Surviving without God

The path to the “safe zone.” Gunther Sirhe had already begun to understand what Baldrak—the Sniper with the Double Claw—was capable of.

— Grrr... It’s dangerous here.

— Grrr... Rahenia, now... use concealment magic.

Baldrak avoided traps by relying on his beast instincts. It was something beyond sight or hearing—a sense bordering on a “sixth sense.” Combined with his incredible speed, it allowed them to reach an area where the fog had noticeably thinned without much trouble.

— Grrr... Nearby... seems safe. But I’ll still... check the surroundings.

Throwing out that short remark, Baldrak vanished into the mist. Gunther slowly turned, surveying the area.

— ...You said this was the Holy Capital?

— Yes. The capital of the Theocracy, and once the largest city on the continent.

— It looks horrifying.

The stone buildings were half-destroyed, like gnawed gingerbread houses, and the once-wide, well-kept avenues now gaped with deep cracks. Dried bloodstains were everywhere, turned into black smears. But strangely, there were no bodies to be seen. Rahenia muttered quietly:

— Either they were defiled by the power of Seren Mayra and became the living dead, or they were devoured by the servants of Jean Daet.

Even the fanatics who had devoted their entire lives to the Evil Gods were no exception. Only a few high-ranking figures responsible for all this chaos could have survived.

Tap—

Rahenia glanced over the debris as if measuring it, then gracefully adjusted the hem of her robe with her fingertips to avoid staining it and sat down on top. Her elegant movements against the backdrop of this post-apocalyptic landscape created a strange sense of unreality.

— There’s no time, so let’s get to the point. Once Baldrak returns, I’ll head out again to search for the others.

— Alright. I’ll help you with that with everything I have. But I need your help too.

Rahenia’s blue eyes fixed on Gunther.

— I understand. Gunther, you said you want to get out of this Magic dimension alive, right?

There was a warning in her voice: the path would be unimaginably difficult.

— But first—how did you even end up this deep inside?

— Well... that’s...

Gunther tried to explain briefly, but the situation clearly couldn’t be reduced to a single word like “shipwreck.” So he decided to outline the essence of his long journey in a compressed form.

“This is better.”

His series of “Return After Death.” The Karma he received as a reward. The Tablets. Ellen Beyra’s stories about the “layers of time.” And the story of Audrey House, which closely resembled the current situation.

In the modern timeline, the moment gods began speaking about “time,” they would fall silent, as if bound by some kind of “restriction.” But in this era, things should be different. Perhaps Rahenia could give an answer. Perhaps she could confirm the hypothesis he had been building piece by piece over the past year.

Hope flickered deep inside him. Though he did not expect much—too many mysteries were intertwined, too deeply buried.

— Hm.

At that moment, Rahenia’s eyes, which had been listening attentively, gleamed with a mysterious light.

— You are quite a peculiar being. If, of course, everything you said is true.

“What is that? Did she figure something out?” Still uncertain, Gunther nodded, urging her to continue.

— Gunther, you’re making one big mistake right now.

— A mistake?

— You’re wrong to think your regression has two different types.

— ......

— Usually, when you die, it’s a “rewind.” And in exceptional moments like this—it’s a “connection.” Right?

Exactly. Gunther nodded silently. Rahenia continued softly:

— After what happened at Audrey House, it’s logical to assume it’s something else. You entered another person’s body—Raymond—and rewrote the past.

— ...What are you getting at?

— Gunther, your regression has always been a single type. Both cases are the same.

Silence.

— What? — Let me give you a simple example.

Snap—

Rahenia snapped her fingers, and an illusion in the shape of a crystal sphere appeared in the air.

— Imagine there is one long recording. A recording that contains everything—from the beginning of this world to its end. A film created by some transcendent being.

Her fingers began to move slowly. Countless frames flickered inside the sphere.

— People are used to thinking that time “flows,” like a river. I thought so too—until I heard your story.

Rahenia’s hand stopped.

— But what if it doesn’t flow at all, but already exists in its entirety?

— ...What?

— Past, present, future.

Rahenia lightly touched the air. The frames distorted, overlapping each other.

— What if all of them exist simultaneously? Like a completed film? Like a finished book?

For a moment, Gunther lost the ability to speak at that absurd idea.

— No, wait.

— If you don’t understand, I’ll explain again.

— Then what happens when I die? That’s clearly different from this “connection” right now...

— Most likely, it’s a structure that automatically connects you to a specific point in time.

Rahenia took a breath and added:

— This is only a preliminary hypothesis. There are surely gaps. But that past, present, and future exist simultaneously—that’s almost certain.

— No, that’s just...

“Ridiculous.” Gunther’s expression twisted involuntarily. The explanation was complex, but the essence was clear. And it was the very possibility he feared most. A vague dread.

If past, present, and future do not flow separately but are part of a single completed structure... then all their desperate struggles, every choice they fought for—was nothing more than movement along a predetermined path?

— ...Then.

Gunther’s voice trembled.

— What’s the point of all our efforts?

Struggle. Choice. Sacrifice. If all of it was just pre-recorded frames.

— ...That’s nonsense.

He spat the words out, but there was no urge to laugh. What came first was not shock, but a violent, instinctive rejection. And then his gaze suddenly wavered.

— ...Wait.

Something didn’t add up.

— That’s illogical.

He slowly raised his head.

— The future changed.

— ......

— Everything I went through. Every choice led to a different result. Every time I died and came back, a different future awaited me.

His gaze sharpened.

— If the structure is complete, then all of that is a contradiction, right? From the start, your theory doesn’t make sense. So what is it?

A brief silence. Rahenia nodded very slowly. Her gaze deepened. The blue light in her eyes swayed like waves. It wasn’t irritation at having her hypothesis challenged. It was excitement—intense curiosity and awe toward the being standing before her.

— Exactly, — Rahenia said quietly. — That’s why you are special.

A gap. A crack. An error. If time were a completed structure, Gunther should have been nothing more than a mechanism executing a predetermined future. But this man was moving, breaking the very laws of existence. Rahenia grasped the missing piece.

— Gunther, there’s something you haven’t told me.

Gunther flinched. She was right—he hadn’t told her everything. Ellen Beyra’s final words. The existence of a god of time. The fact that he was a transmigrator from another world, carrying a fragment of that god. And that his abilities could not possibly be unrelated to that existence.

Rahenia looked at the silent Gunther and smiled faintly.

— Something made you not a character inside the book, but the one holding the book. Like an editor.

— ......

— Then there’s only one thing left. The difference between the original and the revised version.

A brief silence. Gunther answered:

— ...Karma.

— Exactly.

A mysterious currency that accumulates the more you rewrite the story, the more you deviate from the original.

He didn’t fully understand it, but the explanation was disturbingly convincing. The scattered fragments in his mind began to snap into place, as if forced into alignment. Gunther lifted his eyes to Rahenia. She looked back at him silently. After a moment, she spoke first:

— Getting out of here is simple.

— ......

— Once my mana recovers a bit, I can send you back to your time.

Gunther narrowed his eyes.

— No.

The word came out firm.

— It seems I still have things to do here.

Whoooooosh—

At that moment, Baldrak, who had gone scouting, returned. Gunther sensed the thick smell of blood carried in the wind. He understood—Baldrak had been gone too long for mere reconnaissance. Terrible wounds covered his steel-like muscles. Yet he seemed to pay them no attention, fixing a calm gaze on Rahenia.

— Grrr... Rahenia.

— Yes.

— ...I think I found them. Traces of those three.

Rahenia and Baldrak had tracked down the three gods. And that, too, was a story that had never existed before.

[####ERROR OCCURRED#####]

[Calculation impossible]

...But it was a story he could not rewrite yet. Rahenia looked at Gunther and slowly nodded.

— ...Let’s go. Let’s see what those idiots think they’re doing alone.

.

.

.

— Dietrich.

— ......

— Dietrich!

Hearing the voice calling him, the knight slowly opened his eyes. Thick black fog. Seeing his comrade’s face, he nodded as always, as if nothing had happened.

— ...I’m fine.

A short reply. The same voice that always reassured his allies. But this time, no one believed him. Dietrich’s right arm had been completely severed at the shoulder. The armor crafted by the continent’s finest masters had been reduced to rags, barely holding its shape. That was the price of breaking through the Magic dimension as a group of three.

— O-oh... if Rahenia saw this, she’d kill both me and ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) you, Dietrich. Do you even realize that?

El, the Child of Miracles, poured elixir over his wound with tears in her eyes. But the injuries left by the manifestation of a high-ranking Evil God—an entity that had devoured tens of thousands of lives—refused to heal easily. Yet there was an even more desperate fact.

Tssssss—

Ahead, in the direction they were heading, a presence could be felt that eclipsed all the Evil Gods they had encountered so far. Something far greater. Far more overwhelming. It was slowly taking shape before them. This was the heart of the Magic dimension. The place where the descent of the Seven Evil Gods was occurring.

Clang.

Dietrich gripped his sword with his remaining hand and looked at his companions.

Dietrich. Kalos. El.

Those who were born human, yet attained divine status. The last gods who endured this catastrophe. And they knew why.

“Because we carried the hopes, expectations, and faith of all living people.”

That was why they had to move forward. Even as they felt, with their very skin, the greedy gazes of the “great evils” watching this world from beyond the thinning barrier between realms.

Step, step—

Kalos, wrapping an arm around Dietrich’s shoulder, smirked:

— Come on, just spit on it and it’ll heal, why’re you whining. Hm, actually, it’s way easier to hug you without that arm.

He wasn’t any better off. Half of his once-refined face was burned and disfigured, oozing fluid and pus. His ankles had long since lost their shape—the fact that he could even stand was a miracle.

— You’ve become ugly, Kalos.

— Still better-looking than you.

— ......

For a moment, silence fell. Watching the two of them, El finally couldn’t hold it in and burst out laughing, overwhelmed by the absurdity. They all understood. Rationally speaking, there was no chance of surviving this battle. But they also knew that their past suffering, effort, and countless sacrifices would not turn to dust. That there was something binding them together—even if it was the thinnest, invisible thread.

— ...God.

A quiet prayer slipped from El’s lips. Born weak and imperfect. Even after becoming gods, beings who could not help but seek God—humans.

And it was precisely that flaw that allowed them to move forward without breaking. Because they were imperfect, they did not stop. Because they knew fear, they did not retreat. Because they were human, they had reached this point.

— Please, have mercy on humanity and preserve them.

...Even if we fall here. Grant salvation to this land in exchange for us.