Chapter 69 – Return of the God

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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There were exactly two reasons a god, superior in every way, would create angels.

The first was to have someone to handle trivial tasks. It apparently looked unseemly for a great god to get involved in too many petty things.

That was something said as a joke… in truth, gods were better at trivial tasks too.

The real reason was that people feared gods.

No matter how benevolent or generous a god might be, the fear rooted in the hearts of followers could not be swept away.

One needed look no further than myself for proof.

I had not particularly held authority over others, and I had respected their opinions.

My appearance was also somewhat human-like.

But the people clearly delighted more at seeing the angels, as though a familiar face was simply nicer.

The moment people saw Anniel following after Ceciel, they cheered with both arms spread wide.

“An angel! An angel!”

“O light, lead us to victory…”

“Isn’t that Anniel? I thought they had passed away?”

Even a few who had followed from Ranium recognized her immediately.

It seemed Anniel was known to some degree, if not quite as much as Ceciel.

Anniel even performed a wave toward the crowds welcoming her.

“Our blessed god, the Godfather of Stars, has given me another chance. Let us all give thanks to the Godfather of Stars for permitting this reunion.”

“Goodness. I was convinced they were gone for good.”

“This is no time to pull long faces. You should be smiling! O Godfather of Stars, be praised!”

“Long live the Godfather of Stars!”

Watching the people rejoice at one more angel, my feelings were complex.

I found myself wondering if I should have done this sooner.

Of course, I could not forcibly rouse souls that had just escaped suffering and entered eternal rest.

Even the greatest angel in the world was facing a power inflation where they would be instantly wiped out.

Creating angels from the souls I had gathered… would likely be the last resort.

I had to make use of the existing angels as much as possible first. Creating new ones when there were already angels to spare would be wasteful.

I had already decided how to use the angels.

A short while later, I conveyed this plan to Ceciel and Anniel, who had returned to the watchtower.

“You want us to take turns searching the shelters?”

“It is unavoidable. Now that Blood-Soaked Mud has been killed, the Sun God will have recovered that much power. The speed at which the dark radiance deepens may accelerate. Please understand we cannot waste time.”

“But… none of us would be able to find them alone…”

“Afterglow Constellation and Ever-Weeping Constellation have already mapped the area around the shelters. You need only bring them back safely.”

At that moment, the night sky twinkled powerfully.

Afterglow Constellation and Ever-Weeping Constellation. The two stars had noticed their names being called and were twinkling as they looked this way.

Ceciel, for her part, was not at all pleased.

Ceciel stuck out her lip and tapped the floor pointlessly with the tip of her foot.

“…Hmph.”

The one who recoiled in discomfort at this and restrained Ceciel was none other than Anniel beside her.

“Star Creation is right. Ceciel, you should not be so obvious about it either. Obedience and submission. Were they not the most basic creed given to angels?”

“It would have been better if we could meet the others before spreading out.”

It seemed the thought of not being able to see the angels they had parted from was weighing on her mind.

However, the other angels still needed a great deal of time to restore their will.

I conveyed this fact in a slightly… roundabout way.

“It seems the shock and wounds of being murdered have not yet fully healed for them. Ceciel, even without pressing, you will meet them. Anniel is already at your side. I also believe your companions will gladly come forward once they have gathered their hearts. Do not be impatient; wait while doing what must be done.”

“…Yes. I’ll do as you say, Star Creation.”

Only then did the sulky manner soften.

Ceciel, silently gripping her sword.

Anniel, standing beside her, praised her warmly while simultaneously giving a thumbs up toward me.

Moving her lips silently, without sound.

‘If it had been me trying to calm her, it would have taken quite a while.’

It seemed Anniel was making up for her lacking combat power with mental fortitude.

Watching her somehow manage to coax and bring Ceciel along, I found myself unknowingly giving a thumbs up in return.

With this, the survivor problem was handled…

The next thing to resolve was how to secure salt.

Perhaps because things had eased a little, for the first time in a while I had a clear sense of what needed to be created.

-Exercise of Rights, Life

-Exercise of Rights, Crossroads

When I looked down at the sticky mucus seeping from my hands, the countless possibilities within it brightened everything before my eyes.

Now was the time to select those possibilities one by one.

“You’d be better as a tree.”

***

After a harsh summer, a plentiful autumn came at last.

Though many people were lost in the battle against Blood-Soaked Mud, it was by no means a meaningless death.

After the fierce battle, we gained precious time to regroup and gather others.

It helped greatly that the Black Sun was unable to rise, enduring the constraint imposed on it.

With the assaults calm for a time, my influence naturally expanded.

Without the Black Sun pressing down on every other light with its thick dark radiance, the empty void had to be filled.

Of course, I was still far short of dominating the whole world.

But within the territory Blood-Soaked Mud had governed, it was sufficient.

Standing quietly atop the watchtower and lending an ear, simply paying attention, was enough to see and hear.

Even what conversations were happening in the shelters Ceciel had gone to visit.

‘He, heavenly being. Have you come to lead us?’

‘Indeed. Ahem. The God Who Makes Stars wishes to accept you. Head to Terjaohm. I will keep the road you travel on safe, so do not worry.’

‘Terjaohm… there…’

‘The God Who Makes Stars will be waiting.’

‘Ooooh!’

These were the last survivors within the territory Blood-Soaked Mud had governed.

Including those Ceciel would bring, once all were gathered at Terjaohm, 820 people in total.

Roughly a hundred new people found and brought in.

It had been worth sending Anniel and Ceciel out without rest.

One more thing that made me shrug my shoulders was the favorable reception toward the new life I had created.

The Salt-Fruit Tree. Even the name was intuitive.

Its function was nothing more than absorbing salt from the surrounding environment and expelling it through the leaves… a tree-like fungal mycelium.

Still, to those who did not know the full details, it looked precisely like a tree.

Just one that seemed slightly dried and withered.

But once it had expelled all its salt, the bare branches would become laden with clusters of salt crystals, and this sight looked just like fruit hanging from a tree.

People would gaze up at the salt fruit on the branches and grow nostalgic.

“Look how it sparkles white…”

“Never seen this anywhere else. Must be the god’s divine work, eh?”

The occasional person thought it was actual fruit and bit into one.

They immediately spat it out and teared up, but.

Those who had already had the experience would laugh watching someone else get fooled by the salt fruit.

“Ptooey, pth! What is that? It’s salty! This is salt!”

“Hahahaha!”

But the greatest change the Salt-Fruit Tree brought was undoubtedly in the diet.

The old seasoning method of shaving strips off dried jerky changed completely.

Now people would stir the big pot and, feeling it was bland, toss in one or two salt fruits.

In an already hardship-filled journey, the saltiness of proper seasoning breathed fresh energy into people’s faces.

Even for the representatives gathering for the first time in a while.

Militia leader Hwen, Cleric Bartol, Officer Ryugen, the timid Nesaro, and the coward Shek, stepping up in place of the carpenter Ad.

“I intend to tell you about our next destination. When you’ve finished, gather on the watchtower.”

I pulled them aside from among the laughing, chattering people.

Shortly after.

The watchtower was filled with the sounds of gasping and panting.

“Huuugh, huff. Haah…”

“Was there a need to run up?”

“Th, the great one called for us. Hh, hoo. How could we dawdle?”

If even the military-trained Ryugen was barely catching his breath, the others went without saying.

Only one person, Hwen, was looking around with a sharp voice, scolding everyone.

“With stamina like this! Old man aside, he’s practically on borrowed time, but the young ones should be taking the stairs at a march!”

“On, on borrowed time. Hwen, what awful things to say.”

“Could happen any day now. Old man, mind yourself.”

One could easily guess what their married life had been like before the divorce.

The only one who could take Bartol’s place and say something was me alone.

To settle the ever-indignant Hwen, I brought up the reason for calling them here.

“Do not scold too harshly. I called suddenly, so it’s only natural the breathing is rough. Those who find breathing burdensome may simply listen for now. However, as this concerns our next destination, I would like you all to be a little focused.”

“Huff, haah…! W, wait just a moment!”

“I am, catching, my breath.”

While waiting for Shek and Nesaro to recover, I finished organizing my thoughts.

Last Comet was a roguelike game with a strong element of randomness.

But within each ever-changing playthrough, there were a few locations that never changed.

The headquarters of the Celestial Church, Salutaris, which would be the end of the long journey and where the Sun God had laid its trap.

The Orrak Great Plains, where the fallen dragons had burrowed underground and settled.

And the cursed city, the imperial capital of Abenstraum, where mages who had turned their backs on heaven and the survivors converged.

It was at this moment that Ryugen let out a sigh and stepped forward.

Ryugen looked at Shek and Nesaro with pitying eyes, then asked politely.

“Star Creation, is there a place you have in mind?”

“Yes. The imperial capital, Abenstraum.”

“Abenstraum.”

The expression on Ryugen’s face as he turned over the word on his tongue was nothing short of gloomy.

Understandably so. Abenstraum was the place the Lion Shield Legion had escaped with their lives.

But in the setting, it was a city blessed at the very center of this land, and in the actual game as well, the road to Salutaris always passed through Abenstraum.

The Black Sun and its allies would know this and try to stop us.

Something capable of being even a little helpful was needed. I approached Ryugen and appealed.

“Ryugen. Your counsel will likely be needed in heading there.”

***

For mages, a dream was a bridge linking the world within one’s mind to the world outside.

The process of aligning one’s inner world with the outer world — that was what they called dreams.

But someone might say otherwise.

A dream was something that appeared when a great being had something to convey.

It was a conversation approached in person so that no words might be misconstrued.

Creak, creak.

The old man who had been sitting in a rocking chair enjoying a pleasant dream abruptly scrunched up his face.

Though he had covered his eyes with an eyepatch, he could still distinguish the light and dark of brightness.

“I was certain I had entered imagining a warm coastal shore.”

The old man spilled out complaints and stood up from his chair.

The seaside that had been showing white sand and breaking waves grew disheveled with every blink of an eye.

The sea was covered in dirty foam, and the sun lost its light and faded.

Sticky blood began to well up between the grains of sand, and a damp, unpleasant sea mist rolled in to envelop everything.

But what made the old man’s spine prickle was something else.

Crunch.

The sound of footsteps stepping on sand grains approaching.

Clank, clank.

A strange friction, like chains striking one another.

The old man knew very well whose steps these were.

“Th, the Sun God. How!”

-He was grabbed by the collar and hoisted up in the literal blink of an eye.

Golden gauntlets heated far more intensely than iron quenched in a furnace, pressure enough to turn a boulder to diamond in one sweep, was crushing the old man’s windpipe.

The old man gripped the Sun God’s arm with every ounce of strength, but.

Szzzzzt!!

“Urk, uurrk, hk, hkk.”

Instead, the hand gripping the Sun God was the one scorching.

With his fingers melted into place, unable to pull them free, the old man could only stamp his feet.

The Sun God opened its mouth roughly around the time the old man’s flailing began to slowly subside.

“Are you curious how I came to stand before you?”

“…Uck, hkk.”

“I am contemplating as well. Your petty internecine conflict is feeding the enemy’s power day by day… it might actually be correct for me to be first to smash you all to death.”

“…..”

“That is what I was considering. Regrettably, I cannot.”

The Sun God released the throat it had seized on its own, before the constraint could force it to.

Freed, the old man collapsed and exhaled everything he could manage.

But a scorched handprint had already been branded onto the old man’s neck like a seal.

Even this alone could not fully absorb the heat, and pus-filled boils were welling up in vivid red-purple splotches along the veins.

A ghastly sight, yet the Sun God showed no compassion.

The Sun God glared at the old man, who was twisting in pain and unable to answer, and rendered its verdict.

“The God Who Makes Stars is heading toward Salutaris. To dare challenge me.”

“Haaff, haaf. Hff…”

“Remember this. I do not like to be challenged.”

Thud.

The Sun God gently stepped on the old man’s back with one foot.

The old man bit his lower lip hard trying to endure the pain, but could not stop the blood from seeping out in the end.

This was not a Sun God that would stand by and watch.

Crack.

The Sun God raised a fist toward the writhing old man, continuing its words.

“And I do not fear constraints. Every world I have forged came under the banner of certain sunrise and certain victory. No cunning trick or petty scheme holds any meaning before the rising sun.”

“Ugh, hkk.”

“Therefore, pathetic creature, when you wake, do what must be done.”

Crunch.

A single punch crushed the solid skull.

And as the dream’s owner died, the lucid dream also reached its end.

The beach that had been growing disheveled transformed wholesale into sand grains stained with blood and began to pour away.

The old man had also become one of those grains of sand.

But even within the scattering dream, the Sun God surveyed the old man with no trace of injury, composed and aloof.

“Dream-Shedding Eye. Stop the God Who Makes Stars at Abenstraum. Without fail.”

“Haaff, haaff, haaff, haaff.”

“Fail to do so, and I shall come to you before the God Who Makes Stars does and put you to death.”

“Aaagh, aaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!!”

[Whatever price must be paid.]

At last, when the Sun God’s revelation was complete, the old man’s scream tore the world apart.

At the end of the lucid dream that had turned to a nightmare, all that remained was a bleak reality.

Eyes fused to a mirror.

In the cold audience chambers of a court that no one visited, a mirror with eyes set into it sat alone atop the throne.

The great demon commanding dream-eaters, Dream-Shedding Eye, had inadvertently looked at the edge of the mirror.

[The Sun God… the Sun God is returning….]

The black, scorched handprint was creeping and spreading like frost that seeps through in winter.