Book 1 Chapter 1038
1038.
Lena’s body trembled.
“Th-there…”
“Yes? Oh! Shall I massage your legs this time?”
“Oh, no! This is too much of a burden!”
Lena gasped, looking at Rian who was diligently massaging her shoulders.
In fact, as a princess of the Arhi Kingdom, Lena had met countless people who revered her.
Among them, there were also countless sycophants.
But she could say with certainty!
‘This person…! No! There was no one like this god!’
It was completely different from her arrogant attitude of a moment ago.
If there were a born slave, wouldn’t they be like this?
“That’s right! I’m a slave! A slave down to my bones! Haak! Your soles are so soft!”
“Kyaaaaaaaaaak?!”
Lena, startled by Rian’s action of rubbing his cheek against the sole of her foot after taking off not only her shoes but also her socks, kicked him.
Thwack!
“Kuok?!”
Rian, kicked in the face, tumbled on the floor.
“Ar-are you okay?”
Lena, who had been forcibly seated in a luxurious chair, rushed towards Rian in a panic.
‘No matter how surprised I was, how could I kick a god!’
It was a moment when she was reproaching herself for her actions.
“Hueeeeeeeng. A noble being made of the blood and flesh inherited from Sir Kyle has stamped their foot on my face~ I’ll never wash this face!”
Lena felt chills looking at Rian, who was delighted with a deranged expression.
Shuddering with biological revulsion, Lena made a tearful face and looked at Luna.
“Gr-Grandma…!”
Seeing Lena asking for help, young Luna sighed deeply and looked at her spirit self.
“What?! Grandma?! The progenitor of the nebula is Grandma?!”
Rian’s eyes widened.
“Is that hot-tempered, needlessly proud, frustrating progenitor of the nebula, who wouldn’t even properly confess, confessing her feelings to Sir Kyle now?”
At those words, young Luna pulled out a book from a nearby bookshelf.
She felt dizzy from lack of energy, but strangely, she seemed to be gaining the stamina to punish the damned god in front of her.
Whack!
“Cough!”
Whack! Whack! Whack!
Young Luna furiously jabbed Rian with the corner of the book and asked Spirit Luna.
‘Can I beat this guy up?’
It was an act first, report later situation, but Spirit Luna didn’t care.
-Kill him.
Whack!
“Hiiik?! Lu-Lady Luna. You’ll kill him!”
“You don’t know gods well.”
“Huh?”
Young Luna looked down at the bloodied Rian with cold eyes.
Rian, writhing piteously, looked pathetic at first glance.
So much so that Lena forgot what had just happened and felt pity.
But Luna, who lived in the Age of Gods, knew well.
Especially, she knew even more about gods than other people of the Age of Gods.
Because even in her childhood, there were gods who approached her upon seeing her talent.
And those beings called gods never cower at this level of violence.
“Sir Kyle must have been hit like this too, right? Sir Kyle’s experience! The best!”
“Yeah. These are beings that shouldn’t exist on Earth.”
With a chilling expression, Luna slammed the book down again.
Crunch!
Lena squeezed her eyes shut.
A moment later.
Lena, hiding behind Luna, peeked her face over her shoulder.
In front of Luna, Rian sat kneeling, his eyes wide open and unblinking.
“Um… even if we treat a god like this…”
“When you draw a line, you have to draw it clearly. Otherwise, they would have licked even your soles.”
“Hiiik?!”
Lena recoiled, as if creeped out.
Luna sighed and scratched her head.
Rian would not inflict harm on Lena.
His intention to serve Lena was genuine.
‘That’s why it’s more of a problem.’
He showed a fanatical reaction just because she was the reincarnation of Kyle’s bloodline.
Young Luna, who had met gods a few times, knew well how to deal with them.
Luna, glaring at Rian, suddenly swayed with dizziness.
“Ar-are you okay?”
“It won’t be good to stay here for long.”
Rian said calmly.
“As I said before, for someone from the Hero’s World, merely being in this space will cause their presence to fade.”
“…”
At those words, young Luna sighed.
‘I knew it. That I wasn’t real.’
She had vaguely realized it ever since she heard about the Hero’s World.
‘There’s nothing new to it, right?’
Young Luna smiled faintly and looked at her future self, who wore a sorrowful expression.
She was told that she would forget everything anyway once she returned to her original timeline.
Thinking that way, there was no difference.
‘Perhaps I’m rather lucky.’
An unimaginably difficult future… beyond that, she could experience happiness.
And…
‘I also met someone I’ll give my heart to in the future.’
Just watching from the side, she could tell.
Why her future self… no, why she would come to love that man.
Rian, who had been silently watching young Luna, who smiled confidently without any fear, said,
“Indeed… it was no accident that you all saved the world.”
She was young and inexperienced, but her mindset was like that of a giant tree.
Inevitability.
That’s what he thought.
Rian, who had been smiling, then adopted a serious expression.
“The fact that future beings came to the past… means that Erebus’s existence will completely vanish in the future, doesn’t it?”
Lena was a little surprised by Rian’s words and asked,
“How do you know that…?”
“You can tell by the fact that a fragment of future Erebus has come.”
“He may look like that, but he’s a god.”
“He was once a god. Now he’s merely the administrator of the Hero Record.”
Rian smiled brightly.
“If Erebus had triumphed in the future, there would be no need to come to the past. Since Sir Kyle has reincarnated… it must mean that he put an end to the work he couldn’t finish during the Age of Calamity.”
“…That’s right.”
Rian nodded at Lena’s answer.
“The Hero Record will disappear too, won’t it?”
“Huh?”
Rian said, looking at Lena who showed a slightly flustered expression.
“There’s no way to subjugate the fragment of Erebus that has revived in this era. In the end, the heroes of creation will have no choice but to entrust it to future generations, and that choice will be to confine Erebus within the Hero’s World.”
Rian smiled faintly and looked at the infinitely unfolding records.
All of this was the story of heroes that Rian had recorded and contained.
“No matter that the Hero Record is an artifact created by all the gods pooling their power. If it is used as a vessel to seal primordial evil for a long time… it will eventually break and disappear.”
“…”
“The Age of Gods will meet its complete end.”
“Aren’t you and the Hero Record fated to be together? If the Hero Record disappears, won’t you disappear too?”
Rian smiled faintly at Luna’s words.
“That sounds good.”
“What?”
Luna looked a little surprised.
“Progenitor of the Nebula Luna, I understand your distrust of gods. No, for anyone who has met a god, it’s a very reasonable attitude.”
Rian silently looked up at the ceiling.
“Beings called gods have watched over the world for eons. At first, all gods tried to guide the world correctly. The growing world blossomed with countless possibilities. Until then, the gods were happy. But… as time passed, they became bored.”
“…”
“So, everyone began to yearn for the unknown they hadn’t experienced. Among them were those who didn’t abandon their beliefs, but… in the end, all gods realized something.”
“Realized what?”
“That the world guided by gods would someday perish.”
Lena was flustered as Rian spoke with a complex expression.
“Do you mean the gods will destroy the world?”
“No. Everyone came to know that our very existence would awaken calamity.”
“Even if it doesn’t seem so, the world is in harmony. If light is strong, darkness also becomes strong. The world during the Age of Gods was radiant. The glory of the Age of Heroes is also a glory built upon the foundation of the Age of Gods. However, as bright as it was, the power of the coming calamity also grew stronger. The gods knew that.”
As young Luna spoke, Lena’s gaze turned towards her.
“That’s what… another me explained.”
“Yes. As the Progenitor of the Nebula said.”
“…”
“So, when the Age of Calamity arrived, we gave up on the world.”
“…”
“Of course, we didn’t just give up willingly. We tried to stop it somehow. Even if we were driven mad by boredom, this world… was a precious world where everything we had was imbued.”
However, the gods could not save the world hurtling towards destruction.
All gods eventually accepted.
That the world’s fate had reached its end.
That the flames of calamity could not be stopped.
Even the gods who struggled against primordial evil did not believe they could save the world.
It was merely prolonging existence.
A struggle to watch over this world they cherished for a little longer.
When even the omniscient gods accepted the world’s demise.
“Great heroes appeared.”
Rian smiled brightly.
“You showed the unknown possibility that all gods had so desperately searched for and yearned for. We were excited. And at the same time, everyone realized something.”
“What?”
“That the moment we gave up on the world, it left our hands.”
Rian said calmly.
“The fact that the world we thought was ours was no longer ours.”
Rian looked down at his hands.
“The owners of the world were no longer the gods.”
With proud eyes, Rian looked at Lena.
“However… the reason we couldn’t completely take our hands off this world was ultimately because of the ‘calamity’ that would remain due to us.”
There was also the gods’ greed.
A deeply selfish desire to observe the world, which had begun to blossom with new unknowns, a little longer.
“That’s why we left the Hero Record on Earth.”
An era that is not the Age of Gods, but where the influence of gods remains.
“I am not the only one fated to be tied to the Hero Record.”
“What?”
“The moment the Hero Record vanishes, all gods will also vanish.”