Chapter 59 – Terjaohm

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Devising the Lion Shield Constellation had been far more effective than expected.

At least, judging by the reports relayed by the stars twinkling busily from the night sky.

The dark radiance of the Black Sun had visibly thinned, and Blood-Soaked Mud had stopped the assaults altogether.

There was no need to analyze it deeply. It was a natural outcome.

Even the enormous numbers of monsters that had been threatening the survivors became meaningless the moment they came up against my power.

If they tried to move around me, I planned to raise the Lion Shield Constellation immediately and protect the people.

The ones who had always forced choices on others were now the ones being forced to make a choice.

But among the people who had no way of knowing the details, there were many who were worried.

Those who could not be reassured even by the display of power against Bearing Responsibility.

Among them was the coward Shek, whose very heart I had fashioned.

Shek held his nephew Den’s hand tight, while openly conveying his anxiety to the person beside him.

“Why Terjaohm of all places? There can’t be any boats left there.”

The carpenter Ad, subjected to dozens of similar questions already, scrunched up his face.

“Oh, come on. Star Creation was leading us there. If you can’t trust that, you’re welcome to stay behind.”

“But Den…”

“I’ll take Den with me. That solves the problem, doesn’t it.”

“No, I was just asking, it’s fine to be curious.”

“You’ve watched Star Creation fight how many times now and you’re still worried? They were the one who saved your life too, aren’t they? Just trust them, man.”

“When you put it that way, I don’t have anything to say…”

He lowered his voice and grumbled.

He was the type to grumble no matter what, yet would follow along in the end.

Of course, they were not the only ones engaged in pointless arguments.

“Lard Mushroom is best when stir-fried. You have to flip it on a pan, sizzling away.”

“Tsk. Just eating fat doesn’t do it. There’s always a proper balance for everything. The best way is to skewer them and rotate them evenly as they cook.”

“Why is it just the two of you eating? Blanch them first and then simmer them well so everyone can have some!”

There were also those plodding along and squabbling over how to cook the Lard Mushrooms.

The important thing was that such leisurely small talk was even possible, because the journey had grown that easy.

Blood-Soaked Mud and the Black Sun had only turned their gazes this way, without engaging in any serious interference or harassment.

I had even set sentries in case of an ambush along the way, and the results were the same.

Ceciel, flapping her wings tiredly just above the survivors, crossed both arms into an X as she spoke.

“Star Creation, I had checked three times now. There wasn’t a single human shadow ahead.”

“Check once more while I watch.”

“…I checked four times and it was the same!”

Seeing her sulk as she answered me, it had to really be true.

Even if an angel was far behind in basic ability, a heavenly being was a heavenly being.

Her ability to detect hostile presences was exceptional, rivaling even that of a god. There was no way she would fail at surveillance like this.

The Black Sun and demons, who had been so zealous in killing survivors, had suddenly gone quiet.

And that made me even more uneasy.

In Last Comet, when a long window of time was given, it was always a sign that the next assault would be no joke.

Even without connecting it to the game, once it had gotten to this point, it was natural to suspect the enemy was plotting something.

Especially when my divine instinct was telling me so.

My instinct, already growing toward foresight, was sounding its alarm without rest.

The right thing to do was to be prepared.

That said, Ceciel was shaking her head and sighing.

“I don’t think there’ll be anything at least on the road to Terjaohm…”

“I think so too.”

It was a slightly exasperated tone, but she was right.

Even after paying this much attention, we had found no sign of an ambush. It truly seemed they had opened the path.

My own feelings, however, were like those of a child waiting to be struck.

I would have felt better if assaults at least came at intervals. What were they planning that they were keeping this buttoned up?

I let out a deep sigh and called Ceciel back.

“That’s enough. Come back and rest.”

“…While walking?”

“Walking is resting.”

“What if I rode in a cart?”

“Hmm.”

“…Fine…”

The carts we had painstakingly arranged were all busy carrying the elderly, the sick, and the young children.

Ceciel knew this full well, and even knowing she would be scolded, she was throwing a tantrum just to exchange a few more words.

It seemed Ceciel had been quite a spoiled one even back in the heavens.

Or then again, perhaps she had been perfectly fine up there and only became like this after spending time with me…

She drooped listlessly, wiggling her toes and sneaking glances at me. The image brought to mind a cat that had just been scolded.

In the end, unable to endure it any longer, I breathed out a breath laced with star dust.

“Ah! Divine power again?!”

“Now stop grumbling about having to walk.”

“Yes!”

With a relieved smile, she gleefully radiated divine power. She was unmistakably like a child.

Innocence was also one of the important virtues of an angel.

Looked at in this light, Ceciel was surely a fine angel. Setting aside whether she was useful in battle, of course.

Above all, she had an appearance that made it easy for people to like her.

Thanks to that, the suspicion and guardedness that had been quietly settled among the people were slowly melting away.

Of course, they had not spoken this out loud.

The subtle flavor I had been sensing for some time was gradually shifting into something like a cupcake taste, sweet and cozy.

“One petal, two, three, four, five. Mine has five!”

“Five. Mine has one, two, three…”

“Four. I win!”

“…There’s one more flower. It’s not over yet.”

“Then I’ll count one more of mine too!”

Children sitting together on the cart, counting the petals of Starflowers as they played.

“Honey, I scraped out what was left of the soup from the pot. Don’t just nurse the baby, make sure you eat too.”

“Thank you. What about you?”

“I got some for myself. Don’t worry about me, just eat.”

Teon’s father, diligently looking after his family just as I had told him to, and his family around him.

“Ga-goo.”

“There, there. Who are you looking at, hm?”

“Bwababba!”

“Silly. There’s nothing there. Are you just bored, hmm?”

“Gwahhh!”

All the way to the babies being held by their parents, who would thrash about the moment they sensed my gaze.

Beyond these, the lives I had saved were breathing and chattering as they moved forward.

It was also the moment Ceciel, who had been excitedly radiating light, noticed something.

“Star Creation, now that I look at it, some of those children seem to have a remarkable ability to feel divine power. When we make a church someday, they might make good candidates for priests?”

“Who knows. We’ll see when the time comes.”

“Honestly! Why are you always so lukewarm about the church!”

I did not have a particular habit of hiding the truth, but this time, I was reluctant to speak it.

The gods who would fight alongside me were, for all intents and purposes, all dead.

The gods who had survived had either been running away from the start… or were nothing but the maddened gods of the Celestial Church. What use would a church be?

Saying this outright would only make her deflate, so instead I offered a poor excuse.

“Being a god born after the great pantheon, I seem to be fundamentally incompatible with the gods of the pantheon itself. I’m sorry.”

“Ah? Oh, was it like that? Oh… No. If anything, I should be the one apologizing…”

Ceciel instantly shriveled up.

Unexpectedly, the excuse worked rather well.

I was relieved that I would not have to put up with demands to build a church for a while.

And so, in a somewhat quieter state, we moved forward along the ruined road.

***

Returning to one’s hometown always brought a characteristic reaction.

Whatever the purpose, one tended to fall into the same single sentiment. But this time, everyone was trembling with fear.

And understandably so.

Terjaohm was blanketed in a gloomy, damp atmosphere.

In particular, there was a particularly eerie contrast between the crumbling building interiors and the pristine-looking outer walls.

“Terjaohm…”

Many were put off the moment they laid eyes on it, but the agitation of those native to Terjaohm, including Nesaro, was by far the greatest.

Other people whose faces had stiffened at the grim rumors were left to casually wonder why.

Among them, Hwen’s sharp voice caught my ear in particular.

“Is it something you know about?”

“There, do you see those traces of a bridge that once stood over the moat surrounding the city?”

Where Nesaro pointed, a deep moat was flowing in full dignity.

Hwen studied it with narrowed eyes, then drew a sharp breath.

“A bridge? …Don’t tell me, that pile of rubble?”

“Nesaro barely escaped out of this place chanting ‘you can do it.’ As you know, the monsters here are mostly of the swimming variety. So if you got trapped in those waterways, it was as good as dead. Nesaro barely escaped, chanting ‘you can do it’ the whole way.”

“I’m sure there were other bridges too. Wasn’t that a bit of an exaggeration?”

“When I ran, that was the last one.”

Nesaro conveyed the experience with vivid detail.

The port city of Terjaohm was a well-developed city that had dug canals connecting to the lower reaches of the river, and used portions of them as moats.

In fact, every time humans had waged war, Terjaohm had avoided being plundered precisely because of those moats.

The problem was simply that this time, the enemy was a demon specialized in swimming.

The canal that cut the city in half, and the moat that encircled the outer walls once more, formed a battlefield overwhelmingly advantageous to Blood-Soaked Mud.

“On days when water mist settled in, we had to be even more alert. I remember that on those days, the moistened air would hydrate the creatures’ mucus membranes, massively increasing both their range and duration of activity.

Ordinary people would find their vision narrowed to the point of barely seeing what was right in front of them. In that kind of situation… many people were caught out because the things mimicked humans.”

Nesaro’s account contained a great deal of information.

The water mist that occasionally settled was likely the authority of Flowing Fog.

From Blood-Soaked Mud’s perspective, the port city of Terjaohm was already a cage of iron bars enclosing laboratory animals.

It was likely the place where, freed from the restrictions of freshwater, it could test its newly gained power and think about how to utilize it.

Considering the level of proficiency in targeting that Aiming Bone Fragment had displayed with its authority, this was a quite plausible conjecture.

Ceciel, who had overheard this conversation thanks to her superior hearing, went pale.

“Star Creation, the enemy’s main force is made up of swimming monsters. I… I’m not a strong swimmer, and the underwater domain was never my jurisdiction…”

“Don’t worry. Terjaohm’s terrain is not solely advantageous to the enemy.”

“…Oh!”

It is a fight we can win.

Having heard my words, Ceciel finally realized what authority I had seized, and let out an exclamation of wonder.

Staring at Nesaro, who was earnestly talking to the people who had gathered around, I quietly clenched my hand.

A port city where the lower river met the sea.

The canals and moats cutting through the city were filled not with saltwater, but freshwater.

And I had in my possession an authority seized from the Surging River.

The fact that the Kneading Fin, Omotl, had possessed this was deeply telling.

“The moment I seized the authority of the Surging River alone, the creature’s plan was already thrown off.”

Blood-Soaked Mud had tried to create a mobile strike force encompassing both freshwater and saltwater.

There had been a reason it clung to negotiating with me to build up its power.

“My seizing of the Surging River’s authority had already disrupted its plan.”

Blood-Soaked Mud had persistently tried to negotiate with me and build up influence for a reason.