LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 154
In a secret room filled with all sorts of scientific and paranormal defenses, four men gathered in one place, exchanging exhausted sighs as they looked at each other.
The weakest-looking guy—seriously, the kind of guy who’d snap like a twig if you poked him—spoke up with evident annoyance.
“So? Why have you pulled us together this time?”
“Lately, the world situation has been a bit shaky. We’ve seen multiple critical turning points in fate, and the trumpet heralding the end keeps blaring.”
“The end, you say? No way—when has there ever been a more peaceful time than now?”
The man with the bony frame made the others frown slightly. Such a laid-back attitude could risk their heavy responsibilities.
Realizing he was making everyone uncomfortable, the skinny guy shut his mouth. He sighed and shook his head.
“Okay, fine. We can just check it out, right?”
“Thanks, Mr. Powerful.”
“Yeah, but isn’t it odd that despite all the trumpeting, we haven’t heard any news? It might be a bit dangerous to go alone. I’ll tag along with Mr. Raise.”
At Mr. Powerful’s words, the guy with the white hair nodded vigorously. You could easily mix up who was Powerful just by looking at their sizes.
With confirmation of the two knights’ departure, the leader, Mr. Clear, nodded satisfactorily and spoke.
“Everything is for this world.”
“For Terra.”
After the meeting, the four guardians stood up from their seats.
And then they vanished. As if they had never been there from the start…
* * *
“It’s a lovely day, isn’t it, God?”
“…Huh?”
I had just grabbed a simple toast and coffee to return to the laboratory when I was taken aback by the sight of the Saintess who had woken up unexpectedly. She looked at me and immediately called me “God”? I couldn’t help but wonder if something had gone wrong with her surgery and her head was messed up.
Of course, my surgery couldn’t have gone wrong, so it seemed she had a constitution different from ordinary people. In the pre-screening, no other issues had shown up, so perhaps being pulled into the fourth dimension had caused her body to change…
“You saved me, freed me from my suffering, and even healed me. How could that not be the grace of God?”
“First of all, I’m not a God. I’m just an ordinary human, and… you’re a fraud. It’s too late to pretend you’re all pious now…”
“Oh, was I found out?”
The Saintess, who had cutely stuck her tongue out, cleared her throat a few times and began her confession.
“Of course, it’s true that I have pursued my personal desires without any faith. I didn’t believe in any God; I just used the powers of divine beings, and there was no piety or faith in my actions whatsoever.”
It was just because I could do it.
Is it considered a great thing when a billionaire with 100 trillion won hands 1 million won to a homeless person? Some might say that, but it’s really not. At least not for that billionaire.
Lizbel was just the same. She did it because she could. Acting instead of God and self-proclaiming as a Saintess. Just because she could, she lent her divine powers to people.
“But paradoxically, at the end of that path, I gained a faith I can never forget.”
That faith is you. Lizbel said this as she looked at me. She believed in me, admired me, and prayed to me.
Seeing all that unfold, I could only conclude one thing.
‘This girl is crazy.’
Of course, the suffering she endured couldn’t be called ordinary pain. She was trapped in a torment more dreadful than anything devised by past humanity just to inflict suffering upon others. My goodness. The agony of having her body stretched into the fourth dimension? No sadistic torturer in the world would have thought to inflict such torture.
Moreover, during that process, she faced insults and attacks from the very believers who trusted and followed her, as well as from one fighter, and inadvertently from the members of the evil organization.
Even if her body became grotesquely enlarged, her nerves and senses didn’t just shut down. I knew the pain she felt was still there, just magnified. And I knew well that such immense suffering could easily break a human.
“Do you understand, God? Only after I threw everything away was I finally able to gain everything… Ah, this is also a blessing from the God—”
“I get it! I get it, so please stop prattling on about that ‘God’ stuff.”
“Understood! God!”
With a sigh at the Saintess who seemingly didn’t understand my words, I momentarily thought that ignoring these lunatics would be much more rational than dealing with them. She was just the same.
I need to quickly explain her surgical progress and any aftereffects before sending her away. Why was I, who wasn’t even a doctor and had never recited the Hippocratic Oath, dealing with such nonsense…
“Anyway, let me explain it simply. Lizbel.”
“Yes! God!”
“You… to put it simply, your body is already dead.”
“…What?”
“At least, that’s what it is with our medical technology here.”
In a world where death was determined merely by the heart stopping, failing to breathe, or the brain activity halting for a few minutes, according to that standard, Lizbel was already dead. She still was.
“Your body… it’s hard to say, but it has stretched in an abnormal direction. Do you understand what I mean?”
“…Yes. I still remember everything from that time.”
“Good. Then this should be quick.”
I explained how her body had been excessively stretched into the fourth dimension. Naturally, her body, made up of xyz, had also been stretched disproportionately.
Just like an over-stretched shirt never returns to its original form, neither would her body revert back, at least not under natural conditions.
“I have reconstructed your body from head to toe. Litterally, from head to toe. I shrunk the swollen body cells one by one, and in the process, many things must have changed from what the original Lizbel was.”
Humans can change drastically from just a little injury to the frontal lobe. Considering I had torn apart her brain and reassembled every single cell, the likelihood of her being the exact same Lizbel was extremely low. Just giving electric shocks to stop the brain and restarting it could lead to changes—no matter how skilled I was, preserving her original form in such a major operation was no small feat.
“So, the fact that you’re following me now could be seen as a side effect of the surgery…”
“So it means you brought me back to life using divine superpowers?”
“No, it was science, not superpowers.”
“Ohhh—! Super Science!”
“Please just talk…”
A sigh escaped me, but well, it was better than the patient wallowing in despair or gloom. I proceeded to mention a few precautions (like how her heart might not beat suddenly or she might find it hard to sleep at night).
Lizbel, who had been half-listening, suddenly looked around in bewilderment.
“Um… God? Something feels off…”
“Ah, you mean your superpower? That’s probably gone. I restructured all your cells and kicked that out too.”
“Is that so? That’s why I can’t see my dog…”
Lizbel said this, revealing her disappointment. Dog? The dog she referred to was probably the fourth-dimensional creature she had worshipped as a God. That was the source of the overwhelming power she had.
It’s understandable to feel a bit disappointed. With the source of her divine powers gone, she could no longer play the Saintess role moving forward…
Wait, hold on.
I stared at Lizbel in confusion. Can’t see the dog? That means she could still see the fourth dimension with her own two eyes, right?
How on earth?
During the process of restructuring her cells, it should have knocked out her original abilities. Therefore, it was impossible for her to perceive any fourth-dimensional creature.
“Wait a second, Lizbel. Can you still use your superpower?”
“Huh? Oh, yes. I can still use it.”
Lizbel said this as she stretched her hand out in front of her. Her hand stretched like rubber before finally disappearing into an unseen space.
Moments later, Lizbel returned her hand to its original form and shrugged nonchalantly as if to say, “Did you see that?”
“Wait, didn’t you just say your superpower was gone?”
“Um, uh…”
I was flustered.
What the heck?
In the face of this inexplicable phenomenon, both Lizbel and I stood bewildered, staring blankly at each other.