Chapter 1201 – Knowledge Gap

“While I cannot commit to a specific timeline, I’ll certainly be visiting soon,” the high elf alchemist said courteously.

“We’ll certainly look forward to when the opportunity arises,” the other high elf responded with a smile. “Now, I shall not hold you up any longer. I understand that the Chosen of the Malefic One will soon be returning to the Order and wouldn’t want to get in the way of anything.”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Meira shook her head. “I don’t think Lord Thayne would have anything against a delegate from the Altmar Empire paying her respects.

“That’s comforting to know,” the B-grade elf from the Altmar Empire chuckled. “However, I shall stick to my original plan and take my leave.”

Meira nodded, knowing that there was no need to try to convince the other party. All of this was just platitudes, anyway. She still felt it was a little weird, but the etiquette classes she took made it clear that this little game of theater was something one had to participate in once in a while.

The elf soon departed, leaving Meira back alone in her tower that Duskleaf had helped her build within the land technically belonging to Jake. Alone once more, she inspected some of the ongoing experiments she had been working on and was happy to see that things were progressing well.

Duskleaf had taught Meira a lot, and even now, he had left behind an avatar to continue guiding her despite how busy he was at the Pantheon of Life. Of course, Meira did help her Patron a little by being the sponge he could complain to about his projects at the Pantheon while getting constant affirmation that his struggles were indeed all valid and worth complaining about.

Continuing through her tower, she went and found a book she had been looking for. As she walked, she looked out a window toward the buildings in the distance where she used to live. It had been a long time since she’d seen any life there, making her feel a little sad.

It had been a while since Meira had returned from Nevermore, having spent her full fifty years as a C-grade inside. Of course, she hadn’t competed on the Leaderboards, but had just gone with a party primarily from the Altmar Empire.

Needless to say, Meira had been very worried about going in the first place. She’d never been much of a fighter, and while her Patron had helped her train, she still felt green. Luckily, the party she went with knew this, and while they were forced to do the easy first floors anyway, Meria got in plenty of practice. While she wouldn’t say she was a good fighter now, she believed herself to at least be decent… though that was primarily because Meira didn’t actually have to fight most of the time.

She was a healer, through and through. That was at least something she had always been and a Path she herself had chosen. As a healer, she had been able to help her family and friends back in her clan, and the fact that she’d been good at it only made it better.

Her Path as an alchemist had greatly supplemented her healing, especially her specialization in formations. That was something her Patron had discovered early on that she excelled at, and with time, Meira had only further deepened her understanding of formations and the endless possibilities within.

According to her party members, she was a nightmare to her opponents due to her ability to nullify damage, heal injuries, and control the entire battlefield through intricate formations. Sure, offensively, she had little besides a few poisons and regular mana attacks, but that was why she had been in a group, and if she did ever find herself isolated, she had gotten extremely good at fleeing through more than a dozen self-crafted escape treasures.

Shaking her head, Meira brought her book downstairs to the cozy living room and sat down to read. The book was one of those where every page was a formation circle to study and decipher, so it was unsurprising that several days passed with her studying it while only occasionally getting up to make some tea – a blend of her own that increased mental focus and soothed the mind.

As she was reading, she suddenly got a divine message from her Patron that made her perk up. Lord Thayne and the other C-grade friends of his who had gone to the Pantheon of Life were about to return.

Meira couldn’t help but feel nervous as it had been so many years since she had last met Lord Thayne, especially for her. She knew that over fifty years was a long time for someone like her, who felt like her life had only truly begun after she went to the Order of the Malefic Viper as a slave, something that felt like it had truly been an entire lifetime ago.

She wondered how much more powerful her former master had become. If he had also changed or was the same person he’d always been. But perhaps most importantly… how would she feel when she saw him again?

All she could do now was wait… and for some reason, their return trip seemed to last a lot longer than Meria had thought it would, only making the long-awaited reunion more suspenseful.

—

“We need to at least wait for them to wake up,” Villy pointed out. “Would be pretty fucking weird if we popped in with half the group unconscious.”

“Good point,” Jake muttered, not finding any good argument against that one.

They were all currently sitting within a large living room that Jake remembered having visited a few times prior, the first of which had been as a projection of his own soul way back in the Tutorial.

It was a private area of the Malefic Viper, and Jake was honestly a little surprised that Villy had brought everyone there. Then again, where else could he have brought them?

Due to the teleportation vessel being a mess, they couldn’t just appear in the Order while inside of it, as that would have raised a lot of questions. So, making a little pit-stop along the way made a lot of sense, especially when one considered that they had to wait for Sylphie, the King, and Dina to wake up from their Void God-induced slumber. Alright, technically, the slumber was self-imposed as an automatic defense mechanism to protect their own minds, but Jake still blamed Oras for being an incomprehensible eldritch being.

After arriving at the Viper’s private space, Jake and the Sword Saint had found some large beds for the three to sleep things off before the two gods and C-grades made themselves comfortable in the living room. Unsurprisingly, Jake and Villy had been the two who felt the most comfortable chatting away, but the other two did soon get their bearings somewhat.

Seeing as they had the time to chat away, Jake asked something he had been kind of curious about as he looked at the Viper. “Say, do you have any idea what Oras might be thinking?”

“Damn, that question came out of left field,” the Viper chuckled. “But the answer is no. Seeing through the thoughts of a Void God is not something I fancy myself capable of. Sure, I can have theories and guesses, but in the end, his reasoning might be something that simply doesn’t make any logical sense to me. He’s killed gods he’s never even had any interactions with before, seemingly out of nowhere. Yet he’s also helped other gods, once more seemingly out of nowhere. Rarely does he ever provide any meaningful explanations for anything he does… not unless you make some kind of trade for him to share.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Okay, not gonna lie, I just imagined being a new god and jovially trying to travel the void, only for a sea of eyes to come out of nowhere and consume me without any cause or reason,” Jake said. “The multiverse should definitely reconsider using the void as a shortcut to teleport places if one can get unlucky like that and run into a random Void God who decides to end one’s existence.”

“Eh, you’re exaggerating,” the Viper waved him off. “I said it’s happened, but only a couple of times. Usually, Void Gods don’t get involved with the rest of the multiverse at all. You saw at Nevermore how limited the number of people they get involved with is.”

“It’s not that surprising that the Void Gods have few followers, is it?” Artemis asked. “They’re all solitary entities after all.”

“True,” the Viper agreed. “Admittedly, I’m also unsure how their method of Blessings works. I know they don’t have levels like ours, so it may take more out of them to bless each person.”

Jake nodded along. “Yeah, but considering the scale of the multiverse, there should still be a fair number of Void God followers out there, right?”

His innocent question made Villy throw him a glance as a thought struck the god. “Say, Jake, how many Void Gods do you know of?”

“Oras and that weird cube thing,” Jake shrugged, not sure where the Viper was going with his question.

“Let me follow up… how many Void Gods do you think there are in total?” the Malefic Viper questioned, now seeming incredibly interested.

Jake felt like it was a trick question, but when he thought more about it, he realized he’d never actually considered it. He knew there were an absolute fuckload of gods out there, so he’d kind of just assumed there were also a lot of Void Gods.

“You say Void Gods are technically Void Dwellers, right?” Jake asked.

“Yeah,” the Viper confirmed.

“And there are, like, countless Void Dwellers?”