“― ― Ha!?”

I woke up with a start. It was still dark, so my eyes were fine opening instantly.

“Momokawa Kotarou, adherent of mine.”

A skull face was right in my face before I knew anything.

“Aaaaaaaahhh!?”

The first thought that crossed my mind was a sudden invasion of Skeleton mobs, but I did in fact know this particular skeleton face. He was an ally, or actually, he was my patron G.o.d.

“Ah, eh, um, I mean... Ruinhilde-sama, I uh... have I perhaps, um, died?”

I was in this G.o.d"s dimension.

Seeing his face first thing after waking up really knocked the drowsiness out of me, which was when I started remembering everything.

We were moments close to finis.h.i.+ng off the Basilisk when its fumes shot out from those gill slits. I should maybe consider myself lucky to have died instantly from that. When Gomas got hit by its gas, they always screamed in extreme agony before inevitably dying.

“Well done, for you have realized the second truth. And for this, I shall praise you.”

“Eh? What, I mean, thank you, my lord...”

Excuse me, but rather than the usual deep and mystical lecture, I"d really like to know if I"m still alive or not please. Still, it"s not often that I get praised by a G.o.d, so I think something good might come from this.

“First, know that the star of another realm that you traced is not a thing to be considered a true magic circle. Yet, it is also true that what you made contains part of the Truth.”

“Um, do you mean, the Hexagram Eye?”

My patron G.o.d nodded. So since hexagrams were a concept from Earth, I guess they really were from another realm in Ruinhilde-sama"s perspective.

“I had believed to grant this to you much time later, but you have shown me agreeable growth―― It is yours, Momokawa Kotarou.”

Ruinhilde-sama raised a bony finger and a poison bog-like pool started bubbling up in front of me. This pool quickly formed into a jet black lump.

“Um, what exactly is this?”

“A vessel of chaos. With endless possibilities, it garners man"s hope, yet, is trifling. The holder makes its use.”

“I see, so it will depend on how I use it.”

I just responded appropriately, but I honestly didn"t want to have to do anything with this Vessel of Chaos thing. I just stared at it, and had absolutely no desire to get my hands near any of that black, goopy whatever.

Well, from the looks of it, the lump appeared like a large soup pot.

The inside of this pot was a swirling black that seemed to go on for eternity, churning chaos as if it would be able to grant any and all desires.

Quite the curse-like effect I must admit, but, huh, I think I"ve seen this before.

“This is... just like Mud Doll.”

“Its uses are many. Use this Cauldron as you will, proliferate your Curse.”

I see, so it was similar to Takanas.h.i.+ Kotori"s Upgrade in that I could make stuff by adding the right ingredients. So a production type Curse.

“My utmost thanks.”

I do hope I can get a Curse strong enough to one-shot something like a Basilisk one of these days. But it"d be very rude to say that so I didn"t.

Anyway, from the way this conversation was going… didn"t it mean that I was actually still alive?

“Second, the Mud Doll does indeed have a soul.”

“Ah, so Rem does have her own personality!”

Now with this topic, I caught on right off the bat.

“You appear to be quite fond of it.”

“Sure am. Rem"s really great.”

I mean, she still looks like a Skeleton, but she always listens to me, works hard, and even ends up saving me a lot of the time. Rem"s such a lovable little thing.

“Very well, it seems I have no need to speak to you on the way of Dolls. Do well to use your Mud Doll as you are.”

It"s not often that Ruinhilde-sama spoke this directly. And since I was in complete agreement with his words, I honestly agreed with a ‘Yes."

“Now be off, Momokawa Kotarou, for you have already opened the gates of possibility――”

“… Ah, d.a.m.n, I"m alive, I"m really alive.”

I muttered solemnly. I mean, I always felt relief wash over me after an intense life or death struggle, but this sense of achievement was something I hadn"t had since that first Armorbear way back when.

“And I actually beat the Basilisk.”

In front of me laid a giant lizard type skeleton. There was no trace of the Rotten Bog and the ground had returned to its usual cold, dry mud. Which meant that this huge skeletal frame had to be from the Basilisk.

“Ah, good, the core"s still there.”

I could clearly see the red, glowing core through the ma.s.s of bones. I suspect that Rotten Bog continued working even after I pa.s.sed out and completely melted down the Basilisk"s flesh. I didn"t know if cores just didn"t melt, or the Rotten Bog itself was being a nice guy and didn"t melt it for my sake, but I"m glad it didn"t. Otherwise, this whole ordeal would"ve been for nothing.

“Oh, that"s right, hey Rem, good work back there.”

“GAGA!”

Rem, who was of course standing stock still by my side till I woke up, bobbled her skull happily at my words. This action was also followed by #2 who was standing beside Rem.

“If you hadn"t jumped on the Basilisk, I doubt we"d be able to take it down as fast as we did, if at all.”

I patted her head. Rem"s current skull head was covered in an insect sh.e.l.l helm, so it wasn"t a point of whether it felt good to pat or not, but more like I needed to be careful since some parts of the sh.e.l.l were pretty sharp… Well, I"m thankful to her so I"ll take the small risk anyway.

If I had to guess, shooting it"s toxic breath through those gill slits must"ve been a sort of last resort for the Basilisk too. Under Rem"s mounted a.s.sault, my restraints and the bog still melting it to the bones, it must"ve felt desperate enough to warrant such a tactic. Something like a cornered mouse situation.

“That reminds me, how come that last breath didn"t do anything to me? I"m sure it hit me directly.”

Anyway, I didn"t feel any pain or other abnormalities with my body. Plus, I already knew from my observations that the Basilisk"s breath had no effect on any of my clothes or items.

“Huh, should I just consider it an extra service from Ruinhilde-sama…?”

I thought jokingly, but then I was suddenly confronted with some new information in my head that seemed to deny that possibility.

Venomic Vessel: Chaotic innards that repel a hundred poisons. A Curse that tramples on venoms, providing truth to pain insurmountable.

“Eh, huh, innards… like, wait, doesn"t that mean my organs are really f.u.c.ked up now!?”

That"s human experimentation, Ruinhilde-sama! The forbidden arts!! I felt like shouting to the sky as I started quickly patting all over my body to see if anything was weird.

That being said, it wasn"t like I could feel these inside differences from the outside. I at least knew it wasn"t like an extra heart since nothing other than my original one was beating.

I was guessing that Ruinhilde-sama gave me an extra organ that looked like that swirling lump of chaos he showed me.

“Wait wait, calm down, yeah. It"s not like I lost anything. This is a plus.”

I mean, surely he didn"t do something like replace one of my kidneys with it, right? I should try to look at this in a more positive light, like a Pa.s.sive Skill that neutralizes any poison.

“So basically, if even Basilisk breath won"t affect me, I guess I don"t need to worry about most poisons.”

I still didn"t want to put it to the test by eating a redshroom though. I didn"t have the guts for that.

Yeah, as always, the vague flavor text didn"t help. But if it turns out that this is what saved me from that breath, than I"m all for it. If I end up getting hit by any poison attacks in the future, I"m hoping Venomic Vessel will show its worth.

“Also, this Curse"s name, I guess it refers to Gu, that super venom thing where they put a whole bunch of poisonous insects in a pot in a sort of battle royale. Where the last one surviving is said to have the most potent venom…”

Nope, nuh uh. I was NOT going to be testing that out. Like, won"t that mean I"d have to swallow live poisonous bugs to add them to Venomic Vessel? Like seriously no. I"d rather risk a redshroom than eat one of those creepy crawlies.

But then again, the description does kind of hint at getting something out of the poisons other than immunity, so it might actually have hidden effects.

“Nope, I really don"t want to find out after all.”

I"ll just settle for the new anti-venom pa.s.sive skill. No, it"s not like I"m dissatisfied, Ruinhilde-sama. I"m simply admitting that whatever offensive boosts this Venomic Vessel can provide, I"m not yet worthy to make use of them.

“B-better luck next time I guess.”

But then, as if I was being irritating with my disrespect, another piece of info popped into my head.

Witch"s Cauldron: The pot of a witch is not solely for meals. It is a vessel of chaos that can birth magic, curse and concoctions, healing and poison alike.

“Wait what? Did I just get 2 Curses at once?”

Huh, wow, I did, didn"t I.

This one was a lot closer to the thing Ruinhilde-sama showed me back there. My guess is that if I used this Curse, I"d get a pot like that Vessel of Chaos I saw.

If this thing is as powerful as Upgrade, it should be very useful for any upcoming fights. In fact, since I could now easily hunt down small numbers of Gomas and Red Dogs, I could actually gather the parts and ingredients to use in making whatever it is I would eventually make.

“So with this I should be able to make my meds a lot better. No, it says poisons too… Oh yeah, if I can do poisons, I want to lace our weapons with them.”

It was a big step forward, but not something I could test right now. Takanas.h.i.+ Kotori"s Upgrade seemed to expend a lot of mana after all.

I"d gotten a nap just now when I went into G.o.d"s dimension, so I could walk around fine, but my mana hadn"t recovered quite as much.

“I should teleport out of here already. I can think about the rest at the Fairy Square.”

I wasn"t going to be waiting to be attacked now when I"m still tired from the Boss fight. I started quickly gathering up all the Basilisk bones I could carry and made swift preparations to warp out.

I still had a lot of extra weapons and things gathered up at my Fairy Square base in this zone, but they weren"t so important that I would go out of my way to get them now. I"d already used most of the better quality weapons in this fight, which ended up being lost in the bog.

Well, the fact that Rem saved the Red Knife from that flavor of doom was something to be glad about. Otherwise I"d be really depressed having lost a valuable magic weapon.

“Any time now――”

Me, Rem and #2 all now stood on the transfer circle platform that the Basilisk used do laze around in all day.

I just need to hold this core up and the rest should be automatic. And this time, there wasn"t anyone going to push me off either.

“――Mh!”

Shrouded in blinding white light, I teleported to the next zone.

“Ah, it feels like I finally did it.”

I opened my eyes to a scene I could call home, a Fairy Square. I"m glad we get transferred to one of these every time without fail. The frog Boss, the Orthus, and now the Basilisk too. It"s home sweet home to a Fairy Square right after a tough battle.

“Man, I"m tired!”

I needed some well deserved shut-eye. I threw down the Basilisk"s skeletal loot to a side and laid down on the soft, gra.s.sy bed that was the ground.

I closed my eyes and found myself quickly becoming sleepy, and soon I"d be in the land of dreams――

“―― Look what we have here, Momokawa, ya little git. Still haven"t kicked the bucket eh?”

If that voice didn"t reach my ears. If that familiar tone didn"t absolutely destroy my drowsiness.

“I"m actually kinda impressed ya made it this far. Y"know, with that lousy Job of yers.”

My eyes fell on his mocking smile. His dyed brown hair, his piercings, and that extra gaudy way he wore his uniform. But I know all too well. That behind that frivolous att.i.tude hid nothing but malice.

“Yo, looks like ya came to. Guess I should say it"s good to see ya again?”

I would never forget the name of my mortal enemy, the first person I met in this world and by whose hand I"d suffered the worst humiliation. With hate welling out from every pore in my body, I spoke his name:

“Higuchi, Kyouya…”

Shaman/Jujutsus.h.i.+ - 30
Kuro no Maou - 30
Nidome no Yuusha - 23
Nii-san - 27