The Outer God Needs Warmth – Chapter 67

“Long live! Long live! Long, long live!”

People in black attire with faces covered by cloth raise both arms and shout. Wait, shouldn’t people living on the continent say “ten thousand years” instead of “thousand years”? I don’t understand why they’re referring to a king below the emperor.

“Heavenly Demon Divine God! Ten thousand demons prosperous fortune!”

As if I’ve come to some army, there’s sharpness in the movements of their swinging arms. When they say “ten thousand demons prosperous fortune”, everyone bows low.

“Divine teaching invincible! Demonic way rules the world!”

Then they rise again, wave their arms and hands, then bow to the ground again, repeating this twice.

This isn’t some idol concert venue, but they move enthusiastically as a person appears opposite me.

A strangely muscular woman? No, it’s a man.

Whether due to hormonal imbalance or something, his pelvis is oddly protruding and looks either partially transformed or in the process of transforming.

He is definitely a man. A man in women’s clothing?

“Are you the Four Seasons’ Chaos who they say led the Martial God?”

His voice is quite high. But it’s a male voice.

It doesn’t seem like he’s forcing his voice, but there’s still awkwardness remaining.

The faded man in my memories exclaims in admiration, saying “primitive ancient Heavenly Demon, are you crazy?”

Primitive ancient Heavenly Demon?

Ah. Right.

That’s who he’s talking about. He was from the Sun Moon Divine Cult. Since the faded man never actually saw that work with his own eyes, the knowledge itself is very fragmented, but I know he’s someone who appeared as a mid-boss and died.

A man whose gender identity is damaged by learning the martial arts of eunuchs.

But what’s this about a Martial God?

Martial God. The atmosphere feels somewhat like a martial arts novel, but who is it?

I recalled all the harvesters.

First, I exclude harvesters with strange worldviews or non-human harvesters.

Anyway, excluding the first world, there aren’t that many…

The most plausible figure.

“Are you perhaps talking about Eunjae?”

At that, I hear murmuring from around me. They’re saying it’s not the person we thought. I guessed wrong, it seems.

Have I messed up?

At that moment, the man in front raised his hand.

Then they orderly close their mouths and bow their heads.

He’s a person with tremendous charisma.

It doesn’t seem like a society that would easily allow such attire, but if it’s not Eunjae’s world, the culture could be completely different.

“That’s the Martial God’s real name. Very few know it. It seems you didn’t call out something completely wrong.”

As he said this, the man in women’s clothing approached me. Up close, it’s even more obvious. He’s trying to hide it with clothes, but you can still see the skeletal structure that can’t be concealed.

Some feminization has progressed, but there seem to be limits that can’t be overcome with just that.

But why would someone like this call me?

“Four Seasons’ Chaos. A legendary monster that appears before the despairing, emits an indescribable energy, and vanishes. But when the Martial God was still called the Heavenly Demon. When he was attacked by thugs calling themselves righteous sects and gravely wounded, it’s said he met the Four Seasons’ Chaos and obtained a new body and transcendent power.”

He pointed at me with a finger painted stark white.

“Spirit possessing that child’s body. Are you the Four Seasons’ Chaos?”

If that’s Eunjae, then yes.

But here, I’ll deny it.

“No. I don’t have such a name.”

It seems I can’t use the name the faded man had no matter what, so I gave up on naming myself.

Anyway, not having a name doesn’t greatly hinder obtaining warmth.

“But if you ask whether I bestowed upon Eunjae what some called a blessing, then yes. That’s correct. I did it.”

I don’t lie.

As always, I speak the truth. Someone called it a blessing. But the actual phenomenon that occurs is different. I pour myself in and cause mutations.

Still, it’s true it was called a blessing.

It’s important to create escape routes like this.

“You speak exactly like that bastard I know. You smell just like that filthy swindler.”

He suddenly frowned. And took a step back.

Oh? Did I make a mistake?

As I nervously look around, he snapped his fingers.

Then after about 1 second.

Something is wriggling inside my head.

A creature touching my brain? I hear the sound of bugs crawling, stimulating my brain to cause pain.

It feels awful.

A multi-legged bug crawls around inside my head, touching my brain. From the frontal lobe to the occipital lobe, then to where the spine begins, it bites the nerve bundles.

It hurts.

Hmm.

What?

It’s nothing compared to the cold. Thinking it’s time to counterattack, I looked at the man. But suddenly the ground is coming closer.

Thud.

My body suddenly bent strangely and collapsed to the floor.

What is this?

Ah. Is this an unconditional reflex?

Right. If you can stimulate the brain, of course you can affect signals going to the spine. The legs scratched the nerves, so my body lost balance and convulsed.

Hmm. Bug. A bug.

There’s light?

Hehe.

Conveniently right in front of me to have warmth taken, I stole the warmth.

Crack!

Oops. A mistake.

A grotesquely twisted bug burst out, completely destroying my head. Come to think of it, if you only take warmth while alive, they become monsters like this.

The bug keeps getting bigger without eating anything.

How does this work with conservation of mass?

Such a question arose in a corner of my mind.

The bug twists wildly, changing into an asymmetrical and nonlinear body. It means it changed into a useless form.

But for another reason, its survival time was very short.

“Cult Leader!”

“Your Eminence!”

People around urgently cry out.

But the cross-dressing man’s hand was faster than that.

In an instant, black energy gathered in his hand as if being sucked in, then a line mixed with black and red was drawn in the air. And that line chopped the bug to pieces.

Seeing him dusting off his hand with the edge raised, it seems he killed it barehanded.

He’s strong.

No, isn’t it too difficult to lead such an opponent in the direction I want?

But even in this situation, I need to increase harvesters.

What can I do?

I stood up.

Killing intent, as it might be called, flows in explosively from all directions.

Crack.

A huge crack forms where my head was. And after that disappears, there stands a woman with purple hair.

That’s me.

I opened my mouth with my newly made head.

“How primitive to leave a parasite in your body until it grows this large.”

Thinking about what the cross-dressing man just did, I know it was a bug inserted to control people.

Of course, it doesn’t bother me at all.

Honestly, it’s someone else’s body.

It’s just like having a status effect on your avatar in a game.

I did wonder if the status effect would disappear, but it’s relieving that it left on its own.

While at it, I looked for more, but there’s no light besides that one.

Just one.

This was a shocking sight, right?

It seems better to take the initiative here with this for convenience later.

“Now that trivial prank is over? Then, before moving on to talk about the contract, let’s introduce ourselves.”

I’m saying I’ll overlook inserting the bug as a trivial prank level.

By the way, I’m an expert at reading expressions. The cross-dressing man’s expression subtly distorted, showing my intention got through.

He’s very uncomfortable and tense.

Hehe.

Then, let’s approach the physical education person literarily. Martial arts is physical education, right? They wouldn’t have given up on language?

“I am a very cold sea. I look up at the light from below the surface and desire the warmth the light has. I still lack warmth. I’m very lacking. I want warmth. I’ll do anything for warmth. That’s why I’ve come here now.”

And I took a step forward.

The split cracks are slowly healing, but the limit is near. If I’m not careful, this place could shatter like the first world.

I can probably regenerate only once more from now on.

But even if it’s dangerous, I decided to act confident here. If this is Eunjae’s world, it’s quite similar to martial arts novels.

Especially those in front of me are a group that looks up to and obeys the strong.

If I show too weak an appearance, I might be taken advantage of instead.

“This is my name.”

I looked at the cross-dressing man while introducing myself.

As if no other name was needed, he answered shortly.

“Heavenly Demon.”

Then people around mention various titles like Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, or Great Lord of Mount Cham. Most are titles explaining the achievements of the person in front of me.

After some time passed, the cross-dressing man raised his hand.

Then instantly, everyone around closed their mouths.

It would be quite a threatening sight to humans, but to me it only looks like several sources of warmth.

Now it’s time to consult in earnest.

“Is that so? Is the human ritual called greetings over? Now for the main point.”

While saying what you just did has no value, I say what I really need to say.

“I’ll give myself to you. In exchange, when you finish everything later, I’ll take everything you have then. How about it?”

I extended my hand to the cross-dressing man.

No, at this point I should say it like this.

“Do you want power?”