Myths Reawakened

Holy Maiden Basilica.

Anastasia was someone who valued her peace and quiet. She had little material need or cravings for clout. Thus, she had been leading a minimalistic life with no staff at her residence.

As the church’s Holy Maiden, her safety was imperative. Four all-women knight orders were stationed on the perimeter of the basilica. Because Anastasia was Anastasia, all of them were her fangirls, and because they were too passionate when it came to their idol, Anastasia had forbidden them from entering the basilica and disturbing her meditation.

The basilica was similar to the Great Sage Basilica, with black pillars propping up the dome. Black-robed statues lined the path, with a statue of the Goddess of Darkness on the other end. Her face was obscured under the hood of Her robe, the curves of Her body shaping the fabric.

As per tradition, Anastasia gave Wayne an introduction to the statues of the previous Holy Maidens and self-deprecatingly praised her predecessors for their incredible contribution to the church.

There was no need to talk about the statue of the Goddess of Darkness. The goddess was right beside Wayne, trapping his arm against her bosom somewhat awkwardly.

“Really? These people are so extraordinary that they even make you pale in comparison?” Wayne didn’t believe Anastasia. It had to be her humility doing the talking. His white moonlight was the greatest Holy Maiden!

Yes, she was experienced and accommodating, making her the best Holy Maiden.

Anastasia shook her head. She was going to say that she couldn’t compare to her predecessors, but Ines beat her to speaking up, “As far as I know, the Holy Maidens have all headed to the Divine Realm after reaching Legendary rank, and they are all extraordinarily beautiful and fit.”

(;乛‸乛)

What are you insinuating? Wayne huffed. Even Seleucia knows that I don’t chase skirts!

He was about to break out of Ines’s hold when she reinforced her trap. He left her to it. There was no one else around anyway, so his reputation wouldn’t suffer.

Something suddenly occurred to him. “Ana, all of your predecessors have gone to the Divine Realm?”

“Yes.” Anastasia nodded. Although the Goddess of Darkness brought it up to tempt Wayne, it was an undeniable truth.

Wayne kept his reaction to himself. Based on that, he could deduce that the Goddess of Darkness treated Her subordinates quite well. The Church of Nature, on the other hand, cycled through Holy Maidens every twenty years. The former Holy Maiden, Flora, died a Gold-ranked mage, and even after her death, the Goddess of Nature never said anything.

This woman is surprisingly sentimental...

He tried to understand the Goddess of Darkness’s character as a divine and once again reached the conclusion of a conflicted duality. Based on Anastasia’s experience, he guessed that the Holy Maidens in the Divine Realm hadn’t been doing well. The Goddess of Darkness had taken every single one of them to the Divine Realm; perhaps it was to turn them into slaves, the sexual kind!

“Huh?!” Ahead of him, Anastasia came to a halt right before she was going to give Wayne a tour around their accommodation. “Lady Vichy... is that you?”

At the far end of the basilica, former Darkness Knight Vichy stood at the corner, dressed in a long black robe. She knew that her existence defied logic, so after exchanging a few words with Pope Ivan, she had come here instead of seeking out Holy Maiden Anastasia openly.

She looked solemnly at Wayne and... ‘herself’, holding his arm with a seductive look on ‘her’ frosty face and a hazy look in ‘her’ eyes.

Vichy’s eyes twitched, and sweat beaded on her forehead. When she received the divine oracle, she had suspected that her faith was gifting her away to someone else, but now it seemed that the truth was far more complicated.

Since her faith was involved, she didn’t dare to follow the train of thought, disembarking before it set out.

“Wayne, that’s her. She stole my body. Take it back for me!” Ines clutched Wayne’s arm and shook it.

Wayne remained unmoving, while Vichy started shaking. Feeling like the world was spinning around her, she dropped to her knees with a thud.

“Goddess, I—”

“Goddess? What goddess? Stop speaking nonsense, Chosen Knight.” Wayne reflexively offered Vichy help before realizing something was amiss. Vichy was on Solsknar’s side. Why would she be here, with her body back?

He scanned Ines’s memories and saw the Darkness Knight using Twilight Despair to force her into retreating, abandoning Vichy’s body. She even said the famous last word: I’ll be back!

Rageous had come out of the closet. It was outrageous![1]

Wayne ignored the false memories without even entertaining them, turning to the trembling knight and noting the drops of sweat falling to the ground. Clearly, she was another poor soul that the Goddess of Darkness was molding.

“Wayne, hurry,” Ines urged, raising her voice. “Take the body back, and Anastasia and I will spend the night with you together.”

Vichy started trembling all over. Though she didn’t know what was going on, she knew that she had heard too much.

Wayne rolled his eyes, forcefully extracting his arm. “You... Oh, right. You look just like Knight Vichy, so you must be her long-lost twin sister.”

“I won’t dare to spout such a lie,” Vichy hurriedly said. “Under the goddess’s order, I’ve been waiting here for you, Sir Wayne. I’ll devote the rest of my life to you and pledge my full loyalty to you, serving you as I serve the goddess.”

...What is it this time? Is this a new type of trap?

Wayne was thoroughly confused. He wasn’t foolish enough to believe that the Goddess of Darkness would just give him a gift to entertain him. Vichy was clearly a means to an end.

So what was the goal?

He analyzed the clues he had. The goddess had made him compete with Solsknar to become Her third subordinate god, and whoever won would become the Devourer, exercising part of the divine power of Darkness. That possibility had already been disproven. Wayne would never willingly serve anyone, and the goddess wasn’t naive enough to believe he would.

“What are you up to?” Wayne turned to Ines and said calmly. “Tell me the truth. I’m not yet powerful enough to pose a threat to you. Even if you tell me the truth, I won’t be able to resist.”

“I have high hopes for you,” Ines said genuinely. “I want you to become my third subordinate god.”

“You should know that it’s impossible.”

“I won’t know until I try. What if I succeed?”

Are you sure? If you try, you die. Do you want that to become your famous last word[2]?

Wayne could feel that the Goddess of Darkness was making a bet—no, raising the stakes, but he didn’t know what She wanted.

After a bemused moment, he went up to Vichy and looked down at the kneeling knight. He knew to whom she was actually kneeling. It definitely wasn’t him.

“Knight Vichy, you said that you would pledge full loyalty to me and serve me like you serve the goddess.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I have a question, and I want you to give me an answer immediately,” Wayne said bluntly. “If one day the Goddess of Darkness and I turn against each other, and only one of us could live, who would you show your loyalty to?”

Vichy remained silent, her sweat dripping to the ground.

“See? I have no reason to keep a spy around me—”

“No, the future you’re worried about won’t happen given your relationship with the goddess,” Vichy hurriedly said.

“Who said that you could interrupt me? I should be the one to do it!”

Huffing, Wayne grabbed Vichy by the elbow, dragging her limp body to the wall. Clutching her face, he disintegrated his hand to reshape her. Only then would he believe Vichy’s loyalty.

But he decided against it at the last second.

The Goddess of Darkness knew how formidable his corruption was. The fact that She had sent Vichy to him meant that She wasn’t worried about the knight getting corrupted; in fact, that might be exactly what She wanted.

He pulled back. Vichy, without his support, slid down to the ground with her back pressed against the wall. She blanched, her eyes blank, still reeling from the shock.

A demigod would only act like this if their faith had crumbled. Wayne frowned. Vichy’s faith had crumbled because the Goddess of Darkness had taken in a boy toy, turning her world upside down. That meant that the Goddess of Darkness had been a sacred being with a clear track record...

Were there perhaps two Goddesses of Darkness, one authoritative, in charge of the formal occasions, and the other a shrew, tasked with seeking out fun?

“Knight Vichy, tell me. What happened between you and your twin sister?”

“I-I... don’t have a twin sister.”

“You do!” Wayne knelt before Vichy. “If you don’t have a twin sister who’s been flirting with me, that woman would be the Goddess of Darkness. You don’t want your faith to fall that far, do you?”

Vichy stared at him blankly. That made sense.

“So, you have a twin sister.”

“No, I don’t.”

“...”

He couldn’t believe it. The members of the Church of Darkness—the Holy Maiden, the Pope, and now the chosen knight—were each more honest than the last. They would rather die than lead a dishonorable life. Didn’t they know that they were making the Goddess of Darkness look bad by comparison?

She doesn’t deserve you. Only someone like Auston should call himself part of the tradition of Darkness!

“Fine, let’s skip that. What happened between you and the mysterious woman who seems like your twin sister?”

“She hopes that...”

Vichy gave Wayne a grateful look, reading his unspoken words. She explained everything from start to finish: They had been neck and neck. Then one crushed the other’s neck. The servant refused to become a two-timer, but then her master kicked her out to force her to two-time Her.

Those weren’t Vichy’s words, of course, but Wayne had come up with a pretty accurate summary. He had always been good at idioms[3].

He stroked his chin and observed Vichy. She was waiting for the verdict with bated breath.

“What would you do if I refuse to accept the gift?”

“I’ll pledge my loyalty to my faith!” Vichy said without hesitation.

“Speak Windsorian.”

“I’ll prove my loyalty with my life.”

“Good threat. I do feel threatened...”

Wayne was curious about the goddess’s goal. If She wanted to send a beautiful woman to influence him with pillow talk and make him lose his ambition, it would be a serious underestimation.

She had underestimated him and Herself.

Wayne thought for a prolonged moment. “Fine. Since you have nowhere to go, I’ll take you in.”

“Ma—”

“Stop. Just call me ‘boss’,” Wayne interrupted. “This is your first day at work, and you’re still on a trial period. I need to test you. If you’re not good enough, you’ll walk away after the trial on your own. Don’t make me make you leave.”

Vichy tensed up. “What test?”

“You...”

“Are you good at cards?”

1. The original was literally, “The mother of ‘ridiculous’ has opened the door for ‘ridiculous’. ‘Ridiculous’ has come home.” ‘Coming home’, 到家, is also used to modify an adjective to mean ‘at a high level’. So ‘ridiculous coming home’ means ‘absolutely ridiculous’. Obviously, it can’t be directly translated into English. ☜

2. The original is literally, “If you try (shi-shi), you die (shi-shi). Do you want to become a world-famous painting/dead portrait?” Try (试试) is pronounced the same as passing away (逝世), and world-famous painting 世 (shi) 界名画 is written as 逝界名画 in this sentence, replacing 世 (shi) for ‘world’ with 逝 (shi) for ‘pass away’. ☜

3. Originally, Wayne described the whole process with a string of four-character idioms. ☜