#122

‘Take it, just take it.’

The Saintess would be here soon anyway.

I didn’t think this idiot would actually be able to escape right in front of the Saintess.

‘Even if he runs, he’ll probably dump the stolen goods before bolting.’

Even if he did manage to run away with them, it wasn’t a problem.

In fact, it was better.

‘It means he’s carrying the location tracker himself.’

Either way, he was screwed.

The hand reaching for the reliquary paused for a moment.

“…There’s something more?”

The Prophet fumbled at the back of my neck.

It seemed he had discovered the Saintess’s Sacred Relic hidden inside my clothes.

‘You want to steal that too?’

Shameless player bastard.

I hope you go bald.

‘Wait, doesn’t the Sacred Relic have an anti-theft function?’

I felt like a defensive barrier should have activated when he tried to forcibly remove it.

It would be ridiculous if it blocked serious attacks but was helpless against a pickpocket.

“…The Saintess?”

The Prophet’s voice trembled.

“A Sacred Relic of the Saintess?”

‘Did he read the warning?’

The one that says: Touch this and you’re condemned!

‘It seems the warning pops up when you touch the Sacred Relic directly.’

Suddenly, I remembered the moment Athanas looked at the Sacred Relic with eyes of disbelief.

‘I should have just let him touch it….’

Then he would have believed me immediately.

I’ll tell him to try touching it next time we meet.

‘…More importantly, how is he going to react now?’

I heard a low mutter of “Fuck.”

I was curious about the expression on his face, but I had to keep my eyes closed, so I couldn’t see.

“Why is the Saintess here? What is this? Is this a fake too?”

There was a rustling sound, as if he were hurriedly searching through his pockets.

“…Fuck, the Saintess really is coming this way?”

‘Is there a way to know the Saintess’s location?’

It’s not like the Saintess is advertising her movements by announcing, ‘I am currently moving.’

‘Is it an item purchased with Clear Points?’

Among the Hidden Pieces of ‘Die Heretic!’, there is a talisman that marks the location of enemies approaching while hiding their divine power.

If a similar item had a function to measure the amount of divine power, one might be able to realize that someone of ‘apostle’ rank is approaching.

“P-please save me! System! Save me!”

The Prophet suddenly started screaming into the air.

‘Do you think the System will actually save you just by asking?’

At that moment, a notification window appeared.

[The approach of an apostle has been confirmed.

In response to the player’s request, the ‘Tutorial Emergency Rescue Device’ is activated.

The time dilation rate of the ‘Underground Archive’ will be adjusted to 20x for 2 hours.]

‘What the fuck.’

It actually saved him.

‘…Tutorial Emergency Rescue Device?’

I’ve never heard of that before.

‘Is it a feature provided because apostles are too strong compared to players who haven’t signed a contract?’

If such a thing existed, it would explain why apostles are passive about hunting players.

‘…But no notification window appeared when I met the Saintess.’

Is the System discriminating against me?

Technically, I’m in a more precarious situation since I have no Divine Power at all.

‘And fuck, this is a confrontation between me and him, so why is the System only providing a favorable measure for that bastard?’

System, you piece of shit, explain yourself if you have anything to say.

Why don’t I get those convenience features?

“…20x? Then how many minutes pass outside? 5 minutes?”

‘It’s 6 minutes.’

This moron can’t even do basic arithmetic.

“Okay, let’s think calmly and organize this. First… as long as I don’t leave evidence that I was here, it’ll work out somehow.”

He’s giving up on fixing the situation and planning to run.

‘He has useful Divine Power, yet I don’t know why he plays the game like that.’

If he’s going to do that, wouldn’t it be better to just confess to the Saintess and convert?

Looking at him, I doubt he’ll even survive until the Tutorial ends.

“Right, I’ll just make it so the Prophet was Andrea! Andrea said he’d let me meet the Prophet, but in reality, he planned to come down to the underground archive and say, ‘That Prophet was actually me!’”

‘…Andrea suddenly became an idiot.’

“And Andrea… he was bitten by a snake living in this basement and lost his mind! That snake was a remnant of the evil god, but Andrea mistook it for a messenger of god and cared for and served it! Perfect!”

What’s so perfect about that?

He’s losing both the creature and Andrea.

‘Poor Andrea….’

He trusted the Prophet so much, only to be rewarded with memory manipulation and a false accusation.

As expected, the saying that you shouldn’t associate with those who play as the Distorted One was correct.

“Then a Heretic Inquisitor, feeling something was off, came down to investigate and got caught up in it. Yes! I’ll go with that.”

‘By the way, why does this guy keep talking to himself?’

Was he a game streamer or something?

“More importantly, this Heretic Inquisitor… that crazy bastard didn’t send her on purpose, right?”

No matter how crazy that guy is, he wouldn’t be able to move the Saintess…. The Prophet muttered.

“Then is this a simple accident rather than a trap?”

I peeked with one eye to see what the player was doing.

The Prophet was holding Nasir’s tail with two fingers, examining it here and there.

“…Since we’re still in a cooperative relationship, I should at least ask. Nyapoleon!”

‘Nyapoleon?’

“What? The chat window function cannot be used during multiplier adjustment?”

The Prophet let out a curse.

“If I release the multiplier for a moment…. No. 5 minutes would be over by the time I finish explaining the situation.”

The Prophet continued to mutter something, but my attention was stolen by something else.

‘Nyapoleon….’

It was a familiar nickname.

‘…That bastard is a Mothergod Fanatic.’

Nothing is impossible in my dictionary!

Therefore, I can do it.

The crazy possibility enthusiast who used to spout that kind of nonsense.

‘Just hearing the name makes my teeth grind.’

Nyapoleon….

It was a nickname impossible not to know while playing Conclude.

‘Because he’s the one who distributed the user Korean localization.’

Not only that, he wrote strategy guides diligently, contributed heavily to the wiki, was the first to answer whenever a question was posted, and even held small events with prizes when there was a lack of lore.

He was a truly diligent man.

‘The problem is that the bastard was a possibility enthusiast.’

At first, he didn’t reveal his tendencies, but as the number of possibility enthusiasts grew, he began to openly promote Conclude as a game for possibility enthusiasts.

‘He was everywhere….’

Fed up, I tried visiting communities in other languages, only to find him there, posting multi-language guides for the furry enthusiasts.

I honestly believe about 80% of the reason Mother God became the god of possibility enthusiasts is because of that guy.

‘Though he claimed he opened his eyes thanks to me….’

Horrifying.

Anyway, annoyingly, I know a great deal about him.

‘…That’s why I was sure it wasn’t Nyapoleon.’

The reason was simple.

Because Nasir had four ears.

Cat ears protruding from the top of the head, and human ears attached in their original place.

‘Nyapoleon was a staunch two-ear faction member….’

It was a fact I didn’t want to know, but among possibility enthusiasts, whether a beastfolk has two or four ears is a debate as divisive as dipping or pouring sauce.

Before Conclude was occupied by possibility enthusiasts, Nyapoleon had once left a post on the wiki discussion page.

‘If there were a cat beastfolk, would they have four ears, or two? qwerasdf, I’m curious about your opinion.’

Since I didn’t yet know how terrible those possibility enthusiasts were, I answered that question without much thought.

As a player of Mother God, I said the answer was ‘two’.

‘…There are no creatures with four ears.’

Through evolution and mutation, a creature cannot deviate that far from its original form.

It’s obvious just by looking at the fact that no vertebrate has more than two arms.

A bird’s wing or a whale’s pectoral fin may look very different on the surface, but they are ultimately modifications of an arm.

Therefore, if there were a creature with four ears, it wouldn’t be a ‘mutation’ but a chimera made by stitching different creatures together.

I recall answering something like that.

‘After that, he showed me one-sided friendliness.’

I didn’t think much of it at the time.

I didn’t quite understand why they fought over whether there were two or four ears when it made no difference to the unit’s performance, but I just figured people have different interests.

Even when I found out he enjoyed the act of turning people into beastfolk more than actually clearing the game, I didn’t care much.

I thought the people who tried to guess a real person’s taste, personality, way of thinking, or moral values based on their weird gameplay were even bigger idiots.

‘Just because he did an eugenics concept play, castrating everyone below a certain stat to achieve human evolution, doesn’t mean I actually support eugenics.’

But I eventually found out.

That bastard was ‘for real’.

‘Was it when religious organizations petitioned to ban Conclude….’

When there was a sudden surge of newbies starting Conclude for strange purposes, a few comments like “Ah;; my eyes are ruined” started appearing on strategy guides utilizing insect traits.

Since there were always weird trolls, it wasn’t a big deal.

‘I was just worrying about whether to subdivide the tags since it became hard to find normal guides because of the possibility enthusiasts….’

That’s when Nyapoleon brought a documentary of a close-up shot of insects mating, saying, ‘Shut up, you ignorant fools.’

‘I still remember it vividly.’

Was the main text ‘I won’t even share a table with those who don’t know the charm of insect humans’?

‘Living up to his nickname….’

Because that human was truly ‘possible’ up to that point, he had diligently read my strategy guides.

‘Anyway, knowing a Mother God player is Nyapoleon makes me want to avoid him even more.’

I must not die, no matter what.

If he finds out I’m qwerasdf, I feel like Nyapoleon will say, ‘Now I have the power to turn even your impossibilities into possibilities.’

‘If the “crazy bastard” he mentioned earlier refers to Nyapoleon….’

When the Prophet first saw Nasir, he suspected if it was a trap by a ‘crazy bastard’.

Seeing as he said, ‘Is this the result of cooperation, or are you planning to hunt me,’ I can infer that players not only know each other but also cooperate, and that the ‘crazy bastard’ has a history of trapping or hunting some of them.

‘The fact that they cooperate despite knowing he’s screwed over other players must mean Nyapoleon is incredibly strong, right?’

While lost in thought, I was startled by the sound of footsteps suddenly getting closer.

“Then what is the identity of this guy called Fabio?”

Is he actually a very important unit? I heard the Prophet’s muttering voice very close by.

‘…Nyapoleon isn’t the priority right now.’

I’m about to have to pretend I can’t see or hear anything for two hours.

Will that be possible?

I feel like I’ll get caught halfway through….

‘Ow.’

The Prophet pinched my cheek.

“But I’ve never heard of a unit named Fabio before. Can there be an important unit with no information at all?”

‘You bastard, stop pinching me.’

“…Or is this body just a vessel? Is there something special about the soul?”

‘And how are you going to find that out?’

“No ring… and the only necklace is a Sacred Relic.”

‘Wait….’

I almost screamed the moment a hand dove inside my clothes.

‘Fuck!’

This… this crazy bastard!

Stop farming people who are still awake!

“There must be something.”

As the groping hand moved further down, I couldn’t stand the unpleasantness and pushed the Prophet away.

However, far from being pushed, the Prophet grabbed my hand.

“…Ah. He still has his sense of touch?”

A chill ran down my spine at those words.

Just as I was thinking about throwing away the act and giving up.

[The touch currently touching you feels like that of someone you rely on very much.]

[

SYSTEM:

Due to the effect of ‘Heaven Above, Earth Below, I Alone Reign Supreme’, ‘Distortion’ is provided as text.]

‘…Is he an idiot?’

I was momentarily stunned by the absurd content of the notification window.

‘No, even if it’s someone you trust, do you just let them grope your pockets and take your wallet?’

Isn’t it normal to ask why they’re taking it?

I ignored the notification window and tried to pull my captured hand away.

“Hm? Why is he resisting?”

‘Fuck, the Prophet’s stats must be incredibly high.’

It wasn’t to the point where I couldn’t move at all, like when Athanas held me, but I didn’t feel like I could win by strength.

‘…As expected, it’s better not to be caught.’

Even after revealing I’m a player, I’ll have to stay in this space with this bastard for over an hour.

But what if he realizes I have no Blessings to use and my stats are trash?

‘Who knows what he’ll do.’

“Did the Distortion not work? Why?”

Another notification window appeared.

[Your sense of touch disappears. You feel nothing even if someone touches you.]

[

SYSTEM:

Due to the effect of ‘Heaven Above, Earth Below, I Alone Reign Supreme’, ‘Distortion’ is provided as text.]

“This should do it.”

He’s seriously abusing the power of Distortion.

Does he have that many points to spare?

“Hmm… would the act of taking off clothes be included in causing harm?”

A cold shiver ran down my spine at those words.

‘Taking off… my clothes?’

“Just in case, I shouldn’t be the one taking them off.”

[You feel an urge to take off your clothes.]

[

SYSTEM:

Due to the effect of ‘Heaven Above, Earth Below, I Alone Reign Supreme’, ‘Distortion’ is provided as text.]

I didn’t react.

“…He’s not taking them off? Ah, I should have added more conditions for this.”

[You intend to wash your body. This is a bathhouse, and there is no one else.

You feel an urge to take off your clothes.]

[

SYSTEM:

Due to the effect of ‘Heaven Above, Earth Below, I Alone Reign Supreme’, ‘Distortion’ is provided as text.]

‘…….’

“Hm? This should work? Did it conflict with the previous one?”

‘Fuck….’

Can’t he just grope over the clothes? That’s how body searches are done. It’s not like I’m wearing layers of clothing.

Isn’t it unpleasant to look at someone else’s naked body?

Just as I was thinking that if I kept playing dead, he might just search a bit and finish.

“I don’t know. He probably can’t feel anything anyway, so I’ll just take them off myself.”

‘Fuck it, I’m done acting.’

I opened my eyes and glared at the Prophet.

“…Eh?”

The boy’s eyes widened.

“I haven’t released the Distortion I cast first…?”

“Stop it.”

“…What is this way of speaking to the Prophet?”

“Stop the acting and whatever, you player bastard. Fuck, I really can’t stand this anymore.”

A moment of silence followed.

“…Are you perhaps a player?”

“Yes.”

“…When did you release the Distortion?”

“From the beginning.”

The boy’s face turned bright red.

“Then… did you hear everything I was talking to myself…?”

Chapter 123