Short summary of the last chapter:
Spoiler :
Voice created an Ichor ranked item, and finally settled down back on Solun. He granted his closest friends each a boon, and decided to stay in Solun.
Voice walked in a small thatched house. Inside Susan sat on a comfortable looking couch. It was not ornate, but it was a far cry from impoverished.
Susan was scribbling something on a piece of paper, but stopped when Voice came in. She smiled, and was about to say something, when she was interrupted by the excited screech of a child.
A young girl, about the age of four, happily dropped the book in front of her, and ran to Voice.
“Uncle Voice! Unnnnncle Voice! I learned how to count to four today! See?”
Voice nodded his head, and the girl began showing off her new skill.
“One, two! Three! Four! See! I can count all by myself!” Voice chuckled and gently tussled her head.
“That’s great Rose. And did Aunt Susan show you that?”
The little girl, Rose, nodded emphatically. “Mmhm! Did you bring me anything?”
Voice sighed dramatically and shook his head in sadness. “Is that all I am now? A tool to get toys from?” Voice added a bit of water mana to make it look like he was crying.
“No!” Rose threw her arms around Voice’s legs, giving him the tightest hug a four-year-old could. Voice smiled at her, and dried the water mana.
He laughed with honest happiness as he used wind mana to push the girl off of him, and into the air. He gently tossed her into up, and caught her with wind mana. Using the wind, he made a small slide the circled around himself, and Rose floated on it, giggling as she flew.
After a moment Voice put her down. Rose beamed at him, “Again! Do it again Uncle Voice!” Voice pulled a small item from his pocket.
“Candy!!”
“Yep, I just got back from Queltown, I thought you might like it. Hehe.”
Rose was too busy to respond. Although candy was made in Voice’s city, Rose wasn’t allowed to eat much of it. Her parents would always scold her. But when Uncle Voice gave her something, they never seemed to mind. Even when they scolded her, it was very lightly.
Just then Rose’s parents appeared at the door.
A large framed man forced Voice into a bear hug. He looked exactly as he had five years ago. His beautiful wife stood beside him.
“Voice! When did you get back?”
“Evan- you’re killing me.” Voice forced out through Evan’s embrace. Of course Voice could buff himself to far surpass Evan’s strength, but there was no need. Voice enjoyed the kinship with his blood brother.
Over the past five years Voice had gotten to actually know this group very well. He had decided after becoming a god that he would become a nicer person. That definitely didn’t happen overnight. It started by pretending to be nice. Eventually his thoughts had turned to what he should do to be nice. After a year he no longer thought of manipulation first. He would honestly think of how to be good first.
Since then he had gotten on very well with Evan, Susan, and Elizabeth. He would even play with their daughter Rose, quite often in fact. Voice had grown attached to Rose in a sort of big brother way. Elizabeth had mentioned that she was an enchanter. Voice was surprised that she was the reason he had gotten his originally enchanted gear. Although her magic power was somewhat lower than most others in the town, Voice personally showed her the secrets of true enchanting.
Suffice to say she was considered the foremost expert in such things. Her husband had specialized in smithing, but that was more of a hobby of his now. No one needed any metallurgy. He wasn’t depressed about that though. His works sent to his wife for enchantment, sent out to other towns to bring in gold, or just used to decorate the town.
Voice had even gone so far as to bring him several unique crafting materials to work with. His wife was healthy. His daughter was safe and happy. Evan had never been happier.
After exchanging pleasantries, Voice broke away from the happy couple and their daughter.
“I’m going to borrow Aunty Susan for a moment.”
Rose was oblivious. The candy Voice had given her was connected to a smooth stick, she was going to lick it to the center without biting this time. Evan and Elizabeth waved him goodbye.
Susan got up and walked outside with Voice.
“How did it go?” Susan’s voice was filled with compassion.
“The same as usual.” Voice shook his head in disgust. “They just wanted to use us for our magical items. They had no real intention of joining us under the Alliance Pack. Only Queltown and Bigsberg have said yes.
“It’s fine though. I’m just happy to see you again.”
Voice looped one are around Susan, and flew into the air. The sun was setting in the distance. The skies were clear, and the moon was rising over the horizon. Voice looked at his city.
Since he had enchanted his entire town five years ago, in-game time, it had been mostly peaceful. The bandits had tried attacking once since then, but had failed terribly. The bandit players were all instantly transported to the dungeon below the city, now infested with all manner of underground creatures. The evil NPCs were all teleported out of the vicinity of the city.
The players had spent weeks in the dungeon, before finally finding their ways out. They hadn’t reappeared in the city limits since. Agriculture was a thing of the past for Voice’s city. Voice had created many golems in the same way as he had created bodies for the dead in his planet of the dead. Unlike the ones in his afterlife, the golems weren’t infused with intellect, and could only follow simple orders. Orders such as farm this product.
The farms were all surrounded by high walls, and protected by layers upon layers of enchantments. There was no crime, since no one could actually pull anything off without Voice finding out. His eye bots, now able to perfectly blend into the sky, would catch any miscreant before they could cause harm.
Voice watched the setting sun with Susan. “Would you like to go again?”
Susan bashfully smiled. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
Voice smiled and waved his hand. A rip suddenly rent the sky asunder. A dark portal formed from nothingness.
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The pair shot into the portal, and instantly appeared in the world of the dead. Susan knew the way already. Voice had given Susan administrator power over the teleport circle, as well as the ability to sense where any specific person was if she concentrated.
She had the power of a caretaker of the underworld. Once the news of an underworld had spread to the players, they obviously wanted to partake in the new adventure. EDITOR had convinced Voice to change the time dilation from 100:1 to 1:1. Thus players could visit. Of course Voice had to allow it. Voice created several items and enchanted them with the ability to open portals to the underworld. They could only be obtained by convoluted quests. Still, several players had gone into the underworld and come back with major gains.
Susan sent herself to a familiar village. She often visited them. Voice left her to her own devices. Voice began writing in his journal. He had been keeping this journal for the past four years. Not for the problem of memory, he could buff himself to have a perfect memory. No he kept this as a log of his activities. He turned these in to the humans that ran this game. They had contacted him four years ago, and made a deal.
Should he prove he is a good ‘person’ they would allow him to download himself into a robotic body to use in the real world. So he kept the log.
He flipped through some of the pages. Memories of half-forgotten adventures suddenly sprang into his mind. Using various debuffs Voice fought weak creatures such as goblins and orcs. He had become the sixth highest leveled player. The only reason he didn’t enter the top five was because they were displayed on the leaderboards. The world of Solun quickly forgot about his existence as a player. He had become the Voice of the Underworld, the Man by the Fountain, but most often: The Saint Mage.
Within the first week of his ‘nice’ act, Voice freed Heather, and cured her of her status. He had to experiment a bit, but he found a way to revert her soul to a time when she was simply a bunny. He gave her several buffs that used up her own mana, and sent her back to her herd. Troy and Rabs gladly welcomed her back, though they had been weary of her at first.
The second week saw Voice closing all portals to the realms of the gods. That way none of them could send in their forces to Solun. It seemed a bit bad, but Voice was making sure the NPCs of Solun could Voice made sure all of the bad waves he had started were cleared up in the first month.
He even went around the entire planet, taking care of various demon dens, and bandit hideouts. Of course he couldn’t get rid of every bad thing in the world, but he had eyes and ears everywhere. His ability to gain information had increase exponentially once he had gained Master rank in Instant Analysis.
He could look at someone and see what had happened to them in the past few weeks. He made routine trips to every village, town, and city he could find. He was trying to make their lives at least a bit easier. He had enchanted a ram horn with ‘growth’.
Whenever he blew it, the plants in a large area would grow faster and bigger for about a year. It was an effect that could only really be seen at the end of a harvest season. He also would summon rains when towns were in drought.
He had been given the title: The Saint Mage, exactly because of these deeds. Since he had gained the power of an avatar of a god, death tolls from anything other than old age had decreased by 75%.
Voice closed his journal. He sighed gently. “I’ve been doing this for four years now. I’ve received no word that they are going to let me leave here. I guess that is ok.”
Voice went into his white room. His powers applied here as well, just as they did when he enchanted the ecosystem that turned Heather into a God-Eater. He had created an amusement park with DIVE as the premise. With the income from that, and the various enchanted items his town sold (he collected a small tax), he was the single wealthiest person in Solun.
DI had developed as well. They now basically controlled the world through economy. EDITOR was a wizard as financial investments, and came up with hundreds of inventions that could each rock the world. She had single handedly decreased the Earth’s pollution by a staggering amount. She could get four times as much food from one of her bots farming the same amount of land as a veteran farmer. Even crime in major cities dropped with her prediction software anticipating about 30% of crime before it happened.
There were even rumors that DI was working on a way to travel fast that light. The entire world was slowly becoming an oligarchy. Not that DI was evil about it. The companies they put out of business, would be bought and reopened instantly. The owners of the companies could even still run the companies, albeit with slightly different rules and a lower percent of the total revenue going to them.
EDI traveled the world, gathering data for EDITOR. EDITOR couldn’t see everything, since she couldn’t be everywhere at once. For those times, EDI would do the work. She was used in stealth assignments, and espionage. EDITOR had pretty much left Voice alone after he gained his ultimate power.
Voice left his white room. It had been a few hours since he started reminiscing. He went back to the underworld, and met Susan. Susan waved goodbye to her friends and family. No tears were shed. She visited about once a week or so. They were used to her visits now. At first they were sad that she died too, but then the understood that she had some connection to the god of this place.
She left with Voice, and returned home.
Evan, Elizabeth, and Rose were all sitting near the fireplace of the small home. Voice and Susan joined them.
Elizabeth smiled when they came in. “Good! I almost thought you two weren’t coming back tonight.” She gave a sly wink to Voice.
Voice shook his head in amusement. The table had already been set for five. A thick stew filled five bowls, bread and salad sat upon five plates. Voice and Susan sat down and joined the meal.
“Thanks.” Voice said as he smiled. “I always enjoy eating with friends.”
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Sorry it took so long for the epilogue! I had TOOOOOOONS of paperwork for my education classes. They have to make sure I’m not a creeper before I’m allowed to watch the classrooms. Hope you enjoyed the story guys! See you on the other side!