Stray Soul

As the other Ents came out from the caravan and started approaching me to probably follow in the steps of the sunflower guy, I took notice of how they looked.

There were 5 ents in total—not counting the sunflower guy of course. And while all 5 of them had similar... flesh? Skin?

What I mean to say is, that their bodies were made up of greens and browns, undoubtedly due to their plantish origins.

But, like the sunflower guy, they all had different heads that were seemingly heads of different types of flowers, though I could not tell you what kind they were as I just wasn’t that knowledgeable about flowers.

In the front was an ent that was actually the most different from the others as clusters of its white flowers were separating from its head and had grown long enough that some clusters were being dragged on the ground behind it. And its long white dress, as white as its flowers, was seemingly made out of flax or some other plant-based material, which was weird as all the other Ents seemingly wore only animal-based clothes.

Then, just a bit behind the... lets just call the white guy Ent 2.

Just a bit behind Ent 2 was Ent 3, which had a head that was made out of a red and orange flower. And its clothes were best classified as... workmen clothes, I guess?

Ent 3 wore a simple brown overall, and an unbuttoned t-shirt, exposing its green flesh to the air. And other than that, it only had gloves and boots, but no accessories, unlike the sunflower ent.

On that note actually... I don’t see any accessories in any of the ents, other than the sunflower guy. Are accessories some kind of fashion statement, like I had initially thought, or a way to show his authority over the others?

I’ll ask Rifu-san... later.

Turning back to inspecting the ents! Behind Ent 3 were Ent 4 and Ent 5 who were 2 short ents that had heads that looked like tulips, and they wore basically what Ent 3 was wearing, but their T-shirt wasn’t unbuttoned.

And at the very back was Ent 6, who had a couple flowers coming out from its neck, and all of them were a deep maroon in the centre and became blacker the closer they were to the edges of the flower. It wore a black jacket and pants, and it had its hand out on the pommel of its sword which was still in its scabbard, hanging on its right side.

And the sword and the scabbard both were just plain black, like its clothes.

Then all of them came in front of me and bowed like the sunflower guy, but Ent 2 quickly stopped bowing and took out a necklace from its clothes, which had a small with small green gem on it that was greener than anything had any right to be and pointed at it.

“Is that a divine artefact? Then this must be the priestess Rifu-san told me about...” I thought to myself as Rifu-san had told me a day or so ago that one of the Ents coming would be a clergywoman, and it’d be her that would do the surgery on Krone.

Then I took out the sceptre inside of me, and grasped it with one of my claws, and pointed it at the priestess who promptly wore the ring on one of her fingers and touched the artefacts together.

“Greetings William-sama.” She once again said a loud, but this time I could understand her thanks to the artefacts we both had.

“Greetings to you too, Priestess...?”

“Ito. Ito Reiko. But you can call me whatever you wish William-sama.”

“Well then, Ito-san, can you tell me the names of your companions too?”

“Of course, William-sama, they are...” She said, and then started pointing at each of her companions.

“Watanabe Ryuji” She said, pointing at the sunflower guy, and then she pointed at the Ent 3, the one who had a red and orange flower.

“Kita Kikuko” She said, and then pointed at the tulips.

“Mori Haku, and Mori Hanae” She said and then pointed at the last member of the caravan, Ent 6.

“Ishii Yamato.” She finished, and I could see that her companions were getting confused, so were the adventurers and goblins behind me as they could only hear one part of our conversation, as I talked to her through the help of Rifu-san and whatever magics she was doing to translate our thoughts, while she did not.

“Ito-san, please tell your companions to stop bowing.” I then told her, to which she obliged.

And as they stopped bowing Kita told something to Ito, which she relayed back to me.

“William-sama, where should we start transporting the goods to?” She asked, and I looked at the crates that were being piled by plant beings next to the caravan.

“Give me a moment.” I said her, and turned around to Gram, and asked Rifu-san to translate my words like always.

“Gram, where should they start transporting the supplies to?” I asked him as he was watching the things going on in front of him with a strange look.

“Gram?” I asked again after he didn’t respond to my question the first time, then his head snapped towards me, and then I repeated my question.

Then he turned to the goblins around him and said somethings to them, and they started moving towards the plant beings and the crates they were bringing out of the caravan.

Then I told Ito-san that the goblins would be bringing the supplies to a stockpile in the village, and to tell Kita-san to send the books and all other things I asked of Rifu-san to the temple in the middle of the village, and for her to follow me as well with her surgery equipment and other healing items as the prisoners and the injured were all being kept in the temple for now.

Then she relayed the things I said to the others, while I waited for her to finish and started talking to Gram and the adventurers.

I first turned towards the adventurers to ask them to wait for a few more hours until we set off for the dungeon, but when I turned around, I realised that they were all having a staring contest with Ishii-san.

I mean the guy looked threatening with their red and black eyes and their overhaul demeanour, but they were only 1 person, so the adventurers didn’t have to be too on the edge now, did they?

Then I caught the attention of the adventurers and told them that we’d have to wait for at least an hour before we’d set off for the dungeon, and asked if they could wait another day for me to set things straight here.

But they were quite adamant in leaving for the dungeon today.

“That’s okay I guess...” I muttered to myself, and, seeing that Ito-san was ready to go to the temple, I informed Gram that I’d be leaving to go to the temple, and set off after he nodded and said that he’d be here for a bit more to observe things.

The journey to the temple was... short. But while we were walking, I couldn’t help but notice that Watanabe-san and Ishii-san were both following us.

I, of course, asked Ito-san about it and after a bit of talking to them, she told me that Watanabe-san just wanted to have some free time with me to talk.

And apparently Ishii-san was also his, and the caravan’s bodyguard. So, he followed the caravan master to everywhere he went.

I didn’t really understand why a caravan master would want to have a private conversation with me—but at the same time I understood it a bit as I was the first “Deity” that their goddess had helped raise to deity hood.

So, Watanabe was probably just trying to see how profitable a relation ship with me would be.

And I probably needed to establish some sort of trade deal with him, and his caravan. Because this town just needed money, and goods.

There were ways I could expand this village and improve the living conditions of its inhabitants without trade, but trade was kind of a cheat in real life, so I was definitely going to try to strike up a deal... but I needed Gram to be there too as he, and the parliament that was still being founded, were going to be the ones to run the day to day affairs of the village, and other villages if I set up any.

I told Ito-san that I’d talk with Watanabe-san while she was doing the operation on Krone and continued to walk to towards the temple.

As we reached the temple, Gram and a few of his men went in before everyone else, to inform the injured about the approaching plant people, and after they gave us the go, me and Ito-san entered while Watanabe-san and Ishii-san waited outside.

And I watched as Ito-san started healing the goblins around, and it was... as flashy as I thought a healing spell from a priestess would be.

And with that I mean that half of the spell was her just chanting a spell or prayer of some kind I didn’t understand while laying her hands on the injured. After she was done with her prayers, a green light shone from her hands and after a few moments the goblins were okay to move around.

They seemed... tired. More tired than they had been a few moments ago, before Ito-san had touched them.

But it made sense as I assumed that healing spells weren’t some deus ex machina type of thing, and instead relied on the recipient’s body to do some of the lifting too!

After barely half an hour or so later, everyone was healed and well, and the plant beings were bringing crates inside the temple.

I had actually not talked about turning the temple into a pseudo library of shorts with Gram... but he wouldn’t mind now, would he?

Then, after most people left the temple, we moved to the back rooms which held Krone and Grok.

And while Ito-san was preparing the collars, Gram butted in and asked to be the one to place them.

Which made sense to me as Krone was his friend for apparently a very long time. And he was kinda the main reason that I was able to overthrow Krone and the deity that held this village beforehand.

Ito-san was sceptical, but after I asked her to, she complied and gave Gram the collars.

While Krone did not resist to the collars, his son Grok did.

But Gram managed to put the collar on both of them the same, and then Ito-san made us get Grok, and leave the room and started sanitising the room after giving Krone some anaesthetics.

What I was doing felt... well, it felt plain evil as I was basically making someone cut off someone’s ability to cast magic for indefinitely in a magical world as a punishment, but I also didn’t really have another way to contain Krone safely.

So, while I didn’t want to call myself perfect justified, as what I was doing just felt wrong, I recognised that it was the only thing I could do right now, and if I had the choice to more safely keep dangerous prisoners in the future, without forcing them to go under surgery, I’d do that.

But for now, all I could do was to cut his magic off, so cut it I did.

Then, after a bit of talking with Gram, after he had finished subduing Grok and put him in another impromptu prison of course, I told him about my plans for the temple.

I was currently just planning on leaving it as a library, but in the future, I’d like to employ people to act as teachers, be it be in a proper school that is built somewhere else or in the temple itself.

After a bit of thinking, he supported me in leaving this temple as a makeshift library for now, but said asked me to hand him the books over after he made his own library.

And I just refused him.

I wasn’t planning on letting the Chief get full control over education and said that whatever library was built for these books must be in co-ownership of the church, me, and the government.

But whatever school, or schools, he built could have free access to them, and he would have the right to copy them.

He didn’t exactly like that, not that he said it out loud, but his face was just really easy to read. But he agreed, nonetheless.

I was honestly already worrying about a lot of topics of governance, but I had to put my trust in him, and only do improvements to the village or villages he’d control in the future through foundations and such as I didn’t want to ever have any “true” power over essential institutes like health and education.

But I wouldn’t let him have full control over them as well as... well, I just didn’t trust an autocratic figure to have the best interest of people in heart. No matter if that figure had been instilled by me or not.