ALL NOVEL Chapter 18 – In which people question the intentions of gods
Chapter 18 – In which people question the intentions of gods
In the infirmary, the older attendant slowly sat down and said to the younger attendant:
“Please tell me what happened. Leaf by leaf.”
His face was very serious.
The younger attendant’s face also grew more serious when he saw it, and though he seemed confused why the older attendant reacted like this, he explained in detail what happened.
Putting all events in chronological order, including the moment of assassination attempt, it went like this:
While watching over Saint Amara’s sleep, the older attendant suddenly felt dark and bloodthirsty emotions enter the room.
At first he thought it may be a vengeful ghost, but he quickly dismissed this idea.
It was impossible for vengeful or evil ghosts to target Amara, because of the army of ghosts that was surrounding and protecting him.
To come this close, the source of these destructive emotions couldn’t be dead, it had to be alive.
But if so…
The attendant didn’t think any further, he launched himself at the invisible form of the emotions’ owner and grabbed something.
It seemed to be his arm so the attendant tried to quickly dislocate the arm to disarm the assailant who seemed to be a mage.
But the assailant was unexpectedly strong, or maybe it was just that long years of living as a slave left the attendant’s body weaker than he thought.
The assailant threw the attendant at the floor.
The attendant, still holding the attacker’s arm, pulled him towards himself and kicked him in the guts.
The assailant seemed to curl up from pain (the attendant couldn’t be sure, the attacker was still invisible), but he grabbed the attendant by the throat, knocking the breath out of him.
The attendant struggled, but the hold on his throat was too strong, and he couldn’t catch his breath.
Gradually, the attendant’s hold on the assassin’s second arm, which he was restraining, loosened and the assassin’s arm was freed.
The attacker didn’t waste time and the attendant felt a cold air suddenly swirling above him.
With one hand on his throat, the assailant was still able to cast a spell!
It was one hand casting!
The attendant didn’t get any further in his thoughts.
A cold blade of ice plunged into his stomach and he lost consciousness.
When he woke up, he was immediately interrogated about everything he saw and heard.
The attendant didn’t say how he managed to sense the assassin, fabricating a story of the assassin incidentally tripping over him when walking in the darkness.
This story was easily accepted, because people interrogating him had a habit of treating slaves like objects and tripped over them quite often.
Then the attendant was left alone.
The attendant was relieved to hear that nothing happened to Amara, but his own injuries were quite severe.
Doctors weren’t sure if he would survive with little medical attention they could provide him given his slave status.
It seemed that the attendant’s life may be coming to an end.
But then, unexpectedly, the saint visited the infirmary and very openly healed him.
The attendant was very confused about two things here.
One. Amara didn’t heal people easily.
The attendant knew Amara quite well, even before Amara was taken to the temple and became a Saint.
That young Amara didn’t show his healing abilities easily, and if he did, it was never so open.
After he became a Saint, besides occasions when he healed someone on Rasin’s request, he never did that.
But here he was, healed.
Two. The being he believed in.
Gods couldn’t affect things that don’t believe in them. At least not directly.
Healing means directly influencing someone’s body and fate, so it had to be done with the power of a god one believes in.
But this attendant believed in the Tree of Fate River.
Gods related to fate weren’t exactly very famous for helping their followers.
‘Maybe His Excellency used some other method to heal me?’
Such a method would be complicated and risky, but it was possible if it was Amara.
Still…
“You probably peeped even though His Excellency told you to leave.”
“Old man knows me well.”
There was no shame on the younger attendant's face. The older attendant thought he should scold him later, but he needed to find out something first.
“Did you see how His Excellency healed me?”
“I didn’t see anything, but I managed to hear a bit of His Excellency’s song.”
“You remember it?”
“Yeah, but it was only two verses, I wasn’t able to hear the rest, because it was very quiet….”
“Can you repeat them?”
“Uh… One was ‘Waters of ambers and rubies crease my toes and tanzanite tears fall on my heart…’ and the other was ‘I listen to the humming of Fate, as they watch me grow…’.”
It was a ritual for the Tree of Fate River. There was no doubt.
‘But why…?’
Why would his god be blessing him with a favor?
*-*-*
“... Everything looks fine.”
Sangria concluded after making another medical check on Vern.
He was a bit worried that maybe the curse would resurface, but his worries were unfounded.
Right now all Vern had to do was to rest and regain his strength.
Though Vern didn’t seem to be able to do even that.
“Mhm…”
Vern hummed in confirmation, without turning his gaze away from the book he was reading.
He was reading it when Sangria came back from reporting to Crimo and even when Sangria was checking his mana pools.
Sangria glanced at the title of the heavy tome Vern was so absorbed in.
‘Complete history of Luminere and development of affairs between its three states: Flavun, Purplus and Rubrun’
Author was from a foreign country.
Sangria frowned.
He didn’t expect to see this book in the Archmage’s house.
The book, though well written and well researched, still had many radical ideas about Luminere’s history.
Sangria heard that it was treated as a book of heretics in Purplus and was completely forbidden to print and openly distribute in Flavun, you had to have special permission to access it.
In Rubrun it was shunned and if brought up, it was generally as an example of someone doing research and then throwing it all out of the window, just to talk about their ridiculous theories.
For example the chapter Vern was reading with such deep focus.
‘War of Last Divine Rain’.
More than 200 years ago, there were only a few last of followers of the Great Rulers, Saffaron, Amaranth and Vermillian, still around.
In the last ditch effort to fulfill the last wishes of their masters, the last followers met on the enormous field with thousands of soldiers preparing for the last battle.
Whoever wins will take all.
But the battle never happened.
At least, not in the form followers desired.
A third party intervened and forces of all three states had to abandon their plans and protect themselves from the attacker onslaught.
The last followers died in that battle. And it was the last time when Flavun, Purplus and Rubrun met on the open field together.
The opinions about who the third party was were divided.
Some speculated it was one of the neighboring countries, seeking an opportunity in chaos, other thought that it was an enormous rebellious group.
As for the author's of this book…
They were gods.
The book described in quite a detail how gods descended from different realms and said:
‘Dare! To rip apart our Am and his siblings, to feed on their bodies for greed and desires, to spit on their ideas and everything they had created… You dare! Seeds of Corruption! Followers of Soulless! Dare! … Take one step forward and you shall face us!’
And then gods sent all they had to stop three states from fighting.
Author even added a hypothesis that the reason for a drastic decrease in sightseeing of divine beasts may be this war.
“I could never understand it.”
“Understand what?”
Vern looked up at him, when Sangria unintentionally spoke his thoughts outloud.
“About gods. I could never understand why gods would do such a thing. How is it supposed to benefit them? What would be their goal in it?”
From the fact that Purplus still sent its terrorists to cause massacres across Flavun and Rubrun it didn’t seem like gods wanted peace.
So why would they stop that war?
Vern looked at Sangria in silence, with that odd deep gaze.
Vern didn’t show such a gaze before, it only happened after he suddenly broke the curse…
“What does Master Sangria think gods are?”
Gods?
“Powerful beings that brainwash people to worship them?”
Vern smirked as if he heard something funny.
But Sangria was serious! There were some powerful beings that were so obsessed with being worshiped they tried to play gods! Vern should be careful or he will be scammed!
“I thought Master Sangria would say something about incorporeal beings or clouds of energy that were influenced by residual thoughts…”
“Young Master, I think you’re describing ghosts and those don’t exist.”
“Really…? So not only undead ghosts don’t exist, but also any other forms of ghosts don’t exist… Master Sangria is really stubborn about those ghosts.”
Sangria thought that if Young Master Vern tried to draw parallels between brainwashing gods and ghosts, he would... well he couldn't smack him, but he would leave the room. Angrily.
But thankfully, it seemed that Vern sensed his mood, because he stopped the ghost discussion.
He was silent for a moment, his eyes seemed to look at something very distant.
“Someone once told me that gods are like an amalgamation of all hopes, wishes and fears all living things have. They are driven by people's thoughts and desires. So maybe… During that war there was someone who remembered what it was all about… And that’s why gods also remembered…”
Vern traced the edges of the book in thought.