CH308 Judgment

In the realm of gods, where all who ruled over the races of the world resided, ever staring down at the acts of their people, an exceedingly rare event was being held. A meeting to discuss the fate of a single mortal.

It was rare that any moral would do anything worthy enough for a god to consider directly punishing them, rarer still for multiple gods to get involved in the matter, but all of them? Not even Olop had gotten such a gathering. It was unprecedented.

It was only after an already long, tiring discussion on the actions of the forbidden gods and just what they’d done that things even got to that point. None in attendance denied that those who’d done something so foolish needed to die. It was an inescapable fact. Their selfish choice may have cost them the world after all. The issue was the form the execution took, namely the fact that a mortal was allowed to carry it out

“It’s outrageous!” The god Eneth yelled, fire burning in his reptilian eyes. “Not only to allow a mortal to awaken sacrilege, but to come so close to getting to the third tier as well? We need to act before he can inflict any true harm to the world! The boy needs to be banished to the infinite hells immediately!”

“Eneth, you’re just sore because he taught your child a well-deserved lesson about picking fights. Of all the summoned on this world, Ben could be said to have the greatest accomplishments by far,” Anailia said in his favour. “Not only had he solved the issue of passive magics, he’s the only reason we were alerted to this issue in the first place. The fact that he was able to use this event to strengthen himself is a boon.”

“So long as he doesn’t intend to point his fangs at us. We only have this chance to act! If he achieves the third tier then he’ll ascend to godhood when he dies and we won’t have another opportunity, and we all know how appealing such a thing is to mortals. Who’s to say he won’t go attacking priests and burning churches to try and push it over the edge? Worse, what if he decides to attack one of us while we’re descended in our believers? If he manages to become a god of sacrilege then we might not be able to touch him as a god, instead having to live in fear of him exerting the property on us! Are all of you willing to accept that risk?”

Looking around, while only a few gods seemed to be explicitly on Eneth’s side, many were uncertain. The points brought up weren’t wrong, but to kill a mortal who hadn’t truly done anything wrong yet was unreasonable. They needed mortals, while a certain level of fear was expected due to the difference in the scale of their existence, none among them were evil gods. They prided themselves on trying to be fair at the very least.

The issue was that despite that, while there was only a small number in favour of banishing his soul, only a small number were speaking to his defense as well. They were in a stalemate. It all came down to who would sway the rest.

“It is nice to hear all opinions of course,” Began one of the undecided, a god whose defining property was choice. “But I believe we should listen to the one who knows him best on the matter. Myriad, since he is your apostle, what do you have to say for the boy?”

“Now hold on,” Eneth cut in. “That should be obvious enough already, what point is there in-“

“Ben is dangerous,” the cube said calmly, having been quiet till then thinking long and hard on what to say, bringing the rest of them to silence with his first words. The other gods around stared at him in surprise, with the ones who’d actually met Ben wondering just where he was going with it. “It’s no secret he doesn’t attach any special meaning to gods. In fact, I’d say he has a negative impression of all of us, at least until he gets to meet and talk with us that is. From there, his evaluation is on the level of how he would look at a person, not a power above him. Frankly, I don’t think anyone here has the right to blame him for that either. We ripped his soul from his old world for our own purposes without any consideration for what to do if an individual like him were to show up, the end result being the communal church deciding on its own to help him with no input from any of us to help create a better impression.”

“He has a second chance at life,” one scoffed. ” Considering that I’d say he has plenty.”

“He was dragged back to life and immediately told that the world was in peril from a race that had killed thousands of them, he has every right to not be grateful for such a thing,” Another counter.

“Regardless,” Myriad said, pulling attention back to himself. “That isn’t the only thing that makes Ben dangerous. In fact, there’s many. The more obvious we can draw from how easily he can kill demons is the fact that he doesn’t place any special value on life. It should have been obvious from the start for anyone watching really. Unlike many of the other summoned from cultures where killing isn’t commonplace, he had no issue with it from the beginning, even though he had no history of hunting like the ones that were able to quickly adapt to their new situation had. More important though is how he interacts with the system itself. I’ve checked his soul early on to be sure, but he doesn’t have any natural affinity for it. Despite that, in less than three years since he arrived on the world, he went from level zero and one skills to three awakened ones, with a few more already close. That isn’t even mentioning his talent for jobs. Aside from the fact that he seems to constantly push himself to his limits and enjoy every second of it, he’s excellent at figuring out ways to gain experience quickly. Can any of you guess how many he’s gone through since coming to this world?”

“What, maybe ten after what he pulled by killing those gods?”

“Try nineteen,” Myriad told them, getting a shocked silence as a result as the gods around him questioned if any mortal had ever completed so many in such a short span of time. There were always times when a certain individual figured out a way to finish a job unusually fast, but to devote the effort needed to do that was something else entirely. “Ben has a level of determination to rise to outrageous heights, and a level of indifference to the gods to make him a powerful enemy if he chooses to be, and all of this and more is why we absolutely cannot try to banish him to the infinite hells.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I’d say you made a pretty convincing case for it Myriad,” Eneth said as many neutral gods gave unsure nods. “If the boy is as dangerous as you say, then we’d be all the wiser to do it now before it’s too late.”

“Well, there’s two points you need to consider,” Myriad began to explain. “The first is that even if Ben doesn’t have a good opinion of most gods, he doesn’t dislike any to the point that he’d actively attack them. Despite everything I’ve said, Ben’s actions show his character, he’s not a bad person. Even you, who went so far as to name him your enemy in a title, are at most someone who happens to be related to an idiot in his mind. Second and more importantly though, I believe if you all try to do it then you will fail, and through the attempt you will finally register to him as people that mean him harm.”

“He hasn’t hit tier three yet, how could we fail?” The other god said with a laugh. “Unlike some, many of us have held onto a good number of believers over the years. Even if for whatever reason one of us couldn’t because of the strength we’ve lost, so long as we work together it will be child’s play.”

“Except for the change we’ve seen in how the system has started interacting with him as soon as he awakened the skill. When he did his thoughts went silent to us, and his head filled with notifications, asking if he would allow every god trying to see his thoughts access by name. Tell me, all of you who would decide the fate of my apostle, if you fail, if you try to rip his soul from his body and the system stops you while telling him the names of every god who participated, how do you think he will act?”

The confident mood of the gods in favour disappeared as some turned to the two other gods who had gained access to Ben’s mind.

“It’s true,” Helori told them with a nod. “And it shouldn’t be particularly surprising, we’ve seen the system interact with some skills on significantly deeper levels than others, and now that he’s at the ninth level of the second tier it would be shocking to me if we could do anything harmful to him.”

“We aren’t talking about some form of limited analysis here like so many other skills mortals get Helori, you’re describing a built-in defense against gods!”

“Potentially there could be attacks too,” She said with a shrug. “We have no clue what the limits are of this skill, and I’m personally not going to put myself on the line to find them out.”