“That makes sense. So… Should we just walk into the circle and get the magic?” Yue says.

“Are you both just planning to ignore the creepy skeleton sitting in the throne-like ostentatious chair next to that circle?” Mai interjects.

“We’ll get to that too. I was just building up to it.”

Mai just rolls her eyes and says, “So that’s the maverick guy, huh?”

“I’m curious about why he died sitting in the chair. It’d be much more comfortable to sleep in a bed or even a couch eternally. Anything would be better than this uncomfortable chair.”

Mai laughs cutely, “To each their own I guess.”

The corpse in the chair was nothing but bones at this point, signifying the amount of time that it’s been. It was clothed in a grand black and gold robe, it was probably some sort of artifact going by its impeccable cleanliness.

The room was empty except for the dead person’s skeleton and the magic circle.

“One by one? Or all of us together?” Mai asks.

“I’ll go first, who knows if it ends up being a trap. At least I’ll be able to teleport to you if something happens.”

“Be careful.” Mai has a concerned look on her face.

“I believe in you.” Yue gives some motivational support too.

“It’s fine, I’m not gonna die.” Masashi jinxes it before going into the circle.

“… Okay I guess I’ve got to go to the center of the circle,” Masashi says as he continues to walk.

The moment he stands in the center of the circle there’s a blinding light filling the room.

The circle had some kind of testing mechanism to check if you were someone related to the gods.

It probably tired to read Masashi’s memories for evaluation but due to [Gamer’s Mind] nothing happened.

Failing to read Masashi’s memories, the light show fades away and the power of the magic circle wanes away. The trio then notices another person in the room.

‘I guess even if the circle couldn’t read my memories, it could feel my intentions since they had soul magic, so it evaluated me as passable.’

None of them panic since they can see that it’s just a projection, and they just turn their attention to it since it’s probably gonna do some exposition.

The projection was of a black-robed young man, presumably the same man that’s now a skeleton in that chair.

“I congratulate you on overcoming my trial. My name is Oscar Orcus. I am the man who created this labyrinth. I suppose to the world I’m known as a maverick.”

“By the way, please spare me the questions. This is nothing more than a recording I left behind, so I, unfortunately, cannot answer any queries you may have. I wanted to tell those who made it this far why it was that we, who learned the truth of the world, chose to fight against the gods... so I decided to leave a message. And this was the simplest form to convey that message. I want you to know... that though we were mavericks, we were not truly rebels.”

Oscar Orcus started the story of the mavericks from their perspective. What had been told to the people was the version of the one who won the battle, now Oscar told them their version.

The tale of the mad gods and their progeny.

After the Age of the Gods, the world was engulfed in war and bloodshed. The mortal races on Tortus, the humans, demons, and beast-men, all fought consistently in a mad scramble for power, land, and resources.

This was the reason on the surface, but the actual reason was the theocratical nature of all the races after the Age of the Gods.

Each nation and country was divided based on whom they worshipped. The gods incited their worshippers to declare war on the countries and tribes that worshipped others.

The gods’ true intentions weren’t even to fight for some kind of benefit for them, it’s not like they’d get stronger if their worshippers were greater in number or anything.

The reason behind the eternal war and turmoil was nothing but a godly dick-measuring contest. The gods were just playing chess with the entirety of Tortus as their chessboard.

These intentions were found out by some of the descendants of the gods with mortals. The sickening disregard for life that the gods had made the descendants form together to stop the centuries-long war.

They called themselves, The Liberators, the leader was a passionate man who wanted to bring some semblance of peace to the continent.

After decades of searching, they were able to find the place where the gods resided, Asgard.

The liberators had seven exceptionally powerful members, including the leader.

They were chosen as the vanguard to battle the gods.

However just as they were planning to make their move, tragedy struck.

Their plans were foiled before they could even take fruition. The sentient races were manipulated by the gods into believing that The Liberators were trying to destroy the world.

They were declared the enemies of all life in the world and every human, demon, and beastmen considered them their mortal foe.

The people that they were trying to protect were the ones that turned their backs on them and branded them as heretics.

The Liberators didn’t want to fight and kill those that they’d sworn to protect, so they simply ran.

Their true name as The Liberators was forgotten and they were simply known as mavericks in the chronicles of history.

One by one The Liberators were killed off by assassinations of the gods. The people weren’t really strong enough to kill them since they were demigods with true ancient magics in their hands.

Those assassinations were carried out by the puppets of the gods to whom they’d bestowed some of their divine power.

Finally, after too much time being on the run and hiding, there were only the strongest seven among the liberators left.

They decided to scatter to the ends of the world, they built huge labyrinths to hide in, with a series of trials to reward the challenger who clears those labyrinths receiving the power of the mavericks.

“I have no idea who you are, or why you chose to fight your way down here. Nor do I have any intention of forcing my dreams of the gods’ demise onto you. I simply wanted you to know what it was we fought and died, for... As a reward for hearing me out, I shall grant you my strength. 

“How you use it is entirely up to you. I can only pray you won’t use it for evil. That’s all I have to say. Thank you for listening to the end. May the ‘blessings’ of the gods never reach you.” 

With that, the projection of Orcus finally stopped speaking and started to fade away.

Masashi felt foreign knowledge enter his mind, the knowledge of how to use [Creation Magic]. It wasn’t blocked by [Gamer’s Mind] since it was only the process of receiving knowledge directly into his brain and he heard some dings from the system.

It wasn’t that he learned how to use creation magic completely and intricately, he would still need to discover its uses and master it. What happened was as if some kind of authority was granted to him that allowed him to use this magic.

This authority granting was very painful since it was being granted directly to the soul. So, it hurt like a bitch, but Masashi didn’t make a sound, not wanting to worry Mai and Yue.

Although Mai was already worried sick about him since she knew that he was in immense pain with the connection which Masashi forgot about due to the pain.

Finally, as the process was over, he checked out the notifications from the system.

[Main Quest 1: Clear the Great Orcus Labyrinth (Completed)

Rewards: 2000 Levels each, 50x SP Potions, 50x MP Potions, Transmute]

[Main Tortus Quest Chain Unlocked]

[Main Quest 2: Clear the Great Reisen Labyrinth

Reward: 2000 Levels, 50x SP Potions, 50x MP Potions, ???]

Masashi accepted the rewards for the first quest as he and Mai got a massive boost in their stats. Then he checked out the skill that he got. He was pretty sure of its use though.

[Transmute LVL 1: Allows The Gamer to use mana to change the properties of different materials by manipulating the number of protons and electrons in the atoms of that element.]

‘So that’s how it works, theoretically, I could even make Uranium and make my atomic bomb with [Transmute]. Any element on the periodic table can be synthesized using this ability. And with Creation Magic, I can completely bypass The Law of Conservation of Mass. I can just make anything out of nothing using mana.’

As Masashi was making some dangerous plans, Yue interrupted his thoughts, “Did you get it?”

Mai already knew of the success of the clearing of the quest and the increase in levels but Yue was still unaware of everything and asked Masashi anxiously.

Masashi smiles gently at Yue, “Yeah it’s done. I got the authority to use one of the magic from the Age of the Gods. It’s called [Creation Magic]. It allows me to create anything through mana and manipulate the properties of elements. I can even make my elements with the properties that I want. Let alone enchant them to form artifacts.”

“That sounds cool.”

“You can make artifacts!?” Yue is surprised since artifacts weren’t able to be produced ever since the Age of the Gods and everything that’s still in use is a remnant.

“Yeah. It’s a pretty useful kind of magic, you guys should accept it too I feel like if we have all seven of these magic from the labyrinths, we’ll be able to do something big.”

“If you say so,” Mai said nonchalantly as she and Yue weren’t interested in creating artifacts.

Yue and Mai walked into the circle as it probably probed Yue’s memory to check her intentions and tried to do the same to Mai before failing.

They were also evaluated as worthy due to their intentions being acceptable and received the Ancient Magic.

“Now, what do we do with the corpse?” Yue asked.

“Well, we’ll be living here for the time being so we might as well give the guy a burial,” Mai said as they did exactly that. They buried the guy near the farm with a modest gravestone saying, ‘Here lies Oscar Orcus. The creator of the Great Orcus Labyrinth. A Liberator.’

They also took a ring that Orcus had been wearing, since that was probably the key to all the locked rooms in the place.