wicked trick to break through the holy land.
Everyone knew the Empire's devils were eyeing the holy land—even the saintess.
'What kind of method did he use?'
I had to find out.
I had to expose it.
"The divine descent is healing him..."
"Oh! He's coming back."
But to Pagan and the other warriors, it looked entirely different.
If it had just been the devil emerging, they wouldn't have reacted like this.
The old man who entered the holy land was dying from an overdose of divine descent.
His body had mutated, coated in white blood. He wouldn't last much longer.
He was reverting to his original form.
But... even then.
The mutations were vanishing. His skin and fur were regenerating, restoring him to normal.
'He's regenerating?'
No, it wasn't mere restoration.
"He has truly received the god."
"It's the blessing of the god."
......He was growing younger.
The wrinkles on his face smoothed away, replaced by taut skin.
His white hair returned to its original vibrant yellow.
The blessing of the god.
In the North, there was no concept of a mana shower. But tales of warriors regaining their youth through divine blessings had circulated sporadically.
And now, the Empire's young devil had emerged from the holy land alongside a god.
A black dragon.
Every circumstance was elevating that devil to the status of a 'god.'
Something greater than a great warrior or saint.
'Those who reach the end of the holy land and overcome the trials alone obtain a god.'
A legend passed down for a thousand years.
When the holy land appeared, countless people challenged it in hopes of encountering a god.
Most died at the entrance. No one had ever advanced more than forty steps.
Even that earned them reverence as great warriors.
Only the saintess served to relay the god's voice.
But the saintess had never truly heard the god's voice. It was merely a stopgap to prevent people from recklessly entering the holy land.
Her role was to pass down the legends and make the myths even more mythical. Every saintess before her had done the same.
'Those who obtain a god can heal and command the Pagans...'
A myth handed down for a thousand years.
No one had ever achieved it, but legend said that reaching the end of the holy land and obtaining a god granted the power to heal and control the Pagans.
Those who entered the holy land gained power but had extremely short lifespans.
Even at best, they lasted less than two years before dying.
The so-called great warriors weren't much different.
Mana extended their lives, but the holy land's poison consumed that mana.
There was no cure.
All they could do was await and accept death.
That was why the Pagans were deified and worshipped.
They waited only for the appearance of the 'holy one' who would emerge alongside a god—their sole hope.
The holy one's arrival was salvation.
For Pagans facing imminent death, a holy one with the power to heal them was an entity to be revered.
"O god."
"We shall serve."
The warriors began kneeling one by one.
The Pagans offered their respects cautiously.
The great warrior Yung followed suit.
In the end, only the saintess remained.
But she had already branded Reinhardt a 'devil.'
'How could the Empire's devil become a god?'
For a thousand years, the Empire had repeatedly eyed the North.
And in this war, the North had suffered devastating losses.
Countless warriors had died. Village women and children had been slaughtered mercilessly.
Yet they were to worship the Empire's culprit as a god?
Who would bear responsibility for the sacrifices of hundreds of thousands?
We had to fight.
We had to kill them.
The Empire. The devils.
She had planned to chase down the fleeing bastards and massacre them.
"......I shall serve."
It was humiliating submission.
But with all the evidence of divinity presented, there was no justification to drive him away.
Gritting her teeth, the saintess lowered her body.
It was the moment a new god was born in the holy land.
'Lucky break.'
The instant I became a god, I smiled.
I could guess how Croft's 'mana shower' appeared to them.
For those who underwent mutation, only death remained.
I had overcome that death right before the Pagans' eyes.
Strictly speaking, all I'd done was remove the radioactive material from my body, but that allowed Croft's mana shower to fully take effect.
'Radioactive material causes mutations that grant power but seals potential.'
It rapidly boosted physical prowess, but it merely deformed the nanomachines in the body, depleting life force.
The deformed nanomachines exhausted all energy purifying the radiation, leading inevitably to death.
'Nano Machines absorbed into the body don't replicate.'
Another discovery: unlike airborne nanomachines, those absorbed into a human body didn't self-replicate.
Airborne nanomachines constantly multiplied themselves.
But once absorbed, they stopped replicating and began expending energy on bodily repair and enhancement.
When all the integrated nanomachines were depleted, death followed—that was inevitable.
'Nano Machines can't execute more than one command at a time.'
The massive influx of radioactive material into the body.
To eliminate it, every nanomachine in the body mobilized.
Thus, simply gorging on the radiation would trigger a self-cleansing effect, opening the path to recovery.
'Better that I become their god.'
In that sense, I truly was their god.
They'd been worshipping a bizarre entity anyway, so me becoming their god changed nothing for the worse.
'Worshipping a dragon instead of Gaf.'
The more I thought about it, the funnier it got.
The entity that wrecked internal nanomachines to grant power became their god, while 'Gaf'—who could restore that system—was rejected as a demon king.
Gaf had been the one to seal the dragon in the first place, preventing radiation from spreading.
Without him, half the North would have become a barren wasteland uninhabitable by humans.
The one they should worship wasn't the dragon—it was Gaf.
And now, having inherited Gaf's power, I was simply returning to the original owner's throne.
I lifted my foot.
And then.
"......!!"
Crunch.
I stepped on the saintess's head.
Her body trembled with humiliation, but I needed to clearly show who was superior.
Afterward, with my foot still on her head, I gazed at the Pagans and declared,
"Spread the word across the entire North. Your god is here."
I had no intention of ending as merely the holy land's god.
To thwart Grand Duke Carlos's northern conquest, I needed to make my presence known throughout the North.
A thousand years ago, excluding Gaf's emergence, the North had never been unified.
Even with the holy land, they weren't sending their elite warriors—just watching and waiting.
'The finest warriors aren't at this holy land.'
You could tell just from the absence of Pagans like the great warrior Yung.
And that was why Grand Duke Carlos was rushing to conquer the North.
Before they realized and banded together, he planned to crush them individually around the holy land.
That's why he'd pushed so hard, even using forbidden drugs.
However, once word spread that a god had appeared in the holy land, they couldn't ignore it.
Especially the myriad Pagans.
"I have come to save you."
Since the one who would save them was here.
***
『The North's lords have begun to move.』
Crunch.
Grand Duke Carlos crumpled the report in his fist.
The massive northern tribes beyond the holy land—their rulers called themselves 'lords,' claiming legitimate dominion over the North.
There were seven of them, and as long as they didn't unite, defeating them individually was feasible.
But if they all moved and combined forces, the situation would change.
『The court still has no word. They continue denying Crown Prince Reinhardt's presence in the North.』
『A spirit has appeared in the imperial palace.』
『People are gathering from across the continent to find the spirit's master.』
『Drug supplies are delayed...』
Whoosh!
He burned all the reports.
Grand Duke Carlos's eyes blazed with fury.
'Excuses upon excuses. A spirit, of all things.'
The court was using the spirit as an excuse to refuse any proper response.
A spirit? Why would a vanished mystery appear in the imperial palace of all places?
They'd concocted the perfect distraction.
The Emperor was even pressuring the grand duke with the argument that 'a crown prince not in his right mind heading north makes no sense.'
Since they denied the crown prince was in the North, killing Reinhardt here wouldn't cause issues—but after investing over a decade, he couldn't kill his own pawn.
'Do you want me to eliminate him myself, Deus?'
The spirit was an excuse. The one in the North wasn't the crown prince.
If such a being existed, the Emperor meant for him to kill it personally and restore discipline.
For them to push this far meant Reinhardt was acting alone.
But the problems didn't end there.
'The North's idiots are flocking to the holy land. Why?'
He couldn't fathom it.
Some lords were moving hastily, leaving no time to gather intelligence.
He needed to strike before they united, but the drug supplies were delayed.
Delaying played into their hands.
"Summon 'Daemon.'"
In the end, Grand Duke Carlos resorted to his final card.
***
The seven lords' Shan stared at the figure before him.
His face was hidden by black cloth, but this was a god.
Endorsed by the saintess and guaranteed by the great warrior 'Yung.'
When he heard a god with the power to heal Pagans had appeared in the holy land, Shan hadn't believed it.
He'd dismissed it as the saintess's desperate ploy.
"Are you not afraid of me?"
A massive frame.
A monstrous face. Shan asked.
Shan was one of the 'five great Pagans.'
The only lord who was a Pagan, with little life left.
In desperation, he'd been the first of the seven lords to reach the holy land.
'Not afraid?'
Since becoming a Pagan, he'd lost the 'right of regeneration.'
Wounds no longer healed.
His peeled skin and scars made him look scarcely human.
A monster even northerners recoiled from in disgust.
A form more horrific than other Pagans!
Even his wife and children had screamed at the sight of him.
All who faced him inevitably cowered in fear.
Yet the man before him showed no fear.
Not the slightest tremor.
Only his mouth was visible through the cloth, and it curved into a smile.
"Shan. You who lost your human form to reclaim your family. Why should I fear you?"
"......!"
Shan's body flinched.
To reclaim his family from slave traders, he'd become a Pagan.
Afterward, he'd slain the traders and retrieved his family,
but they saw him as a monster and took their own lives before he could reach them.
'How does he know?'
No one knew this.
Not even his closest aides.
Great warriors had somewhat longer lifespans than other Pagans.
So he'd gathered followers and become the seventh lord.
To slaughter every slave trader flowing in from the continent and create a world free of such sorrow.
Some other lords were secretly in league with them.
'I don't know where he heard it...'
Fury etched into Shan's eyes.
Daring to speak of his unspoken grief.
Who was this pretender playing at being a god?
If false, he'd kill him. The price for mockery would be steep.
"Heal me. If you're truly a god, you can fix this cursed body, can't you?"