Chương 39: Chapter 37

"How are you feeling?" Adam asked as he walked up beside Granessa. Her face was still pale, turning her deep blue skin almost sky blue.

"Better now that they're all dead. But deeply embarrassed by my lack of conviction. I feel as though I let my goddess down and am no longer worthy of wielding her divinity." Adam stared at her for a moment. That was not the answer he'd expected from the massive orc warrior.

"Uh... I meant physically." He reached down and started pulling at his gloves.

"You can borrow my Mythic gear if you want. As far as I've discovered, they make bleeding to death impossible." Granessa blinked.

"That sounds extremely useful."

"Right? That's what I thought." He tugged harder but the gloves refused to budge. Adam frowned and pulled again. Still nothing.

"Um... are my hands swollen from sitting in water too long? What's going on here?" On his third attempt, a notification appeared. Warning! Soul Bound items cannot be removed. If you insist on removing this item your Soul may be permanently disabled. Adam gawked at the screen.

"Since when were my gloves soul bound?" Due to your lacking stats you are not privy to that item feature.

"You're just bullying me at this point!" The system immediately stopped responding.

"What's going on?" Mei asked as she walked over carrying an armful of glittering loot.

"I'm stuck wearing these gloves forever." Mei looked him up and down.

"Does that mean you can never put a shirt on again?" Adam nearly burst into tears. Ignoring him as he crouched down and began drawing circles in the sand while wallowing in self-pity, Mei turned toward Granessa.

"So, what's with the curse Anubis gave you? Are you the new virgin pharaoh or something?" Granessa shook her head.

"I'm not a pharaoh. The curse states that I cannot die in combat. However, if I ever lay with a man, I will be cast into eternal damnation and never see my goddess or join the eternal battlefield." A heavy sigh escaped her, making her look genuinely devastated. Mei and Adam exchanged a glance. That sounded less like a curse and more like a blessing. Well... aside from the no sex part. For an orc, however, that was probably the worst punishment imaginable.

"Well, look on the bright side," Mei said. Granessa looked up hopefully.

"Yeah?"

"It doesn't say anything about not lying with women. Technically, you can still have sex." Granessa tilted her head with a baffled expression. Adam shot Mei a glare. She shrugged innocently.

"What? It's true."

"Not helping." Adam turned back to Granessa.

"What about the curse removal stone you got?"

"Useless," she said with another defeated sigh.

"It only removes curses of Legendary grade or below. Mine is Mythic."

"Oh." Silence settled over the group. After several uncomfortable moments, Mei suddenly dumped the pile of loot onto the ground.

"Alright! Time to distribute treasure." She picked up an ornate pharaoh's headdress and handed it to Adam.

"This one's yours." Then she grabbed a flowing golden silk gown and tossed it toward Granessa.

"And this one is yours." Granessa held it up against herself. The garment barely looked large enough to cover her chest.

"I don't think this will fit. Besides, I already have my armor set."

"Suit yourself." Mei took the gown back and casually tossed it into her wardrobe. Since leveling up, her Magic stat had increased enough to unlock her inventory again, she had been using the magical wardrobe to store and customize equipment. Most items emerged looking far more fashionable than when they entered. That included the new Mythic hat currently sitting on her head. It was the reward she'd received for terrifying Anubis by threatening to tell his wife about him.

Originally, the item had been a headpiece that replaced the wearer's ears with those of Anubis. After passing through Mei's wardrobe, however, it had transformed into a sleek black-and-gold baseball cap adorned with metal accessories. Small decorative spikes ran across the brim like the studs of a dog collar.

"What does your hat actually do?" Adam asked. He found it strange that Mei hadn't spent the last ten minutes bragging about it.

"Nothing."

"Nothing? Really?" She nodded.

"Yep. My stats are too low to even see the description. All I know is that it's called Ears of Anubis. It was a tacky headband that gave me dog ears. But now it's a sweet hat. Cool right?" Adam stared at her.

"Your stats are too low?" He pointed at himself.

"Then where does that leave me? In the trash?"

"Well..." Mei's grin widened.

"Probably somewhere underneath it."

"Gee, thanks."

"No problem!" Mei beamed. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! She finished distributing the loot, though she was the only one who ended up with anything remotely useful. The prize was a shiny new dagger that replaced her old bear-tooth knife. Ceremonial Bloodletting Dagger (Ultra Rare) A dagger made specifically for sacrificial blood-giving ceremonies.

Imbued with powerful magic to increase sharpness and bleeding at the cost of durability and attack power. Effects: Sharpened Blade: Cuts through all defenses, but reduces damage by 50% Bloodletting: Causes persistent bleeding Fragility: Repeated use within a short time may destroy the weapon Mei immediately began playing with it. She tossed the dagger into the air, spun it around her fingers, then caught it by the handle. On the next throw, she misjudged the angle. The blade sliced cleanly across her fingertip.

"Ow! Ow, ow, ow!" She clutched her hand.

"That's worse than a paper cut!" A thin line of blood appeared almost instantly.

"Adam, quick! Heal me!" She marched over and thrust her injured finger in front of his face, staring at him with wide, expectant eyes. Adam completely ignored her. Instead, he stepped closer to the edge of the pyramid and looked down at the endless undead army gathered below. Moonlight reflected off rusted weapons and empty eye sockets. Thousands upon thousands of undead soldiers stood silently in formation, waiting for orders that would never come.

Apparently, none of them had realized their commander and pharaoh were dead.

"What do we do about them?" Adam asked.

"Adam, I'm bleeding," Mei complained." Help." Without even turning around, Adam flicked a hand behind his back. A tiny pulse of healing magic shot through the air. It wasn't even strong enough to qualify as a spell. The cut vanished instantly.

"There. Better?"

"Yes."

"Good." His attention returned to the army below.

"Now, seriously. What do we do about them?" Mei examined her finger, confirming it had been completely healed before finally addressing the question.

"Just wear the Legendary pharaoh's headdress I gave you. It lets you control the sphinx." Adam looked down at his permanently attached gloves.

"Can't."

"Oh, right." She winced.

"You aren't allowed to wear clothes anymore."

"Apparently not."

"That's rough, buddy." Adam resisted the urge to throw himself off the pyramid. The undead below would probably be nicer than his girlfriend. Instead, Mei dug through her inventory and pulled out a golden eye. The object gleamed beneath the moonlight. It was the same eye that had once rested inside Hatshepsut's empty socket. Adam could have sworn there was still a tiny smear of dried blood on it whenever the light struck it at the right angle. He wasn't so sure Mei hadn't pried it out herself…

Eye of Ra (Unique) Grants command over the Desert of the Dead (Usage severely limited without Pharaoh class) Mei held it up to the moonlight between her thumb and pointer finger.

"Will it work?" Adam asked. She shrugged.

"Only one way to find out." — — —"Hey, Adam. Why didn't the livestream activate while we were fighting the bosses?" Mei asked as they made their way down the impossibly long staircase.

"Didn't you read the contract?" he asked.

"Nope!" She shook her head proudly.

"Right. Of course not." Adam sighed.

"The livestream doesn't activate during encounters that are deemed unwinnable. The system doesn't want to broadcast people's deaths."

"But nobody died. Well, nobody important." Adam gave her a flat look.

"Yes, but the system judges each battle based on survivability. If the estimated chance of survival drops below one percent, the livestream function is automatically disabled. It was all explained in the contract."

"I read like two sentences."

"That sounds about right."

"It had too many long English words. If they'd written it in Japanese, I probably would've read like... ten sentences."

"Mhm." Adam nodded with mock agreement.

"Maybe even eleven." Mei puffed out her chest proudly.

"See? You get me." By the time they reached the bottom floor, Adam found himself glancing toward the murals lining the walls one last time. While wrapped up by Bakari earlier, he'd been too busy recovering mana to pay much attention to them. Fortunately, Mei had been paying attention. Otherwise, they might have actually fallen for Hatshepsut's sob story. The murals painted a very different picture than the one she had told.

They depicted an era of prosperity under a wise and humble pharaoh-king who ruled with patience and benevolence. The kingdom flourished beneath his reign, and the people appeared happy. Then the story changed. A woman of unnatural beauty appeared. The artists had gone to great lengths to emphasize her appearance. Even after thousands of years, her painted figure stood out from every other character on the wall.

According to the murals, she manipulated the hearts and minds of the kingdom's youth, both men and women alike. She turned them against their beloved ruler and slowly gathered power for herself until she claimed the throne and crowned herself pharaoh. The final scenes depicted the king's desperate last stand. Unable to stop her through conventional means, he sacrificed his own heart to summon a god. Anubis. In return, the god placed a terrible curse upon the usurper.

Near the end of the mural, the method for breaking that curse was shown as well. Unfortunately, that section had been badly damaged by time. Large portions were faded away or completely destroyed. Not that it mattered anymore. They had witnessed the solution firsthand. As they walked toward the exit, the murals unfolded in reverse order. Instead of depicting the rise and fall of a kingdom, they now seemed to show history moving backward. The cursed pharaoh lost her throne. The king reclaimed his crown.

The kingdom returned to peace. For a brief moment, it almost felt as though they were walking backward through time itself. Of course, time travel didn't exist. Neither on Earth nor in a fantasy world filled with magic, monsters, and gods. Time came for everything eventually. Kingdoms fell. Legends faded. Even an immortal pharaoh could not escape it forever. Hatshepsut's expiration date had simply arrived in the form of a bullet to the brain.