Chapter 75 : Mortal Flesh

“Are you… the Goddess?”

Earlier, in the grand cathedral, the woman who had been bound couldn’t be seen clearly due to the overwhelming darkness inside.

And during my last conversation with the Goddess, I had only heard her voice—there was no proof that the injured and bruised woman in front of me now was actually her.

But my instincts told me that she was Lunia, the goddess of this world I had just been speaking with.

From her expression, which showed little emotion, to the mysterious aura around her—

She had the kind of appearance that would make you feel oddly disappointed if she wasn’t a goddess.

The woman—who I presumed was a goddess—quietly looked up at me as I stood, then answered.

“That depends on perspective. A god is a being completed through the reverence and worship of all, wielding omnipotent power. If a being possesses no authority and receives no reverence, can they truly be called a god? From the viewpoint of the current generation of creations, the answer would be ‘no.’”

…Why is she talking like this?

“So, you’re not Goddess Lunia? Then who are you?”

“I was indeed called Lunia.”

This woman…

“Then you are the goddess.”

“As I said, that depends on perspective—”

“Okay, never mind that. Where are we? Did I make it out safely? Where did the other three go? And how did my injuries heal like this? Don’t tell me… I didn’t time-travel again or something, right?”

“Direct interference with the past and future is forbidden, even to gods. It is the unbreakable law of this world. What I can do is merely reflect fragments of the past and show possibilities of an unfixed future. Therefore, travel to the past or future is impossible.”

The way she spoke was so frustrating, it was making me angry just listening to her.

“How much time has passed? And where exactly are we?”

“While you were unconscious, the sky’s cycle repeated twice. From the place where your crisis began, following the moon on the pilgrims’ path, we traveled thirty thousand steps—”

So… two days?

“Can you just explain it simply?”

“Two days have passed. And we are now about 25 kilometers west of the place where you first crossed over into this world.”

Damn, that’s far.

Not impossibly far—so I could meet up with the others again.

But the problem was, there’s a good chance we all went in different directions.

…Wait a second.

“If you can just talk normally, then do it! Back at the cathedral when you spoke with just your voice, you didn’t talk like this! Why are you speaking so weirdly now?!”

“That is because, as one who once possessed divinity—”

“Th-That’s enough!”

Sensing the start of another boring, overly academic conversation, I quickly raised my hand to cut her off and focused on only asking what I needed to know.

Through talking with Lunia—who spoke in the most frustrating, infuriating way imaginable—and combining it with what she’d told me before, I was able to piece together a few conclusions:

First, the “underground worms”—former high priests, shamans, and other such figures from the distant past—had betrayed the goddess.

They bound her with cursed chains and overpowered her, using her power to obtain near-immortal lifespans.

Second, although they extracted and exploited the goddess’s power, they couldn’t use her pure divine energy directly.

They had to put it through a sort of refinement process.

This “refinement process” involved granting that divine power to paladins of previous generations, then leading those paladins into committing various negative deeds.

This would corrupt the power, and the defiled energy would then be returned to the goddess, weakening her further.

In that way, they slowly expanded their influence over her power and made it their own.

This current generation was supposed to be the final step in their plan.

Third, the moment the underground worms injected the corrupted energy into the goddess as the final step, she, in a desperate act, summoned me—a being from another world with a deep spiritual connection to this one—and transferred all of her remaining power to me.

Because of that, she became nothing more than an empty shell, completely powerless.

That’s also why the holy sword of the current paladin, Bryden, had lost its light.

Fourth…

“So, you’re saying you’re not a goddess anymore?”

“That depends on perspect—”

“Simply.”

“Yes.”

The Goddess Lunia had truly lost all her power and was now nothing more than an ordinary human.

According to her, the divinity she had sent to me was her true essence, and her physical body was merely a vessel to contain it.

The moment the vessel came into contact with that essence, she chose to be absorbed into me in order to free herself from the chains that bound her.

That allowed me to wield powers equal to the divinity I possessed and gave us the means to escape.

She had been so weakened from centuries of imprisonment that even as the original owner of the divinity, she couldn’t use its powers freely on her own.

That’s when a question struck me.

“Then all those missions I kept receiving, all the messages popping up in front of me since I came to this world—that was you, right? That was your will?”

“That’s correct.”

Her response made my blood boil. I rolled up my sleeves and stormed toward her.

“You’ve got some nerve. You brought me here because you had things you needed done—shouldn’t you have helped me, then?! But instead, you just got in the way! Do you have any idea how many times I almost died because of you?! Do you know how much that HURT?! You got betrayed by those damn underground worms and suffered for thousands of years, and then you get in my way while I’m trying to fight them?! What do you even want?!”

Overcome with frustration and injustice, I yelled right in her face.

Lunia flinched slightly, surprised, but didn’t avert her gaze.

She blinked a few times and then replied.

“That… wasn’t my fault.”

She’s blaming someone else now?

“Then whose fault is it?”

“I told you before—the traitors extracted my power, corrupted it, and then re-injected it into me. They were continuously weakening me through that process.”

I nodded in response instead of saying anything.

“That process repeated for such a long time that even the traitors themselves may not have realized it… but it seems some remnant of their will, a kind of lingering thought, ended up mixed within me. Not that they were actively controlling me or giving commands—more like their intentions remained, swirling around inside my divinity. I only realized it after I was absorbed into you.”

“So… you’re saying that was the will of those underground worms?”

“Yes. The other voice you heard when praying—that was the wicked will of the traitors, seeking only their own gain. When I sent my divinity into you, that will slipped in along with it. Thankfully, you made the right choices. If you had succumbed even once to its influence, my last desperate gamble would have failed, and this world would have fallen into their hands.”

Realizing that those messages weren’t the goddess’s will but rather the remnants of the underground worms calmed me down a little.

“Uh… so since you were absorbed into me and then came out, that lingering thought must’ve been purified or something by now, right?”

“That is not the case.”

“WHY!!!”

I felt my anger flaring up again.

“That lingering will was mixed in a long time ago… at this point, even I can no longer fully distinguish between my original divinity and the remnants of their will. All I could do was suppress it to keep it from strongly influencing you.”

“So, does that mean those random impulses I got in the middle of battle to just, like, murder people—are those gone now?”

“They might still occur, but they shouldn’t have as much power over you as before.”

“Then you should’ve just erased it from the start!”

“With enough time, it would’ve been possible. But if I had stayed inside you as divinity instead of coming out in this physical form… you would no longer be a person of this world.”

Lunia’s eyes drifted to my side, where I’d once been nearly torn apart.

Instinctively, I touched the large, shimmering scar that still remained there.

“Uh… thanks? I didn’t yell at you earlier because I hate you or anything—”

“It’s fine. After being betrayed by those I once believed were faithful for thousands of years—stripped of all power and freedom—I’ve grown used to it. Now that I’ve lost everything, it makes no difference how anyone treats me. I have no power left. Even if you insult me, shout at me, or even hit me… I won’t mind. I gave up everything just to save you.”

…She’s mad, isn’t she?

Lunia turned away and started walking, but suddenly stumbled and collapsed to the side.

“Ah—!”

“Hey! Lunia! Are you okay?!”

As I caught her in my arms, it was immediately clear just how bad her condition was.

On top of all her visible bruises and wounds, she was emaciated—her flesh nearly gone, and her lips were so dry they looked like they might crack open at any moment.

With her eyes closed, she whispered weakly.

“I suppose… this is where I say farewell. After so many years of being drained… I no longer have the strength to carry on.”

Her speech had always been weird and frustrating, and I’d even gotten angry with her a few times, but I never actually wanted anything bad to happen to her.

She was the one who saved all of us—and to the people of this world, she was their creator.

She’d used the last of her strength to get us out of danger, and now she was on the brink of death.

“Hey, you can’t die like this! There’s still so much I want to ask you, and I haven’t even had the chance to repay you for saving my life!”

“Heh… if anything, I’m the one who should be grateful. You freed me from that dark cathedral dungeon and let me see the light again, even if just at the end. So now, I can… entrust everything to you and return to being part of this world.”

“No way…”

Holding the dying goddess tightly in my arms, I fought back the tears welling up in my eyes.

Grrrrrrrowl—

Then, a loud noise came from the goddess’s stomach.

…Huh?

“…Lunia? You said I was unconscious for two days, right?”

“Yes.”

“Did you eat anything during that time? Or drink water?”

“……?”

“You didn’t?”

“……”

“Do you know what food and water even are?”

“Of course, conceptually. But those are concepts that exist in this world. For me, they—”

“Unbelievable. You absolute dummy.”

One hour later.

“Thanks to you, it seems the day I return to the stars has been pushed back a bit. Only now, after becoming mortal, do I truly understand the gap between conceptual knowledge and real-life experience. I must remember to drink 1 to 2 liters of water daily and eat 2 to 3 meals a day.”

Having chugged down all the water I fetched from the nearby stream and with meat smeared all over her mouth, she looked—

(To be continued…)