“Dark god. It’s time for a quest. Fulfill your role,” Gose said solemnly to the entity who had appeared.
Responding to the call, the dark god opened his eyes. The man had a face so beautiful that it was mystical, with long slitted eyes and a straight nose. His limbs were long and slender, and he was clad in a robe with a mysterious pattern that Alina had never seen before. He was the complete opposite of the burly dark god Silha.
But the awakened dark god neither moved nor said anything, just patiently gazed at Alina and Jade before him.
“Dark god,” Gose called out one more time, urging him on. “Come on, eat people for power—”
“Silence, fool,” the dark god spat, making Gose’s eyes widen in shock for a moment. The dark god furrowed his brows in clear displeasure, glaring at Gose. “Have you filthy swine still not learned to leave this power well alone?”
“Wha…?” Gose looked impatient, as if to say, This isn’t what I planned.
That was when Jade suddenly realized something. The dark gods that slumbered in hidden dungeons were supposed to revive from human souls. So far, they had all awakened from people dying in the dungeon. After that, they’d tried to kill more people on cruel impulse in an attempt to gain Dia skills.
But this dark god had awakened and shown himself without any sort of sacrifice.
“Were you the one chosen by the quest?” The dark god turned his eyes, which had silenced Gose, to Alina without hesitation. It seemed he understood that Alina had a power equal to that of a dark god, but there was no belligerent light or cruel shadow in his eyes. He had a very different air from the dark gods they’d seen before.
Ignoring everyone’s confusion, he opened his mouth dispassionately. “I am Raum. It is my fate to fight you… But I do not wish for that.”
“Dark god! Cut this out! You’re not allowed to do that!” Gose yelled.
Raum bared his teeth. “Silence! It’s because villains like you abuse this power that dark gods became monsters…! I—no, we did not create dark gods for something like this!!” Raum howled with a menacing look on his face, and the room trembled.
Though Jade was overwhelmed by Raum’s intimidating aura, he was confused by what he’d said. “Created…the dark gods…?! So then the dark gods made the dark gods?”
“No.” Raum emphatically denied Jade’s hypothesis.
“We were human. The dark gods were created to save the world. We did not make dark gods in order to enact such cruelty…!” His hands trembled and his back hunched as he wrung out these words, hints of intense regret and fear, like that of a human, showing in his voice.
Oh, so dark gods were once humans…
Not too long ago, they had learned that people became dark gods when they were embedded with a god core. That meant this man, Raum, had also been human and that he’d only turned into a dark god after a god core was embedded in him for whatever reason.
Is he not that influenced by the god core…?
By “such cruelty,” he was most likely referring to how the dark gods had destroyed the ancients. Jade didn’t sense in Raum the cruelty the other dark gods had shown.
“…How are you able to move without having consumed a human soul?” Jade cautiously asked Raum, staying on guard just in case.
“…” Raum seemed to regain some of his composure and lifted his chin. “Human souls are too powerful to use as a power source in the first place. They shouldn’t be used that way. They become overloaded and go out of control. If a dark god is not used in the wrong way, then they can be controlled… Like this.”
Letting out a breath, Raum muttered into the silence, “Disarm.”
The next moment, the god core embedded in his forehead changed. The white lights running through it stopped and eventually vanished.
“Now I will be no different from any other human,” Raum murmured, and he looked toward Alina.
And then he said something unbelievable.
“Will you kill me?”
“…?!” Jade and Alina were both left speechless at Raum’s unexpected proposal.
“The dark gods slumbering now were once talented and kind people. They were not at all fearsome monsters… They all wanted to be useful to the world…”
“…”
“I also don’t know when I might be given humans’ souls and wind up a mindless monster. Please, free me from this core before I end up like that.”
Alina gave Jade a troubled look. Jade also met her gaze with a glance, hesitating to make a decision.
At the very least, Raum was still possessed of his human reason and had no intention to fight—should they kill him now? There were many things they wanted to know about the dark gods. As Jade wavered over how to reply, it happened.
Soundlessly, something fell down from above.
They fell right before the dark god’s eyes, then slit Raum’s throat without hesitation
“Kah…?!”
Large volumes of blood spurted out, and the whites of Raum’s eyes showed as he fell face forward. A man had descended from the ceiling. He dug out the god core from Raum’s forehead with a smirk.
“Ahhh, man, silencing a dark god, what a nasty assignment.”
The young man rose and slowly turned toward them. He had small irises and pale skin. He watched as the fallen dark god Raum started to vanish from the edges, then pointed to Jade. “Hey, so you’re, like, that guy from Lowe’s party, right? Jade, was it?”
Why would Lowe’s name come up? Seeing Jade rattled, the man smirked. “I’m an acquaintance of Lowe’s. The name’s Gald. Not that it matters if I introduce myself—you guys are gonna die right away.”
Jade was about to take a step forward but stopped once he noticed what Gald was holding.
“A crystal gate…!”
The next thing he knew, it was too late. Gald held up the green crystal, and light filled his vision.