Chapter 24: A Warm Welcome

"Transport!" Just as Licht said the word, his body broke into particles and reappeared in a white room.

The room was made of giant square tiles, each reaching several meters in length. The room itself was flawlessly made. There was no gap in it.

Nothing could go in and out of the room, and in the center of it sat a familiar being that had left an impression on Licht's memory.

A scary impression. His paws swirled the dark blue liquid in a glass.

The hamster was still as elegant as the first day Licht had met him, in neat and tidy clothes, with a cane, that hung down from one of the pockets of his coat.

An elegant hat rested upon his head. As he gestured towards Licht with his paw, welcoming his arrival.

"Welcome human, or should I say, Sir Licht,"

"Whatever you prefer," Licht said, replying to his excited welcome with a monotonous tone.

'Why does he feel more excited than me to see me alive….'

"Then I will just stick to your name, Sir Licht~," Mr. Flare said while drinking the blue liquid in his glass to the last drop.

"I want to congratulate you for reaching this far, and I am quite surprised and astonished that you can even defeat a Hollow Sentinel on your own."

"And with that kind of non-enhancement power,"

His eyes scanned Licht from top to bottom, "Hollow Sentinel and its host are one of the quite unique calamities present in this world."

"How do you know all this?" Licht's guard went up for a moment, as his hand got into a slashing pose.

He was ready to summon his sword at any moment, but then he remembered the sad fact.

He wasn't even strong enough to touch one hair of Mr. Flare's fur. The power he had shown at the time of the first trial was far greater than what he could even imagine.

"Quite the wise choice, as I expected from you. Oh, and don't be on guard. I only know what monsters you have fought,"

"I don't even know your stats, myths, or what you even buy from the shop."

"I am an administrator for the Pantheon of Lost Gods. It is my duty. By which, I must uphold the secrecy of the challenger's information and not be biased."

"Then do you meet every participant personally?" Licht asked.

"No, you are a special challenger cause of your feats, and you have gained the 'right' to know information about this world from me personally with a special gift alongside it." Mr. Flare said, pointing toward Licht's new armor.

Licht looked the hamster dead in the eye, "Then how is this you not being biased toward me?"

"These are the rules of the Pantheon, and I am merely following them."

"I-"

Finally done with Licht's annoying questions, the hamster interrupted what he was about to say, "I will now explain the things I came here for, so please let me finish that."

"As you, Licht Vanrir have completed the Second Trial successfully, you can now know the information about the Pantheon of Lost Gods."

Taking a deep breath in his tiny lungs, the hamster spoke as he revered the feats flowing out of his mouth.

"Firstly, the system you have been using is just a part of the main system, the Pantheon Sequence. It is specifically designed for mortals to adapt to this world. Its purpose is to push you and give you a guiding light to the first realm in this world, Conduit Realm"

"You will lose the stat feature of the system when all your stats reach 50. Now to the second thing, the world you did the second trial was just a virtual playground we built around the lowest level calamities for the practice of you mortals."

The more Mr. Flare spoke, the more his breaths became uneven. It felt like he was spasming from what he was talking about.

'What the fuck am I looking at? Is he some crazed fanatics worshipper to the point of getting orgasms from just speaking about it...'

"Thirdly, your planet has successfully been assimilated into the Pantheon inside this black hole."

Removing the useless thoughts from his mind, Licht focussed on the current scenario.

"Does that mean I am going back to it? If yes, then it doesn't make sense for the point of all this," Licht asked, doubtful of some things.

As if knowing his concerns, Mr. Flare said in an understanding tone, "No, you won't be going back to it, you and your fellow earthlings will be dropped into the zones they had first chosen, and if my knowledge serves me right, you chose Undead Zone?"

"Yeah,"

"Oh boy, that's one of the harder zones in terms of adapting,"

"What do you mean-"

"Sir Licht, stop trying to get information from me. Even my patience has limits."

A small chill ran through his spine as he nodded back at the hamster.

Ignoring what Licht was feeling, the hamster continued. "Lastly, I will explain about the monsters, the source of everyone's innate powers. They are fragments, fragments of outer gods, low-level celestials, will of the world, and some more things."

Confusion enveloped Licht's mind as he didn't know even one of the things Mr. Flare was mentioning about.

"These fragments are incomplete parts. They come from dead worlds and yearn for their other parts. Which do not exist in this world, so they go toward similar living beings. They try to make them what they originally were."

"And that is corruption, right?" Licht said. Slowly, all the pieces were coming together in his mind to form the giant picture he couldn't see at first.

"Correct," he said with a pleased expression that Licht was catching on to what he wanted to tell quite easily.

"It is easier for them to assimilate with another being and take over them than to find their nonexistent parts. These are what we call 'monsters' in this forsaken world."

"Now, we will talk about the special gift you have received for doing such a big feat,"

Author Notes: Well, here is some of the novel's lore that I was eagerly wanting to explain from the past 23 chapters, and personally, it feels like a milestone lol.

Anyways, do tell me how you liked the lore!