Seeing Sofie die in front of my eyes was heartbreaking … well, not really. It hurt a little to see her in pain, but her death itself was quite pleasurable if I was honest.
“And you are mine …” I muttered, flung her soul over to my hideout and transformed her into a little, brightly green glowing ball immediately. Lifting it up with my palm, she started floating around me undisturbed and safely from Aska. Well, he could try, but I was sure Irminsul would talk some sense into him in that case.
And then, Hannah and I waited a little until we rushed over towards the weeping duo.
“No …” Hannah muttered, clearly driven close to tears, just like I was. So sad.
“You are … alive?” Of course I was? Just because she told you I was dead, it didn’t actually mean I was?
Still wetting the ground with my tears, I stepped close to Sofie’s corpse and took her in my arms. Closing her eyes with two of my fingers, I rested my forehead against hers and then let her gently onto the ground.
“We need to … we need to call the guards.” I was honestly surprised we weren’t found yet, considering all the loud noise they made. But well, the campus was pretty much deserted, so it wasn’t that unlikely.
Hannah immediately started dashing away from us, probably getting the one guard at the entrance to get to us.
I quickly separated the two from the corpse by helping them up and into the girls dormitory where they sat down and continued to cry loudly. Losing two of her friends must have been hard for Ellie, but it also shook Louis to the core.
Well, there was nothing I could do there so I was kind if lucky that the guards arrived sooner than later and took matters into their own hands. All of us were escorted into one of their stations in the noble district where we were thoroughly interrogated … except me and Hannah. We were let go by the guards after I showed them my ring and they had confirmed its identity. But I did tell them that a boy named Albert had been hit by some kind of wither magic, which was why there wasn’t even any dust left of him. And I also asked where her corpse was. I had to make good use of her soul after all.
And so, Hannah and I strolled into a empty church where Sofie’s corpse laid in a wooden coffin, its lid opened for my sake.
Hannah sat down in one of the rows further back and looked already bored before getting here. This would be a rather boring time for her, mostly because she wouldn’t be able to see much.
And I sat in the first row, looked at a statue of myself and enjoyed the morning sun shining through the coloured glasses.
Listening to the chirping birds outside, I crossed my legs and started filing my nails. It may be seen as a bit disrespectful, but nobody else was here to see it after all.
Several minutes later, I stopped doing so and looked towards my left, noticing the rather … silent goddess sitting there for the first time.
“Took you long enough.” I muttered and continued to file my nails disinterested.
“Are you happy now?” I was really happy to see her again. Which was also coincidentally the single reason why Sofie had died.
“Woah … she didn’t have to die if you had just graced me with your presence once in a while. I thought we were friends?” I asked her, glancing over to the sole person except Aska who I had spent my time regularly with.
“I do hope we are.” She said, but seemed a bit unsure as well.
“Strange. I haven’t seen any of my friends asking me to do something, only to offer something completely and utterly useless in return.” I said angrily and stood up from the bench to walk in front of her.
“I didn’t have anything else I could give you back then. Trust me.” She said, looking up towards me with her green eyes full of bitterness.
“Trust you? After you have gracefully shown me their faces before they changed appearance without saying anything about that fact?” Usually souls didn’t change appearance when they were born into the same race again. Their body looked exactly like the one they had before if they didn’t land in another race. But the reincarnators looked different. Or had another gender … poor guy … girl?
“Look I’m sorry. I did what I had to do.” She said and lowered her head a little.
“In that case … have a great day.” I answered and stomped away from her towards the middle section.
“Wait … we both know that you let her die to force me to talk with you. And here I am … so talk with me.” She said, strangely desperate all of a sudden while I looked at her a bit confused. Didn’t we just walk?
“I just wanted to tell you I’m angry at you. That’s all.” I repeated, even though I had already told her that seconds before.
“And Sofie had to die because of that?” Uhm … yeah. That was pretty much the gist of it.
“Yes. She wasn’t really useful anyway and a bit of loss could help the others to improve.” I said, even though I didn’t really mean it that way. She was popular all over the place, so she would be a great travel companion for the group of idiots.
“She is your friend. Your real friend.” That was correct though … which was why it did hurt a little to see her in pain.
“I know? But I still don’t have any problems with her death. You know why? Because she is your apostle on this planet and if I cannot hurt you any other way, I will use her.” I explained a bit spiteful, and regretted my words quite quickly.
“That’s … exactly what Aska would have done.” She said while frowning a little bit while I flinched.
“So what? The results speak for themselves. You are here because you want something from me. But I’m not giving you anything until made up for lying to me that brazenly.” I said angrily about being compared to him, and angry at myself for not having changed even the tiniest amount.
“What do you want?” She asked, even though I had already everything what I wanted. I didn’t want anything from her. I just wanted to express my anger.
“What can you actually do?” I still asked a bit interested.
“I … I can give you all the information you need.” Now, that was something I wouldn’t say no to. Sitting down right next to her calmly, I faced her and nodded.
“Hmm … I’m listening. Depending on what you say though, it might not be enough.” I said. I was more than willing to give up my anger at this point.
“This world … was created by all the gods together. But for a multitude of reasons, we blocked each other off from entering this world with our vessels. And even if we do, we can only use a fraction of our power here.” Interesting. That would also explain why Aska had troubles getting onto this world in the first place.
“Continue …” I said and listened eagerly to her next words.
“Each and every god has one way to enter this world. They aren’t easy to open up though.” One? Just one? But there were so many gods … so there were a lot of possibilities someone could get to this planet.
“We are getting closer.” I said calmly.
“That’s all I can say.” She said and looked way from me, clearly too uncomfortable to lie while looking at me.
“Hmm … how can Aska’s entrance be opened?” I this asked.
“I don’t know … I only know mine.” She admitted a bit meekly.
“I’m waiting …” I said and looked into her green eyes as she stared right into mine.
“There is a city called Vollhorst in the elven kingdom. Underneath it, some kind of labyrinth will form in a few weeks. It was also decided that the system had to be adapted a little to make these places a little bit more … special. You might have noticed that already.” Oh? Well, at least that would explain how they got through the barriers around my soul so easily. Because there were at least a few gods hammering onto mine.
“Ahh, so that’s what happened … my guess is that you don’t care about my headaches at all?” I asked and balled my hands into fists. I knew she didn’t participate in the attack, just because my soul didn’t burn like crazy like usually when her life swapped over me.
“I have voted against it.” She explained, with let the last anger I had towards her evaporate quickly.
“Fine … what would I have to do in this labyrinth to get your vessel onto this planet?” I asked casually. If she already told me the beginning, she could at least tell the tale till the end.
“Sofie has to lay her hand on an altar at the lowest level.” She said and probably expected a quick answer that never came.
“How is that difficult?” I asked a little while later, completely stunned by how easy it sounded.
“It isn’t. It’s impossible. I’m not allowed to tell her what you know now.” She said and looked straight into my eyes. I knew she would have liked to grab my hands to express her sincerety, but in her astral form she would only hurt me.
“Wait … you cannot talk to anyone else on this planet except Sofie, me and Hannah if I allow it.” I said and scratched my head. Opening her door really was impossible.
“That’s right. She’ll never know unless you tell her. I … I thought it was a good way to express I am sorry about what happened.” And by designing her way, she gave all the power to me, which allowed me to stop seeing her as a potential enemy … if she didn’t lie that is. But I doubted it.
“Hmm … just come and talk to me next time instead of ignoring me.” I said a bit unhappy that I had to go to so much length to get her to talk to me. Just because I was angry at her, it didn’t mean I would hate her, no matter what.
“I … you are strangely kind sometimes for being who you are.” She said, which did made me look at her a bit strangely.
“I don’t know if that is a compliment or not … one last question. Any idea how I could find out Aska’s way to get here?” I asked a bit hopeful.
“None. Each of us is severely limited here and most information going out of this world are censored … well, we are here with. After all, I am still every bit of life you see on this planet, but it is hard too look at this part of myself.” Her explanation was weird … but I believed her. I couldn’t even imagine how it was to be everywhere after all. Even I couldn’t look at every cell in my body, which was probably the most accurate comparison to her situation.
“Hmm … why do the goblins have no life in them?” I asked interested.
“The god if creation did these together with a group of other gods. I had no interest in making monsters.” Oh? Was it because she was sidelined by the other gods, or rather because she didn’t want to make creatures whose sole purpose was to pillage and murder?
“What about the werewolves …” I muttered and looked at her sternly as she struggles to answer me right away.
“They were the first and last species of demons I had created with them a long, long time ago. What you see here today is just the replication of races designed before you were even born.” So she was sidelined. Maybe because she was too soft? Whatever it was, at least I had the answers I was searching for.
“Hmm … well, shall we?” I asked and stood up relaxed.
“Just one question. Would you have resurrected her together with me no matter what I had said?” That was highly likely. Even though she was the most useless one of the bunch, she was my sole real friend of that group, and that since two hundred years ago.
“Probably.” I admitted and gave Irminsul a rather wry smile. Walking up over to Sofie’s corpse, I placed my hand on the left side of her chest and felt all the death inside her.
It didn’t take long for Irminsul to place her shining hand onto Sofie’s other side and I started manipulating the death inside of her body, letting it flow towards me, concentrating around the spot Irminsul touched.
Alone, I couldn’t resurrect any. The absence of death didn’t meant there was life. It meant there was nothing of the two. And so, I kept pulling out more and more of the matter my soul consisted off and took it up within me. Meanwhile, she was releasing life inside of Sofie’s body, healing her wounds and getting rid of all the toxins in her body.
Shortly afterwards, I let the dead soul float above her chest, already filled with life once more.
“One last thing. We didn’t give the reincarnators gifts just like this. They are merely manifesting the part we left behind in them through their gift.”
“So that’s why cancelling out the system doesn’t have any effect on it? Because it is a hint of our magic?”
“Even less then a hint … a single grain of salt maybe, if not less. That’s also the reason we can even resurrect her. Without this power, I couldn’t do anything.” Woah, that was good to know. I honestly had gambled with Sofie’s life if that was the case. If she didn’t have Irminsul inside her already … well, she would remain dead. “Can I ask you to help her use that grain of sand? If you ever decide it is better to have me on this planet, she will need it.” I thought about flat out refusing her right away, but maybe I could learn something from this experience as well. She had life within her, which I had the highest chance of feeling because it was so contrary to myself.
“Hmm … she can only heal with that, correct?” I asked, just to make sure.
“And tickle you a bit.” Well, if it was really that little, I had no qualms with training her.
“Then its settled. How do I do that?” I asked right away, grabbing Sofie’s soul carefully out of the air.
“I don’t know.” Irminsul admitted, finally lifting her hand up from the completely healed, and breathing husk.
“Gods these days …” I mumbled, shook my head in disappointment and slowly pushed the soul towards her chest. As soon as the rim of the greenly glowing ball touched her skin, it was sucked into her body instantly. Feeling her soul, I noticed immediately that all the cracks from her death healed fast thanks to all the godly magic left in her body. And then while I was strolling back to my seat, I felt how it sprang back to live, without losing any of its former memories.
Breathing in loudly, Sofie immediately sat upright and opened her eyes wide.
“I …” She mumbled, touching her body all over the place, especially at her back. “I died …” only then did she notice me sitting in the front row, smiling brightly at her. “Lucy … is this the afterlife?”
“I can’t remember dying.” I said and tilted my head to the side, ignoring the few times I died completely.
“But … I died.” Yeah. In front of my eyes at that. But that didn’t mean she had to remain dead?
“It is not that hard to trick death.” Last time I even won in a game of Spicy, which was basically just based on lies. Those were great times…
“But …” Sofie didn’t really get a grasp on what happened at all.
“Hmm … Irminsul, why don’t you show yourself to your apostle as well? She is not going to believe me if I tell her you did resurrect her.” I said and looked at the green haired goddess straight away.
“Fine …” Irminsul said and snapped her fingers. “Hey Sofie … long time no see.”
“You! Its you! Why did you resurrect me, but couldn’t help my family at all? You let them die!” Sofie asked, shocked and a bit hysterical. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea for her to meet the person she blamed for her families death after all.
“Uhh … that’s harsh.” Irminsul said and stepped back a little while holding both her hands in front of her chest.
“Sofie, I believe you need to overthink your position a little. It is entirely valid to refrain from hurting others, but you should not ask others to do what you cannot.” I said, furrowing my brows slightly. I was honestly a bit conflicted about helping though. For once, seeing them argue with each other was worth gold, but I also didn’t want them to feel bad.
“I … I know. But they were monsters. Demons.” She said, pointing out who she was eventually hurting and who she would never … strangly enough, all the demons didn’t have a hint of life int them.
“So that makes a difference? If so, is she really to blame? Is a firefighter to blame because he saves a young child instead of an elderly?” I asked, knowing the answer she would give me very well.
“I …” She stumbled over her words, already thinking about what I said rapidly.
“No Lucy. He is not. But the firefighter is no god, so her anger is entirely justified. I couldn’t save your parents, because in this world I am a mere firefighter, not a goddess.” She admitted and lowered her head a little.
“What?” Sofie asked, finally getting out of her coffin and stood with wobbly legs.
“The gods are severely limited in their strength on this world.” I explained happily, even though I didn’t show it to Sofie.
“I couldn’t do anything and had to ask the people you met for help. It was their decision to leave the others behind, and I do not blame them any second for doing so. They would have lost their lives otherwise.” Irminsul answered, only speaking out half of the truth. She kind of forgot to tell her that I was the middleman who kind of ordered Hannah just to save her and forger about the rest.
“You are really telling me there is nothing you could have done?” Sofie asked and Irminsul nodded right away.
“Precisely. That is why there are people like you. Our apostles are our way of influencing this world.” Sadly though, that was only half of the truth. Otherwise I would have murdered most of them already.
“… fine. I won’t blame you anymore.” Sofie said and sat down right next to me, still exhausted from just waking up.
“Thank you.” The goddess of life said, slow illy sitting down on the stairs leading to the coffin.
“Than why am I here? What is our real task in this world? I do hope we didn’t die to fight our previous comrades?” Oh, that would be a great idea! Just put them all in a single ring and see who is left over at the end. I could get behind her idea rather quickly in all honesty.
“That is only a small group as far as I am aware. And no, you don’t have to. I couldn’t force you even if I wanted anyway, so you are free to do whatever you desire.” Irminsul said, directly denying Sofie’s previous statement. But still, it was kind of odd that she didn’t want to say the real reason why they were all on this planet, which made me a bit curious. I didn’t want to ask that in front if Sofie though.
“And if I don’t want my old friends to harm the people of the world more than they already did?” Sofie asked, clearly still on the trip of protecting the world from harm.
“… follow your heart. And if that isn’t enough, follow the saint. I’m sure she will clash with the demons sooner than later.” Well considering how things were going already, I kind of had to.
“The saint … Lucy, that’s you, right?” Sofie asked, very suspicious about my real identity, but still not entirely sure.
“Yup. Don’t expect me to talk saintly though.” I said and gave her a thumbs up casually.
“Why did you hide it the whole time?” Oh … so now I had to explain myself? Even though I had really hoped this wouldn’t happen, I had already prepared so many possible excuses in advance that I only needed to pick a few.
“You know, these three months were fun. Really fun. With a few exceptions of course, but still fun. I wont have that anymore. As the queen I am expected to host events, as the saint I am constantly busy anyways … and I kind of have to teach little kids for fifty hours. The thing is, I wont have that much time like this and I think it was a good idea to keep it a secret from Schwarz, Ellie and Louis. They would always rely on my guidance if they knew which is also why I’ll try to jeep it a secret from them as long as possible.” I explained, scoring ten out of ten points with my excuse right away.
“I see … we are still friends, right? We can still chat about our hobbies and stuff?” She asked, a bit unsure how she should act around me now that she knew who I was.
“Obviously.” She was kind of like Luna in that regard. I didn’t have that much to do with her, but I always liked to laugh with her, even about things I didn’t enjoy at all.
“Okay … Irminsul, thank you for saving my life twice. And Lucy? I’m glad you are the saint.” And so was I.
“Thank you. My time here is nearly over, so I have to say goodbye for now.” Irminsul explained and nodded towards each of us.
“Hey, do we play board games in a few days?” I asked before she vanished from my sight.
“I see no reason not to.” She said, completely stunning the girl by my side.
“Until then.” I said sweetly and waved as she vanished into thin air.
“ … you are playing board games with a goddess?” Yeah, and I’m winning constantly. Chuckling a bit, I smiled towards Sofie and stood up.
“During my two hundred years of falling into coma, we payed a lot. So yeah, I am playing board games with her.” I explained and looked away from her as sharp pain shot through my head once again. It kind of got on my nerves already even though it was kind of nice to feel.
“Okay, now that’s amazing.” She said in regards to me playing board games with a goddess.
“Do you know what was even more amazing? Your teleport! I didn’t even know you could do dark magic!” I said and took her hand a bit amazed. That Olivia couldn’t react in time also meant that the speed of her activation was insanely fast. She was honestly a good mage, but also one specialised in support.
“Only a few useful spells. And I cannot say for sure where she’ll land.” She admitted. But even then. That Olivia wasn’t already around here and stabbing people left and right was prove that her spell worked wonders.
“How far away is she?” I asked and tilted my head in hope. I did hope it would be less than a week because afterwards, I would need to spend a lot of time holed up in a room with Albert.
“… a month if she travels by foot. She is in demon territory.” Blinking a few times, I was utterly amazed. I knew about her gift that allowed her to use a hundred percent of her mana while others could only use around twenty … but still.
“That’s far …” And giving us maybe just enough time to prepare everything if Olivia didn’t hurry. Well, she couldn’t be too slow either as the marks on her armour would run out eventually.
Seeing Sofie die in front of my eyes was heartbreaking … well, not really. It hurt a little to see her in pain, but her death itself was quite pleasurable if I was honest.
“And you are mine …” I muttered, flung her soul over to my hideout and transformed her into a little, brightly green glowing ball immediately. Lifting it up with my palm, she started floating around me undisturbed and safely from Aska. Well, he could try, but I was sure Irminsul would talk some sense into him in that case.
And then, Hannah and I waited a little until we rushed over towards the weeping duo.
“No …” Hannah muttered, clearly driven close to tears, just like I was. So sad.
“You are … alive?” Of course I was? Just because she told you I was dead, it didn’t actually mean I was?
Still wetting the ground with my tears, I stepped close to Sofie’s corpse and took her in my arms. Closing her eyes with two of my fingers, I rested my forehead against hers and then let her gently onto the ground.
“We need to … we need to call the guards.” I was honestly surprised we weren’t found yet, considering all the loud noise they made. But well, the campus was pretty much deserted, so it wasn’t that unlikely.
Hannah immediately started dashing away from us, probably getting the one guard at the entrance to get to us.
I quickly separated the two from the corpse by helping them up and into the girls dormitory where they sat down and continued to cry loudly. Losing two of her friends must have been hard for Ellie, but it also shook Louis to the core.
Well, there was nothing I could do there so I was kind if lucky that the guards arrived sooner than later and took matters into their own hands. All of us were escorted into one of their stations in the noble district where we were thoroughly interrogated … except me and Hannah. We were let go by the guards after I showed them my ring and they had confirmed its identity. But I did tell them that a boy named Albert had been hit by some kind of wither magic, which was why there wasn’t even any dust left of him. And I also asked where her corpse was. I had to make good use of her soul after all.
And so, Hannah and I strolled into a empty church where Sofie’s corpse laid in a wooden coffin, its lid opened for my sake.
Hannah sat down in one of the rows further back and looked already bored before getting here. This would be a rather boring time for her, mostly because she wouldn’t be able to see much.
And I sat in the first row, looked at a statue of myself and enjoyed the morning sun shining through the coloured glasses.
Listening to the chirping birds outside, I crossed my legs and started filing my nails. It may be seen as a bit disrespectful, but nobody else was here to see it after all.
Several minutes later, I stopped doing so and looked towards my left, noticing the rather … silent goddess sitting there for the first time.
“Took you long enough.” I muttered and continued to file my nails disinterested.
“Are you happy now?” I was really happy to see her again. Which was also coincidentally the single reason why Sofie had died.
“Woah … she didn’t have to die if you had just graced me with your presence once in a while. I thought we were friends?” I asked her, glancing over to the sole person except Aska who I had spent my time regularly with.
“I do hope we are.” She said, but seemed a bit unsure as well.
“Strange. I haven’t seen any of my friends asking me to do something, only to offer something completely and utterly useless in return.” I said angrily and stood up from the bench to walk in front of her.
“I didn’t have anything else I could give you back then. Trust me.” She said, looking up towards me with her green eyes full of bitterness.
“Trust you? After you have gracefully shown me their faces before they changed appearance without saying anything about that fact?” Usually souls didn’t change appearance when they were born into the same race again. Their body looked exactly like the one they had before if they didn’t land in another race. But the reincarnators looked different. Or had another gender … poor guy … girl?
“Look I’m sorry. I did what I had to do.” She said and lowered her head a little.
“In that case … have a great day.” I answered and stomped away from her towards the middle section.
“Wait … we both know that you let her die to force me to talk with you. And here I am … so talk with me.” She said, strangely desperate all of a sudden while I looked at her a bit confused. Didn’t we just walk?
“I just wanted to tell you I’m angry at you. That’s all.” I repeated, even though I had already told her that seconds before.
“And Sofie had to die because of that?” Uhm … yeah. That was pretty much the gist of it.
“Yes. She wasn’t really useful anyway and a bit of loss could help the others to improve.” I said, even though I didn’t really mean it that way. She was popular all over the place, so she would be a great travel companion for the group of idiots.
“She is your friend. Your real friend.” That was correct though … which was why it did hurt a little to see her in pain.
“I know? But I still don’t have any problems with her death. You know why? Because she is your apostle on this planet and if I cannot hurt you any other way, I will use her.” I explained a bit spiteful, and regretted my words quite quickly.
“That’s … exactly what Aska would have done.” She said while frowning a little bit while I flinched.
“So what? The results speak for themselves. You are here because you want something from me. But I’m not giving you anything until made up for lying to me that brazenly.” I said angrily about being compared to him, and angry at myself for not having changed even the tiniest amount.
“What do you want?” She asked, even though I had already everything what I wanted. I didn’t want anything from her. I just wanted to express my anger.
“What can you actually do?” I still asked a bit interested.
“I … I can give you all the information you need.” Now, that was something I wouldn’t say no to. Sitting down right next to her calmly, I faced her and nodded.
“Hmm … I’m listening. Depending on what you say though, it might not be enough.” I said. I was more than willing to give up my anger at this point.
“This world … was created by all the gods together. But for a multitude of reasons, we blocked each other off from entering this world with our vessels. And even if we do, we can only use a fraction of our power here.” Interesting. That would also explain why Aska had troubles getting onto this world in the first place.
“Continue …” I said and listened eagerly to her next words.
“Each and every god has one way to enter this world. They aren’t easy to open up though.” One? Just one? But there were so many gods … so there were a lot of possibilities someone could get to this planet.
“We are getting closer.” I said calmly.
“That’s all I can say.” She said and looked way from me, clearly too uncomfortable to lie while looking at me.
“Hmm … how can Aska’s entrance be opened?” I this asked.
“I don’t know … I only know mine.” She admitted a bit meekly.
“I’m waiting …” I said and looked into her green eyes as she stared right into mine.
“There is a city called Vollhorst in the elven kingdom. Underneath it, some kind of labyrinth will form in a few weeks. It was also decided that the system had to be adapted a little to make these places a little bit more … special. You might have noticed that already.” Oh? Well, at least that would explain how they got through the barriers around my soul so easily. Because there were at least a few gods hammering onto mine.
“Ahh, so that’s what happened … my guess is that you don’t care about my headaches at all?” I asked and balled my hands into fists. I knew she didn’t participate in the attack, just because my soul didn’t burn like crazy like usually when her life swapped over me.
“I have voted against it.” She explained, with let the last anger I had towards her evaporate quickly.
“Fine … what would I have to do in this labyrinth to get your vessel onto this planet?” I asked casually. If she already told me the beginning, she could at least tell the tale till the end.
“Sofie has to lay her hand on an altar at the lowest level.” She said and probably expected a quick answer that never came.
“How is that difficult?” I asked a little while later, completely stunned by how easy it sounded.
“It isn’t. It’s impossible. I’m not allowed to tell her what you know now.” She said and looked straight into my eyes. I knew she would have liked to grab my hands to express her sincerety, but in her astral form she would only hurt me.
“Wait … you cannot talk to anyone else on this planet except Sofie, me and Hannah if I allow it.” I said and scratched my head. Opening her door really was impossible.
“That’s right. She’ll never know unless you tell her. I … I thought it was a good way to express I am sorry about what happened.” And by designing her way, she gave all the power to me, which allowed me to stop seeing her as a potential enemy … if she didn’t lie that is. But I doubted it.
“Hmm … just come and talk to me next time instead of ignoring me.” I said a bit unhappy that I had to go to so much length to get her to talk to me. Just because I was angry at her, it didn’t mean I would hate her, no matter what.
“I … you are strangely kind sometimes for being who you are.” She said, which did made me look at her a bit strangely.
“I don’t know if that is a compliment or not … one last question. Any idea how I could find out Aska’s way to get here?” I asked a bit hopeful.
“None. Each of us is severely limited here and most information going out of this world are censored … well, we are here with. After all, I am still every bit of life you see on this planet, but it is hard too look at this part of myself.” Her explanation was weird … but I believed her. I couldn’t even imagine how it was to be everywhere after all. Even I couldn’t look at every cell in my body, which was probably the most accurate comparison to her situation.
“Hmm … why do the goblins have no life in them?” I asked interested.
“The god if creation did these together with a group of other gods. I had no interest in making monsters.” Oh? Was it because she was sidelined by the other gods, or rather because she didn’t want to make creatures whose sole purpose was to pillage and murder?
“What about the werewolves …” I muttered and looked at her sternly as she struggles to answer me right away.
“They were the first and last species of demons I had created with them a long, long time ago. What you see here today is just the replication of races designed before you were even born.” So she was sidelined. Maybe because she was too soft? Whatever it was, at least I had the answers I was searching for.
“Hmm … well, shall we?” I asked and stood up relaxed.
“Just one question. Would you have resurrected her together with me no matter what I had said?” That was highly likely. Even though she was the most useless one of the bunch, she was my sole real friend of that group, and that since two hundred years ago.
“Probably.” I admitted and gave Irminsul a rather wry smile. Walking up over to Sofie’s corpse, I placed my hand on the left side of her chest and felt all the death inside her.
It didn’t take long for Irminsul to place her shining hand onto Sofie’s other side and I started manipulating the death inside of her body, letting it flow towards me, concentrating around the spot Irminsul touched.
Alone, I couldn’t resurrect any. The absence of death didn’t meant there was life. It meant there was nothing of the two. And so, I kept pulling out more and more of the matter my soul consisted off and took it up within me. Meanwhile, she was releasing life inside of Sofie’s body, healing her wounds and getting rid of all the toxins in her body.
Shortly afterwards, I let the dead soul float above her chest, already filled with life once more.
“One last thing. We didn’t give the reincarnators gifts just like this. They are merely manifesting the part we left behind in them through their gift.”
“So that’s why cancelling out the system doesn’t have any effect on it? Because it is a hint of our magic?”
“Even less then a hint … a single grain of salt maybe, if not less. That’s also the reason we can even resurrect her. Without this power, I couldn’t do anything.” Woah, that was good to know. I honestly had gambled with Sofie’s life if that was the case. If she didn’t have Irminsul inside her already … well, she would remain dead. “Can I ask you to help her use that grain of sand? If you ever decide it is better to have me on this planet, she will need it.” I thought about flat out refusing her right away, but maybe I could learn something from this experience as well. She had life within her, which I had the highest chance of feeling because it was so contrary to myself.
“Hmm … she can only heal with that, correct?” I asked, just to make sure.
“And tickle you a bit.” Well, if it was really that little, I had no qualms with training her.
“Then its settled. How do I do that?” I asked right away, grabbing Sofie’s soul carefully out of the air.
“I don’t know.” Irminsul admitted, finally lifting her hand up from the completely healed, and breathing husk.
“Gods these days …” I mumbled, shook my head in disappointment and slowly pushed the soul towards her chest. As soon as the rim of the greenly glowing ball touched her skin, it was sucked into her body instantly. Feeling her soul, I noticed immediately that all the cracks from her death healed fast thanks to all the godly magic left in her body. And then while I was strolling back to my seat, I felt how it sprang back to live, without losing any of its former memories.
Breathing in loudly, Sofie immediately sat upright and opened her eyes wide.
“I …” She mumbled, touching her body all over the place, especially at her back. “I died …” only then did she notice me sitting in the front row, smiling brightly at her. “Lucy … is this the afterlife?”
“I can’t remember dying.” I said and tilted my head to the side, ignoring the few times I died completely.
“But … I died.” Yeah. In front of my eyes at that. But that didn’t mean she had to remain dead?
“It is not that hard to trick death.” Last time I even won in a game of Spicy, which was basically just based on lies. Those were great times…
“But …” Sofie didn’t really get a grasp on what happened at all.
“Hmm … Irminsul, why don’t you show yourself to your apostle as well? She is not going to believe me if I tell her you did resurrect her.” I said and looked at the green haired goddess straight away.
“Fine …” Irminsul said and snapped her fingers. “Hey Sofie … long time no see.”
“You! Its you! Why did you resurrect me, but couldn’t help my family at all? You let them die!” Sofie asked, shocked and a bit hysterical. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea for her to meet the person she blamed for her families death after all.
“Uhh … that’s harsh.” Irminsul said and stepped back a little while holding both her hands in front of her chest.
“Sofie, I believe you need to overthink your position a little. It is entirely valid to refrain from hurting others, but you should not ask others to do what you cannot.” I said, furrowing my brows slightly. I was honestly a bit conflicted about helping though. For once, seeing them argue with each other was worth gold, but I also didn’t want them to feel bad.
“I … I know. But they were monsters. Demons.” She said, pointing out who she was eventually hurting and who she would never … strangly enough, all the demons didn’t have a hint of life int them.
“So that makes a difference? If so, is she really to blame? Is a firefighter to blame because he saves a young child instead of an elderly?” I asked, knowing the answer she would give me very well.
“I …” She stumbled over her words, already thinking about what I said rapidly.
“No Lucy. He is not. But the firefighter is no god, so her anger is entirely justified. I couldn’t save your parents, because in this world I am a mere firefighter, not a goddess.” She admitted and lowered her head a little.
“What?” Sofie asked, finally getting out of her coffin and stood with wobbly legs.
“The gods are severely limited in their strength on this world.” I explained happily, even though I didn’t show it to Sofie.
“I couldn’t do anything and had to ask the people you met for help. It was their decision to leave the others behind, and I do not blame them any second for doing so. They would have lost their lives otherwise.” Irminsul answered, only speaking out half of the truth. She kind of forgot to tell her that I was the middleman who kind of ordered Hannah just to save her and forger about the rest.
“You are really telling me there is nothing you could have done?” Sofie asked and Irminsul nodded right away.
“Precisely. That is why there are people like you. Our apostles are our way of influencing this world.” Sadly though, that was only half of the truth. Otherwise I would have murdered most of them already.
“… fine. I won’t blame you anymore.” Sofie said and sat down right next to me, still exhausted from just waking up.
“Thank you.” The goddess of life said, slow illy sitting down on the stairs leading to the coffin.
“Than why am I here? What is our real task in this world? I do hope we didn’t die to fight our previous comrades?” Oh, that would be a great idea! Just put them all in a single ring and see who is left over at the end. I could get behind her idea rather quickly in all honesty.
“That is only a small group as far as I am aware. And no, you don’t have to. I couldn’t force you even if I wanted anyway, so you are free to do whatever you desire.” Irminsul said, directly denying Sofie’s previous statement. But still, it was kind of odd that she didn’t want to say the real reason why they were all on this planet, which made me a bit curious. I didn’t want to ask that in front if Sofie though.
“And if I don’t want my old friends to harm the people of the world more than they already did?” Sofie asked, clearly still on the trip of protecting the world from harm.
“… follow your heart. And if that isn’t enough, follow the saint. I’m sure she will clash with the demons sooner than later.” Well considering how things were going already, I kind of had to.
“The saint … Lucy, that’s you, right?” Sofie asked, very suspicious about my real identity, but still not entirely sure.
“Yup. Don’t expect me to talk saintly though.” I said and gave her a thumbs up casually.
“Why did you hide it the whole time?” Oh … so now I had to explain myself? Even though I had really hoped this wouldn’t happen, I had already prepared so many possible excuses in advance that I only needed to pick a few.
“You know, these three months were fun. Really fun. With a few exceptions of course, but still fun. I wont have that anymore. As the queen I am expected to host events, as the saint I am constantly busy anyways … and I kind of have to teach little kids for fifty hours. The thing is, I wont have that much time like this and I think it was a good idea to keep it a secret from Schwarz, Ellie and Louis. They would always rely on my guidance if they knew which is also why I’ll try to jeep it a secret from them as long as possible.” I explained, scoring ten out of ten points with my excuse right away.
“I see … we are still friends, right? We can still chat about our hobbies and stuff?” She asked, a bit unsure how she should act around me now that she knew who I was.
“Obviously.” She was kind of like Luna in that regard. I didn’t have that much to do with her, but I always liked to laugh with her, even about things I didn’t enjoy at all.
“Okay … Irminsul, thank you for saving my life twice. And Lucy? I’m glad you are the saint.” And so was I.
“Thank you. My time here is nearly over, so I have to say goodbye for now.” Irminsul explained and nodded towards each of us.
“Hey, do we play board games in a few days?” I asked before she vanished from my sight.
“I see no reason not to.” She said, completely stunning the girl by my side.
“Until then.” I said sweetly and waved as she vanished into thin air.
“ … you are playing board games with a goddess?” Yeah, and I’m winning constantly. Chuckling a bit, I smiled towards Sofie and stood up.
“During my two hundred years of falling into coma, we payed a lot. So yeah, I am playing board games with her.” I explained and looked away from her as sharp pain shot through my head once again. It kind of got on my nerves already even though it was kind of nice to feel.
“Okay, now that’s amazing.” She said in regards to me playing board games with a goddess.
“Do you know what was even more amazing? Your teleport! I didn’t even know you could do dark magic!” I said and took her hand a bit amazed. That Olivia couldn’t react in time also meant that the speed of her activation was insanely fast. She was honestly a good mage, but also one specialised in support.
“Only a few useful spells. And I cannot say for sure where she’ll land.” She admitted. But even then. That Olivia wasn’t already around here and stabbing people left and right was prove that her spell worked wonders.
“How far away is she?” I asked and tilted my head in hope. I did hope it would be less than a week because afterwards, I would need to spend a lot of time holed up in a room with Albert.
“… a month if she travels by foot. She is in demon territory.” Blinking a few times, I was utterly amazed. I knew about her gift that allowed her to use a hundred percent of her mana while others could only use around twenty … but still.
“That’s far …” And giving us maybe just enough time to prepare everything if Olivia didn’t hurry. Well, she couldn’t be too slow either as the marks on her armour would run out eventually.
