Matthias slowly opened his eyes once again, and not anymore he found himself in the crater.
His back was placed on top of a solid surface that wasn't truly alike with the ground he previously laid on, while in front of his gaze stood a wooden ceiling.
His body was covered by a warm blanket, and his head was lying on top of a soft pillow… Was he on a bed of some kind?
It seemed like he had been carried off to a better place while he was speaking with the Goddess.
However, while Matthias' situation was visibly better than before, he couldn't say the same for his actual condition. A terrible feeling of weakness washed over his body, he still felt pain pulsating all over him due to the accumulated bruises, his left shoulder still felt weirdly uncomfortable…
…And a despairing sense of unease overwhelmed his mind.
He was in a safe place, and yet, he himself wasn't safe.
And it was all because of Ilias—No.
It… It was his fault, wasn't it?
If he took his situation with Luka more carefully, he could have come out of it unscathed and possibly even have someone who could help him around.
But out of panic for losing control, he blundered, Luka blundered, and in this horrible chain of events that got worse the further it went on, he ended up attracting the attention of the strongest and most fearsome people in the world for all the wrong reasons.
And what did he get out of this? Nothing!
Luka was probably begging for sex by the slime girl who captured him, if it truly was as addictive as the game suggested;
Alice got carbonized, devoured, digested, and spat out until only pure liquefied molecules were left;
He had nothing to leverage his relationship with Ilias due to his miscalculations, and…
"..." Matthis lifted the blanket off his body, noticing a bloody stump on his left forearm.
He wasn't just hallucinating it, he truly did lose his left arm during his exchange with Black Alice.
However, he could also see strange things wrapped around the stump: several sheets of yellow paper stained in his blood and engraved with strange symbols, akin to paper talismans.
Whatever this was, it didn't appear to be made by the people of Iliasville. Rather, another place came to mind as he thought about it…
…But it didn't matter now.
It didn't matter what those paper talismans might be, it didn't matter who placed them on his forearm, and it didn't matter that he actually lost a limb permanently.
What truly mattered was that he was still in this accursed world, given six months' worth of time, an impossible task to accomplish under that same deadline, and he didn't even know how to start finding salvation!
Matthias' right fist began to pulsate in pain as he clenched it hard, but he didn't seem to pay any mind to it as he was focused on more important stuff.
How was he supposed to be strong enough to defeat an eldritch god stronger than Ilias in under six months?!
Not only that, he also didn't have anyone who could possibly be willing to support him in this world, he couldn't even talk to anyone because of the language barrier, and he had no personal assets of his own that were worth anything!
Even if he were to take this task seriously, he still needed the proper foundations to do so!
He needed money!
He needed connections!
He needed knowledge!
Talent!
Luck!
Actual potential to even pull this off!
And he had none of them, being the weak and pathetic human that he was!
Only the knowledge part could be argued that he possessed – originally being from a place where this world was extolled as a mere game – but even then, there was nothing in his mind that could possibly help him out under such conditions.
Even Luka was struggling to accomplish what Ilias truly wanted him to do, despite having powerful allies to help him out, and having won the genetic lottery by being the descendant of a legendary hero and one of Ilias' own direct daughters.
And if he could barely do it, how could Matthias?!
But he could do nothing either!
Who was to say that Ilias wouldn't go back to her word and kill him as soon as she deemed him useless?
She had no reason to keep her promise of waiting for results, if it was clear there was nothing of worth from him.
Matthias slowly inhaled and exhaled, and as he calmed down, he began to recount things in his mind and think about his situation more thoroughly.
Complaining wasn't going to get him anywhere, after all.
To begin with, his ultimate goal was to return home and leave this world behind, and – of course – he had to stay alive to do so.
Unfortunately, the one and only Goddess of this world was threatening his life, and the only way to survive was to go alongside her wishes and become as strong as possible, to accomplish her plans in Luka's stead.
Besides that, he doubted he could sneak below her nose and escape, considering the power and authority she supposedly carried within herself, and the fact that she might be watching him in this very instant without his knowledge…
…Meaning that he had to postpone his return until he was actually done with Ilias' task.
Thus, the dilemma of how to solve her problem came up once more.
How was he supposed to kill the arguably strongest Monster Lord in history within the span of six months?
Physical exercise? Studying magic? Learning swordsmanship and stuff like that? Contracting with the Four Spirits? Transforming into a monster girl? Gathering allies? There were so many options, and yet none of them gave him the confidence and certainty he wished to have right now.
But it was still something; it was still a step forward in the right direction.
It was a good idea to start with furthering his understanding of how the world worked and its possibilities, before building up a true plan for his strengthening.
Even though he might know the world's story by heart, alongside many trivias in between, he admittedly didn't know everything.
He didn't know why monsters could use magic while humans couldn't, he didn't know how the Goddesses and the Four Spirits were truly born, he didn't know how the laws of magic worked in this world, he didn't know what else was present in the game as his knowledge only extended up to the part 2 of the game's sequel…
…There were many things that had no chance to be explained in the game or simply weren't mentioned yet, which would have been useful to him now if he knew of them all.
And, as much of an insane and manipulative megalomaniac Ilias was, there was no way she would give him a chance at all if he truly couldn't accomplish her mission.
There had to be something that he wasn't seeing yet, whether around him or within himself, and such knowledge was the key he had to find if he wished to open the door back to home.
But, of course, the aforementioned issues were still there to prevent him from doing anything…
Language barrier, lack of material resources, and unfamiliarity with the workings of this world's society…
Those were the biggest obstacles on his way to acquire the kind of knowledge he wished to possess, obstacles that he had no way to push aside to get what he wanted, and with the language issue being the worst offender of them all.
As long as he learned this world's language, half of his problems would be solved already!
But how was he supposed to do that? Read books that were exclusively written in this world's language? Listen to people until he learnt to mimic their speech and understand the meaning behind it?
Even if he were to try learning it through exposure, it would take at the very least months to get the smallest degree of proficiency, months that would obliterate the tiniest amount of time he had already been left with to accomplish Ilias' goals.
The only way to solve that issue in a preferred amount of time…
'...It would be cheating, I guess.' Matthias thought. 'Finding a non-standard way to do it, like through some sort of magic spell, if it even exists, or…'
"..." His frown deepened by several degrees as his thought process was reaching places it shouldn't even approach, ideas that he truly didn't want to deal with at all.
Should he truly risk it all by asking help from Ilias?
There weren't other realistic choices available, however; at least, no choices that were 100% guaranteed to work…
…But was it worth the risk?
After all he did to stay away from danger, was it worth annoying the Goddess that just spared him from a cruel death? Right when he already had a foot down his own grave?
No, no… Doing such a thing this early was way too risky.
Maybe it would be better to wait some time until she was more relaxed, if he truly had to do this. It would be ideal, as he could at the very least guarantee some form of leeway in the argument.
Until then, however…
'It's time to get my ass moving.' Such ran Matthias' thoughts as he gritted his teeth through the dull pain across his body, and slowly sat up from the bed.
He couldn't waste time resting around, Ilias wouldn't like that.
In a way or another, he had to gather the necessary resources to accomplish what he had to do.
Through stiff movements, Matthias managed to get up on his feet and look around the room, observing his new surroundings.
As far as he could guess, it seemed like he was in a bedroom of some kind, with walls built in stone and a wooden floor beneath his feet. It was barely decorated though, clearly not being regularly used.
Was it a rental unit of some sort?
Matthias' eyes wandered further into the corners of the room, where he found a familiar-looking set of accouterments such as his phone, his… shirt? And were those his pants?
As realization set in, his gaze shifted downward, where he found several strips of bandages and cotton wrapped all around his body, practically dressing him up with them alone.
Was he given medical care after he was brought here? That was most likely, but he had no time to wonder about the effect of the bandages on his body.
Trying to avoid wasting time, Matthias walked up to his clothes on the ground and reached for his shirt, but…
"...Oh, right." Matthias blankly stared at the blue shirt on the ground, sitting very well within his reach, and yet still beyond his grasp.
He… He forgot about it.
He didn't have a left arm anymore.
After a moment of hesitation, Matthias twisted his body a bit and extended his right arm instead, grasping the piece of cloth that was clearly missing a sleeve: courtesy of Black Alice.
He took his time to dress up, albeit with surprising difficulty due to his lack of a helping hand; but, once he pocketed everything that belonged to him, he immediately walked up to the door of the bedroom to leave.
As he did that, he felt the echoes of pain brought by his bruises, which didn't heal yet; his body also felt rather heavy, exhausted.
He couldn't help but stop midway through because of these sensations, and slowly looked behind his back.
Over there, Matthias' eyes saw the bed he just stood up from, and desires flashed through his eyes.
Oh, how much he wanted to just lay down and rest… So much happened in so little time, he didn't even manage to process it all.
But… He couldn't afford to.
Extending his right arm forward, Matthias pushed the door open and forced himself to step outside against his will.
His eyes immediately fell on a stained glass window hanging in the middle of two grey stone walls, reminiscing of a church.
A red carpet was sprawled below his feet, while the hall he just stepped into was full of priests—
—The Ilias Temple?
This was the Ilias Temple set in the middle of Iliasville, right?
Considering his new surroundings and the circumstances behind his awakening, this was the only place that could possibly satisfy the conditions of having: both a religious theme, and set within the general area.
Some passing people set their gazes upon him as soon as he came out of the bedroom, but Matthias only paid the slightest attention to them before setting forth to find an exit.
First thing first, he had to get his winter jacket and hoodie back from Luka's house, and then he would start to gather everything in the village he may need for the future: money, resources, and such stuff.
「失礼いたします.」
「あの! 少しだけお待ちください!」
Voices and clanking noises came from behind his back, but Matthias still didn't bother slowing down in the slightest, whether those voices were trying to talk with him or not.
It was only when a solid hand grasped onto his shoulder that he was brought to a stop, prompting him to turn around to see who was trying to interact with him.
A common soldier, akin to those who ran after him back then…
「お邪魔して申し訳ありませんが,少々お聞きしたいことがあります.」
As expected, the soldier spoke gibberish, but before he could talk any further, Matthias promptly stopped the man by shrugging the hand off his shoulder and then pointing at his ear, gesticulating with his free hand left and right as if to indicate that his hearing was gone.
He truly wasn't in the mood to speak with anyone, but unable to verbalize such thoughts, all Matthias could do was tell a lie and indicate that he was deaf and unable to carry such conversations.
In return, the soldier blinked in surprise, as if taken aback by his acting…
「おっと,耳が聞こえないんですか?... なら, せめても読み書きはできますよね?」
...But he still didn't stop talking.
"..." Matthias blankly stared at the man in disbelief as the soldier continued to talk.
Sure, he might not be used to mute communication, but it shouldn't be so hard to understand he couldn't listen to the soldier's spoken language, was it?
First it was Luka, now this guy… Were all the people in the village this dumb?
「あっ,確かに,聞こえませんね...」The man suddenly developed an awkward expression while whispering words under his breath, as if he was caught in an embarrassing moment, before he then gestured back at Matthias with both his hands as if to ask him to wait in his spot.
And then, he hurriedly walked away, leaving the bandaged young man alone.
"..." Meanwhile, said young man silently stared at the retreating form of the soldier, before he turned his body around and proceeded to walk into the opposite direction.
'Well, that was weird…' Matthias thought to himself as he observed his surroundings, finding his way through the hallway. 'Anyway, where's the exit of the temple?'
As he followed the carpeted road and stepped around the passing people, he eventually managed to find himself in a particularly large room, filled with soldiers, priests, and pools of clean water for decoration.
This should be the main hall visible at the entrance of the temple, according to the game's map design… But there was still no exit in sight.
In that case, was he on the upper floor? That would explain why there was no door connected to the outside yet.
Although, if he was indeed in that particular place—
'...' Matthias turned his curious gaze across the hall and observed one particular wall built with stone, like all the others… and that was it.
His eyes already narrowed down into a half-lidded gaze as his interest vanished. It seemed like he couldn't see the invisible door to the Reaper's realm of Hades, the same one only Luka from the sequel was capable of seeing for some reason…
Time rewinds from Ilias' Soul Return Network were out of the question, since everything was flowing as normal regardless of Luka's conditions;
He also had no way to get in contact with the White Rabbit or the Reaper either, both being special beings with access and knowledge over parallel universes.
…He already knew that he was in dire straits and couldn't take the easy way out, but experiencing it first-hand still managed to cement his despair over the situation even further.
Having no more interest or business in this place, Matthias immediately located the stairs to the ground floor and made his way out of the temple, without anyone blocking his way or otherwise impeding him at all.
And, as he stepped out of the large gate of the holy temple, a wave of fresh air hit his nostrils once again while a breeze blew on his face.
However, he didn't even bother enjoying or even process any of it; he couldn't afford to.
Beside the fact that his body was still hurting all over, now a vague feeling of hunger and thirst began to take shape within him.
There was also the general feeling of loss overwhelming his thought process, the urgent task that Ilias gave him just now…
…He couldn't physically or psychologically find a way to relax under such circumstances, no way.
With his mind zoning out trying to find something in his memories that could give him hope, Matthias climbed down the huge staircase that united the temple set on a hill from the rest of Iliasville.
He had to learn this world's language…
He had to find a way to gather money…
He had to be strong enough to kill a being that had god-like powers…
He had to find a way to get out of this world…
He had to find help…
He had to get food and water…
He had to survive and live…
He had to get stronger…
He had to get stronger…
He had to—
「放して!」
Matthias blinked out of his stupor as a feminine scream entered his ears, bringing his attention to the large staircase he was descending from — more precisely, at the middle of it.
There, he saw the somewhat eye-catching quarrel happening between another soldier and a village woman.
The soldier was holding onto the woman's arms, stopping her from climbing the stairs any further, while the woman was — of course — doing the opposite.
They were also shouting at each other, although the woman behaved with desperation more than anything else.
However, as Matthias stared at the two, the soldier seemingly found themselves pulled by his gaze as they stared back. Just like that, they made eye contact.
It was then that the soldier let go of the woman and walked up to him with more urgency instead, as if not minding if the woman they were previously restraining kept climbing up despite his last actions.
But, as an annoyed expression surfaced on Matthias' face at the thought of interacting with yet another foreigner—
'—Oh shit.'
「しまった!」One of the soldier's armored feet accidentally stepped far into the wide stair's edge, prompting them to lose their balance and… unceremoniously fall down the temple's stairs.
*Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!* The soldier rolled through each step, bringing clamor on his way as metal plates clashed against the cold stone stairs.
It was like a giant tin can was kicked off, clanging and clanging on its way down.
Both Matthias and the woman observed the scene in silence and concern, while the armored man did their best to fight against gravity and momentum.
And yet, neither of them made a move to assist him. They simply watched the man fall further and further down the terrifyingly long staircase…
*Clang!* *Clang!*
*Clang!*
*Clang…*
By the time the noise was barely hearable, Matthias already lost most of his worries as he was standing there, staring at the rolling man with morbid curiosity to see how this comical slip would end.
Unfortunately, he couldn't even be afforded the role of spectator as the woman beside him suddenly approached him.
「あなたは勇者だよね!?」
Caught off guard, Matthias' attention was brought toward the village woman in question as she grasped on his shoulders.
「勇者様,どうか力をお貸しください!」
She blabbered something, only for the young man to ignore her. There was no reason to pay heed to her if he could not understand a word she was saying, after all.
「ルカという紫色の髪の男の子がいるんだけど,魔物を退治するため,朝,村の外の森に行ったんだ!」
「彼はまだ帰ってこない!」
「お願い,ルカを連れ戻して!」
And yet, for a moment, Matthias' thoughts paused as a certain familiar word coming from the woman's mouth entered his ears.
"ルカ" she said…
…"Ruka"...
…Luka?
'Oh, right.'
Even if Luka was technically out of commission, he wasn't dead like Alice. Theoretically, he could still get the boy back from the slime girls who captured him…
…Well, whatever. It wasn't like he mattered anymore.
The deal was already set, he had to replace him now.
Matthias put his next foot down the stair ahead, and resumed his de—
'—Shit!' His heart dropped in horror as the foot he extended forward landed in an awkward manner, causing him to lose balance and prompt him down the staircase in the exact same way the fallen soldier had done…
…Except, unlike that man, he had no armor to protect him.
"Ow!"