CH901

“So, yet another day of making friends, was it?” Myriad asked in naked sarcasm when Ben arrived in his realm. “Just going out to show how lucky the world and everyone in it is that you live here?”

“You act like I went looking for problems. I didn’t start a fight, I just finished it.”

“Which in turn can create plenty of different problems, you do realize that, don’t you?”

“Sure, but what was I supposed to do? I wasn’t just going to let them stick around to force their beliefs on me.”

“You have me! You were supposed to come tell me and then I would have sorted it out!”

“Sure, yeah, but that would have been boring.”

“Boring-”

“Plus,” Ben went on before his god could get too upset. “Neither the existence of my skill nor my desire to get paid breaks any laws, promising to harass me into following their beliefs does. I tell you and then what? Their gods tell them to stop and that’s it? The same gods that basically drove them to it by complaining about me to their believers? That’s not even a slap on the wrist.”

“And all of the photos lying around the magic towers that seemed to have appeared after we noticed what was happening up here?”

“Photos? No clue what you’re talking about,” Ben lied, his god not believing him for a second. “Anyway, what happened up here as a result?”

“Ugh, what happened is you got lucky. Since they were in the wrong, as unhappy as some were with the way you chose to handle things, it was decided that they actually needed to face some punishment since it would set a bad precedent for other faiths to gang up on one to try and make them conform to their beliefs beyond the scope of the law. You won’t have to go back tomorrow, since it was non-violent, they’ll be doing a couple weeks each of community service and have been told not to contact you again.”

“Wait, genuinely? Man, gonna be honest, I was expecting I was actually going to have to either throw up a fuss or get my own revenge by breaking their legs or something.”

“Psycho.”

“Hey, considering how little happened with Olensia’s oracle, can you blame me?”

“Having him put to death would have been infinitely more complicated for everyone than giving these ones some community service.”

“Sure, but that last asshole decided to have me and Sachel straight up killed.”

“No, he was just trying to drastically increase your odds of dying.”

“That’s not better!”

“Well, if you’re not satisfied then at least wait for after the war’s done to get your revenge,” Myriad sighed, saying it offhand without much thought and regretting it the instant he did as Ben perked up. “Wait, no. That’s not what I meant!”

“Too late, I officially have divine approval to kill that guy! Oh, I’m so fucking excited. Now that’s what I call some extra motivation to survive all of this.”

“Don’t use that as motivation and no murders!”

“That prick tried to kill me, fair is fair.”

“Have you never heard of a little thing called forgiveness?”

“Yeah, and it applies to people who, once again, haven’t tried to get me killed! I’ll have you know that I’m perfectly capable of forgiving the idiots who’d come to bother me today now that I know they’re actually being punished for it. It’s when this sort of stuff gets brushed off for the gods’ convenience that loses any chance of peace.”

“Ugh, empty skies, please no murders. You can even go and ruin his life in some other way if you really want to, just don’t kill the guy.”

“Deal.”

“…I don’t like how fast you agreed to that.”

“No take-backsies, I’ve already started planning. I think the best choice would be to convert all of Olensia’s believers away to leave his church destitute so his oracle can’t get paid and well, if that doesn’t seem like enough, I’ll go from there.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Atheism or me?”

“You first, atheism for the rest.”

“That works,” Myriad nodded, having few qualms about it if the goal was to get him more believers and not draw any blood in the process. “But are you really only motivated to get me believers when it’s for revenge?”

“I mean, I slap your name on everything.”

“That’s basically passive.”

“Work smarter, not harder, right?”

“I’d prefer you do both.”

“I’m pretty comfortable saying I get you more faith than Sachel and Valaria combined, if you’re not satisfied it’s really them you should be complaining to.”