Naohara: ?
Hearing that answer, Naohara slowly put a question mark on his face.
Give the Theocracy to him?
There was no such thing as love without reason.
And there was certainly no such thing as a pie falling from the sky.
Everyone knew that players were the kind of people who never acted without profit.
If Surshana was willing to hand over a World-Class Item, then there had to be some hidden reason behind it.
Naohara had already prepared himself to listen.
But Surshana's words completely threw off his train of thought.
Good grief.
Not only had a pie fallen from the sky, two had dropped at once.
Naohara's first reaction was that after living for six hundred years, this guy must have finally gone senile.
But the next moment, he remembered.
Skeletons did not seem to have brains to begin with.
"Surshana, tell me why you're doing this."
"Besides you, there should be others among the Six Great Gods who are still alive, right? That excuse about dying of old age might fool other people, but I'm not buying it."
"And the rumors say you were killed by the Eight Greed Kings back then, yet here you are, perfectly fine."
"You're even giving away a World-Class Item and the Theocracy as gifts. It's hard for me not to suspect you have some other motive."
Naohara rubbed his brow and asked directly.
Even with all the information he had, he still could not figure out why Surshana was doing this.
And he had no intention of continuing this pointless guessing game.
After all, the role he had always given himself was that of a brute.
Using his brain once in a while was fine, but doing it too often was a bother.
So he stopped pretending and laid everything out in the open.
He had asked everything he needed to ask.
Whether the other side answered or not was their problem now.
"…My friend, I hope you do not mind if I call you Naohara."
Surshana fell silent at Naohara's questioning.
Thankfully, he was a skeleton.
If he had still possessed flesh, his brow would probably have been twisted into a knot by now.
Only after waiting for dozens of seconds did Surshana finally speak again.
He did not answer directly. Instead, he asked about something else first.
Naohara merely nodded.
He was curious to see what kind of answer Surshana would give.
It was possible he was about to start making up a story, but even so... there was no harm in hearing him out.
In such a hurried situation, he wanted to see what sort of story this fellow countryman could come up with to deal with him.
"…Naohara, we have decided to tell you everything. We only hope you will not make us regret that decision."
The platform swayed gently, and ripples spread across the sea.
The moon and starlight vanished from the sky, and a thick darkness descended.
Rufus, who had been lying obediently on Naohara's lap, suddenly raised her head as well.
She stared blankly at the surface of the sea.
Complex emotions flashed continuously through her crimson eyes.
Looking closely, Naohara saw five crystal-clear coffins rising from beneath the sea, each glowing faintly.
Inside those coffins slept several indistinct figures, hazy and blurred. Judging by their builds, they appeared to be five human men.
Specks of golden light emerged from the void and continuously poured into them, forming vague phantom-like silhouettes.
"What is this…?"
Naohara studied the five blurred figures standing beside Surshana. He could sense that special fluctuation from them.
It was something completely different from magic, more like some kind of hybrid existence. Faintly, it gave him a strangely familiar feeling.
Thinking back to what had happened earlier, a guess surfaced in Naohara's mind.
"So you really are still alive."
"The so-called Six Great Gods did not lose a single one of their number. If those priests found out, the looks on their faces would definitely be interesting."
Naohara was not tense at the appearance of the five phantoms. He even made a joke about it.
"Well, that would definitely be troublesome."
At those words, Surshana scratched his cheek with a bony finger.
He knew very well what the core doctrine of the Theocracy was, since the six of them had established it themselves.
If the Theocracy ever learned that the Six Great Gods were still alive… Just thinking about it was enough to give him a headache.
"I get it, I get it."
"You'd probably get along well with my friend. His name is Momonga. Like you, he's also an undead."
Naohara said with a smile.
The priests of the Theocracy were much like the Guardians of Nazarick. Their reverence for the Six Great Gods had already reached an almost fanatical level.
Interacting with people like that inevitably made things feel a little restrained.
The two of them exchanged a knowing smile.
"If the opportunity arises, I would very much like to meet Momonga."
"Now then, back to the matter at hand. First, I must apologize. My companions are in a rather special state, so unfortunately they cannot communicate with you."
Surshana nodded first.
It was rare for another undead player to appear, so he was quite interested.
Then his tone grew more serious as he introduced the companions beside him to Naohara.
When he mentioned that they could not communicate, there was a trace of regret in his voice.
"It's fine."
Naohara shook his head.
Simply learning that the Six Great Gods were still alive was already enough information.
He waved casually and greeted the five phantoms.
They quickly responded.
Two of the figures nodded.
Two others remained completely motionless.
As for the last one, it grinned widely and gave him a thumbs up.
Hmm… very distinct personalities.
Naohara nodded inwardly before turning his attention back to Surshana.
At that moment, the undead extended his spotless skeletal hand. Golden light was gathering within it.
"This is the answer. It is also the starting point of everything."
"You should be able to sense this special power."
"Back then, because of their race, my companions began to feel their bodies slowly aging. The process was very slow, but it was unmistakable."
"No one can watch themselves grow old without reacting to it, especially when they have an undead like me standing beside them for comparison."
Surshana spoke with a hint of melancholy.
As level one hundred human players, his companions were not immortal, but they should not have died in just a hundred years either.
Everything had started because of an experiment.
An experiment about immortality.
If the goal had simply been eternal life, transforming into undead would have been the easiest solution.
But that option was quickly rejected.
Changing their race came with too high a cost. Once transformed into undead, their classes would inevitably change.
Rare classes could be replaced. Special skills might disappear.
In severe cases, they might even lose levels.
That was something the Six Great Gods simply could not accept.
Especially after learning through their deal with the Dragon Emperor that other players might arrive in this world in the future.
Never try to guess where a player's moral limits lie.
"We conducted many experiments and eventually discovered an entirely new path."
"This path could not only grant my companions immortality, it could also allow them to grow stronger endlessly."
"But in the end, we were still careless…"
At this point, Surshana could not help but sigh.
The five phantoms beside him also fell silent.
If they had discovered the problem sooner, they would not have ended up like this.
They were alive, yet not much different from being dead.
They were not masters of power. Instead, they had become slaves to it.
Unable to escape.
They could only continue existing by relying on Surshana.
"So… what exactly did you discover?"
Naohara looked at the Six Great Gods, his thoughts becoming clearer and clearer.
Surshana's next words confirmed his guess.
"It was the possibility of faith and magic coexisting… a path that could lead to becoming a god…"
***
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