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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Mod7
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The campfire crackled, casting a warm glow that painted the rain-soaked forest in flickering hues of orange and red.
The light struggled to penetrate the surrounding darkness, held back not just by the dense foliage, but also by the figures huddled around the flames.
Their bodies blocked the light, casting long, dancing shadows that intertwined and overlapped, their heads seeming to rest against each other, a strange illusion considering the distance between them.
“What… was that?”
The girl asked, her gaze fixed on the fire.
Her name was Angela Tail, Angie to her companions. Her orange hair was cut short, just above her shoulders.
She snuggled deeper into her blanket, her breath misting in the cool night air, waiting for an answer.
“A god.”
“A god?”
“Yes.”
The man who replied had tousled black hair and weary teal eyes. His profile, etched with a melancholic beauty, was illuminated by the flickering flames.
The man’s name was Aslan.
Angie looked at him, her expression a mixture of dissatisfaction and curiosity. But Aslan didn’t elaborate.
He couldn’t. He didn’t know much.
He thought back to what had happened in the shrine.
‘Found you.’
The words, spoken in unison by the corpses, had echoed through the corridor.
And within those words, he had heard more than just human voices.
The growls of beasts, the roars of monsters, the chittering of insects.
A cacophony of sounds, a chorus of the damned, that assaulted his ears, sending a shiver down his spine, raising the hairs on Angie and Ereta’s arms.
And then, the corpses had collapsed.
The dark energy that had animated them vanished, and the sound of their falling bodies echoed through the shrine.
Aslan remembered the goddess’s warning.
‘He won’t tolerate your absence, not even for a moment. He’s probably already looking for you.’
Just as she had feared, ‘he’ had come looking for Aslan.
From Aslan’s perspective, the time he and Angie had been gone, while speaking with the goddess, had been less than a second, a fleeting moment.
And yet, in that brief lapse in his surveillance, that momentary absence, ‘he’ had gathered all the corpses in the area, just to find him, just to utter those two words.
It was a level of obsession that defied comprehension. Aslan, unable to fathom the nature of this being, poked at the fire with a stick, his movements agitated.
–Crackle.
The charred wood crumbled, collapsing into ash, leaving a trail of grey soot on the ground. Aslan sighed, staring at the remnants of the fire.
He didn’t know of any god with the power to control corpses.
There wasn’t even a spell for it. Necromancy didn’t exist in Gelladrion.
That left him with only two possibilities.
Either it was a hidden divine power, one he was unaware of, or it wasn’t divine power at all.
Aslan suspected the latter.
The being who had transported him, a human from Earth, into this game world, into a body that resembled his own yet was subtly different, was clearly capable of such feats.
He also remembered the goddess’s words.
That even the gods, the Old Gods, feared and avoided this being.
A being feared even by extra-dimensional entities, by beings beyond the comprehension of even the gods, would certainly be capable of controlling corpses.
Aslan, lost in thought, continued to poke at the fire. He felt their gazes on him and looked up, meeting the eyes of Ereta and Angie.
They were watching him with complex expressions. Angie’s eyes were filled with suspicion, while Ereta’s face was an impassive mask, her emotions unreadable.
But even Ereta, despite her carefully neutral expression, seemed to sense that something was amiss.
She didn’t ask, though, knowing Aslan wasn’t likely to offer an explanation.
Aslan, enveloped in the strange silence, returned to his thoughts, the flickering flames reflecting in his teal eyes.
The first thing that came to mind was the clue the goddess had given him.
A god symbolized by an animal.
An animal that didn’t exist in Gelladrion.
He mentally reviewed the list of gods.
The War God.
The Fated of the Universe.
The Predator.
The Unfalling.
The Abyss.
The Veil of Mercy.
The Self-Birthing Mother.
The Formless One.
The Twilight Flock.
Before arriving in Gelladrion, Aslan had only known of seven gods in the game, all except for the Formless One and the Twilight Flock. Now, there were nine.
He poked at the burning logs, turning them over with the stick.
‘Five of them use animal symbols, I think.’
Two of the Three Evil Gods of the Fated of the Universe – the Poison-Breathing Dragon and the Weaver of Fire.
The Unfalling, which took the form of a whale.
The Self-Birthing Mother, which resembled a centipede.
And the Twilight Flock, whose very name evoked the image of sheep.
Those five were the only ones that clearly used animal symbolism.
But even within that narrowed-down list, some could be eliminated.
The Poison-Breathing Dragon and the Weaver of Fire, for instance.
Dragons and spiders existed in Gelladrion, so they couldn’t be the creature the goddess had warned him about.
And the Weaver of Fire had already been severely weakened. While it would be a surprising twist, Aslan didn’t think that was the case.
It didn’t feel right.
During his fight with Ereta, the Weaver of Fire’s divine power had been easily dispelled, shattered by Purity. If its goal had been mere deception, it wouldn’t have gone to such lengths.
Similarly, the Twilight Flock was unlikely.
While it was a god that hadn’t existed in the game, and its relative obscurity and limited activity made it suspicious,
Sheep existed in Gelladrion.
And since it used an existing animal as its symbol, it could be safely removed from the list of suspects.
That left him with two possibilities.
The Unfalling, a giant whale that swam through time, devouring it.
The Self-Birthing Mother, a centipede-like deity that filled other dimensions with its own form, twisting and distorting the very fabric of reality.
Based on the clue, it had to be one of them.
Of course, he couldn’t completely trust the goddess. But he had no other leads.
This was the first real information he had received in his twelve years of wandering. It was the best starting point he had.
He could re-evaluate his options later, when he had more information.
‘…No, wait. It could be the Formless One.’
Aslan suddenly remembered the Formless One, another god that hadn’t been in the game.
A deity shrouded in mystery.
Its form, its motives, its domain – all unknown.
He wasn’t even sure if it had priests or a High Priest. Unlike the other gods, whose priests and High Priests were relatively well-known, information about the Formless One was scarce.
The only thing known about it was that it was as elusive and formless as its name suggested.
‘It’s definitely a possibility.’
But without more information, it was just speculation, a theory that wouldn’t affect his immediate plans.
His priority was survival. Uncovering and dealing with the true mastermind behind his predicament was a secondary objective.
The fact that he had seen, heard, and even touched his past, even if it was just an illusion, had renewed his determination to survive, to return home.
And the first step towards achieving that goal was to gather the Great Ones.
“…What are you thinking about?”
Angie’s voice made him look up. Ereta, who had been dozing, her cheek resting on her knee, slowly opened her eyes.
“Our next move.”
At his words, Ereta, her eyes still heavy with sleep, focused on him. Aslan met their gazes.
“We took a detour to the Shrine of Grief, but now… we’re going after the Master of the Sword, as planned.”
The Master of the Sword was a former comrade, a skilled warrior, and someone he could trust.
Angie, who had heard of the Master of the Sword before, glanced at Ereta, her expression unreadable.
She wasn’t sure if she could trust this crazy woman.
And the thought of adding another person to their group bothered her.
A possessiveness she didn’t quite understand.
But she didn’t voice her concerns. She trusted Aslan, and complaining would make her seem weak. It was a deeply ingrained habit, the instinct of a slum dweller always conscious of how others perceived her.
“…Do you have another objective in mind?”
This time, it was Ereta who spoke. She had been silent since they left the shrine, but now, she finally asked her question.
“Haven’t I told you?”
“No.”
Aslan rubbed his chin, a look of genuine embarrassment on his face, an expression Angie had never seen before. She giggled, and Aslan smiled sheepishly.
He spoke casually, as if it was an afterthought.
“I’m going to kill the gods.”
“…What?”
“And fix the world.”
“What?!”
“That’s my goal.”
Ereta’s eyes widened, her pink eyes filled with confusion.
Killing meant taking a life.
And gods were beings beyond mortal comprehension, beyond life and death. Powerful, immortal beings.
The idea of killing a god seemed absurd, a contradiction in terms. At least, it did to Ereta, a former High Priest.
But Aslan’s casual tone made her wonder if he was joking. She glanced at Angie.
‘Is he serious? Or is this a joke?’
Angie, the seemingly naive girl with the grand ambitions, simply stretched, unfazed by his seemingly absurd statement.
Judging by her reaction, he was serious.
“…Are you serious?”
She couldn’t understand. It was too outlandish, too unbelievable. Aslan chuckled, seeing her bewildered expression.
He didn’t answer her question directly. He simply pulled his blanket tighter and said,
“We need to reach Kardi by tomorrow, so we should get some sleep. The rain has stopped, but the road is long and rough.”
He closed his eyes.
Angie lay down beside him, and Ereta, watching them, their relaxed demeanor a stark contrast to the weight of Aslan’s words, felt a growing sense of unease.
‘Kill… the gods?’
She couldn’t shake the thought, and she lay awake long after the others had fallen asleep.
Exhausted, she walked through the following day in a daze, finally collapsing upon reaching Kardi.
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