Chapter 227: God (2)
A real godship was obtained due to the death of the body and the rise of the soul.
Gustarte.
However, he had a body. It meant that his body itself was made of divinity. Nevertheless, he had fallen and was used by a mortal.
Even so, it couldn’t be denied that he had a divine flesh.
‘Absorb him.’
I moved away from the Tree of Origin. I would become a true god by absorbing Gustarte. But I would have to give up my present life.
A god...
I had never thought about it.
The first god I met was the devil Death Bringer. Death Bringer recognized me as a participant of the game and sent me back to Earth. Thanks to that, I became one of the 72 demons and now reached the position of grand duke.
And the gods of Earth. While I was on the verge of death, the 72 gods joined forces to turn back the axis of time. I was able to have more experience than others.
However, I had never thought about becoming a god myself.
I shook my head.
I couldn’t be swayed by something I hadn’t imagined before.
From the day I was born, my dream was to become the demon king.
People might say it wasn’t comparable to being a god, but I placed different values on each position.
For me, I wanted the position of the demon king. My dream was to sit on his throne and laugh loudly. I came all this way for that one reason. My goal wasn’t going to change now.
It was irrelevant if I died. Even if I became a omnipotent god, I wouldn’t be able to sit on the demon king’s throne. The gods had a different concept of time, and they didn’t intervene in the affairs of mortals.
The administrator of the origin saw me as the next god’s candidate.
‘I will awaken Gustarte.’
I had completely different thoughts from the administrator of the origin. It was because he had a completely different opinion from 0001. So I thought about waking up the involved party.
The study of Gustarte’s body was still ongoing, but it was sluggish. The information was so intensive that it seemed like it wouldn’t end in one or two years of research.
But time was limited. After a year, the next enemy to appear would be the Hell Monarch, or a person impersonating him. I needed to prepare for a confrontation with him in the Demon World.
Until that time, I couldn’t leave Gustarte’s body alone.
“Yihi.”
“Yes Master. Did you call?”
Since I entered the dungeon, Yihi had always been waiting nearby. This phenomenon was further strengthened after I collapsed at Greenwich Observatory. It seemed like she didn’t want me to leave her sight.
I calmly said.
"Tell Gaparam, I want to see the results of his research on the Moon Arrow.”
“Yihihi. I watched the research but couldn’t understand anything. Then, should I go and kick him?”
“Go ahead.”
“Yihihihi!”
Yihi laughed happily as she flapped her wings.
Gaparam stood before me nervously, with one hand holding the research materials and the other one holding the Moon Arrow. The leather on his face looked like a child’s face.
"The study results are good. You did well.”
The homunculus was very useful. On the actual battlefield, the dominance of the homunculus was great. The homunculus was the one who broke Duke Beilla’s neck.
“No. It is thanks to Master’s grace that I managed such an achievement.”
Gaparam bowed deeply. He seemed to have a deep respect for me. Since giving him Gustarte’s body, Gaparam started to act very politely towards me. I didn’t care about his original tone, but it didn’t hurt to have Gaparam act like this.
"Have you made any other progress in the research?”
"I’ve found out the reason for the homunculus’ short life. I had to approach the culture differently from the design itself. When I looked at how a god’s body works...”
"It is a technical talk.”
"I wrote it down in a simpler manner in my journal.”
Gaparam handed over the research data.
Most of the results were things that I already knew. He described the tests on the flesh and the effects of a weakened Greed, but it was just a hypothesis.
"Tell me about the Moon Arrow.”
He handed over all the data. Then Gaparam sighed and said.
“It isn’t a common item. The Moon Arrow is more veiled than his body. But one of the numerous veils...I found out that the Moon Arrow exists for ‘balance’, but that is all.”
Balance. Maybe it also represented the origin.
It seemed like the arrow might restore Gustarte’s original balance.
I spoke in a small tone.
"I have to try it.”
"What?”
"I will stab the Moon Arrow into Gustarte’s body.
"......!"
Gaparam jolted with surprise.
"I-it isn’t clear what will happen. He might run wild.”
"The Seven Sins are objects aimed at the gods. Did you know that? And Greed is the best at sealing Gustarte’s power.”
That’s right. During his research, Gaparam found an association with the Seven Sins. The remnants of the flesh managed to suppress Gustarte’s power, but the Seven Sins themselves were aimed at the gods.
The more that I thought about it, the sneakier the Hell Monarch appeared. He had prepared a lot for his revenge.
“...I understand.”
Gaparam quietly retreated after handing me the Moon Arrow.
I turned my head. Gustarte was lying down like he was dead. If it wasn’t for the rise and fall of his chest, then I really would have thought he was dead.
I held the arrow vertically and I struck Gustarte’s chest without any hesitation.
Puok!
The Moon Arrow shone with a blue light after it entered Gustarte’s chest. The light grew. The Moon Arrow changed to look like a big key. A hole was formed in Gustarte’s chest for the key to enter.
Soon, Gustarte’s body rose up. After the key entered, Gustarte’s body was split into thousands of pieces before joining back together again.
His flesh was being reconstructed. Just like a snake shedding its skin, the unnecessary parts fell to the ground. This process was repeated for dozens of minutes.
Once the reconstruction finished, Gustarte opened his eyes. He looked at me with deep eyes that were clearly different from when he lost his ego.
“Randalph Brigsiel. This is Earth. I must have malfunctioned for a significant amount of time.”
His words made it seem like he already knew everything. I didn’t see any confusion at all. I felt strange as I looked at him.
"Gustarte, you are a god of the Reverse World right?”
"That's right. I am a god that originally shouldn’t be here. And...although I am back, I don’t have much time left. Soon Death Bringer will notice and erase me.”
“...Are you referring to the devil Death Bringer?”
"Yes. Now that I’ve regained myself, I am the only god who knows Death Bringer’s purpose. His system is even able to neutralize intermediate gods...he will remove me before I can tell the other gods.”
That was the story behind being controlled by a mortal. Upa wouldn’t have been able to just suddenly discover a method one day to control Gustarte. I felt a pure sense of curiosity.
"I want to know more.”
“Randalph Brigsiel. Didn’t you participate in the experiment involving Death Bringer’s system? Impossible things are created through this system. The dark spirits used a crack to plant a powerful fungus in a gap in my mind.”
I somewhat understood it. The system. The messages that floated in front of me seemed like they were created by Death Bringer.
Certainly...I had been curious. Such a system was created for a reason.
Death Bringer had said.
"From now on, you are a player in a game I created of this world’s destruction!”
It meant the system was a game created by Death Bringer.
I received new information that the dark spirits were the reason why Upa could control Gustarte.
Gustarte read my expression and said.
"The dark spirits have learned how to deal with cracks. They accessed the nothingness through the crack. The dark spirits invaded my world, which had been connected to the nothingness. Originally, it was impossible, but they borrowed the power of the system and I couldn’t do anything. The system is complete. It even has the power to tie up gods. Death Bringer plans to use this system to remove the other gods.”
"In other words, the demons are his test subjects.”
"That is correct. Death Bringer isn’t the type of person to be interested in filling the position of the demon king. Gods shouldn’t intervene in such a thing. As the dark spirits master how to use the cracks, they will naturally seek out other gods, or they would try to wake up the beings in the nothingness or origin. The ancient beings that had already been lost...I don’t know why but the dark spirits have become limbs that move according to Death Bringer’s intent.”
The story contained a lot of information. I couldn’t follow it easily.
One thing was for certain, the dark spirits were doing a job.
But it was strange.
This hadn’t happen in my previous life. The dark spirits had been on the defensive against the other spirits. There were no cracks or fungus that could control cracks.
"This is all possible due to you. Randalph Brigsiel. It is a side effect of shifting the axis of time backwards. As a result, there is a slight imbalance in the world and lots of cracks formed to fill it up. The many cracks set examples for the dark spirits. Maybe this was what Death Bringer intended. If he planned such a thing by guiding the gods of earth to you...he is a really scary guy.”
"I am the cause? This happened because I came back?”
"So, you need to repair it. The system created by Death Bringer is so perfect that even I can’t touch it. If you take advantage of that face, you might be able to turn his plan upside down.”
I shook my head.
"I don’t intend to interfere with the gods.”
"Is this interference? Death Bringer is already acting through the dark spirits. He has received enough data from the demons. Who knows what might happen in the future? Death Bringer might get rid of the demons remaining on Earth.”
“...He will delete the evidence.”
"It is an undeniable truth. It is already in progress.”
My eyes narrowed. It was hard to deny Gustarte’s words. But it seemed like that was only half the story involving Death Bringer.
“Gustarte. Is there any relationship between the dark spirits and the resurrection of the Hell Monarch?”
The Hell Monarch had died. I had his heart. But it is said that the Hell Monarch is in the Demon World. It was weird no matter how I thought about it. That’s why I asked Gustarte.
"Hell Monarch...it isn’t impossible for the beings deep in the nothingness to return again to this world. Neither the gods or Death Bringer can interfere. The dark spirits planned and executed the work.
"But I saw a message that the Hell Monarch was destroyed. Is there a means of destruction without a complete disappearance?”
"The deep depths of the nothingness is a place where even Death Bringer isn’t allowed to enter. It isn’t unusual for the system to assume that something it couldn’t detect was destroyed.”
One of the things I was most curious about was solved.
The Hell Monarch wasn’t destroyed, just trapped. Then, the dark spirits reached into the nothingness and pulled him out.