"Chaos?!" the deities cried out in unison, their voices overlapping in a wave of sudden panic.
Almost instinctively, they scraped their wooden chairs back, scrambling away from Luki as if a freezing draft of existential dread had just swept through the room.
"Uhm? I don't know what that means, but I don't think it's a good thing," Luki said, casually turning his head over the back of his chair to watch them all carefully avoiding his gaze.
"Not necessarily," Ouranos spoke, his voice remaining as calm and steady as ever. He was the only one who hadn't moved an inch away from the young warrior. "Compared to us, you are merely a bit more special than a spirit."
"What the hell are you doing, Ouranos? Get away from there!" Loki barked, her hands still tightly gripping her hair.
"By my holy name, can you all pull yourselves together?" Ouranos sighed deeply, casting a stern look around the tavern table. "You have entered the Dungeon countless times, you have slaughtered black monsters left and right, and you also know this boy personally. Now, just because you discovered what he is, you are overcome with fear?"
"Ah..." A collective murmur rose from the gods as they all froze.
It was in that exact moment that the realization finally sank in. It was true. They had gotten so intensely caught up in that cursed word that they completely forgot who was actually sitting right in front of them—it was just Luki.
Slowly, the atmosphere began to return to normal. Miach and Takemikazuchi pulled away from each other with deeply embarrassed expressions, realizing they had practically hugged out of sheer terror. Hephaestus and Loki looked equally awkward, shifting uncomfortably after reacting with such primal aversion toward someone they both considered a friend.
Only Ganesha maintained his distance, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
"This is different," Ganesha muttered, his usual theatrical flair completely gone. "Those things are monsters trapped in the deepest, darkest depths of the Dungeon, while he is standing right here in front of us. Who knows what interacting with Chaos could do to our mortal bodies?"
"I assure you there is absolutely no danger. I have already tested it myself," Ouranos said.
Then, as if to prove his point, the ancient god reached out across the table. He deliberately tapped and rested his hand against Luki's shoulder a few times, showing everyone that nothing catastrophic would happen.
"Look, it's actually pretty funny watching you all act like children terrified of a cockroach," Luki remarked, a faint smirk playing on his lips, "but could I finally know why a room full of literal gods is afraid of me?"
"It's not fear. It's something much deeper," Loki countered, her voice dropping to a serious whisper.
"Before I answer that question, there is something I must ask first," Ouranos interrupted, his ancient eyes locking directly onto Luki.
Luki shifted his gaze toward the primordial god, genuinely curious about what kind of question required such a heavy setup.
"Luki-kun... have you by any chance encountered anything of a strange, inexplicable nature related to you in some way? Be it a sign, voices, feelings, or perhaps a specific object that constantly draws your attention?"
"Uhm... now that you mention it..." Luki tilted his head up, narrowing his eyes as he plunged deep into his own thoughts.
'What should I say? The Dungeon itself talking to me inside my mind? Or maybe the fact that I transmigrated into this world? But if we are talking about an object, there is really only one thing that comes to mind.'
Luki thought back to his clash with the black dragon, recalling the moment of his temporary demise. He explained to the gathered deities how he had awakened within what seemed to be his own mindscape. There, he had engaged in a deep conversation with his true self, a confrontation that ultimately allowed him to unearth his deepest desires and awaken his other Skill.
Yet, as Luki described the experience, his brow furrowed at a far more unsettling detail. He told them about an unnatural presence lurking within that mental expanse—a blinding sphere of light that resembled a miniature sun. Based on what he and his inner self could deduce, that radiant anomaly undeniably possessed some sort of divine origin. To Luki, there was no doubt that this sphere was precisely what Ouranos was looking for.
"I see..." Ouranos murmured softly, rubbing his chin as he processed the revelation.
"And what about us? Can you stop with all this suspense and finally explain why the boy has a connection to him?" Loki asked, her voice sharp with annoyance.
"Yeah, I would also like to understand exactly why I am so special," Luki added.
"You do not need to know anything for the time being," Ouranos responded flatly. "If your other self did not tell you, then let it be."
"Are you serious right now? Are you really going to pull a 'I'll explain it to you in Baldur's Gate' on me?" Luki scoffed, rolling his eyes. "That is literally one of the worst, most nonsensical clichés in any web novel. The protagonist gets some special power that is bound to attract a mountain of trouble, but the experienced veterans somehow think it's a brilliant idea not to prepare him for what is coming."
"There is nothing coming, and you are not truly in any danger, given who you are and with our backing," Ouranos replied, completely unbothered.
"Sure, until the shit hits the fan and you finally realize it would have been better to face reality," Luki muttered back.
Meanwhile, a few seats down the table.
"Hey, Hephaestus... do I look like a joke to you?" Loki asked suddenly, leaning in.
"Why the random question?" Hephaestus raised an eyebrow, glancing at her.
"No reason," Loki murmured, crossing her arms with a pout. "It's just that lately, for some reason, I feel like people aren't taking me seriously or are just straight-up ignoring me. It's almost as if I've been forced to replace the role of a certain other clueless, short goddess as the comic relief around here."
"It's just your imagination... I think..."
"Hey, Loki-sama," Luki called out, deciding to completely ignore the old god.
"What is it?" she asked, still looking a bit grumpy.
"You were the first one to react, so you must understand this better than anyone," Luki said, leaning forward. "Can you explain to me what this Chaos is and why I have anything to do with it? Since a certain someone refuses to speak."
Ouranos, for his part, made no move to stop her. To Luki, this was pure hypocrisy. Just two seconds ago, the old man was acting all mysterious, and now he was perfectly fine letting someone else do the talking, as if he just wanted to save his breath.
"It is a he," Loki corrected seriously.
"Who?" Luki asked.
"Him. Chaos isn't a thing, it's a person. A god just like us, but he is the God of Primordial Chaos—the literal first thing to ever exist in the universe."
Loki waved her arm to the side, and without any grand ceremony, a illusion flickered to life in the middle of the tavern room, portraying the entity she spoke of.
The God of Chaos was unlike any deity Luki had ever seen. Although humanoid in form, he bore absolutely no resemblance to a human, instead, carrying the regal and terrifying anatomy of a bipedal, hybrid creature akin to a monstrous gryphon or hippogriff.
His entire frame was covered in dense, pitch-black plumage and his limbs ended in sharp reptilian talons of prehistoric scale, from his back sprouted two massive pairs of wings just as dark as the rest of its body.
Where his head should have been, there was no physical structure at all, but rather a shifting, formless blur of black smoke—a smudge of pure darkness that looked like a literal stain on reality itself, pierced only by two hollow white points that maybe are his primary eyes.
Yet, the most unsettling feature lay hidden within his feathers. The entity was covered in countless of tiny laze eyes. They were scattered everywhere—embedded along the span of his wings, hidden beneath his dark plumage and the creases of his talons, tightly shut or sleepily half-lidded across his entire form, blending so flawlessly with the texture of his body that they felt entirely natural to his design, giving the primordial monstrosity an aura of eternal drowsiness.
'This looks a bit like those fanArts of The Long Quiet from that game, Slay the Princess,' Luki thought, completely unfazed by the creature's bizarre appearance. 'Though I don't think his head looked exactly like that, and he definitely didn't have that many eyes.'
"The Primordial Chaos, or just Chaos for short, was the true creator of everything," Loki explained, gesturing toward the fading image. "He is the one who birthed what would become the universe today. Literally everything that exists is made from Chaos—the earth, this very wall, you, and me."
"We gods were originally created with only two purposes in mind: to help bring order to the world, and to put an end to his infinite loneliness," Loki continued, her tone shifting to one of heavy remembrance. "Things happened, eons passed, and eventually, the world became what it is now, while Chaos went into an apparent seclusion in some dark corner of the world."
As Loki spoke, a somber mood settled over the other deities around the table. Their expressions grew grim, treating the topic with the utmost seriousness, as if discussing a catastrophic and deeply dangerous enemy. Luki, however, still couldn't see any real issue with the story so far.
"Up until what you've described, I don't see the problem," Luki said, a smug grin forming on his face as he refused to take the matter entirely seriously. "Sure, he is the true god of creation and looks exotically weird, but other than that, what's the catch? Did he go completely insane and now wants to destroy the universe?"
"Pretty much, yeah," Loki replied casually.
In response, Luki's smug smile instantly froze on his face. His eyes blinked blankly. It seemed the situation was far more severe than he had anticipated.
"That is only partially true. Chaos did not go insane—or rather, he was never 'sane' in the same way we understand it," Ouranos intervened, his deep voice carrying an ancient weight.
"Say whatever you want, Ouranos. I wouldn't touch that guy again with a ten-foot pole," Loki huffed, waving her hand to completely dissolve the glowing illusion.
"Chaos and gods do not mix well. If it isn't handled with extreme caution, it can end up causing irreversible consequences..." Hephaestus said in a strange, subdued tone, her fingers slowly drifting toward the patched side of her face.
"Ah...! I—uh..." Luki stammered, his eyes widening slightly.
"You don't need to look like that, Luki," Hephaestus reassured him with a soft sigh. "It is a congenital defect. An accident happened while I was being formed. There is nothing that can be done about it."
"That is just one of the side effects of a god interacting with pure Chaos, even though we are made of the same essence, we are like water and oil. In the eastern pantheons, there were many gods who were severely affected by it," Takemikazuchi explained.
"The western ones as well, though to a lesser extent," Hermes chimed in, the usual playfulness entirely absent from his voice. "Chaos is the only thing in existence, besides ourselves, capable of permanently killing a god. That is why we reacted the way we did."
"But none of that matters anymore, because Ouranos already proved there is absolutely no problem at all! I am Ganesha, and I say we look to the present!" Ganesha boomed, violently sweeping the heavy mood away.
"And I am somehow related to him?" Luki muttered abstractly. His mind wandered back to the image of the strange deity as his fingers unconsciously drifted up to feel his own ear-wings, his third eye blinking.
"Not just related. You are a creature born directly from Chaos itself," Ouranos stated firmly. "In a way, you could be considered a sibling to us. However, your nature is obviously different from that of a god, leaning heavily toward the mortal side."
"Is that why I am so strong?" Luki asked, gesturing toward his own back. "Is that why my attributes are so completely off the charts? Why I have so many skills and all this extra stuff?"
"Yes. Chaos is entirely unpredictable and reacts in bizarre ways from person to person," Ouranos answered. "In your case, it granted you limits that are more than impressive for a mortal."
Ouranos raised his weathered finger, tapping Luki's shoulder once more.
"You are a manifestation of that chaos. The Dungeon, the black monsters, even certain heroes of the past... all of that was Chaos attempting to interfere with the natural flow of things."
"But I don't want any of that," Luki said, waving his hands dismissively. "I don't want to be part of some grand scheme to maintain progress and the continuous existence of the universe. Is there a way to, I don't know, pass the torch to someone else?"
"No. At least, not for someone like you, wherever you go, Chaos will follow you in the form of an inexplicable wave of bad luck and fortune. You will never have a single day of absolute peace in your life—and you love that."
"But that's impossible," Luki countered, frowning. "An ordinary person can't constantly live walking on a tightrope. I also need to rest sometimes. This entire past week that I spent with Hestia, nothing happ-"
"Brief pauses. Something that you yourself desired," Ouranos interrupted calmly. "But do not tell me that you don't feel more alive when you are down there, in that dark, isolated place?"
Those words made Luki pause, forcing him into deep, silent thought.
Initially, he had convinced himself that he only enjoyed the Dungeon, the fighting, and the adventuring because it was something utterly impossible in his past life. It felt normal to want to make the most of those experiences now.
But what if it wasn't just that? What if it was something far more intimate?
He began to piece together the anomalies. Why did his main skill only function inside the Dungeon, when logically, given its nature, it should work anywhere? Why did his supernatural senses heighten exponentially the moment he stepped into the labyrinth? What about the time the Dungeon itself spoke directly into his mind? Or when he connected with the black dragon's consciousness mid-battle? Why did he lose his mind so violently whenever something threatened his legs? And what about those bizarre hallucinations he kept having about the true figures of others?
A cascade of strange occurrences had defined his life ever since he arrived in this world. He had never truly bothered to question them before, simply accepting them for what they were.
Smack!
Luki snapped out of his deep trance when he felt a firm, steady hand rest on his shoulder. It was Ouranos.
"You do not need to question yourself about these things," Ouranos said, his voice soft but resolute. "As I said, everything will be explained in due time. Just live your life exactly as you have until now, and everything will turn out fine."
Luki looked up at the ancient deity, staring into his eyes with a lingering sense of uncertainty. Could he truly trust him? Not the god himself, but could he trust his words—the promise that everything would work out in the end?
As if responding to his silent doubt, a sudden hallucination flashed before Luki's eyes, obscuring Ouranos's physical form. The vision of the god's figure was entirely indescribable, yet looking at it brought a single, undeniable sensation crashing into Luki's mind: truth.
Right then and there, Luki made his decision. He would handle this monumental problem the exact same way he had handled so many others in the past—by completely ignoring it. It had worked out perfectly fine up until now, so why would it fail him today?
"What happens now?" Luki asked, breaking the silence.
"For you, in the near future, nothing. Just focus on stabilizing your new Familia," Ouranos instructed, though his tone shifted strangely on his next words. "The rest of us, however, have to bring order back home. A great deal of unrest is bound to happen now that I am no longer playing the impartial judge. Just stay alert for when I call upon you."
With that, Ouranos seemed thoroughly satisfied with the entire meeting. He turned on his heel and walked toward the exit, with Hermes and Ganesha following closely in his wake.
"Miach, get in touch with Hestia later," Loki called out over her shoulder, a wry smirk on her face. "Maybe she has a few useful tips on how to tame a walking calamity."
The heavy wooden door clicked shut, and an awkward, heavy silence reigned over the tavern room. No one left at the table seemed to know exactly how to transition back to normalcy.
"So..." Luki began casually, sliding his arms back into his sleeves and pulling his shirt over his chest. "Is anyone else hungry?"