The Strange Adventures of Hearn the Believer

To become a hero to the gods is to cease being a hero, and instead become a dragon.

"So that's why heroes who never die, never leave, and never hide their identities will be turned into dragons."

"Charlotte, there are no gods in this world, only a group of extraordinary monsters, a group of enormous evil dragons."

"Yes, Charlotte knows, because you, teacher, have killed the last god, so there are no more gods in the world."

公历1173年12月16日08时32分，天气：晴。

Erin Scherney basked in the warm sunlight for the first time in a long time. The atmosphere of this desolate planet had all the necessary elements, so the morning sun was not dazzling, but rather gentle.

After the trial of Baal, the creator of the Karen civilization, concluded, she had a series of not-too-difficult conversations with the outsider who had just stepped down as judge. After these conversations, Eileen had a more than adequate grasp of the current situation.

First of all, her homeland, Karen, which is the moon in the sky, is indeed finished.

Nothing was left except for the half-fallen stardust.

The high-energy particle stream that destroyed her homeland, or the high-energy ether stream, also known as the "heavenly fire" recorded in the doctrine of the Sun God, was caused by the giant orange that was just burned to ashes.

Since landing on this desolate planet, Eileen's worldview has been shattered by a series of events, leaving not a single fragment. As a result, her ability to accept new things has reached an unprecedented peak.

That big, golden orange cat, curled up into a ball of fur, pretending to be a star at the center of a galaxy—it seems not so unacceptable if you force yourself to accept it a little.

After accepting the fact that Karen's sun god was a big orange cat, both mentally and physically, Erin felt that her mind had never been so open.

To use a popular video game concept from Karen, it would be like adding one more piece of forbidden knowledge.

After finishing the conversation about the past, the mysterious stranger frankly revealed her identity—a devil who listens to the wishes of mortals.

devil.

Although I had heard this word more than once from the wild words of that big orange cat before its death, and although there were many similar records in Karen's various documents...

But when it was Eileen's turn to face this moment in person, in this situation, with a girl who looked no different from her in appearance confessing to her that she was a devil.

Eileen still felt that the word lacked a certain realism.

The outsider who called herself the devil seemed to sense Eileen's hesitation and, judging that such hesitation was not suitable for the conversation to continue, she resolved it.

When the pitch-black crown, constructed from unknown geometric shapes and the ring of inscribed laws, appeared above the stranger's head, Eileen gazed at the illusory, star-like black wing behind her, momentarily lost in thought, before nodding gently and accepting the new fact—the fact that this girl, who looked even younger than herself, was a devil.

At the same time, she raised a question that was completely out of place, yet very girlish.

"Your hair color was already beautiful, why did you dye it that dull gray color before?"

Eileen pointed to the stranger's long, platinum blonde hair, its color faded and thinned by the ethereal currents, and asked curiously.

Miss Outsider seemed completely unprepared for Eileen to ask such an inappropriate question in such a formal and solemn setting, so she hesitated for a moment.

Soon, Eileen was fortunate enough to get the answer from the devil, even though the answer seemed meaningless.

"Because the little prince who lived in the astral plane did not like the golden scales of the snake, the snake dyed his scales gray."

"Ah?"

"Don't worry about it, it's just a lame joke that's popular in the Astral Realm. Miss Eileen, the debt settlement is over, now it's time to talk about the aftermath."

"Uh, okay!"

……

Eileen quickly understood what the so-called cleanup was.

"So, the sun god Baal... I mean that orange cat, His first creation, and everything that followed, all belong to the category of the original misappropriated assets?"

Before participating in the Xue Ni Group's space program, Eileen had also helped her father manage the company's affairs, so she quickly applied a reference model that she could understand to the subsequent negotiations.

Due to the convection of hot and cold air caused by the sun rising again, "winds" soon swept across the surface of the planet Morag Bar.

Before the storm whipped up a cloud of white sand, Eileen invited Miss Devil into the orbital module.

Eileen has always been both fearful and curious about the unknown.

Moreover, she no longer wanted to return to the situation of being alone and desperately waiting for death on this desolate planet.

Since this devilish lady claims to listen to the wishes of mortals, it means that Eileen's fate has taken a turn for the better.

"Yes, and Miss Eileen, you are also part of the [assets]."

"Miss Devil," Charlotte Hearn stated calmly.

"I see... Oh dear! Even I am one!?"

Eileen, who had just switched to an inexperienced businessman's tone to negotiate with Miss Devil, was struck dumb.

One second they were sitting opposite each other, ready to discuss business, and the next second she had become an asset. This shocking fact made Eileen freeze for a moment again.

However, she soon realized the reason—since the sun god Baal was the creator of the Karen civilization, the Karen people should naturally also belong to His creation.

"The specific time and unit conversions are irrelevant. Your origins, or rather the origins of this star system, all stem from an etheric asset misappropriated by that Son of Baal. He brought it out of Hell and then, as a high-dimensional species from the [Forming Realm], descended upon this star system belonging to the [Material Realm], creating everything you know—according to the original plan, I intended to completely reclaim this etheric asset after executing that Son of Baal, but..."

Miss Devil abruptly changed the subject.

"But what?"

Eileen's ears perked up; she sensed a turning point.

"However, Miss Eileen seems to be a being with a complete personality/soul."

As she finished speaking, a cold, gentle smile appeared on Miss Devil's face.

"From a biological and sociological perspective, I am indeed a mentally complete adult, probably..."

Eileen grew increasingly apprehensive as she spoke to that cold, unyielding smile, finally remembering what the devil's most cherished currency was.

The soul of a mortal.

"According to the classical approach, I should have killed Miss Eileen directly and then taken back all the assets of the company. However, since the [Shadow Saint] took the throne, a new law has been added to His constant laws: [equivalent exchange]. Simply put, the devils can no longer plunder any intelligent being with a [complete personality/soul], even if they are just mortal beings in the material world at the bottom of the Tree of Life. All souls should be redeemed in the form of a mutually agreeable business transaction, where the soul is given to redeem the will, and an equivalent exchange is made."

Thanks to that Shadow Child, though I don't know who He is, He is truly a compassionate and kind person.

Realizing that she had narrowly escaped death because of the new regulations issued by the devil leader, Eileen sighed inwardly. Then she thought of the big orange cat that had just died.

"...That big orange cat not only misappropriated assets, but also violated the Holy Son's rules—using classical methods to extort and plunder, which is why Miss Charlotte executed it, right?"

"This was also one of the reasons for the execution; Morag Bal was the kind of not-so-clever classical devil."

Miss Devil nodded.

"So, among Miss Charlotte's colleagues, there are modern devils who cleverly exploit loopholes in the rules, right?"

Eileen subconsciously pressed for more information, perhaps because she hadn't spoken to anyone in a long time, she was genuinely curious and talkative.

"Well, probably."

Miss Devil seemed uninterested in the topic and quickly steered it back on track.

"There's no point in not fully recovering the etheric assets in this star system, so—"

Miss Erin Scherney, may I hear your heart?

……

Chapter 155 Cinderella and Snow White (Part 4)

公历1173年12月16日09时10分，天气：多风。

As the storm whipped up a cloud of white sand, sunlight streamed into the cool, gray cottage, where steaming tea rose.

The meeting table, long since devoid of the monotonous and tedious compressed food and nutritional paste, was replaced by a three-tiered display of handmade pastries. While Miss Eileen was lost in her own sorrow, the devilish lady who had come from afar hung her cloak aside, took out a tea set from a dark blue rift, carefully brewed a pot of black tea, and set out the three-tiered tea pastries, beginning to elegantly and leisurely enjoy her morning time.

Of course, the decorations on the tea set are all in shades of blue.

He warmly invited Miss Eileen to share this morning's tranquility, saying that a moderate amount of sweets and hot drinks could relieve anxiety.

Eileen naturally wouldn't refuse such a generous offer; in fact, she was almost driven crazy by the nutritional pastes and compressed foods.

The two are extremely different in terms of taste and flavor, which is regrettable. When Eileen received the steaming cup of red tea and tasted the exquisite dessert that most girls love from the bottom of their hearts after a long time, tears welled up in her eyes.

Miss Devil thoughtfully pointed this out and then asked – was it because the black tea and pastries didn't suit her taste?

"No, no, no, the black tea and pastries were delicious. After eating them, I felt very warm, like the storm outside had completely disappeared. I was so happy that I was afraid I would never be able to go back to the days when I relied on nutritional paste and compressed food to get by."

To ease the awkwardness of her tears, Eileen praised him sincerely in a slightly joking tone.

Whether it was Eileen's imagination or not, she noticed that Miss Devil seemed to have breathed a sigh of relief.

"Nutritional pastes and compressed foods?"

"Well, the food that the Karen people prepare for interstellar exploration is a product designed to maximize efficiency and nutritional value, so you can't expect much in terms of taste or texture."

"I see. In that case, based on the principle of equivalent exchange, Miss Eileen, would you be willing to let me see it?"

"Ah?"

……

Finally, after rummaging through the storage room, Eileen found a box of compressed food that she thought was barely acceptable in terms of taste, probably...

As for the nutritional paste, Eileen ultimately couldn't allow it to appear on the table at the morning tea party, something so unappealing in both taste and appearance.

"I see. Highly compressed organic cubes are easy to carry and can be stored for a long time."

Click.

"Wait……"

"Ok?"

"No, it's nothing..."

Eileen waved her hand, swallowing her words of dissuasion.

How thick-skinned do you have to be to bite into something as hard as a rock without soaking it in fresh water...?

Eileen held her teacup to hide her slightly twitching lips, watching as Miss Devil easily chewed and swallowed the hard, compressed cube.

They even seemed to enjoy their food. Is the devil's appetite really that low?

For a fleeting moment, in the brief instant when she forgot that the girl before her was a devil, Eileen had a moment of doubt—a doubt that this Miss Charlotte might have suffered hunger as a child…

However, she quickly dismissed this unrealistic idea.

How could the devil possibly go hungry?

During the tea-tasting, Eileen's gaze returned to her right, where there was a parchment imprinted with gold foil patterns.

It was a contract, a contract offered by the devil to mortals to redeem their wishes.

However, the "wishes" section is still empty.

Only those who have truly experienced despair will attract the devil's visit. Those beings that roam in the shadows between stars carefully sniff out the scent of business opportunities in the eternal universe. Once they find their prey, and smell the scent of the prey's immense desire born of despair, they will arrive as promised and make a visit.

As the last surviving Karen, Erin Scherney had been walking alone on the desolate planet for the past five days, thus attracting the demons of the astral plane.

Her name is Charlotte Hearn, a devil who travels among the stars with a star in her arms.

From a business perspective, Erin Scherney believes she is in a dilemma.

She has only one bargaining chip, which is her own soul, but she has more than one wish to fulfill.

One is to redeem a sun for this star system.

Secondly, it was to revive the civilization of Karen.

Eileen did not forget that on the third day after landing on Morag Bal, the day the sun disappeared, her two companions shot themselves in despair.

After witnessing the execution of the Son of Baal, she gained a profound understanding of the fact that this galaxy had lost its sun.

Although the sun god who kept the Karen people was undoubtedly an evil god or a wicked orange, He did indeed fulfill the responsibility of radiating light and heat to sustain the beings of the Bar star system for a long time.

Now that his deeds have been exposed, people from above came and killed him.

Eileen had subtly inquired about how the sun god Baal was banished from His divine realm to the mortal world by Miss Charlotte.

Before asking, Eileen had envisioned more than ten mythical, dark battle scenes in her mind, with holy light and shadow in opposition, and fire and blood dancing together. She had spent a lot of time studying art during her student days, and thanks to her innate talent for composition, her mother had always hoped that her daughter could become a famous painter in Karen.

However, the answer I just received was...

"I'll just kick an orange cat away. For the sake of asset stability, I can only put an avatar in to act as 'tweezers' to deal with this orange cat. My real body is actually watching this place from outside the galaxy."

"Outside the galaxy!!!"

Just as the words reached her ears, Eileen was taking small bites of a sponge cake. Caught off guard, she took a bite and almost crushed her teeth.

"Well, because I followed the great evil dragon around to hunt for food since I was a child, I grew up without realizing it. When I came to my senses, it was no longer possible to enter the galaxy without encountering stars."

Charlotte nodded calmly, then took a sip of her black tea.