◈ Episode 470. For the Sake Of [Main Quest: The Truth Beyond the Black Curtain]
Is what you desire a divinity that is nothing but an illusion, or a harsh truth?
Only in the eyes of one who has given up being a god shall light finally shine.
-Guide the Shadow God to the Pantheon. (In Progress)
As expected.
‘It didn’t make sense from the start.’
Judging by the quest objective.
Somehow, the Pantheon didn’t seem to be a space I could enter.
I said it convincingly just now, didn’t I?
‘I told you, I’m nonreligious.’
I don’t believe in gods and all that grandiose nonsense.
I don’t believe in gods in the first place.
So how could I set foot in the Pantheon, where gods reside?
‘Even if I could enter, they’d throw me out for being irreverent, wouldn’t they?’
I looked at the Shadow God kneeling before me.
“Ah……”
The god of Chronicles of the Arcana Continent, once a virtual reality game. I could not grasp the weight carried by that name. However, his complexion was clearly different from before. It felt as though vitality had returned to his haggard face.
Woooooo.
The cry of a whale rang out.
Soon, after disgorging everything it had swallowed.
The “Omen That Swallowed a God” began to disintegrate.
For something so large, even scattering into dust was noisy.
My hand reflexively straightened my disheveled clothes.
I said dryly,
“Even your exit lacks dignity.”
My gaze moved mercilessly toward the entrance of the Pantheon.
‘Still, it’s starting to look the part.’
The omen spat out the entire scenery of the Pantheon’s entrance that it had swallowed. Indeed, an unreal landscape began to unfold, enough to be called a place where gods resided……
No.
‘It’s gone beyond looking the part—my eyes are about to roll back……?’
Perhaps gods really did exist.
It was extraordinary enough to shake my view of religion!
Thanks to the effect of the Pentagram of Pure Knowledge.
All the knowledge of minerals and plants in my head was telling me this. This wasn’t even the Pantheon’s treasure vault, merely its entrance, yet the rarity of the minerals and plants lying around was going absolutely wild!
Among them……
‘That wasn’t just a saying. They actually existed?’
Infinite vitality.
Overflowing monstrous strength.
Surging mana……
Because their effects were so absurd they sounded like nonsense.
The spiritual medicines I had thought of as nothing but legends were truly before my eyes. Moreover, wasn’t I the owner of the hidden piece, the Garden of Dignity, and someone who had experience cultivating spiritual medicines through the method of growing elixir herbs?
‘I can’t just pass them by.’
I suddenly understood how a cat felt walking past a fish shop. However, this was merely the impression of me, Lee Hoyeol, who had not yet transcended material desire.
“At last, it has the basics.”
Your evaluation is still harsh, Granfell.
After giving that brief appraisal, I looked at the Shadow God.
By the way, this damn mouth.
Granfell-style speech would never let this slide.
“Even so, it cannot compare to my garden.”
……
Do you really want to brag even in a situation like this?
Of course, it wasn’t wrong.
Wasn’t it the magnificent Golden Palace of Yusra? Besides, if the Pantheon had its guardian divine beast, Pegasus, then the Garden of Dignity had its guardian elf, Elsidore.
‘He really refuses to lose even a single word.’
The only fortunate thing was that the Shadow God didn’t seem to have the leisure to care about my loose tongue. Why? Because he seemed too busy taking in the restored form of the Pantheon.
‘I should give him a little time to be moved.’
The story he would hear afterward would be quite shocking.
Let’s see, how should I explain it so it would be easy to understand?
It might not be easier than explaining it to an ordinary Arcanian.
‘Honestly, with this way of speaking, I’m not confident I can make him understand.’
Seeing once is better than hearing a hundred times.
Should I just open a portal and show him reality?
If he understood reality,
wouldn’t he more easily understand the relationship between the omen and Raymon Sean?
Just as I was agonizing over it.
“I am prepared to accept all truths.”
Had he already collected himself?
The Shadow God rose from where he had been kneeling.
Then there was no reason for me to hesitate either.
I warned him in advance.
“From this point on, the world you know will crumble.”
“I am prepared.”
A bitter smile settled on the Shadow God’s lips.
“No, perhaps I simply refused to acknowledge it. In the end, we were nothing more than gods in a well. Unable to even properly look upon the world outside that well……”
Unable to properly look upon the world outside the well, huh.
‘As expected, there’s some kind of story here.’
It seemed I would have to hear the details about the Pantheon and the gods. Of course, right now, I was already busy making the Shadow God understand reality, the Arcana Continent, and Raymon Sean, the root cause of everything.
‘What should I start with?’
Chronicles of the Arcana Continent.
The Cataclysm.
Raymon Sean’s update.
In what order should I tell the story so the Shadow God could easily accept the situation? I searched through Lee Hoyeol’s shallow social experience. Before telling a story, it was usually best to build common ground……
‘That way, we can know what each of us does and doesn’t know.’
While I was thinking, my lips moved.
“Leader of shadows, do you know……”
……
Wait, no matter how important common ground is.
“The great Claudi.”
Even if the Shadow God and I shared the common ground of having been swayed by our settings.
There’s no need to make him understand my dark past first, you know?!
*
It was a contract with the Shadow God, one that kept him from dying even when he died.
Thanks to it, his broken spine and bones were recovering.
He had been unable to even let out a breath.
But now, though it was half air and half sound, his voice came out.
“……
Amazing.”
Through eyes he had opened with difficulty, Gabriel looked at Hoyeol. No matter how many times he recalled the scene that had unfolded in that moment, he could not understand what in the world had happened.
Was that truly the demon hunter I had known? There would have been no reason for someone with such splendid swordsmanship and extraordinary mana to set foot in Akshan……
However.
“I don’t know how many long years have passed……”
It seemed there was no longer any need to worry about Akshan.
How could there be?
Gabriel felt the changed scenery and air.
“You saved him.”
He had saved the Shadow God, who had not been possessed by a demon, but consumed by his own malice. He had not turned away like Akshan, nor had he hunted him down like Gabriel himself.
Yes, that was an exorcism in the truest sense.
A laugh escaped him in spite of himself.
“Do you see? I was wrong, and so were all of you.”
Gabriel shifted his gaze and looked at Haiel, who was guarding his side.
Then he asked.
It was because a pure question had occurred to him.
“Why are you following his order?”
Surely, she must have witnessed his atrocities.
“I am a hopeless human with a history of shoving your lord away and leaving him behind. And where does it end there? Before I can even bring up my ties to Akshan, I am a demon hunter excommunicated from Akshan.”
Haiel spoke in an unwavering voice.
“Do you truly think so?”
An unshakable trust dwelled in her noble gaze.
What was she saying?
Gabriel asked back without realizing it.
“What do you mean?”
“You said you shoved my lord and made him fall. I am asking whether you truly believe your actions could make my lord fall.”
“……!”
Only then did Gabriel realize.
“I see. I overestimated myself too greatly.”
In Hoyeol, who had lightly hunted down the omen that swallowed a god, the prototype of the Pantheon’s entrance, he had witnessed strength on an entirely different level.
As stated before, it was an overwhelming combat power that was hard to believe belonged to a demon hunter.
Then even if he had fallen from a dizzying height in the sky……
‘……
If he had wanted to stop his fall, he could have stopped it any number of ways.’
There was no need to even bring up the Magic Tower.
For any mage who had made somewhat of a name for themselves,
manifesting levitation would be entirely possible.
“I failed to understand my place.”
Haiel added to Gabriel as he mulled it over.
“My lord likely simply wished to trust you.”
“……!”
Because she was like Hoyeol’s other self.
Haiel instinctively knew.
What kind of being her lord was.
Gabriel answered.
“He wanted to believe in me, you say. Just when I was already regretting it, my guilt grows even deeper, doesn’t it? More importantly, I don’t even know whether I repaid that trust……”
The multilayered barrier, The Mirror That Reflects No Shadows.
Gabriel looked at Hoyeol.
What had he witnessed beyond the mirror?
Then he murmured quietly.
“As expected, your ‘lords’ are complicated.”
Haiel did not miss that word.
“‘Lords’? What do you mean by that?”
Gabriel was still watching Hoyeol.
However, that gaze did not last long.
Because he, too, had experienced it.
The Mirror That Reflects No Shadows.
Thanks to that, Gabriel could guess.
That Hoyeol had seen through the multilayered barrier.
Without going through the proper process.
After all, were his clothes not far too neat? Considering the state that he and the other honored guests had ended up in within the multilayered barrier, it was impossible.
Moreover.
In Hoyeol’s case, it was also something that should have been impossible.
Then, as expected, there was only one answer.
‘The “you” inside the mirror showed mercy, didn’t you?’
Gabriel answered Haiel.
“It’s nothing. Perhaps because my time to die has come, my tongue slipped.”
Then he muttered quietly.
“Do you see? As expected, I was not wrong, Akshan.”
It truly was a succession of unbelievable sights.
Gabriel looked at the trees that had risen from the entrance of the Pantheon.
Before he knew it, leaves were scattering in the wind.
Yes, perhaps……
“If I was unable to die in order to see this day……”
Then he could close his eyes with his resentment eased.
That was what Gabriel was thinking when it happened.
Suddenly, footsteps rang out.
Click.
Gabriel spoke sincerely.
“You have a talent for scaring a man to death with only your presence.”
It had been a joke, but the answer that came back was utterly serious.
“I am well aware.”
“……?”
His attire and abilities did not make him look like an Akshan demon hunter at all.
Yet just from how they could not understand each other like this, he could tell.
Gabriel chuckled.
“That, too, is Akshan.”
Soon, his collapsed body began to scatter into the air.
Gabriel could sense it.
The contract with the Shadow God had finally been annulled.
Hoyeol recited,
“As of this moment, all contracts made by the Shadow God have been annulled. The shadows of all, including you, the honored guests, and the employees of the Shadow Corridor, will return to their rightful masters.”
“I see.”
“Leave your final words, Gabriel.”
At those words, Gabriel looked at Haiel without realizing it.
My, you mean you’ll hear the last words of a wretch like me?
Truly.
‘Lords merciful to a fault.’
Gabriel opened his mouth.
“Though I was excommunicated, as one who was once a demon hunter of Akshan, I must first apologize to you. I merely wanted you to look back upon yourself. However……”
You surely know each other better than anyone.
I had not imagined that such people as you.
Were still not ready to face one another.
“I realized that I had acted beyond my place.”
Gabriel swallowed the words rising in his throat.
“In truth, there are many things I wish to ask you. As I said, my body has already been buried in the ground and turned to white bones. I wonder whether Akshan remains the same, whether great evils and Demon Kings still run rampant, and many other things. However, I shall neither ask nor listen.”
He met Hoyeol’s eyes.
“You know it well too, do you not? That I am a hopeless demon hunter excommunicated even from Akshan. So, in a way befitting me, I shall leave you with hopeless final words.”
More precisely, he spoke to “them.”
“If you are faced with a trial too great to bear, seek out my corpse, which should be buried somewhere in the eastern Arcana Continent. And recover my relic from within my coat. That will……”
In one way or another, be of help to you.
Gabriel’s shadow left those brief final words behind.
Then slowly began to scatter and disappear.
To that Gabriel, Hoyeol said,
“There exists no trial too great for me to bear.”
For a moment, it was the kind of loose-tongued remark that would make someone sigh, “Even at the very end, must you be like that?”
Then an endlessly solemn voice followed.
“Even so, for you, who acted for Akshan’s sake.”
“……?”
“I, and Akshan, shall witness your final moments.”
In a way unbecoming of a demon hunter.
Gabriel’s face smiled brightly.
Then scattered into the air.
“I’m grateful for that.”
……
Yes, that’s all well and good.
[You have completed the class quest, “For Akshan, Even So.”]
[The class quest, “Gabriel’s Grave,” has begun.]
[Across the Arcana Continent, the legend, “The Being Who Profanes Even All Gods,” resounds.]
Why is the legend that resounds like this again, hey?!