The Essence of Authority

The crystal orb stuffed into my clothes felt unusually cold.

My breath clawed all the way up to my throat.

Behind me, the bone-chilling sound of hundreds of spider legs stabbing into the earth rolled forward in waves.

I had to assess the situation with cold clarity.

Use another smoke bomb?

Rejected.

This wasn't the sealed nest from earlier. We were out in the open, exposed on every side. Setting off a smoke bomb in a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wide forest would do little more than slow their pursuit for a heartbeat. It wouldn't mean anything.

Then just keep running and shake them off?

That was nearly impossible too. Human stamina had limits. Arachne, on the other hand, possessed the near-endless endurance of insects. Trying to outrun them barehanded was basically suicide.

Gerard's stamina training flashed through my mind unbidden.

Zick. The first thing that runs dry on a battlefield isn't mana or aura. It's the stamina holding up your two legs.

His blunt voice rang in my ears. Had that ice-blooded knight seen a situation like this coming?

Ah, damn it. I should have quit whining about how hard it was and done more stamina training back then.

Regret punched me in the chest, but it was already far too late.

So turn around and wipe them all out instead of running?

The first insane idea that needed to be rejected. I could probably handle a few ordinary Arachne somehow. I'd learned things while getting tossed around by Drake and Gerard, after all. But those massive soldier-class ones were on another level. Their outer shells wouldn't even scratch unless you hit them with aura or high-tier magic. There were too many of them to aim for the gaps in their joints. Before I could even look for an opening, I'd be surrounded and skewered on those spear-like legs.

Dozens of plans and rejections tangled and collided in my head even as I ran.

The conclusion was one and only one.

With my current circumstances and abilities, there was no way to break this situation open. A perfect dead end.

"Might as well go all in."

In the end, I had no choice but to fiddle with my last card. The final resort. Using the unidentified Authority I possessed.

My thoughts flowed naturally toward the memory of Authority training with Noah.

"Swordsmanship improves if you train the body."

In the training yard set up behind the lodging, Noah explained the essence of Authority with his usual gentle smile.

"Magic comes from learning formulas."

"Right."

"But Authority is different. It is like a hero chosen by a god inheriting authority over the domain that god governs. You must begin by fully understanding that god."

The problem was that I didn't even know the name of the god who had chosen me.

"But since you don't know the name of the god who selected you, Hero, let's check things carefully, one step at a time."

Noah quietly listened to every example of when I had used my Authority. One was figuring out the bureau director noona's underwear. Another was pulling the name Arselia from the criminal who had kidnapped me.

After hearing both cases, Noah stroked his chin and delivered his diagnosis.

"To get straight to the point, Hero, you are not yet in a state to fully bear the god's Authority."

"What? Why?"

"Because the results differed every time you used it. The first time, an image came to mind. The second time, letters appeared, correct?"

Noah's eyes gleamed sharply.

"Most likely your Authority found countless pieces of information at that moment, far beyond just those. But your mind simply could not handle that enormous volume of data."

"Wait a second. So from the beginning, my Authority wasn't simply the ability to see something?"

"That's right. Your brain filtered and outputted only the most important and necessary information first, in order to prevent overload."

I see. Hearing it laid out like that, the analysis made sense.

"If you become skilled at handling Authority, I suspect you will be able to acquire all forms of information at once—not just partial data, but sound, images, taste, touch, and more."

Of course, that was only Noah's speculation while the god's identity remained unknown. Even so, I felt the theory held water. First a visual image, then letters. It fit perfectly that my shallow brain power couldn't accept the god's vast information volume and had censored it on its own.

"So to fully use Authority, do I need to develop my brain power or something?"

At my question, Noah suddenly smiled brightly. It was clearly the same warm, gentle smile as always—yet a chill began crawling down my spine for some reason.

"I told you earlier, didn't I? Training Authority means understanding the god, and for that you must follow the god's footsteps and become one with that god."

Noah's hand gently settled on my shoulder.

"Your god is a Forgotten God whose name has been erased, so we don't know the exact domain… but since the product of the Authority is 'information,' we can start by experimenting with things related to that."

"Noah? I'm getting a little nervous here. This training is a systematic, accurate method handed down from your order, right?"

"Of course, Hero. Every time a hero is chosen, our order has developed their Authority through this exact kind of training."

Noah nodded firmly.

The week that followed was pure hell. Calling it Authority development was putting it nicely. In reality, it was closer to a mad scientist's human experimentation. Working from the hypothesis that my Authority was information-type, Noah began testing every training method ever used by heroes of information-type gods throughout history on me without restraint.

For example, it went like this.

Claiming to test the Authority of the 'God of Deduction,' he showed me only the beginning of a thick mystery novel.

"Who is the culprit?"

"I don't know."

"Then from the start again. This time it's three hundred pages."

That wasn't all. Saying previous results had been vision-focused, he made me read tiny letters written on objects moving at high speed to draw out the power of gods related to 'eyes.' He experimented with other senses too—feeding me unidentified dishes and making me identify the ingredients by taste alone, or blindfolding me and forcing me to dodge flying stones using only touch and hearing. Every kind of bizarre ordeal followed.

Just recalling those days made my whole body shudder.

"Gives me the creeps. Seriously."

A full-body shiver hit me from the memory of that vicious training. But I didn't have the luxury of trembling now.

"Kieeeeeeeek!"

A sharp Arachne screech closed in right behind me.

"Damn it."

Thoughts snapped under the scream of reality. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠A soldier spider's leg sliced through the air and grazed the hem of my clothes. One wrong move and I was dead. There was no more time to delay. Success or failure, this was the only thing I could use right now.

I sucked in a rough breath and forcibly wrenched up the power dwelling in the god's mark on the back of my hand.

I don't care what it is—just come out!

The moment I steeled my resolve, the world stopped.

No. It felt like it had stopped.

My heart hammered as if it would burst, and something deep inside me began to completely run wild.

"U-uaaaaagh!"

I finally couldn't hold it in and a scream tore free. Extreme overload, as if my brain were about to burn. Was it because the life-or-death extremity had shattered the barrier? Or had the brutal training with Noah finally unlocked the firmly sealed latch on my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Authority? Or maybe both had detonated at once.

The vast volume of information that had been thoroughly controlled until now poured into my head all at once like a dam collapsing.

The first thing to hit was unprocessed visual data. The joint articulations of hundreds of Arachne fractured into thousands of trajectory lines that filled my vision, while the direction of the wind shaking the forest packed the air with numerical vector arrows. Even the tiny pebbles at the cave entrance stamped themselves into my mind like 3D models.

But that wasn't the end.

"Khuh!"

Sensory information of every kind exploded from all directions at once. Frequency waveforms so loud they left my ears ringing stabbed into my brain. Damp moisture levels and the fine vibrations of legs flooded my skin as sharp tactile data. The metallic stench of paralysis venom stabbed my nose. Even the salty iron taste of mana concentration filled my mouth.

Sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste. Thousands—tens of thousands—of pieces of information shredded my brain cells without any processing at all.

At the moment my mind felt ready to snap completely, Noah's voice rang through a corner of my head like a hallucination.

Your brain filters and outputs only the most necessary information first, in order to prevent overload.

That was it. What I needed right now wasn't these petty sensations ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and scraps of knowledge. It was the single hole that would let me break through this hellish encirclement and live.

Censor it.

Blood from my clenched teeth ran down between them.

Throw away everything I don't need! Smell, taste, vibration—wipe it all! Find me a way to live!

As if answering my desperate cry, the five-sense data raging like a storm began to scatter chaotically. The damp tactile data, the metallic taste, the humming auditory information filling my head were forcibly erased. The capacity that had been one step from bursting under overload shrank in an instant, as if it had gone on a crash diet.

Then the remaining visual information compressed into a single form and inverted.

The blood-red sensations that had filled my sight vanished completely into a world of blackout. And what finally projected onto my retinas from that darkness was a mechanical system log record, the kind a game administrator might see on a monitoring screen.

The Status Window I had searched for so desperately ever since awakening to my past life finally began to etch itself clearly before my eyes.