—Would Morzan raise his manner of speech to one who is not of a rank worthy of it?
I had no leisure to ask what that meant again.
—You must have many questions... but there is no time now, so I will give you counsel.
“What?”
—I have divided myself into three and passed them to you... The first two, when the moment you need them someday arrives, use them as your last resort. ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) They will surely be of great help.
Power that had settled as a sub-stat of Divine power.
Stat — Morzan.
That stat was a “consumable” stat.
I didn’t know exactly what would happen if I used it.
But just as it said,
it would become a hidden trump for me.
—I advise you to refrain from using the last one if possible.
“Refrain? Why?”
But—
of those trump cards, it told me to hold one back.
—Someday... to achieve transcendence...
Transcendence?
—A world without a god... as you saw, most do not meet a proper ending.
Like Morzan’s world.
Life left without a god can walk a distorted path.
Like our world.
Even if the remaining lives carve a way forward somehow,
they can still collapse in an instant to an outer invasion.
—Even if a mere remnant remains in your world... that too is exceedingly incomplete.
“......”
—The necessary moment will come.
As the flesh fused into me,
and that final piece
entered wholly into my body—
—When that time comes... I want you to love your children enough.
“......”
—I was blinded by pain and made the wrong choice.
It tried to continue speaking.
But it seemed to have fused into me entirely.
—Unlike me, you have done well until now...
—And going forward, surely...
With those words,
its voice was heard no more.
And then—
[Title — One Who Satisfied Morzan]
[You acquire the consumable stat, Morzan, ‘3’.]
Before my eyes,
a new status window rose.
[The flesh of Morzan, Lord of Magi and god of infinite mana.]
[The consumable stat ‘Morzan’ ordinarily has roles and effects similar to ‘Divine power’.]
[As a consumable stat, it can be spent and used as needed.]
[When the stat is spent, Morzan’s Flesh descends.]
[Divine power — 11 (+3)]
[Morzan — 3]
Before this operation, my Divine power was 8.
That alone had been considerable, but—
‘After it decided to believe in me, the increase was 3... and that consumable stat is 3.’
A total of 14 worth of Divine power had taken its place within me.
Even just thinking of what I could do with 1 point had been enormous.
Now fourteen times that.
‘And the effect will surely exceed a simple fourteenfold.’
As with other stats,
the difference between going from 1 to 2 and from 10 to 11 was large.
The higher it goes, the greater the jump in strength feels.
And by feel, this stat called Divine power was far more extreme in that regard.
Power that makes the impossible possible.
The domain of impossibilities I could make possible had surely expanded vastly.
It was undeniably a tremendous result.
A tremendous result, and yet—
‘...Haa.’
Strangely,
I didn’t feel all that great.
****
A mine brimming with mana.
Climbing up through that mine, I thought.
“A remnant of a god...”
Most of what Morzan said was beyond what I could properly grasp right now.
The part I did understand was exactly that.
‘In the end, Earth’s god is dead.’
A remnant remains.
But that remnant seemed to be a fallen state like this one.
So in the end, just as I had already expected,
there is no god left on this Earth.
Not that I had held out hope.
But realizing it anew,
I couldn’t help feeling a little forlorn.
‘If that one had been alive, the world wouldn’t have ended up like this, would it.’
I pictured Chuncheon, where Vimana was set.
Among the cities I’d seen after the fall,
the one that looked the most normal was Chuncheon.
Aside from the buildings that had been swallowed when it became a dungeon and sank under water, much of the old look remained.
But even that,
compared to the past, was a ruin in all but name.
The world was clearly walking the road to destruction.
‘...I don’t know.’
What made it more bitter—
those supposedly mighty “gods”—
in the end, they were things that could fall that low.
My unit, now Demon Hunters,
once clawed to get into the embrace of such a being.
But even they could be extinguished.
And somewhere in this universe, there exists such a being...
“And I might meet it... is that it.”
Right after seeing that being in Morzan’s memories—
I’d trembled with fear.
But now, with things as they are, how should I put it—
it’s too far beyond.
When a matter is too colossal, you don’t even feel fear.
“Right, what’s the point of thinking like this.”
If I were in a situation where I had leisure, that would be one thing.
But the world is still a place where I can’t see an inch ahead.
I don’t have room to worry about something so far beyond.
Just thinking about the immediate future is enough to keep me busy.
Wasting attention and stressing over that side would be as foolish as it gets.
What’s more important is surviving tomorrow.
And to do that...
‘The Mana Reservoir is at least half full.’
It’s checking the results.
There was a message that overcharge would slow future charge rate.
Even so—
when I checked the quest window, I saw it still filling at a considerable pace.
‘Even at worst, within a month we could reach the amount the quest demands.’
As for facility upgrades,
even if I don’t do them myself, elementals can proxy them now.
Fame had been fulfilled from the moment the quest was accepted.
If so—
‘The perk quest to upgrade Vimana... is effectively complete.’
With the thought that we’d hit the immediate goal quickly,
I did my best to shake off the sour mood, smiling as I headed for the surface.
“Ah...”
“Se-Sergeant Shin...”
After climbing up from the mana-filled underground mine and reaching the surface,
I went outside the Gate.
On Basement Level 2,
I saw many soldiers gathered near the Mana Reservoir.
“So, charging looks like it’s going well?”
“Eh? Ah. Yes...!”
“U-Until a few hours ago it was blazing like crazy, cracking and all hell breaking loose... but it’s okay now.”
“Oh? It was?”
From what they said,
that “the Mana Reservoir may overload” warning the System gave wasn’t as light as I’d thought.
“Still, we managed something. We adjusted it to a rate that won’t cause overload. It seems to be absorbing mana at a tolerable speed.”
The mana leaking from the mine, fortunately, only swirled around near this Mana Reservoir.
It wasn’t spilling outside.
“This mana—doesn’t it flare out past the fortress?”
“At first it did... but after that initial eruption, it’s been fine.”
“Good.”
The Mana Reservoir was said to have the ability to confine mana.
Seems that was why.
‘No matter how much mana it is, if it goes outside the fortress, it’s meaningless.’
Endless mana left in the underground mine.
The Mana Reservoir would slowly absorb it.
“Mm. Then it all worked out.”
“Y... Yes...”
“R-Right...?”
But—
how should I put it—
“......?”
There was something...
“Why the faces?”
The looks on the soldiers’ faces as they saw me
seemed a bit strange.
They were weirdly stammering,
and they couldn’t meet my eyes easily.
As if—
they were in serious shock over something.
“What, don’t tell me this is because I filled the Reservoir?”
They were already looking at me like I was something.
And then they experienced that enormous mana erupting like an explosion.
No wonder they were startled.
“I told you, I had a way for all that...”
“N-No.”
“That’s part of it, but...”
“Hm?”
But—
that wasn’t the whole reason.
“Sergeant Shin...”
Even among the soldiers, the one whose expression rarely changed,
Corporal Seo Suhyeok, was, unusually, sweating coldly,
his brow furrowed as he answered.
“It seems you didn’t know, since you were underground.”
“Mm...?”
“When that mana burst out... for a moment, that mana covered the entire fortress.”
“Uh-huh.”
Since they’d said at the initial eruption they couldn’t even confine the mana here,
I could understand that much mana covering the fortress.
But—
“All the soldiers in the fortress were enveloped by that mana.”
“......?”
“The problem is what came next.”
What came next—
even I couldn’t help but be shocked by it.
“In that mana... something like a thought—was heard.”
“...A thought? Don’t tell me—”
“It wasn’t clear, but it felt like someone was having a conversation.”
And—
what he said next—
‘......’
left me
with my mouth hanging open.
****
After Sergeant Shin Youngjun headed underground,
and after the operation began to rain down the specially made shells he had requested—
“Something’s coming up from below...!”
“Mana!”
The noxious miasma that had lingered deep in the mine vanished without a trace,
and an overwhelming mana unlike anything anyone had ever experienced erupted like an explosion.
That mana, trapped within the Gate,
the moment the Gate was opened,
went berserk and smothered the entire fortress.
[Overwhelming mana blankets the area!]
[Temporarily increases mana stat by 5.]
[Temporarily, mana consumption from magic use is drastically reduced.]
“W-What on earth...!”
“You get this much buff just by standing here?”
So immense was that mana
that even those within it received buffs like that.
And—
that wasn’t the real problem.
“L-Look over there! The Mana Reservoir...!”
When an excessively immense amount of mana poured in at once,
the Mana Reservoir tried to absorb that enormous mana in one go.
But no matter how great the fortress’s engineering,
it was only a Level 2 reservoir.
“I-It’s going to blow!”
Absorbing that magnitude of mana in an instant—
was impossible from the start.
Bright light leaked from the reservoir that had been absorbing mana to some extent,
cracks ran through every corner, and it began to shudder as if to break apart.
“We have to calm it down!”
“Calm it down—how the hell are we supposed to...!?”
“How would I know, damn it! We have to try something!”
Demon Hunters who had erected the mana concentration array,
mages with arcane knowledge,
and engineers who oversaw facilities all rushed in.
“Damn it, everyone dope up on Sergeant Shin’s cooking and get in there!”
“Kyooooooo!!!”
It was only a short time,
but events piled on that could’ve made a movie.
“Huff... huff...”
“D-Did we do it?”
“Looks like it...”
They somehow altered the Reservoir’s absorption mode,
slowed the intake, and managed to prevent an explosion from overload.
—You lot... are quite capable.
We could say the same.
It had been such a hard-fought battle
that even the Demon Hunters who hadn’t been blending well with the unit found a peculiar camaraderie with the soldiers.
And—
in that moment—
[...Intriguing....]
“!?”
The soldiers within that dense mana—
heard an unidentified voice
inside their heads.
“W-What is this...!”
A voice entering directly into their minds.
Soldiers who had participated in the Dasmur campaign had experienced something similar before,
but those who hadn’t could only panic.
Even those who had—
“...Ghk!”
—clutched their heads and dropped to their knees when they heard that voice.
“M-My head...!”
“T-That voice, is it... an enemy attack?”
As everyone panicked at the sudden situation—
“No, it’s not like that...!”
The one who realized what the voice was—
was the head of the Demon Hunters,
Wonjun.
“This feeling... is exactly the same... as when you contract with a demon...!”
“!?”
Once in the past,
during the process of Job Changing to [Demon Contractor], he had experienced this.
“A normal human... when hearing the voice of a being whose rank is far too high, can only suffer like this.”
“You’re saying this is the voice of such a being?”
Just as Sergeant Shin Youngjun, in Morzan’s memories, had no choice but to avert his gaze from the external being—
when a low-ranked being faces one of a rank far too high,
its form,
its voice,
its presence—
each and every one exerts a great impact.
What made it all the more curious—
if that voice belonged to a being of such tremendous rank,
[...Deeply satisfied....]
then who was it conversing with,
and—
[My thanks.]
to whom,
was it offering that gratitude?
