Lucien didn't know what to do.
Despite Clara's current loyalty score of 90, she looked… dangerous. Unpredictable also. That number could drop just as fast as it had risen.
He knew better than to rely on something as fickle as a woman's emotions. Their moods, in his experience, swung harder than a pendulum in a storm.
"Sigh… Women. ☕" he muttered under his breath then added with a faint smirk, "Only my sister is indeed special."
There was no escaping her now. In her mind, Lucien was already her Lord. It was already etched deep into whatever twisted part of her brain that latched onto that identity.
The best course of action was to play along... at least for now.
He motioned for her to stand. "Alright. Let's talk. Who are you, and why exactly are you here?"
Clara's eyes lit up with delight the moment Lucien addressed her. In her mind, this was a test... A divine trial of loyalty! And she found nothing suspicious in his words.
"My Lord… This humble servant hails from the Holy Empire. Ever since you bestowed upon me that divine skill, the truth of this world has been revealed. I now understand. The god I once worshipped was nothing but an illusion. It was you all along. I followed your divine trace without hesitation until it led me here. Please… grant me the honor of serving you."
Lucien blinked.
'The hell? When did I give you a skill?' He stared at her, baffled. This girl… genuinely believed he was some kind of god.
He activated SCAN again, just to be sure.
***
Name: Clara ♀
Age: 15 years old
Race: Human
Job: Priestess
Level: 3
Title:
• Devout Follower of the Church
• One Who Seeks God
Skill:
• Divine Sense
Magic:
• Light Magic
• Household Magic
Loyalty: 90
Status: devoted/devoted/devoted
***
"This freak…" Lucien flinched. Why is 'devoted' listed three times? What kind of bugged devotion is this?!
But something else caught his attention.
***
Skill (Passive): ★★★★★
Illustration: A golden eye that peers through all life
Name: Divine Sense
Description: Attunes the user to the will of the world, allowing them to perceive divine energy and feel the subtle balance between good and evil.
***
'Five stars?! Wait… this is—'
Lucien nearly jumped. This was the second five-star skill he had ever seen and this one was tied to something completely foreign to him.
Divine energy.
He quickly composed himself and suppressed his surprise. If Clara already believed he was some kind of god, he might as well play along. It wouldn't hurt and it might get him some answers.
"It's called Divine Sense, right?" he said, steadying his voice. "Clara, tell me exactly what you see with it... and what side effects it brings."
Clara's expression brightened instantly, her eyes glowing with reverence.
"As expected of my Lord! You even know this unworthy one's name…" she said, almost breathless. "Divine Sense allows me to see the world in colors. Energies, rather. Each one reveals truth. Divine energy is the brightest of them all… a blinding golden light. It was that light that guided me to you."
She paused, her expression shifting into something more solemn.
"The only side effect… is that I can't see things normally anymore. I see no faces, no shapes... only the colors of one's essence. But I am grateful. This world is filthy… and sight... normal sight can lie. I would rather see through energy than be deceived. My only regret..." her voice trembled slightly, "...is that I can't see you, My Lord."
Her face fell with a quiet sadness, a fragile kind of devotion that Lucien wasn't ready for.
If his entire world dissolved into colors and shadows, he might've gone mad too. She wasn't just fanatical. She was broken in a way he was only beginning to understand.
Looking at her now, he noticed just how malnourished she seemed. Exhausted, smeared in dried slime goo from head to toe… and yet, she was full of life.
Relentlessly clinging to purpose.
"Eat this."
Lucien pulled out a Nectar Crystal from his inventory and handed it to Clara. It wasn't much, but it should help ease her exhaustion.
Clara froze the moment she laid eyes on it. She trembled then slowly reached out, staring at the crystal as if it were a sacred artifact.
"As expected of My Lord… Even a small object like this carries divine energy. Thank you for bestowing such grace upon this unworthy one."
Without hesitation, she ate it. Her expression turned ecstatic as if she were tasting salvation itself. Not a single drop was wasted. She even licked the wrapper, savoring it like it was her last meal on earth.
Lucien stood still. It wasn't her blissful expression that caught him off guard—it was what she said.
'Divine energy… in my drops?'
That… changed everything.
If he had to guess, divine energy was something far beyond ordinary mana. Something rare, powerful and likely only usable by chosen individuals. Unfortunately, the system never explained anything. It just dumped power into his lap and left him to figure it out.
But now, his brain clicked into gear.
He reached back into his inventory and pulled out another item. "Take a look at this," he said, handing it to her.
Just like before, Clara trembled.
Each time he showed her a different item, she reacted with reverence... murmuring praises and marveling at the divine energy within.
Lucien watched closely.
There was a pattern.
The higher the item's rarity, the more divine energy Clara claimed it contained.
'So rarity affects divine energy output? Then… what kind of energy am I sitting on?'
Lucien took the opportunity to ask Clara a few more questions. To his surprise, she answered each one thoroughly and with impressive clarity. Despite her unsettling obsession, she was articulate and almost scholarly in her explanations.
'If only she weren't so fanatical and unhinged half the time, Lucien thought. She'd actually be a decent person.'
Still, he had already labeled her in his mind... A useful but weird woman.
But as their conversation continued, another thought began to gnaw at him.
'What exactly is the origin of my system? And where do these drops actually come from?'
"Divine energy…" he muttered under his breath. "Could it be the reason I can't use magic?"
He shook his head. 'No… it's not the same as mana. Clara made that clear. So then, is some higher being involved?'
'Again, no. Clara had outright said the god of the Holy Empire didn't exist.'
Clara said there was no entity like him and no other being tied to divine energy. But... something she called the Will of the World contains Divine Energy besides him and his drops.
"The Will of the World…"
The phrase echoed in his mind which is both chilling and mysterious.
'Could the world itself be sentient? Alive? Watching me?...'
He frowned.
There was no way to know for sure. And no point in driving himself crazy chasing answers the system refused to give.
For now, all he could do was collect clues and follow the trail.
Then something hit him.
Lucien's eyes slowly drifted toward the Rainbow Slime Statue then to his inventory of drops.
'If Clara's right… if my drops really do contain divine energy… and that statue radiates the same thing…'
Then there could only be one conclusion...
'The statue came from my drops.'
And considering Clara had knelt before it like a holy relic, it must be brimming with divine energy.
Lucien narrowed his eyes.
'There's only one thing I remember dumping in bulk…'
The slime plushies.
He had discarded them as trash. Useless fluff that took up space. But now? It seemed like the dumbest, softest, most worthless-looking item turned out to have the most powerful effect.
Without a word, Lucien reached into his inventory and pulled one out.
He casually tossed it toward Clara.
She caught it, hugged it to her chest and immediately burst into delighted giggles.
"My Lord! What is this? Wheehehe~ It's so soft! I feel like I'm hugging a cloud!"
Lucien blinked. Clara looked noticeably more energetic just from holding it.
"This divine item… it's nourishing me! I can feel my fatigue fading away!"
Lucien said nothing.
'She's really good at making things sound holy…' he thought, watching her cuddle the plushie like a sacred treasure. 'Probably just a placebo. The item description never said anything like that.'
"Ahem." Lucien cleared his throat and casually pointed at the statue. "Do you think this thing could've come from something like that?"
Clara fell silent.
Her brows furrowed as she fell into deep thought. After a moment's hesitation, she slowly shook her head.
"My Lord… this one is ignorant. When I received the skill you granted me, fragments of knowledge poured into my mind but nothing about this specific phenomenon. All I understand is that when divine energy builds up in great concentration, it can produce powerful results. Perhaps… if many of these divine objects were gathered in one place…"
That explanation is enough.
Lucien didn't need to hear more.
His memory flicked back to when he tossed hundreds of slime plushies off the cliff without a second thought.
And now, in the same area... stood the Rainbow Slime Statue.
'So those worthless-looking plushies really did fuse into that thing…'
A wide grin crept across his face.
That also meant… he could make more of them.
Without a word, he walked up to the statue, drawn by a growing sense of curiosity. He reached out and laid a hand on its smooth, shimmering surface. Then activated SCAN.
Type: Sacred Relic
Rarity: Legend
Description:
• Doubles the effectiveness of all slime-based skills
• Offers a chance to receive a blessing when a suitable sacrifice is made
"EH? Legendary?!" Lucien shouted. "This poop-shaped thing has a legendary rarity?!"
He stared at the statue in disbelief as if it had personally insulted him.
Rubbing his eyes, he activated SCAN again.
Same result.
He tried again.
And again.
Still the same.
It didn't make sense. He couldn't sense divine energy like Clara could, so all he saw was a ridiculous rainbow-colored blob. To him, it looked like a glorified pile of slime poop.
But then...
[Ting!]
[The Slime Lord has given you a Blessing.]
[One random skill will evolve.]
[...]
[Scan has evolved into Inspect.]
Lucien froze.
"Did the statue just get annoyed and bless me out of spite?"
He went quiet. Dead quiet.
Then almost hesitantly, he activated Inspect.
What he saw next made his blood run cold.
"Mana…? Is that... is that fucking mana?!"