Some time later.
Lloyd stepped out of the prayer room.
Smooth.
That was his verdict on what had just transpired.
Whether it was the golden-haired beauty—with a figure refined by years of training and blessed by her race's natural gifts, soft and enticing to the touch—or the nun who appeared cold and composed on the surface yet, after years of companionship and quiet transformation, had grown surprisingly uninhibited in private, each possessed a distinct allure. Their reactions, too, were delightfully varied and engaging.
But once it was all over, Lloyd noticed a problem.
The more participants there were, the longer each "prayer session" lasted.
Sure, through engraved runes he could push several of them to peak satisfaction in quick succession—even achieve a chain of peaks—but that felt mechanical, like ticking off a list. Formulaic pleasure held no interest for him.
Still, it wasn't an unsolvable issue.
Back during the Dark Souls era, he'd already considered this problem and devised a solution.
Simply put, it was similar to how he had stayed with Friede until the end of the world: by creating an individual instance—an isolated timeline for each of them—where they could exist alone with him. It fulfilled their desires completely, cost no time in the real world, and sometimes even allowed him to grant their unspoken wishes.
But there was a catch.
In the Dark Souls world, the timelines were already a chaotic mess. Pulling out a few stray strands of time not only did no harm—it might have even helped.
The Lands Between, however, were different. Though far from stable, space and time here were still relatively orderly. Tearing through them carelessly might not harm Lloyd himself, but it could destabilize the Lands Between—or worse, the entire world.
After a brief moment of thought, Lloyd exited the Dungeon and sought out Alice, asking if she had any suggestions.
Alice pondered quietly for a moment, then began weaving golden threads between her fingers.
But halfway through, the threads snapped apart.
"Not yet," she murmured, shaking her head. Then she seemed to remember something.
"But... if you could find that child…"
"That child?"
Lloyd's brows furrowed. Then something came to mind. Opening his map, he found a marker Alice had placed earlier—a note suggesting he visit when he had the time.
The location was just east of Shadow City, not far from his current position. And since the Dungeon's space had reached its limit after the last battle, Lloyd decided to teleport directly to the nearest Site of Grace, then head for the marked point.
Moments later, he arrived.
But there was no "child" to be found.
After dismounting, Lloyd found himself before a fairly large church. Inside, there were no children—only an old man and a female knight clad in jet-black armor, leaning silently against a pillar.
"Oh my, a visitor? How rare."
The old man looked genuinely surprised, then offered a polite introduction.
"My name is Ymir. Welcome to Manus Met—it's an honor to meet you."
"May I ask what brings you here?"
"I'm looking for a child," Lloyd replied plainly.
He glanced around the church again, but saw no trace of anyone resembling a child. His gaze returned to Ymir, and a thought occurred to him—his expression turning slightly strange.
A church. A priest. A "child."
"Child?"
Ymir blinked, then nodded.
"Ah, yes. There are indeed many children here. But... may I ask how you came to know them? And what business do you have with these 'children'?"
"Please don't misunderstand," he added gently. "I mean no harm, but as a 'mother,' I must take responsibility for them."
"Mother?"
Lloyd eyed the man carefully, confirming that he was, without question, male. His expression grew more complicated.
So... the Lands Between finally got the latest patch update?
But soon, Lloyd realized Ymir wasn't just up-to-date—he was running early access.
Because moments later, the "child" Ymir referred to crawled out from his collar. He held it in his hands with almost tender care.
It was a finger worm.
The same kind Lloyd had seen before—its body gray-white and shriveled, shaped like two severed hands fused together.
A finger worm larva.
"Oh dear, how pitiful."
"Yuria, did you have a nightmare?"
Watching Ymir gently cradle the finger worm in his arms, his voice filled with parental affection, Lloyd's expression grew increasingly hard to read.
Still, having seen his fair share of strange things—and being someone who'd personally dealt with more than a few "fingers" himself—Lloyd found Ymir's behavior eccentric but not incomprehensible. After a moment's pause, he accepted it, glanced at the finger worm in Ymir's arms, and nodded.
"This child's quite adorable."
"You truly have an eye for beauty, my friend."
Hearing his "child" praised, Ymir's aged face broke into a delighted smile, wrinkles deepening as he looked up at Lloyd.
"So, the child you're searching for—is it Yuria?"
"No."
But that answer didn't come from Lloyd.
While he and Ymir were speaking, a golden-haired figure had appeared beside him without a sound. After scanning the room for a moment, her gaze fixed—not on Ymir himself, but on the space beneath his chair.
"We're here for Metyr."
At those words, Ymir's expression stiffened.
"Metyr…"
He stroked the small finger worm in his arms, his tone growing more serious.
"I don't know where you heard that name, but—"
He never finished the sentence.
Before him, Alice opened her eyes. Within those eyes, behind the starlit depths, a dark, bottomless void appeared—an emptiness that seemed to devour light itself.
Ymir froze, eyes widening. Even his hand stopped mid-motion over the finger worm.
"Ah… you are—"
"I came for her."
Alice's calm interruption silenced him immediately.
Realizing this was no ordinary visitor, Ymir smoothly rose from his seat and pressed a mechanism hidden in his chair. A section of the floor shifted aside, revealing a concealed entrance leading to a sealed chamber beneath the church.
"She's inside."
Ymir spoke with evident respect, then added in a low voice before Alice entered, "The seal wasn't made by me. I merely followed ancient records to this place—to seek her."
"I know."
Alice nodded, then motioned for Lloyd to follow her down.
...
After walking through a short tunnel and across a stone bridge suspended in midair, they arrived at a strange structure—a massive object shaped like an inverted finger, hanging like a great clock.
Ordinarily, one would need to ring the bells at two other Finger ruins before ringing this one, thus unlocking the path to the sealed "child."
But now, such steps were unnecessary. Alice simply waved her hand, opening a golden portal, and in the next instant, they both stepped through.
They emerged into a silent, oceanic abyss. Above them stretched a sky the color of deep sea water, and from it hung enormous stone pillars shaped like severed fingers.
The ground below was littered with fragments—shattered digits, broken joints, and dismembered remains scattered in every direction.
Between heaven and earth, at the farthest edge of that deep blue horizon, loomed a massive figure.
It was a tangled mass of fingers, its foremost part rising like an upright thumb. Its back fused into a wormlike torso—gray, withered arms sprouting from its upper body, and along its sides, rows of fingerlike limbs wriggled like a centipede's legs.
At its tail, two intertwined fingers spiraled together, holding aloft a hollow orb of light.
It was not human. Not a demigod. In truth, there was nothing "childlike" about it.
Yet this was indeed the "child" Alice had spoken of.
Metyr.
Or, as she was also known—
[Mother of Fingers]
The mother of all Fingers and Fingercreepers. The true emissary of the Greater Will.
But this once-radiant being now lingered alone, waiting in the cold, lightless depths of the earth. Buried beneath ages of solitude and dread, she had slumbered for countless eons.
Now, sensing intruders, Metyr raised one massive finger—ready to teach the trespassers a lesson.
Then—
Thump.
At the sight of a familiar golden figure, Metyr froze. A moment later, realization struck, and she tore open space itself, teleporting forward with a desperate lunge, both arms reaching out for an embrace.
But in the next instant, the golden figure vanished, reappearing behind her. Metyr's arms closed on empty air.
The missed embrace hung in silence. She turned slowly, staring at the golden figure's calm, almost indifferent face.
Metyr went still for a moment—then collapsed into sobs.
Well… fingers don't have mouths, so no sound came out.
But her dejected droop, the way her whole body slumped in guilt and sorrow, said everything. Anyone could see it—her shame, her loneliness, her childlike grief.
Lloyd glanced at her, then at Alice. Seeing how pitiful she looked—and remembering Alice's words describing her as a "child"—he sighed and stepped forward, reaching out as though comforting a crying child.
"There, there, don't cry. Feeling cooped up in here? I'll take you out for a walk soon..."
Though Lloyd had no idea who he really was, the faint trace of Alice's aura on him made the tearful and aggrieved Metyr, after a brief hesitation, treat him as a stand-in for Alice. She pushed her thumb—her head—into his arms, the fingerprint on its tip blinking pitifully.
No one knew how long it lasted before Metyr's flickering finally ceased.
During that time, Lloyd learned a few things about her through his exchange with Alice.
"Simply put, she's a mama's girl. After she grew up, her family kicked her out to find a job. Then her phone broke, so she couldn't reach them. Work didn't go well either—she kept failing and even got threatened. Now she's hiding out in some rented room, sulking, right?"
"...You could say that."
After listening to Lloyd's summary, Alice sighed lightly as she looked at Metyr, then continued, "Besides that, all the Fingers in the Lands Between receive their commands from her. Every Site of Grace, every Guiding Light—everything traces back to her."
"So she's the Greater Will?"
"No. It's just that we can't connect to the Greater Will, so it's running locally."
"Offline mode, huh."
After muttering this, Lloyd glanced down at the Metyr in his arms.
Hearing Alice's words, the fingertip in his embrace began flickering violently, as if trying to say something.
"You mean this isn't all your fault? You're just the coder, and it's those idiot gods making unreasonable requests?"
At his words, Metyr froze, then flickered uncertainly.
Lloyd nodded. "Yeah, I used to be a Finger Reader, so I understand what you're saying."
After a brief pause, Metyr fixed her gaze on him, blinking rapidly. Lloyd watched her, reading the meaning behind the flashes, occasionally nodding.
"I see..."
In short, as Metyr explained, after arriving here for work, she lost contact with her family and panicked a little. But as a dutiful mama's girl, even though she was afraid, she still followed her mother's will—working hard to build what she believed was 'order' in this chaotic land.
Metyr herself had no particular attachment to order—or rather, she lacked any will of her own. Aside from fulfilling her mother's mission, she just did whatever others told her.
If the Giant spoke of the virtue of sacrifice, she helped the Fell God write code. If the Dragon God praised dragon civilization, she helped him code too.
And beyond that, she had to cater to all sorts of bizarre divine requests.
The easier ones—like the Fell God wanting custom giant eyes—were tolerable. The harder ones—like the Dragon God demanding she cut off Placidusax's head and weld it onto his—were another story.
Still, those two were manageable.
At least they didn't turn around and curse her after she delivered what they wanted.
But that golden-haired village girl...
"She said she wanted men—to solve the fertility issue among the sorcerers. I gave her that, and it worked! But then she turned around and cursed me. Later, she even sealed off the Shadow Realm.
"She said gold was good, immortality was good. She wanted the 'unchanging nature' of gold. So I gave her that too. But halfway through, she changed her mind—started talking about 'tenderness' and 'forgiveness.'
"I included those as well, merged other laws into hers, but she still wasn't satisfied. Then she wanted healthy children, demanded I fix the flaws in the Golden Order..."
"The project was already finished! And she wanted me to rebuild it from scratch? Damn it—!"
"But even then, I still modified it for her. Since the law was already established, instead of reworking it entirely, I figured it'd be better to just create a new one—to start another law competition..."
"Why are they all her children anyway? She said she wanted inclusivity, so I included everything! But then when she gave birth, she passed the laws down to them herself. And now she blames me?"
"No, all of this was her idea! Out of all the gods I've worked with, she's the most demanding! And even after getting what she wanted, she still turned on me..."
It was obvious Metyr bore a deep grudge against Marika.
After listening to her story, Lloyd's expression turned complicated. He finally understood how the Lands Between had ended up like this.
A village girl who knew nothing about computers, forced to run one. A programmer with zero emotional intelligence. One who made any request, and one who fulfilled every request.
With such a perfect combination, it was no wonder the Lands Between turned out this way. What truly surprised him wasn't the chaos—but that the Golden Order had actually worked, lasting so many years and even reaching its golden age...
"You two really are something else."
After that remark, Lloyd suddenly remembered something.
"Oh right—about Knox..."
"I smashed it."
Metyr admitted it without hesitation.
"I don't even know what got into them. They came charging at me with a knife, so I just defended myself."
"And the Sky City?"
"Uh... that one..."
At the mention of it, Metyr's light flickered guiltily.
"I smashed the wrong thing."
"...The wrong thing?"
"Yeah."
Metyr gave a small nod, her fingertip flashing faintly.
"The weapon Knox tried to use against me had traces of the Dragon God's aura. I thought they'd teamed up, so I destroyed it along with everything else. But later I realized I'd made a mistake..."
"That blade didn't bear the Dragon God's aura—it was made from her corpse. The Nox killed the Dragon God and forged a god-slaying weapon out of it."
Hearing that, Lloyd turned toward Alice, who pulled out the Fingerslayer Blade she had heavily modified into a repair tool for fingers.
Lloyd took it, eyeing the blade, which was clearly made from the remains of some creature, and clicked his tongue twice.
"This really is one hell of a project..."
He wondered what kind of face Lapis would make if he showed her this thing.
After that short exchange, the next issue was deciding what to do with Metyr.
He had promised to take the child out to play—and judging from her state, she'd clearly suffered plenty here. Leaving her behind didn't feel right.
But taking her out like this... with that form and size...
"Raise your hand."
Alice suddenly spoke.
Though confused, Lloyd did as she said.
Following her guidance, he slipped his hand into the crack in Metyr's abdomen. As his fingers sank deeper, wrapped by countless others, Metyr began trembling.
Then, a system notification appeared before his eyes.
[Item Obtained]
[Finger Crafting Notes]