"Master. It is time for Master's descent."

  What a courteous little crow, trying to kick their master out the moment the tutorial was over, and their job was done. Could this even be called a tutorial? It felt more like a lecture. He hadn’t even actually selected the Hero yet.

  "Do I have to go down now?" Cyrus asked, his voice slick. "Can't I stay here a bit longer, yeah?"

  "Moshi is afraid not, Master. Moshi is aware that Master couldn't care less for the World Will, rightfully so, but Master must make the descent to the mortal world before daybreak, while the Will remains at its weakest, even more so tonight."

  "Fine, fine.” Cyrus gave in. “So do I summon the Hero now? What happens to the other Heroes if I do?"

  "Master needs not!" Moshi cawed excitedly. "Once Master has summoned the Heroes and until Master releases them, the Heroes and their world are placed inside the Moonglade Realm—a pocket world under Master's rule where even the Boundless Principals of Time and Space may not interfere.

  “Master may choose whenever, and once the choice is made, the rest of the Heroes will remain in dormant slumber, waiting for Master to bestow them a chance at redemption. This may cost Master a varied amount of Faith!"

  "Ah. Isn't that just nice?" Cyrus nodded, an unnaturally wide smile stretching across his face.

  So the player could reclaim the other summoned Heroes as long as they paid more. He scoffed at how Etercon couldn't get any greedier with this setup. Obviously, Faith was the purchasable premium currency used to do the Divine stuff, including Hero summons.

  You pay Faith at the full price for ten pulls, only get to keep one, and then you have to pay even more to redeem the cards you already pulled for. Just—bravo.

  As a tester, he was doing a fully Free-to-Play run, but he still felt a shiver from the greater evil of the megacorporation. Though he was now more inclined to believe that this was limited to Hell difficulty. Otherwise, which normal person would be happy with this dogshit system?

  "In case Master is too occupied, Moshi will choose the strongest Hero after a mortal day has passed before all the Heroes go into slumber," Moshi said. "But for now, Master, it is time."

  "Okay, okay. I get it," Cyrus said, tapping a finger on the crow's shiny beak. "Go ahead. Kick me right down the mortal world and watch your Master save them all!"

  When Cyrus told Moshi to kick, he wasn't actually expecting to be kicked in the back by a force that seemed impossible for a small crow. The force of an Archon shoved him right past the rails of the pavilion, and he plunged down the misty abyss for a long, long time.

  ...

  [ -2.99% HP (Light Physical Damage Taken - 0.014% Damage Buffer * ) ]

  [ * Damage Buffer reduces Physical Damage Taken and scales based on Max HP and DEF. ]

  "Ouch, ouch. My back. The guide was not kidding when he said Hell difficulty isn't meant to be enjoyed. What kind of masochist would pay for this?"

  This was his first time playing a VR game, and even if he knew it was meant to be the best of the best with cutting-edge technology, the pain still caught him off guard. He'd heard something about high pain conversion, but this? It had him doubting for a second whether he was in a game...or the pod had actually malfunctioned, killing him. Maybe he got isekia'ed himself.

  He pinched himself hard for the Am-I-dreaming test, and it arguably hurt just as much as it would normally, if not more. So, no, he wasn't dreaming. This was a dream come true for past generations. The work of mankind's technology.

  Cyrus scoffed at the thought. So much money was spent on the game. So much that could have gone to starving people, like himself and himself and himself.

  With the blunt, slow-aching ache grinding into his back from the fall, Cyrus dismissed the bitter thought. Then, he hissed as he thought of what he was about to do next. He groaned, pushing himself up to his feet before summoning that one specific panel which obligingly appeared at a thought.

  +++

  The Blinded Sage

  A mortal who has removed his own eyes to spare himself from the world's truths and lies. Mortals, Heroes, and alike are highly inclined to believe the words at the tip of your tongue. They will see nothing but the truth in the Blinded Sage's wisdom unless something contrary is presented. With the wisdom granted to the Blinded Sage, he and only he can see the true color of lies.

  Aptitude Acquisition Requirement: Remove one's eyes.

  +++

  "See. This is worth it, no?" he asked no one, an old habit from when he used to stream games for extra cash. "NP—I mean, mortals will believe anything you say as long as there's no evidence against it, and you can tell when they lie."

  This was one of the most interesting aptitudes he had come across. It'd no doubt be very useful in his quest to gain worshippers and tame Heroes. He could just make stuff up, and all the NPCs would just believe in his bullshit.

  Good things never come free.

  Cyrus sighed, feeling his heart ache at the cost. "I just have to…"

  He trailed off, his attention caught by the sound of a running stream near his feet. From where he stood, he could see his reflection rippling in the cloudy, moonlit water, a pair of enchanting purple eyes standing out on his otherwise average-looking face.

  "It feels like some kind of metaphor or omen. I chose purple eyes because it's my lucky color, and the first thing I'll be doing is gouging them out. Hah."

  He hoped it wasn't foreshadowing how the rest of his playthrough would go.

  "Sigh," Cyrus puffed out, emptying his lungs to steel himself before slumping back down. "Let's...handle the hero business first while I'm still rational and not feverish from the pain. How do I view Hero info again? For the 5-Star guy."

  It turned out he just had to think about it for a familiar-looking screen to emerge.

  +++

  Summoned Hero Ye Yaoming - ?????

  Elemental Core: Fire

  Level: 1

  HP (Health): 79/880

  STM (Stamina): 100/910

  Stats

  ATK (Attack): 790

  DEF (Defense): 1,001

  BLS (Blessing of Heaven): 700

  SOL (Soul Strength): 505

  AGI (Agility): 195

  VIT (Vitality): 85

  CORE PERSONA STATS:

  Loyalty: 0

  Morale: 11

  Fatigue: 88

  HEROIC TRAITS

  [Social] Solitary

  [Moral] Principled

  [Emotional] Stoic

  [Intellectual] Perceptive

  [Volitional] Courageous

  [Physical] Vigilant

  APTITUDE

  Son of Heaven

  Under the boundless heaven, no other mortal is as beloved by your World Will as you. Even torn from your world, the scent of love lingers on your soul. Foreign World Wills welcome you regardless of your origin. High chance of fruitful encounters.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Villain's Resolution

  Every ending is carved into Destiny’s flesh. Your name appears many times beside those of evil. You engrave incomprehensible terror into all evils, weak and strong—fear of the End. Your mere presence lowers the morale of Evil-aligned beings.

  MORTAL SKILLS

  Heavenly Blade: Your blade is wholly blessed by the World Will, its edge sharpened by a brilliant light known as Hope. Wounds inflicted upon Evil-aligned beings cannot fully heal. Each kill at your Light Blade increases your Morale by 10 and boosts your Stamina restoration. (Blessing)

  Hellflame Rain: Unleash a spectacular storm of fire at your targets, dealing great damage to all enemies and increased damage to Evil-aligned enemies. This devastating attack costs 100 Stamina, 40 Fatigue, and -10 Morale. (Active)

  Lone Swordmaster: You are alone. You have always been alone, and you are destined to remain so. All skills are greatly amplified, and +2% of Max HP is regenerated every minute while no allies fight alongside you—at least not effectively—but your Morale drops by 5 every fifteen minutes. (Passive)

  Sumiya's Strongest: As the supreme mortal of your world, you are a prodigy unmatched in mastery. Any weapon, combat skill, or technique you witness even once is learned effortlessly. Mundane tasks and complex techniques alike bend to your natural talent. (Passive)

  +++

  "Tsk. Look at those ridiculous stats at level 1. Most of them are more than ten times mine."

  The gap was huge. Though seeing Yaoming's stats did confirm that Vitality was typically lower than the other stats, and the problem was not that he lacked vigor, at least not entirely.

  Regardless, seeing the 5-Star Hero profile only solidified his choice.

  "Yeah, no. Mr. what's-your-name-again-Hero, you're mine," Cyrus decided. "I don't care if you hate me for ending your world…

  "…Okay, fine. Maybe I do care a little.”

  Cyrus stared at the numbers before him, absentmindedly rubbing and peeling his lower lip.

  “He's definitely going to lash out, moan about everything, and probably refuse to do any quest at all. What a pain in the ass." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "But with 79 HP, 88 Fatigue, and—most concerning—11 Morale, not to mention barely enough Stamina for one single burst attack, he's going to die soon anyway. The world's doomed whether I ‘save’ him or not.

  "So, logically, all I'm doing is saving a poor soul, which merely pushed the destined end an hour or so forward."

  But logic might not mean much to someone losing everything. Cyrus knew that. He took a deep breath, feeling the tension in his temples.

  If the setback for choosing strength was this controversial, he imagined choosing loyalty meant the three-starred Hero would have trouble getting stronger and heavily stunt the player’s progression down the line to balance things out.

  There was something else that had been on his mind. Moshi mentioned that after being summoned, the Heroes and their world were frozen inside the Moonglade Realm. Did that still apply after the player took the Hero out? Would their world remain paused? How did this pocket world even work?

  If he assumed the worlds remained inside the Moonglade Realm—stopped in the moment through temporal suspension—even after the Hero was taken out, then he wouldn't have anything to do with the fate of this Yaoming guy's world, and the Hero could return to his last moment in Sumiya, only much stronger than he'd been with a better chance of saving his own world.

  In that case, Mr. Yaoming would have no reason at all to hate Mo Tian—if he was reasonable.

  "But..."

  That wasn't what he wanted.

  If the Hero had a world, a home, to return to, they would never truly be loyal to Mo Tian or actually commit to saving Hollow Rift like their life depended on it—like it was theirs. The Hero would just speedrun the quests and level-ups to go back, but Cyrus needed more than some passing grades. He needed sincerity. Desperation.

  "He's going to hate me like hell and be a management nightmare, but slowly..."

  Given enough time, Cyrus—a self-claimed professional 'I-can-fix-them' with a dozen full-cleared dating games under his belt—was somewhat confident in his ability to fix the Hero up, too. Sure, it'd taken time and a dozen tries, but eventually he'd managed to tame even the most insane targets. He could be persistent enough to.

  This was different, but the concept was similar enough. What was the worst a righteous cultivator could do to him? Maybe beat him up in an emotional outburst, but Cyrus would happily take it if that helped Yaoming grieve his loss and start the grind. Fists and beer were the marks of friendship between men.

  The Hero might never come to forgive Mo Tian, and his hatred toward the god would probably never lessen. But Cyrus, the fellow Isekai 'victim' who totally had nothing to do with Mo Tian, the god?

  He would start there.

  Not bothering to confirm with Moshi about the Moonglade Realm mechanics or even check out the 3-Star, he directly poked at the screen to see how to proceed with the summoning. He didn't want anything to change his mind, and that 3-Star loyal dog could wait to become his second Hero until he was ready.

  Cyrus quickly figured out that the summon could be scheduled and arranged it in eight hours, giving himself enough time to attend to his...agenda.

  [ Countdown until Summoned Hero Ye Yaoming Arrival: 07:59:59 ]

  "It's a risky plan."

  He had to rely on his ability to constantly lie and keep snowballing them. This was exactly why he needed [Blinded Sage]. Cyrus wouldn't call himself some genius mastermind or super manipulator who had a PhD in lying. He just did it for the sake of survival, and it wouldn't be surprising if he fucked up sometimes. Even with [Blinded Sage], he needed to be careful, or he'd still end up shooting himself in the foot.

  "It's also...uh, not very moral. I guess."

  He was kidnapping someone. And he was kicking Sumiya into an early end.

  But the cause of his hesitation wasn't the fact that he was doing something that might be as objectively evil as kicking a dog; if kicking a virtual dog could earn him a hundred bucks, he would kick until there was nothing left of it to be kicked and maybe ask for another one. It was just a bunch of code.

  The problem was that he could feel the soft flesh and heat of the poor dog on his feet. That did have him a bit conflicted. Clearly, Etercon had outdone themself. Regardless, none of this was real, merely the work of agonizingly impressive technology.

  I guess I'm going to be reminding myself of that a whole lot... He did that twice this chapter already.

  Either way, Cyrus wasn't virtuous enough to starve to death just because he felt bad for some game characters at the end of the day. He hadn't even been virtuous enough to let guilt stand in the way of a warm meal and a roof over his head in the past. He decided to not feel too shitty about whatever he would do that needed to be done to get to the game's True Ending.

  A god gotta do what a god gotta do to save the world, and a man will do what he needs to save himself.

  Whether it was thousands, millions, or billions, no NPC mattered if it meant saving Hollow Rift as the game wanted him to. Saving the world, after all, demanded a cold heart to make the necessary sacrifices. The first on the chopping board was his eyes, and he wouldn't show any favoritism to Summoned Hero Cyrus.

  Cyrus knelt at the bank of the stream, staring into his reflection for what could be his last time in a long while until he figured out a way to regenerate them. He really took the time to admire his eyes. They were truly beautiful, resembling glittering spiral galaxies he'd seen on the Internet—much unlike his real, boring brown eyes.

  A shame.

  At this moment, there were no other traits that could be more useful to his playstyle than the [Blinded Sage]. None that he could actually attain, anyway. Obviously, there were other traits far better off than a lie-detecting, pro-conman ability, but their requirements weren't as simple as removing some eyes. Not that removing your own eyes sounded simple at all.

  "Moshi," Cyrus called. "Is there something like a market for me to get some stuff from? My profile mentioned something Fate value. Can I use it to buy some items?"

  { Yes, Master. Fate is the reward the World Will grants to the Divine's Apostles, such as Master's summoned Heroes, and individuals who make significant contributions toward the Will. Master is now...Master's own Apostle, and may exchange Fate with commodities native to Hollow Rift through the Ollow Trader. }

  "Good." Cyrus nodded. As he expected, a game would obviously have an item shop, and Fate was the shop currency to buy mortal items. "Call this trader up for me, will you?"

  "Byak—!"

  At his word, a black bean-like thing fell from the sky with a yauping cry. Cyrus's hand moved without thinking to snatch the squeaky creature before it smacked against his face. He couldn't help giving a few squeezes to the bean-shaped creature with the texture of a stress toy. The small thing's one big and three small green eyes almost poked out like water beads pushing against a mesh.

  It kind of looked like the green guy from that old show with the yellow sponge with square pants. Or more like his tiny green pet dog.

  "Byak! Cease this assault at once, Apostle Cyrus! Or this one will deduct your already pitiful amount of Fate!"

  "Oops," Cyrus said, quickly letting it rest on his palm with a placating stroke. "Sorry. Couldn't resist."

  "Byak. Ollow will forgive you once. Ollow's name is Ollow, and Ollow trades! Apostle Cyrus has 300 Fate. What does the Apostle seek?"

  Another NPC that referred to themself in third-person. Great.

  Trying not to let it bother him too much, he moved on to something more important. Like the bean said, starting pocket money of three hundred was a stingy starter package.

  With a helpless shake of his head, he asked, "You got anything to uh, 'remove one's eyes'?"

  "Byak! Ollow got goods, many sorts of goods!"

  [ Spirit-Severing Elixir: An elixir sought out by those who walk the path of ultimate sacrifice. Severs the spiritual connection to a chosen body part, allowing for its painless removal and perfect preservation. (1,500 Fate) ]

  [ Karma-Cutting Scalpel: A physician's metaphysical blade. Cleanly severs a body part. The excision is painless, but the severed piece is ruined. (1,000 Fate) ]

  [ Popping Eye Fruit: A deceptively beautiful, vibrant fruit. Upon consumption, it causes the consumer's eyes to rupture in a single, violent burst. The agony is immense, but the process is swift and leaves the sockets clean. (500 Fate) ]

  [ Weeping Ghost Sap: Sap harvested from the accursed Weeping Ghost Tree. A single drop initiates a slow, excruciating dissolution of the eye, ensuring the suffering without endangering life. A favorite of many sadistic interrogators. (250 Fate) ]

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