Chapter 692 - Cerberus

Eisen looked at the woman sitting across the table from him. A goddess of the Underworld, L.u.s.t, "You know, your realm is a rather annoying one..."

"Heh, it's not supposed to be pleasant, you know? It's punishment for those beings that were overcome with extreme l.u.s.t in their lifetime. They are unable to stay still, fall asleep, or even eat. All because of their L.u.s.t. And of course, they're never able to completely run away from this."

"...I see." Eisen replied in a quiet voice, and L.u.s.t seemed a bit surprised at his reaction, "Is something wrong? Don't tell me you feel bad for those lowly monsters."

"Of course I do. Why shouldn't I? I'm a half-monster myself, and this whole situation is unfair from the start. Why are monsters being punished in hell, while even vile people are allowed to be in heaven?" The old man asked with a deep frown on his face. It really didn't make sense to him at all. But to L.u.s.t, it seemed natural.

"On the contrary, why should mere mindless monsters be allowed in a place such as heaven? You realize that most of them are nothing but mindless beasts?" She pointed out. Eisen stared deep into her eyes, so he knew that she was completely and utterly serious about these thoughts. He understood where she was getting at, but he still felt that a lot of this stuff was completely unfair toward Monsters.

"If you think that way, then there are plenty of people that should be punished and sent here. There are mindless beasts amongst them too." 

"...I'm getting an inkling that you don't like people that much." L.u.s.t replied, but Eisen shook his head without hesitation, "No, I love people. Which is why I don't want the bad ones to be there to taint the good ones."

"... So you would rather see someone that you simply don't agree with suffering for eternity than let them be?" The Goddess asked, "Is that not rather small-minded?" 

"I never said that. But if there are creatures here that suffer basically just for the fact they were born as monsters, then I think those that chose to become ones themselves should be treated the same, if not worse."

"...There are People here in the hells as well, you know?"

"Yeah, but they're people that simply did something the gods didn't like, right? I don't know whether that means that they're actually genuinely bad people. You know as well as I do that there are plenty of gods that aren't morally bright individuals." Eisen pointed out with a deep frown. L.u.s.t didn't really know what to say anymore, since even she had to admit that Eisen had a point, even if she didn't agree with it.

"Well, that's just how it is. I can't change anything about it, even if I wanted to. Which, to be fair, I don't. Sorry about that." L.u.s.t replied bluntly. Eisen looked back at her and then just slowly nodded his head. He realized that he couldn't just request for her to stop punishing monsters. They were created with the intention of being the antagonists of this world, basically, so it made sense that the Gods weren't particularly happy with the idea of treating monsters the same as they treated people.

But from Eisen's point of view, from the perspective of a man that didn't need to interact with monsters until a few months ago, and since then made friends with numerous amazing 'Monsters', something like this was hard to accept. And sure, Eisen himself killed monsters without hesitation, but... He didn't feel that much remorse about killing people either.

He wasn't sure why, it might have to do with the former Eisen's mental influence slowly encroaching on him, but it was pretty easy for him to kill people now. At the start when he first joined this 'game', he wasn't entirely sure about it, but the longer he played, the more he realized that such thoughts and worries really didn't matter at the end of the day.

With a deep sigh, Eisen stood up from the chair that he was offered by L.u.s.t before, "Sorry, but I think it would be a good idea to leave and go to the next circle now." The old man said as he turned around, with his black demonic sword in his hand.

But then, L.u.s.t said something else that Eisen himself wasn't particularly sure about himself, "You're quite the hypocrite, aren't you? You say that it is wrong to forever trap monsters here in the underworld while they're suffering, but you use their souls to create items without them being able to have any choice in the matter. And now, you went around this realm and forever destroyed many, many souls."

Eisen looked down at the ground and let out a deep sigh, "First, stop pretending that you really care about that. And second, I realize that it might seem somewhat hypocritical, but these are two different issues. You are entrapping them in terror for infinity. I am temporarily getting the aid of the souls. And right now, those that were eaten by my blade... They have become part of it. I am treating them well. I am treating them with respect. That is much better than anything they could have experienced here, don't you think?"

As the old man spoke, he saw the gate that led to the next realm appear in front of him. Eisen pushed the gate open and stepped through it without waiting for an answer from L.u.s.t.

The moment that he did, his skin was hit by heavy icy rain, and the gate closed up behind him, "Urgh... Couldn't we have stayed there a little longer? I hate this place... This time around, even I can't avoid this shitty weather." Satel complained with a loud groan, and Eisen turned toward them with a wry smile, "Don't worry, I'll try to finish this a bit quicker than before."

Eisen looked around the place where he was standing now. He was still inside of a castle-like structure, but this time around it wasn't just a hallway, but he was inside of a large court-yard.

And then, a notification popped up in front of Eisen that told him what he was supposed to do here, showing that this might actually be a realm that he could finish up somewhat quickly. 

[New Quest – Beast of Gluttony]

[Description] In order to be acknowledged by the Gods of Hell, you have started to make your way through the nine circles of hell. On your first stop, you reached Limbo. On your second, you reached L.u.s.t. On your third, you reached Gluttony. Your task in this realm is to kill Cerberus.

[Conditions] Kill Cerberus

[Rewards] Gluttony's Acknowledgement

[Penalty] None

Eisen waved the notification to the side. He wasn't sure how well this would end up going, but a battle like this might be easier and quicker to finish than wandering around for hours on end and slowly improving your progress on a single specific task.

And then, just a bit in front of him in front of the gate that seemed to lead outside of the castle walls stood a small humanoid figure, although Eisen wasn't entirely sure to figure out what kind of monster this was supposed to be. He took a step closer with his hands tightly wrapped around the handle of his sword.

The figure, that seemed to have the height and proportions of a human child, slowly raised its head and its pure white eyes glowed in a bright light.

It pulled open its mouth and started to scream loudly as its maw revealed sharp, monstrous teeth. Its jaw was practicelly pressed against its chest despite the fact that the monster was obviously looking up into the sky. It was rather horrifying, honestly.

As quickly as he could, Eisen jumped toward this monster and swung his blade down toward it, quickly cutting it in half. Even if this somehow didn't turn out to be cerberus, this monster still seemed rather dangerous. That's what he thought, at least, but it was surprisingly easy to cut it in half. 

Just as that thought crossed the old man's mind, the Monster started to put itself together again. But not only that, it was like growths were appearing all over its body, and it was exploding in size in a disfigured manner.

No matter how often Eisen cut down onto it, it would instantly recover and just keep growing. When it finally stopped, Eisen saw that it really was Cerberus.

And it wasn't the regular version from Greek Mythology where it was a three-headed dog. Rather, it was soemthing far more grotesque than that. It still seemed to be based off of something quadripedal, but those were the only things that it had in common with a dog.

It didn't have fur, but red, wet skin, as if someone had ripped the real skin off of someone and they started just bleeding constantly. And instead of having dog-like heads, it had three legs that could be compared to a 'worm', with a circular open mouth and sharp teeth circling around in each of the mouths. It didn't even have eyes, or even a proper head. It was more like a thick tube.

Now, Eisen understood what 'Three-headed Worm' really meant, as Cerberus was described in Dante's Inferno that these realms were based off of. This sight in front of Eisen was rather off-putting, but nonetheless, Eisen still had to fight this weird monstrosity.

Otherwise, he couldn't move on. With his truth-seeing eyes, he was able to really confirm this monster as Cerberus, and even figured out its health. It seemed to be at a boss-level stat-wise, which honestly made quite a lot of sense.

But even so, Eisen should be able to manage. He activated his Draconic Demon King transformation and increased his size to the absolute maximum, and proceeded to swing his blade down at Cerberus over and over again. He burnt it, he cut it up, and then burnt it again. The old man continued on trying to kill this monstrosity, but no matter what he did, it would put itself back together and continue growing in size to try and catch up to Eisen.

When he noticed this, he started taking a step back to think. Just like the other realms, it seemed like this one was infinitely large. Different to the others, though, outside of the castle was an infinitely stratching, flat field, and every kilometer or so, Eisen could see another castle like this scattered around.

There wasn't any way for him to beat this creature if he kept cutting into it, really. All of its HP was immediately being restored as well. 

Eisen had to come up with a good trick.