Chapter 226: I Don’t Think I’m Anyone That Special

"Lady Melisandre... What are you talking about?" Renna gave the blue-robed woman a puzzled look.

As far as she knew, this camp had been established for a single purpose, to keep gathering resources in the Underworld.

Melisandre had been in charge of the camp and all its operations, and under her leadership, they had managed to maintain a steady supply of resources from the region over the years.

Hearing her mention a completely different mission, unrelated to the one everyone knew about, made Renna feel that something was wrong.

Magna looked more interested than shocked, though he remained silent and kept his expression indifferent.

If anyone owed them an explanation, it was Melisandre.

When he said nothing, she finally sighed and turned to Renna. "I don’t know all the details either, but I do know that everything our realm has been going through is because of this man."

’Have they already found out?’ Magna’s thoughts raced as he raised his hands and cut in defensively. "First of all, I reject any slander against me."

He thought his true identity had been exposed.

He had already begun accepting his role in the creation of the universe, but accepting it and letting others find out were 2 entirely different things.

What was he supposed to tell them? ’Sorry, my AI might have created all of you because I was about to die. Sorry for all the messed-up things I’ve caused you.’

What excuse could a creator offer his creations for the suffering built into their existence? He wasn’t ready to face their questions about why they existed or why they had to suffer.

So he was ready to deny having anything to do with it.

"Don’t lie to me." Melisandre’s brows drew together at his immediate attempt to defend himself.

Magna grew tense under her stare. He wasn’t intimidated, but he was beginning to wonder whether his secret really had been discovered.

Fortunately, her next words put him at ease.

"Lady Triss said she saw you cast a spell to open an entrance. After it opened, all the other entrances broke, and those invaders flooded our world."

Magna silently sighed in relief upon hearing that this was all she knew. The fact that he was the owner of their 5 Matriarchs remained a secret, at least for now.

One thing still puzzled him. "Who’s Triss?" He hadn’t thought anyone had been watching him back then.

"One of the Grand Witches. Time Witch Triss Eilhart," Renna answered.

She was staring at him in disbelief now, unwilling to accept that Magna could be the reason behind everything, including her grandmother’s death.

Magna began to sweat and hurriedly raised his hands again. "Wait, wait... That Stoneman tricked me too. He told me I could go home if I moved the rock, so... I’m only finding out now that it caused all the entrances to break. I swear I didn’t know."

He felt helpless under their stares. His absurdly high stats wouldn’t do much to get him out of this situation.

He wasn’t afraid they would attack him, since he had the strength to fight back.

But looking at the sorrow in Renna’s eyes made his chest ache.

Having caused the death of her last remaining family member, even indirectly, was difficult for him to bear.

’Damn, what should I do?’ He was trying to think of a way out when Renna spoke.

"It’s okay. You didn’t know what would happen." She sounded as though she had to force the words out, but they were enough to ease his guilt a little.

"I’m sorry," he said sincerely, already beginning to feel the burden of being a God.

The worst part was that he had no power to put any of it right.

If this were still a game, he could simply log out, wipe all the data, and reset the entire universe to start over. Unfortunately, he could neither log out nor fix what had gone wrong.

Melisandre looked far less forgiving. "Yes, you should be sorry for getting half the human population wiped out," she said sternly.

’This Witch...’ Magna wanted to snap back, but he held his tongue.

He wasn’t in the right state of mind to argue with someone his own creation had created.

Besides, he had questions of his own. "You said they were waiting for me to return. Why? How did they know I would come back?"

He had already accepted that this Witch named Triss had secretly watched him and seen him cast spells.

That much he could accept. The question was how much she knew about him.

Apparently, Melisandre had no answer to that either. "As I said, I don’t know the details. All I know is that you’re someone very special," she replied curtly, narrowing her eyes as she stepped close enough for him to feel her breath on his face. "I was hoping you could tell me why."

Although Magna hadn’t gotten an answer to his question, he had at least learned enough to draw a few conclusions.

Whatever this Triss knew, she apparently hadn’t told the others much. Perhaps she had only shared it with the other Grand Witches.

As for how much they knew, he could only make a rough guess. ’They couldn’t have figured out that I’m actually a God, right?’

As long as they hadn’t, he had nothing to fear.

He felt like a child caught making a mess in one room, desperately hoping no one would check the rest of the house.

"I don’t think I’m anyone that special," he finally answered with a sheepish laugh.

"But you can cast spells," Melisandre pressed. That alone was enough to make him special.

Then she suddenly turned to Renna. "Tell me, how did you find him?"

Finding herself in a difficult position, Renna glanced sideways at Magna.

In the end, she began recounting everything from the beginning. Even if she kept quiet, there were 40 other people in her unit who had witnessed it all.

"We didn’t. He found us." She described Magna flying through the sky and destroying the Devoring Desolation’s head, then continued all the way to him freezing an entire mountain with a spell.

Melisandre’s expression changed as she listened, and by the end, she turned to Magna with wide eyes.

"And you still say you’re not special?"

Magna smiled awkwardly, feeling caught red-handed. He was also rather enjoying the shock on her face.

Seeing him grin so shamelessly, Melisandre scowled and began to grit her teeth.

She was so frustrated and irritated that she wanted to attack him just to wipe that smile off his face, but she held herself back for 2 reasons.

First, she couldn’t afford to waste mana. What she had was precious enough that she needed to save it for something more useful.

Second, she was smart enough to realize that this man wouldn’t go down after a few spells.

After all, he had defeated a Desolation, even if it had been weakened and injured.

From what she had heard alone, she could guess that he was probably currently the strongest being in the entire camp, someone she definitely shouldn’t mess with.

In the end, she had no choice but to keep her anger to herself, despite having wasted 12 years in this hellish place because of him.