Unknown found him sitting next to the corpse, having not moved for the past hour, his leg bandaged in rags. She stood next to them for a moment, then crouched, putting her hand against its body.
“They were as good as dead the moment they were brainwashed, so there is no reason to feel pity for them. Yet you did,” she spoke, her tone neutral. The wolf lit up in gentle flames.
Thomas looked. The corpse quickly charred, but he did not feel much heat coming from the fire.
“Good job. Even if it was for but a moment, you freed it.”
“Is that so? I didn’t expect you to praise me for that,” Thomas responded, returning from his thoughts. “Expected quite the opposite of that, really.”
“It is stupid, there is little you should pity about someone who you fight to the death. But it isn’t wrong. It just means you’ll die a stupid death soon. That’s your problem to deal with.”
He smiled in response. “Hey now, last time someone predicted my death, it took years longer before I bit it.”
“Don’t count on it,” she sat down while taking off her helmet again.
“Hey, what’s the ‘May their dreams be monumental’ supposed to mean,” he asked out of curiosity. He’d been thinking about it for some time, but he couldn’t think of anything special.
She looked him in the eyes. They stared at each other for a while, until he lost his smile. He was about to change topics, thinking it was a stupid question, but she answered.
“A blessing past death, from Death. It’s a nice gesture, but it doesn’t mean anything unless He says it. Well, in this case, it might be valid too. You can ask Him if you meet.”
She turned her gaze, and his followed. They looked at the city. The night would look peaceful, if it wasn’t for the unnatural amounts of lights around and inside the city. He couldn’t see anything specific, but some buildings on the outside were in the middle of burning, or already burnt to ash.
His only solace was what she said earlier, so he assumed the people evacuated inside the walls.
“Hey, I’ll keep it in mind, but since I don’t really want to bless the dreams of the people in the city, we should go there now. Theresa probably prepared what she needed by now, right?”
“Yeah, you’re right,” she responded, returning to her more casual vocabulary. “There’s a lot of people left to kill.” She then stood up, arm reached out to help him up.
“Well, sure, but…,” he sniffed the air. He was sweaty earlier, and still covered in a considerable amount of blood. Yet somehow, she smelled even worse. “We need a bath. We. Both of us.”
She nearly snarled.
—
“By the way, you did promise me a new weapon, but how about new clothes? These kinda suck now.” He had already discarded his shield, and parts of his robes were torn off to bandage his wound earlier, though he already took those off. The wound wasn’t quite gone, but his body recovered absurdly fast.
“Mhm, sure. I can probably get you something. I need to swap out my armor later anyways. There’s too many mages.”
He eyed her armor. It did look to be in a bad state, but it looked like that even before they met. There didn’t seem to be any new damage. “I’m not gonna discourage that, but isn’t it doing its job fine right now?”
She sighed. “Yes, it’s my favorite set. Great aesthetics. Unfortunately, the only reason they haven’t been effective is because they keep throwing their favorite death magic. Great at cutting through everything alive, terrible at everything else.”
Thomas frowned. This was the second time that-
His thoughts were interrupted when she called out towards the gate, they had finally reached it.
“‘Hoy there,” she waved at Theresa, the gate open just enough for either of them to pass under it. Unknown had to lean forward.
“It seems you have done some exciting things. I would prefer if he did not get hurt next time though,” she said after glancing at his leg.
It is inevitable when I fight against something twice my size, isn’t it.
“You’re saying that as if I was taking him from you. Besides, I’m not that rough,” she smirked. Or, at least he guessed at much, her face covered.
Nevermind. That’s how she meant it. When did they get so close?
“Besides the flirting, we need a bath. Or any kind of alternative for cleaning up. I smell terrible, and she smells like a corpse,” Tom intervened.
“Humm, yes, I suppose there is time for that. There was no time specified for the unannounced audience with the King,” she turned around and led the way. He noticed legs sticking out from the door to the guard house.
Is this what she had to prepare? She did say something about the guards not liking her.
“An announcement is only useful when they’re busy. I doubt they have anything more important than me on their schedule right now..”
“There is a river that runs through the city, though some parts of it are underground. There is a place for bathing near where it exits past the walls,” Theresa explained.
A small hiss resounded from underneath the helmet. He ignored it.
“... How’s the place doing anyway? It looks calm here, but I’m sure there’s chaos somewhere,” Unknown asked after a while.
Stolen novel; please report.
Theresa winced at the question. “You would be correct in that assumption. The main streets are well maintained, but if you were to go into many of the less patrolled parts of the city…”
“You would think there’s an insider? I can’t guarantee it’s that way everywhere, but there definitely are some enemies on the inside. They torched the outskirts, sure, but they’re not even remotely approaching the walls, they’re biding their time for something,” Unknown commented.
“Yes, but I doubt there was much push necessary to cause inner conflict. I assigned some priests to attempt to quell the chaos, but there are not enough of us to cover much ground. Not to mention the fight that may come.”
They continued in silence. Thomas pondered over some questions, though it felt a bit awkward to start right now.
“Right, did you hear the entire interrogation? He told me some interesting stuff, including that apparently if we kill the top guys, their formation will most likely crumble. So if we manage to pick them off somehow, this might not be too dangerous.”
Theresa side-eyed him, meanwhile the Knight scoffed. “If only. It’s never that easy. If we were in one of the actually powerful Empires, I could rush them down, sure. But right now? It’s a lot more difficult for me to act. Since I break the balance, the more power I use, their shitty God can do the same. There is a path I could take that minimizes all casualties, but I don’t know which one it is.”
The priestess followed up with her own explanation. “The other issue is that certain people from here must perish. Even an evil God like theirs cannot simply destroy a place like this on a whim. But if the causality demands a catastrophe, then it will happen. There are good people here, but their merits do not outweigh the sins of the many.”
Wait, I get that Unknown is very strong, so what she said makes sense, but what’s this about causality and sin? Does this mean shitty rulers can just doom their entire kingdom?
Unknown must’ve noticed his confused look, or at least expected it, because she elaborated. “It must feel unfair, right? Just because there are a few people who cause suffering, so many must die. But if you look at it from the long run, it’s one tragedy that ends further suffering. It gets a lot more complicated at high levels though. Not that it matters, I hate this system either way.”
Her words seem a bit contradictory there, but I think she means that it’d be better if there was no need for this in the first place? At least I hope that’s what it is. She doesn’t strike me as someone who hates people. Well, she does seem to hate people, but at least she seems kind, right?
Not wishing to question that topic, he thought about what he could ask next, but then Theresa stopped them. “It seems we have arrived. This was… quicker than anticipated.”
“You’re welcome,” Unknown stated. They both raised an eyebrow at the comment, but she was already marching inside.
Keeping up behind her, they moved to the large building. He didn’t know if there was supposed to be some indication other than the sign with a flowing water symbol hanging outside, but it looked just like the inns he has seen so far, just bigger. No signs of a river either.
Opening the hinged door and entering, the sound of metal hitting metal rang out, along with the crack of wood.
Peeking past her shoulder into the dimly lit room, he saw a man holding the remains of a tool, the hammer’s head currently on the ground. He had tried to attack the Knight with it.
With a sigh, she stepped inside, then motioned for her entourage to enter as she stood off to the side of the entrance, hostile but confused looks sent her way by the current inhabitants of this place.
“I have to say, I think you forgot to mention this service, Miss Saintess,” she said loud enough for everyone to hear.
Theresa’s thusly announced entry erased the hostility from their expressions, but utter confusion still remained. Looking around, there was a large number of people in here, some standing guard with makeshift weapons, but most sitting around, fitting themselves more towards the center.
The man that held the severed corpse of a hammer addressed her. “Um. Saintess… To what do we owe the pleasure? We appreciate the visit, but…,” both his eyes and words wandered off, staring up at Unknown.
A burly man whose body was somewhere between a veteran warrior and a hardened laborer. He was by no means short, but standing near the towering woman still made him seem small.
“I do admit that the time of our visit can be considered quite… unsavory, but you can rest assured, there is no imminent danger, right now,” she said, the last part turning into more of a whisper. Regardless, her words still erased a large amount of tension out of the room.
“Right, uh, that is indeed reassuring to hear from you, but… We had heard the bells, but nobody really knows what’s happening, just that some fires have started outside the city. And so, these people decided to gather around here, just to keep safe. I think that’s the case for most of the city, really, just different places,” he explained. “But enough of that, did you bring these two gentlemen for a bath?”
Gentlemen? Oh, right, I guess you can’t tell she’s a woman unless she has her helmet off. Her voice gets muffled as well.
Before he could correct him though, Unknown lightly pressed the back of her hand against his face, stopping him.
“Yes, well, they had spent some time on the outside, so if it is not a bother, it would be good if they could wash themselves off here. As to what is happening, I believe you two are more informed than me currently,” she said, turning to them at the end.
Slightly leaning towards Unknown and sniffing, his expression instantly twisted into disgust. “Yeah, no kidding. Hey Maria, go get the water running!” He yelled towards the back of the crowd. In response, a slim woman with ginger hair stood up, nodded quickly, then ran off somewhere, presumably to where the bathing would be done.
Some eyes still on them, he realized he should try to explain some things, because he already understood that there was no way Unknown would be doing the talking. Although he hasn’t known her for long, her personality was pretty obvious.
“Alright, so, from what we figured out so far, inside the city walls should be safe for now. It’s an invasion being led in the name of some evil God, but it’s the start of a siege right now. It won’t last forever, but there’s some time before they start launching attacks, let alone get past the walls,” he started.
Oh yikes, look at them. I guess I didn’t really say it in a reassuring way. But on the other hand, I don’t feel like I’m taking the danger seriously in the first place. Even after that fight, it still hasn’t properly registered. Well, let’s hope I won’t panic when that happens.
“Anyways, though we haven’t figured out the exact locations, we already know about their, uh, commanders. And their overall morale seems low too, so if we take those out, everyone under them will crumble,” he amended. Off to the side, Theresa nodded in confirmation, adding weight to his words.
Then, before he could continue, the System’s interface popped up.
Warning!
Hostile Divine Intent detected!
A Divine Being wishes for your punishment!
“Oh, what the fuck.”
A terrible feeling pressed down on him, pressing him down to his knees, but he barely held on from being crushed further into the ground.
Somehow keeping his head up, he saw that he wasn’t the only one affected, though no one was being crushed. He saw only pale faces, everyone looking like they were splashed with cold water. Theresa and Unknown looked unaffected.
“That’s enough. Application REJECTED.”
Originating from Unknown next to him, a powerful wave washed past him, immediately relieving the pressure. Despite only lasting about three seconds, he could feel his body aching. According to the status, however, he received no damage.
Congratulations!
You have survived Divine Punishment!
The Divine Being still exhibits hatred towards you!
YOU DARE! A MERE INSECT, HIDING IN HER SHADOW LIKE A COWARD!