The goddess could not leave the labyrinth, for the power of the trickster god still pervaded the world. To completely free her, the Lockpick Hero must disrupt the channel of his power: the World Tree.

For just a moment, turning it off then on again would suffice.

However, the World Tree was guarded by the Archangel of the Elves, a powerful entity who jealously defended its control knobs. To defeat it, he had to at least unlock the Second Seal.

Yes, there were actually Three Seals. He was surprised to find them. He even showed the goddess, and she, too, was surprised. She had been sealed away so effectively and for so long that the trickster god had managed to shore up the Seals by this much.

This meant that, unfortunately, the Lockpick Hero did not actually become truly immortal. He did, however, still become significantly harder to kill.

If there was another entity who knew how to break the Second and Third Seals, it would be the Demon Sage, the Dealer of Secrets. To find him, however, required a measure of omniscience—something which the goddess was lacking in at the moment.

Either that, or an audience with the Demon Queen, for even the Demon Sage was not exempt from annually declaring his present address, especially since he was a living cultural heritage under law. Granted, this knowledge was last updated 1,000 years ago. It could be wrong, but there was nothing else to go on.

Thus, the Lockpick Hero traveled the mortal lands, heading straight for Castle-between-Chasms, the heart of the demon kingdom ruled by vampires.

Unbeknownst to him, his adventures through the lands of men—and of elves, beastkin, dryads, and hives—through the forests, deserts, and plains, created such an amazing reputation that it traveled much faster than he did. Bards sung of a man who could not be stopped, could not be killed. Kings sought his consul, untangling the greatest knots in law and diplomacy, war and peace. Even the mighty Church trembled before the Lockpick Hero, hailed a Paladin of the True Goddess, as he raided their treasuries, but not of their riches, but of something more powerful than the sword: their ledgers.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

—The hammer of justice fell much harder when tax evasion was involved.

Some whispered that he was the hero foretold in prophecy: one to arrive from the depths of the earth, to bring justice and return the fear of the Goddess upon vile men; to bring peace where peace was due; to bring war where war was due.

—For this was the Lockpicking Lawyer: prosecutor of the most corrupt governments of Earth. Indeed, for when even North Korea was out for your blood, there is nothing much left to faze you.

In this world, it was much the same. Though the trickster god disguised himself, he threw pebbles on the road in the hopes of tripping up the Lockpick Hero. He whispered deals of power to the kings and churches, and as expected of their greed, they threw the continent into turmoil. The Lockpick Hero was thrown into a Gordian knot of politics and upheaval…but unlike a Gordian knot, politics was a mechanism. It had moving parts and an identifiable structure. One person’s action led to others’ reactions, and it was simply a matter of figuring which pin to push first, because at some point, after trying them all, one of them will click.

Clicking the right pins, in the right order, was all that it was. To find the right order was the Lockpick Hero’s talent, and to turn the world on its head was the discharge of his skill. Not only did the nations of Sera begin to understand one another, but they also began to understand the world around them. Where the Lockpick Hero tread, culture and industry flourished. The very meaning of existence clicked for the mortal nations, their purpose aligning with something far grander than themselves.

In the end, the trickster god had accomplished nothing but making the Lockpick Hero an even more determined attacker than ever before.

By the time the Lockpick Hero stepped foot in the demon kingdom ruled by vampires, they had already heard his nation-shaking footsteps coming from kingdoms away.