Chapter 422 (1/2)

“Sorry?” Millie had to wonder if he heard it wrong. He even briefly wondered if there was a religious order called “Atheist,” but that couldn’t be it, either.

Not believing in any gods? Such a thing was simply impossible as far as Millie’s common sense was concerned.

“B—b—big brother! You’ll receive divine punishment if you say that! What do you mean, you don’t believe in any gods! When you die later, no gods will want to save your—”

“You really think that’s salvation?”

“Of course!”

“But why? Just because you’ve been told so? Because gods exist?” Su-hyeun stared deep into Millie’s eyes and continued with his questions. “Honestly, though, are they really gods?”

“What do you mean by that question?”

“Whether they are genuine gods or devils, or even monsters that don’t fall into either category, you can’t really tell now, can you? Because no one has uncovered the truth, after all. Even then, at the very least, they are beings that prey on the lives of all those people, so what separates them from actual monsters?”

“Sorry?”

“You should think about that on your own. I know that it’ll be impossible to change what you know as common sense with just a handful of words, anyway.”

Step—

Su-hyeun left the back alley after that. Millie, on the other hand, remained there in a daze. His face seemed to say that what Su-hyeun told him just now struck the boy’s mind hard.

It was an obvious quandary that no one had questioned yet.

Su-hyeun then emerged from the alley and out into the open, but right at that moment, his gaze went up. “Should I go up there? Or are you coming down, instead?”

Flinch—

He sensed someone up there flinching slightly. He then turned to enter a different alleyway, and that prompted the hidden figure up on the roofs to follow him there.

Once they were in an alleyway with no one else in it, the hidden figure finally revealed himself.

Land—

Su-hyeun asked first, “Do you have a business with me?”

“Did you just say that you don’t believe in any gods?”

His question was answered with another question.

It didn’t really matter, though. Su-hyeun alternated his gaze between the man before his eyes and at the top of the building this man had leaped off from.

The structure had to be at least five, maybe even six, floors high. Being able to jump off from there and land safely indicated that this man was quite highly skilled.

“Yes, I did. I only believe in myself.”

“Truly?”

For questions coming from someone who had appeared out of nowhere, they seemed rather strange. Since this man didn’t emit any hostility, it seemed safe to assume that he was not a robber out to steal money, but whatever the case might be, he was clearly puzzled by Su-hyeun’s declaration of not believing in any gods.

“It might be simpler if I use Insight, but…”

Su-hyeun decided to use Insight sparingly. This skill was certainly convenient, but it was also a double-edged blade.

Not only did Insight not work against Predators or existences that possessed qualifications of godhood but his ability to read other people’s intentions or inner thoughts would also get duller if he relied on it too much.

Thankfully, the scope of Insight’s powers didn’t just start and end with reading the minds of the others.

Su-hyeun asked back, “It’s the same story for you, too?”

“That’s correct. I’m also an atheist.”

This man actually said he was an atheist in such a grim and determined fashion. That response was hard to understand from the common sense of Su-hyeun’s world, but that only served to indicate how abnormal it was in this world to declare oneself as an atheist that didn’t believe in any of the gods.

“He’s being truthful,” he thought.

Truth or a lie…

This was the restriction Su-hyeun applied to Insight this time. He limited the scope of his ability so that it could only determine whether the opponent was lying or not when looking into their eyes.

That alone was already a substantial hint. That didn’t mean it was now an omnipotent ability, though. No, this was simply the middle ground where his own ability to determine the other party’s intentions wouldn’t get rusty, all the while he still got to exploit the advantages of Insight.

“What do you want from me, then?”

The man hesitated slightly before asking Su-hyeun, “Are you really our god?”

“Eh?” Su-hyeun was taken aback by that and was about to say that was incorrect, only for his words to get stuck in his throat.

When he thought about it, that assertion wasn’t technically wrong at all.

“Well, uh, I am a god, aren’t I?” he inwardly said.

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Su-hyeun followed after the man who introduced himself as Shen. He guided Su-hyeun to the city’s underground.

Rumble—

When Shen lit a torch in his hand, a long stairway going down revealed itself under the dim light. The area of this stairway was surprisingly wide; the width alone seemed to be around a dozen or more meters, indicating that the construction work had been ongoing for a long while.

“Being an atheist is illegal, and such atheists have gathered to start an organization, is that it? Yeah, this is just too strange, alright,” he thought.

In Pangaea, you were supposed to choose which god you would serve, along with the religious order tied to each god, but this was not something like a simple choice. No, this was the common sense of this place. More than that, it was set as the law in the continent, too.

However, this man named Shen before his eyes opposed such logic and had chosen no religion, which made him the most “normal” person Su-hyeun had met so far, at least in his view.

“An otherworlder that I met not too long ago told us this.”

Step—

Holding a torch while walking down the stairway, Shen suddenly spoke up, “He said that the world I live in, Pangaea, is a strange place. He also said that the gods we serve are not normal, either…”

His voice was trembling softly.

“We were thinking the same thing at the time.”

Su-hyeun nodded when he heard the term, “otherworlder.”

“Is he talking about an Apostle?” he inwardly guessed.

That seemed likely.

An existence capable of freely traveling between dimensions and realms, and one also capable of reaching a world of this size, was most likely an Apostle.

“Back when I had to send my child to the Altar, I began harboring questions regarding the true will of the gods. Did the gods really wish to cause pain and suffering in us, the common folks? Was my child really going to the embrace of the god?”

“I wonder about that.”

“Yes, that’s correct. You have to wonder about that since it’s literally unknown. I will never be able to meet my child who has supposedly gone to the embrace of the god again unless I actually die first.”

“Just what did this otherworlder tell you?”

“He said that our so-called gods are nothing more than devils. He said that he knows of a real god.”

“A real god, you said?”

“Yes, and this god’s name is Kim Su-hyeun…”

Su-hyeun’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. He wondered who this real god could be, but his name was suddenly brought up here. There was no mistaking it being his name, either.

He halted his steps for a bit and asked aloud, “What was the name of this otherworlder?”

“He said he was called Luslec.”