Chapter 366: Diary - The Yellow-Haired Villain in Soaring Phoenix's Novels Also Desires Happiness

“Feels a bit strange.”

After the two of them came back inside, Fanny rubbed her chin, her gaze sweeping over Muen’s face with a meaningful look.

“What is it?”

Muen touched his cheek. “Do I have dirt on my face?”

“No, I just feel like you seem to be in a bad mood.”

Fanny looked at Liya, then at Muen again, a gossiping expression appearing on her face: “Liya, on the other hand, got all lively after going out. What’s with you? Does a good mood really transfer like that?”

“No.”

Muen thought for a moment, then smiled: “I just feel like I might have messed something up?”

“Messed what up?”

“I don’t know what I messed up, but sometimes even I can’t figure out what I’m thinking. Humans are such a pathetic species.”

After saying something inexplicable, Muen fell silent and went back to Liya to resume the decoding they hadn’t finished.

Only Fanny was left standing there, blinking, thoughtful.

......

“This really is a diary.”

Liya opened the damaged book and shook her head in regret. “It’s a pity the damage is too severe; otherwise it might be our most important discovery so far.”

“Can you decipher it?”

“I can.”

Liya ran her fingers over the writing that had blurred with the passage of ages and said, “Just don’t get your hopes up. At this level of damage, being able to translate even one sentence per page is already rare.”

“Do your best.”

Muen had no expectation that just one diary could reveal the whole truth of this world, and he offered comfort.

......

“Goddess above, we truly succeeded. We created a perfect world, a world where there will never be famine or pain... All of this is thanks to the Lady Goddess. It is Your power that brought us to this point. Ah, Lady Goddess of Life, we will worship You forever.”

......

“The seventh child was born. I’m so happy I could cry. The child is happy too. She was born into a beautiful world and will never know or experience the chaos and terror of the outside. Praise the Goddess.”

......

“Praise the Goddess.”

......

“The thirteenth child is born. Praise the Goddess.”

......

“That fool Good actually dared to blaspheme the Goddess. The food personally bestowed by the Goddess—he dared to spurn it. No wonder he suffered divine punishment. Serves him right!”

“What is wrong? Is this way of life not beautiful enough? What does he know!”

......

“Praise the Goddess.”

......

“The boy next door must be a thousand jin by now, hehe, he can’t even walk, unlike me—while enjoying the delicacies bestowed by the Goddess, I still exercise with strict self-discipline.”

“Besides training, I’ve also found other ways to vent my energy. So peaceful.”

“Praise the Goddess.”

......

“Praise the Goddess.”

“The nineteenth child. The child’s mother doesn’t want to give birth anymore, but if we don’t have children, what else can we do?”

“Praise—”

“Praise 【blotted out】”

“【blotted out】”

“Damn it, those people started again. Can’t they behave? Fighting is not allowed. This world must be peaceful. That’s the oath we swore before the Goddess.”

......

“Forget it, 【blotted out】 will handle it.”

......

“【blotted out】”

......

“A report came saying the daytime is shorter. I thought, how is that possible? When we created this world, we set the human-optimal schedule—fourteen hours of day and ten hours of night. How could that be wrong?”

......

“It really is wrong. The days are getting shorter, the nights longer. The cause is under investigation.”

......

“It’s 【blotted out】! It’s actually 【blotted out】! That guy helped us create this world back then. Why—why would he... would he... draw in an evil Outer God? Is he insane? Insane? Damn it! Damn it! 【blotted out】【blotted out】【blotted out】”

......

“That Evil God is... 【blotted out】!”

......

“The Evil God’s power is too terrifying. We can feel this world being continuously eroded. Another village turned into those monsters in the night.”

“The rot grows worse...”

“Don’t eat at night, you’ll get sick.”

“Ha, ‘get sick.’ How do we treat illness again? I forgot.”

......

“It’s getting more chaotic. Ah, Lady Goddess, please save us. Please guide us lost lambs.”

......

“Damn it, more people have been polluted and eroded by the Evil God. No, I °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° must think of something. We only have Kanteville as a refuge. We can no longer adapt to the outside world’s chaos and wars. I must protect it!”

......

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......

“They’ve been polluted by the Evil God too!!! 【blotted out】”

......

“Only this method remains. 【blotted out】【blotted out】【blotted out】”

......

“Some hold different ideas. Those people are traitors! Traitors are heretics and absolutely intolerable!”

......

“Success. Haha, I succeeded. Facts prove that I am the one who is right!”

......

“The Wall may be able to isolate the pollution.”

......

“At night, that round thing—what is it? I feel like I remember something, but I’ve forgotten.”

......

“【blotted out】”

......

“I may be dying, but I am not afraid at all, because I will return to the Goddess’s embrace.”

“The Goddess’s embrace—ah, how beautiful.”

“Those people have also been polluted by the Evil God and turned into monsters. Haha, serves them right, to actually believe the Evil God’s words—serves them right! Serves them right!”

......

“Praise the Goddess.”

......

“【blotted out】”

......

“That’s all of it.”

After flipping back and forth over the last page to make sure, Liya exhaled and slowly closed the diary, then looked up at the others gathered around her.

“Decoding complete.”

“......”

They looked at one another, still digesting the diary’s contents, unable to speak for a long while.

The words in the diary weren’t exactly earthshaking, and most of the valuable bits couldn’t be identified—like which Evil God had invaded this world. Yet the whole thing left a strange feeling.

At last Muen pinched the bridge of his nose and broke the silence: “From these entries, we can confirm Kanteville’s natives worshipped the Life Goddess, Aimier, right.”

“The diary uses that term. It should be,” Fanny nodded.

“But this so-called Golden Nation doesn’t feel all that wonderful.”

Seviel, who had thick-skinned her way closer, spoke up; some of the phrasing had set off alarms for her. “You can clearly sense the writer’s irritability near the end. While he never states it, between the lines he seems somewhat dissatisfied with this so-called perfect world.”

“That’s because they didn’t use the Goddess’s power on the right path!”

Liya clenched her pink fists and retorted: “Trying to create a world where you don’t have to labor and can still live happily—how could that be so easy!”

“But they did succeed, didn’t they?”

Vicki, looking much better now, added from the side: “They only ended up like this because of the Evil God’s invasion.”

“That only proves their faith was devout enough.”

Liya pouted and muttered, “Because they were devout, the Goddess generously bestowed so much power. Who knew they’d use it for this sort of thing. The Goddess doesn’t care.”

“All right, all right, now’s not the time to argue.”

Muen shot Liya an amused glance, finding her even cuter, but under Fanny’s odd look he quickly turned back and continued: “Still, I don’t think the truth behind this ancient ruin’s fall is as simple as an Evil God invasion. There must be other causes.”

“Why?”

“Because the timeline doesn’t match.”

“Timeline?”

“That’s right.”

Muen explained: “According to descriptions in those ancient texts, Kanteville vanished from history and became the so-called Lost Land a thousand years ago, during the latter stage of that great upheaval. But from certain clues we’ve found—and from the diary—the Evil God invasion should have happened only in the last few decades.”

“I see.”

Liya remembered the intel she’d explored with Muen earlier. “So what do we do next?” “What else? We keep going.”

Muen looked into the distance. The Wall fused into the sky still towered there, as if it truly could shut out everything. “Our trial is probably just getting started.”

......

“This is the so-called passage?”

Staring at the opening before them that looked like the entrance to a mine, Muen couldn’t help rubbing his chin and sighing: “Feels rather plain and unadorned.”

As he spoke, he secretly scanned the surroundings.

It wasn’t just their group—quite a lot of people had gathered here already. Most were in twos and threes, faces tired yet still keeping wary eyes on one another.

It seemed last night’s anomaly had forced these proud folks to huddle together for warmth, which, inadvertently, raised the difficulty.

Muen also spotted Ailag. He was with a few mages whose chest emblems were different from his but clearly also from the Origin Tower. He met Muen’s gaze for just a moment, then guiltily looked away at once.

Muen simply smiled without speaking and kept collecting—

“Oh? You lot aren’t dead yet?”

An obnoxiously arrogant voice rang out. The crowd stirred and parted to open a path.

A massive shadow fell over Muen.

The towering weirdo named Rayta moved in silence, and on his shoulder, a loli-sized girl folded her arms and cast down a lofty gaze.

“Oh? I see—you’ve learned to huddle for warmth like those weaklings, too?”

Candidate Saintess Annie’s eyes swept around Muen’s side, and she sneered: “That does fit your positioning—and that of your Candidate Saintess. But I still advise you to withdraw early. There won’t be so many flukes from here on.”

“......”

Same loli attitude—so why is this one so hateful?

Muen thought it over seriously and glanced around from the corner of his eye.

Liya... never mind. For the moment, we don’t need her to step in.

“Seviel.”

“Eh? What is it?”

“Come here.”

Muen beckoned. Seviel walked over, baffled.

“Stand here. Face this way. Fold your arms. Yes, that pose. Tighter. Now give a little shake. Good.”

Once Seviel’s, while not huge yet still enough to one-shot most, tautly lifted chest was positioned to present Annie with a perfect view, Muen stretched out a middle finger from the side and said:

“None of your damn business, you flat board.”