The Fanatical Hero (1)
[Title: So there used to be monsters here]
Now there aren't.
Those searchlights were less like ordinary illumination and more like concentrated death rays. Think that's an exaggeration? Take a direct hit to the face, and you'll change your tune real fast. After all, searchlights were originally engineered to focus blinding luminescence into a single, razor-sharp vector.
"Well now, look at that. The sandworms are actually trying to use their brains."
The vanguard of sandworms that had breached the rift was literally reduced to vapor and ash. Perhaps that grisly spectacle served as a warning, because the second wave that followed crawled through with all their eyes squeezed tightly shut.
The moment dozens of industrial-grade searchlights converged their beams onto a single point, keeping their eyes shut became completely meaningless. When your brain is lacking, your body suffers for it. But when your brute firepower is overwhelming, you don't even need to bother using your brain in the first place. Who cared if they closed their eyes? The searing radiant heat simply blinded them right through their eyelids and boiled them alive.
[Title: Utility Mage here]
Today was the first time I learned that light magic could be utilized as an offensive weapon.
What in the world is this?
Is that really the same light magic that got treated like trash because it was only good as a nightlight?
My heart is seriously swelling with awe...
Above all else, I had initially supplied the equipment free of charge solely for the survival of the rabbit beastkin clan. Yet somehow, that casual charity boomeranged right back to me as an enormous windfall.
[Title: Retiring from the rabbit grind...jpg]
Peace. ₍ ᐢ. ̫ .ᐢ ₎
[Upvotes: 1231] [Downvotes: 12]
A catastrophic Wave that once demanded desperate mortal struggle had been reduced to an automated hunting ground. There was no longer any need to risk life and limb outside the village perimeter. All it took was a single flick of a switch. With that effortless click, demonic beasts instantly became 'former beasts,' printing Mana Dumplings as if through an infinite copy machine.
• Just made 10,000 dumplings! Drop your account numbers below! [50]
• You poor little noobs... Big Sis is feeling generous, come get some pocket money! haha [31]
• All aboard the Head Mod hype train! Haha// [56]
• For Head Mod Oppa's eyes only...jpg [412]
Because of that sudden surge in wealth, the gallery's front page was completely overrun with suggestive selfies and giveaway threads. To make things even better, marketplace trading volume surged dramatically, meaning that every ounce of prosperity cycled straight back into my pocket.
"Why are you trying to give this to me?"
The primary livelihood of the rabbit beastkin had always been farming. They scraped together their meager supply of Mana Dumplings by harvesting produce and hawking it on the gallery market. Now that they had finally come into serious money, why on earth were they trying to dump it all in my lap?
Naturally, I had no use for it. It wasn't as if I was desperate enough for dumplings to squeeze a vulnerable tribe. If shaking them down had been my intention, I would have set up taxes from day one. From the perspective of board health, having the rabbit clan flush with cash and deeply engaged in gallery culture was infinitely more valuable.
Her parting reply sounded bafflingly like an ominous threat, which left me scratching my head for a second. Still, I barely ever set foot outside anyway, so getting kidnapped was the least of my worries. Besides, I didn't have time to dwell on that right now.
"Oho..."
The Level 10 achievement reward that had kept me on edge with curiosity for so long was finally here. That long-awaited 'special reward' was dangling right before my eyes.
"Just what on earth are you giving me?"
My anticipation soared through the roof. Then, right at that climactic moment...
[An empty slot (1) has been created.]
[Please designate a target.]
"?"
Nothing followed except that single, solitary line of cryptic text.
[Title: The world is truly ruined lmao]
You're telling me power capable of manipulating the entire world was handed to an irresponsible individual?
Then shouldn't you be setting up checks and balances instead of slobbering over his boots like mindless sheep lmao
Remember when he shut down the marketplace all at once? Instead of uniting and protesting, you all tucked your tails between your legs and groveled.
Get a grip, even now.
Stop worshipping a mere Head Mod who isn't even a god, start believing in the true God, and build up some real faith.
[Upvotes: 1] [Downvotes: 52]
"...Insolent, wretched heathens!"
SLAM!
The Pope brought his fist crashing violently down onto the mahogany desk. The atmosphere inside the council chamber, already suffocatingly bleak, sank another degree into shadow. They had tried concocting agitprop across the boards to reign in the Head Mod's influence, but not a single soul took the bait anymore. The Cathedral's dazzling era of supreme glory was now nothing more than a forgotten myth. All that stared back from the ornate mirror was the decrepit, ailing reflection of a frail old man trapped inside a crumbling sanctuary.
"Please, calm yourself, Your Holiness."
"There must still be another avenue left to us."
"What avenue?!" the Pope snapped, whirling his head toward them with hollow, bloodshot eyes.
Not a single clergyman present could utter an answer. The era when the Adrian Cathedral wielded absolute, unquestioned dominion over the continent had long since turned to dust. Stripped of both temporal power and sacred prestige, they were now viewed by the common folk as little more than a vestigial relic waiting to dissolve into history.
"It is all because of Colin. That treacherous cur," a quiet voice murmured from the shadows of the council table.
Colin—the revered holy knight who had openly defied imperial and ecclesiastical commands during the civil unrest, choosing instead to raise his shield on behalf of the common people. Because of his defiance, the interior of the Adrian Cathedral was now bitterly fractured: the old guard clinging to the Pope, and the reformist faction rallied around the holy knights.
"If we continue to sit idle and watch, sovereign authority will slip entirely from our grasp."
"It is already slipping as we speak! What would you have us do?!"
The total transfer of authority was merely a matter of time. The direst problem was that the papal faction had no means to halt it. Even at this very moment, sweeping reforms were gutting their old privileges: tithing had been made entirely voluntary, private armies among the high clergy were strictly outlawed, and vast portions of their vaults were being liquidated into public relief funds.
"That man is tearing down everything our order was built upon."
Colin. That solitary holy knight was the root of the rot.
"He must be put to death."
The solution was simple enough. They needed only resort to their most time-honored ecclesiastical tradition: assassination. Yet upon hearing the proposal, the Pope's withered features twisted into a furious scowl.
"You fool! How could we possibly manage that?!"
If Colin were to drop dead tomorrow, even a stray dog in the gutter would instantly know the papal faction was behind it. Did they expect to feign ignorance and shrug it off as they used to in centuries past? The world was no longer under their thumb. If they made a clumsy blunder like that, the Pope's own neck might find itself resting in the guillotine, right alongside the executed Archbishop's.
Yet the bishop who had floated the idea didn't flinch under the pontiff's roar. Instead, a thin, venomous smirk crept across his lips.
"We simply raise a Hero."
All they required was an irrefutable, divine justification. The Hero—the living avatar of the Cathedral, the absolute embodiment of righteous justice whose every strike carried the mandate of heaven itself. In essence, the ultimate trump card of their ancient creed.
"A Hero?"
"Surely you jest..."
Uneasy murmurs rippled through the assembled prelates. And with good reason: not a single Hero had been anointed by the heavens in several centuries. The only legitimate proof of a Hero's identity was the sacred resonance of the Holy Sword. Only when a chosen champion grasped its hilt and coaxed forth its blinding radiant light could they claim the mantle. Yet even during the harrowing slaughter of the Great War, when demonic beasts brought continental civilization to the brink of ruin, no such Hero had ever answered the call.
"Even if the weapon still exists, was not the Holy Sword surrendered to the Head Mod?"
Crown Prince Frederick, paralyzed by terror, had gifted the relic away to buy peace after failing to intimidate Judddak. Setting aside the matter of finding a champion, how could they possibly reclaim the blade from a monster who commanded terrifying sorceries from his bunker?
"The blade has slumbered in utter silence for hundreds of years, hasn't it?"
"What is your point?"
"Why not simply manufacture a counterfeit Hero from whole cloth?"
The bishop leaned forward, his voice dropping to an insidious whisper. They could take any masterwork longsword, imbue it with secret enchantments to make it radiate dazzling illumination, and declare it the true divine relic. Then, by crowning a puppet champion under their complete control, the Cathedral would regain its supreme moral authority. Once wrapped in the mantle of holy legitimacy, purging Colin and his insubordinate reformist knights would be child's play.
"Preposterous! Did the Head Mod not draw brilliant light from the Holy Sword before our very emissaries?!"
The bishop scoffed at the Pope's protest.
"You need not concern yourself with that parlor trick, Your Holiness. There is no possible reality in which that vulgar recluse is the true Hero. A champion of light cannot be such an irreverent, frivolous creature. He undoubtedly employed some foul, deceptive witchcraft."
The bishop's eyes gleamed with cold calculation.
"And even if—by some astronomical impossibility—he truly did elicit light from that steel, it matters not in the slightest. We need only proclaim to the masses that the relic gifted to the Head Mod was an elaborate decoy, and that the true Holy Sword remained hidden within the Cathedral's deepest vaults all along."
To the hierarchy of the Adrian Cathedral, neither the divine will nor the authenticity of the blade held any inherent value; they were merely instruments of leverage. As long as a well-spun falsehood restored their autocratic grip on power, nothing else mattered.
"It is a perilous gambit."
"And yet, Your Holiness, we have run out of roads to walk."
The council chamber fell dead silent. In truth, there was hardly anything left to ponder. The true Holy Sword had remained dark for centuries. Were they to sit quietly and watch their thousand-year dynasty sink into the abyss out of fear? Or would they forge a false savior and snatch back continental dominion?
"Very well. Put the design into motion."
"By your divine will, Your Holiness."
"See to it that failure is not an option."
At the Pope's grim command, the conspirators bowed their heads in unison. Once this grand deception succeeded, their very next target would be the Head Mod himself.
"Ah."
Right in the middle of browsing through the latest gallery threads, a sudden realization struck me like a bucket of ice water.
"Wait a minute. I left the Holy Sword behind."
During my frantic escape from the ruined floating castle of the Soon-to-Die Vampire, I had completely forgotten to grab the blade on my way out. No wonder the interior of the bunker had felt so remarkably dim lately.
—Huuuuum.
Just then, the Dwarven Masterpiece Sword hovered gently over to my side, buzzing with a soft, resonant frequency.
"What's that? You're saying it's actually way more comfortable without it around?"
—Huuuum.
"You're telling me its obnoxious glare was bad for your eyesight anyway?"
The sentient Dwarven Masterpiece Sword had spent months being treated like a beleaguered junior recruit, dumped with all manner of mundane chores by that overbearing Holy Sword. All that pent-up resentment must have boiled over, because the moment the subject came up, the blade materialized out of nowhere to lodge an immediate, desperate protest.
"Still, not having it around is a real pain in the neck."
What kind of blade had the Holy Sword been to me? A single light touch was all it took to set off a brilliant, radiant glow. It was the ultimate, zero-emission, eco-friendly luxury floor lamp! Better yet, it didn't consume a single watt of my bunker's precious electricity. It felt like a genuine waste to abandon an indispensable fixture of my subterranean lifestyle like that.
"Maybe I should ask her to send it back."
Then again, bringing it up wasn't exactly straightforward. The one currently holding the sword was none other than the Soon-to-Die Vampire. Experiencing that silver-haired beauty's obsessive, yandere-fueled home confinement once in a lifetime was more than enough for me, thank you very much.
I was in the middle of agonizing over my options when a brand-new post caught my eye.
[Title: The Cathedral just produced a Hero (Not clickbait).jpg]
"What?"
It was a trending concept post so blatantly absurd that not even God himself could resist clicking it.