Editing Skill Tree Goddess:Volume1 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 4===

The time had come to bring the fight to Brave Liar.

That night, after making his final preparations in his inn room, Gilbezos started toward the door.

But Goddess Seliphenia called out to him.

She didn’t seem to be joking for once.

“I have something to say.”

“What is it?”

“I feel I need to point this out since you may have forgotten, but you are under no ''obligation'' to do anything. You are not the Hero or Demon Lord tasked with determining the fate of the world.”

He was just a person.

He had a lot of skills, but that didn’t give him any kind of official status.

“So if you can’t reach Brave Liar’s level and you know you will die if you fight him, you do have ''the right'' to choose not to fight. Just like anyone else.”

“But…”

“If you don’t do it, someone else will. So it’s fine.” The 18-looking goddess spoke decisively. “And if no one does it, then that’s what they call destiny. Brave Liar didn’t hesitate to cut down the king and he will probably continue killing VIPs like that, so the world will trend downwards from here, but that’s all. There is no divine guarantee this world will always be the best possible world, so things will change for better and for worse. You are not obligated to bear that responsibility yourself.”

He hadn’t been ordered to defeat the Demon Lord.

He hadn’t even been told to visit some village and acquire a valuable item there.

This was all something Gilbezos had decided for himself. Nothing was threatening his life here other than his own personal rules. So there was nothing to stop him from cheating those rules if he wanted to.

''But that was exactly why he couldn’t.

“Are you kidding me, Lady Seliphenia?”

“…”

He didn’t need to say much. It was true he could do whatever he wanted if if he was free to do anything and possessed only rights rather than obligations. But he couldn’t. That was why Gilbezos looked to his own good will and morals – those things that sounded silly when said aloud but everyone had to some extent.

“I’m free, so I can just abandon my promises? It’s no responsibility of mine whatever happens to the world? You must be joking. That’s not freedom at all. It’s just bondage.”

The goddess slowly inhaled and exhaled.

She was hesitant to flip over this trump card.

The breath was like a ritual to prepare herself to touch it.

“Listen. Before you gained your current name, when your life in another world came to an end, you said something.”

He didn’t know about this.

Gilbezos Overridge had no memory of his past life. He didn’t know anything at all about his previous life – not his name or even his sex or age. So he had no way of knowing if this was true.

But he doubted it was a lie.

The goddess likely knew him on a deeper level than he did himself. And that goddess now gave the answer.

“ ‘If there is ''something more'' after this…I’m through keeping my head down and giving up.’ ”

So Goddess Seliphenia carried that message to him.

The current boy didn’t know what had happened in his past life.

Not even how it had ended.

But he had spoken those words on the verge of death.

And some power that chose to act as a god had provided thorough support in response.

But now that was threatening Gilbezos’s life.

If he could avoid danger, stop fighting, and become a Villager A who only discussed the latest news in this world of limitless possibilities, then he could avoid this fight. But he had instead steered himself straight toward disaster. Even though he had intended to live a happy life.

Viewing Gilbezos now, the young woman who always stood by his side asked a question with the expression of a lost child on the verge of tears.

“My role is to support you, so I can’t stop you from doing this. I can’t force you to resist and give up at the very end. But your life may come to an end today. I did my very best…but how did you like this life?”

In the end, that was everything for the goddess.

There was no great problem in this world. She wasn’t trying to achieve some lofty accomplishment by guiding Gilbezos. She had only wanted to provide a second chance for a life that ended too soon.

Gilbezos recalled the exhilaration he had felt when he promised to help that 9-year-old boy wracked with guilt and helped the trapped high elves escape from the forest. He had felt so alive when he stormed the temple with the mama dragon who was fighting to rescue her abducted child.



He had made a promise.

So he couldn’t back out now.



…This was likely a subconscious obsession that came from ''a failure to stick to his promises'' in his past life. In this world awash with swords and sorcery, he had reclaimed something he had given up on and let go of at some point.

So Gilbezos Overridge answered with a small smile.

“I’m satisfied.”

But he couldn’t let it end yet. There were still people he hadn’t saved. He had made a promise with the king. He had promised to stop Brave Liar, the rogue hero, and to prevent the creation of a kingdom or world that would accept death in the face of adversity.

He had made a promise. So he couldn’t back out now.

He wanted to be the kind of person who could stick to that principle. Who could say it with conviction.

Gilbezos Overridge threw open the door and took his first step outside.