Chapter 167 – Goddess of the Hearth – [Two]

The wedding of Han Siwoo and Gaeulbi was scheduled for late March. It was still cold, but spring nonetheless.

On that day, Oh Haengun planned to hold a grand event, inviting not only the villagers but also people from various survivor groups.

When asked why he was making such a grand affair, Oh Haengun explained:

“Because a wedding ceremony itself will be a monumental event in today’s world.”

“A monumental event?”

“Well, haven’t there been almost no weddings in this world lately? Even if a man and woman take a liking to each other, they just cohabit and that’s the end of it. They don’t proudly gather people. The trend of viewing marriage as something to be blessed has disappeared.”

“I suppose, with food shortages and limited living conditions…”

“Right. Since fire is precious, many people have to live together, and it’s burdensome to set up a separate tent just for a newlywed couple to live alone, so there was even an atmosphere of discouraging marriage altogether. I’ve heard that outside Happy Village, having a baby is treated like a major crime… I want to use this wedding as an opportunity to dispel that atmosphere.”

According to Oh Haengun, he hoped this wedding of the famous adventurer couple would be meaningful not just to the two of them, but to everyone. By everyone remembering that marriage is something to be blessed, he wished for new lives to truly begin being born on the Korean Peninsula.

“If things continue like this, only good things remain for the world. The ash covering the sky will probably disappear within ten years, right? The ash will slowly fall to the ground… This isn’t just my opinion, but what some professors or doctors said.”

At Oh Haengun’s claim, Seo Yun glanced up at the sky.

“It seems quite some time has passed already. The ash doesn’t seem to have thinned much, does it?”

“Until now, that was the case. The meteorite probably held onto that ash in the sky to maintain the worldview… But you can clearly see the meteorite has lost its power, right? It probably can’t do that anymore.”

Seo Yun slowly nodded.

“I hope so.”

“Yeah. In the end… it will be as the Chief said.”

“The Chief?”

“Ah, not me, the former Chief. He interpreted the prophecy, saying that someday the sun would rise in this world… He should have been here on this good day.”

Thus, Oh Haengun was attributing a level of meaning to this wedding that seemed almost excessive. He was even preparing the ceremony himself as if he were the one getting married. Gathering ingredients in advance to ensure the banquet food would be abundant, personally overseeing construction to prepare the village square to be used as the venue.

And Seo Yun did not try to stop him. Because she, too, was looking forward to and preparing for their wedding.

As their closest friend, Seo Yun went around here and there, delivering wedding invitations on their behalf.

Yesterday, she delivered invitations to the Troll and the students at the school he looked after. And today, she visited the Dawn Corps, met the chimpanzee’s aunt, and delivered an invitation.

“You’ll definitely come to your nephew’s wedding, right?”

Ga Huiyeong nodded with an ambiguous expression.

“I suppose I should.”

As Seo Yun smiled contentedly, Ga Huiyeong stared blankly at her as if wondering why she was so happy. Seo Yun asked:

“So, how have things been lately? Looking at the people here, everyone seems to have gained quite a bit of weight on their faces…”

“Well, it’s been more livable than I thought. I was worried about food shortages, but it wasn’t as lacking as I expected. It feels wrong to say this, but it’s largely thanks to so many dying in that battle. The number of mouths to feed drastically decreased.”

Gaeulbi’s lack of empathy might perhaps be something inherited in her blood. Seo Yun tried not to frown and asked:

“It’s fortunate that food isn’t lacking. I guess the potato farming went well?”

“The farming went okay, but the Nutrient Porridge was a bigger help.”

“The Nutrient Porridge made by that Goddess Statue?”

“Yes.”

That Goddess Statue was an item Han Siwoo and Gaeulbi used to carry around.

The Statue of the Goddess of Beauty, which supplies Nutrient Porridge in exchange for offering Souls. Several years ago, when Han Siwoo was kidnapped by the Dawn Corps, that item was seized. Gaeulbi could have reclaimed it if she wanted, but she didn’t.

Upon hearing that the Dawn Corps people still had their item, Gaeulbi formally transferred ownership to her aunt. Now, that item was being actively used to produce the daily sustenance for the Dawn Corps members.

Souls to offer to the Goddess Statue were easily obtainable. After all, this was a world littered with deactivated Skeletons and Shadow Specters everywhere. If there was a shortage of Souls for the Magic Item, they could just smash them and fill Glass Vials with their Souls. Since the Immortal Kingdom’s Rulebook specified that the Souls residing in low-level Undead like Skeletons were not proper Souls but mere remnants, there wasn’t even much need to feel ethical discomfort.

‘If I try to put it nicely, it’s like new life blooming from death.’

Seo Yun looked around the Dawn Corps encampment. Military unit characteristics were nowhere to be found now.

Rather, it should be called a construction site where a new village was planned to be built.

Amidst people busily moving while carrying construction materials, excavators dug the ground.

Something was being built here. Not leather tents or the like, but seemingly sturdier, modern buildings.

Seo Yun’s heart pounded.

Just seeing that gave a sense that civilization was recovering. Come to think of it, wasn’t it becoming a trend lately among various survivor groups to build such concrete buildings?

Until now, the meteorite hadn’t left modern buildings alone, so no one dared to build new ones, but lately, the meteorite had been quiet. If so, there was no need to stubbornly continue living in tents.

Even Happy Village was building a modern, nice newlywed home for Gaeulbi and Han Siwoo. A two-story house, with steel and concrete…

Just as Seo Yun was smiling contentedly.

A cry echoed in Seo Yun’s mind.

「Help me―」

As Seo Yun raised her wrist, the Bracelet was glowing. The cry for help flowed from that Bracelet.

Seo Yun immediately touched the Bracelet and responded to the plea for help.

“I answer the call.”

As she uttered the activation phrase, Seo Yun’s vision changed.

An organism of a scale that should not exist in this world came into view.It was an unrealistically gigantic worm. A worm so massive it didn’t even evoke disgust. Its total body length was impossible to guess. Just the exposed portion was over twenty meters long.

Its skin glistened blood-red, as if freshly painted. Every time it writhed, a pinkish liquid oozed out, and Seo Yun knew from the Rulebook that this mucus could dissolve rock. From its mouth lined with saw-like teeth, acidic fluid continuously spewed forth.

One look was enough to know what kind of monster it was.

A Gutworm.

She had heard of that monster’s notorious reputation, but this was her first time seeing it in reality.

Seo Yun watched it for a few seconds before immediately shifting her gaze. Surveying her surroundings, it was clear this was outside the Fortress Wall of Happy Village.

Since monsters hadn’t appeared at the fortress lately, the need to hole up inside the walls had vanished. The people of Happy Village had been constructing new residences outside the walls. This was that construction site.

Various pieces of construction Equipment were scattered about. Behind them should have been the half-built house. The house where the village warrior, Mr. Lee Han-eum, was supposed to live.

That house was not visible.

In the spot where the house should have been, the Gutworm was thrashing.

“Shit, fuck!”

Curses and screams could be heard. People from Happy Village were visible here and there.

People wearing hard hats, likely caught up by the monster while working, were the first she saw. Then she saw Happy Village warriors who had rushed over, but they seemed at a loss, unable to muster the courage to charge at the Gutworm.

To be fair, from Seo Yun’s perspective, it wasn’t a monster one could do much about. It was a monster whose Challenge Rating varied with size, and if it was that huge, its rating must be over 10. Even that seemed a pitifully low rating compared to its absurd size.

That Gutworm was larger than a decent-sized villa, and it seemed to have swallowed an entire house whole before Seo Yun arrived. The wreckage of a building was clearly visible as an outline within its body.

There seemed to be no time to leisurely assess the situation. A man looking her way shouted.

“Seo Yun? Help, quickly! Three people have been swallowed already!”

Swallowed? By the Gutworm?

Seo Yun hurriedly began reciting a Spell. At the same time, she turned at the sound of thudding footsteps approaching.

The village’s top combatants, Han Siwoo… and Gaeulbi, were seen running towards them.

Han Siwoo, running, frantically pulled a ring from his finger. Like Oh Haengbok in the past, Han Siwoo, whose Strength was excessively powerful, always wore a Ring of Strength Weakening. Having worn it for so long, it seemed stuck tight on his finger; he barely managed to pull it off and hastily drew his sword.

Gaeulbi arrived and stopped in front much faster than Han Siwoo.

“Seo Yun? Give me some Spells!”

As a Martial Artist, Gaeulbi didn’t even need the minimal preparation of drawing a weapon. After Seo Yun cast a few essential Spells on her and informed her that three people had been swallowed, Gaeulbi nodded and immediately stomped the ground.

“I’ll save them!”

In an instant, her figure vanished, only to reappear in front of the Gutworm. Gaeulbi ran up, stepping on the Gutworm’s body segments in rapid succession. It took only a moment for Gaeulbi to climb onto the Gutworm’s head. She crouched down and drove her right fist into its head like a drill.

A hole was punched through the Gutworm’s thick hide. Given the Gutworm’s immense size, a fist-sized hole likely didn’t do much damage, but Gaeulbi swung her fist repeatedly, widening the hole.

The Gutworm began to thrash violently as if convulsing. Clinging to the monster’s body without falling off, and not even stopping her punches, Gaeulbi roared.

“Die, you bastard!”

As soon as Seo Yun finished reciting the necessary Spells, she spread her wings.

She flew through the air towards the Gutworm’s head. The closer she got to the Gutworm, the more she felt just how massive a monster it was.

The hole Gaeulbi had made was now large enough for a person to enter. Where blood cascaded out like a waterfall and touched the ground, smoke rose. It seemed not just the mucus on its hide, but even its blood was a corrosive fluid. Would touching it hurt terribly?

It probably would, but Seo Yun decided not to care. Whether it was blood that could melt stone or whatever, it posed no threat to a body with 12 points of Health.

“Seo Yun?”

When Seo Yun jumped into that hole, Gaeulbi was startled. Seo Yun ignored both her scream and the pain on her skin and was swallowed into the Gutworm’s wound.

The flesh inside the Gutworm, repeatedly contracting and expanding, pressed down on Seo Yun. Without the muscular strength amplified by Spells, she would have been crushed to death, unable to move a muscle.

Seo Yun drove the Flaming Sword she had drawn earlier into the Gutworm’s flesh. She then dragged the sword from top to bottom. The Gutworm’s flesh split open on both sides, and the pressure crushing her body lessened.

It must have been terribly hot for the Gutworm. While the Gutworm’s body thrashed, Seo Yun never let go of the Flaming Sword’s hilt. Every time the Gutworm’s body moved significantly, the Flaming Sword’s blade continued to tear through its flesh and hide like tofu.

The Gutworm’s movements ceased. Seo Yun gritted her teeth against the acid that was melting her skin moment by moment and moved within its body. Finally, she emerged from within, carrying a man on her back.

With the light, thunderous applause erupted from the crowd of people gathered around.

“Seo Yun!” “Gaeulbi!”

It was likely praise for their heroic feat, but Seo Yun couldn’t simply enjoy their accolades right now.

Her entire body hurt terribly because her skin had repeatedly melted and regenerated. If not for her magical garments, which didn’t burn even in flame, she would have been naked… and even that fact wasn’t important now.

Seo Yun carefully set down the man she had barely rescued. People crowded around him.

“Quickly, quickly, a Resurrection…”

While Seo Yun prayed, the Player warriors tried to further cut open the Gutworm’s hide to rescue other victims.

And after a while, a somber mood dominated the gathering.

Three people had been swallowed. One was somehow Resurrected, but the other two were not. The chunks of concrete swallowed along with them had completely crushed their entire bodies. Neither Healing Spells nor Resurrection Spells worked.

“What’s going on? Why did a Gutworm suddenly…”

In response to Seo Yun’s question, a man wearing a hard hat answered with a weary face.”I don’t know. I was just working on the construction site today when that thing suddenly burst out from underground…”

Even with just that brief explanation, it wasn’t hard to understand what had happened.

Seo Yun had heard before that modern buildings incurred the Meteor’s Wrath. So, was it true that the apartment buildings originally in Happy Village had all been swallowed by Gutworms? At this moment, she was witnessing the scene firsthand.

Shortly after, Oh Haengun arrived late and sighed upon hearing the report. A single word escaped his lips.

“The Meteor is still…”

Yes. It was clearly the Meteor’s doing.

The Gutworms’ obsession with concrete buildings, which didn’t even seem particularly appetizing, was abnormal. It wasn’t a biological instinct or something natural, but something external—a command issued by the Meteor.

The Meteor had ordered its creations to destroy everything that didn’t belong in this Dark Fantasy. It poured murderous intent upon anything that interfered with its grand work of completing this world.

That murderous intent had been forgotten for a year, only to be encountered again today.

In the process of creating the two Chief Gods, the Sun God and the Goddess of Beauty, the Meteor had expended most of its active Strength. This was half-proven by the fact that there had been almost no activity from the Meteor for over a year and several months.

Many even thought the Meteor had completely exhausted its lifespan, so when a Gutworm representing the Meteor’s will suddenly emerged, it was terribly bewildering.

“Was it just a Gutworm that had been Hibernating underground suddenly becoming active? Or else…”

Oh Haengun trailed off, seemingly reluctant to voice the ominous thought, but Seo Yun could easily guess what he might have been thinking.

Had the Meteor resumed its activity? Had it somehow recovered its depleted Strength?

And ominous predictions tend to come true.

The next day, Seo Yun once again drew her Flaming Sword and responded to a call for help from elsewhere. It was a request for Salvation from a Camp in Gangwon Province.

This time, the monster that had appeared in Gangwon Province wasn’t a Gutworm.

“Ms. Seo Yun, over there, the kobolds—”

Kobolds. Those inhuman monsters, looking like small, scaly monkeys, had reportedly suddenly emerged from a coal mine. Each holding a gun, they wildly shot at the people gathered there before running off somewhere.

“They had guns, you say?”

“Yes. Are you sure you’ll be okay alone…”

“Yeah, well.”

To deal with them, Seo Yun only needed two Spells: Non-Magical Weapon Immunity and Flamethrower.

A short while later, as smoke rose from the charred kobold corpses, people cautiously approached. Their gazes fell on the kobolds scattered about and the burlap sacks they had been carrying.

Even in death, the kobolds tightly clutched their burlap sacks, refusing to let go. Seo Yun approached, opened one of the sacks, and raised an eyebrow.

“These look like… Meteor Fragments.”

“Meteor Fragments?”

Seo Yun nodded. When she unfolded the sack to show them, several black stones glinted inside.

Seeing this, the people groaned. They exchanged words among themselves.

“These damn bastards… they came for the Meteor Fragments.”

“You think they came for the Meteor Fragments?”

“Yeah. Weren’t we keeping them here securely as the camp’s communal property? Come to think of it, I remember a setting in the Rulebook about kobolds liking gems. Seems they came to steal the Meteor Fragments, which are like gems, following that setting.”

“How did they know these were stored here?”

“Who knows? Maybe they smelled them…”

Listening to their conversation, Seo Yun thought. To her recollection, Meteor Fragments didn’t have any special scent that could be detected from afar. Then how?

‘The Meteor…’

Seo Yun surmised that the meteorite’s main body had revealed its location to the kobolds. To have the fragments that were once part of itself brought back, and thus to restore its own power. Perhaps the meteorite’s resumption of activity was only possible because it had already recovered a considerable amount of meteor fragments in this way.

Seo Yun bit her lip and accepted one fact.

Still, the meteorite’s will to turn the world into a lousy fantasy had not disappeared.

Similar incidents occurred several times thereafter.

In one place, kobolds burst out from a sewer; in another, from an underground parking lot. Those that emerged from underground like that all attempted to steal meteor fragments.

Gutworms also burrowed out of the ground here and there. They would swallow up not only modern buildings but even tents and hanok, trying to seize the meteor fragments stored inside along with them.

Whenever such chaos erupted, Seo Yun was called out. She would defeat the monsters and heal the injured or dead.

However, not everyone could be saved even with a resurrection spell. Each time she was called out, Seo Yun had to witness people’s deaths, and each time, her heart grew terribly unsettled.

It wasn’t merely feeling sorrow over someone’s death. That unease stemmed from the guilt of realizing that she herself possessed the means to end all of this situation.

It felt as if everything had reverted to a year and several months ago.

Murderous monsters were appearing again. Players who had semi-retired were once again standing guard duty armed. Martial Artists who had newly begun activities as Players received orders to halt their activities. With threatening monsters reappearing, they couldn’t afford to waste experience points like that.

And all ongoing housing construction was halted. There was no telling when gutworms might appear again, and with monsters reemerging, they couldn’t possibly place residences outside the fortress walls.

Naturally, the house intended to be Han Siwoo and Gaeulbi’s newlywed home was also left unfinished outside.

“Ah, damn… it was almost completed…”

Gaeulbi seemed deeply regretful but couldn’t bring herself to insist on resuming construction. Han Siwoo also only felt bitter and didn’t protest or voice complaints. Two people had died; he couldn’t do that. Siwoo merely expressed a brief question, almost as a sigh.

“Do we have to keep living in tents like this forever?”

“If you really want to get out of tents, there is a way. We could build in a medieval style so as not to draw the meteorite’s attention… though we’d have to give up on the house we were trying to build. We’d have to build a new one inside the fortress walls or something.”

Listening to their dispirited conversation, Seo Yun thought. There is a way to get their newlywed home completed.

Stop the meteorite.

If only the meteorite’s activity stops, almost all problems disappear. Kobolds and gutworms bursting out from underground would cease, and people dying meaninglessly because of that would also stop.

Seo Yun also knew that method.

She already knew the method to stop the meteorite, and she knew that method lay with her.

If just one new Goddess is born….