“E-Er, sorry... Let’s change the topic, shall we?” Zelos said. “How much have you looked into this world?”
“Huh? Uh, let me think... So the general setting is the same as in Swords & Sorceries, but the little things are all different, yeah? Take levels, for example. Players could pass Level 1,000 if we went about it the right way, but in this world, Level 500’s the limit. I think I’ve heard that even Level 300’s considered pretty impressive?”
“That’s right. And that means us reincarnators and our levels are abnormal here. Remember, we went up against those three and came out thinking we could’ve won easily enough if the fight had continued. It shows we’ve got to be pretty beyond the pale.”
“Yeah, we’re more than a match for the Four Gods in a fight... Does that mean we’re, like, outside the framework of this whole world?”
“You could probably call us contaminants. Foreign substances. If this world had a bunch of mages and soldiers the same level as us, it’d get destroyed. I mean, even calling ourselves living weapons would be an understatement, right? The thing is, though, we’re not the only ones that can go past Level 500. Monsters living in certain environments can, for one. And what do you think that might mean?”
“You’re talking about the Far-Flung Green Depths... What, do you think the laws of nature in this world are just broken? Yeah... Unlike humans and animals, monsters have magic stones in their bodies, and they sure seem to deviate from the natural order of things. Or...are they only just starting to deviate?”
“Mm-hmm—that does seem to be the likely conclusion, doesn’t it? The reufayl are said to be the God of Creation’s disciples, so let’s put them aside for a moment. No other races and species seem to be able to go past that level cap. Monsters, though? They can. And they can evolve too.”
“Yeah, evolution’s usually meant to be slow. A species adapts to its environment over many generations. But one thing suddenly transforming into another is just weird, isn’t it?”
Sentient life, humans included, could only raise their levels so high.
Unlike the other humanoid races, the reufayl—who’d once been considered the chosen ones of the God of Creation—could surpass Level 1,000, but even then, you could count those who had exceeded it on one hand.
Either way, the other races were stuck at Level 500, and although levels weren’t an explicit concept here, they worked almost identically to how they did in Swords & Sorceries.
Monsters were hardly disciples of the gods; instead, they were more akin to wild animals. But, strangely, their levels weren’t limited to 500. Depending on their environments and their evolutions, they could go beyond that “cap.”
If monsters were regular life-forms, then it should have been impossible for them to exceed that value in this world.
So it was natural to assume that this phenomenon had something to do with the laws of nature breaking down.
“I’m starting to feel like monsters are special somehow. Is this another thing that’s happening because the Four Gods don’t bother actually managing the world?” Ado said.
“Who knows?” Zelos shrugged. “Maybe it’s because all the hero summonings have connected this world to others so many times? Remember that those were happening once every thirty years, which means this world was breaking through dimensional space pretty frequently, in macro terms. There are probably a bunch of other worlds out there, like Earth, that don’t have any mana. And there could be worlds governed by natural laws we can’t even comprehend. Even if it was only for a few moments every time, coming into contact with worlds like that must have thrown this world’s systems into disarray. It’d be weird if that didn’t happen.”
“Right...”
It was still too early for Zelos to tell Ado that the lingering souls of the heroes were destroying this world.
After all, if Ado probed into where Zelos had gotten that info from, Zelos would inevitably have to tell him about the Dark God.
And while the Dark God hadn’t finished reviving inside a culture tank in Zelos’s basement, Zelos had to keep it absolutely secret, even from Ado. To that end, he’d mixed in some falsehoods to throw Ado off the scent.
While he’d thrown ideas together without much thought, he wasn’t lying when he’d said the world’s laws of nature were collapsing.
He’d just left out some important details, that was all.
“It’s a shame we didn’t get to finish them off back there, huh?” Ado said.
“I mean, it would’ve been a three-way fight between three of the Four Gods, a cockroach tokusatsu hero, and us. The damage would’ve been even more catastrophic than it already was.”
“I guess, but... I just wish we’d been able to get rid of at least one of them.”
“One of them disappeared at one point, didn’t she? Maybe they aren’t that close to each other. Anyway, we got more proof of how annoying they are, so I guess we should be content with that.”
They’d verified that the Four Gods—or at least the three who’d come to fight—were exceptionally selfish.
Even if he’d already been confident that was the case, seeing the three goddesses talk and act in person—seeing them make spur-of-the-moment decisions with minimal thought—had made Zelos sure now that the three of them were far too immature to be deserving of the title “gods.”
Their attitudes had given him flashbacks to his older sister Remi, or Sharanla, as she was called now. It had made Zelos even more confident categorizing them as something he had to exterminate.
He was prepared to blow them up without a moment’s thought the next time they met.
“They really did act like faeries, didn’t they?” he said.
“Yeah, you’re right.” Ado nodded. “Makes sense now why the Faith of the Four Gods protects those little shits.”
“Are you with me in thinking the Four Gods were based on faeries, Ado?”
“Not a doubt in my mind.”
Faeries were semicorporeal life-forms. If you were being generous, you could say they had a child’s innocence and simplemindedness—but, more accurately, they were hedonistic, egotistical, selfish, and full of unrestrained malice.
The “pranks” that faeries pulled weren’t petty like children’s. They’d come out of nowhere and slaughter humans and livestock for fun, dissect people and other creatures alive, and so on. They weren’t your average life-forms, and they were incredibly dangerous.
It had never been entirely clear why the Faith of the Four Gods extended its protection to such dangerous entities. But if the Four Gods themselves were closely related to faeries—if they were modeled on faeries—then that mystery solved itself.
“Actually, the village sheltering Yui had been beset by faerie attacks when I visited,” Zelos said. “I eradicated the whole faerie settlement. With Gluttonous Void.”
“Oh, yeah—there were rumors about that even in Isalas, y’know? People saying that Solistia might be testing some wide-area annihilation spell...”
“The moment I set foot in town, a faerie tried to drop an anvil on my head. Oh, and there was a little kid who’d been mutilated and left on death’s door. I don’t think I can really be blamed for crushing the little pricks in response, can I?”
“Wh-What about Yui?! Was Yui okay?!”
“She was fine. You know, apparently faeries don’t attack priests. And they can tell who’s a priest based on the robes, from the sounds of it.”
“I’m so glad I had her make a priest... Nice one, me!”
Before they’d all ended up in this world, Ado had recommended Swords & Sorceries to Yui, who hadn’t been able to go out much because of her pregnancy.
When she was sitting in the character creation menu, unable to decide on a class, Ado had recommended she make a priest, which would provide good support for his more combat-oriented character.
Her robes weren’t exactly the same as those worn by priests of the Faith of the Four Gods, but faeries weren’t intelligent enough to tell. As a result, Yui was much less likely to be the victim of faerie attacks.
After a moment of thought, Ado paled. “W-Wait. What if... What if she’d gone with something other than a priest?”
“Well, we’re talking about sadistic little gore and murder fiends. Do you really think they’d have left a pregnant woman alone?”
“Shit... They’re that bad?”
“That bad, and worse. Before I got to the faerie settlement, I scouted with a familiar, and the whole place was just full of corpses. It was like a cabal of serial killers had been doing their thing there for decades. I even saw one guy—a bandit, if I had to guess—getting dissected alive.”
“Zelos... Thank you so much for getting rid of those things! I owe you! Seriously, I don’t even have the words...”
Ado’s mind had gone straight to the possibility that the victim could’ve been Yui rather than a bandit. He felt like he’d never be able to thank Zelos enough.
“The faeries here are somehow worse than the ones in Swords & Sorceries,” Zelos said. “If you ever come across any, exterminate them without a moment’s hesitation. Don’t leave a single one alive.”
“Sure sounds like it, yeah. And sure—if I find any, I’ll do that. Still... I know they’re pretty awful, but it seems like you really have it out for them, huh?”
“They remind me of someone I had to deal with back on Earth, and that pisses me off. Anyway, yeah, thanks. If you stumble on a big faerie settlement, I’d appreciate you dealing with it.”
The pair exchanged a firm handshake.
Meanwhile, Lisa and Shakti continued to plod along behind them with empty expressions.
After walking like this for a while longer, the quartet arrived at a small port town that would allow them to cross the Aurus River.
It was nearly time for Ado to reunite with his fiancée, Yui.