âDo I have a choice?â Sofia asked the human-looking God.
What? Donât wanna come? Your mates are waiting for you, you know?
âMy matesâ¦â
Yeah, funny bunch those. Your sisterâs already left, though, am already done with her. The horned one too.
Cinthia?
â... Iâll come. Just give me a minute to store all the bones,â Sofia told him as she turned around and started to separate the walls of the camp and the furnace to store them. The God silently watched. As she quickly swept up the camp, Sofia asked another question, âWhat do you mean youâre done with them? Are they back into the trial?â
No, theyâre back on the main planet. Iâm done reforging them.
Sofia stopped, âThe mana waves! Did something happen to them?!â
So you did feel them then. Not totally oblivious. Nothing happened to them, no, but I did get royally fucked after I got done with your sis. The bitches took control of the excess mana and used it to fuck around. Did quite a bit of damage, you were the main target though so you probably know best.
âSo thatâs how it wentâ¦â Sofia murmured to herself. She turned to face the God properly âI hope you will excuse my crude behavior until now. You should be able to understand why I have my reservations about trusting random Gods, especially after I got imprisonned in Peaceâs domain.â
This where they sent you? Had a run in with Peace? The God asked back, visibly intrigued.
âIf youâve noticed my lack of a body, thatâs Peaceâs work.â
Oh. He mustâve been in a good mood.
âThatâs a âgood moodâ kind of meeting with Peace?!â
Course, he didnât alter your blueprint to remove your face so he mustâve been lenient.
âThatâs⦠Disturbing.â
Well, thatâs Peace, yeah. The god said, awkwardly scratching his beard.
Sofia apologized again for her initial reaction, and told the God she was just about ready to leave whenever.
Heh, no harm done, Iâd probably be even more wary than you are if I were you; they did erase you from all the systemâs records and protections after all.
âWhat? Really?!â
Yeah, more than that, even, they infected the lower tier scribes to erase peopleâs memories of you, some fucked up stunt they done pulled.
Sofiaâs expression darkened. âI already knew about Everelle forgetting, but everyone? They were really trying to erase meâ¦â
Well, itâs not that bad, not everyone got affected. Us Divine ones have no scribes so weâre good. The entire upper system staff is unaffected too, and all the fuckers at level 500 obviously wouldnât let such a joke of an attack affect them. For everyone else itâs a different story.
âAlith and the others still remember me, right?!â Mr. Scribe said the Mark would protect them!
Howâd they be waiting for you if they didnât? Ah, the kid did forget about you for a bit until Moon came to fix her up. From what I understand your sisterâs friend forgot too, and thatâs still being worked onâ¦
âSo it can be reversed? Does it need to be a God?â
Honestly donât know, ask Kyle. On my side Iâm more excited about what imma do about the thing your scribeâs been cooking inside you.
Cooking inside me⦠Does he mean VPPV? âYouâre the one helping people fuse with their mana heart if I understand everything correctly. Who are you? Forge? Handicraft?â
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Ahah, not far. I like to go by Clint, but if you want the formal, itâs Creation. Youâll need to come see me when your heartâs ready.
âCreation⦠How did Saria do?â
Got an interesting keystone. Anyway, weâre going now?
Of course she reached SSS rank. âWait, two more questions, if you will allow me.â
Creation scratched his beard again, waiting for Sofia to continue.
âAre you really still going to help me with my mana heart even though I failed the Trial; and who is it exactly who is after me? It canât be just Scripture, so who are the others? What do they want?â
Yeah Iâll still reforge you, you kidding? Why do you think I picked this job? To help the system? I couldnât give less of a fuck, lassy; Lifeâs handling this crap. Iâm just out here perfecting my craft.
Heâs here for his own personal interest? I wonder if he knows Erredis since she spends so much time making things. This might be a good opportunity. I need more allies right now. Strong allies. And preferably ones who can rescue me from the Godsâ realm if I get trapped there again.
Sofia nodded along to his explanation. âI see you are a much more approachable God than I originally feared,â she said while absorbing the dagger she had still been holding until now back into her bone body. âPer chance, would you be looking for someone to hold on to a few of your essences for you?â
Creation threw his head back with a hearty laugh, Hah, youâre a fun one. You know essences arenât something we can hand out so- Wait, youâre serious?
âYou noticed what my Scribe has been working on and youâre surprised about that?â Sofia asked, bewildered.
As the discussion was starting to grow long, while Pareth still stood next to Sofia, Bookie had walked away and was drawing Dragons in the dirt with a stick.
Creation frowned and mumbled in his beard. What⦠Oh. The dagger. To think itâs still so blinding even now⦠A weird large mask with a visor appeared on his head, and Creation lowered the visor, gasped, and brought it up again. Woah, I understand why you might be a target. By my Divine beard, this is something! Are you Sunâs secret daughter?
âThat might have made my life easier. But no. I just helped her form some⦠Connections.â
Sun would give five⦠Creation mumbled to himself again. He grabbed his mask off and made it disappear. Iâll think about it. He finally said. Wonât be free.
âIâm glad to see Sir Clint is a reasonable businessman. What about my other question?â
That I donât have the slightest damn clue. This trialâs Archangel was with âem, that how we ended up here, gave him a rightful beating and he fucked off, that about all I know.
âSo at least two Gods and an Archangelâ¦â
Well, if allâs good, down we go.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om
The scenery just changed around Sofia her her group, it was seamless and instantaneous, Bookie let out a surprised yelp. âMy drawingâ¦â
Sofia looked around while she walked up to Bookie and grabbed him in her arms to comfort him. The place they had been sent to was the interior of some window-less room lit by lightstones imbedded into the metallic walls. There were closed doors on two sides. âWhere is this?â she asked Creation.
My teleportation room. Weâre in somewhat of an emergency lockdown right now, gotta wait for Kyle or Life to transfer us over.
Sofia kept hugging Bookie as she walked along the room observing the rituals embedded in the walls, âItâs the second time you mention Life. Are there that many Gods on the physical plane? I thought it was supposed to be hard to cross into it.â
About twenty of us down there maybe? The big players, mostly, me, Life, Victory, Moon, we ainât small fries like Scripture. Though I guess he managed to scam his way in too. Some transition from a plane to the other quite frequently, Sun being the most notable since she can cross easily.
âThatâs a lot more than I thought. Did you include the Recessed in the count?â
Nah, donât know about them. Iâm already hard pressed to care about the politics of my own plane, let alone whatever the hell them crazy bunch are doing.
âHmm. Thank you anyway, youâve answered a lot of my questions. Anything you want to ask me?â
Heh. Iâd ask you to sell me the key if your life didnât depend on it. Wouldâve gladly traded that for a few essences for sure. Besides that, not really. Iâm very content to stay outta the Deepâs way, Creation explained with a snort. His eyes wandered to Sofiaâs right arm, and he turned around and mumbled. I need to have a talk with Moon, though. Sneaky bitch.
A tall woman with ice-blue hair appeared in front of Creation. She was wearing a thin and pointy golden crown, a tight blue and white outfit, and her face was strangely flat, with no nose, no mouth, and only two blue pupil-less eyes staring straight at the bearded God.
She grabbed Creation by the neck and and ripped his head off his chest.
Her words were like icy daggers. You sure have a big mouth, Clint.
Hah, at least I have one, Clintâs disembodied head answered, completely unfazed.
Sofia only noticed one thing.
So Gods DO have a skeleton.