The Priest of Corruption - Chapter 2

WHAT IS LIFE?

Life is an egg. A boiled egg. What does this mean? No matter how hard you try, it means nothing like me, who lived with kindness until the end and eventually fell into a game.

First, I will confess honestly that I manipulated the save file using an editor. But listen to my story. I feel guilty for using an editor in the game. This game, which I can’t even remember the name of, is a single-player game. So, no matter what I do to the saved file, no one is harmed.

Second, you might think, “If you’re a real gamer, shouldn’t you just enjoy the game?” That’s right, and that’s definitely right. If you truly love games, you’d be right to avoid using an editor that kills interest in accomplishing anything through your own skill.

But I’ll make an excuse. Entering my late twenties, my life was too busy to play games, even though it’s a hobby that I really love. So I compromised with reality and used the editor only to start under the conditions I wanted. Yes, I used the editor up to the point where I changed my job to the Priest of Corruption, which was the reason I bought this game in the first place.

The game, which I can’t remember the name of, was released under the motto of “infinite degrees of freedom” and promised a free world filled with countless jobs. As always, I looked for news about new things that popped up from time to time, and I got hooked on the Priest of Corruption when I found it.

The Church of Corruption. Isn’t it a name that sounds like the world’s enemy? If the Church of Corruption had been beneficial, it would have been called the Church of Fermentation. Oh, I’d really like to eat kimchi now.

Anyway. The Church of Corruption in the game was already eradicated. The player begins their journey to find the 13 holy relics spread around the world by chasing the traces left by the church, collecting rare materials, passing hard trials, and finally becoming a priest of corruption. That’s all I knew about the Priest of Corruption. I didn’t read more because it would have been a spoiler.

The evaluation of the Priest of Corruption play was very simple. The pre-defined difficulty level is terrible. The level of difficulty while playing is terrible. Performance is also poor. This evaluation made my heart beat. Bad performance? That means most people won’t choose it.

In the first place, I enjoyed being treated like a dead man. Some would criticize me for being a useless degenerate, but what can I do when my heart beats when I see a bad job? I was born like this. So, I immediately quit the game I was playing and moved my character to the location with all the ingredients needed for the Priest of Corruption job using an editor that was popular on the internet.

This is one of the choices that I still deeply regret. Why didn’t I seek more convenience? You can pump all your stats, put a lot of money in your pockets, or even turn on invincibility! If I knew I would fall into the game, I would have created a more broken character.

With all the ready materials for the job change, I pressed enter while watching the job change quest. As the materials disappeared one by one, the quest to change jobs proceeded as it should. And the moment I pressed the ‘Yes’ button on the last job change quest, I fell into the game.

I became a ‘Priest of Corruption.’ A dry hand wriggled in my pocket. And in my head, a single word took shape.

‘Kill!’

‘Kill! Kill!’

Yes, the mother of corruption I serve cries out like a death metal singer. In fact, this was also a great development, as she was able to deliver her words only after she absorbed the divinity of the first holy relic. Until I took the first relic, she didn’t say a single word to me, instead conveying her intentions as best she could with that shriveled hand. Of course, there were no important messages at all.

Five years. That was the time it took me to steal the first of the thirteen relics. Five years ago, when I woke up in this game, all I had was a uniform to the Church of Corruption and a hand wriggling in my pocket.

This Mother’s Hand of Corruption was the last material needed for the Priest of Corruption. It should have disappeared with the completion of the job change. However, for some reason, this withered hand, wriggling without disappearing, acted as a walkie-talkie between myself and the Mother of Corruption. The presence of the giant being beyond that hand made it easier than I thought to admit that I really fell into the game world.

That, and this priest of corruption, was a body optimized for me, a modern person, to survive in this world. In the game’s setting, the Priest of Corruption is an enhanced human whose body has been modified with drugs. The Priest of Corruption was oriented toward a small number of elites. Most of the quests to become a Priest of Corruption were focused on collecting rare materials needed to transform the body.

The only good thing about this body is that attacks without divinity cannot kill it. Thanks to that, I’m alive even though my head was cut off by the rangers earlier. Excellent physical ability and keen five senses. A body that won’t die unless divinity is used. It would be nice to say that this body was created assuming that modern people might try to live in a fantasy world.

However, when this modified body became my body, there were a few fatal drawbacks. Compared to the five senses, the part of the brain where the emotions were held seemed to be a little broken. I’d never seen blood before, but now I didn’t care about the cruelest sights. Yeah, it’s more of an advantage. The problem is that I can no longer taste anything. I lost my sense of taste.

The loss of taste was nothing at first, but it became a bigger drawback over time. I want to eat something delicious. Very, very much so. I want to eat grilled pork belly wrapped in kimchi! I want to eat fried kimchi with fried rice! I want to eat black bean noodles and sweet and sour pork!

‘Kill!’

The Mother of Corruption’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

“You don’t have to rush me; I’ll move.”

I took a heavy step across the snowfield. The thick snow obstructed my steps, but my steel-like body pushed through the snow.

‘Kill!’

“No matter how hard you go at it, you won’t find the next sacred relic immediately. I need some time for this disturbance to calm down, Mother.”

It was only one thing with her. Still, The Mother of Corruption was the only one in the world I could trust without a doubt. I was the only priest of a goddess who was hated by all. So I didn’t hate the goddess’s voice who whined every day.

As the sun went down, terrible darkness fell over the forest. Fortunately, as a reinforced human being, I could see ahead with just a little light, and my tireless legs led my body. The cold wind should be enough to cut off flesh, but I found it tolerable. The thoughts that kept popping in my head, however…

I’d chosen a con artist-like job, just like my mother always told me. Warrior. Wizard. Sorcerer. These crappy jobs…wouldn’t it be okay if I chose that kind of job and not have to experience all this cold?

The wind blew and the snow continued to fall. It was a blizzard. No matter how hard human beings were, there were definitely limitations. I looked around and soon found a place to lie down for a while until the blizzard stopped in the form of a dark cave.

As I entered the dark cave, breaking through the snow piled up to my thighs, a pair of eyes stared back at me. It was a bear the size of a house.

‘Kill!’

“I’m not going to fight, Mother of Corruption.”

I sat down in front of the cave and trained a wary gaze on the creature. That giant bear wouldn’t attack me first. Most monsters and animals were neutral to the priest of corruption in the game. Unless I made the first move, they wouldn’t attack me.

From what I understood from living with this body, animals and monsters seemed to feel the dirty energy that intelligent creatures couldn’t. Thanks to this, all but a few unusual animals were neutral to me. Under the bear’s gaze, I closed my eyes and settled inside. A status window slowly popped up.

[Divinity: 1623]

All of the original stats disappeared; the only thing left was Divinity. That divinity was an amalgamation of all skill points for the Priest of Corruption.

The exchange fee was very simple. If you paid 10,000 divinity, you got one power. It was like a vending machine; the power came out just as you put divinity into it. However, thanks to the vending machine-like system, I had recently succeeded in absorbing the entire divinity of a holy object and awakened a power. If I used it openly, though, I’d also get another power: to be tracked down by all sorts of religious sects.

As I leaned against the cold cave wall, I felt a little sad. What kind of case was this, ‘falling’ into a game?

‘Kill!’

“I’m not depressed, Mother of Corruption. Stop worrying.”

I held the dry hand in my arms. Still, I was glad I wasn’t entirely alone. My mind calmed down a little as I held the dried-up hand.

Yeah, 13 holy relics. No, now, if I gathered all the divinity of the 12 remaining holy relics, the Mother of Corruption would fulfill all my wishes. Then, I would have to ask her to restore my sense of taste first.

After falling into this world, I replayed the self-suggestions that I always made in my mind. This world was just a game, and I was just playing a slightly more realistic virtual reality game. So, let’s enjoy this life.

My butt was a little sore because of the uneven stone floor, though. I muttered mournfully.

“I’m a little sad, though.”

“Stop there.”

Guards blocked me. Their well-maintained equipment showed that they were fairly disciplined.

“Show me your ID.”

I smiled as reverently as possible and spoke in a sincere voice. Right now, I was wearing a priest’s uniform from one of my small, two-column inventory spots.

“May happiness remain unshakable in your life. I lost my ID card while I was in distress on the way here.”

The guard, looking me up and down, asked briefly.

“Which church’s priest are you?”

“Of the Goddess of Maintenance, who protects everyday life.”

It was a great felony to lie about the name of the god a priest served. The punishment was given by the god directly to the priest, not by the church. The impersonation of priests by those who weren’t was also subject to punishment. Those impersonated priests were engraved with a stigma manifested by the god’s anger. The stigma of sin was only visible to the church members concerned.

The guard bowed his head slightly.

“Welcome to Guise, priest, but you’d better make a new ID card as soon as you get in.”

I smiled kindly.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

‘Kill!’

Our benevolent Mother of Corruption was very tolerant of this impersonation. Thanks to Mother of Corruption’s protection, I could impersonate other priests without paying any price for it. With my body covered in snow, pretending to believe in a god I never spoke with, I entered the northern city of Guise.