Hugo was bewildered.
‘What’s this?’
He hurriedly scanned the surroundings.
“Dad?”
It was strange.
It felt like he had forgotten something important.
The feeling of having forgotten something that must never be forgotten.
Even an ominous feeling that if he forgot, that person would never return.
So he asked.
“Yuha, Seongjae. Wasn’t someone just here… no, who were we attending to?”
“Attending? You’re naturally the God of the Archery Seat, and we’re of the Lion Seat and the Twin Arrows Seat, right?”
“Ah, not that bald bastard! Why, you know—no manners, squandering money! A hikikomori, ungrateful, insane psycho freak!”
The Cheon siblings gaped.
“Dad. Did you borrow money?”
No, if someone was that bad, shouldn’t you cut ties entirely?
But Hugo urgently checked his phone.
Messages, photo gallery, and for some reason kept searching his voice message inbox.
“Why? Why is it missing? I’m sure I put it in permanent storage.”
“What’s missing?”
“I don’t know!”
“Huh???”
“I don’t know what it is, but it was definitely there…! It was pretty recent.”
Especially the one in the voice message box felt truly important.
An item that felt like regaining something he’d given up on and despaired over for a long time.
Even felt like he hadn’t changed his number for 20 years solely because of that person.
“Definitely something that flew in when the Devil’s Tower broke…”
“Dad?”
Hugo suddenly screamed.
“The Devil’s Tower!! Who broke that?”
“Who broke it? Obviously the monsters inside!”
“Right, there’s no way a human could destroy that worst tower.”
“……!”
Hugo was confused.
Of course, his children were right. The Devil’s Tower was a place even the Twelve Saints couldn’t handle and had to seal.
But no matter how much he thought about it, something was off.
‘We had given up on that place, so who caught its boss, the Red Eye?’
And then it happened.
Hugo gasped and said.
“What about the person who came out?!”
“What?”
“There was a person who came out! That person….”
“Ah…!”
This time, the Cheon siblings reacted too.
“Now that you mention it, it was in the news…”
But right at that moment.
[That was a corpse.]
“!”
A strange man appeared before them.
And everyone was startled by his entrance.
It couldn’t be helped.
“O great Holy God of the Twin Arrows Seat!”
Especially Cheon Seongjae, who belonged to the Twin Arrows Seat, was shocked.
“For the Holy God to personally come before such lowly ones!”
The one who appeared was none other than the Holy God of the Twin Arrows Seat.
Frey.
He was the twin brother of the love goddess Freya, whom Lee Geon had erased with the Bible earlier, and the master of the fairies.
As the twin of the beauty goddess, he was a handsome Holy God.
And the two-faced master before them raised the corners of his mouth.
As if to ensure Hugo’s group could never recall memories of Lee Geon.
[What came out of the Devil’s Tower was not a human, but a corpse.]
“……!”
[Foolish and ignorant humans. Did the media not clamor about it? It was the corpses of those who entered out of curiosity and never returned.]
In reality, it was a corpse identical in size and build to Lee Geon that caused an uproar, but there was no way they could remember Lee Geon’s existence.
“Uh… I think that was it, but wasn’t there talk that it resembled someone?”
[It was said to resemble a Saint.]
“!”
[It was a hot topic because the fool had dressed up as a Saint out of admiration and entered.]
“Ah… right, that sounds about right.”
At that reaction, Frey smiled.
‘With this, the 13th is finished!’
He was already incensed to the top of his head because of what happened to his twin sister.
Wasn’t that why he deliberately went on a skill rampage to erase Lee Geon’s existence as well?
He had provoked the nerves of the [Oblivion] true body to draw it out directly, planning to shove Lee Geon into that true body.
Of course, Lee Geon was a battle god.
It seemed it would be trouble to shove him into the [Oblivion], so he’d even dragged along the strongest subordinate gods he’d imprisoned in the Twin Arrows Seat’s basement.
And then!
‘Never expected that idiot would walk in on his own!’
After giving me such a headache, that bastard!
Frey suppressed a laugh about to burst out.
‘Surely, he jumped in thinking to erase the [Oblivion] and steal its authority, just like me.’
But this time it was absolutely impossible.
The [Oblivion] was an entity so strong it even forgot its own existence!
A monster that neither rulers nor Holy Gods would ever approach!
Yet he entered such a place without a thought?
‘The existence of the 13th is extinction.’
If there is no holy city to worship a god, the divinity loses power and extinguishes.
Because they were divine beings, they could still remember the existence of the 13th, but well.
‘Soon, it will disappear even from our memories. And that bastard won’t be able to use the Snake Lord’s abilities either.’
Erasing a god’s existence was difficult even for them, so this was a good outcome.
And sure enough, just then.
“Oh! Dad! Dad’s bow!”
“!”
Hugo was astonished.
The bow he had been holding preciously since earlier for some unknown reason.
It began to melt away.
Startled, Hugo hurriedly tried to gather the bow, but it vanished without a trace from his grasp.
And seeing Hugo far more flustered and despairing than usual, the Cheon siblings were bewildered.
“Why are you acting like that? Is it expensive?”
“No… it was free, but…”
“Eh, then you can just throw it away.”
Watching the scene, Frey raised the corner of his mouth.
Because that sight signified Lee Geon’s extinction.
‘It’s done! With this, the 13th that I so desired is gone.’
A worthless god seat that needn’t have existed from the start.
Thus, Frey spoke.
[Do not worry. For a mere bow like that, I shall make you a new…]
But then.
“Then who broke the Tower?”
[!]
Hugo was glaring at Frey.
“Let’s say what came out of the Tower was a corpse—then who broke the Devil’s Tower?”
[I told you, it was the monster inside that broke it…]
“If the monster inside broke the Tower, then who dealt with that monster?”
“!”
“Those were ones even the Saints couldn’t handle and sealed away. If that had emerged, all hell would’ve broken loose. And I’ve never heard of such a thing being caught until now?”
[Cease your suspicion. It was we Holy Gods who broke the Devil’s Tower. The great gods exterminated all the monsters within for humanity…]
“I don’t think so.”
[!]
Hugo glared at Frey.
“You say a Holy God dealt with that Devil’s Tower and the Red Eye, but it still makes me uneasy. Could those bastards fail to subjugate a single unknown civilization for 20 years?”
At those words, the Cheon siblings’ eyes widened, and Frey furrowed his brow.
That damned bastard!
As expected, he was the hidden threat.
If it weren’t for that bastard, the game would have been over the moment the [Oblivion] magic was deployed earlier!
‘Because of him, my sister…!’
Well, killing him on the spot wouldn’t be satisfying, but now the situation was different.
‘Right. It’d be a waste to kill him.’
These were all rarity levels over 100%.
Not only could they lay down their lives for the Holy God, but they also offered growth experience, faith charge, and ability stats.
They were incredible beings you couldn’t obtain even if you wanted to.
And a faith level of 600%?
‘I can’t kill that.’
Summoning the Oblivion true body directly was too dangerous so he’d left it alone, but considering that, wasn’t it worth summoning it?
‘Now that the 13th has disappeared, we can just redirect that target to the Twin Arrows Seat.’
They were capable of such distortions.
And this would be his revenge against Lee Geon, who had killed his sister.
Perhaps because of that.
[What is this, a being that dares to doubt and blaspheme a god?]
At Frey’s call to his faithful, Cheon Seongjae flinched.
No, as a faithful of the Twin Arrows Seat, his body responded, but something felt off.
“Huh, what? The magic isn’t working at all. I don’t think I’m a faithful of the Twin Arrows Seat anymore?”
[……!]
They glared at Frey.
Enraged, Frey’s eyes flashed.
[You, a mere human, dare to look upon a Holy God with contempt?]
Simultaneously, a glowing circle appeared beneath Hugo’s feet.
[Reincarnation]
And that was a gate to the fairy’s garden.
A magical skill that could forcibly extract and disassemble the soul, resurrecting it as a fairy.
Well, such creatures would become like Mimir, but that didn’t matter.
And sensing that greed, Hugo immediately went on guard and drew another bow, but.
[Forced Conversion]
A high-risk skill that binds the soul.
But then.
“?!”
Frey suddenly looked to the side.
* * *
Whooosh.
Haily was sinking into the Sea of Oblivion.
At a glance, it looked like an endless abyssal sea, but Haily knew.
‘Oblivion.’
The one who trails the fog.
And the inside of the mist-like [Oblivion] body was like an endless sea.
At the same time, once you fall in, you can never rise to the surface again.
You forget the most recent memories first, then the most precious memories.
And in the end, you forget even your own existence.
As proof, familiar scenes surfaced from the Sea of Oblivion.
[You’re not human, are you?]
[Clan Lord! Emergency! The Devil’s Tower has been destroyed!]
It was as if memories were being extracted from Haily’s mind.
And those memories vanished one by one.
The most recent memories, and relatively less important ones.
[What has this woman been babbling about since earlier? It was because you poisoned it that I removed it and replaced it with a tonic!]
[Poisoning? That must have been you.]
And memories she didn’t want to lose.
[What are you doing way over there?]
[Want some?]
These were memories from when she occasionally met Lee Geon during subjugations.
And every time one of those scenes disappeared, Haily’s heart ached.
As memories faded, finally the most precious memory.
Probably the first time she met Lee Geon.
From her own childhood.
[To smell of a human, how filthy.]
[Why hasn’t our lord killed that thing yet?]
[Because she can’t eat humans or gods either, we keep having to fetch those lowly foods for them. It’s so bothersome.]
[Don’t worry, it seems they plan to send her to the other side as a usable pawn this time.]
[Really?]
Before the year 2000. Before Earth had been invaded.
Contempt, sacrifices, blasphemy, abuse.
She, once called the dirty sewer rat princess, had been sent to Earth as a self-destruct tool.
Before the full-scale invasion, to eliminate those who would obstruct them the most and human leaders.
Because she resembled a human, they said it would be easy to approach. And with a striking appearance that humans could not help but feel goodwill toward.
And upon successfully completing the mission, dying, at that moment.
Haily flew through spacetime and met high-school-aged Lee Geon.
An ability triggered because she was the daughter of a ruler.
And on a rainy day, collapsed in the street, her body and face ruined, slowly dying, it was Lee Geon who saved her.
[Are you awake?]
That’s how the six-year-old young Haily met the future Lee Geon.
And the time they spent together was barely a year.
She had to return to the past, severing her connection with Lee Geon, but it was enough.
Lee Geon was the only person who gave the then-hopeless Haily the strength to live.
The person who made her feel goodwill toward humans.
And the person she alone wished would survive when the unknown civilization invaded.
Thus, she became a Saint and sought to protect the ordinary Lee Geon from afar.
Of course, she never imagined she would meet that same person as the 13th Awakened.
When they met again, his face and heart were completely broken, hating nothing but monsters and Saints.
And although Lee Geon probably didn’t remember her at all, it didn’t matter.
[Kitty, get well soon so you can come play with oppa.]
It was the memory that gave her the only reason not to give up on life.
But.
Slip!
At last, the Sea of Oblivion began to steal even that most precious final memory.
The memory of meeting him through time travel as a child.
And Lee Geon’s kind smile, so different from now.
Finally, even Lee Geon’s face she never wished to forget.
Haily felt like tears would come.
But even as the thing she most wanted to hold onto was taken, there was only one thing she worried about.
‘Ah, the item. I have to pass it on to …geon.’
Now a person whose name, whose very existence wouldn’t come to mind.
Yet the thought of having to deliver it remained.
‘Can’t d….’
But at that moment.
Grab!
“!”
Someone seized her hand.
From the swamp of oblivion, the deepest, most profound sea of forgetting.
(To be continued…)