Ch.1146Beginner Support Package

To twist what might have been a predetermined future, Elpinel proposed tearing through the dimensional wall and summoning a soul from beyond to throw a massive variable into the world’s fate.

“Hmm, the chances of success are infinitesimally low, and whether we succeed or fail, there’s no next step…? Literally betting everything we have…”

It was an uncertain plan that even Elpinel, who conceived it, couldn’t guarantee would succeed—a gamble that would consume vast divine power and, if it failed, would confirm their defeat.

“I love it. Let’s do it right away.”

“The risk is great, but perhaps it’s the best—no, the only solution we have.”

Menes applauded the gambling-like plan with high praise, and Saulite, after brief contemplation, nodded in agreement.

“But are there actually people beyond dimensions? What if some giant worm monster comes out instead?”

Imela expressed concern about accidentally summoning some disaster.

Her tone was half-joking as usual, but her worry about the danger was genuine.

The world beyond dimensions was a completely unknown realm, even to them who had ascended to godhood.

It was questionable whether intelligent beings even existed there, and even if they did, whether they could communicate with this world was unknown.

Even if all those conditions were met, there was no guarantee that the summoned being would be benevolent enough to act according to their wishes.

If they happened to summon a monster more cunning and evil than Alfodhr, they might end up adding to the world’s calamities by their own hands.

In fact, even the Void, which was spatially separated like the heavens but not a separate dimension, was filled with all sorts of monsters.

The void beasts born from the abandoned illegitimate child of Bellona of Death, and from the blood and flesh that child had shed.

If the space beyond the dimensional wall was filled with such monsters, contact itself would be extremely dangerous, so Imela’s concerns couldn’t be dismissed as groundless.

“Well, even if it’s a worm monster, if it has a soul and intelligence, it might be good inside.”

However, Astraea countered Imela’s concerns with a more optimistic and hopeful outlook.

“What if it acts according to how it looks?”

“…Even then, with enough time, I’m sure we could reform it.”

She suggested that even if the summoned being was evil, they could reform it into a good being by taking time to teach it righteousness.

“Well… if you say so, I guess that’s that.”

Imela nodded with a wry smile.

She knew well that this “reformation” meant sermons that gave no time to sleep, violence in the name of judgment, and repeated mental reconditioning that involved healing when the subject was near death.

…Well, if that somehow corrected an evil mind, wouldn’t that be a good thing?

They were longtime companions, and it was a hundred or thousand times more merciful than outright execution, so Imela had no intention of criticizing it at this point.

“…If everyone agrees, I will not voice any objections.”

As the consensus among the other ascended gods solidified toward agreement, Ceres, who had been silent, also expressed her consent.

—-

And so began the final plan.

Elpinel, with the cooperation of the other five celestial gods, captured a fresh soul from beyond the dimensional wall in exchange for an immense amount of divine power.

Perhaps it was divine fortune, but the soul they fished out was surprisingly similar to a human soul from this world.

Though its color was somewhat murky, suggesting it hadn’t lived a completely virtuous life, its essence still contained goodness, and the strength of the soul was robust enough not to break easily.

‘Good, a soul of this caliber…’

It was an achievement that could be called a great success without exaggeration.

Elpinel, delighted that the first step of the plan had aligned perfectly, immediately proceeded to the next phase.

Soul modification.

The vessel for the soul—in other words, the “hero’s” body—was already prepared, so now they needed to modify the acquired soul to fit that vessel.

Of course, modifying a soul didn’t mean transforming a cowardly petty thief’s soul into that of a legendary hero—such drastic changes were impossible.

Although they had caught a surprisingly resilient soul, it was still just a human soul without a trace of divine power.

Excessive modification could cause the soul itself to shatter under the strain.

Therefore, the six ascended gods mobilized together to carefully and cautiously modify the otherworldly soul.

“Since it’s from a different world, to prevent it from perishing miserably before adapting… we should inject knowledge that will help in advance.”

“Knowledge injection? Can a soul in this state endure that? Won’t the shock distort or shatter its sense of self?”

“We’ll have to use an indirect method to minimize the shock. Menes, with your ‘Dream Gallery,’ you can show dreams even to a soul without a body, right?”

“Ah, well, I can do that… but what kind of knowledge should I inject?”

“Well… guidelines about what to do and what not to do?”

The primary matter discussed was how to ensure the otherworldly soul would safely settle in this world and act as they desired.

In the past, it would have been sufficient to send it down to the mortal realm and occasionally speak to it to reveal its future path, but that method was no longer available.

Since Carlos the Great had erected the Heaven’s Wall, albeit imperfectly, separating heaven and earth, celestial beings now had to expend enormous divine power to convey their will to the mortal realm.

The six celestial gods, including Elpinel, had already depleted vast amounts of divine power to summon the otherworldly soul.

In such a situation, if they were to lavish revelations, they would not even have enough power left to bless their clergy, and it was clear they would no longer be able to call themselves gods.

Of course, the six of them were prepared to step down from their divine thrones if they could achieve their revenge, but precisely because of this, they needed to be cautious about expending divine power.

If they wasted such a precious resource in that way, they might find themselves powerless to act when truly necessary, forced to merely watch helplessly.

“But how do we teach what needs to be done in the future? Even we don’t know that yet.”

“…We can use Kranus.”

Kranus, a weapon created during the time when dwarves were engaged in civil war divided by bloodlines.

It was a satellite communication device created to bypass the firewall of the artificial god Regin, which was the foundation maintaining the country of Himmel, and access its core.

“The bypass device for Regin? Won’t that be blocked after just one or two more uses? I think we overused it during Carlos’s time and got our tracks noticed.”

The ascended gods had secretly seized this machine during the chaos following the civil war, and hundreds of years later, used it to transmit all of Himmel’s state secrets to Carlos the Great.

The coordinates of underground cities built by dwarves, the structural weaknesses of those cities, the number and deployment of garrison troops, and the flaws in the surveillance network.

Carlos used this confidential information to collapse Himmel’s underground cities along with their residents, and as the rear began to crumble, the dwarves eventually had no choice but to abandon the fight and surrender.

If they had insisted on a full-scale war, they would have lost massive troops to his firepower, so it could be said that the stolen machine was used very efficiently.

The problem was that this incident caused Regin to become highly vigilant against such external access.

Although Regin couldn’t warn the dwarves because its means of communication with the ground had been cut off, it had since been paranoidly strengthening its firewall.

According to the ascended gods’ predictions, after one more connection, or two if they were lucky, Kranus itself would likely be damaged by a counterattack.

“That’s why we should use it now. It will be blocked eventually anyway.”

However, Saulite argued that they should use it now for that very reason.

Regin’s tracking was undoubtedly ongoing, so even if they didn’t connect, the existence of Kranus would eventually be exposed.

“Indeed… that might be true. Those dwarves are unmatched in their persistence. The machine they created is probably the same.”

As the other ascended gods gradually agreed with this argument, Elpinel decided to use Kranus once more to access Regin’s system as everyone suggested.

They would use Regin’s computational resources to their limit to predict numerous future possibilities, hundreds or thousands of failures and successes, to create a guidebook for the “hero.”

Of course, since Regin couldn’t measure the movements of those who had awakened divine status, no matter how many calculations it performed, it couldn’t know the exact future…

‘But it should still be helpful. At least until the demigods start moving in earnest.’

For a while at least, such imprecise information seemed sufficient.

The role of the guidelines they intended to inject was to advise and warn the otherworldly soul, who would be born as a talented child, to adapt safely to this world and grow stronger.

Therefore, the information to be conveyed only needed to cover the enemies the “hero” would face during the period when they were still weak, before growing into a being worthy of the name.

By the time the Heaven’s Wall approached its limit and the demigods began to move in earnest, the hero would already be able to overcome crises with their own power, even without any information.