Chapter 77: Speedrunning the Afterlife.

Hel studied the mortal seated before her.

On the surface, everything was simple—too simple—for someone marked by the Trickster.

His wishes were modest.

Resurrection was expected.

The rest were trivial, gifts she could grant with a flick of her hand.

And yet…

A whisper of unease stirred beneath her calm.

That ancient instinct honed across eons, the kind even gods couldn’t name, gave a warning.

This mortal wasn’t what he seemed.

It wasn’t just the Trickster’s spark within him.

It was the way he moved through the world like a man who already knew what it was made of.

Not just its laws but also its future and that was dangerous.

More dangerous than arrogance.

More dangerous than power.

Still, Hel knew better than most:

No reward ever came without risk.

And if she couldn’t gamble—if she couldn’t step into the unknown, even when a mortal dared where gods hesitated—

Then what right did she have to claim the Chalice?

Yes, she could have broken him.

Torn his soul apart and got through the fragments for truth.

It would’ve been easy.

A single whisper of her will, and the mortal would’ve screamed.

But she didn’t.

Because of the Trickster’s presence.

And more than that, it was the mortal’s calmness that unsettled her.

Not arrogance. Not defiance.

But precision.

He moved like someone who had already thought this play out a thousand times.

Who had already prepared an escape route before the negotiations even began.

She did not like not knowing.

And with the Trickster’s interference laced so deeply in the depths of this soul, she had no certainty of what would happen if she pushed too far.

So, she held back.

Not out of mercy.

But out of caution.

Because if this gamble led to the Chalice,

Then no price was too high and no risk too small.

“I accept your terms… except the wish to erase our memories.”

Her voice rang with quiet finality.

“I will not forget you, mortal. Nor will my realm.”

She didn’t say it with threat or warmth.

Just certainty.

Because something didn’t add up.

Why would a mortal seek to be forgotten…

Unless he planned to become unforgettable?

She had expected a shift in his expression but his face remained calm… if anything, the unsettling smile on his face deepened even more as it had been what he was after all along.

“O Great Goddess, this wish is important to me.”

His voice was sleek as ever.

Hel was amused…

… amused with the games this mortal tried to play with divine.

Still, her expression remained as still as the void.

“How so?” She spoke, narrowing her eyes.

The mortal didn’t flinch.

“I wish for a long life, O Great Goddess…”

“And how can I trust that you won’t strike me down the moment I return?”

“After all…”

He leaned forward slightly.

“…what better way to keep a secret from the other gods than to bury the messenger?”

“So… being forgotten is not a luxury… It is a necessity.”

His voice turned low.

“Of course… I say this not because I distrust you, O Great Goddess…

… But because I do have faith in you…”

“Which is exactly why I prepared for the possibility that you would kill me.”

He had anticipated that a Goddess like her—someone revered as impartial—would strike him down the moment he became inconvenient.

That she would kill a mere mortal to bury a secret too dangerous to share.

It should have offended her.

And yet… all she felt was amusement.

For the first time in a very long time…

After witnessing the rise and ruin of countless souls,

Hel was amused.

If not for the Trickster, she would’ve chosen him as her Apostle without hesitation.

He had the makings of an Apostle.

Not a worshipper or a follower but a blade sharpened by death.

And yet… the Trickster had touched him first.

A pity, she thought.

He would’ve worn her power well.

Still, she had no intention to accept the wish to be forgotten.

As if knowing the inevitable rejection, the mortal spoke before she could.

“I understand your concern, O Great Goddess…”

“So allow me to offer a revised proposal.”

“In exchange for removing the request to be forgotten…I shall take another oath to not share the location of the chalice to anyone.”

“And in return you grant me a slightly different wish…”

He paused for a moment.

“That after my resurrection, you shall never again seek to kill me… Nor cause me suffering, directly or otherwise, for as long as I keep the location of Chalice a secret.”

The boy leaned back after giving his revised proposal.

And still…

Hel thought calmly.

She had seen liars before.

She had seen dreamers, schemers, saints who begged and monsters who dared.

But this boy was different.

Not because he was clever but because he played as if he knew the ending.

And yet…

He offered his secrecy.

He bound his own mouth with a divine oath.

He revised his wish without fear.

Almost as if he wanted her to refuse the first one.

“Very well,” she said, her voice soft. “Swear it.”

The mortal didn’t even blink. He placed a hand over his heart and spoke the words with quiet conviction.

The oath took root instantly.

She didn’t trust him but she trusted the rules and for now, that would have to be enough.

—

[Rael’s POV]

She said yes.

I didn’t jump or cheer or fist-pump the air… but gods, I wanted to.

The hardest part was over.

Convincing a literal goddess to play a rigged game?

That wasn’t just risky. It was suicide.

And yet… she bought it.

Not completely, but enough to let the game begin.

Honestly, I would’ve preferred the original deal.

The memory wipe was my safety net.

Trusting Hel not to try anything later was like asking a wolf to babysit your emotional support rabbit.

But a foot in the door was better than a foot in the grave.

Hel didn’t think I’d ask her something she knew but couldn’t answer because, in her mind, there wasn’t anything like that.

She believed herself unrestricted.

And maybe she was.

But there was one truth, that even gods would die before speaking.

Not because they were forbidden… but because speaking it would mean surrender.

ThePrimordial Mark

I shouldn’t even have knowledge of this word let alone what it meant.

Because no mortal should.

No god could even share what it was or what it meant.

The Heavenly Principles themselves shielded the meaning of anything related to Primordial Mark.

Anyone who tried to speak of it… would find their words turned incomprehensible.

So, only the Gods knew what that meant and only they understood the cost of sharing it.

Even the Trickster shouldn’t have been able to give information about it to me.

So in her eyes, it was impossible.

But impossibility was kind of my thing now.

I watched as Hel raised her hand with divine mana coiling around her.

She was invoking the Seraphic Decree by saying the Honorific Name of Heavenly Principles.

The name, which, by the way, I absolutely didn’t remember.

I mean, who could blame me?

Even if I somehow retained the plot barely, expecting me to recall word-for-word incantations from a single throwaway Chapter?

That was asking too much.

Which just made me resent those overachieving transmigrators even more.

You know the ones—memorized the stats, the spells and the love interests’ blood types.

For a second, I thought I had their power.

That god-tier memory upgrade you get post-death, where suddenly every obscure sentence in the novel becomes tattooed on your brain.

Yeah.

Turns out that was just a beautiful, pointless little delusion.

Tch.

So I shut up and listened carefully as she spoke the Honorific Name word for word.

Who knows? Maybe one day, I’ll need it.

…Or maybe I’ll forget it the second this is over and go back to winging life.

But hey, it’s worth a shot.

“The Whisper Between Beginnings and Ends

Unseen Hand Beneath Every Fall

The First Law that Broke the Void

Echo of Unspoken Judgement

I, The Ruler of Helheim, ask the Heavenly Principles to arbitrate the Seraphic Decree.”

As soon as she completed the invocation, the space around us trembled.

A golden light burst through the white void.

Then, the gravity vanished.

My body was lifted, dragged by something unseen… something beyond my comprehension.

Hel, even as a goddess, was no exception.

She floated too, dignified as ever.

Her expression without any panic, even as the world around us twisted into something else entirely.

We were being taken.

Somewhere higher.

Somewhere older.

A place where even gods walked carefully.

To the Heavenly Principles.

A month and a half in this world, and I had already died, met a goddess…

… and now I was headed to a realm Noah didn’t even reach until midway through the damn novel.

Honestly, I think that’s quite the achievement.

An achievement I would’ve gladly skipped, mind you, if I had the choice.

But fate was that bitchy ex who kept showing up uninvited, breaking things, and insisting everything still go her way, whether I liked it or not.

And the only way to get out of that toxic relationship was to complain to the one who raised her.

The daddy of that bitch called Fate.

The Heavenly Principles themselves.

—

Author’s Note:

To clarify, the gods can reveal what their PrimordialMark is, but they can’t share what the PrimordialMark means on a cosmic level. That knowledge is sealed by the Heavenly Principles unless you’ve ascended.

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