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Chapter 581: Triangular

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

“All generosity will have a reason and a price.”

Although this quote seemed like it was treating kindness with suspicion, any generosity for no apparent reason in a place like the Chaos Abyss would make me feel even more uneasy than hostility.

The devils had only temporarily retreated. Lasnina had only taken a mental blow rather than suffering any physical injuries. When she recovered, she would come back to attack me again. And when considering how much she suffered last time, she would likely bring a few extra Devil Lords with her, or perhaps even an entire devil army.

“Our current mission of running away is highly important, and time is of the essence. Your Lordship Voka, do you have any business with us?”

We could literally just take any random teleportation portal. As long as nobody knew what my final destination floor was, it would be impossible for Lasnina to find us.

“Why not play some more here? I can arrange guides for you...”

Play around in the Chaos Abyss? If it wasn’t for the fact that Snake God Voka was saying this, if it wasn’t for the fact that we were currently in his Divine Kingdom, I would probably flip the table already... Could he please speak normally!? The Chaos Abyss was no place to be organizing vacation tours, was it!?

I could understand that he probably hadn’t needed to interact with others for a long time already, so he likely had poor social skills. But couldn’t he please consider reality a bit more? Having a vacation in this 75th level of the Chaos Abyss that was filled with mud and swamp...? Wait, maybe it would really work! We could film a program similar to Man vs. Wild, but we would have to prevent the predators from eating the entire film crew and obtain the Snake God’s protection.

“Cough, beating around the bush is meaningless, so I’ll just say it directly...”

While my mind was getting completely sidetracked with planning out this miraculous idea for starting vacation tours down here, Voka directly went to what he wanted.

“...I want you to connect me to the Hell Gods.”

This was exactly what I expected! I instantly showed off an expression that this would be difficult.

Of course, this would actually be quite easy for me. It would be easier for me than anyone else in the world to get in contact with the Hell Gods. But, if this was too easy, how could I possibly extort... er, I meant, show off how important I was?

Chaos Abyss God Voka wanted to join the Hell Faction? While this might seem inconceivable, it was actually quite understandable. Over the past seven years, there were already several Gods that had left their factions to join us. Even more surprisingly was that most of the Gods that joined us were originally Chaos Evil Gods.

Upon closer consideration, this was only natural.

When the world had only two major factions, every single individual as well as country would be forced to select one. Each country would not only need to express their loyalty, but they would also need to express their hatred for the opposite faction. Otherwise, that country would become a heretic that wasn’t accepted by either faction, and the result would be... well, I’m sure you understand.

And if one of the two major factions finally defeated the other, leaving only one faction behind, that would be the time for the winner to divide and rob all the valuables from the loser. There wasn’t much to say about this, either. This was quite easy to see in history from all the wars that my previous world, Earth, had experienced.

When authority lost its power to restrain others, when ambitions could be casually realized, when an enemy country’s treasury no longer had any guards, and when a person could be both an athlete and the referee, I wouldn’t need to say anything else about what would happen next.

But now that this world had three major factions, many things became foundationally different. A triangular stand might appear to be incredibly unstable and ill-supported. However, this shape would actually be filled with flexibility. The triangle could be constructed out of any three angles. Some slight changes in the angles wouldn’t break the triangular structure.

Many of the current Chaos Evil Gods had formerly been Order True Gods. These Gods had left their divine positions for numerous reasons. They would then discover that even though the world was tremendous, there was no possible place for them to go apart from the Chaos Abyss. These former Order True Gods would be forced to join the Chaos Faction.

This was the downside of having only two major factions in the world. You absolutely had to choose one faction or the other. There was only black and white. No ambiguous choices or sitting on the fence would be allowed.

As for now, the Chaos Evil Gods that ended up joining the Hell Faction hadn’t truly become members of Hell. Instead, they had simply joined in order to join the “third party”. Their only goal was to break free from the Chaos and Order Factions’ control over them. Our Hell Faction would be more than happy to offer such protection as this was one of the original goals of our Hell Faction to begin with.

The great majority of the Hell Faction’s newest members were Chaos Evil Gods rather than the much weaker Low or Middle Gods. This wasn’t because Low and Middle Gods had an easier time. This was because the Chaos Evil Gods were under far stricter control.

“Sincerity.”

I replied with only a single word that contained deep meaning. This was the fee I was demanding for my effort in being an intermediary, as well as what the Hell Faction would want from Voka in order to express his determination to leave the Chaos Faction.

If he wanted to betray the Chaos Faction, he needed to have a reason. He would at least have to talk about why the Chaos Faction wasn’t the one for him.

Voka revealed a bitter smile when he heard this. A green light flashed in his eyes as he seemed to dwell on some painful memories.

“People in the current generation probably only know that I, Voka, am a Snake God as well as a God of Poison. However, they don’t know that at first, I was only a giant white snake from the Haino Mountain, the local Guardian God of the forest there. I was formerly a Natural Totem God, meaning I was once a Nature God...”

Indeed, even I didn’t know this about Voka’s past. The Nature Gods were one of the first groups of Gods in history to join the Order Faction. Their leader was the extremely well-known Mother Earth Goddess. Voka even described to me how he was betrayed during a Holy War from so long ago, and how he became fallen, transforming into a God of Poison instead of a Guardian God of the forest and snakemen. Even the snakemen he protected had been stripped of their conscience, logic, and reason, and they were now known to the world as snake demons.

Such a story would be quite commonplace in this world. The foundational reason would always be that a formerly powerful species was reduced to nothing but a weak species after a Holy War, so the Guardian God was exiled and became nothing more than the boss of a level in the Chaos Abyss.

I didn’t say a single word as I listened to it like I would to a story... In fact, I was indeed treating it as nothing more than a story. No matter how moving it sounded, how many plot twists there were, or how many important people had died, it was impossible for me to treat it as any more than a fun story. Voka’s story was obviously way too biased. ‘It wasn’t my fault’ was a theme that ran through his entire story. He made himself sound like the most pitiful protagonist in existence. Thus, the veracity of his story was quite questionable.

To sum up his story, it was all about how the other Nature Gods had a misunderstanding and exiled him, which forced him to seek refuge in the Chaos Abyss. Nowadays, he was bored of staying here and wanted to move. Basically, things were everybody’s fault but his own.

Of course, I had no reason to say anything. The veracity of the story was also unimportant. I, and the Hell Faction, simply needed a reason for Voka to join. Voka had given me a reason. That would be enough. As for whether this reason was real or not... Both of us knew that the past would be completely unimportant. What was important would be his actions in the future.

Actions? Well, saying anything would be meaningless. Time would be required to show us evidence. Voka would have to use concrete actions and offer us benefits in order to establish this new alliance.

Of course, if I was the one making the guarantee, the Hell Gods would value this alliance more and establish it a bit quicker. Still, that would be all.

Voka was quite generous. He “unintentionally” heard that I was lacking in top-quality resources, so he opened up his treasury and allowed me to pick any two items I wanted as payment for being the intermediary with the Hell Gods.

Then, I “unintentionally” asked about the devils. Even though we clearly didn’t have any major grudges (haha) against each other, why did they suddenly attack me?

“About that? Apparently, they want to use you as a hostage so that they can trade you to Karwenz in exchange for Ilmisya. Um, what’s the matter...?”

Alright then, the moment I heard this, my expression distorted greatly.

“Pahaha! Accidentally taking the blame for your younger brother? That’s what a good older brother does.”

The silly cat no longer napped as she was now rolling around on the floor, laughing. I directly picked her up and casually tossed her into a nearby pond.

That was the end of my discussion with Voka. Since he was willing to abandon his home here in the Chaos Abyss, he would definitely have his own expectations. Perhaps he wished for his snake demons to be able to live in the mortal plane again. Or, perhaps he was hoping to reobtain his former Divine Concept of being a Guardian God of a forest. However, those weren’t subjects he needed to discuss with me, so I was more than happy to pretend not to know anything.

I didn’t have many expectations for Voka’s treasury. Ancient Gods such as Voka would often possess some God Equipment, but they would never be willing to give away such precious items. Just because he said he was opening his treasury to me, did that really mean the best items would be in there? I wouldn’t be so naïve. At the very most, it would likely be a treasury containing items slightly below top-level that could be considered top-level for mortals.

If I named a specific item, it would be difficult for him to refuse me. But since he was offering me anything I wanted in his treasury, that would be much easier for him to get away with. This was since I had no idea what treasures he possessed. Of course, he probably had plenty of treasures related to the Concept of Poison, as well as many treasures related to snakemen. However, such treasures would be useless to me.

Well, this was still fine. But right as Voka was happily about to begin his welcoming party for us, he suddenly frowned.

“Your Highness Roland, perhaps you’ll have to leave quicker than planned. Right now, two additional Devil Lords just entered this dimensional level.”