#176

Callister screamed, tears streaming down his face in sheer frustration.

He truly looked like a five-year-old child.

‘Does the mind get affected when the body becomes younger?’

Watching him cry until his face turned bright red, I couldn’t help but think that Fabio must have been like that during his childhood.

‘I wonder if I’d become calmer if I obtained the DNA of someone with a low-reactive personality.’

Like Athanas, for instance….

“Hyung, that bastard is using a trick. Mimicry is the essence of those maggots, right? He’s not actually a kid, but he’s acting like one. Isn’t it disgusting?”

“You’re the disgusting one.”

“Sob sob… To think you’d take something like that as a vassal…. This is too much. I think it would have been better to share bodily fluids with Athanas. This is just wrong. Fabio, if you take something like that as a vassal, you’ll get dirty too.”

“Fuck, are you quite finished?”

“Stop it!”

I scowled deeply.

“Pandemonium. The order not to attack Callister includes emitting bloodlust.”

Callister, cradled in my arms, was trembling so violently it was almost pitiful.

“I didn’t emit bloodlust! I just glared at him a bit. Hyung, I’m telling you, he’s totally playing a part! This is so unfair!”

“Regardless, don’t do it. Not even the glaring.”

“Then what about that bastard? He glared at me like crazy too!”

“Did it actually tickle you or something?”

“Yeah. I’m seriously hurt! Hyung, my heart is beating so fast right now, could this be a panic attack? Look at me. Please?”

“Bullshit.”

I decided to ignore Pandemonium.

This was no time to be engaging in such low-level bickering.

Right now, the Capital Church was full of people who were ‘contaminated’ and unresponsive to anything, and Athanas was being held by the Bell ringer.

‘The sun sets early in winter….’

In just a few hours, people would start dying of hypothermia.

Many were likely already in a dangerous state.

‘If there’s no sign of the contamination being resolved quickly, I’ll have to move the people outside indoors.’

If it were Pandemonium, he could probably move a dozen or so people at once using telekinesis.

Of course, resolving the ‘contamination’ itself would be the best method.

‘…Is this all the trap Athanasuki prepared?’

It was only a guess, but the Distorted One likely hadn’t intervened heavily in this Council or the ‘Ledeia’s Contamination’ incident.

‘He’d probably hate it, thinking it’s no fun to win like this.’

Contaminated people cannot feel any emotion.

From the Distorted One’s perspective, it was like receiving a chip bag filled only with nitrogen.

‘Did he say that losing excitingly is better than winning boringly?’

I searched through my memories of playing as the Distorted One.

There were many who said that for the Distorted One, you absolutely had to see the ending without spoilers, and following that advice, I had been hit with a massive betrayal.

‘I figured everyone recommended it with the mindset that they couldn’t be the only ones suffering….’

Even though I started with that preparation, it was an ending that naturally made me curse.

When starting as the Distorted One, the Cult Leader Unit always possesses a strong ‘desire.’

The ‘Cult Leader’ I chose had a very common and cliché wish.

‘It was to get his family back.’

A wife and a child.

If they had died for other reasons, they could have reunited in the Land of Order, but the child died during birth and thus never received Baptism.

The wife, despairing over this, committed suicide.

Because he could never meet those two by believing in Order, the man decided to believe in another god.

‘Until just before the ending, it was, well, ordinary.’

When making the wish as payment for offering the Dark Realm to the Distorted One, I put a lot of thought into the answer I wrote.

I asked for the return of ‘a family where the child was born safely and they live happily.’

‘Because it would be troublesome if the wish were granted like a Monkey’s Paw (a story where three wishes are granted but realized through tragic means).’

The Distorted One returned a ‘happy family’ as promised.

A cozy and happy family of ‘three,’ where the child was born safely and the wife did not commit suicide.

‘That’s the truly demonic part.’

In that returned ‘happy family,’ the Cult Leader ‘himself’ was also present.

The Cult Leader kills his original self and takes his place.

But the moment of happiness was brief; the Cult Leader is murdered by his wife’s hand.

The real husband was dead, and the wife, realizing the Cult Leader was a fake mimicking him, had contracted with the Distorted One to seek revenge.

‘Of course, it was the Distorted One who made her realize that.’

However, there was one thing the Distorted One didn’t tell the wife.

The moment the Cult Leader dies, those who were brought back to life by his wish vanish.

The wife, realizing the whole truth, lets out a horrific scream while clutching the child who had returned to being a corpse, and the Distorted One taxidermied that moment to create the ‘Endlessly Disappointing Statue.’

‘And the Distorted One, saying he enjoyed it, gifted it to me as an account-bound trait as a souvenir.’

A trait that allows the summoning of the ‘Endlessly Disappointing Statue’ anytime, anywhere.

Because this statue is in a state of endless disappointment, simply placing it generates ‘Faith Points’ and turns the surroundings into a sanctuary for the Distorted One.

It was a useful trait, but I had never used it once.

‘At the time, I was working toward a Conclude to see a world where Adelaide became happy.’

The shock was several times greater.

I should have just quit the game then….

‘But I started digging into the game because I wanted to see the Distorted One get screwed over.’

The most effective method was when I created a world where everyone was ‘happy’ by removing all negative emotions from humans.

The Distorted One had complained incessantly, saying he didn’t really want a Dark Realm like this.

But even then, at the end, he ruined my mood by delivering a revelation like, ‘Wait… are you doing this because you want to disappoint me? Thinking about it that way suddenly makes it so thrilling! It means you’ve been thinking about me this whole time, right? You’re truly adorable!’ or some such nonsense.

‘…I haven’t played as the Distorted One since then.’

Regardless, if the Distorted One wanted to destroy the world, he would have used a different method.

Therefore, it’s highly likely that this contamination is the House Lizard’s solo action.

‘The House Lizard….’

He wouldn’t have done this just to win the game.

If victory were the goal, he would have used this chaos to cause Game Over for other players.

Above all, he wouldn’t have let Reyes escape through suicide.

‘…Could it be that he simply discovered a critical flaw while exploring this world as if he were dissecting a game?’

And then, by chance, the research director heard the ‘Ultimate Answer,’ causing Ledeia to become contaminated.

If this isn’t a terror attack carried out by someone with immense malice, but a disaster caused by a series of coincidences….

‘It’s absurd, but it’s actually more realistic.’

Many disasters occur because of very trivial mistakes.

Like the incident where a 100-million-dollar Mars probe exploded because they confused imperial units with the metric system.

Anyway, let’s assume the House Lizard has no malice.

Then, how can this ‘contamination’ be resolved?

‘Other than going down to the 24th basement floor.’

I’m a bit reluctant to go there because I feel like I might not be able to return.

‘…He said that knowing the truth itself cannot drive a person insane.’

Then why does contamination occur?

I thought it might be a similar principle to Oblivion.

Just by perceiving the Name of Oblivion, a path is created for ‘intrusion’ into the mind.

‘This must be something only possible in the Dark Realm.’

In a place where the influence of Oblivion does not reach, such as Earth, the Name of Oblivion would be nothing more than a meaningless string of characters.

Nothing would happen even if one spoke that name aloud.

‘Then where does the power that renders an entity who perceives the truth incapacitated come from?’

Is it the System after all?

It suddenly occurred to me that the ‘Ultimate Answer’ might be something like knowing how to open a console prompt where you can enter cheat codes.

‘Information’ that can break this world just by knowing it.

If it weren’t something like that, would the System need to ‘censor’ it this way?

‘…It sounds plausible, but what the House Lizard said bothers me.’

He said that no matter how long I thought about it, I would never be able to understand.

As long as I am under the influence of the System.

‘That means every hypothesis I can come up with is the wrong answer.’

I let out a short groan.

If I believe the House Lizard is telling only the truth, I must also accept that I can never know what the ‘Ultimate Answer’ is without going to a system out-of-bounds area.

‘So?’

Should I go underground now?

To find out the ‘Ultimate Answer’?

‘…At this point, I don’t care about the truth of this world.’

Even if there’s a logout button on the 24th basement floor, and the moment I press it, the capsule opens and an ST Game employee asks, ‘How was your Conclude 2 experience?’….

‘I’d probably answer that I’m not finished yet and ask them to operate the capsule again.’

Above all, the Ultimate Answer doesn’t solve the current situation at all.

People have already heard the ‘Ultimate Answer.’

That’s why they became like that.

‘On the contrary, I need to make them forget what they heard….’

“Hyung, what are you thinking about so hard?”

“Did you put all the fallen books back on the shelf?”

“I finished that a long time ago.”

“…I told you to do it without using telekinesis.”

“I didn’t.”

‘Fuck, what is he going to ask for now?’

He’s not even a child, yet he prays because he can’t stand staying still.

And it’s not like he does everything I tell him.

‘He completely ignored me when I told him to shut up and stay still.’

Even if he ignores an order, there’s no way to punish him.

Because punishing a believer also consumes points.

“Lord Fabio, please tell me what you’re thinking. I’m so bored right now. Pamen.”

“Fuck, stop it!”

“Hyung, I’m doing this all for your sake. If you answer my prayer, you’ll gain points.”

“Uuuugh….”

‘Fuck, he’s a total malicious complainant.’

He’s a guy whose very soul belongs to me, yet I’m the one who has to listen to him.

Something is seriously, seriously wrong.

‘Points… points… points….’

Isn’t there a way to get points easily and quickly?

If I only had points, fuck, I could put a leash on that bastard.

‘…I could get Faith Points by consuming the Sacred Relics of other gods.’

I glanced at the Saintess’s Sacred Relic, then immediately looked away.

I can’t touch that now.

The moment I swallow it, I’ll lose all the divinity that has ‘deviated from Order.’

‘The more similar the essence, the higher the conversion rate to points.’

Records….

Are records close to persuasion?

‘No, something even more similar is….’

I look down at my hand.

A purple poppy.

The Sacred Relic of ‘Distortion.’

Just looking at it makes me gulp.