Tutorial Rewrite 98

Hm. I suddenly feel a lot lighter. By looking down, I’m able to discern the reason for this, which is that a hole has been blasted in my midsection. Beneath my ribs and above my pelvis is a gaping hole with the only remaining thing being my pristinely white spine. Huh. That’s weird. Where’d my abdomen go?

I try to take a step forward, but without any abdominal muscles, my upper body just folds and falls forward limply, my legs unwillingly following along, leaving me to fall to the soot-covered ground without any stop whatsoever. Mind whirling, my arms desperately stretch out for something—anything—which allows me to grab a hold of the herald's legs, though my grip is too weak to pull it off its feet or anything like that.

The herald looks down at me. “That’s a better position for mortals like you. Strange, though, that my divinity had no effect… Are you perhaps the apostle of the God of—hey, cut that out!”

Hm? Cut what out? You mean to tell me that you don’t think I should be sucking the goop out of your legs like a vampire feeding on a human? I’m sorry to say, but this is way too delicious for me to possibly stop. Ah, it’s so good… Weirdly enough, I can also feel my abdomen again. I’m not sure how, but the second I got more of this deliciousness into me, the area that just got blasted off returned.

And since I can now do things such as stand up, I begin clawing my way up the herald, clawing up gashes in its soft goblin flesh as I do, sucking out all of the purple and also eating the flesh as I do, because, like, why not?

“You—you—how dare you?!” the herald cries. “My royal divinity is not for you to—to eat! Accept my righteous punishment, mortal!” Pointing at me, another blast of what I assume to be pure magic shoots out, this time hitting my chest head-on, cleansing it of exactly everything save for my bones. But I’m still eating its flesh and sucking the goop so before I can even feel my heart stop beating, it has recovered again. “Why won’t you die?!”

Because, obviously, I’ve got better things to do than dying. Like eating this grape jelly, for example.

The herald blasts me again and again and again, ripping out big chunks of my flesh, removing entire limbs at a time, at one moment even aiming it straight for my skull, but the rays couldn’t penetrate my bone, leaving my brain intact, which was all I needed. Yummy yummy yummy yummy.

By this point, the herald is basically just a skeleton with a purple, gooey head, and I’m doing just fine.

“Curse it all…!” the herald says. “Fine! If you should not only reject my want for peace, but so-too spit in my face, then I will simply leave. Escape!”

<Escape.>

<Error!

Escape Spell blocked.>

“H—huh? Wait, no, that’s… that can’t be. There has to be something wrong, why can’t I—”

I bite into its neck. Chomp chomp chomp. Hmmm. Maybe it’s because this is holy ground or something? We’re also inside a floor stage, which means that we’re surrounded by an invisible barrier. As the boss monster, you can’t exactly leave, can you? But my perfectly sound reasoning falls on deaf ears as the herald tries over and over with increasing desperation to leave the area.

<Flee.>

<Error!

Flee Spell blocked.>

<Return.>

<Error!

Return Spell blocked.>

<Leave.>

<Error!

Leave Spell blocked.>

<Withdraw.>

<Error!

Withdraw Spell blocked.>

<Retreat.>

<Error!

Retreat Spell blocked.>

“Damn it, damn it, damn it…!” the herald says. Since it hasn’t got a neck anymore, and the rest of its body is just a skeleton I gnawed the skin and meat off, all that’s left of it is a purple goopy head that I’m currently holding with both hands and eating like a whole head of lettuce. It’s actually kind of soothing, just peeling off layers of skin and tissue, biting off an ear or two… I almost wish I had a movie to watch this with. Maybe a bowl of salty snacks to balance out the grape flavour? Yeah, that’d be nice.

The streams of purple goo going down its bursting eyeballs seems to intensify as its face twists in despair. “This isn’t fair, it isn’t right!” it croaks somehow, despite not having a throat anymore. “I am a herald of the God of Kings! This is wrong, my fate was to be something far more grandiose! Please, God of Kings, don’t let me die like this, please…!”

I can sense a shift. There’s no status message, nor is there a presence, and nothing is technically altered with the head in my hands, but suddenly, like a switch being pulled, the goop in my hands stops swirling and bending against the laws of physics and the light in its eyes fades in an instant. Gravity grabs hold of the goop but instead of pulling it to the floor, it instead starts collecting, gathering onto itself, pulling itself together around the herald’s decapitated head, tighter and tighter, crunching up the head itself as it goes, using it as fuel in its transformation. Tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter, until, finally, what I hold in my hand isn’t a head at all, but instead, a small, purple crystal.

I stare down at it. It gleams softly in the light. It looks valuable. Hm.

I wonder if it also tastes like grape?

I pop it in my mouth. When I try to chew it, the thing that goes cr—ack is instead my teeth, so I have no choice but to just swallow it down as it is. Hm. There was a certain kind of grape flavour, but it was much more muted. Almost quiet. Hmm. I like it!

<Shard of Divinity Consumed.>

…Oh! Am I going to get a skill from it? Man, the gods sure are being nice to me this floor, giving me skills and stuff, oh, boy, I can’t wait to hear what this does!

…

I said, I can’t wait to hear what skill I get!

…Okay, fine, I’m not getting anything. Boo-hoo, poor little me doesn’t get anything for killing the literal herald of a God! Gee, that’s so fair. Next time the gods ask me for a favour, I will totally listen and not at all decide to just, you know. Not.

Psh. What was even the point of this floor if I didn’t get anything ni—

<The Goddess of Want

admires your strength of desire and

willingness to fulfil it at any cost.>

<The Goddess of Want

hereby invites

Hell Challenger Lee Ho-Jae

to fulfil Her Apostleship Trials

in order to become the Apostle of Want.>

<Will you accept?>

<Yes/No>

…Huh? Wait, what the heck is this? Um, let me read that again… Admires my strength… fulfil her trials… this is…?

<The God of Cowardice

is suddenly startled awake

from His nap.>

<The God of Cowardice

panics.>

<The God of Cowardice

admires your [fill in

Challenger traits here]>

<The God of Cowardice

hereby invites

Hell Challenger Lee Ho-Jae

to fulfil His Apostleship Trials

in order to become the Apostle of Cowardice.>

<Will you accept?>

<Yes/No>

…Okay, that one was absolutely done on a whim. You didn’t even fill in what traits about me you liked!

<The God of Cowardice

racks His Divine brain equivalent.>

<The God of Cowardice

admires your confrontational abilities.>

Hey, my ability to call you out has nothing to do with these! Compliment me properly, damn it!

<The Goddess of Want

agrees with

Hell Challenger Lee Ho-Jae

that the God of Cowardice’s

Apostleship Invitation seemed a bit

uninspired, just like always.>

<The God of Cowardice

tries to hide but fails.>

<The God of Cowardice

reluctantly argues that

just because something came

at the last minute doesn’t make it

any less thoughtful than what came first.>

<The Goddess of Want

laughs and makes a crass innuendo.>

<The God of Cowardice

feels ashamed.>

<The God of Cowardice

explains that this is why They

broke up to begin with, and that if She

would just treat Him with a little respect,

They wouldn’t be living with non-betrothed.>

<The Goddess of Want

is appalled that the God of Cowardice

would suggest that this was Her fault alone.>

<The Goddess of Want

makes the point that if He had

only taken the initiative now and again,

She wouldn’t have had to nag Him all the time.>

Am I, uh, in the middle of something?...