Volume 2 - CH 16.3

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

Chapter 16: Let’s Make a Foolish Decision, Part 3

「Impossible… you, a God?」

Aur’s thought processes were caught in a vortex of violent confusion.

Right now, his body was experiencing severe magical power deficiency. He had all of the obvious symptoms of it: His body felt heavy, and his consciousness was cloudy.

「You really want me to believe that you’re… you were once a God of Heaven who fought against the Sorcerer King?」

「You believing me would certainly made things much simpler, so yes.」

The magical energy radiating from Sofia’s body was interfering with Aur’s own magical energy.

The power that the Gods of this continent used, the spiritual power, could be likened to the mixture between magic and laws. If that was the case, was the one standing in front of him truly a God?

「Sofia, where…. What exactly are you?」

「That is what I need you to understand.」

The light surrounding Sofia answers Aur.

「Now that I have awakened, the one you call Sofia was but a one aspect of me.」

Aur tried to yell at it to stop, but it was fruitless. No matter how hard he tried, his voice just didn’t want to come out.

「Essentially, she’s disappeared.」

Aur’s body collapsed onto the ground. He didn’t want to believe it, but at the same time he knew that it was true.

「My mission is to destroy all demons.」

Declaring so, she put her hand over Aur.

「Demon Lord Aur, as thanks for reviving me, I will make sure that your death will be quick and painless.」

In her hand, a pure white flame appeared. It was not a burning mass of violence and destruction that Uzermart used. It was the flame that burned down and purified everything that it touched.

「I won’t let you!」

When Aur was about to be engulfed by that flame, he suddenly heard Yunis’ voice.

She was clad in pure white armor, and stood beside his together with Sakuya, Zana and Tatsuki to protect him.

「Ei!」

Tatsuki swung her hands, making the hot water from the hot spring swallow the light.

「Freeze!」

Zana then froze it immediately.

「Go now, quickly, I won’t be able to hold it for long!」

The ice dissolved into steam moments after she said that.

「I won’t allow you to stand in my way.」

Her voice was void from hostility or murderous intent. She was merely stating the fact. Together with her words, countless fireballs bloomed around the light.

「Please stand down!」

Sakuya swung her fan and produced almost the same number of fireballs as Sofia’s figure in the light, cancelling them all out.

「Hou?」

The light gave an amused voice.

「That was incredibly rude of you.」

Sakuya opened her fan and declared angrily. Both her hair and her eyes were gleaming like embers.

「I am the Guardian God of Yamato, Sakuya of the Hanasakaya Mountain! What were you thinking, invading my fellow comrade’s home like that?!」

From the ceiling above, a large amount of magma pours in, mixing with the water and creating a molten mass of rock that traps the light inside of it.

「Master!」

Sakuya ran back to Aur and kneeled beside him, stroking his hair and smiling gently.

「What are you doing, making me worry about you like that? Come on, we need to get you back in shape quickly.」

「Wait..!」

Sakuya pulls Aur up by the shoulder, and when he’s back up, she kisses him.

「Now, Goddess of Fortune, take care of him for me, would you?」

「No need to ask, just leave it all to me!」

Misha made a hole in the wall and dragged Aur through it.

The ball of molten magma opens like a ripened fruit. The amount of light emanating from it is twice as much as before.

「SAKUYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!」

Looking back at him with a radiant smile on her face, she was enveloped by the light and disappeared from Aur’s sight.

* * *

「This place is…」

When Aur regained consciousness, he was in the middle of a dark stone labyrinth. The construction was quite different than what he and Sofia made by taking control of the land. He soon realized that he was in his old Dungeon.

「Are you all right?」

Yunis, still in her spirit form, looks down at him worriedly.

Maybe he didn’t lose consciousness for that long then. Looking back, Tatsuki, Zana and Misha were also with them.

Him losing consciousness must have been caused by a shock reaction at magic energy suddenly entering his body. Now it was full of it thanks to the replenishments that came to him from the Dungeon Core.

「Report the situation. How many people did you managed to get out?!」

「Mine and Logan’s bodies disappeared in Sofia’s Dungeon, and we were just summoned back a while ago. While Spina fainted, I think she’ll be fine after she gets some more rest. Everyone else was safely evacuated to this Dungeon, except for Sakuya and Sofia herself.」

Lilu filled Aur in on their current situation.

Unlike Misha, who commanded space, Sakuya was the Goddess of Volcanoes, so she could not teleport instantly from place to place. It was obvious that she won’t make it.

「I am truly sorry, my lord. What I did was awful.」

「That God out there… he might be using Sofia’s body, but that was not her anymore. Everything about her was different.」

「Different…」

Aur finally noticed.

「That was probably…」

「The God of the Sun hiding in the earth, right?」

When he said that, Misha’s eyes opened wide in surprise.

「You knew about that?」

「No.」

He only noticed it just recently. Even he did not suspected that the God of the Sun would be hiding underground.

And he noticed one more thing. He no longer perceived Sofia as his important daughter. Was it because her identity changed? And come to think about it, if she was something like that, what was she doing in the middle of the forest in the shape of a baby? Why was she growing like a normal human if she was a God all along? He just couldn’t stop wandering about that.

They shared happy time and sad times together, and even when she was beginning to see him as a men, he still cared for her deeply.

She was his daughter, even if they were not related by blood.

「Just what is going on here?」

The God of the Rising Sun inside Hoseli, White Kukuru.

Igaruk, the God of the Sun dwelling inside Eve, who was his shrine maiden.

And Atom, the God of the Sun whom Uzermart Served.

Why were there so many Gods of the Sun? Was it one entity separated for some reason? But even after they killed Uzermart, nothing happened. The sun in the sky continued to shine like it always did.

「The Goddess hidden beneath the earth, I think this is most likely Oohime, a Goddess that supposedly disappeared over a thousand years ago.」

「Really? So there actually was something like that.」

Here in this land, Aur created something out of nothing with his own two hands. That something was a Dungeon. In other words, the body. And Mari gave the name to the baby they found in the middle of it, it’s soul.

Possessing both body and a soul, Sofia grew.

She did, but at the same time she didn’t.

She was simply gradually returning to her original appearance.

And because she was a part of the Dungeon, she gained another strength. The ability to capture other things and made them a part of her own strength. Dungeon encompasses everything, and everything could be made a part of it. That was its greatest advantage.

And that light emanating out of her was the result of gathering all the scattered parts of the God of the Sun in one place. A god who dwelled in Heaven, thought against the Sorcerer King and was destroyed by him.

Aur had always thought that the Continent of Sofia, where so many gods dwelled, was rather strange. It was strange that omnipotent being such as them were dwelling on the mortal plain, interfering with the lives of ordinary men.

But in reality it was quite different.

The continent where Aur was born and raised was the exception to that rule. Maybe in the past, so distant that no one remembered it anymore, there were actually thousands of Gods living here as well.

Whatever might’ve happened, now there was only one of them here? The strongest, the God of the sun himself, here not even recognized as such and dubbed the God of Heaven, the incarnation of the light.

「So, what are we going to do, Aur?」

Lilu asked anxiously.

After all, Tena’s prediction did not come true this time. Even after all they did, they were still unable to escape this particular fate. But as long as they stayed here, they should all

be safe. The power of the God of the sun was not that of the sun itself. It does not reach to the other continents.

「We need to fix this mess.」

But they cannot openly oppose the god of light. He is an existence that fought against the Sorcerer King himself, after all. If they just carelessly pick a fight with him, they are going to be slaughtered.

Even a decade ago, they managed to barely win against Melizand, who was a part of his forces.

Their chances of victory were close to zero. But as long as it wasn’t zero itself, it was worth a shot. Even if it was utterly foolish.

「I’m going back to reclaim my daughter.」

With newfound determination, Aur declared so.