Truth or Lie

Before I knew it, the vibrations within the cave had grown much stronger. This was getting dangerous. I snatched up the Pandora Gift and scrambled out of the cavern as fast as my legs could carry me. A thunderous thud echoed behind me, and when I turned around, the cave entrance was gone—completely vanished.

That was way too close...!

I’d made it out by the skin of my teeth. If I had spent even a few more seconds disarming that trap, I might have been flattened. Actually, with the cave gone entirely, maybe I would've been trapped in another dimension rather than just buried? Either way, I wouldn't have come out in one piece.

"Honestly, Tort! That was way too reckless!"

"Sorry. I saw a treasure chest and just couldn't help myself..."

I ended up getting a lecture from Halfa. Well, I suppose I deserved it.

I know it sounds like an excuse, but based on how long the ruins dungeon had taken to collapse, I figured there'd be more than enough time to pop open a chest. However, the collapse happened much faster than I’d anticipated. Maybe the countdown to a dungeon's destruction is proportional to its size?

I’d been a bit careless, but I felt the risk had been worth it. After all, I’d gotten my hands on a Pandora Gift! Now then, I wondered what would be inside.

Wait, I needed to regroup with Lowell and the others first. There wasn't a Killer Ape in sight. It seemed that, just as the Destiny God had said, they vanished the moment the dungeon collapsed.

『Hey, Tort!』

As Halfa and I headed back toward our original position, Lowell and Granny Pearl came toward us, with Shiroru leading the way. Having confirmed the disappearance of the great apes, it looked like they had decided to come find us.

"Is the dungeon dealt with?"

"Yeah. Now all we have to do is find the Eternal Dream Flower."

"Right. I just hope nothing else goes wrong..."

Lowell's concern was justified. A massive swarm of Killer Apes had crawled out of that dungeon and occupied the area. It wouldn't be surprising if their presence had caused some kind of lasting damage.

Still, having just obtained a Pandora Gift, I felt pretty relaxed.

Or so I thought, until—

『Oh, that’s right, Tort! You got a Pandora Gift, didn’t you? You should open it now!』

Shiroru suddenly made the suggestion out of the blue.

I’d been planning to save it for an emergency, but if Shiroru was being this insistent, did that mean now was the emergency?

I hesitated for a moment before pulling the Pandora Gift out of my Storage Ring. Granny Pearl’s eyes nearly popped out of her head when she saw it.

"Wh—?! Are you insane? I don't care how lucky you claim to be, that’s taking a gamble too far! Take my advice and put that thing away!"

Granny Pearl’s reaction was perfectly reasonable. I hadn't told her about my skill yet, so it was only natural she’d be horrified. Lowell, on the other hand, was relatively calm since he’d seen me do this before.

『Tort will be just fine! Besides, Lady Lamuyadas intervened personally, so there's nothing to worry about!』

"That again... It’s clear enough that you lot have some connection to the Destiny God, but still..."

Granny Pearl was looking at us with extremely dubious eyes.

Well, I couldn't blame her. Anyone would be bewildered if they were suddenly told about divine oracles or a god interfering with a Pandora Gift. However, since the apes had vanished exactly as the oracle predicted, she seemed willing to suspend her disbelief, even if she couldn't fully wrap her head around it.

Once I explained my [Destiny God's Smile] skill, she seemed to accept the situation, though she let out a series of strange groans. I thought I heard her mutter something about how that skill might even make "taboo concoctions" possible, but I decided to play it safe and pretend I hadn't heard a thing.

Regardless, I wouldn't know anything until I opened the box. If there really had been divine interference, maybe I'd get an item that could help with the Eternal Dream Flower?

I opened the box as usual, and inside sat a small bottle and a slip of paper.

The bottle had an air of elegance and importance about it. Its contents were mysterious—filled with a substance that didn't look like a liquid, yet was hard to define. It wasn't physically glowing, but I could feel a sense of warmth and brightness radiating from it. It was a strange little thing, and most likely the key to resolving our current predicament.

Next, I looked at the slip of paper. It was just a normal sheet of paper folded in half. I opened it up and saw some writing.

The very first line read:

About My Reincarnation as the Destiny God

...Whaaaaaaaat?! Was the Destiny God... a reincarnator too?!

What was this? Was it the truth? Or just a mean prank?

What did this even mean?!

Honestly, if the Destiny God really was a reincarnator, a lot of things would finally click into place. I’d always wondered why she helped me so much even though I didn't have some grand mission. I’d suspected she might be manipulating the Pandora Gifts to guide my actions, but that felt like it relied too much on coincidence.

But maybe she was just helping me out because we were technically from the same world. Maybe it was just a sense of nostalgia for a fellow countryman. It certainly explained why the food culture in Halfa’s homeland was so suspiciously similar to Earth’s.

Wait, but when did she reincarnate? The Destiny God had been a known existence in this world for at least several centuries. Was it possible that the flow of time was different between worlds, or perhaps just distorted?

...Ugh, the more I thought about it, the more questions I had!

Unfortunately, the bit about reincarnation was limited to that first line. The rest of the letter was an explanation for the small bottle. Apparently, it was a medicine used to boost the spirit essence of the land.

The Eternal Dream Flower had a unique trait: it absorbed the spirit essence dwelling in the soil and stored that power to bloom. Spirit essence was the source of a spirit's power—natural energy produced by the world itself, or something like that.

On the other hand, dungeon monsters were composed of a power called "malice," an energy governed by Garnalava. This malice had the property of weakening spirit essence.

Because this area had been overrun by dungeon monsters, the spirit essence here was in a state of total disarray. Since the encroachment hadn't lasted very long, the damage was only temporary, but it was still enough to negatively affect the quality of the Eternal Dream Flower. However, by using this "Sealed Bottle of Spirit Essence," the land's energy could be restored instantly.

It was the perfect countermeasure. I was grateful to be given exactly what we needed, but that first line of the letter had left me far too shocked to think straight.