Finally, I can Retire, Or so I Thought

After resting long enough inside the palace study, Dion stood up and stretched his limbs. He turned to look out the window, the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, casting its very first rays across the sky. He then glanced around the room at Luna, Cleo, Mei, Sheila, Nala, and Harumi, who were all fast asleep on the sofas, while Aria and Gina slumbered in the chairs directly behind the desk.

“Already morning, huh… Let them sleep. They fought hard and endured a lot of stress last night, so they’re definitely still exhausted,” Dion thought to himself.

Dion quietly stepped out into the hallway. Standing in the corridor, the palace truly looked like a hollow, abandoned ruin. His expression turned serious as he surveyed his surroundings, glancing down at the scattered remnants of armor and weapons left behind by the zombies the night before.

“So an undead siege is like this… It’s way more terrifying than any movie and definitely not something to underestimate. And this was just inside the palace… If the entire city had turned, forget the kingdom, the entire world would face an apocalypse. Grr… That foolish little sister of mine dumped a massive problem right in my lap,” Dion muttered, recalling the teasing grin of the goddess Hestalia.

He continued walking down a different corridor, heading deeper into the palace away from the throne room. Because the area was ruined and empty, the atmosphere was dead silent, broken only by the steady echo of his footsteps. Pondering the situation, he summoned his Recall holographic interface.

His eyes drifted to the bottom of the list, lingering on his special, ultimate persona, the one possessing the power to reset everything and rebuild the world from scratch. Dion stared at the text without blinking, resting a hand on his chin while crossing his other arm over his chest as he kept walking.

“That damn little sister gave me this persona so I could just hit the reset button. Logically speaking, dealing with a world completely infected by an undead outbreak like this makes this persona the best and easiest solution… But… everyone I care about would get reset too, and I’d have to experience loss all over again… I’d be alone again, carrying everything by myself… No way in hell. I need to find another way to handle this mess and then retire… Thank goodness this persona still isn’t unlocked yet,” Dion grumbled in his head.

Dion kept walking, dismissed the interface, and pressed onward. When he reached the end of the hall, he turned left down another corridor. As he strode forward, something suddenly flashed brightly amidst a pile of rubble ahead. He approached the spot and crouched down, using his hands to clear away the broken stone and debris blocking the glittering object.

Once the rubble was swept aside, he saw that the light was coming from a golden clasp sealing the cover of a thick, heavy book. Clearing away the surrounding dust, Dion pulled the bound book free. It looked ancient, but what instantly caught his attention was the title embossed on the cover: The First, written in English, the language of Earth.

“Huh… What kind of book is this?” Dion wondered, his curiosity piqued.

He sat cross-legged on the floor, brushing the lingering dust off the cover. The book appeared to have been buried beneath the flooring. Inspecting the spot where he found it, he realized that the floor had collapsed into a small crater caused by falling ceiling debris during his previous battle. Dion looked back down at the book and reached for the golden clasp to open it. But before his fingers even touched it, the clasp unlatched itself, and the book popped open right to the middle, unleashing a blinding flash of light.

Dion threw his hands up to shield his face from the glaring brightness. But when he peeked through his fingers a second later, the light was completely gone and the book in his hands had vanished into thin air.

“Huh? What just happened?” Dion asked himself, thoroughly confused.

Suddenly, “vwooong!” the Recall holographic interface snapped open on its own. Dion read the text displayed on the screen, his eyes going wide. He blinked rapidly and rubbed his eyes, trying to process what he was looking at:

*************************************************

Change Soul Persona :

1. Dion von Oswald [current]

2. Black Knight rank SSSS (cooldown 21:33:11)

3. Shadow Assassin rank SSSS [activate ?] [yes] [no] (cooldown 1 day)

4. Berserk Monk rank SSSS (cooldown 22:50:12)

5. Mechanical Crafter and Gunner rank SSSS [activate ?] [yes] [no] (cooldown 3 days)

6. Ancient One rank SSSS [activate ?] [yes] [no] (cooldown 5 days)

7. Calamity Supreme Monarch rank SSSS (cooldown 10 days)

8. First Primal Demigod rank SSSS (Unlock requirement: collect the Book of World Spirits scattered across the world [1/7]).

Ultimate Persona : World Keeper rank GOD (Unlock requirement: all soul personas must be fully unlocked.)

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Once he finished reading it and realized the list hadn’t changed and he wasn’t hallucinating, Dion’s expression shifted from casual to gloomy, ashen, stressed out, deeply in disbelief, and finally boiling over with pure rage.

“Huh?! What is this?! Hey… I was just taking a casual stroll through a ruined palace, why did a hidden persona hint I didn’t even want to find suddenly pop up?!” Dion panicked internally.

He stared back at the screen, tapping frantically on the description text, but no auxiliary windows opened. Grabbing his hair with both hands, he tugged at it, his face contorting with the urge to scream.

“Damn it… Absolutely damn it… Stupid little sister… Useless goddess… Bastard… This is definitely your doing, manipulating things so I’d stumble across that book by pure coincidence… Because there’s no such thing as coincidences in this world… Dammit!” Dion screamed in his head, clutching his head and kicking his legs out in frustration as he sat on the floor.

“Aaaaaaaaaah!”

He clamped both hands over his mouth to muffle a roar of pure exasperation. Finally, after managing to calm his racing nerves, Dion let out a heavy sigh and slowly pushed himself back to his feet. He stared down the long, debris-choked hallway ahead, portions of which were completely open to the sky where the ceiling had caved in.

“Okay… Better to just turn back and stop wandering around… Yeah, exactly, just head back… No need to go sightseeing in other people’s ruined palaces… Going home, going home… Let’s make sure no more bad luck coincidences cross my path today,” Dion thought, trying desperately to keep his cool.

Dion continued walking back toward the palace study, but along the way, he occasionally slapped his own head, then his hands and legs in sheer frustration.

“Curiosity killed the cat… It’s all because I couldn’t control my damn curiosity. Lesson learned, I am officially done being curious,” Dion muttered to himself.

Upon returning to the study, he found the girls still sound asleep. He tilted his head back to glare up at the open, ruined ceiling.

“Oi, you idiot goddess… Stupid little sister… You better take responsibility for this! Stop dumping your workload onto my shoulders, you absolute moron!” Dion screamed inside his head, glaring upward with a furious expression.

Dion kept cursing up toward the ceiling, both of his hands flailing upward to strike at the air, his face twisted in pure anger. However, he did it all without making a single peep so he wouldn’t wake the girls or Gina.

***

Meanwhile, back on Earth inside a cozy apartment, achooo! Nora sneezed suddenly while sitting at the dining table, quickly reaching for a napkin to wipe her nose. A three-year-old boy, busy stabbing a chicken nugget with his plastic fork, looked up at her.

“Mama sneezed? Are you sick, Mama?” the little boy asked.

Nora turned to look at her son, breaking into a warm smile as she reached out to stroke his hair.

“Mama’s fine, Marcus… Who knows why I sneezed? Maybe Papa misses Mama… Come on, eat up, sweetie,” Nora gently nudged her son’s hand, which had frozen midway to his mouth.

Marcus happily chewed his food, his little hand immediately reaching out to spear another chicken nugget on the table. After swallowing his bite, he looked back up at Nora.

“So if Papa misses Mama, does that mean Mama sneezes?” Marcus asked.

“Could be… Not just missing me, maybe Papa is talking about Mama right now, too. That happens,” Nora answered with a smile.

“If I talk about Mama with my friends, will Mama sneeze?” Marcus asked.

“Of course, because Marcus loves Mama so much,” Nora replied.

“Yeah… I love Mama so, so much!” Marcus declared cheerfully with a wide smile.

As Marcus went back to devouring his meal, Nora glanced up toward the ceiling with a knowing smile. She closed her eyes, picturing Dion in her head cursing her out and throwing a fit, bringing a playful, mocking smirk to her face.

“Then again, someone out there might also be cursing me out right now, and I’ve got a pretty good idea of who it is, hehehe,” Nora chuckled softly to herself.