153 Chapter 131: Palace

"Hmm, it's really just a dark void. I can't even see the bottom," Arnold peered down at the space below the castles over the cliff he was standing on.

Despite the fact that the sun was directly above him, shining into the void, no light managed to reach far enough to paint a picture of how deep the void was. It absorbed light just like a black hole.

That was because the void was a space pocket in reality and not an actual pit.

A space pocket in reality referred to a phenomenon occurring in the physical world that gave normal places the attribute of space-time travel with no mana involved. Such places were rare outside of dungeons.

A space pocket worked much like the arcane spell called [Dimensional Gate] which few people could cast due to the difficulty of mastering it. It worked much different from simple [Teleportation] spells.

One wouldn't even know you've just walked through a space pocket unless you become aware of the change in surroundings.

For example, you jumped into a small pool of water on a hot day. There's a space pocket somewhere beneath the surface of that water. All it takes is for you to enter the area in question. It doesn't matter how deep you go, you will end up in another location.

The void down the cliff was one of many space pockets in the dungeon. The good thing was that the space pocket sends you to one location and doesn't spiral out of control and send you to another dimension. Though rare for teleportation spells and gates, there was still a possibility of it happening.

There was nothing keeping Arnold on this world so he would have to jump down immediately after getting what he was looking for.

The Sky God's palace must've been littered with magic items that mankind will never be able to make since those were creations of gods. He wasn't hoping for anything like a Star-Class item or Beyond Star. Something like an S-class weapon would be enough.

His soul weapon was fuelled by his aura. Since his aura wasn't infinite it will vanish if he runs out of aura. As it stands now his Aura Sword was his strongest weapon.  

His demon sword was also an option but he will feel more reassured if he had backup weapons.

"I should look for a spear to give to Jack. I forgot to buy him something back when I was in the shopping district with Melina."

His relationship with Jack wasn't as intimately close like with Melina but the two of them were still brothers.

'Hm, I wonder how much stuff this magic bag can take, though. Oh well, I'll just make room for Jack's spear if I find one.'

Arnold took a few steps back as his eyes focused on the palace that was levitating in the air. It made things easier for him since the palace wasn't flying around like all the castles surrounding it.

Arnold took heavy strides forward; his boots were crushing the stone under his feet. He was tensing up his muscles and sending all that energy to his legs.

He leapt once he reached the edge of the cliff, destroying a large chunk of the ground behind him.  

The wind hit his face as he flew towards the palace.

'There aren't any guards. I thought that the palace would be heavily guarded. Do they not care about tomb raiders stealing their stuff? Well, that makes things much easier.'

He wanted to conserve his power, after all. Fighting meaninglessly would only waste his time and energy. He didn't know when he'll have the leeway to close his eyes since dungeon diving isn't always peaceful.

Arnold landed right in front of the stairs leading up to the palace door. He walked up to the door and tried to push it open.

"Hmm, this is one big metal door. It won't even budge. How the hell will I get inside?"

'Should I try and punch the door?'

He pulled back his fist in an attempt to shatter the door, but surprisingly it opened the next second.

"Huh?"

"….?"

A person wearing a bird mask was on the other end of the doorway. They had white wings behind their back and wore a white robe. Judging by the soft-looking skin, curvy figure, inflated chest and garter belt showing from the gap in her robe, it was a woman.  

She also had long, droopy ears so she was definitely an Elf.

"Uhm, hello?" Arnold waved awkwardly.

"What is a human doing down here?" her voice came through the mask. It was the voice of a mature woman.

"I was just passing by. The palace looked interesting, hahaha…"   

"A lie," she said as she folded her arms, "You are forbidden from taking any of the treasures in our god's palace. This will be taken as an offence to his great name. Please leave."

"Are you going to stop me?"

She slowly shook her head, "I do not possess the strength to. I have seen many powerful people throughout my thousands of years of life so I know who is strong from just a glance. Please do not take offense but you seem like one of the weakest ones."

"Who are these so-called people who you refer to?" Arnold asked curiously.

This dungeon was only recently named a dungeon so there shouldn't have been people who came down here. It had been floating above the oceans for eons; people only assumed that it was a natural disaster so they left it alone. Up until now anyway.

"I cannot say for certain what their origins are. I only know that their objective is to always eliminate the strongest monsters of each world."

'…Players were here.'

If that was the case then he was now in the timeline of the first years that the game had been released. It had probably been five years so there weren't a lot of people on the servers yet. He wasn't sure how time differed from this world to the in-game time.

"How many times have they visited this dungeon?"

As far as Arnold knew, there were only a couple thousand of them each month. Despite the number being so low, why hadn't he seen any players up until now? They were so blatantly obvious that any players in disguise(in this case, it's Arnold) would know them from normal NPCs. 

Local pubs were their hangout spots. He hadn't heard anyone talking about the game ever.

"I will not tell a miscreant like you anything. Your sole purpose for coming here is to dirty the holy grave of our god." She closed the door shut with a wave of her hand and walked past Arnold.

Her wings began flapping as if she was about to take off. However, her actions paused immediately after Arnold's next words.

"I could always try and destroy this palace with my own hands, you know?" Arnold's aura surrounded his hand.

"Wait! Don't do that!" she instantly turned around, "Are you crazy, stupid mortal!? Do you realize the judgment of destroying the grave of a god?" 

"He's dead so what can he do? Haunt me?"

"Why would you risk being cursed by a god like this? The items inside that palace was brought to him by his believers who he adored!" the angel tried to reason with Arnold.

"Don't care. I want them." Arnold didn't give in to her reasoning, "Either you let me in or I test out my martial skills on this palace."

He heard something akin to the grinding of teeth. The Elf wagged her finger. A gigantic magic circle appeared on the equally large door. A mechanism similar to the inside of a lock appeared above the magic circle before the door opened.

"I should've known it was magic."

'This place must be filled with high rank magic. Simply brute forcing my way through would've been a bad idea.'

"….I wish Lady Knight was here to deal with you," muttered the Elf.

"Lady Knight? Who's that?"

"She is the protector of these worlds. She fights against the forces of evil. Evil like you."

'What the hell. Why am I suddenly evil when I just want some items? The god can spare some, right?'

Arnold scratched his head, "Ugh, fine. I'll only take ten things from this palace then. I only need weapons. That's all. Magic items will be useful in increasing my strength but I don't need them right now."

"You have my permission to take five." The angel walked towards the front of the door.

"Ten."

"Seven!"

"Why am I taking this bullshit from a fucking low-ranking angel?" Arnold unsheathed his sword, "Step away from that door or else you'll taste your own blood."

"Humph, you cannot hurt me, mortal." said the Elf arrogantly, "This palace is enchanted with divine protection. It protects the Sky God worshippers who come here."

"Oh?" Arnold smirked, "Is it the same for anywhere else in this world? Or others worlds? How many are there exactly? Not tough now, are you?"

"…."

She went silent.

The two held eye-contact for about thirty seconds. The Elf broke away first.

"Fine… However, I will accompany you to make sure you don't take any more than ten items."

'Ugh, I only said I'll take ten to make you go away. Why go through the trouble of following me as well?'

He was planning on raiding this entire palace. It seemed that this angel was the only one here so he wanted to make her go away after opening the door so that he could steal stuff.

"I'll lead you to the throne room. I'm saying this now but if our paths ever cross again then I will not let you off easy. This is my kindness to you."

"Didn't you say that you can't fight? I can do what I want with you and you won't be able to do anything about it." Arnold licked his lips as he looked at her body.

"Disgusting mortal scum." Arnold couldn't see her face but he was certain she was looking at him like he was trash.

'It was just a joke…'

◇◇◇

Arnold and the angel entered the palace.

The palace wasn't anything special from inside. In fact, even the imperial palace in Eulia looked better in contrast to this god's so-called tomb.

There were stone pillars holding up the ceiling. There was no furniture in sight and no windows at all. The good thing was that there was at least light from candles burning inside.

Arnold could tell that there had been many people who visited this place. That was hinted not only by all the candles that are lit but also the cleanliness of the palace.

Perhaps the people who came to clean this place were also angels or just disciples of this Sky God.

'I have to be quick. I don't know if the other angels are as easy to manipulate as this one.' thought Arnold as he looked at the Elf walking in front of him. 'She has a really nice body…. Wait, why am I looking at this woman perversely!? Is not having sex with Victoria for so long affecting my urges!?'

Even if he were to act on his urges, he wouldn't make a move on a woman who's unwilling to give her consent. Only lowly scum did that. Wait, Arnold von Berkley was originally like that. But that's not the point.

'I should've tried to seduce one of the girls at the academy. The first years are usually the easiest to get.'

There would definitely be some of them who would want to give themselves to him. Arnold wanted to cry tears of blood for not being assertive enough in his interactions with women.

'It could be months before I see the outside world…. There's no internet in this world so I have to use my imagination…'

"We're almost there," said the angel.  

"Yeah… By the way, I never got your name. Mine is Arnold. I'm a noble from the Eulia Empire."

"I don't care."

"I see… So much for trying to be nice. Anyway, you said other people came here before. Who did you mean?"

"….."  

"If we're going to be spending time together then we might as well talk, right? This is common sense for us mortals."

"Us mortals? I am not the same as you."

'Why are angels so damn arrogant…'

"So just because you're an angel, you think you're not a mortal anymore? Just having a pair of wings and a hollow float above your head doesn't make you a divine being. Can you even use Golden Aura like the Archangels? The real divine beings?"

"T-That is none of your business…"

"But we're both mortals so it kinda is my business. So, can you use Golden Aura?"

Golden Aura is a power only given to archangels. This was because archangels had to protect the gods they serve from outside forces.

Low-ranking angels don't have access to the same power.

Mortals could only use this kind of aura if they're given blessings. Blessings are valuable things so gods don't just give it to every single person who serves them.

"…."

"Well?"

"…I can still use divinity. For your information, I am a very good priest."

"I see. I have another question. How did you end up here? From what I can tell, you're just a regular elf with wings."

"Our God was dying so he needed many servants to take care of him. A few of the inhabitants of this world were also brought here to become his servants. The chiefs of the villages were kind and happy to give their daughters. I've been his servant for a hundred years before he passed. That was half a century ago, I think."

"What the… He took a hundred years to croak?"

"He had a curse placed on him by the other gods. He was forced to suffer because of it."

"So during those hundred years, these people you mentioned came to this world? What were they looking for?"

"The most recent people who came here were humans from the outside world. They were a rather small group but I heard there were more of them on the first floor."

"What were they doing here?"

"I don't know. The disciples did not say."

"Well, that's fine. What kind of people came here before them?"

The Elf stopped and tilted her head as she hummed.

"I don't know what world they were from. They possessed power very similar to gods. I suspected they were actually demigods or empyrean beings at first. But gods wouldn't mercilessly kill just to test their strength."

'Yeah… Those were definitely the beta testers. What the hell? Did the game glitch and not allow people to log in anymore? Is the glitch also the cause of why I transmigrated into the body of an NPC?'

If he was really sent back in time to before the game became popular then why did the DLC's story already begin? The DLC itself was like an entirely different game. Because of this, the company behind the game had to spend a lot of money on it. The money only came rolling in when their game had been on the market for three years.

It took almost a decade until it finally had a billion players. That was when the developers decided to make a backstory and add more lore so that everything made sense for the players. There were millions of texts of history in this game, that was why players loved it so much.

'Is some god or entity the reason for the jarred timelines? Anyway, I should just assume that the players came here way before I came to this world. It should also be impossible to interconnect the reality of the expansion with the base game.'

"If you would like to know more then you should go to the worlds 60 to 99. You'll find the disciples there. They have interacted with those beings more than I have."

"Right…"

"We're here."

The angel pointed down the dark hallway. There was a room that was shining in a golden light at the end of that hallway.