Chương 1016

CH1016

"Thank you, Ben," Fontesh told him quietly as the night came to an end, walking her to her new home while he carried Delair, his little student having fallen asleep with Mora as the evening wore on, both children needing their rest after everything that had happened.

"For, well, everything today. I don't think we could have handled any of that without you."

"Don't worry about it, Fontesh. I'll always come help if you guys need it. If you find you're having any problems settling in, then just let me know too." She couldn't help but feel in his debt after everything they'd just gone through, but the day had left him with his own unresolved feelings as well. He shouldn't have moved the sirens there, that much was obvious, but more than that, he knew he should have pushed for the village to move to Stonewall or anywhere else before it could have become such a problem.

Without that disaster, he was sure they would have resisted, but if they did then that just meant he should have prepared to react to something like that happening instead. If Delair hadn't spotted them and sounded the alarm, that could have been so much worse, he sighed to himself as he dropped the two off, tucking Delair into bed before making his way home. All things considered, we got lucky.

He didn't want to think about what would have happened if Delair had just left without checking the little noise she'd heard or if she'd hadn't gone back to sound the alarm, such a thing would have been a disaster and after the day he'd had, he needed a bit of a break too.

His hand couldn't help but gently touch his neck in that brief moment of privacy, still able to feel the cut when space itself had been separated but stopped the second he got home, not wanting to remind anyone else in there, even if it was quiet when he entered.

It seemed Sonya had gone to bed, left tired as well when she'd been expecting an easy day originally, and Mora had already been carried to bed before Ben had left, leaving him to do just a touch of light clean up before slipping off to his own room, Thera still barely awake and waiting, stretching out her arms for him when he got there.

"You could have gone to sleep," he quietly chuckled as he changed and slipped under the covers.

"You look like you need it."

"If you think I'd be able to get any rest without having you here after the day we just had, you're out of your mind," she told him, holding him tight in her arms and wrapping her tail around his waist in case there was any doubt that he was going to be trapped there.

"This was a bad day."

"Everyone lived, that makes this an exceptionally good day in my books."

"Mmh, I don't want to hear that from someone who managed to get beheaded."

"Yeah, admittedly that was pretty embarrassing," he said, trying to play it off.

"Imagine being a third tier and losing your head to a contender. Shameful, really."

"Be serious," she whispered in his ear.

"I thought I'd lost you." He had nothing he could say to that. He'd seen her thoughts when she'd found him, seen the fear of losing him and the fact that the sort of immortality he'd obtained couldn't compare to having him by her side and if he were truthful, he didn't disagree. Godhood was good, but until he reached it, he didn't know for sure if any of his little ideas to cheat it and still enjoy a life on the world would actually work.

If they failed then he couldn't deny what a loss moments like that between them would be.

"Well, I'll just have to make sure I live a good, long time," he eventually settled on, getting her hair in his face as she shook her head.

"Not good enough. I need you to live forever."

"Ha, a pretty tall order you've got there."

"You're kind of smart; I'm sure you'll make it work."

Feeling herself start to drift off now that he was back, she leaned up to kiss him before he could say anything to the idea and nestled in closer as sleep took her, leaving him with his thoughts as he let himself enjoy the feeling for a while before giving in to what he'd been putting off, using his magic to pull his card from the side to properly look over before sighing and forcing his way into his god's realm, his avatar there laying down, one arm covering his eyes while the other touched his neck.

"This has been an ungodly long day."

"You wanna talk about it?"

"Wouldn't know where to start. How much did you miss down there while you were gathering help?"

"From what I've heard, too much, but Anailia was watching and filled me in."

"It got your partner her 'first of the faith' title quickly," Helori added, Ben uncovering his eyes to see her and Nare both there too before he made himself sit up.

"Yeah, that's great and all, but… okay, things you've seen and things you may not have seen. Dryads were attacked, odds seem pretty fucking guaranteed it was pulled off by that one space demon contender you guys told me about before-""And how sure are you that it was a contender?" Nare asked, a different implication in the question that made Ben hang his head back.

"If you're asking if I think it's awakened to the third tier, then my honest answer would be that I don't have enough information to tell you. It seems like it was sending demons from a few different separate groups, so it's definitely powerful in the magic it holds, but it could easily be a contender for a second skill too that managed to boost its power some way. For now, it doesn't matter.

It diced my head up, brought me real freaking close to joining you up here and also had the unfortunate side effect of giving me a few extra levels I wasn't looking for." Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Not like you to turn down levels," Myriad said, leaving Ben to groan.

"Really, it's only one I want to turn down. Divine defense enhancement, defense inclination, flesh regeneration, fracture resistance, all of those are fine to get. Great even. Awakening my all affinity resistance enhancement to extreme affinitied resistance enhancement though? Left feeling a bit more conflicted about that."

"Fascinating," Helori murmured in naked interest.

"With the skill effect applied to your already unnatural resistances, you must be basically immune to unawakened magics by this point."

"Sure, probably, but it also means I'm going to be even harder to heal! Genuinely, aside from the whole 'working on a time crunch to regrow my head before I fucking died' thing, I wouldn't be surprised if having to do that while at the same time dealing with just how magicproof I'm slowly becoming is part of why Thera managed to get her awakening, and don't get me wrong, that's great news and all, fantastic news even, but could I have not at least gotten just a normal high variant of the skill?

Except for when I awakened knowledge, how is every one of my awakenings going to be a unique variant?"

"Considering all of the bonuses on your soul between your titles, blessings, jobs, and some of your stranger skills too, I'd be pretty shocked if you're still capable of gaining normal awakenings at this point," Helori told him.

"There's simply too much going on in your soul that has to be making sure that the awakenings you get are going to be as powerful as they can be."

"Joy oh joy, I suppose I'll at least take that as meaning that I'm getting the most powerful variants of my third tier options too, but whatever. Beyond that, Thera definitely got a unique soul mage variant, so that really is a huge plus that's going to need to be explored but after I was saved and the contender responsible was scared off and stopped them from sending more demons to the dryads, we moved the entire village to Stonewall and I set them up with new homes.

Oh, also, I'm pretty sure my kids are traumatized from watching me die, and I didn't bother making the time to have my leg regrown because I lost that early on too, but amidst everything else, that's basically a footnote."

"Was that meant to be a pun?" Nare asked.

"No, I'm just stressed out and in a bad mood."

"Ignoring that, I couldn't help but notice you said kids, plural," Myriad added.

"Have you finally accepted Delair as your daughter?"

"I've accepted that I'm going to burn one of your churches to the ground if you're going to bring up stupid things like that."

"So testy, I was just curious."

"I was literally beheaded; a bit of testiness is understandable. Speaking of, since I'm assuming that Thera's awakening was both noticed and is being discussed up here, should I direct my poor mood at any particular gods before they think to do anything stupid with my girlfriend?"

"As exciting as gaining a new soul mage right now is, broader discussions will come later," Helori told him.

"With everything that happened today, do you really think Anailia would let anyone try to overwhelm her? She'll be talking to your lover right now; any further discussions about that will come later."

"Although, on the topic of other gods, there's one up here that would like a little bit of your time right now," Nare added.

"Ugh, damn it, what now?"

"Nothing as bad as you seem to think. We let her know that you've arrived." Getting nothing more, Ben looked around for a moment, expecting some sort of problem despite the reassurance but didn't get it as a woman covered in golden bark joined them, the branches stretching from her head bearing both thin leaves and violet fruit marking the presence of Jagal. Nodding lightly to the other three, the new goddess walked over to him where he sat, gently reaching out a hand and placing it on his cheek.

"With just how much you do for my people, apostle, some might think you secretly worship me." It was the most casual he'd ever heard her sound, almost playful in speech while he looked in her eyes, making sure he gave respect to one of the gods who seemed to have an openly positive opinion about him while at the same time having one of the more dangerous histories of any deity he associated with.

"It's been a while, Jagal. I've just done what I should to help out the people I care about, that's all."

"Not to me, and unlike others, I'm not one to let a good deed like that go unrewarded. So, what would you like? If it's in my power, I'll end this debt between us." What I would like, huh? He hadn't been expecting to be rewarded, so he'd given it no thought, but with the offer out he immediately had ideas going through his mind and didn't hesitate to voice them.

"In that case, since you're offering, I'm going to be greedy because there's two things I'd want from you." He felt her eyes change, a slight hardness coming to them as she thought about his interaction with other gods and how he'd push his luck, but didn't show any other negative reaction. She was a smaller god; saving hundreds of her believers meant saving a significant portion of them overall. If that didn't entitle him to pushing his luck a bit, then what would?

"Let's hear them then."

"First, I'd like you to give Delair your blessing," he said, seeing as the edge was dropped from her gaze to turn to surprise instead.

"She found the demons, and more than that, she's the one who called Myriad. She deserves to be rewarded, and as her teacher, I can guarantee you probably don't have many believers who are more hard-working than she is. A blessing would help her talents bloom all the more."

"I have few under me who pursue paths beyond the magic they're born with; blessing someone who will be a great artisan in the future will do me no harm. In that case, what's your second request?"

"More time consuming than anything. I'd like you to go talk to all of the dryads I moved to Stonewall and reassure them. Tell them they made the right choice coming here and that their safety is more important than whatever terrors the past held."

"... You really are a sweeter child than you like to let on," she told him, a soft smile touching her lips.

"Consider it done. In that case, it seems I'll be having a busy night so I'll leave you to it." With one final act, Jagal reached up and pulled one of the fruits from her branches before tossing it his way and disappearing, leaving Ben to admire it briefly before taking a bite to enjoy the depths it held, savouring the experience of it as he did. I guess getting a little bonus reward like this is pretty nice too.

It meant a bit of growth for his mana, even if he was at a point where the amount it would give him could be considered a rounding error against his total, but it did latch on to something he couldn't help but feel he needed all the more after all that happened that day.

Power, and with few ways to claim the amount he wanted after seeing so many he cared about put in danger while coming so close to dying himself, he had to accept that if he was going to get it, he was going to have to try a couple ideas that were either too dangerous or distasteful for him to touch before.