After ending their performance, the lizardmen bowed again to Yunan and proceeded to leave the arena, followed by Yunan and the family who left the stands and went out to meet their old friends, Apophis and Death were rather curious about why was Yunan called "exalted champion" by a bunch of lizards, they found the ensuing story and explanation by the overly dramatic Fae, meanwhile the family was surrounded by a hubbub of lizardmen as soon as they left the huge arena, apparently, the whole tribe from the 30th floor was there.
The elder of the village was first to introduce himself to the old ones while the younger generation of the tribe half invited half dragged the rest to their own little village in the island. And they all had the same thing on their snouts along the way, exalted one this and exalted one that, they seemed to be rather happy for meeting Yunan and his family for some reason beyond Yunan, even Hephaestus just smiled mysteriously at the probing looks he got from the members of Debauchery.
Not until everyone was sitting beside a roaring fire and eating the provided delicacies specially made for the guests did the elder stat talking earnestly, seemingly he has got past the point of being starstruck and fangirling like the rest of his tribe who was still looking like a bunch of screeching and stampeding K-pop fangirls who got a glimpse of their idol right after a rather well-performed concert.
"Exalted one" the elder actually kneeled and made a salute to Yunan who was tearing off a big bite of flesh from what seemed to be a thigh bone of some monster. Being caught like this did not really embarrass Yunan who just used his free hand to make a kingly gesture to allow the old man to speak. Once given the acknowledgement, the elder stood up and spoke.
"Exalted one, our clan has nothing but deep gratitude and worship for you who has so graciously allowed all of us to awaken, your gifts to us shall never be forgotten and will be passed on as the story of our tribe for all eternity". The elder looked visibly shaken when he heard Yunan's reply that almost all of the feats turned silent almost immediately, the answer was "so, what did I do?".
"Surely, you jest oh exalted one, such thing can not be done unintentionally, no matter how you look at it, awakening a whole tribe is something miraculous and not accidental" however seeing the curious look on this exalted one his tribe has worshipped for nigh on a generation seriously had no idea what was this about, thinking about it a bit more, this idol of his did not seem the type to not know what they did or the consequences of their actions.
Eventually, the elder started to clarify " well, the short version is…, through using the gifts given to us by yourself and your followers that day, we have succeeded in gaining enough knowledge that all of our tribe was deemed worthy to awaken, even though we were not monster, to begin with, Tartarus seemed to think we have become civilised enough to let us free in the outside world, in this place we got to let go entirely of our warlike nature and could both be civilised and fight endlessly to our hearts content, thus we have taken you for our idol, and we have worshipped you ever since we got here, for this to not be your wish for us is truly depressing"
Not only did Bai and Lucian laughed until they toppled over, but the wives also giggled and snickered, even Death found it to be amusing " seriously though, you guys should stop with the worship thingy and just forget about it, we are friends, just like before, if you insist on worship, then do it, just to be clear, those gifts were nothing more than just some items I thought were valuables during the time, but I have to say, I am really happy you guys left that dungeon, this world is a better place, no matter how you look at it, let's toast, to the awakening of the nicest warmongers I have ever met"
That was enough to get the party back on track, even though it seemed like the reveal was a bit disappointing, the gifts were not why the lizards worshipped Yunan, they worshipped him for the opportunity, which has nothing to do with his will or whatever, since the idol was here, there was no reason to sour the festive atmosphere.
Fanaticism is a hairline away from idolisation, although the lizards were close to the former they were firmly part of the latter, they could accept that their worshipped Idol had no intention of causing anything when he left behind the gifts of pearls, food and other materials behind for the lizardmen tribe, he was truly just giving back, after all, the number of books he got from them as well as the resources he achieved thanks to those books was truly a bit too much.
As for being the object of worship, Yunan wasn't sure what to think about it, thus he decided to just roll with it, graciously accepting the spiritual energy offered by these wonderful people, for a waring species, they sure were nice and warm-hearted, probably a side effect to the meaninglessness of life to them.
"Hey, elder lizard, how do you guys feel about joining my nation? I have this quaint kingdom and it has been a while since they started dungeon climbing, I would like it if your people could train the army in the ways of battle, and you guys get to be our direct link to the Awakened Island, There are other people I think about inviting to work, so that my little kingdom and your two races work in a partnership, how about it?"
"Will we be allowed to fight and use our own laws and rules?" The elder was really thinking about his tribe more than enough, that brought a smile to Yunan, who simply gestured to Reina and Sarrah to come closer and discuss with the elder, eventually they came to an agreement that was beneficial to all sides and the elder didn't hesitate to announce it to the entire tribe.