Reincarnated With A Glitched System: Why Is My MP Not Running Out?

Chapter 2177: The Gods’ Old Names, Gabriel And Clair

-----

Gabriel slowly lowered his head and stared at his own reflection on the floor. This was the first time I had ever seen him in such a state. His distant past. So vulnerable, just like Lolth had been in that moment. So... human.

And yet... that personality he still carries even now? It was already fully present.

That cold voice, his dismissive reaction, the way he spoke without true warmth. This bastard has always been a manipulator and an emotionless prick — a selfish man who only ever cared about himself.

I can already tell with absolute certainty that he has not changed a single bit since the days when he was still human, eons ago.

"W-What do you mean he’s alive?!" Lolth ran toward him in desperation. "Tell me what’s going on!!!"

"Calm down already!" Gabriel roared. He slapped her hard across the face and threw her to the floor. "Listen to what I have to say! This... Look at this."

"Y-You hit me...!" Lolth muttered angrily, her cheek already turning red. "Bastard! What is so important that you couldn’t bring back my husband, but you brought this piece of shit stone instead that— Ungh?!"

BA-DUM!

BA-DUM!

BA-DUM!

The mysterious blue gem — that strange stone he had brought back from the "Otherworldly Gate" — pulsed with a strange dimensional energy unlike anything these people had ever seen before.

Lolth fell silent as she felt that power wash over her. Her own body reacted strongly to it. Faint purple circuits began appearing across her skin. "The nanomachines we got injected with... they’re reacting to the gem?"

Gabriel nodded with a smile full of fascination and the early stages of pure madness. "Yeah. You see? You see what I am trying to say? This...! T-This is...! This is what I call a Dimensional Stone... it’s... a stone that contains the power of the other world! And it reacts to us — those of us who have been genetically modified with nanomachines so we can enter the Gates! I felt it the moment I touched it. Everyone did! We felt stronger. We were overflowing with power! We were finally able to kill those damn monsters...!"

"..." Lolth remained silent for a long moment, swallowing hard. "So you’re saying... my husband... he’s alive? Where is he?" she asked as she quickly tied her hair into a ponytail and furrowed her eyebrows. "Did he stay behind to fight them? Is he hiding somewhere?"

"He sent me back here with everyone else. John... he said that it was more important that I brought this stone back than anything else!" Gabriel claimed.

"But why didn’t you show it to the government office first? Did you hide it from them?" Lolth asked sharply.

Gabriel fell silent for a moment. He looked at the glowing gem with pure fascination, gently caressing its surface as he slowly shook his head.

Lolth’s expression darkened.

"What?!" she demanded. "You didn’t...! If they find out..." She began looking around the room frantically. "Are there cameras in here?"

"I deactivated them already," he answered calmly. "Calm down, Clair. I only did it because it was... what John wanted, okay?"

"Huh?! Y-You don’t know him as well as I do! He would never...!" Lolth shook her head hard. Or rather, Clair did. "How many people know about these stones?"

"...You already know, don’t you? How the others also found stones of their own... Some of them kept what they found. Others didn’t. But every single one of those stones held incredible power. They were amazing sources of energy," he continued. "These stones can allow us... to ascend. Don’t you realize that?"

"...Ascend?" Lolth looked at him as if he were the mad one in the room.

"Okay... we can’t stop them," he said more quietly. "This world is already doomed."

"Huh?!"

"It’s impossible to win. Their world is immense... their power is gigantic," he continued with growing intensity. "Their armies are endless... this world is doomed no matter what we do."

"..."

"But we can still escape. If we mine enough of these stones... if we can find a way... to put this power inside our own bodies," he continued. "If we can harbor their strength and... Ascend. We can escape into space. We can become a star-traveling civilization. Do you not realize it? What... what we could become... Your husband sacrificed himself for this gem, you understand? He wanted this for you."

"H-He sacrificed himself? Didn’t you just say he was still alive?!" Lolth asked angrily, her voice cracking.

"Listen carefully," Gabriel said. "He... might still be alive... I am recruiting people right now. Every Awakened I can find... We’re going back there. Don’t you want to see him again? Plus, we can gather even more of these stones."

Her hands trembled as she felt her own powers reacting strongly to the stone. A faint spark of greed appeared in her eyes. "How... many of them do we need for all of this, you nutjob?"

"Yeah. That’s the smile I wanted to see," Gabriel stood up and approached her. He leaned in close and whispered directly into her ear. "We can find him and the stones. We can bring your little husband back, huh? Everything will be fine. Trust me."

"..." Lolth swallowed hard. She blushed deeply as she found his face so close to hers. His lips slowly approached and began kissing her neck. She let out a soft moan as she felt his arms wrap around her waist. "No... s-stop... we’re done, Gabriel... it’s been years... We shouldn’t... John is...!"

"Don’t worry about John," Gabriel said with a kind, almost gentle smile. "We’ll find him... and he doesn’t need to know about this, does he?"

"..." Lolth was breathing heavily. The two of them ended up... making out passionately.

Wow. So they had a secret relationship even back then. Holy shit. Now it makes complete sense why she was so fascinated with him and trusted him so blindly later on. She’s such a dumb, lonely girl. He’s obviously seducing her and... using her, only to discard her over and over again whenever it suited him.

The memories shifted after that intimate moment. They revealed a large group of people walking toward a massive Otherwordly Gate. All of them were wearing white, glowing pieces of advanced technology covering their bodies. They carried... guns of some sort — highly technological weapons, heavy cannons, and even what looked like laser guns.

-----