Stray Soul

Everyone stood still for a moment as the necromancer screamed while being ragdolled by the turtle.

But a few seconds later the turtle stopped ragdolling the necromancer, and he seemed exhausted.

Then I and the mace guy’s eyes met for a second, and without waiting for him to do backoff or anything, I got up and looked down on him for a moment before letting the necromancer go.

Then all 3 of my bodies disappeared into the forest, leaving the goblins to do whatever they wanted... of course, I first informed Rifu-san that I had won and asked her to heal the sword guy, whose sword I stole shortly after healing him.

After an hour of walking, I sat down with all of my bodies, and wondered what plagued the goblins’ minds.

“S-shaman, are you okay?!” I asked as I rushed towards father after the deity and its underlings disappeared into the forest.

“I am okay, no need to worry about me Grok, that thing just... caught me off guard.” He said wiping some sweat off of his forehead.

“Shaman, what do we do now? Do we retreat? Do we chase after them?” I asked him, as this outcome was... unprecedented, and we had made no plans for our loss.

We had thought about the Mother sending some more of her spawn to help the plant being, but we had never assumed that we would be facing a deity and its minions.

“...No, we aren’t chasing after them. We’ve already seen what happens when we fight against them, now, we must make a tactical retreat and go over what we learned of this... “Deity’s” capabilities. With the Great One’s help, we may yet be victorious.” The Shaman said, and I nodded. After all, there was no guarantee that this “Deity” wouldn't kill us the moment we lost connection to the gods, so we had to retreat back to the safety of the village and consolidate our power.

“I don’t think that’s what we agreed on, Shaman.” Gram said while walking towards us while supporting Gara.

“...Gram, you know as well as I that we cannot trust The All Mother and her spawn, if we let them, they’ll do nothing but—”

“Use us as their tools? Unlike the Great One? Do tell Krone, why we are still here when we could’ve easily left this forest? Are we here to take a nice stroll and camp out? Or are we here because the Great One you venerate and pray to has ordered you to make some sacrifices so he could gain some attention from the other gods?” Gram spit out in anger, and I was just left speechless.

How could one dare to disrespect The Great One so? Especially in front of the Shaman, who was a priest of The Great One?

I was so bewildered from what was going on, my jaw dropped, and I could do nothing but look at Gram and then the Shaman.

“What? You’ve got nothing to say, Shaman?” Gram then added shamelessly, and I could see how angry the Shaman was.

“Gram, you surely cannot be so stupid to think the All Mother and her spawn would follow their words. Make no mistake, every member of our tribe will be slaughtered if we betray the gods. We have only once choice, and it is to pray for help from the gods.” The Shaman said calmly after saying nothing for a minute.

“And I wonder who’s the one responsible for us being here? It’s definitely not me, not you, not Grok, or any of the other goblins in our tribe. So, do tell, Shaman, who is responsible for our current situation? Because I remember very well that the Great One told you to keep us here. And now what? We are going to pray for help from the ones that are responsible for the situation we are in?”

“Yes. What else can we do?” The Shaman responded.

“And are you sure you want to align yourself with the ones that hurt Gara so?” He then added.

“Actually, my back is fine.” Gara then added, removing herself from Gram’s grasp and standing on her own. Her legs seemed a bit weak, but she was able to walk.

“...How?” The Shaman then asked, his surprize clear.

“The deity healed her as it was leaving, I saw it with my own eyes.” Gram said, looking at the Shaman.

“Now, we know that the deity and The All Mother are at least capable of holding true to their words, which already puts them far, far above where I’d put the Great One and the Dark Lord. So, tell me Krone, what is your decision?

Are you going to go back to the village and ask the Great One for what we should do next? Or are we going to go back to the village and break his divine core?” He then added, and the Shaman and Gram stared at each other in silence for some time before the Shaman spoke.

“We need the god—”

“Eh, fuck this shit.” Gram said and turned back and started walking towards where the deity went to with Gara in tow.

“Those who want to live, follow me! We may be able to negotiate with the deity and get better conditions for our tribe! If you want to follow a crazy lunatic, follow Krone!” Gram then yelled out for everyone one to hear.

For a few seconds, no one walked towards Gram, as they should.

And Gram and Gara disappeared into the forest line with only each other... that is until someone started walking towards where they disappeared.

“Gob, get back!” I yelled out to him, knowing that the Shaman was right, and there was no reason to listen to what Gram had said.

“Gob no like the great one! Great one sound crazy!” Gob turned back for a moment and said before disappearing into the forest. Then his friends started walking behind him, and as they followed behind Gob, more and more people started walking too and soon, only 6 people out of our original warband of 22 remained.

“Tch! I didn’t know we had so many stupid people amongst our ranks!” The Shaman said and started walking back, towards the village, and we followed him.

“Do we... attack them now?” Xylene voiced out as we looked at the group of 8 goblins stood in the open.

But while getting rid of them, and the only E rank in the goblin village would’ve been the correct move... I was not so sure about it.

The spirits had made it clear that they were supporting the parasite, or they were at least interested in it, so I did not think it was that bright of an idea to force our way into whatever was going on.

And that sceptre...

“That was a divine core, right?” Xavier asked out loud, putting a hand on his chin and massaging it.

“Definitely, even from here it gave me the creeps.” Caroline budded in and the rest of us just nodded.

“What’s a Divine Core?” Xylene then asked.

“...Xavier, I thought the basic education in the Lunar Continent was good?” Heinrich ignored her and asked Xavier.

“It is. Its just that... Xylene’s never been interested in learning this since we were kids.”

“So? What’s the problem in that?” She then asked, and everyone just ignored her once more, and we stood in silence for a few minutes... well, except Xylene.

“Yeah, I am not getting paid enough for this.” Lazarus broke the silence and surprized everyone.

“Sorry Heinrich, but I am not getting enough to deal with things involving gods, not that I’d do this if I was getting paid more. And I say that we just forget this expedition ever happened and return to civilization, everyone?” He then added.

“We can’t while we are this close! You can’t just... go off!” Heinrich said, and Lazarus just turned towards Xavier.

“Hmm...” Then Xavier looked thoughtful for a moment, and his eyes darted from Heinrich to Lazarus and then back and forth for a few more times.

“...We have 2 options. We either abandon the expedition, and return to civilization, or we take advantage of the chaos that is brewing between Death and an unknown god... Elise, do you think we can safely navigate through their war?” Xavier laid out the options that came to his mind and asked me.

“It depends. The unknown god is seemingly not taking Death’s forces here seriously, which makes sense as it is a goblin town that even we are nearly capable of destroying on our own. But unless they have more forces than the 3 parasites, we saw a few minutes prior... their war won’t be a short one.

If we play our cards right, we might be able to get in and out of the dungeon in a few hours while the 2 sides are fighting, but we will only be able to enter the dungeon once as after they’ve stopped duking it out, and one side inevitably comes out with the upper hand, we will no longer have any cards to play.

Assuming the deck isn’t stacked up against us in the first place of course.”

“What happens if the deck is stacked up against us then?” Xavier then asked.

“Simple. We leave.” I said and turned towards Heinrich.

“We can either leave, and inform the church about what’s going on here, and they’ll at least hear us out. But if we do not, and proceed to observe the war that is going on from the sidelines in hopes of benefiting from it we’ll be undermining the church’s authority and will need to stay silent about everything that happens here.

So, you won’t be able to announce your finding openly, is that fine with you?”

“More than fine! I have connections that can let me skirt around the church’s authority, so worry not! You all will be safe!”

*creak~~*

The doors to the temple closed loudly as ever, and I entered it, alone, and sensed the deactivated undead around me.

Tonight was a disaster.

I knew Gram was never fun of the gods but... I never thought he’d actually go this far. But I’ll show him the mistakes of his ways and guide him to the light from the dark.

Afterall, that’s what a priest is supposed to do. Guide their flock.

Moving with quick steps, I went to the backrooms of the temple and removed the Dark Lord’s Divine Core form the gilded box it was in, and put it on the throne, and started praying.

“Oh, Dark Lord, I ask thee for a blessing to fight the heathens in your name.” And as my short prayer finished, the Divine Core activated, and holy mana begun pouring into the temple.

And soon, I found myself in an absolute darkness, where I couldn’t even feel or see the ground I was standing on, and soon, it begun.

“Du du duuu~” The song of death... and boredom

The simple melody played through the Divine Core for a few more seconds before it quietened, but didn’t disappear, and a soft voice began talking.

“Hello priest Krone Grone, I am David, a baron of the Dark Lord, and you have contacted our blessings department. An agent will be sent shortly to negotiate with you about your blessing, please wait. Thank you for your understanding and time.” And as the demon baron David stopped talking, the simple melody came back with full force, and I had a hard time standing still without pacing around the room.

But that would’ve been disrespectful to the demon that was about to come to talk to me, and the Dark Lord himself.

Thankfully though, my wait didn’t last for long as the simple melody soon stopped, and a voice came from the Divine Core.

“Hello, my name is Alexander, and I’ll be your agent for today. How can I help you?” A vaguely masculine voice asked.

“Hello, my name is Krone Grone, and I wanted to get a blessing for my tribe as I am having trouble fighting against the forces of a deity.”

“Of course! But first, can you tell me where you are calling from, and which deity are you under?”

“I am calling from the northern side of the western continent. We are outside of the Pale Lord’s territory, whom is in a war of conquest against a heathenish deity called The All Mother. And I am under the rule of The Great One, Kraxneirous Magvivious.”

“Please give me a second... and—here it is! Hmm... Okay then, I’ve confirmed where you are from and the deity you are under. Now, what kind of blessing were you looking for?”

“I am looking for a blessing that can help me defeat the minions of the All Mother. She has created a new type of plant beings that can take control of corpses and use them. And my mission is to capture at least one of those plant beings and bring them safely back into the Pale Lord’s territory and then give them to The Great One.”

“Hmm... let see...” Then a sound of papers being flipped came through the Divine Core.

“And... this should do. Is the Cave Terror you’ve gotten off of the priests of the Pale Lord still with you? And is it in operational condition? If so, I should be able to temporarily activate its draconic blood, and that should allow you to defeat whatever minions of the All Mother you are facing. But the process will all but destroy the undead, and it will only be usable for an hour at max after the blessing is completed.”

“Sadly, no. It has been hijacked by the parasites I’ve talked about before.”

“Hmm... then do you have any other F or E ranking undead that we can increase the strength of?”

“No, I do not.”

“Hmm... you are in quite the pickle, aren’t you? Sadly though, I do not see any easy or fast ways that I can increase your tribe’s combat capabilities with.”

“Wait, can’t you just give me access to more holy mana? Then I should be able to make something myself.”

“Sorry but, can’t do. As you know, the amount of holy mana you have access to is determined by the deity you are under. Though I can ask the great one if you want me to?”

“NO! —I mean, no. It would be better if you did not. And I am willing to do anything for a blessing, so there should be something you can do, yes?”

“Oh? Anything you say?”

“Yes, anything!”

“Well... alright then. I’ve been wanting to stretch my legs a bit anyways.”