Chapter 134: Fall of the Hero (3)
The early bird catches the worm.
That was an old proverb that said only the diligent ones could succeed.
But in my opinion, it was hard to catch a worm just by waking up early.
Because I, who had woken up early today, had fallen asleep for another 30 minutes on my seat before I finally woke up.
It made me wonder if it would have been better to sleep for an extra hour more comfortably.
“Yawn…”
I admired the weekend morning scenery with sleepy eyes, and then got up from my seat with slow steps.
I had set an alarm with a big intention to become a morning person even on weekends, but it seemed like I was wrong to succeed.
A slight drowsy feeling remained in my mouth, and a yawn came out naturally.
I went into the bathroom and washed my face with cold water, and then looked at myself in the mirror.
For some reason, I felt like my skin was fluffy these days.
“Am I going to become a celebrity at this rate?”
I muttered nonsense while looking at the mirror, and then came out of the bathroom and picked up my smartphone.
And then I unlocked it and ran the game icon.
Tuk.
The loading screen flashed by in front of my eyes, and then the familiar scene of the cult appeared.
It seemed that I had quit the game last night after watching over the cult.
I started to check the messages that popped up last night, with the bustling cult scene as the background.
– [Cherubim: Aronia] manifested a miracle.
– <Karma’s Judgement> calculates the causality rate.
– Karma increased by 4.
– [Cherubim: Estasia] manifested a large-scale miracle.
– <Karma’s Judgement> calculates the causality rate.
– Karma increased by 24.
– The number of cult followers increased greatly.
– Some followers acquired the <Fanatic> trait.
The messages that came up last night were not much different from usual.
First of all, Estasia, who was conducting worship at the cult branch, was steadily supplying karma.
And Aronia, who was attached to her side, also occasionally sent karma.
The karma sent by the two angels was not a small amount.
In addition, the karma obtained by the increase of cult fanatics was also considerable.
“If I add up the karma I got last night, it’s about 6500 or so.”
The effect of the karma double coupon made the karma grow faster than before.
If I used another coupon, it might be possible to exceed 10,000 cumulative karma.
I wondered for a moment whether to use one more double coupon, but then I shook my head and stopped my hand from heading to the inventory.
6500 was not a small amount of karma.
It was a matter of regretting it later if I got greedy and hit by causality adjustment.
“It’s better to use cash for spec-up if possible.”
Except for the fact that money was not enough, spec-up using payment was the most efficient way.
And someday I had to clear the quest to collect 1 million karma.
1 million karma.
Even assuming the late game, it was not a small number.
To clear that quest, it might be more efficient to use a karma double coupon later on.
Rather than moving with an impatient mind now, it would be better to watch over the characters leisurely.
“Let’s watch over the characters’ status today.”
With that decision, I moved the screen and started to check each character’s appearance one by one.
The first character I visited was Estasia.
Estasia, who was staying at the cult branch, was located on the fourth floor, which she would normally not even approach.
It was a rare thing for her to be on the fourth floor, so I watched her closely.
She was patrolling the fourth floor slowly with Aronia.
– “Aronia. Do you want to go down now?”
She finished patrolling at the speed of light and approached the stairs leading to the lower floor.
And then she looked at Aronia, who was following behind her, blankly.
Only then did I understand the secret of how she was able to climb to the fourth floor.
It was because Aronia, who was following her, lowered his posture in front of Estasia.
– “Move a little on your own.”
– “I’m lazy. Carry me.”
– “How did I end up like this…”
Aronia said that, but he still carried Estasia down to the first floor.
It turned out that he had used a self-made angel escalator to climb up.
That made sense. Estasia had no reason to climb up to the fourth floor willingly.
I tried to press Estasia, but accidentally hit Aronia’s back of the head, and quickly moved the screen to where another apostle was.
– “Wow! That’s amazing!”
This time it was Perin and Pluto.
Perin looked at Pluto, who was floating in the air, with his pointed ears twitching.
Pluto was showing off his martial arts while swinging his scythe in the air.
Like dancing with a sword in his hand, he was performing flashy movements with his scythe in sequence.
– “I feel like my old skills are coming back little by little.”
“Don’t you remember how you were before?”
The scythe flashed in the air, leaving a blue trail behind.
Dancing with a scythe.
I didn’t know what to call that action.
But it felt awkward to name it something like scythe dance or scythe art.
Whisk. Whisk.
The scythe that was swinging in the air at a fast speed suddenly slipped out of Pluto’s grip.
– “Ah…”
Pluto sighed for a moment as he lost his scythe.
Soon, the scythe that had made a big turn stuck on top of Pluto’s head.
A weak spray of blood started to burst from where the scythe was stuck.
Perin, who was watching him, exclaimed in horror at the sight of Pluto bleeding.
– “Blood…! Blood is flowing from your head!”
– “It’s okay. It’ll heal soon.”
– “But…”
The dementia vampire seemed to be still out of his mind.
The commotion of the two continued for quite a long time.
It was uncomfortable to watch them, so I tried to pull out the scythe with my finger, but it ended up being a disaster as the scythe got stuck deeper.
In the end, I had to move the screen to another place with a regretful feeling.
There were still many apostles in the world who needed my care.
Of course, Eutenia was an exception, as she always showed the best results.
* * * * * *
The eastern part of the empire where desolate winds blew.
The relic search by Eutenia and Peter there had reached its fourth day.
Four days was a short but long time.
The food that had been filled in the carriage had almost halved by now.
Meanwhile, Eutenia’s search also made great progress.
“We’re getting closer to where the relic is.”
The compass that pointed to where the relic was began to bend sharply even if it moved a little bit.
The fact that the angle of the compass moved meant one thing.
There wasn’t much left until where the relic was hidden.
Realizing that there wasn’t much left until finding the relic, Eutenia ordered Peter to stop the carriage.
As Peter stopped the carriage according to Eutenia’s order, she jumped off the carriage with the help of shadows and said,
“It would be better to search on foot for the rest.”
It meant that they should walk to where the compass pointed now.
The direction that the arrow pointed was a rocky mountain where the carriage could not move, so it was natural to search on foot now.
Peter also followed Eutenia and jumped off the carriage right away.
And then he took care of the holy sword and food he received from her and talked.
“Can we leave the carriage like this?”
“Don’t worry. We can find it easily even if it disappears.”
“Okay.”
Peter strapped a white holy sword to his belt and then put a bag of food on his shoulder and started walking after her.
Whiiiiing.As we stepped into the rocky mountain, the barren wind of the east brushed against our cheeks.
It was hard to find even a blade of grass in this place, close to the edge of the east.
We were sick of wandering around without any food in this desolate land.
That’s why Peter had brought a pouch full of provisions with him.
“We’re almost there. Maybe we’ll get a signal soon.”
“Are you talking about the signal we saw last time?”
“Yes. Ethelia’s compass sends a signal when there’s a relic nearby.”
I answered Peter and looked around with a regretful expression.
If I could use magic, I would have finished the search by now, but I couldn’t because of the compass I was holding.
I felt a great inconvenience as magic, which was like my second nature, disappeared.
I couldn’t light a fire when I prepared dinner, and I had to turn the pages of books with my own hands.
But today was the end of living without magic.
As long as I could find the hidden relic, I would be as free as ever.
“Today will be the last time I have to move around with this compass.”
I smiled with anticipation for magic.
I estimated the distance and it was clear that the signal would come as soon as we crossed the mountain.
That’s how it was last time when we found the relic.
With that expectation, I was looking for the relic and took a step forward.
Then, a faint wave of mana caught my senses.
“…”
It was a weak and blurry wave of magic that I couldn’t detect unless I focused my consciousness.
But my senses, which became sharper as magic was sealed, could catch it.
The wave of magic that I felt from afar soon turned into a magic spell with a glow.
Crack.
A sharp arrow of lightning revealed its presence.
On a hill far away from the mountain where I stood, an unknown mage was preparing a spell.
“Could it be…”
I quickly calculated the power of the spell that I sensed.
Based on the arrangement and attribute of magic, the spell that the enemy was preparing was definitely Lightning Arrow.
It was much stronger than Lightning, but it was inefficient against large beasts.
It seemed that he chose Lightning Arrow to secretly take care of me.
In front of the Lightning Arrow that was gradually completed, I had to decide what to do.
‘I can counter Lightning Arrow without using a barrier.’
Under my shadow, there was Alpha, a dark beast that could move even when magic was sealed.
Alpha was one of the largest beasts among beasts.
It would be hard to even scratch Alpha’s skin with Lightning Arrow magic.
If Alpha moved, he could easily block the attack.
“——Alpha.”
I was close to the relic, and I couldn’t afford to delay the search by stopping the compass.
That’s what I decided, and I tried to summon Alpha to block the attack.
Woo-woo-woong!
Alpha, who received my command, slowly emerged from the shadows.
At that moment, the shadows rose and completely blocked my sight.
“Ugh…!”
Crash!
The magic arrow that pierced through Alpha hit my shoulder.
The top of the hill where the magic was fired.
There, a sharp gaze was looking at me.
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