Chapter 30: When Wusu Woke, the Blanket over His Little Tummy Was Still Peacefully in Place Part 3

“My original intent was to search for traces our Lord left behind in the past,” Kalan said heavily. “I never imagined I’d stumble into some ruins. I came out curse-wracked, but…”

Arthur caught that “but.”

Kalan Smith’s surging power tore and churned within him.

Energy belonging to space alone roiled and howled, finally condensing in Kalan’s palm into a book.

Arthur was shaken!

The God of Knowledge and Wisdom kept no divine idol, for the book was that god’s very emblem.

Arthur understood Mentor Kalan’s implication at once and nearly went mad with joy.

“Our Lord…”

“Our Lord is about to descend!”

What does love taste like?

To love is to wish it life;

to hate, to wish it dead.

Ecstatic joy was like an angel’s descent; loathing, like a fall into filth. In the beautiful songs of the wandering bards, what usually remained was nothing but praise and the lingering flow of love.

Across the ages where epics ebbed and flowed, love and desire threaded the long river of time from beginning to end.

The West District of Pythia.

Emma hung out the washed laundry, getting ready to head out for her next job.

It was social season; banquets abounded, and hired hands were in high demand.

Someone with Emma’s looks and station could never slip into a banquet itself, but picking up day work was still possible.

The West District saw such rare chances now and then, and you had to fight to grab them.

Emma needed to be ready early.

She dropped her son at the church’s attached school, smoothed her hair, put on her best set of clothes, which is to say merely clean and unwrinkled, and closed the door behind her.

Turning, Emma walked straight into a broad, warm chest.

The tall man steadied her by the shoulders, and those sea-warm eyes made Emma shrink; she struggled out of his hold. “You are…”

This had to be a gentleman.

His tailored suit must have cost a good dozen pounds at the very least, and those shoes gleamed, far too clean to touch West District ground. He inclined his head. “Emma, it’s Andrew.”

Andrew?

Emma felt dazed.

Andrew, Andrew…

That name seemed to overlap with someone in her memory, hidden behind brilliant sunlight.

The single impulsive act of Emma’s soft, yielding life.

It had left her battered and bleeding, dropped her from a country squire’s daughter to a West District woman scraping by on odd jobs.

Only a few years, all told.

The song of love flows, ever so slow…

Her eyes glazed for an instant, fingers drifting up to Andrew’s handsome face.

Love.

Love, thick and surging, impossible to hide.

What welled up her throat was nothing but love.

Andrew held her and said gently, “I work for Adolf Wolfe, the eldest son of Count Wolfe, now. I’m not the green boy I used to be. Come with me, and bring the child?”

Under that gentle murmur, that soothing drizzle of comfort, Emma took her child and left the West District with Andrew for the Central District.

Once Emma and the child were settled, Andrew took a carriage to a luxurious yet understated mansion.

It was one of the properties under Adolf Wolfe’s name; he had moved in recently.

The one who came out to receive Andrew was the house’s butler.

After a few words with Andrew, he accepted what Andrew handed over and hurried to the study.

The study was done in browns throughout; past the door, soft music played. A young gentleman stood at the window tasting wine, with eyes identical to Alana Wolfe’s, apparently inherited from their father.

Wine-tasting was Adolf Wolfe’s hobby.

Seeing the butler enter, he set his glass aside on the desk.

Swish…

Reading the reports from every corner of the territory the butler had brought, Adolf Wolfe’s handsome brows knitted tight. “Why so many disputes?” he asked sternly.

The butler was a stern old man, hair gone white, though his back was still ramrod straight.

“It’s like this,” he said slowly. “Within the estate, the forest keepers and the gardeners have clashed many times. After looking into each case, we found no trace of heretical interference.”

Recalling Andrew’s few final words, the butler leaned close to Adolf’s ear. “By the church’s measure, most of them do. The God of War’s church takes the largest share.”

The Wolfe Family had always been worshippers of the Lord of Dawn, so for the butler to name the God of War directly was no great offense.

Such were the Orthodox Gods: asleep for many years, yet still, in the end, far more orderly than the Evil Gods.

There were frequent tales of cultists who spoke an Evil God’s name aloud and were devoured on the spot, hide and bone vanishing without a trace; worse, some transformed into the Fallen then and there, cooking up no end of trouble.

So even though the crooked path offered power more easily, given a choice, people still preferred the road of light.

Adolf frowned, gazing at the grounds beyond the estate, and suddenly sighed.

“Still no trace of my sister?”

The butler said nothing.

That was answer enough.

While the continent buzzed with bewilderment and excitement over ever more divine gifts, ever more divine descents, ever more responsive prayers,

the Gloomy Forest lay calm as a pool of still water.

No.

Ignorant of the Eastern Han, who was working himself to the bone, had to object.

This was NOT playing a game!

This was the game playing HIM!

Was this even fun?

It was menial labor in real life AND menial labor in the game!

At least real-life labor padded his wallet. What did game labor get him?

Padded mental health?!

Ignorant of the Eastern Han: This seems real…

The agony!

Ignorant of the Eastern Han suspected he might be a bit of a glutton for punishment; somehow, the more the grind abused him, the more used to it he got.

Every single day, the system dragged him off to lay pipe.

Ahem.

To lay foundations!

Ignorant of the Eastern Han had just finished digging the foundation and was climbing out of the pit when he spotted, in the near distance, the young lord strolling past with the young lord’s man…

Huh?

Was something off about that phrasing?

Ah, whatever!

If anyone around here was “laying pipe,” it was those two!

Wusu looked at his semi-transparent frame, then pulled open the system notification.

【Temple Awakening Progress: 30】

Wusu remembered: last time the system notified him,

the progress had been only 15.

One day apart,

and the system’s progress had made a great leap forward, doubling outright.

Wusu held the semi-transparent frame and looked at Mephistopheles.

Mephistopheles gazed back, tenderly.

Just like Big Ball at the very beginning, then the black cloud ball after it, then the black feathered snake.

As if it had never changed at all.

Wusu sat at the guild counter, swinging his short little legs.

And behind the counter, where no one could see, Mephistopheles sat on the floor.

His posture was loose and languid, his tall frame stretched out in easy lines.

Wusu’s ink-black eyes reflected a tiny Mephistopheles.

He was leaning against Wusu’s knee.

Wusu reached out to touch Mephistopheles’s golden eyes.

His tender little voice expressed its delight: “Pretty!”

Under Wusu’s touch, Mephistopheles closed his eyes in meekness.

Like a great beast reining in its entire presence, curling itself small, trying to trade this docile posture for more affection.

If true favor were to be granted, it would mean the beast surrendering claws and fangs.

And it would do so gladly.

Wusu’s fingers paused.

He lifted his head slightly, as if he’d seen something.

Then lowered it again,

and went back to watching Mephistopheles.

That delighted little voice dropped low. “Bad bad.”

When Wusu said “bad,”

it was with hurt feelings, low and soft, a gentle scolding.

In a sense, it was Mephistopheles’s arrival that had brought so many changes.

Just as the forum was fiercely arguing.

Some of the more fervent crowd welcomed the coming age of gods; it made the game more fun.

Others, more practical types, talked about what the gods’ existence would mean for ordinary people’s lives.

For all those years before, the sleeping gods had answered the churches’ prayers on the strength of their names alone.

Hadn’t they lived quite comfortably?

A change this sudden was bound to bring deeper shifts.

If the gods of Continent of Divine Silence awakened, then in some sense, it was not a good thing.

Mephistopheles bowed his head.

“Please, punish me.”

This world could not bear too deep an intrusion; this sliver of power was the limit. Mephistopheles was faintly dissatisfied with such a frail shell, yet loath to part with the fingers still resting on his eyelid.

That tiny mote of warmth nearly burned his shell away.

He feared it was too little, and craved more besides.

Even a scolding would do.

Wusu sighed, a tiny sound.

He reached out a squishy little finger and poked Mephistopheles between the brows.

Wusu had always been a blank sheet of paper.

Hugo, Mina, and the other three of their five painted the first bold strokes; then came Alana, and after her, more and more subjects who needed him.

The colors grew ever more romantic, radiance without end, an endless unrolling scroll of chapters.

The Wusu of before, the Wusu of now.

Wusu was Wusu.

Wusu held a little seed.

It was the seed Michael had pressed into his hand with an honest grin as they left the Council Hall.

The little seed lay plump in Wusu’s palm.

A thread of vitality fed the little seed.

A green sprout broke through the shell, tender green curling tight.

Then root and stem firmed, the trunk lengthened at a lazy pace, and a pocket-sized sapling swayed in Wusu’s palm, its tender golden leaves trembling.

It was a sapling of gleaming gold.

Mephistopheles watched without blinking, watching a miracle only this one could bring forth.

Creation.

That little seed had started as an ordinary vegetable seed.

Wusu slowly tucked the newborn creation into Mephistopheles’s hair.

Golden hair, golden eyes, golden sapling.

Wusu had no preference in colors.

But Wusu liked this Mephistopheles.

Punishment, huh…

Past the little quest boards swaying in the quest-issuing area, Wusu spotted the small window as it refreshed.

From the very first day the territory’s people met Mephistopheles, they knew this man was trouble.

With Wusu, Mephistopheles was tenderness and devotion itself.

If Wusu didn’t love toddling about on his own little legs, pitter-patter, Mephistopheles would gladly have taken over even the walking for him.

Mephistopheles’s gaze on Wusu was too ardent, too tender, too caring, as if everything in the world weighed less than Wusu.

The instant that gaze left Wusu, though, it shifted like steam flashing to ice.

While watching Wusu, Mephistopheles’s golden eyes were a melted sun, warmth itself.

And everything else in creation was mud…

No. Halfway through the thought, Cold Autumn reconsidered.

Not mud.

Indifference.

An aloofness arrogant beyond measure.

Apart from Wusu, nothing in all the world could enter Mephistopheles’s eyes again.