Chapter 356: Was He Mad

After two days of attending to things he deemed important, Godfrey arrived at Queens City and descended from a taxi. He wore a simple gray hoodie, blue jeans, and white sneakers, with a backpack slung over his shoulder, carrying supplies he might need should this purple gate dungeon have time dilation.

Holding the handle of his backpack with one hand, he made his way toward the heavily guarded bridge.

Johan and the rest of his team were on the bridge with their trucks bearing the guild’s symbol of a shield. Falco, who sat in the driver’s seat with the door open, turned his head and saw the hooded individual approaching the bridge.

"Is that him?" he asked.

Charles and Johan turned, while Lotus, who sat cross-legged on the top of the truck, sprang to her feet. Seeing him, she waved both hands.

’Is she waving at me?’ Godfrey muttered before lifting one hand and bringing it back down. At least that would let these agents know that he was with the team. They were already glaring at him with hostility.

Other members of the team, all twenty of them, turned to Godfrey when they saw Lotus’ reaction. One of them, standing beside another vehicle, folded his arms. "Is that truly Lotus? I’ve not seen her act like this at all."

Hearing that, Philip, who had been nonchalant, also looked, then raised an eyebrow. He had lots of questions about this raid, but after the guild master told them about a summoner who would be able to guarantee their victory, he decided to wait and see who this person was.

After that, he would decide.

Someone hit his shoulder lightly, pulling Philip out of his thoughts. "Look at the guy she’s waving at. She hasn’t even given you a glance despite being one of the strongest members of the guild, but look at how she’s reacting to that dude. She definitely doesn’t like you."

Philip’s friend said.

Philip replied with a scoff.

"That dude? Don’t you know who that is? I’d watch my mouth if I were you." Another member of the team close to them said.

Philip and his friend raised an eyebrow. They watched their guild master, Charles, Falco, and Lotus approach Godfrey at the barricade.

"Who’s he?" Philip asked.

"You don’t know about him? That man, at sixteen, slaughtered three hundred policemen. It was said that they were slammed by a sudden force that tore them apart, and there were marks of hooves on the road and their vehicles. We know it’s one of his summons, the one they call the Death Rider, and he had that at sixteen!" The man close to his twenty-sixth year whispered to them.

Philip frowned. "Sounds like he should be rotting in jail."

"That’s why you should watch your mouth. He’s the Golden Knight summoner, the one whose knights gave that dragon a thrashing." The man added, forcing Philip’s eyes to widen.

"Him?! That’s the Golden Knight summoner! The same dude with enough summons to rival a huge guild like ours?" Philip’s friend gasped.

Philip blinked, then chuckled. ’What rubbish.’ He scoffed inwardly, saw Godfrey heading toward them with the guild master and the others, before turning to the duo beside him.

"You want me to believe that he, that one man within my sight, has over ten thousand summons? Do you even hear yourself?!" Philip scowled, but it dawned on him in the next second when he saw the expressions his friend and the other guy had as they stared at him. It was like they were staring at a man who had just come out of the woods.

"He has more," his friend said.

"W– What?!" Philip stuttered. Before his current status, he was just a construction worker without a certificate. He only bothered with a phone to call his mother; they didn’t even have a television, and he didn’t care about what wouldn’t put food on his table.

But that aside, even if he didn’t have much knowledge, people that had four or five summons were myths, so rare they might not be over a thousand of them in the entire world. Even if only ten million people were left on earth, a thousand Quad summoners or higher were still rare. Compared to the reality where there were billions on earth, the rarity of such summoners was off the charts. In fact, to many, they didn’t even exist at all.

So how—how could one man, just one summoner, unleash over ten thousand summons?!

It just doesn’t make sense. No matter how he thought about it, that couldn’t be real.

It just couldn’t!

"His strength doesn’t make him our friend, though. He’s strong, but his motives are questionable. The authorities have displayed reasons for his supposed helpful actions, and they’re just to his benefit, and their reasons are quite valid to me. He hasn’t debunked any of them either." Philip’s friend said with a grim look and a grave tone.

’Why?’

Godfrey asked himself inwardly. He wasn’t close to the trio, but he heard that last sentence; it wasn’t exactly a whisper. Maybe that man didn’t realize he was listening, and that was why he asked this simple question.

’Why? ... Why were they like this? His motives are questionable? Weren’t they here because, in the end, they would get paid? Were they doing charitable work? No, of course not. But when it involves someone stronger, someone bigger, they demand what isn’t theirs. I’m supposed to be a saint, to explain everything to you. How many people did you explain to? Typical. People always want to tear down those bigger and belittle those lesser. They want equality, yet at the same time they want to be better.’

Godfrey paused. ’Wait...’ He blinked. All these things he was saying... something within him was fracturing. His humanity, if he wasn’t careful, might be gone, but did he really want to belong to these kinds of people?

’Godfrey, just breathe. Don’t generalize. The orphanage is different, Paradise wasn’t bad either.’

"...So, this is the team." He heard Johan speaking.

Godfrey nodded, then interrupted. "I actually wanted to ask if you could let me clear this dungeon alone?"

’We spoke about this earlier. Just have to put up a show here as well.’

’What?!’

Philip’s eyes widened to the core when he heard that insane statement. He wasn’t the only one; everyone that heard it reeled. They were talking about a Titled god Tier purple gate with an unknown terrain and time frame.

Was he mad?!

"No way!" Charles retorted.

"Do I have to remind you that you’re Selyne Pendragon’s partner? We don’t want to be on the receiving side of a dragon’s rage, especially one said to be the mother of dragons." Falco added.

Lotus nodded, staring at Godfrey with concern.

"As long as we have the core," Johan said.

"Deal."

Before the others could explode, Johan drew them, including Philip, to a corner. "He won’t die. Once the portal appears today, he’ll go in, and once it appears tomorrow, we’ll join him. If his knights aren’t enough for whatever is in there, we aren’t either."

’Thank God. The proud fool has saved me. If he dies, it’s his fault. Well, I’ll feel a little bad since his knights helped me. Let’s hope he survives long enough to leave that—!’ Philip’s eyes widened at the last second.

"Once someone enters a purple gate, it won’t appear again until they’re dead or it has been cleared!" Lotus said what came to Philip’s mind.

Johan’s eyes widened. ’He should have thought this through. Well, he usually delegated Falco for tasks like this. He was an expert in reasonable excuses. What was he going to say now?’

Just then, the purple gate appeared on the other end of the bridge, on the Queens City side.

’It’s alright. There’s no way he can...’ Philip stared, like someone about to faint, when Godfrey took one step, vanished, and reappeared before the gate.

With the second step, he was in.

Johan and the others dashed toward it. When they got close, the gate closed before any of them could go through.

Johan sighed in relief inwardly, but externally looked shocked to his core.

Philip, who didn’t move, shrugged. "You can’t help those who don’t want to be helped," he muttered.

"Wanna bet if he survives?" his friend asked. Philip’s eyes brightened. He might still make money out of this. No risk, great returns. Now this was what he liked.

***

While Lotus and the others thought Godfrey had just jumped into what could lead to his own death, he found himself in a red desert. The sun’s heat was scorching, and it was like the sand itself were hot coals.

He was here alone, the secret of the purple gate protected a bit longer, enough for him to benefit. This terrain was the worst anyone would ever expect. But what took him two days before he came here?

Well... he visited Jon’s family.

A bright home with his father and mother...