< 56 : The Necromancer King, Arcrosis (3) >
Another exhausting day has passed.
I had promised myself to survive on ramen for a while, but my weary body overpowered my frugal spirit.
The result was the beer and convenience store chicken that were now on the table.
Click.
I opened a can of beer that I bought in a pack of four for a cheap price and took a sip.
The cool sensation in my mouth seemed to wash away the fatigue of the day.
After refreshing my mouth with the beer, I looked at the TV screen where the news was playing.
“This is the world news. The unrest that was occurring in some African countries is spreading across the continent.”
“It has been 20 days since the situation started in South Africa, the capital of the Republic of…”
The TV was showing the world news as usual.
The African continent had been quite noisy since the last time.
It didn’t really affect me much, since it was a story from a faraway land.
It was almost on the other side of the globe, no matter how short I looked at it.
It was natural to feel a distance from the news of the global village.
“Is there anything interesting?”
Beep.
I pressed the button on the remote control to change the channel.
I was hoping to find an interesting movie on TV.
But no matter how many times I changed the channel, I couldn’t find a movie that I liked.
I was too lazy to go online and search for one.
I just left the TV on some random channel and took out my smartphone to start playing a game.
“Ah, I’ll just play a game.”
Since it was an idle game, the characters in the game moved on their own without me controlling them.
I just wanted to eat chicken while watching the game.
As I launched the game and touched the loading screen to move on to the next screen, I saw the characters moving busily.
They looked like believers who were cutting and moving wood around.
They seemed to be repairing the broken church.
As I watched the busy believers, I quickly switched the screen to check the remaining karma.
“I wonder how much karma I have accumulated today.”
I read the karma value that was floating in one corner of the screen.
1972 karma.
It almost felt like I was looking at a year.
The overall increase of karma had slowed down significantly since Kueberg’s karma acquisition rate had decreased.
Moreover, I had lost some believers due to the attacks from external forces, and the bonus from faith had also decreased.
It was natural that the karma acquisition rate had decreased, as two bad news had overlapped.
The only surprising thing was that there was a karma value obtained by [The Necromancer King: Arcrosis].
“The karma itself didn’t increase much… but there’s a new item added this time.”
Swish.
I scrolled down the accumulated messages to find the messages about Arcrosis.
Below are the messages that always informed me about Kueberg’s hunting.
There were new messages that appeared because of Arcrosis.
[The Necromancer King: Arcrosis] has performed a sacrifice for you.
Sacrifices offered to you: 42
The effect of <The Divine Voice of Karma: Sacrifice> is activated.
The karma increased by 84, proportional to the number of sacrifices offered.
The number of believers in the church increased significantly.
Some believers acquired the <Fanatic> trait.
The karma increased by 14.
As I slowly looked at the messages that appeared, the first thing I saw was a message that Arcrosis had sacrificed for me.
A creature, not a character, had performed a sacrifice for me directly.
It was a contrast to Kueberg, who had only obtained karma through hunting.
As I scrolled down a bit more, I also saw a message that the number of believers had increased greatly.
The increase of believers at the same time as the sacrifice.
I couldn’t help but wonder about the two incompatible messages.
“How can they become believers after being sacrificed?”
To perform a sacrifice, one had to offer a character.
But the characters that were offered were now my believers.
It meant that the believers who were sacrificed by Arcrosis were still living their faith lives.
I couldn’t understand the situation, and I had no way of finding out where Arcrosis was right now.
On the day I gave [Shadow Beast: Beta] to Roan, I tried to find Arcrosis myself, but I failed.
“I don’t know what’s going on. But I’m too lazy to look into it myself.”
Arcrosis had long hidden his presence from the mountain where he was summoned.
Even if I tried to find him, I would have to search the whole map thoroughly.
I didn’t feel like going through that trouble just to find Arcrosis.
As long as I was getting karma, it was undeniable that he was doing something helpful for me.
Maybe if I left him alone, he would be like a stock that I bought and forgot, and someday he would bring me a nice profit.
“Well, he’ll probably earn me some karma somehow.”
I left behind a hopeful dream about Arcrosis and continued to scroll down.
There was still some scroll left below the messages about Arcrosis.
There was another message that had been delivered besides the new creature.
I found a familiar name there.
“It looks like the magic book I gave to Eutenia came back.”
At the bottom of the message box, there was a message that came from Eutenia.
She had sent me a magic book using a sacrifice.
The identity of the magic book I received from Eutenia was [Magic Book: Giga Lightning].
It was something that I had obtained from a draw and handed over to Eutenia.
I checked the magic book that was newly added to my inventory and immediately used it to learn the magic.
You have learned <Giga Lightning (Lv.MAX)>.
You can now use the Giga Lightning magic by consuming mana.
<Giga Lightning> has been added to the shared list of [Divine Device: Astrafer].
The magic book in my inventory disappeared and the skill icon of <Giga Lightning> appeared in one corner of the screen.
The icon of <Giga Lightning> looked like a rain of lightning.
It was common sense to try out a skill once you learned it.
I moved my location to another mountain nearby so that I wouldn’t cause any damage to the church.
If it were usual, I would have thrown magic at any village, but now I couldn’t do that.
There were no intact villages near the church anymore.
“Well, there are no characters… I guess I’ll just try it on some animals.”
Squeeze.
I touched the skill icon of <Giga Lightning> and activated a new target area.
Then I placed it on a hillside of the mountain and touched the target area.
A light burst out from the target area and soon a thin dark cloud began to rise over the whole mountain.
The moment the dark cloud condensed into a huge cloud.
Boom!
A lightning bolt struck down at the same time as an anomaly occurred on the whole mountain.
You used <Giga Lightning>.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Lightning began to fall randomly over a wide area.
A deer that was passing by the mountain was hit by lightning on its head and stopped completely.
The damage that appeared above the deer’s head was 30.
It was a bit insufficient to knock down a character, but <Giga Lightning>’s effect wasn’t over yet.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The deer that was hit again by the successive lightning turned into ash and disappeared.
As long as <Giga Lightning> lasted, lightning continued to fall.
If you survived one hit and relaxed, you would get hurt by the next lightning strike.
“This is really an area-of-effect skill.”
Lightning that strikes randomly at multiple targets.
It was a magic that showed great utility in sweeping away enemies.
It was a powerful magic even when used as an area-of-effect skill, but it was also effective when used on a single target.
The irregularly falling lightning looked hard to defend against.
It was a perfect skill except for the fact that it required a lot of mana consumption.
“Ah… I made a valuable purchase after a long time.”
I was impressed by the power of the new magic and put down my smartphone and tore off a chicken leg.
I was very satisfied with the power of the new skill.
I felt like I was matching the lightning attribute, but it wasn’t a bad feeling.
It wasn’t uncommon to match the concept of skills while playing games.
The stress that had accumulated throughout the day was completely relieved.
Cold beer. Crispy chicken.
And the best area-of-effect skill on top of that.
It didn’t take much to turn a hard day into the best moment.
***
The new branch of the church is located in the southwest of the continent.
The countless crowds that had flocked to see Estasia had long become a force.
They had controlled the growing crowd over time and continued to build buildings to accommodate the people of the church.
At first, there were some outsiders who resisted their control.
But they all silenced their complaints and became believers of the church after seeing Estasia’s appearance.
The miracle of the angel they faced directly had such a strong power.
Along with the growing power of the church, the first building that symbolized the church was also completed.
It was natural that Estasia participated in the completion ceremony of the historic first building of the church.
On the day the building was completed.
The old man who took on the role of bishop took Estasia to the front of the building.
He looked at Estasia in front of the building that was built with effort and sincerity and said.
“The temple for you and the great one has finally been completed.”
The temple was built for the angel and the great one.
Estasia nodded her head quietly at his words.
She was facing the old man with a very different appearance from the first day.
There was a small gold crown on her halo, and gold necklaces and bracelets were hanging on her neck and arms.
Everything had changed completely except for the clothes she wore down from heaven.
No angel in heaven would think of her as a poor and lazy angel anymore.
Estasia, who was wearing gold ornaments, looked at the entrance of the building with a wing pattern and said.
“Is this my new home?”
As summer came and it got hot, Estasia also felt uncomfortable living in a cave.
She had been wishing for a more comfortable space lately.
The old man smiled happily at Estasia’s words and opened the door.
And he gave her the answer she wanted to her question.
“Of course, we have prepared a large space for you behind the temple.”
“A space for me…”
“Please come inside. I’ll show you around.”
The old man led Estasia inside and didn’t forget to give an order to the young man who was waiting next to him.
He was a naive young man named Alphonse.
Alphonse had prepared a drink in advance according to the old man’s order.
“Alphonse! Bring the drink you prepared!”
“Yes!”
Alphonse approached Estasia with careful steps as soon as he heard the old man’s order.
It was the highest honor for the people of the church to serve Estasia.
It was a glorious thing that Alphonse, a loyal believer of the church, would never refuse.
As Alphonse came closer with a drink, the old man pointed at him and told Estasia.
“This is a cool drink prepared for you. Have a sip before you go.”
Alphonse took his place next to Estasia with a tray with a drink on it.
Estasia turned her head and looked closely at the glass on the tray.
There was strawberry juice and ice in the glass.
They had prepared ice separately to make the drink cool.
Estasia lifted the glass with ice and said to the old man.
“There’s ice in the juice.”
“We brought a magician to freeze it for you. Please have a taste.”
“Okay.”
Estasia brought the glass to her mouth and took a sip of the strawberry juice with ice.
The sweet scent of strawberries cooled by ice went down her throat.
Gulp.
She swallowed the strawberry juice that came into her mouth in an instant and relaxed her expression.
She put down the glass she was holding on Alphonse’s tray and said, enjoying the coolness of the strawberry juice.
“This is heaven…”
“I’m glad you’re satisfied. It was worth bringing a magician.”
“Make it for me sometimes.”
“Of course. Come on, let’s go inside.”
Thud. Thud.
They opened the door and entered, and they were greeted by a wide corridor of the building.
In any other building, there would have been many doors in the corridor, but this was a church where believers gathered.
On the first floor, there were only small doors except for one big door.
The old man started to introduce Estasia to each small door one by one.
“This is the kitchen.”
“Okay.”
“There will be believers who will be in charge of your snacks here.”
“Awesome.”
After the kitchen, there was a food storage room.
The food storage room was still empty.
“This is the food storage room.”
“Okay.”
“All kinds of ingredients will be stored here.”
“Awesome.”
After the food storage room, there was a room with piles of desks.
The old man pointed at the empty desk with his hand and said.
“This is where the financial management department of the church will be located.”
“Okay.”
“They will decide and select the treasures that will be offered to you.”
“Awesome.”
Food storage. Kitchen. Laundry room. Cleaning tool storage.
The old man continued to explain the various facilities on the first floor of the church.
Every time he did, Estasia just nodded her head and agreed with his words.
After checking out the many buildings on the first floor, they came out.
The old man opened the biggest door in the middle of the first floor and said.
“This is the last space on the first floor. It’s the chapel and your room behind it.”
Creak.
As the door of the chapel opened, a humble space was revealed.
Except for an old-fashioned chair in the middle of the stage, there were only a few wooden chairs barely placed.
The interior of the chapel had not been properly decorated yet.
Only the chair on the stage maintained its splendor among the humbleness.
Estasia passed by the chapel and pointed at the chair on the stage and asked.
“What’s that chair?”
“It’s a chair for you to sit on.”
“Okay.”
As expected, when she asked, the chair was Estasia’s.
Estasia nodded her head and approached the back of the chair.
There was a small door behind the splendid chair.
Estasia reached out and opened the door in the chapel.
Clank.
The place that was revealed as the door opened was another room that was beautifully decorated.
“This feels nice.”
The room beyond the chapel was decorated with bright colors unlike the outside, and there was also a soft-looking bed.
Estasia’s eyes scanned the room that was decorated with various ornaments that looked familiar.
They were things that she had received as gifts from the believers of the church.
Estasia looked around the room with sparkling eyes, and the old man said to her as if he had been waiting.
“This is a space for you.”
“Is this my home?”
“Yes. You can use it as you please.”
Hearing the old man’s words, Estasia jumped into bed with a satisfied face.
The soft bed that was made with care by the believers supported Estasia.
The softness that came from her back was completely different from the hard floor of the cave she had been sleeping in.
Estasia lay down on the soft bed and smiled happily.
And she stuck to the bed and said to the old man.
“I like it because it’s soft.”
“I’m glad you’re happy.”
“Shall we stop here for today?”
The old man looked flustered at Estasia’s words.
There were still many places in the church that he had to show her.
There were countless things to see on the second, third, fourth, and fifth floors.
Estasia’s attitude puzzled the old man, who tried to persuade her by telling her about the second floor.
“If you go up the stairs, there are more things prepared for you!”
“Stairs?”
“Yes. The second floor is upstairs.”
“Stairs are too bothersome to climb.”
“…”
But Estasia’s face became more listless when she heard the word stairs.
In silence, Estasia and the old man looked at each other.
The old man’s face was full of earnestness toward Estasia.
But despite his appearance, Estasia spoke to him in a firm voice.
“I’ll only see this much today.”
“I understand. We’ll stop here for today.”
The old man looked regretful, but in the end, Estasia’s opinion was the priority here.
He nodded his head and had no choice but to stop the tour of the church with Estasia.
It was a guided tour that ended in just 10 minutes after entering the building.
