Chapter 190: Non-discardable character
"Oh, so that"s the case." Desperately forcing all my excitement and shock away from my tone, I simply shrugged my arms in acknowledgment of what Longinus just said. "I"m sorry if I will be insensitive here, but what does that mean for other religions? What if there was another branch believing in another G.o.d who would also produce a saint? Would his or hers powers differ then?"
This question was nothing else but a distraction. A distraction serving to pull away from everyone"s attention from any hints that my overexcited self could unknowingly produce, giving away my true state of mind
Because even though it was once again, just a guess of mine, the world suddenly started making a little more sense. After all, didn"t I meet said G.o.d already?
Back when I received a quest aimed at obtaining a way to let Ayda move to earth through the system"s portal with me, I was tasked with climbing the mountain"s peak, where I met a certain persona. Back then, outside of his insane might that greatly outreached even the scale not only of my means but also of my imagination, I had a hard time believing that he was an actual G.o.d. But right now, given how Arsha"s abilities were said to come from G.o.d himself…
Could it be that the only reason why the system was warning me about them, was because they came from the same source? Were Arsha"s abilities capable of harming my system because they were in some sense, similar to it? Or what if there was actually some other G.o.d besides the one I saw and talked with, whose might and means could rival those of the creator of my system?
"I… I don"t know. I never really thought about it." After a moment of thought, Arsha lowered her head before shaking it rapidly. "I never thought about it. To be fair, I kinda took those powers for granted, and even if I thank G.o.d for this gift each and every day, I never paid too much attention to the details you asked about."
Hearing the answer, I raised my hands up to the air before backing a few paces. "There is no need to be down about it. Treat it as nothing but my own curiosity. But now, I have no choice but to move on to the serious topic." Moving my sight on Longinus, I ignored the fact that he was still clearly troubled by his injures. "What was that monster?"
Once again, the entire group froze for a moment. Given how they instantly reacted to the appearance of the maere, I already could tell back then that they knew what that thing was. The fact that Longinus brought it up once the fight was concluded only proved this guess of mine. But it didn"t mean that I got any clues about it yet.
"Maere… They were supposed to be gone, eradicated from this world, split into particles so small, they wouldn"t regenerate themselves anymore. But as we all experienced a moment ago…" Longinus started. "That"s doesn"t seem to be the case." Arsha finished. The rest of their group decided to just look away and speak not a word. The only exception that I could freely accept here, was the healer girl, who was just a bit too busy trying to fix Longinus severe burns to bother with whatever we were talking about.
"So there are two possibilities. Either those monsters weren"t as extinct as you believed them to be or…" Cutting my sentence short, I sent a suggestive look towards Longinus. In the end, while it was nothing but my own feeling, it was hard for me to accept anyone outside the man himself and Arsha as actual members of the group. Given how they were all silent and so far failed to make an impression on me, they were nothing more than just random beings, akin to Non-Player-Characters from the many games I used to play before the apocalypse hit the earth.
"Or it was created artificially." Finishing my own words for me, one of the people whose presence I just disregarded spoke up.
"And who are you again?" Not bothering to hide my own opinion on the man, I asked.
"Hubriel, the secondary mage. At your service." Lowering his head, the man who looked to be in his thirties lowered his head without a hint of annoyance at my behavior. "I know I have little to no presence, so you don"t need to worry about remembering my name." With a wide smile surfacing on his lips, the man raised his head before adding, "I just hope that you won"t forget about me in the battles to come."
Nodding my head, I took a moment before asking, "Could you elaborate a bit more? Can maeres be created? Who could do such a thing?"
From how everyone reacted to this monster when it first appeared it was obvious that it either was something with a taboo status or something that was commonly feared. If I were to put it in my own words, then this monster was akin to all the monsters that mothers used to put their kids in line. The one difference was, that maere actually existed.
"Whether or not they can be created… I"m not sure. But I"m certain about one thing. All the maeres that history recorded were completely shapeless." Shaking his head as if he was confused about this topic himself, Hubriel looked towards where the monster ceased to exist. "As an amalgamation of the negativity, it"s commonly believed that they were born when someone died while holding to a powerful grudge. But to be honest, that doesn"t seem to be the case."
Just as I thought that I would get some explanation, Hubriel proved that he wasn"t such a useless character as I took him to be initially. "And why is that?" With my curiosity piqued, I could only ask for an explanation.
Even though I could figure out a lot of things just by relying on my own logic, there was one undeniable flaw that I had in this world that made my reasonings inherently problematic. And it was my nearly absolute lack of knowledge about what others would consider the common sense in this world.
Just like I already learned from other words I visited, with each change to my destination, the magic would be used in a different way by the locals. Just like there were witches, wizards, and true mages back in Ayda"s world, there appeared to be some kind of mages and saints in this world whose means were starkly different from any witch or wizard craft I experienced so far.
Even if all the other rules of nature would be the same, meaning that with sufficient time and resources I could just build a nuke and dominate the entire world with it, the magic remained as the most problematic aspect of each world. As a force that inherently worked against the natural common sense and didn"t bother to obey what I consider the fundamental laws of physics, unless I had a perfect grasp of the local usage of magic, any guesses I would make about this world would be akin to a primary-school kid attempting to derive the integral from the quadratic equation.
In other words, completely and utterly pointless.
"This is just my theory, so don"t expect much from it…" Starting his explanation in this way, Hubrial instantly lost some points in my inner evaluation. After all, how could one consider a theory to be worth much if its creator was unsure about it in the first place? "But if that were to truly be the case, then the entire world would be swarmed with maeres. Just take a simple battlefield for example."
This time, I could finally understand what this secondary man was attempting to suggest before he finished his words. Sadly, I could do it only after he basically guided me by hand towards the answer.
"There should be a lot of people with unfulfilled dreams and unsettled grudges on it, I get it. But what are you trying to say with that?" Even though I could figure out that much, the reason behind Hubriel actually bringing this topic up was still outside of the reach of my mental force.
"Ah, seriously, stop taking my words for G.o.d-given truth like that…" Instantly blushing as no man in his thirties should, Hurbiel turned his head away. Yet, when his eyes once again moved towards me, his face changed. There was no sign of the previous uneasiness that was written all over his face just a moment before.
I felt a shrug traveling down my spine. A shrug that I last felt when I was faced with the very G.o.d behind my system. Yet, no alert notification appeared.
"I believe the process is actually a bit more complicated. And with how we just happened to crash right into a monster that was supposed to be extinct right as we managed to escape from the influence of the federation…" Hubriel"s face returned to its usual state. Yet, that didn"t mean I suddenly became less wary of the man. This momentary show of focus and will that I could see in his aura when he turned serious for a moment made it impossible for me to disregard the man any longer. "It"s hard for me to ignore the possibility that it were our previous employers that set that maere towards us. After all…"
Taking a small break in his explanation, Hubriel"s face twisted in a strange grimace that I just couldn"t figure out. Was it anger? Anguish? Dedication? Killing intent? For some reason, I didn"t dare to look into his aura to confirm it. Yet, as soon as the atmosphere turned tense enough, the secondary mage smiled, dissolving the tense air between the two of us. "who else would be so keen to use such drastic means to get rid of us? And for what other reasons than obtaining the sacred core?"