That night, after meeting with the fixed event NPC, Athena—though I was no longer sure if she was really an NPC—the noisy gods disappeared completely.

I wasn’t sure if it was temporary, but I really hoped so.

After completing the dungeon, although I was unable to get what I wanted, we could only return to the city. For now, completing the quest was the main priority we had.

To leave the Beginner Village’s map, we needed to first reach the first advancement after all—in short, reach level 50.

A few minutes later, we arrived back at the village.

Efficiently, we moved across various NPCs, submitting our completed quests. Enough that our levels rose to 44 each. Just a bit more before reaching the required level for the next map.

"Oh, young heroes. You’re finally back."

And just as we arrived at the Village Chief’s abode, I didn’t even have to call him—he was the one to rush out and meet us instead.

"Greetings, chief. We have returned from the quest." My mouth moved on its own, definitely riding on another scripted event.

This actually felt like a blessing to those who weren’t much of a speaker, since they wouldn’t have to think of what to say. Still, the sensation of speaking without intending to felt super weird—like watching a recording of yourself and not quite recognizing the voice.

But well, it’s not like it’d hurt us anyway.

Following the scenario, my mouth revealed what had happened with the Shroom Bear, the anomaly in the Howling Forest, and the dungeon that was discovered.

As I continued, the village chief’s expression turned grimmer. So much emotion played across his expression, his eyes, his posture, that I almost forgot he was just an NPC and not a real person. Almost.

"So that’s what had happened..." After I finished, the Village Chief finally spoke.

He let out a long sigh, shaking his head slowly. "Follow me, brave heroes. I want to show you something."

When he finished saying that, the old man began to walk back to his home. His steps slow and deliberate as he continued speaking, as if relaying backstory that didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Of course, I listened to everything since we couldn’t do much else anyway.

Arriving inside his home, we followed him through the living room, then upstairs, and finally entered his room.

There, an entire wall was covered with a grand painting.

From a glance, I could immediately tell what it was. By definition, it was closer to ancient Egyptian drawings of beautified history—the kind that spanned long walls or passages, telling a story in sequence from one end to the other, each panel bleeding into the next without a clean border between them.

On it were images of humans at the start. They all appeared to be praying toward the sky, where a few beings with wings, halos, and the power of lightning hovered above.

Then, it transitioned to the humans wielding weapons, some bearing half the same wings as the beings in the sky, or half a halo. The weapons they held glowed with a holy light. The enemies before them looked varied—monstrous, grotesque, each one distinct enough that the artist had clearly put thought into their shapes.

Images that people at this stage of the game hadn’t seen yet.

But to me, I was sick of seeing those images already.

’The calamities...’

Monsters that appeared at important junctions after the game descended into the real world. Ones with impossible strength, wiping out swathes of brave warriors each time. You never truly got used to watching them fall, no matter how many times it happened.

Most of my allies had fallen to those calamities too.

I gripped my fist, holding the burning anger in my heart—anger pointed squarely toward those disgusting eyeball monsters. Then I took a deep, intentional, slow breath, calming myself back down.

"The vault of the gods will descend, giving chances for the pious to cleanse the world of its darkness..." The Village Chief said at last, finishing his long monologue.

"That dungeon you heroes saw was without a doubt the gods’ vault. And with its appearance, it also signals the start of the end."

His voice was solemn, as if he had already accepted the situation entirely. Neither fighting it nor mourning it—simply relaying it like a man who had been carrying the knowledge for a long time and had made peace with the weight of it.

After a few more parting words, he finally gave us what he owed us.

[Quest: The Mystery in the Howling Forest (Unique) has been completed.]

[Rewards Received: UR Class Advancement Scroll x4]

Huh?

Wait, so the rewards got distributed to party members too?

I was surprised by this, but it still worked in our favor.

Pretty nice.

This way, we no longer needed to hunt for advancement scrolls for everyone and could transfer to the next map as soon as we reached level 50.

Just as I was thinking that, the Village Chief reached into his sleeves and passed a small shard to me. It was gold, and had been broken roughly, its edges sharp but coarse—like a piece of something once whole that had been snapped apart without any particular care for what was lost.

"And this... is something you need to have. I have no use for it anymore, so take it."

Curious, I took the fragment from him.

As soon as I did, the next few notifications from the quest made me gasp.

[Reward Received: Fragment of the Unknown God (Mythic)]

[You have gained a god’s fragment. Other gods will pay even more attention to your actions from now on.]

’Fuck! Is this a big advertisement flag for the gods?!’ I hissed internally.

I didn’t mind getting watched by Tee and the rest, but other gods definitely didn’t share our lighthearted attitude. They always broke the chemistry whenever we were horsing around and chatting, barging in like they owned the place and draining all the air out of the room.

I definitely had no use for it right now, and having it on me would only be detrimental. So...

"FleetingCloud, you should have this." I said, passing the shard over to her. "Keep it in your inventory always. Understand?"

"H-Huh? For me? Really...?"

Miyabi received the item sheepishly, holding it up between two fingers like she wasn’t sure whether to be thrilled or alarmed.

Then, when she checked the item’s description, her expression changed entirely.

"A-A mythic item?! No way, I can’t take something this important!" She huffed, trying to push the shard back toward me.

[Bell: Holy sheeet! That’s a Mythic Item!]

[GreenWithEnvy: Fuck, a mythic item related to gods in the beginner village? What crazy luck!]

[FriedLiver: You think it’s luck...? You have holes for eyes...😞]

Even the chat began clamoring about the item after they caught the description through Miyabi’s stream.

"But I don’t have a use for it. I don’t need some other god’s attention right now..." I shrugged, stating my stance plainly. "You keep it. I’m sure it’d be beneficial to you later on."

"That’s right."

To my surprise, even Kiki chimed in to convince her.

"You should keep it, FleetingCloud. After all, WhiteGod already got a date scheduled with the Goddess of Beauty—he has no use for that anymore~!"

"You..."

No doubt, she wasn’t helping but rather just having fun poking at me.

However, I couldn’t feel bothered enough to really scold her right now. That was just going to be a waste of time and energy, and she knew it.

"Ahem! Now that we’ve completed all the quests we needed to in this place, we should focus on reaching level 50 from now on." I quickly declared, clearing my throat.

Right.

We had nothing else to do but clear more quests, hunt monsters, and reach level 50 as fast as we could. And of course, to do that, there was only one place best suited for the job.

"We’ll be doing time attacks on the publicly unlocked dungeon starting now!"

This was the main reason why I had needed to complete the quest first.

Without completing the quest, the dungeon would’ve remained as a one-off instance—something that existed only for the quest and nothing beyond it.

But after completing it, a "balanced" version would appear, allowing players to challenge it across various difficulties based on their strength or confidence. And setting records for those would grant rewards too.

Especially for first place.

We needed to get all of those.

And the item I had been hoping for might come out of this repeatable dungeon instance after all. I couldn’t afford to miss my chances now that the window had opened.

"Thus, we’ll be conquering all difficulties until morning! Prepare to hunt without rest!"

"Let’s go~!"

Though, of course, none of the girls even bothered complaining.

They were all roaring to raise their levels, especially now that most of them knew what it truly signified.

"...?"

Only Kiki, who had not been present when Kamishiro revealed the reality before, was left in the dark—puzzled and confused, looking between the rest of us like she had missed the punchline of a very important joke.