Chapter 1103: 90. Mad God

Muen helplessly held his forehead, truly unsure whether he should praise the girl before him as clever, or not clever.

If you said she was not clever, then in a certain sense, she was actually fairly vigilant, the type who would not be easily tricked away by a suspicious uncle.

But if you said she was clever... I’ve already displayed strength beyond your understanding, and you still don’t believe me? Could those earlier swindlers and frauds easily hack to death the Third Attendant, whom you people view as a terrifying disaster?

If someone had real ability, who would still go become a scammer?

"Forget it."

Muen quickly accepted reality and did not force the girl before him to believe.

"Whether you believe it or not doesn’t matter. It won’t interfere with what I’m about to ask you next."

"What you’re about to ask me?" Marcie was confused.

"I said just now that I lost many of my memories."

"You did say that..."

"That was a lie."

"..."

Marcie’s expression turned strange. After hesitating for a long time, she said, "I-I know."

"But there was one thing I didn’t lie to you about."

"What is it?"

"There are indeed many things here that I don’t understand."

Muen swept his palm over the ground, grabbed a handful of soil, and let the barren sand slip from his palm.

"The forest farm, Rabuya City, evil believers, the Goddess of Night, the Daylight Period, the Long Night Period, potatoes, barrenness, Pioneers, Annabawei. All of these are pieces of information I obtained during my brief time with you people. But aside from that, I know very little about the situation here."

"Wh-What do you want to do?"

"Don’t be nervous. I’m only asking you for related information. Let me think... We should still start with the Goddess of Night. After all, it can somewhat verify the information I just obtained."

Muen thought for a moment, then asked, "That deity who guides the evil believers to constantly do bad things, whom you people despise and fear—what kind of existence is She exactly? What kind of thing is She... Can you give me answers to these questions?"

"Y-You really don’t know these things?"

Marcie’s little mouth opened slightly.

"I don’t think I need to waste time here." Muen’s expression was solemn.

"..."

Marcie was silent for a moment.

She glanced at Muen, who sat not far away, then glanced at the completely dark sky outside, and understood that no matter how familiar she was with the terrain here, there seemed to be no possibility of escape.

Besides, there seemed to be no need to escape. Just as this yellow-haired perv... no, just as this mysterious man had said, he did not seem to harbor any malice toward her.

Thinking about it, that was true. If he had any malice, with his strength, before this, in the village, and along this whole journey, he would have had as many chances as he wanted to do bad things.

Then what was his goal exactly...

"Right, those evil believers at the village forest farm earlier were already heavily injured by the time we arrived. Could it have been..." Marcie touched her forehead, which had not fully healed yet, and suddenly thought of something...

"Answer my question." Muen tapped his finger, unwilling to shift the topic at this moment.

"Fine."

Marcie bit her lip. "It isn’t exactly secret information anyway. What I know, if you asked anyone on the street, they should know too."

"I think there should still be a difference."

Muen smiled. "After all, not everyone has the perseverance to collect so much information and intelligence unrelated to themselves, right? In any case, you, this future Pioneer, still have a little substance to you."

"Right!"

"It would just be better if your brain worked a little faster."

"...Hmph!"

Marcie slapped her record book hard and rolled her eyes forcefully at the guy in front of her.

If she were not broad-minded, she definitely would not help him after that sentence alone!

It was not because she could not beat him!

"Where should I start..."

Marcie thought for a moment. "Right. Since you want to know information related to the Goddess of Night, then let’s start with the relationship between the Goddess of Night and us at the very beginning."

"Relationship?" Muen was slightly puzzled. Judging from all the signs before this, was it not the relationship between destroyer and resistor? Was there a different inside story even in this aspect?

"That’s right. If you really know nothing about everything and are still looking for information about this place, then you will definitely be shocked by what I say next."

Marcie raised her head, looking at the boundless night, her expression complicated.

"Actually, when I learned about this, I was also very shocked. I even cried in Grandma’s arms for a long time. Back then, the naive me could not believe it no matter what... that the Goddess of Night, who brought us so much despair and disaster, at the very beginning, or rather, more than four hundred years ago... was still the deity we worshiped."

"What did you say?"

Muen’s pupils shrank. "You once worshiped this Goddess of Night too?"

"Yes. We once worshiped Her too... worshiped this deity now called the incarnation of evil."

Marcie said, "But you may not know that more than four hundred years ago, the Goddess of Night was not what She is now."

"...Tell me in detail." Muen’s expression grew solemn, and for the moment, he suppressed the emotions roiling in his heart.

"The Goddess of Night back then was a true, benevolent god. She taught us how to survive on this barren land, bestowed upon us the ability to fight against nature, and scattered Her compassion and kindness across the earth. She was a true symbol of love and goodness."

"That sounds wonderful."

"Yes, wonderful. You can describe it that way—but it was that very Goddess who suddenly changed on that day more than four hundred years ago."

"What kind of change?"

"...She went mad."

Marcie clenched both hands. Her lips opened and closed, and she softly uttered those extraordinary words.

"Lady Goddess of Night... suddenly went mad."

"Mad?"

Muen felt that applying this word to a god was utterly inappropriate, but then he recalled the Third Attendant from just now... That guy had also become mad and deranged toward the end. Could it have been because of the influence from the Goddess of Night?

A mad deity... created mad believers.

It sounded very reasonable.

"According to the earliest historical records, it had been an ordinary day. So ordinary that it was not any festival, nor did it have any special meaning. But on that day, the Goddess of Night’s temperament suddenly changed drastically, and She raised an unimaginable disaster across all of Annabawei. A large number of city-states were destroyed in that disaster, and countless people lost their lives...

"The people here first prayed and begged, thinking they must have done something wrong, and that was why they had drawn the Goddess’s wrath... But prayers and pleas had no effect at all. The disaster continued to spread. As time passed, nearly half the city-states were destroyed, the roadsides were full of bones that no one had time to bury, and the starving people lost their food. They could only slaughter one another, or exchange their children to eat.

"That was true despair and terror. In all of Annabawei, no one could escape it."

Marcie opened her record book. On it, with simple strokes, she had sketched the scene from back then... It had to be said, the drawing was very ugly.

But it was precisely that ugliness, that roughness, that instead conveyed the despair and helplessness of everything about to collapse.

"But this place wasn’t destroyed," Muen said. "Which means that disaster was ultimately stopped."

"That’s right!"

Marcie’s voice became lively again. "Human potential is infinite. That is exactly the meaning of pioneering! At that desperate moment, a human hero stood up!"

The record book flipped with a rustle. A man appeared in Muen’s sight, equally rough, equally ugly, yet still visibly grand and brave.

"Alan Aisger!"

Marcie shouted that man’s name.

"The first hero, the first Pioneer! When the Goddess’s disaster was about to completely destroy this place, he stood up! He led many powerful people of that era and launched a resistance against the Goddess of Night. And he successfully gravely wounded the Goddess of Night, stopping that disaster from continuing to spread! He was a true hero..."

"Wait!"

Muen suddenly interrupted Marcie again. "What did you say?"

"Huh? I said Lord Alan was a true hero..."

"Not that. The sentence before that. You said that this Lord Alan led a group of powerful humans and gravely wounded the Goddess of Night?"

"Yes."

Marcie nodded. "Is there a problem?"

"Is there a problem... Ha, there’s a huge problem, all right?" Muen held his forehead.

Marcie, who had lived here all along, might not sense any problem, but in Muen’s view, this story, which was no different from a fairy tale, was far too bizarre.

If that Goddess of Night really was some Evil God wearing a disguise, or simply some true Evil God unknown in the present day, then just by relying on a fierce man named Alan, leading a group of people, they could gravely wound Her?

Was that scientific?

That was not scientific!

If the Goddess of Night could be gravely wounded so easily by a group of mortals... then wouldn’t She be even more useless than Little Ai?

At least if Little Ai had been worshiped by a group of people... She would have already played everyone here until they broke. How could She still give them a chance to turn things around?

"Forgive me for asking, but this Lord Alan... including the group of people he led, how many Crowned-level powerhouses were there among them?"

"Crowned?"

Marcie tilted her little head. "What is that? Some kind of hat?"

"...Then how exactly did he gravely wound the Goddess of Night?"

"Hmph. I know you are questioning Lord Alan. In fact, over the past several hundred years, countless people have questioned him, believing that for a mere human to overthrow a lofty deity was truly too unbelievable. But this is fact!"

Marcie planted her hands on her hips. "According to the various pieces of information I collected and summarized, Lord Alan at that time obtained a sacred artifact from ancient ruins. With the help of that sacred artifact, he successfully gravely wounded the Goddess of Night... Although he did indeed rely on external power, being able to obtain the sacred artifact and successfully save all of Annabawei already makes him an incredible existence!"

"A sacred artifact... Was it the help of an ancient relic?"

Muen frowned.

That sounded much more reasonable. After all, among those strange and varied ancient relics, there were indeed many that were extremely terrifying.

Although many doubts still remained, there was one thing he could confirm.

That Goddess of Night was absolutely not some Evil God... at least not an existence personally disguised by some Evil God.

At most, She was only a projection, or something attached to someone, using that to spread pollution. It was impossible that She was an object of the main body’s direct attention.

Otherwise, if a single ancient relic had been enough to solve the problem, humanity’s brilliant civilization from a thousand years ago would never have been so brutally broken by the descending Evil Gods that its entire legacy was severed.

"Phew..."

Muen let out a breath. No matter what, it seemed the opponent he faced this time would not be that dangerous. That counted as good news.

"The Goddess of Night was repelled, and Annabawei was saved. Then what?"

Muen continued asking, "What exactly are this so-called Daylight Period and Long Night Period?"

"Then? The Goddess of Night went mad, so of course we could only abandon our faith in Her and instead worship the vague and illusory Goddess of Light, whose existence we don’t even know."

Marcie’s eyes dimmed again.

"As for the Daylight Period and the Long Night Period, they are the curse that still exists in this world after that disaster."