The Fallen Hero’s New Beginning
“Wake up, hero! Your spirit is sinking. Your memories are blurring. They are gradually fading away.”
How long do you intend to sleep!!!
“Huk... cough...! Keuhuk...”
At the roar of the enraged god, he finally opened his eyes. He had survived death. No, he had to consider it a true resurrection. “Geueuh.” A rope was wrapped around his neck. It was a severed rope. It seemed he had failed in his suicide attempt because the rope had snapped.
“Where... am I?”
The man, coughing repeatedly as blood rushed to his face, threw off the rope and rubbed his sore neck while looking around. It was a shabby attic he had never seen in his life. It was filled with boxes and junk. Moreover, the spiderwebs and thick dust everywhere looked incredibly filthy.
“Haa...”
The man realized he had been resurrected. And in someone else’s body, at that.
‘I was clearly killed by Michael’s sword...’
For some reason, he had possessed another person’s body and returned to life. Perhaps because he had entered the body of a human who had already intended to die, the guilt felt a little less.
If you're awake, find a weapon immediately. You fool.
After assessing the situation for a moment, Keponus, the God of Order, could not wait any longer and barked at the man. The man, who had been staring blankly at the new palms of his new body, bowed his head and began to rummage through the attic as the God of Order pressed him with undisguised rage.
‘It’s not like I wanted to die either...’
The man made excuses to himself. But he couldn’t say it out loud. Because it was, in fact, his own fault. He recalled the events at the Thrill Mansion. The man, who had always had things go his way, never imagined the situation would spiral out of control like that. He had just been trying to build trust and gain confidence as always... he never knew the target would turn out to be a Cultist.
As the man blamed himself, Vister, the God of Wisdom, lamented and scolded him. Once again, the man had nothing to say. The God of Wisdom was a hundred times right. He had thought too easily. He had been careless and arrogant. As a result, he had been defeated twice. Once at the Thrill Mansion. Twice in the Abyss.
By losing at the Thrill Mansion, the man had lost his identity, and by losing in the Abyss, he had lost his remaining companions.
Leitena, the Goddess of Light, delivered the cold, hard truth in a calm voice. The man, Nicholas, finally collapsed. It felt like he had been punched in the solar plexus until he died. “What happened to Anna and Michael...”
[What do you think happened? They died long ago.]
[They all died after you did. So don’t hold onto useless regrets. You idiot.]
[To lose your life to the Sage’s Dagger, which didn’t even have a proper line of sight... You are truly the worst hero in history.]
“Keuk...” Nicholas realized. He hadn’t just lost his companions or his base. He had lost the trust of the gods. Keponus, the God of Order, who was usually stern but always worried about his safety, no longer hid his anger, and Vister, the God of Wisdom, who always provided methods, was busy blaming and scolding him. Even Leitena, the Goddess of Light, who had always shielded him, now harbored venom.
Nicholas rubbed his face dry over and over. There was no room for excuses. It was all his own karma. Finding no corner to escape to, he simply listened to the gods’ sighs, laments, anger, and insults. The gods, thinking this was an opportunity, exaggerated his sins to awaken Nicholas’s complacent spirit.
[While you are sitting here like this, the four thousand two hundred people you saved are being offered as sacrifices by the Cultists in real-time. Do you even know that? Huh! Do you even know!!!]
[That’s not all. Two of the sealed Evil Gods have already awakened. One of them is one of the three leaders of the Manma-jeon. Do you know how serious this is? Another opponent has emerged for Vister!]
[Everyone... calm down... calm down... Is that really the best you can do? I feel like I’m going crazy. Do you know how much effort I put into putting the Master of the Void to sleep? To exclude that monster from the game board... Do you know how many books in the Forbidden Library were burned!!! Huh!! What do you know!!! You ignorant, stupid fool!!!]
“I’m sorry... I’m truly... sorry...” Nicholas eventually had to kneel and beg. Even the God of Wisdom, who never got angry no matter how frustrated he was, was going wild. Just as a person who rarely gets angry explodes when they finally go mad... Vister, who had been suppressing his rage, was now running rampant. Even Leitena, the Goddess of Light, was flustered by the rampage of the god who governed reason and wisdom and hurriedly tried to stop him.
[Guh, heh... well...] Keponus tried to say one more thing but barely held it back. Since Vister was already going wild, if they both exploded in anger at the same time, Nicholas might vomit blood and die. From their perspective, humans were nothing more than clever ants.
[Haa... further maneuvering is impossible now... this is a big problem.]
While Nicholas was being torn apart by Vister, Leitena muttered as if she were dizzy. The maneuvering she spoke of referred to all the things they had done so far to break Jang Jojun. In the early days of the disaster, when Indikron and Kashnakas were the only gods left in the Manma-jeon, they had observed the Cultists, oversaturated the zombies, and drained the two Evil Gods using Jang Jojun as an excuse. This was why Kashnakas and Indikron had been so busy they couldn’t even blink.
These acts, bordering on sabotage, were all possible because they believed that causality was overflowing in the Pantheon and that Nicholas was growing well on his own. But now, that was no longer possible. Nicholas, whom they thought would grow well on his own, had lost everything, and the god most skilled at back-alley maneuvering among the Evil Gods had returned. On top of that, even the Housekeeper of the Manma-jeon, whom they had shoved into the Abyss, had opened his eyes. It was, quite literally, an emergency.
[At least Anna has entered the enemy camp...] Leitena, the Goddess of Light, thought of Saint Anna, who must be looking for an opportunity right now beside the Cultists.
Meanwhile, in a corner of the Abyss. Jojun, having returned from the heart of the Yellow Plate, was in deep thought, staring at the Saint who was bound from head to toe in iron chains.
“Hmm... what should I do with this wench.”
“Eup...”
“What? You want me to untie you?”
“Eueup...”
“There, I untied you. Happy?”
Jojun slightly loosened the ball gag in the Saint’s mouth. He also drew the Swamp Ghost Sword and stood it up, signaling that he could kill her at any moment. Anna looked up at Jojun with teary eyes and frowned.
“Cough... cough... Y-you... aren’t you treating a woman too roughly?”
She finally poured out her grievances to Jojun. Jojun clicked his tongue and gave Anna a look of disapproval.
“What? A woman? Are you a woman? You’re a potential slave liberator. You, kid, are still a subject of suspicion. It’s hard to treat you as a human, let alone a woman or a man. Who knows? You might suddenly go crazy, the slave brand might break, and you might free all my slaves.”
“I... I am...”
“Why. You can’t say you won’t, right? Huh? Even if the slave brand is removed, you’re thinking of freeing all these people like you’re possessed by Lincoln and running away, aren’t you? Am I wrong? Should I bring a lie detector?”
“Ugh...”
“Haa. And you want to be treated like a woman? Did you sleep with me? Or did you even feed me a proper meal? You haven’t done a damn thing, so don’t ask to be treated like a woman. Eunji gets treated like a cold meal sometimes even after doing both. Tsk.”
“Hiik...”
“Fuu... I’m getting hot because I’m angry.”
Jojun loosened the robe he was wearing. His naked body was revealed, showing chiseled muscles and a large... -Dangle...
“Gulp...” Anna swallowed dryly. Having done internet broadcasting, Anna, who had to receive countless photos of men’s cocks via DM, had a certain eye for these things.
‘Among all the ones I’ve seen... the cleanest and most impressive shape...’
Jojun sneered at the Saint’s dumbfounded expression as she stared at his cock as if her eyes were about to pop out.
“Hey. You’re going to drool.”
“Slurp... Huh... S-sorry...”
“Nothing to be sorry about. Why. Do you want to touch it?”
“Uh... I...”
The Saint hung her head low and said in a voice that was barely audible.
“Yes...”
The Saint was being trained by Jojun in real-time.
Back in the attic where Nick was. Nick was in a state of near-total mental collapse, listening to the insults of Vister, the God of Wisdom. Then, Leitena, the Goddess of Light, calmed Vister down and brought up the main point.
[Fuu... everyone, calm down. We can’t just blame Nick. We also didn’t pay enough attention.]
“Ah... Lady Leitena...”
[So, from now on, we have decided to manage you thoroughly.]
“Pardon?”
[Leaving you alone made you arrogant and forget your place. So, from now on, we have decided to manage you closely.]
“Ke, Keponus... manage closely... what does that even...”
[Fuu... isn’t it exactly what it sounds like? We have decided to monitor you 24 hours a day from now on.]
“Uh... Vister...”
Nicholas was horrified at the thought of being monitored 24 hours a day. It was a reaction quite different from Jojun’s. Perhaps it was because he was an American who valued individualism and privacy. Jojun, who had grown up as an unfortunate soul without receiving anyone’s attention, was a strange human who even felt a sense of stability in the fact that the gods were observing and taking an interest in every aspect of him... so they couldn’t be compared.
“Haa...”
Regardless, Nicholas agreed to the gods’ words. He had no choice but to agree. As someone who had lost all his foundations and had to start from scratch, he had nowhere to lean on but the gods.
“For now... I understand...”
Nicholas found a curtain rod of a suitable length in the attic. Now he would be able to go outside.
-Knock knock knock.
At that moment, someone knocked. “Is anyone there?”
Nicholas held his breath at the voice of an unknown woman he was hearing for the first time. Along with the thought that her accent was a bit peculiar.
“It seems you are inside. I will come in.”
With a statement that was close to a notification, the entrance to the attic opened, and a woman with a voluminous figure wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a muscular, half-naked man wearing a bucket with holes in it entered.
“Are you Nicholas?”
“Who are you...”
“We have come after receiving a revelation from Mother World Tree and the Giant God. Please follow us.”
Nick followed them outside, bewildered. It was because the benevolent gods were urging him to move quickly.
‘Who are these people...? Are they role-playing...?’
Nick did not let his guard down as he looked at the woman dressed as a witch and the man cosplaying as a paladin. It was because he had vowed not to be careless anymore. However, regardless of whether he was cautious or not, they put Nick in a van and dragged him somewhere.
Only then did Nick notice that the streetscape was quite different from the United States. There was even a tower standing in the distance that Nicholas knew well.
“Wait, here is...”
“As you can see, this is France. That is the Eiffel Tower. And I am Charlotte, the Archmage leading the survivor group in Paris. Please call me Lotte, Savior Nicholas.”
Soon, Nicholas was able to go to the headquarters of the group called ‘Paris Survivors’. It was a new beginning in a foreign land where he couldn’t even communicate properly.