I'm The Only One With Cancer-Chapter 143: Back in the Game! I

At this moment, in the dilapidated building located in the corner of the trading grounds...

Adara was on her knees with a pitiful expression on her face, "Please, you’ve gotta change your mind! That’s the Fire God’s only keepsake that He left for us! I’ll trade my body for it, so please!"

"What the hell? Can you really call yourself the Saintess of Fire with the way you act?" Arthur responded helplessly as the other party kept dragging down the hem of his clothes.

"I won’t mind it even if you get rough with me! Just please, don’t give that away!"

"What are you even talking about!?"

Obviously, the main subject of their current ’argument’ was the reward that Arthur was planning on giving Zen.

The Fire God was not merely a figure of inspiration, admiration, and worship to the believers of fire—he was something more... especially to them.

Arthur’s expression was also quite difficult as he remembered some things from the past as he stared at the ring in his hand.

Before he and Adara became the Pope and Saintess, respectively, there was a time when they were both in the orphanage, doing everything they could to survive.

After a calamity struck that reduced their hometown to dust, it was an amiable young man who saved them.

That young man was none other than the Fire God from back when he was mortal.

The three’s history goes way back— beyond what they had been known for in the past.

Thus, Arthur could understand why Adara was full of tears as he decided to give that one item to Zen as his reward.

Not wanting to see that expression on her face—and absolutely not wanting to hear comes out of her lips next—he crouched down and took her hand before she could continue.

Gasp—!

Adara’s eyes widened as her face blushed, her gaze turning shy, "H-Hey... Are you really going to take me here—"

"Can’t you just shut up for a moment?" The concern on Arthur’s face vanished without a trace.

After taking a few deep breaths to calm himself down, he began speaking, "To be honest, this decision wasn’t made by me alone..."

"Eh? What do you mean?" Hearing his serious tone, Adara could not help but perk up.

"You see, back then, before the Fire God and the others went to the Ancient Evil World, he left this ring to me since he said that he wasn’t sure if he could come back alive."

Arthur began narrating what happened back then, while Adara became serious as soon as she realized that this story was about the Fire God.

"Both you and I know that this ring was very important to Him, right?"

Receiving her nod, he continued, "The thing is, right when he gave this to me, he also said that I should give this ring to the one that I will accept as my apprentice."

"Huh? But he knew how high your standards were, right? Maybe he means not to give it to anyone? He always jokes like that, doesn’t He?"

"That’s what I thought as well... until I met Zen."

Something unknown flashed past Arthur’s eyes as he kept speaking, "Back when I baptized him, I remembered His words from back then.

Initially, I wanted to wait until Zen was strong enough, but he grew surprisingly fast.

Thus, I thought that the Fire God wanted something from Zen."

Arthur’s words did not cause any suspicion in Adara’s mind as she muttered, "Well, past level 1000, the realm of the gods, they gain the ability to look at fate itself... but still... are you really sure about this?"

The two of them, holding the top two positions of the strongest temple in history, were naturally privy to such high-level knowledge.

Gods could see fate.

The past, the present, and the future could not hide anything from their gaze.

Of course, this ability required power consumption as well— something that most gods could not even endure.

However, the Fire God was different.

He was the strongest got...

""Wait...""

As their thoughts arrived at a conclusion, the two could not help but look at each other.

’’Does this mean that back then...’’

The shock on their eyes were apparent as they spoke at the same time.

""The Fire God already knew that he would die?"" 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

At this moment, seeing Arthur’s face of realization, Adara sneakily lunged at him and tried to... kiss him.

"Mwaaa— Huhp!"

Arthur immediately used his palm to move her face away, "Hey! We’re talking about something serious here!"

"You looked so handsome, I just couldn’t help myself~"

"Argh! Thankfully, there’s no one here to see..." Before Arthur could finish his words, his whole body stiffened as his eyes met a pair of ruby-red ones.

Even Adara, whose lips were still puckered from the almost-kiss, froze and slowly turned her head toward the direction he was staring.

As the two of them stayed frozen in a not-so-family-friendly position, they stared at the person who had just suddenly materialized from thin air without warning.

There stood Zen, a stiff smile on his face and one hand raised mid-greeting, frozen by the scene before him.

’W-What could possibly be the context behind this...’

In an instant, his 111 points of Intelligence worked in overdrive, as countless hypotheses sprang to mind.

Unfortunately for him, his experience was still too lacking.

Sigh~

A sigh escaped his mouth as he lowered his hand slowly.

Arthur, who was still pinned to the ground by Adara, stammered, "T-This i-isn’t—"

Swoosh!

Zen’s hand cut through the wind as he raised his palm, indicating that he understood.

Then, in the next second, he spoke with utmost seriousness, "I’m sorry I came back at the wrong time. Please continue what you were doing."

Just like that, his whole body slowly turned into light blue particles— a sign of him logging out.

"You got this, Teacher!"

Zen’s palm clenched into a fist as he raised it towards Arthur, his face filled with encouragement(?).

"T-This isn’t what you think! HEYYY!"

Arthur’s screams resounded in the dilapidated building as Zen’s peaceful expression slowly turned into light blue particles.