MONSTER MMORPG: Mayhem Online

"Don't tell me… the princess isn't poisoned, to begin with?"

Lucas's smile deepened as he heard that and a meaningful expression formed on his face.

"Are they faking princess's poisoning to gain popularity?"

I said, pondering the possible reasons.

Lucas shook his head, and his smiling face turned into a frowning one as he said.

"And just when I was starting to think that you actually had a brain, you had to prove me wrong."

"What? Why are you insulting me suddenly?"

I asked, feeling a bit wronged. How should I know what was happening with the princess when I barely knew her?

"It's nothing like that. Duke Wenselm loves his daughter and won't involve her in any political ploy. It's something completely different."

Lucas replied as he put the piece of document like parchment on the table. Spreading it from one corner to another corner, I could see a map on the thick and old paper.

'Fuck! Am I getting a treasure map? Is this a treasure hunting quest? Let's go!'

Suppressing my inner thoughts, I asked Lucas.

"So you're saying that the princess is sick for real. But she isn't poisoned and the reason is something else entirely."

"Finally! I was starting to doubt the thinking capabilities of the human race."

I scoffed at the blatant sarcasm as I waited for him to explain more about the whole princess ordeal.

"Have you heard about the princess's class?"

Lucas asked, and I could clearly recall people saying that she was a reincarnation of a saint.

"Is it a saintess class? I am sure it's something close to that."

"Correct! It's a class called Saintess of Forest. You must know that every saint born in history has had tremendous holy power. It is used to heal people and cleanse evil. Now tell me, how can someone like a saintess blessed by god get sick like this?"

Lucas asked as he scribbled down something on the map from place to place.

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"Since the class is related to holy power, there is no way she would get sick naturally. Obviously not to such an extent. Unless…."

"Unless the God who gave her such powers was unhappy with her."

Lucas completed what was going on in my mind.

"What an evil princess! Even the god that gave her power wants her dead."

I said jokingly and Lucas scoffed.

After a while, he started explaining how the princess was supposed to be an envoy of the Forest Goddess.

She became famous at an early age, due to her extraordinary beauty and her kind temperament that captivated the hearts of all the people of Wenselm, and even the Sahhan Empire. She would heal people in need and would gather lots of praise and attention from even a simple endeavor.

Growing up, the number of people who started seeing the princess as a goddess amongst mortals kept on increasing.

"And my guess is, with all the revering from people, who had forgotten about the Forest Goddess and started treating the princess as the goddess, the princess had gained her own divinity. If you don't know, most Kings and Emperors have their own divinity built up, which makes them age less and receive the blessings of people as divine power. Some have it more and some have it less than the others."

Lucas said and I just took this all in with my mouth agape. This piece of information was certainly not public yet. Otherwise, I would have heard about it at least once.

[Congratulations, player! You're the first person to learn about the hidden game stat, 'Divinity'.]

[Divinity stat has opened.]

[+1 in Divinity stat.]

I stared at the screen in front of me with utter disbelief flashing in front of my eyes.

"Wow… truly a legend's heir."

Lucas said as he looked at me in admiration. I instantly calmed my heart down and tried to play the fool.

"What are you wowing for? What legend are you talking about? Nonsense!"

Pfft

Lucas tried to hold back his laughter but laughed anyway.

"What are you trying to hide, kid? I am talking about you. Aren't you Dulwak's Heir? The whole world knows that he has appeared, you know? And I am not just any Hyrus, I am an elder Hyrus and have lived for almost a century. I am Lucas Morris, the owner of the current Morris' Alchemy house. It's easy for me to decipher if you're Dulwak's heir or not just based on your Night Alchemist job."

Nervousness and anxiety started to take over me as I didn't know how to respond to Lucas's words.

'I had a bad feeling about coming here.'

Looking at my anxious expression, Lucas laughed again.

"Don't worry, I am not going to reveal to anybody else, it won't bring me any profit to make an enemy out of a probable legend. You can rest assured that nobody else apart from me would figure it out, unless you are being too obvious."

Sigh

I sighed.

Since he already knew everything, I didn't even have much choice.

"I'll trust you on your words for now."

"Okay okay. Tell me, did you just awoke your divinity?"

Lucas asked with an extremely curious expression. I didn't know how in the world he could just simply see through everything but there was no point in hiding anything here.

"Yes, I just did. How did you find that out?"

"Oh, it was from your body's aura. If I saw you after you had gotten divinity, I won't be able to find it out. But since you awoke it right in front of me, I could pick up the minute change in your aura. Resurrectors truly are something, awakening divinity just after learning about it. Here it takes years of worship from thousands of people to give birth to even the slightest bit of divinity."

Lucas replied. NPCs called players as Resurrectors since they were considered uncommon people who came back to life even after death.

After a while, he continued his talk about the princess, how her own divinity awakened and threatened the forest goddess's divinity, after all, the forest goddess wasn't really well known and she was too small to be miniscule compared to the other famous gods and she didn't have her own church.

If the small number of people who worshipped her stopped worshipping her, then she might cease to exist. Scared of that, she was trying to kill the source of her problem, the princess, using the holy power inside her body. The princess lasting this long could be credited to her own divinity defending her.

The forest goddess couldn't be considered a god, considering how she was still a mortal tied to the concept of death. She was just someone born out from the prayers of generations after generations of people that prayed to the forest. She needed to maintain a certain level of divinity to exist. Hence, the princess was becoming a threat to her existence.

The forest goddess chose the princess as her envoy, only to regret her decisions all over.

"A goddess trying to kill her envoy. Cruel world we live in."

I couldn't help but comment, and this time, the sympathy was genuine. No matter the world, cruelty was one concept that would never die down.

"I told you, she is a goddess just in name. You can treat her like a monster with survival instincts. Some monsters are people's fears and desires, she comes from the second category, the people who had brought her into existence call her a goddess, so she's considered a goddess."

Lucas corrected me.

"Here, look at this map. In one of these marked places, you should be able to find a fruit. It's called the Cytrus of Separation and if you feed this to the princess, the holy power from the forest goddess would permanently get separated from her body. Of course, she will lose all her powers of healing and purification, but even with the holy power, she can't use it if she is dead. Can she?"

Lucas handed me the map, which I accepted gladly.

Lucas's hand was still in front of me, as he gestured from his hand to give something.

'Why would you tell me such a long story, and then give me a map only to ask it back.'

Although dissatisfied, I still took out the map and tried to give it to him. After all, I didn't want him to go around telling my secret to everyone.

He slapped my hand which was trying to give him back the map as he rubbed his thumb on his fingers.

"That map would be 500 coins. The fruit is priceless if you end up finding it, so I am selling you the map for extremely cheap."

What?

Wait… this wasn't going according to the script.

"Aren't you giving me the map for free?"

I asked in an apprehensive voice, feeling a threat for my pocket.

"Why would I do that? You have a legend class and all. But that doesn't mean you'll get free stuff everywhere you move around."

Lucas retorted with a face that said I was petty.

Isn't this a quest item? Why would an NPC ask for money for a quest item? Feeling like I have been cheated, I brought out 500 gold coins from my pocket. Trying to suppress the tears that threatened to break out, I parted with my precious gold coin as Lucas greedily put all of them in a red colored pouch.

[A quest has been generated.]

[Saving Princess Ena

Difficulty: A

You have learned about the truth behind the illness of Princess Ena from the Wenselm Dukedom.

Enter the Malta forest and find the 'Fruit of Separation'. Rescue the princess from her depths of disparity.

Quest completion condition:

1) Find the 'Fruit of Separation' from Malta forest.

2) Feed the 'Fruit of Separation' to princess Ena.

Quest failure: -2 levels.

Quest completion reward:

1) +2 levels

2) Marriage with princess Ena.]

'Finally!'

It finally showed up. The thing that I had been waiting for all along.

...

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