Chapter 1 – Divine Name

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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It was a god-tier game, until I experienced it myself.

***

In the pitch-black night sky where all the stars had fallen and nothing remained, the last god was born in the dying world under the Dark Light of the Black Sun.

All the prominent theologians and religious orders of the world were reluctant to interpret this particular passage. This was because theologians considered stars to be human destinies or heavenly beings when interpreting scriptures.

The fact that all such stars had disappeared was no different from saying that the era of humanity had ended.

Therefore, this final passage was usually considered merely a warning signifying the apocalypse and judgment. In some cases, it was frequently omitted from the scripture.

Along with the saying that not all prophecies were meaningful.

Even the minor theologians who liked to interpret things differently from the mainstream could not pay much attention to this passage. Consequently, there was no religious order to assist with the interpretation, and there were no actual clues regarding the last god who was supposed to be born.

It was much, much later that this passage received attention once again.

“It was the same this time as well.”

The church we arrived at after crossing the collapsed stone walls was thoroughly destroyed. We chased after a thread of hope and searched through the debris, but the result was the same.

This was already the tenth place.

We searched thoroughly regardless of which god they served, but our disappointment only grew.

The old clergyman with a haggard complexion, Bartol, could not even brush off the dust deeply piled on his shabby robe and simply let out heavy sighs first.

I pondered for a long time on what to say to him before speaking very cautiously.

“It was not as if we found absolutely nothing. You said you found a few scrolls.”

No matter how uncultured one might be, it was only proper to speak respectfully to a person with age and manners.

If you went around acting carelessly just because the world was ruined, it was perfect for getting stabbed while sleeping. Above all, Bartol was a decent companion.

I tried to comfort him with the fact that he found the scrolls, but Bartol’s face remained dark.

“What use are scrolls that we cannot even use.”

“How can you say they are useless.”

There he went again.

The old clergyman continued to let out sighs with a dispirited attitude. And while sitting on top of the pile of stones, he looked down at his wrinkled hands.

“There is not a single handful of divine power left in the scrolls. No matter where I go, no matter what god they served… I cannot feel the divine power.”

“Priest.”

“Stop it, young man. It is the same for me. I can no longer feel His grace. Not just me, but anywhere in the world. I am just an old man now.”

Bartol’s shoulders began to tremble slightly.

I had never been religious, but I imagined it felt like having someone you believed in and followed your entire life suddenly vanish. It did not seem like a few words would make things better.

Instead of continuing to comfort Bartol, I raised my head and looked at the sky.

The reason this old clergyman was frustrated and cowering was drawn in the sky.

A night sky where the stars had fallen and nothing remained.

It was exactly as stated. The Milky Way was gone, let alone the moon, and the sun could not be seen either. The sky, where every single faint star had fallen without a trace, always looked like it was night.

This was the reason Bartol was depressed. Listening to the sobbing sounds next to me made me depressed as well.

[Last Comet].

It seemed that escaping from this game world was a distant hope.

***

The people of this world thought of themselves as the descendants of stars.

They cultivated reverence for the heavens, believing that gods walked together with the stars, and this was indeed true. In this world, all miracles performed through divine power borrowed the strength of the stars and heavens.

However, since the stars had disappeared, the divine power naturally had to vanish as well.

And the disappearance of the divine power that proved their faith also pointed to an ominous truth. An unspoken truth that everyone slowly realized but hesitated to easily mention.

“Old man, did you get anything?”

A shabby voice welcomed us as soon as we returned to the shelter.

There was a man looking down from beyond a makeshift barricade woven from tables, chairs, or carriages. Tehen. He was a friend who covered his mouth when speaking because he did not want to show his broken front tooth to others.

Bartol slumped his shoulders at Tehen’s question, which had now become a habit.

I could not keep wasting time, so I spoke on his behalf.

“A few scrolls. Only the tips are slightly burnt, so we can use them anywhere.”

“Oh, boy. I guess you could use them to wipe yourself after doing your business.”

“It is better than wiping with your hands or clothes.”

You roamed outside for quite a long time, and you barely managed to get that.

Tehen’s gaze and sarcastic words were saying exactly that. Bartol, who was already drooping, looked like he would seriously hang himself if he became any more depressed.

So I defended him with my utmost effort, but Tehen, who had already held it in several times, did not back down easily.

Tehen looked around and tapped the floor with the rod he was clenching.

“So what. Others risk their lives to bring back even breadcrumbs or planks of wood. Yet two perfectly fine people bring back a few unusable scrolls and expect to receive rations?”

If the world had been normal, that friend Tehen would not have been so spiteful.

What he said was not exactly wrong either.

It was a shelter slowly withering away. We needed to scavenge anything to hold out for another day, so it was sufficient reason for them to be dissatisfied with us, who only wandered around churches and temples that had been completely looted ages ago.

People other than Tehen probably thought the same way.

“I will take your night watch duty today. How about it? I went there thinking there might be a magical tool.”

“Ha, seriously. Ha… Hey old man there. Do you lack both sense and conscience? You are leeching off a young friend, fighting for food with other people using that rotten body of yours?”

“Tehen.”

“Hey, I care nothing about whether you act like a pushover or not. However, I cannot stand a guy clinging to a pushover. Why? Because once the pushover he bit into dies, he will cling to someone else!”

Upon hearing Tehen’s raised voice, the other guards also approached the barricade one by one.

Judging by their gazes, it seemed everyone had heard what we were talking about. However, it was different from a few days ago. There was clear murderous intent residing in them, surpassing anger or hatred.

Fierce eyes, and bulging veins as they gripped crude weapons, warned us.

That they might actually kill us.

“Understood, I will go search a bit more and come back. Did you hear that, Priest? Let us go look around a bit more and come back.”

“…I will. I will do as you say.”

Bartol was dragged away just as I held onto him.

The gazes piercing our backs were exceptionally sharp. Even the closing remarks spoken so loudly for us to hear.

“Tsk. A priest is only a priest when there is a god.”

It was only after walking for quite a while that we were freed from those poking stares.

It was dangerous at this rate. We needed a place to hide our bodies. With an urgent heart, I looked around and managed to find an intact house.

Of course, it was half destroyed and the roof was heavily tilted, but the pillars were intact, so there seemed to be little risk of it collapsing.

“Priest, let us rest over there for today.”

“I owe this life to you once again.”

It was a lamenting statement this time as well, but it was still much better than just before.

Bartol and I scoured the house and scraped together various items in preparation for any possible previous guests. Whatever happened to the original owner, everything was in a mess.

Tangled blankets, moldy bread and soups on the dining table, clothes thrown everywhere, and bloodstains.

The brown, dried bloodstains offered only a tiny hint as to what had occurred in this house long ago.

We expressed our condolences for their fate before exploring further. After that, we ransacked the inside of the house and used up every last bit of the few remaining food ingredients.

We dumped the wine that had turned into vinegar into a rotten bucket, stirred it, and then scooped it up in glasses.

Then we soaked the hard bread completely in this vinegar water and chatted about useless things.

“Priest, do you know what these scrolls are used for?”

“They are for short-range teleportation. When a city is surrounded or a religious order is in danger due to a certain event, they are used the moment a messenger breaking through the encirclement needs to deliver the facts.”

“This one has a slightly different pattern drawn, is this also teleportation?”

“Ahem, let me see. Oh, it is a purification scroll. It used to be utilized to clean dirty water or sanitize wounds.”

They were scrolls that would have been used usefully in the past.

Though hesitant at first, the sight of him growing increasingly excited to teach me was a pitiful one.

I listened to each and every one of Bartol’s babbling explanations.

It was after a long time of chatting that Bartol withered away.

“I was so glad to see something I recognized after a long while that the words just spilled out.”

He scolded himself for acting foolish in his old age, but the atmosphere was much brighter.

Bartol chuckled to the point of laughing out loud while drinking the vinegar-mixed water.

“You truly are quite the person yourself. If it were an ordinary individual, they would have long since abandoned an old man and left.”

“You are the one who guided me to the shelter. I would have died without a doubt if you, Priest, had not looked around the temples or churches.”

“It is nothing compared to the number of times you have saved my life…”

The grace of taking the panic-stricken me to a place where there were people was grand.

Especially more so after the world had thoroughly collapsed. Had it not been for Bartol, I might have honestly perished, and that was no joke.

[Last Comet], the world inside the game that I knew was just like that.

It was a period where a life blew away in a gasping instant. Naturally, the time spent being thankful for one another was precious.

As a trustworthy person was the most valuable asset, we clinked our cups and shared a toast, treating the vinegar water like alcohol.

That was, until an ominous noise echoed throughout this ruined city.

Clang.

When I heard it for the first time, I just ignored it, wondering if it was the sound of slamming a hammer.

Clang.

When I heard it a second time, the hairs all over my body stood on end.

Eventually, the final third time.

-Clang.

Only then did people realize that the moment they wanted to avoid had arrived.

“This cycle was a bit long.”

“I will go block the windows first.”

Bartol, who had been lethargic up to now, sprang abruptly from his seat and headed toward the bedroom.

This had happened several times. We had a naturally formed division of roles. Bartol created the hideout, and I, who had good eyes, surveyed the surroundings.

It was creaky around, but there was a ladder heading up to the roof, making it easy to observe.

And the moment I went up, as expected, a familiar entity came into view.

“Bartol!”

-I am almost finished!

“Hurry, dawn is breaking!”

A celestial body soaring as it devoured shadows beyond the debris of the ruined city.

The existence that once shone so radiantly that none dared look up at it now ruled over the world, draped in a purple-black brilliance like a cape.

The Black Sun.

If it were the world where I lived, one would have let out a breather every time the sun rose, but this world was different. The Dark Light of the Black Sun rendered all light sources meaningless beneath the sky where the stars had vanished.

Even the alleyways that barely held out with torches were tainted dingy and muddy.

Flames burning like beacon fires from various shelters desperately expelled smoke, attempting to light the world, but they failed to become even a faint firefly before the sun.

Even the people digging through the scattered piles of rubble verified the breaking dawn, set down everything they held, and bolted away.

The moment the Black Sun, proving the altered world, ascended, the reason the world was ruined appeared. Below the Black Sun, the shadows engulfed by the Dark Light twisted and produced forms.

Sunken noses, brutally ripped and vacant cheeks, torn jaws, and the stained bones and muscles marred by damp mold beneath the decaying skin were visible.

Those monsters covered their bodies in blue-flashing ghost fire, perhaps due to phosphorus supposedly being in the bones, or perhaps due to resentment-filled souls, charging toward the city and hungrily drooling.

-What guys are they?

“Corpse Demons!”

It would be nice if we could do something out here, but the echo inside my head continually repeated the same statement.

[Awaken your Divine Name.]

[A god who has not awakened their Divine Name cannot defeat a strong foe. If you use power before awakening your Divine Name, those who will kill you will appear.]

[Success: Awakening / Failure: Death]

The world of ‘Last Comet’ was a world that was being annihilated in real time by demons as the gates of hell had opened.

And Last Comet was a game where the player became the last god and overturned the destruction.