After the recess was over, Maria resumed the meeting and, this time around, Gerald and Mikael actively began joining in on the discussion at Maria's behest. She wanted them to rein in the NPCs from doing anything too over the top. Thanks to the short break, the NPCs were able to calm down a little, so the two of them were able to interject into the conversations and quickly give them their thoughts and views regarding the matters the NPCs had been talking about before and successfully managed to ground them.
Since they were her brothers, Gerald and Mikael were able to shoot down a lot of the weird plans the NPCs were trying to put forward and, by the end of it, they were able to convince the NPCs into agreeing to a more simple plan which involved a select few people performing missionary work and spreading the news about Maria’s faith to the masses in a more peaceful and less aggressive way.
Before Maria issued the recess, the NPCs were just about to agree on a plan that involved forcing others into her faith and even brainwashing them, which was pretty scary. They really were going to do everything in order to help her ascend into godhood, which was nice and all, but it was a little bit scary that they would resort to any means possible, whether it was good or bad.
It would leave a bad image for Maria if she allowed such a thing to happen, so she asked her brothers to stop her subordinates from doing that. She couldn’t do it herself, because she was certain that someone from the lot would do whatever it took to convince her to let them proceed with their plans.
In the end, she might inadvertently let them go through with it out of sheer annoyance at their stubbornness, so she needed some people who were equally stubborn to stop them. Gerald and Mikael were able to put out some convincing arguments which caused the NPCs to reconsider their previous ideas and settle for something a little more simple and toned down.
Maria ended the meeting once everyone was in agreement with the plan before she tried escaping from the hall. Even though she was the one who wanted those meetings, she found it all a little bit annoying, especially once they dragged on for too long.
Before she was able to get far, Raiju quickly stopped her and handed her the second book she wrote that had information about everything she knew about the Divine Realm. She had already given the book regarding the [Return Scrolls] and [Return Crystals] to Danor, the head craftsman.
“What’s this, Raiju?”
“It’s all of my knowledge regarding the Divine Realm. I’m sure it’ll be very useful to you, Master.”
“Hm…”
“It’s not perfect and there might be a few things that I might have left out because I’ve forgotten about them, but it should still help you gain a better understanding of the Divine Realm, Master.”
Maria began flipping through the book and she looked back up to Raiju and said, “Good work, Raiju. This information might be a little outdated since you were sealed away, but it should still be quite useful. At the very least, it has given me some idea of the Divine Realm.”
“I’m glad to be of service, Master, and yes, the information might be outdated. If you’ll allow it, I can go do some scouting for you and obtain more recent and more reliable information for you.”
“Oh? Have your powers recovered to the point where you can go to the Divine Realm on your own?” Maria asked after putting the book away.
“Yes, more or less,” Raiju replied with a nod.
She still wasn’t completely healed, but her powers had recovered to the point where she could go to the Divine Realm on her own. Maria didn’t know if this was a good idea or not because she was still weakened, so she asked, “Are you going to be okay if I send you out? You still haven’t fully recovered yet. What happens if you suddenly encounter some hostile people or worse, those who were affiliated with the ones who sealed you away? If you get captured, I won't be able to help you in my current state.”
Maria was showing concern for her and this caused Raiju to smile inwardly at herself as she answered, “Thank you for your concern, Master, but you need not worry about me. I’ll only be going around to look for information and I’ll keep myself out of trouble.”
“...Okay, then you go ahead and do it then, but I want you to return within a month. I need you to be present when I resume the war on Vanargand.”
“Yes, Master.”
Just before Raiju was about to leave, Maria stopped her and said, “While you’re in the Divine Realm, I want you to look into something for me.”
“Hm? What is it, Master?”
“Look for something called the Ziggurat.”
“The Ziggurat? You know about that place, Master?” Raiju asked with a surprised look on her face.
She didn’t think that her master would know of the place that even the gods feared and called the ‘Graveyard of the Gods’ because it was a place that had buried so many gods in the past and now served as a place of punishment for the Divine Realm’s criminals. Maria saw the surprised expression on Raiju’s face and asked, “Hm? It seems you know something about it, Raiju?”
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“Yes, I do, Master. It’s the place where criminals of the Divine Realm–gods and mortals alike–are held captive before they’re handed down a sentence by the prison’s wardens. Originally, I was supposed to be tossed in there…why do you–”
Raiju’s question was cut short as he saw the anger and rage that flashed in Maria’s eyes for a moment and she stopped asking for the reason and just nodded, “I’ll look into everything I can about the Ziggurat.”
Maria let out a breath after she quickly calmed herself. She turned back to Raiju and smiled at her words before replying, “Good. Make sure you get every piece of information that you can, including a list of the criminals that were put there within the last year…”
“Yes, Master.”
Maria naturally wanted information about the Ziggurat, which she believed was in the Divine Realm, and she was right about that since Raiju seemed to also know about it. She still hadn’t forgotten her grudge against the gods of Eur’s hero, Mobius, as well as her mentor and friend, Paimon, who had been imprisoned in that place. She was almost level 250, which was the level threshold she needed to achieve before she could proceed with the quest, so Maria had to start gathering information about her quest objectives.
First, she needed to know where the Ziggurat was located. Second, she needed to find out where Paimon was being held inside and whether he was still there or not. Thankfully, the quest didn’t have a time limit, so it was highly likely that her master would still be held captive there without being moved anywhere else. However, she couldn't be complacent about this just because there was no quest time limit since there was no telling what could happen to her master if she let him stay for too long in that prison that even the gods of the Divine Realm feared.
In the worse case scenario, she might go there and only end up finding his corpse. That thought was something Maria didn't want to entertain, so the faster she got to level 250 and completed the quest, the smaller the chance that something such as that would happen to Paimon.
At the end of the day, Paimon was still her master, the person who taught her practically everything she knew about magic, so she needed to quickly rescue him and recruit him into her faction. After all, having another powerful NPC in her fold was something she always welcomed.
Even though the quest only mentioned rescuing Paimon, Maria wasn't going to stop there since the matter with Mobius was also another thing she needed to settle even though there was no quest from the system that required her to take revenge on the NPC. She wasn’t going to forget the humiliation and despair that he had put her through on that fateful day when her master had sacrificed himself in order to get her away from the planet.
“Oh yeah…that accursed planet…Once I free Paimon, I think I’ll go destroy the gods on that planet and take it over for myself…”
Those gods were the ones who pushed her onto her path of solitude, but Maria had to be grateful to them. If it weren’t for them, then she never would’ve gotten the opportunity to become a goddess herself. So, to thank them, she planned on killing them after she freed Paimon and completely conquer the planet that they were ruling.
In order to start all this, she needed to level up and get to level 250 as soon as possible, so after summoning Elizabeth and telling her brothers about her next plan of action, they agreed to go along with her to the island where she said she would help them level up. She didn’t forget to invite her friends, who readily accepted, except for Amanda, who was still busy managing the Fallen Angel guild’s newly established territory on the Dire’s western frontier. It was regrettable that she couldn’t come, but Maria wasn’t going to postpone the trip because it was urgent now.
The party that was going with her was Lizzy, Emily, Elizabeth Bathory, her two brothers, and a few of Mikael’s friends who wanted to tag along. Since Mikael was bringing a few friends along, Lizzy and Gerald decided to bring a handful of their most trusted people with them.
Maria allowed it since the island was going to be teeming with monsters and they could share the precious hunting grounds. That’s, of course, if they could actually hunt there at their levels or not.
The only place she wasn’t going to allow them to approach was the volcano, which was actually the entrance to the Underworld. She was going to have Elizabeth and a few of the subordinates she was going to bring along lock down the place and prevent anyone from approaching it. That was a secret that she wasn’t willing to share with anyone else just yet.
Once everyone was gathered, they quickly boarded a private ship that quickly set sail towards the island.