Chapter 134
Chapter 134
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 134
Chapter Title: The Revival Begins
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* * *
At the very least, it was a massive change that the Elves couldn’t possibly overlook.
And that was—
“The animals that had vanished... they’re starting to appear again?”
“That’s right.”
What the Elf representative Pibiola handed over was the corpse of an animal with a form none of them had ever seen before.
An young Elf had found it dead while out on a walk, or so she said.
She spoke to Erin in an utterly serious tone.
—Specifically, after the Dtamuk Thinking Army vanished, animals had disappeared one after another as if they’d gone extinct... and now they were beginning to show themselves on the continent once more.
‘Come to think of it, I think Ophelia mentioned something like that...’
She’d said that this continent had an oddly complete lack of beasts.
The forests were thick with trees, yet not a single birdcall could be heard—a truly strange thing. But since it was the New Continent, Erin had assumed it was just the local ecosystem adapting to its unique flora.
But apparently, that wasn’t the case?
“Well, it could be something we could just brush off... but no matter how I think about it, it doesn’t feel like an ordinary occurrence.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You remember how all the animals vanished at almost exactly the same time the Dtamuk Thinking Army disappeared, right?”
Erin nodded slowly, and Pibiola stroked her chin with her own hand.
“Honestly... I thought maybe the Dtamuk Thinking Army had deliberately used the power of Balloons to wipe out all the animals, just to cut off our food supply. Of course, as the shaman, I’d sensed that the Dtamuk Thinking Army had completely vanished, so it was a prediction that didn’t quite add up... but it tormented us relentlessly anyway. And with all the animals gone, supplying nutrition was a real struggle, so it seemed plausible enough.”
“What I’m trying to say is... all of this doesn’t feel like mere coincidence. It feels like divine intervention from a higher being—namely, Lord Igugwoden. That’s my guess.”
“Ah...!”
In other words—the animals returning was thanks to Lord Igugwoden?
But if that were true, there was something a bit off.
“Pibiola. As the shaman, you must know this. You know I’m essentially playing a similar role to you.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I can always feel Lord Igugwoden’s presence too. I can sense, directly or indirectly, what He desires and how He wishes to act. But... He hasn’t given any particular commands or anything.”
“But the ‘god’ vanished, and at the same time, the lifeforms did too. And now that the ‘god’ has returned, lifeforms are appearing again. I can’t help but think there’s some connection here.”
Pibiola wasn’t just anyone—she was someone whose body reacted keenly to the presence of gods. So Erin had no intention of dismissing her words lightly.
“Can you pinpoint exactly when it started?”
“I can’t say for absolute certain... but it seems to line up with the time you shared that food called Chocolate with us.”
“...Ah!”
Only then did Erin’s face light up with realization as she spoke.
“Maybe... the spread of Plain Fact-infused food here is the cause!”
“Plain Fact... ah.”
Pibiola nodded as if she’d caught on too—
“By us accepting things infused with Plain Fact—regardless of the god’s will—the animals are starting to reappear... is that what you mean?”
“Probably something like that. And that would explain why they vanished around the same time as the Dtamuk Thinking Army too. In other words—”
—Plain Fact has begun to truly exert its influence across your continent!
“Starting with the return of the vanished animals... we can rebuild our beautiful homeland villages like before. Laughing and chatting together, striving toward common goals, loving, forming families, carrying on history—that everything is starting to return to you Elves!”
“...!!!”
Erin watched Pibiola’s shocked reaction to her words, then flashed a sunbeam-like smile. She reached out with both hands, grasping Pibiola’s firmly—
“And now it begins, Pibiola!”
* * *
And at that very moment—
In a place containing nothing but the Observer and a pillar of light.
The Observer, who had been quietly gazing down at Erin, sensed a presence and turned toward the pitch-black darkness.
“Back already?”
—Any word from the god?
“Not yet. Still observing.”
‘That thing’ spoke in a squirming tone, unable to hide its surprise.
—Confirmation: it’s coming back to life.
“Really?”
—The world was gradually regaining its light.
Something.
The Observer clearly sensed that something was changing.
Unable to freely traverse with a physical body, the Observer watched as ‘that thing’—her kin—checked the space that had once illuminated that world again.
“...Didn’t you say all the kin had perished?”
Including their own existence, the divine power of a god was necessary to sustain their worlds.
In any form, it didn’t matter. If a god bestowed interest, the world could persist as a world.
That was why they donned the ‘masks’ given to them—masks designed to draw the god’s curiosity and attention.
The masks weren’t predetermined—which might seem profoundly unfair given the dire stakes for the worlds involved—
But kin without bodies or minds could detect the injustice in words but not feel it emotionally.
Only she, reborn as a lifeform through the god’s love, could think this way.
In any case, what becomes of a world abandoned by its god?
The answer was simple.
First, the observers cease to exist. At that point, the world takes its irreversible step toward ruin.
The continent’s ‘lifeforms’ start dying off one by one. Whether entire species go extinct in an instant or slowly march toward inevitable doom—each meets its end in its own way.
Slowly, without fail—the world fades away bit by bit. Merging into the darkness, joining the space littered with the remnants of their kin.
And then—
—Eternal oblivion. That world should have met the same fate as the kin.
Worlds neither chosen by any god nor miserably discarded by one—vanish forever.
They become voids, drifting in infinite space. Without form, they wither away. No longer functioning as worlds.
—But in the end, it didn’t perish.
Far from perishing—it began to revive.
If likened to a lifeform, it was like the heart beating again. Blood flowing through veins once more.
Vanished animals return. Stagnant vegetation shifts resume.
The food chain—preying, being preyed upon—functions anew, and the dead world pulses, forming a living realm once more.
“...You can still access the memories of the kin, right?”
Even after gaining a body, the Observer had gained profound insights, including into her thought processes—
But at the same time, she could no longer recall things that would have come naturally in her former kin form.
Of course, she had no complaints. Having life held unconditional superiority over not having it.
“How about it? Has this ever happened before?”
—Never. Or rather, we’re the first beings to even contact other worlds beyond our own.
“The first...”
—No surprise there. Lord Igugwoden has already proven Himself utterly unlike other gods.
After all, wasn’t her gaining a body unprecedented in itself?
A god sharing so much precious divine power in such a short time—unheard of in kin history.
“Then... what do we do from here?”
—What do you mean?
“If that world has become Lord Igugwoden’s too, we should be able to observe it freely. But we can’t.”
As the Observer said, they could check the Elves’ continent now only because Erin—the god’s Saintess—and Karen herself, Plain Fact incarnate, were there.
Their original world, they could monitor in many ways even without Erin.
But the newly connected world? Impossible. Observing it had never been within their granted abilities.
—You’re saying that if the god wishes to claim that place as His domain, we should gain the power to observe it without borrowing Erin’s strength.
“Yeah.”
—How could beings like us comprehend the god’s grand will?
Unlike ‘that thing,’ which brushed off the incomprehensible, the Observer seemed lost in thought, biting her thumbnail.
“If things keep going like this, we might end up disappointing Lord Igugwoden, who so generously shares His power.”
—No need for concern.
The god’s words always came to pass, in some form.
—You’ll soon feel it too: we don’t even need to worry.
‘The god’s words... come to pass.’
The world’s response: amplifying Cola’s ripple effect.
Simply drinking Cola places one under Igugwoden’s influence.
For that alone, an overwhelming divine power costing 150,000 won had been used.
And finally, a world once abandoned by gods, now connected across dimensions.
Overturning a dead world with Plain Fact to revive it, adding it to Igugwoden’s domain—
Just as spoken, the god’s words were terrifyingly, inevitably
coming to pass.
Yet the Observer—and her kin—knew.
It wasn’t just the 150,000 won in power making this possible.
High-value sponsorships twisting worlds, altering fates.
Spreading influence as a god by serving various values on the ‘Plain Fact’ dish.
In that process, the god—Lord Igugwoden—had always packed His unwavering love tightly and handed it to them.
His love descended as densely as the cells forming a lifeform.
All His actions thus far synergizing—
Finally birthing a true Sole God who, through power,
saved not just His own world but others as well.
And—
* * *
—Whirrr!
“?”
—The fact that a dead world, blanketed in Plain Fact, had regained life...
Spread, all too naturally, to ‘that being.’
* * *