Chapter 155 Exploration
The three protagonists were all crowded in the villain's office.
Seeing her long-lost friend, Maxine was clearly delighted, her eyes reddening slightly. To express her excitement, the red-haired girl punched Azuka hard on the shoulder. Azuka remained motionless, only twitching slightly at the corner of his mouth. He calmly took a step back, letting Ole block him.
Ole was oblivious to this.
The assassin leader was also very happy. The last time the three of them were reunited was in the previous life. He had already chopped off the tyrant's head and was hailed as a savior by the entire empire. He was treated as a guest of honor by the young new king. Bards sang new poems praising his achievements every day. Young, beautiful and powerful men and women of all kinds vied with each other to express their love. But for some reason, his good friend became more and more taciturn day by day. Sometimes he would stare in a daze in the direction of the Kite Heart Palace. He and Marshilin could not figure out what the other was thinking.
Until one morning, the young savior left without saying goodbye, leaving only a brief note saying that he had returned to Asachi Valley.
——The Asaqi Valley has long been deserted, dilapidated and desolate.
The three of them met again in this life.
The professor first made himself a cup of coffee, then unceremoniously occupied the only single chair. The black-haired young man crossed his legs elegantly, the mist rising from the cup blurring his features, and the occasional glance he gave was as sharp and cold as a knife.
After a brief excitement, the male protagonist was explaining the current situation to his reunited friends. The other two glanced at him in surprise and suspicion from time to time, but one was more subtle and the other was more blunt. He didn't care, as almost all his attention was on his coffee.
"Wait, let me sort this out first." Orel interrupted his friend and took a deep breath. "Are you saying that the Balando Massacre happened three years earlier?"
The other party looked at him calmly: "That's right."
In the previous life, the Gray Domain Alliance deliberately chose the time when the Silver Iris Empire and the Far North Kingdom were fighting, took advantage of the situation to launch an attack, and even broke the rules, causing their Saint Talon to be despised by the saint class. It was obvious that they lacked confidence in their own strength.
Why was it three years earlier this time? The Savior had a feeling it had something to do with his old enemy.
Maxine slowly frowned, "Where's Talon?"
Azuka said calmly, "After I broke the forbidden spell, he was injured and fled with the soldiers of the Gray Alliance. I didn't chase him."
After all, there were two ordinary people around him at that time.
Ole instinctively repeated: "You destroyed the tenth-level forbidden spell cast by Talon..."
He suddenly realized what he was saying and stood up from the sofa with a whoosh. He startled Nova and made his hand shake so violently that he almost spilled the coffee.
The other party was completely oblivious to this, pacing back and forth excitedly under the professor's disapproving glare.
"No, buddy, when can you break the forbidden spell?" He took a deep breath, suddenly pressed his friend's shoulders, staring into his friend's calm blue eyes, his voice trembling: "Do you know what this means?"
Azuka slowly lifted his sleeve, forcing his friend's claws away from his shoulder. "It means I have reached a level above the Saint."
He looked remarkably calm, completely lacking the momentary loss of composure he'd experienced upon hearing the "bad news." "This means I'm probably a god now."
Ole: “…”
Mashilin: “…”
"Mashlyn, hit me, right now," Ole said dully.
The red-haired girl, who was also still in shock, punched him without hesitation.
The punch was so powerful it even produced a sonic boom, nearly sending Orel flying. Azuka frowned and immediately used the wind to contain the man. Before the professor could speak, he sternly warned him, "Don't fight here."
Maxine was stunned for a moment, suddenly remembering that this room was already filled with all kinds of strange collections and a large number of books. Then she met the slightly narrowed eyes of the owner of the room: "Uh, sorry!"
The other man glanced at her gloomily, and just as Maxine subconsciously tensed up, the tyrant slowly lowered his head and continued to drink his coffee with a cold tone.
"This won't happen again."
…She suddenly felt the urge to kneel down and thank him. Although this person was still only a university professor, his aura was no less impressive than in his previous life.
She had heard that the emperor in her previous life had frightened a minister into committing suicide in public just by not saying a word.
"Is that the point?" Ole rubbed his arm, hissing and gasping in pain. Hearing this, he couldn't help but frantically said, "Am I abnormal, or is this world abnormal?!"
Ole wasn't one to hide secrets from those he truly trusted. After meeting Maxine, he didn't hesitate for long before spilling the beans on the Savior and the Great Demon King's involvement. Note that, out of brotherly love, he only revealed their "involvement" in terms of their factions, while keeping their emotional involvement hidden. Fortunately, those two weren't around at the time, otherwise deceiving a warrior with exceptionally developed intuition would have been incredibly difficult.
——After all, the tyrant seemed unaware of his brother's thoughts, which even he wanted to call perverted, and Orel had no intention of exposing him, whether out of a very slight pity for the former or gloating over the latter's failure.
But to his surprise, Maxine accepted it well. He thought he would have another friend to share with him the feeling of the world's collapse.
"I've read all of Mr. Nova's books on the market." Maxine took a deep breath, her eyes filled with complex emotions. "All of them."
Ole looked at her in shock. He still remembered that he and Azuka took turns teaching the unschooled fisherman's girl to read. It was a real mess and he almost vomited blood. However, their princess firmly denied that the other's broken handwriting came from his teaching.
"Ore, you know I'm from a poor family, so poor that my family only has one pair of pants to wear." The red-haired girl looked at him seriously. "I speak loudly and behave rudely. In the eyes of those high-ranking nobles, I am just a lowly and vulgar fisherwoman who smells like fish."
Aolei immediately frowned and retorted, "Nonsense! You are the most sincere and lovely girl I have ever met. If anyone dares to say that to you, I will slit his throat!"
"...Thank you, but don't rush to refute me. I don't see myself that way." Marcylin sighed. "But that's how those 'bigwigs' see me. Even if I become a 'Valkyrie' who can kill them with a single punch, they'll still be respectful and fawning to me on the surface, but secretly they'll still look down on me for my background, lineage, and even my gender."
"Ore, why do you say that?" She looked into Ore's eyes sincerely. "I have seen poor people and I have seen rich people. I know that there are bad people and good people among nobles and commoners."
"But I clearly rely on my own strength to achieve my goals, I'm clearly more capable than those men, and even in my opinion, my poor but optimistic family and friends are much more lovable than them. Why do all these 'big shots' naturally act so high and mighty in front of me, acting as if my achievements today are all due to their charity?"
Those green eyes kept asking him, "Ore, have you read his book?"
"...I have." Ole closed his eyes in surrender. "I must admit, those are some...very shocking words."
It was so shocking that he suspected countless times that the other party's true identity was actually a bewitching devil.
"That's all." Marcylin spread her hands. "So I want to see with my own eyes what kind of person the person who wrote these things is. Because it's unfair to judge someone who hasn't done anything bad based solely on past impressions."
Ole: “…”
I always feel like I've been shot in the chest again.
"Of course, if he's a bad guy, I'll kill him, no matter the cost," the red-haired girl added seriously, her youthful face betraying no murderous intent. But Orel knew she was serious; she was the most stubborn of the three.
Back to the present. Feeling once again isolated by his friends, the assassin leader stared blankly at everyone, feeling completely numb. Even if his friend suddenly announced that he and the tyrant had a child, he wouldn't be shocked—well, he would be. This was too horrifying.
Just as Ole was shuddering at his own wild thoughts, he heard the tyrant say coldly, "The point is, strictly speaking, he's still human, a mortal. Don't look at him the way you look at Jesus. Even if you stare holes through his hands, your good friend won't be resurrected in three days."
Everyone: “…”
What the hell is going on... What is "Jesus"?
"According to divine history, the longest a god has existed is over five hundred years, and the shortest is no more than twenty or thirty years. Of course, some of them disappeared inexplicably, while others were killed by other gods."
The professor put down his coffee cup and tapped the table with his knuckles, signaling everyone to focus their attention on him. "These gods have their bodies destroyed, but their souls are strangely 'surviving' and attempting to take over the bodies of the living. They're nothing more than a group of monsters unwilling to die and yearning for 'resurrection.' I can safely deduce that the reason the old gods engage in this ridiculous 'game' is to escape the fear of death, a fear that's very imminent—before engaging in this 'game,' they were already near death."
Azuka's eyes softened. He hadn't found a chance to communicate with the professor about the information revealed by the God of Love, but the other party had already thought of it and quietly avoided the possible subconscious alienation of humans towards other species.
——God will also die.
The question is, when will we die? Why will we die?
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