Level up!
A Dryad can use different skills depending on the traits of the forest.
Rustling Forest was originally a forest created by rock spirits, but now that it held a Wind Spirit, everyone could basically use 'wind-element' skills.
"Time to hunt!"
"It's hunting time!"
"Hiririririri-!"
More than fifty Dryads crossed over through the warp that had been created. When those inherently powerful beings, baseline Level 7, appeared on the battlefield in force, the tide changed in an instant.
The Dark Goblin legion's frontline collapsed at once under the Dryads who rode the wind and charged out without hesitation.
Guuoooo!
Kwaaaang!
And that wasn't all.
The wreckage of collapsed buildings gathered together and turned into a gigantic Nature Golem.
Every time the Nature Golem swung its fist, dozens of Dark Goblins were smashed into bloody pulp.
"It's a friend's request! Pierce through straight to the warp in one go!"
High Dryad.
[Lv.9]
But it wasn't a mere Level 9.
The High Dryad was the forest's guardian deity, the forest's master, and the Dryads' lord.
An elite raid boss monster.
One that a party of nine who had reached Level 9 had to band together to hunt.
No wonder I'd instantly plotted to run the moment I saw it.
Thanks to that, reaching the warp after carving a path couldn't have been easier.
Fwoooosh!
Star Scratch.
A wall made of stars rose up, and the broken warp was destroyed.
"You have destroyed one heated warp. 1/3"
"Time remaining until "Black-Skinned Hybrid" summon: 9 minutes 01 seconds"
""Hybrids" begin to pour out through the warp."
From the other two remaining warps, ordinary hybrids revealed themselves.
A monster that looked like a huge purple octopus was floating in midair.
It was as big as a decent-sized building.
[Lv.8]
And its level was no joke either.
Even ordinary hybrids were about as nasty as typical boss monsters.
"A creature of the abyss, truly an ominous bastard!"
"Can you handle it?"
"Leave it to me, friend!"
The High Dryad was overflowing with confidence.
Maybe because the Spirit Egg had returned vitality to the forest, its fighting spirit was insane.
Soon, a massive spear and a bow appeared in one of the High Dryad's hands. It hooked a spear made of vines onto the bowstring, then fired it at the hybrid.
Kwarrrr!
The spear shot out with the ground trembling, and pierced straight through the hybrid's forehead.
"That's one down for starters!"
The High Dryad shrugged while looking at the instantly killed hybrid.
…As expected of an elite raid boss monster, it was on a different level.
And it seemed even stronger than the usual High Dryads I knew.
'A High Dryad is tightly affected by the state of the forest too. A Spirit Egg obtained from the Spirit Tower is stronger than ordinary spirits.'
That was probably why.
Spirits obtained directly from the Spirit Tower were several times more powerful than normal ones.
We entrusted such an egg to the forest. The forest became far healthier than before, and the High Dryad became stronger by even more.
'When the spirit hatches, it might even hit Level 10…'
Then would that make it a Super Dryad instead of a High Dryad?
Good thing it's a friend, not an enemy.
With that half-baked thought, I sprinted toward the next warp.
"You have destroyed one heated warp. 2/3"
"Time remaining until "Black-Skinned Hybrid" summon: 8 minutes 05 seconds"
""Hybrids" begin to pour out through the warp."
""Dark Warriors" begin to pour out through the warp."
And so, in the blink of an eye, we destroyed two warps.
Only one remained.
"Mm, friend. If we fight somewhere that isn't a forest, we can't keep going for long."
The problem was the Dryads' condition.
Their relentless momentum died down.
This was a human city, not a forest, a place where Dryads couldn't live.
Like fish that could only survive in the sea being dragged onto land.
As proof, the bouncy skin they'd had was shrinking and drying into wrinkles as time passed.
"…Just getting us this far is more than enough. Thank you, friend."
It felt easy to cross over, but I knew how hard that decision actually was.
A warp created through a Teleport Book could only be made once per day, and it was one-way.
If they came over from the other side, they couldn't return until the next day.
If the city fell to the darkness space, they would be wiped out too. And yet, under the name of 'friend,' they came running without even hesitating.
How simple, and… how dependable.
Better than humans.
So I respect their choice.
I showed courtesy to their faith, and to their actions, all of it.
I turned my head.
'Dark Warriors.'
The problem was the Dark Warriors.
Their level was the same as the hybrids, but they were far faster and nimbler than the hybrids.
Hybrids at least moved sluggishly, so if you knew the strategy you could dodge them, but Dark Warriors were a different story.
Outrunning those Dark Warriors and destroying the warp would be hard.
But
"Priest Andrew!"
I shouted toward Priest Andrew far away.
He was the only priest of the Goddess Church in the Garden of Knights, and the owner of the shelter, if it was him, he could definitely help me.
"Pray only for me! 'Revere' only me!"
***
Priest Andrew frowned.
Because he had heard it clearly.
He could ignore it, but the content was enough to scrape his nerves raw.
'Right now… you want me to recite a reverence prayer?'
A reverence prayer, a prayer for reverence.
A self-sacrificial spell only the highest-ranking priests who were in contact with the goddess could use.
Of course, praising the goddess wasn't self-sacrifice, but if you revere someone other than the goddess, it turned into a self-sacrificial prayer.
Telling a high priest to recite a reverence prayer for someone other than the goddess was basically telling him to die.
Especially if you revered someone unqualified, the risk of death grew even higher.
'How does he know I can use a reverence prayer?'
Aside from the Saintess, there were only a handful of priests in the Goddess Church who could formally use a reverence prayer that wasn't praise of the goddess.
Priest Andrew was one of them.
But he had never told anyone except a single person.
Because priests who could use reverence prayers all met bad ends.
'Revering someone other than the goddess is a mortal sin.'
By itself, it was the greatest 'sin.'
By itself, it would make you a heretic in the Goddess Church.
So he only wanted to quietly serve in the shelter and die there.
'Knight King Wilhelm… I told only him.'
So there was no way an outsider could know.
But he'd heard it clearly, revere only him, pray only for him.
Did he guess? Or was it just something he said on a whim?
"He is the successor of the Knight King, Priest Andrew."
Marquis Weiser walked up beside him and added another word.
"Serengeti has acknowledged him, so it must be certain."
"Ah…"
If Serengeti, the woman who had assisted the Knight King at his closest side, had acknowledged him, then it couldn't be wrong.
'No wonder. I wondered why his gaze felt so familiar…'
His eyes resembled the eyes of Knight King Wilhelm in a strange way.
Now he understood why.
Then it must be that Wilhelm had told him about Andrew too.
Andrew owed Wilhelm a debt.
Even granting him an indulgence hadn't been enough.
For Wilhelm's sake, he wouldn't begrudge even his life.
But Wilhelm was dead.
Priest Andrew took a deep breath.
"O goddess of overflowing grace, O Holy Spirit who is glorified now and forever as in the beginning…"
He clasped his hands and recited the reverence prayer.
But the target was not the goddess, it was that man, the successor of the Knight King.
The holy energy that surged from Priest Andrew's heart soon reached Randolph.
To a human, not a god.
To one who was not qualified.
A mortal sin that should be repaid with life.
But.
"Ah…!"
At the same time, he shuddered.
"Th-the goddess!"
"The goddess has descended!"
"Aaaah!"
…Because everyone saw it.
They saw the goddess alighting above Randolph's head.
They saw the goddess's golden light undulating, kissing his forehead.
***
"All heated warps have been destroyed."
"Time taken: 3 minutes 56 seconds"
"'Main Quest 4: Seal the fissure of the darkness space' has been completed."
"Calculating results."
"Normal calculation is impossible due to the intervention of a "singularity.""
"Total score ??? points. Updated to the 'hall of fame.'"
"You have obtained a 'Large Fragment of the Broken Golden Rule.'"
"The Constellations of the Pantheon frown."
....
....
"A new feature 'Golden Rule Shop' has opened."
"Tip: In the Golden Rule Shop, you can use Fragments of the Broken Golden Rule to purchase special talent, or items, elixirs, and more. Among them are extremely special things like 'mythical species.'"
....
....
"The 'Darkness Legion' returns into the abyss."
"The 'God's-Skinned Hybrid' fixes both eyes on you, promising the next time."
....
....
"Your level has increased!"
***
The city was saved.
The broken warps were all destroyed, and the darkness legion returned through the rifts.
But everyone saw an unbelievable sight.
'What did I just see?'
Even just the sudden appearance of the Dryads and the High Dryad had made my heart pound like crazy.
It was an overwhelming spectacle.
But beyond that, something even more overwhelming, incomparable, was burned into our eyes.
'Clearly… the goddess descended.'
The descending goddess kissed Randolph's forehead and bestowed a blessing.
It wasn't simply the level of a reverence prayer, it was the goddess's blessing itself.
I had never seen such a case. I'd never even heard of one.
Even if the Saintess or the Holy Emperor recited prayers in the Goddess Church, the goddess didn't just appear.
Marquis Weiser rubbed his eyes.
The goddess that had alighted on Randolph vanished as if it were a lie.
But what he had shown was real.
Only for an instant, a moment like a flash… but in the way he killed the Dark Warriors, Marquis Weiser saw the true 'Knight King Wilhelm,' not some mere successor.
The Knight King who was called the goddess's knight.
Thud-
That was when it happened.
Priest Andrew suddenly dropped to his knees.
Before Randolph, before the goddess's knight.
Thud, thud.
Soon everyone watching, one by one, began to kneel as well.
No one told them to.
It happened naturally.
They had witnessed an overwhelming spectacle, they had received a god.
Who could dare stand stiff-backed before a god?
At least no one here could.
Marquis Weiser was the same.
"You revered me instead of the goddess, that sin will not be light."
Randolph walked toward Priest Andrew.
No matter that he was the Knight King's successor, he was still a human.
A reverence prayer had been used on a human, if the Goddess Church learned of it, he could not escape being stripped of rank.
Having poured out all his holy power, Priest Andrew had aged another ten years. To recover again, he would need years of unceasing faith.
Of course, he would no longer have a chance to raise his faith. Still, he had no regrets.
When Randolph came close enough, he opened his mouth.
"The Knight King said it. That he would bear your sin himself. That he would use on you the indulgence you gave him."
…In the past, Priest Andrew had granted an indulgence to Knight King Wilhelm.
A priest of the Goddess Church could issue three indulgences in life, and the only person Priest Andrew ever issued one to was the Knight King.
An indulgence didn't need a physical form.
It was the qualification to pardon a sin, just once.
But indulgences were not inherited. A successor who wasn't the Knight King had no right to use an indulgence.
—It was good to see you again, Priest Andrew.
The words he had left Andrew with when he departed the shelter.
Back then, he couldn't understand why someone he'd never met would say that, but now, somehow, he did.
"Ah…"
Even so… Priest Andrew couldn't say anything.
Other than to shed tears endlessly.
No one could possibly say anything in this situation.
Slowly.
Randolph placed a hand on Priest Andrew's shoulder.
"I forgive your sin, Andrew."