Rise of the OtherGod Apostle: Not a Cult Leader, but a Serf?!

#154Reader Mode

#154

Adna, of all people, has the audacity to say that?

If anyone deserves a lifetime achievement award in emotional cluelessness, it’s her. She’d sweep the Emotional Ignorance Olympics without breaking a sweat.

Normally, I’d brush off comments like that from anyone else. But coming from Adna—the human equivalent of an emotional brick wall? That stung more than I’d like to admit.

It’s like failing a test on purpose to secure your spot at the bottom of the class, only to have the second-worst student look at your paper and sigh dramatically with that disappointed head shake. That’s exactly the vibe I’m getting. And it’s infuriating as hell.

Deep breath. Count to ten.

She wasn’t actually calling me trash. She was talking about Fabio.

And to be fair, knowing the whole story, anyone would get the wrong idea. There’s no way she could’ve known that Pandomonium was just messing with me by pulling that stunt—partly to kill any Council discussion, partly just being a troll.

But that’s not even my biggest problem right now.

I need to figure out how to get around Adna’s constant surveillance.

Once an Apostle has their eye on you, you’re basically under house arrest. Sure, I won’t have to worry about running into Nyapoleon or Insanity anytime soon, but everything else would be completely unbearable.

Adna might let me write a letter to a lover or whatever, but sneaking anything important into that message? Not a chance.

…Maybe I could sneak in a quick chat when she’s not looking.

Even though she’s an Apostle, she probably can’t see my system window. But then her earlier words echoed in my head like a bad omen—she said she’d “stay by my side.” Was she being literal? Like, physically attached to me every second of every day?

How many hours are we talking here? Eight? Sixteen? Twenty-four?

Twenty-four hours? That’s fucking insane.

But judging by Adna’s behavior so far, I’m not exactly optimistic. She’s dead serious, convinced I’ve already slipped into Stage 1 Madness.

To give some context, Stage 1 Madness in the Dark Realm isn’t actually that uncommon. It’s basically stubborn-idealist syndrome—someone who’s all in on their beliefs, no matter what evidence you show them. They’re not your average person, but they’re not full-blown conspiracy theorists muttering about lizard people either.

At this stage, they’re not hearing voices or seeing things that aren’t there.

Take Bishop Andrea, for example. Just mention Athanas around him and watch him instantly get agitated. He’ll passionately declare, “He must die!” with fire in his eyes. That’s textbook Stage 1 Madness.

If Andrea were to actually bump into Athanas in person, he’d probably get all worked up, convinced that “this vile monster is just faking it, pretending to be normal while strutting around like he owns the place.” But even in that stage, Andrea would still understand that to everyone else, Athanas looks perfectly ordinary.

Now, what if Andrea’s condition worsened to Stage 2 Madness?

That’s where everything takes a disturbing turn. Imagine Athanas casually nodding and walking past Andrea. Suddenly, Andrea “hears” a sinister whisper that no one else can hear: “Just stand there like a helpless fool while I slaughter these innocent children.”

For Andrea, who basically hovers over those kids like a helicopter parent, that’s a direct threat. He’d be absolutely convinced he has to stop this imaginary massacre, no matter what it takes.

But to everyone watching? It would just look like a bishop completely snapped and attacked some random, innocent volunteer for absolutely no reason.

…So if Adna’s job is to keep me from becoming that kind of unhinged, she’s probably never going to let me out of her sight. Ever.

She’d go through all my stuff with the thoroughness of an airport security guard who’s had way too much coffee. Anything that might push me mentally over the edge? Gone. Confiscated without a second thought.

No matter what happens, I can’t let her see Reyes’s ring.

That thing is literally a relic of the Distorted One.

The more I thought about it, the more my anxiety spiraled. How am I supposed to convince Adna I’m completely fine—that my brain’s operating like a sane person’s? And I couldn’t even use Forced Persuasion on her.

“…I may have been too harsh,” she said suddenly.

“Pardon?”

“I didn’t expect you to look so shocked. You’ve gone pale.”

Huh?

Oh. Right.

She basically just called me worthless trash to my face.

And now she’s misreading the situation, thinking I’m actually hurt by her comment.

I decided to roll with it.

“No, it just… caught me off guard. I didn’t think that’s what you meant. I had no idea the rumors had gotten that bad. I just don’t know how to fix this mess.”

“If you want, I could erase everything with Oblivion. Not just the rumors about the confession—I could wipe every memory of you completely.”

“Ah! No, no, that’s really not necessary!”

Holy shit, that’s extreme.

She’s offering a full memory purge over this? Seriously?

What is this, a server reset?

Is that standard procedure in the Church of Order? Just memory-wipe everyone the second something embarrassing happens?

It’s just gossip, for crying out loud.

“Is it really okay to use Oblivion for something this… small?”

“Normally? No. But you’re a Watched One.”

Adna continued with all the emotional range of a customer service robot.

“Anything connected to the beings beyond the starry sky can be handled without prior notice or authorization.”

My stomach dropped.

…So they could just erase all memories of me? Wipe me from existence whenever they wanted?

If Athanas forgot everything about me… if we became total strangers again…

“Fabio?”

“I’m… I-I’m fine.”

I took a slow, deep breath.

I had to look like I had it together. Like everything was fine. Normal.

What am I even panicking about?

It’s not that big a deal. Really.

Better she forgets me than ends up in hell because of me.

It’s not like we were that close anyway…

“You should rest for a while.”

The Saint’s hand settled lightly on my shoulder, and I collapsed into the chair like a puppet whose strings had been snipped.

…When did he even bring this chair over?

“If you need space to think, I’ll give you some time alone.”

No. I didn’t want to be alone here. I wanted to be alone in my room. Not in this nightmare of a gallery, surrounded by the dismembered pieces of a girl’s body arranged like some grotesque art exhibit.

The Saint wasn’t pushing down hard, but for some reason—maybe it was just the shift in my balance—I couldn’t bring myself to stand back up.

He leaned closer, and his white hair draped around us like a curtain of silk—soft, weightless, and eerily quiet. For a moment, it was all I could focus on.

[…It’s a white so pure it’s like all the color’s been sucked out of the world.

Beautiful, but for some reason, it makes me feel unbearably sad.

Not ■■■■ anymore.]

[SYSTEM: The effect of the trait ‘Heaven Above, Earth Below, I Alone Reign Supreme’ has converted ‘Memory Recall’ into text format.]

…What the hell?

I blinked, and the window disappeared.

That wasn’t Fabio’s memory.

Perpetua’s?

So now I’m just going to get random flashes of her life? Without even touching her remains?

The synchronization rate must be insane.

No, hold on. Focus.

Perpetua knew the Saint?

“I’ll be just beyond that door. Call me if you need anything.”

His voice was soft, brushing past my ear like a breeze I couldn’t shield myself from.

My mind was spinning in a dozen directions.

What’s the Saint’s game here?

What does it mean to him that I’m suddenly remembering pieces of another life?

If he really just wanted to answer my request, he wouldn’t have brought in the actual remains.

I specifically asked for a written report.

But instead, he ignored that completely, practically forcing me to connect with them without even warning me. Which means, without a doubt, he’s trying to make me remember something specific.

So… what exactly was Perpetua’s relationship with the Saint?

This doesn’t feel like they just knew each other. It feels… deeper. Like they had history. History from before he became the Holy Maiden.

And what was that redacted part about?

[SYSTEM: This memory has been blocked due to ‘Oblivion.’]

Oblivion?

I frowned.

So memories erased by Oblivion can’t be recovered, huh?

…Actually, that makes sense.

It’s like the difference between recovering a file you accidentally deleted and trying to salvage one that got corrupted before you even had a chance to save it. Two completely different problems.

Either way, digging deeper into Perpetua’s past seemed like a terrible idea.

Her life was probably one long nightmare of misery and horror.

And knowing every gory detail? Yeah, that’s not exactly a fast pass to better mental health.

…I’ll just tell them I lost interest.

Adna would probably say I made a good “mature decision” or something.

As I stood up, something slid off my lap and hit the floor with a soft thud.

The scroll?

Wait, when did that even get there?

No one had bothered to tie it shut, so it unrolled on its own.

…I wasn’t planning to read it.

And just glancing at it doesn’t count as “reading”, right?

I grabbed it quickly, but before I could look away, my eyes caught a name at the bottom.

[Perpetua Ophea]

Ophea?

Perpetua was from House Ophea?

I had no idea. Her surname must’ve been dropped after she became a Cult Leader.

Even with a divine bloodline, once you make a contract with an Othergod, your original Authority becomes useless. And unless you’ve got that “Rightful Heir of a Noble House” trait, a Cult Leader’s family background is basically just trivia in the grand scheme of things.

…Ophea of Solace, huh.

Their signature color was a soft, calming violet. The Blessing of Solace is designed to soothe the heart and ease anxiety, especially useful when dealing with low-mental power units.

For newbies, it’s one of those essential holy relics to farm early on. Low-mental power units are like emotional powder kegs—they spiral into Madness quickly, stop obeying orders, or just outright rebel.

But I never use it.

The reason’s simple: when a low-mental power unit fights through Madness on their own, their faith stat dramatically increases.

And who am I to rob them of that character development?

Just to avoid dealing with a few inconvenient tantrums?

That’s not my style.

In Conclude, your base stats don’t change much. Even grinding for some gains depends almost entirely on whether a unit has talent-based traits from birth. The Dark Realm is just another disgusting world that worships talent, where the birth lottery determines everything about your future.

Divine blessings could break those limits, technically…

But let’s be honest—they mostly help the already-gifted and wealthy become unstoppable while the rest of the poor population falls further behind.

And if I were a god? I’d probably make the same cold calculation: pour all my points into one genius to create someone extraordinary.

You can’t replace brilliance with a dozen average people. But trying to boost an underperformer into mediocrity? Total waste of points. You might as well summon someone who’s already decent.

Logically, it makes perfect sense… but it still pisses me off.

Shouldn’t a proper high religion stand for equality? Instead, it props up the same old toxic hierarchy. Those prodigies would’ve been fine without divine handouts, so why would I go out of my way to help them?

That’s why I always invested my points in the underdogs. The ones nobody else believed in.

There’s a risk, of course—low-mental power units tend to turn on you if you’re not careful. So before I’d commit any resources, I’d put them through my own special stress test to see if they were worth my time. My number one requirement for a power-up? They had to beat Madness on their own.

If they failed, they’d lose their sanity and become useless anyway.

But hey, according to doctrine, even the mad can enter paradise. Maybe they found peace after death. Not that I’d know. I never bothered resurrecting deadweight.

I looked away and rolled the scroll back up, trying not to read more than I already had.

Too bad she wasn’t from House Horeum.

If Perpetua had been part of the Inventory bloodline, I might’ve casually asked to “borrow” a few relics. But the Blessing of Solace? Useless. Doesn’t work on me anyway. And Athanas with his already high mental power wouldn’t need it either.

So the Saint’s from House Ophea. Interesting…

I didn’t even need to finish reading the scroll to connect the dots. This was sensitive, classified information linking him and Perpetua before he became an Apostle. They’re probably blood relatives.

Those four redacted characters? Maybe “older cousin” or something.

What was his name before he ascended again? Pel… Pelagio.

Seriously? Pelagio?

Even after thinking about it again, that name still sounds ridiculous. Who looks at a tiny baby and thinks, “Yes. Pelagio. Perfect name for this child.”

There’s no casual way to address someone with a name like that. Pelagio oppa? Pelagio hyung?

[…I guess I really do have to call him “Saint” now. Not hyung.]

Wait, what was that?

[SYSTEM: You have successfully recalled a memory previously blocked by Oblivion!]

[SYSTEM: The trait ‘Heaven Above, Earth Below, I Alone Reign Supreme’ has nullified the status effect ‘Oblivion.’]