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Hector didn’t necessarily disagree, but that hardly seemed like the most beneficial attitude to have, given the circumstances. ‘What can you tell me about Malast? Or at least, the folklore around him. You called him the Idle God before, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah,’ said Garovel. ‘Ancient stories, those. Malast was a god who never took an interest in humanity, no matter how much they pleaded for him to. He had all sorts of names. The Idle God. The Worthless God. He Who Sits. He Who Does Nothing. The God of Despair. The God of Boredom. But I didn’t know he was called the God of the Underworld, too.’

‘Hmm. What do the stories say about him?’

‘Not much, really. His whole deal was that he simply didn’t engage with us lowly humans. Some stories portrayed him as outright hating us, but even in those, he never actually takes action against humans. He usually just lets us fend for ourselves and occasionally die in some horrible manner that he presumably could have prevented.’

‘That’s it? The stories are just about him doing nothing the whole time?’

‘Basically, yeah. But the stories weren’t about him. He was usually just in the background, being super unhelpful. I don’t know if he even has a definitive origin story.’

‘That... all kinda lines up with this guy’s general attitude and weirdness, right now, doesn’t it?’

‘Oh, believe me, I’ve noticed. It’s been annoying the ever-living crap out of me.’

He supposed that explained why the reaper seemed even more irritated than he might have expected.

Still, the more Hector thought about what their final question should be, the more he supposed they already knew the most immediately relevant things. Malast was not hostile. Malast was not going to prevent them from taking the treasure. Certainly, there were still many things he would’ve liked to know, but he couldn’t tell if any single question was more important than any of the others.

That was, until Manuel Delaguna decided to speak up for the first time since they’d arrived. “How do we get out of here?”

The group looked at him.

Yeah. That was a pretty good way to spend their last question, Hector felt.

Malast, however, just shrugged. “I don’t know.”

What?

How could he not know?

Did that mean they were all trapped here now?

Hector had to stop himself blurting any or all of those questions out, and judging from the distorted expressions on the reapers faces, they were doing the same.

Eleyo spoke next. “How funny that a ‘god’ could end up trapped in a place like this.”

The man had been careful to avoid framing his words as a question, Hector noticed.

Hector wondered if that actually would work, though.

Apparently not, judging from Malast’s complete lack of a reaction. “It’s still your turn.”

Hector tried to think everything through rationally. If this Ettol guy had come and gone, then they probably weren’t trapped here. It was just a matter of figuring out how to leave.