Stray Soul

As the sun rose, everyone got ready and we started marching towards the goblin village with Gram and his men leading the march as he thought that my visage may scare the guards and other goblins, so it’d be better for him to go in first and convince them to lay down their weapons.

And seeing no problem with this, I allowed it, and as we marched, I though over our plan to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.

Like what I said yesterday, the plan was for Gram to challenge Krone for the leadership of their tribe, and while Krone was stronger than Gram, Krone also needed help from his undead to defend him while he casted spells, so he had 2 options.

He either lost the battle to Gram and got imprisoned because he’d cause too much instability in the tribe, which was something I wasn’t okay with but agreed to for now, or he’d “cheat” and use his undead.

And after he started controlling his undead, I’d interfere and help Gram win the battle.

Though our plan relied heavily on other goblins just not acting against us, I believed it’d work without a lot of issues as the existence of a “proper” deity would scare them enough that they wouldn’t attempt to attack us immediately, and instead wait for the outcome of the battle between Gram and Krone.

Also, I gave Gram and Gara their weapons back, so while I no longer had a mace at the end of my tail, which lowered its strength by a bit, Gram and Gara fighting at full strength was just better than me not having a tail mace.

After I finished thinking over our plans for a bit, I took the back seat, and let my lesser souls do all the walking and such while I just played around with my mana cloud, and though my playing around was mostly due to boredom, I also tried to make some Mana Wings of sorts for when pieces of my soul were kicked out of a body, and there wasn’t another body they could enter close by.

Was it working? Not sure... I mean, the mana wings I made could push mana away, but I wasn’t sure if it would be enough to generate lift for my soul... and also, I wasn’t sure how heavy my soul was, or how heavy the mana cloud surrounding my soul was so I couldn’t exactly test out the lift generated by mana wings.

Sure, I could always just remove a piece of soul from my body and coat it with enough mana to last it for a few seconds, but I was not really willing to endanger my soul only a few days after it had contact with ambient mana.

I mean... my soul seemed to have stabilised as it wasn’t hurting anymore, but I wasn’t sure if there was some kind of soul damage on it.

I was feeling fine but... fantasy bull shit. You never know what can happen!

So, I’ll just wait for a week or two before I take a piece of my soul out to test my wings... and hopefully I’ll find a design that can generate enough lift to hold a piece of my soul on air without having to go through a lot of trial and error.

As I was deep in thought, a few hours passed before I even realized it, and we were looking at the gates of the goblin village from the forest.

Then, Gram turned towards his men and started giving out a speech and the contents of the speech were... not really interesting honestly.

His men looked at him respectfully, sure of his strength and ideals but... he was not that good at getting people to follow him with a rallying cry.

I had listened into a few of the other goblins talking and they were content with him, but if not for him being the second strongest goblin in their tribe, and a person down to earth, most of them probably wouldn’t be here...

And I had also not missed him not talking about me while talking about the vileness of The Great One and the need to overthrow him and The Dark Lord, though I did not really care that they were not zealots for me.

Them “following” me was enough, after all my goal wasn’t to be the greatest god or deity out there. I was just going to build myself a golden throne and sit on it as the corpse I was and, while the concerns of the people did matter to me, I would be an unseen force rather than one that everyone was aware of.

“Hmm... I know I promised to not stack the parliament but... should I?” I asked myself and shook my head a few moments later.

After all, I was just a single man, and I was not infallible and incorruptible. I wished to be a paragon of morality but... that wasn’t really likely now, was it?

Especially with me becoming a “deity”. I, of course, wasn’t going to let that get to my head and actually act like I was better than everyone else as I knew for a fact that I simply wasn’t, but the fear of becoming corrupt one day remained.

After a few moments I realized that... the goblins were looking at me and... why?

Oh yeah, I just shook my head out of nowhere.

“There was a fly on my eye.” I responded after a second, after asking Rifu-san to translate it to the goblin language first of course.

After I said that, the goblins returned to what they were doing, and after a few seconds, marched out into the opening and started walking towards the gates while I sat back and watched from afar.

Steeping into the field between the town and the forest, I saw that the 2 guards noticed our presence and activated their undead, and I could hear their screams even though we were far away.

Without worry, I just continued to walk forwards with my men behind me, and my trusty mace on my back.

For a moment, I reminisced about the time my father gave it to me and remembered my childhood.

But quickly bittersweet memories of me and Krone started to emerge.

I was hoping that he’d have a last moment change of heart and would give up but... that wasn’t likely to happen.

And though I had told the deity I wasn’t going to kill Krone, and though I was pleased with the deity’s insistence on not killing him, it was likely that our battle would only end after one of us died.

As I thought about that Grok’s face appeared in my mind, and though it was going to hurt me to kills his father, even though he called me uncle many, many times. It was necessary.

I didn’t wish for future Grok or the current one to forgive me, but I hoped he’d understand me one day.

Sadly though, the small moment I had of reminiscing about the past and the few seconds I had of thinking about the future didn’t last for long as I had reached the gates, and in front of me was a wall of warriors and a few undead.

From behind them I could see commotion inside the village, but that was to be expected as I was sure that Krone had already branded me a traitor and a heretic, and the village was in a state of confusion due to my sudden “betrayal”, but hopefully they would be willing to entertain the idea of sitting this one out.

Stopping, I saw the warriors before me look at me while trying to hide their fear.

It wasn’t working.

“Warriors!” I started talking loudly, and wondered for a moment if I should get straight to the point or try to talk to them about the things I knew... eh, can’t be bothered. Better finish this quick.

“Stand aside! I come to challenge Krone Grone, the Shaman of this tribe, for the position of tribe Chief!” I said loudly once again, and I could see some of the goblins getting surprised, but none of them wavered and held their position.

They knew they couldn’t win against 2 F ranks but were still standing... it seems they’ve finally developed a warrior’s heart.

For a moment I smirked due to how proud I was of them, but I quickly wiped it away, and took grabbed my mace with a hand and stepped forwards.

“You may not know it, but I know what happens in the temple, and what goes in on Krone’s mind! That fool will lead us all to our deaths if he remains in power!

So, choose! Do you want to die with him, or do you want to live with me?” I said and I could see some of them moving in their place, but they still did not move.

So, I pointed at one of them.

“Gro! I know you are dating with Gra! Do you want your lover to bury your corpse, or do you want to spend rest of your life with her?” I said, and instantly he started sweating and opened his mouth.

“I AM NOT DATING WITH—” He started talking but was cut off by Gri.

“YOU ARE FUCKING CHEATING ON ME?!” She suddenly screamed, her eyes blazing and... I didn’t know they were dating...

“I-I CAN EXPLAIN!”

“EXPLAIN WHAT YOU—YOU!” She started screaming and moving on him with blood on her mind, but a new voice came from behind the gates.

“Everyone quit down and stand your ground, you are making my ears bleed.” Came out Griz with his bow at hand and rubbing his eyes with a single hand. And as he started looking around, our eyes met.

“And there is the man of the hour! I never thought you’d be a traitor, Gram! What a weird turn of events now, isn’t it?” He started talking, still a bit sleepy.

“Griz... I know how everything seems, but I need you and everyone else to understand that Krone’s zealot behaviour is a detriment to the tribe, and I intend to challenge and overthrow him. I don’t want to do this, but if you do not let me pass, I will have to use force.”

“Sure sure, everyone, disperse!”

“Haaa, I didn’t want to—wait, what did you say?” I said, confused by the words that came out of his mouth.

While Griz was only as skilled as Gara, he could still annoy me or try to shoot me with an arrow at an opportune moment and cause a bit of problem for me, so him giving up this easily was... unprecedented.

“I said sure?” He then said and looked at me even more confused than me and everyone else.

“Why?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Urgh.” He said and started massaging his temples.

“Gram, I don’t know what you think right now, but I seriously cannot be bothered to fight with you. I’ve just woken up, and I haven’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday, so I am ravenously hungry too!

Just go and fight the Shaman or whatever you want, hell, I’ll even guide you to him and go eat only after that.” He finished, and I couldn’t help but still feel a bit weirded out, and opened my mouth to say something else but he started talking before I could even mutter a word.

“I know what you are going to say, but you know I am one of the few people in this village that actually uses a bow an arrow, right? So, I have to actually take care of my equipment myself as there are no other people I can give my weapon for them to repair them like you!

So, excuse me for having a shit sleeping schedule, but sacrifices are needed for me to have a weapon that doesn’t snap.” He then added, sounding quite fed up, and I just nodded at him and turned around to lift my mace up, and after I did that the deity left the treeline with his bodies and started walking towards us.

“What are those?” I then heard Griz ask.

“That is our new deity, The Lord of Souls.”

“...You know what? Fine.” He said and started walking away, and turned around after he realized I wasn’t following him.

“You coming or do you want me to just head out?”

“Just a moment please, the turtle is... a bit slow.” I said, and I could see Griz just throwing his hands up.

“...I should really trick someone into becoming my squire. I swear my life would be a thousand times easier.” He then muttered to himself... quite loudly as I could hear him from quite far away.

After the deity and his bodies arrived, we started walking with me and my men at the front, with Griz, and the deity behind us.

And as we were walking, a lot of goblins came to see what was going on, and a sizable crowd had gathered around us.

Then, Griz suddenly came next to me, and started whispering.

“I think Krone has been possessed.” He started off, and for a moment I was surprised but didn’t let it be seen on my face.

“And how are you sure of that?” I asked him, wanting to know if he was saying this to throw me off or something similar.

“He has been acting... weird... well, weirder than he normally is with being a shut-in, you know?” He said and I nodded, Krone was a nice guy, but he could really do with a few more hours of sunlight, but that really wasn’t our concern right now.

“One moment he is always his serious self, and another moment he starts laughing suddenly and making stupid jokes.”

“...Are you sure this is not him just trying to... make friends?”

“You don’t get it. You know how he is always about keeping the undead usage to minimum? That Krone is now bringing a small horde of undead to everywhere with him, and he is always on an undead steed, and other than him making stupid jokes, and his demeanour being different, he seems... tired all the time.

You know how hard it is to summon a demon for a few minutes right? Imagine him having that thing in our world for a whole day or two!”

“...I mean...seems like a stretch.”

“...Gram look, just—just trust my intuition, okay?”

“Okay, but I want to know... what do you get out of this, and did you even see him summoning the thing?”

“No, I didn’t see the summoning ritual. He’s a shut-in, remember? And I just wanted to give you some advice before you fight with the Shaman. While I do not really care who rules this tribe, I care what rules it.

Though you bringing a deity here... complicates things. I was hoping you’d just get rid of Krone, and we’d be free to do as we wish but... tell me, why shouldn’t my arrows accidently make contact with your skull?”

“Griz, you can be sure that I won’t give that deity full control of our tribe.”

“And how can I believe you? Please, do tell.”

“...I see only 1 option for our tribe and village going forwards if Krone is left to rule. We are all killed by the All Mother. The end of the story.”

“And how many options you see if we side with... this deity who I assume is under the All Mother?”

“I only see 2 options going forwards if we are with the deity. We are either betrayed and slaughtered, or the deity actually keeps to its word and only asks for our prayers and not our lives.”

“So, you trust it?”

“No. I could never trust a being like a deity or a god. They never see us as nothing more than tools. I just hope that we’ll live. But I will fight till my last moment if it decides to betray us.”

“...So, you are not even sure if it will let us live?”

“No, but I can at least hope.”

“...Hmpf. Well then, I’ll hope for the option where we live too. Fight with ease knowing that my arrows will not rain on you while you fight the demon and the shaman.”

“Noted.” I said, nodding, and turned my head from Griz towards the temple, and in front of the temple, I could see the small horde of undead Griz talked about and Krone sitting on an undead deer and smiling.