NOVEL NEXT 189: F20, Divine Check-Up
…What the heck just happened?
points for clearing the floor.
You have received an additional
1 000 points for being the first to clear
the floor.>
you will receive an additional reward.>
the additional reward has been
traded for 5 000 points.>
<54 Gods have shown a positive response to you.
You have obtained 54 000 points.>
<6 Gods have shown a negative response to you.
6 000 points have been deducted.>
the floor clear reward has been
traded for 1 000 points.>
…Wait a minute. Wait a second, right there.
Fifty-four?!
No—no. I must be imagining things. Heh, silly brain, stop making up your own ideas and things! Dumb, dumb. Okay, let’s read this thing again…
Sold for debt, sold for debt, fifty-four gods and have shown a positive response, sold for debt…
My gaze slides back up to the reaction part. I carefully rub my eyes.
Fifty-four.
That… is… uh…
has invited all available Gods
to a deliberation in regard to
Hell Challenger Lo Fennrick’s debt.>
<...>
…Hey, what the heck, man?
explains Himself the following way:
[I’m busy, tee-hee!]>
—Pardon me?
That’s not an excuse, damn it!
You have beaten the twentieth floor
of the Tutorial on Hell Difficulty.
You are hereby invited to meet
the Hell Difficulty Administrator
to make a request.>
Don’t try to distract me with—
Oh, wait, business as in ‘fulfilling my wish’?
…Okay, carry on, then.
Considering the fact that I know You’re right here, listening to me, there really shouldn’t be any need for me to wait.
The Hell Difficulty Administrator
will see you now.>
Patience? What patience? This is completely—
The world spins and I’m abruptly deposited in that familiar space except, no, it’s quite different. It feels the same, oddly enough, but instead of being a big BLACK empty space, I’m standing in a doctor’s office of some sort. Like, a fully modern hospital room, complete with papers I can’t understand and various tools and, most importantly, a stretcher. One with the sandwich paper on top.
Purely by instinct, I take a seat on the bed, trying to get comfortable even though it’s as stiff as wood. Hm. I wonder what the purpose of putting me in a hospital room is supposed to b—
The door to the room is slapped open and Pain literally sprints inside, His weirdly-fitting doctor’s coat flapping as He pauses in front of me, putting the cold listening-piece of a stethoscope against my chest. What the heck is He—
Removing the piece from my chest, He affixes me with a suspicious gaze. “You are Kitty, right? Say ‘meow meow’ if you’re being coerced or puppeteered by the God of Kings.”
I—I’m not—yeah, it’s me! What the heck are You on about?
He squints even harder. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”
I said, it’s—
My mind flashes back to what He said the last time I absorbed a shard of divinity. I look Him up and down. “Can you… not understand what I’m thinking?”
His mouth opens and then closes just as fast. “I, erm…”
My face splits into a grin. “You can’t!”
“I can! It’s just a little garbled, is all,” He defends weakly.
“Oh yeah? How many meows am I thinking?”
Woof.
He makes a funny expression. “That was… one, I think?
My grin widens. “Trick question. I woofed.”
“Oh, come on, don’t be like that!” He says, throwing His arms in the air before crossing them and turning away from me. He huffs a little. “Hmpf. And here I was going to give you a free soul evaluation to make sure you weren’t about to be forcefully made into a herald…”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t ask for it, so,” my jaws snap together. Hang on. What the heck did He just say…? “Uh, say, Pain…” I gulp. “That thing I did earlier… I’m sorry, okay?” He peeks at me over His shoulder. “I got carried away, so…”
“...You mean it? You won’t pull any tricks on me again, right?”
Sighing, I briefly consider the pros and cons of pulling tricks on a divine entity versus the possibility of being forcefully turned into a herald. In the end, there’s only one unfortunate answer. Slumping down on top of the stretcher, I let a sigh of the soul leave my lips. “Yeah, I promise.”
Content with my answer, He twirls back around, face once more lit in a pure grin. “Wonderful! In that case, I’ll get right onto it.” And without warning, He stabs His hand into my chest.
Wh—whoa, hey! What the heck are You—
“Let’s see here,” He says right as He pulls out my heart. Though, on second look, He isn’t actually pulling out my heart, but rather what looks like a half-translucent copy of my heart, with two shards of purple crystal stabbed square into it, one of them surrounded by what looks like indigo mold. “Yep, there it is. See these veins right here, the BLACK ones?”
Following where he’s pointing, I notice that there are indeed a couple of BLACK veins blossoming across my heart. “Uh, are those supposed to be there?”
“Oh, yes, absolutely! This is very good progress. Now, your level is a bit lacking, but with your resistances and skills, this is a very good form. Once you mature a bit more, I haven’t got a doubt in My mind that you’ll be mowing down the soldiers of the God of Kings with ease!” As His attention moves, He points a finger to one of the two purple shards instead. “These two are a bit more worrying, though. You’re the first case we’ve had of this, so I can’t make any statements in complete certainty, but being one of the oldest Gods in the God of Multitudes, I’m pretty certain that this isn’t good.
“See, the past two times when we’ve had a human like you fight and defeat a proper herald—not the little, non-sentient ones—they handed the shard of divinity to Us so that We could cleanse it properly and even put the divinity back into the system for other challengers to soak up. But you, heh…” His grin widens. “You just went ahead and ate it!”
I shift a little atop the sandwich paper of the stretcher, trying to ignore the feeling that I might get wrapped up at any time. “So, um, was that a bad thing…?”
“No clue! When you did it, I couldn’t believe My eyes! I was very impressed, no doubt. Especially since you didn’t just die instantly from the sudden influx of divinity. I would personally place My bet on the fact that if your divinity tolerance had been even one level lower, you would’ve died right on the spot.” He looks down at my heart, still in His hand, and I follow His gaze. “However, as you can see here, it might still have had its effects. Not least in allowing you to draw the divinity from an incomplete herald. Not even We can do that!”
“So it’s good?”
The shrug He gives as a response certainly doesn’t speak for certainty. “As I said… We don’t know! For now, We don’t even know if you’re stable. So far, the two types of divinity in here aren’t exactly clashing, but that might not always be the case. There is a chance that should you ever use magic consciously, you might explode, or die some other horribly gruesome death.” Apparently, the look on my face is enough to make him muster a calming look. “But We won’t allow that. You’re one of Our most promising challengers, in the purely physical aspect. What you did on this floor… Maybe that’ll get a few more Gods to see what I see in you? Who knows!
“Either way, for now, I think you’ll be fine. This might not look too good, but for the time being, I’ll try to find some way of solving this—one that won’t result in you losing one or more limbs.” Smiling, He leans back out, letting go of my heart to make it slingshot back into my chest. I touch a hand to where it went in, finding the patch of skin slightly cold.
“Thanks,” I say.
I blinks down at me, briefly still. “...You’re sure you haven’t been replaced by a tallthing?”
“Yeah, I’m sure!” I say, crossing my arms over my chest defensively. “Why do You keep asking about that? I’m the same as I’ve always been.”
He looks me up and down, face blank. “I’m not so sure about that.” Without waiting for me to have time to ask Him what the heck He means by that, He breaks out into a smile again, and asks, “So, onto the wish! What is it that your heart desires, my friend?”
…Well, I used to know what I was going to wish for, but now I’m a bit confused. I mean, from what He said… Part of the reason I can’t use magic is because they won’t let me, since it might make me explode or whatever. In that case… “Can you remove my magic stat?”
He blinks at me.
I make a few movements in the air. “I mean, like… You don’t remove it totally, per se, but rather relocate it into my other stats. And then when I level up in the future, I get the points in the stats that actually do something, instead of the stat that’s functionally useless for me.” I perk an eyebrow at Him. “Would that… be doable?”
Closing His eyes, He hums for a few seconds, rubbing His chin. Then, His eyes flash back open, and He says, “Maybe!”
Oh, come on! Can’t I get at least one real answer today?
While I’m still mentally complaining about the whole deal, He slyly wiggles a finger at me. “I didn’t say ‘no,’ now did I?” Hope rears in my chest for the second time in the past hour or so. W—wait, is it really possible? “It would be a complicated process, but I believe that it might be possible. Your divinity tolerance is high enough to where it should be able to handle the leveling process and the God of King’s divinity, so…” Mumbling to Himself, I hear him say something like, “Yeah, if you concentrate a portion around his semi-formed soul, and boost the potency of a few skills…” Nodding to Himself, he finally reaches an answer. “It’s doable! It won’t be instantaneous, but I think I can squeeze it into a single day. You might feel a few of your bones shifting, but I wouldn’t worry. To account for your loss of the divinity stat, I’ll be making a skill that adequately contains the uses of the divinity stat without the ability to actually use the stored divinity.”
“That’s… good, right?”
“Yep! All and all, you get your wish, and by the next floor, you’ll be able to put your heightened stats to good use,” He says. Then, stretching his back, he happily says, “Wow, that was an effective meeting! Glad I could help, and if you find yourself fighting more heralds, be they half or fully formed, don’t feel scared to absorb the divinity! If things go south, I’ll try to help—if I can!
“Now, until the next time… Have a good one, Kitty!”