In Loki's Honor

Barbara recovered from her embarrassment. Then we sat down with all the fairies and told them a nice story about Lorna, Rosewise, and their new reincarnations, Barbara and me, to wipe the misconceptions they had. Those little gossips would spread falsehoods everywhere like wildfire if we let them out.

After that was settled, the fairies dispersed to tell the tale of lovers to whoever would lend them an ear. They might even show themselves to the townsfolk if they were that excited.

"Mom and brother, I decided what I want to do," Miriel declared. "I know what Classes I want."

"Me too!" Kalael chimed in.

Barbara thought that was a welcome break from her post-confession gloom. She took both fairies in her hand and sat on the floor next to the door. Not many places for a tall person (as compared to fairies) to sit. "Well, let's hear it, then."

"Me first! I want to be a [Fashionista]!' Miriel stated firmly. "I already have the Class unlocked after doing so many dresses with book brother."

Barbara smiled. We were worried Miriel would pick something that would put her in danger. A crafting Class was a welcome respite. "Thank it's okay. You may take that Class anytime you want."

"I also want to become a [Priest]. For the [Spin Silk] and Exp bonus Perks!" She stated.

She'd found her calling. The fairy picked the [Fashionista] and [Priest] Classes, and I splurged too. I granted her the Perk that allowed the merging of the two paths. A small sacrifice of permanent HP and MP. So long it didn't affect my MP regeneration, my MP pool size mattered little and my HP pool even less. To think she asked to be ordained only to get the [Spin Silk] Perk for free. Look at my girl, already exploiting the System and min-maxing her build.

"I need to train my Proficiencies now. Bye!" Miriel said, took off from Barbara's open hand, and darted into the fashion studio.

"My turn, then," Kalael said. She was wearing the blue dress with a red cape and a shield with the 19th letter of the English alphabet on it. Guess what she decided to be.... in 3, 2, 1... "I want to be a [Hero]! I haven't unlocked the Class yet."

And she wouldn't unless divine intervention happened. [Hero] was a restricted Class.

"Would you risk your life for others? A [Hero]'s job is a tough one."

"Yes! Even if I die. At least I'll take my enemy with me, right?"

The Crystal Fairy curse would one day come back to bite me in the butt. Perhaps it was too soon.

Kalael stared at me. "Well, it's a good thing we have a deity right here, no?"

The ruby fairy was irreducible.

"Sure. More training means I'll be a better [Hero]."

I suppressed the curse and granted her the Class. No extra Perks, that could wait.

Kalael spent a month with each Aspect, hunting monsters in the upper levels of the Labyrinth, and one month with me here on the island before she set out into the world. Without a John Williams soundtrack.

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War broke out in two of three Yznarian continents. It was decreed by Divine will. Why only two, the answer was obvious. The Scorched Continent was so fucked up by deeply rooted demon corruption that any attempt at organized warfare would only improve the conditions there. The Church of the Matriarch and the child Species, the Kin, the Silk-Folk, the Lamias (though only the rainbow ones were), and even those deeply touched by the Goddess joined hands to cleanse the world of one evil. Idle deities.

The world was not a clicker game, where you could lay back and enjoy seeing the numbers grow. Truant in their duties, the deities who came here from another world enjoyed thousands of years of idyllic hedonism. No more. Their clergy, the ones who fed that by sucking the faith from the people without giving much in return were faced with one choice. Either join the battle in the Scorched Continent willingly or become fuel for the one true deity who cared about the people.

Regrettably, the amount of those who decided to give up one set of parasitic invaders to embark on the quest to cleanse their own world of another set of parasitic invaders was few and far between. Most chose defiance, trusting their truant deities would truss their cause and trample on the trespassers, but the truth was that they were thrown into this trial on their own. No divine help came, and no miracles were shown before their pleading voices and trembling bodies.

Slaughter was the only reward for their misguided faith. Their temples burned, and their holy texts and libraries were confiscated and shipped to Clovehaven. Burning books was a heretic's endeavor and the Church of the Matriarch took no part in such crimes. All knowledge, be it good or evil had to be preserved. The priests and zealots who did such dark deeds would declaim their reasons to the onlookers. Then they prayed for the souls of the dead, hoping they would find peace and joy in the one true faith.

It was written in the stars: this world would become monotheist, by force. The holy war was righteous and the Goddess warriors feared not death. Upon their demise, their souls were ferried across the land and laid to rest on the Matriarch's bountiful bosom. There they were reborn, ready to fight once more for what was just and right. Though they committed dark deeds and murder, they knew their world's survival was at stake. Death was a cheap price for an audience with the Goddess. To feast one's eyes on the deity who refused to ascend and live and toil as a mortal among them.

Reborn, these priests and holy warriors would soon embark on an airship homebound to rejoin the fight. Upon seeing their brothers and sisters-in-arms back alive after mourning their bodies, the flames in the hearts of the zealots were rekindled. They fought with double the ferocity. They paraded both corpse and revived person side-by-side in the streets and temples, showing the Truth of the Matriarch's kindness. Even death was no longer the final frontier.

The remaining worshipers of the false deities quickly learned to go underground. They abandoned their temples, and they cast away the trappings of their Faith. They changed their deities' names in the vain hope of escaping prosecution. They bemoaned the injustice and clamored for succor. They feared death at the Demon Continent, they feared death at the hands of that usurper deity. In their hatred, they succumbed to temptation and took the only hand that was offered.

They turned to demon summoning. They killed their neighbor on the profane altars, ravenous lunatics in their final moments. They summoned the strongest demons they could and when these demons escaped control, whole communities were wiped out. When they ran out of neighbors to kill, the least influential members of their underground congregation became the next sacrifices. Only victory mattered to them.

Whose victory it was, though?

As time went on and news of the demon summoning and destruction reached other cities and capitals, public opinion shifted. Many were wary of the Matriarch means. But when the Goddess's claims that the churches of the false gods were damning the world were confirmed by the vile acts of their ecclesiastics, the secular powers stirred into action. No [King] wanted demons in their land. At least not uncontrolled ones, for corruption had seeped into all levels of society.

Support for the Matriarch's cause grew. The neighbors who once sheltered the persecuted [Priests] and worshipers now gave them up, in fear of being the next sacrifice. Daughter accused father of diabolism, and a wife killed her husband out of fear and distrust. Political enemies and trade rivals were falsely accused. Those were dark times. But the cleansing went on.

The Matriarch's chosen offered a way out of injustice. To all those who were brought in for execution, a choice was given. Embrace the faith, and let the Goddess's mercy into your heart. Profess loudly our faith and allegiance, swear your soul away to the true deity. If your vows were true and sincere, the Goddess would grant you a new life. Drink the milk of life out of her teats, return and cast your eyes upon your old corpse. Then you'll be part of the new world order.

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Okay. Who was the bastard who started that drink the milk of life from MY teats rumor?

Not only I was pushed into a 24-7 schedule of resurrecting people and sending them on airships back home but now the weirdos were demanding to... EWW. Just EWW. I killed and recycled the first few bold enough to say it out loud. Then I started warning the souls before reviving them. And the resurrected ones to warn the people back home that I was very upset by this rumor. It was a figure of speech, if people wanted real milk from teats, go hire a [Milkmaid].

Yeah, that was a real Class that was well-paid. [Milkmaids] often found employment with noble families. It wasn't even a female-exclusive Class though it was mostly female. Turns out that with the right chemical incentives, males were able to lactate too. The technical term for that is Galactorrhea. The System granted that Class Perks to control lactation, give the milk a diverse flavor, and even increase the nutritional value of the milk. But I digress.

The daily business of coordinating a worldwide Jihad (wrong religion, but) was tough. I barely saw either Barbara or Kalael anymore. Just queue up souls, interview them, resurrect the worthy, and spin them new flesh out of Mana and Divinity. It was a feat for the eyes if you liked to see naked people of all sorts and make. I didn't. At least my [Priests] could weave their own clothes and we had a cadre of [Acolytes] freshly ordained making silk all day long.

I said I didn't see Barbara or Kalael because the former was busy with her research, and the latter had joined the war. As Daphne said, Crystal fairies were perfect to fight demons and corruption. Just the presence of their Truesilver wings was enough to send demons screaming in panic. She was in southern Auvanini, fighting alongside a group of elites tasked with keeping the fairy [Hero] safe.

But Miriel was right here, at the new Cathedral, helping the [Acolytes] with their weaving tasks.

Kasumi was also fulfilling her duties as the [Saintess]. With the Church's engine working properly now, she had a constant stream of Saintess Points to use her cheat power. And it was all converted into more MP regeneration for me. Raising people from the dead 24-7 with a missing body was expensive.

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Alas, even this Goddess was not faultless. One day, two years into the war, I accidentally resurrected a demon cultist that was skilled enough to fool even my divine senses. Someone invested heavily to mask his soul's true intentions from me.

The cultist called upon a Demon Lord's name, and an infusion of profane power flooded him, clearing the Resurrection Sickness debuff. He stood and ran straight for Miriel, who was handing out clothes for the reborn people.

I spent a fraction of a second using [Prescience] to see if he would cause any harm and how much. When it came out with only minor harm, I waited to see what that cultist's real intention was before annihilating him from this world and any other.

The cultist then shot a ball of dark flames at Miriel. I knew how much damage it would cause her and it was just a nuisance. I was more interested in seeing why such a powerful spell caused so little damage to the fairy. But I couldn't not warn her.

"Miriel, watch out!" I shouted.

The fairy looked at the incoming spell and turned her back, flapping her wings as fast as she could. The ball of demonic fire struck her wings and was sucked into them. From every square millimeter of her wings, the dark fire was ejected out, in all directions, including back at the cultist. But the fire was not condensed and focused. it spread in a ball and then sputtered out of existence. Aside from her burnt clothes, Miriel seemed fine. She had taken just a tiny bit of damage.

I impaled the cultist with the [Unicorn King Spear], letting the Dragonfire consume his reborn and naked body while I squeezed his soul until only the immortal spark was left. That, I let drift off. That spark had not enough energy to reincarnate as anything multicellular anymore. It would take thousands maybe millions of years before it would become a sentient creature again.

"Miriel, are you okay?" I asked the fairy.

"No! My clothes are burnt!" She replied, covering her body with her hands. She took one of her gowns from my storage. "[Quickchange]!" She used a Perk and the gown was put on her instantly. "There, better."

"What was that with your wings?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"Can you do it again?"

"I won't burn another set of clothes!"

"With a wind spell. A non-damaging one."

I cast a [Wind Ball] spell that only caused pushback at her wings. The spell was absorbed and instantly ejected in all directions, causing a pressure wave that turned into a loud "pop" coming from her. We tried other harmless spells and the effect was the same. Every magic that struck Miriel's wings was absorbed and then ejected out through every surface of her wings. It even caused some resonance patterns in the gaps of the wire webbing, forming some membranes of magic that bounced back and forth, triggering secondary and tertiary bursts of magic but with exponential fading.

Following this inspiration, I tried to see if her wings would dissipate physical damage too. I flicked her wings with my fingers and the wings let out a sound bubble like a tuning fork.

"Did you feel that?"

"Just the sound. It didn't harm my wings at all," she replied. "I think you can hit harder."

She was still enchanted to repair herself through the [Goddess Tear] in her chest. I took an ordinary mace from my item box and struck her wing. The sound was a different note and very loud but Miriel reported taking only a tenth of the damage from the mace strike before her other mitigations like Hardness. Yes, Miriel was special. She counted as both a person and an object, much like Marlowe in his cloth golem body. But she wasn't a golem.

It was a curious property. If that could be replicated, we could create armor that dissipated focused attacks, granting greater protection. I had to test that.