Chapter 688 Gluttony and Sloth
"I didn't expect to get so much money and materials out of it. Interesting." Eisen muttered quietly as he looked at one of the coins that he had one of hte mechanical spiders take out of the spatial gem built into it.
But when he did so, he noticed something interesting... These coins had a different pattern on them than what Eisen had seen before.
Sure, in the different countries of this world, coins had different patterns printed onto them, but as far as Eisen knew, he should be aware of every coin-pattern there was. He researched them together with Komer, after all.
"Curious, huh? Yeah, those aren't normal coins. They're 'Ancient Coins'. You can't really find them in the mortal realm anymore these days. They're worth like two... maybe three times the regular worth of coins like that just because of that fact, I'd say." Satel explained with a grin on their face, and Eisen slowly moved his fingers through his beard, "Well, that's... good to know, I guess. That definitely increases our funds by quite a bit."
"Ehh...?" The Guide-Devil exclaimed, "'Our funds'? You're gonna share it with others?"
"...Of course I will, what use do just these coins have for me? I can buy materials with them, but I have close to infinite access to what I actually need anyway. Rather, I'd like to invest the money into my Guild and my literal Kingdom that I have to lead again once I'm out of here."
"Well, that's fair. A great King with a shitty country really is nothing but a shitty king... But even a shitty king can become a great king with a great country." Satel pointed out with a satisfied nod, "I like how you think, old man. Use this money for world-domination and make me proud!"
Immediately, Eisen ignored Satel and looked around to find the next place. He had been roughly told the positioning of the different rooms before, but just briefly, so he wasn't entirely sure anymore, "That's the one with the Challenge of Gluttony, right?"
Satel clicked their tongue and nodded their head, "Yup, that's the one. I guess it's a good time for that now. That's probably the most fun of the challenges~. Wait, no, that's a lie, it's the second most fun, actually." The Devil pointed out with a slight smirk. It seemed like they were pretty happy to get to this next challenge-hall now. As far as Eisen was able to judge, considering how happy Satel was, this was going to be an extremely straightforward challenge.
'Indulging in Gluttony' most likely meant to just eat as much as Eisen possibly could, which was a rather large amount, to be perfectly honest. Eisen pushed open the golden gate in question and stepped inside while immediately being met with the first actually fun atmosphere here in Limbo so far.
There was a huge central table that stretched out along the length of this enormous hall, as well as numerous smaller tables that were scattered about. People were sitting wherever they could, stuffing their mouths with food and making it go down better with alcohol. And on top of that, all the food seemed to be incredibly tasty as well.
It made sense, though. This Limbo wasn't supposed to be a punishment, but rather the reward for devil-worshippers. There was no way that they would be punished here in hell. Eisen stepped inside, and a lot of people here immediately noticed him, as he had expected. But different to the other challenges, in this one, people were incredibly accepting and called Eisen over, offering some food to him immediately.
And meanwhile, Eisen glanced at the sub-quest notification to make sure that it was really the way that he thought it was. Luckily, he was right. He was supposed to eat to the point where he was going to throw up if he ate just another bite.
With a satisfied expression, happy that this would be a fun challenge for once, the old man immediately got started and ate all of the food that he was offered. And whenever something was gone, a few Devils stepped out of the smaller doors at the side of the hall and placed new food onto the table. There was literally infinite access to any food that he wanted here. He could even tell the Devils what he wanted to eat, and they would bring it to him after he cleared out the next plate.
Eisen ate, Eisen drank. He spoke to those around him and actually had quite a bit of fun. It was pretty relaxing compared to the three 'Challenges' that he had to face before now. Well, at least for the first little while.
At some point, Eisen acutally became quite full. He didn't have any issue taking in all the alcohol, meaning that he didn't get drunk or anything, but it still felt like his stomach was about to rip apart because of how he had filled it up.
As if parts of the food were slowly forcing their way back up Eisen's throat because they couldn't escape to anywhere else. And finally, the notification that would let Eisen stop eating appeared in front of him.
While holding his hand in front of his mouth to make sure he didn't throw up all over the food in an emergency, the old man stood up and made his way outside of the hall. It seemed like everyone else that was here was able to eat literally infinite amounts of food and never feel overfed like Eisen was right now.
Once the old man left the hall, he let out a loud groan, while Satel stared at him with a wry smile on their face, "Honestly, you ate a lot more than I expected you to..."
"I'm-" Eisen started, although he had to interrupt himself so that he wouldn't suddenly throw up all over the place, "I'm a half-giant, there's no way that anything but this amount would make me feel full..." The old man said, until he finally realized something that would help him out quite a bit.
Right now, he was feeling sick because of all the undigested food that was literally stuffing him to the brim, but things like that didn't change in size together with Eisen when he did so... he would probably just explode and die the moment he tried to shrink himself, but if he slowly increased his size, that was another story.
And so, the man that was about to throw up just now was able to feel himself to be at a pleasant level of fulness. With a satisfied sigh, the old man chose to take a seat on a set of stairs to take a stort break before heading to the Challenge of Sloth.
"Hah~? Already practicing for the next challenge, huh?"
"Be quiet, Satel. This was the first challenge that literally required me to reach my absolute limit to pass. It was fun for the most part, though." The old man pointed out. He leaned back and looked up into the sky after taking a deep breath. The sky here in Limbo was really nothing but pitch-black. No stars, moon, or even clouds were floating high above him. It was a bit of an unusual sight.
Eisen knew that he was looking at the clear sky, but the fact that there was simply nothing there despite how pitch-black everything around the old man was, was quite unnatural. There wasn't a single bit of light-pollution here at he moment.
After resting for a bit longer and properly digesting some of his food, the old man made his way to the next, and fourth. Challenge that he would face. The Challenge of Sloth. The old man pushed the door open, and saw... Numerous people simply sleeping. On the ground, on special, unique beds that were made just for them, or even on top of each other, the people were sleeping as if they were dead.
Well, technically they were alraedy dead, but that was besides the point. But it let Eisen relax a bit as he figured out that the task would be very easy, albeit quite time-consuming.
Eisen needed a few hours to rcover mentally and physically anyway, so this was perfect. It seemed like the order that Satel suggested and Eisen then chose to go with was really the perfect one, considering that Eisen was able to rest as much as he wanted after just stuffing himself with all that much food.
[New Sub-Quest – Challenge of Sloth]
[Description] In your quest to conquer the Limbo requires you to take on the Challenge of Sloth, which means you have to deeply indulge in this sin.
More specifically, you have to indulge in the feeling of following your sloth by resting lazily far longer than initially necessary. You will have to spend twice the time needed to fully recover yourself in deep sleep.
[Conditions] Indulge in your Sloth
[Reward] Advancement in the \u003cSins of Limbo\u003e Quest
[Penalty] None
With a satisfied expression, Eisen took a look around. He needed to find a good place where he could sleep for a while then. He didn't particularly know how long he would need to spend asleep, but at the very least, Eisen figured he could make use of this time properly.
For one, he could try and remember the rest of the memories that he had unlocked but not remembered so far. He would feel a bit of pain when he did so multiple times consecutively, but if he could take his time, then maybe it wouldn't be so bad. He would just have to try it out, and if it didn't work, he would just log out for a little while and then check back in when he figured that he would have beaten this challenge.
Eisen laid down on a bed that stood in the corner of this great hall. Satel already threw themselves down onto the ground and started dozing off, while Eisen chose to sit there for a little while longer so that he could think.
The old man placed his sword onto his lap, so that he could try to infuse it with sloth while he was sleeping somehow. Once he figured there was nothing really to do, Eisen closed his eyes and dozed off into sleep.
He looked at the white floating orbs in front of him in this deep black space, and extended his hand toward them, but just as he was about to do this, he reaized something... This wasn't really all that slothful, now was it?
Sloth was extreme laziness, and Eisen couldn't really be called lazy if he made use of these times in a productive manner... So maybe, he just had to sleep through the whole time.
Well, that honestly didn't sound all too bad either, every once in a while.