Chapter 514 (2): Adventurer, Have You Come to Rescue the Goddess?

Demonic Realm of Darkness...

Bah, the Palace of Night of the tenth level occupied a vast land, with its own sun and moon. The waning moon hung in the sky, filled with the dim light of the stars. It represented the Plague of Stars, Ines’s old moniker. Under the faint stars and moon, the black, grand ancient city lay prostrate on the land like a massive monster, its size immeasurable.

Wayne crossed the forest and found the main path, going past the tall city entrance unmanned by any guards. Then... he saw Vichy.

“Adventurer, have you come to rescue the goddess?”

Vichy, clad in a black armor set with her long black hair tied into a high ponytail, deadpanned, leaning against the city wall robotically. She issued a mission to the adventurer venturing in.

There were so many ridiculous things to address that Wayne didn’t know where to start, so he didn’t try. Instead, he stared straight at Vichy for thirty seconds, making the NPC blush.

“It is you. Why are you acting in front of me?” He huffed and reached out to pin Vichy to the wall, burying his nose into her neck for a sniff. “You smell familiar, even of my sweat. You haven’t washed it away, yet you tried to play a random passerby in front of me? How unprofessional.”

Vichy pushed at his chest with both hands, stammering, “Adventurer, what are you talking about? Sweat? I don’t even know you.”

“Vichy, I call it ‘sweat’ to avoid being too blunt,” Wayne said with a cackle. “You know me. I never sweat. Do you need me to spell it out for you?”

She straightened up, blushing from her neck to her ears, her long legs stiffening. She told the adventurer to stop messing around. She would leave if he refused the mission.

“No rush. I think you’re adorable like this. Is there a hotel around here? Let’s do it before talking about the mission.” Wayne took her ponytail and swept it around his face.

“Adventurer, watch your tone!” Stunned, Vichy hurriedly messaged him. “Boss, you’re here to rescue the goddess, so you shouldn’t play around right now. If the goddess gets angry—”

“Then She’ll come to me. Wouldn’t that be ideal?”

You’re so right!

Vichy couldn’t argue with such sound logic, so she appealed to him instead, “Please behave, Boss. You like the goddess so much, so you must be willing to take the losses.”

Then she added in a silent message, “Once you meet the goddess, you can get back at Her by making Her cry a few more times.”

What a good knight you are, Wayne thought.

It was proven that no matter how distant two people were, they would become closer than ever after joining the same party—in every sense of the word.

“Fine, tell me then. What is the mission?” Wayne blew at Vichy’s neck teasingly before stepping back. He didn’t feel like he was suffering losses. He found the whole ordeal entertaining and was eager to learn about the script that Ines had prepared. If it was just a story about saving the princess, unfortunately, it would be a repeat of Aztimor’s story.

Seeing the serious look on his face, Vichy sorted out the tousled hair by her ear and deadpanned, “Adventurer, the great Divine Realm of Darkness faces an unprecedented crisis. The two subordinate gods have rebelled and trapped the goddess in the abyss. The entire Divine Realm sees no hope and will soon meet its doom. You alone can save the Divine Realm and the goddess by defeating the two subordinate gods.”

“I have a question.” Wayne the adventurer raised a hand. “How did you manage not to laugh when you said all that, Vichy?”

How would I dare laugh?! She rolled her eyes, demanding, “Be serious. Don’t ask unrelated questions right now.”

Pfft!!

Wayne turned away, his shoulders shaking.

Vichy groaned inwardly. Her two superiors were being inhuman again. They just had to drag her into their roleplay. Couldn’t she stay out of it?

Turning around and supporting herself with one hand on the wall, she lamented her difficult situation.

⁽˙³˙⁾(;-｡-)ノ|

“Ahem, you there, a passerby I don’t know. Go on and tell me the mission!” Wayne cleared his throat, telling her to hurry. He’d immersed himself in the role, so she should stop wasting time.

While complaining, he messaged her and asked her to play out this script in a one-on-one session with him someday.

Vichy blushed, neither agreeing nor rejecting him. “The goddess hasn’t misjudged you,” she said seriously. “Since you’ve accepted the mission to save the Divine Realm, follow me. I’ll guide you to overcome the trials and ultimately defeat the rebelling subordinate gods, acquiring from them the great treasure of the realm that’ll save the goddess.”

Oh, you’re not just a random NPC?

Wayne imagined hearing a notification sound. Checking the nonexistent companion list, he found Knight Vichy added to his party.

That begged the question: when would Anastasia join him? Would she be the mage of the adventure party? Would she be the kind of busty mage who tripped and fell even on flat ground?

Who would the two subordinate gods be, then? Would they turn to the light side and join him, too?

They would fit right in. Briar, the Eye of Tears, would be the priest, and Kaya, the Blade of Nightmares, would be the assassin. Wonderful! The pieces were falling into place!

“Now what am I? The archer or the swordsman?” Wayne mumbled to himself while following Vichy. No matter how he thought about it, neither would fit. The great demon lord would be more like him.

Under the waning moon sat an empty straight road. The shops on two sides had all closed. They weren’t just unpopular, but not populated at all. The place looked so much bleaker than the bustling Underworld.

“Not bad. She cleared the place in advance out of shame.” Wayne went up to put his arm around Vichy. She tried to reject him, but couldn’t resist his raw power. He managed to grab her waist.

“This won’t do. You’re tasked with the important mission of saving the goddess, so you must not flirt with any other adventurers.” Exasperated, Vichy reminded him that he had to remain pure until he met the goddess.

“That’s fine. Adventure is a process, just like life. Life doesn’t always follow the plan. There are always going to be hiccups.”

He made a solid argument with facts backing him up. “Take us as an example. We’ve developed feelings in our time fighting alongside each other. We thought it was love, only finding out we don’t fit together and breaking up later. We realized then that our feelings are one between comrades in arms!”

“See? That’s character growth. The arc enriches our adventure as well as our characters.”

“...”

(╥﹏╥)

Vichy didn’t know if their characters had been enriched, but she could sense a furious gaze coming from a distance, threatening to tear her to pieces.

As they advanced, with Wayne getting handsy, a few figures emerged from the far side of the road. It wasn’t a large group, consisting of only five. But they were all demigods. The leading bald man, in particular, was an exceptional talent even among demigods.

It was Solsknar, the Abyssal Python!

He was joined by Sai and Hayner, the twin sisters, and Sid and Gauche, the human demigods.

“Strange, why is the Palace of Night so quiet today?” Solsknar asked in confusion, rubbing his bald head. “This street is usually quite active. I heard nothing about a curfew.”

“Did something happen?” Sai asked. “Maybe I should ask the Listener. She’s usually well-informed.”

“Maybe not,” Solsknar said. “When I bought her meals recently, she gave me the cold shoulder, like talking to me would bring misery.”

He sighed. His luck had been quite rotten ever since he met the bastard named Wayne. His career had been on constant decline.

That itself wouldn’t be terrible since life was always filled with ups and downs. The problem was that he hadn’t bounced back.

That was bad. It appeared that he still hadn’t hit rock bottom.

“Let’s not talk about something bothersome like that. I’m buying today. Let’s mourn Vichy and drive away our misfortune. This is a long street. Some shops have to be open.”

The baldy looked ahead optimistically, only to see a man and a woman having a tussle. The woman looked familiar—the one and only Vichy, who had been missing for a long time. The man was even more of a familiar sight to him. Every night, Solsknar woke up from a nightmare wearing that face.

“Wayne?!” x5

The five demigods exclaimed and went into a defensive stance.

“Oh, it’s you.” Wayne grasped Vichy’s hand and trapped her in his arms, speaking up in surprise. “Aren’t you what’s-his-name and what’s-his-name’s lackeys? Fancy seeing you here. I thought you were dead!”

When Ines visited Hell to grab Wayne, he had only explained why he was there and never mentioned Solsknar, and Ines never asked. Both glossed over the matter.

Speaking of whom, Wayne didn’t dislike Solsknar even though the bastard had brought him to Hell, subjected him to the humiliation of Lust and the succubi, made him the notorious Lord of Deceit, brought him the misfortune of a sudden power jump that allowed him to enter Heaven and become the Anointed One, and even turned the prideful Mikhael his lapdog.

Truly, Wayne didn’t dislike Solsknar. Without him facilitating the story, Wayne wouldn’t have evolved so rapidly. Solsknar was even a major contributor to his entanglement with Ines. Without the push, he didn’t know for how much longer the goddess would remain aloof!

“Bastard, you’ve escaped Hell?” Solsknar glared at Wayne. Looking closely, one would see that the calves of the five demigods were trembling, probably because they had eaten something bad at lunch.

They looked like they were wobbling on thin ice.

“Hell? It’s nothing much. I got lost and got out.”

“You said that, but it couldn’t have been eas—” Solsknar stopped himself, pointing his fingers at Wayne with furrowed brows. “Damn pervert, let go of Vichy. Even if you’ve earned the goddess’s favor, it doesn’t mean you should humiliate a righteous knight in broad daylight.”

“Wake up. It’s the night.” Wayne pointed at the sky and the silver arc in particular. There was no daylight.

“Damn it. No wonder we hadn’t heard from Vichy. You captured her.” Solsknar raised his voice. “Vichy, this is the Divine Realm, so he has to relent sooner or later. We’ll save you.”

Sai, Hayner, Sid, and Gauche came up, swearing to save their tormented companion.

“You misjudged. It’s all a misunderstanding.” Wayne let go, pointing at the obedient Vichy. “See? I’m not forcing her. I’m not a pervert!”

“Nonsense!”

“We aren’t blind. We’ve seen everything.”

“Vichy isn’t a frivolous woman. She must be staying by your side because you have leverage over her!”

...She’s the one who has leverage over me. Ever consider that?

“Say something, Vichy!” Wayne looked at her, speechless. Solsknar had already suffered a lot. He didn’t want to put the demigod through more.

Target someone else. Anyone but me.

Vichy nodded vehemently and looked at Solsknar and his friends with teary eyes, imploring hoarsely, “Run. Leave me. You cannot defeat him. It’s not too late to run away.”

“...” x2

Wayne rolled his eyes and messaged her, “Is that part of the script?”

“Um... yeah.”

“You’re pretty good at this. Let’s keep this character as well for another day.”

“Oh.”