Chapter 3
The Awakened, Lee Shin (3)
Eve clasped her hands tightly together and begged him to please tell her before leaving next time.
She said she had thought he had suddenly abandoned her, just like the dwarves’ previous god had.
She had been so worried that she simply couldn’t stop crying.
It was the first time anyone had ever waited so desperately for Lee Shin, so he was a little taken aback.
Seeing her tear-streaked eyes also made him feel strangely guilty.
So Lee Shin began by unpacking the gifts he had prepared.
「You have used [World Intervention].」
According to the status window, Eve had gone a long time without eating or drinking anything.
He had let her drink as much water as she wanted last time, but water alone couldn’t fill someone’s stomach.
If you were human, you needed food.
Is she not human?
Thinking about it that way, perhaps he had made a mistake.
Dogs and cats could become seriously ill if they ate human food.
Surely that wouldn’t happen here, right?
「TIP: Dwarves are 99.9% human!」
「TIP: Please regard your believers as humans!」
「TIP: (O4O)」
Thud!
The contents of the lunchbox came tumbling down.
“Huh?”
Eve, who had been standing there blankly, stared at the object that had fallen from the sky.
A dark cylindrical mass with countless snow-white grains clinging to the inside.
Wondering whether it might be some kind of monster, Eve cautiously sniffed it without even realizing what she was doing.
She smelled rice.
The scent of food she had missed so dearly.
“W-Wow... Wooooow!”
All her previous caution vanished as Eve dashed toward it, her starry eyes sparkling.
It was gimbap that Lee Shin had made himself.
Drool practically pouring from her mouth, Eve was about to shove the entire piece of gimbap into her mouth before displaying superhuman patience and stopping herself.
“G-God! Oh, God. May I eat this?”
Of course.
He had brought it specifically for her to eat.
The greatest reward you could give someone who had carefully prepared food for you was to enjoy it without leaving anything behind.
Of course, if Eve literally ate everything, her stomach might burst, so Lee Shin added that she only needed to enjoy herself.
“Th-Thank you for giving me my daily bread!”
After energetically offering a prayer before her meal, Eve began stuffing seaweed, rice, pickled radish, ham, and everything else into her mouth.
As warmth spread through her mouth and stomach, tears suddenly spilled from Eve’s eyes.
Once her hunger began to subside, all the sorrow she had endured until now came rushing back at once.
At the workshop, all she had ever eaten were mud cookies.
“Sniff... Hic... N-No matter what happens, this Eve will live up to the expectations you have placed upon me, God. Hic... Sob....”
Eve continued swallowing the gimbap between sobs.
As Lee Shin watched her eat tear-soaked gimbap, he also dropped down some banana milk and a bottle of water.
Each time he did, Eve would spray grains of rice everywhere as she shouted prayers at the top of her lungs.
She only stopped after Lee Shin told her she didn’t need to do that while eating.
“God! Oh, God! I have a question!”
Eve’s star-shaped pupils sparkled brightly.
“What is this supreme food called? The salty black part, the warm grains of rice, and the fillings revealed when you dig through the rice! Everything is so delicious, and they complement one another perfectly! If you permit it, this lowly Eve wishes to hear the name of the food you have bestowed upon me! Is it nectar? Ambrosia?!”
Nectar and ambrosia? What are those?
They sounded like names for hangover remedies.
Lee Shin answered honestly.
『Ah, that is called gimbap....』
“G-Gimbap! By consuming the heavenly food known as gimbap, this lowly Eve has now transcended mortality and taken another step closer to God!!”
***
They ate gimbap, and Eve munched on cherry tomatoes nearly as large as her torso.
It was an enjoyable little picnic.
Of course, they didn’t need a picnic mat.
If they tried having an actual picnic under the blazing sun of this wasteland, Eve would roast on the spot and become well-done Eve.
“The place we’re heading to now—munch, munch—where there should be lots of potential believers—munch, munch—is the Silver Mountain Range.”
According to Eve, many of her people had gathered in the Silver Mountain Range.
Those who had escaped from the workshops, as well as those who had hidden there to avoid being captured, had established a city.
It was known as the Red City, Gepetto.
“Originally, dwarves didn’t live on plains like this. We all lived in the mountains. We’re a race born from the mountains and blessed by them.”
Mountain-dwelling dwarves.
Lee Shin had heard of such a race in fantasy stories before.
“They say we used to be called dwarves in the old days.”
Eve was a dwarf.
“They say even the women used to have thick beards, and we were bigger than we are now. But after fighting for so long to stop the Rifts, we eventually changed into what we are today.”
Eve continued explaining while munching on a cherry tomato.
“God! Oh, God. Once I reach Gepetto, I’m going to rebuild our fallen church. Not the church of the one who abandoned us, but a church devoted to a new God—one who loves us more than anyone else, who will never abandon us, and who is the most merciful being in the entire universe!”
A religion....
That would certainly make the number of believers increase quickly.
Eve wore an intensely determined expression, but completely undermining her impressive gaze were her cheeks, puffed out with cherry tomato.
No matter what she did, Eve simply couldn’t look imposing.
“But from here onward, we have to move carefully.”
Eve said this while marching forward with absolutely no trace of caution on her face.
“Because....”
Just then—
「An Unbeliever has appeared.」
Vroooom!
The roar of a motorcycle engine echoed from the distance.
An Unbeliever?
As Eve’s face turned deathly pale, lines of text unfurled across the status window.
「Unbelievers are impure beings who refuse to believe in you, the one true God of this world and the greatest Creator.」
「To deny you within a world that belongs to you is the greatest of sins.」
「Unbelievers are dangerous beings.」
The roar of the engine grew steadily closer.
Eve gulped down the tomato she had been chewing and began trembling.
「Unbelievers do not offer glory to God. They do not pray to you, nor do they offer you glory. They care only about satisfying their own selfish desires.」
Lee Shin didn’t particularly care about receiving glory or prayers.
More importantly, he had no desire to hear endless prayers.
He already heard more than enough of those back in the real world.
「TIP: An excellent God accepts even Unbelievers and turns them into believers.」
「TIP: However, Unbelievers pose a threat to your believers.」
A threat.
Just as the status window said, Eve was staring only at Lee Shin, trembling in fear.
Like a rabbit confronted by a lion.
“God, oh God... I am afraid, but I will never run away. Before I knew you were with me, I fled like a lost lamb, but now that you are by my side, I fear nothing. So please grant me the strength to overcome this trial....”
Eve was trying hard to act brave, but she was clearly terrified.
Soon, through the hazy cloud of dust, the source of the engine noise appeared.
A gang of bikers riding motorcycles.
「TIP: [A Small but Deadly World] is the world of the dwarves, who once possessed some of the greatest technology even among the World of Stars. Unbelievers and otherworldly invaders are armed with powerful tools crafted by the dwarves themselves.」
At that moment—
Smack!
A motorcycle came hurtling forward and slammed straight into Eve.
A hit-and-run!
Eve was sent flying through the air, spinning several times before crashing into the wasteland.
「Your believer has been attacked!」
“U-Ugh....”
Eve lay sprawled on the ground, groaning in pain.
With their engines roaring obnoxiously, the bikers surrounded her.
“Damn, you sure ran far, you little bitch!”
The man who appeared to be the leader of the bikers removed his helmet, revealing a vicious-looking face.
The instant Eve met his gaze, her face turned deathly pale.
“You completely screwed up the atmosphere at the workshop. Damn, you have any idea how much the higher-ups have been riding our asses because of one tiny bitch like you?”
The man pulled out a cigarette and lit it.
True to his tiny body, even his cigarette was tiny.
“Don’t think you’re getting an easy death. Got it?”
“Boss. Can we have some fun with her before we take her back?”
“Do whatever you want! Just don’t kill her! We’re going to execute that bitch in front of all the slaves as an example. Slowly. Very painfully!”
The other bikers snickered at his words.
Even while lying helplessly on the ground, Eve glared at them through tear-filled eyes as though she wanted to kill them.
“Look at that stare. Stop looking at me like that. I might get attached!”
Unlike Eve, these were the sort of people Lee Shin felt absolutely no affection toward.
What should he do about this?
Dump a torrent of water on them?
Drop the lid of his lunchbox on them?
「TIP: Try using the [Action] tab of [World Intervention]!」
The status window provided the answer.
“You’re looking pretty good. Did you really think you’d gotten away?”
Smack!
The men laughed as one of them kicked the fallen Eve in the head.
They were supervisors from Workshop No. 99, where Eve had worked as a slave.
“You’re worse than humans!”
Eve snarled.
The supervisors of Workshop No. 99.
They weren’t otherworldly invaders.
Despite being dwarves themselves, they had betrayed their own people, sided with the enemy, and accepted managerial positions.
Traitors who had sold out their own kind in exchange for escaping slavery.
“You’re worse than animals! Traitors!”
“Puhahaha! What the hell is she saying?”
“We didn’t betray anyone. We were smart! Fighting that terrifying Legion to the bitter end? Fighting back for independence? Does that sound remotely sane? You’re supposed to bow your head and lick their boots so you can at least get some scraps!”
No matter how much Eve shouted, they merely laughed at her.
“We’re doing great! Thanks to idiots like you, we landed ourselves some nice cushy positions!”
Humiliation and resentment overwhelmed Eve, and huge tears rolled down her cheeks.
Biting her lip tightly, Eve muttered,
“God won’t let you get away with this.”
“God? What a joke. There’s no such thing as a god in this world.”
“Shut up! Don’t you dare blaspheme!”
“Look at her losing her mind! Puhahaha!”
“How dare you! How dare you speak of God like that!”
“What god? The God of Morons? The God of Idiots?”
“You...!”
Now that even her God had been insulted, Eve’s pent-up anguish finally exploded.
She spat out the words through clenched teeth.
“You... will suffer divine punishment.”
Divine punishment.
At those words, everyone burst out laughing.
“Yeah, sure. Everyone who said shit like you did ended up—”
Just then.
“Huh?”
Crunch!
The body of the man who had been sneering at her was suddenly crushed flat, as though an invisible boulder had slammed down on top of him.
“Uh...?”
A broken, mangled mass of flesh lay flattened against the sand.
He looked like an insect that had been stepped on.
For a moment, the men’s minds went completely blank.
What the hell had just happened?
And then—
『Little sinners.』
A voice that shook heaven and earth thundered across the wasteland.
They felt as though lightning had struck directly above their heads.
『You know your own sins.』
Beneath the deafening roar that threatened to rupture their eardrums, they realized who the owner of the voice was.
There was no need to guess.
They knew instinctively.
God....
The greatest of all beings was watching this place.
The men looked up at the sky and froze where they stood.
The instant they witnessed His form, any thought of resisting or fleeing vanished completely.
They felt no anger.
No resentment.
Not even fear.
Before this judgment, all they could feel was awe.
Even as death approached, ecstasy welled up from the depths of their souls at having been granted even the briefest glimpse of that supreme existence.
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
And thus, divine punishment descended.
「The faith of the Low-Rank Believer [Eve] has increased.」
「Her Faith level is extremely high.」
「You have judged 3 Unbelievers.」
「You have exerted influence.」
「Intervention Power has increased by 15.」
「Current Intervention Power: 115」