Chương 60: The Shape of the Underworld

"Something important?" Cerys asked, tilting her head.

"Apparently, there are two other ways to gain Faith from this river."

"Oh! That's very important! More feasts! More alcohol!"

"Well, not from the river itself," Nerez explained, closing his Godscript screen.

"More like from the souls it carries."

"From the souls it carries?"

"Haven't you noticed how deserted this place is?" Nerez asked.

"I forgot to ask him (or rather, I didn't care enough to), but Erebion must have summoned the souls in the battle against us directly from this river."

"Now that you mention it, you're right," Cerys replied, crossing her arms.

"We haven't run into a single soul this whole time."

"That's because apparently I'm the one who has to choose which souls are allowed to inhabit this place."

"Ah... that makes sense. But what does that have to do with those other ways of gaining Faith?"

"The Lustral River gives me Faith simply by existing, so to speak," Nerez began to explain.

"But on top of that, the souls I allow to inhabit this place will generate additional Faith. That's the second way."

"Well, then what are we waiting for?!" Cerys exclaimed, throwing up her hands.

"Let's take all the souls out of the river at once!" Nerez brought a hand to his mouth, trying to hold back his laughter.

"Don't laugh at me!"

"It's not that simple."

"Why not?"

"If we take every soul out of the Lustral, I'd lose the Faith it's generating right now."

"Then what's the point of taking souls out in the first place?!"

"We need to distinguish between them," Nerez clarified.

"The denser souls, the ones with stronger attachments to life, more desires, and so on... apparently, those generate more Faith while the river purifies them. It's a kind of symbiosis."

"And there are other kinds of souls swimming around in there?"

"That's right. Souls that are already pure enough, maybe because they've been in the river for a long time. Or because they died satisfied, so to speak," Nerez replied.

"Those don't generate as much Faith in the river, and taking them out won't have much of an impact on the Lustral. They will generate more Faith by being conscious and 'inhabiting' this place." Nerez gave the river a thoughtful look before continuing.

"Maybe those same desires, or even feelings, are what turn into energy. So when none of those are left, they are already meant to reincarnate (though I have to allow it, it seems), or, for the purest souls of all, continue on their way to the Silver Sea. But apparently, those cases are very rare." What the hell am I, really?

"And you could see all that in the Godscript? It's usually more sparing with its information... though I suppose that's to be expected from a sacred place this important."

"That's just what I deduced. There are several holographic screens' worth of technicalities disguised as proverbs and phrases that don't make much sense. Do you want me to read them to you?"

"No, I'm fine, thanks..." She even thanked me... Looks like that kind of thing really isn't for her. Now I know what to use as the next punishment. Stolen novel; please report.

"Besides that, there's the third way to gain Faith, but..."

"But what?" Nerez closed his eyes, and visions of a completely dark no-man's-land came to him, lit only for brief instants by red lightning. The thunder that followed each strike was deafening. In the moments when that land lit up, other things could be seen. Other things that inhabited that place, but that were better not described. They were nightmarish images, but they were real. He knew that because he was connected to that place now.

"There is another world within this underworld. It lies even farther below than this desert of green dunes. But there is no way to reach it... or to leave."

"Then what is it for?"

"I can create a way to reach it (though I absolutely do not want to), and apparently I can place souls there or take them out directly," Nerez summoned his Eidolon, the Book of Death, and opened it.

"As I thought, I can use 'Soul Ledger' to take souls out of the river and place them either in the green field or in that lower world."

"And what good does it do us to put souls in that lower world?"

"Calling them 'green this' and 'lower that' is a little inconvenient," Nerez noted, a hand on his chin.

"The Last Valley of the visiare and all the other places in that network of caverns are the Outer Underworld! This place of green plains and hills, let's call it the Inner Underworld! And for that lower world you're talking about, let's call it the Deeps! The Chasm of the Deeps had far too grand a name for just a hole in the ground anyway, so now that world is the true Deeps! And everything together is the Underworld!" Cerys exclaimed impatiently, arms crossed as she tapped her foot against the ground.

"Now tell me once and for all what that lower world is for!"

"That's exactly the kind of naming sense I'd expect from you, Cerys," Nerez said with a smile, though his expression soon turned serious.

"The souls we send to the Deeps won't just give us Faith by existing, like the ones inhabiting the Inner Underworld. They'll also be purified, like the souls in the river, but much more efficiently, generating more Faith in the process; even the purest ones would still have something extracted from them. In other words, it's the most productive of the three ways to generate Faith. You could say that if every soul ended up there, it would even make up for the Faith we'd lose by emptying the Lustral."

"Then what are we waiting for?! Let's send every soul there!" Nerez let out a long sigh.

"The problem is that extracting Faith that way comes with suffering and pain."

"..."

"..."

"Then what are we waiting for?! Let's send every soul there!"

"Don't you have a conscience?"

"What would I need one for?"

"... Even you must have gotten used to living with mortals by now. What happens if Ily, your drinking buddy, ends up down there?"

"Well... let's send 'almost' every soul down there."

"Only the souls that truly deserve it are going there, and that's final," Nerez declared.

"Knowing your attachment to mortals, I honestly thought you wouldn't want to send anyone there," Cerys remarked, hands behind her head.

"We're talking about you, after all. You even gave a second chance to the demigods who tried to kill you in the Festival of the Gods. I can't imagine what a mortal would have to do to make you angry enough to want to punish them that way." Nerez closed his eyes and thought for a few moments.

"Rather than a punishment, I think there needs to be a place mortals don't want to end up in," he finally replied.

"That can help keep them from simply getting carried away by their desires. At least not to the point where they trample over others."

"Are you playing the hero now?" Cerys asked, laughing.

"I thought all you cared about was hiding in your cave."

"And that's still all I care about. I'm not saying this out of kindness, Cerys, think for a second," Nerez countered, wagging his finger from side to side.

"As much as I like hiding in a cave, especially this one, which is quite spacious and even has its own sky, if Eryndea becomes a world engulfed in chaos, I'm sure the problems will reach all the way down here."

"I see... that makes sense."

"Though honestly, I don't want to deal with souls at all. I don't even want souls in the Inner Underworld..."!! Nerez had been scanning the riverbank with his gaze, but suddenly, he froze. There, not far from him, stood the figure of a beautiful woman. Half of her face was covered, but he would recognize that cold, calculating smile anywhere.

"Nerez? Did you fall asleep standing up again?" Nerez looked at Cerys beside him, then looked back into the distance, but there was nothing there anymore. A memory? An illusion?

"Looks like I really did nod off for a moment," he admitted, rubbing his eyes with one hand.

"But just to be safe, I do think we'll need a lot of Faith after all... Let's turn this place into a fortress."

"That's the spirit! And from here, we'll conquer all the other gods' domains! Starting with Selene's!"

"I'm not conquering anyone's domain, and Selene... for some reason, belongs to the Dusk Faction."

"Boooo..."

"Now then, in many stories, I've heard that the land of the dead lies across a river. It would also serve as a natural defense. So I plan to set up our residence on the opposite bank of the Lustral."

"Whaaat? Whyyy? I don't like swimming..."

"Yes, honestly, I'm pretty tired of swimming too. But there's another way."

"What way?"

"Who would've thought all it took was claiming the river of death to unlock the skill." [Ferryman's Due]