Ninia was praying by the Altar, while Noah and Elina were talking about something in the back.
Aria and Victoria weren’t there, so Zach assumed they went to look for him.
”I am back,” Zach said to make his presence known.
Noah and Elina stopped talking and looked at Zach, while Ninia stopped praying and greeted Zach with a smile on her face.
At the same time, Aria and Victoria also returned, and their shadows covered the doorway, making the sunlight unable to fall inside the church.
They all had the same baffled expression on their faces, and Zach was well aware of the reason behind it.
”Come on~ Why are you all surprised?” Zach asked in a playful manner.
”Why… is your name tag red?”
The first to speak was Elina, who seemed scared of Zach.
”Hmm? Even though you are just a kid, I am sure you have read the rules about this game. Don’t you know why a player’s name tag turns red?” Zach asked jokingly.
”You… killed a player…?” Elina asked while stuttering.
Zach simply shrugged his shoulders in response and asked, “So why do you look surprised? I killed the players in the ten battles too, you know?”
”Zach, what did you do?” Victoria asked with a judging look on her face.
”I killed the party that scammed them,” Zach said while pointing his gaze at Noah and Elina.
”Was killing them necessary?” Aria asked in a calm voice. Seemingly, she didn’t care about Zach’s answer.
”They deserved to die, even if they hadn’t done anything wrong. They dared to even think about hurting my beloved prophet. That alone is… a death sentence.”
Zach was facing his back to Ninia, so he couldn’t see her reaction. But Aria and Victoria were facing both Ninia and Zach.
Aria noticed Ninia’s face turn sad for a few seconds before she forced herself to smile.
’Hmm? Weird. I expected her to be happy since Zach did something for her sake, so why is she pretending to be happy?’
Victoria didn’t know what to say. She surely wasn’t angry at Zach for killing the players, but she wasn’t happy about that either.
”I don’t want to be the one to ask this, but was there another way you could have handled the matter?” Victoria asked in a calm voice.
”Actually, I thought about that after my anger calmed down. But then I remembered a philosophy I had read in the library. I am talking about an actual philosophy, by the way, not the one you find on the internet which can be written by some wanna-be philosopher.”
Zach cleared his throat and uttered, “In that philosophy, it said about the books and their authors. Games and their developers. Basically, every creator in general.”
”I have read that too. Just recently, like a week before the Gods’ Impact,” Elina quipped.
”Oh?” Zach raised his brow with a curious look on his face.
”I was studying in the library for exams with my friends but got bored after reading for three hours straight. So I decided to take a break and went to walk around the library where old books were kept. There I found that book you are talking about. Although it may be a different one or a different version as those books were just a compilation about the quotes of old times,” Elina stated.
”You know, there is also a philosophy that says that a person’s understanding level depends not on age but maturity instead. And it continued by stating that it may also affect the meaning of the philosophy and the level of understanding depending on a person’s maturity. Understanding philosophy is often easy, but finding the meaning is quite hard. So I am curious to know what you understand from the philosophy you read.”
”Ummm…” Elina scratched her head and uttered, “It was about how the creators are judged on what they create, right?”
”Umu,” Zach nodded in response.
”Basically, what I understood from that is how people call out the creator for creating something not-likable and say that the creator is the same as them. For example, if in a game, the developer or rather the story writer added hideous crimes or made the characters do some unspeakable things, people would say that the storyteller is the same kind of person who promotes such things.”
Elina anxiously glanced at Zach and asked in a low voice: “Did I… understand it correctly?”
”Not entirely, but yeah, pretty close,” Zach replied with a gentle smile on his face. “I am also not sure myself if I understood it correctly or not, to be honest.”
”So, what are you trying to say by bringing up the filosofi or whatever it’s called,” Aria asked, seemingly flustered because she was the only one who couldn’t understand.
”What I was trying to say is, there are 90% chances that bad people in the real world who are stuck in the Gods’ Impact are also evil in the game. Maybe, some of them finally gained wisdom and realized and regretted their choices, but most of them must have remained criminals,” Zach asserted and continued:
”Similarly, it’s not like all the normal people stayed normal. Some became evil after gaining powers, or some simply became evil to release their stress and frustration on others.”
Zach looked at Aria and Victoria and asked, “Now, you tell me. What’s the difference between the players who were already evil before and those who turned evil after Gods’ Impact.?”
”Well…” Victoria tried hard to speak.
”The only difference is their thinking,” Aria answered. “The players who were already evil got a chance to become more evil. There was no one to punish them, no one to stop them. While the players who were normal before realized the same thing and became criminals.”
”Exactly!” Zach smiled wryly and uttered, “There is no difference between them. Once you have stepped into the dark side, there is no return. It is always too late to regret. What’s done has been done, and that’s never going to change.”
At that time, none of them realized that Zach was talking about himself.
***
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4 players died.