— Moments before Cyrraia’s landing.
Gellar watched the godfall outside the window of Freedom’s Peak. She glanced down at her bracelet. Of the fifteen crystals studded around it, nine glowed in warning. If they spent any more time dallying, all those crystals would be glowing—and they’d be completely surrounded.
“We have to go,” she announced in a grim tone, but only Jyn and Lilia sprung to action, already buckling on their armor and their preferred sidearms, but the others just stared at her. “Now!” she had to repeat herself, or else they would remain in a daze.
Jyn saw that Kalender and Page still weren’t moving. It was precisely for times like these that the value of daily drills shined brightest.
“Page, Kalender!” she called them both by name, catching their attention for good. “Armor, weapons, supplies!”
Armor, weapons, supplies—these were the trigger words that finally spurred them on. Every single morning of Jyn saying “armor, weapons, supplies” had become a well-practiced drill that Kalender and Page had shaped their morning routines around.
The two began buckling on their vests just as Lilia and Jyn finished with theirs. Saving on time, Jyn pulled out Kalender’s and Page’s weapons from under the desk, while Lilia handled everyone’s backpacks and kits, lining them up in a neat line against the wall.
In one minute flat, they went from peacefully lounging around to being a heavily armed and…terribly imbalanced party: a decently-armored Knight, a Tourist with too many spare swords, a Librarian with a quarterstaff disguised as a mage stick, the actual mage armed with a marksman air rifle, a black-hooded demonic assassin, and a (technically) necromancer goddess wielding a divine kitchen knife.
… Well, Minimine’s presence was already cheating.
Even in the presence of her graces, however, anxiety still pervaded the thoughts of some of those in the room, especially Jyn, Page, and Kalender. They knew people in this town—Jyn’s sister was here!
“Knight,” Gellar called out. She could only read Jyn’s anxiety, but it wasn’t hard to figure out where it was coming from. Knowing all about the people who surrounded Kalender was also part of her mission, after all. “I am aware of your sister. Her master is a good fighter.”
Jyn nodded, understanding what it was Gellar was really trying to say: Kalender’s safety must take priority. She was sure that if she’d asked him, then Kalender would have agreed to find Kyn and bring her with them. However, was it really worth the danger towards Kalender, whose shoulders bore a large part of the world’s fate? With the risk of running into an enemy who used soul-destroying weapons, it was more likely for the demons to actively track Kalender and target him. Hence, if they were to seek out Kyn, they would only be endangering her by proxy. Staying away was, in the end, the logical choice.
Kalender had listened in on Jyn and Gellar’s short exchange; he’d understood what they’d meant. It still irked him, but seeing two experienced fighters make this sort of call, he could only put his faith in their far better-informed assessment.
“We’re heading for the castle,” Gellar said. “Stay close, and follow my lead.”
Kalender gulped. What was about to happen wasn't going to be like anything he'd ever gone through before.
They filed out of the door and down the stairs, passing by the downstairs eatery’s evening patrons, all happily unaware of the trouble brewing right outside the door.
In Kalender’s mind, the simplest and right thing to do here would have been to warn them all to get out, seek shelter—go home. It wasn’t his responsibility to protect them, however, and even though he understood that, it still hurt him to leave them behind.
Out in the street, some onlookers were watching the comet in the sky with a sense of wonder as they held their beers.
“Say, isn’t that what they call a godfall?” one said.
“What, you make it sound like the goddesses are falling!”
“Didn’t you hear about the miracle last month, though!”
“I mean, yeah” —
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“So that might actually be a goddess right there!”
Even in this kind of situation, Kalender still found a little humor in what they'd said. There was, after all, an actual goddess passing by right in front of them.
Rather, where was she? Her short, stubby legs might not let her catch up with the rest of them. He slowed down and looked behind him, but to his surprise, she was running incredibly fast---her stride just wasn't human!
Wasn’t that a fact? She was never truly human. All these days of peace had made him almost forget about that.
Even if she wasn’t human, however, she had a soul. Minimine would have added, “many of them, actually.”
She remained at the rear, like a pack leader watching over everyone else from the back, making sure no one strayed nor fell behind. This was, in some ways, like a smaller-scale version of her role as a goddess.
Although mortals were the ones fighting this battle, she still had to be the one watching over them. She didn’t mind the fact that mortals would die, and in fact, she could feel that plenty of them were dying right this second. Instead, the most important thing for her right now was to make sure her Champion got to safety, and that she, herself, was in Castle Westbreak by the time the fighting started in earnest.
There was no complex reasoning for it: as a goddess in a mortal shell, her powers were limited enough that she had to consider her physical location when it came to using her power, and as a (technically) necromancer, being in the geographic center of a battlefield would give her the best corpse coverage.
Oh, but if the demons dared to show themselves, she’d come back down here and take them on, herself.
Still, there was one concern she couldn’t find a way to address: Cyrraia.
The woman had up and initiated Overseer authority handover! Not that Minimine disagreed with it as a whole, but it was just too sudden, and the timing was so bad!
Come to think of it… If Cyrraia made it through the whole handover process and got full Overseer authority, she’d be able to do more than just put in a soul-search request. The amount of things an Overseer could do…wouldn’t the ###### God pretty much lose?
It might not be an instant win for them, but strategically, it’s all downhill for the ###### God from there. It would only make sense that he’d want to kill her as early as now.
How vexing. Minimine would go over there and protect her, herself, but she didn’t put it behind the demons to shift their plans and take the opportunity to completely eradicate Kalender. He was a bug in the ###### God’s program, and as long as he was allowed to live, the ###### God’s chances of defeat would remain high.
In Minimine’s mind, it was a choice between 99% victory and 50% victory—between sacrificing a friend…or a friend.
Just when the spirit of utilitarianism was about to wrap its cold, calculating fingers around her throat, there was a glint of light in the corner of her eye, and she noticed someone standing on a roof at the end of the street, some 200 meters away.
Aha! The girl with the [Blessing of War]! Say goodbye to moral choices!
“Everyone, wait. I see Arpeggio Selisie,” she said through telepathy.
Before anyone could even stop and turn to acknowledge her, she’d already dashed down a different road at superhuman speed—and in an eerie way that made absolutely no noise, reminding her companions that she wasn’t just a ball of cuteness, but a ball of power, and that ball of power’s dislike of moral choices was proportional to her acceleration.
Balancing on the ridge of a steep roof, Arpeggio had only been staring at the godfall for a few tens of seconds at this point. It was…beautiful.
Behind her, however, her mother’s flares hung over the horizon. They were ephemeral in their desperate, flickering bid to shine brighter than everything else. If recent events were anything to go by, that beautiful godfall was also going to be a beacon for bloodshed. What manner of powers would fight for that falling beauty once it landed?
“Arpeggio Selisie.”
The sudden telepathy sent her blade flying towards Minimine’s neck, but she managed to swerve the blade in a curve over Minimine’s head and, after it cleared, sheathed her sword in one shaky motion.
“Goddess! Forgive me” —
“Never mind.” Minimine pointed at the sky, towards the godfall. “That’s my friend,” she said with her mouth. “Cyrraia is her name, and she holds the Key. The demons will try to kill her. Right now, she is more important than Kalender. Please protect her.”
Arpeggio was shocked. If Minimine was saying such a thing, then Cyrraia must have possessed the divine equivalent of a war-winning instrument.
Still, there was something a bit off here. “A mortal protecting a goddess? Will I be of any use?”
“She is weak.” Minimine resorted to telepathy again.
Arpeggio froze then shook her head. Was she thinking about this correctly? The implication here being that she was stronger than a goddess—but that shouldn’t be the case, right?
“Her raw power is truly a goddess’s, but she lacks experience in using it to its furthest potential in physical battle.”
Oh, if it’s just something like that, then it’s understandable. Arpeggio bowed her head. “I have my new mission.” She raised her head, but before she left, she shared some more information. “Please be warned, Goddess. One of the regiments to the south has been charmed. I suspect the culprit is in that direction as well.”
“Arpeggio Selisie, don’t waste time.”
Being two feet away from divine impatience, Arpeggio stood straighter than a pine tree. “Right away, Goddess!” she said with a military salute, the same one her mother had drilled into her for minor disciplinary infractions—and she flew off.
Was Minimine’s tone too strict? She’d made sure to use a gentle one. Arpeggio had a spark of something, after all—a spark, a potential of becoming Minimine’s equal in a way that neither Kalender nor Page could be.
She hoped the Princess Knight would come back with an intact soul.
When Minimine returned to the group a moment later, they were standing in an alley of fallen knights.
***