“I’ll give you a chance to live, Nakel. Just tell me who sent you after me, and I’ll ask the Goddess to spare your life.”
Anke offered the suggestion to the Lich, Nakel.
“This… I can’t say it. Could I still live? I contacted my employer through an intermediary, so I don’t know who actually hired me.”
Nakel lowered his head and replied in a small voice.
“Then you’re useless. Goddess, this Lich is indeed mine to deal with, right?”
Anke confirmed with Helaetis.
“Mm-hmm, of course.”
Helaetis nodded in affirmation.
“Then Vera, go ahead. Execute this Lich. Just be careful not to dirty the floor too much—Martha and the others work hard enough.”
Anke commanded Vera.
“Understood, Your Highness.”
Vera drew her longsword. The gleaming blade reflected the Lich’s terrified, ugly face.
“No, no, no! Don’t kill me! Fourth Prince, Your Highness, spare me, spare me! I can serve you!”
Nakel knelt on the ground, begging Anke.
“Do you think I’m short on Liches?”
“Goddess! Goddess! Spare me! I am your believer too!”
Seeing that pleading with Anke was useless, Nakel turned to beg Helaetis instead.
“I have no believers who would slaughter innocents for money and desire, whose hands are stained with the blood of countless blameless souls.”
Helaetis said with a look of disgust, sealing Nakel’s death sentence.
“Die!”
Vera’s sword flashed, and Nakel’s pleas stopped instantly. His withered, shriveled, ugly head rolled to the ground like a ball, and his headless body toppled forward uncontrollably.
But as Nakel’s corpse fell, a patch of darkness suddenly appeared on the ground directly beneath it, like a swamp that pulled his body in and devoured it.
“Anke, you have many enemies. But as I said before, I can’t directly intervene in human conflicts. So, I’ll just wish you good luck in spirit.”
After withdrawing the darkness that consumed Nakel’s corpse, Helaetis reminded Anke.
“I understand. Still, I thank the Goddess for helping to capture this Lich.”
Anke expressed his gratitude to Helaetis.
“Indeed. Without the Goddess’s help, capturing this hidden enemy lurking in the shadows would have been very difficult.”
Vera also spoke up.
“No need to thank me, no need to thank me. Like I said, this is my compensation to you, compensation.”
Helaetis waved her hand dismissively.
But Vera had already seen the other meaning in Helaetis’s words.
While she was bound by the principle that gods cannot interfere in human conflicts, unable to directly help herself and Anke, she could bypass the principle by compensating them afterward for her mistakes, providing them with assistance.
‘What a flexible goddess, just like Jack and the others with their flexible Knight’s Spirit,’ Vera thought to herself quietly. Then, she accidentally met Helaetis’s gaze.
After locking eyes with Vera, Helaetis subtly made a shushing gesture.
That action perfectly confirmed Vera’s suspicion.
“Oh, right, I just remembered something. Goddess, those Alien Gods you mentioned—what exactly are their origins? How many are there? And what abilities do they each have?”
Anke recalled some critical questions that Helaetis hadn’t told him about.
“I almost forgot if you hadn’t brought it up, Anke. As expected of a Fate-Bound Person, you’re reliable and know how to find the key point.”
Helaetis paused her hand that was reaching for a pastry, then conjured a handkerchief to wipe the crumbs from the corner of her mouth before continuing.
“As for the origins of the Alien Gods, as the name suggests, they’re evil gods from other worlds. Their numbers aren’t many, just four.
As I recall, there’s Korn, the Alien God of Destruction, who’s best at fighting; Tichint, the Alien God of Lies, who’s most skilled at scheming; Naga, the Alien God of Undeath, who’s the hardest to kill; and Sallys, the Alien God of Desire, who likes to tempt people into corruption.”
Helaetis counted on her fingers as she recalled.
“That sounds familiar. I feel like I’m picturing four big guys from a warp.”
Anke imagined the four Alien Gods based on Helaetis’s description.
“So, Goddess, will these Alien Gods be resurrected all at once or one by one?”
Vera pressed Helaetis for more.
“As for that, I’m not sure either. It depends on whose minions move faster. The faster ones will surely resurrect sooner.”
Helaetis shrugged.
Anke then asked a few more questions about the other Alien Gods and the Divine Steles of other deities.
Helaetis did her best to answer.
When the night grew deep, Helaetis said she had been in the mortal world too long tonight and needed to return to her Divine Stele to rest.
She would show herself again the next night after recovering.
Anke didn’t insist. After all, the information he’d gotten today was overwhelming—the God War, the World Destruction Crisis, the resurrection of the Alien Gods.
He needed time to think it all through. After having Head Maid Martha clean out a guest room to house Helaetis’s Divine Stele, he went back to rest.
—–
The night was deep and dark, with only a few twinkling stars.
In the Border City Castle, aside from the knights on duty and the soldiers on patrol, everyone else was already asleep in their dreams.
But amid this peaceful slumber, a small Slime figure, using the cover of corner shadows, skillfully dodged all the guards’ line of sight.
It slipped under the door crack into the room where the Divine Stele was placed.
Inside the room, Helaetis—who had claimed to return to her Stele to rest—was sitting on a chair with one leg crossed.
Facing the door, Helaetis looked at the small Slime that had squeezed in through the gap, glowing faintly in the moonlight, and spoke.
“I’ve been waiting for you, little one. Or, more accurately, little Mimic Beast.”
“Plu nyu, plu nyu—”
The small Slime bounced forward, then rapidly expanded, finally transforming back into Vera’s human form.
“Since the Goddess saw through my identity, why didn’t you just reveal it in front of Anke?”
Vera, who had mimicked back into human form, looked at Helaetis, who was waiting for her.
“But it wouldn’t have done you any good, it wouldn’t have done Anke any good, and it wouldn’t have done me any good. Why would I say it? I don’t do pointless things.”
Helaetis spread her right hand and shook her head.
“But you came here tonight wanting to ask the questions you couldn’t bring up in front of Anke, right?”
Helaetis pulled her right hand back, extending only her index finger to point at Vera.
“Yes, Goddess. I have some questions I want to ask you. After you all ‘fell asleep,’ why did humans suddenly start hostile toward other non-human races? Why did they even launch wars to invade them, pushing them to the brink of survival or even outright extinction?”
Vera revealed the deepest question she had been holding in her heart to Helaetis.
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