Surviving without God

The darkness surrounding him gradually began to thin.

Consciousness slowly settled back into place, like waking from a long, deep sleep.

A soft, unfocused gaze.

Gunther blinked several times.

At that moment, a voice brushed past his ear—quiet, like an ancient sigh.

[Thank you]

He had definitely not imagined it, but before he could ask anything, the sound dissolved like ripples on water. It was impossible to tell whether it had been part of a dream or a voice from a reality he had not yet fully reached.

“...Ah.”

Gunther murmured it as if confirming his own awakening out loud.

“...Where am I?”

A familiar ceiling.

Staring at the luxurious wallpaper and trim, Gunther slowly looked around. The time was somewhere on the border between morning and noon. Bright sunlight poured through the window, spreading in an even layer across the floor and blanket.

There was no room for doubt.

This was his private room, the one Brody had poured an absurd amount of money into, insisting that “at the very least, a place to rest should be worthy.” The topmost floor of Eterno Cheongdam.

“Haa...”

Gunther let out a very slow breath of deep relief.

The “Right to Designate Save Point” had worked exactly as intended.

Which meant reality had changed. The path and the final outcome were still unknown, but at the very least, he had managed to return while avoiding the worst endings—brainwashing or complete erasure.

Above all else, the save point fixed not a “place,” but a “moment in time.”

The fact that he was currently in Eterno Cheongdam rather than the Kingdom of Valloren meant the situation in the Union of Kingdoms had not yet collapsed into catastrophe. There was no urgent need to call immediate reinforcements.

“So Remesia didn’t fall back into the Theocracy’s hands.”

That thought alone lightened the weight in his chest. In the end, it meant something had truly changed for the better because of what they had done in the past.

Tiliing!

But the good news did not end there.

[The Drug-Addicted Saint grumbles that the sun is already overhead and hurries you to get up]

[The King of Ninety-Nine Defeats says you must be tired and asks the others to leave you alone]

[The Drug-Addicted Saint gloomily mutters that she simply missed you too much]

[Alphonse of Red Street curiously asks whether you got to see any beauties from the past]

...Now it really felt like he had come back.

With a faint smile, Gunther rose from bed.

As the Drug-Addicted Saint had said, it really was time to get up. His gaze turned toward the countless messages piled up in the corner of his vision.

What mattered most right now was obvious.

He had to check the rewards for the entire path he had cleared and inspect his current condition, which may have changed. Only then could he plan his next move.

Gunther began reading.

Tiliing!

[You have perfectly cleared the hidden stage “Butterfly Effect”]

You saved them.

The children who, once destined to become the pillars of Luthien, would one day have trampled the continent.

This was not merely the saving of their lives.

You erased the “predetermined roles” from their future.

Instead of becoming vessels for gods by another’s will, you returned to them a life in which they could choose, doubt, and regret for themselves.

These children are no longer tools, sacrifices, or nightmares.

They are living people.

...There was only one reason such a miracle became possible.

That you are an existence capable of defying time itself.

One who does not merely “return”...

...but rewinds and reweaves the threads of cause and effect.

Behind this ability lies a great mystery you do not yet even suspect.

Clearing “Butterfly Effect” will become a clear clue, allowing you to peel away one more layer of that mystery.

● Residue.

Though the flesh was left behind, what is engraved upon the soul does not vanish.

You personally experienced how “Raymond Pilgrim,” the war machine the Cult of Healing took pride in, fought.

You accepted his sharpened senses, judgments, and combat experience into your own body, wielded them, and ultimately embodied them yourself.

— Epic-rank trait created: “Martial Talent.”

[Display brief trait description]

[The power of all combat techniques and the speed of mastery acquisition increase significantly]

[The efficiency of physical attributes rises slightly]

● Life.

Raymond was a man born within the dogma of the Luthien Theocracy.

He was raised at the center of a faith where the system tolerated no doubt and treated questions as sin.

And yet, until the very end, he never abandoned his questions.

Avoiding the eyes of the many Evil Gods watching him, he slowly walked toward an answer, investigating the endless doubts gnawing at him from within.

Only at the very last moment did he cast aside years of secrecy and prove the value of his life through a single choice.

You are becoming similar to that edge of his self.

— Legendary-rank trait created: “Will Beyond the Veil.”

[Resistance to mental interference rises dramatically when under direct observation by higher entities]

[Combat power sharply increases while near death or on disadvantageous terrain]

There were still many messages left, but Gunther’s gaze froze.

Two of the rarest traits imaginable, and they were not even skills.

On top of that, the ranks were Epic and Legendary.

The effects were exceptional—neither of them was something that would ever become obsolete.

“Martial Talent” was one of the finest traits any fighter would welcome with open arms, while “Will Beyond the Veil” would become a dependable pillar in the battles Gunther still had ahead of him.

Yet the feeling now slowly spreading deep in Gunther’s chest was different from accomplishment or excitement.

Gunther quietly repeated the name.

Raymond. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

He remembered that face in the mirror, like old wood, and the body tempered to the utmost limit.

“...Rest in peace.”

After honoring him with a brief silence, Gunther focused on the messages again.

Since the path had been long and difficult, the rewards seemed endless.

● Causality.

You distorted countless fates.

These changes were too heavy a burden for one person, but every choice and every result accumulated without remainder as causality.

[Base reward: Karma 1500 → increased to 1650]

[Karma gain bonus +15% applied]

[Remaining Karma: 1750]

[Accumulated Karma: 8594]

For starters, Karma had returned in an even greater amount than what had been sacrificed to Vanguard of the Dark Night.

Seeing those imposing numbers, Gunther immediately found a use for them.

“About time I took these shackles off, huh?”

[Three gods look at you with admiration in their eyes]

But even that was not all.

“...What? Why is it like this?”

His skill mastery had also risen sharply.

Especially Flame of Eternal Torment, which had been stalled at the threshold of 3-Star. It had finally crossed that wall and reached the stage of Azure Flame.

Sensing the powerful magical energy circulating through his body, Gunther let out a short laugh.

“My mana stat increased too? No, not just mana. Strength, Agility, Endurance...”

On top of that, other skills—Eyes of the Tyrant, Bad Sleight of Hand, Zero Point Strike, and more—had all shown astonishing growth.

Gunther quickly understood the reason.

“Looks like while I was under mind control... I did a hell of a lot of fighting.”

Added to that was Masochism, which permanently increased attributes every day.

......

How should he even put this?

It felt like someone had hacked his account, then returned it at an absurdly overleveled state.

No, that was not even a metaphor.

That was literally what had happened.

[Level Up! x11 / Lv. 92]

[Free attribute point distribution postponed]

The battle at Audrey House in the past.

And the battles “Gunther” had fought while controlled in reality.

By sheer coincidence, he had been siphoning experience from both sides and had leapt straight across that notoriously miserable stretch between Level 80 and 90.

Gunther smiled faintly.

“I’ll only know for sure once I test this body in action... but with this, I’m at least one and a half times stronger than I was at the start of Act 2.”

His worries about reality changes also settled down.

He had not ruled out the possibility that reality would change so drastically that his current state would be rewritten entirely. If his stats and skills had been reconstructed into something completely different, it would have caused no end of problems.

“Unless something changed in the bond list...”

That did not mean the affinity levels with his ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ former allies had risen or fallen.

It was simply that several unfamiliar names had appeared among the unlocked bonds.

There were so many that it was difficult to even skim them all at once.

“Rietta, Yur, Norbas? Who are these people?”

Gunther thought for a moment, then closed the bond window for now.

In any case, most parameters seemed to have been adjusted according to the criterion of “the same soul.”

Fortunately, that meant all previous progress had been fully inherited.

Yes, everything had gone better than expected.

...However, every medal had its reverse side.

[Vanguard of the Dark Night summons you to visit his sanctuary]

[Seren Mayra lifts her pus-dripping nose and sniffs at your scent]

[Jean Daet reaches toward you with his wet, gigantic tentacles]

[Remesia senses your location. Hundreds, thousands of eyeballs probe the space around you]

The uplifting mood vanished in an instant.

The Evil God he had made a contract with—Vanguard of the Dark Night—was searching for him.

For an entity of Administrator rank, this was proof that it could read the soul itself regardless of changes in reality.

That meant only one thing:

The Seven Evil Gods had also just realized that he was the very person who had stolen every hierarchy candidate right from under their noses.

“Now it’s really going to begin.”

In the normal scenario, the Seven Evil Gods only began directly interfering with worldly affairs closer to the finale.

But this case clearly went beyond the norm.

It was obvious that new upheavals awaited him in the future.

Now he would be swallowed by waves far larger than before.

Of course, the current Gunther had made a colossal leap in growth.

But he still was nowhere near the level needed to confront divine entities of true power.

Under no circumstances could he relax.

And above all...

“I’ll wait for you, Teacher.”

Now he had something he absolutely had to see through to the end.

Gunther remembered the scene he had witnessed just before death.

The answer Dominic had given to words that could not possibly have sounded anything but absurd.

Those childish eyes where trust, fear, and sorrow had all mixed together.

To save Dominic, countless conditions would need to be fulfilled.

“For now... probably this first.”

Now that he had roughly confirmed his current state, he needed to thoroughly investigate how things stood with Dominic and the children, as well as how the future had changed.

“Only then can I build a long-term plan.”

Fortunately, while he had been “Raymond,” Gunther had asked Grand Crow for one clever favor.

“From this moment on, I ask you to record all political changes and every Night Raven report.”

Grand Crow had seemed puzzled as to why Raymond would want such a thing, but he could not refuse the request of the man carrying out the greatest operation in the organization’s history.

So now all Gunther had to do was go to Night Raven’s Sanctuary and check everything.

“I’ll distribute the Karma when I get back. Wait a little.”

[Alphonse of Red Street lazily nods, saying there’s no rush]

[The Drug-Addicted Saint starts stamping her foot impatiently, then freezes]

Gunther quickly got ready and stepped out of the room.

However—

“?”

He had to stop.

Frozen in place, Gunther stared blankly at the scene before him.

“Hey, playing like that is against the rules!”

“Against the rules? You’re the one playing like complete trash, so why are you blaming me?”

“A-aah! Damn you, Rietta! Drop dead!”

“Oh, Blanc. Wishing death on the commander of the Fifth Platoon... I have to say, if you exclude their commander, the Fourth Platoon’s level of training is truly beneath the floor.”

The living room of Eterno Cheongdam.

Two girls around the same age, heads nearly pressed together, were playing chess.

Black and white hair formed a sharp contrast.

At that exact moment, Blanc, who had just snapped back, suddenly looked up.

“Oh? Gunther! Gunther’s awake!”

She walked over to him, casually flipping the chessboard over in the process.

“You’re up?”

A familiar face, one that was almost painfully good to see again.

Blanc, who had tried with everything she had to save him right up until the moment of his “brainwashing.”

Not a trace remained of that tearful expression—right now she was glowing as if nothing had ever happened.

While he had been unconscious, hers was one of the faces Gunther had remembered most often.

But Gunther’s gaze could not stay on Blanc for long.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. She always does this when she’s losing.”

A grumbling voice.

It came from the black-haired, black-eyed girl behind Blanc, who was staring at him with puffed cheeks.

With an expression he could never have imagined on her face, she walked over and smacked Gunther’s arm.

“Gunther! Seriously, train your subordinates properly already!”

...Remesia.

The one destined to live her life as a tool of the Theocracy, plunging countless people into despair and death.

Having received a new name in place of the Evil God’s name—“Rietta”—she was now looking regretfully at the overturned board while bickering with Blanc.

The corners of her lips were smeared with cookie crumbs from what she had just finished eating.

Gunther took a deep breath and found himself saying it aloud.

“Rietta.”

“...Huh? You look like you’re having fun.”

Remesia... no, Rietta made a strange face, then snorted and shrugged.

“Of course I’m having fun. It’d be even better if this idiot hadn’t flipped the board.”

“W-what?! Idiot?!”

“Exactly! Even Zenon would play better than you.”

“A-a-a-aah!”

Really.

This was a scene that absolutely had to be shown to the one person who had given everything to protect this possibility.

And to one boy.

Gunther looked at the two girls, who were growling at each other one second and bursting into laughter the next, then headed toward the Sanctuary.

.

.

.

And soon.

“Oh?”

He felt, in his own skin, the concept of “reality change” that until now he had only understood intellectually.

The result of that butterfly’s wingbeat.

“...What the hell is this?”