The House of Repose and a God’s Favor

‘What is this?’

My body and face were wrapped in bandages. My stamina had recovered, and the hole in my chest was gone. The place I was lying was not the inn I had booked. A pungent smell of disinfectant, sharp enough to sting my nose, permeated the air.

The wooden walls gleamed with a greasy sheen. Outside, it was pitch black and silent.

“What is this?”

There was no one. At least, no one else was in this room where I had been lying. Tearing off the bandages from my head and body, I rose from the spot.

In a corner of the room lay the armor I had worn and the sword I had used. Blackened by soot and practically drenched in demonic fluids, they were haphazardly tossed into a wooden barrel.

‘Why do they look like that? As if they’d been thrown into a trash can.’ Feeling inexplicably annoyed, I casually picked them up and stowed them in my inventory.

‘I’ll have to clean or discard these later. I should have just worn cheap gear. It’s a bit of a waste, considering it’s mithril.’

I stepped out of the room, but still found no one. It wasn’t merely a room; it was a small hut. An incredibly tiny hut, where a single bed constituted its entire furnishing.

Flickering torches were sparsely hung, casting faint light along a narrow path lined with small huts. While inside, I hadn’t noticed, but now that I was out, I could hear the groans of people in pain.

“Oh, for f*ck’s sake.”

At first, having just woken up, I hadn’t recognized it. But now, I knew exactly what this was.

“I told them not to bury me, and instead, they dumped me in a corpse waiting room?”

Its proper name was the ‘House of Repose’. This was a section in the game where NPCs suffering from severe illnesses or nearing death due to old age were quarantined. It was typically located on the outskirts of a major city that housed a temple.

‘Why had I collapsed in the first place? Given the current situation, it didn’t seem like an event. If it had been an event, someone would have been with me. But there was no one.’

‘My HP was still around 65%, and there was nothing that could have killed me.’ Everywhere my gaze fell, the emblem of ‘Isanta,’ one of the Nine Great Sages, was emblazoned.

“Right. Isanta is the main deity of Ire. But why am I the only one here?”

Isanta is the God of Beauty. He is also the deity of art and love. His lore states that no one has ever truly seen his face due to its overwhelming radiance, and he takes the form of a naked male figure.

He isn’t particularly popular among players. ‘Naked male figures are a dime a dozen, after all.’

Those who managed to access the system data to check his face claimed he was indeed incredibly handsome, but not blindingly so. Some even argued that simply having a glow effect was better.

Slowly following the path, I arrived at a temple shimmering with brilliant lights. As the Temple of Aesthetics, it was extravagantly adorned. Every stone slab on the floor, every crevice in the window bars, bore intricate carvings. Two guards, dozing off, snapped awake at my approach. They crossed their spears, blocking my path.

“It’s late. You should turn back.”

“What does that matter? Temples are fundamentally open to anyone, at any time. Besides, this path requires passing through the temple to exit. So where exactly am I supposed to go?”

‘Judging by their attire, they seemed to be priests of Isanta, but they weren’t like any I knew. I didn’t like Isanta, but Isanta adored me. He had even given a revelation, causing a statue of me to be erected in this city, that’s how much he liked me.’

‘Honestly, I disliked him because the naked, faceless male character kept clinging to me. Ugh, why does he wander around naked? Even if it were a female character, people would be disgusted, wondering what kind of abomination it was—but a male character?’

The guard—no, the priest of Isanta—seemed to try to push me. He placed a hand on my shoulder, but when I didn’t budge, he looked at his colleague beside him, seemingly flustered.

“This is strange. Isn’t one of Isanta’s fundamental tenets to abhor barbarism? And yet, they’re laying hands on me without a word?”

‘It was the same with Hamman. Being blocked, sure, I could let that slide. It could be dismissed as a misunderstanding because they didn’t recognize me.’

‘But Isanta liked me so much that he’d bestow blessings and erect statues of me even without my prayers, simply out of boredom. And these priests couldn’t recognize me? They dared to lay hands on me?’

Isanta detests barbarism. He dislikes violence and coercion, proclaiming that true beauty lies in freedom. I never understood why such a deity would favor my character, who committed all sorts of mischief, but he claimed it was because I was the freest human.

‘Well, players can do anything, so that makes sense, I suppose.’ I had even been forcibly abducted to Isanta’s paradise before.

‘I recall it took me ten in-game days just to escape, as he kept activating ‘forced bed mode’. Seriously, he clung to me with every step; how was I supposed to live like that? Terrified, I simply ran away.’

‘He claimed to dislike coercion, yet he kidnapped me. When I later confronted him, he treated me as if I were the strange one, asking, “How can a divine blessing be coercion?”‘

‘I truly couldn’t understand him. Did he mean it was fine as long as he didn’t hit me? If Isanta hadn’t agreed that our Bebe and Bodangbo were beautiful, I would have flayed him, god or not.’

‘Now that I think about it, that’s a bit of a shame. I should have experimented to see what happens if you injure or kill a main deity NPC of the Nine Great Sages. Would they have an immortality code designated by the system, like the Seven Evils?’

“Th-this guy, why won’t he move?”

“What are you doing, unable to get rid of this mangy bastard?”

“Something’s wrong! You try, too!”

One struggled to grab and push me, while the other leaned on his spear, looking at his struggling comrade with disdain. I subtly nudged the Isanta priest clinging to me and continued walking.

“Go away. I dislike Isanta, but I don’t want to hurt his priests.”

‘Even so, if someone treats me well, it’s hard to just hate them. Isanta hadn’t committed any grave offenses, had he? I only disliked him because he was bothersome. Come to think of it, he hasn’t bestowed any blessings recently.’

‘But that’s probably because I’ve been with Hamman’s priests. It wasn’t like he always gave them to me, anyway.’

“Are they telling me not to come to the temple? They keep doing this whenever I try to enter, and I don’t understand why.”

‘Should I just kill them instead? I glanced around. There was no one else here besides these two. If I killed them now, I could dispose of them quietly….’

‘No. This wasn’t just any place; it was Isanta’s temple. Isanta would know instantly. Event skips weren’t working properly right now, so if Isanta cast some strange curse like pleasure addiction, it would be difficult to dispel.’

As I took a few more steps inside, the guard who had been leaning on his spear gasped and grabbed my arm. However, perhaps because his stats were so abysmal, he was simply dragged along with me.

“Stop! I said stop! What the hell is this guy?!”

“Hey, I don’t think Isanta would like you guys very much, so how are you even priests?”

“What are you talking about?!”

“You’re ugly, stupid, and blind for not recognizing me. Isanta likes things that are special, but you’re just common, run-of-the-mill NPCs.”

‘I had genuinely asked out of curiosity, but they just got angry. It seemed they had no intention of answering.’ As I continued walking, their numbers began to increase, one by one.

Hamman’s priests, at least, had a certain gravitas, but these felt like mere paper, almost completely devoid of weight. ‘Having people clinging to my arms, legs, and body everywhere wasn’t a particularly pleasant feeling, but it was fine; I could just shake them off once I got out.’

The House of Repose was structured so that one had to pass through the temple to exit. ‘Apparently, according to the lore, it was meant to signify that the gods watched over the unfortunate until their very last moments. And priests would sometimes offer aid to those passing through.’

‘It didn’t seem to be functioning that way now, though.’

A little further, and I reached the temple plaza. In the distance, the temple entrance, glittering with dazzling lights, came into view. Suddenly, the relentless clingers began to falter, their movements growing erratic.

“W-wait a minute. Doesn’t this guy… resemble that statue?”

“What kind of idiotic… huh? Oh?”

‘A statue? Yes, there was one. I didn’t come here often, but I knew it well. Because the subject of the stone statue, standing beside a gorgeously adorned fountain, was me. It was a bonus reward: if you maxed out Isanta’s favorability while doing quests in Isanta’s temple, he would erect one.’

“L-Lord Isanta?”

One by one, as they recognized my face, the priests released their grip and scattered. ‘What was this nonsense now?’

“Can’t you even recognize your own god? How do I look like Isanta?”

“B-but, a naked, handsome figure, and… the statue….”

“That’s a statue Isanta put up to thank me, it’s not Isanta himself. No, you’re priests of the temple, and you didn’t know that until now? You thought ‘that’ was Isanta? All this time?”

Many strange things had happened. Countless incidents I had simply brushed aside. But this, this was beyond ridiculous, wasn’t it?

What kind of devotees couldn’t recognize their own god’s face? Were naked, handsome figures so rare in this world? ‘I should have set my character to have purple skin and be bald.’

To be treated identically to Isanta was truly the worst. My mood turned sour, but then a thought struck me, freezing me in place.

‘I don’t know. Is this okay? What is this?’

“It’s fine. It’s fine.”

‘What’s fine?’

Everything I knew was unraveling. Nothing remained the same. Was it because the AI had improved, because I hadn’t followed the quest line properly, because the system wasn’t functioning correctly, or because my sensory perception was too high?

“This shouldn’t be happening….”

They were chattering amongst themselves, but none of their words reached my ears.

[Logout.]

[Cannot be executed. Please check the main quest.]

The system was working. It was a mess, but this much, this much at least….

Right after opening my eyes, I hadn’t known what it was. After leaving that small hut, I had been angry. Because I was alone? Because the kids weren’t there? Because the place I had fallen asleep was the ‘House of Repose,’ where the dying and soon-to-be-dead were discarded?

It was just a game. If a player died, NPCs could return to their original positions. Sometimes, if favorability was high, they would wait, but the three didn’t like me. So, perhaps this was natural.

‘No, wait a minute. What was natural about this?’

[Logout.]

[Cannot be executed. Please check the main quest.]

‘Should I try to die? I hadn’t actually died earlier. There was no death notification. An event? What kind of event? This situation had never happened before.’

‘If I die now, will I find the answer?’