Episode 30
Question marks popped up sporadically in the chat window. Just like me, there seemed to be quite a few people who couldn't keep up with a conclusion reached so suddenly. But Jaesugang paid little attention to those reactions and continued his explanation.
— “What would happen if Avrea the Holy Knight crossed over to Eidheas? Leaving everything else aside, Avrea would no longer be a Holy Knight. Holy Knights are a class that fights by borrowing God’s power, just like Priests. If you no longer believe in God, you can’t use divine power to cast skills, right?”
He had a point. I nodded slowly. Dusk would be nothing but a corpse without its concept; there was no way it would have bothered dividing mana into ‘Divine Power’ and ‘Mental Power’ for no reason. They probably couldn’t allow someone who was no longer a believer to use God’s power, either.
— “In a situation where Avrea is highly likely to stop believing in God and even discard his position as a Holy Knight, this child appeared ‘only’ in the Holy Knight’s hidden story.”
Jaesugang pointed with his mouse at the figure on his monitor: the grain of rice that had glowed and fluttered about before the massive glass gates.
— “From now on, I’ll arbitrarily call this one an angel, and let’s talk about the angel for a moment.”
The grain of rice became an angel.
— “I mentioned a new race update as my first hypothesis earlier. But thinking about it carefully, calling it a new race feels off because it’s too small, and it takes a humanoid form like the gods or the Shina Clan. Ah, since many of you probably haven’t seen the concept art for the patron gods, I’ll show you.”
Jaesugang quickly navigated to the Dusk homepage and pulled up the concept art for the gods.
Among the 13 Gods sketched in a rough style, the 12 had distinct appearances and atmospheres, but they were all humanoid figures with butterfly or moth wings like the Shina Clan. The difference was clear: the 1st through 6th Gods, the patron gods of the Jeopa Clan, were based on butterflies, while the 7th through 12th Gods, the patron gods of the Bia Clan, were based on moths.
The Bia Clan that users customized had been given a compromise design that borrowed the beauty of butterflies, since many people would only choose them if they were pretty, rather than being based on real moths. Because of this, it was often hard to tell whether the wings were butterfly or moth just by looking at them, but the gods—who were only mentioned in the story a few times—had no need to satisfy player demand and thus possessed appearances modeled directly after moths.
— “As for the ‘Contract,’ which is called the Zeroth God, I couldn’t find any illustration no matter how hard I looked… Anyway, in the world of Dusk, the only race with a humanoid form besides the gods themselves is the Shina Clan. Races like the Eunseo Clan that aren’t the Shina Clan are animal-type races, not human. The biggest difference between these two is whether they have a direct connection to God or not.
As I said earlier, since this angel takes a perfectly humanoid form rather than an animal or insect type like the other races, we can speculate that it is a race close to God—in other words, a race with abilities comparable to God. At the very least, it must be a race directly or indirectly connected to God, like the Shina Clan.”
While listening to him, I had been wondering whether there was any possibility that this was another Shina Clan created by God. A similar question came up in the chat, and as he muttered while reading through it, he paused briefly and twirled his mug.
— “I don’t think so, because it’s far too sudden to be a second Shina Clan created by God. If your parents, who had shown absolutely no signs of pregnancy, suddenly brought home a new baby saying, ‘This is your younger sibling,’ wouldn’t you be confused? There hasn’t been a single hint anywhere so far that a new race would appear.”
He had a point. If a mother who had a flat stomach just a few days ago suddenly brought home a new baby saying, “Here’s your younger sibling,” you’d be taken aback. Though you’d probably assume it was adopted.
— “If this angel is a living witness that supports the claim, ‘God is not an absolute being,’ and such a being came to find Avrea?”
If Avrea became capable of denying that God was absolute, he would no longer believe and would turn his back on God. Because it was none other than Avrea. Though what had happened was still unknown, due to something he had experienced in the past, he was the one and only priest among the Bia Clan who doubted God, and at times he even acted as though he despised the very existence of God more than Eidheas……. As Jaesugang said, there was a possibility that Avrea would desert or be excommunicated and join the anti-god faction.
Once I thought that far, an exclamation of “Oh” slipped out. I had merely been wondering if that grain of rice would pop up as a monster when I entered the dungeon while watching the story. I realized Jaesugang had really thought of everything.
— “If Avrea leaves Witeraheit in this way, there is a possibility that a new class naturally derived from the Holy Knight will be updated. Or perhaps a completely new faction could be established, creating a three-way opposition system.
Besides, it’s about time a new class came out. A Swordsman who uses only a blade without God’s power, or perhaps a magic swordsman concept where this angel grants power in God’s place.”
Or perhaps I’m wrong, and instead of a new class, Avrea might switch classes to become a warrior of Eidheas.
Jaesugang added that and launched the launcher, which had finished patching a while ago, to start the game. The seminar on the topic of “Predicted Direction of a Large-Scale Update for the Game Dusk Based on This Hidden Story” seemed to be roughly wrapped up.
I had been so focused on Jaesugang’s stream that I hadn’t even noticed the game had booted up, and only then did I enter the connection queue and select my Kkulppang character. Checking the time, roughly ten minutes had passed since the update finished.
Since I planned to complete quests immediately after logging in and try entering the dungeon, I muted the stream where Jaesugang was chatting with viewers while answering questions. If I missed anything, I could just watch the replay, so it didn’t matter much.
[Guild] Guild Master Kkulppang has logged in.
[Guild] Sillonti: hey
[Guild] Sillonti: what took u
[Guild] soloist: heyy~!~!
[Guild] Kkulppang: h_ey
[Guild] Kkulppang: long time no see, solo
Solo, who had been busy preparing for performances lately, was online.
Solo was a cellist active in the university orchestra and would become busy during concert season, so we couldn’t meet often. I would at least hear about how Solo was doing through Mun Seonhwa, who kept in touch frequently. It was only because of the performances; when Solo had the time, they were a skilled player who vied for first or second place in the Priest rankings.
[Guild] Sillonti: I was gonna run this dungeon with you
[Guild] Sillonti: changed my mind when I saw solo log on lol
[Guild] Kkulppang: lol who said I'd go with you
Seeing the obvious bait, I deftly brushed it off. If those two were going to go together, they should just do so quietly.
Following the newly refreshed main quest, I tore open a scroll and moved to the Atelier-na Wisha base where Avrea was waiting. After waiting through the familiar loading screen and arriving at the base, new messages had appeared in the guild chat window.
[Guild] soloist: lol
[Guild] soloist: lolololololololololololololololol
[Guild] Sillonti: lol
[Guild] Sillonti: who're you going with
[Guild] Kkulppang: rand match(*random matching)
[Guild] Sillonti: ugh, you friendless bastard
[Guild] Kkulppang: Don't you know rand match is the universal rule for first clears?
[Guild] Sillonti: yeh I wouldn't know cuz I have tons of friends ><
[Guild] Kkulppang: k
[Guild] Sillonti: k
I had been planning to go with random matching anyway, but it annoyed me for no reason. I had so many people in my friends list. Grumbling inwardly, I opened my friends list. ......Most of them were office workers or university students, so not many were online right now, but a full list was still a full list.
Pushing Mun Seonhwa’s words out of my head, I first pressed the video record button and started filming. Jaesugang had asked me to do this yesterday.
I would have done it even if he’d just asked normally, but Jaesugang seemed to think I’d demand something in return and sent a flood of cutesy messages and emoticons saying, “You’ll send it to me, right?” before I could even reply. I don’t know what kind of person he thinks I am, but thanks to that, I felt a little healed.
After checking that the recording was working properly, I moved toward the central fountain where Avrea was standing. Then, unexpectedly, Avrea—wearing a shabby robe pulled over his face—addressed me first, as though he’d been waiting, the moment I approached.