< 49 : Under the Name of the Evil God (1) >
“Captain. Is this the place where the angel is?”
A mountain range located in the southwest of the empire.
At the place where rumors of an angel’s descent were rampant, Jenny, a mage, asked Gilford, the mercenary captain.
Gilford, who heard Jenny’s story, looked serious.
It was because of the stories he had heard from the people on his way here.
Gilford nodded and answered Jenny’s question.
“Yes. At least, that’s what it seems like from what we’ve heard so far.”
“But captain, why do you look so pale?”
“I’ve been thinking a lot after hearing the stories of the people who came down from there.”
Gilford had asked many people for directions to get here.
And they all kindly told him the way.
But what bothered Gilford was that all the people he met were friendly to the fallen angel.
A fallen angel was an angel who had abandoned their duty and fallen into evil.
There was no way such a being would do anything beneficial to humans.
But none of the people Gilford encountered expressed any complaints about the fallen angel.
Rather, some of them even carried fruits to offer to the fallen angel.
Gilford was troubled by the shocking sight of the people, and Jenny, who was next to him, agreed with his words.
“True, everyone seemed to like the angel.”
“The problem is that most of them didn’t look like they would believe in the evil god.”
“It’s not like people who believe in the evil god have a mark on their face, right? It’s natural that it’s hard to tell.”
“How can anyone who believes in the evil god be normal?”
Jenny looked at Gilford with a blank expression after hearing his answer.
I agreed with the idea that no sane person would follow an evil god.
But Gilford’s thoughts seemed too far-fetched.
I looked at Jenny, who was staring at me with weary eyes, and Gilford asked her.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I just thought you were surprisingly naive for a leader.”
“If you don’t have the eye to distinguish trustworthy people, it’s hard to survive as a mercenary for long.”
“Well, I can see where you’re coming from. They all seemed friendly enough.”
At least they looked innocent and kind to the eye.
It was hard to imagine that such people were followers of an evil god.
And the relationship between the people who were descending the mountain seemed very harmonious.
An evil cult that was peaceful and friendly.
Those words didn’t seem to match each other.
There was a huge gap between the image of the cult that Gilford and Jenny knew and what they saw.
“We’re almost there.”
Gilford said as he climbed up the rough mountain path and saw a wooden building in the middle of the slope.
Beyond his pointing finger.
There was a wooden building that was being built.
It looked like they were building a new building, as people were busy working on it.
Thud. Thud.
The sound of the mercenaries’ footsteps echoed as they moved toward the building under construction.
When Gilford and his party reached the middle of the mountain, they all exclaimed as they discovered something.
“What is this…”
“Wow…!”
In front of the cave where many people gathered.
There was an angel with wings shining brightly.
A halo shining brightly above its head.
Pure white wings spread out behind its back.
Anyone would see it as an angel descended from heaven.
And above all, the dignity of the angel praying devoutly made everyone unable to doubt Estasia.
“Is that… a fallen angel?”
The being standing in front of the altar looked like a pure white angel.
No one would doubt its identity as it looked pure and holy.
Gilford let out a low voice as he saw the angel.
It looked far from the fallen angels he had in mind.
Jenny, who was looking at Estasia, asked Gilford with a worried voice.
“Leader. Something seems wrong here.”
Gilford felt it too. Something was terribly wrong.
As he approached the praying angel, he felt his body filled with vitality and his wounds healed.
He had experienced this phenomenon once before.
Only the high priests of the temple who required donations to meet could show such miracles.
And even then, their effects were inferior to the miracle that the angel in front of him showed.
He grabbed Ascalon on his waist and asked it.
“Ascalon. Are all fallen angels like that?”
“…It looks like a normal angel. Maybe it hasn’t completely fallen yet.”
“Do you think that makes sense?”
“Even so, the fact that it is a servant of an evil god doesn’t change.”
“…”
“…”
“…I don’t like talking to strangers.”
Clang.
Estasia declared and got up from her seat.
She saw Gilford’s sword on his waist and was shocked.
“Oh, oh, oh, Ascalon…!”
She backed away from Gilford as she saw Ascalon.
She had been praying when Gilford’s voice interrupted her concentration.
The people who were praying raised their heads as they heard her loud voice.
Their eyes were all on Gilford and his party who had disturbed her prayer.
The mercenaries looked flustered by the crowd’s gaze.
Jenny grabbed Gilford’s sleeve with a feeling of pressure, but Gilford ignored her and spoke to Estasia.
“Do you know anything about this sword?”
“I’m an angel… How can I not know about Ascalon?”
“Then it’ll be quick. I’m Gilford, the leader of Gilford’s Mercenaries. I want to talk to you for a moment.”
Estasia tilted her head at Gilford’s words.
She understood that he was a hero who had Ascalon.
But she didn’t understand why she had to talk to him.
“…Talk?”
“Yeah. If you refuse, I’ll have to force you to tell me.”
“…”
“…”
Gilford grabbed Ascalon on his waist as he said that.
He warned her that he could draw his sword at any time if there was a problem.
If she knew about Ascalon, she would surely realize who he was.
That’s why Gilford chose to threaten her with his sword.
But the situation around him didn’t go as he expected.
As soon as Gilford grabbed Ascalon, the people around him stood up and blocked his way to Estasia.
Gilford scanned the crowd that blocked him with a bewildered eye.
“You rotten mercenaries… How dare you… say such things to an angel…!”
Among the crowd that blocked Gilford, there was an old woman who looked very old.
She was blocking Gilford from approaching Estasia with her body that was hard to move.
Gilford’s hand that was holding Ascalon shook as he saw the old woman.
Should he draw his sword or not?
Guilford, who was in a dilemma, spoke to Nopa.
“You have no idea who that woman is. She is–”
“How dare you… try to harm… an angel… who heals… the sick…?”
“She is a demon sent by the evil god–”
“If you want to harm… the angel… you have to kill me first…!”
Nopa, who was raging in front of Guilford, stopped him from finishing his story.
That was not the only thing that made Guilford feel uneasy.
A young child with a branch in his hand jumped out from beside Guilford, who was holding Ascalon.
The child picked up a branch and ran towards Guilford.
Guilford looked at the child who was running at him.
“Don’t bother our angel!”
The child who ran at Guilford stabbed him hard in the side with the branch.
Of course, the branch that the child was holding broke against Guilford’s armor.
But Guilford still felt a sharp pain in his heart.
Guilford stared at the child with a confused look in his eyes.
He came here to do the hero’s work.
But for some reason, he felt like he had become a wicked villain instead of a hero.
“Bad person! Don’t bother the angel!”
“…This is insane.”
“Bad person, go away! We will protect the angel!”
Guilford let go of Ascalon and sighed deeply.
***
Finally, ‘that season’ came along with the scorching heat.
The weather was so hot that opening the door made me feel stuffy.
The humidity and temperature were too high.
And the blazing sun of midsummer that I had to face every time I went out.
It was a season when I couldn’t enjoy comfort without an air conditioner.
I turned on the air conditioner and stayed in my room for the weekend.
“Ah… this is paradise.”
I lay down on the floor with the air conditioner on and looked at the ceiling with a satisfied face.
What is true happiness?
It is rolling on the floor with the air conditioner on full blast.
The cool air conditioner wind brushed my cheek and gave me the greatest happiness.
I picked up my smartphone to play a game while rolling on the floor with the latest cooling technology.
“Then now… let’s see how much karma I’ve accumulated today.”
Lately, I’ve been logging into the game every day and checking the karma that I’ve accumulated.
Thanks to the characters who were busy moving around, karma was accumulating faster as time went by.
Squeak.
I skipped the loading screen and entered the game to check the accumulated karma.
The total accumulated karma was 1722 karma.
Considering how much karma usually increased, it was an unbelievable increase.
“…What? Why is there so much karma?”
Even if I thought about the karma I checked before going to bed, it showed a change in value close to twice as much.
I acquired an enormous amount of karma in just one night.
It was something I couldn’t understand with my previous play experience.
I lowered my gaze to the bottom of the screen and checked the message box that existed there.
There were much more messages in the message box than usual in just one day.
I scrolled through the messages and read them one by one.
Most of the messages were about Cuebaerg.
[Abyssal Demon: Cuebaerg] harvested a life.
<The Divine Voice of Karma> calculates the causality rate.
Karma increased by 28.
[Abyssal Demon: Cuebaerg] harvested a life.
<The Divine Voice of Karma> calculates the causality rate.
Karma increased by 36.
<Karma’s Balance> calculates the causality rate.
Your karma increased by 16.
I reflexively exclaimed in awe as I checked the message that appeared. It was an unbelievable amount of karma that I had gained.
While I was not logged into the game, Cuebaerg had acquired almost a thousand points of karma by himself.
He had earned an amount of karma that was comparable to what I had accumulated so far.
Needless to say, most of it was from hunting down other players’ characters.
What on earth did Cuebaerg do while I was away?
It was incomprehensible unless he had started a war or something.
“Did he start a war or something?”
As I scrolled down Cuebaerg’s message, I saw some information about <Karma’s Balance> at the bottom.
<Karma’s Balance> was a trait that imposed a causality penalty whenever I acquired karma.
It adjusted the game’s difficulty according to the amount of wealth I obtained.
Of course, there had to be a causality adjustment for the karma I had gained this time.
I read the message related to <Karma’s Balance> at the very bottom of the message box.
-Warning: Karma that is excessively biased in one direction has a high possibility of triggering <Causality Adjustment>.
-<Karma’s Balance> tilted.
-A low-level <Causality Adjustment> occurred.
-Due to <Causality Adjustment>, [Artifact: Hieroglyph] was unlocked by one level.
Causality Adjustment Progress: 7%
As expected, <Karma’s Balance> had proceeded with a causality adjustment for the karma I had gained this time.
The causality adjustment rate had increased by about 3% compared to last time, reaching 7%.
The causality adjustment rate also increased proportionally to the sudden increase in accumulated karma.
The result of this causality adjustment was the unlocking of [Artifact: Hieroglyph].
It had a different name from [Artifact: Ascalon] that I had read last time, but there was no doubt that the boss monster had become one level stronger than before.
“It still seems manageable for now… but I don’t know what will happen in the future.”
I lifted up my smartphone and looked at the screen, feeling uneasy about the situation that had changed drastically in an instant.
I didn’t feel it much yet, but the game’s difficulty was steadily increasing.
There might come a time when I would feel frustrated by the game’s difficulty and reach the limit of my growth.
How much money would I have spent on this game by then?
As I was staring at the screen with worry, a small anomaly occurred on my smartphone.
“What’s this?”
Ding.
A banner popped up at the bottom of the screen with a cheerful notification sound.
I opened my eyes wide and looked at the new banner.
The banner had information about the summer event.
Summer event.
It was an event that almost every game would do at least once.
And this game’s summer event had shocking content that I had never expected.
Limited event! Get an extra 10-draw ticket when you use a 10-draw ticket!
<Caution> You can only receive the 10-draw ticket once.
It was a 10-draw payback event.
As soon as I saw the banner, I touched the shop button as if I was possessed by a ghost.
