The ground trembled slightly as hundreds of people suddenly knelt facing Van in the forest, which was bright instead of dark at night.
Some of them even prostrated themselves, following the way the prince bowed before Van.
Van scratched above his eyebrow and looked around. No one was moving except the hundreds of ice clones illuminating the night sky with flashlights and grilling meat.
"Good grief... I’ve already said it millions of times." Van pointed at himself while shrugging, his voice echoing through the silent forest. "I!! Am not a god!!!"
Van gritted his teeth and pounded his chest hard, making everyone else wince.
"I’ll say it one more time!!! I!! Am!! Not!! A!! God!!"
Not a single person dared to respond.
But after a few moments, an unexpected sound became the answer.
Someone started crying.
Van looked down. The prince, who was still bowing, had begun to cry as his body trembled.
Everyone turned their attention toward him.
The prince raised his head. His cheeks were red from the beer.
"Forgive us!! Forgive us for placing others beside the gods!!"
The prince shouted just as loudly as Van had before, loud enough for thousands of people to hear.
"The god has become angry!! He doesn’t want to be called a god because we turned away from him!!"
The survivors who heard him were finally moved. One by one, they began crying together with the prince.
The elderly, the young, the adults, and even the children were all swept up in the emotion, even though they didn’t know why.
Van let out a single sigh.
His expression turned blank. Then he spread his arms in the middle of the crying crowd.
"Ahh, alright, alright!! I’m a god!!"
The people’s crying gradually stopped, while Van narrowed his eyes.
"Hmm... I’m the god who watches over space and time, who came down just to take a walk..."
Van finally sat cross-legged on the cold ground beside the prince.
He refused the mat they offered him because he had already created his own invisible seat.
The people slowly gathered closer. They were extremely curious to interact with a god, like seeing a cockatoo that could speak for the first time.
Van cleared his throat and glanced at everyone. He also saw Andis and Arsy, whose eyes were sparkling.
’God this, god that... damn it. If I’m a god, then what is that old man? The ancestor of the gods?’
Van blinked several times.
’But I guess this is the right way... being called a god once in a while isn’t so bad... I mean, when else would I get the chance?’’
Van pressed his palms together and closed his eyes.
"First of all... I’d like to apologize."
Everyone looked confused. The prince, who was closest to Van, finally spoke on behalf of everyone.
"Why are you apologizing, my lord? We are the ones who should beg for forgiveness—"
The prince’s words were immediately cut off by Van’s hiss, sounding almost like a snake.
"Listen to me first... don’t interrupt, mortal."
The prince immediately shut his mouth tightly while Van clicked his tongue.
’Damn... I forgot what I was going to say.’
Van then pointed behind him, where there was nothing. It was the direction of the ruined city.
"The great object that fell from the sky was the result of the gods’ negligence..."
Everyone listened to Van solemnly, as if hearing a divine revelation, accompanied by the sound of meat being grilled.
"That great object was actually something that would be needed for the apocalypse in the future..."
Everyone’s hearts beat faster. They began to look emotional.
Meanwhile, the prince could no longer keep himself from speaking.
"The apocalypse, my lord? Has this world already reached the end of its destiny?"
Van placed his index finger against his lips.
"Ssh... this is a secret of the universe. But the apocalypse will happen two million years from now... and you are still very far from that."
Van lowered his head slightly with a serious expression.
"So for that... I want to apologize..."
Van looked at the people, who were confused because it was the first time they had ever seen or heard a god who kept apologizing.
"Those objects fell because of a fight between me and a goddess... They were actually the beads from her necklace... We argued because she refused to give them to me so they could be planted in the mortal world as soon as possible..."
The night breeze swept through the silent forest. No one spoke. No one failed to hear.
They did not know how to respond after hearing the reason behind the great object that had destroyed their city.
Van swallowed.
’Was that too strange...? Damn, I should’ve just said they fell out of a pocket...’
Van’s thoughts were interrupted when he heard someone crying in the crowd.
"Will my father go to heaven? He was crushed to death by that object..."
Van fell silent.
More crying followed. The grief of loss gradually drowned out the sound of the meat being grilled by the ice clones.
"My mother... too. She was a servant in the palace..."
"My older brother! My older brother was a guard there..."
"I... I should have been the one who died there... But my father took my place because I didn’t want to leave the house..."
Van could no longer answer the cries and stories of the hundreds of people who had lost someone.
Even the prince cried just as loudly.
"My father and mother told me not to go hunting... but I was stubborn."
The prince looked at Van with red eyes overflowing with tears.
"When I had just walked out of the city... I... I turned around, and something enormous destroyed the palace and the city... Everyone inside the palace died."
Hundreds of different stories flowed into Van’s ears as he remained stiff and silent.
He never answered any of them.
He didn’t know what to say.
Everything gradually calmed down as their tears exhausted them.
The cold beer they had been drinking also helped, as did the night growing later.
Hundreds of people drifted into sleep beneath the forest, illuminated by dozens of flashlights aimed toward the sky.
Now only Van remained sitting cross-legged, fully awake.
"So... being a god is this heavy. I regret becoming a god..."
Van sighed as he looked at the bright sky created by the flashlights.
Meanwhile, hundreds of ice clones carefully moved around, covering the sleeping people with blankets.
"I heard so many stories... but there was still no information about those fantasy races."
The tips of Van’s thumbs repeatedly touched each other before he slowly stood up.
He looked at the exhausted people sleeping before taking off his jacket.
He then turned it inside out. The jacket that had been silver was now black.
"I pray that those of you who were separated from the people you loved because of the Artium will meet them again in heaven someday..."
"This is the first time I’ve heard so many people’s stories all at once..."
Van spoke softly to the sleeping people.
"It wasn’t actually me who caused all of that... but I’ll help you with your daily lives."
Van smiled faintly and shrugged as he put on a cloth mask that covered his entire face except for his eyes and mouth.
His voice became muffled.
"Who knows? Maybe your stories will become the path to obtaining something else. Of course, it’s better than losing everything, isn’t it?"
Van turned around and began walking toward the darkness.
His waist-length golden hair could not be hidden by the cloth mask.
"I’ll give you a gift later... Of course, not everyone will receive one. The important thing is that the gift will be enough for all of you to survive together..."
Van continued walking away, leaving behind the ice clones guarding the hundreds of sleeping people.
"But for now... I’ll do my job first."