Chapter 6: O Master of Games, Grant Us New Life

“Mister Xi Wei, I saw a skill called ‘Raise Dead’, does that mean..?”

Eleena, who had just leveled up looked at Xi Wei hopefully.

Xi Wei knew that she wanted to bring back the villagers who had passed away.

“Unfortunately, it cannot be done,” he said, breaking her fantasy without remorse, “Raise Dead can only be used to revive believers of the God of Games, consuming their experience points too… As cruel as it may sound, these are rules set between the deities—we can’t interfere.”

Actually, even this sort of half-baked revival was made possible by taking advantage of some loopholes left by Lord Hades.

Originally, the God of Games did not have Divine Order to interfere with death, but for Xi Wei it was common knowledge for in-game characters to be able to revive after death. Thus, he decided to create a revival mechanism for his believers, and he had succeeded—If his believers still believed in him at their time of death, they would be able to trigger the revival mechanism and have their souls sent for safekeeping in Xi Wei’s Divine Kingdom. This state was not truly a state of death, so Lord Hades who had power over the netherworld and death would not be aware that a supposedly dead soul was intercepted.

If someone cast a revival spell on a believer in this state (as in their corpse) , they would be able to revive the believer while expending 10% of the experience points of the one who was revived. If no one helped them to revive, they would still directly be revived after seventy-two hours, expending 30% of their experience points.

Once their experience points weren’t enough to revive, they would drop a level—so in a way of speaking a Level 1 believer who did not have more than 10% of experience points would truly be beyond saving, while as long as they had more than 20% of experience points, they would never really die.

Excluding Lord Hades, even if the other deities tried this it wouldn’t have worked, as even though it was stepping a thin line, they would definitely need a Divine Order associated with death to be able to carry it out.

As the deity that had power over death itself, the faith of a living being meant nothing to Lord Hades. He wouldn’t go out of his way to revive His followers like this. Had he done so, it would have greatly reduced the fear that all living beings had in death, and in the process bringing down His prestige. He wouldn’t do something like that unless he was still well in the head.

In turn, the revival mechanism let Xi Wei understand even further that as long as it involved things that he considered to be common sense for games, he would now be able to influence it to a certain extent. Comparing himself with the previous God of Games, he was definitely better-rounded.

The girl who had just gotten hopeful started sniffling as her hopes were dashed with a bucket of cold water.

Even so, she did not escape the reality of what had happened, and instead added the skill point she had just obtained onto a healing skill ‘Healing Touch’, quickly making her way over to the survivors who were hanging on by a breath.

As she stretched out her hand, her palm started to emit a holy and pure glow. Had someone else been here to witness this scene, they would have even believed if someone told them she was an experienced nun—had it not been for how green ‘+1’ numbers were floating from the heads of the people lying on the floor.

These villagers were not even hurt all that badly. They just had their strengths depleted being used as toys by the Dragonfang—in the first place, those who were chosen to be its toys were all young villagers with more stamina. Therefore, the ‘+1’s didn’t appear for much longer before they were completely healed.

These villagers had already been on the brink of despair after their multiple failed attempts to escape, but in a sudden turn of events, the Dragontooth had been slain in moments.

Even though the one who landed the final hit on the monster was Eleena, the villagers knew that the one who had truly saved them from the disaster was the mysterious outsider.

“Honorable One!”

The villagers who survived were all young people around twelve to fifteen years old, consisting of three boys and a girl. One of the youngsters who looked like their leader stepped shakily towards Xi Wei and kneeled down, with gut-wrenching sobs tearing from his chest as he pleaded, “Our village has been completely destroyed, and there would be no use staying here! If we don’t starve to death we would be devoured by vicious beasts! Please save us!”

Xi Wei rubbed his chin in thought. It seemed that they had mistaken him for a wandering magician, and wanted him to take them in.

But seeing as he didn’t have a lot of time left in the mortal realm, he gave up on the idea of getting attendants.

“I’m sorry but I cannot take you in, but if you are willing to believe in the great God of Games, I would be able to direct a path for you,” he said solemnly.

The youngster was a little disappointed by his refusal, but still bowed down toward him earnestly, “We are willing to worship the God of Games!”

The other survivors followed his example and bowed down, but since they hadn’t been educated on this sort of etiquette, they looked like large frogs lying on the ground.

Under Eleena’s hopeful gaze, Xi Wei waited for a moment before furrowing his brow.

He could not even feel a speck of divine energy coming from these boys and girls.

Evidently they were just saying it, and not believing in the God of Games from the bottom of their hearts like Eleena did.

Xi Wei wanted to tear apart their façade, but held himself back.

Back on Earth, he was an atheist, so he could more or less understand how the youngsters were feeling now—no one would open their hearts and believe in a religion that they had never heard of before with just a few words. Even marketing promoters could not do that so easily…

After all, even Eleena who he was most familiar with refused him back when he first requested her to become his Saintess, not to mention these youngsters which he had never even seen before!

And so after thinking for a while, he said, “I know that all of you have just lost all of your loved ones and helplessly looked on as they were killed mercilessly at the beast’s maw. Escaping death by only a fraction, you all are in extreme pain and anguish. But even now in your bleakest moment, have the deities that you have believed in so earnestly even given you even a morsel of aid and pity? Even if you went to the churches in the city, and confided all your grief towards those priests with bloated bellies, they would only respond with perfunctory words like “This was as the gods fated it to be” without even the slightest bit of pity.”

The young boys’ expressions turned distressed and bitter, while the only girl other than Eleena started sobbing.

Eleena came to her side, and gently pat her back comfortingly.

“But is that the truth? Not at all! Your existence means nothing to those high and mighty deities…Why would they care for you? You were deserted by them, like how humans would never care for ants that have been eaten by an anteater, these deities have never batted an eye at your suffering! Having heard all this, why do you still beg for them to feed you morsels like pitiful strays?!” Xi Wei continued in a provocative tone, getting louder and louder. “Rather than waiting for Divine Grace which those deities would never bless you with, why not use your own two hands to forge a path for yourself? There is no true fairness in this world, but fairness is exactly the gift that He gives to all of his believers! Why not give it a try? Use your own hands and hard-work to defy your so-called fate!”

As an ending to his invigorating speech, he smiled softly and said, “O Master of Games, grant us new life.”