Chapter Four: The One Sent by a God

Three days after the attack by the flying demigod, Friedland had a visitor from Rostruch.

“You see, ultimately, we could not determine what should be done with them.”

They were in the reception room of the house of Friedland’s mayor.

In the chair in the center of the room sat someone clad in garments the likes of which the Friedlanders had never seen. She looked like a ten-year-old girl, but her speech and behavior could be surprising; just when you thought she spoke like a regular child, she would say something that sounded exceptionally haughty or archaic.

It was Ulrike, of course.

Beside her were the two priests and two knights who had ventured to Rostruch—Luman and the others were standing with their hands tied. They were being treated like complete criminals, but considering that the crime they were being punished for was deceiving a god, this actually represented a tremendous mercy.

Had Ulrike and Yggdra’s other familiars escorted them here? The familiars were all connected to each other, and by using “intermediaries,” they could move even when at a distance from Yggdra. Even at this moment, there was a whole line of familiars standing at set distances, stretching from Friedland to Rostruch.

“...I’m getting awfully tired of the lot of you,” Fiona said, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed.

As acting mayor, it was she who had welcomed Ulrike and invited her into the house. As she learned the details of what had happened with Ulrike and Yukinari, her face grew more and more rigid until, by the end, she was looking at the prisoners was absolute contempt. Especially the two surviving priests.

“So let me get this straight. You tried to murder Yukinari by getting him into a fight with this erdgod, Yggdra. But he showed up before you had poured enough poison in Yggdra’s ear, so you just tried to rush ahead with your plan?”

“It sounds like once they had Yggdra on their side, they meant to take Dasa or Berta hostage and force me to come to Rostruch,” Yukinari said, shrugging.

As far as it went, the priests’ plot to make the two fight had worked, and if there had been hostages involved, it was hard to imagine they ever would have sat down and talked.

“Master Luman...”

Berta stood beside Yukinari, looking sadly at Luman. He had been like a father to her. No matter what the facts might be, there was a part of her that couldn’t bring itself to view him with the distaste the others did, to hate him.

Luman made no move to respond, just stared expressionlessly at the floor. He appeared already resigned to his fate.

“What shall we do? Yukinari has interceded for their lives, and while I did fight with him because of the misunderstanding sown by these people, as a result I gained a new ‘friend.’”

“‘Friend’?” Fiona said, looking at Yukinari in surprise.

“Even gods need friends, I guess,” he said with a slight grin. Fiona didn’t say anything, but grinned back.

From Yggdra’s perspective, Yukinari could best be called not so much a “companion” as a “friend.” Both of them were technically “inhuman,” as they both had human form but stood outside of human society. Yukinari was no erdgod, and he certainly wasn’t a giant tree, so he probably would have objected to being called Yggdra’s kin, too.

“But we can’t very well not punish them,” Fiona said. “If we let them go free, they might just do the same thing again. And next time they might not pick a god who’s so ready to make nice.”

“Uh, on that note,” Yukinari said, scratching his cheek in embarrassment. “I’m sorry you had to drag these guys all the way out here, but could you take these two priests—and all the others we’ve got left in Friedland—back to Rostruch?”

Fiona was the first to offer a wide-eyed sound of disbelief. But it must have caught the two priests off-guard, too, because they looked at each other.

“To what purpose?” Ulrike asked.

“I’m not just trying to foist some troublemakers on you,” Yukinari said with a shrug. “Your town never had priests or shrine maidens or anything, because you never needed them. Familiars filled those roles, and as far as offering living sacrifices to Yggdra, it really was just an offering, so the people took care of it themselves.”

“What you say is true, but...”

“But now you’re going from living sacrifices to worship, the periodic collection of spiritual power from the townspeople, right? I think you should let the priests handle those rituals.”

Luman and his fellow priest looked at Yukinari in absolute disbelief.

“For better or for worse, they’ve got centuries of experience with that sort of thing,” Yukinari said. “They know how to handle it. I’m sure there’s a lot of little tricks you wouldn’t guess if you’d never done it before. I hate to admit it, but I sure don’t have any idea how to run a worship service.” Then he looked at Luman. “I don’t guess you really care which god you serve?”

“No, I... I suppose not.”

Erdgods weren’t replaced often, but it did happen. What the priests served was not so much a specific deity as the whole system of worship. It was an industry, in its own way, and the priests were specialists.

“’Course, you’ll have to figure out what it means to worship Yggdra, and how the people of Rostruch want to do it. But I guess all I can say on that score is, good luck. Even I’m not softhearted enough to let you off without so much as a slap on the wrist.”

At first Luman said nothing, looking at Yukinari vacantly. Then he managed, “Not at all. I would judge you quite generous. Very generous indeed.”

“Ah, come off it.”

“...Very well. We’re hardly in a position to refuse.”

Then... Luman smiled. It was probably the first genuine emotion Yukinari had ever seen from the priest. He returned a rueful grin of his own, then turned to Ulrike.

“Now, about trade between us...”

“Mm,” Ulrike replied, placing her right hand over her chest. “The mayor has given me authority to negotiate on that subject.”

“Earlier, you talked about how you could put familiars at set intervals—do you think Yggdra could leave a chain of familiars between Friedland and Rostruch all the time?”

Ulrike went completely silent. About the time Yukinari and the others were starting to worry that something was wrong, she clapped her hands and nodded.

“Ahh! This is one of those times, isn’t it? I’m supposed to laugh.”

“Sorry?”

“Ahhh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”

Yukinari watched the girl laugh for a moment in befuddlement, but her expression soon returned to normal, and she raised one hand as if making a declaration.

“Pardon—I mean, sorry. I am not laughing at you, you see. I had intended to offer such a suggestion myself. It amused me that we both had the same idea.”

“We did, did we?”

“If my offspring will be coming and going, it will be necessary to protect those who travel the roads. Sending them with bodyguards is one solution, but I think leaving familiars at set intervals will prove a better deterrent.”

Yggdra was an erdgod. To the extent that the familiars were a part of her, xenobeasts and demigods were unlikely to come near them, since these creatures possessed only a fraction of the familiars’ strength. And as Yukinari had discovered, although the familiars had once been humans, they now had superhuman abilities, including control of nearby plant life. Even if a trade convoy was attacked, if they could make it back to the vicinity of one of Yggdra’s familiars, there was a good chance they would be safe.

Suddenly, though, Ulrike looked questioningly at Yukinari. “But, Yukinari, are you sure this is all right?”

“What do you mean?”

“Might some not think that I, the erdgod Yggdra, am simply attempting to extend my control to Friedland? My familiars are a part of me. I am essentially planting my ‘seeds’ in this area, strengthening my connection to it, and—”

“What’s that? You say you want to take care of Friedland for me, too?”

This left Ulrike speechless, or perhaps dumbfounded.

“Well, you won’t hear any complaints from me,” Yukinari said. “Or don’t you guys like that idea?”

Yukinari looked back at Fiona, but the whole course of the conversation had proven so unexpected that she seemed to have her hands full just trying to follow along.

“I’ve got to admit, I’m not sure,” she said. “I guess... Personally, I think I want Yukinari to be the erdgod of this land. That’s all.”

“...Very well,” Ulrike said, raising her hand once more. “I harbor no thought of stealing what belongs to my friend. Yukinari is and shall remain the god of this land. I shall give him my aid, and no more. Objections?”

“None here. Thank you,” Fiona said politely.

“And that just leaves...”

Everyone turned their gazes on the two knights who stood to Ulrike’s right.

“We got back the weapons they somehow managed to take from the storehouse,” Fiona said. “But if these two set their minds to causing trouble, it could be a real problem.”

The missionaries—one young man and one middle-aged—predictably said nothing.

Perhaps they had already settled their resolve. Five of the knights who had accompanied the priests to Rostruch had been eaten by xenobeasts on the way, and if Ulrike hadn’t rescued them, these two would surely be dead as well. Begging for their lives at this point would hardly make sense.

“Missionary knights of the Harris Church,” Yukinari said. “I gather their friends did a lot to help keep the town safe. And it was one of their little toys that came and got me, right? Gotta admit, it’s kind of hard to be angry at them.”

“True enough,” Fiona said with a sigh. “And I guess the plan to make Yukinari and Lord Yggdra fight was really all the priests’ doing. These guys were just along as bodyguards. Even if they probably did know what the priests had in mind.”

“I guess we could just leave their rap sheet at good old-fashioned breaking and entering. How about that?” Yukinari said.

“I don’t love having to compromise here,” Fiona said, “but that might be best.”

The knights seem to find this unexpected, because they looked at each other doubtfully.

“H-Hey, ‘Blue Angel,’” the younger one said, and Yukinari raised an eyebrow in response. “You’ll regret this! Our faith is stronger than a rock, our ideals higher than the clouds! If you think this will soften us—”

“I don’t.”

In the blink of an eye, Durandall, which had been holstered across Yukinari’s back, was pointed at the young knight’s nose. He had drawn it too quickly for anyone to see—even the knight at whom he was pointing it. It was almost as if a moment of time had simply dropped away.

“Frankly, I hate everyone in the Church. If someone said I could kill every last one of you and get away with it, I’d do it. I hate religion in general, and I especially hate the religion that killed the person I owe my life to.”

His pronouncement would have been a shock to Friedland at that moment. After all, he was their actual god. He was above all laws and all reason. He could kill anyone he wanted on a whim, and no one would object.

“Then... why?” the young knight growled.

During that first battle, Yukinari could easily have slaughtered all of the missionaries. When the Blue Angel had run amok in the capital, he had, in fact, murdered more than a few. And now he held back from killing them?

Why?

“...Dunno. I don’t think I could tell you myself.”

And with that, Yukinari put his weapon away.

●

“Worthless...” Arlen muttered, sitting in front of the hovel of a church and staring vacantly into the distance.

It had been three days since the demigod attacked, and so far Arlen and the other knights of the Missionary Order hadn’t been put back to work, perhaps because parts of the town were still in shambles. With Clifton and his accomplice gone, though, the work was likely to be that much harder when it did resume.

“Grr. Why should I, of all people...”

He was of noble heritage. He was a knight. And now he was supposed to accept life as a slave? It was a humiliation he could hardly bear. It made it difficult to forget the sense of fulfillment he’d felt during the fight with the demigod. It had been the one time recently when he’d felt like a knight again.

On reflection, that was the first time he had ever fought to protect someone. The Civilizing Expedition inevitably found itself battling to subdue angry locals. The statue of the guardian saint had given them the power to overwhelm any opponent in a series of one-sided battles.

The battle with the demigod had been the complete opposite. Arlen and his companions alone had lacked any chance of victory, and if they had flagged for a moment, they would have been killed before Yukinari could arrive. There had been no place to ask any quarter.

And yet, even so, it had been truly—

“Mister...”

It took a moment for Arlen to realize the voice was addressing him.

“Mister?”

He looked up with a frown to find three little girls standing in front of him.

“You country bumpkins really don’t know anything, do you!” he exclaimed. “I’m still too young to be ‘mister’ anything! You lot are unutterably—”

“...Um, hmm...”

The children looked at each other, frightened.

“You may address me as Lord Lansdowne,” he said.

“Um... Mister Lord Lansdowne...”

“Drop the ‘mister’!” he shouted. The girls trembled, but for some reason, they made no move to run.

“So,” he said more calmly, “what do you want?”

“Um.” The girl in the middle of the group took a step forward, speaking for all of them. “Thanks.”

“Thanks?”

The word jogged his memory: Arlen finally realized that the girls standing in front of him were the ones he had saved when the demigod attacked, by pitching them into the storehouse.

“Ah... Hm.” He nodded, feeling just a little confused. Now that he thought about it, out of all the places he had been as a missionary, no one had ever thanked him before. Or rather, they had—but it was only out of fear for the immense power of the True Church of Harris. A social nicety. But the heartfelt gratitude of these children was something new.

“Well, you may thank me to your heart’s content.”

“Uh huh! Thank you, Mister Lord Lansdowne!”

“I told you—ahh, forget it,” he said with a sigh. He waved his right hand as if to shoo the girls away. But suddenly, his hand stopped. The girls had reached out their own small hands and taken his.

“Thank you.”

They were shaking his hand. Up and down. Arlen didn’t say anything for a moment, but only blinked at them.

And then they ran off with a “See you!”, and he was left staring dumbfoundedly after them.

Then he looked down at his hand.

He didn’t say anything for a moment.

“Disgusting.”

The judgment came very suddenly.

“Hrm?” Arlen looked up to find two new people standing in front of him. “Blue Angel...!”

It was Yukinari, and Dasa was with him.

It was Dasa who had issued the verdict of “disgusting.” It was an instinctual terror of the Blue Angel that brought Arlen halfway to his feet, but even as he rose he was shouting angrily:

“Who are you calling disgusting?! I—”

“Shaking hands with... little girls, and then smirking... at your hand.”

“...Huh?” Arlen pointed to himself in surprise; it was only when Dasa pointed it out that he realized he’d been smiling.

“The Harris missionaries prefer kids, huh?” Yukinari said.

“You watch your tongue!” Arlen growled. But he immediately blanched as he remembered who—or what—he was talking to. The Blue Angel was a homunculus, an artificial human created by the Church. It looked human, but it was a monster that had destroyed erdgods, demigods, and even the guardian statue, allegedly the Church’s most powerful weapon.

If the angel felt like it, it could kill Arlen with a single touch—no exaggeration, literally just one finger. Make it angry, and your life might instantly be forfeit. That was what it meant to confront a god.

But then...

“You’ve got my gratitude, too,” Yukinari said. “Thanks.”

“What...?”

“Fiona told me how you protected her, and those kids, and pretty much the entire town. I mean, while I was away.”

“Well... I was just...”

It had always been one of the duties of the Missionary Order. It didn’t contradict his creed in any way. It wasn’t some sign that he was turning his back on the Church and cozying up to the Blue Angel. Absolutely not.

“I’ve got an idea for you.”

“What’s that?” Arlen frowned. Yukinari gestured in the direction of the town gate.

“We’ll be opening trade with Rostruch soon. Their erdgod said she would send familiars to help protect the route from demigods and xenobeasts, but I doubt it’s really going to be enough. It would be a load off my mind if the trade delegation were made up of people who actually knew how to fight.”

“What are you saying...?”

“I’m saying we’ll give you guys back your weapons, if you agree to make regular trips between Friedland and Rostruch as an armed trading party.”

Arlen could only stare dumbly at Yukinari. What was this monster trying to say? Agreeing to this would practically make him...

“Plus, we’re planning on expanding the amount of farmland around here,” Yukinari went on. “And that means people are going to be at more risk of getting attacked by demigods or xenobeasts. When you guys aren’t conducting trade, it would be a big help if you could patrol the fields and help keep everyone safe. That was pretty much what you were planning to do after you killed the erdgod anyway, right?”

“Ahem...”

It was, strictly speaking, true.

“Are... Are you asking me to become one of your believers?! Me, a knight of the glorious True Church of Harris?! And are you suggesting that I should follow you—the one who murdered his Holiness, the former Dominus Doctrinae?!”

“No,” Yukinari said flatly. “You don’t have to worship me to do any of this.” He went on, “I hate religion, anyway. Even if I did somehow wind up literally playing god. I don’t want to worship, and I don’t want to be worshipped. You can believe in whatever you want, worship whoever you feel like. And if it happened to motivate you to help watch out for this town, that would be great.”

Arlen had no answer.

“Well, think about it.”

With a wave, Yukinari and Dasa turned around and started walking away.

Arlen found himself stretching out his hand, as if to say, Wait.

But he didn’t speak.

He glanced at his hand. He almost thought he could still feel the girls’ small fingers around it. Arlen let out a quiet sigh.

●

Trade between Friedland and Rostruch commenced several days later. A variety of goods from each town had been sent to the other as a sort of test, a chance to evaluate what was available, and now both sides were preparing lists of what they would be willing to trade for.

That was what Fiona was currently working on. Finding out what the townspeople wanted was truly a job for the deputy mayor. Yukinari couldn’t do this work using his “angel” powers, and if he tried to help, he would only have slowed her down.

That first trade mission had been carried out by Arlen and three other knights. They brought the huge wagon that had originally carried the statue of the guardian saint, and each of them had been fully armed and armored for the round trip between Friedland and Rostruch. For now, at least, there hadn’t been any problems.

And Yukinari...

“So far it seems to be pretty much working, I guess.”

In a corner of his “sanctuary,” he let out a breath.

Dasa was there. Berta was there. So far as that went, everything was normal. But...

“Why are you here?” Dasa demanded.

“Am I not allowed to be here?” The puzzled response came from... Ulrike.

“Fine by me,” Yukinari said, but then as his gaze drifted to Dasa he added, “Uh, I mean, I think...” The little sister of the alchemist to whom Yukinari was so indebted was glaring steadily at him from behind her glasses. She didn’t have to say anything to make her displeasure obvious. Nor the reason for it.

“You are Yggdra’s familiar, though,” Yukinari said. “You sure it’s okay for you to be here?”

“It is you who said I should stay, Yukinari.” She almost sounded a touch exasperated that this was coming up only now.

“Me?”

“You suggested a chain of familiars stretching from here to Rostruch.”

“Well, I mean, I guess I did say that, yeah...”

“And this is a good place. Easy to connect with the intervening familiars.” Ulrike touched the horns—no, the branches—growing from her head. They seemed to work like antennas. Or maybe...

“Those’re basically cell phones, huh?”

“Cell... phones...?”

“Nothing. Forget I said anything.” Yukinari shook his head.

“What’s more, this is a sign of my thoughtfulness,” Ulrike went on. “I’m allowing Ulrike’s personality to remain predominant, in accord with your preferences. You have some objection?”

“My preferences? What are you—?” He could feel Dasa’s stare growing more and more intense. He let out a sigh.

“Um, Lord Yukinari, do you really prefer such young children...?” Berta asked anxiously.

“Nobody said anything like that! I sure didn’t. Yggdra is just leaving Ulrike front and center, because otherwise the two of us talk past each other sometimes. Right?” He looked to Dasa for confirmation.

“Yuki...”

But she continued to look at him with undisguised contempt.

“Yes? What is it, Dasa?”

“Womanizer.”

“What? She’s not a woman, she’s a kid—hell, she’s a plant! There’s no way I’d ever...”

Dasa said nothing.

“Ahh, fine, I’m sorry,” Yukinari said with a hint of desperation. “For whatever it is. Call me a womanizer, I don’t care.”

“Hm? Yukinari. Is this true? Have you developed romantic feelings for my familiar?” Ulrike said with a quizzical look.

“No! Absolutely not!”

“We prepare for the next generation largely in isolation, but I hear that among animals, this is not the case. They must mate with a member of the opposite sex. Truly a fascinating phenomenon. If you indeed have a romantic interest in Ulrike, I would be most curious to—”

“Why would a plant be interested in animal biology?!” Yukinari cried.

The erdgod Yggdra had a plant “core,” which had absorbed the collective knowledge of the people sacrificed to her, and was now allowing Ulrike’s personality to stay front and center—and somewhere along the line, the point of the conversation had gotten mangled.

Yukinari felt it was a good thing he had managed to become friends with her—her being a pronoun he used for convenience when referring to the erdgod—but being the subject of sexual advances from a plant was not on the list of things he had ever expected would happen to him in his life.

“Well, I guess anything can happen with erdgods...”

Relations between totally different types of beings were not unusual in mythology. That was how it had been in Yukinari’s previous world, and it was probably the same here, where gods literally walked the earth.

“Be that as it may. I am told the people of Friedland will build a shrine to me just nearby, and most likely, Ulrike will move there. Until then, your life here shall become somewhat crowded. I hope you will all get along.”

“...Is that right?”

“I knew you were a... womanizer, Yuki.”

“Yeah, sure.” He couldn’t escape Dasa’s judgment. “I guess I’m one of those womanizing gods... Sheesh!”

So, for the time being, this land had a god—something which, in this world, was apparently altogether unremarkable.