The village close to my home didn’t have a church branch from which I could try to join the Holy Knights… so I was forced to go a longer distance to the closer town that did. Thankfully, it wasn’t so far away that I would have to camp the night, so by late afternoon, I was already walking into it.
The town was surrounded by a small wooden wall, a handful of guards, and a few people going and coming. As I approached, the guards simply glanced at me for a moment and then turned their attention away to something else. It seemed like I looked just like every other person that came here.
The roads weren’t too different from the village’s dirt, and the buildings fit right in with how my home looked as well, with only a few of them having a bigger front for small merchant stores, or people with big families that could afford to build a bigger home.
However, things changed slightly the further in I went. The dirt road that I’ve been used to walking on, turned to having stones placed closely next to each other, and the buildings had more details than before. It was quite an odd thing for me to see, since I didn’t see the point of spending that much effort to do something like this, but as I approached a large plaza near the town center, I understood that it was made like that so people could stand here even if it rained.
Here, large buildings unlike everything else stood, and one in particular standing taller than the others with what was supposed to be the symbol of the Holy Gods engraved at its higher point.
“Ah, that should be Our house, the place where Our children go to speak to us,” the Goddess said, “It should be the best place to present yourself and your powers.”
I nodded and as I made my way to the building, I thought about how, so far, I had heard only Her voice. The other Gods were watching as well from what She said, but They preferred to give me time and room to get used to Their voices by only having Altheras talk to me, and that eventually, as I grew into the Hero that They wanted, the others were going to talk to me as well.
Once I reached the building, I looked up at the wooden doors and the stone that made up the building and swallowed, both from the idea of talking with the other Gods and what I was going to do once I stepped into this building.
Inside the building, I could see rows of long wooden chairs, each one behind another, and all facing the front, where the figures of the seven Gods were displayed in a rather simple, yet intricate, wooden altar. I couldn’t quite see from here how They looked, but it seemed like whoever made Them had talent for it.
Not wanting to waste any more time, I finally stepped into the building and looked around. There were a handful of people sitting in the wooden chairs, spread through the tall and long hall, and at the sides of the building, paintings with different kinds of images were hanging.
Though, everywhere I looked, there wasn’t a place where I could ask about joining the Holy Knights or something like that… Could it be that to do that I had to go to another town? Perhaps even a city?
An older woman noticed my uncertainty and walked closer to me with a soft smile. She was dressed in a long white gown that had a couple of red pieces of clothes that went down from her shoulders and all the way down the bottom of her clothes by her feet, and on top of it all, hanging from her neck, there was a golden chain, which had a big ring in the middle surrounded by seven smaller ones.
She had pale skin like someone that’s never been under the sun, blonde hair that was already turning gray, and as for her height, she was a couple of heads shorter than me. However, despite her age, I could tell that in her youth she was a pretty lady, since that was something that she still carried in her face.
“Hello!” she gleefully greeted, “Is there something that we can help you with? You seem rather lost, child.”
“N-no, I mean, yes, I mean…” I stumbled upon my words for a moment before taking a breath and calming myself. “I mean, I’m not lost, but I do think I need help.”
The old lady chuckled and nodded her head. “Is that so? Then what could that be?”
“Um… I’m here because I want to become a Holy Knight,” I said with a bit of a bashful feeling. Being in a big town like this and talking with strangers wasn’t something I was used to do.
“Ah… I see…” the old lady said with a tight-lipped, regretful smile as she looked me up and down. “I’m sorry but… You might be a bit too old to start Holy Knight training.”
“Eh? What do you mean? I thought that to be a Holy Knight one just needed to be strong and be trained,” I argued back with my eyebrows raised slightly.
“Yes, they need to be strong, but Holy Knights start their training at a very young age, almost from the time they learn how to walk,” the old lady said, “It is, after all, not easy to do Our Holy Gods’ bidding, and to properly do it, it would take a complete lifetime. At your age… I’m afraid that your devotion to Them might not be strong enough to ensure that you won’t stray from Their path…”
“B-but, I was told that if I came here, I’d be able to become a Holy Knight…” I said, frowning and thinking how to convince her to let me become a Holy Knight.
“We only take young children under our wing. Be that because their parents brought them here or because we found young ones with particular talents. Whoever told you to come here, was not completely right with what they told you… I’m sorry…” The old lady said while shaking her head. “However, we do appreciate your initiative, and the Faith is always willing to take young warriors and mages like yourself to aid in our fight against evil, so if you want, I can point you to—”
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“Show her your powers,” Altheras spoke in my mind as the old lady kept talking, “Have her measure your powers.”
“Can I at least have my powers measured?” I said, interrupting the old lady who frowned in response.
“If… if you wish to show me that you have strong powers, then that’s fine, but like I said, we’re not really interested in—”
“I can hear Her,” I interrupted once more, taking a step forward.
“Huh?” the old lady asked back in response.
“I can hear Altheras,” I insisted, trying to look as seriously at the old lady as I could.
“T-that is… that’s quite a bold thing to claim, young lady,” the old lady said with a deep frown. “You’re basically claiming to be the chosen one.”
“I’m not sure about that, but… but the Goddess told me to come here, and so I did,” I followed up, “She was the one that said that here, I could become Her proper knight, and that when the time came, it would all be revealed.”
The old lady considered me for a moment with her eyebrows furrowed as she looked me directly in the eyes. I sustained my look just the same, and eventually the old lady sighed and turned to look deeper into the building.
“Very well…” she said with a tired tone of voice, as if she didn’t believe me and was just indulging me. “We can have you tested, but… to be Her chosen one… well, I guess that it’s true that it will be revealed then and there. Please follow me.”
The old lady turned and started walking deeper into the building and to the side, into a wooden door. I did as she asked and followed her. The door opened to a short corridor that stretched for only a few steps before opening into a wider hallway full of doors like the one we just walked through. It didn’t take long before she opened a large door at the end, and into a room that had its wall covered with books, a large desk, and a couple of strange artifacts that were resting on another table behind said desk, with a window that allowed light to come in on top of it all.
“Wait for me here and I’ll come back with a measuring stone,” she said, and I nodded in response as she turned to leave.
I looked at the books, trying to read what was written at the sides, but I couldn’t really understand what they were about, so I just sat on the chair in front of the desk, put my backpack on the floor, and just waited with my eyes set on the different books in this rather small room.
After a while, the old woman walked back into the room with a couple of people in tow. One of them was a young woman, about my same age, pale, with long brown hair, and dressed in a white gown, but without the red pieces of the old lady. And the other one was a man that already had a few wrinkles in his face, but wasn’t quite as old as the old lady, dressed in the same way as the young woman.
The man carried in his hands a dark-brown wooden box, but I couldn’t see anything special about it, while the young woman simply walked around to stand at the side of the desk. The old lady walked over and sat at the other side of the desk, and the old man placed the box on top of the desk with a loud thud.
“This here is the measuring stone,” the old lady said, and the man opened the box.
It revealed an almost perfect spherical stone that glinted under the light coming from the window. The stone wasn’t bigger than my hand, but just looking at the smooth surface, I could tell that it wasn’t just any kind of ball.
“Now, I’m only doing this to make sure that what you’ve said is true. I don’t want to defy the word of The Mother of All, after all, but if what you’re claiming isn’t true then…” she said and glanced at the young woman standing next to the desk, who pulled a bag from behind her back. “You’re going to have to pay a hefty sum of money for the use of such an artifact.”
“A-and how much is that?” I asked as I eyed the small bag in the woman’s hand.
“About fifty silver pieces,” the young woman said with a bright smile that didn’t quite match the situation.
With a sharp intake of air, I looked at the small ball. That was much more money than anything I’d ever seen. Even in my pockets, at most I had a couple of silver pieces, and it was all counted in copper ones, so to pay fifty in one go… Well, I could only pray that what the Goddess said about me was right and I wouldn’t have to pay for this…
“Are you sure you still want to put your claims to the test?” the old lady said while giving me a serious look.
I tightened my lips for a moment as I looked at the stone and nodded after a moment. “Yes.”
“Very well,” she said and reached into the box to pull out the stone, before placing it on the desk a short distance away from me. “It’s very simple to do this. Just place your hands on the stone and use magic. Any sort of magic will do, even just circulating magic through your body.”
“Okay…” I said and placed my hand on the stone.
I hesitated slightly, but after a moment, I managed to use my magic. A blue glow appeared under my hand, and the stone, in turn, started glowing as well. I intently looked at the stone, trying to see if there was something special about it, and right away, the stone started glowing orange.
“Ah…” the old lady said, “It’s orange… almost yellow. You do have some talent with magic but, sadly, what you’re showing here isn’t exactly what—”
“Use my powers,” Altheras quickly said, “That should reveal the truth.”
I was so focused on what I was tasked to do here that I nearly forgot about that, so I closed my eyes and focused on the feeling that the power of the Goddess created inside of me. Once I did, I focused on that golden glow, and used it with the magic I was trying to pass on to the stone.
Gasps and scrambled steps could be heard from around me, so I opened my eyes to see that the stone was glowing brightly like the sun, and that the old lady along with the young woman and the man were both covering their eyes from the light while their mouths hung open.
“It—it is true!” the man exclaimed, “She really has been chosen!”
“Praised be the Holy Gods!” followed up the young woman, dropping to her knees.
“I-I suppose that… I should send word about starting your Holy Knight training…” the old lady said with an incredulous look as I withdrew my power and the light faded.
With that knowledge in mind, I widely smiled, both in relief of not having to pay for the usage of the stone and in the knowledge that from here on out, I was going to start my training as a Holy Knight; that I was going to go on the path to make sure that nobody ever had to suffer under the—
A loud boom resounding all over caused me to stop what I was thinking and raise my eyebrows in surprise. Everything around me stopped moving. The old lady with her incredulous look; the man, who had his eyes closed and his hands put together in a prayer; the young woman who was crying tears of joy; and even the birds flying outside of the window stopped mid flight, their wings unmoving.
There was another boom, and the sound of something like glass cracking could be heard. My expression of surprise slowly faded, and a nonplussed one replaced it as I just looked outside of the window and waited.
One final boom was heard, and the world around me broke like a glass window, which eventually shattered all around me, and the images of everything I was seeing fell down below me and into a dark void until darkness was all that remained around me.
It seemed like I couldn’t hide anymore. So I turned to look at the one that did this, someone I was already fairly familiar with, and the only one that could intrude like this inside me.
“I’ve finally reached you.”