‘The bastards… do you mean gods?’

‘Yes, Pest,’ I snorted. ‘They don’t deserve to be called such.’

‘Someone here holds a gruuudge, ouch, I’m talking! This contract… Gods. Bard, Druid, Cleric, Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Monk, Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock. The months are called after them, easy to remember, twelve and the Twelve. What else… Where they came from. I remember that legend…’

‘Go on,’ I nodded.

‘At first, there was only Chaos, a sea of pure probability. Once, on accident, it gave birth to Order. And Order wasn’t just something, it was someone, like a god, but a bigger one that the Twelve. Order pulled our world out of Chaos, but they were still connected, and from Chaos monsters and calamities came to our world. So, Order separated them entirely, except it was too much even for him and the effort split him into twelve parts. The gods. And despite all that, there were still monsters in the world, because they were trapped within and just bred there, ha! The Twelve saw that and made adventurers out of some people so they would protect humanity from them. But, I don’t know what was their intention, but the Guild sucks. If I could do it, I’d destroy it! Screw adventurers!’

I huffed. Curious information, but essentially useless. Until now, my personal plan of revenge was pretty vague. I gained EXP and new abilities, but I couldn’t keep going like that with no strategy behind it, with no clear end goal. Well, I knew I had to become stronger than I was in Hell if I were to take the gods all at once again. Or I had to come up with a way to divide them before an attack. I was sure that at my strongest I was able to take on a few of them, at least a couple.

Then, I also had to get to Heaven somehow. I knew the mechanics of travelling from Hell to the mortal realm, and that usually required a summoning from there or a lot of luck and strength in finding and breaching a thin spot in the veil between the realms. As for the other way, again, it was either banishment with a spell or death.

If Heaven was symmetrical to Hell, there should be a spell to send me there, but as far as I knew the only ones doing spells were adventurers… And besides, while the theory was there, I never even heard about a spell like that.

Meanwhile, Pest kept talking. ‘What else? Well, the gods give the classes to adventurers, but they also do other stuff. Or at least favour it. There are temples of them all around the kingdoms and everyone prays to them no matter where they live. Goddess of Druids and God of Bards are the most popular, though God of Rogues is also there. Officially he favours only, like, good rogues—merchants, say—but, duh. I don’t know what else to say! Can you ask a pointing question at least? I lost almost half a point of INT by now, I’m going to just forget everything I remembered soon!’

I rolled my eyes. ‘You can stop talking, Pest. But now that you mentioned, how much INT do you have? What about other stats? Actually, forget that. Just read me your character sheet.’

Pest let out a huff. ‘Yes, yes. Here.’

He read aloud the lines of it. The result wasn’t far from what I imagined and speculated before, though it was interesting that he had ‘None’ in physical stats. I’ve never seen it before.

[Toriaxius Magnificio Daresco The Best]

[General Info]

Species: Draining Curse

Sex: None

Age: 68d

Height: 0cm

Weight: 0kg

Emotional state: Hatred

Titles: None

[Contracts]

Unnamed contract (expiration date isn’t stated)

[Stats]

HP: 1/1

EXP: 6842

STR: None

DEX: None

CON: None

INT: 16.12

[Abilities]

EXP Draining (lv 4)

Magic Sensitivity (lv 1)

Magic Manipulation (lv 1)

Create a Draining Curse (lv 1)

‘Sixteen INT? And you still complain? Ha! I don’t hear about any abilities for empowering me, as well. You promised you could do that. How, Pest?’

‘How? Wasn’t that clear enough? Look, I have ‘Magic Sensitivity’ and ‘Magic Manipulation’. These abilities allow me to do magic, and real magic, not that god-calling adventurers do. I remember spells to increase stats, do damage, all sorts of things! I could remember even more spells if I level up my INT, I’m sure. Like, to thirty, maybe?’

‘Thirty? That would take forever…’ I was sceptical. Since the stats increased by using them, levelling INT required intellectual activity. Seemed simple, but the increase only happened if that activity was actually straining your brain at all. And it was just generally slow and tiresome, like any grind. ‘What magic can you do now?’

‘Now? None! At level one, my magic abilities are useless. I need at least second level for even the simplest sh-, I mean, things. Things. And they both cost ten thousand EXP to level up. I just didn’t bother before.’

I clicked my tongue in disdain. How useless. That, and the fact that any EXP Pest could get, would obviously come from me. I could spare twenty thousand, but it was a matter of principle!

“Please, you must help me!” someone cried out at the table next to mine. The high pitch of the voice pierced the noise of the Guild hall and instantly drew my attention to its source.

A woman. A beautiful, beautiful woman, with her eyes shining with tears and her arms held in a praying gesture. A damsel… in distress.