Hellmode ~A Hardcore Gamer Becomes Peerless in Another World with Retro Game Settings~

Chapter 612: Giran's 2nd trial, favor and prayers

Karasagi continued telling that story.

After the Albaheron Legend laid the rainbow egg, it sent all other Albaherons to scour the continent for food, including the B Rank and A Rank ones.

They caused a lot of damage, putting the lives of many birdmen at risk.

Many of them died even in the period before the egg hatched.

(I see, so the cages around cities were to keep the Albaherons away.)

The danger to the lives of birdmen had been so great they decided to live within large cages.

"And so they managed to obtain that egg?"

"Yes, they did. With the help of the Sacred Bird Kuwatoro, Lord McCarran and his party managed to take the egg and stop the Albaheron Legend's onslaught. That was when this picture was taken."

The palace's best artist was commissioned to make that painting, celebrating the heroes.

"The Guild Master looks so professional nowadays, but here he looks more rowdy."

McCarran was grinning widely in the painting, while the other 5 looked more serious.

Cecile also recognized some of the others, as she had met them before with Allen.

"Their healer is Istar, and the beastman the late King Yoze? And this is King Arbus?"

Their names were also embroidered into the painting to make it easier to recognize them.

"You're right, I didn't recognize them at first."

Istar Cumes was the pope who was killed during the incident with the Evil God's resurrection.

There was also Yoze, the previous Beast King before Muza.

That was quite a lineup, which explained how they became an S Rank party.

Allen looked at the silver haired high dark elf on a side of the painting, it was Luck's father King Arbus.

(Oh right, Arbus mentioned he also went on adventures when he told us to take Luck.)

Arbus had been a member of an S Rank adventurer party.

The painting showed him looking away, like he was annoyed.

Allen wondered what he had expected to gain from being an adventurer, but knew he would likely never get an answer.

"We'll never forget just how many people were saved, and will pray in thanks forever."

Saying that, Karasagi joined his wings and lowered his head to pray.

Once that was done, he continued leading Allen's group to the drawing room.

There they waited for 2 hours, waiting for their turn to see the king.

Allen looked through the window while rapidly leafing through the Grimoire, trying to use up as many Spirit Stones as he could to raise his Skill Level faster.

"It's already night. Are we really going to get to see him today?"

Cecile looked out of the window and saw that it was dark outside.

Since the city was carved into a mountainside the sun would set faster too though.

While she looked at the dark and silent scenery outside, someone knocked on the door.

"Please enter."

Sophie went to open the door.

*Swish*

"Ohh, thank you for coming. I'm Oolon."

"Hiee?!"

As soon as she opened the door, king Oolong's crake face appeared through the door.

He had a long neck so it looked like a floating head peeking through, scaring Sophie.

"Father, stop that! You're scaring our guests."

Someone, likely the princess, who did not really resemble Oolon and wore a beautiful dress, reprimanded the king. Behind was also the queen, so the entire royal family was there.

The prime minister and some knights were also there, giving Allen a proper reception.

"Ohh! It's been a while, King Oolon, since the Five Continents' Alliance meeting I believe?"

Since the entire royal family was there, Allen took the talking role.

"We really wanted to be sure we could properly receive you, hero Allen, but we didn't anticipate you would be here so soon, so I apologize we couldn't give you a proper welcome."

"Not at all, and I'm still grateful that you were able to attend Peromus' wedding."

They had met Oolon in the Five Continents' Alliance meeting earlier that year, which was also when Peromus' wedding happened. Allen had talked to Oolon a lot back then.

Oolon had invited Allen to visit Rameciel back then, but seemed surprised to see Allen was actually there now.

The table in the drawing room became the center for their audience with King Oolon.

The king was usually busy with important meetings or dealing with the country, so getting to meet him the same day as an audience was requested was rare.

It was possible that he was pushing aside many such matters to come here now.

Allen felt like it would be rude if he went straight to demanding things because of that, so he entered his well-mannered mode to talk.

"So what do I owe your visit to? If my prime minister is right, then is it about the Mythical Bird Rame?"

The king ended up bringing up the topic himself, maybe out of consideration for Allen.

Or maybe he was trying to get through things faster, as birdmen were said to sleep early.

"The truth is that the Mythical Bird Rame is struggling to become a God, and we came here to see if we could find any way to remediate that problem."

"Something is wrong then?"

The king blinked rapidly in shock.

"Yes, we don't know exactly what the problem is, but we took the liberty of looking around the cities we came across on our way here."

Allen had been discussing things with Sophie and Cecile while they waited for the audition, as completing the Beast God Giran's quest was important.

"Ahh, I see, got it."

And then Cecile joined the conversation, her eyes lighting up as she thought of something.

Usually Allen did that, but now it was finally her turn.

"What, is there something wrong with the Mythical Bird Rame?"

Everyone turned to look at Cecile.

"Well, maybe it's that you've been praying to Kuwatoro a bit too much, while neglecting to venerate the Mythical Bird that founded your country?"

(Hmm, I also thought of that.)

Allen began to wonder if the country had been favoring Kuwatoro over Rame since she saved the country 60 years ago.

"That's not the case at all!"

"Huh? Eh?"

The queen slammed the table as she refuted Cecile's claim.

"I'm really sorry we upset you, we're just trying to figure out what's causing that. By the way, do you have any concrete evidence against that idea?"

Allen quickly came in to help Cecile.

(Seeing how they reacted I guess they're also wondering why Rame isn't a God after 1000 years.)

Allen apologized for Cecile, but still tried to gain more information.

But seeing how they reacted also made him think that they could help with the quest.

"Of course, we built a temple next to this palace to pray to the Mythical Bird Rame, we haven't been praying only to the Sacred Bird Kuwatoro."

(Is that so? Hollow, go check it out.)

Allen summoned a Bird B that could see in the dark outside the window.

Surely enough, there was a temple next to the palace, and inside a statue of Rame.

And even though it was night, there were nobles with light magic devices praying to the statue.

"By the way, could you tell us how you began praying to the Mythical Bird Rame in the first place?"

Allen had heard why Kuwatoro was prayed to earlier, so there had to be a reason that led to Rame's becoming the country's deity as well.

"That's because the Mythical Bird Rame saved our country from an epidemic 1000 years ago."

"An epidemic?"

"Yes, it was a strange disease that only affected birdmen, and it was really debilitating…"

Allen wrote down the story the king told in the Grimoire.

Back when Rame was just a Sacred Bird, there was a mysterious illness that spread through Rameciel, reaching every corner of the country and pushing it to the brink of demise.

But then Rame came to save them, plucking feathers to save them.

Rame's feathers could be used as medicine to heal any illness.

The illness had come from a monster, and had remained even after the monster was killed.

Many people did not know whether they would live to see another day, or if their children would have a future.

Rame had saved the lives of millions.

On top of that Rame also taught medicine to the people, letting them cure all sorts of injuries on top of illnesses, which had been plaguing Rameciel.

As a result, a lot of people in Rameciel were born with medicine related Talents.

Even now there were beastmen who went to Rameciel to study medicine.

(I see, so the feathers have a healing effect. I should've picked up the feathers from the nest. But I see, so sometimes killing monsters isn't enough to save people.)

Allen thought about the story the king just told, and tried to figure out why Rame would not become a Divine Bird.

"So you've been praying to the Mythical Bird Rame since then, and even built that temple. I really think that's admirable, but does that extend to others outside the royal family?"

Allen asked the king if the people were also grateful to Rame.

"Of course it does. Everyone feels grateful."

"Allen, you told me yourself how there's statues of the Mythical Bird Rame in all the cities when we got here."

Cecile mentioned what they saw while they traveled there.

Allen's Bird E summon had seen that there were statues in all cities, and people prayed to them.

"This is so confusing. We got all the way here but we still don't know anything."

Sophie mentioned with a slightly saddened voice.

"That's not exactly true, Sophie. We still have more we can do."

"What do you mean? Everyone here is praying, but somehow it's still not enough to turn the Mythical Bird Rame into a Divine Bird."

The royal family, the prime minister, the knights, and even Sophie and Cecile wanted to know what Allen would say.

"We'll have to investigate what's causing this. It's time for a religion survey."

"Religion survey?"

"Religion survey?"

"Religion survey?"

Everyone's voices overlapped hearing what Allen said.

"