CH243

“Um, what?”

Ben didn’t know how to react to what he was seeing. The cold, distant goddess was now pleading with him desperately, tears in her eyes and destroying the dignified image she’d managed, placing herself more along the lines of how he thought of Myriad as his god seemed to sigh at his side, having a far better understanding about where she was coming from than he did.

“Everyone up here already knows what you’re like and I shouldn’t have made a move against your god like that, please don’t try to destroy the faith I built up,” She begged him, leaving him feeling like he was bullying a being so far above him in power as he cast an accusing eye at his god.

“Everyone up there knows what I’m like? What the heck are you saying about me that’s so bad it could make a god act like this man, there has to be a limit to the slander.”

“Hey, don’t blame me,” Myriad shot back. “Any rumours about you are your own fault.”

He didn’t believe him for a second but still tried to put the goddess at ease. If he was being honest he did have things planned with the request, but nothing so bad that it would destroy her faith.

“Alright, calm down, I’m not going to ruin your faith,” He said gently as she only looked less sure.

She couldn’t help it. His mind was a tangled web compared to other mortals, making all but any thoughts he wanted a god to read need a higher level of attention to parse out, made all the worse by how much was going on in the depths of his mind, less easy to see unless one did their best to plunge beneath the surface. All she had to go off of with any certainty was what she’d heard.

“But if you put those statues into every one of my churches I’ll be ruined! Do you know how much work the church of Eneth has to put into to keep it floating, not to mention how much it will cost if they fall? I have dozens of churches across the land and even if I’m a goddess of magic it still won’t be easy for my believers to supply them all with mana at all times. They’ll come crashing down constantly enough that I’ll be left destitute, having to sell off my churches just to avoid having to deal with the statues by the end of things!”

…Okay so maybe this actually is my fault.

“Alright, calm down, calm down,” He told her, suddenly feeling guilty. “What happened between me and Eneth was a result of his apostle trying to murder me and his son harassing my friend, all you did was pick a fight with my god, I can deal with that without making it a big deal. Admittedly, I’m disappointed you got my hopes up about giving me a magic skill, but not to the point that I want to crush you in revenge.”

She seemed to calm down, casting an unsure look at Myriad as his god agreed.

“It’s true, as annoying as it is, Ben would much rather get revenge for personal reasons than for anything that happens to my faith, he’s not giving this any mind.”

“Hey!”

“I’m just saying it would be nice if you directed some of that energy to getting me believers,” The cube tisked as Ben brought his focus back to the goddess before him.

“Let’s make things clear so nobody’s worried about anything. When I say statues in each of your churches, I’m not talking about what I made for Eneth’s. Let’s see, first off, you can be responsible for getting your own statues. They don’t have to be enchanted in any way and they can be made of whatever metal will look like him, it doesn’t need to be a magic material. The dimensions should be about a half meter by a half meter at least, but I don’t care if it’s hollow so the pricing shouldn’t be too bad. Your churches can’t hide them away, they need to be present in a way that people will know it’s a god and your priests should be prepared to answer questions about him in a positive light and take care of their upkeep, but that’s it. A lot easier than spending however much faith it would take to get me a skill, right?”

She chewed her lip, looking much younger as she thought, though now that she knew she wasn’t going to be ruined by the request she was much more relaxed, although still unhappy.

“Mmh, it’s not as bad as I thought, but the main issue is that… well it’s him,” She said, casting a look to his floating god and leaving Ben to sigh.

“Well for now, let’s start with some of the questions I want as well. What exactly do you have against Myriad? I heard you guys used to get along and it would be nice if he had a friend. Is it just because he destroyed his planet?”

Myriad didn’t quite know how to take his apostle wanting him to repair his relationship with her so he’d have a friend but was even more surprised to learn the reason she disliked him so much to begin with.

“It’s not just that he destroyed his planet, it’s that he destroyed all life on it too,” She said awkwardly, deciding to fulfill at least that part of her obligation.

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“Ah, I can kind of see that I guess, even if all of Myriad’s believers became a part of him after, that doesn’t mean every living thing did. Killing all life rather than letting it fall into enemy hands is pretty brutal.”

“I’ve seen the way you hunt, you don’t have much of a place to judge from,” His god shot back.

“That’s not it,” Helori said, silencing them both as she drew a breath. “I don’t suppose you know much about how life in the universe is generally split, do you?”