A Conversation with a 'God'

?!

Mo Tan had once thought he was hallucinating. Otherwise, how could the perfectly fine Dawn Goddess suddenly have such a massive break in character...

Though this had been happening to him for over twenty years, his atypical split personality shouldn't have become this widespread already, right?!

Or had he not logged into the game at all, and accidentally added something like high-proof alcohol to his coffee earlier? Was he currently passed out somewhere?

This wouldn't do. His thoughts were already starting to spiral...

"Hey, give me a response!"

By rights, shouldn't a character like the Dawn Goddess be some contradictory composite of cold, rigid, aloof, yet compassionate and universally loving?

"Are you going to say something or not? Responding to a prayer is exhausting!"

This one was pretty contradictory too, but why did she feel so strange? Did goddesses also like throwing around phrases like "beat the crap out of them" and "blow them to hell"? Was she really that trendy?

"I'm asking what you're spacing out about! I can't hear you if you don't respond properly!"

There were unconventional gods, too. Gods of light and dawn, for example, weren't necessarily good gods. Their sects might appear benevolent and compassionate on the surface, while actually being full of corruption and depravity. That sort of setting was fairly common, but this one didn't seem to be like that either...

"I get the feeling you're thinking something extremely disrespectful..."

Hey, speaking of which, wasn't the big sister from the class next door, who had led a bunch of brats to dominate the entire junior division, rather similar to this one? Of course, the latter was sturdier. She was still far from adulthood, yet already about to break two hundred pounds...

"Are! You! Listening! To! Me!?"

At that moment, the phantom of the 'Dawn Goddess' before him finally lost patience. Soft, pale-golden light radiated from her body as she dashed across the boundless world of light and swung her arm in a wide arc, smacking him!

Mo Tan only felt a warm gust of wind sweep toward him. He instinctively tried to sidestep, but a heavy, solemn force suddenly enveloped him. Then he was struck solidly and sent spinning several meters away with a yelp...

The slap had hurt, but it hadn't reduced his HP. Instead, it had knocked away the 'intermittent thought rampage' unique to Mo Tan's Absolute Neutral personality.

"Um... Goddess..." Mo Tan awkwardly climbed to his feet. He bowed to the phantom before him, who stood with her hands on her hips as if she were angry. "I apologize for offending you."

Seeing that he had finally reacted, Dawn Goddess Pokesi stopped loosening her joints and asked in her still somewhat ethereal voice, "Does it feel like I'm not much of a goddess?"

"I wouldn't dare." Having finally confirmed that he wasn't in a daydream, Mo Tan plastered a servile smile across his face and hurriedly denied it.

This was a response personally granted by a true god during a prayer. Even if she was merely a 'god' created by the game's setting, what if she got angry and knocked him out? The consequences would still be severe!

Besides, this goddess really didn't seem to have a particularly good temper...

Honestly, if Mo Tan's earlier train of thought hadn't contained any malice or disrespect, then leaving aside whether the Dawn Goddess herself minded, the laws would have branded him with the 'blasphemy' label and imposed a penalty less worthwhile than deleting his account and starting over.

"Wouldn't dare?" The phantom seemed to chuckle and spread her hands toward him. "Although you're my believer and I'm your god in this world, you're a lifeform of a higher dimension than me. Even if you truly disrespected me, what could I do? Even if the body praying in some church were destroyed, what effect could that have on you?"

!!!

Those words struck Mo Tan like a thunderbolt on a clear day. Perhaps it wasn't just him; any player who heard them would surely be shaken to the core.

It was like transmigrating into some anime, only for a comic-relief character to walk up before you and complain with a demonic grimace: "Are those viewers idiots or what?! Why does a character as profound, meaningful, and deep as me rank only eighth in every vote?! My glasses aren't my main body, hey! Go back and watch it another hundred times, you morons!!"

It felt something like that...

If this wasn't merely part of the system's design, and this 'NPC' actually knew something, then Innocent World was far beyond common sense.

It had crossed a forbidden line that no matter how humanlike an AI became, it could never set foot across...

Although Mo Tan was completely unsettled, his powerful mental resilience—he was ill, after all—allowed him to calm down quickly. He cautiously asked, "What do you mean?"

"I mean exactly what I said." The Dawn Goddess's phantom shook her head. "You don't need to be nervous. I simply thought it would help our future communication if we made everything clear first. But at the very least, I hope you'll continue to maintain your faith in me within this world... Hehe, or perhaps I should say your trust. Otherwise, even I cannot interfere with the 'blasphemy' judgment."

Mo Tan nodded lightly and relaxed somewhat. He hated trouble at the moment, but if something truly troublesome came looking for him, he could still handle it fairly well. After all, he was used to it.

"First, I want to tell you that~" The other party gracefully sat down in an ornate chair that had appeared at some unknown point and said casually, "I am indeed a god, one among many. If you insist on defining me strictly, you can consider me 'neutral' and 'kind.' But in truth, gods aren't as exalted as mortals imagine. We have emotions and true names as well. The Dawn Goddess is Pokesi Vena, not 'the Dawn Goddess is the Dawn Goddess.' Understand?"

Mo Tan rubbed the cheek that had just been slapped and said with considerable agreement, "I might have found that rather vague before, but I have a much deeper understanding of it now."

"Don't hold a grudge~" The corner of the Dawn Goddess's mouth, hidden behind the light, curled upward. "As long as I don't want to hurt you, even if I kicked you until you rolled all over the ground, there wouldn't be any consequences, such as injuries."

Of course, Mo Tan hadn't taken that slap to heart either. He didn't suffer from psychological illnesses like toxic masculinity. Rather than dwelling on such an irrelevant matter, he was more concerned about other questions...

"You seem to have something troubling you." The goddess spoke as if she could see through his heart. "Spit it out... Ahem, I mean, don't hesitate to ask!"

Mo Tan pressed a hand to his forehead. Regardless of anything else, the tension he had felt earlier had completely vanished.

Thus, he asked the question that had puzzled him most since the beginning: "Actually, I just want to know why you sought me out. I imagine that, even excluding your original believers in this world, there are surely plenty of people who believe in you—people like 'me.' I wonder whether you've said those things to all of them equally, or whether you've only had this kind of exchange with me. If it's the latter... I'd really like to know why?"

Perhaps someone with a similar personality wouldn't have asked the goddess such a question. But Mo Tan possessed not only that personality; he also had enough calmness to pay close attention to this point.

After all, the saying about Heaven entrusting a great task to someone continued with nothing good...

He sincerely hoped he wasn't an exception!

"That's an excellent question." The goddess nodded in satisfaction, then fell silent for a long while before answering, "I don't know about the other gods, but so far, I've only had this kind of exchange with you. As for the reason..."

Mo Tan could feel her gaze lock straight onto him, as if she wanted to see through him.

"I can sense that you sincerely believe in me. Although it isn't the sort of fervent devotion believers usually have, you've still placed yourself properly in the position of a believer, looking up at me from the perspective of a mortal." The goddess spoke lightly. "Yet I can also sense an almost nonexistent contempt within you. For some reason, I always feel that you could never bow to any god, no matter what. It's a quality that makes me instinctively want to regard you with hostility. It's barely perceptible, but I can still vaguely sense its existence..."

Mo Tan was startled. He immediately thought of the faithless talent he possessed when he was Tan Mo. But that shouldn't have made sense. It might not have been obvious in reality, but in Innocent World, he was currently logged in as Hei Fan. Even though it was still the same person, he should absolutely not possess the aura belonging to another personality!

Unless...

Putting dimensions aside, this 'god' before him truly possessed power approaching that of a deity.

"I'm curious, so I wanted to chat with you for a while." The goddess paid no attention to the change in Mo Tan's expression and continued, "After all, becoming a god is boring, dull, burdened with immense responsibility, and requires you to keep up a dignified front at all times."

"After becoming a god, then..." Mo Tan repeated quietly, but before he could finish saying, 'Does that mean you weren't a god before,' she interrupted him.

"There are things I can say, but you can't. So I'll speak, and you listen." The Dawn Goddess shrugged helplessly. "Returning to the topic, I told you that the Dawn Goddess is Pokesi Vena, not 'the Dawn Goddess is the Dawn Goddess.' Naturally, that means I was once... an ordinary mortal in the conventional sense..."

Since she had clearly stopped him from continuing for his own good, Mo Tan obediently listened and didn't dare interrupt again.

"Mortals are mortals because they lack the power to become strong enough to inspire faith and worship. But if they gain that power..." The goddess let out a long sigh. "Then they can become 'gods.'"

This didn't surprise Mo Tan. People's thinking had already advanced enough that he himself had made similar remarks more than once while watching superhero stories and the like.

So, according to the script, this mildly violent lady before him had probably been elevated to the status of a 'god' after becoming powerful enough.

Mo Tan immediately thought that, like most people.

But he was wrong...

"Whether it was Pokesi Vena, Izanar Kashu, Dilia Xilu, Serila Mati, or Tisu Guangyi, all of us were merely 'mortals' at the beginning." The goddess's tone carried a slightly distorted sorrow. "We could even be called abnormalities within our race—a group of young people who defied convention."

Abnormalities?! Defied convention?!

Mo Tan's eyes widened in disbelief.

"That's right. At least, we were among our own people." The Dawn Goddess gave a self-mocking laugh. "Then, a very, very long time ago, our race was exiled by a powerful force. For some unknown reason, a few of us were spared. Later, we became gods."

Mo Tan suddenly wanted to know just how powerful the Dawn Goddess's former race had been. After all, even the few remaining 'young people who defied convention' had all become gods.

"Strange?" Pokesi shook her head slightly. "No, it isn't strange. Imagine this: a race whose average qualities in every aspect are several times greater than those of dragons would naturally become a transcendent force. But if only a handful of people from that race remained, what would they become?"

There was no doubt...

When a race whose strength was separated from mortals by a chasm was reduced to only a small number of survivors, and no matter how hard mortals tried or how completely they devoted themselves, they could never surpass them—not even see their backs...

Then they would become gods.

"I'm curious. What kind of force was it, exactly..." Mo Tan rubbed his temple. "It's really hard to imagine."

The phantom of the goddess rose from her chair and walked before Mo Tan. In a low voice, she asked, "You really don't know? If we're talking about contact, then you higher-dimensional beings should be the ones most qualified to deal with it, shouldn't you? That all-powerful, irresistible existence."

Mo Tan's body trembled. He didn't answer, but an answer had already appeared in his mind...

The system.

The existence that assigned every player a faction, granted talents, issued quests, and rewarded equipment and experience absolutely deserved the description 'all-powerful and irresistible'!

Could this novel be about to launch into that cliché from this point onward? Players, guided and aided by the surviving gods, would wage war against the system? A terrorist attack? Blowing up the servers?

That ought to be a hit...

But just as Mo Tan was nearly imagining an entire chain of tear-jerking epics, the other party once again interrupted his runaway thoughts.

"That force is the correct one." The goddess sighed. "The destruction foretold by prophecy cannot be stopped. My race, which once stood at the pinnacle and looked down upon and observed all things, could not stop it. We so-called gods, who have our own conflicts and contradictions, cannot stop it either. But perhaps it can... guide you... guide us..."

Mo Tan was left completely bewildered. He couldn't make head or tail of it.

"All right, I'm very busy." Pokesi smiled. "I only wanted to exchange a few words with someone from your dimension. It's almost time..."

"Wait!" Mo Tan waved his hand. He didn't like trouble, but a plot that ended halfway through a sentence was incredibly annoying!

The Dawn Goddess began swinging her arm as if she hadn't heard him. "Of course, if you get the chance to encounter Dilia's believers, Saviel's believers, Izanar's believers, or cultists and the like, you should absolutely beat them to a pulp! I'll reward you!"

"Wai...!!"

"Bye-bye~"

Bang!!

When Mo Tan came to, he found himself sitting on the ground in front of the goddess's statue, surrounded by holy light that seemed almost tangible.

The End