Phenomenon? Concept? Will? He Was Beyond Comprehension (4k)

Loki's words—"He isn't even a 'god'..." —were like a bucket of cold water splashed into a pot of boiling oil. The whole place erupted.

"He's not a god?!"

Everyone was completely dumbfounded. Their minds went blank with a buzz.

If he wasn't a god, then what was he?

A monster beyond their comprehension? An incomprehensible aberration?

Countless chaotic thoughts churned through their minds, but none of them could grasp a clear answer.

Finn once again instinctively licked his thumb, his signature gesture when deep in thought.

The confusion in his eyes only grew. He was the first to press her for an answer. "Loki, what exactly do you mean?"

He stared intently at his patron goddess, his voice low and serious. "Could... that person be some unknown, high-ranking monster that crawled out of the Dungeon's core?"

It was the closest—and most terrifying—explanation he could think of.

No one dared claim to know what lay in the depths of the Dungeon.

"No!"

Loki's reply was firm and unequivocal, without the slightest hesitation. Her voice even rose involuntarily.

She shook her head hard, her face showing an almost offended apprehension, as though Finn had just blasphemed against some supreme being.

"He absolutely isn't anything like a Dungeon monster!" Loki stressed, her gaze sweeping over the group. "In fact, to compare a being like him with the things in the Dungeon..."

She paused, seemingly searching for words strong enough, then finally spoke with a hint of awe and helplessness.

"...would itself be the greatest insult!"

Not a Dungeon monster? And not a god?

Finn felt as if he'd been trapped in a dead end, with nothing but thick fog ahead.

His brow furrowed as he pressed her again. "So, Loki, what's the answer? What exactly is he?"

As the captain, he needed to know this. It was crucial to the Familia and to Orario.

Loki's expression turned somewhat complicated. She seemed a little embarrassed, yet also accepting of the vast unknown before her.

After a moment's thought, she chose to answer honestly. Her voice was oddly calm.

"Don't... know!"

"Huh?!"

"What?!"

"You don't know?!"

Her unexpected answer left everyone aghast.

He wasn't a god or a monster, and now their patron goddess was saying she "didn't know"?

What kind of answer was that?

An overwhelming sense of absurdity and an even deeper unease seized everyone's hearts.

Riveria, Gareth, Ais... every core member fixed their eyes on Loki.

Their expressions were filled with disbelief and deep dissatisfaction.

Looking at the shock, discontent, and growing confusion on her children's faces, Loki instead seemed to have set down some kind of burden.

Suddenly, she laughed.

Her usual carefree smile returned, her eyes narrowing into two slits.

The solemn awe of a moment ago was instantly replaced by familiar slyness.

"Ha! I mean exactly what I said!" Loki slapped the table and went back to her usual unserious self, grinning. "I don't know what he is either! The gap between us is just too—too huge!"

She spread her arms in an exaggerated gesture, as if trying to describe some immeasurable, colossal being.

"He's so far beyond us... we can't even understand him! Got it, my little darlings?"

Loki tried to lighten the mood with a breezy tone and joking gestures, but it had the opposite effect.

Her answer did nothing to clear up their questions. Instead, it stirred even more turbulent and profound waves in everyone's hearts.

Incomprehensible? Even Loki, a goddess, openly admitted that she couldn't understand him?

At that moment, the vice-captain, Riveria, stepped forward.

As a noble member of the elven royal family, her devotion to order and understanding wouldn't let her accept such a vague answer.

She pressed Loki. "Lady Loki, please answer seriously. What exactly do you mean by 'incomprehensible' and 'the gap is too great'?"

She needed a clearer explanation, even if the explanation itself might be even more astonishing.

She would never allow her patron goddess to brush the matter aside with a casual "I don't know."

Loki scratched her head helplessly, looking a little agitated, as if searching through her mind for a suitable analogy that might help these stubborn children understand, at least a little.

She thought for a moment with her arms folded across her chest, her fingers unconsciously tapping lightly against her arm.

After a while, she scratched her head again and gazed unfocused at the tavern's grimy ceiling, as if the answer were hidden in the gaps between the wooden beams.

Then, as if to muster her courage or find the right words, she abruptly grabbed the mug of cold beer in front of her and tipped it back, gulping down a large mouthful.

When she set the mug down, her face was full of indescribable difficulty, as if she were trying to cram the mysteries of the universe into the limits of human language. The task was simply too much for her.

Time passed in the silent tavern.

After a long, long while, Loki seemed to give up on finding the right words. She looked at everyone and abruptly threw out a question that seemed to come from nowhere. "What is the Dungeon, in your eyes?"

Everyone froze.

Had their patron goddess spent so long thinking just to ask them that?

What did it have to do with the mysterious Mr. Thor?

Though confused, Riveria answered earnestly out of respect. "Mysterious, dangerous, and full of opportunity. It's like an enormous natural phenomenon that we can't understand."

Her answer reflected the consensus of most adventurers.

"Smack!"

Loki suddenly slapped her thigh hard.

A look of relief crossed her face. "Exactly! That's it! That's what I'm trying to say!"

Everyone was even more confused. What did that answer have to do with Thor's identity?

Looking at the bewildered faces of her children, Loki took a deep breath and tried to make her explanation as accurate as possible.

"Just like how you can't understand how the Dungeon came into being, don't know where the sun in the sky came from, and can't imagine what lies beyond the universe. I..."

She pointed at herself.

"...can't understand his existence either. He doesn't seem like a specific 'person' or 'god.' He's more like... some kind of phenomenon? Or even... some kind of concept?"

She struggled to find words that might come close. Her hands rose unconsciously beside her cheeks, all ten fingers squirming against one another like restless little eels.

The sharp-eyed members nearby could even see a layer of goosebumps rise on Loki's bare arms.

Loki's gaze seemed to pass through the tavern walls, toward some unfathomable distance beyond reach.

"That day, I was really curious. I wanted to see what he was, so I went all out... and unleashed all my divine power!"

Her voice held a trace of lingering fear.

"But what did I see? It wasn't a human shape at all... It was a... a [grandeur] so vast that it made me feel smaller than a speck of dust! It was so... so great, so magnificent that I couldn't even begin to understand it."

"It felt like... some kind of immense will made manifest—or, well, its concrete form..."

In the end, she still couldn't find a better way to describe it.

Far from clearing up the mystery, Loki's answer made the existence known as Thor seem even more terrifying and indescribable.

A "phenomenon," a "concept," or even an "embodiment of will" that even a goddess openly admitted she couldn't understand?

Just hearing the description made Finn, Riveria, and the others feel an invisible pressure gripping their throats, making it hard to breathe.

It was the instinctive fear of facing the utterly unknown and the absolutely immense.

Before long, some of the Familia's core members wisely chose to stop digging deeper. He was too distant and unknowable; trying to understand him by force would only bring despair.

The Amazonian twins, Tione and Tiona.

The sisters were always straightforward and carefree, and by now they had already recovered from their initial shock.

They exchanged a glance, grinning as if they were enjoying the spectacle, then picked up the heavy wooden beer mugs beside them in perfect unison.

"Thump, thump, thump!"

"Thump, thump, thump!"

Without the slightest hesitation, they used the bottoms of their mugs to knock on Bete's head, each blow making a dull sound, as if they were tapping on a wooden fish that wasn't particularly bright.

Tiona grinned and gloated. "Well, look at that! All because of that lousy mouth of yours, Bete. You offended an 'incomprehensible phenomenon' by running your mouth! Who knows, maybe those few insults you hurled tonight will doom even the Heavens above~"

Her words were full of exaggerated glee.

"Mmph! Mmph! Mmph—!!! (Let me go, you jerks!)"

Bete was furious enough to burst. His face turned purple-red, the veins on his forehead and neck bulging like twisted earthworms.

He struggled desperately, a furious whine rising from his throat. He glared at the twins as if he could set them ablaze with his eyes.

Unfortunately, the stinky sock stuffed in his mouth turned all his curses into meaningless muffled grunts.

Though Tiona was teasing Bete, her words unexpectedly eased the heavy mood hanging over the table.

Faint smiles returned to the faces of the Loki Familia members.

That was right. An existence so far beyond their understanding was like the stars moving across the sky or the mysteries in the Dungeon's depths. It had nothing to do with the level of power they needed to worry about or deal with right now.

If they really ran into some huge problem they couldn't handle, there were plenty of gods to take care of it. Why should mere mortals like them worry?

As captain, Finn also knew that the most important thing right now was the well-being and growth of the Familia before him.

He shook his head, temporarily pushing aside the terrifying image of the Starry Sky Dragon, then turned to his patron goddess and asked out of simple curiosity,

"Loki, since we all saw different things, what about the other gods... how do they see Lord Thor?"

Loki leaned lazily against the back of her chair again. At his question, she narrowed her eyes. "The gods..."

She drew out the word.

"Those with weaker divine power can at most tell that something about him is strange. Even if they strain their eyes to the limit, they still can't see the... 'grand spectacle' I saw. As for the gods' attitude toward him now, I'd say they're split into three groups."

She counted them off on her fingers. "One group is made up of the timid ones and the quick thinkers. They got frightened just by catching a whiff of his aura, and now they're figuring out how to run away."

"Another group is like me. We stand off to the side and watch, without provoking him or going out of our way to be friendly. The main idea is 'peaceful coexistence, live and let live.' And then there's the last group..."

Loki paused and pursed her lips, her face showing undisguised contempt.

"It's the little handful led by Apollo and a few other idiots. They're either arrogant fools or evil gods who seek destruction, and they're actually thinking of capturing him and studying him to see what kind of 'thing' he is."

"But there aren't many of them, so they can't stir up much trouble. Besides, that old geezer Uranus is in charge of managing the Dungeon. He won't let Apollo and the others do whatever they want."

The Uranus she mentioned was a [great god] with exceptionally powerful divine energy, and the current overseer of order in Orario's Dungeon.

After saying all that, Loki suddenly sat up straight. Her playful manner vanished as she gazed at her most important children, her voice turning very serious.

"So, listen to me, children. Stay away from that Thor." She emphasized each word. "Absolutely! Do not make an enemy of him! Otherwise... you'll really bring down divine punishment!"

Coming from a goddess, the words "divine punishment" carried a heavy weight.

After hearing their patron goddess's solemn warning and description that night, the core members of the Loki Familia shared at least one clear understanding, no matter how shocked or confused they still felt.

Who would be stupid enough to provoke an existence that even the gods treated with such deep apprehension?

Amid the silence, each person lost in their own thoughts but choosing to accept reality, only Ais's mind drifted elsewhere.

Her gaze unconsciously returned to the door through which Thor and Bell had left, a ripple of confusion passing through the depths of her eyes.

So... the teleportation she had seen today hadn't been an illusion?

Then... what kind of ability was it?

Meanwhile, in a passage in the Dungeon, faint light filtered through cracks in the stone walls. The air was thick with dust and the stench of monsters.

Thor, who had just been described as grandeur itself, now held a chicken drumstick in his hand. He leisurely chewed on it as he followed behind Bell.

Bell was doing his best to fight the Dungeon monsters, venting the anger that had built up inside him after Bete mocked him.

He moved as swiftly as the wind, darting through the Goblin horde like a streak of white lightning.

Suddenly, he raised his right hand and shouted, "Star Burst!"

Several shining stars formed out of thin air and exploded instantly, blasting the last group of Goblins into Magic Stones that scattered across the ground.

The moment his magic ran out, Bell dropped to one knee and panted heavily. Sweat soaked his white hair.

Thor walked over and handed him a cool drink. Calmly, he said, "Have some water first."

Bell took the cup and drank a large mouthful. He had grown utterly disgusted with his own weakness.

I have to get stronger!

He suddenly dropped to his knees in front of Thor, his head thumping heavily against the ground. His voice trembled as he pleaded, "Lord God! I want to become stronger!"

"Oh?" A hint of satisfaction and relief entered Thor's eyes.

If Bell had given up after tonight's blow, or even lost all hope, Thor would have been deeply disappointed.

The fact that Bell had thought to ask him for help already pleased Thor greatly.

He leisurely finished the chicken drumstick in his hand, then said slowly, "I'm very glad you feel that way. In that case, I'll teach you some [Hero Skills]."

"[Hero Skills]?"